This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 15 titles deal with the following topics: factors affecting group decisions regarding attributions of responsibility; a model of message-attitude-behavior relations; effects of the communicative process on perceived source credibility and attitude change in a political setting; anger, cohesiveness, and productivity in small task groups; the effects of "thromises" (threats and promises) on compliance and concession-making in the bargaining situation; the relationships among judging philosophies, demographic characteristics, and debate ballot rationales; courtroom communication strategies; incubation strategies used by small groups during problem solving; the relationship of violations of receiver expectations and resistance to persuasion; an instrument for measuring group members' perceptions of the difficulty of a problem solving task; language variation and success in the system of criminal justice; variables affecting perceived source credibility; culture, role models, and interaction within a police communications centre; the effects of violations of personal space expectations on source credibility and attraction and on distraction; and the effects of vocal rate and the synchronization of coverbal clues on such factors as receiver distraction and message comprehension. (GT)