Cst communication theory

communications discussion question and need the explanation and answer to help me learn.

Using uncertainty reduction theory as your guide, formulate specific predictions about the different reactions of incoming college students who participate in the following initial orientation sessions: (1) a four-day, intensive experience with 10 other new students exploring a wilderness area; (2) a two-hour discussion at the house of a professor; and (3) an evening of conversation and entertainment with a senior or junior. Explain each prediction in terms of specific axioms and theorems
Requirements: 3 paragraph

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A FIRST LOOK ATCOMMUNICATIONTHEORYEIGHTH EDITIONEM GRIFFIN
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A FIRST LOOK ATCOMMUNICATIONTHEORYEIGHTH EDITIONEM GRIFFINWheaton CollegeSpecial Consultants:Glenn G. SparksPurdue UniversityAndrew M. LedbetterTexas Christian UniversityTM
TMPublished by McGraw-Hill, an imprint of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Copyright © 2012, 2009, 2006, 2003, 2000, 1997, 1994, 1991. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.This book is printed on acid-free paper.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 QDB/QDB 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1ISBN: 978-0-07-353430-5MHID: 0-07-353430-7Executive Vice President, Editorial: Michael RyanPublisher: David PattersonExecutive Editor: Susan GouijnstookExecutive Marketing Manager: Leslie OberhuberDirector of Development: Rhona RobbinSenior Developmental Editor: Jennie KatsarosSenior Project Manager: Holly IrishProduction Service: Merrill Peterson, Matrix Productions, Inc.Media Project Manager: Jabez BethuelManuscript Editor: Toni Zuccarini AckleyCover Designer: Preston ThomasBuyer II: Tandra JorgensenComposition: 10/12 Palatino by Aptara,® Inc.Printing: 45# New Era Matte Plus, Quad/GraphicsCredits: The credits section for this book begins on page C-1 and is considered an extension of the copyright page. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataGrifi n, Emory A. A i rst look at communication theory / Em Grifi n.—8th ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-07-353430-5 1. Communication—Philosophy. I. Title. P90.G725 2011 302.201—dc22 2011001159The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a website does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill, and McGraw-Hill does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.www.mhhe.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOREm Griffin is Professor Emeritus of Communication at Wheaton College in Illinois, where he has taught for more than 35 years and has been chosen Teacher of the Year. He received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the Univer-sity of Michigan, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in communication from Northwestern University. His research interest centers on the development of close friendships.Em is the author of three applied communication books: The Mind Changers analyzes practical techniques of persuasion; Getting Together offers research-based suggestions for effective group leadership; and Making Friends describes the way quality interpersonal communication can create and sustain close relationships.In addition to teaching and writing, Em serves with Opportunity Interna-tional, a microi nance development organization that provides opportunities for people in chronic poverty around the world to transform their lives. He is also an active mediator at the Center for Conl ict Resolution in Chicago and runs his own mediation service, Communication First.Em’s wife, Jeanie, is an artist; they recently celebrated 50 years of marriage. They have two married, adult children, Jim and Sharon, and six grandchildren, Joshua, Amy, Sam, Kyle, Alison, and Dan.v
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viiCONTENTSPreface for Instructors xDIVISION ONEOVERVIEWCHAPTER 1Launching Your Study of Communication Theory 2CHAPTER 2Talk About Theory 13CHAPTER 3Weighing the Words 25CHAPTER 4Mapping the Territory (Seven Traditions in the Field of Communication Theory) 37DIVISION TWOINTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONInterpersonal Messages 52CHAPTER 5Symbolic Interactionism of George Herbert Mead 54CHAPTER 6Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) of W. Barnett Pearce & Vernon Cronen 67CHAPTER 7Expectancy Violations Theory of Judee Burgoon 84CHAPTER 8Constructivism of Jesse Delia 98Relationship Development 111CHAPTER 9Social Penetration Theory of Irwin Altman & Dalmas Taylor 113CHAPTER 10Uncertainty Reduction Theory of Charles Berger 125CHAPTER 11Social Information Processing Theory of Joseph Walther 138Relationship Maintenance 151CHAPTER 12Relational Dialectics of Leslie Baxter & Barbara Montgomery 153CHAPTER 13Communication Privacy Management Theory of Sandra Petronio 168CHAPTER 14The Interactional View of Paul Watzlawick 181
viii CONTENTSInl uence 192CHAPTER 15Social Judgment Theory of Muzafer Sherif 194CHAPTER 16Elaboration Likelihood Model of Richard Petty & John Cacioppo 205CHAPTER 17Cognitive Dissonance Theory of Leon Festinger 217DIVISION THREEGROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONGroup Communication 231CHAPTER 18Functional Perspective on Group Decision Making of Randy Hirokawa & Dennis Gouran 233CHAPTER 19Symbolic Convergence Theory of Ernest Bormann 247Organizational Communication 259CHAPTER 20Cultural Approach to Organizations of Clifford Geertz & Michael Pacanowsky 261CHAPTER 21Critical Theory of Communication in Organizations of Stanley Deetz 272Public Rhetoric 287CHAPTER 22The Rhetoric of Aristotle 289CHAPTER 23Dramatism of Kenneth Burke 299CHAPTER 24Narrative Paradigm of Walter Fisher 308DIVISION FOURMASS COMMUNICATIONMedia and Culture 319CHAPTER 25Media Ecology of Marshall McLuhan 321CHAPTER 26Semiotics of Roland Barthes 332CHAPTER 27Cultural Studies of Stuart Hall 344Media Effects 355CHAPTER 28Uses and Gratii cations of Elihu Katz 357CHAPTER 29Cultivation Theory of George Gerbner 366CHAPTER 30Agenda-Setting Theory of Maxwell McCombs & Donald Shaw 378DIVISION FIVECULTURAL CONTEXTIntercultural Communication 392CHAPTER 31Communication Accommodation Theory of Howard Giles 394
CONTENTS ixCHAPTER 32Face-Negotiation Theory of Stella Ting-Toomey 407CHAPTER 33Speech Codes Theory of Gerry Philipsen 421Gender and Communication 433CHAPTER 34Genderlect Styles of Deborah Tannen 435CHAPTER 35Standpoint Theory of Sandra Harding & Julia Wood 447CHAPTER 36Muted Group Theory of Cheris Kramarae 460DIVISION SIXINTEGRATIONCHAPTER 37Common Threads in Comm Theories 473Appendix A: Abstracts of Theories A-1Appendix B: Feature Films that Illustrate Communication Theories A-6Appendix C: NCA Credo for Ethical Communication A-8Endnotes E-1Credits and Acknowledgments C-1Index I-1
xPREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORSIf you’re already familiar with A First Look at Communication Theory and under-stand the approach, organization, and main features of the book, you may want to jump ahead to the “Major Changes in the Eighth Edition” section. For those who are new to the text, reading the entire preface will give you a good grasp of what you and your students can expect.A Balanced Approach to Theory Selection. I’ve written A First Look for students who have no background in communication theory. It’s designed for undergraduates enrolled in an entry-level course, regardless of the students’ clas-sii cation. The trend in the i eld is to offer students a broad introduction to theory relatively early in their program. But if a department chooses to offer its i rst theory course on the junior or senior level, the course will still be the students’ i rst comprehensive look at theory, so the book will meet them where they are. The aim of the text is to present 32 specii c theories in a way that makes them interesting and understandable. By the time readers complete the book, they should have a working knowledge of theories that explain a broad range of com-munication phenomena. Of course, my ultimate goal is for students to understand the relationships among the leading ideas in our i eld, but before they can make those connections, they need to have a good grasp of what the theorists are saying. The bulk of the book provides that raw material.With the help of journal and yearbook editors, and the feedback of 200 instructors, I’ve selected a range of theories that rel ect the diversity within the discipline. Some theories are proven candidates for a Communication Theory Hall of Fame. For example, Aristotle’s analysis of logical, emotional, and ethical appeals continues to set the agenda for many public-speaking courses. Mead’s symbolic interactionism is formative for interpretive theorists who are dealing with language, thought, self-concept, or the effect of society upon the individual. Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory was the i rst objective theory to be crafted by a social scientist trained in the i eld. The axioms of Watzlawick’s interactional view continue to be debated by interpersonal scholars. And no student of medi-ated communication should be ignorant of Gerbner’s cultivation theory, which explains why heavy television viewing cultivates fear of a mean and scary world.It would be shortsighted, however, to limit the selection to the classics of communication. Some of the discipline’s most creative approaches are its newest. For example, Leslie Baxter and Barbara Montgomery’s theory of relational dia-lectics offers insight into the ongoing tensions inherent in personal relationships.
PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS xiJoe Walther’s social information processing is one of the few fully developed and well-researched theories of computer-mediated communication. And Gerry Philipsen’s speech codes theory upgrades the ethnography of communication from a methodology to a theory that can be used to explain, predict, and control discourse about discourse.Organizational Plan of the Book. Each chapter introduces a single theory in 10–15 pages. I’ve found that most undergraduates think in terms of discrete packets of information, so the concentrated coverage gives them a chance to focus their thoughts while reading a single chapter. In this way, students can gain an in-depth understanding of important theories rather than acquire only a vague familiarity with a jumble of related ideas. The one-chapter–one-theory arrange-ment also gives teachers the opportunity to drop theories or rearrange the order of presentation without tearing apart the fabric of the text. The i rst four chapters provide a framework for understanding the theo-ries to come. The opening chapter, “Launching Your Study of Communication Theory,” presents working dei nitions of both theory and communication, and also prepares students for the arrangement of the chapters and the features within them. Chapter 2, “Talk About Theory,” lays the groundwork for understanding the differences between objective and interpretive theories. Chapter 3, “Weigh-ing the Words,” presents two sets of criteria for determining a good objective or interpretive theory. Based on Robert Craig’s (University of Colorado) conception, Chapter 4, “Mapping the Territory,” introduces seven traditions within the i eld of communication theory. Following this integrative framework, I present the 32 theories in 32 self-contained chapters. Each theory is discussed within the context of a commu-nication topic: interpersonal messages, relationship development, relationship maintenance, inl uence, group communication, organizational communication, public rhetoric, media and culture, media effects, intercultural communication, and gender and communication. These communication context sections usually contain two or three theories. Each section’s two-page introduction outlines a cru-cial issue that theorists working in this area address. The placement of theories in familiar contexts helps students recognize that theories are answers to questions they’ve been asking all along. The i nal chapter, “Common Threads in Comm Theories,” offers students a novel form of integration that will help them discern order in the tapestry of communication theory that might otherwise seem chaotic.Because all theory and practice has value implications, I briel y explore a dozen ethical principles throughout the book. Consistent with the focus of this text, each principle is the central tenet of a specii c ethical theory. Other disciplines may ignore these thorny issues, but to discuss communication as a process that is untouched by questions of good and bad, right and wrong, or virtue and vice would be to disregard an ongoing concern in our i eld.Features of Each Chapter. Most people think in pictures. Students will have a rough time understanding a theory unless they apply its explanations and inter-pretations to concrete situations. The typical chapter uses an extended example to illustrate the “truth” a theory proposes. I encourage readers to try out ideas by visualizing a i rst meeting of freshman roommates, responding to conl ict in a dysfunctional family, trying to persuade other students to support a zero-tolerance policy on driving after drinking, and many others. I also use Toni Morrison’s book Beloved, speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and the i lms Bend It Like Beckham, Thank You for Smoking, Erin Brockovich, and When Harry Met
xii PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORSSally to illustrate principles of the theories. The case study in each chapter follows the pedagogical principle of explaining what students don’t yet know in terms of ideas and images already within their experience.Some theories are tightly linked with an extensive research project. For exam-ple, the impact of cognitive dissonance theory was greatly spurred by Festinger’s surprising i nding in his now classic $1/$20 experiment. Philipsen’s speech codes theory began with a three-year ethnographic study of what it means to speak like a man in “Teamsterville.” And Delia’s constructivist research continues to be de-pendent on Crockett’s Role Category Questionnaire. When such exemplars exist, I describe the research in detail so that students can learn from and appreciate the benei ts of grounding theory in systematic observation. Thus, readers of A First Look are led through a variety of research designs and data analyses.Students will encounter the names of Baxter, Berger, Bormann, Burgoon, Burke, Deetz, Fisher, Giles, Kramarae, Pacanowsky, Pearce, Philipsen, Ting-Toomey, Walther, Wood, and many others in later communication courses. I therefore make a concerted effort to link theory and theorist. By pairing a particu-lar theory with its originator, I try to promote both recall and respect for a given scholar’s effort.The text of each chapter concludes with a section that critiques the theory. This represents a hard look at the ideas presented in light of the criteria for a good theory outlined in Chapter 3. Some theorists have told me that I am a “friend” of their theory. I appreciate that. I want to present all of them in a constructive way, but after I provide a summary of the theory’s strengths, I then discuss the weaknesses, unanswered questions, and possible errors that remain. I try to stimu-late a “That makes sense, and yet I wonder . . .” response among students.I include a short list of thought questions at the end of each chapter. Labeled “Questions to Sharpen Your Focus,” these probes encourage students to make connections among ideas in the chapter and also to apply the theory to their everyday communication experience. As part of this feature, words printed in italics remind students of the key terms of a given theory.Each chapter ends with a short list of annotated readings entitled “A Second Look.” The heading refers to resources for students who are interested in a theory and want to go further than a 10- to 15-page introduction allows. The top item is the resource I recommend as the starting point for further study. The other list-ings identify places to look for material about each of the major issues raised in the chapter. The format is designed to offer practical encouragement and guidance for further study without overwhelming the novice with multiple citations. The sources of quotations and citations of evidence are listed in an “Endnotes” section at the end of the book.I believe professors and students alike will get a good chuckle out of the cartoons I’ve selected for each chapter and section introduction. The art’s main function, however, is to illustrate signii cant points in the text. As in other editions, I’m committed to using quality cartoon art from The New Yorker and Punch maga-zines, as well as comic strips such as “Calvin and Hobbes,” “Dilbert,” “Cathy,” and “Zits.” Perceptive cartoonists are modern-day prophets—their humor serves the education process well when it slips through mental barriers or attitudinal defenses that didactic prose can’t penetrate.While no author considers his or her style ponderous or dull, I believe I’ve presented the theories in a clear and lively fashion. Accuracy alone does not com-municate. I’ve tried to remain faithful to the vocabulary each theorist uses so that
PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS xiiithe student can consider the theory in the author’s own terms, but I also translate technical language into more familiar words. Students and reviewers cite read-ability and interest as particular strengths of the text. I encourage you to sample a chapter so you can decide for yourself.In 12 of the chapters, you’ll see photographs of the theorists who appear in my “Conversations with Communication Theorists,” eight-minute video clips of our discussions together. The text that accompanies each picture previews a few intriguing comments the theorists made so students can watch the interview with a specii c purpose in mind. You can i nd these videos on the book’s website, www.ai rstlook.com. I encourage you to check out the website for other features that can equip you to make theory exciting for your students. Features include information on movie clips that illustrate specii c theories, student application log entries that show Kurt Lewin was right when he said that there’s nothing as practical as a good theory, and a comparison of all major comm theory texts to i nd out what theories are cov-ered in each book. Many of you will appreciate the theory archive, which contains more than 20 complete chapters from previous editions. This way you can assign one of your favorites if it isn’t in the current edition. The most popular resource on the site is the world-class instructor’s manual prepared by Emily Langan, which accounts for the vast majority of the 40,000 log-ins per month. In the password-protected, instructors-only section of the site, you’ll i nd suggestions for discus-sions, classroom exercises and activities, and short-answer quizzes for each chapter.Major Changes in the Eighth Edition. With the strong encouragement of a focus group and the results of an extensive online survey, I’ve added three new theories to this edition. Sandra Petronio’s communication privacy management theory has garnered great interest in the last decade. Though applicable whenever private information is disclosed, CPM’s relevance in the expanding i eld of health com-munication makes its inclusion in the text particularly appropriate. In previous editions I’ve used an abbreviated version of Ernest Bormann’s symbolic convergence theory to illustrate the different criteria for evaluating scientii c and interpretive theories. I now devote an entire chapter to this important group theory that com-bines rhetorical criticism with the desire for universal principles. And because the uses and gratii cations approach of Elihu Katz changed the direction of media-effects theory and research, I’m pleased to introduce his work in this edition. In order to make room for those last two theories, I’ve moved my coverage of adaptive struc-turation theory and spiral of silence to the theory archive at www.ai rstlook.com.I’ve streamlined all of the integration chapters. I’ve transferred my discussion of research from Chapter 2, “Talk About Theory” to Chapter 3, “Weighing the Words,” where quantitative or qualitative research becomes a sixth standard for a good objective or interpretive theory. Because I’ve moved my description of sym-bolic convergence theory to a stand-alone chapter, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 are shorter and more focused. In the previous edition, Chapter 4 illustrated the seven traditions of communication theory with a potpourri of early theories, research programs, and quotations that could confuse or overwhelm beginning students. In this edition, I describe how each tradition studies friendship, a topic near and dear to most college students. The end result is that these three integrative chap-ters are clearer and briefer, and do more to demonstrate the relationship between theory and research.For the last 15 years in my communication theory course, I’ve given an “application log” assignment in which students write a paragraph or two applying
xiv PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORSeach theory to some aspect of their own lives or the world around them. When I read some exemplars in class, they are fascinated with the way their peers put theory into practice. I’ve inserted an application log entry into most chapters where I think it will not only spark interest, but also reinforce the specii c feature of the theory I’m describing. In each case, the writer has given me explicit permis-sion to do so.I’ve made at least one signii cant change in two-thirds of the theory chapters. This may be a research update, a shift in the theorist’s thinking, a new example that runs throughout the theory, or a complete reorganization of the chapter. Here are a few examples: In the chapter on social judgment theory, I describe a media campaign at a Big Ten university that changed students’ perception and behavior by placing messages on binge drinking within students’ latitude of noncommit-ment. The treatment of social information processing (SIP) now addresses impres-sion formation on social networking sites like Facebook. Instead of illustrating the functional perspective on group decision making with an example of a faculty search committee (most students couldn’t care less), I now describe how two groups of students in similar off-campus courses made quite different decisions on how they would live together. And the entire chapter on cultivation theory has been restructured. Acknowledgments. Working closely with three former students and friends has made crafting this edition an exciting and enjoyable project. Emily Langan, my colleague at Wheaton, has written an instructor’s manual that is recognized as the gold standard by others in our i eld. Instructors tell me they walk into class with coni dence after reading Emily’s insights regarding a theory and her account of best practices on how to help students grasp and appreciate it. On the title page of the book, Glenn Sparks (Purdue University) and Andrew Ledbetter (Texas Christian University) are listed as “Special Consultants.” What does this ambiguous title mean? For me, it signii es that they’ve been involved in every major decision I’ve made for this edition. They were partners in creat-ing questions and interpreting the answers for a focus group and online survey of instructors teaching a communication theory course. They counseled me on changes that needed to be made and how best to make them. They read and made detailed comments on my drafts of new material. And they gladly took owner-ship of a few chapters in the book. Andrew did the rewrites of the chapters on social penetration, social information processing, and muted group theory. Glenn authored the new chapter on uses and gratii cations and did a major rewrite of the chapter on cultivation theory. Emily, Andrew, and Glenn have contributed in ways that are above and beyond what any author has a right to expect. It’s been a delight working with them.I gratefully acknowledge the wisdom and counsel of many other generous scholars whose intellectual capital is embedded in every page you’ll read. Over the last 24 years, hundreds of communication scholars have gone out of their way to make the book better. People who have made direct contributions to this edition include Ron Adler, Santa Barbara City College; Ron Arnett, Duquesne University; Julie Borkin, Oakland University; Brant Burleson, Purdue University; Stan Deetz, University of Colorado; Linda Desidero, University of Maryland; Thomas Discenna, Oakland University; Steve Duck, University of Iowa; Belle Edson, Arizona State University; Darin Garard, Santa Barbara City College; Howard Giles, University of California, Santa Barbara; Donna Gotch, California State University, San Bernardino; John Harrigan, Erie Community College; Cheris
PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS xvKramarae, University of Oregon; Erina MacGeorge, Purdue University; Glen McClish, San Diego State University; Max McCombs, University of Texas; Marty Medhurst, Baylor University; Melanie Mills, Eastern Illinois University; Barnett Pearce, Fielding Graduate Institute; Russ Proctor, Northern Kentucky University; Read Schuchardt, Wheaton College; Paul Stob, Vanderbilt University; Stella Ting-Toomey, California State University, Fullerton; Scott Turcott, Indiana Wesleyan University; Robert Woods Jr., Spring Arbor University. Without their help, this edition would be less accurate and certainly less interesting. My relationships with the professionals at McGraw-Hill have been highly satisfactory. I am grateful for Susan Gouijnstook, Executive Editor; Erika Lake, Editorial Coordinator; Leslie Oberhuber, Executive Marketing Manager; and Holly Irish, one of two Production Editors on the project. Jennie Katsaros, Senior Development Editor, Merrill Peterson, Production Editor from Matrix Produc-tions, and Penny Smith, Assistant Production Editor at Matrix are the three people with whom I’ve gladly worked most closely. Jennie has been my go-to person at McGraw-Hill for the last i ve editions of the text—we’ve seen it all together. Merrill’s and Penny’s competence instills coni dence that the job will be done right; in a crisis they are unl appable. When McGraw-Hill coni rmed that Merrill and Penny would shepherd the production process, I knew I could relax. I’ve also been well-served by three outside contractors: Jenn Meyer, a com-mercial computer artist, created and revised i gures on 24-hours notice; Judy Brody achieved the impossible by making the extensive permissions process en-joyable; Robyn Tellefsen was my student research assistant for the fourth edition of the book and is now a freelance writer and editor. When I wanted to work with someone who was familiar with the content and who I trusted implicitly, Robyn enthusiastically agreed to edit new material before I submitted it and proofread the entire text before it went to the printer. Other authors are envious when they hear of my good fortune to work with these nine people.My research assistants for this edition have been Elizabeth Wilhoit and Ben Robertson. Elizabeth saw me through the i rst half of the project before she en-tered a graduate program in rhetoric at Purdue. Ben, a media-studies honor stu-dent at Wheaton, picked up where Elizabeth left off. His work included the daunt-ing task of constructing the book’s extensive index while the publishing deadline loomed. I’m grateful for Elizabeth’s and Ben’s cheerful and helpful can-do attitude throughout the process. Colleagues at other schools are amazed when they hear of the dedicated and sophisticated help I receive from Wheaton undergraduates. Finally, I gratefully recognize the continued encouragement, understanding, and loving support of my wife, Jean—not just on this project, but throughout 50 years of marriage. Her love, sense of humor, and parallel passion to create art and glorious music for others has made it possible for me to throw myself into this project. Em Grifi n
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A FIRST LOOK ATCOMMUNICATIONTHEORYEIGHTH EDITIONEM GRIFFIN
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DIVISION ONEOverview CHAPTER 1. Launching Your Study of Communication Theory CHAPTER 2. Talk About Theory CHAPTER 3. Weighing the Words CHAPTER 4. Mapping the Territory (Seven Traditions in the Field of Communication Theory)
1 CHAPTER Launching Your Studyof Communication Theory This is a book about theories—communication theories. After that statement you may already be stil ing a yawn. Many college students, after all, regard theory as obscure, dull, and irrelevant. People outside the classroom are even less char-itable. An aircraft mechanic once chided a professor: “You academic types are all alike. Your heads are crammed so full of theory, you wouldn’t know which end of a socket wrench to grab. Any plane you touched would crash and burn. All Ph.D. stands for is ‘piled higher and deeper.’” The mechanic could be right. Yet it’s ironic that even in the process of knock-ing theory, he resorts to his own theory of cognitive overload to explain what he sees as the mechanical stupidity of scholars. I appreciate his desire to make sense of his world. Here’s a man who spends a big hunk of his life making sure that planes stay safely in the air until pilots are ready to land. When we really care about something, we should seek to answer the why and what if questions that always emerge. That was the message I heard from University of Arizona communication theorist Judee Burgoon when I talked with her in my series of interviews, Conversations with Communication Theorists. 1 If we care about the fas-cinating subject of communication, she suggested, we’ve got to “do theory.” WHAT IS A THEORY AND WHAT DOES IT DO? In earlier editions I’ve used theory as “an umbrella term for all careful, sys-tematic, and self-conscious discussion and analysis of communication phenom-ena,” a dei nition offered by University of Minnesota communication professor Ernest Bormann. 2 I like this dei nition because it’s general enough to cover the diverse theories presented in this book. Yet the description is so broad that it doesn’t give us any direction on how we might construct a theory, nor does it offer a way to i gure out when thoughts or statements about communication haven’t attained that status. If I call any idea a “theory,” does saying it’s so make it so? In my discussion with Judee Burgoon, she suggested that a theory is nothing more than a “set of systematic hunches about the way things operate.” 3 Since Burgoon is the most frequently cited female scholar in the i eld of communica-2
CHAPTER 1: LAUNCHING YOUR STUDY OF COMMUNICATION THEORY 3tion, I was intrigued by her unexpected use of the nontechnical term hunch . Would it therefore be legitimate to entitle the book you’re reading Communication Hunches ? She assured me that it would, quickly adding that they should be “informed hunches.” So for Burgoon, a theory consists of a set of systematic, informed hunches about the way things work. In the rest of this section, I’ll examine the three key features of Burgoon’s notion of a theory. First, I’ll focus on the idea that theory consists of a set of hunches. But a set of hunches is only a starting point. Second, I’ll discuss what it means to say that those hunches have to be From The Big Book of Hell © 1990 by Matt Groening. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, NY. Courtesy of Acme Features Syndicate.
4 OVERVIEWinformed. Last, I’ll highlight the notion that the hunches have to be systematic. Let’s look briel y at the meaning of each of these core concepts of theory. A Set of Hunches If a theory is a set of hunches, it means we aren’t yet sure we have the answer. When there’s no puzzle to be solved or the explanation is obvious, there’s no need to develop a theory. Theories always involve an element of speculation, or conjecture. Being a theorist is risky business because theories go beyond accepted wisdom. Once you become a theorist you probably hope that all thinking people will eventually embrace the trial balloon that you’ve launched, but when you i rst l oat your theory, it’s dei nitely in the hunch category. By referring to a plural “set of hunches” rather than a single “hunch,” Bur-goon makes it clear that a theory is not just one inspired thought or an isolated idea. The young theorist in the cartoon may be quite sure that dogs and bees can smell fear, but that isolated conviction isn’t a theory. A developed theory offers some sort of explanation. For example, how are bees and dogs able to sniff out fright? Perhaps the scent of sweaty palms that comes from high anxiety is qualitatively different than the odor of people perspiring from hard work. A theory will also give some indication of scope. Do only dogs and bees possess this keen sense of smell, or do butterl ies and kittens have it as well? Theory construction involves multiple hunches. Informed Hunches Bormann’s description of creating communication theory calls for a careful, self-conscious analysis of communication phenomena, but Burgoon’s dei nition asks for more. It’s not enough simply to think carefully about an idea; a theo-rist’s hunches should be informed . Working on a hunch that a penny thrown from the Empire State Building will become deeply embedded in the sidewalk, the young theorist has a responsibility to check it out. Before developing a theory, there are articles to read, people to talk to, actions to observe, or exper-iments to run, all of which can cast light on the subject. At the very least, a communication theorist should be familiar with alternative explanations and interpretations of the type of communication they are studying. (Young Theo-rist, have you heard the story of Galileo dropping an apple from the Leaning Tower of Pisa?) Pepperdine University communication professor Fred Casmir’s description of theory parallels Burgoon’s call for multiple informed hunches: Theories are sometimes dei ned as guesses—but signii cantly as “educated” guesses. Theories are not merely based on vague impressions nor are they acciden-tal by-products of life. Theories tend to result when their creators have prepared themselves to discover something in their environment, which triggers the process of theory construction. 4 Hunches That Are Systematic Most scholars reserve the term theory for an integrated system of concepts. A theory not only lays out multiple ideas, but also specii es the relationships among Theory A set of systematic, in-formed hunches about the way things work.
CHAPTER 1: LAUNCHING YOUR STUDY OF COMMUNICATION THEORY 5them. In common parlance, it connects the dots. The links among the informed hunches are clearly drawn so that a whole pattern emerges. None of the young theories in the cartoon rise to this standard. Since most of the nine are presented as one-shot claims, they aren’t part of a conceptual framework. One possible exception is the dual speculation that “adults are really Martians, and they’re up to no good.” But the connecting word and doesn’t really show the relationship of grown-ups’ unsavory activity and their hypothesized other-world origin. To do that, the young theorist could speculate about the basic character of Martians, how they got here, why their behavior is suspicious, and whether today’s youth will turn into aliens when they become parents. A theory would then tie together all of these ideas into a unii ed whole. As you read about any theory covered in this book, you have a right to expect a set of systematic , informed hunches. Images of Theory In response to the question, What is a theory? I’ve presented a verbal dei nition. Many of us are visual learners as well and would appreciate a concrete image that helps us understand what a theory is and does. I’ll therefore present three metaphors that I i nd helpful, but will also note how an over-reliance on these representations of theory might lead us astray. Theories as Nets: Philosopher of science Karl Popper says that “theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’ . . . . We endeavor to make the mesh ever i ner and i ner.” 5 I appreciate this metaphor because it highlights the ongoing labor of the theorist as a type of deep-sea angler. For serious scholars, theories are the tools of the trade. The term the world can be interpreted as everything that goes on under the sun—thus requiring a grand theory that applies to all communication, all the time. Conversely, catching the world could be construed as calling for numerous special theories—different kinds of small nets to capture distinct types of commu-nication in local situations. Yet either way, the quest for i ner-meshed nets is some-what disturbing because the study of communication is about people rather than schools of i sh. The idea that theories could be woven so tightly that they’d snag everything that humans think, say, or do strikes me as naive. The possibility also raises questions about our freedom to choose some actions and reject others. Theories as Lenses: Many scholars see their theoretical constructions as similar to the lens of a camera or a pair of glasses as opposed to a mirror that accurately rel ects the world out there. The lens imagery highlights the idea that theories shape our perception by focusing attention on some features of communication while ignoring other features, or at least pushing them into the background. Two theorists could analyze the same communication event—an argument, perhaps—and depending on the lens each uses, one theorist may view this speech act as a break-down of communication or the breakup of a relationship, while the other theorist will see it as democracy in action. For me, the danger of the lens metaphor is that we might regard what is seen through the glass as so dependent on the theoretical stance of the viewer that we abandon any attempt to discern what is real or true. Theories as Maps: I use this image when I describe the First Look text to others. Within this analogy, communication theories are maps of the way communica-tion works. The truth they depict may have to do with objective behaviors “out there” or subjective meanings inside our heads. Either way we need to have
6 OVERVIEW WHAT IS COMMUNICATION? To ask this question is to invite controversy and raise expectations that can’t be met. Frank Dance, the University of Denver scholar credited for publishing the i rst comprehensive book on communication theory, cataloged more than 120 def-initions of communication —and that was more than 40 years ago. 7 Communication scholars have suggested many more since then, yet no single dei nition has risen to the top and become the standard within the i eld of communication. When it comes to dei ning what it is we study, there’s little discipline in the discipline. At the conclusion of his study, Dance suggested that we’re “trying to make the concept of communication do too much work for us.” 8 Other communication theorists agree, noting that when the term is used to describe almost every kind of human interaction, it’s seriously overburdened. Michigan Tech University communication professor Jennifer Slack brings a splash of reality to attempts to draw dei nitive lines around what it is that our theories and research cover. She declares that “there is no single, absolute essence of communication that ade-quately explains the phenomena we study. Such a dei nition does not exist; nei-ther is it merely awaiting the next brightest communication scholar to nail it down once and for all.” 9 Despite the pitfalls of trying to dei ne communication in an all-inclusive way, it seems to me that students who are willing to spend a big chunk of their col-lege education studying communication deserve a description of what it is they’re looking at. Rather than giving the i nal word on what human activities can be legitimately referred to as communication , this designation would highlight the essential features of communication that shouldn’t be missed. So for starters I offer this working dei nition: Communication is the relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response. To the extent that there is redeeming value in this statement, it lies in drawing your attention to i ve features of communication that you’ll run across repeatedly as you read about the theories in the i eld. In the rest of this section I’ll l esh out these concepts. 1. Messages Messages are at the very core of communication study. University of Colorado communication professor Robert Craig says that communication involves “talking and listening, writing and reading, performing and witnessing, or, more generally, doing anything that involves ‘messages’ in any medium or situation.” 10 Communication The relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a re-sponse. theory to guide us through unfamiliar territory. In that sense this book of theories is like a scenic atlas that pulls together 32 must-see locations. It’s the kind of travel guide that presents a close-up view of each site. I would caution, however, that the map is not the territory. 6 A static theory, like a still photograph, can never fully portray the richness of interaction between people that is constantly chang-ing, always more varied, and inevitably more complicated than what any theory can chart. As a person intrigued with communication, aren’t you glad it’s this way?
CHAPTER 1: LAUNCHING YOUR STUDY OF COMMUNICATION THEORY 7 When academic areas such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, literature, and philosophy deal with human symbolic activity, they inter-sect with the study of communication. The visual image of this intersection of interests has prompted some to refer to communication as a crossroads discipline . The difference is that communication scholars are parked at the junction focusing on messages, whereas other disciplines are just passing through on their way to other destinations. All of the theories covered in this book deal specii cally with messages. Communication theorists use the word text as a synonym for a message that can be studied, regardless of the medium. This book is a text. So is a verbatim transcript of a conversation with your instructor, a recorded presidential news conference, a silent YouTube video, or a Kelly Clarkson song on your iPod. To illustrate the following four parts of the dei nition, suppose you received this cryptic text message from a close, same-sex friend: “Pat and I spent the night together.” You immediately know that the name Pat refers to the person with whom you have an ongoing romantic relationship. An analysis of this text and the context surrounding its transmission provides a useful case study for exam-ining the essential features of communication. 2. Creation of Messages This phrase in the working dei nition indicates that the content and form of a text are usually constructed, invented, planned, crafted, constituted, selected , or adopted by the communicator. Each of these terms is used in one or more of the theories I describe, and they all imply that the communicator is usually making a conscious choice of message form and substance. For whatever reason, your friend sent a text message rather than meeting face-to-face, calling you on the phone, sending an email, or writing a note. Your friend also chose the seven words that were transmitted to your cell phone. There is a long history of textual analysis in the i eld of communication, wherein the rhetorical critic looks for clues in the message to discern the motivation and strategy of the person who created the message. There are, of course, many times when we speak, write, or gesture in seem-ingly mindless ways—activities that are like driving on cruise control. These are preprogrammed responses that were selected earlier and stored for later use. In like manner, our repertoire of stock phrases such as thank you, no prob-lem, whatever , or a string of swear words were chosen sometime in the past to express our feelings, and over time have become habitual responses. Only when we become more mindful of the nature and impact of our messages will we have the ability to alter them. That’s why consciousness-raising is a goal of i ve or six of the theories I’ll present—each one seeks to increase our commu-nication choices. 3. Interpretation of Messages Messages do not interpret themselves. The meaning that a message holds for both the creators and receivers doesn’t reside in the words that are spoken, writ-ten, or acted out. A truism among communication scholars is that words don’t mean things, people mean things . Symbolic interactionist Herbert Blumer states its Text A record of a message that can be analyzed by others; for example, a book, film, photograph, or any transcript or re-cording of a speech or broadcast.
8 OVERVIEWimplication: “Humans act toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things.” 11 What is the meaning of your friend’s text message? Does “spent the night together” mean talking until all hours? Pulling an all-night study session? Sleeping on the sofa ? Making love? If it’s the latter, was Pat a willing or unwilling partner (perhaps drunk or the victim of acquaintance rape)? How would your friend characterize their sexual liaison? Recreational sex? A chance hookup? Friends with benei ts? Developing a close relationship? Falling in love? The start of a long-term com-mitment? Perhaps of more importance to you, how does Pat view it? What emo-tional meaning is behind the message for each of them? Satisfaction? Disappointment? Surprise? The morning-after-the-night-before blahs? Gratefulness? Guilt? Ecstasy? And i nally, what does receiving this message through a digital channel mean for you, your friendship, and your relationship with Pat? None of these answers are in the message. Words and other symbols are polysemic—they’re open to multiple interpretations. 4. A Relational Process The Greek philosopher Heraclites observed that “one cannot step into the same river twice.” 12 These words illustrate the widespread acceptance among com-munication scholars that communication is a process . Much like a river, the l ow of communication is always in l ux, never completely the same, and can only be described with reference to what went before and what is yet to come. This means that the text message “Pat and I spent the night together” is not the whole story. You’ll probably contact both your friend and Pat to ask the clarifying ques-tions raised earlier. As they are answered or avoided, you’ll interpret the message in a different way. That’s because communication is a process, not a freeze-frame snapshot. In the opening lines of her essay “Communication as Relationality,” Univer-sity of Georgia rhetorical theorist Celeste Condit suggests that the communica-tion process is more about relationships than it is about content. Communication is a process of relating. This means it is not primarily or essen-tially a process of transferring information or of disseminating or circulating signs (though these things can be identii ed as happening within the process of relating). 13 Communication is a relational process not only because it takes place between two or more persons, but also because it affects the nature of the connections among those people. It’s obvious that the text message you received will inl u-ence the triangle of relationships among you, Pat, and your (former?) friend. But this is true in other forms of mediated communication as well. Television view-ers and moviegoers have emotional responses to people they see on the screen. And as businesses are discovering, even the impersonal recorded announcement that “this call may be monitored for the purpose of quality control” has an impact on how we regard their corporate persona. 5. Messages That Elicit a Response This i nal component of communication deals with the effect of the message upon people who receive it. For whatever reason, if the message fails to stimulate
CHAPTER 1: LAUNCHING YOUR STUDY OF COMMUNICATION THEORY 9any cognitive, emotional, or behavioral reaction, it seems pointless to refer to it as communication . We often refer to such situations as a message “falling on deaf ears” or the other person “turning a blind eye.” That nonresponse is different than the prison warden’s oft-quoted line in Paul Newman’s classic i lm Cool Hand Luke . 14 When Luke repeatedly breaks the rules laid down by the warden, this man who insists on being called Boss drawls, “Luke, what we have here is a failure to communicate.” He’s wrong. Luke understands and actively resists the clearly stated rules; the Boss responds violently to Luke’s insubordination and his attempts to escape. Both men respond to the message of the other. In like manner, surely you would respond to your friend’s cryptic message—one way or another. In fact, the text seems to be crafted and sent in a way to provoke a response. How closely your thoughts, feelings, words, or other reac-tions would match what your friend expected or intended is another matter. But whether successful or not, the whole situation surrounding the text and context of the message i ts the working dei nition of communication that I hope will help you frame your study of communication theory: Communication is the relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response. AN ARRANGEMENT OF IDEAS TO AID COMPREHENSION Now that you have a basic understanding of what a communication theory is, knowing how I’ve structured the book and arranged the theories can help you grasp their content. That’s because I’ve organized the text to place a given theory in a conceptual framework and situational context before I present it. After this chapter, there are three more integrative chapters in the “Overview” division. For Chapter 2 , I’ve asked two leading communication scholars to analyze a highly acclaimed TV ad in order to illustrate how half the theories in the book are based on objective assumptions, while the other half are constructed using an interpretive set of principles. Chapter 3 presents criteria for judging both kinds of theory so you can make an informed evaluation of a theory’s worth rather than relying solely on your gut reaction. Finally, Chapter 4 describes seven tradi-tions of communication theory and research. When you know the family tree of a theory, you can explain why it has a strong afi nity with some theories but doesn’t speak the same language as others. Following this overview, there are 32 chapters that run 10–15 pages apiece, each concentrating on a single theory. I think you’ll i nd that the one-chapter, one-theory format is user-friendly because it gives you a chance to focus on a single theory at a time. This way they won’t all blur together in your mind. These chapters are arranged into four major divisions according to the primary communication context that they address. The theories in Division Two, “Interpersonal Communication,” consider one-on-one interaction. Division Three, “Group and Public Communica-tion,” deals with face-to-face involvement in collective settings. Division Four, “Mass Communication,” pulls together theories that explore electronic and print media. Division Five, “Cultural Context,” explores systems of shared meaning that are so all-encompassing that we often fail to realize their impact upon us. These four divisions are based on the fact that theories are tentative answers to questions that occur to people as they mull over practical problems in specii c situations. It therefore makes sense to group them according to the different communication settings that usually prompt those questions. The organizational
10 OVERVIEWplan I’ve described is like having four separately indexed i le cabinets. Although there is no natural progression from one division to another, the plan provides a convenient way to classify and retrieve the 32 theories. Finally, Division Six, “Integration,” seeks to distill core ideas that are com-mon to a number of theories. Ideas have power, and each theory is driven by one or more ideas that may be shared by other theories from different commu-nication contexts. For example, there’s at least one theory in each of the four context divisions committed to the force of narrative. They each declare that people respond to stories and dramatic imagery with which they can identify. Reading about key concepts that cut across multiple theories wouldn’t mean much to you now, but after you become familiar with a number of communica-tion theories, it can be an eye-opening experience that also helps you review what you’ve learned. CHAPTER FEATURES TO ENLIVEN THEORY In many of the chapters ahead, I use an extended example from life on a college campus, a well-known communication event, or the conversations of characters in movies, books, or TV shows. The main purpose of these illustrations is to provide a mind’s-eye picture of how the theory works. The imagery will also make the basic thrust of the theory easier to recall. But if you can think of a situation in your own life where the theory is relevant, that personal application will make it doubly interesting and memorable for you. You might also want to see how others put the theories into practice. With my students’ permission, I’ve weaved in their accounts of application for almost all the theories featured in the text. I’m intrigued by the rich connections these students make—ones I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. Some students draw on scenes from short stories, novels, or movies. To see an annotated list of feature i lm scenes that illustrate the theories, go to the book’s website, www.ai rstlook.com, and under Theory Resources, click on Suggested Movie Clips. I make a consistent effort to link each theory with its author. It takes both wisdom and courage to successfully plant a theoretical l ag. In a process similar to the childhood game king-of-the-hill, as soon as a theorist constructs a theory of communication, critics try to pull it down. That’s OK, because the value of a theory is discerned by survival in the rough-and-tumble world of competitive ideas. For this reason I always include a section in theory chapters labeled “Critique.” Theorists who prevail deserve to have their names associated with their creations. There is a second reason for tying a theory to its author. Many of you will do further study in communication, and a mastery of names like Deetz, Giles, Walther, Baxter, Berger, and Burke will allow you to enter into the dialogue without being at a disadvantage. Ignoring the names of theorists could prove to be false economy in the long run. Don’t overlook the three features at the end of each chapter. The queries under the title “Questions to Sharpen Your Focus” will help you mull over key points of the theory. They can be answered by pulling together information from this text and from the text of your life. The italicized words in each question highlight terms you need to know in order to understand the theory. Whenever you see a picture of the theorist, it’s captured from one of my Conversations with
CHAPTER 1: LAUNCHING YOUR STUDY OF COMMUNICATION THEORY 11Communication Theorists and shown alongside a brief description of what we talked about. You can view these 6- to 8-minute interviews at www.ai rstlook.com . And the feature entitled “ A Second Look ” offers an annotated bibliography of resources should you desire to know more about the theory. You’ll i nd it a good place to start if you are writing a research paper on the theory or are intrigued with a particular aspect of it. You’ve already seen the last feature I’ll mention. In every chapter and section introduction I include a cartoon for your learning and enjoyment. Cartoonists are often modern-day prophets. Their incisive wit can illustrate a feature of the theory in a way that’s more instructive and memorable than a few extra para-graphs would be. In addition to enjoying their humor, you can use the cartoons as minitests of comprehension. Unlike my comments on “Young Theories” ear-lier in this chapter, I usually don’t refer to the art or the caption that goes with it. So if you can’t i gure out why a particular cartoon appears where it does, make a renewed effort to grasp the theorist’s ideas. Some students are afraid to try. Like travelers whose eyes glaze over at the sight of a road map, they have a phobia about theories that seek to explain human intentions and behavior. I sympathize with their qualms and misgivings, but I i nd that the theories in this book haven’t dehydrated my life or made it more confusing. On the contrary, they add clarity and provide a sense of com-petence as I communicate with others. I hope they do that for you as well. Every so often a student will ask me, “Do you really think about communi-cation theory when you’re talking to someone?” My answer is “Yes, but not all the time.” Like everyone else, I often say things while speaking on automatic pilot—words, phrases, sentences, descriptions rolling off my tongue without con-scious thought. Old habits die hard. But when I’m in a new setting or the con-versational stakes are high, I start to think strategically. And that’s when the applied wisdom of theories that i t the situation comes to mind. By midterm, many of my students discover they’re thinking that way as well. That’s my wish for you as you launch your study of communication theory. 1. Suppose you share the aircraft mechanic’s suspicion that scholars who create theories would be all thumbs working on a plane’s ailerons or engine. What would it take to transform your hunch into a theory ? 2. Which metaphor offered to capture the meaning of theory do you i nd most helpful—theory as a net , a lens , or a map ? Can you think of another image that you could use to explain to a friend what this course is about? 3. Suppose you want to study the effects of yawns during intimate conversa-tions. Would your research fall under communication as dei ned as the relational process of creating and interpreting messages to elicit a response ? If not, how would you change the dei nition to make it include your interest? 4. You come to this course with a vast array of communication experiences in interpersonal, group and public, mass media, and intercultural contexts . What are the communication questions you want to answer, puzzles you want to solve, problems you want to i x? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS
12 OVERVIEW A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Gregory Shepherd, Jeffrey St. John, and Ted Striphas (eds.), Com-munication as . . . Perspectives on Theory , Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2006. Diverse dei nitions of communication: Frank E.X. Dance, “The Concept of Communica-tion,” Journal of Communication, Vol. 20, 1970, pp. 201–210. Focus on messages: George Gerbner, “Mass Media and Human Communication Theory,” in Frank E.X. Dance, Human Communication Theory: Original Essays, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1967, pp. 40–60. Communication as human symbolic interaction: Gary Cronkhite, “On the Focus, Scope and Coherence of the Study of Human Communication,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. 72, No. 3, 1986, pp. 231–246. Theories of communication as practical: J. Kevin Barge, “Practical Theory as Mapping, Engaged Rel ection, and Transformative Practice,” Communication Theory, Vol. 11, 2001, pp. 5–13. Integration of scientii c and humanistic theories: Karl Erik Rosengren, “From Field to Frog Ponds,” Journal of Communication, Vol. 43, No. 3, 1993, pp. 6–17. Multidimensional view of theory: James A. Anderson and Geoffrey Baym, “Philosophies and Philosophic Issues in Communication, 1995–2004,” Journal of Communication, Vol. 54, 2004, pp. 589–615. Differences in theoretical scope: Ernest Bormann, Communication Theory, Shefi eld, Salem, WI, 1989, pp. 81–101.
