Consequential Unscripted Interactions: A Conceptual and Empirical Description A consequential unscripted interaction (CUI) is a conversation that a person understands to be important but does not know how to do. Readers can probably remember episodes such as being uncertain how to ask for a date, how to require use of a condom, how to express romantic love for the first time, how to ask for a job or promotion, or even just how to explain that you would rather not play shortstop. The two key features, consequentiality and unscriptedness, are both subjective, and take their definitional status solely from the viewpoint of a particular interactant. Perhaps only a small group of people regards some episode as a CUI (e.g., recent immigrants having trouble asking police officers to help them). Sometimes registering something as a CUI merely indicates one’s life stage (e.g., asking for a date for the first time). Or perhaps a CUI is relatively widespread (e.g., learning to insist on safe sex practices in the 1980s). In other words, CUIs can be localized or widespread. By definition, they are always consequential, on a person-by-person basis. Both scholarly and popular literature discusses a related idea, the difficult conversation. CUIs and difficult conversations probably overlap considerably in ordinary life, but they are distinguishable conceptually. Difficult conversations are simply hard to do. They might be challenging because the person does not know how to do them, making them also CUIs, but the difficulty may arise from other sources as well. In fact, the literature commonly suggests that what makes these conversations difficult is their emotionality. For instance, nurses, even after training, find it spiritually draining to give bad news to patients or their families. A supervisor who knows exactly what script to follow in giving a negative performance appraisal may still stew over the experience and feel badly about doing it. Difficult conversations are consequential, just as CUIs are, but their oppressiveness may not derive from being unscripted. Learning a script may not make these episodes less difficult. CUIs by definition are unscripted and consequential, and whatever emotional load they impose derives from both of these features, not merely the second. Consequentiality implies that CUIs will probably also have emotional weight, but this is an empirical matter for CUIs rather than a definitional attribute, as it is for difficult conversations. Nonetheless, the likelihood is that most of the relevant conversations will be both difficult and CUIs. We will soon report on the emotionality of CUIs. A great deal of the “difficult conversations” scholarly work focuses on healthcare contexts, commonly giving bad news to patients (e.g., Browning, Meyer, Truog, & Solomon, 2007; Lamiani, Meyer, Browning, Brodsky, & Todres, 2009; Lamiani, Meyer, Leone, Vegni, Browning, Rider, Truog, & Moja, 2011; Makoul, Zick, Aakhus, Neely, & Roemer, 2010). Discussing racial matters in therapy has also been a matter of investigation (Cardemil, & Battle, 2003). Another substantial body of work deals with family and personal issues (e.g., Keating, Russell, Cornacchione, & Smith, 2013; Smith, Cornacchione, Keating, & Russell, 2014; Stone, Patton & Heen, 1999). Some of this close relationships research includes focused analysis of explaining racial matters to children (Copenhaver-Johnson, 2006) or declaring one’s sexual orientation (Manning, in press). Recent applied work deals with teaching children and other family members to deal with post-deployment problems among U.S. military (e.g., Knobloch, & Theiss, 2012; Wilson, Wilkum, Chernichky, MacDermid Wadsworth, & Broniarczyk, 2011). The commonness of the term “difficult conversations” is almost certainly due to a well-received advice book that often has workplace interactions in mind (Stone, Patton, & Heen, 1999). All these research topics range from the obviously heart-rending (e.g., receiving a terminal diagnosis) to the mildly amusing (e.g., explaining twerking to one’s parents; Wayne, 2013). Many of the studies just cited involve the development of interventions designed to guide people through difficult conversations. From our point of view, it is interesting that all those programs can be summarized as teaching scripts to people. Not having a suitable script for an episode is a defining feature of a CUI. But knowing a script will not necessarily make it more pleasant to tell a family their father is dying or telling an employee that s/he is losing a job. The conversation can remain difficult even when the participant is competently following good instructions. Even though difficult conversations are essentially identified due to their emotionality, we notice that the intervention scripts seem mainly aimed at improving communicator competence rather than relieving communicator distress (e.g., Browning et al., 2007; Lamiani, et al., 2011; Villagran, et al., 2010). The motivation for these interventions seems to be workplace-practical: how to get the conversations done efficiently and clearly. Less attention is being given to how it feels to say these things, one after the other. The emotionality of these conversations is sometimes felt most pointedly before the episode, in some cases with a sense of relief or other positive feeling appearing once the conversation is completed (e.g., Keating, et al., 2013; Manning, in press). Emotions before, during, and after the conversations are separate phenomena, not to be elided. By “scripts,” we have in mind a known set of directions for behaving, normally less precise about prescribing actual utterances than the script an actor in a play would have. Honeycutt and Bryan (2011) have analyzed a great many interpersonal scripts, approving of some and critiquing others. Besides the Honeycutt and Bryan book, we have in mind Schank (1982) as a theoretical frame and Kellermann, Broetzmann, Lim, and Kitao (1989) and Honeycutt, Cantrill, and Greene (1989) as research exemplars. A more unusual example is Copes, Hochstetler, and Cherbonneau (2012), who studied carjackers’ scripts (or lack of them) when confronted with unexpected victim resistance. The present investigation does not require an elaborate explanation of the idea of scripts, however, and so we will move forward with the general idea of script/schema/schemata that has appeared in many lines of research over the decades. While we do not move to the point of offering any scripts in the current paper, we observe an oddity about the interventions when CUIs and difficult conversations are compared. The interventions offer scripts (and so are apparently aimed at CUIs) but do so in the context of difficult conversations (whose defining