Abstract
The aim of this study was to explore the several aspects of only one talking in dyadic communication situation in relation to their level of manifest anxiety and exprimental acquaintance condition.
Female students, tested by a modified form of Taylor's manifest anxiety scale (MAS), were divided into H (high anxious) -M (middle anxious), M-M and L (low anxious) -M groups. Each dyad was communicated with the verbal behavior only.
The main results were as follows:
1. H showed the greatest intensity of verbal activity among three anxiety groups. M talked most frequently, but the initial intensity level of verbal activity was maintained for all sessions. L had high frequency of passive intrusion into partner's utterance and the activity was similar to M's. In regard to the amount of verbal activity of each subject in H-M, L-M groups, the results were H>M, and L<M in each group.
2. It was showed that the interrelations among the intensities of the utterance were M (L) >M (H) >M (M) with passage of several sesions and M (M) was most high concerning with frequency of utterance. M (L) was most active in the continuity of verbal activity and passive intrusion into partner's utterance.
3. It was a general trend that verbal activity increased under no-acquaintance condition, in particular this trend was obvious in L (M) and M (L), while this tendency was not clear in M (M).
4. According to the distribution of only one talking duration, the proportion of very short utterances (less than one sec.) was above 40-50% in all groups and this distribution could be fit by a logarithmic curve.
5. Further, a positive linear correlation was shown between the individual level of manifest anxiety and the verbal activities in H-M, L-M groups. And the presence or absence of discrepancy in the level of manifest anxiety between the two subjects in each dyad was regarded to be consistent with the hypothesis of anxiety as arousal, the hypothesis of personality similarity-attraction and the theory of imbalance for causing tension in interpersonal perception.