Talk About Theory I met Glenn Sparks and Marty Medhurst my i rst year teaching at Wheaton Col-lege. Glenn and Marty were friends who signed up for my undergraduate per-suasion course. As students, both men were interested in broadcast media. After graduating from Wheaton, each went on for a master’s degree at Northern Illi-nois University. Each then earned a doctorate at a different university, and both are now nationally recognized communication scholars. Glenn is on the faculty at Purdue University; Marty is at Baylor University. Despite their similar backgrounds and interests, Glenn and Marty are quite different in their approaches to communication. Glenn calls himself a behavioral scientist , while Marty refers to himself as a rhetorician . Glenn’s training was in empirical research; Marty was schooled in rhetorical theory and criticism. Glenn conducts experiments; Marty interprets texts. To understand the theories ahead, you need to i rst grasp the crucial differ-ences between the objective and interpretive approaches to communication. As a way to introduce the distinctions, I asked Glenn and Marty to bring their scholarship to bear on a television commercial that was i rst aired a few months before Super Bowl XLI. Both the commercial and the game featured football star Peyton Manning. TWO COMMUNICATION SCHOLARS VIEW A DIEHARD FAN In 1998 Peyton Manning was drafted to play quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. A year earlier, MasterCard had launched its “Priceless” campaign, which suggests that the credit card company has both a sense of humor and the wisdom to realize that some of the best things in life can’t be bought, no matter what your credit limit. Nine years later, Peyton and “Priceless” commercials were still going strong. Manning was poised to lead the Colts to a 2007 Super Bowl victory, and MasterCard was using his star power to project the company’s image. Adweek sets the scene: Peyton Manning is one of the few superstar athletes who shows he can act in his commercials. We’ve seen his cheerleader-for-the-everyday guy before. This time he’s rooting for the waitress who drops her tray, the latte guy who’s burned by escaping steam, and the movers who let a piano escape down a hill. “That’s okay guys. They’re not saying ‘boo,’ they’re saying ‘mooooooovers.’” 1 The fourth scene, captured in Figure 2–1 , is Manning shouting encourage-ment to the paperboy who made an errant throw: “That’s alright, Bobby. You’ve Behavioral scientistA scholar who applies the scientific method to describe, predict, and explain recurring forms of human behavior.RhetoricianA scholar who studies the ways in which symbolic forms can be used to identify with people, or to persuade them toward a certain point of view.2 CHAPTER13
14 OVERVIEWstill got the best arm in the neighborhood.” All four scenes illustrate the spoken and written message of the ad: Support for your team is priceless—especially when they’ve screwed up. It’s something money can’t buy. “For everything else, there’s MasterCard.” Social scientist Glenn and rhetorical critic Marty take dif-ferent theoretical approaches as they analyze how the ad works. Glenn: An Objective Approach The distinguishing feature of this commercial is football superstar Peyton Man-ning. The folks at MasterCard are obviously convinced that his celebrity appeal will rub off on the public image of their credit card. As a social scientist, I’d like to discover if they are right. The answer will help scholars and advertisers better predict what persuasive techniques really work. If this “branding” strategy proves effective, I would also want to i nd out why it does. Objective researchers want to explain as well as predict . Theory is an essential tool in the scientii c effort to predict and explain. For this type of commercial, I might turn to source credibility theory , proposed by Carl Hovland and Walter Weiss as part of the Yale Attitude project on persuasion. 2 They suggest that expertise and trustworthiness are the two main ingredients of perceived credibility. For football fans who watched the ad, there’s no question that Peyton Manning is a highly competent quarterback. And cheering on ordi-nary people who are having a bad day may suggest that he’s on our side and won’t steer us wrong. The central premise of source credibility theory is that people we view as trusted experts will be much more effective in their attempts to persuade us than sources we distrust or regard as incompetent. Herbert Kelman’s theory of opinion change also offers insight. Kelman said that when people forge a bond of identii cation with a highly attractive i gure like Manning, they’ll gladly embrace his persuasive pitch. 3 In contrast to many top FIGURE 2–1 Diehard Fan Peyton Manning Shouting EncouragementPhoto © 2007 MasterCard. All rights reserved. No photo reproduction without the prior written consent of MasterCard. Reprinted courtesy of McCann Erickson.Objective approachThe assumption that truth is singular and is acces-sible through unbiased sensory observation; committed to uncovering cause-and-effect relation-ships.Source credibilityPerceived competence and trustworthiness of a speaker or writer that affects how the message is received.
CHAPTER 2: TALK ABOUT THEORY 15athletes who come across as surly, uptight, or egotistical, Manning is upbeat, relaxed, and encouraging as he cheers on people like us who don’t have his fan base. As a scientist, however, I can’t just assume that this commercial is persuasive and the theories I applied are correct. Manning’s expertise is football—not i nance. Do viewers transfer his expertise from the gridiron to credit cards? I’d want an objective test to i nd out if celebrity appeals really work. I might i nd out if this ad campaign was followed by either an increase in new card applica-tions or a spike in the number of charges made by MasterCard users. Or I could test whether the ad has the same effect on viewers who don’t know who Man-ning is—he’s never identii ed in the ad. Testing the audience response is a crucial scientii c enterprise. Even though a theory might sound plausible, we can’t be sure it’s valid until it’s been tested. In science, theory and research walk hand in hand. Marty: An Interpretive Approach I see this ad for MasterCard, starring NFL quarterback Peyton Manning, as an attempt to identify manliness with money. The ad achieves its effect by inviting the viewer to become part of the “team” being instructed by “Coach” Manning. To become part of the team, one must adopt the attitudes and actions of the coach. Kenneth Burke’s theory of dramatism helps us understand the symbolic action. Since we can consider this 30-second commercial a mini-drama, Burke’s dramatistic pentad of act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose can help provide a framework for interpretation. 4 Peyton Manning is the coach—the agent. Every-day activities such as eating brunch, drinking coffee, moving furniture, and retrieving the morning paper are the background—the scene. Coaching people in the proper attitude is what Manning does in each scene—the act. Using the typical jargon and gestures of a football coach is the vehicle—the agency. And the goal is the acquisition and use of a MasterCard—the purpose. Burke holds that as a drama develops, the symbolic action moves through different stages. He encourages critics to look at the symbolic forms as they move “ from what through what to what .” 5 In this ad, the symbolic action starts with confusion—Wendy dropping the tray of food. It moves through pain and destruc-tion—Johnny scalded by steam, the mover dropping the piano, the paperboy breaking the window. And by the end, the drama arrives at manliness, money, and acceptance—football helmets crashing together (manliness) and forming the MasterCard logo (money), Johnny giving a thumbs-up signal (acceptance). What’s important to notice is that a symbolic transformation has taken place. Throughout most of the ad, Manning is “coaching” the right attitude. We hear it in his language (“You’re the man; Rub some dirt on it; It’s alright, Bobby”). We see it in his gestures (arms raised, palms up, clapping, pointing). Yet by the end of the ad the transformation is complete. It is Johnny who is doing the coaching, with a thumbs-up gesture that signals his acceptance of the right atti-tude and his adoption of the right action—getting a MasterCard. A symbolic equivalence has been established between being manly (like a pro football player) and being in the money (with MasterCard). The message of this ad is clear. To be a man is to have the right attitude about the little trials of life; it is to be part of the home team. Acquiring a MasterCard is a way of symbolically identifying with the tough guys and achieving victory over the obstacles that stand between a man and his goals. Interpretive approachThe linguistic work of as-signing meaning or value to communicative texts; assumes that multiple meanings or truths are possible.Burke’s dramatistic pentadA five-pronged method of rhetorical criticism to analyze a speaker’s per-suasive strategy—act, scene, agent, agency, purpose.IdentificationA perceived role relation-ship that affects self- image and attitudes; based on attractiveness of the role model and sustained if the relation-ship remains salient.
16 OVERVIEW Although both of these scholars focus on the role of Peyton Manning in promot-ing MasterCard, Glenn’s and Marty’s approaches to communication study clearly differ in starting point, method, and conclusion. Glenn is a social scientist who works hard to be objective. When I refer to theorists and researchers like Glenn throughout the book, I’ll use the terms scientist and objective scholar inter-changeably. Marty is a rhetorical critic who does interpretive study. Here the labels get tricky. While it’s true that all rhetorical critics do interpretive analysis, not all inter-pretive scholars are rhetoricians. Most (including Marty) are humanists who study what it’s like to be another person in a specii c time and place. But a grow-ing number of postmodern communication theorists reject that tradition. These interpretive scholars refer to themselves with a bewildering variety of brand names: hermeneuticists, poststructuralists, deconstructivists, phenomenologists, cultural studies researchers, and social action theorists, as well as combinations of these terms. Writing from this postmodernist perspective, University of Utah theorist James Anderson observes: With this very large number of interpretive communities, names are contentious, border patrol is hopeless and crossovers continuous. Members, however, often see real differences. 6 All of these scholars, including Marty, do interpretive analysis—scholarship concerned with meaning—yet there’s no common term like scientist that includes them all. So from this point on I’ll use the designation interpretive scholars or the noun form interpreters to refer to the entire group and use rhetoricians, humanists, postmodernists, or critical scholars only when I’m singling out a particular subgroup. The separate worldviews of interpretive scholars and scientists rel ect con-trasting assumptions about ways of arriving at knowledge, the core of human nature, questions of value, and the purpose of having theory. The rest of this chapter sketches out these differences. OBJECTIVE OR INTERPRETIVE WORLDVIEWS: SORTING OUT THE LABELS Humanistic scholarshipStudy of what it’s like to be another person in a specific time and place; assumes there are few important panhuman similarities. WAYS OF KNOWING: DISCOVERING TRUTH OR CREATING MULTIPLE REALITIES? How do we know what we know, if we know it at all? This is the central ques-tion addressed by a branch of philosophy known as epistemology . You may have been in school for a dozen-plus years, read assignments, written papers, and taken tests without ever delving into the issue What is truth? With or without in-depth study of the issue, however, we all inevitably make assumptions about the nature of knowledge. Scientists assume that Truth is singular. They see a single, timeless reality “out there” that’s not dependent on local conditions. It’s waiting to be discovered through the i ve senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Since the raw sensory data of the world is accessible to any competent observer, science seeks to be bias-free, with no ax to grind. The evidence speaks for itself. As Galileo observed, anyone could see through his telescope. Of course, no one person can know it all, so individual researchers pool their i ndings and build a collective body of knowledge about how the world works. EpistemologyThe study of the origin, nature, method, and lim-its of knowledge.
CHAPTER 2: TALK ABOUT THEORY 17 Scientists consider good theories to be those that are faithful representations of an underlying reality—mirrors of nature. They are coni dent that once a prin-ciple is discovered and validated, it will continue to hold true as long as condi-tions remain relatively the same. That’s why Glenn believes the credibility of a message source can explain why other media messages succeed or fail. Interpretive scholars seek truth as well, but many interpreters regard that truth as socially constructed through communication. They believe language cre-ates social realities that are always in l ux rather than revealing or representing i xed principles or relationships in a world that doesn’t change. Knowledge is always viewed from a particular standpoint. A word, a gesture, or an act may have constancy within a given community, but it’s dangerous to assume that interpretations can cross lines of time and space. Texts never interpret themselves. Most of these scholars, in fact, hold that truth is largely subjective—that meaning is highly interpretive. But rhetorical critics like Marty are not relativists, arbitrarily assigning meaning on a whim. They do maintain, however, that objectivity is a myth; we can never entirely separate the knower from the known. Convinced that meaning is in the mind rather than in the verbal sign, inter-preters are comfortable with the notion that a text may have multiple meanings. Rhetorical critics are successful when they get others to view a text through their interpretive lens—to adopt a new perspective on the world. For example, did Marty convince you that the MasterCard ad was an attempt to equate manliness with money? As Anderson notes, “Truth is a struggle, not a status.” 7 DeterminismThe assumption that be-havior is caused by he-redity and environment. HUMAN NATURE: DETERMINISM OR FREE WILL? One of the great philosophical debates throughout history revolves around the question of human choice. 8 Hard-line determinists claim that every move we make is the result of heredity (“biology is destiny”) and environment (“pleasure stamps in, pain stamps out”). On the other hand, free-will purists insist that every human act is ultimately voluntary (“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul” 9 ). Although few communication theorists are comfortable with either extreme, most tend to line up on one side or the other. Scientists stress the forces that shape human behavior; interpretive scholars focus on conscious choices made by individuals. The difference between these two views of human nature inevitably creeps into the language people use to explain what they do. Individuals who feel like puppets on strings say, “I had to . . . ,” while people who feel they pull their own strings say, “I decided to . . . .” The i rst group speaks in a passive voice: “I was distracted from studying by the argument at the next table.” The second group speaks in an active voice: “I stopped studying to listen to the argument at the next table.” In the same way, the language of scholarship often rel ects theorists’ views of human nature. Behavioral scientists usually describe human conduct as occurring because of forces outside the individual’s awareness. Their causal explanations tend not to include appeals to mental reasoning or conscious choice. They usually describe behavior as the response to a prior stimulus. Note that Kelman’s theory of opinion change that Glenn cited suggests a cause-and-effect inevitability in the persuasion process. We will be swayed by those we i nd attractive.
18 OVERVIEWDILBERT © Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc. In contrast, interpretive scholars tend to use explanatory phrases such as in order to and so that because they attribute a person’s action to conscious intent. Their choice of words suggests that people are free agents who could decide to respond differently under an identical set of circumstances. Marty, for example, uses the language of voluntary action rather than knee-jerk behavior when he writes about the ad inviting the viewer to become part of the team and Johnny adopting the right attitude. The consistent interpreter doesn’t ask why Johnny made that choice. As Anderson explains, “True choice demands to be its own cause and its own explanation.” 10 Human choice is therefore problematic for the behavioral scientist because as individual freedom goes up, predictability of behavior goes down. Conversely, the roots of humanism are threatened by a highly restricted view of human choice. In an impassioned plea, British author C. S. Lewis exposes the paradox of stripping away people’s freedom and yet expecting them to exercise respon-sible choice: In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to i nd traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. 11 Lewis assumes that signii cant decisions are value laden; interpretive scholars would agree.
CHAPTER 2: TALK ABOUT THEORY 19Empirical evidenceData collected through direct observation. When we talk about values, we are discussing priorities, questions of relative worth. 12 Values are the trafi c lights of our lives that guide what we think, feel, and do. The professional values of communication theorists rel ect the commit-ments they’ve made concerning knowledge and human nature. Since most social scientists hold to a distinction between the “knower” and the “known,” they place value on objectivity that’s not biased by ideological commitments. Because humanists and others in the interpretive camp believe that the ability to choose is what separates humanity from the rest of creation, they value scholarship that expands the range of free choice. As a behavioral scientist, Glenn works hard to maintain his objectivity. He is a man with strong moral and spiritual convictions, and these may inl uence the topics he studies. But he doesn’t want his personal values to distort real-ity or confuse what is with what he thinks ought to be. As you can see from Glenn’s call for objective testing, he is frustrated when theorists offer no empir-ical evidence for their claims or don’t even suggest a way in which their ideas could be validated by an independent observer. He is even more upset when he hears of researchers who fudge the i ndings of their studies to shore up questionable hypotheses. Glenn shares the research values of Harvard soci-ologist George Homans—to let the evidence speak for itself: “When nature, however stretched out on the rack, still has a chance to say ‘no’—then the subject is science.” 13 Marty is aware of his own ideology and is not afraid to bring his values to bear upon a communication text and come under scrutiny. By pointing out the subtle equating of manliness with money, Marty creates an awareness that this is more than a humorous, feel-good spot. Although he doesn’t take an overtly critical stance toward advertising or the capitalist system, his insight is a resource for viewers that enables them to laugh not only at Peyton’s over-the-top support for his “team,” but also at the underlying economic boosterism in the ad. Criti-cal interpreters value socially relevant research that seeks to liberate people from oppression of any sort—economic, political, religious, emotional, or any other type. They decry the detached stance of scientists who refuse to take responsibil-ity for the results of their work. Whatever the pursuit—a Manhattan Project to split the atom, a Genome Project to map human genes, or a class project to ana-lyze the effectiveness of an ad—critical interpreters insist that knowledge is never neutral. “There is no safe harbor in which researchers can avoid the power structure.” 14 In the heading for this section, I’ve contrasted the primary values of scientii c and interpretive scholars by using the labels objectivity and emancipation . Univer-sity of Colorado communication professor Stan Deetz frames the issue somewhat differently. He says that every general communication theory has two priori-ties— effectiveness and participation. 15 Effectiveness is concerned with successfully communicating information, ideas, and meaning to others. It also includes per-suasion. Participation is concerned with increasing the possibility that all points of view will affect collective decisions and individuals being open to new ideas. It also encourages difference, opposition, and independence. The value question is Which concern has higher priority? Objective theorists usually foreground effec-tiveness and relegate participation to the background. Interpretive theorists tend to focus on participation and downplay effectiveness. THE HIGHEST VALUE: OBJECTIVITY OR EMANCIPATION? EmancipationLiberation from any form of political, economic, racial, religious, or sex-ual oppression; empow-erment.
20 OVERVIEWWhy is it important to grasp the differences between objective and interpretive scholarship? The i rst answer is because you can’t fully understand a theory if you aren’t familiar with its underlying assumptions about truth, human nature, the purpose of the theory, and its values. If you aren’t, things can get confusing fast. It’s like the time my wife, Jeanie, and I were walking around the Art Insti-tute of Chicago, enjoying the work of French impressionists who painted realis-tic scenes that I could recognize. Then I wandered into a room dedicated to abstract expressionism. The paintings seemed bizarre and made no sense to me. I was bewildered and somewhat disdainful until Jeanie, who is an artist, explained the goals these painters had and the techniques they used to achieve them. So too with interpretive and objective communication theories. Right now you are probably more familiar and comfortable with one approach than you are with the other. But when you understand what each type of theorist is about, your comfort zone will expand and your confusion will diminish. OBJECTIVE OR INTERPRETIVE: WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? PURPOSE OF THEORY: UNIVERSAL LAWS OR INTERPRETIVE GUIDES? Even if Glenn and Marty could agree on the nature of knowledge, the extent of human autonomy, and the ultimate values of scholarship, their words would still sound strange to each other because they use distinct vocabularies to accomplish different goals. As a behavioral scientist, Glenn is working to pin down universal laws of human behavior that cover a variety of situations. As a rhetorical critic, Marty strives to interpret a particular communication text in a specii c context. If these two scholars were engaged in fashion design rather than research design, Glenn would probably tailor a coat suitable for many occasions that cov-ers everybody well—one size i ts all. Marty might apply principles of fashion design to style a coat that makes an individual statement for a single client—a one-of-a-kind, custom creation. Glenn adopts a theory and then tests it to see if it covers everyone. Marty uses theory to make sense of unique communication events. Since theory testing is the basic activity of the behavioral scientist, Glenn starts with a hunch about how the world works—perhaps the idea that source credibil-ity enhances persuasion. He then crafts a tightly worded hypothesis that temporar-ily commits him to a specii c prediction. As an empiricist, he can never completely “prove” that he has made the right gamble; he can only show in test after test that his behavioral bet pays off. If repeated studies uphold his hypothesis, he can more coni dently predict which media ads will be effective, explain why, and make recommendations on how practitioners can increase their credibility. The interpretive scholar explores the web of meaning that constitutes human existence. When Marty creates scholarship, he isn’t trying to prove theory. How-ever, he sometimes uses the work of rhetorical theorists like Kenneth Burke to inform his interpretation of the aural and visual texts of people’s lives. Robert Ivie, former editor of the Quarterly Journal of Speech, suggests that rhetorical crit-ics ought to use theory this way: We cannot conduct rhetorical criticism of social reality without benei t of a guiding rhetorical theory that tells us generally what to look for in social practice, what to make of it, and whether to consider it signii cant. 16
CHAPTER 2: TALK ABOUT THEORY 21MetatheoryTheory about theory; the stated or inherent assump-tions made when creating a theory. There’s another reason to master these metatheoretical differences. After exposure to a dozen or more theories, you may i nd that they begin to blur together in your mind. Classifying them as scientii c or interpretive is a good way to keep them straight. It’s somewhat like sorting 52 cards into suits—spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs. In most sophisticated card games, the distinction is crucial. By the end of the course you could have up to 32 cards in your deck of communication theories. Being able to sort them in multiple ways is a good way to show yourself and your professor that you’ve mastered the material. When you can compare and contrast theories on the basis of their interpretive or objec-tive worldview, you’ve begun an integration that’s more impressive than rote memorization. Understanding the objective/interpretive choice points I’ve described can also help you decide the direction you want to take in your remaining course work. Some concentrations in the i eld of communication tend to have either a scientii c or an interpretive bias. For example, all the theories I present in the relationship development, inl uence, and media effects sections of the book are proposed by objective scholars. Conversely, most of the theories I cover in the public rhetoric, media and culture, organizational communication, and gender and communication sections are interpretive. You’ll want to see if this is true at your school before you choose the specii c route you want to take. Finally, theorists in both camps hope you’ll care because each group believes that its brand of work holds promise for improving relationships and society. The scientist is convinced that knowing the truth about how communication works will give us a clearer picture of social reality. The interpreter is equally sure that unearthing communicator motivation and hidden ideologies will improve society by increasing free choice and discouraging unjust practices. PLOTTING THEORIES ON AN OBJECTIVE-INTERPRETIVE SCALE In this chapter I’ve introduced four important areas of difference between objec-tive and interpretive communication scholars and the theories they create. A basic appreciation of these distinctions will help you understand where like-minded thinkers are going and why they’ve chosen a particular path to get there. But once you grasp how they differ, it will be helpful for you to realize that not all theorists fall neatly into one category or the other. Many have a foot in both camps. It’s more accurate to picture the objective and interpretive labels as anchor-ing the ends of a continuum, with theorists spread out along the scale. Objective __________________________________________ Interpretive Figure 2–2 displays my evaluation of where each theory I feature i ts on an objective-interpretive continuum. For easier reference to positions on the scale, I’ve numbered the i ve columns at the bottom of the chart. In placing a theory, I’ve tried to factor in choices the theorists have made about ways of knowing, human nature, what they value most, and the purpose of theory. I’ve consulted a number of scholars in the i eld to get their “read” on appropriate placements. They didn’t always agree, but in every case the discussion has sharpened my understanding of theory and the issues to be considered in the process of creating one. What I learned is rel ected in the chapters ahead.
22 OVERVIEWInterpersonal CommunicationSymbolic InteractionismCoordinated Management of MeaningExpectancy Violations TheoryConstructivismSocial Penetration TheoryUncertainty Reduction TheorySocial Information Processing TheoryRelational DialecticsThe Interactional ViewCommunication Privacy ManagementSocial Judgment TheoryElaboration Likelihood ModelCognitive Dissonance TheoryGroup and Public CommunicationFunctional Perspective on Group Decision MakingSymbolic Convergence TheoryCultural ApproachCritical Theory of Communication ApproachThe RhetoricDramatismNarrative ParadigmMass CommunicationMedia EcologySemioticsCultural StudiesUses and GratificationsCultivation TheoryAgenda-Setting TheoryCultural ContextCommunication Accommodation TheoryFace-Negotiation TheorySpeech Codes TheoryGenderlect StylesStandpoint TheoryMuted Group TheoryObjectiveInterpretive 1 2 3 4 5FIGURE 2–2 Classii cation of Communication Theories According to Objective/Interpretive Worldview Of course, the position of each dot won’t make much sense to you until you’ve read about the theory. But by looking at the pattern of distribution you can see that roughly half of the theories have an objective orientation, while the other half rel ect an interpretive commitment. This 50–50 split matches the mix of scholarship I see in our i eld. When talking about relationships among the theories and the common assumptions made by a group of theorists, your instruc-tor may frequently refer back to this chart. So for easy reference, I’ve reproduced the appropriate “slice” of the chart on the i rst page of each chapter. Now that you have an idea of the differences between objective and interpre-tive theories, you may wonder whether some of these theories are better than
CHAPTER 2: TALK ABOUT THEORY 23 1. Compare Glenn Sparks’ and Marty Medhurst’s approaches to the Master-Card commercial. Which analysis makes the most sense to you? Why? 2. How do scientists and interpretive scholars differ in their answers to the question What is truth? Which perspective do you i nd more satisfying? 3. How do you account for the wide-ranging diversity among types of interpre-tive theories (rhetorical, critical, humanistic, postmodern, etc.) as compared to the relative uniformity of objective theories? 4. Think of the communication classes you’ve taken. Did an objective or interpre-tive orientation undergird each course? Was this due more to the nature of the subject matter or to the professor’s point of view? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: James A. Anderson and Geoffrey Baym, “Philosophies and Philosophic Issues in Communication 1995–2004,” Journal of Communication, Vol. 54, 2004, pp. 589–615. Metatheoretical overview: James A. Anderson, Communication Theory: Epistemological Foundations, Guilford, New York, 1996, pp. 13–77. Metatheory: Robert T. Craig, “Metatheory,” in Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Sage, Los Angeles, CA, 2009, pp. 657–661.Contemporary scientii c scholarship: Charles Berger, Michael Roloff, and David Roskos-Ewoldsen (eds.), Handbook of Communication Science, 2nd ed., Sage, Los Angeles, CA, 2010. Contemporary rhetorical scholarship: Sonja Foss, Karen Foss, and Robert Trapp, Contem-porary Perspectives on Rhetoric, 3 rd ed., Waveland, Prospect Heights, IL, 2000. Defense of empirical scholarship: Robert Bostrom and Lewis Donohew, “The Case for Empiricism: Clarifying Fundamental Issues in Communication Theory,” Communication Monographs, Vol. 59, 1992, pp. 109–129. Defense of interpretive scholarship: Arthur Bochner, “Perspectives on Inquiry II: Theories and Stories,” in Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, 2 nd ed., Mark Knapp and Gerald Miller (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1994, pp. 21–41. Scientii c research: Glenn Sparks, Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview, 3 rd ed., Wadsworth, Belmont, CA, 2009. Rhetorical analysis: Martin J. Medhurst, “Mitt Romney, ‘Faith in America,’ and the Dance of Religion and Politics in American Culture,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Vol. 12, 2009, pp. 195–221. Critical approach to theory: Stanley Deetz, “The Role of Communication Studies,” Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization, State University of New York, Albany, NY, 1992, pp. 65–90. Research methods: Lawrence R. Frey, Carl H. Botan, and Gary L. Kreps, Investigating Communication: An Introduction to Research Methods, 2 nd ed., Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA, 2000. others. I think so. Chapter 3, “Weighing the Words,” offers a set of six standards you can use to judge the quality of objective theories, and a half dozen alternative criteria to discern the worth of interpretive theories. By applying the appropriate criteria, you can see if you agree with my evaluations.
24 OVERVIEWBridging science and interpretation: Charles Pavitt, “Answering Questions Requesting Scientii c Explanations for Communication,” Communication Theory, Vol. 10, 2000, pp. 379–404. Relationship between theory and research: Robert Bostrom, “Theories, Data and Com-munication Research,” Communication Monographs, Vol. 70, 2003, pp. 275–294. For a historical perspective on the place of objective and interpretive theory in the i eld of communication, click on Theory Resources, then Archive, and select Talk about Communication at www.ai rstlook.com.
Weighing the Words In Chapter 2 we looked at two distinct approaches to communication theory—objective and interpretive. Because the work of social scientists and interpreters is so different, they often have trouble understanding and valuing their counter-parts’ scholarship. This workplace tension parallels the struggle between ranch-ers and farmers in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway musical Oklahoma! One song calls for understanding and cooperation: The farmer and the cowman should be friends, Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends, One man likes to push a plough, The other likes to chase a cow, But that’s no reason why they cain’t be friends. 1 The problem, of course, is that farmers and ranchers want to push a plough or chase a cow over the same piece of land. Daily disputes over fences, water, and government grants make friendship tough. The same can be said of the turf wars that are common between objective and interpretive scholars. Differences in ways of knowing, views of human nature, values, goals of theory building, and research methods seem to ensure tension and misunderstanding. Friendly attitudes between empiricists and interpreters are particularly hard to come by when each group insists on applying its own standards of judgment to the work of the other group. As a i rst-time reader of communication theory, you could easily get sucked into making the same mistake. If you’ve had train-ing in the scientii c method and judge the value of every communication theory by whether it predicts human behavior, you’ll automatically reject 50 percent of the theories presented in this book. On the other hand, if you’ve been steeped in the humanities and expect every theory to help unmask the meaning of a text, you’ll easily dismiss the other half. Regardless of which approach you favor, not all objective or interpretive communication theories are equally good. For each type, some are better than others. Like moviegoers watching one of Clint Eastwood’s early Westerns, you’ll want a way to separate the good, the bad, and the ugly. Since I’ve included theories originating in both the social sciences and the humanities, you need to have two separate lenses through which to view their respective claims. This chapter offers that pair of bifocals. I hope by the time you i nish you’ll be on friendly terms with the separate criteria that behavioral scientists and a wide range of interpretive scholars use to weigh the words of their colleagues. We’ll 253CHAPTER
26 OVERVIEWstart with the standards that social scientists use to judge the worth of objective theories, and then turn to the criteria that interpretive scholars employ to evalu-ate their communication theories. An objective theory is credible because it fuli lls the twin objectives of scien-tii c knowledge. The theory explains the past and present, and it predicts the future. Social scientists of all kinds agree on four additional criteria a theory must meet to be good— relative simplicity, testability, practical utility, and quan-tii able research. As I discuss these standards, I will use the terms objective and scientii c interchangeably. Scientific Standard 1: Explanation of the Data A good objective theory explains an event or human behavior. Philosopher of science Abraham Kaplan says that theory is a way of making sense out of a disturbing situation. 2 An objective theory should bring clarity to an otherwise jumbled state of affairs; it should draw order out of chaos. A good social science theory describes the process, focuses our attention on what’s crucial, and helps us ignore that which makes little difference. But it also goes beyond raw data and explains why . When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, urban legend says the Depression-era bandit replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” It’s a great line, but as a theory of motivation, it lacks explanatory power. There’s nothing in the words that casts light on the internal processes or environmental forces that led Sutton to crack a safe while others tried to crack the stock market. In past editions I included interpersonal deception theory, which offers 18 prop-ositions on the relationship among variables that affect a deceiver’s success. These include the deceiver’s familiarity, credibility, attractiveness, communica-tion skill, nonverbal leakage, and fear of detection, as well as the receiver’s trust bias, suspicion, and detection accuracy. 3 Many of the connections that interper-sonal deception theory describes are well-founded, but the theory is often criti-cized for not having an explanatory glue that holds it all together: We cannot i nd the “why” question in [their] synthesis. There is no intriguing rid-dle or puzzle that needs to be solved, and no central explanatory mechanism is ever described. With no conceptual motor to drive their synthesis, there is no new understanding. 4 Of course, many practitioners don’t really care how communication works. For example, you could be an effective public speaker without understanding why the audience likes what you say. But when you take a course in communi-cation theory, you lose your amateur status. The reason something happens becomes as important as the fact that it does. Scientific Standard 2: Prediction of Future Events A good objective theory predicts what will happen. Prediction is possible only when we are dealing with things we can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste over and over again. As we repeatedly notice the same things happening in similar WHAT MAKES AN OBJECTIVE THEORY GOOD?
CHAPTER 3: WEIGHING THE WORDS 27situations, we begin to speak of invariable patterns or universal laws. In the realm of the physical sciences, we are seldom embarrassed. Objects don’t have a choice about how to respond to a stimulus. The social sciences are another matter. Although theories about human behavior often cast their predictions in cause-and-effect terms, a certain humility on the part of the theorist is advisable. Even the best theory may only be able to speak about people in general, rather than about specii c individuals—and these only in terms of probability and tendencies, not absolute certainty. What do good scientii c communication theories forecast? Some predict that a specii c type of communication triggers a particular response. (Mutual self-disclosure creates interpersonal intimacy.) Other theories predict that the quality of communication is the result of some other pre-existing factor. (Cognitive com-plexity is a necessary precondition for crafting person-centered messages.) These claims may or may not be true, but you should regard the scientii c theories presented in this book as valuable to the extent that theorists are willing to bet that communication is either the cause or the effect of some other variable. Scientific Standard 3: Relative Simplicity A good objective theory is as simple as possible—no more complex than it has to be. A few decades ago a cartoonist named Rube Goldberg made people laugh by sketching plans for complicated machines that performed simple tasks. His “better mousetrap” went through a sequence of 15 mechanical steps that were triggered by turning a crank and ended with a bird cage dropping over a cheese-eating mouse. Goldberg’s designs were funny because the machines were so needlessly convoluted. They violated the scientii c principle called Occam’s razor, so named because philosopher William of Occam implored theorists to “shave off” any assumptions, variables, or concepts that aren’t really necessary to explain what’s going on. 5 When you’ve concentrated on a subject for a long time, it’s easy to get caught up in the grandeur of a theoretical construction.
28 OVERVIEWYet the rule of parsimony —another label for the same principle—states that given two plausible explanations for the same event, we should accept the less complex version. Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein put it this way: “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. . . . It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.” 6 Einstein practiced what he preached. His elegant formula ( E 5 mc 2 ) explains the relationships among energy, mass, time, and the speed of light using just three terms, and history credits him with more than a touch of genius. But rela-tive simplicity doesn’t necessarily mean easy to understand . Trained physicists admit they’re still struggling to fully comprehend the theory of relativity. That theory is parsimonious not because it’s a no-brainer, but because it doesn’t carry the extraneous baggage rival theories carry as they try to explain why time stands still when you approach the speed of light. Scientific Standard 4: Hypotheses That Can Be Tested A good objective theory is testable. If a prediction is wrong, there ought to be a way to demonstrate the error. Karl Popper called this requirement falsii ability, and saw it as the dei ning feature of scientii c theory. 7 But some theories are so loosely stated that it’s impossible to imagine empirical results that could disprove their hypotheses. And if there is no way to prove a theory false, then any claim that it’s true seems hollow. A boyhood example may help illustrate this point. When I was 12 years old I had a friend named Mike. We spent many hours shooting baskets in his driveway. The backboard was mounted on an old-fashioned, single-car garage with double doors that opened outward like the doors on a cabinet. In order to avoid crashing into them on a drive for a layup, we’d open the doors during play. But since the doors would only swing through a 90-degree arc, they extended about 4 feet onto the court along the baseline. One day Mike announced that he’d developed a “never-miss” shot. He took the ball at the top of the free-throw circle, drove toward the basket, then cut to the right corner. When he got to the baseline, he took a fade-away jump shot, blindly arcing the ball over the top of the big door. I was greatly impressed as the ball swished through the net. When he boasted that he never missed, I chal-lenged him to do it again, which he did. But his third shot was an air ball—it completely missed the rim. Before I could make the kind of bratty comment junior high school boys make, he quickly told me that the attempt had not been his never-miss shot. He claimed to have slipped as he cut to the right and therefore jumped from the wrong place. Grabbing the ball, he drove behind the door again and launched a blind arching shot. Swish. That, he assured me, was his never-miss shot. I knew something was wrong. I soon i gured out that any missed attempt was, by dei nition, not the ballyhooed never-miss shot. When the ball went in, however, Mike heralded the success as added evidence of 100 percent accuracy. I now know that I could have called his bluff by removing the net from the bas-ket so he couldn’t hear whether the shot went through. This would have forced him to declare from behind the door whether the attempt was of the never-miss variety. But as long as I played by his rules, there was no way to disprove his claim. Unfortunately, some theories are stated in a way that makes it impossible to prove them false. They shy away from the put-up-or-shut-up standard—they aren’t testable. That also means there’s no way to show if they are true. Rule of parsimony (Occam’s razor) Given two plausible ex-planations for the same event, we should accept the simpler version. Falsifiability The requirement that a scientific theory must be stated in such a way that it can be tested and dis-proved if it is indeed wrong.
CHAPTER 3: WEIGHING THE WORDS 29 Scientific Standard 5: Practical Utility Over time, a good objective theory is useful. Since an oft-cited goal of social science is to help people have more control over their daily lives, people facing the type of thorny social situations that the theory addresses should be able to benei t from its wisdom. This requirement is consistent with Lewin’s claim that there is nothing as practical as a good theory (see Chapter 1). A theory that communication prac-titioners i nd helpful may not be more valid than one few folks turn to for guid-ance, yet because of its inl uence, it may prove to be more valuable. As you read about theories crafted from an objective perspective, let useful-ness be one measure of their worth. A word of caution, however: Most of us can be a bit lazy or shortsighted, having a tendency to consider unimportant any-thing that’s hard to grasp or can’t be applied to our lives right now. Before considering a theory irrelevant, make certain you understand it and consider how others have made use of its insight. I’ll try to do my part by presenting each theory as clearly as possible and suggesting potential applications. Perhaps you’ll be even more interested in how other students have found a theory useful in their lives. That’s why I’ve included a student-written application in almost all of the 32 chapters that feature a specii c theory. Scientific Standard 6: Quantitative Research As the heading suggests, scientists tend to appeal to numbers as they gather evidence to support their theories. Almost all scientii c research depends on a comparison of differences —this group compared to that group, this treatment as opposed to that treatment, these results versus those results. Since objective theorists aim to mirror reality, it makes sense for them to measure and report what they discover in precise numerical terms rather than in linguistic terms, which are open to interpretation. Enlightenment philosopher David Hume insists on the superiority of quantitative methods over qualitative research: If we take in our hand any volume . . . let us ask: Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning the matter of fact or existence? No. Commit it then to the l ames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. 8 Given the radical nature of Hume’s over-the-top pronouncement, we can wryly imagine the English philosopher making daily trips to a used bookstore for fuel to heat his home in the winter. But the idea that numbers are more reliable than words does run deep in the scientii c community. More than other quantitative methods, objective theorists use experiments and surveys to test their predictions. Experiments. Working under the assumption that human behavior is not random, an experimenter tries to establish a cause-and-effect relationship by sys-tematically manipulating one factor (the independent variable) in a tightly con-trolled situation to learn its effect on another factor (the dependent variable). A laboratory experiment would be an appropriate way to answer the question, Does greater perceived attitude similarity lead to increased interpersonal attraction? The experimenter might i rst identify a range of attitudes held by the participating subjects and then systematically alter the attitude information provided about an experimental confederate before they met. A similarity-causes-attraction hypothesis would be supported if the subjects whose attitudes meshed with Experiment A research method that manipulates a variable in a tightly controlled situa-tion in order to find out if it has the predicted effect.
