Social Communication

The present volume in the "Frontiers" series is devoted to the fascinating topic of social communication'¬"fascinating because communication is ubiquitous, in that one cannot not communicate. And yet, the art of effective communication can be extremely demanding and elusive, because a tricky trade-off problem has to be solved: for communication to be successful, it must be at once informative'¬"somehow indicating an intended direction of thought or action'¬"as well as subtle'¬"somehow concealing intentions and instrumental goals. Failure to meet the former criterion renders communication uncontrolled and haphazard; failure to meet the latter raises suspicion and reactance.The chapters in this volume focus on the tools and repertoires evolved by social communication in order to deal with this demanding trade-off'¬"representing prominent paradigms of current research in the interface of communication and social psychology, presented by leading scholars who have played crucial roles in the development of those paradigms. Altogether, the book encompasses 16 chapters, grouped into four major sections: communication within and between groups and cultures; strategic communication; social communication, affect, and behavior regulation; and social communication and adaptive behavior regulation; and then framed by an introduction and an epilog. Individual chapters are devoted to such intriguing topics as stereotypes and intergroup affairs, language and culture, deception and lie detection, persuasion, discussions in groups, logic of conversation, nonverbal cues, conversational implicatures, the impact of conversation situations and social distance, and the evolution of verbal communication.Fiedler, Klaus is the author of 'Social Communication ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781841694283 and ISBN 1841694282.