Hand hygiene is a key element in preventing the transmission of cold and flu viruses. The authors conducted an experimental-control design study in 4 campus residence halls to determine whether a message campaign about hand hygiene and the availability of gel hand sanitizer could decrease cold and flu illness and school and work absenteeism. Their findings indicate that students who were exposed to the message campaign and provided with gel hand sanitizer increased their knowledge about the potential health benefits of hand washing and sanitizer use; they reported higher rates of hand washing and using sanitizer than did the control group. These students also experienced fewer cold and flu illnesses during the study than those in the control group and missed fewer class or work engagements because of colds or flu. Conducting a health promotion campaign in residence halls may therefore help prevent colds and flu and decrease absenteeism on university campuses.
Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) postulates that interactive deception differs from noninteractive deception due to combined influences of deceiver goals and social skills, mutual influence processes between sender and receiver, feedback, and interaction dynamics. An experiment tested hypotheses that (a) interactive deception displays differ from truthful ones only at the outset of interaction and approximate truthful displays over time, (b) displays are moderated by deceiver social skills, (c) deceivers adapt to receiver communication with reciprocal or compensatory displays, (d) low involvement by receivers conveys negative feedback that instigates more behavioral adjustments by deceivers than does high involvement, and (e) receivers’ postinteraction judgments of deceivers are directly related to deceiver behavioral displays. An experiment in which senders alternated between telling the truth and deceiving, and partners varied their own level of involvement, produced supportive results that have implications for the stability of, and causal mechanisms underlying, deception displays and interpersonal communication generally.
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