30 OVERVIEWwhat they thought the confederate believed ended up liking that person better than did those who thought they were quite different from the confederate. 9 Surveys. Whether using questionnaires or structured interviews, survey researchers rely on self-reported data to discover people’s past behavior and what they now think, feel, or intend to do. For example, media-effects research-ers have used survey methodology to answer the research question, Do people who watch a high amount of dramatic violence on television hold an exaggerated belief in a mean and scary world? They asked the number of hours a day the respondents watched TV and then gave a series of forced-choice options that tapped into respondents’ perceived odds of becoming a victim of violence. The researchers discovered a positive relationship between the amount of viewing and the amount of fear. 10 It’s always difi cult to support cause-and-effect relationships from correlational data. Yet, unlike a highly controlled laboratory experiment, a well-planned survey gives the social scientist a chance to get inside the heads of people in a “real-life” situation. There’s less rigor but more vigor in a survey than in an experiment. Survey   A research method that uses questionnaires and structured interviews to collect self-reported data that reflects what respon-dents think, feel, or intend to do. “Are you just pissing and moaning, or can you verify what you’re saying with data?”© Edward Koren/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com WHAT MAKES AN INTERPRETIVE THEORY GOOD? Unlike scientists, interpretive scholars don’t have an agreed-on, six-point set of criteria for evaluating their theories. But, even though there is no universally approved model for interpretive theories, rhetoricians, critical theorists, and other interpreters repeatedly urge that theories should accomplish some or all of
CHAPTER 3: WEIGHING THE WORDS 31the following functions: create understanding, identify values, inspire aesthetic appre-ciation, stimulate agreement, reform society, and conduct qualitative research . The rest of this chapter examines these oft-mentioned ideals. Interpretive Standard 1: New Understanding of People Interpretive scholarship is good when it offers fresh insight into the human condi-tion. Rhetorical critics, ethnographers, and other humanistic researchers seek to gain new understanding by analyzing the activity that they regard as uniquely human—symbolic interaction. As opposed to social science theories that attempt to identify communication patterns common to all people, an interpretive scholar typically examines a one-of-a-kind speech community that exhibits a specii c language style. By analyzing this group’s communication practice, the researcher hopes to develop an understanding of local knowledge or members’ unique rules for interaction. Interpretive theories are tools to aid this search for situated meaning. Some critics fear that by relying on rhetorical theory, we will read our pre-conceived ideas into the text rather than letting the words speak for themselves. They suggest that there are times when we should “just say no” to theory. But University of Minnesota communication theorist Ernest Bormann notes that rhe-torical theory works best when it suggests universal patterns of symbol-using: “A powerful explanatory structure is what makes a work of humanistic scholar-ship live on through time.” 11 Bormann’s claim is akin to the behavioral scientist’s insistence that theory explains why people do what they do. But the two notions are somewhat different. Science wants an objective explanation; humanism desires subjective understand-ing. Klaus Krippendorff of the Annenberg School of Communication at the Univer-sity of Pennsylvania urges us to recognize that we, as theorists, are both the cause and the consequence of what we observe. His self-referential imperative for building theory states, “Include yourself as a constituent of your own construction.” 12 Interpretive Standard 2: Clarification of Values A good interpretive theory brings people’s values into the open. The theorist actively seeks to acknowledge, identify, or unmask the ideology behind the mes-sage under scrutiny. Interpretive theorists should also be willing to reveal their own ethical com-mitments. As Texas A&M University communication professor Eric Rothenbuhler states, “Theoretical positions have moral implications, and when we teach them, advocate their use by others, or promote policies based upon them they have moral consequences.” 13 Of course, not all interpretive scholars occupy the same moral ground, but there are core values most of them share. For example, human-ists usually place a premium on individual liberty. Krippendorff wants to make sure that scholars’ drive for personal freedom extends to the people they study. His ethical imperative directs the theorist to “grant others that occur in your con-struction the same autonomy you practice constructing them.” 14 When theorists follow this rule, scholarly monologue gives way to collegial dialogue. In this way people have a say in what’s said about them. This kind of communal assessment requires reporting multiple voices rather than relying on one or two informants. Some interpretive scholars value equality as highly as they do freedom. This commitment leads to continual examination of the power relationships inherent Self-referential imperative Include yourself as a constituent of your own construction. Ethical imperative Grant others that occur in your construction the same autonomy you practice constructing them.
32 OVERVIEWin all communication. Critical theorists, in particular, insist that scholars can no longer remain ethically detached from the people they are studying or from the political and economic implications of their work. For critical theorists, “There is no safe harbor in which researchers can avoid the power structure.” 15 Interpretive Standard 3: Aesthetic Appeal The way a theorist presents ideas can capture the imagination of a reader just as much as the wisdom and originality of the theory he or she has created. As with any type of communication, both content and style make a difference. Objective theorists are constrained by the standard format for acceptable scientii c writing—propositions, hypotheses, operationalized constructs, and the like. But interpre-tive theorists have more room for creativity, so aesthetic appeal becomes an issue. Although the elegance of a theory is in the eye of the beholder, clarity and artistry seem to be the two qualities needed to satisfy this aesthetic requirement. No matter how great the insights the theory contains, if the essay describing them is disorganized, overwritten, or opaque, the theorist’s ideas will come across murky rather than clear. A student of mine who fought through a theo-rist’s monograph i lled with esoteric jargon likened the experience to “scuba diving in fudge.” According to University of Washington professor Barbara Warnick, a rhe-torical critic can i ll one or more of four roles—artist, analyst, audience, and advocate. 16 As an artist, the critic’s job is to spark appreciation. Along with clar-ity, it’s another way to construct an interpretive theory with aesthetic appeal. By artfully incorporating imagery, metaphor, illustration, and story into the core of the theory, the theorist can make his or her creation come alive for others. I can’t illustrate all of these artful devices in a single paragraph, but many students of rhetoric are moved by the way University of Wisconsin rhetorical critic Edwin Black sums up his analysis of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address: The Gettysburg Address is, i nally and inevitably, a projection of Lincoln himself, of his discretion, of his modesty on an occasion which invited him to don the man-tle of the prophet, of his meticulous measure of how far he ought to go, of the assurance of his self-knowledge: his impeccable discernment of his own compe-tence, his l awless sense of its depth and its limits. As an actor in history and a force in the world, Lincoln does not hesitate to comprehend history and the world. But he never presumes to cast his mind beyond human dimensions. He does not recite divine intentions; he does not issue cosmic judgments. He knows, to the bot-tom, what he knows. Of the rest, he is silent. 17 Interpretive Standard 4: Community of Agreement We can identify a good interpretive theory by the amount of support it generates within a community of scholars who are interested and knowledgeable about the same type of communication. Interpretation of meaning is subjective, but whether the interpreter’s case is reasonable or totally off the wall is decided ultimately by others in the i eld. Their acceptance or rejection is an objective fact that helps verify or vilify a theorist’s ideas. Sometimes interpretive theorists present a controversial thesis to an audience restricted to true believers—those who already agree with the author’s position. But an interpretive theory can’t meet the community of agreement standard
CHAPTER 3: WEIGHING THE WORDS 33unless it becomes the subject of widespread analysis. For example, former National Communication Association president David Zarefsky warns that rhetorical valid-ity can be established only when a work is debated in the broad marketplace of ideas. For this Northwestern University rhetorical critic, sound arguments differ from unsound ones in that “sound arguments are addressed to the general audi-ence of critical readers, not just to the adherents of a particular ‘school’ or per-spective. . . . They open their own reasoning process to scrutiny.” 18 John Stewart is the editor of Bridges, Not Walls, a collection of humanistic articles on interpersonal communication. As the book has progressed through 10 editions, Stewart’s judgment to keep, drop, or add a theoretical work has been made possible by the fact that interpretive scholarship is “not a solitary enter-prise carried out in a vacuum.” It is instead, he says, “the effort of a community of scholars who routinely subject their i ndings to the scrutiny of editors, refer-ees, and readers.” 19 Interpretive Standard 5: Reform of Society A good interpretive theory often generates change. Some interpretive scholars, but by no means all, aren’t content merely to interpret the intended meanings of a text. Contrary to the notion that we can dismiss calls for social justice or eman-cipation as mere rhetoric, critical interpreters are reformers who can have an impact on society. They want to expose and publicly resist the ideology that permeates the accepted wisdom of a culture. Kenneth Gergen, a Swarthmore College social psychologist, states that theory has the capacity to challenge the guiding assumptions of the culture, to raise fundamental questions regarding contemporary social life, to foster reconsideration of that which is “taken for granted,” and thereby to generate fresh alternatives for social action. 20 Along with many interpretive scholars, critical theorists tend to reject any notion of permanent truth or meaning. They see society’s economic, political, social, religious, and educational institutions as socially constructed by unjust communication practices that create or perpetuate gross imbalances of power. The aim of their scholarship is to unmask these communication practices in an attempt to stimulate change. To traditional thinkers, their activity looks like a few angry children in kindergarten knocking over other kids’ blocks, but they are intentionally using theory to carve out a space where people without power can be heard. For example, a critical theorist working from a Marxist, feminist, or postmodern perspective might craft a theory to support an alternative inter-pretation of the Golden Rule, namely, He who has the gold, rules. The theorist would then apply this reinterpretation to a specii c practice, perhaps the publish-ing and pricing of required textbooks such as the one you’re reading. To the extent that the theory stimulates students to rethink, respond, and react to this “free-market” process, it is a good interpretive theory. Interpretive Standard 6: Qualitative Research While scientists use numbers to support their theories, interpretive scholars use words . That’s the basic difference between quantitative and qualitative research. As the editors of the Handbook of Qualitative Research describe the process, “Qual-itative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meaning people bring to Critical theorists Scholars who use theory to reveal unjust commu-nication practices that create or perpetuate an imbalance of power.
34 OVERVIEWthem.” 21 A focus on meaning and signii cance is consistent with the maxim that once hung on the wall of Einstein’s Princeton University ofi ce: 22 Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. The interpretive scholar’s qualitative tools include open-ended interviews, focus groups, visual texts, artifacts, and introspection. But textual analysis and ethnography are the two methods most often used to study how humans use signs and symbols to create and infer meaning. Textual Analysis. The aim of textual analysis is to describe and interpret the characteristics of a message. Communication theorists use this term to refer to the intensive study of a single message grounded in a humanistic perspective. Rhetorical criticism is the most common form of textual research in the com-munication discipline. For example, rhetorical critics have asked, What does Martin Luther King’s choice of language in his “I Have a Dream” speech on the Washington mall reveal about his strategic intent? They’ve then undertaken a close reading of the text and context of that famous speech and concluded that King was trying to simultaneously appeal to multiple audiences without alienating any of them. 23 Ethnography. Princeton anthropologist Clifford Geertz says that ethnogra-phy is “not an experimental science in search of law, but an interpretive [approach] in search of meaning.” 24 As a sensitive observer of the human scene, Geertz is loath to impose his way of thinking onto a society’s construction of reality. He wants his theory of communication grounded in the meanings that people within a culture share. Getting it right means seeing it from their point of view. In the Academy Award-winning i lm Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner plays John Dunbar, a nineteenth-century Army lieutenant alone on the Dakota plains. 25 With some anxiety and great tentativeness, Dunbar sets out to under-stand the ways of the Sioux tribe camped a short distance away. He watches carefully, listens attentively, appreciates greatly, and slowly begins to participate in the tribal rituals. He also takes extensive notes. That’s ethnography. Although the i lm is i ctional, the ethnographic methods Dunbar employs would be an appropriate means of answering the research question, How do the Dakota Sioux view war and peace with their neighbors? Textual analysis A research method that describes and interprets the characteristics of any text. Ethnography A method of participant observation designed to help a researcher experi-ence a culture’s complex web of meaning. CONTESTED TURF AND COMMON GROUND AMONG THEORISTS Throughout this chapter I have urged using separate measures for weighing the merits of objective and interpretive theories. That’s because the two sets of crite-ria rel ect the divergent mindsets of scientists and interpretive scholars as outlined in Chapter 2. Perhaps the i eld of personality assessment offers a way to under-stand how deeply these differences run. Some of you have taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a test that measures individual preferences on four bipolar scales. The sensing–intuition scale shows how people perceive or acquire information—how they seek to i nd out about things. As you read through the descriptions of sensing and intuition below, consider how closely they rel ect the contrast of objec-tive and interpretive epistemology—different ways of knowing. 26 Sensing. One way to “i nd out” is to use your sensing function. Your eyes, ears, and other senses tell you what is actually there and actually happening, both
CHAPTER 3: WEIGHING THE WORDS 35inside and outside of yourself. Sensing is especially useful for appreciating the realities of a situation. Intuition. The other way to “i nd out” is through intuition, which reveals the meanings, relationships, and possibilities that go beyond the information from your senses. Intuition looks at the big picture and tries to grasp the essen-tial patterns. These are differences that make a difference. It’s hard to imagine two theo-rists becoming intellectual soul mates if each discounts or disdains the other’s starting point, method, and conclusion. Does that mean they can’t be friends? Not necessarily. There are at least three reasons for guarded optimism. A i rm foundation for their friendship would be a mutual respect for each other’s curiosity about the communication process and a recognition that they are both bringing the very best of their intellect to bear on what they study. A second basis for mutual appreciation would be an understanding that the strong point of science is a rigorous comparison of multiple messages or groups, while the forte of humanism is its imaginative, in-depth analysis of a single message or group. Anthropologist Gregory Bateson described rigor and imagination as the two great contraries of the mind. He wrote that either “by itself is lethal. Rigor alone is paralytic death, but imagination alone is insanity.” 27 Rhetorician Marie Hochmuth Nichols echoed Bateson’s call for the temporizing effect that the sci-ences and humanities can have on each other. She claimed that “the humanities without science are blind, but science without the humanities may be vicious.” 28 A third reason for mutual appreciation can be seen in a side-by-side com-parison of the two sets of criteria in Figure 3–1 . The chart suggests that the standards set by scientists and the evaluative criteria used by interpretive theo-rists share some similarities. Work down through the chart line-by-line and note a bit of overlap for each pair of terms. Here are the points of contact I see: 1. An explanation of communication behavior can lead to further understand-ing of people’s motivation. 2. Both prediction and value clarii cation look to the future. The i rst suggests what will happen; the second, what ought to happen. 3. For many students of theory, simplicity has an aesthetic appeal . 4. Testing hypotheses is a way of achieving a community of agreement . Scientific TheoryInterpretive TheoryExplanation of DataUnderstanding of PeoplePrediction of FutureClarification of ValuesRelative SimplicityAesthetic AppealTestable HypothesisCommunity of AgreementPractical UtilityReform of SocietyQuantitative ResearchQualitative ResearchFIGURE 3–1 Summary of Criteria for Evaluating Communication Theory
36 OVERVIEW 5. What could be more practical than a theory that reforms unjust practices? 6. Both quantitative research and qualitative research rel ect a commitment to learn more about communication. At the very least, the two scholarly communities should have a familiarity with each other’s work. That’s one reason I’ve elected to present both objective and interpretive theories in this book. You’ll i nd that I often refer to these requirements for good theory in the critique sections at the end of each chapter. As you might expect, the 32 theories stack up rather well—otherwise I wouldn’t have picked them in the i rst place. But constructing theory is difi cult, and most theories have an Achilles’ heel that makes them vulnerable to criticism. All of the theorists readily admit a need for i ne-tuning their work, and some even call for major overhauls. I encourage you to weigh their words by the standards you think are important before reading my critique at the end of each chapter. 1. How can we call a scientii c theory good if it is capable of being proved wrong ? 2. How can we decide when a rhetorical critic provides a reasonable interpretation ? 3. All theories involve trade-offs; no theory can meet every standard of quality equally well. Of the 12 criteria discussed, which two or three are most important to you? Which one is least important? 4. Which of the 12 standards presented in this chapter can you tie to the con-trasting worldviews of objective or interpretive theorists discussed in Chapter 2—specii cally their commitment to ways of knowing, human nature, ultimate values, and purpose for theorizing ? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS A SECOND LOOK Scientii c evaluation: Steven Chaffee, “Thinking About Theory,” in An Integrated Approach to Communication Theory and Research, 2 nd ed., Don Stacks and Michael Salwen (eds.), Routledge, NY, 2009, pp. 13–29. Interpretive evaluation: Klaus Krippendorff, “On the Ethics of Constructing Commu-nication,” in Rethinking Communication: Vol. 1, Brenda Dervin, Lawrence Grossberg, Barbara O’Keefe, and Ellen Wartella (eds.), Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1989, pp. 66–96. Progress in scientii c research: Franklin Boster, “On Making Progress in Communica-tion,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 28, 2002, pp. 473–490. Quantitative theory: Michael Beatty, “Thinking Quantitatively,” in Stacks and Salwen, pp. 30–39. Qualitative theory: James A. Anderson, “Thinking Qualitatively,” in Stacks and Salwen, pp. 40–58. Quantitative methods: Franklin Boster and John Sherry, “Alternative Methodological Approaches to Communication Science,” in The Handbook of Communication Science, 2 nd ed., Charles Berger, Michael Roloff, and David Roskos-Ewoldsen (eds.), Sage, Los Angeles, CA, pp. 55–71. Qualitative methods: Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1998.
Mapping the Territory (Seven Traditions in the Field of Communication Theory) In Chapter 1, I presented working dei nitions for the concepts of communication and theory . In Chapters 2 and 3, I outlined the basic differences between objective and interpretive communication theories. These distinctions should help bring order out of chaos when your study of theory seems confusing. And it may seem confusing. University of Colorado communication professor Robert Craig describes the i eld of communication theory as awash with hundreds of unre-lated theories that differ in starting point, method, and conclusion. He suggests that our i eld of study resembles “a pest control device called the Roach Motel that used to be advertised on TV: Theories check in, but they never check out.” 1 My mind conjures up a different image when I try to make sense of the often bafl ing landscape of communication theory. I picture a scene from the i lm Raid-ers of the Lost Ark in which college professor Indiana Jones is lowered into a dark vault and confronts a thick layer of writhing serpents covering the l oor—a tan-gle of communication theories. The intrepid adventurer discovers that the snakes momentarily retreat from the bright light of his torch, letting him secure a safe place to stand. It’s my hope that the core ideas of Chapters 1–3 will provide you with that kind of space. The fantasy nature of the i lm is such that I could even imagine Indiana Jones emerging from the cave with all the snakes straightened like sticks of kindling wood, bound together in two bundles—the objective batch held in his right hand and the interpretive batch held in his left. But that’s an overly simplistic fantasy. Craig offers a more sophisticated solution. Craig agrees that the terrain is confusing if we insist on looking for some kind of grand theoretical overview that brings all communication study into focus—a top-down, satellite picture of the communication theory landscape. He suggests, however, that communication theory is a coherent i eld when we understand com-munication as a practical discipline. 2 He’s convinced that our search for different types of theory should be grounded where real people grapple with everyday problems and practices of communication. Craig explains that “all communication theories are relevant to a common practical lifeworld in which communication is already a richly meaningful term.” 3 Communication theory is the systematic and thoughtful response of communication scholars to questions posed as humans interact with each other—the best thinking within a practical discipline. 374CHAPTER
38 OVERVIEW The socio-psychological tradition epitomizes the scientii c or objective perspec-tive described in Chapter 2. Scholars in this tradition believe there are commu-nication truths that can be discovered by careful, systematic observation. They look for cause-and-effect relationships that will predict the results when people communicate. When they i nd causal links, they are well on the way to answer-ing the ever-present question that relationship and persuasion practitioners ask: How can I get others to change? In terms of generating theory, the socio-psychological tradition is by far the most prolii c of the seven that Craig names. This disciplinary fact of life is rel ected in the many theories of this type that I present in the book. When researchers search for universal laws of communication, they try to focus on what is without being biased by their personal view of what ought to be. As social scientists, they heed the warning of the skeptical newspaper editor: “You think your mother loves you? Check it out—at least two sources.” For communication theorists in the socio-psychological tradition, checking it out usu-ally means designing a series of surveys or controlled experiments. That’s been my approach. Teaching at a small liberal arts college where I’ve had the opportunity to be personally involved in the lives of my students, I’ve always wondered if there is a way to predict which college friendships will survive and thrive after grad-uation. As someone trained in the socio-psychological tradition, I began a longi-tudinal study spanning two decades to i nd out the answer. 6 I asked 45 pairs of best friends to respond to questions about (1) when they became close friends; (2) the similarity of their academic majors; (3) their range of mutual-touch behavior; Craig thinks it’s reasonable to talk about a i eld of communication theory if we take a collective look at the actual approaches researchers have used to study communication problems and practices. He identii es seven established tradi-tions of communication theory that include most, if not all, of what theorists have done. These already established traditions offer “distinct, alternative vocab-ularies” that describe different “ways of conceptualizing communication problems and practices.” 4 This means that scholars within a given tradition talk comfort-ably with each other but often take potshots at those who work in other camps. As Craig suggests, we shouldn’t try to smooth over these between-group battles. Theorists argue because they have something important to argue about. In the rest of the chapter I’ll outline the seven traditions that Craig describes. Taken together, they reveal the breadth and diversity that spans the i eld of communication theory. The classii cations will also help you understand why some theories share common ground, while others are effectively fenced off from each other by conl icting goals and assumptions. As I introduce each tra-dition, I’ll highlight how its advocates tend to dei ne communication, suggest a practical communication problem that this kind of theory addresses, and pro-vide an example of research that the tradition has inspired. 5 Since I i nd that the topic of friendship is of great interest to most college students, the seven research studies I describe will show how each tradition approaches this type of close relationship. THE SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL TRADITION Communication as Interpersonal Interaction and Influence
CHAPTER 4: MAPPING THE TERRITORY 39(4) their perceived status difference; and (5) the extent to which they avoided discussing awkward topics. I also (6) assessed actual self-disclosure by submit-ting them to a procedure akin to The Newlywed Game; and (7) measured their communication efi ciency by watching them play two rounds of the cooperative word game Password . Would any of these measures forecast who would be friends forever? In order to determine the answer, I needed a reliable and valid measure of relational closeness. Glenn Sparks (Purdue University), who is one of two special consultants for this book, joined me in creating such a measure. Based on social psychologist Harold Kelley’s interactional theory, which suggests that close rela-tionships are characterized by “strength, frequency, diversity, and duration,” we developed a composite measure that assessed these properties. 7 For example, we gauged relative strength by asking the pair how many friends they now have to whom they feel closer than their college best friend. And we assessed frequency of contact by counting the number of times over the last year that the pair com-municated face-to-face, over the phone, by letter, and through email. Nineteen years after the initial study, Andrew Ledbetter (Texas Christian University), who is my other special consultant for this book, located the study participants and asked them to respond to the measures of relational closeness mentioned above. We weren’t surprised that participants with a longer history as best friends when they came to the study were most likely to remain close two decades later. Past behavior tends to be a good predictor of future behavior. Of more interest to us as communication scholars was the fact that those with similar academic majors and those with better scores on the Password game also remained close. 8 Remember that participants’ choice of major and the Password game occurred about two decades earlier, yet these factors still predicted friend-ship long after college. It appears that communicating on the same wavelength and sharing common academic interests is a boon to long-lasting friendship. Theorists and researchers working within the socio-psychological tradition often call for longitudinal empirical studies. Only by using this type of research design could we predict which pairs were likely to be friends forever. THE CYBERNETIC TRADITION Communication as a System of Information Processing MIT scientist Norbert Wiener coined the word cybernetics to describe the i eld of artii cial intelligence. 9 The term is a transliteration of the Greek word for “steers-man” or “governor,” and it illustrates the way feedback makes information pro-cessing possible in our heads and on our laptops. During World War II, Wiener developed an anti-aircraft i ring system that adjusted future trajectory by taking into account the results of past performance. His concept of feedback anchored the cybernetic tradition, which regards communication as the link connecting the separate parts of any system, such as a computer system, a family system, a media system, or a system of social support. Theorists in the cybernetic tradition seek to answer such questions as How does the system work? What could change it? and How can we get the bugs out? University of Washington communication professor Malcolm Parks studies personal relationships by asking both partners to describe their social network. In one major study of college students’ same-sex friendships, he separately asked Cybernetics The study of information processing, feedback, and control in communi-cation systems.
40 OVERVIEWeach partner to prepare a list of his or her closest relationships, including four family members and eight non-family ties. 10 In almost all cases, the eight people who weren’t family were other friends or romantic partners rather than co-workers, coaches, or teachers. Parks then had the two friends trade their lists and asked them questions that probed their relationship with the key people in their friend’s social network. These included: 1. Prior contact: Which people did you know before you met your friend? 2. Range of contact: How many of them have you now met face-to-face? 3. Communication: How often do you communicate with each of them? 4. Liking: How much do you like or dislike each of the ones you know? 5. Support: To what extent does each of them support your friendship? 6. Support: To what extent does your own network support your friendship? Note that the i rst four questions establish the links within and between the friends’ social networks. Both support questions reveal the feedback friends receive from these support systems. Using a number of traditional measures that assess personal relationships, Parks measured the amount of communication between the friends, the closeness of their relationship, and their commitment to see it continue. When he compared these three measures to the quantity and quality of links to their friend’s social network, the results were striking. Friends who had multiple and positive inter-actions with their partner’s social networks had more communication with, closeness to, and commitment toward their partner than friends who had little involvement and felt little support from these folks. Friendships don’t exist in a vacuum; they are embedded in a network that processes social information. THE RHETORICAL TRADITION Communication as Artful Public Address Whether speaking to a crowd, congregation, legislative assembly, or jury, public speakers have sought practical advice on how to best present their case. Well into the twentieth century, the rhetorical theory and advice from Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and other Greco-Roman rhetors served as the main source of wisdom about public speaking. There are a half-dozen features that characterize this inl uential tradition of rhetorical communication: • A conviction that speech distinguishes humans from other animals. Cicero suggested that only oral communication had the power to lead humanity out of its brutish existence and establish communities with rights of citizenship. 11 • A coni dence that public address delivered in a democratic forum is a more effective way to solve political problems than rule by decree or resorting to force. Within this tradition, the phrase mere rhetoric is a contradiction in terms. • A setting in which a single speaker attempts to inl uence multiple listeners through persuasive discourse. Effective communication requires audience adaptation. • Oratorical training as the cornerstone of a leader’s education. Speakers learn to deliver strong arguments in powerful voices that carry to the edge of a crowd. Rhetoric The art of using all avail-able means of persua-sion, focusing upon lines of argument, organiza-tion of ideas, language use, and delivery in pub-lic speaking.
CHAPTER 4: MAPPING THE TERRITORY 41 • An emphasis on the power and beauty of language to move people emotion-ally and stir them to action. Rhetoric is more art than science. • Oral public persuasion as the province of males. A key feature of the wom-en’s movement has been the struggle for the right to speak in public. Readers of Aristotle’s Rhetoric may be surprised to i nd a systematic analysis of friendship. He dei nes a friend as “one who loves and is loved in return.” 12 The Greek word for this kind of love is philia, as in Philadelphia (the city of brotherly love). Based on this mutual love, Aristotle says a friend takes pleasure when good things happen to the other and feels distress when the other goes through bad times—both emotions experienced for no other reason than the fact that they are friends. Aristotle then catalogs more than 20 personal qualities that make people attractive to us as friends. For example, we have friendly feelings toward those who are pleasant to deal with, share our interests, aren’t critical of others, are willing to make or take a joke, and show that they “are very fond of their friends and not inclined to leave them in the lurch.” 13 Although Aristotle wrote 2,500 years ago, this last quality resonates with James Taylor’s promise in the song “You’ve Got a Friend.” If you call out his name, wherever he is, he’ll come running. 14 You might have trouble seeing the link between the main features of the rhetorical tradition and Aristotle’s comments on friendship. After an in-depth study on Aristotle’s entire body of work—not just the Rhetoric —St. John’s Uni-versity philosopher Eugene Garver concluded that Aristotle didn’t analyze friendship as a way to help Greek citizens develop close relationships. 15 Rather, he was instructing orators on how to make their case seem more probable by creating a feeling of goodwill among the audience. If by word and deed a speaker appears friendly, listeners will be more open to the message. Twenty-i ve years ago I wrote a book on friendship and suggested the title Making Friends . The publisher liked my proposal, but at the last minute added a phrase. I was startled when the book came out entitled Making Friends (and Making Them Count). 16 I’m uncomfortable with the idea of using friends as a means to achieve other goals. According to Garver, Aristotle had no such qualms. Rhetoric is the discovery of all available means of persuasion. THE SEMIOTIC TRADITION Communication as the Process of Sharing Meaning Through Signs Semiotics is the study of signs. A sign is anything that can stand for something else. High body temperature is a sign of infection. Birds l ying south signal the coming of winter. A white cane signii es blindness. An arrow designates which direction to go. Words are also signs, but of a special kind. They are symbols. Unlike the examples I’ve just cited, words are arbitrary symbols that have no inherent meaning, no natural connection with the things they describe. For example, there’s nothing in the sound of the word share or anything visual in the letters h-u-g that signii es a good friendship. One could just as easily coin the term snarf or clag to symbolize a close relationship between friends. The same thing is true for nonverbal symbols like winks or waves. Cambridge University literary critic I. A. Richards railed against the seman-tic trap that he labeled “the proper meaning superstition”—the mistaken belief Semiotics The study of verbal and nonverbal signs that can stand for something else, and how their interpreta-tion impacts society. Symbols Arbitrary words and non-verbal signs that bear no natural connection with the things they describe; their meaning is learned within a given culture.
42 OVERVIEWthat words have a precise dei nition. For Richards and other semiologists, mean-ing doesn’t reside in words or other symbols; meaning resides in people. Most theorists grounded in the semiotic tradition are trying to explain and reduce the misunderstanding created by the use of ambiguous symbols. Communication professor Michael Monsour (University of Colorado Den-ver) recognized that the word intimacy used in the context of friendship might mean different things to different people, and the disparity could lead to con-fusion or misunderstanding. So he asked 164 communication students what they meant by intimacy when used in reference to their same-sex and their opposite-sex friends. Roughly two-thirds of the respondents were female, two-thirds were single, and two-thirds were under the age of 30. Participants offered 27 distinct interpretations of intimacy between friends, and the number of meanings sug-gested by each respondent ranged from 1–5, with an average of two different meanings per person. 17 Seven meanings were mentioned often enough to include them in the i nal analysis. Self-disclosure was by far the meaning of intimacy mentioned most. In rank-order of frequency, the seven interpretations were: 1. Self-disclosure: Revelations about self that the friend didn’t know 2. Emotional expressiveness: Closeness, warmth, affection, and caring DILBERT © Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
CHAPTER 4: MAPPING THE TERRITORY 43 The socio-cultural tradition is based on the premise that as people talk, they produce and reproduce culture. Most of us assume that words rel ect what actu-ally exists. However, theorists in this tradition suggest that the process often works the other way around. Our view of reality is strongly shaped by the lan-guage we’ve used since we were infants. University of Chicago linguist Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf were pioneers in the socio-cultural tradition. The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity states that the structure of a culture’s language shapes what people think and do. 18 “The ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group.” 19 Their theory of linguistic relativ-ity counters the assumption that words merely act as neutral vehicles to carry meaning. Language actually structures our perception of reality. Contemporary socio-cultural theorists grant even more power to language. They claim that it is through the process of communication that “reality is pro-duced, maintained, repaired, and transformed.” 20 Or, stated in the active voice, persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social worlds. 21 When these worlds collide, the socio-cultural tradition offers help in bridging the culture gap that exists between “us” and “them.” Patricia Sias, a communication professor at Washington State University, takes a socio-cultural approach when studying friendships that form and dis-solve in organizational settings. She writes that “relationships are not entities external to the relationship partners, but are mental creations that depend on communication for their existence and form. . . . If relationships are constituted in communication they are also changed through communication.” 22 Sias uses a social construction lens through which to view deteriorating friendships in the workplace. Sias located 25 people in a variety of jobs who were willing to talk about their failing workplace friendships. Some relationships were between peer Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity   The claim that the struc-ture of a language shapes what people think and do; the social construc-tion of reality. 3. Physical contact: Nonsexual touch 4. Trust: Coni dence that the other is reliable 5. Unconditional support: Being there for the other in good times and bad 6. Sexual contact: Overt sexual activity 7. Activities: Doing things together of a nonsexual nature The content and order of the top i ve interpretations of intimacy held rela-tively constant for both opposite-sex and same-sex friendships, whether the respondent was a man or a woman. The notable deviations were that a few more men in opposite-sex friendships thought of intimacy as sexual contact, but in same-sex relationships characterized it as activities together. For Monsour, the major contribution of this study is that for friends in both kinds of relationships, the word intimacy is multidimensional—a polysemic linguistic sign. A symbol like this can easily be misunderstood. Yet if two of the students in Monsour’s study referred to intimacy in a conversation, with a few exceptions, it’s likely that they’d understand what the other was talking about. THE SOCIO-CULTURAL TRADITION Communication as the Creation and Enactment of Social Reality
44 OVERVIEWco-workers, others between a supervisor and a subordinate. All the workers spon-taneously told stories about their deteriorating friendship that revealed how communication between the two co-workers had changed. Although the friend-ships went sour for a variety of reasons—personality problems, distracting life events, conl icting expectations, betrayal, and promotion—the way the friend-ships dissolved was remarkably similar. Almost all workers told stories of using indirect communication to change the relationship. While their friendships were deteriorating, the former friends still had to talk with each other in order to accomplish their work. But these co-workers stopped eating lunch together and spending time together outside the ofi ce. While on the job they avoided personal topics and almost never talked about the declining state of their relationship. Even seemingly safe topics such as sports or movies were no longer discussed; small talk and watercooler chitchat disappeared. While linguistic connection was sparse, nonverbal communication spoke loudly. The workers who talked with Sias recalled the lack of eye contact, snappy or condescending tones of voice, and physically backing away from the other. Ideally, social construction research in the ofi ce would capture the real-time communication of co-workers, but that would require a videotaped record of ofi ce conversations when the friendship was in the process of deteriorating—a high hurdle for Sias to clear. As for contrasting narratives, she notes that “the damaged nature of the relationships made it difi cult to recruit both partners in each friendship.” 23 Yet without the actual dialogue of both conversational part-ners to examine, any statement about their co-creation of social reality must remain tentative. THE CRITICAL TRADITION Communication as a Reflective Challenge of Unjust Discourse The term critical theory comes from the work of a group of German scholars known as the “Frankfurt School” because they were part of the independent Institute for Social Research at Frankfurt University. Originally set up to test the ideas of Karl Marx, the Frankfurt School rejected the economic determinism of orthodox Marxism yet carried on the Marxist tradition of critiquing society. What types of communication practice and research are critical theorists against? Although there is no single set of abuses that all of them denounce, critical theorists consistently challenge three features of contemporary society: 1. The control of language to perpetuate power imbalances. Critical theorists con-demn any use of words that inhibits emancipation. 2. The role of mass media in dulling sensitivity to repression. Critical theorists see the “culture industries” of television, i lm, MP3s, and print media as reproducing the dominant ideology of a culture and distracting people from recognizing the unjust distribution of power within society. 3. Blind reliance on the scientii c method and uncritical acceptance of empirical i nd-ings. Critical theorists are suspicious of empirical work that scientists claim to be ideologically free, because science is not the value-free pursuit of knowledge that it claims to be. Culture industries   Entertainment businesses that reproduce the domi-nant ideology of a cul-ture and distract people from recognizing unjust distribution of power within society; e.g., film, television, music, and advertising.
CHAPTER 4: MAPPING THE TERRITORY 45 University of Louisville communication professor Kathy Werking agrees that personal relationship research decisions aren’t neutral. In a chapter titled “Cross-Sex Friendship Research as Ideological Practice,” Werking acknowledges that the reigning cultural model of relationships between women and men is one of romance. Yet she is critical of scholars for continually reproducing this hetero-sexual ideology to the point where it seems natural or just common sense to assume that all close male–female relationships are about sex and romance. 24 In support of her ideological critique, Werking notes that academic journals devoted to the study of personal relationships publish vastly more articles on dating, courtship, and marriage than they do on opposite-sex friendships. Even when a rare study of opposite-sex friendship is reported, the author usually compares this type of relationship unfavorably with romantic ties that “may or may not include equality, are passionate, and have the goal of marriage.” 25 Friendship, Werking claims, is best “based on equality, affection, communion, and is an end in itself.” 26 This disconnect puts opposite-sex friends in a bind. They have no language that adequately describes or legitimizes their relation-ship. The term just friends downplays its importance, platonic friends has an archaic connotation, and if they use the word love, it must be qualii ed so that no one gets the wrong idea. Werking also criticizes Western scholars for the individualistic ideology that permeates their opposite-sex research. She says they equate biological sex char-acteristics with gender identity—an assumption that precludes the possibility that masculine and feminine orientations are socially created and can change over time. They also assume that the perceptions of one friend adequately rep-resent the complexity of what’s going on in the relationship. And rather than observe friends’ actual interactions over time, they naively rely on freeze-frame responses on a structured survey to provide sufi cient information to understand a relationship. Werking claims that all of these research practices do an injustice to men and women in opposite-sex relationships. THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL TRADITION Communication as the Experience of Self and Others Through Dialogue Although phenomenology is an imposing philosophical term, it basically refers to the intentional analysis of everyday life from the standpoint of the person who is living it. Thus, the phenomenological tradition places great emphasis on people’s perception and their interpretation of their own experience. For the phenomenologist, an individual’s story is more important, and more authorita-tive, than any research hypothesis or communication axiom. As psychologist Carl Rogers asserts, “Neither the Bible nor the prophets—neither Freud nor research—neither the revelations of God nor man—can take precedence over my own direct experience.” 27 The problem, of course, is that no two people have the same life story. Since we cannot experience another person’s experience, we tend to talk past each other and then lament, “Nobody understands what it’s like to be me.” Thus, theorists who work within the phenomenological tradition seek to answer two questions: Why is it so hard to establish and sustain authentic human relationships? and How can this problem be overcome? Phenomenology Intentional analysis of ev-eryday experience from the standpoint of the per-son who is living it; ex-plores the possibility of understanding the experi-ence of self and others.
46 OVERVIEW Communication professor Bill Rawlins (Ohio University) works within this tradition as he studies friendship by taking an in-depth look at the actual con-versations between friends. In his book The Compass of Friendship: Narratives, Identities, and Dialogues, he devotes an entire chapter to a 90-minute recorded conversation between Chris and Karen, two women who agree they’ve been friends for “30 years and counting.” 28 Rawlins provided no guidelines or instruc-tions. The women only know that he is interested in their friendship. After an hour of recounting stories about shared experiences, Chris brings up Karen’s slow retreat into silence the past winter. Obviously bothered by losing contact, Chris continues . . . Chris: And I thought, “Well that’s okay; everybody has these times when they feel this way.” But I feel like you should alert people that care about you [laughs] to the fact that this is what is goin’ on— Karen: [laughs] Yeah . . . Chris: “I’m going into my cave. See ya in the spring,” or whatever. Or “I don’t wish to have anything, writing or any communications for a while. Not to worry. Adios. Bye to everybody. Hasta la vista or whatever.” Karen: Yeah. Chris: Or something, because I [pause], I [pause], I . . . Karen: You were worried. 29 The dialogue above is less than a minute of the women’s conversation, yet it provides a rich resource for Rawlins’ insight into their friendship. Chris quotes to herself at the time that such feelings are commonplace and “OK.” Even so, she believes that Karen “should alert people that care about you to the fact that this is going on. . . .” They both laugh at this paradoxical recom-mendation that Karen communicate to signii cant others that she does not intend to communicate with them. Chris rehearses two voices for Karen here: a humorous one that trades on a hibernation metaphor, and then a more seri-ous, explicit statement with Spanish l ourishes at the end that seem to add a comical l avor. As Karen afi rms this idea, however, Chris surrenders her comic tone and makes the frank request, “Or something,” haltingly trying to offer her reasons, “I [pause], I [pause], I . . . ,” which Karen completes for her: “You were worried.” In short, Karen again recognizes the emotional basis of Chris’ concerns and legitimates Chris’ suggested policy for communicating social withdrawal. 30 Rawlins’ reconstruction of this segment reveals how he experiences the women’s friendship. After reading his interpretation of the entire conversa-tion, the women independently tell him that he was “right on” and had “nailed it.” 31 That’s because he paid attention to their interpretation of their experience. The seven traditions I’ve described have deep roots in the i eld of communica-tion theory. Team loyalties run strong, so theorists, researchers, and practitioners working within one tradition often hear criticism from those in other traditions that their particular approach has no legitimacy. In addition to whatever arguments FENCING THE FIELD OF COMMUNICATION THEORY
CHAPTER 4: MAPPING THE TERRITORY 47 FIGURE 4–1 A Survey Map of Traditions in the Field of Communication Theory CyberneticObjectiveTerritoryInterpretiveTerritorySocio-psychologicalRhetoricalSocio-culturalCriticalSemioticPhenomenologicaleach group might muster to defend their choice, they can also claim “squatters’ rights” because scholars who went before had already established the right to occupy that portion of land. Taking the real estate metaphor seriously, in Fig-ure 4–1 , I’ve charted the seven traditions as equal-area parcels of land that collectively make up the larger i eld of study. A few explanations are in order. First, it’s important to realize that the location of each tradition on the map is far from random. My rationale for placing them where they are is based on the distinction between objective and interpretive theories outlined in Chapter 2. According to the scientii c assumptions presented in that chapter, the socio-psychological tradition is the most objective, and so it occupies the far left posi-tion on the map—solidly rooted in objective territory. Moving across the map from left to right, the traditions become more interpretive and less objective. Some students wonder why rhetoric is rated more objective than semiotics. It’s because rhetoricians have traditionally regarded what language refers to as “real,” whereas semiologists perceive the relationship between a word and its referent as more tenuous. I see the phenomenological tradition as the most sub-jective of the seven traditions, and so it occupies the position farthest to the right—i rmly grounded in interpretive territory. The order of presentation in this chapter followed the same progression—a gradual shift from objective to inter-pretive concerns. Scholars working in adjacent traditions usually have an easier time appreciating each other’s work. On the map they share a common border. Professionally, they are closer together in their basic assumptions. Second, hybrids are possible across traditions. You’ve seen throughout this chapter that each tradition has its own way of dei ning communication and its own distinct vocabulary. Thus, it’s fair to think of the dividing lines on the map as fences built to keep out strange ideas. Scholars, however, are an independent bunch. They climb fences, read journals, and l y to faraway conferences. This cross-pollination sometimes results in theory grounded in two or three traditions. Finally, the seven charted traditions might not cover every approach to communication theory. Craig recently suggested the possibility of a pragmatist tradition —a pluralistic land where different perspectives on truth could all be
48 OVERVIEWlegitimate in different ways. He pictures it as a tradition that “orients to practi-cal problems, and evaluates ideas according to their usefulness rather than by an absolute standard of truth.” 32 It would be a location where he sees his own work i tting in well. Craig’s openness to considering new territories leads me to offer a quite different stream of theory running through the i eld of communica-tion. My candidate is an ethical tradition. THE ETHICAL TRADITION Communication as People of Character Interacting in Just and Beneficial Ways More than most academic disciplines, the i eld of communication has been con-cerned with ethical responsibility. Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, commu-nication scholars have grappled with the obligations that go along with the opportunities we have to communicate. Contemporary discussions of morality are increasingly beleaguered by the rise of ethical relativism. 33 Yet despite the postmodern challenge to all claims of Truth, at the turn of the century, the National Communication Association (NCA) adopted a “Credo for Communica-tion Ethics” (see Appendix C). 34 Like most attempts to deal with communication ethics, it addresses the problem of what is ethical and starts with the issue of honesty versus lying. I’ll cite three of the creed’s nine principles in order to illustrate the major streams of thought within the ethical tradition: 35 1. We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication. This principle centers on the rightness or wrongness of a com-munication act regardless of whether it benei ts the people involved. It speaks to the question of obligation. Is it always our duty to be honest? 2. We accept responsibility for the short- and long-term consequences of our own com-munication and expect the same of others. This principle is concerned with the harm or benei t that results from our words. It raises the question of outcomes. Will a lie promote well-being or prevent injury? 3. We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages. This principle focuses on the character of the com-municator rather than the act of communication. It bids us to look at our motives and attitudes. Do I seek to be a person of integrity and virtue? These are difi cult questions to answer, and some readers might suggest that they have no place in a communication theory text. But to deal with human intercourse as a mechanical process separate from values would be like discuss-ing sexual intercourse under ground rules that prohibit any reference to love. And within the ethical tradition, communication theorists do offer answers to these questions. Many of these theorists come out of the rhetorical or critical traditions. Others are spread across the objective–interpretive landscape I’ve drawn in Figure 4–1 , so I won’t try to locate the ethical tradition in any single spot. I have, however, encapsuled the thoughts of a dozen ethical theorists into 13 brief summary statements. I refer to them as ethical rel ections and place each one alongside a theory with which it naturally resonates. As for an ethical approach to friendship, the i nal chapter of Bill Rawlins’ book The Compass of Friendship suggests what a friendship aligned with a moral compass looks like. The friends negotiate their relationship voluntarily, care Pragmatism An applied approach to knowledge; the philoso-phy that true understand-ing of an idea or situation has practical implica-tions for action.