attribute, punishing communicator emotionality, is not always addressed by the scripts). The distinction between CUIs, notable for participants’ uncertainty as to how to proceed, and difficult conversations, defined by their emotionality, would seem to be informative to several scholarly and practical communities. The ultimate aim of this research project is, in fact, to generate scripts so that people can be instructed and/or practiced in the important conversations for which they have great uncertainty as to their competence. This paper begins the project by obtaining useful descriptions of CUIs as they actually appear in people’s lives. We will code open-ended descriptions to find out what topics are involved in CUIs, what consequences people are concerned about, with whom people try to participate in a CUI, and various other descriptive matters. These results should help researchers identify and select particular CUIs for further work. In addition, based on the material just reviewed, we anticipated several elements of the CUI experience, and formed closed-ended scales to measure people’s uncertainty, their emotional reactions, how forceful the memory of the CUI was, and various subjective outcomes from the interactions. This is obviously an exploratory study, and so we specify our immediate aims as research questions: RQ1: What are the characteristics of CUIs, as recalled by participants? RQ2: How are uncertainties, feelings, rumination, and outcomes related to one another, in the view of respondents? RQ3: Are the topics and consequences of the recalled CUIs distinguishable by reference to uncertainties, feelings, rumination, and outcomes? Method Participants We collected data online from two different samples. The first was 257 undergraduates enrolled in communication classes in a mid-Atlantic public university. They received minor extra credit for their participation. Three undergraduates gave such a limited description of their CUI that the descriptions were not codable, and inspection revealed that their closed-ended responses formed simple and unlikely patterns, so they were dropped from the sample. Undergraduate participants’ average age was 19.5 years (SD = 1.8). Women were 68% of the sample. Their most common relational status was single (60%), followed by single in a serious relationship now (29%) and single serious relationship before (9%). Only 2% were married. Their most common self-identified ethnicity was Euro-American (54%), followed by Asian-American (9%), African-American (8%), Hispanic-American (6%), and Asian (4%). Some (23%) declined to estimate their family’s approximate annual income, but 45% thought it was more than $100,000. The second sample was 230 Mechanical Turk workers, recruited through Amazon’s mTurk system. Each was paid $0.50 for completing the survey, using Amazon’s normal mTurk procedures. Their average age was 36 years (SD = 12.9). Males comprised 44% of the older adult sample. Their modal marital status was married (40%), followed by single in serious relationship now (21%), and single (21%). Most (63%) self-described themselves as Euro-American, with 10% Asian-American, and 9% African-American. Their modal family income was $20,000 to $40,000 (29%), with 20% less than that, 20% in the range $40,000 to $60,000, and 15% between $60,000 and $80,000. Most (61%) were employed full time, 22% part time, 4% retired, and 18% unemployed (possibly including full time students). The modal level of education was university graduate (37%), followed by some university (23%), at least some graduate education (15%), and community college graduate (13%). Only 13% had a high school degree or less. Procedures After completing demographic items, respondents were instructed as follows: This study is about important difficult conversations. By “important” we mean that the conversation had (or seemed to have) genuine consequences for your life. Those consequences might have been emotional, financial, relationship-oriented, educational, or anything else you considered to be important at the time. By “difficult” we mean conversations that were challenging to participate in because you weren’t sure how to conduct yourself, or perhaps the other person didn’t know how to participate. The conversation may have occurred when you were adult or earlier – either is fine for the purposes of the study. The survey essentially asks you to describe one conversation that was both important and difficult, a conversation that you have actually had. You will be asked to describe the conversation in your own words, and then we will have some specific items for you to fill out about it. Their open-ended responses (“please describe the important difficult conversation”) supplied the materials that were coded. Remaining elements of the surveys were closed-ended Likert items, detailed below. Coding Two of the authors coded the CUI descriptions. We first read through all the descriptions from both samples to see what seemed to be present, and then developed a draft codebook. We anticipated some of the coded variables before we examined the descriptions (e.g., topic) and others appeared to us as we read (e.g., personal or institutional identities). The two coders applied the codebook to 20 descriptions (combining both samples), calculated their reliability, resolved their disagreements, revised the codebook, and then did another round of coding. Some variables (e.g., topic) were immediately easy to code but others (e.g., emotion, consequences) took several rounds of codebook revision. Eventually all variables were coded with acceptable reliability. Tables 1 and 2 shows the coding results for both samples, as well as the Krippendorf’s alphas for each variable. All reliabilities exceeded minimum acceptable levels for Krippendorf’s alpha. The main codes were as follows. Topic was of course an obvious concern, and we found a number of discernible categories relating to sexual relations, illegal activity, medical problems, financial issues, romantic matters, work/job concerns, academic issues, and some conversations dealing with death. The more specific categories are in Table 1. We noticed that some of the descriptions were ambiguous about whether or not the CUIs appeared to have actually taken place, so we coded whether there was clear evidence that the conversation happened. We coded settings twice, once as to whether the conversation took place in a private or public location (defined as whether others were present who could hear or see the conversation), and once into more specific settings, such as academic, workplace, residence, and so forth. The channel within which the CUI was conducted was coded, as was whether the participants in the CUI were enacting