Interpersonal Communication

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Interpersonal Communication

• Theoretical Perspectives
• Part I II
• Berger (2005)

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Theory Explication

• Theory
• ..set of interrelated propositions that
  stipulate relationships among theoretical
  constructs and an account of the mechanisms that
  explain the relationships stipulated in the
  propositions (p. 417)
• Theories
• Provide explanations for the observed
  regularities
• Date without theory ? babies without parents ?
  low life expectancy
• Better to have theorized and lost then never to
  have theorized at all

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Organization of the Theoretical Review

• Possible to organize theoretical activity within
  the interpersonal communication domain into at
  lest six distinct areas
• Interpersonal Adaptation
• Verbal and nonverbal adjustments and adaptations
  that individuals make during f-t-f interaction
• Message Production
• Uncertainty Reduction
• Deceptive Communication
• Dialectical Theories
• Mediated Social Interaction

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Interpersonal Adaptation Theories

• Originated outside the communication field
• Social interaction governed by the norm of
  reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960 Jourard, 1971)
• Equilibrium theory or Affiliative Conflict theory
  individuals seek to balance autonomy and
  affiliative needs during interaction when
  equilibrium is disrupted, it produces anxiety and
  individuals engage in behaviors aimed at
  restoring balance (Argyle Dean, 1965)
• Speech (Communication) Accommodation theory
  individuals tend to alter such attributes of
  speech as dialect and accent in their direction
  of their partners speech style (Giles
  Powesland, 1975)
• Convergent vs. Divergent speech accommodation

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Interpersonal Adaptation Theories

• From a communication perspective
• Researchers sought to explicate the conditions
  under which reciprocity and compensation are
  likely to occur during social interaction
• Exemplars of adaptation theories that accorded
  arousal a central role in determining which
  interaction pattern would occur
• Proximic (Expectancy) violations theory
• Arousal labeling theory
• Discrepancy arousal theory
• Cognitive valence theory
• INTERACTION ADAPTATION THEORY formulated to
  overcome some of the limitations of these other
  theories

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Interaction Adaptation Theory

• Premised on several principles (p. 419)
• Biological pressures to adapt social interaction
  patterns desire to mesh and show interaction
  synchrony
• Social pressures toward behavioral reciprocity
  and matching
• Both reciprocity and compensation at the level of
  communication
• Theory postulates
• Cyclical variations in approach and avoidance
  drives also determine whether interaction
  participants will show patterns of reciprocity or
  compensation
• Theory identifies 3 sets of factor that are
  important determinants of individuals
  interaction expectations
• R Required factors are related to individuals
  basic needs and drives
• E Expectations reflect individual cognitive
  representation or social norms, social
  prescriptions, individuated knowledge about the
  others behaviors as well as functions or goals
  germane to the current situation
• D Desired level of the behaviors includes
  individuals personal goals and preferences

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Interaction Adaptation Theory - Continued

• The RED factors combine to determine the
  interaction position (IP) construct
• IP overall assessment of what the individual
  needs, anticipates and prefers as the interaction
  pattern in particular situations
• IP and A (actual behavior of interaction partner)
  together determine patterns of interaction
  adaptation
• If IP and A match or are within a tolerable
  range matching or reciprocity will likely occur
• Large IP-A discrepancies potentiate behavioral
  change, cognitive change or both
• When individuals receive more of the behavior
  they want, they are more likely to move in the
  direction of their partner
• When individuals receive less than the
  expectations implicated in their IP
  compensation ensues

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Message Production Theories (MPT)

• MPT concerned with the relationship between
  individuals cognitive complexity and their
  message production abilities
• Exemplars
• Constructivism
• Argued that individuals whose constructs for
  construing other people are more differentiated,
  integrated, and abstract are better able to
  generate listener-adapted messages and are thus
  better able to achieve their interaction goals
  than are their less cognitively complex
  counterparts (p. 420)
• Comforting research
• Person-centered communication
• Message design logics

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Action Assembly Theory (AAT)

• Goals of AAT
• Specification of the mechanisms by which
  individuals produce verbal and nonverbal
  behavioral outputs during their interactions
• Provision of a unique perspective on social
  interaction skills
• Theorys fundamental structural unit procedural
  record (PR)
• PR long-term memory associative network
  consisting of nodes that represent features of
  actions, outcomes, and situations nodes linked
  by associative pathways
• PR activated and assembled to form coherent
  output representations of the action to be taken
• Action assembly both top-down and bottom-up

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Other Message Production Theories

• Memory Organization Packets
• MOP - organizes scenes in the stream of discourse
• Scenes generalized cognitive representations of
  goal-directed action sequences that share
  features across contexts (e.g. greetings and
  goodbyes)
• Contextual variations accounted for by specific
  scripts attached to scenes (e.g. airport goodbye
  scene vs. goodbye scene at ones residence)
• Plans and Planning theories
• Plans
• Hierarchical cognitive representations of
  goal-directed action sequences
• May be formulated as social interaction episodes
  unfold, or plans successfully used in past
  episodes, or those canned and saved in long-term
  memory
• The hierarchy principle suggests that individuals
  are more likely to alter concrete rather than
  abstract plan features because they require less
  cognitive effort
• Individuals whose interaction plans are more
  complex, more concrete, and look further ahead in
  the conversation are more likely to achieve their
  interaction goals that are less complex

