[A examination of conversation process in social context].

The purpose was to reveal a set of conversation rule and to examine the effect of social context on the importance of the rule. We collected 51 items concerning conversation rule from 29 male and female undergraduates. Another 128 male and female undergraduates were asked to rate the importance of each item in given social contexts. We manipulated three factors of (a) goal orientation in conversation, (b) intimacy of a dyadic relationship, and (c) combination of sex, in the descriptions of the social contexts. Factor analysis of the rating scores led to identification of six factors of conversation rule: 1) acceptance rule, 2) rule for partner, 3) rule for accomplishment of speech, 4) rule for intention of speech, 5) emotion-directed expression rule, 6) comprehension-directed expression rule. The results of ANOVA indicated that the importance of each factor varies with social context.