CHAPTER 4: MAPPING THE TERRITORY 49about each other’s well-being, respect each other as equals, and engage in ongo-ing learning about each other. They also trust and are trustworthy, are respec-tively honest, and give special attention to the other’s needs and desires. 36 With or without my addition of an ethical tradition, Craig’s framework can help make sense of the great diversity in the i eld of communication theory. As you read about a theory in the section on media effects, remember that it may have the same ancestry as a theory you studied earlier in the section on relation-ship development. On the i rst page of each of the next 32 chapters, I’ll tie each theory to one or more traditions. Hopefully this label will make it easier for you to understand why the theorist has made certain choices. So, after four chapters of introduction and integration, let’s begin. 1. Considering the differences between objective and interpretive theory, can you make a case that the rhetorical tradition is less objective than the semiotic one or that the socio-cultural tradition is more interpretive than the critical one? 2. Suppose you and your best friend have recently been on an emotional roller coaster. Which of the seven highlighted dei nitions of communication offer the most promise of helping you achieve a stable relationship? Why? 3. Communication departments rarely have a faculty representing all seven tra-ditions. In order to create specialties and minimize conl ict, some recruit from just one. What tradition(s) seems well-represented in your department? 4. The map in Figure 4–1 represents seven traditions in the i eld of communica-tion theory. In which region do you feel most at home? What other areas would you like to explore? Where would you be uncomfortable? Why? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Robert T. Craig, “Communication Theory as a Field,” Commu-nication Theory, Vol. 9, 1999, pp. 119–161. Communication as a practical discipline: Robert T. Craig, “Communication as a Practical Discipline,” in Rethinking Communication: Vol. 1, Brenda Dervin, Lawrence Grossberg, Barbara O’Keefe, and Ellen Wartella (eds.), Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1989, pp. 97–122. Anthology of primary resources for each tradition: Heidi L. Muller and Robert T. Craig (eds.), Theorizing Communication: Readings Across Traditions, Sage, Los Angeles, CA, 2007. Socio-psychological tradition: Carl Hovland, Irving Janis, and Harold Kelley, Communi-cation and Persuasion, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1953, pp. 1–55. Cybernetic tradition: Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings, Avon, New York, 1967, pp. 23–100. Rhetorical tradition: Thomas M. Conley, Rhetoric in the European Tradition, Longman, New York, 1990, pp. 1–52. Semiotic tradition: C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1946, pp. 1–23. Phenomenological tradition: Carl Rogers, “The Characteristics of a Helping Relation-ship,” in On Becoming a Person, Houghton Mifl in, Boston, MA, 1961, pp. 39–58.
50 OVERVIEW Socio-cultural tradition: Benjamin Lee Whorf, “The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behaviour to Language,” in Language, Culture, and Personality: Essays in Memory of Edward Sapir, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 1941, pp. 123–149. Critical tradition: Raymond Morrow with David Brown, Critical Theory and Methodol-ogy, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1994, pp. 3–34, 85–112. Ethical tradition: Richard L. Johannesen, “Communication Ethics: Centrality, Trends, and Controversies,” in Communication Yearbook 25, William B. Gudykunst (ed.), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2001, pp. 201–235. Pragmatic tradition: Robert T. Craig, “Pragmatism in the Field of Communication Theory,” Communication Theory, Vol. 17, 2007, pp. 125–145. Critique of Craig’s model and his response: David Myers, “A Pox on All Compromises: Reply to Craig (1999),” and Robert T. Craig, “Minding My Metamodel, Mending Myers,” Communication Theory, Vol. 11, 2001, pp. 218–230, 231–240.
DIVISION TWO Interpersonal Communication INTERPERSONAL MESSAGES CHAPTER 5. Symbolic Interactionism (Mead) CHAPTER 6. Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) (Pearce & Cronen) CHAPTER 7. Expectancy Violations Theory (Burgoon) CHAPTER 8. Constructivism (Delia) RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 9. Social Penetration Theory (Altman & Taylor) CHAPTER 10. Uncertainty Reduction Theory (Berger) CHAPTER 11. Social Information Processing Theory (Walther) RELATIONSHIP MAINTENANCE CHAPTER 12. Relational Dialectics (Baxter & Montgomery) CHAPTER 13. Communication Privacy Management Theory (Petronio) CHAPTER 14. The Interactional View (Watzlawick) INFLUENCE CHAPTER 15. Social Judgment Theory (Sherif) CHAPTER 16. Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo) CHAPTER 17. Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger) 51
Interpersonal Messages Communication theorists often use the image of a game to describe interpersonal communication. Various scholars refer to language games, rules of the game, gamelike behavior, and even game theory . I’ll use three specii c game metaphors to illustrate what interpersonal communication is , and what it is not .1 Communication as Bowling The bowling model of message delivery is likely the most widely held view of communication. I think that’s unfortunate. This model sees the bowler as the sender, who delivers the ball, which is the message. As it rolls down the lane (the channel), clutter on the boards (noise) may del ect the ball (the message). Yet if it is aimed well, the ball strikes the passive pins (the target audience) with a predictable effect. In this one-way model of communication, the speaker (bowler) must take care to select a precisely crafted message (ball) and practice diligently to deliver it the same way every time. Of course, that makes sense only if target listeners are interchangeable, static pins waiting to be bowled over by our words—which they aren’t. Communication theory that emphasizes message content to the neglect of relational factors simply isn’t realistic. Real-life interpersonal communication is sometimes confusing, often unpredictable, and always involves more than just the speaker’s action. This realization has led some observers to propose an interactive model for interpersonal communication. Communication as Ping-Pong Unlike bowling, Ping-Pong is not a solo game. This fact alone makes it a better analogy for interpersonal communication. One party puts the conversational ball in play, and the other gets into position to receive. It takes more concentration and skill to receive than to serve because while the speaker (server) knows where the message is going, the listener (receiver) doesn’t. Like a verbal or nonverbal message, the ball may appear straightforward yet have a deceptive spin. Ping-Pong is a back-and-forth game; players switch roles continuously. One moment the person holding the paddle is an initiator; the next second the same player is a responder, gauging the effectiveness of his or her shot by the way the ball comes back. The repeated adjustment essential for good play closely paral-lels the feedback process described in a number of interpersonal communication theories. There are, however, two inherent l aws in the table-tennis analogy. The i rst defect is that the game is played with one ball, which at any point in time is headed in a single direction. A true model of interpersonal encounters would have people sending and receiving multiple balls at the same time. The other problem is that table tennis is a competitive game—there’s a winner and a loser. In successful dialogue, both people win. Communication as Charades The game of charades best captures the si-multaneous and collaborative nature of interpersonal communication. A charade is neither an action, like bowling a strike, nor an interaction, like a rally in Ping-Pong. It’s a transaction. 52
INTERPERSONAL MESSAGES 53Charades is a mutual game; the actual play is cooperative. One member draws a title or slogan from a batch of possibilities and then tries to act it out visually for teammates in a silent minidrama. The goal is to get at least one partner to say the exact words that are on the slip of paper. Of course, the actor is prohibited from talking out loud. Suppose you drew the saying “God helps those who help themselves.” For God you might try folding your hands and gazing upward. For helps you could act out offering a helping hand or giving a leg-up boost over a fence. By pointing at a number of real or imaginary people you may elicit a response of them, and by this point a partner may shout out, “God helps those who help themselves.” Success. Like charades, interpersonal communication is a mutual, ongoing process of sending, receiving, and adapting verbal and nonverbal messages with another per-son to create and alter the images in both of our minds. Communication between us begins when there is some overlap between two images, and is effective to the extent that overlap increases. But even if our mental pictures are congruent, com-munication will be partial as long as we interpret them differently. The idea that “God helps those who help themselves” could strike one person as a hollow prom-ise, while the other might regard it as a divine stamp of approval for hard work. All four theories in this section reject a simplistic, one-way bowling analogy and an interactive Ping-Pong model of interpersonal communication. Instead, they view interpersonal communication in a way more akin to charades—a com-plex transaction in which overlapping messages simultaneously affect and are affected by the other person and multiple other factors. © Jack O’Brien/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
54 Symbolic Interactionismof George Herbert Mead George Herbert Mead was an early social constructionist. Mead believed that our thoughts, self-concept, and the wider community we live in are created through communication—symbolic interaction. The book that lays out his theory, Mind, Self, and Society, describes how language is essential for these three critical human characteristics to develop.1 Without symbolic interaction, humanity as we know it wouldn’t exist. Symbolic interaction isn’t just talk. The term refers to the language and ges-tures a person uses in anticipation of the way others will respond. The verbal and nonverbal responses that a listener then provides are likewise crafted in expectation of how the original speaker will react. The continuing process is like the game of charades described in the introduction to this section; it’s a full-l edged conversation. Mead was a philosophy professor at the University of Chicago for the i rst three decades of the twentieth century. As a close personal friend of renowned pragmatist John Dewey, he shared Dewey’s applied approach to knowledge. Mead thought that the true test of any theory is whether it is useful in solving complex social problems. If it doesn’t work in practice, forget it! He was a social activist who marched for women’s suffrage, championed labor unions in an era of robber-baron capitalism, and helped launch the urban settlement house movement with pioneer social worker Jane Addams. Although Mead taught in a philosophy department, he is best known by sociologists as the teacher who trained a generation of the best minds in their i eld. Strangely, he never set forth his wide-ranging ideas in a book or system-atic treatise. After he died in 1931, his students pulled together class notes and conversations with their mentor and published Mind, Self, and Society in his name. It was only then that his chief disciple, Herbert Blumer at the University of California, Berkeley, coined the term symbolic interactionism. This phrase cap-tures what Mead claimed is the most human and humanizing activity that people can engage in—talking to each other. This claim provides the backdrop for the movie Nell. Jodie Foster received a best actress Oscar nomination for her 1994 por-trayal of a backwoods, Appalachian young woman raised in almost total iso-lation. The i lm, Nell, covers a three-month period of the woman’s life immediately Symbolic interaction The ongoing use of lan-guage and gestures in anticipation of how the other will react; a con-versation. 5CHAPTERObjective InterpretiveSocio-cultural tradition●
CHAPTER 5: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM 55following the death of her mother. 2 Nell is discovered by Jerry Lovell, a small-town doctor who is quickly joined by Paula Olsen, a psychologist from a big-city university medical center. Both are appalled and fascinated by this grown-up “wild child” who cowers in terror and makes incomprehensible sounds. Nell is based on the play Idioglossia, a Greek term meaning a personal or private language. As Jerry and Paula come to realize, Nell’s speech is not gib-berish. Her language is based on the King James Version of the Bible, which her mother read to her out loud for more than 20 years. Yet because the mother had suffered a stroke that left one side of her face paralyzed, the words Nell learned were unintelligible to anyone else. Early in the i lm Paula labels Nell “autistic” and tries to have her committed to a psych ward for observation. Jerry, on the other hand, treats Nell as a frightened human being and tries to get to know her by learning her language. Although i ction, the movie is an intriguing story about the civilizing inl uence of language. As such, it could easily have been scripted by a symbolic interactionist. I’ll describe scenes from the i lm to illustrate the key ideas of George Herbert Mead, his student Herbert Blumer, and others who adopt an interactionist approach. The i lm illus-trates Mead’s theory so well that you might i nd it fascinating to watch the whole movie. You can rent Nell through Netl ix, your local video store, or purchase it at www.moviesunlimited.com for less than the cost of a ticket at a multiscreen theater. Blumer stated three core principles of symbolic interactionism that deal with meaning, language, and thinking. 3 These premises lead to conclusions about the creation of a person’s self and socialization into the larger society. The rest of this chapter discusses these i ve related topics one by one. As you will see, all of these themes are prominent in the story of Nell. MEANING: THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL REALITY Blumer starts with the premise that humans act toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things. It’s our interpretation that counts. The viewer of Nell can see this principle played out in the radically dif-ferent responses that Jodie Foster’s character elicits from the people she meets. The county sheriff regards Nell as crazy and suggests she be put in a padded cell. His chronically depressed wife sees Nell as a free spirit and joins her in a lighthearted game of patty-cake. The chief psychiatrist at the medical center views this child-of-the-wild case as a chance to make research history and insists the patient be brought to the center for study. And because a group of sleazy guys in a pool hall are convinced that Nell will mindlessly mimic any action she sees, they approach her as easy sexual prey. As for the doctor who found her, Jerry assumes Nell is fully human and seeks to become her friend. She in turn calls Jerry her guardian angel. Which of these interpretations is correct? Who is the real Nell? From Mead’s pragmatic standpoint, the answer doesn’t make much difference. Once people dei ne a situation as real, it’s very real in its consequences. 4 And with the pos-sible exception of Jerry, all of the people in the story initially regard Nell as totally other than themselves—an oddity to be explored or exploited. In Jane Wagner’s one-woman play The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Trudy the bag lady views society from her perspective on the street.
56 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION LANGUAGE: THE SOURCE OF MEANING Blumer’s second premise is that meaning arises out of the social interaction that people have with each other. In other words, meaning is not inherent in objects; it’s not pre-existent in a state of nature. Meaning is negotiated through the use of language —hence the term symbolic interactionism. As human beings, we have the ability to name things. We can designate a specii c object (person), identify an action (scream), or refer to an abstract idea (crazy). Occasionally a word sounds like the thing it describes (smack, thud, crash), but usually the names we use have no logical connection with the object at hand. Symbols are arbitrary signs. There’s nothing inherently small, soft, or lovable in the word kitten. 7 It’s only by talking with others—symbolic interaction—that we come to ascribe that meaning and develop a universe of discourse. Mead believed that symbolic naming is the basis for human society. The book of Genesis in the Bible states that Adam’s i rst task was to name the animals—the dawn of civilization. Interactionists claim that the extent of knowing is dependent on the extent of naming. Although language can be a prison that coni nes us, we have the potential to push back the walls and bars as we master more words. From your experience taking the SAT or ACT college entrance exams, you probably recall a major focus on linguistic aptitude. The construction of the test obvi-ously rel ects agreement with the interactionist claim that human intelligence is the ability to symbolically identify much of what we encounter. When Paula Her words underscore the interactionist position that meaning-making is a com-munity project: It’s my belief we all, at one time or another, secretly ask ourselves the question, “Am I crazy?” In my case, the answer came back: A resounding YES! You’re thinkin’: How does a person know if they’re crazy or not? Well, sometimes you don’t know. Sometimes you can go through life suspecting you are but never really knowing for sure. Sometimes you know for sure ‘cause you got so many people tellin’ you you’re crazy that it’s your word against everyone else’s. . . . After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin’ but a collective hunch. 5 What causes people to react this way toward Trudy or Nell? For followers of Mead that’s a loaded question, one that rel ects the stimulus–response think-ing of behavioral scientists. Interactionists are united in their disdain for deter-ministic thinking. The closest they come to the idea of causality is to argue that humans act on their dei nition of the situation.6 An interactionist revision of the way scientists diagram stimulus–response causality might look like this: Stimulus → Interpretation → ResponseThe middle term in the chain shows that it’s the meaning that matters. As Trudy notes, however, when those interpretations are shared throughout society, they become hard to resist.
CHAPTER 5: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM 57realizes the extent of Nell’s personal vocabulary, she can no longer treat Nell as incompetent or ignorant. But symbolic interaction is not just a means for intelligent expression; it’s also the way we learn to interpret the world. A symbol is “a stimulus that has a learned meaning and value for people.” 8 Consider the puzzle posed by the following story: A father and his son were driving to a ball game when their car stalled on the railroad tracks. In the distance a train whistle blew a warning. Frantically, the father tried to start the engine, but in his panic, he couldn’t turn the key, and the car was hit by the onrushing train. An ambulance sped to the scene and picked them up. On the way to the hospital, the father died. The son was still alive but his condition was very serious, and he needed immediate surgery. The moment they arrived at the hospital, he was wheeled into an emergency operating room, and the surgeon came in, expecting a routine case. However, on seeing the boy the surgeon blanched and muttered, “I can’t operate on this boy—he’s my son.” 9 How can this be? How do you explain the surgeon’s dilemma? If the answer isn’t immediately obvious, I encourage you to close the book and think it through. This puzzle is the opening paragraph of an article that appears in a fascinat-ing book of readings that is my Second Look resource for applications of sym-bolic interactionism. Douglas Hofstadter, the man who poses the problem, is adamant that readers think it through until they i gure out the answer. There’s no doubt, he assures us, that we’ll know it when we get it. I i rst heard this puzzle in a slightly different form about a decade ago. I’m ashamed to admit that it took me a few minutes to i gure out the answer. My chagrin is heightened by the fact that my doctor is the wife of a departmental colleague and my daughter-in-law is a physician as well. How could I have been taken in? Hofstadter’s answer to my question is that the words we use have default assumptions. Since the story contains no reference to the doctor’s gender, and the majority of physicians in America are men, we’ll likely assume that the surgeon in the story is male. While such an assumption may have some basis in fact, the subtle tyranny of symbols is that we usually don’t consciously think about the mental jump we’re making. Unless we’re brought up short by some obvious glitch in our taken-for-granted logic, we’ll probably conjure up a male i gure every time we read or hear the word surgeon. What’s more, we’ll probably assume that the way we think things are is the way they ought to be. That’s how most of the “normal” people in Nell operated. They labeled Nell strange, weird, or deviant —assuming that those who are different are also demented. Signii cant symbols can of course be nonverbal as well as linguistic. When I asked my students to apply a feature of symbolic interaction to their own expe-rience, Glynka wrote the following:A ring. A class ring. A guy’s class ring. In high school it was the ultimate symbol of status, whether dangling from a chain or wrapped with a quarter inch of yarn. Without ever speaking a word, a girl could tell everybody that she was loved (and trusted with expensive jewelry), that she had a protector (and how big that protec-tor was, based, of course, on ring size—the bigger the better), the guy’s status (preferably senior), and his varsity sport (preferably football). Yes, if you had the (right) class ring, you were really somebody.
58 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONShe then noted it was only through hundreds of conversations among students at her school that the privileges and responsibilities that went with wearing the ring became something “everyone knows.” Without symbolic interaction, there’s no shared meaning. THINKING: THE PROCESS OF TAKING THE ROLE OF THE OTHER Blumer’s third premise is that an individual’s interpretation of symbols is modii ed by his or her own thought processes. Symbolic interactionists describe thinking as an inner conversation. Mead called this inner dialogue minding. Minding is the pause that’s rel ective. It’s the two-second delay while we mentally rehearse our next move, test alternatives, anticipate others’ reactions. Mead says we don’t need any encouragement to look before we leap. We natu-rally talk to ourselves in order to sort out the meaning of a difi cult situation. But i rst, we need language. Before we can think, we must be able to interact symbolically. The Lion King, Finding Nemo, and Dr. Dolittle movies aside, Mead believed that animals act “instinctively” and “without deliberation.” 10 They are unable to think rel ectively because, with few exceptions, they are unable to communi-cate symbolically. The human animal comes equipped with a brain that is wired for thought. But that alone is not sufi cient for thinking. Interactionists maintain that “humans require social stimulation and exposure to abstract symbol sys-tems to embark upon conceptual thought processes that characterize our spe-cies.” 11 Language is the software that activates the mind, but it doesn’t come pre-installed. Throughout the i rst half of Nell, Jerry and Paula are hard-pressed to explain Nell’s ability to rel ect rather than merely react. They understand that Nell inter-acted with her mother but are puzzled as to how communication with a single reclusive and taciturn adult would offer the social stimulation that learning a language requires. 12 According to interactionist principles, there’s no way that a person who has had almost zero human contact would be able to develop a lan-guage or think through her responses. Yet through cinematic l ashbacks, viewers learn that Nell had a twin sister, who was her constant companion during her early childhood development. Until her sister died, Nell’s life was rich in social stimulation, twin-speak, and shared meaning. As her past comes to light, Jerry and Paula gain an understanding of Nell’s capacity to think. Symbolic interaction has activated cognitive processes that, once switched on, won’t shut down. Mead’s greatest contribution to our understanding of the way we think is his notion that human beings have the unique capacity to take the role of the other. Early in life, kids role-play the activities of their parents, talk with imaginary friends, and take constant delight in pretending to be someone else. As adults, we continue to put ourselves in the place of others and act as they would act, although the process may be less conscious. Mead was convinced that thinking is the mental conversation we hold with others, always with an eye toward how they might see us and react to what we might do. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout stands on Boo Radley’s porch and recalls her father’s words, “You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” 13 That’s a clear statement of what symbolic interactionism means by role-taking. The young, impulsive girl takes the perspective of a painfully shy, emotionally fragile man. Note that she doesn’t Minding An inner dialogue used to test alternatives, re-hearse actions, and an-ticipate reactions before responding; self-talk. Taking the role of the other The process of mentally imagining that you are someone else who is viewing you.
CHAPTER 5: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM 59 become him—that would be Invasion of the Body Snatchers. She does, however, look out at the world through his eyes. More than anything else, what she sees is herself. THE SELF: REFLECTIONS IN A LOOKING GLASS Once we understand that meaning, language, and thinking are tightly intercon-nected, we’re able to grasp Mead’s concept of the self. Mead dismissed the idea that we could get glimpses of who we are through introspection. He claimed, instead, that we paint our self-portrait with brush strokes that come from taking the role of the other —imagining how we look to another person. Interactionists call this mental image the looking-glass self and insist that it’s socially constructed. Mead borrowed the phrase from sociologist Charles Cooley, who adapted it from a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson wrote that each close companion . . . Is to his friend a looking-glass Rel ects his i gure that doth pass. 14 L ooking-glass self The mental self-image that results from taking the role of the other; the objective self; me. © Roz Chast/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
60 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Stated more formally, the Mead–Cooley hypothesis claims that “individuals’ self-conceptions result from assimilating the judgments of signii cant others.”15 Symbolic interactionists are convinced that the self is a function of language. Without talk there would be no self-concept. ”We are not born with senses of self. Rather, selves arise in interaction with others. I can only experience myself in relation to others; absent interaction with others, I cannot be a self—I cannot emerge as someone.” 16 To the extent that we interact with new acquaintances or have novel conversations with signii cant others, the self is always in l ux. This means that there is no etched-in-stone Em inside my body waiting to be discov-ered or set free. We can only imagine the wrenching change in self-concept that a real-life Nell would experience when thrust into interviews with psychologists, reporters, and lawyers. According to Mead, the self is an ongoing process combining the “I” and the “me.” The “I” is the spontaneous, driving force that fosters all that is novel, unpredictable, and unorganized in the self. For those of you intrigued with brain hemisphere research, the “I” is akin to right-brain creativity. Nell’s dancelike movements that simulated trees blowing in the wind sprang from the “I” part of self. So did Jerry’s spur-of-the-moment musical accompaniment. (Surely if he’d thought about it ahead of time, he’d have selected a song other than Willie Nelson’s “Crazy.”) When Paula goes ballistic over his lack of professionalism, he can only respond that sometimes people do things on impulse. Like Jerry, we know little about the “I” because it’s forever elusive. Trying to examine the “I” part of the self is like viewing a snowl ake through a lighted microscope. The very act causes it to vanish. Put another way, you can never know your “I,” because once it is known it becomes your “me.”17 The “me” is viewed as an object—the image of self seen in the looking glass of other people’s reactions. Do you remember in grammar school how you learned to identify the personal pronoun me in a sentence as the object of a verb? Because of the role-taking capacity of the human race, we can stand outside our bodies and view ourselves as objects. This rel exive experience is like having the Goodyear blimp hover overhead, sending back video images of ourselves while we act. Mead described the process this way: “If the ‘I’ speaks, the ‘me’ hears.” 18 And “the ‘I’ of this moment is present in the ‘me’ of the next moment.” 19 An early turning point in the i lm comes when Jerry enters Nell’s cabin. She runs to a wardrobe mirror and reaches out to her rel ected image and says, “May,” a word Jerry understands to mean “me.” She then pulls back and hugs herself while saying, “Tay,” a word he interprets as “I.” In the next scene, therapists viewing Paula’s videotape of the sequence are impressed by this perfect case of Nell seeing her objective self as distinct from her subjective self. As a result of her actions, they have little doubt about Nell’s humanity and sanity. She has an intact self. 20 I The subjective self; the spontaneous driving force that fosters all that is novel, unpredictable, and unorganized in the self. Me The objective self; the image of self seen when one takes the role of the other. SOCIETY: THE SOCIALIZING EFFECT OF OTHERS’ EXPECTATIONS If Nell’s only human contact were with her mother, her twin sister, and Jerry, her “me” would be formed by the rel ected views of just those three signii cant others. But once she leaves her remote mountain cabin, Nell plunges into a com-munity of other people. In order to survive and thrive within that society, Nell needs to i gure out what they are doing, what their actions mean, and what they
CHAPTER 5: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM 61expect of her. Mead and other symbolic interactionists refer to the composite mental image she puts together as her generalized other. The generalized other is an organized set of information that the individual carries in her or his head about what the general expectation and attitudes of the social group are. We refer to this generalized other whenever we try to i gure out how to behave or how to evaluate our behavior in a social situation. We take the position of the generalized other and assign meaning to ourselves and our actions. 21 Unlike most sociologists, Mead saw society as consisting of individual actors who make their own choices—society-in-the-making rather than society-by-previous-design.22 Yet these individuals align their actions with what others are doing to form health care systems, legal systems, economic systems, and all the other societal institutions that Nell soon encounters. It is unclear from Mind, Self, and Society whether Mead regarded the generalized other as (1) an overarch-ing looking-glass self that we put together from the rel ections we see in every-one we know or (2) the institutional expectations, rules of the game, or accepted practices within society that inl uence every conversation that takes place in people’s minds. Either way, the generalized other shapes how we think and interact within the community. To summarize, there is no “me” at birth. The “me” is formed only through continual symbolic interaction—i rst with family, next with playmates, then in institutions such as schools. As the generalized other develops, this imaginary composite person becomes the conversational partner in an ongoing mental dia-logue. In this way, kids participate in their own socialization. The child gradually acquires the roles of those in the surrounding community. Mead would have us think of the “me” as the organized society within the individual. Although Nell consistently portrays Mead’s interactionist concepts, there’s one discordant note at the end of the i lm. The i nal scene shows Nell i ve years later with the people she i rst met. Nell has obviously changed their lives. For example, Jerry and Paula are now married and have a daughter, who reminds the viewer of Nell as a child. The sheriff’s wife is no longer depressed, and she attributes her transformation to Nell. Despite the fact that Nell has been thrust into a wider world of lawyers, reporters, and salesclerks who label her behavior as deviant and insist that she conform to societal roles, she seems strangely unaf-fected by their judgment or expectations. The character that Jodie Foster plays radiates an inner peace and contentment. The community in the form of her generalized other has not held sway. Of course, symbolic interactionists would remind us that the story of Nell is i ction. Generalized other The composite mental image a person has of his or her self based on societal expectations and responses. A SAMPLER OF APPLIED SYMBOLIC INTERACTION Since Mead believed that a theory is valuable to the extent that it is useful, I’ve pulled together six separate applications of symbolic interactionism. Not only will this provide a taste of the practical insights the theory has generated, it will give you a chance to review some of the theoretical ideas covered in the chapter. Creating Reality. Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” 23 In his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, University of California, Berkeley, sociologist Erving Goffman develops the metaphor of social interaction as a dramaturgical performance. 24 Goffman claims
62 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONthat we are all involved in a constant negotiation with others to publicly dei ne our identity and the nature of the situation. He warns that “the impression of reality fostered by a performance is a delicate, fragile thing that can be shattered by minor mishaps.” 25 His colleague Joan Emerson outlines the cooperative effort required to sustain the dei nition of a gynecological exam as a routine medical procedure. 26 The doctor and nurse enact their roles in a medical setting to assure patients that “everything is normal, no one is embarrassed, no one is thinking in sexual terms.” The audience of one is reassured only when the actors give a consistent performance. Meaning-ful Research. Mead advocated research through participant observation, a form of ethnography. Like Jerry in the movie Nell, researchers systematically set out to share in the lives of the people they study. The par-ticipant observer adopts the stance of an interested—yet ignorant—visitor who listens carefully to what people say in order to discover how they interpret their world. Mead had little sympathy for tightly controlled behavioral experiments or checklist surveys. The results might be quantii able, but the lifeless numbers are void of the meaning the experience had for the person. Mead would have liked the wrangler who said that the only way to understand horses is to smell like a horse, eat from a trough, and sleep in a stall. That’s participant observa-tion. Undoubtedly, Seabiscuit’s trainer and The Horse Whisperer were symbolic interactionists. Generalized Other . The sobering short story “Cipher in the Snow” tells the true account of a boy who is treated as a nonentity by his parents, his teachers, and other children. Their negative responses gradually reduce him to what they perceive him to be—nothing. He eventually collapses and dies in a snowbank for no apparent reason. The interactionist would describe his death as symbolic manslaughter. 27 Naming . Here’s a partial list of epithets heard in public places over a one-year period; they were all spoken in a demeaning voice: dummy, ugly, slob, fag, nigger, retard, fundamentalist, liberal, Neanderthal, slut, liar. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can really hurt me. Name-calling can be devastating because the labels force us to view ourselves in a warped mirror. The grotesque images aren’t easily dismissed. Self-Fuli lling Prophecy. One implication of the looking-glass-self hypoth-esis is that each of us has a signii cant impact on how others view themselves. That kind of interpersonal power is often referred to as self-fuli lling prophecy , the tendency for our expectations to evoke responses in others that coni rm what we originally anticipated. The process is nicely summed up by Eliza Doolittle, a woman from the gutter in George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion: “The differ-ence between a lady and a l ower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.” 28 Symbol Manipulation . Saul Alinsky was a product of the “Chicago School” of sociology at a time when Mead was having his greatest inl uence. Similar to Barack Obama, Alinsky became a community organizer in Chicago when he i n-ished grad school, and applied what he learned to empower the urban poor. For example, in the early 1960s he helped found The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) to oppose his alma mater’s complicity in substandard neighborhood housing. Participant observation A method of adopting the stance of an ignorant yet interested visitor who carefully notes what peo-ple say and do in order to discover how they in-terpret their world. Self-fulfilling prophecy The tendency for our ex-pectations to evoke re-sponses that confirm what we originally an-ticipated.
CHAPTER 5: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM 63He searched for a symbol that would galvanize Woodlawn residents into united action and stir the sympathies of other Chicago residents. He had previously described his technique for selecting a symbolic issue: You start with the people, their traditions, their prejudices, their habits, their atti-tudes and all of those other circumstances that make up their lives. It should always be remembered that a real organization of the people . . . must be rooted in the experiences of the people themselves. 29 Alinsky found his symbol in the rats that infested the squalid apartments. TWO’s rallying cry became “Rats as big as cats.” Not only did the city start to crack down on slum landlords, but for the i rst time Woodlawn residents gained a sense of identity, pride, and political clout. ETHICAL REFLECTION: LEVINAS’ RESPONSIVE “I”European Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas agrees with Mead that the self is socially constructed. He states that “without the Other, there is no ‘I.’ ”30 (Note that Levinas uses the term “I” to refer to what Mead calls the self—the “I” and the “me.”) But there’s a striking difference between how the two theorists think this construction project takes place. Mead contends that the looking-glass self develops through the way others respond to us; Levinas insists that the identity of our “I” is formed by the way we respond to others. Levinas uses the term ethical echo to designate the responsibility he believes we all have to take care of each other. That ethical echo has existed since the beginning of human history and is summed up in the words, “I am my brother’s keeper.” The way each of us meets that obligation shapes our “I.” Levinas says that every time we gaze at the face of the Other, we are reminded of our caretak-ing responsibility. Thus, each person’s face is a signpost pointing to the panhu-man ethical requirement to actively care for all people. Levinas suggests that “the best way of encountering the Other is not even to notice the color of his eyes.”31 If we notice the color of his eyes—or by extension the shape of her body—we aren’t really in a social relationship with the Other. And since the “I” i nds its identity in responding to and caring for the Other, not allowing the humanity of that face to register puts our identity at risk. Levinas is clear about the burden that comes with looking at the face of the Other:My world is ruptured, my contentment interrupted. I am already obligated. Here is an appeal from which there is no escape, a responsibility, a state of being hostage. It is looking into the face of the Other that reveals the call to a responsibility that is before any beginning, decision or initiative on my part. . . . I am responsible for the Other without waiting for reciprocity, [even if I were] to die for it. Reciprocity is his affair.32 Duquesne University communication ethicist Ron Arnett regards Levinas as the premier ethical voice of the twentieth century. Arnett acknowledges that urg-ing others to adopt a responsive “I” ethical standard is not an easy “sell” in this postmodern age, with its quest for comfort and self-actualization.33 Yet he notes that even in his dark hours as a prisoner in a World War II German concentration camp, Levinas found joy in embracing the human responsibility of being for the Responsive “I”The self created by the way we respond to others.Ethical echoThe reminder that we are responsible to take care of each other; I am my brother’s keeper.Face of the “Other”A human signpost that points to our ethical obli-gation to care for the other before we care for self.
64 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONCRITIQUE: SETTING THE GOLD STANDARD FOR THREE INTERPRETIVE CRITERIA “Viewing theory as testable explanations of directly or indirectly observable social regularities, Mead’s ideas are seriously l awed.”35 That’s the judgment of Indiana University sociologist Sheldon Stryker, and I agree. If we treat symbolic interactionism as an objective theory that must meet scientii c standards of pre-diction and testability, it’s a poor theory. But Mead’s work was highly interpre-tive and deserves to be evaluated on the six criteria for good interpretive theories offered in Chapter 3, “Weighing the Words.” Let’s start with clarii cation of values, which Mead does exceedingly well. Drawing upon William James, John Dewey, and other pragmatists, Mead pro-claimed that humans are free to make meaningful choices on how to act when facing problems. In his critique, Stryker reveals, “What fascinated me as an undergraduate and graduate student was in part the dignity accorded humans by seeing them as important determiners of their lives rather than the pure product of conditioning.”36 Of course, this freedom and dignity are dependent upon our ability to communicate. Certainly Mead offers a marvelous new understanding of people by showing how humans socially construct their concept of self as well as the way society inl uences—yet doesn’t dictate—that construction project. We also can gain a new appreciation of human diversity from the extensive ethnographic research his theory inspired that describes individuals in similar situations responding in strikingly different ways. Both the theory and the theorist have more than satisi ed a fourth interpre-tive requirement for a good theory—emergence of a community of agreement. The once-radical Mead–Cooley looking-glass-self hypothesis has now become a tru-ism in the i eld of sociology.37 Mead, a philosopher who saw communication as the most human thing people do, has been called “America’s greatest sociologi-cal thinker.”38 Even if the text you use in your interpersonal course doesn’t men-tion the theorist or the theory by name, you can spot Mead’s pervasive inl uence by the way the book treats the topic of self-concept. Symbolic interactionism doesn’t meet the other two criteria for an interpre-tive theory nearly as well as the four discussed above. Given Mead’s personal efforts to help the displaced and distressed amidst urban industrialization, it’s puzzling that Mead’s theory doesn’t call for reform of society. His theory says little about power or emotion—realities that a community organizer deals with every day. In contrast to aesthetic appeal, most readers of Mind, Self, and Society get bogged down in the bafl ing array of ideas Mead tried to cover. The theory’s l uid boundaries, vague concepts, and undisciplined approach don’t lend them-selves to an elegant summary. There are no CliffsNotes for this one. Perhaps Mead was precise when he presented his ideas in class, but their exact meaning was blurred in the years before his students compiled the manuscript. Whatever the explanation is, the theory suffers from a lack of clarity. A i nal note: Symbolic interactionism may also suffer from overstatement. Mead repeatedly declared that our capacity for language—the ability to use and Other before oneself. To the extent that we follow Levinas’ lead, Arnett suggests that our interpersonal communication will be characterized more by listening than telling.34
CHAPTER 5: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM 65interpret abstract symbols—is what distinguishes humans from other animals. My former graduate assistant is the mother of a son who has a permanent peripheral nerve disorder. His eyes, ears, and other sense receptors work i ne, but the messages they send get scrambled on the way to his brain. Doctors say that he is, and always will be, unable to talk or interact with others on a symbolic level. After reading an early draft of this chapter, my assistant asked, “So this means that Caleb is less than human?” Her haunting question serves as a caution to any theorist who claims to have captured the essence of humanity. For chapter self-quizzes, go to the book’s Online Learning Center at www.mhhe.com/grifi n8.SELF-QUIZA SECOND LOOKRecommended resource: Larry T. Reynolds and Nancy J. Herman-Kinney (eds.), Hand-book of Symbolic Interactionism, AltaMira, Walnut Creek, CA, 2003:Gil Musolf, “The Chicago School,” pp. 91–117.Bernard Meltzer, “Mind,” pp. 253–266.Andrew Weigert and Viktor Gecas, “Self,” pp. 267–288.Michael Katovich and David Maines, “Society,” pp. 289–306.Primary source: George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 1934. Development of Mead’s ideas: Herbert Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1969, pp. 1–89. Summary statement: Herbert Blumer, “Symbolic Interaction: An Approach to Human Communication,” in Approaches to Human Communication, Richard W. Budd and Brent Ruben (eds.), Spartan Books, New York, 1972, pp. 401–419. Basic concepts of symbolic interactionism: John Hewitt, Self and Society: A Symbolic Inter-actionist Social Psychology, 10 th ed., Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA, 2006, pp. 36–81. The self as a social construction: Susan Harter, “Symbolic Interactionism Revisited: Potential Liabilities for the Self Constructed in the Crucible of Interpersonal Relation-ships,” Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Vol. 45, 1999, pp. 677–703. Looking-glass self—a research review: David Lundgren, “Social Feedback and Self-Appraisals: Current Status of the Mead–Cooley Hypothesis,” Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 27, 2004, pp. 267–286. 1. Blumer’s three core premises of symbolic interactionism deal with meaning, lan-guage, and thinking. According to Blumer, which comes i rst? Can you make a case for an alternative sequence? 2. What do interactionists believe are the crucial differences between human beings and animals ? What would you add to or subtract from the list? 3. As Mead used the terms, is a looking-glass self the same thing as a person’s me? Why or why not? 4. Think of a time in your life when your self-concept changed in a signii cant way. Do you think the shift occurred because others viewed you differently or because you treated others differently? Could Mead and Levinas both be right? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS
66 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONGeneralized other: Clare Holdsworth and David Morgan, “Revisiting the Generalized Other: An Exploration,” Sociology, Vol. 41, 2007, pp. 401–417. Theory application: Jodi O’Brien (ed.), The Production of Reality, 4th ed., Pine Forge, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2005. Levinas’ responsive “I”: Ronald C. Arnett, “The Responsive ‘I’: Levinas’ Derivative Argument,” Argumentation and Advocacy, Vol. 40, 2003, pp. 39–50. Critique: Peter Hull, “Structuring Symbolic Interaction: Communication and Power,” Communication Yearbook 4, Dan Nimmo (ed.), Transaction Books, New Brunswick, NJ, 1980, pp. 49–60. Critique: Sheldon Stryker, “From Mead to a Structural Symbolic Interactionism and Beyond,” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 34, 2008, p. 18.
6CHAPTER Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) of W. Barnett Pearce & Vernon Cronen Barnett Pearce (The Fielding Graduate University) and Vernon Cronen (Univer-sity of Massachusetts) believe that communication is the process by which we collectively create the events and objects of our social world. 1 Their theory, the coordinated management of meaning (CMM), starts with the assertion that persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they create. Stated another way, every conversation has an afterlife . Tomorrow’s social reality is the afterlife of how we interact today. That’s why Pearce and Cronen i nd it useful to ask, What are we making together? How are we making it? How can we make better social worlds? First introduced in 1978, CMM has evolved in at least three distinct, yet compatible, directions. Pearce and Cronen have always regarded CMM as an interpretive theory. In 1998 they also began to refer to it as a critical theory—or at least one with a critical edge. And since the mid-1990s, Pearce and Cronen have emphasized that CMM is a practical theory. Because most current research and writing about the theory focuses on its usefulness in analyzing and improving communication, I’ll start by describing its pragmatic side. 67 CMM AS A PRACTICAL THEORY—STORIES FROM THE FIELD Pearce and Cronen present CMM as a practical theory crafted to help make life better for real people in a real world.2 They believe a practical communi-cation theory should offer a variety of tools to help us understand l awed patterns of interaction, identify critical moments in our conversations, and it should suggest ways to talk that will create a better social environment. CMM offers a wide array of concepts, descriptions, and models to do that. Thera-pists, mediators, social workers, consultants, and teachers i nd these helpful as they seek to assist others. The following i rst-person narratives are a sample of the theory in practice. Objective InterpretiveSocio-cultural tradition Phenomenological tradition●
68 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Family Therapy From John Burnham, consultant family therapist, Parkview Clinic, Birmingham, England A father and mother came to me to talk about their 14-year-old son who was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism. Halfway through the session it hit me that the boy and his parents were trapped in a repetitive pattern of behavior that CMM calls a strange loop (see Figure 6–1 ). If the parents accepted the diagnosis of Asperger’s, they acted toward their son in a compas-sionate, patient, and forgiving way. Yet when they treated him this way, the boy improved to such an extent that it led them to think, This is not Asperger’s. Under their altered belief they began to be less forgiving toward their son. He in turn deteriorated, which led them to think, This is Asperger’s, and so on. When I described this never-ending loop, the parents acted as if a light had been turned on. As long as they treated the question of whether this was Asperger’s, the family continued to retrace the closed-circuit, i gure-eight path. But the dia-gram of the loop that they were in helped me suggest a different question: What relationship do you want with your son? By focusing on what they were making together rather than what their son had or didn’t have, their chances of escaping from this loop were increased. This approach worked well for the parents and their son, and they began to report many positive changes in their relationships with each other. They then moved on to ask, When is it useful to think of this odd behavior as Asperger’s, and when is it not? I now use CMM’s idea of strange loops in my work with other families whose children have been diagnosed as having a specii c mental disorder. I tell this story because, like the parents, I learned that labeling a disease has signii cant consequences. 3 Mediation From Jonathan Shailor, professor of communication, University of Wisconsin–Parkside In my mediation work, I act in the roles of practitioner, researcher, and trainer. In all of these roles I use the CMM concept of levels of meaning to tease out disputants’ and mediators’ constructions of episodes, relationships, identities, Strange loop An unwanted repetitive communication pattern—“Darn, we did it again.” FIGURE 6–1 A Strange Loop of Diagnosis and BehaviorCourtesy of W. Barnett PearceSon’s symptoms increase.Demanding, impatientSon does not have Asperger’s syndrome.Son’s symptoms decrease.Caring, compassionate,patientDiagnosis is important; our behavior toward our son should differ depending on whether he has Asperger’s syndrome or not.≠≠Diagnosis:Cultural Belief:Relationship:Episode:Son has Asperger’s syndrome.
