Ritchie (2011) presents several conversational excerpts from his study of humor use among young adults discussing homelessness. Read the excerpts carefully and come up wi
Ritchie (2011) presents several conversational excerpts from his study of humor use among young adults discussing homelessness. Read the excerpts carefully and come up with your own analysis. Consider the participants as strategic actors telling “small stories,” pursuing goals, activating membership categories, drawing upon schemas, presenting selves, and using humor. Feel free to draw upon additional concepts/models/theories covered in these articles. Draw upon the tools of message production in these articles to analyze the messages being produced among the participants in Ritchie’s study.
3 pages (minus references)
Students’ Imagined Interactions as Intrapersonal Explanations for Instructional Dissent Alan K. Goodboy, San Bolkan, & Zachary W. Goldman
The purpose of this study was to examine how college students’ intrapersonal
communication experiences (i.e., imagined interactions) with disliked instructors
contribute to their proclivity to communicate instructional dissent (i.e., expressive, rhe-
torical, vengeful). Student participants (N¼ 181) completed a self-report questionnaire
measuring their use of imagined interactions with their worst instructor in the past
academic year, along with reports of their course-related dissent. Results of a canonical
correlation revealed that the frequency, valence, and rehearsal of students’ imagined
interactions with a low affect instructor are related to forms of instructional dissent.
Keywords: Affective Learning; Imagined Interactions; Instructional Dissent; Student
Dissent
When college students are displeased with their classroom experiences, they
frequently engage in instructional dissent (Goodboy, 2011a) which emerges ‘‘when
students express their disagreements or complaints about class-related issues’’
(Goodboy, 2011b, p. 423). Research suggests that a variety of instructor messages
and behaviors are likely to trigger instructional dissent from students including stu-
dent favoritism, grading mistakes, unfair testing, unrealistic classroom policies, and
student bullying, to name a few (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2013; Goodboy, 2011a,
2011b; Horan, Chory, & Goodboy, 2010; Martin, Goodboy, & Johnson, 2013).
Alan K. Goodboy (PhD, West Virginia University, 2007) is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Communication Studies at West Virginia University. San Bolkan (PhD, University of Texas-Austin, 2007) is
an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at CSU-Long Beach. Zachary W. Goldman
(MA, West Virginia University, 2012) is a PhD student in the Department of Communication Studies at West
Virginia University. Correspondence to: Alan K. Goodboy, 108 Armstrong Hall, P.O. Box 6293, Morgantown,
WV 26506-6293, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Communication Reports
Vol. 28, No. 2, July–December 2015, pp. 115–127
ISSN 0893-4215 (print)/ISSN 1745-1043 (online) # 2015 Western States Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/08934215.2014.936563
Goodboy (2011a) found that these triggering agents encourage students to dissent in
three distinct ways: expressive dissent, rhetorical dissent, and vengeful dissent. First,
expressive dissent occurs when students vent their frustrations about class to others
to gain sympathy or empathy. Next, rhetorical dissent occurs when students voice
their concerns directly to the instructor in hopes of rectifying a perceived problem.
Finally, vengeful dissent occurs when students spread negative messages about an
instructor to seek revenge and damage the instructor’s reputation or career.
Research has clearly established that much of instructional dissent is the result of
what ineffective instructors do (or fail to do) in class (Goodboy, 2011a, 2011b;
Holmgren & Bolkan, 2014; Horan et al., 2010; LaBelle, Martin, & Weber, 2013;
Martin et al., 2013; Vallade, Vela, & Martin, 2013) and that students attribute blame
to their instructors as the cause for their dissent responses (Goodboy, 2011a; LaBelle
& Martin, 2014). However, instructional dissent is influenced by a variety of student
characteristics and predispositions as well (Goodboy, 2012). For example, students’
personality traits (Buckner & Finn, 2013; Goodboy & Martin, 2013; Goodboy &
Myers, 2012), conflict styles (Goodboy & Bolkan, 2013), academic beliefs (Bolkan
& Goodboy, 2013; Goodboy & Frisby, 2014; LaBelle et al., 2013), and learning experi-
ences (Goodboy, 2011b) all play an important role in how students dissent.
Although some students confront their instructors with their class-related
problems (Horan et al., 2010), recent research suggests that most students decide
to withhold rhetorical dissent and keep their complaints to themselves (Bolkan &
Goodboy, 2013). One of the reasons students choose not to dissent to their instruc-
tors is because they fear retaliation or repercussions from the instructor (Bolkan &
Goodboy, 2013) which may reflect a student’s desire to avoid potential conflict.