personal or institutional identities. We wondered whether the CUIs were consequential because they were relevant to a decision. We noted the general tenor of the respondent’s reaction, according to whether it was cooperative or not (here, and for the next code, “respondent” refers to the person responding to the CUI’s initiation, not necessarily to the person who provided the data). Similarly, we coded the respondent’s emotional status in a gross way, simply noting whether it was expressed as being positive or negative. Finally, we coded the nature of the CUI’s consequentiality, finding subcategories dealing with self-image, close relationships, resources (e.g., money), health, and the future. These are detailed in Table 2, along with all the other coding results except those bearing on topic, which are in Table 1. Closed-ended Instruments Remaining measures were Likert items ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree on a 1-10 point scale. Descriptive statistics, including Cronbach’s alphas, are in Table 3. We asked respondents to report self certainty before the conversation began as well as to estimate the other’s certainty, both with 3 items (e.g., I was expecting it to happen; the other person knew how to conduct himself/herself). We also solicited estimates of the same things during the conversation (e.g., I knew what I was going to say next; the other person seemed to know how it was going to end). Respondents also recalled the degree and frequency with which they reflected on the conversation after it was over, using 7 items (e.g., I thought of things I could have done better; I became more settled in my mind about what happened). Remaining measures were straightforward single-item instruments, used instead of multi-item instruments out of concern for respondent fatigue or annoyance. All of these were developed in Hample (in press). Politeness (we were both polite to one another) and rudeness (at least one of us was rude to the other) were both measured because a conversation can have both qualities or neither. Participants also rated CUIs both for their argumentative (at least one person gave his/her reasons for what s/he said or wanted) and conflictive (the conversation contained clear disagreement) qualities. The distinction is that argumentative exchanges require reasoning and conflicts require explicit notice of incompatible goals. A series of discrete emotions were found to be most common in everyday conversations in Hample (in press). These were assessed both during and after the CUI. These were anger (I was angry), uncertainty (I was uncertain), disappointed (I was disappointed in myself), happy (I was happy with the conversation), sad (the conversation made me feel sad), guilty (I felt guilty during the interaction), surprised (I felt some surprise during the conversation), worried (I was worried during the interaction), thankful (I was thankful that I had this conversation), bored (I felt the conversation to be boring), and concerned for self image (I was concerned about giving a negative impression of myself). In addition, during the CUI we also assessed carefully edited messages (I was carefully editing what I was saying). A few other descriptive items (e.g., how many people were involved in the conversation?) were also gathered and will be reported momentarily. Results Research Question 1: Characteristics of CUIs Here are the leading characteristics of the CUI interactions in our two samples. Information on zero or very low-frequency results is available from the authors. First we present some contextualizing descriptions, and then proceed to Tables 1 and 2. Undergraduates reported that they had the CUI about two years before the survey, when they were 17.7 years old (SD = 2.8), and estimated that the other main person in the CUI was noticeably older, 35.2 years (SD = 15.1). More than half (58%) of the CUIs were dyadic, but 27% had a third person present, and 15% had four or more people participating. The most common other main person was parent (42%), followed by romantic partner (22%), and friend (13%). More had CUIs with a subordinate (7%) than with a supervisor (1%). The other main conversant was somewhat more likely to be male (51%). The respondent (49%) and other main person (48%) were about equally likely to have initiated the CUI, with only 3% being instigated by a third party. The mTurk respondents reported that on average, they had the CUI when they were 31 years old (SD = 11.9; i.e., about 5 years prior to the survey), and they estimated that the other main person was 40 years old (SD = 16.6). Nearly three-quarters (74%) of the CUIs were dyadic, with 18% involving a third person, and 9% involving four or more people. The main other participant was most commonly a romantic partner (34%) or a parent (27%). Friends were less frequent partners (9%), having about the same frequency as one’s supervisor (10%). Acquaintances (3%) and strangers (4%) were about as common as one’s child (4%), but somewhat more rare than one’s sibling (6%). The other main participant was most often female (54%). The CUI was most often initiated by the respondent (59%), followed by the other main person (37%) and a third party (4%). The mTurk respondents were older and their longer life experience may have given rise to several of the obvious differences between the two samples. Their CUIs were more distant in time from the data collection, perhaps suggesting that they do not have as many recent CUIs to recall. Their average age at the time of the CUIs was well beyond ordinary university graduation age, implying that some of the things registered as CUIs by the undergraduate respondents may have been replaced or lessened in importance as respondents moved into their next decade. The older adults were more likely to have experienced the CUI in a dyadic interaction. Romantic partners were more likely interactants for them than parents, compared to the undergraduates, but these were still the most common CUI partners for both groups. The older adults were more likely to have initiated the CUI than the undergraduates were. This point about initiation needs some reflection: why would a person (49% of the undergraduates and 59% of the mTurk respondents) initiate a consequential unscripted conversation? Perhaps the topic’s consequentiality impelled the interaction, or perhaps the conversations moved in unanticipated directions; our data do not distinguish these possibilities. Table 1 reports our classifications of the CUI topics for both groups. The largest general topic categories for both groups were romantic relationships (25% of undergraduate topics and 24% for mTurk respondents), work or job issues (10% and 11%), medical matters (9% and 