CHAPTER 6: COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING (CMM) 69and cultural patterns. For example, what story does she tell about the episode that answers the question, Why did we come to mediation? What story does she voice about her relationship with the other disputant? How does she construct her identity? Do cultural narratives come into play? Peter and Anne were a young couple who fell into a pattern of angry i ght-ing, which culminated with Anne obtaining a restraining order that forced Peter to move out of the apartment. A judge approved the order on the condi-tion that the couple participate in mediation and then return to court for further review. In the mediation session, Peter framed this sequence as the story of “Anne’s betrayal,” a detailed series of events in which Anne’s actions were interpreted as attacks and cold-blooded manipulations. Peter explained his own actions as necessary acts of self-defense, ignoring all other aspects of their relationship. Anne constructed an autobiographical narrative that linked her history of family abuse with her sense of being “endangered” by Peter. In that context, a continued relationship with Peter was seen as dangerous. For Anne, any agree-ment in mediation that might compromise her physical or economic security would dei ne her as a “victim.” Peter demanded that Anne pay for the rent during the two weeks that he was prevented from living in the apartment. This demand made sense, of course, within the subsystem of contextual meanings that Peter had assembled. But Anne interpreted this demand within her own subsystem of meanings and was deter-mined not to play the part of the victim. Her refusal to pay coni rmed Peter’s construction of Anne as his persecutor and obligated him to press for retribution by looking for concessions on other issues, which she then refused, and so on. After the mediation was over, CMM helped me describe to the two mediators the rel exive process of action and interpretation that they were co-constructing with Peter and Anne. By focusing their attention on the disputants’ enactments of episodes, relationships, identities, and cultural patterns, I was able to help them see how mediator communication can either open up or shut down oppor-tunities for empowerment. 4 Cupertino Community Project From W. Barnett Pearce and Kimberly A. Pearce, Public Dialogue Consortium In 1996, the Public Dialogue Consortium 5 approached the city manager of Cupertino, California, and offered to introduce a productive form of commu-nication to discuss the most pressing issue within the community— ethnic diver-sity. Many residents privately described race relations as a “powder keg waiting to go off,” yet were unwilling to speak of it publicly for fear of provid-ing the spark. Our task was to change the form of communication, showing people that they could hold onto and express their deeply held convictions in a form of communication that promoted reciprocal understanding. The i rst phase of the project consisted of structuring situations in which people with all sorts of views could speak in a manner that made others want to listen, and listen in a way that made others want to speak. We call this dialogic communication. When key members of the community gained coni dence in this type of communica-tion, it was time to focus on specii c issues. Working with the city government and an independent citizens’ group, we invited all community members to a
70 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION“Diversity Forum” in order to give them an opportunity to discuss the way Cuper-tino handled three l ashpoint issues—a Mandarin immersion program in the schools, public signs written only in Chinese, and a multicultural Fourth of July celebration. The centerpiece of the forum consisted of numerous small-group discussions facilitated by members of the community. Each facilitator received at least 10 hours of training. 6 The challenge the facilitators faced was to help participants com-municate dialogically beyond what they were initially willing or able to do. To accomplish this task, we trained each facilitator to (a) frame the forum as a spe-cial event in which unusual forms of communication would occur; (b) remain neutral by actively aligning oneself with all participants; (c) help people tell their own stories by expressing curiosity and asking questions; (d) enable people to tell even better stories through appreciative reframing and the weaving together of diverse stories; and (e) provide “in-the-moment” coaching and intervention. The dialogic communication that they stimulated transformed the social environment of Cupertino. A year after the forum only 2 percent of the residents mentioned race or ethnic diversity as a problem. The city manager interpreted this response to mean that people had i nished “working through” the issue and that increased diversity was “an accomplished fact of life.” In the Cupertino Project we were particularly well served by CMM’s insis-tence that communication creates the events and objects of our social world. We reafi rmed that dialogue requires remaining in the tension between holding our own perspective and being profoundly open to others who are unlike us, and enabling others to act similarly. 7 These are just three of many examples from professionals who use CMM ideas and models in their work. I’ll refer back to these stories throughout the chapter to illustrate practical applications of the theory that anyone can use to create more favorable social worlds. CMM AS AN INTERPRETIVE THEORY—PICTURING PERSONS-IN-CONVERSATION The CMM users who tell these stories refer to themselves as social constructionists. From their stories you can spot that they share the core conviction that our social environment is not something we i nd or discover. Instead, we create it. As was stated at the start of the chapter, they’re convinced that persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they create. Figure 6–2 presents artist M. C. Escher’s 1955 lithograph Bond of Union, which strikingly illustrates CMM notions about persons-in-conversation. The unusual drawing illustrates the following tenets of the theory: 1. The experience of persons-in-conversation is the primary social process of human life. Pearce says that this core concept runs counter to the prevailing intellectual view of “communication as an odorless, colorless vehicle of thought that is interesting or important only when it is done poorly or breaks down.” 8 He sees the ribbon in Escher’s drawing as representing the of communication. It isn’t just one of the activities the pair does or a tool they use to achieve some other end. On the contrary, their communication literally forms who they are and creates their relationship. In that sense, communication is performative—it does something to them quite apart from the issue they’re discussing. The Social constructionistsLanguage theorists who believe that persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds theycreate.Dialogic communicationConversation in which people speak in a man-ner that makes others want to listen, and listen in a way that makes oth-ers want to speak.
CHAPTER 6: COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING (CMM) 71Cupertino Community Project radically altered the face of the community, not by changing what citizens wanted to talk about , but by changing the form of their communication. 2. The way people communicate is often more important than the content of what they say. The mood and manner that persons-in-conversation adopt plays a large role in the social construction process. Pearce points out that the faces in Bond of Union have no substance; they consist in the twists and turns of the spiraling ribbon: Were the ribbon straightened or tied in another shape, there would be no loss of matter, but the faces would no longer exist. This image works for us as a model of the way the process of communication (the ribbon) creates the events and objects of our social worlds (the faces) not by its substance but by its form. 9 The parties in mediation, therapy, or ethnic disputes are often stuck in a destructive pattern of interaction. They call each other racists, liars, or jerks; they describe the other person’s actions as criminal, cruel, or crazy. Since Pearce regards language as “the single most powerful tool that humans have ever invented for the creation of social worlds,” 10 he thinks it’s tragic when people in conl ict are caught up in a language game that they are bound to lose. MRI scans show that interpersonal distress affects the brain the same way as a punch in the stomach. 11 CMM theorists speak of a logic of meaning and action that is made in the give-and-take of conversation. Consider this all-too-familiar sequence: You say FIGURE 6–2 M. C. Escher’s Bond of Union© 2010 M. C. Escher Company, Holland. All rights reserved. www.escher.com.
72 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONsomething, and I respond. That response makes you feel that you must instruct me about the error of my ways, but I don’t feel that I should take instruction from you. So I inform you that you are not qualified to have an opinion on this topic, and that information conflicts with your self-concept as an intel-ligent, knowledgeable person, so you lash out with a bitter insult. In just five turns, we’ve moved into an escalating pattern in which we are competing to see who can say the most hurtful things to the other. By this time, the original topic of conversation is irrelevant. We can continue this feud forever, fueled only by the logical force of the interaction, trapped in a sense of oughtness that has us in its grip. When informed by CMM, mediators, therapists, consul-tants, and teachers become attuned to the logic of meaning and action gener-ated by the way the turns in a conversation are connected. Armed with this understanding, they are equipped to intervene, breaking the destructive cycle and creating an opportunity for better patterns of communication to emerge. 3. The actions of persons-in-conversation are rel exively reproduced as the interaction continues. Rel exivity means that our actions have effects that bounce back and affect us. “An act performed by a person also acts upon the person who performed it.”12 The endless ribbon in Bond of Union loops back to re form both people. If Escher’s i gures were in conl ict, each person would be wise to ask, “If I win this argument, what kind of person will I become?” Escher’s spheres suspended in space can be seen as worlds or planets of the social universe that is also co-constructed by the intertwined actors. “When we communicate,” writes Pearce, “we are not just talking about the world, we are literally participating in the creation of the social universe.” 13 For years, environ-mentalists have stressed that we have to live in the world that we produce. By fouling the air we breathe, we pollute the quality of our lives—as residents of Mexico City and those who live and work on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico know all too well. In like fashion, Pearce and Cronen are social ecologists who alert us to the long-term effects of our communication practices. Do the persons-in-conversation shown in Figure 6–2 realize that they are creating the social universe in which they talk and act? If they’re like the parents who went to the family therapist to discuss their son’s Asperger’s syndrome, probably not. Yet that’s the task that CMM practitioners have set for themselves—to get people to i rst ask and then answer the question, What are we making together? 4. As social constructionists, CMM researchers see themselves as curious participants in a pluralistic world. They are curious because they think it’s folly to profess certainty when dealing with individuals acting out their lives under ever-changing conditions. They are participants rather than spectators because they seek to be actively involved in what they study. They live in a pluralistic world because they assume that people make multiple truths rather than i nd a singular Truth. So Escher’s Bond of Union is an apt representation of persons-in-conversation even when one of the parties is a CMM researcher. Pearce regards Australian Ernest Stringer’s community-based action research as a model for doing research. Action research is a “collaborative approach to investigation that seeks to engage community members as equal and full par-ticipants in the research process.” 14 That research bond goes way beyond the Logical force The moral pressure or sense of obligation a per-son feels to respond in a given way to what some-one else has just said or done—“I had no choice.” Reflexivity The process by which the effects of our words and actions on others bounce back and affect us.
CHAPTER 6: COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING (CMM) 73“participant observation” approach favored by symbolic interactionists (see Chapter 5). Action researchers work together with people to build a picture of what’s going on. They then develop a shared minitheory as to why relationships are the way they are. Finally, they enact a cooperative plan to change things for the better. That’s exactly the approach taken by the Public Dialogue Consortium in Cupertino. The Bond of Union lithograph helps us grasp what Pearce and Cronen mean when they say that persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities. But the drawing doesn’t show that stories are the basic means that people use to pursue these social joint ventures. Since all of us perceive, think, and live our lives in terms of characters, roles, plots, and narrative sequences, CMM theorists say we shouldn’t be surprised that the social worlds we create take the shape of story. CMM AS AN INTERPRETIVE THEORY—STORIES TOLD AND STORIES LIVED CMM theorists draw a distinction between stories lived and stories told. Stories lived are the co-constructed actions that we perform with others. Coordination takes place when we i t our stories lived into the stories lived by others in a way that makes life better. Stories told are the narratives that we use to make sense of stories lived. 15 Pearce and Cronen note that the stories we tell and the stories we live are always tangled together, yet forever in tension. That’s because one is the stuff of language and the other is the way we act. In stories told, a cocky young man can envision being faster than a speeding bullet and able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound. But in stories lived, inertia, gravity, and the wit-ness of other people impose limits on what he can do. This tension is why Pearce and Cronen label their theory the management of meaning; we’re obliged to adjust our stories told to i t the realities of our stories lived—or vice versa. They put the term coordinated in the title because we have to constantly make these adjustments through interactions with others. As practical theorists as well as interpretive theorists, they want to help people interpret what’s said and coordinate those words with actions so that the social environment they create is one in which they can survive and thrive. Pearce and Cronen use CMM’s concepts and models as ways of displaying the complexity of communication processes. Each layer of complexity provides a potential opening for strategic action. Making and Managing Meaning Through Stories Told The stories we tell are open to many interpretations. Pearce and Cronen offer a variety of communication models to help people i gure out what’s going on in a conversation. In Figure 6–3 , I’ve combined two of them—the hierarchy model of meaning and the serpentine model —into a single drawing. 16 You’ll i nd it helpful to think of this hierarchical–serpentine model as a schematic diagram of the communication process taking place in Escher’s Bond of Union. According to the hierarchy model of meaning, storytelling is the central act of communication, but every story is embedded within multiple contexts, or frames. No matter what the speaker says, the words of a story will make sense Hierarchy of meaning A rank order of therelative significance of contexts—episode, rela-tionship, identity, and culture—that encompass a given story as an aid to interpretation.
74 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONonly if they are understood within the framework of a specii c episode, the rela-tionship between the parties, the self- identity of the speaker, and the organiza-tional or societal culture from which he or she comes. These contexts rarely have equal signii cance when we try to i gure out what another person means, so Pearce suggests we rank-order their importance for interpreting a specii c speech act—giving most weight to the overarching frame that encompasses all others. For example, consider the way many high school seniors talk about “The Prom.” The stories they tell often elevate the episode to mythic proportions, yet their descriptions seem to downplay a romantic relationship with their prom date. The hierarchy of meaning that we construct makes a big difference. If the prom event has the most importance, there might be several partners who could serve equally well as satisfying dates. But if a specii c relationship is what’s most important to you, you could probably i nd other things to do that would be equally as enjoyable as the prom—and certainly less expensive. Since Jonathan Shailor employs these four contexts in his analysis of com-munication patterns in mediation, I’ll illustrate their place in the hierarchical– serpentine model referring to the dispute between Peter and Anne. Assume that Peter’s speech act in the i gure is his story of Anne’s betrayal told during their court-appointed mediation. FIGURE 6–3 Hierarchical–Serpentine ModelANNEANNEPETERIdentityCultureRelationshipEpisodeSpeech ActIdentityCultureRelationshipEpisodeSpeech ActRelationshipIdentityCultureEpisodeSpeech ActSpeech actAny verbal or nonverbal message as part of an interaction; the basic building block of thesocial universe people create; threats, promises, insults, compliments, etc.
CHAPTER 6: COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING (CMM) 75 Episode. An episode is a sequence of speech acts with a beginning and an end that are held together by story. Pearce and Cronen say that such sequences are “nounable.” The noun used to designate an episode should answer the ques-tion, What does he think he’s doing? The term mediation labels the episode that Shailor described. Mediators hope that their participation as a neutral third party will elicit patterns of speech acts that are part of the solution rather than part of the problem. But the fact that both Peter and Anne were locked into their sepa-rate stories of “betrayal” and “endangerment” suggests that the mediation epi-sode had little impact on the hostile social world they were making. Relationship. Pearce says that relationships emerge from the dynamic dance over coordinated actions and managed meanings. And just as punctuation provides a context for the printed word, the relationship between persons-in-conversation suggests how a speech act might be interpreted. This is especially true for Peter, who is i xated on Anne’s betrayal in a way that blots out every-thing else. Without exacting some kind of retribution, he can’t get on with his life. As for Anne, the relationship is important only if it doesn’t end. She’s in court to make sure that it does. Identity. CMM holds that our identity is continually crafted through the process of communication, and in turn our self-image becomes a context for how we manage meaning. For Anne, Peter’s demand for money is less about their broken relationship than it is about a potential threat to her self-identity. She’s unwilling to do anything that suggests she is a passive victim. By asking the judge for a restraining order and refusing to pay rent for the apartment, she sees herself as actively rewriting her personal life script. Regarding Peter’s self-concept, the story is mute. Culture . Since the term culture describes webs of shared meanings and values, people who come from different cultures won’t interpret messages exactly the same way. Although Shailor’s mediation story doesn’t suggest that Anne’s ethnic or national background differs from Peter’s, the history of abuse in her family of origin makes it difi cult for her to make or manage meaning cooperatively with anyone who hasn’t experienced a similar subculture of vio-lence. Peter doesn’t seem able to relate to her background of physical and ver-bal abuse. The two identical sets of concentric ellipses on the left side of Figure 6–3 display my perception of Anne’s hierarchy of meaning. The all-encompassing concern for her personal identity relegates the other contexts to lesser impor-tance. As for Peter, I see his i xation with their relationship as the overarching frame that encompasses all other contexts. My judgment is depicted in the set of ovals on the right-hand side of the model. The interpretive trick, of course, is to i gure out which context is dominant in any particular conversation. That’s one reason a CMM analysis of communication is more art than science. The serpentine l ow of conversation is the other CMM model blended into Fig-ure 6–3 . Similar to Escher’s Bond of Union, the diagram suggests that what one person says affects—and is affected by—what the other person says. The contexts for what they’re saying co-evolve even as they speak. So it’s foolish to try to inter-pret Anne’s i rst message, because we don’t know what was said before. It’s equally hard to decipher the meaning of Anne’s second message because we don’t know what follows. As the parents in family therapy suddenly grasped, any comment EpisodeA “nounable” sequence of speech acts with abeginning and an end that are held together by story; an argument,interview, wedding,mediation, etc.
76 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONCALVIN & HOBBES 1990 © Watterson. Distributed by Universal Uclick. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER 6: COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING (CMM) 77about their son’s mental health was both the result and the cause of other state-ments within the family. Perhaps this is the most striking feature of the serpentine model; it leaves no room for isolated acts of speech. Everything in a conversation is connected to everything else. Understanding how others make and manage meaning is possible only when we perceive the l ow of conversation. Do you get the impression from the hierarchical–serpentine model that even a brief conversation is a process that’s incredibly complex and open-ended? If so, Pearce would be pleased. He thinks it’s impossible to explain in a simple declarative sentence what a statement means—even when it’s your own state-ment. For that reason, Pearce i nds it difi cult to give a straight answer when someone in a discussion asks him, “What does that mean?” Consistent with CMM thinking, he’s tempted to reply, “I’m not completely sure yet. We haven’t i nished our conversation.” 17 Coordination: The Meshing of Stories Lived According to CMM, coordination refers to the “process by which persons col-laborate in an attempt to bring into being their vision of what is necessary, noble, and good and to preclude the enactment of what they fear, hate, or despise.” 18 This intentional meshing of stories lived does not require people to reach agree-ment on the meaning of their joint action. They can decide to coordinate their behavior without sharing a common interpretation of the event. For example, conservative activists and radical feminists could temporarily join forces to pro-test a pornographic movie. Although they have discrepant views of social justice and different reasons for condemning the i lm, they might agree on a unii ed course of action. As the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon on the previous page suggests, parties can coordinate effectively without much mutual understanding. Pearce uses the phrase coordination without coherence to refer to people cooperating, but for quite different reasons. Sarah’s application log for CMM provides a striking example:CMM suggests that people may synchronize their actions even if they don’t share the other’s motives. This was the case with my core group of friends in high school. Our group consisted of Colin—a gay atheist, Stephany—a non-practicing Jewish girl, Aliza—a devout Jewish girl, and me—a Christian. We all abstained from drinking, drugs, and sex, but the reasons for our behavior were extremely different. Like many others who are fascinated with human interaction, CMM theorists enjoy descriptions of rules for meaning and action that are created in families, organizations, and cultures (see Chapters 14, 20, and 33). In light of the way real groups of people coordinate their actions without a great amount of mutual under-standing, Calvin and Hobbes’ game of “Calvinball” doesn’t look that strange.Coordination The process by which persons collaborate in an attempt to bring into be-ing their vision of what is necessary, noble, and good and to preclude the enactment of what they fear, hate, or despise. CMM AS A CRITICAL THEORY—SPOTTING HARMFUL AND HELPFUL COMMUNICATION CMM began as an interpretive theory, its authors attempting to describe and understand recurring patterns of communication. As the theory has evolved, however, it’s developed a critical edge. 19 CMM advocates today aren’t satisi ed with simply describing patterns of communication or providing tools for understand-ing how people interpret their social worlds. They want to function as peacemakers,
78 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION“providing a way of intelligently joining into the activity of the world so as to enrich it.” 20 If any of us are tempted to dismiss the signii cance of helping others coordinate the way they talk with each other, CMM reminds us that communica-tion has the power to create a social universe of alienation, anger, and malice—or one of community, tolerance, and generosity. The critical edge of CMM separates communication styles that are harmful from those that are helpful. Naming Destructive Patterns of Communication: Offering a Better Way As an example of where CMM’s critical edge cuts, Pearce believes that the polarization of the electorate in the United States is both the cause and the product of communication patterns that he describes as reciprocated diatribe. 21 He claims that what former President George W. Bush labeled the “war on terror” is repro-duced and sustained by patterns of communication that dismiss and demonize the other. 22 The president’s address to the nation on the night of the 9/11 attacks set the tone. The speech, Pearce notes, “created an afterlife that magnii ed the effects of the terrorist attack and deteriorated the quality of life around the world.” 23 A CMM view of the conl ict between al-Qaeda and the United States suggests that both sides are acting morally according to their own understanding of the universe. Yet it’s no surprise that each side calling the other “evil” isn’t likely to resolve the conl ict. As a way of expressing his own sense of horror and sadness at what he perceived as a missed opportunity to make the world a bet-ter place, Pearce wrote an alternative response that he wished the president had made that evening. A portion of Pearce’s version goes as follows: If we are to understand why people hate us so much, we will have to understand how the world looks from their perspective. And if we are to respond effectively to protect ourselves, we must understand those whose sense of history and purpose are not like our own. It is tempting to see this vicious attack as the result of madmen trying to destroy civilization, and our response as a war of “good” against “evil.” But if we are to understand what happened here today, and if we are to act effectively in the days to come, we must develop more sophisticated stories than these about the world, about our place in it, and about the consequences of our actions. This is a terrorist attack. If we are in a state of war, it is a different kind of war than we have ever fought before. Terrorists are not capable of occupying our coun-try or meeting our armies on the i eld of battle. They hope to destroy our coni -dence, to disrupt our way of life. They hope that we will destroy ourselves by the way we respond to the atrocities that they commit. Our i rst reaction, that of want-ing revenge, to lash out at those who have injured us so, is almost surely the wrong response because it makes us accomplices of what they are trying to achieve. 24 COSMOPOLITAN COMMUNICATION—DISAGREE, YET COORDINATE As a remedy to unsatisfactory or destructive patterns of interaction, CMM theo-rists advocate an uncommon form of communication they believe will create a social world where we can live with dignity, honor, joy, and love. 25 Over the last three decades, Pearce has used a number of terms to describe the communication style he values. He started by calling it cosmopolitan communication. 26 When applied to individuals, the label calls to mind a citizen of the world who interacts
CHAPTER 6: COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING (CMM) 79comfortably with people who come from diverse cultural backgrounds, hold different values, and express discrepant beliefs. Pearce’s cosmopolitan commu-nicators assume that there is no single truth, or if there is, that it has many faces. So they try to i nd ways of coordinating with others with whom they do not—and perhaps should not—agree. Although he still likes the concept of cosmopolitan communication, Pearce also uses the term dialogue in the same way that Jewish philosopher Martin Buber does—to describe what he believes is the optimum form of interaction. For Buber, dialogic communication “involves remaining in the tension between holding our own perspective while being profoundly open to the other.” 27 This, of course, could be dangerous. As happened in Cupertino, we might learn something new that will change what we think, or even who we are. 28 ETHICAL REFLECTION: MARTIN BUBER’S DIALOGIC ETHICS Martin Buber was a German Jewish philosopher and theologian who immigrated to Palestine before World War II and died in 1965. His ethical approach focuses on relationships between people rather than on moral codes of conduct. “In the begin-ning is the relation,” Buber wrote. “The relation is the cradle of actual life.” 29 Buber contrasted two types of relationships— I-It versus I-Thou. In an I-It relationship we treat the other person as a thing to be used, an object to be manipulated. Created by monologue, an I-It relationship lacks mutuality. Parties come together as individuals intent on creating only an impression. Deceit is a way to maintain appearances. In an I-Thou relationship we regard our partner as the very one we are. We see the other as created in the image of God and resolve to treat him or her as a valued end rather than a means to our own end. This implies that we will seek to experience the relationship as it appears to the other person. Buber says we can do this only through dialogue. For Buber, dialogue is a synonym for ethical communication. Dialogue is mutuality in conversation that creates the Between, through which we help each other to be more human. Dialogue is not only a morally appropriate act, it is also a way to discover what is ethical in our relationship. It thus requires self-disclosure to, coni rmation of, and vulnerability with the other person. Buber used the image of the narrow ridge to illustrate the tension of dialogic living. On one side of the moral path is the gulf of relativism, where there are no standards. On the other side is the plateau of absolutism, where rules are etched in stone: On the far side of the subjective, on this side of the objective, on the narrow ridge, where I and Thou meet, there is the realm of the Between. 30 Duquesne University communication ethicist Ron Arnett notes that “living the narrow-ridge philosophy requires a life of personal and interpersonal con-cern, which is likely to generate a more complicated existence than that of the egoist or the sell ess martyr.” 31 Despite that tension, many interpersonal theorists have carved out ethical positions similar to Buber’s philosophy. Consistent with CMM’s foundational belief that persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities, Pearce is attracted to Buber’s core belief that dialogue is a joint achievement that cannot be produced on demand, yet occurs among people who seek it and are prepared for it. Narrow ridge A metaphor of I-Thou living in the dialogic ten-sion between ethical relativism and rigid abso-lutism; standing your own ground while being profoundly open to the other. Cosmopolitan communicationCoordination with others who have different back-grounds, values, andbeliefs, without trying to change them.
80 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Because CMM’s authors now regard it as an interpretive theory, a critical theory, and a practical theory, I’ll offer three separate critiques. The i rst evaluation will use the six standards for an interpretive theory that I presented in Chapter 3. My appraisals of CMM as a critical and a practical theory are based on criteria set by others.An Interpretive TheoryBy offering such analytical tools as the hierarchical and serpentine models of communication, CMM promotes a better understanding of people and of the social worlds they create through their conversation. Pearce and Cronen’s description of the ideal cosmopolitan communicator makes it clear that they value curiosity, participation, and an appreciation of diversity rather than the detached, aloof certainty of someone interacting in a my-way-is-Yahweh style. If reforming society seems a bit of a stretch, recall that by teaching residents to speak in a dialogic way, Pearce and his associates changed the social world of Cupertino, California. And although many objectivist theorists ignore or dis-miss CMM because of its social constructivist assumptions, CMM has generated widespread interest and acceptance within the community of interpretive commu-nication scholars. Members of that community have investigated CMM’s models of communication through a wide range of qualitative research—textual and nar-rative analysis, case studies, interviews, participant observation, ethnography, and collaborative action research.32 Despite meeting these i ve standards with ease, lack of clarity has seriously limited CMM’s aesthetic appeal. CMM has a reputation of being a confusing mix of ideas that are hard to pin down because they’re expressed in convoluted lan-guage. I’ll revisit this problem in my analysis of CMM as a practical theory.A Critical TheoryMost scholars who work within the critical tradition described in Chapter 4 don’t consider CMM a critical theory. That’s because Pearce and Cronen don’t insist that power is the pivotal issue in all human relationships. San Francisco State University communication professor Victoria Chen concedes that she and other CMM prac-titioners don’t automatically look for who controls a conversation in order to main-tain dominance. But she’s convinced that by systematically using the tools CMM provides, she and others can address unjust power relationships when they exist.33 Whether CMM is a viable critical theory depends on what that label means to the one making the judgment. If a critical theory is dei ned as one that unmasks how communication can perpetuate the unjust power imbalances in society, CMM doesn’t make the grade. If the critical category is broad enough to include a theory that makes clear value judgments about patterns of communication and promotes the types that make better social worlds, then CMM is a worthy inclu-sion. By only claiming that CMM has a critical edge, Pearce, Cronen, and Chen make a reasonable case that CMM shouldn’t be excluded.A Practical TheoryWhen Robert Craig proposed that a pragmatic tradition be added to his original list of seven traditions of communication theory (see Chapter 4), he cited CMM CRITIQUE: THREE THEORIES, THREE APPRAISALS
CHAPTER 6: COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING (CMM) 81as the exemplar of practical theory.34 He is not alone in that positive assessment. In “CMM: A Report from Users,” multiple therapists, mediators, teachers, and consultants provide compelling examples of how CMM helps them in their work. Yet Texas A&M University communication professor Kevin Barge, a CMM advocate, adds a note of caution. He warns that a batch of enthusiastic reports of CMM in use isn’t sufi cient evidence to validate it as a practical theory. Pearce, Cronen, and their followers must show how the experience of practitioners has informed the theory. He adds that researchers need to establish when CMM tools are helpful, and when they aren’t. There’s more work to be done.35 There’s one other hindrance to the theory’s widespread usefulness. When Pearce asked longtime CMM practitioners what changes or additions they thought should be made to the theory, the most frequent plea was for user-friendly explanations expressed in easy-to-understand terms. The following story from the i eld underscores why this call for clarity is so crucial:My counseling trainees often i nd CMM ideas exciting, but its language daunting or too full of jargon. Some trainees connect with the ideas but most feel intimi-dated by the language and the concepts—diminished in some way or excluded! One trainee sat in a posture of physically cringing because she did not understand. This was a competent woman who had successfully completed counselor training three years ago and was doing a “refresher” with us. I don’t think she found it too refreshing at that moment. CMM ideas would be more useful if they were avail-able in everyday language—perhaps via examples and storytelling. (Gabrielle Parker, Dance Movement Therapist)36 Pearce responds that he can train people to use CMM concepts, but not by asking them to read. He i rst asks them to describe something going on in their lives and then shows them rather than tells them how to use the ideas and mod-els that the theory offers. Because that interactive option isn’t available to us, I’ve tried to heed Parker’s advice while writing this chapter. Hopefully, you haven’t cringed. But in order to reduce the wince factor, I’ve had to leave out many of the valued terms, tools, and models that are the working vocabulary of this com-plex theory. Pearce introduces a full range of these concepts in Making Social Worlds: A Communication Perspective, a book he wrote in a more readable style. You should know that there are coordinated management of meaning devo-tees who live CMM rather than simply using the practical tools it offers. These folks refer to CMM as worldview, a way of life, or as Barnett Pearce puts it, a tra-dition of practice. Describing what this means to them goes way beyond what I can accomplish in a i rst look at CMM. But for a compelling story of how CMM values and ideals have transformed Barnett Pearce’s life when facing imminent death, read Kim Pearce’s essay cited in the Second Look section: “Living into Very Bad News: The Use of CMM as Spiritual Practice.” 1. Social constructionists see themselves as curious participants in a pluralistic world. Are you willing to not strive for certainty, a detached perspective, and a singular view of Truth so that you can join them? 2. Can you provide a rationale for placing this chapter on CMM immediately after the chapter on symbolic interactionism? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS
82 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION CONVERSATIONS As you watch my conversation with Barnett Pearce, you might think of us as the persons-in-conversation pictured in Escher’s Bond of Union. What kind of social world do you see us creating as we talk? I like to think that our conversation displays a few examples of cosmopolitan communication. If so, is Pearce right in thinking that you’ll i nd this kind of talk contagious? At one point I repeat my “Questions to Sharpen Your Focus” query about how social constructionists must give up claims of certainty, objectivity, and Truth. I then ask if that’s a fair question. See if you agree with Pearce’s response and the reason he gives. View this segment online at www.mhhe.com/grifi n8 or www.ai rstlook.com. 3. CMM suggests that we can take part in joint action without shared under-standing— coordination without coherence. Can you think of examples from your own life? 4. Pearce and Cronen claim that CMM is a practical theory. What consequences do you foresee had George W. Bush delivered the speech Pearce wrote after the 9/11 attacks? What aspects of dialogic communication do you see in Pearce’s version? A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: W. Barnett Pearce, Making Social Worlds: A Communication Per-spective , Blackwell, Malden, MA, 2008. Brief overview with extended example: W. Barnett Pearce, “The Coordinated Manage-ment of Meaning (CMM),” in Theorizing About Intercultural Communication, William Gudykunst (ed.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2004, pp. 35–54. Early statement of theory: W. Barnett Pearce and Vernon E. Cronen, Communication, Action, and Meaning: The Creation of Social Realities, Praeger, New York, 1980; also www.cios.org/www/opentext.htm . Development of a three-in-one theory: W. Barnett Pearce, “Evolution and Transformation: A Brief History of CMM and a Meditation on What Using It Does to Us,” in Making Lives and Making Meaning: Rel ective, Facilitative, and Interpretative Practice of the Coordinated Management of Meaning (tentative title), C. Creede, B. Fisher-Yoshida, and P. Gallegos (eds.), in press.Social construction: W. Barnett Pearce, “Communication as Social Construction: Reclaiming Our Birthright,” in Socially Constructing Communication, Gloria J. Galanes and Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz (eds.), Hampton, Cresskill, NJ, 2009, pp. 33–56. Coordination and coherence: W. Barnett Pearce, Communication and the Human Condition, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, 1989, pp. 32–87. Intellectual heritage: Vernon E. Cronen, “Coordinated Management of Meaning: The Con-sequentiality of Communication and the Recapturing of Experience,” in The Consequentiality of Communication, Stuart Sigman (ed.), Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1995, pp. 17–65. Peacemaking: W. Barnett Pearce and Stephen W. Littlejohn, Moral Conl ict: When Social Worlds Collide, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1997. Dialogic communication: W. Barnett Pearce and Kimberly A. Pearce, “Combining Pas-sions and Abilities: Toward Dialogic Virtuosity,” Southern Communication Journal, Vol. 65, 2000, pp. 161–175.
CHAPTER 6: COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING (CMM) 83Buber’s dialogic ethics: Martin Buber, I and Thou, 2nd ed., R. G. Smith (trans.), Scribner, New York, 1958.Research review of CMM: J. Kevin Barge and W. Barnett Pearce, “A Reconnaissance of CMM Research,” Human Systems, Vol. 15, 2004, pp. 13–32. CMM as a critical theory: Victoria Chen, “The Possibility of Critical Dialogue in the The-ory of Coordinated Management of Meaning,” Human Systems, Vol. 15, 2004, pp. 179–192. CMM as a practical theory: J. Kevin Barge, “Articulating CMM as a Practical Theory,” Human Systems, Vol. 15, 2004, pp. 193–204. CMM as a way of life: Kimberly Pearce, “Living into Very Bad News: The Use of CMM as Spiritual Practice,” in Making Lives and Making Meaning: Rel ective, Facilitative, and Inter-pretative Practice of the Coordinated Management of Meaning (tentative title), C. Creede, B. Fisher-Yoshida, and P. Gallegos (eds.), in press. To access an inventory of scenes from feature i lms that illustrate CMM, click on Suggested Movie Clips under Theory Resources at www.ai rstlook.com .
7CHAPTER Expectancy Violations Theory of Judee Burgoon Early in my teaching career, I was walking back to my ofi ce, puzzling over classroom conversations with four students. All four had made requests. Why, I wondered, had I readily agreed to two requests but just as quickly turned down two others? Each of the four students had spoken to me individually during the class break. Andre wanted my endorsement for a graduate scholarship, and Dawn invited me to eat lunch with her the next day. I said yes to both of them. Belinda asked me to help her on a term paper for a class with another professor, and Charlie encouraged me to play water polo that night with guys from his house, something I had done before. I said no to those requests. Sitting down at my desk, I idly l ipped through the pages of Human Com-munication Research (HCR), a relatively new behavioral science journal that had arrived in the morning mail. I was still mulling over my uneven response to the students when my eyes zeroed in on an article entitled “A Communication Model of Personal Space Violations.” 1 “That’s it,” I blurted out to our surprised department secretary. I suddenly realized that in each case my response to the student may have been inl uenced by the conversational distance between us. I mentally pictured the four students making their requests—each from a distance that struck me as inappropriate in one way or another. Andre was liter-ally in my face, less than a foot away. Belinda’s 2-foot interval invaded my personal space, but not as much. Charlie stood about 7 feet away—just outside the range I would have expected for a let’s-get-together-and-have-some-fun-that- has-nothing-to-do-with-school type of conversation. Dawn offered her luncheon invitation from across the room. At the time, each of these interactions had seemed somewhat strange. Now I realized that all four students had violated my expectation of an appropriate interpersonal distance. Because I describe my impressions and reactions to these students, I’ve changed their names, and replaced them with names that start with the letters A, B, C, and D to represent the increasing distance between us when we spoke. (Andre was the closest; Dawn, the farthest away.) Figure 7–1 plots the intervals relative to my expectations. Objective InterpretiveSocio-psychological tradition●84
CHAPTER 7: EXPECTANCY VIOLATIONS THEORY 85 Judee Burgoon, a communication scholar at the University of Arizona, wrote the journal article that stimulated my thinking. The article was a follow-up piece on the nonverbal expectancy violations model that she had introduced in HCR two years earlier. Since my own dissertation research focused on interpersonal distance, I knew i rsthand how little social science theory existed to guide researchers study-ing nonverbal communication. I was therefore excited to see Burgoon offering a sophisticated theory of personal space. The fact that she was teaching in a com-munication department and had published her work in a communication journal was value added. I eagerly read Burgoon’s description of her nonverbal expectancy violations model to see whether it could account for my mixed response to the various conversational distances chosen by the four students. PERSONAL SPACE EXPECTATIONS: CONFORM OR DEVIATE? Burgoon dei ned personal space as the “invisible, variable volume of space sur-rounding an individual that dei nes that individual’s preferred distance from others.” 2 She claimed that the size and shape of our personal space depend on our cultural norms and individual preferences, but our space always rel ects a compromise between the conl icting approach–avoidance needs that we as humans have for afi liation and privacy. The idea of personal space wasn’t original with Burgoon. In the 1960s, Illinois Institute of Technology anthropologist Edward Hall coined the term proxemics to refer to the study of people’s use of space as a special elaboration of culture. 3 He entitled his book The Hidden Dimension because he was convinced that most spatial interpretation is outside our awareness. He claimed that Americans have four proxemic zones, which nicely correspond with the four interpersonal dis-tances selected by my students: 1. Intimate distance: 0 to 18 inches (Andre) 2. Personal distance: 18 inches to 4 feet (Belinda) 3. Social distance: 4 to 10 feet (Charlie) 4. Public distance: 10 feet to ini nity (Dawn) Hall’s book is i lled with examples of “ugly Americans” who were insensi-tive to the spatial customs of other cultures. He strongly recommended that in order to be effective, we learn to adjust our nonverbal behavior to conform to the communication rules of our partner. We shouldn’t cross a distance boundary uninvited. Personal space The invisible, variable volume of space sur-rounding an individual that defines that individ-ual’s preferred distance from others.Proxemics The study of people’s use of space as a special elaboration of culture.FIGURE 7–1 Expectancy Violations in a Classroom Setting01 ft.2 ft.3 ft.4 ft.Professor’s ExpectedInteraction Range5 ft.6 ft.7 ft.8 ft.25 ft.ProfessorAndreBelindaThreat ThresholdCharlieDawn
86 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION In his poem “Prologue: The Birth of Architecture,” poet W. H. Auden echoes Hall’s analysis and puts us on notice that we violate his personal space at our peril: Some thirty inches from my nose The frontier of my Person goes, And all the untilled air between Is private pagus or demesne. Stranger, unless with bedroom eyes I beckon you to fraternize, Beware of rudely crossing it: I have no gun, but I can spit. 4 Burgoon’s nonverbal expectancy violations model offered a counterpoint to Hall and Auden’s advice. She didn’t argue with the idea that people have dei -nite expectations about how close others should come. In fact, she would explain Auden’s 30-inch rule as based on well-established American norms plus the poet’s own idiosyncracies. But contrary to popular go-along-to-get-along wis-dom, Burgoon suggested that there are times when it’s best to break the rules. She believed that under some circumstances, violating social norms and personal expectations is “a superior strategy to conformity.” 5 Cartoon by Peter Steiner. Reprinted with permission. AN APPLIED TEST OF THE ORIGINAL MODEL Whether knowingly or not, each of the four students making a request deviated from my proxemic expectation. How well did Burgoon’s initial model predict
CHAPTER 7: EXPECTANCY VIOLATIONS THEORY 87my responses to these four different violations? Not very well. So that you can capture the l avor of Burgoon’s early speculation and recognize how far her cur-rent theory has come, I’ll outline what the model predicted my responses would be and, in each case, compare that forecast to what I actually did. Andre. According to Burgoon’s early model, Andre made a mistake when he crossed my invisible threat threshold and spoke with me at an intimate eyeball-to-eyeball distance. The physical and psychological discomfort I’d feel would hurt his cause. But the model missed on that prediction, since I wrote the recom-mendation later that day. Belinda. In the follow-up article I read that day, Burgoon suggested that noticeable deviations from what we expect cause us to experience a heightened state of arousal. She wasn’t necessarily referring to the heart-pounding, sweaty- palms reaction that drives us to i ght or l ight. Instead, she pictured violations stimulating us to review the nature of our relationship with the person who acted in a curious way. That would be good news for Belinda if I thought of her as a highly rewarding person. But every comment she made in class seemed to me a direct challenge, dripping with sarcasm. Just as Burgoon predicted, the narrow, 2-foot gap Belinda chose focused my attention on our rocky relationship, and I declined her request for help in another course. Score one for the nonverbal expectancy violations model. Charlie . Charlie was a nice guy who cared more about having a good time than he did about studies. He knew I’d played water polo in college, but he may not have realized that his casual attitude toward the class was a constant reminder that I wasn’t as good a teacher as I wanted to be. In her 1978 HRC article, Bur-goon wrote that a person with “punishing power” (like Charlie) would do best to observe proxemic conventions or, better yet, stand slightly farther away than expected. Without ever hearing Burgoon’s advice, Charlie did it right. He backed off to a distance of 7 feet—just outside the range of interaction I anticipated. Even so, I declined his offer to swim with the guys. Dawn . According to this nonverbal expectancy violations model, Dawn blew it. Because she was an attractive communicator, a warm, close approach would have been a pleasant surprise. But her decision to issue an invitation from across the room would seem to guarantee a poor response. The farther she backed off, the worse the effect would be. There’s only one problem with this analysis: Dawn and I had lunch together in the student union the following day. Obviously, my attempt to apply Burgoon’s original model to conversational distance between me and my students didn’t meet with much success. The the-oretical scoreboard read: Nonverbal expectancy violations model: 1 Unpredicted random behavior: 3 Burgoon’s i rst controlled experiments didn’t fare much better. But where I was ready to dismiss the whole model as l awed, she was unwilling to abandon expectancy violation as a key concept in human interaction. At the end of her journal article she hinted that some of her basic assumptions might need to be tested and reevaluated. Threat threshold The hypothetical outer boundary of intimate space; a breach by an uninvited other occa-sions fight or flight.
