The human is perhaps bestdubbed 'homo narrans', the story-teller. In our search for meanings we constantly tell stories and make accounts to explain events and frame relationships. This book presents the first systematic analysis from a psychological standpoint of this universal and fundamental human capacity. Nowhere is our account-making more evident that at times of acute personal stress. In divorce and separation, death of a spouse, redundancy or retirement, for example, we deal best with loss when we have worked through its meaning to close, empathic others. It is in the process of account-making that people look to create meaning out of loss. So fundamental an activity as account-making must, the authors believe, have evolutionary origins. Drawing on the work of Jaynes, they consider the process in relation to the origin of human consciousness and the beginnings of story-telling as a human activity. In arguing for the centrality of accounts to our psychology, the authors are careful to distinguish them from other processes of attribution and narratization. Nevertheless, the theories developed here will have a far-reaching impact on the development of social psychology and beyond the confines of the descipline too.

First published in 2005, Economics and Social Interaction is a fresh attempt to overcome the traditional inability of economics to deal with interpersonal phenomena that occur within the sphere of markets and productive organizations. It makes use of traditional economic concepts for understanding interpersonal events, while venturing beyond those concepts to give a better account of personalised interactions. In contrast to other books, Economics and Social Interaction offers the reader a rigorous effort at extending economic analysis to a difficult field in a consistent manner, sensitive to insights from other behavioural and social sciences. This collection represents an important contribution to a growing research agenda in the social sciences.

This experiential, workbook-style text focuses on key skill sets necessary for personal and managerial success in organizations today. These skill sets are:·Intrapersonal skills - those skills essential for understanding oneself and one's personality: perception, awareness, disclosure and trust, value clarification, goal setting, identifying barriers to personal change and time-and stress-management. ·Interpersonal skills - those skills necessary for working with others: conveying verbal messages, listening and non-verbal communication, giving and receiving feedback, communicating with diverse others and overcoming barriers to communication.·Team skills - those skills required for understanding and working in teams: forming, leading and facilitating teams, decision-making [including ethical decision frameworks], problem-solving, running meetings and project management.·Advanced interpersonal skills - those skills needed for leading and developing others: coaching and mentoring, empowerment and delegation, persuasion, networking, politicking, negotiation and conflict management.

Previous editions ('Social Skills in Interpersonal Communication') have established this work as the standard textbook on communication. Directly relevant to a multiplicity of research areas and professions, this thoroughly revised and updated edition has been expanded to include the latest research as well as a new chapter on negotiating. Key examples and summaries have been augmented to help contextualise the theory of skilled interpersonal communication in terms of its practical applications. Combining both clarity and a deep understanding of the subject matter, the authors have succeeded in creating a new edition which will be essential to anyone studying or working in the field of interpersonal communication.

Sanford C. Goldberg presents a novel account of the speech act of assertion. He defends the view that this type of speech act is answerable to a constitutive norm--the norm of assertion. The hypothesis that assertion is answerable to a robustly epistemic norm is uniquely suited to explain assertion's philosophical significance--its connections to other philosophically interesting topics. These include topics in epistemology (testimony and testimonial knowledge; epistemic authority; disagreement), the philosophy of mind (belief; the theory of mental content), the philosophy of language (norms of language; the method of interpretation; the theory of linguistic content), ethics (the ethics of belief; what we owe to each other as information-seeking creatures), and other matters which transcend any subcategory (anonymity; trust; the division of epistemic labor; Moorean paradoxicality). Goldberg aims to bring out these connections without assuming anything about the precise content of assertion's norm, beyond regarding it as robustly epistemic. In the last section of the book, however, he proposes that we do best to see the norm's epistemic standard as set in a context-sensitive fashion. After motivating this proposal by appeal to Grice's Cooperative Principle and spelling it out in terms of what is mutually believed in the speech context, Goldberg concludes by noting how this sort of context-sensitivity can be made to square with assertion's philosophical significance.

The first edition of this book outlined what amounted to a breakthrough in the analysis of social behaviour. Since then it has become widely used as an introductory textbook of social psychology. It is invaluable to anyone interested in the subject or whose work involves dealing with people, as well as anyone who wants to know how to make friends and influence people. For this new, fifth edition, Michael Argyle includes the latest research on non-verbal communication, social skills and happiness.

This volume on close relationships in adulthood discusses the central issues in the field and points the way towards the construction of an integrated body of knowledge about human relationships. The self, interactions, relationships and grops are treated as dynaimc proceses in dialectical relations with each other and with the socio-cultural structure of norms, values, beliefs and institutions.; Early chpaters introduce aspecs of the slef relevant to the dynaimcs of intercayions and relationships: Intrapsychic Processes Of Cognition And Emotion Are Emphasized. These Are followed by chapters discussing the principle characteristics of relationships. Seven further chapters focus on the processes involved in the dynaimcs of relationships, and later chapters synthesize previous ones in discussions of love and friendship, and the nature of relationship change. The focus throughot the text is on current work and current controversy, placed against a background of knowledge that has been built up in recent decades.

With a practical and innovative approach, Interpersonal Encounters: Connecting through Communication shows students how interpersonal communication skills can be best used to accomplish everyday relationship goals. Guided by current interpersonal research from diverse authors and study participants, Laura K. Guerrero and Bree McEwan focus on the functions of interpersonal communication in our everyday lives and demonstrate how concepts, theories, and contemporary research apply to building, maintaining, and ending relationships. The book’s unique structure prepares students to become better communicators in their personal and professional lives. This title is accompanied by a complete teaching and learning package. Digital Option / Courseware SAGE Vantage is an intuitive digital platform that delivers this text’s content and course materials in a learning experience that offers auto-graded assignments and interactive multimedia tools, all carefully designed to ignite student engagement and drive critical thinking. Built with you and your students in mind, it offers simple course set-up and enables students to better prepare for class. Assignable Video with Assessment Assignable video (available with SAGE Vantage) is tied to learning objectives and curated exclusively for this text to bring concepts to life. LMS Cartridge: Import this title’s instructor resources into your school’s learning management system (LMS) and save time. Don’t use an LMS? You can still access all of the same online resources for this title via the password-protected Instructor Resource Site.