16%), finances (9% and 13%), and academic matters (14% and 5%). Some differences between the samples are evident but the same general kinds of issues seemed to resonate with both groups. Within these larger categories, some differences between the samples appeared, but most of the observed frequencies were too low to make statistical significance testing worthwhile. In fact, if our aim had been to do such analyses, we would have condensed or omitted many of the codes in the table. Instead, we want to communicate as many details as possible, even if they are rare, so that future work can pick up one or another of these topics and explore it in view of its nature as a CUI. Table 2 contains the results of the rest of our coding for the open-ended CUI descriptions. In Table 2, sometimes the “other” or “uncodable” categories are the most interesting, precisely because these matters were not important enough for respondents to mention spontaneously. For example, few thought that whether the CUI’s setting was private or public was very salient (is this truly unimportant, or is it just assumed that the CUIs will be done in private?). The physical setting of the conversations was most often unmentioned, whether we were coding privacy or location. The possibility that the respondent was cooperative or avoidant during the conversation was not described about half the time, and the valence of the CUI respondents’ emotional reactions was not apparent to us two thirds of the time. We need to think about whether these unmentioned things are genuinely unimportant, under what circumstances they become salient, and whether encouraging awareness of these matters might be a first step in an intervention. The Table 2 results are more affirmatively informative in other respects. Some of the descriptions did not give clear evidence that the CUIs actually took place (2% for undergraduates and 7% for mTurk informants). Perhaps their nature was foreseen and a threat avoided, or perhaps the descriptions were just not well written. Respondent reaction is relevant to this point, because there we found that about a quarter of the time people in both samples were uncooperative or somehow avoidant during the conversation. More than a quarter displayed a negative emotional tone to us, compared to only a handful who had positive affect. The most common consequentiality for both samples concerned the relationship between the two conversants: this was our code for 37% of the undergraduate reports and 39% of the mTurk descriptions. No other consequentiality approaches this one in frequency. However, utilitarian matters (in contrast to relational ones) also appeared: career and academic matters were important, along with health issues in both samples. Settings were more often private than public (but mostly not inferable from the descriptions), and CUIs were most commonly conducted face to face (with both samples often not finding this important to mention, either because it never mattered or perhaps because they assumed that such conversations would be private and face to face; however, some respondents indicated that they chose texting or social media because face to face contact was not feasible). People participated in CUIs out of their personal identities, rather than as supervisors, police officers, or other institutional role occupants. Scripts may be more commonly available for institutional identities than personal ones. So we have a general sense that CUIs are private experiences, emotionally negative to recall or participate in, and involve key matters of personal and relational identity. However, these are only simple generalizations, and some readers may find that the most interesting CUIs are public events, tap institutional identities, and result in positive feelings such as satisfaction. Research Question 2: Relationships Among Uncertainties, Feelings, Rumination, and Outcomes Besides asking for free-form descriptions of CUIs, we also requested that respondents provide us with some specific information that we felt pointed directly to our theorized nature for CUIs. These included people’s (un)certainty about participating in the conversations, their perceptions of the CUI’s characters, and their feelings while participating. Table 3 provides descriptive information on these measures (along with comparisons of the two samples), and Table 4 shows their correlations. Correlations involving the self-reports of emotions are in Table 5. In reading Table 3, readers should remember that the theoretical midpoint of these scales is 5.5, because this will help contextualize which matters stood out for respondents (e.g., politeness, argumentativeness, uncertainty, thankfulness) and which seemed irrelevant or rare to the CUI experience (e.g., rudeness, boredom). The two samples had quite comparable scores on nearly all the measures. The only real pattern of note is that the undergraduates had higher estimates of whether the other participant knew what was going on. While undergraduates and the older adults had somewhat different patterns of topic (Table 1) and consequentiality (Table 2), the general nature of CUIs seems not to have been very different for them. Table 4 shows how these subjective ratings of the CUI experience (excluding emotions, which are in Table 5) related to one another. The two samples have very comparable correlation matrices, with only a few coefficients being as much as .10 different between the two samples. Let us mention some of the most interesting results. An initial interest is the four certainty measures, because these implement our idea that CUIs are unscripted. Uncertainty about how to proceed was a shared experience, with self and other uncertainty before and during the conversation mostly having modest positive associations (the only exception being before the CUI for the mTurk respondents). Shared variance was only about 4%, however, so these are not strong associations. Own uncertainty dissipated in both samples (see the means in Table 3), but still had very large positive correlations between the before and during measures for both samples. Estimates of the other person’s certainty followed this same correlational pattern. Own certainty predicted that the conversation would be argumentative (that is, reason-filled) but not particularly conflictive (i.e., characterized by disagreement). The distinction between recalling that a CUI was argumentative and that it was conflictive has immediate implications for how to design interventions. Use of reasons implies that people are honestly try to think their way through the problem, but simple disagreement suggests that either they have little idea how to start or have lost hope as the episode