88 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Of course that was then; this is now. Over the last three decades, Judee Bur-goon and her students have crafted a series of sophisticated laboratory experi-ments and i eld studies to discover and explain the effects of expectancy violations. One of the reasons I chose to write about her theory is that the current version is an excellent example of ideas continually revised as a result of empirical dis-coni rmation. As she has demonstrated, in science, failure can lead to success. A CONVOLUTED MODEL BECOMES AN ELEGANT THEORY When applied to theories, the term elegant suggests “gracefully concise and sim-ple; admirably succinct.” 6 That’s what expectancy violations theory has become. Burgoon has dropped concepts that were central in earlier versions but never panned out. Early on, for example, she abandoned the idea of a “threat thresh-old.” Even though that hypothetical boundary made intuitive sense, repeated experimentation failed to coni rm its existence. Burgoon’s retreat from arousal as an explanatory mechanism has been more gradual. She originally stated that people felt physiologically aroused when their proxemic expectations were violated. Later she softened the concept to “an ori-enting response” or a mental “alertness” that focuses attention on the violator. She now views arousal as a side effect of a partner’s deviation and no longer considers it a necessary link between expectancy violation and communication outcomes such as attraction, credibility, persuasion, and involvement. By removing extraneous features, Burgoon has streamlined her model. By extending its scope, she has produced a complete theory. Her original nonverbal expectancy violations model was concerned only with spatial violations—a rather narrow focus. But by the mid-1980s, Burgoon had realized that proxemic behav-ior is part of an interconnected system of nonlinguistic cues. It no longer made sense to study interpersonal distance in isolation. She began to apply the model to a host of other nonverbal variables—facial expression, eye contact, touch, and body lean, for example. Burgoon continues to expand the range of expectancy violations. While not losing interest in nonverbal communication, she now applies the theory to what’s said in emotional, marital, and intercultural com-munication as well. Consistent with this broad sweep, she has dropped the non-verbal qualii er and refers to her theory as “expectancy violations theory” and abbreviates it EVT. From this point on, so will I. What does EVT predict? Burgoon sums up her empirically driven conclu-sions in a single paragraph. It is my hope that my long narrative account of the theory’s development will help you appreciate the 30 years of work that lie behind these simple lines. Expectancies exert signii cant inl uence on people’s interaction patterns, on their impressions of one another, and on the outcomes of their interactions. Violations of expectations in turn may arouse and distract their recipients, shifting greater atten-tion to the violator and the meaning of the violation itself. People who can assume that they are well regarded by their audience are safer engaging in violations and more likely to proi t from doing so than are those who are poorly regarded. When the violation act is one that is likely to be ambiguous in its meaning or to carry multiple interpretations that are not uniformly positive or negative, then the reward valence of the communicator can be especially signii cant in moderating interpretations, evaluations, and subsequent outcomes. . . . In other cases, violations Arousal, relational A heightened state of awareness, orienting re-sponse, or mental alert-ness that stimulates a review of the relationship.
CHAPTER 7: EXPECTANCY VIOLATIONS THEORY 89have relatively consensual meanings and valences associated with them, so that engaging in them produces similar effects for positive- and negative-valenced communicators. 7 CORE CONCEPTS OF EVT A close reading of Burgoon’s summary suggests that EVT offers a “soft determin-ism” rather than hard-core universal laws (see Chapter 2). The qualifying terms may, more likely, can be, and relatively rel ect her belief that too many factors affect communication to allow us ever to discover simple cause-and-effect relation-ships. She does, however, hope to show a link among surprising interpersonal behavior and attraction, credibility, inl uence, and involvement. These are the potential outcomes of expectancy violation that Burgoon and her students explore. In order for us to appreciate the connection, we need to understand three core concepts of EVT: expectancy, violation valence, and communicator reward valence. I’ll illustrate these three variables by referring back to my students’ prox-emic behavior and to another form of nonverbal communication—touch. Expectancy When I was a kid, my mother frequently gave notice that she expected me to be on my best behavior. I considered her words to be a wish or a warning rather than a forecast of my future actions. That is not how Burgoon uses the word. She and her colleagues “prefer to reserve the term expectancy for what is pre-dicted to occur rather than what is desired.” 8 Figure 7–1 shows that I anticipated conversations with students to take place at a distance of 2½ to 6 feet. How did this expectation arise? Burgoon suggests that I processed the context, type of relationship, and characteristics of the others automatically in my mind so that I could gauge what they might do. Context begins with cultural norms. Three feet is too close in England or Germany yet too far removed in Saudi Arabia, where you can’t trust people who won’t let you smell their breath. Context also includes the setting of the conver-sation. A classroom environment dictates a greater speaking distance than would be appropriate for a private chat in my ofi ce. Relationship factors include similarity, familiarity, liking, and relative status. In one study, Burgoon discovered that people of all ages and stations in life anticipate that lower-status people will keep their distance. Because of our age difference and teacher–student relationship, I was more surprised by Andre’s and Belinda’s invasion of my personal space than I was by Charlie’s and Dawn’s remote location. Communicator characteristics include all of the age/sex/place-of-birth demo-graphic facts asked for on application forms, but they also include personal fea-tures that may affect expectation even more—physical appearance, personality, and communication style. Dawn’s warm smile was a counterpoint to Belinda’s caustic comments. Given this difference, I would have assumed that Dawn would be the one to draw close and Belinda the one to keep her distance. That’s why I was especially curious when each woman’s spatial “transgression” was the opposite of what I would have predicted. We can do a similar analysis of my expectation for touch in that classroom situation. Edward Hall claimed that the United States is a “noncontact culture,” Expectancy What people predict will happen, rather than what they desire.
90 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONso I wouldn’t anticipate touch during the course of normal conversation. 9 Does this mean that Latin American or Southern European “contact cultures” wouldn’t have tight expectations for nonverbal interaction? By no means; Burgoon is con-vinced that all cultures have a similar structure of expected communication behavior but that the content of those expectations can differ markedly from culture to culture. Touch is fraught with meaning in every society, but the who, when, where, and how of touching are a matter of culture-specii c standards and customs. As a male in a role relationship, it never occurred to me that students might make physical contact while voicing their requests. If it had, Dawn would have been the likely candidate. But at her chosen distance of 25 feet, she’d need to be a bionic woman to reach me. As it was, I would have been shocked if she’d violated my expectation and walked over to give me a hug. (As a lead-in to the next two sections, note that I didn’t say I would have been disturbed, distressed, or disgusted.) Violation Valence The term violation valence refers to the positive or negative value we place on a specii c unexpected behavior, regardless of who does it. Do we i nd the act itself pleasing or distressing, and to what extent? With her commitment to the scien-tii c method, Burgoon may have borrowed the concept of valence from chemis-try, where the valence of a substance is indicated by a number and its sign (13 or 22, for example). The term net worth from the i eld of accounting seems to capture the same idea. We usually give others a bit of wiggle room to deviate from what we regard as standard operating procedure. But once we deal with someone who acts out-side the range of expected behavior, we switch into evaluation mode. According to Burgoon, we i rst try to interpret the meaning of the violation, and then i gure out whether we like it. The meaning of some violations is easy to spot. As a case in point, no one would agonize over how to interpret a purposeful poke in the eye with a sharp stick. It’s a hostile act, and if it happened to us, we’d be livid. Many nonverbal behaviors are that straightforward. For example, moderate to prolonged eye con-tact in Western cultures usually communicates awareness, interest, affection, and trust. A level gaze is welcome; shifty eyes are not. With the exception of a rivet-ing stare, we value eye contact. Even Emerson, a man of letters, wrote, “The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary. . . .” 10 When a behavior has a socially recognized meaning, communicators can usually i gure out whether to go beyond what others expect. If the valence is negative, do less than expected. If the valence is positive, go further. Burgoon validated this advice when she studied the effect of expectancy on marital sat-isfaction. 11 She questioned people about how much intimate communication they expected from their partner compared to how much focused conversation they actually got. Not surprisingly, intimacy was ranked as positive. Partners who received about as much intimacy as they expected were moderately satisi ed with their marriages. But people were highly satisi ed with their marriages when they had more good talks with their husbands or wives than they originally thought they would. Violation valence The perceived positive or negative value assigned to a breach of expecta-tions, regardless of who the violator is.
CHAPTER 7: EXPECTANCY VIOLATIONS THEORY 91 On the other hand, many expectancy violations are ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations. For example, the meaning of unexpected touch can be puzzling. Is it a mark of total involvement in the conversation, a sign of warmth and affection, a display of dominance, or a sexual move? Distance violations can also be confusing. Andre isn’t from the Middle East, so why was he standing so close? I don’t bark or bite, so why did Dawn issue her invitation from across the room? According to EVT, it’s at times like these that we consider the reward valence of the communicator as well as the valence of the violation. Before we look at the way communicator reward valence i ts into the theory, you should know that Burgoon has found few nonverbal behaviors that are ambiguous when seen in a larger context. A touch on the arm might be enigmatic in isolation, but when experienced along with close proximity, forward body lean, a direct gaze, facial animation, and verbal l uency, almost everyone inter-prets the physical contact as a sign of high involvement in the conversation. 12 Or consider actor Eric Idle’s words and nonverbal manner in a Monty Python sketch. He punctuates his question about Terry Gilliam’s wife with a burlesque wink, a leering tone of voice, and gestures to accompany his words: “Nudge nudge. Know what I mean? Say no more . . . know what I mean?” 13 Taken alone, an exaggerated wink or a dig with the elbow might have many possible mean-ings, but as part of a coordinated routine, both gestures clearly transform a ques-tionable remark into a lewd comment. There are times, however, when nonverbal expectancy violations are truly equivocal. The personal space deviations of my students are cases in point. Per-haps I just wasn’t sensitive enough to pick up the cues that would help me make sense of their proxemic violations. But when the meaning of an action is unclear, EVT says that we interpret the violation in light of how the violator can affect our lives. Communicator Reward Valence EVT is not the only theory that describes the human tendency to size up other people in terms of the potential rewards they have to offer. Social penetration theory suggests that we live in an interpersonal economy in which we all “take stock” of the relational value of others we meet (see Chapter 9). The questions, What can you do for me? and What can you do to me? often cross our minds. Bur-goon is not a cynic, but she thinks the issue of reward potential moves from the background to the foreground of our minds when someone violates our expecta-tion and there’s no social consensus as to the meaning of the act. She uses the term communicator reward valence to label the results of our mental audit of likely gains and losses. The reward valence of a communicator is the sum of the positive and nega-tive attributes that the person brings to the encounter plus the potential he or she has to reward or punish in the future. The resulting perception is usually a mix of good and bad and falls somewhere on a scale between those two poles. I’ll illustrate communicator characteristics that Burgoon frequently mentions by reviewing one feature of each student that I thought about immediately after their perplexing spatial violations. Andre was a brilliant student. Although writing recommendations is low on my list of fun things to do, I would bask in rel ected glory if he were accepted into a top graduate program. Communicator reward valence The sum of positive and negative attributes brought to the encounter plus the potential to reward or punish in the future.
92 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Belinda had a razor-sharp mind and a tongue to match. I’d already felt the sting of her verbal barbs and thought that thinly veiled criticism in the future was a distinct possibility. Charlie was the classic goof-off—seldom in class and never prepared. I try to be evenhanded with everyone who signs up for my classes, but in Charlie’s case I had to struggle not to take his casual attitude toward the course as a personal snub. Dawn was a beautiful young woman with a warm smile. I felt great pleasure when she openly announced that I was her favorite teacher. My views of Andre, Belinda, Charlie, and Dawn probably say more about me than they do about the four students. I’m not particularly proud of my stereotyped assessments, but apparently I have plenty of company in the criteria I used. Burgoon notes that the features that impressed me also weigh heavily with others when they compute a reward valence for someone who is violating their expectations. Status, ability, and good looks are standard “goodies” that enhance the other person’s reward potential. The thrust of the conversation is even more important. Most of us value words that communicate acceptance, liking, appreciation, and trust. We’re turned off by talk that conveys disinterest, disapproval, distrust, and rejection. Why does Burgoon think that the expectancy violator’s power to reward or punish is so crucial? Because puzzling violations force victims to search the social context for clues to their meaning. 14 Thus, an ambiguous violation embedded in a host of relationally warm signals takes on a positive cast. An equivocal viola-tion from a punishing communicator stiffens our resistance. Now that I’ve outlined EVT’s core concepts of expectancy, violation valence, and communicator reward valence, you can better understand the bottom-line advice that Burgoon’s theory offers. Should you communicate in a totally unex-pected way? If you’re certain that the novelty will be a pleasant surprise, the answer is yes. But if you know that your outlandish behavior will offend, don’t do it. When you aren’t sure how others will interpret your far-out behavior, let their overall attitude toward you dictate your verbal and nonverbal actions. So if like Belinda and Charlie you have reason to suspect a strained relationship, and the meaning of a violation might be unclear, stil e your deviant tendencies and do your best to conform to expectations. But when you know you’ve already created a positive personal impression (like Andre or Dawn), a surprise move is not only safe, it probably will enhance the positive effect of your message. INTERACTION ADAPTATION—ADJUSTING EXPECTATIONS As evidence of its predictive power, EVT has been used to explain and predict attitudes and behaviors in a wide variety of communication contexts. These include students’ perceptions of their instructors, patients’ responses to health care providers, and individuals’ actions in romantic relationships. For example, Arizona State University communication professor Paul Mongeau has studied men and women’s expectations for i rst dates and compares those expectations with their actual experiences. 15 He discovered that men are pleasantly surprised when a woman initiates a i rst date and that they usually interpret such a request as a sign that she’s interested in sexual activity. But there’s a second surprise in store for most of these guys when it turns out that they have less physical intimacy than they do on the traditional male-initiated i rst date. We might expect that the men’s disappointment would put a damper on future dates together, but surprisingly it doesn’t.
CHAPTER 7: EXPECTANCY VIOLATIONS THEORY 93 For Mongeau, EVT explains how dating partners’ expectations are affected by who asks out whom. Yet unlike early tests of EVT, Mongeau’s work considers how one person’s actions might reshape a dating partner’s perceptions after their time together—a morning-after-the-night-before adjustment of expectations. In the same way, Burgoon has reassessed EVT’s single-sided view and now favors a dyadic model of adaptation. That’s because she regards conversations as more akin to duets than solos. Interpersonal interactions involve synchronized actions rather than unilateral moves. Along with her former students Lesa Stern and Leesa Dillman, Burgoon has crafted interaction adaptation theory (IAT) as an exten-sion and expansion of EVT. 16 Burgoon states that human beings are predisposed to adapt to each other. That’s often necessary, she says, because another person’s actions may not square with the thoughts and feelings we bring to our interaction. She sees this initial interaction position as made up of three factors: requirements, expectations, and desires. Requirements (R) are the outcomes that fuli ll our basic needs to survive, be safe, belong, and have a sense of self-worth. These are the panhu-man motivations that Abraham Maslow outlined in his famous hierarchy of needs. 17 As opposed to requirements that represent what we need to happen, expectations (E) as dei ned in EVT are what we think really will happen. Finally, desires (D) are what we personally would like to see happen. These RED factors coalesce or meld into our interaction position of what’s needed, anticipated, and preferred. I’ll continue to use touch behavior to show how Burgoon uses this composite mindset to predict how we adjust to another person’s behavior. In her course application log, Lindi briel y describes a roommate’s unantici-pated interaction with a casual friend:At the end of last year my roommate was hanging out with a bunch of our friends late at night and one of the guys started playing with her hair and contin-ued to do so for the rest of the night. This unexpected violation of her personal space surprised her, but turned out to be a very pleasant experience. She was forced then to reevaluate their relationship. Even though they didn’t develop a romantic relationship, this violation brought them closer together and helped them redei ne their friendship. Although details are sparse, it’s possible to approximate the roommate’s interactional position at the start of the evening. Her willingness to spend the night hanging around with a group of friends suggests that she has a high need or requirement for afi liation and belongingness (R). Given her surprise at the fellow i ddling with her hair, we can assume that this ongoing touch was dei -nitely not the behavioral norm of the group, nor what she expected based on the guy’s past behavior (E). Yet her pleasure with this fellow’s continual touch indi-cates that she had a strong desire for this kind of personal attention from him (D). Her initial interaction position would therefore be an amalgam of what she needed, expected, and preferred. With the help of hindsight, we can see that the valence of the guy playing with her hair was more positive than her interaction position. According to IAT, the pattern of response would therefore be one of reciprocity or convergence. Reciprocity would mean that she then ran her i ngers through his hair. There’s no hint that this happened. Yet since the whole group of friends could monitor her response, it’s unlikely he would have continued with this form of touch unless she encouraged him with a smile or words indicating pleasure. That Interaction adaptation theory A systematic analysis of how people adjust their approach when another’s behavior doesn’t mesh with what’s needed, an-ticipated, or preferred.Interaction position A person’s initial stance toward an interaction as determined by a blend of personal requirements, expectations, and desires (RED).
94 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONwould be convergence. If, on the other hand, the valence she assigned to him messing with her hair was more negative than her interaction position, Bur-goon predicts some form of compensation or divergent behavior. She might lean away from him, excuse herself to comb her hair, or simply look at him and say, “Cut it out.” Unlike EVT, IAT addresses how people adjust their behavior when others violate their expectations. Burgoon outlined two shortcomings of expectancy violations theory that she found particularly troubling: First, EVT does not fully account for the overwhelming prevalence of reciproc-ity that has been found in interpersonal interactions. Second, it is silent on whether communication valence supersedes behavior valence or vice versa when the two are incongruent (such as when a disliked partner engages in a positive violation). 18 Interaction adaptation theory is Burgoon’s attempt to address these problems within the broader framework of ongoing behavioral adjustments. There’s obvi-ously more to the theory than I’ve been able to present, but hopefully this brief sketch lets you see that for Burgoon, one theory leads to another. CRITIQUE: A WELL-REGARDED WORK IN PROGRESS I have a friend who i xes my all-terrain cycle whenever I bend it or break it. “What do you think?” I ask Bill. “Can it be repaired?” His response is always the same: “Man made it. Man can i x it!” Judee Burgoon shows the same resolve as she seeks to adjust and redesign an expectancy violations model that never quite works as well in practice as its theoretical blueprint says it should. Almost every empirical test she runs seems to yield mixed results. For example, her early work on physical contact sug-gested that touch violations were often ambiguous. However, a sophisticated experiment she ran in 1992 showed that unexpected touch in a problem-solving situation was almost always welcomed as a positive violation, regardless of the status, gender, or attractiveness of the violator. Do repeated failures to predict outcomes when a person stands far away, moves in too close, or reaches out to touch someone imply that Burgoon ought to trade in her expectancy violations theory for a new model? Does IAT render EVT obsolete? From my perspective, the answer is no. Taken as a whole, Burgoon’s expectancy violations theory continues to meet i ve of the six criteria of a good scientii c theory, as presented in Chapter 3. Her theory advances a reasonable explanation for the effects of expectancy violations during communication. The explanation she offers is relatively simple and has actually become less complex over time. The theory has testable hypotheses that the theorist is willing to adjust when her quantitative research doesn’t support the prediction. Finally, the model offers practical advice on how to better achieve important communication goals of increased credibility, inl uence, and attraction. Could we ask for anything more? Of course. We could wish for predictions that prove more reliable than the Farmer’s Almanac long-range forecast of weather trends. A review of expectancy violations research suggests that EVT may have reached that point. For example, a comparative empir-ical study tested how well three leading theories predict interpersonal responses to Reciprocity A strong human ten-dency to respond to an-other’s action with similar behavior.
CHAPTER 7: EXPECTANCY VIOLATIONS THEORY 95 ETHICAL REFLECTION: KANT’S CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE EVT focuses on what’s effective . But, according to German philosopher Immanuel Kant, before we knowingly violate another’s expectation we should consider what’s ethical . Kant believed that any time we speak or act, we have a moral obligation to be truthful. He wrote that “truthfulness in statements which cannot be avoided is the formal duty of an individual to everyone, however great may be the disadvan-tage accruing to himself or another.” 20 Others might wink at white lies, justify decep-tion for the other’s own good, or warn of the dire consequences that can result from total honesty. But from Kant’s perspective, there are no mitigating circumstances. Lying is wrong—always. So is breaking a promise. He’d regard nonverbal deception the same way. Kant came to this absolutist position through the logic of his categorical imperative, a term that means duty without exception. He stated the categorical imperative as an ethical absolute: “Act only on that maxim which you can will to become a universal law.” 21 In terms of EVT, Kant would have us look at the violation we are considering and ask, What if everybody did that all the time? If we don’t like the answer, we have a solemn duty not to do the deed. The categorical imperative is a method of determining right from wrong by thinking through the ethical valence of an act, regardless of motive. Suppose we’re thinking about touching someone in a way he or she doesn’t expect and hasn’t clearly let us know is welcome. Perhaps the other person, like Lindi’s roommate, might be pleasantly surprised. But unless we can embrace the idea of everyone—no matter what their communication reward valence—having that kind of unbidden access to everybody, the categorical imperative says don’t do it. No exceptions. In the words of a sports-minded colleague who teaches ethics, “Kant plays ethical hardball without a mitt.” If we say, I “Kant” play in that league, what ethical scorecard will we use in place of his categorical imperative? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS 1. What proxemic advice would you give to communicators who believe they are seen as unrewarding? 2. Except for ritual handshakes, touch is often unexpected in casual relationships. If you don’t know someone well, what is the violation valence you ascribe to a light touch on the arm, a brief touch on the cheek, or a shoulder hug? 3. EVT suggests that communicator reward valence is especially important when the violation valence is equivocal. What verbal or nonverbal expectancy violations would be confusing to you even when experienced in context? 4. EVT and coordinated management of meaning (see Chapter 6) hold diver-gent assumptions about the nature of knowledge, reality, and communication research. Can you draw the distinctions? Categorical imperative Duty without exception; act only on that maxim which you can will to become a universal law.nonverbal immediacy—close proximity, touch, direct gaze, direct body orientation, and forward lean. 19 None of the theories proved to be right all of the time, but EVT did better than the other two. And based on what a revised EVT now predicts, the scoreboard for my responses to the proxemic violations of Andre, Belinda, Charlie, and Dawn shows four hits and no misses.
96 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Judee K. Burgoon and Jerold Hale, “Nonverbal Expectancy Violations: Model Elaboration and Application to Immediacy Behaviors,” Communication Monographs, Vol. 55, 1988, pp. 58–79. Original model: Judee K. Burgoon, “A Communication Model of Personal Space Viola-tions: Explication and an Initial Test,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 4, 1978, pp. 129–142. Expectancy: Judee K. Burgoon and Beth A. LePoire, “Effects of Communication Expec-tancies, Actual Communication, and Expectancy Disconi rmation on Evaluations of Com-municators and Their Communication Behavior,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 20, 1993, pp. 67–96. Expectation and valence of touch: Judee K. Burgoon, Joseph Walther, and E. James Baesler, “Interpretations, Evaluations, and Consequences of Touch,” Human Communica-tion Research, Vol. 19, 1992, pp. 237–263. Communicator reward valence: Judee K. Burgoon, “Relational Message Interpretations of Touch, Conversational Distance, and Posture,” Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, Vol. 15, 1991, pp. 233–259. Extension of the theory: Walid A. Ai i and Judee K. Burgoon, “The Impact of Violations on Uncertainty and the Consequences for Attractiveness,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 26, 2000, pp. 203–233. Nonverbal persuasion: Judee K. Burgoon, Norah E. Dunbar, and Chris Segrin, “Non-verbal Inl uence,” in The Persuasion Handbook: Developments in Theory and Practice, James Dillard and Michael Pfau (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2002, pp. 445–473. Cultural violations: Judee K. Burgoon and Amy Ebesu Hubbard, “Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Applications of Expectancy Violations Theory and Interaction Adaptation Theory,” in Theorizing About Intercultural Communication, William B. Gudykunst (ed.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2004, pp. 149–171. Interaction adaptation theory: Judee K. Burgoon, Lesa Stern, and Leesa Dillman, Inter-personal Adaptation: Dyadic Interaction Patterns, Cambridge University, Cambridge, 1995. Explanation and comparison of EVT and IAT: Cindy H. White, “Expectancy Violations Theory and Interaction Adaptation Theory: From Expectations to Adaptation,” in Engag-ing Theories in Interpersonal Communication: Multiple Perspectives, Leslie A. Baxter and Dawn O. Braithwaite (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2008, pp. 189–202. Kant’s categorical imperative: Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, H. J. Paton (trans.), Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1964, pp. 60–88. View this segment online at www.mhhe.com/grifi n8 or www.ai rstlook.com. CONVERSATIONS A few minutes into my discussion with Judee Burgoon, you’ll notice that one of us violates a communication expectation of the other. See if you think the violation is accidental or strategic. How does this event affect the rest of the conversation? Burgoon’s love of theory is apparent throughout the segment. Do you think her enthusiasm is bolstered by a view of theories as systematic hunches rather than timeless principles chiseled in stone? As a scientist, Burgoon believes that much of human behavior is genetically pro-grammed, yet she insists that communication is also a choice-driven, strate-gic behavior. As you watch, decide whether you think these beliefs are compatible.
CHAPTER 7: EXPECTANCY VIOLATIONS THEORY 97 Critique: Peter A. Andersen, Laura K. Guerrero, David B. Buller, and Peter F. Jor-gensen, “An Empirical Comparison of Three Theories of Nonverbal Immediacy Exchange,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 24, 1998, pp. 501–535. To access a chapter on Hall’s proxemic theory that appeared in a previous edition, click on Theory List at www.ai rstlook.com .
988CHAPTER Constructivism of Jesse Delia Constructivism is a communication theory that seeks to explain individual dif-ferences in people’s ability to communicate skillfully in social situations. You probably don’t need to be convinced that some people are better at understand-ing, attracting, persuading, informing, comforting, or entertaining others with whom they talk. In fact, you may be taking communication courses so that you can become more adept at reaching these communication goals. Although some might suspect that communication success is simply a matter of becoming more assertive or outgoing, Jesse Delia believes that there is a crucial behind-the-eyes difference in people who are interpersonally effective. His theory of constructiv-ism offers a cognitive explanation for communication competence. Delia is the former chair of the department of speech communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and now serves as the executive direc-tor of international research relations at the school. Along with a network of con-structivist researchers, he uses Walter Crockett’s open-ended Role Category Questionnaire (RCQ) to help us “get inside our head.” 1 So that you fully understand the theory and what it says about your communication, take 10 minutes to respond to the RCQ before you become sensitized to what the survey is measuring. ●Objective InterpretiveSocio-psychological traditionRhetorical tradition ROLE CATEGORY QUESTIONNAIRE INSTRUCTIONS Think of people about your age whom you know well. Select one person you like and pick someone you dislike. Once you have two specii c people in mind, spend a moment to mentally compare and contrast them in terms of personality, habits, beliefs, and the way they treat others. Don’t limit yourself to similarities and differences between the two; let your mind play over the full range of char-acteristics that make them who they are. Now take a piece of paper and for about i ve minutes describe the person you enjoy so that a stranger would understand what he or she is like. Skip physical characteristics, but list all of the attributes, mannerisms, and reactions to others that identify who he or she is. When you’ve i nished the description, do the same thing for the person you don’t like. Again, write down all the personal characteristics or actions that you associate with that person. Spend about i ve minutes on this description.
CHAPTER 8: CONSTRUCTIVISM 99 The core assumption of constructivism is that “persons make sense of the world through systems of personal constructs.” 2 Constructs are the cognitive templates or stencils we i t over reality to bring order to our perceptions. The Role Category Questionnaire is designed to sample the interpersonal constructs in our mental toolbox that we bring to the construction site of meaning—the central processing function of our minds. Much like sets of opposing terms (warm-cool, good-bad, fast-slow), constructs are contrasting features that we have available to classify other people. A police artist has an identii cation kit with which an eyewitness can con-struct the face of a suspect. By systematically altering the shape of the chin, size of the nose, distance between the eyes, line of the hair, and so forth, the witness can build a likeness of the person in question. However, the RCQ doesn’t bother with physical features. It centers on the categories of personality and action that we use to dei ne the character of another person. The arena of politics offers a familiar example of the way we use constructs to describe another individual. All of us have our own bipolar dimensions of judgment that we apply to politicians. Some typical scales are liberal-conservative, steadfast-l exible, competent-inept. The politically astute observer may draw on dozens of these interpretive orientations to describe shades of difference. There are conservatives, and there are social conservatives. Then there are articulate social conservatives. Some of them are belligerent, and so forth. On the other hand, those who are politically unsophisticated may use only one value-laden construct as they watch the six o’clock news. They see only winners and losers. An Index of Social Perception Skills Researchers who rely on the RCQ are trying to determine our degree of cognitive complexity as we form impressions of other people and analyze social situations. They are convinced that people with a large set of interpersonal constructs have better social perception skills than those whose set of mental templates is relatively small. Those skills include i guring out others’ personality traits, where they stand in relationship to us, what they are doing, and why they are doing it. Impres-sion formation is the crucial i rst step in relational development, and cogni-tively complex people have a dei nite advantage in that process. They also are better able to “take the role of the other,” the mental perspective-taking that makes humans unique, according to Mead (see Chapter 5). Brant Burleson (Purdue University), a longtime colleague of Delia in the constructivism proj-ect, maintains that those who have high levels of cognitive complexity are comparative experts when it comes to understanding the people and events in their social world. 3 Cognitive theorists like Delia and Burleson distinguish between mental struc-tures and mental processes . What you know about word processing on your com-puter may help you understand the different roles of structure and process in the mind. The computer hardware is the structure. What the software does when we strike a function key is the process. A four-year-old boy at a playground explained to me the difference between mental structure and mental process without ever using those terms. “My brain is like a jungle gym,” he said. “Think-ing is like climbing all over it.” Interpersonal constructsThe cognitive templates or stencils we fit over social reality to order our impressions of people.Role Category Questionnaire (RCQ)A free-response survey designed to measure the cognitive complexity of a person’s interpersonal perception.Cognitive complexityThe mental ability to dis-tinguish subtle personality and behavior differences among people. INTERPERSONAL CONSTRUCTS AS EVIDENCE OF COGNITIVE COMPLEXITY
100 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Delia and Burleson are more concerned with the structure of our constructs than with the actual judgments we make. Consistent with that focus, it’s been said that there are two kinds of people in the world—those who think there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don’t. Constructivists believe that the i rst kind of person is cognitively immature because he or she is able to see others only in terms of black and white. But the second type of person has developed into a sophisticated observer of the human scene, capable of distin-guishing subtle differences among people. When it comes to thinking about these differences, the Role Category Questionnaire is designed to gauge how intricate the jungle gym in your head might be. Although the RCQ can be scored in different ways, most constructivist researchers cull the descriptions of liked and disliked peers for the amount of construct dif-ferentiation. Differentiation is dei ned as the number of separate personality con-structs used to portray the person in question. I’ll take you through a shorthand version of the scoring procedure so you can see how constructivists might rate you on cognitive complexity. Let’s assume you wrote about the personal characteristics of a friend named Chris and a co-worker named Alex. Add up the number of different descriptions you used to describe both people. As a rule of thumb, consider that each new term represents an additional mental construct. Seeing Chris as both sharp and competent would earn two points. So would a judgment that Alex is hurried and never has time. But there are exceptions to the one-term-equals-one-construct rule. Adjectives and adverbs that merely modify the extent of a characteristic don’t rel ect additional constructs. Score just one point if you wrote that Chris is totally sincere. Since idioms such as good ole boy have a single referent, they get a single point as well. On their own, physical descriptions (tall) and demographic labels (Irish) say nothing about character, so skip over them. Apart from these rules, close calls should get the benei t of the doubt and score an extra point. Constructivists regard the combined number of constructs for both descrip-tions as an index of cognitive complexity. The higher your score, the more elabo-rate the structure within your mind over which your interpersonal perceptions play. I’ve seen individual scores as low as 6 and as high as 45, but about 70 per-cent of college students score between 15 and 25, with a mean of 20. Burleson interprets any score over 25 as a reliable indicator of high interpersonal cognitive complexity. Are RCQ scores really an accurate measure of cognitive complexity? Delia makes a good case for their validity. His claim that cognitive complexity devel-ops with a child’s chronological age is rel ected in progressively higher scores as youngsters grow older. He also believes that individual differences between adults should be relatively stable over time. That standard has been met through good test-retest reliability. Finally, Delia notes that a pure test of personality shouldn’t be confounded by other character traits or extraneous factors. Research has established that RCQ scores are independent of IQ, empathy, writing skill, and extroversion. Some critics charge that it’s merely a measure of loquacity, or wordiness, but construc-tivists maintain that high scores on this free-response test take more than the gift of gab. What’s required is a wide range of interpersonal constructs. DifferentiationThe main component of cognitive complexity as measured by the number of separate personal con-structs used on the RCQ. SCORING THE RCQ FOR CONSTRUCT DIFFERENTIATION
CHAPTER 8: CONSTRUCTIVISM 101 Now that you have an idea of what’s involved in cognitive complexity, we’ll consider the main hypothesis of constructivism. Delia and his colleagues claim that people who are cognitively complex in their perceptions of others have a communication advantage over those with less developed mental structures. These fortunate individuals have the ability to produce person-centered mes-sages that give them a better chance to achieve their communication goals. As Delia uses the phrase, person-centered messages refers to “messages which rel ect an awareness of and adaptation to subjective, affective, and relational aspects of the communication contexts.” 4 In other words, the speaker is able to anticipate how different individuals might respond to a message, and adjust his or her communication accordingly. The study by Ruth Ann Clark and Delia of second- to ninth-grade schoolchil-dren is a prototype of constructivist research that links person-centered messages to cognitive complexity. 5 It focused on the children’s ability to adapt persuasive appeals to different target listeners. After taking the RCQ orally, the kids were given the role-play task of convincing a woman they didn’t know to keep a lost puppy. Naturally, the quality of messages differed. Some children showed no real-ization that the woman’s perspective on the matter might be different from their own. Other kids recognized the difference but failed to adapt their message to this reality. A more sophisticated group took notice of the difference and were able to imagine what the woman was thinking. (“My husband will think I’m a sucker for every stray in town.”) They then could make an attempt to refute the counterarguments they knew their appeal would raise. The most sophisticated messages also stressed the advantages that would come to her if she complied with the request. (“Having a dog for a companion will take away some of the loneliness you feel at night when your husband is out of town. He’ll also feel better when he knows you’ve got a furry friend.”) Constructivists assume that strategic adaptation is a developmentally nur-tured skill. Consistent with their belief, Clark and Delia found that the quality of messages improved as the age of the children increased. But differences in con-struct differentiation that weren’t due to chronological age also had a signii cant impact. Cognitively complex students were two years ahead of their same-age classmates in the ability to encode person-centered messages. Thus, the older kids who possessed cognitive complexity beyond their years were best able to take the perspective of the other and tailor the message to the individual listener. Person-centered messageA tailor-made message for a specific individual and context; reflects the communicator’s ability to anticipate response and adjust accordingly.CALVIN & HOBBES 1987 © Watterson. Distributed by Universal Uclick. Used by permission. All rights reserved. PERSON-CENTERED MESSAGES—THE INTERPERSONAL EDGE
102 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Scholars who study communication use different terms to describe the capacity to create person-centered messages: rhetorical sensitivity, taking the role of the other, identii cation, self-monitoring, audience awareness, listener adaptation. Whatever we call it, the creation of person-centered messages is a sophisticated communication skill . Constructivists say cognitively complex people can do it better. Note that constructivists don’t claim such people always do it, only that they have a capac-ity others don’t. The way constructivists put it is that cognitive complexity is a “necessary but not sufi cient condition” of person-centered messages.” 6 Fatigue, the effects of alcohol, or pressure to conform to a i xed style of communication can mute the advantage. There are also many routine or mundane communication situations where this adaptive skill is neither called for nor particularly helpful. But when the stakes are high and emotions run deep, people who can craft per-son-centered messages are way ahead of the game. Early versions of constructivism couldn’t pin down the reason high construct dif-ferentiation usually leads to more effective communication. Like a terse bumper sticker, the theory proclaimed cognitively complex persons can do it better, but Delia wasn’t sure why. By the late 1980s, however, other cognitive theorists had begun to develop models of message production that constructivists could use to explain the thought processes that tie cognitive structures to speech acts. Delia and his colleagues now consider the basic mental sequence that cognitive scientists outline as the miss-ing link that connects mental complexity with person-centered messages. For example, consider the workplace plight of a young single woman named Laura, whose married male boss suggests meeting together to talk about her career. At their business lunch he comes on to her—suggesting a sexual affair. Through no fault of her own, Laura’s been placed in a tough communication situation. 7 In order to understand her thought process, we’ll work through a goals-plans-action model of message production outlined by Pennsylvania State University communication professor James Dillard. 8 Goals What does Laura want to accomplish? If her sole aim is to stop her employer’s sleazy suggestions once and for all, she might adopt a simple plan of attack that creates a message expressing the repulsion she feels: You are the most rude and disgusting man I have ever met. You’re nothing but a dirty old man. Where do you get off thinking you could force me to have an affair with you? You make me sick. 9 But she may have another goal that’s equally important to her, such as keeping her job. If so, she would have two primary persuasive goals, which she has to juggle. In other situations, she might have different primary communication goals—to inform, advise, comfort, entertain, gain assistance, or alter a relation-ship. These goals are called primary because they “set into motion an ensemble of lower-level cognitive processes that occur in parallel and align with the over-all aim represented by the primary goal.” 10 The adoption of multiple primary goals usually prompts the rise of secondary goals. These additional but less important aims often conl ict with the primary Message productionA three-stage process of goals assessed, plans selected, and tactics enacted (action).Sophisticated communicationA person-centered mes-sage that accomplishes multiple goals. MESSAGE PRODUCTION: CRAFTING GOAL-BASED PLANS FOR ACTION
CHAPTER 8: CONSTRUCTIVISM 103goals. In Laura’s case, stopping the harassment and protecting her job require that she i nd a way to save face for both her boss and herself. She needs to keep a good working relationship with him while preserving her professional identity and reputation. If, in fact, Laura does simultaneously pursue multiple interper-sonal goals, it’s a sign of her cognitive complexity. Burleson says that “people with high levels of interpersonal cognitive complexity . . . tend to develop more complex and sophisticated goals for many social situations, especially those that appear challenging or demanding.” 11 The number and variety of her interpersonal constructs also equip her to develop a multifaceted plan that can pull it off. Plans Once Laura knows what she wants her response to accomplish, she’ll devise a message plan using procedural records that are stored in her long-term memory. 12 According to John Greene, a colleague of Burleson’s at Purdue, a procedural record is a recollection of an action taken in a specii c situation paired with its consequences—how things turned out. I think of it as a memory that has if-when-then implications for future actions. For example, suppose when Laura hears the unwanted sexual proposition from her boss, a long-dormant image pops into her conscious mind. She was 12 years old when the high school guy who lived next door suggested he give her kissing lessons. Confused and troubled by his offer, she laughed and treated the whole thing as a joke, although she knew he was serious. If she and her teenage neighbor maintained a casual, nonromantic rela-tionship after the incident, the procedural record i led away in her long-term memory might take this form: If I want to avoid getting physical and not offend a guy (goals), When he makes an improper sexual suggestion (situation), Then I should pretend he’s just kidding (action). Laura may have more than a million procedural records in her long-term memory, but most of them aren’t applicable to the problem posed by her employer’s indecent proposal. The ones that will be activated and affect her message plan are the memories of times when she had similar goals in some-what similar circumstances. Although not a perfect i t, the procedural record of how she handled her neighbor’s proposal is a close match and will probably inform her response to her boss. If she has lots of memories of successfully feigning ignorance of questionable motives in a variety of situations, this approach could become the top-down strategy that dictates all the other tactics in her message plan. In an article describing his basic goals-plans-action model of message pro-duction, Dillard addresses a number of frequently asked questions about con-structing a cognitive plan. 13 Perhaps you’ll i nd that format helpful to better understand the thought process that Laura and the rest of us go through before we speak. • What do we do i rst? We search our long-term memory for tried-and-true, boil-erplate plans that are likely to achieve our primary goal(s). • What if none of these prepackaged plans seem promising? We’ll make an existing plan more complete by l eshing out the details, or we’ll make it more complex by adding steps to cover many contingencies. Procedural recordThe recollection of an action taken in a specific situation paired with its consequences; an if-when-then memory.
