ABSTRACT
As W E HAVE CONSIDERED VARIOUS ASPECTS OF INTERACTION AMONG HUMAN beings we have often made the assumption that individuals have effects upon one another as if there were direct contact between the psychological processes of different persons. The attitudes of each member of an interaction group are in one way or another affected by the attitudes of other members, but the process by which they do so is not direct and immediate, nor is it magical; it involves a mediating mechanism called communication. The phenomena of communication are not uniquely human; they can be readily observed in animals, for example. They are also essential to the functioning of all organized systems, including the physiological coordination of organ and tissues in living organisms, and the electronic coordination of computers. It is human beings, however, and especially their coordination in interaction groups, that interest us.