progresses. Participants’ uncertainty had negligible associations with conflictual episodic character, but the more confident people were about how to proceed, the more they participated in exchanges of reasons and evidence. Both argumentative and conflictive episodes were recalled as stimulating reflection after the episode, implying that people might be open to instruction. Another element that points toward whether interventions will be more or less challenging is the emotionality of the episodes. Own certainty (i.e., knowledge of scripts) tended to produce slightly more polite exchanges, but rudeness was associated with the other person seeming not to know how to act. Rudeness was strongly associated with being conflictive, but not with being argumentative. The Table 3 results about emotional levels indicate that most of the self-reported feelings were around the theoretical midpoint of the scales or lower. Besides uncertainty, only sadness and worry seemed to stand out as potential barriers to help, and these were somewhat balanced by surprise and thankfulness. Table 5 deals explicitly with the interrelationships among the discrete emotions. We chose to analyze the correlations between the “during” and “after” recalled feelings for both samples. Since these were all single-item measures, it is worthwhile to begin by pointing out that the diagonals in the matrices indicate very high correlations between the measures at the two time points. Since these are conceptually separated by the experience of the CUI, these are not quite test-retest correlations, so they indicate at best a basement measure of reliability, and we judge those measures to be satisfactory. Those diagonal coefficients indicate a considerable stability of feelings during and after the CUIs. The emotions differed in their levels of mutual connectedness. Boredom, for example, was not associated with any of the other feelings (and Table 3 indicates that this feeling was pretty much never associated with CUIs). Concern for self-image was also largely independent of the other feelings, except for guilt and disappointment. All of the other self-reported discrete emotions had substantial connections with other elements of our battery. We will take notice here of the connections that seem most interesting to us. Self-reported uncertainty, one of the more salient feelings in Table 3, was directly connected to several other emotions. In both samples, higher feelings of uncertainty predicted more anger, disappointment, sadness, guilt, surprise, and worry. More certainty produced more happiness and thankfulness. Although Table 3 does not indicate that anger was very commonly felt, Table 5 shows that it was emotionally dangerous. High anger predicted more uncertainty, disappointment, sadness, surprise, and worry. Lower anger was associated with more happiness and thankfulness. Happiness and thankfulness regarding the conversation might well be two epiphenomena of successful interventions. They have fairly similar emotional profiles here. Greater happiness and thankfulness were associated with less anger, uncertainty, disappointment, sadness, guilt, and worry. This is a coherent emotional profile for helpers to target, and possibly an entry at any point in this dynamic pattern will ripple out to the other feelings. Table 5 reports many more associations but we will leave these to interested readers. Our overall answer to the second research question is as follows. CUIs tended to be experienced as having fairly routine (or absent) levels of emotions, except for uncertainty, argumentativeness, politeness, and thankfulness, all of which seem encouraging for the project of intervention. In fact, these tend to be positively correlated and so might constitute a single experiential density. Uncertainty about the conversation, a defining feature of CUIs, was one of the most central feelings in our emotional matrices (Table 5). It had implications or associations for all the other discrete emotions except boredom. Our theoretical orientation implies that interventions should aim at the absence of scripts for CUIs, but here is empirical evidence that this is also a central feature of people’s experience of them. Research Question 3: Associations between CUI Characteristics and Uncertainties, Feelings, Rumination, and Outcomes Our final research question seeks to connect the leading CUI characteristics (those that we coded) with the self-reports we also gathered. To simplify the analyses and increase cell counts (and because we have not been impressed with many of the differences between our samples), we combined our two samples for these analyses, which are summarized in Tables 6, 7, and 8. We found it most useful to combine many of our codes and to focus on those that seemed most informative and frequent. Within each focused set of comparisons, we sought to determine whether there were mean differences on the closed-ended measures. Table 6 shows how the various self-reports varied according to the general topic category of the CUI. Respondents’ certainty was highest (and higher than the theoretical midpoint, 5.5) for CUIs dealing with academic, workplace, and financial matters. The greatest uncertainty was reported when the conversations concerned sex, medical, or death issues. This was roughly the same pattern regardless of whether certainty was being reported as felt before or during the CUI. The other person’s levels of certainty followed almost the identical pattern, indicating that topics had the same level of estimated scriptedness for both participants. Politeness and rudeness had opposite patterns, of course, with the death, work, financial, and medical conversations being conducted the most pleasantly. The CUIs that were least characterized by reason-giving were those dealing with death. All the other topics had scores well above the theoretical midpoint. Death was also least conflictive, and romantic relationships stood out as having the most disagreement. Topic was not significantly associated with the degree to which people reviewed or mulled over the CUIs afterwards. Table 6 also reports all the emotional effects. Nearly all of these were statistically significant. Details are left to the readers, especially those particularly interested in one of the topical categories. Table 7 is parallel to Table 6, except that the topical categories have been replaced with other codings of interest and reasonably balanced frequencies. Because so many of the comparisons were weak and essentially null, only the means for the significant comparisons are displayed. A glance shows that the codes that distinguished the various self-reported reactions most clearly were those involved with consequences, which were reduced