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Uncertainty Theories

• Interactions involve certain amount of
  uncertainty
• Uncertainty may be subjectively experience or
  unconscious
• Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) explains
  recurring interaction patterns observed during
  initial encounters
• URT proposed 7 axioms from which 21 theorems
  were devised
• Amounts of verbal and nonverbal communication
  postulated to be reciprocally related to
  uncertainty and this, in turn, was related to
  such variables as intimacy of self-disclosures,
  attraction, and information-seeking
• Reward value of conversational partners, degree
  to which their behavior conformed to normative
  expectations, and the probability of future
  interaction later stipulated as conditions
  prompting concern for reducing uncertainty

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URT - Continued

• URT motivated research concerning the active,
  passive, and/or interactive strategies
  individuals use to obtain information from others
• Alternate versions of the theory provide some
  credibility in terms of explaining certain
  aspects of intercultural encounters, social
  support, and organizational behavior
• Uncertainty management theory (UMT), on the other
  hand, argues that individuals may experience
  uncertainty in different ways, and under certain
  circumstances, they may seek to increase, rather
  than reduce, their uncertainty (e.g. health exam
  results)

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Deception Theories

• Deception
• integral to the conduct of everyday social
  encounters (e.g. to maintain face)
• during everyday social encounters frequent
  successful
• Early research focused on deception detection
  and degree to which behaviors of deceivers
  differed from that of non-deceivers
• Results of such research suggested that
• Individuals are not particularly good at
  detecting deception
• No one non-verbal cue is likely to be a reliable
  indicator of deception across situations
• Exemplars
• Information manipulation Interpersonal
  deception theories

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Information Manipulation Theory

• According to the theory, information can be
  manipulated along the dimensions of quantity,
  quality, relevance, and manner to produce
  misleading messages
• Verbal messages that satisfy the four maxims can
  also be deceptive depending on the nonverbals
  accompanying the message e.g. sarcasm
• In response to questions raised about the
  theorys status, McCornack, the creator of the
  theory, claimed that IMT is not actually a
  theory at all because it does not provide any
  testable propositions or falsifiable hypotheses

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Interpersonal Deception Theory

• Eighteen propositions included in the theory
  intended to explain intentional acts of deception
  rather than unintended lies
• Theory predicated on a number of postulates,
  including
• the truth bias
• the idea that deceptive messages usually involve
• a central deceptive message that is verbal
• verbal and nonverbal cues designed to lend
  credibility to the deceptive message
• leakage (inadvertent nonverbal cues)
• the enactment and detection of deception place
  greater demand on cognitive resources than would
  be expected in non-deceptive situations

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Dialectical Perspectives

• Relational dialectics
• Dialectics meta-theoretical perspectives that
  describes a small set of conceptual assumptions
  (Baxter Montgomery, 1996, p. 6)
• These assumptions include
• Contradiction
• Unity of oppositions (e.g. autonomy vs.
  connection)
• Change
• Interplay of oppositions results in relationships
  being in a constant state of flux change is
  constant
• Praxis
• Individuals prior choices constrain their future
  choices
• Totality
• Embodies the notion that a given phenomenon can
  only be understood by their relationships with
  other phenomena

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Communication Privacy Management Theory

• Seeks to explain the regulation and control of
  disclosure of private information
• Acts of self-disclosure predicated on a
  rule-based management system aids decisions
  about the way privacy boundaries are regulated
• Theory postulates that
• Individuals assume that they own or co-own
  private information with others and revealing
  that information may lead to feelings of
  vulnerability
• As a result,, control over boundaries is critical
  and rule management processes serve to regulate
  the revelation versus concealment of private
  information
• Of particular relevance to researchers interested
  in health communication (e.g. sharing health
  status info with patients, family members, and
  health care professionals)

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Mediated Social Interaction

• Two lines of research that have developed within
  the domain of computer-mediated-communication are
  particularly germane to interpersonal
  communication researchers
• The first of these lines of inquiry concerns the
  potential deleterious effects of the new
  technologys use
• Internet addiction
• Internet use and social isolation/loneliness
• Escapism and alienation
• The second research area of interest to
  interpersonal communication researchers involves
  FtF interaction as a kind of gold standard
  against which to compare CMC
• Extent to which loss of nonverbal cues in
  text-based CMC influences a variety of outcomes

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Social Information Processing Theory (SIPT)

• Devised in an effort to explain differences in
  the effects that might or might not be produced
  FtF and text-based CMC (Walther, 1992)
• Theory predicted
• When CMC groups were allowed more time during
  which to communicate, the differences between FtF
  and CMC in terms of the relative amounts of
  task-related vs. socio-emotional communication
  would tend to disappear
• Walther argued that CMC may be not as efficient
  as FtF, in general, but it might be as effective
  when time pressures are minimal