Other research supports this conclusion as students with an avoiding conflict style
communicate less rhetorical dissent (Goodboy & Bolkan, 2013). Because many stu-
dents decide whether to dissent to instructors (or not) after thinking and carefully
weighing the consequences of their actions (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2013), it is likely that
some use intrapersonal forms of communication to manage their negative affect
toward the instructor and class (Goodboy, 2011b) when processing dissent triggering
episodes. Specifically, Stacks and Andersen (1989) noted that cognition and affect
‘‘often function conjointly’’ (p. 278) in the intrapersonal communication process,
and imagined interactions may represent a type of intrapersonal coping response stu-
dents use when they feel the need to dissent (Berkos, Allen, Kearney, & Plax, 2001;
Honeycutt, 2010).
Imagined Interactions
Imagined interactions (IIs) refer to a type of daydreaming (Honeycutt, 2003) in
which ‘‘individuals imagine themselves in anticipated or recalled interaction with
others’’ (Honeycutt & Ford, 2001, p. 316). Imagined interactions reflect a process
of social cognition in the form of intrapersonal communication (Honeycutt, 2010)
in which individuals conjure verbal or visual imagery in mentally rehearsed hypo-
thetical conversations (Zagacki, Edwards, & Honeycutt, 1992). As Rosenblatt and
116 A. K. Goodboy et al.
Meyer (1986) explained, ‘‘These interactions may be fragmentary or extended, may
ramble, stay on track, or recurrently go over the same matter’’ (p. 319). Imagined
interactions tend to involve more self-talk versus other-talk, occur more frequently
before actual interactions than after conversations, tend to be about more personal
than impersonal topics (Honeycutt, Zagacki, & Edwards, 1990), and are equally
pleasant and unpleasant (Edwards, Honeycutt, & Zagacki, 1988).
Imagined interactions have a variety of characteristics and serve numerous
functions (Bodie, Honeycutt, & Vickery, 2013). The characteristics of IIs include fre-
quency (i.e., how often they occur), proactivity (i.e., the extent to which they occur
before anticipated encounters), retroactivity (i.e., the extent to which they occur after
an encounter), variety (i.e., how they occur across a variety of topics and people),
discrepancy (i.e., IIs that play out differently than actual conversations), self-
dominance (i.e., the extent to which they involve self-talk), valence (i.e., the degree
of pleasantness), and specificity (i.e., the details of the imagery during IIs; Honeycutt
& Ford, 2001). Moreover, the functions of IIs are self-understanding (i.e., to better
understand oneself), rehearsal (i.e., to mentally plan out what to say), catharsis
(i.e., to relieve tension or uncertainty), compensation (i.e., to serve in place of a real
conversation), relational maintenance (i.e., to keep a relationship alive), and conflict
management (i.e., to address conflict). The functions and uses of IIs are predicted by
individual differences such as the five factor model of personality (Honeycutt, Pence,
& Gearhart, 2012–2013), covert narcissism (Honeycutt, Pence, & Gearhart, 2013),
attachment (Honeycutt, 1998–1999), argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness
(Bolkan & Goodboy, 2011), Machiavellianism (Allen, 1990), locus of control
(Honeycutt, Edwards, & Zagacki, 1989–1990), communication apprehension (Bolkan
& Goodboy, 2011; Honeycutt, Choi, & DeBerry, 2009), taking conflict personally
(Wallenfelsz & Hample, 2010), and Myers-Briggs personality preferences (Honeycutt
& Keaton, 2012–2013). In addition, the use of IIs are associated with relational
features such as uncertainty (Van Kelegom & Wright, 2013), anxiety (Allen &
Honeycutt, 1997), emotional responses (Honeycutt et al., 1989–1990; Honeycutt,
Nasser, Banner, Mapp, & DuPont, 2008), loneliness (Honeycutt et al., 1990), marital
ideology (Honeycutt, 1998–1999), relational quality (Honeycutt, 2008–2009), talk in
marriage (Honeycutt & Wiemann, 1999), and intrapersonal communication satisfac-
tion (Honeycutt & McCann, 2008).