to relationship between the parties, health concerns, and issues about someone’s future. CUIs that bore on interpersonal relationships were associated with the greatest uncertainty about how to proceed, and people reported more security in their thinking about their futures. Relational consequences also led to the least politeness and most conflict. The emotional patterns are not simple to summarize, and so are again left to the reader. We were able to code whether the respondent conversed from a personal identity or an institutional one (e.g., teacher, subordinate). Participating in a CUI from a personal footing meant that the other person was more uncertain about the conversation, the interaction was less polite, and was more conflictive. Prior to the engagement, people acting out of their personal identities felt more uncertainty, disappointment, sadness, and guilt. After the CUI was finished, people in personal identities still had more anger, sadness, and guilt. Finally we simplified our respondent’s reaction codes to indicate merely whether the person conversed cooperatively or not (e.g., avoided the topic). Cooperation was associated with the other person being more certain how the conversation would go, more politeness, and less conflict. Cooperative respondents reported having less anger and more happiness and thankfulness prior to the CUI. After the CUI, cooperative people self-reported less anger, uncertainty, and worry, and more happiness and thankfulness. The least important of these codes was channel. Whether the CUI occurred face-to-face or not seemed to make little difference. Whether the CUI’s setting was public or private was not important across the board, but private exchanges were nonetheless associated with more reflection afterwards, more politeness during the conversation, less conflict, and less anger, uncertainty, and disappointment prior to the exchange. Finally, Table 8 reports results of several ANOVAs using relational effects as a predictor variable. This was respondents’ self-report of the CUI’s effect on the relationship between the people involved. The categories were the relationship ended, changed importantly for the worse, got a little worse, continued unchanged, improved a little, and changed in an important way for the better. Table 8 shows that relational outcome was generally predictive of the other self-reports. These tended to be ordered by the positivity of the relational outcome, but it should be noticed that at many points respondents seemed to favor stability or small changes in the relationships over larger improvements. Certainty was an exception, because for several of the measures, ending the relationship was associated with great clarity. Argumentativeness and conflictiveness were also high when the relationship ended as a result of the CUI. Thankfulness had an interesting curvilinear pattern, being highest when the relationship ended or improved the most. Many of the other emotional reports, however, showed improvement in valence as the relational outcome improved. In sum, Tables 6, 7, and 8 point us to this answer to our final research question. The CUI topics affected nearly every self-reported variable we measured, suggesting that this would be a productive way to begin dividing up the community CUI research project. Topics dealing with sex, medical issues, and death generated the greatest uncertainty in our data sets. Our consequence codes were almost as important as topic in distinguishing the various feelings and impressions that respondents communicated to us. Here, the relationship issues were associated with the least certainty about how to proceed. We also noticed that cooperative patterns of engagement by respondents seemed to be the most constructive. Ending the relationship was sometimes met with certainty, relief, and thankfulness. Improving the relationship also had some positive emotional associations. Discussion This has been an exploratory investigation of what we propose as an interesting and potentially productive idea, the consequential unscripted interaction (CUI). More or less by definition, these identify opportunities to improve people’s lives if we can convey useful interactional scripts or training to them. Although this paper has taken a theoretical and abstract tone, our real ambition is for researchers to identify CUIs, perhaps from the descriptions we have given, and move on to teach people more confident and useful ways of interacting. We have listed the topics we found in two different samples, as well as the consequences that made the conversations important to our informants. Our instrumentation might be useful in developing and testing interventions. Almost all respondents in both samples (only one respondent explicitly said he/she had never encountered a CUI) reported that they had been involved in a CUI. They seemed to have little trouble reporting an experience in which they felt they had an important conversation for which they did not have a script. Thus, it seems that CUIs are fairly common phenomena in everyday life, and so developing people’s skills to handle those situations probably will be very helpful. In both samples, the CUI experiences tended to be negative, with topics dealing with death, illness, relational threats, and so forth. Some people do not have scripts available for these important but negative topics, perhaps because people are generally reluctant to discuss negative information due to the discomfort associated with it (Conlee & Tesser, 1973), and thus have few experiences, either direct or virtual. For example, romantic relationship dissolution were found to be the most mentioned topic (more than 10% for both samples), followed by romantic relationship maintenance (also more than 10% for both samples, mostly about complaints in romantic relationships). Negative medical-related information and conversation about death were also mentioned repeatedly in both samples. Relatedly, data indicated that almost one third of respondents had negative emotions, with only 2.3% of the undergraduates and 0.4% of the mTurk respondents reporting positive emotions. This result may indicate that CUI issues naturally induce negative emotions or that CUIs are so difficult to handle that some people cannot do them, thus making training for CUIs useful. It is also interesting that CUIs were reported to happen more often in private settings, such as residences, about private matters, and to affect interpersonal relationships. People tend to have more developed schemas and scripts for familiar topics (Honeycutt & Bryan, 2011; Schank, 1982), so that the schema-activation process should start most effortlessly when encountering a situation that fits previously developed schemas. It can be expected that people normally have much experience dealing with personal issues (e.g., regarding mTurk sample’s average age, they should have at least some experience of romantic relationship maintenance), which should foster more developed corresponding schemas and scripts. 