“Memorable” Messages

Abstract

Some interpersonal messages are reported to be remembered for a long time and to haoe a profound influence on a person's life.During the course of a single day, hundreds of verbal messages are directed to us in face-to-face encounters for evaluation and response; during one's lifetime the quantity of interpersonal messages processed must be staggering. Most of these messages have a relatively short life; they are processed, responded to, and forgotten. Yet, there seem to be a few verbal messages which may be remembered for extremely long periods of time and which people perceive as a major influence on the course of their lives.One such message for naval officer and eventual President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, was later used as the title for his autobiography, Why Not the Best? (6, preface). During an interview with Admiral Rickover for a position in the nuclear submarine program, Rickover asked Carter if he did his best while at the Naval Academy. After Carter admitted that he did not always do his best, Rickover asked, "Why not?" According to Carter, this was a question he was "never able to forget" and became a rule for him to live by. Another example involves noted therapist Carl Rogers, who recounted a memorable and influential episode which took place while he was a student discussing the learning and use of facts with a professor of agronomy. The professor reportedly said, "Don't be a damned ammunition wagon; be a rifle" (27, chapter 1).

Socializing Messages in Blue-Collar Families: Communicative Pathways to Social Mobility and Reproduction

“…To be counted as a message, a unit of talk had to meet one of the following criteria derived from the memorable messages definition (Knapp, Stohl, & Reardon, 1981;Medved et al, 2006;Stohl, 1986): (a) the participant quoted the specific words a parent had said, which reflects that memorable messages are remembered for a long period of time; or (b) the participant explained a lesson learned from a parent, even if an associated, discrete message was not recalled, which reflects that memorable messages are perceived to have a lasting influence on the recipient's life. From the data, 346 messages from parents were identified.…”

Exploring the emergent identities of future physicians: Toward an understanding of the ideological socialization of osteopathic medical students

“…Questions on the interview guide asked participants to describe their vision of the "ideal" physician-patient relationship, how the experience and expression of emotion fit in their perspective on appropriate physician-patient interactions, and what significant events in their medical training contributed to the development of their perspectives on physician-patient relationships. Additionally, we adapted a version of the memorable message interview schedule originally created by Knapp, Stohl, and Reardon (1981) in order to tap into how informal conversations throughout the students' professional socialization have helped to construct their identities. Previous researchers have used adapted versions of memorable message questions to yield interesting findings about socialization processes (e.g., Stohl, 1986).…”

Memories of statements spoken in everyday contexts

“…R. Goldsmith and D. B. Pillemer of at most several days. In contrast, Knapp, Stohl and Reardon (1981) examined recall of statements spoken days, months or years earlier in the course of everyday activities. Since the conversations occurred in the uncontrolled contexts of the respondents' personal lives, the authors focused on subjective perceptions of verbatim memory rather than recognition accuracy.…”

“…The memories also appeared stable over time; a test-retest study spanning 5 months showed a high degree of message consistency. Knapp et al (1981) discovered that the messages fulfilled a common function. The statements were concise, usually one sentence, and often prescriptive; 60 per cent contained rules for behaviour.…”