104 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION• Are we consciously aware that we’re engaged in this mental process? Most of this mental activity takes place below our level of consciousness. Yet if someone asked us to rel ect on why we said what we did, we’d be able to identify the goals our plan was meant to serve. • How long does it take for goals to activate procedural records and to assemble them into a message plan? Usually it’s a matter of milliseconds. But if we decide to create a novel message plan rather than adopting or adapting an existing one, the mental process will take more time and effort. • Can we change the plan in midconversation? Dei nitely—and we usually do if we aren’t getting our hoped-for response. Berger’s hierarchy hypothesis (see Chapter 10) suggests that we will alter low-level elements of the plan such as word choice or facial expression—changes that won’t demand wholesale reor-ganization. If, however, we change our goals midstream, we automatically discard the original plan and adopt or create another one. Action Person-centered messages are the form of communication that Delia wants to explain, predict, and promote. Because cognitively complex people have the social perception to see the necessity of pursuing multiple goals and the skills to develop message plans to achieve them, they are the fortunate folks who can communicate skillfully when the situation demands it. Most people regard the communication context as a factor that limits a speaker’s options. It certainly seems that Laura is trapped in a no-win situation as the man who has power over her tries to use it to leverage sexual favors. But as a cognitively complex person, Laura has the ability to use context as a resource. The message she crafts parries her boss’ unwelcome advances, salvages her job, and saves face both for herself and for him: We’ve got a great working relationship now, and I’d like us to work well together in the future. So I think it’s important for us to talk this out. You’re a smart and clear-thinking guy and I consider you to be my friend as well as my boss. That’s why I have to think you must be under a lot of unusual stress lately to have said something like this. I know what it’s like to be under pressure. Too much stress can really make you crazy. You probably just need a break. 14 Some readers are bothered by this response. In their minds, Laura’s words let her lecherous boss off the hook. These folks believe that a clear threat of exposure would be the appropriate way to block his sexual advances and possible retaliation for rejecting them. But from Laura’s perspective, a person-centered message is the best way to meet her multiple concerns in this complex situation. By framing her employer’s proposition as one that springs from stress rather than sleaze, Laura is able to achieve all her goals. I’ve used the words spoken by a woman to illustrate a person-centered mes-sage. That choice is appropriate because women display this crucial communica-tion skill more than men do. You therefore won’t be surprised that the average female scores three points higher for construct differentiation on the RCQ than her male counterpart. It turns out to be a difference that makes a difference when a sophisticated interpersonal message is called for. Burleson suggests that we can spot the reason for this gender discrepancy through the social life of children
CHAPTER 8: CONSTRUCTIVISM 105and adolescents. When guys get together they typically talk about others in terms of external behaviors —the sports they play, the cars they drive, the battles they i ght. Conversely, girls tend to talk about people —their perceptions of inter-nal motives, attitudes, traits, and personalities. As you’ll see by the end of the chapter, it’s by becoming sensitive to the inner life of others that a person’s set of interpersonal constructs grows. Figure 8–1 portrays the linkages that constructivists have forged. High cognitive complexity facilitates sophisticated message plans, which in turn produce person-centered messages. Those links of the chain are well-established. Constructivist researchers have now turned to exploring the positive effects of person-centered messages on every conceivable form of communication outcome. We’ve already seen that these messages can be more persuasive. In this section I’ll highlight the i ndings in three other areas of research that my students have found particularly interesting. Social support messages try to ease the emotional distress experienced by others. Burleson has developed a nine-stage hierarchical scale to code the degree of comfort a message of support offers. At the bottom end are messages that dismiss the thoughts and feelings of the person who is hurting. Moderately com-forting messages express sympathy, yet try to shift attention away from the other’s loss or offer explanations for why it occurred. Highly person-centered messages CognitiveComplexitySophisticatedMessage PlansPerson-CenteredMessagesBeneficialOutcomesFIGURE 8–1 The Chain of Person-Centered Message Production BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF PERSON-CENTERED MESSAGES
106 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONvalidate the other’s feelings and may offer an additional perspective to the situa-tion.15 My student Camie describes the difference in the quality of support she felt after her beloved grandmother died.That evening my best friend Aly took me outside on the patio and we watched the sunset. She put her arm around me and said, “Camie, I know you miss Grandma June tons right now. I can’t say anything to take away the pain or to ease the grief, but I am here for you. Cry on my shoulder whenever you need to and take com-fort in that she is with Jesus right now, helping him to paint this beautiful sky for us to watch.” I began to bawl and she just sat there with me and let me cry. It was so comforting. When I came back to school one of my roommates said, “I’m so sorry Camie. I had a grandmother die last year. Don’t think about it too much because it will just make you sadder. Know that she is with God.” I told her, “Thank you,” but inside I was screaming, “You idiot! That doesn’t give me any comfort.” Now that I’ve read about constructivism I realize that she may care about me just as much as Aly, but not have the degree of cognitive complexity she’d need to construct a person-centered message. You may be surprised at Camie’s vehement reaction to her roommate’s mid-level message of support. But perhaps Camie has an interpersonal cognitive com-plexity that equals or surpasses what she sees in her friend Aly. Burleson has found that those who score high on the RCQ have the capacity to listen more acutely than others. One result of this in-depth listening ability is that person-centered assurances of support feel especially comforting and those that miss the mark strike them as clueless.16 In general, sophisticated messages are usually experi-enced as more comforting than clumsy attempts at social support. You hope that’s reward enough for the friend who offers well-chosen words in a time of need. But Burleson notes that other positive outcomes accrue to the sensitive comforter: Compared to persons using less sophisticated comforting strategies, users of sophis-ticated strategies are better liked and more positively evaluated by both message recipients and observers. Further, users of sophisticated comforting strategies report feeling better both about themselves and those they try to help. 17 Relationship maintenance is a process distinct from relationship development. Voluntary relationships usually begin through mutual attraction, self-disclosure, and reduction of uncertainty. Once the relationship is established, however, its ongoing health requires periodic afi rmation, conl ict resolution, and the type of comforting communication that Burleson describes. As with any interpersonal skill, some people are better at relationship maintenance than others. Burleson and Wendy Samter of Bryant College i gured that people with sophisticated commu-nication skills would be especially good at sustaining close friendships. It turns out they were only partially right. 18 To test their hypothesis, Burleson and Samter reviewed their own previous studies on friendship as well as the work of other researchers. They discovered a consistent pattern, which they labeled the similar skills model. To their surprise, individuals’ ability to give ego support, resolve conl ict, and provide comfort in times of stress did little to guarantee that their close personal relationships would survive and thrive. But the degree of similarity with their partner did. Friend-ships tended to last when partners possessed matching verbal skills—high or low. Apparently, highly rei ned communication skills are an advantage in friend-ship only when the other has the sophistication to appreciate them. And a person Similar skills modelA hypothesis that relationships fare better when parties possess the same level of verbal sophistication.
CHAPTER 8: CONSTRUCTIVISM 107with few of these abilities may be more comfortable spending time with someone who likes the same activities, can tell a good story, and isn’t always “talking about feelings” or “pushing that touchy-feely crap.” 19 Organizational effectiveness isn’t determined by a single sophisticated mes-sage. According to constructivist theory, high performance and promotion rel ect a continual use of person-centered communication that seeks to achieve multiple goals with customers and co-workers. Employees who do it better should climb the corporate ladder faster. Beverly Sypher (Purdue University) and Theodore Zorn (University of Waikato, New Zealand) conducted a longitudinal study of 90 white-collar work-ers at a large U.S. insurance company. 20 At the start of the study they measured cognitive complexity with the RCQ, tested for perspective-taking ability, and gauged communication skill by asking employees to write a charitable fundrais-ing appeal. As expected, workers with highly developed social constructs wrote letters that were more persuasive. Four years later, Sypher and Zorn checked each employee’s progress within the company. Cognitively complex workers had better-paying jobs and were moving up through the ranks of the company faster than were their less complex colleagues. Anytime we deal with people, cognitive complexity seems to play a signii cant role. In early editions of this text, I chided constructivists for not addressing the ques-tion of how cognitively complex thinkers get that way. That’s no longer a fair criticism. Burleson, Delia, and James Applegate of the University of Kentucky have marshaled evidence that complex thinking is a culturally transmitted trait. Specii cally, they suggest that parents’ capacity for complex social thinking is re-created in their children through complex messages of nurture and disci-pline. 21 Their claim is an extension of the truism that culture is produced and reproduced through the communication of its members. Suppose, for example, a 5-year-old boy picks a l ower from a neighbor’s yard without permission and presents it to his mother. Almost any parent can scold the kid for stealing. (“Taking people’s things without asking is wrong. Now go and apologize for taking the l ower.”) But it requires a mother with a complex set of interpersonal constructs to create a sophisticated message that encourages rel ection and helps her son focus on the motivation, feelings, and intentions of others—mental exercises that increase the child’s own cog-nitive complexity. After warmly thanking her son for the gift, such a mom might say: When people work hard to have things (l owers), they usually want to keep them to appreciate them. Mrs. Jones might have given you a l ower if you’d asked, but taking things from people without asking upsets them a lot. Who is most likely to use this form of sophisticated socialization? According to Burleson, Delia, and Applegate, parents from more advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are likely candidates. They inhabit a world of intricate work envi-ronments, role systems, and social expectations. This more complicated social world stimulates the development of more complex ways of thinking and com-municating. And once developed, complex ways of thinking and acting tend to perpetuate themselves. The culture $ complexity $ communication path seems SOCIALIZING A NEW GENERATION OF SOPHISTICATED SPEAKERS
108 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONto ensure that, cognitively speaking, the rich get richer. This cognitive fact of life was obvious to me in a paper submitted by Jane, a 40-year-old grad student in an interpersonal communication class. She recorded the precocious words of her 7-year-old daughter, Sunny, a child raised in the midst of sophisticated adult conversation. Mom, is nonverbal communication like when you don’t point your face at me when we’re talking about my day? Or when you say “Uh-huh” and “Really?” but your face doesn’t move around like you really care what we’re talking about? When you walk around cooking or Dad writes while we’re talking, I feel like I’m boring. Some-times when you guys talk to me it sounds like you’re just teaching, not talking. Constructivists would note that Sunny can rel ect on her social world because communication from mother Jane has been anything but plain. Delia launched what he called an interpretive theory of cognitive differences in the 1970s, when most communication scientists were trying to discover laws of behavior that applied equally to everyone. While these empirical researchers were assessing communication effectiveness by crunching the numbers from standardized attitude scales, Delia called for “free-response data” that could rel ect subtle differences in mental processes. He believed that open-ended responses would also force researchers to become theoretically rigorous. Con-structivist analysis of person-centered messages clearly meets that goal. Constructivists’ total reliance on the RCQ to gauge cognitive complexity is another story. It’s difi cult to accept the notion that a single number adequately rel ects the intricate mental structures that exist behind the eyes. Doesn’t it seem curious to ask respondents for their perceptions of two other people and then reduce their rich narratives to a mere frequency count of constructs? The total number may predict interesting communication differences, but explanatory depth is lacking. A prophetic ethical voice also seems to be missing. If cognitive complexity is the key to interpersonal effectiveness, and if construct differentiation is enhanced by a privileged upbringing, advocates of the theory should devote some effort to creating rel ective settings for disadvantaged kids. That way black-and-white thinkers could develop the ability to see shades of gray. There are precedents for such a reform agenda. Once medical researchers discovered the brain-deadening effects of lead poi-soning, they were quick to mount a public campaign to stop the use of lead-based paint. Likewise, teachers lobbied for “Project Head Start” when they realized that food for the stomach was a prerequisite of food for thought. Obviously poverty, peeling paint, and poor nutrition are linked, and constructivist research suggests that a childhood devoid of rel ection-inducing communication is part of the same vicious circle. Constructivism is open to the charge of elitism unless the theorists devise a plan for remedial efforts that will help narrow the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” Burleson is keenly aware of this weakness: As a communication researcher and educator, I i nd this situation embarrassing and unacceptable. We researchers now know a lot about cognitive complexity and advanced social perception and communication skills, but thus far there have been few efforts to translate what we know into proven programs that effectively enhance these skills . 22 CRITIQUE: SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT COGNITIVE COMPLEXITY
CHAPTER 8: CONSTRUCTIVISM 109 More than most scholars, constructivists are capable of spearheading a reform movement to shape public policy. Early on, Delia made a strong call for a “rel ec-tive analysis of the implicit assumptions and ordering principles underlying research questions and methods.”23 He launched a research program that models that commitment, and others have enlisted in the cause. As one of the best known theories about communication to spring from within the discipline, constructiv-ism is worth thinking about. In this discussion, Jesse Delia (right) is joined by Brant Burleson (center) and Jim Applegate (left), the other leading theorists on the constructivist research team. They link our ability to communicate effectively with our mental con-structs, our degree of cognitive complexity, the way we process information, and the way we form impressions of others. The theorists then describe the advantages of crafting person-centered messages that are designed to accom-plish multiple goals. How well do you think Delia, Burleson, and Applegate adapt their messages to their audience—students of communication theory? Do you think the theorists are pursuing multiple goals? If so, do they suc-ceed? View this segment online at www.mhhe.com/grifi n8 or www.ai rstlook.com.CONVERSATIONS A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Brant R. Burleson, “Constructivism: A General Theory of Com-munication Skill,” in Explaining Communication: Contemporary Theories and Exemplars, Bryan Whaley and Wendy Samter (eds.), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2007, pp. 105–128. Early statement: Jesse Delia, Barbara J. O’Keefe, and Daniel O’Keefe, “The Constructiv-ist Approach to Communication,” in Human Communication Theory, F. E. X. Dance (ed.), Harper & Row, New York, 1982, pp. 147–191. Classic research study: Brant R. Burleson, “The Constructivist Approach to Person-Centered Communication: Analysis of a Research Exemplar,” in Rethinking Communication, Vol. 2, Brenda Dervin, Lawrence Grossberg, Barbara J. O’Keefe, and Ellen Wartella (eds.), Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1989, pp. 29–36. 1. How many points for differentiation would the phrase “humorous and totally funny” score on the Role Category Questionnaire? 2. Look at the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon on page 101. How would constructivists explain Calvin’s success in getting a horsey ride from his father? 3. Sometimes during an argument, one kid will chide another with the words “Aw, grow up!” According to constructivists, the phrase offers good advice in a way that’s ineffective. Why? 4. Osama bin Laden constructed a highly effective terrorist campaign that rel ects sophisticated message plans. Can you explain why the successful achieve-ment of his goals does not necessarily show that he is cognitively complex as Delia uses the term? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS
110 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Comprehensive research review: Brant R. Burleson and Scott Caplan, “Cognitive Com-plexity,” in Communication and Personality: Trait Perspectives, James McCroskey, John Daly, and Matthew Martin (eds.), Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ, 1998, pp. 233–286. Role Category Questionnaire: Brant R. Burleson and Michael S. Waltman, “Cognitive Com-plexity: Using the Role Category Questionnaire Measure,” in A Handbook for the Study of Human Communication, Charles Tardy (ed.), Ablex, Norwood, NJ, 1988, pp. 1–35. Message production in the mind: James Price Dillard, “The Goals-Plans-Action Model of Interpersonal Inl uence,” in Perspectives on Persuasion, Social Inl uence, and Compliance Gaining, John Seiter and Robert Gass (eds.), Pearson, Boston, MA, 2003, pp. 185–206. In-depth listening: Brant R. Burleson, “A Constructivist Approach to Listening,” Inter-national Journal of Listening, in press. Social support: Wendy Samter, “How Gender and Cognitive Complexity Inl uence the Provision of Emotional Support: A Study of Indirect Effects,” Communication Reports, Vol. 15, 2002, pp. 5–16. Relationship maintenance: Brant R. Burleson and Wendy Samter, “A Social Skills Approach to Relationship Maintenance,” in Communication and Relationship Maintenance, Daniel Canary and Laura Stafford (eds.), Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 1994, pp. 61–90. Developing cognitive complexity: Brant R. Burleson, Jesse Delia, and James Applegate, “The Socialization of Person-Centered Communication: Parental Contributions to the Social-Cognitive and Communication Skills of Their Children,” in Perspectives in Family Communication, Mary Anne Fitzpatrick and Anita Vangelisti (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1995, pp. 34–76. Review and critique: John Gastil, “An Appraisal and Revision of the Constructivist Research Program,” in Communication Yearbook 18, Brant R. Burleson (ed.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1995, pp. 83–104. To access a chapter on Greene’s action assembly theory that appeared in a previous edition, click on Theory List at www.ai rstlook.com .
111Relationship DevelopmentThink about your closest personal relationship. Is it one of “strong, frequent and diverse interdependence that lasts over a considerable period of time?”1 That’s how UCLA psychologist Harold Kelley and eight co-authors dei ne the concept of close relationship. Though their dei nition could apply to parties who don’t even like each other, most theorists reserve the term close for relationships that include a positive bond—usually romantic, friend, and family. All three types of intimacy can provide enjoyment, trust, sharing of coni dences, respect, mutual assistance, and spontaneity.2 The question is, How do we develop a close relationship? Two distinct approaches have dominated the theory and practice of rela-tional development. One experiential approach is typii ed by humanistic psycholo-gist Carl Rogers. Based upon his years of nondirective counseling, Rogers described three necessary and sufi cient conditions for relationship growth. When partners perceived (1) congruence; (2) unconditional positive regard; and (3) empathic understanding of each other, they could and would draw closer.3 Congruence is the match or i t between an individual’s inner feelings and outer display. The congruent person is genuine, real, integrated, whole, trans-parent. The noncongruent person tries to impress, plays a role, puts up a front, hides behind a facade. “In my relationship with persons,” Rogers wrote, “I’ve found that it does not help, in the long run, to act as though I was something I was not.”4 Unconditional positive regard is an attitude of acceptance that isn’t contingent upon performance. Rogers asked, “Can I let myself experience positive attitudes toward this other person—attitudes of warmth, caring, liking, interest, and respect?”5 When the answer was yes, both he and his clients matured as human beings. They also liked each other. Empathic understanding is the caring skill of temporarily laying aside our views and values and entering into another’s world without prejudice. It is an active process of seeking to hear the other’s thoughts, feelings, tones, and mean-ings as if they were our own. Rogers thought it was a waste of time to be suspi-cious or to wonder, What does she really mean? He believed that we help people most when we accept what they say at face value. We should assume that they describe their world as it really appears to them. Rogerian ideas have permeated the textbooks and teaching of interper-sonal communication.6 The topics of self-disclosure, nonverbal warmth, empathic listening, and trust are mainstays of an introductory course. The other approach assumes that relationship behavior is shaped by the rewards and costs of interaction. In 1992, University of Chicago economist Gary Becker won the Nobel Prize in economics on the basis of his application of supply-and-demand market models to predict the behavior of everyday living, including love and marriage.7 News commentators expressed skepticism that matters of the heart could be reduced to cold numbers, but the economic meta-phor has dominated social science discussions of interpersonal attraction and behavior for the last i ve decades. The basic assumption of most relational theo-rists is that people interact with others in a way that maximizes their personal benei ts and minimizes their personal costs.
112 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Numerous parallels exist between the stock market and relationship market:Law of supply and demand. A rare, desirable characteristic commands higher value on the exchange.Courting a buyer. Most parties in the market prepare a prospectus that highlights their assets and downplays their liabilities.Laissez-faire rules. Let the buyer beware. All’s fair in love and war. It’s a jungle out there.Expert advice. Daily newspapers around the country carry syndicated advice columns by Michelle Singletary (“The Color of Money”) and Abigail Van Buren (“Dear Abby”). Whether the topic is money or love, both columnists suggest cautious risk taking.Investors and traders. Investors commit for the long haul; traders try to make an overnight killing.Even from these brief summaries, you can tell that a humanistic model of rela-tional development is quite different from an economic model of social exchange. Yet both models affect each of the theories presented in this section. All three regard communication as the means by which people can draw close to one another. Each considers instant intimacy a myth; relationships take time to develop and they don’t always proceed on a straight-line trajectory toward that goal. In fact, most relationships never even get close. Yet some peo-ple do have deep, satisfying, long-lasting relationships. Why do they develop close ties when others don’t? Each of the theories in this section offers an answer.“I’ve done the numbers, and I will marry you.”© William Hamilton/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
Social Penetration Theory of Irwin Altman & Dalmas Taylor A friend in need is a friend indeed. Neither a borrower nor a lender be. A soft answer turns away wrath. Don’t get mad, get even. To know him is to love him. Familiarity breeds contempt. Proverbs are the wisdom of the ages boiled down into short, easy-to-remember phrases. There are probably more maxims about interpersonal relationships than about any other topic. But are these truisms dependable? As we can see in the pairings above, the advice they give often seems contradictory. Consider the plight of Pete, a freshman at a residential college, as he enters the dorm to meet his roommate for the i rst time. Pete has just waved good-bye to his folks and already feels pangs of loneliness as he thinks of his girlfriend back home. He worries how she’ll feel about him when he goes home at Thanks-giving. Will she illustrate the reliability of the old adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” or will “out of sight, out of mind” be a better way to describe the next few months? Pete i nds his room and immediately spots the familiar shape of a lacrosse stick. He’s initially encouraged by what appears to be a common interest, but he’s also fascinated by a campaign button that urges him to vote for a candidate for Congress who is on the opposite end of the political spectrum from Pete. Will “birds of a feather l ock together” hold true in their relationship, or will “oppo-sites attract” better describe their interaction? Just then Jon, his roommate, comes in. For a few minutes they trade the stock phrases that give them a chance to size up each other. Something in Pete makes him want to tell Jon how much he misses his girlfriend, but a deeper sense of what is an appropriate topic of conversation when i rst meeting someone pre-vents him from sharing his feelings. On a subconscious level, perhaps even a conscious one, Pete is torn between acting on the old adage “misery loves com-pany” or on the more macho “big boys don’t cry.” 1139CHAPTERObjective InterpretiveSocio-psychological tradition●
114 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Pete obviously needs something more than pithy proverbs to help him understand relational dynamics. About two decades before Pete was born, social psychologists Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor proposed a social penetration pro-cess that explains how relational closeness develops. Altman is distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Utah, and Taylor, now deceased, was provost and professor of psychology at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. They predicted that Pete and Jon would end up best friends only if they pro-ceeded in a “gradual and orderly fashion from superi cial to intimate levels of exchange as a function of both immediate and forecast outcomes.” 1 In order to capture the process, we i rst have to understand the complexity of people. Social penetration The process of develop-ing deeper intimacy with another person through mutual self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability. Altman and Taylor compared people to onions. This isn’t a commentary on the human capacity to offend. Like the self-description that the ogre in Shrek shares with his donkey sidekick in the original i lm, it is a depiction of the multilayered structure of personality. Peel the outer skin from an onion, and you’ll i nd another beneath it. Remove that layer and you’ll expose a third, and so on. Pete’s outer layer is his public self that’s accessible to anyone who cares to look. The outer layer includes a myriad of details that certainly help describe who he is but are held in common with others at the school. On the surface, people see a tall, 18-year-old male business major from Michigan who lifts weights and gets lots of phone calls from home. If Jon can look beneath the surface, he’ll discover the semiprivate attitudes that Pete reveals only to some people. Pete is sympathetic to liberal social causes, deeply religious, and prejudiced against overweight people. Pete’s inner core is made up of his values, self-concept, unresolved conl icts, and deeply felt emotions. This is his unique private domain, which is invisible to the world but has a signii cant impact on the areas of his life that are closer to the surface. Perhaps not even his girlfriend or parents know his most closely guarded secrets about himself. Personality structure Onion-like layers of be-liefs and feelings about self, others, and the world; deeper layers are more vulnerable, protected, and central to self-image. PERSONALITY STRUCTURE: A MULTILAYERED ONION CLOSENESS THROUGH SELF-DISCLOSURE Pete becomes accessible to others as he relaxes the tight boundaries that protect him and makes himself vulnerable. This can be a scary process, but Altman and Taylor believed it’s only by allowing Jon to penetrate well below the surface that Pete can truly draw close to his roommate. Nonverbal paths to openness include mock roughhousing, eye contact, and smiling. But the main route to deep social penetration is through verbal self-disclosure . Figure 9–1 illustrates a wedge being pulled into an onion. It’s as if a strong magnetic force were drawing it toward the center. The depth of penetration represents the degree of personal disclosure. To get to the center, the wedge must i rst separate the outer layers. Altman and Taylor claimed that on the surface level this kind of biographical information exchange takes place easily, perhaps at the i rst meeting. But they pictured the layers of onion skin tougher and more tightly wrapped as the wedge nears the center. Recall that Pete is hesitant to share his longing for his girlfriend with Jon. If he admits these feelings, he’s opening himself up for some heavy-handed Self-disclosure The voluntary sharing of personal history, prefer-ences, attitudes, feel-ings, values, secrets, etc., with another per-son; transparency.
CHAPTER 9: SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY 115kidding or emotional blackmail. In addition, once the wedge has penetrated deeply, it will have cut a passage through which it can return again and again with little resistance. Future privacy will be difi cult. Realizing both of these factors, Pete may be extra cautious about exposing his true feelings. Perhaps he’ll fence off this part of his life for the whole school term. According to social penetration theory, a permanent guard will limit the closeness these two young men can achieve. FIGURE 9–1 Penetration of Pete’s Personality Structure Goals, aspirationstastesstudiesworldviewConcept of selfDeeply held fears and fantasiesReligious convictionsPreferences in clothes, food, and musicdatingBiographical data THE DEPTH AND BREADTH OF SELF-DISCLOSURE The depth of penetration is the degree of intimacy. Although Altman and Taylor’s penetration analogy strikes some readers as sexual, this was not their intent. The analogy applies equally to intimacy in friendship and romance. Figure 9–1 dia-grams the closeness Jon gains if he and Pete become friends during the year. In their framework of social penetration theory, Altman and Taylor outlined four observations about the process that will bring Pete and Jon to this point: 1. Peripheral items are exchanged more frequently and sooner than private information. When the sharp edge of the wedge has barely reached the intimate area, the thicker part has cut a wide path through the outer rings. The relationship is still at a relatively impersonal level (“big boys don’t cry”). University of Connecticut communication professor Arthur VanLear analyzed the content of conversations in developing relationships. His study showed that 14 percent of talk revealed nothing about the speaker, 65 percent dwelled on public items, 19 percent shared semiprivate details, and only 2 percent disclosed intimate coni dences. 2 Further penetration will bring Pete to the point where he can share deeper feelings (“mis-ery loves company”). Depth of penetration   The degree of disclosure in a specific area of an individual’s life.
116 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 2. Self-disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early stages of relationship develop-ment. The theory predicts that new acquaintances like Pete and Jon will reach roughly equal levels of openness, but it doesn’t explain why. Pete’s vulnerability could make him seem more trustworthy, or perhaps his initial openness makes transparency seem more attractive. The young men might also feel a need for emotional equity, so a disclosure by Pete leaves Jon feeling uneasy until he’s balanced the account with his own payment—a give-and-take exchange in which each party is sharing deeper levels of feeling with the other. Whatever the reason, social penetration theory asserts a law of reciprocity . 3. Penetration is rapid at the start but slows down quickly as the tightly wrapped inner layers are reached. Instant intimacy is a myth. Not only is there internal resistance to quick forays into the soul, but there are societal norms against telling too much too fast. Most relationships stall before a stable intimate exchange is established. For this reason, these relationships fade or die easily after a separation or a slight strain. A comfortable sharing of positive and negative reactions is rare. When it is achieved, relationships become more important to both parties, more meaning-ful, and more enduring. 4. Depenetration is a gradual process of layer-by-layer withdrawal. A warm friend-ship between Pete and Jon will deteriorate if they begin to close off areas of their lives that had earlier been opened. Relational retreat is a sort of taking back of what has earlier been exchanged in the building of a relationship. Altman and Taylor compared the process to a movie shown in reverse. Surface talk still goes on long after deep disclosure is avoided. Relationships are likely to termi-nate not in an explosive l ash of anger but in a gradual cooling off of enjoyment and care. Law of reciprocity   A paced and orderly pro-cess in which openness in one person leads to openness in the other; “You tell me your dream; I’ll tell you mine.” “Since we’re both being honest, I should tell you I have l eas.” © Bruce Eric Kaplan/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
CHAPTER 9: SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY 117 While depth is crucial to the process of social penetration, breadth is equally important. Note that in Figure 9–1 I have segmented the onion much like an orange to represent how Pete’s life is cut into different areas—dating, studies, and so forth. It’s quite possible for Pete to be candid about every intimate detail of his romance yet remain secretive about his father’s alcoholism or his own minor dyslexia. Because only one area is accessed, the relationship depicted in the onion drawing is typical of a summer romance—depth without breadth. Of course, breadth without depth describes the typical “Hi, how are you?” casual relationship. A model of true intimacy would show multiple wedges inserted deeply into every area. Breadth of penetration   The range of areas in an individual’s life over which disclosure takes place. REGULATING CLOSENESS ON THE BASIS OF REWARDS AND COSTS Will Pete and Jon become good friends? According to social penetration theory, it all depends on the cost–benei t analysis that each man performs as he consid-ers the possibility of a closer relationship. Right after their i rst encounter, Pete will sort out the pluses and minuses of friendship with Jon, computing a bottom-line index of relational satisfaction. Jon will do the same regarding Pete. If the perceived mutual benei ts outweigh the costs of greater vulnerability, the process of social penetration will proceed. I previewed this kind of economic analysis in the introduction to the present section on relationship development. Altman and Taylor’s version draws heavily on the social exchange theory of psychologists John Thibaut (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Harold Kelley (University of California, Los Angeles). 3 Throughout their lives, both researchers studied the key concepts of social exchange—relational outcome, relational satisfaction, and relational stability. Since Altman and Taylor believed that principles of social exchange accurately predict when people will risk self-disclosure, I’ll describe these concepts in some detail. Outcome: Rewards Minus Costs Thibaut and Kelley suggested that people try to predict the outcome of an interac-tion before it takes place. Thus, when Pete i rst meets his roommate, he mentally gauges the potential rewards and costs of friendship with Jon. He perceives a number of benei ts. As a newcomer to campus, Pete strongly desires someone to talk to, eat with, and just hang out with when he’s not in class or studying. His roommate’s interest in lacrosse, easy laugh, and laid-back style make Jon an attractive candidate. Pete is also aware that there’s a potential downside to getting to know each other better. If he reveals some of his inner life, his roommate may scoff at his faith in God or ridicule his liberal “do-gooder” values. Pete isn’t ashamed of his convictions, but he hates to argue, and he regards the risk of conl ict as real. Factoring in all the likely pluses and minuses, reaching out in friendship to Jon strikes Pete as net positive, so he makes the i rst move. The idea of totaling potential benei ts and losses to determine behavior isn’t new. Since the nineteenth century, when philosopher John Stuart Mill i rst stated his principle of utility, 4 there’s been a compelling logic to the minimax principle of human behavior . The minimax principle claims that people seek to maximize their benei ts and minimize their costs. Thus, the higher we rate a relational outcome, the more attractive we i nd the behavior that might make it happen. Social exchange Relationship behavior and status regulated by both parties’ evaluations of perceived rewards and costs of interaction with each other. Outcome The perceived rewards minus the costs of inter-personal interaction.
118 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Social exchange theorists assume that we can accurately gauge the payoffs of a variety of interactions and that we have the good sense to choose the action that will provide the best result. Altman and Taylor weren’t sure that we always base such decisions on reliable information, but that’s not the issue. What mat-tered to them is that we decide to open up with another person using the per-ceived benei t-minus-cost outcome. Lee, a former student of mine, shared how he calculated cost–benei t ratios in one of his friendships. For him, self-disclosure has a higher emotional cost than it does for the average person: Self-disclosure makes me uncomfortable. However, the medium of music makes me a bit more comfortable and my desire to write a good song forces me to open up in ways I wouldn’t otherwise. For example, I wrote a song for my friend John’s birthday party where I put together a series of verses that commemorated all the things in the last year that John and I shared or thought were funny. John and I still had a relatively superi cial relationship at that point, but I think by showing that I cared through the song, another layer of the onion was peeled away. Early in a relationship, we tend to see physical appearance, similar back-grounds, and mutual agreement as benei ts (“birds of a feather l ock together”). Disagreement and deviance from the norm are negatives. But as the relationship changes, so does the nature of interaction that friends i nd rewarding. Deeper friendships thrive on common values and spoken appreciation, and we can even enjoy surface diversity (“opposites attract”). If Pete sees much more benei t than cost in a relationship with Jon, he’ll start to reveal more of who he is. If the negatives outweigh the positives, he’ll try to avoid contact with Jon as much as possible. Even though they’re stuck together physically in the same dorm room, a negative assessment could cause him to hold back emotionally for the rest of the year. Comparison Level (CL)—Gauging Relational Satisfaction Evaluating outcomes is a tricky business. Even if we mentally convert intangible benei ts and costs into a bottom-line measure of overall effect, its psychological impact upon us may vary. A relational result has meaning only when we contrast it with other real or imagined outcomes. Social exchange theory offers two stan-dards of comparison that Pete and others use to evaluate their interpersonal outcomes. The i rst point of reference deals with relative satisfaction —how happy or sad an interpersonal outcome makes a participant feel. Thibaut and Kelley called this the comparison level. A person’s comparison level (CL) is the threshold above which an outcome seems attractive. Suppose, for example, that Pete is looking forward to his regu-lar Sunday night phone call with his girlfriend. Since they usually talk for about a half hour, 30 minutes is Pete’s comparison level for what makes a pleasing conversation. If he’s not in a hurry, a 45-minute call will seem especially gratify-ing, while a 15-minute chat would be quite disappointing. Of course, the length of the call is only one factor that affects Pete’s positive or negative feelings when he hangs up the phone. He also has developed expectations for the topics they’ll discuss, his girlfriend’s tone of voice, and the warmth of her words when she says good-bye. These are benchmarks that Pete uses to gauge his relative satis-faction with the interaction. Comparison level (CL) The threshold above which an interpersonal outcome seems attrac-tive; a standard for rela-tional satisfaction. Minimax principle of human behavior People seek to maximize their benefits and mini-mize their costs.
CHAPTER 9: SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY 119 Our CL for friendship, romance, or family ties is pegged by our relational history. We judge the value of a relationship by comparing it to the baseline of past experience. If Pete had little history of close friendship in high school, a relationship with Jon would look quite attractive. If, on the other hand, he’s accustomed to being part of a close-knit group of intimate friends, hanging out with Jon could pale by comparison. Sequence plays a large part in evaluating a relationship. The result from each interaction is stored in the individual’s memory. Experiences that take place early in a relationship can have a huge impact because they make up a large proportion of the total relational history. One unpleasant experience out of 10 is merely troublesome, but 1 out of 2 can end a relationship before it really begins. Trends are also important. If Pete i rst senses coolness from Jon yet later feels warmth and approval, the shift will raise Jon’s attractiveness to a level higher than it would be if Pete had perceived positive vibes from the very beginning. Comparison Level of Alternatives (CL alt )—Gauging Relational Stability Thibaut and Kelley suggested that there is a second standard by which we eval-uate the outcomes we receive. They called it the comparison level of alternatives (CL alt ), and its position versus actual interpersonal outcomes shows the relative stability of the relationship. The level is pegged by the best relational outcome available outside the current relationship. The location of my CL alt answers the twin questions, Would my relational payoffs be better with another person? and What is the worst outcome I’ll put up with and still stay in the present relationship? As more attractive outside possibilities become available, or as existent outcomes slide below an established CL alt , relational instability increases. Here again, a social exchange explanation reads like a stock-market analysis. That’s why some advo-cates label a social exchange approach a theory of economic behavior. Unlike the comparison level, the concept of CL alt doesn’t indicate relation-ship satisfaction. It does explain, however, why people sometimes stay with an abusive partner. For example, social workers describe the plight of the battered wife as “high cost, low reward.” Despite her anguish, the woman feels trapped in the distressing situation because being alone in the world appears even worse. As dreadful as her outcomes are, she can’t imagine a better alternative. She won’t leave until she perceives an outside alternative that promises a bet-ter life. The relative values of outcome, CL, and CL alt go a long way in determining whether a person is willing to become vulnerable in order to have a deeper relationship. The optimum situation is when both parties i nd Outcome . CL alt . CL Using Pete as an example, this notation shows that he forecasts a friendship with Jon that will be more than satisfying. The tie with Jon will be stable because there’s no other relationship on campus that is more attractive. Yet Pete won’t feel trapped, because he has other satisfying options available should this one turn sour. We see, therefore, that social exchange theory explains why Pete is primed for social penetration. If Jon’s calculations are similar, the roommates will begin the process of mutual vulnerability that Altman and Taylor described, and recip-rocal self-disclosure will draw them close. Comparison level of alternatives (CL alt ) The best outcome avail-able in other relation-ships; a standard for relational stability.
120 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION The minimax principle that undergirds social exchange theory—and therefore social penetration theory as well—is also referred to as psychological egoism . The term rel ects many social scientists’ conviction that all of us are motivated by self-interest. Unlike most social scientists who limit their study to what is rather than what ought to be, ethical egoists claim we should act seli shly. It’s right and it’s good for us to look out for number one. Epicurus, a Greek philosopher who wrote a few years after Aristotle’s death, dei ned the good life as getting as much pleasure as possible: “I spit on the noble and its idle admirers when it contains no element of pleasure.” 5 Although his position is often associated with the adage “Eat, drink, and be merry,” Epicurus actually emphasized the passive pleasures of friendship and good digestion, and above all, the absence of pain. He cautioned that “no pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.” 6 The Greek philosopher put lying in that category. He said that the wise person is prepared to lie if there is no risk of detection, but since we can never be certain our falsehoods won’t be discovered, he didn’t recommend deception. A few other philosophers have echoed the Epicurean call for seli sh concern. Thomas Hobbes described life as “nasty, brutish and short” and advocated polit-ical trade-offs that would gain a measure of security. Adam Smith, the spiritual father of capitalism, advised every person to seek his or her own proi t. Friedrich Nietzsche announced the death of God and stated that the noble soul has rever-ence for itself. Egoist writer Ayn Rand dedicated her novel The Fountainhead to “the exultation of man’s self-esteem and the sacredness of his happiness on earth.” 7 Of course, the moral advice of Epicurus, Hobbes, Nietzsche, and Rand may be suspect. If their counsel consistently rel ects their beliefs, their words are spoken for their own benei t, not ours. Most ethical and religious thinkers denounce the seli shness of egoism as morally repugnant. How can one embrace a philosophy that advocates terrorism as long as it brings joy to the terrorist? When the egoistic pleasure principle is compared to a life lived to reduce the suffering of others, as with the late Mother Teresa, ethical egoism seems to be no ethic at all. Yet the egoist would claim that the Nobel Peace Prize winner was leading a sacrii cial life because she took pleasure in serving the poor. If charity becomes a burden, she should stop. Ethical egoism The belief that individu-als should live their lives so as to maximize their own pleasure and mini-mize their own pain. ETHICAL REFLECTION: EPICURUS’ ETHICAL EGOISM DIALECTICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT Viewing increased self-disclosure as the path to intimacy is a simple idea—one that’s easily portrayed in the onion model of Figure 9–1 . It can also be summa-rized in less than 40 words: Interpersonal closeness proceeds in a gradual and orderly fashion from superi cial to intimate levels of exchange, motivated by current and projected future out-comes. Lasting intimacy requires continual and mutual vulnerability through breadth and depth of self-disclosure. But Altman later had second thoughts about his basic assumption that open-ness is the predominant quality of relationship development. He began to speculate that the desire for privacy may counteract what he i rst thought was
CHAPTER 9: SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY 121a unidirectional quest for intimacy. He now proposes a dialectical model, which assumes that “human social relationships are characterized by openness or con-tact and closedness or separateness between participants.” 8 He believes that the tension between openness and closedness results in cycles of disclosure or withdrawal. Altman also identii es the environment as a factor in social penetration. 9 Sometimes the environment guides our decision to disclose—a quiet, dimly lit sit-down restaurant might make us more willing to open up than when sitting on stools under the harsh lights of a noisy fast food joint. Other times we actively manipulate our environment to meet our privacy and disclosure goals. Thus, we might choose a quiet booth in the corner if we don’t want others to overhear a sensitive conversation. Pete and Jon face choices about how to manage their room’s environment. For Altman, this is more than just deciding whether to put a mini-fridge under the desk or next to the bed. He believes the way the two manage their dorm room says a lot about their relationship with each other and with their peers. Will they keep the door open on weeknights? Will they lock the room when they’re away? Will they split the room down the middle, or will their possessions intermingle? Each decision shapes how the roommates manage the ongoing ten-sion between openness and closedness during the year. Because college freshmen face so many decisions about disclosure, privacy, and their physical environment, Altman studied social penetration in dorm liv-ing at the University of Utah. 10 He asked college freshmen how they used their environment to seek out and avoid others. To probe deeper into how students managed their space, he visited their rooms and photographed the wall above their beds. Two years later he examined school records to see if students’ choices about their physical space predicted success and satisfaction at college. Overall, Altman found that students were more likely to remain at the university when they honored their need for territoriality, or the human (and animalistic) tendency to claim a physical location or object as our own. This need shows that the onion of social penetration includes both our mind and our physical space. Some students in Altman’s study crafted a dorm room environment that welcomed others. They kept their doors open, invited others to visit, and even used music to draw people into the room. Their wall decorations promoted mutual self-disclosure by showing multiple facets of their identity, ranging from calendars and schedules to hobbies and photographs of friends. Just like verbal disclosure, environmental disclosure can vary in its breadth. If Pete and Jon decorate their room with several facets of their identities, the law of reciprocity suggests that visitors might feel more comfortable disclosing verbally as well. The students who created this kind of warm atmosphere tended to succeed at college. The students who later dropped out used wall decorations that didn’t reveal a range of interests, like one student who only displayed ballet-related images, or another with only ski posters. Such students tended to shut out potential visitors and play loud music that discouraged discussion. Also, students who eventually left the university didn’t honor their need for personal territory. Com-pared to those who remained, they were less likely to arrange the furniture to create some private spaces or occasionally retreat from the dorm room for time alone. To explain this curious i nding, Altman reasoned that “the dormitory envi-ronment inherently provides many opportunities for social contact,” and therefore Dialectical model The assumption that peo-ple want both privacy and intimacy in their so-cial relationships; they experience a tension be-tween disclosure and withdrawal. Territoriality The tendency to claim a physical location or ob-ject as our own.
122 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION“it may be more important to develop effective avoidance techniques in such a setting.” 11 Consequently, Pete and Jon would be wise to recognize each oth-er’s need for clearly dei ned territory. Each of them might be unwilling to let the other penetrate his physical space until they’ve i rst penetrated each other’s psychological space—their onion. Altman’s results demonstrate the importance of both psychological and territorial boundaries in the process of social penetration. Students who were successful at college honored their dialectical needs for both contact and separ-ateness. Sandra Petronio, a communication theorist at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, was intrigued by Altman’s use of territoriality to explain dialectical forces. She later crafted communication privacy management theory to further explain the intricate ways people manage boundaries around their per-sonal information. You can read about her insights in Chapter 13. Social penetration theory is an established and familiar explanation of how close-ness develops in ongoing relationships. Altman and Taylor’s image of multiple wedges penetrating deeply into a multilayered onion has proved to be a helpful model of growing intimacy. But just as these theorists described people continu-ally reappraising their relationships in light of new experiences, it makes sense for us to reconsider the basic assumptions and claims of their theory. Social penetration theory has many critics. As you will read in Chapter 13, Petronio challenges some core assumptions of social penetration theory. She thinks it’s simplistic to equate self-disclosure with relational closeness. It can lead to intimacy, but a person may reveal private information merely to express oneself, to release tension, or to gain relational control. In these cases the speaker doesn’t necessarily desire nor achieve a stron-ger bond with the coni dant. And if the listener is turned off or disgusted by what was said, depenetration can be swift. Petronio also questions Altman and Taylor’s view of personality structure. The onion-layer model of social penetra-tion theory posits i xed boundaries that become increasingly thick as one pene-trates toward the inner core of personality. In contrast, for Petronio, our privacy boundaries are personally created, often shifting, and frequently permeable. Other personal relationship scholars are uncomfortable with Altman and Taylor’s wholesale use of a reward–cost analysis to explain the differential drive for penetration. Can a complex blend of advantages and disadvantages be reduced to a single numerical index? And assuming that we can forecast the value of relational outcomes, are we so consistently seli sh that we always opt for what we calculate is in our own best interest? Julia Wood, a communication theorist associated with standpoint theory (see Chapter 35), is skeptical. She argues, “The focus in exchange theories is one’s own gains and outcomes; this focus is incapable of addressing matters such as compassion, caring, altruism, fairness, and other ethical issues that should be central to personal relation-ships.” 12 To her and like-minded scholars, relational life has a human core that pure economic calculus cannot touch. University of North Dakota psychologist Paul Wright believes that Pete and Jon could draw close enough that their relationship would no longer be driven by a self-centered concern for personal gain. When friendships have what CRITIQUE: PULLING BACK FROM SOCIAL PENETRATION
CHAPTER 9: SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY 123Wright calls “an intrinsic, end-in-themselves quality,” people regard good things happening to their friends as rewards in themselves. 13 When that happens, Jon would get just as excited if Pete had a successful employment interview as he would if he himself had been offered the job. This rare kind of sell ess love involves a relational transformation, not just more self-disclosure. 14 Altman and Taylor’s theory doesn’t speak about the transition from me to we, but that appar-ently takes place only after an extended process of social penetration. 1. The onion model in Figure 9–1 is sectioned into eight parts, representing the breadth of a person’s life. How would you label eight regions of interest in your life? 2. Jesus said, “There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” 15 Given the minimax principle of human behavior used in a social exchange analysis, how is such a sacrii ce possible? 3. Altman conducted his study of i rst-year students in the 1970s. How have subsequent technological advances changed the ways students manage contact and privacy in their personal territory? 4. The romantic truism “to know her is to love her” seems to contradict the relational adage “familiarity breeds contempt.” Given the principles of social penetration theory, can you think of a way both statements might be true? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor, Social Penetration: The Devel-opment of Interpersonal Relationships, Holt, New York, 1973. Altman’s rel ective research summary: Irwin Altman, “Toward a Transactional Perspec-tive: A Personal Journey,” in Environment and Behavior Studies: Emergence of Intellectual Traditions: Advances in Theory and Research, Vol. 11, Human Behavior and Environment, Envi-ronment and Behavior Studies, Irwin Altman and Kathleen Christensen (eds.), Plenum, New York, 1990, pp. 225–255. Later developments: Dalmas Taylor and Irwin Altman, “Communication in Interper-sonal Relationships: Social Penetration Processes,” in Interpersonal Processes: New Directions in Communication Research, Michael Roloff and Gerald Miller (eds.), Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1987, pp. 257–277. Social exchange theory: John W. Thibaut and Harold H. Kelley, The Social Psychology of Groups, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1952. Dialectic revision: Irwin Altman, Anne Vinsel, and Barbara Brown, “Dialectic Concep-tions in Social Psychology: An Application to Social Penetration and Privacy Regulation,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 14, Leonard Berkowitz (ed.), Academic Press, New York, 1981, pp. 107–160. Reward-cost analysis: Dalmas Taylor and Irwin Altman, “Self-Disclosure as a Function of Reward–Cost Outcomes,” Sociometry, Vol. 38, 1975, pp. 18–31. Cycles of self-disclosure: C. Arthur VanLear, “Testing a Cyclical Model of Communica-tive Openness in Relationship Development: Two Longitudinal Studies,” Communication Monographs, Vol. 58, 1991, pp. 337–361.