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Journal of Applied Communication Research, 39, 223-249. doi: 10.1080/00909882.2011.585399.  Table 1: Coding of Open-Ended CUI Topic Descriptions Krippendorf’s Undergrads mTurk alpha f % f % Topic .73 Sex (16) (6.4) (15) (6.6) Sexual orientation 3 1.2 10 4.3 Sex education 8 3.1 4 1.7 Sex talk 2 0.8 0 - Sex other 3 1.2 1 0.4 Illegal Activity (9) (3.6) (8) (3.5) Of respondent 3 1.2 3 1.3 Of other 0 - 1 0.4 Of third party 2 0.8 2 0.9 Religion 4 1.6 2 0.9 Medical (22) (8.8) (36) (15.9) Addiction 2 0.8 8 3.5 Mental illness 10 3.9 5 2.2 Physical illness/injury 10 3.9 12 5.2 Old age 0 - 4 1.7 Other 0 - 7 3.0 Finances (22) (8.8) (30) (13.2) Employment 0 - 5 2.2 Debt 3 1.2 9 3.9 College 15 5.8 4 1.7 Purchase or bargaining 0 - 1 0.4 Other 4 1.6 11 4.8 Romantic Relationship (63) (25.1) (54) (23.8) Initiation 4 1.6 2 0.9 Escalation 1 0.4 0 - Dissolution 31 12.1 26 11.3 Negotiate or maintain 27 10.5 26 11.3 Work/Job (25) (10.0) (25) (11.0) Salary 0 - 3 1.3 Resign 1 0.4 5 2.2 Complaint 2 0.8 4 1.7 Transfer/change job 2 0.8 3 1.3 Other 20 7.8 10 4.3 Academic (34) (13.5) (12) (5.3) College choice 13 5.1 2 0.9 Grades 3 1.2 0 - Failing school 1 0.4 1 0.4 Complaint 1 0.4 0 - Other 16 6.2 9 3.9 Death (18) (7.2) (9) (4.0) Own reaction 13 5.1 2 0.9 Another’s reaction 1 0.4 3 1.3 Explain to another 4 1.6 4 1.7 Other 42 16.3 33 14.3  Table 2: Coding of Open-Ended CUI Descriptions Except for Topic Krippendorf’s Undergrads mTurk alpha f % f % Did Conversation Happen? .78 Yes 248 96.5 213 92.6 No 6 2.3 16 7.0 Public Private Setting .79 Public 19 7.4 9 3.9 Private 51 19.8 34 14.8 Unclear 181 70.4 183 79.6 Respondent’s Setting .94 Academic 15 5.8 2 0.9 Residence 35 13.6 15 6.5 Commercial 5 1.9 3 1.3 Own workplace 11 4.3 22 9.6 Mobile (e.g., car) 3 1.2 3 1.3 Healthcare facility 3 1.2 8 3.5 Other/unclear 179 69.6 174 75.7 Channel .91 Face to face 119 46.3 77 33.5 Telephone 12 4.7 11 4.8 Text message 1 0.4 1 0.4 Social network private msg 2 0.8 0 - Other 117 45.5 138 60.0 Personal/institutional ID .88 Both personal identity 207 80.5 185 80.4 R institutional, O personal 4 1.6 1 0.4 R personal, O institutional 23 8.9 13 5.7 Both institutional identity 17 6.6 26 11.3 Relevant to a Decision? .71 Yes 81 31.5 60 26.1 No 168 65.4 167 72.6 Respondent Reaction .70 Cooperative 68 26.5 48 20.9 Uncoop, cut off conversation 1 0.4 0 - Uncoop, avoided conversation 2 0.8 3 1.3 Uncoop, made no response 7 2.7 6 2.6 Uncoop, other 49 19.1 53 23.0 Unclear 124 48.2 117 50.9 Respondent Emotion .72 Positive 6 2.3 1 0.4 Negative 71 27.6 85 37.0 Neutral or unclear 174 67.7 141 61.3 Key Consequentiality .71 Own self image 10 3.9 7 3.0 Other’s self image 1 0.4 1 0.4 Relationship betw the two 94 36.6 89 38.7 Relationship w 3d party 13 5.1 10 4.3 Own resources 9 3.5 8 3.5 Other’s resources 2 0.8 2 0.9 Joint resources 3 1.2 3 1.3 Third party resources 1 0.4 2 0.9 Own health 17 6.6 6 2.6 Other’s health 4 1.6 14 6.1 Third party’s health 3 1.2 5 2.2 Future: career 20 7.8 22 9.6 Future: academic 37 14.4 13 5.7 Future: family status 3 1.2 11 4.8 Future: finances 3 1.2 17 7.4 Other 31 12.1 14 6.1  Table 3: Descriptive Statistics for Closed-Ended Measures No. Undergrads mTurk Items alpha Mean SD alpha Mean SD t Self Certain Before 3 .83 5.62 2.65 .79 5.97 2.62 1.47 Other Certain Before 3 .83 5.66 2.67 .86 4.96 2.77 2.86** Self Certain During 3 .83 4.35 2.39 .82 4.70 2.50 1.57 Other Certain During 3 .90 5.51 2.53 .93 5.03 2.76 1.99* Reflected After 7 .78 6.41 1.86 .74 6.12 1.86 1.68 Politeness 1 - 7.09 3.00 - 6.77 3.18 1.14 Rudeness 1 - 3.48 3.07 - 3.73 3.40 0.86 Argumentative 1 - 7.91 2.26 - 7.85 2.51 0.29 Conflictive 1 - 4.71 3.21 - 5.59 3.47 2.88** During CUI Angry 1 - 4.57 3.39 - 4.63 3.56 0.21 Uncertain 1 - 6.91 2.78 - 7.04 2.92 0.50 Disappointed in Self 1 - 4.44 3.18 - 4.77 3.40 1.13 Happy w Conversation 1 - 4.14 2.91 - 3.66 2.93 1.83 Sad b/c Conversation 1 - 6.69 3.21 - 7.12 3.08 1.50 Guilty 1 - 4.80 3.33 - 5.34 3.31 1.80 Surprised 1 - 6.21 2.85 - 5.75 3.11 1.67 Worried 1 - 7.30 2.47 - 7.60 2.47 1.34 Thankful 1 - 6.33 3.11 - 6.11 3.32 0.76 Bored 1 - 2.13 1.74 - 2.15 2.06 0.14 Concerned for Self Image 1 - 5.11 3.29 - 4.43 3.26 2.26* Carefully Edited Messages 1 - 5.86 3.06 - 5.80 3.12 0.21 After CUI Angry 1 - 4.31 3.41 - 4.62 3.60 0.96 Uncertain 1 - 6.02 3.24 - 6.19 3.26 0.56 Disappointed in Self 1 - 4.19 3.20 - 4.53 3.43 1.13 Happy w Conversation 1 - 4.72 3.10 - 4.06 3.18 2.32* Sad b/c Conversation 1 - 6.16 3.36 - 6.78 3.25 2.06* Guilty 1 - 4.56 3.28 - 4.96 3.44 1.30 Surprised 1 - 6.05 2.91 - 5.79 3.16 0.94 Worried 1 - 5.86 3.24 - 6.27 3.27 1.39 Thankful 1 - 6.28 3.12 - 5.96 3.43 1.09 Bored 1 - 1.95 1.49 - 1.91 1.89 0.21 Concerned for Self Image 1 - 3.89 3.07 - 3.96 3.17 0.23 Note. N for the undergraduate sample was 257, and for the mTurk sample was 230. t tests are between the two samples, and df = 485, except when correction for unequal variances had to be made. * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001  Table 4: Correlations Among Closed-Ended Self-Report Measures, Except Emotions 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Undergraduates 1 Self Certain Before 2 Other Certain Before .15 3 Self Certain During .63 .10 4 Other Certain During .14 .71 .18 5 Reflective After .05 .08 -.03 .17 6 Politeness .12 .28 .08 .11 -.13 7 Rudeness -.01 -.17 -.03 -.06 .15 -.80 8 Argumentative .21 .16 .14 .16 .18 .09 .04 9 Conflictive .06 -.12 -.01 -.05 .25 -.63 .64 .21 mTurk Workers 1 Self Certain Before 2 Other Certain Before .01 3 Self Certain During .71 .13 4 Other Certain During .07 .78 .26 5 Reflective After -.04 -.02 -.15 .03 6 Politeness .18 .33 .11 .26 .03 7 Rudeness -.02 -.24 .06 -.11 .08 -.79 8 Argumentative .24 .07 .12 .07 .24 .17 .01 9 Conflictive .10 -.14 .09 -.06 .20 -.42 .57 .25 Note. For the undergraduate sample, correlations of |.13| or higher are significant at p < .05, two-tailed. For the mTurk sample, the parallel figure is |.14|.  Table 5: Correlations Among Closed-Ended Self-Report Measures of Emotions During the CUI 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Undergraduates After CUI 1 Anger .80 .32 .21 -.44 .38 .09 .22 .28 -.44 .01 -.06 2 Uncert .33 .56 .34 -.50 .47 .18 .32 .42 -.36 -.07 .00 3 Disapp .20 .35 .76 -.42 .35 .46 .13 .27 -.27 .01 .24 4 Happy -.38 -.35 -.20 .78 -.50 -.13 -.17 -.27 .63 .02 .08 5 Sad .37 .41 .27 -.54 .87 .31 .25 .43 -.32 -.09 -.06 6 Guilty .13 .22 .48 -.38 .42 .77 .10 .24 -.18 .08 .24 7 Surpr .17 .32 .10 -.25 .25 .10 .67 .34 -.17 -.09 .09 8 Worry .37 .44 .41 -.53 .53 .23 .35 .55 -.38 .01 .12 9 Thank -.35 -.15 -.19 .52 -.20 -.02 -.14 -.12 .85 -.07 -.02 10 Bored .07 -.07 .11 -.00 .11 .03 -.20 -.18 -.10 .64 .15 11 Self .04 .21 .41 -.21 .16 .34 .10 .15 -.15 .20 .65 mTurk Workers After CUI 1 Anger .81 .21 .08 -.31 .39 .14 .34 .12 -.30 .06 -.08 2 Uncert .30 .57 .30 -.37 .37 .26 .26 .37 -.24 -.06 .16 3 Disapp .18 .34 .77 -.23 .42 .67 .21 .32 -.18 .14 .36 4 Happy -.28 -.10 -.17 .75 -.41 -.17 -.11 -.09 .58 .17 .08 5 Sad .26 .24 .27 -.49 .83 .39 .21 .44 -.23 -.18 .02 6 Guilty .11 .26 .58 -.19 .50 .81 .17 .38 -.06 .02 .30 7 Surpr .23 .34 .16 -.08 .14 .12 .72 .32 -.06 -.07 .02 8 Worry .26 .41 .28 -.42 .44 .26 .34 .48 -.27 -.12 .08 9 Thank -.24 -.05 -.09 .55 -.25 -.09 -.09 .01 .83 .01 .06 10 Bored .06 -.15 .10 .23 -.11 .03 -.02 -.24 -.07 .86 .19 11 Self .00 .19 .42 -.04 .12 .35 .16 .21 -.07 .19 .73 Note. For the undergraduate sample, correlations of |.13| or higher are significant at p < .05, two-tailed. For the mTurk sample, the parallel figure is |.14|.  Table 6: Mean Differences by Topic Sex Med- Fin- Rom- Work Aca- Death ical ances antic demic p < Self Certainty Before CUI 4.7a 5.1a 6.6bc 5.6ab 6.9c 7.0c 4.5a .001 Other Certainty Before CUI 4.2a 4.6a 6.3c 4.8a 6.5c 6.0bc 5.0ab .001 Self Certainty During CUI 3.4a 4.1abc 5.2c 4.6bc 5.1bc 5.2c 4.0ab .01 Other Certainty During CUI 4.6a 4.3a 5.9bc 4.9ab 6.6c 6.1c 4.7a .001 Reflected Afterwards 6.1ab 6.3ab 6.0ab 6.6b 6.1ab 6.3ab 5.6a =.11 Polite During 6.8ab 7.6bc 7.6bc 6.0a 8.2c 7.5bc 8.5c .001 Rude During 3.4bc 2.7ab 3.3bc 4.4c 2.7ab 3.0ab 1.9a .001 Argumentative During 7.4b 7.7b 8.3b 8.4b 8.1b 8.0b 6.2a .001 Conflictive During 4.6b 4.2b 4.7b 6.5c 4.0b 5.0b 2.6a .001 During CUI Anger 4.6ab 4.2ab 3.9ab 5.5b 3.7a 3.4a 4.4ab .01 Uncertain 6.8ab 7.8b 6.9ab 7.2b 5.8a 6.9ab 6.8ab .05 Disappointed 3.6ab 4.6bc 5.6c 5.0bc 3.8ab 5.3c 2.5a .001 Happy 4.5cd 3.2ab 4.5cd 3.5bc 5.1d 5.2d 2.1a .001 Sad 5.2a 8.4c 6.6b 80c 4.6a 5.1a 8.5c .001 Guilty 4.3ab 5.4b 5.3b 5.5b 4.0ab 4.7ab 3.6a .05 Surprised 7.0b 5.7a 6.0ab 6.2ab 5.3a 5.5a 6.5ab =.09 Worried 7.7b 8.1b 7.6b 7.6b 7.0ab 6.4a 7.8b .01 Thankful 6.3ab 6.0ab 6.8b 6.8b 6.1ab 6.7b 5.2a =.21 Bored 1.9ab 1.9ab 2.2ab 1.9ab 2.7b 2.7b 1.5a .05 Concerned Neg Impression 4.6bc 3.7b 4.8bc 4.9bc 6.3d 5.5cd 2.3a .001 Carefully Edited 6.1bc 5.1ab 5.6b 6.1bc 7.0c 5.9bc 4.2a .01 After CUI Anger 4.2ab 4.0ab 4.3ab 5.1b 3.4a 3.2a 4.3ab .05 Uncertain 4.9a 6.7b 5.8ab 6.3ab 5.1a 5.3ab 6.4ab .05 Disappointed 3.0ab 4.3bc 5.1c 4.5c 3.7abc 5.1c 2.6a .01 Happy 5.7d 4.0ab 4.8bcd 4.1abc 5.3cd 5.8d 2.8a .001 Sad 4.9ab 7.8de 6.1bc 7.3cd 4.3a 4.7a 9.0e .001 Guilty 3.5a 5.1bc 5.2c 5.1bc 3.5a 4.3abc 3.7ab .01 Surprised 67.9b 5.9ab 5.8ab 6.1ab 5.0a 4.9a 6.6b .05 Worried 5.5ab 7.1c 5.5ab 6.3bc 5.2ab 4.8a 6.5bc .01 Thankful 6.1a 6.1a 6.6a 6.6a 6.0a 6.8a 5.9a =.70 Bored 1.9abc 1.6a 2.0abc 1.7ab 2.4bc 2.6c 1.3a .01 Concerned Neg Impression 3.7b 3.2b 3.9b 4.4b 4.5b 4.4b 1.5a .001 Note. For all analyses, df = 6/374. Means with the same letter within a row did not differ significantly according to Duncan post hoc tests at p < .05. The p values refer to the overall test of the one-way ANOVA. Entrees in that column beginning with “=” were not statistically significant.  Table 7: Mean Differences by Non-Topic Codes Public/Private Channel R’s Identity Reaction Consequences Pub Priv ftf Nftf Pers Instit Coop NCoop Relatn Health Fut SCertB 5.7b 4.9a 6.7c OCertB 5.6 4.1 5.2 6.4 4.6a 4.6a 6.4b SCertD OCertD 5.1 6.7 5.7 5.1 4.8a 4.4a 6.4b Reflec 7.3 6.3 Polite 6.0 8.2 6.8 8.2 8.1 6.6 5.7a 7.7b 8.0b Rude 4.5 2.4 2.2 4.0 4.7b 2.7a 2.6a Argtv Confl 5.4 3.9 5.3 4.1 4.0 5.5 6.4b 4.4a 4.4a During Angry 5.8 3.9 3.5 5.0 5.5b 4.3a 3.4a Uncert 8.3 6.8 7.1 5.7 Disapp 5.6 4.0 4.4 5.8 4.7 3.7 Happy 4.5 3.7 3.7a 3.5a 4.7b Sad 7.1 4.9 7.7b 7.8b 5.4a Guilty 5.1 4.1 5.8b 5.6ab 4.8a Surpr Worry 7.6ab 8.3b 7.1a Thank 6.9 6.0 Bored Neg Impr 4.6 6.1 4.8ab 3.9a 5.3b Edited 5.7 6.7 After Anger 4.6 3.5 3.2 4.9 5.3b 3.9a 3.4a Uncert 5.5 6.3 Disapp 4.1 5.8 Happy 5.3 4.1 4.3a 4.2a 5.3b Sad 6.7 4.6 7.1b 7.2b 5.0a Guilty 4.9 3.5 Surpr Worry 5.3 6.3 6.3ab 7.0b 5.5a Thank 6.9 5.9 Bored 1.9 2.4 1.6 2.0 1.7a 1.9ab 2.2b Neg Impr Note. Only when the ANOVA returned at statistically significant result are the means for a coded variable’s categories reported. Blanks indicate that the test was insignificant. The row variables are in the same order as in Table 6. Public/Private refers to whether the setting was public or private. Channel was recoded into face-to-face or not. Identities were recoded to indicate whether the respondent acted in his/her personal identity or an institutional one. Respondents’ reactions were recoded into cooperative or not. Consequences were recoded into relationship, health, and future issues, and the other categories omitted. Duncan post hoc tests were done for consequences. Table 8: Self-Report Means by Relational Outcomes End Imp Little No Imp Imp Worse Worse Dif Little Bettr p < Self Cert Before 5.7abc 4.8a 5.2ab 5.8bc 6.4c 5.9bc =.07 Other Cert Before 4.9a 4.9a 5.0ab 6.0b 5.5ab 5.1ab .05 Self Cert During 4.7b 3.8a 3.6a 4.8b 4.9b 4.3ab .05 Other Cert During 5.7b 5.7b 4.4a 5.7b 5.1ab 4.9ab .05 Reflected After 6.6a 6.0a 6.5a 6.0a 6.3a 6.3a =.19 Polite During 5.0ab 4.4a 5.6b 7.6c 7.6c 7.9b .001 Rude During 5.5c 5.7c 4.3b 2.8a 3.0a 2.9a .001 Argument During 8.2a 8.1a 7.3a 7.4a 8.2a 8.0a .05 Conflict During 7.3c 7.5c 5.9b 4.3a 4.7a 4.2a .001 During CUI Angry 6.6c 6.6c 5.2b 3.8a 4.1ab 3.8a .001 Uncertain 7.3a 7.0a 7.6a 7.0a 6.8a 6.8a =.58 Disappointed 4.9a 4.5a 5.5a 4.6a 4.7a 4.2a =.42 Happy 2.9a 2.1a 2.7a 3.9b 5.0b 4.6b .001 Sad 8.2b 8.8b 8.3b 6.0a 6.0a 6.6a .001 Guilty 5.3ab 5.5ab 6.1b 4.5a 5.0ab 5.0ab =.19 Surprised 6.1a 6.6a 6.3a 5.4a 6.1a 6.2a =.22 Worried 7.9bc 7.9bc 8.4c 6.8a 7.1ab 7.6abc .01 Thankful 6.0c 3.3a 4.5b 5.4bc 7.3d 7.5d .001 Bored 1.9a 2.2ab 1.8a 2.9b 2.2ab 1.8a .001 Concern Neg Image 5.2a 4.7a 4.9a 4.8a 5.0a 4.5a =.69 Carefully Edited 6.0a 5.1a 6.4a 5.7a 6.0a 5.8a =.60 After CUI Angry 6.7bc 7.3c 6.0b 3.8a 3.9a 3.1a .001 Uncertain 7.1b 7.2b 7.7b 5.8a 5.4a 5.6a .001 Disappointed 4.9ab 4.9ab 6.0b 4.4a 4.1a 3.6a .001 Happy 3.2b 2.0a 3.5b 4.2b 5.4c 5.4c .001 Sad 7.7b 8.8b 7.9b 5.9a 5.4a 6.0a .001 Guilty 5.2ab 5.1ab 5.8b 4.4ab 4.3a 4.7ab =.21 Surprised 6.4a 6.6a 5.9a 5.5a 6.2a 5.8a =.25 Worried 6.9bc 7.7cd 8.1d 5.9ab 5.0a 5.5a .001 Thankful 5.7b 3.6a 4.6ab 5.4b 7.1c 7.3c .001 Bored 1.6a 2.1a 1.8a 2.7b 1.9a 1.5a .001 Concern Neg Image 4.6b 4.5b 4.7b 4.2ab 3.6ab 3.2a .01 Note. Means with the same letter within a row did not differ significantly according to Duncan post hoc tests at p < .05. The p values refer to the overall test of the one-way ANOVA. Entrees in that column beginning with “=” were not statistically significant.