Thirty male and twenty female students were used to investigate the strategies of topic management. In pairs, they were told that the male (or female) would like to become friends with the female (or male), and were assigned a dialogue which created a positive or a negative context. Then the subject assigned as the initiator was given one of three continuing strategies: direct topic change, indirect topic change, or direct topic continuation. The subjects were asked to judge the effectiveness of the strategy, with the hypotheses being that a female communicator who uses an indirect topic management strategy instead of a direct one would be judged as more competent and effective and the converse would be true for the male; when the female employs indirection she will be perceived as more predictable than when she is direct and the converse would be true for the male. None of these hyptoheses were supported by the data, which showed that the situational distinction had more influence on judgments of strategies than the sex of the initiator, and that when the strategy and intention corresponded, subjects rendered a judgment of high effectiveness regardless of the nature of the situation or the sex of the initiator. (TJ)