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The present paper is concerned with the knowledge or cognitive representations which individuals must possess in order to understand utterances occurring in conversations. We examined Brown and Levinson's (1978) model which reconciles the Cooperative Principle of Grice (1975) with the face-wants of conversational interactants by relativising the operation of abstract principles of conversation to aspects of the social relationship between the speaker and hearer. In an empirical study of ironic sarcasm and banter, Brown and Levinson's model is found to require an additional relationship parameter, ‘relationship affect’, to account for the ways in which neutral observers interpret counter-to-fact insults and compliments. As predicted, the literal meanings of utterances are also found to influence observers' cognitive representations of the relationship between speaker and hearer. However, unexpected correlations among the relationship variables suggest that the model's additivity assumption may need to be relinquished.

The development of ego identity is proposed to be a condition of cognitive factors expressed in, and reciprocally modified by, different styles of social interaction. Among 99 young adult men, identity statuses were determined by interview (Marcia, 1966); cognitive complexity was assessed by means of Schroder, Driver, and Streufert's (1967) Paragraph Completion Test; and social interactional styles were determined via a Bales (1951) interaction process analysis of small group discussions of moral dilemma (Rest, 1975). Higher levels of integrative complexity were found to be associated with higher identity statuses. Characteristic social interactional patterns of high-identity status subjects (achievements and moratoriums) were cooperation and facilitation. Some foreclosure subjects showed antagonistic response patterns, whereas others adopted an acquiescent stance. Both styles were seen as functionally equivalent in terms of serving to defend strongly held belief systems against threats of disconfirmation.According to Erikson (1959), the chief ego developmental task in adolescence is the synthesizing of childhood identifications into a unique configuration or "gestalt." To the extent to which this is accomplished, one is said to have a sense of identity when "the ego may be said to be stronger than before the synthesis" (Marcia, 1976b, p. 9). Marcia (1966) developed a measure of ego identity based on Erikson's descriptions. When the twin criteria of "crisis" (exploration of alternatives) and "commitment" in the substantive areas of occupation, ideology, and sexuality (Rogow, Marcia, & Slugoski, 1983) are used, this interview-type measure enables one to discriminate older adolescents and young adults with respect to four ego identity statuses. These statuses, or styles of coping with the identity crisis are as follows: (a) Identity achievement: Individuals have experienced a period of exploration of alternatives and have made commitments in the areas of occupa-This article is based on a master's thesis submitted by the first author. Portions of these data were presented at the 52nd annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York, April 1981.We would like to thank Jina Carvalho, Fiona Crofton, and Christine Doyle for their help as research assistants.

(Hilton and Slugoski, 1986), that the common sense criterion of causality is that of an 'abnormal condition' rather than constant conjunction as instantiated in the A N 0 V A model of causal attribution (Kelley, 1967(Kelley, , 1973.