124 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Effects of environment on relationship closeness: Carol Werner, Irwin Altman, and Barbara B. Brown, “A Transactional Approach to Interpersonal Relations: Physical Environment, Social Context and Temporal Qualities,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol. 9, 1992, pp. 297–323. Environmental study of i rst-year roommates: Anne Vinsel, Barbara B. Brown, Irwin Altman, and Carolyn Foss, “Privacy Regulation, Territorial Displays, and Effectiveness of Individual Functioning,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 39, 1980, pp. 1104–1115. Ethical egoism: Edward Gegis, “What Is Ethical Egoism?” Ethics, Vol. 91, 1980, pp. 50–62. To access a chapter on Thibaut and Kelley’s social exchange theory that appeared in a previous edition, click on Theory List at www.ai rstlook.com.
10CHAPTER Uncertainty Reduction Theory of Charles Berger No matter how close two people eventually become, they always begin as strang-ers. Let’s say you’ve just taken a job as a driver for a delivery service over the winter break. After talking with the other drivers, you conclude that your income and peace of mind will depend on working out a good relationship with Heather, the radio dispatcher. All you know for sure about Heather is her attachment to Hannah, a 100-pound Labrador retriever that never lets Heather out of her sight. The veteran drivers joke that it’s hard to tell the difference between the voices of Heather and Hannah over the radio. With some qualms you make arrange-ments to meet Heather (and Hannah) over coffee and donuts before your i rst day of work. You really have no idea what to expect. Chuck Berger believes it’s natural to have doubts about our ability to predict the outcome of initial encounters. Berger, a professor of communication at the University of California, Davis, notes that “the beginnings of personal relation-ships are fraught with uncertainties.” 1 Unlike social penetration theory, which tries to forecast the future of a relationship on the basis of projected rewards and costs (see Chapter 9), Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory (URT) focuses on how human communication is used to gain knowledge and create understanding. Central to the present theory is the assumption that when strangers meet, their pri-mary concern is one of uncertainty reduction or increasing predictability about the behavior of both themselves and others in the interaction. 2 Interpersonal ignorance is not bliss; it’s frustrating! Berger contends that our drive to reduce uncertainty about new acquaintances gets a boost from any of three prior conditions: 3 1. Anticipation of future interaction: We know we will see them again. 2. Incentive value: They have something we want. 3. Deviance: They act in a weird way. Heather hooks you on all three counts. You know you’re going to be dealing with her for the next few weeks, she can make you or break you i nancially 125Objective InterpretiveSocio-psychological tradition●
126 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONaccording to the routes she assigns, and she has this strange attachment to Han-nah. According to Berger, when you add these three factors to your natural curiosity, you’ll really want to solve the puzzle of who she is. Berger believes that our main purpose in talking to people is to “make sense” out of our interpersonal world. That’s why you’re having breakfast with a stranger and her dog. If you brought your own hound to the meeting, chances are the two dogs would circle and sniff each other, trying to get some idea of what their counterpart was like. Humans are no different; we’re just a bit more subtle, using symbols instead of smells to reach our conclusions. Berger focuses on predictability, which he sees as the opposite of uncertainty. “As the ability of persons to predict which alternative or alternatives are likely to occur next decreases, uncertainty increases.” 4 He owes a debt to Fritz Heider’s view of people as intuitive psychologists. Heider, the father of attribution theory , believed that we constantly draw inferences about why people do what they do. 5 We need to predict and explain. If Heather’s going to bark at you on the radio, you want to understand why. Berger notes that there are at least two kinds of uncertainty you face as you set out for your i rst meeting with Heather. Because you aren’t sure how you Attribution theory A systematic explanation of how people draw in-ferences about the char-acter of others based upon observed behavior. UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION: TO PREDICT AND EXPLAIN “What say we i nd another way to say hello?”© Peter Steiner/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
CHAPTER 10: UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION THEORY 127should act, one kind of uncertainty deals with behavioral questions. Should you shake hands? Who pays for the donuts? Do you pet the dog? Often there are accepted procedural protocols to ease the stress that behavioral uncertainty can cause. Good manners go beyond common sense. A second kind of uncertainty focuses on cognitive questions aimed at discover-ing who the other person is as a unique individual. What does Heather like about her job? What makes her glad, sad, or mad? Does she have other friends, or does she lavish all her attention on Hannah? When you i rst meet a person, your mind may conjure up a wild mix of potential traits and characteristics. Reducing cogni-tive uncertainty means acquiring information that allows you to discard many of these possibilities. That’s the kind of uncertainty reduction Berger’s theory addresses—cognitive rather than behavioral uncertainty. Uncertainty reduction Increased knowledge of what kind of person an-other is, which provides an improved forecast of how a future interaction will turn out. AN AXIOMATIC THEORY: CERTAINTY ABOUT UNCERTAINTY Berger proposes a series of axioms to explain the connection between his cen-tral concept of uncertainty and eight key variables of relationship develop-ment: verbal communication, nonverbal warmth, information seeking, self-disclosure, reciprocity, similarity, liking, and shared networks. 6 Axioms are traditionally regarded as self-evident truths that require no additional proof. (All people are created equal. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. What goes up must come down.) Here are Berger’s eight truths about initial uncertainty. Axiom 1, Verbal Communication: Given the high level of uncertainty present at the onset of the entry phase, as the amount of verbal communication between strangers increases, the level of uncertainty for each interactant in the relation-ship will decrease. As uncertainty is further reduced, the amount of verbal com-munication will increase. When you i rst sit down with Heather, the conversation will be halting and somewhat stilted. But as words begin to l ow, you’ll discover things about each other that make you feel more coni dent in each other’s presence. When your comfort level rises, the pace of the conversation will pick up. Axiom 2, Nonverbal Warmth: As nonverbal afi liative expressiveness increases, uncer-tainty levels will decrease in an initial interaction situation. In addition, decreases in uncertainty level will cause increases in nonverbal afi liative expressiveness. When initial stiffness gives way to head nods and tentative smiles, you’ll have a better idea of who Heather is. This assurance leads to further signs of warmth, such as prolonged eye contact, forward body lean, and pleasant tone of voice. Axiom 3, Information Seeking: High levels of uncertainty cause increases in information-seeking behavior. As uncertainty levels decline, information-seeking behavior decreases. What is it about Heather that prompted the other drivers to warn you not to start off on the wrong foot? You simply have no idea. Like a bug with its antennae twitching, you carefully monitor what she says and how she acts in order to gather clues about her personality. But you become less vigilant after she explains that her pet peeve is drivers who complain about their assignments Axiom A self-evident truth that requires no additional proof.
128 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONon the radio. Whether or not you think her irritation is justii ed, you begin to relax because you have a better idea of how to stay on her good side. Axiom 4, Self-Disclosure: High levels of uncertainty in a relationship cause decreases in the intimacy level of communication content. Low levels of uncer-tainty produce high levels of intimacy. Like Altman and Taylor (see Chapter 9), Berger equates intimacy of communi-cation with depth of self-disclosure. Demographic data revealing that Heather was raised in Toledo and that you are a communication major are relatively noninti-mate. They typify the opening gambits of new acquaintances who are still feeling each other out. But Heather’s comment that she feels more loyalty from Hannah than from any person she knows is a gutsy admission that raises the intimacy level of the conversation to a new plane. Most people wait to express attitudes, values, and feelings until they have a good idea what the listener’s response will be. Axiom 5, Reciprocity: High levels of uncertainty produce high rates of reciprocity. Low levels of uncertainty produce low levels of reciprocity. Self-disclosure research coni rms the notion that people tend to mete out the personal details of their lives at a rate that closely matches their partner’s will-ingness to share intimate information. 7 Reciprocal vulnerability is especially important in the early stages of a relationship. The issue seems to be one of power. When knowledge of each other is minimal, we’re careful not to let the other person one-up us by being the exclusive holder of potentially embarrassing information. But when we already know some of the ups and downs of a per-son’s life, an even l ow of information seems less crucial. Berger would not anticipate long monologues at your i rst get-together with Heather; future meet-ings might be a different story. Axiom 6, Similarity: Similarities between persons reduce uncertainty, while dissim-ilarities produce increases in uncertainty. The more points of contact you establish with Heather, the more you’ll feel you understand her inside and out. If you are a dog lover, the two of you will click. If, however, you are partial to purring kittens, Heather’s devotion to this servile beast will cause you to wonder if you’ll ever be able to i gure out what makes her tick. Axiom 7, Liking: Increases in uncertainty level produce decreases in liking; decreases in uncertainty produce increases in liking. This axiom suggests that the more you i nd out about Heather, the more you’ll appreciate who she is. It directly contradicts the cynical opinion that “ famil-iarity breeds contempt” and afi rms instead the relational maxim that “ to know her is to love her. ”Axiom 8, Shared Networks: Shared communication networks reduce uncertainty, while lack of shared networks increases uncertainty. This axiom was not part of Berger’s original theory, but his ideas triggered extensive research by other communication scholars who soon moved uncer-tainty reduction theory beyond the coni nes of two strangers meeting for the i rst time. Berger applauds this extension: “The broadening of the theory’s scope sug-gests the potential usefulness of reconceptualizing and extending the original formulation.” 8 For example, Malcolm Parks (University of Washington) and
CHAPTER 10: UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION THEORY 129Mara Adelman (Seattle University) discovered that men and women who com-municate more often with their romantic partners’ family and friends have less uncertainty about the person they love than do those whose relationships exist in relative isolation. 9 Networking couples also tend to stay together. On the basis of these i ndings, Berger incorporated this axiom into his formal design. FIGURE 10–1 Theorems of Uncertainty Reduction TheoryAdapted from Berger and Calabrese, “Some Explorations in Initial Interaction and Beyond”Ax 1Verbal CommunicationAx 2NonverbalWarmthAx 4Self-DisclosureAx 3InformationSeekingAx 5ReciprocityAx 7LikingAx 6SimilarityAx 8SharedNetworksAx 1Verbal CommunicationAx 2NonverbalWarmthAx 4Self-DisclosureAx 3InformationSeekingAx 5ReciprocityAx 7LikingAx 6SimilarityAx 8SharedNetworks17283129413161051417191161518202123222425262728+++––––––++++––+ ++––++++––++ THEOREMS: THE LOGICAL FORCE OF UNCERTAINTY AXIOMS Once we grant the validity of the eight axioms, it makes sense to pair two of them together to produce additional insight into relational dynamics. The com-bined axioms yield an inevitable conclusion when inserted in the well-known pattern of deductive logic: If A 5 B and B 5 C then A 5 C Berger does this for all possible combinations, thereby generating 28 theorems—for example: If similarity reduces uncertainty (axiom 6) and reduced uncertainty increases liking (axiom 7) then similarity and liking are positively related (theorem 21) In this case, the result isn’t exactly earthshaking. The connection between similar-ity and liking is a long-established i nding in research on interpersonal attrac-tion. 10 When viewed as a whole, however, these 28 logical extensions sketch out a rather comprehensive theory of interpersonal development—all based on the importance of reducing uncertainty in human interaction. Instead of listing all 28 theorems, I’ve plotted the relationships they predict in Figure 10–1 . The chart reads like a mileage table you might i nd in a road Theorem A proposition that logi-cally and necessarily fol-lows from two axioms.
130 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONFIGURE 10–2 A Hierarchical Plan of Goal-Directed CommunicationBe ProfessionalOverall Strategy:Build relationshipwith dispatcherGoal:Maximize IncomeWear clean,pressed uniformArrive on timeReveal knowledgeof neighborhoodBe FriendlyHoldeye contactSmileAdmire dogatlas. Select one axiom along the bottom and another down the side. The inter-section between the two shows the number of Berger’s theorem and the type of correlation it asserts. A plus sign (1) shows that the two interpersonal variables rise or fall together. A minus sign (2) indicates that as one increases, the other decreases. Will the warmth of Heather’s nonverbal communication increase as the intimacy of her self-disclosure deepens? Theorem 7 says it will. Suppose you grow fond of Heather as a friend. Will you seek to i nd out more about her? Theorem 17 makes the surprising prediction that you won’t (more on this later). Recall from Malcolm Parks’ research that good friends who have overlap-ping social networks communicate more frequently with each other than those who don’t have those connections (see the cybernetic tradition in Chapter 4). You and Heather aren’t good friends, but suppose you unexpectedly discover that her parents and your folks attend the same church service and sometimes play cards together. Does URT predict that you’ll be talking with each other more in the future? Check the intersection between axioms 1 and 8 on the chart for Berg-er’s prediction. MESSAGE PLANS TO COPE WITH UNCERTAIN RESPONSES Ten years after introducing uncertainty reduction theory, Berger switched his research focus to the thought processes people go through in order to produce the messages they speak. He concluded that most social interaction is goal-driven; we have reasons for saying what we say. Berger labeled his work “A Plan-Based Theory of Strategic Communication” because, like the cognitive theorists discussed in Chapter 8 ( constructivism ), he was convinced that we continually construct cogni-tive plans to guide our social action. 11 According to Berger, “ plans are mental rep-resentations of action sequences that may be used to achieve goals.” 12 Figure 10–2 offers a possible example of a strategic plan for your breakfast with Heather. Your main reason for getting together with the dispatcher is to maximize your income over the holidays. Your overall strategy to reach that goal is to build a good working relationship with Heather, since she assigns the routes. The term overall is appropriate because Berger claims that plans are “hierarchically Message plans Mental representations of action sequences that may be used to achieve goals.
CHAPTER 10: UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION THEORY 131organized with abstract action representations at the top of the hierarchy and progressively more concrete representations toward the bottom.” 13 In order to build that relationship, you intend to converse in a friendly and professional man-ner. In this case, friendly means smiling, holding eye contact when she speaks, and admiring her dog. You’ll show professionalism by arriving on time; wearing a clean, pressed uniform; and revealing knowledge of the neighborhood. If you switch strategies at the top—seeking pity for a poor, struggling college student, for example—the alteration will cascade down the hierarchy, requiring changes in many of the behaviors below. Thus, a top-down revision of an action plan requires great amounts of cognitive capacity. Even if you are a cognitively complex person (see Chapter 8), Berger claims you can’t be sure you’ll reach your goal. You may have a great plan but execute it poorly. Heather may interpret words that you meant one way to mean some-thing else. Or she may have her own goals and plans that will inevitably thwart yours. Berger has come to the conclusion that uncertainty is central to all social interaction: “The probability of perfect communication is zero.” 14 Although Berger originally considered uncertainty reduction theory and the study of plan-based message production as separate projects, he now sees an intersection between the two bodies of research. Berger asks, “How do indi-viduals cope with the inevitable uncertainties they must face when constructing messages?” And again, “How can a person hedge against embarrassment, anger, rejection and other downside risks associated with deploying a given message?” 15 The following strategies are some of his answers. Seeking Information . Berger outlines three approaches we can use to i nd out how others might react to our messages. Using a passive strategy, we unob-trusively observe others from a distance. This l y-on-the-wall tactic works best when we spot others reacting to people in informal, or “backstage,” settings. (The strategy sounds like normal “scoping” behavior on any college campus.) In an active strategy, we ask a third party for information. We realize that our mutual acquaintance will probably give a somewhat slanted view, but most of us have coni dence in our ability to i lter out the bias and gain valuable information. With an interactive strategy, we talk face-to-face with the other person and ask specii c questions. This is the quickest route to reducing uncertainty, but continual prob-ing in social settings begins to take on the feel of a cross-examination or the third degree. Our own self-disclosure offers an alternative way to elicit information from others without seeming to pry. By being transparent, we create a safe atmo-sphere for others to respond in kind—something the “law of reciprocity” suggests they will do (see Chapter 9). Choosing Plan Complexity . The complexity of a message plan is measured in two ways—the level of detail the plan includes and the number of contingency plans prepared in case the original one doesn’t work. If it’s crucial that you make top dollar in your holiday delivery job, you’re likely to draw upon a plan from memory or create a new one far more complex than the sample shown in Figure 10–2 . You’re also likely to have a fallback plan in case the i rst one fails. On the other hand, you don’t know much about Heather’s goals or feelings, and high uncertainty argues for a less complex plan that you can adjust in the moment, once you get a feel for who she is and what she wants. This simpler approach is preferred for another reason. Enacting a complex plan takes so much cognitive effort that there’s usually a deterioration in verbal and nonverbal l uency, with Passive strategy Impression formation by observing a person inter-acting with others.Active strategy Impression formation by asking a third party about a person.Interactive strategy Impression formation through face-to-face dis-cussion with a person.Plan complexity A characteristic of a mes-sage plan based on the level of detail it provides and the number of con-tingencies it covers.
132 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONa resultant loss in credibility. Jeff, a student athlete, used an interactive strategy that has low complexity:I thought of URT this afternoon in the trainer’s room where I again made eye con-tact with a girl I’d never met. We were the only two people in the room and I realized I needed a plan of action. I quickly ran through several strategies to reduce uncertainty. I chose a tried-and-true icebreaker line: “Hi, I know I’ve seen you around a ton of times, but I don’t think I’ve ever met you. What’s your name?” I hoped for the best, but prepared for a negative reaction. My contingency plan was to simply end the attempt at conversation and seem preoccupied with my treatment. Fortunately she responded with a look of relief, her name, and then a smile. Let the conversation begin. As Berger said, “Uncertainty is central to all social interaction.” It sure makes life interesting. Hedging. The possibility of plan failure suggests the wisdom of providing ways for both parties to save face when at least one of them has miscalculated. Berger catalogs a series of planned hedges that allow a somewhat gracious retreat. For instance, you may be quite certain about what you want to accom-plish in your meeting with Heather yet choose words that are ambiguous so as not to tip your hand before you i nd out more about her. You might also choose to be equivocal in order to avoid the embarrassment that would come from a refusal of a specii c request for preferred treatment in route assignment. Humor can provide the same way out. You could blatantly propose to use a portion of the saved time and good tips that come from prime assignments to stop at the butcher shop for a juicy bone for Hannah—but make the offer in a joking tone of voice. If Heather takes offense, you can respond, “Hey, I was just kidding.” The Hierarchy Hypothesis. What happens to action choices when plans are frustrated? Berger’s hierarchy hypothesis asserts that “when individuals are thwarted in their attempts to achieve goals, their i rst tendency is to alter lower level elements of their message.” 16 For example, when it’s obvious the person we’re talking to has failed to grasp what we are saying, our inclination is to repeat the same message—but this time louder. The tactic seldom works, but it takes less mental effort than altering strategic features higher up in the action plan. Berger describes people as “cognitive misers” who would rather try a quick i x than expend the effort to repair faulty plans. 17 There’s no doubt that in-the- moment modii cations are taxing, but when the issue is important, the chance to be effective makes it worth the effort. An additional hedge against failure is to practice in front of a friend who will critique your action plan before you put it into effect. 18 As a Hebrew proverb warns, “Without counsel, plans go wrong.” 19 Hedging Use of strategic ambiguity and humor to provide a way for both parties to save face when a message fails to achieve its goal.Hierarchy hypothesis The prediction that when people are thwarted in their attempts to achieve goals, their first tendency is to alter lower-level ele-ments of their message. Inspired by Berger’s theory, the late California State, Fullerton, communication professor William Gudykunst began to apply some of the axioms and theorems of uncertainty reduction theory to intercultural settings. In many ways, Berger’s original emphasis on the interaction of strangers was a natural i t for Gudykunst, who assumed that at least one person in an intercultural encounter is a stranger . 20 Through a series of initial crises, strangers undergo both anxiety and uncer-tainty—they don’t feel secure and they aren’t sure how to behave. He noted that strangers and in-group members experience some degree of anxiety and ANXIETY/UNCERTAINTY MANAGEMENT (AUM) THEORY
CHAPTER 10: UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION THEORY 133uncertainty in any new interpersonal situation, but when the encounter takes place between people of different cultures, strangers are hyperaware of cultural differences. They then tend to overestimate the effect of cultural identity on the behavior of people in an alien society, while blurring individuals’ distinctions. Despite their common axiomatic format and parallel focus on the meeting of strangers, Gudykunst’s anxiety/uncertainty management theory differs in i ve sig-nii cant ways from Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory. Anxiety. Whereas Berger treats uncertainty as the key communication vari-able, Gudykunst elevated anxiety to an equal status. He dei ned anxiety as “the feeling of being uneasy, tense, worried or apprehensive about what might happen.” 21 As the title of his theory suggests, and Figure 10–3 depicts, Gudykunst believed that uncertainty and anxiety are the twin threats that must be managed to achieve effective communication. They are the basic cause of intercultural misunderstanding. His research shows that anxiety and uncertainty usually go together, 22 yet he saw them as different in that uncertainty is cognitive, whereas anxiety is affective—an emotion. Effective Communication. The end goal of AUM theory is effective com-munication rather than closeness or relational satisfaction. Gudykunst used the term to refer to the process of minimizing misunderstandings. He wrote that “communication is effective to the extent that the person interpreting the mes-sage attaches a meaning to the message that is relatively similar to what was intended by the person transmitting it.” 23 Other authors use a variety of terms to convey the same idea—accuracy, i delity, mutual understanding. 24 Multiple Causes of Anxiety/Uncertainty. The third way AUM theory dif-fers from Berger’s theory is the vast array of axioms, not shown, which cluster under the seven categories on the left side of Figure 10–3 . There are 34 of them, each linking a separate variable to the rise or fall of anxiety and uncertainty. For example, a large measure of any of the following factors reduces anxiety and uncertainty: self-esteem, cognitive complexity, perceived similarity, positive expectations, interdependence, attraction, respect from the other, a sense of power, shared networks, and cooperative tasks to complete. When these personal Anxiety The feeling of being un-easy, tense, worried, or apprehensive about what might happen.Effective communication The extent to which a person interpreting a message does so in a way that’s relatively simi-lar to what was intended; minimizing misunder-standing.FIGURE 10–3 Basic Components of AUM TheoryBased on “An Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) Theory of Effective Communication”Self-ConceptSituational ContextMotivation to InteractCommunicationEffectivenessCategorization of StrangersAttitudes toward StrangersCloseness with StrangersEthical ResponsibilitiesMindfulnessUncertaintyManagementAnxietyManagementAUM theory An intercultural theory that claims high levels of uncertainty and anxiety lead to greater misunder-standing when strangers don’t communicate mindfully.
134 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONBerger’s uncertainty reduction theory is an early prototype within the commu-nication discipline of what an objective theory should be. His theory makes speciic testable predictions, and offers the human need to reduce interpersonal uncertainty as the engine that drives its axioms. Although combining the axioms and situational factors are in short supply, anxiety and uncertainty rise. This, of course, makes effective intercultural communication that much harder. Lower and Upper Thresholds for Fear and Doubt. According to Gudykunst, anxiety and uncertainty aren’t always bad—a small amount of both makes us more vigilant. He suggested that we have a minimum threshold of apprehension that will guarantee that adrenaline runs through our veins and prods us to com-municate effectively. But there’s also a threshold of high anxiety above which we become paralyzed with fear. Above that level of angst we can’t concentrate on the message or the messenger, and fall back on negative stereotypes or simply withdraw from the conversation. In like manner, the minimum threshold for uncertainty is the lowest amount of doubt we can have and yet not feel bored or overconi dent about our predic-tions of strangers’ behavior. 25 If we aren’t curious about the stranger, we’ll go on automatic pilot and likely misinterpret the words we hear. On the other hand, if uncertainty crosses the upper threshold, we lose all coni dence that we can predict others’ behavior, and then communication no longer seems worthwhile. Effective intercultural communication is possible only when participants’ levels of doubt and fear fall somewhere between these upper and lower thresholds. Unfortunately, Gudykunst died before he could work out a way to measure where a person’s thresholds lie. Mindfulness. According to AUM theory, mindfulness is the way in-group members and strangers can reduce their anxiety and uncertainty to optimum levels. We are mindful when we consciously think about our communication and continually work at changing what we do in order to become more effec-tive. Following Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer’s notion of mindful learning , 26 Gudykunst suggested that being mindful involves the creation of new catego-ries rather than simply classifying people according to their ethnicity, gender, age, wealth, or rules (see Chapter 8). It also means being open to information and recognizing that the other person may have a different perspective than we do. The concept of mindfulness provides a potential solution to the age-old dilemma concerning free will and determinism. Most theorists tacitly plant their l ag somewhere on the continuum between the two extremes, but neither they nor their readers seem particularly comfortable with their selection. In what I regard as a potentially brilliant move, Gudykunst made it possible to embrace both sides of the scale. Each axiom that predicts a change in anxiety or uncer-tainty explicitly states that it holds only if the people involved aren’t mindful. When they aren’t, the axioms have the force of law, and doubt and fear in inter-cultural situations is inevitable (determinism). But when strangers are mindful about their encounter, their mindfulness trumps the axioms, therefore reducing anxiety and uncertainty to manageable levels (free will). It’s an idea that tran-scends the cause-and-effect logic of Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory. Mindfulness The process of thinking in new categories, being open to new information, and recognizing multiple perspectives.CRITIQUE: NAGGING DOUBTS ABOUT UNCERTAINTY
CHAPTER 10: UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION THEORY 135generates a slew of theorems, they are straightforward, logically consistent, and simple to understand. As for practical utility, readers interested in promoting interpersonal ties can regard the linkages the theorems describe as a blueprint for constructing solid relationships. Subsequent survey and experimental research supports most of URT’s axioms and has expanded the scope of the theory to cover development of established relationships. There are, however, continuing questions about Berger’s reliance on the concept of uncertainty and his assump-tion that we’re motivated to reduce it. A dozen years after publishing the theory, Berger admitted that his original statement contained “some propositions of dubious validity.”27 Critics quickly point to theorem 17, which predicts that the more you like people, the less you’ll seek information about them.Frankly, it is not clear why information-seeking would decrease as liking increased other than being required by deductive inference from the axiomatic structure of uncertainty reduction theory. In fact, it seems more reasonable to suggest that persons will seek information about and from those they like rather than those they dislike.28 That’s the blunt assessment of Kathy Kellermann at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who originally participated in Berger’s research program. We might be willing to dismiss this apparent error as only one glitch out of 28 theorems, but the tight logical structure that is the genius of the theory doesn’t give us that option. Theorem 17 is dictated by axioms 3 and 7. If the theorem is wrong, one of the axioms is suspect. Kellermann targets the motivational assump-tion of axiom 3 as the problem. Axiom 3 assumes that lack of information triggers a search for knowledge. But as Kellermann and Rodney Reynolds at Pepperdine University discovered when they studied motivation to reduce uncertainty in more than a thousand students at 10 universities, “wanting knowledge rather than lacking knowledge is what promotes information-seeking in initial encounters with others.”29 The distinction is illustrated by the story of a teacher who asked a boy, “What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy?” The student replied, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” (He was right.) Kellermann and Reynolds also failed to ind that anticipated future interac-tion, incentive value, or deviance gave any motivational kick to information seek-ing, as Berger claimed they would. Thus, it seems that Berger’s suggestion of a universal drive to reduce uncertainty during initial interaction is questionable at best. Yet along with the suspect third axiom, it, too, remains part of the theory. Another attack on the theory comes from Michael Sunnafrank at the Univer-sity of Minnesota in Duluth. He challenges Berger’s claim that uncertainty reduc-tion is the key to understanding early encounters. Consistent with Altman and Taylor’s social penetration model presented in the previous chapter, Sunnafrank insists that the early course of a relationship is guided by its predicted outcome value (POV).30 He’s convinced that the primary goal of our initial interaction with another is maximizing our relational outcomes rather than i nding out who he or she is. If this is true, you’ll be more concerned with establishing a smooth working relationship with Heather at your initial meeting than you will be in iguring out why she does what she does. Who’s right—Berger or Sunnafrank? Berger thinks there’s no contest. He maintains that any predictions you make about the rewards and costs of working with Heather are only as good as the quality of your current knowledge. To the Predicted outcome value A forecast of future benefits and costs of interaction based on limited experience with the other.
136 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONextent that you are uncertain of how an action will affect the relationship, pre-dicted outcome value has no meaning. Leanne Knobloch (University of Illinois) and Laura Miller (University of Tennessee) think the assumptions underlying both URT and POV are too narrow. They suggest that we’re not just uncertain about our new partner, we’re uncertain about ourselves and the future of the relation-ship. They also claim that uncertainty can be rewarding as well as costly, and so we often cultivate uncertainty, ambiguity, or novelty in our relationships.31 You’ll encounter these ideas again in relational dialectics theory (see Chapter 12). Even though the validity of Berger’s theory is in question, his analysis of initial interaction is a major contribution to communication scholarship. Berger notes that “the i eld of communication has been suffering and continues to suffer from an intellectual trade dei cit with respect to related disciplines; the i eld imports much more than it exports.”32 Uncertainty reduction theory was an early attempt by a scholar trained within the discipline to reverse that trend. His suc-cess at stimulating critical thinking among his peers can be seen in the fact that every scholar cited in this chapter is a member of a communication faculty. Although some of Berger’s axioms may not perfectly rel ect the acquaintance process, his focus on the issue of reducing uncertainty is at the heart of com-munication inquiry. Appealing for further dialogue and modii cation rather than wholesale rejection of the theory, Berger asks:What could be more basic to the study of communication than the propositions that (1) adaptation is essential for survival, (2) adaptation is only possible through the reduction of uncertainty, and (3) uncertainty can be both reduced and produced by communicative activity? 33 It’s a sound rhetorical question. CONVERSATIONSView this segment online at www.mhhe.com/grifi n8 or www. a i rstlook.com. Chuck Berger would not be surprised if you were confused by the mid-chapter switch from axioms of uncertainty reduction to plan-based strategic communica-tion. In our conversation he describes why he originally viewed the two lines of research as separate but now sees them as tightly linked. Many students i nd this interview especially fascinating because of Berger’s strongly stated opinions. For example, he dismisses CMM’s idea of co-creation of social reality because it offers a “total amnesia model.” He also criticizes social scientists who purposely create ambiguity so that they can never be proved wrong. Berger’s explicit and forth-right statements show that he’s willing to risk being wrong. 1. An axiom is a self-evident truth. Which one of Berger’s axioms seems least self-evident to you? 2. Check out theorem 13 in Figure 10–1 . Does the predicted relationship between self-disclosure and reciprocity match the forecast of social penetration theory? 3. What is your goal for the class period when uncertainty reduction theory will be discussed? What is your hierarchical action plan to achieve that goal? 4. The relationship between information seeking and liking in theorem 17 is only one of 28 predictions. Why do critics take doubts about its validity so seriously? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS
CHAPTER 10: UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION THEORY 137 Recommended resource: Charles R. Berger, “Communicating Under Uncertainty,” in Interpersonal Processes: New Directions in Communication Research, Michael Roloff and Gerald Miller (eds.), Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1987, pp. 39–62. Original statement: Charles R. Berger and Richard Calabrese, “Some Explorations in Initial Interaction and Beyond: Toward a Developmental Theory of Interpersonal Com-munication,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 1, 1975, pp. 99–112. Strategies for uncertainty reduction: Charles R. Berger, “Beyond Initial Interaction: Uncertainty, Understanding, and the Development of Interpersonal Relationships,” in Language and Social Psychology, H. Giles and R. St. Clair (eds.), Blackwell, Oxford, 1979, pp. 122–144. Further development: Charles R. Berger and J. J. Bradac, Language and Social Knowledge: Uncertainty in Interpersonal Relations, Arnold, London, 1982. Theory update: Charles R. Berger and William B. Gudykunst, “Uncertainty and Com-munication,” in Progress in Communication Sciences, Vol. 10, Brenda Dervin and Melvin Voigt (eds.), Ablex, Norwood, NJ, 1991, pp. 21–66. Comparison with other uncertainty theories: Charles R. Berger, “Uncertainty and Infor-mation Exchange in Developing Relationships,” in A Handbook of Personal Relationships, Steve Duck (ed.), John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1988, pp. 239–255. Plan-based strategic communication: Charles R. Berger, Planning Strategic Interaction, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 1997. Planning messages when response is uncertain: Charles R. Berger, “Producing Messages Under Uncertainty,” in Message Production: Advances in Communication Theory, John O. Greene (ed.), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 1997, pp. 221–244. Goals and plans in message production: Charles R. Berger, “Message Production Skill in Social Interaction,” in Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction Skills, John O. Greene and Brant R. Burleson (eds.), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2003, pp. 257–290. Uncertainty reduction in close relationships: Leanne K. Knobloch and Denise H. Solomon, “Information Seeking Beyond Initial Interaction: Negotiating Relational Uncertainty Within Close Relationships ,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 28, 2002, pp. 243–257. Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) theory: William B. Gudykunst, “An Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) Theory of Effective Communication: Making the Mesh of the Net Finer,” in Theorizing About Intercultural Communication, William B. Gudykunst (ed.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2005, pp. 281–322. Critique of axiom 3: Kathy Kellermann and Rodney Reynolds, “When Ignorance Is Bliss: The Role of Motivation to Reduce Uncertainty in Uncertainty Reduction Theory,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 17, 1990, pp. 5–75. Summary and critique of URT and POV: Leanne K. Knobloch and Laura E. Miller, “Uncertainty and Relationship Initiation,” in Handbook of Relationship Initiation, Susan Sprecher, Amy Wenzel, and John Harvey (eds.), Psychology Press, London, 2008, pp. 121–134.To access a chapter on Heider’s attribution theorythat appeared in a previous edition, click on Theory List at www.ai rstlook.com . A SECOND LOOK
11CHAPTER Social Information Processing Theory of Joseph Walther In 1992, I was working at home on the relationship development section of an early edition of this text when two computer-savvy friends dropped by. One of them asked what I was writing. About a minute into my description of social penetration and uncertainty reduction, the other friend blurted out, “I’ve got it. How ‘bout a chapter on intimacy through email?” We all roared with laughter at this crazy idea and headed off to Starbucks for an enjoyable time chatting together over coffee. Our derisive attitude toward building close relationships through computer-mediated communication (CMC) was shared by many in the early 1990s. CMC might be i ne for task-related purposes such as information processing, news dissemination, and long-distance conferencing. But as a place to bond with oth-ers, cyberspace seemed to be a relational wasteland—stark and barren. Scholars who studied new electronic media had already offered a variety of theories to explain the inherent differences between CMC and face-to-face communication. I’ll mention three. Social presence theory suggests that text-based messages deprive CMC users of the sense that other warm bodies are jointly involved in the interaction. 1 To the extent that we no longer feel that anyone is there, our communication becomes more impersonal, individualistic, and task-oriented. Media richness theory classii es each communication medium according to the complexity of the messages it can handle efi ciently. 2 For example, the theory sug-gests that face-to-face communication provides a rich mix of verbal and nonverbal cue systems that can convey highly nuanced emotions, and even double meanings. By contrast, the limited bandwidth of CMC makes it rather lean—appropriate for transacting everyday business, but not for negotiating social relations. A third theory concentrates on the lack of social context cues in online commu-nication. 3 It claims that CMC users have no clue as to their relative status, and norms for interaction aren’t clear, so people tend to become more self-absorbed and less inhibited. The result is increased l aming —hostile language that zings its target and creates a toxic climate for relational growth on the Internet. CMC Computer-mediated communication; text-based messages, which filter out most nonverbal cues. Social presence theory Suggests that CMC de-prives users of the sense that another actual per-son is involved in the interaction. Media richness theory Purports that CMC band-width is too narrow to convey rich relational messages. Objective InterpretiveSocio-psychological tradition●138
CHAPTER 11: SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY 139 All of these theories share a cues i ltered out interpretation of CMC. In other words, they assume that most online communication is text-only, without visual or auditory cues, and this limits its usefulness for developing interpersonal relationships. 4 To users accustomed to browsing Facebook photos, watching YouTube videos, or roaming Second Life, this no doubt sounds like a strange assumption. But in 1992, when my friends and I laughed at the idea of online intimacy, text ruled the online world. At that time, the Internet was the province of scientii c and academic users—the i rst web browser for home use, Mosaic, was not released until the following year. The relatively few home users con-nected with dial-up modems that were too slow to transmit images or sound, so the most popular forms of online communication were text-only emails and discussion boards. In this historical context, it’s not surprising that the public and communication theorists were skeptical about close relationships online. Yet in 1992, communication professor Joe Walther published a theory that countered this conventional wisdom. Now at Michigan State University, Walther claimed that CMC users can adapt to this restricted medium and use it effec-tively to develop close relationships. He argued that given the opportunity for a sufi cient exchange of social messages and subsequent relational growth, as goes face-to-face communication, so goes CMC. At i rst, Walther limited his theory to text-only online communication; this is an example of a boundary condition, or a statement that limits the context in which a theory holds true. Today, Walther admits that many new forms of online communication, such as social networking sites, do not meet the requirement of this boundary condition. 5 Nevertheless, he is hopeful that careful thinking can expand his theory to account for online communication that transcends the limitations of text. 6 After i rst explaining his original theory, we’ll consider recent extensions that explain communication on Facebook, one of the Internet’s most popular social network-ing sites. Cues filtered out Interpretation of CMC that regards lack of non-verbal cues as a fatal flaw for using the me-dium for relationship development. Boundary condition A statement that limits the context a theory is meant to describe. CMC VERSUS FACE-TO-FACE: A SIP INSTEAD OF A GULP Walther labeled his theory social information processing (SIP) because he believes relationships grow only to the extent that parties i rst gain information about each other and use that information to form interpersonal impressions of who they are. In taking this view, SIP theory is consistent with social penetration theory and uncertainty reduction theory (see Chapters 9 and 10). With these more or less dei ned impressions in mind, the interacting parties draw closer if they both like the image of the other that they’ve formed. Walther’s SIP focuses on the i rst link of the chain—the personal information available through CMC and its effect on the composite mental image of the other that each one creates. Interpersonal ➞ Impression ➞ Relationship Information Formation Development Walther acknowledges that nonverbal cues are i ltered out of the interper-sonal information we send and receive through text-only CMC. Physical con-text, facial expression, tone of voice, interpersonal distance, body position, appearance, gestures, touch, and smell are all missing. But unlike cues i ltered out theorists, he doesn’t think this loss is necessarily fatal or even injurious to Impression formation The composite mental image one person forms of another.
140 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONa well-dei ned impression of the other or the relational development that it triggers. Walther highlights two features of CMC that provide a rationale for SIP theory: 7 1. Verbal cues. When motivated to form impressions and develop relation-ships, communicators employ any cue system that’s available. Thus, CMC users can create fully formed impressions of others based solely on the lin-guistic content of online messages. 2. Extended time. The exchange of social information through text-only CMC is much slower than it is face-to-face, so impressions are formed at a reduced rate. Yet given enough time, there’s no reason to believe that CMC relationships will be weaker or more fragile than those developed with the benei t of nonverbal cues. The SIP acronym suggests a liquid analogy that can help us understand Wal-ther’s thinking. 8 Suppose someone hands you a 12-ounce glass of water, cola, or beer—whatever drink you i nd refreshing. You could hoist the glass and chug the contents in a matter of seconds. That big gulp is similar to being face-to-face with someone you’ve just met and want to know better. The l ood of verbal and nonverbal information makes it possible to form a vivid interper-sonal impression that will affect your future interaction. But what if you had to drink your beverage through a straw—one sip at a time? You’d still be able to drain the entire 12 ounces, but it would take much longer. That’s the situ-ation for CMC users who are thirsty for social information. They end up with the same quantity and quality of interpersonal knowledge, but it accumulates at a slower rate. VERBAL CUES OF AFFINITY REPLACE NONVERBAL CUES Walther claims that the human need for afi liation is just as active when people communicate online as when they are with each other face-to-face. But because computer-mediated communication eliminates the nonverbal cues that typically signal relational afi nity, CMC users must rely on text-only messages to convey the same social information. He’s convinced that verbal and nonverbal cues can be used interchangeably. If Walther’s claim strikes you as far-fetched, remember that prior to elec-tronic communication, people developed pen-pal relationships by discovering similarities and expressing affection through the written word alone. Long-distance romantic relationships thrived as the casual exchange of friendly notes progressed to a stream of passionate love letters, and the same relational development can take place through CMC. During World War II, postal letters so powerfully boosted soldier morale that the United States government launched a campaign encouraging citizens to write to loved ones serving abroad. When the mass of letters became too expensive to transport, a technol-ogy known as “v-mail” reduced letters to small pieces of i lm that could be expanded to readable size upon reaching soldiers. 9 History supports SIP’s claim that people creatively adapt their communication to connect across cue-limited media. Pen pal exchanges or wartime letters may seem strange to you. If so, maybe you’ll identify more closely with the words of Katie, a former student of mine
CHAPTER 11: SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY 141who wrote an application log entry for Walther’s theory that describes closeness with family across CMC: I do have many relationships that I primarily maintain online. One of these is with my grandparents who I don’t get to see as much as I wish I could. They are both quite hard of hearing and have old phones with lots of noise, so email is a much better way to communicate with them. Our phone conversations are always short, but we write lengthy emails several times a week. Also Walther’s idea that CMC allows people to communicate at their convenience applies here. We have a four-hour time difference and very different schedules, so CMC allows us to communi-cate more and to do it on our own terms and times. Experimental Support for a Counterintuitive Idea Are the verbal strategies adopted by pen pals, soldiers abroad, and geographi-cally distant family members typical of the way CMC users pursue their social goals? Can afi nity for another person be expressed just as well through a digital medium as it can when face-to-face? Walther and two of his students ran an experiment that suggests the answer to both questions is yes . 10 Walther asked 28 pairs of students who didn’t know each other to discuss moral dilemmas—a communication task used in many previous experiments. Half the pairs talked face-to-face, while the other half communicated online. In both cases, one member of each pair was a student accomplice—someone the researchers recruited ahead of time. