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Jon Hess
Associate Professor
education: PhD, University of Minnesota (1996)
email: HessJ@missouri.edu
office: 203A Switzler Hall
phone: 573-882-7795
web: http://web.missouri.edu/%7Ehessj/

Dr. Jon Hess's scholarship centers on relationship maintenance. His research examines how people deal with challenges in maintaining relationships, such as getting along with people we dislike, managing closeness and distance in intimate relationships, and talking about sex. He also examines how relational dynamics such as immediacy or face support affect educational outcomes in college classes. His research has been published in Human Communication Research, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Personal Relationships, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Communication Education, and more.

Jon's research has been recognized with the International Network on Personal Relationships dissertation award for best dissertation in 1996-1997 and with 5 top-four awards for papers he has presented at regional and national conferences. He has been a popular correspondent with media outlets, doing numerous newspaper, radio, and TV interviews about his research. Media outlets have included the BBC, the Boston Globe, Cosmopolitan, and more. Jon recently completed a term as the Book Reviews Editor for the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Frequently Taught Courses
Comm 3100 Controversies in Communication
Comm 3561 Relational Communication
Comm 4440 Communication Ethics
Comm 4520 Family Communication
Comm 8320 Communication in Relationship Change

Research Interests
Relational maintenance
Closeness and distance in personal relationships
Instructional impact of student-teacher relationships (including immediacy and facework)

Selected Recent Publications
Hess, J. A., Fannin, A. D., & Pollom, L. H.  (2007).  Creating closeness: Discerning and measuring strategies for fostering closer relationships. Personal Relationships, 14, 25-44.

Hess, J. A., Omdahl, B. L., & Fritz, J. M. H. (2006). Turning points in relationships with disliked coworkers. In J. M. H. Fritz & B. L. Omdahl (Eds.), Problematic relationships in the workplace (pp. 205-232). New York: Peter Lang Publishers.

Smythe, M. J., & Hess, J. A. (2005). Are student self-reports a valid method for measuring teacher nonverbal immediacy? Communication Education, 54, 170-179.

Kerssen-Griep, J., Hess, J. A., & Trees, A. R. (2003). Sustaining the desire to learn: Dimensions of perceived instructional facework related to student involvement and motivation to learn. Western Journal of Communication, 67, 357-381.

Hess, J. A. (2002). Distance regulation in personal relationships: The development of a conceptual model and a test of representational validity. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 19, 663-683.