Imagined interactions have been studied across a variety of relationships including
college roommates (Honeycutt & Patterson, 1997), parent=child relationships (Allen,
Edwards, Hayhoe, & Leach, 2007), married couples (Honeycutt & Keaton, 2012–
2013; Honeycutt & Wiemann, 1999), small groups (Turner, Crisp, & Lambert,
2007) and consumer=business relationships (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2011). However,
important to our purposes is the fact that IIs play an important role in the college
classroom as well. In particular, research suggests that college students use IIs to cope
with and process unwanted interactions with their instructors. For example, Berkos,
Allen, Kearney, and Plax (2001) revealed that college students use IIs to process
instructor misbehaviors, and that they use IIs as a substitute for confronting misbe-
having instructors. Moreover, Berkos (2012–2013) discovered that students who use
Communication Reports 117
IIs before e-mailing an instructor are more likely to use prosocial compliance-gaining
strategies and less likely to make verbal demands in an e-mail. Because instructional
dissent is considered a response to potential instructor–student conflict (Goodboy &
Bolkan, 2013), and because IIs are most commonly used to process and rehearse per-
ceived conflict (Allen & Berkos, 2005–2006; Honeycutt, 2003–2004; Zagacki et al.,
1992), it is our contention that IIs are used by students who have a desire to
communicate instructional dissent.
Crucially, the characteristics of IIs are important to consider in dissent expression.
For instance, as it pertains to frequency and pleasantness, researchers have found that
these characteristics of IIs are related to positive relational outcomes (Honeycutt &
Wiemann, 1999). Specifically, the authors found that individuals who have positive
and frequent imagined interactions are more likely to enjoy serious discussions
and are likely to believe that their relationships are more egalitarian than individuals
who do not. Moreover, Honeycutt and Wiemann (1999) found that the sharing of
interpersonal influence was associated with relational satisfaction and positively
valenced IIs as well. Considering that two types of dissent (i.e., expressive and venge-
ful dissent) communicate little desire to engage in relational maintenance (Bodie
et al., 2013), and given that students with unsatisfactory relationships with their
instructors tend not to dissent in constructive ways (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2013), we
expected that the frequency and negative valence of IIs will predict these two dissent
types. Particularly, we expected that students would engage in more antisocial (i.e.,
vengeful) and selfish (i.e., expressive) forms of dissent when they have frequent= negative valenced IIs about their instructor. Therefore, the first hypothesis is offered:
H1: II characteristics (i.e., frequency and negative valence) will predict students’ expressive and vengeful dissent responses with low affect instructors.
However, given the relationship between frequent and positive IIs and both percep-
tions of relational power and relational satisfaction, we believed that if students have
frequent=positive valenced IIs about their instructors, they should be more likely to
approach these individuals with class-related concerns (Honeycutt & Wiemann,
1999). Therefore, the second hypothesis is offered:
H2: II characteristics (i.e., frequency and positive valence) will predict students’ rhetorical dissent responses with low affect instructors.
Likewise, since instructor misbehaviors are a leading cause of student dissent
(Goodboy, 2011a, 2011b; Vallade et al., 2013), and because many students use IIs
as a substitute for direct communication when misbehaviors are present (Berkos
et al., 2001), it is likely that students who have a desire to dissent use IIs as an coping
mechanism to accompany actual dissent. To examine this idea, the following research
question is offered:
RQ: To what extent do the functions of IIs (i.e., rehearsal, self-awareness, catharsis) predict students’ instructional dissent responses (i.e., expressive, rhetorical, vengeful) with low affect instructors?
118 A. K. Goodboy et al.
Method
Participants
Participants were 181 undergraduate students (107 men, 70 women, 4 participants
did not report their sex) whose ages ranged from 18 to 35 years (M¼ 21.24,
SD¼ 2.13). Participants were recruited from a large Northeastern university. One
hundred four students reported on a class with a male instructor and 77 students
reported on a class with a female instructor. Approximately 48% (N¼ 87) of the sam-
ple reported on a college course required for their major. Class sizes varied with 67
students (37.0%) reporting on a class consisting of 30 students or less, 38 students
(21.0%) reporting on a class with 31 to 100 students, 48 students (26.5%) reporting
on a class with 101 to 200 students, and 28 students (15.5%) reporting on a large
lecture class with over 200 students enrolled.
Procedures and Instrumentation
After obtaining IRB approval, participants completed a questionnaire using methods
proposed by Richmond, McCroskey, Kearney, and Plax (1987) that asks students to
report on their ‘‘worst’’ instructor in the past academic year. This method was used
to ensure that students reported on a low affect instructor in order to maximize
potential instructional dissent episodes resulting from student dissatisfaction. The
questionnaire included measures of students’ imagined interactions, instructional
dissent, affective learning toward the instructor, and demographic items.
Instructional dissent was operationalized using the Instructional Dissent Scale (IDS;
Goodboy, 2011b), which is 22 items and asks students to report on how often they
express their disagreements or complaints about class-related issues by using express-
ive dissent (10 items), rhetorical dissent (6 items), and vengeful dissent (6 items).
Responses were solicited using a 5-point Likert-type response format ranging from
(0) never to (4) very often. In this study, obtained Cronbach alphas were .91 for
expressive dissent (M¼ 2.63, SD¼ .89), .92 for rhetorical dissent (M¼ 1.47, SD¼ 1.11), and .90 for vengeful dissent (M¼ .91, SD¼ 1.05).
Imagined interactions were operationalized by using items from the Survey of
Imagined Interactions (SII; Honeycutt, 2010) and Students’ Imagined Interactions with
Teachers Scale (Berkos et al., 2001). All II responses were solicited on a 7-point Likert
response format ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (7) strongly agree. The SII was
adapted slightly to reflect IIs about a specific instructor instead of a global assessment
of IIs. Two subscales were used to measure the frequency (4 items) in which students
used IIs, and the valence (4 items) of IIs with a target instructor (higher scores indi-
cate a positive valence). In this study, obtained Cronbach alphas were .86 (M¼ 3.62,
SD¼ 1.51) and .74 (M¼ 2.90, SD¼ 1.15) respectively. The Berkos et al. (2001) scale
was used to measure three functions of students’ IIs with an instructor including
rehearsal (9 items), self-awareness (9 items), and catharsis (9 items). In this study,
obtained Cronbach alphas were .91 (M¼ 4.33, SD¼ 1.40), .87 (M¼ 4.04, SD¼ 1.17),
and .85 (M¼ 4.24, SD¼ 1.16) respectively.
Communication Reports 119
Affective learning was operationalized by using the Construct 7: Attitude Toward
Instructor subscale from Mottet and Richmond’s (1998) Revised Affective Learning
Measure. This measure was used to ensure that students were reporting on low affect
instructors who were likely to provoke dissent. This subscale is 4 items and asks stu-
dents to report on how favorable they view a target instructor. Responses were soli-
cited using a 7-point semantic differential response format using the following
anchors: good=bad, worthless=valuable, fair=unfair, and positive=negative. The
obtained Cronbach alpha for this subscale was .72 (M¼ 3.26, SD¼ 1.18). Individual
item means ranged from 2.84 (SD¼ 1.56) to 3.65 (SD¼ 1.54) on a 7-point scale. The
composite item mean of 3.26 was significantly lower (t (178)¼�8.35, p< .001; mean
difference¼�.74) than a theoretical mean of 4.0. These results indicate that students
did, in fact, report on low affect instructors.
Results
Prior to exploring the hypothesis and research question, a first order correlation
matrix was computed for the variables. Because affective learning is related inversely
to student reports of dissent (Goodboy, 2011b), partial correlations were calculated
for the variables of interest by controlling for student affect for the instructor. This
was done to control for any confounding effects stemming from students’ varying
reports in negative affect intensity because students’ feelings about an instructor
are a cause of dissent to begin with (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2013; Goodboy, 2011a,
2011b). In this study, student affect for the instructor was correlated significantly
with the frequency (r¼�.22, p< .01) and valence (r¼ .44, p< .001) functions of
IIs, the rehearsal characteristic of IIs (r¼�.18, p< .05), along with expressive
(r¼�.31, p< .001) and vengeful dissent types (r¼�.27, p< .001). Therefore, affect
toward the instructor served as an appropriate covariate. Results of partial
correlations are available in Table 1.
Table 1 Partial Correlations Controlling for Affective Learning
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Imagined Interactions
1. Frequency of IIs —
2. Valence of IIs .02 (.09) —
3. Rehearsal .61 (.68)^ .04 (.10) —
4. Self-Awareness .53 (.61)^ .15 (.24) �
.72 (.81)^ —
5. Catharsis .42 (.49)^ .01 (.06) .55 (.63)^ .63 (.73)^ —
Instructional Dissent
6. Expressive .29 (.31)^ �.19 (�.18) ��
.23 (.24) ��
.13 (.13) .10 (.09) —
7. Rhetorical .30 (.36)^ .09 (.10) .18 (.21) ��
.12 (.14) .04 (.06) .34 (.39)^ —
8. Vengeful .21 (.22)�� .08 (.18) .02 (.00) .00 (�.01) .02 (.00) .26 (.26)^ .53 (.61)^
Note. Partial correlations control for affective learning toward instructor and are flagged with �p< .05, ��p< .01,
^p< .001. Disattenuated partial correlations are in parentheses.
120 A. K. Goodboy et al.
Hypotheses 1 and 2 predicted that II characteristics (i.e., frequency and valence)
would predict students’ instructional dissent responses (i.e., expressive, rhetorical,
vengeful) with low affect instructors, and the research question inquired about the
role of II functions (i.e., rehearsal, self-awareness, catharsis) in this process. To
examine these relationships, a canonical correlation was computed with the five IIs
variables serving as predictors of the three dissent types. Only structure coefficients
above .45 were interpreted (Sherry & Henson, 2005). Collectively, the full model
across all functions was statistically significant, Wilks’s k¼ .69; F(15, 475.22)¼ 4.54, p< .001. With 1 – k yielding the full model effect size, the full model explained
31% of the variance shared between the variable sets. Dimension reduction analysis
showed that the full model (functions 1 to 3) was significant (see above), and func-
tions 2 to 3 were also statistically significant (F(8, 346)¼ 3.12, p¼ .002). Function 3,
which was the only function tested in isolation, did not explain a statistically signifi-
cant amount of shared variance in the variable sets, (F(3, 174)¼ 1.87, p¼ .14).
Results of the first two functions, including structure coefficients, squared structure
coefficients, communality coefficients, and redundancy coefficients, are available in
Table 2.
The first function (Rc¼ .453, R2 c ¼ .206) revealed that when students had frequent,
negatively valenced, and rehearsed IIs about their low affect instructor, they commu-
nicated more expressive dissent, and to a lesser extent, vengeful dissent. The second
function (Rc¼ .320, R2 c ¼ .102), which accounts for variance remaining after the first
function has been extracted (Thompson, 1984), revealed that when students had
Table 2 Canonical Solution for Characteristics and Functions of IIs Predicting
Instructional Dissent for Functions 1 and 2
Function 1 Function 2
Variables rs r2 s (%) rs r2
s (%) h2
Set 1: Imagined Interactions
Frequency .793 62.88 .542 29.38 92.26
Valence �.646 41.73 .725 52.56 94.29
Rehearsal .567 32.15 .214 4.58 36.73
Self-Awareness .317 10.04 .176 3.10 13.14
Catharsis .314 9.85 �.068 .46 10.31
Redundancy Coefficient (.313) (.180)
Set 2: Instructional Dissent
Expressive .985 97.02 �.046 .21 97.23
Rhetorical .311 9.67 .943 88.92 98.59
Vengeful .473 22.37 .453 20.52 42.89
Redundancy Coefficient (.089) (.037)
Note. Wilks’s k¼ .69; F(15, 475.22)¼ 4.54, p< .001. rs¼ structure coefficient; r2 s ¼ squared structure coefficient;
h2¼ communality coefficient. Structure coefficients (rs) greater than .45 are in bold. Communality coefficients
(h2) greater than 45% are in bold.
Communication Reports 121
frequent, but positively valenced IIs about their low affect instructor, they commu-
nicated rhetorical dissent, and to a lesser extent, vengeful dissent.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to examine the role of students’ imagined interactions
in the instructional dissent process. Overall, the results suggest that the frequency and
valence of students’ imagined interactions with their low affect instructors matter the
most, and the rehearsal function plays a less important role. That is, students who
have frequently rehearsed IIs that are negative prefer to engage in expressive dissent,
but in contrast, students who have frequent IIs that are positive prefer to engage in
rhetorical dissent. Regardless of the valence, students reported that with low affect
instructors, they engaged in vengeful dissent to a small degree. These results lend full
support for hypothesis 1 and partial support for hypothesis 2.
The interpretations of these findings have pedagogical value. Although our findings
account for a modest amount of variance, they suggest that when students envision
negatively valenced IIs, they do not approach their instructors with their concerns
and instead communicate their disagreements to outside parties in an attempt to vent
their class-related frustrations. This imagined negativity might stem from students’
lack of confidence that even approaching an instructor with a concern will accomplish
anything. Research on why students withhold rhetorical dissent from their instructors
supports this conclusion. Bolkan and Goodboy (2013) discovered that many students
prefer to avoid dissenting directly to an instructor because they do not think that it is
worth the effort or that complaining would fix their problems. Bolkan and Goodboy
also found that when students withhold rhetorical dissent, they typically prefer to
communicate expressive dissent as an alternative response. Therefore, the extant
research on dissent may explain why students who have negatively valenced IIs end
up not communicating their dissatisfaction in person—they may perceive that an
actual conversation with their instructor will unfold in an unproductive manner.
If this is the case, unlike positively valenced IIs, which may indicate that students
are hopeful regarding their interactions with instructors, students who experience
negative IIs may not dissent rhetorically because they essentially ‘‘think themselves
out of it.’’ And, instead of dissenting in ways that might address their perceived
problem, they may act in ways that address their negative feelings by expressing their
discontent to friends, family members, or classmates to garner empathy or support.
On the contrary, after explaining varian
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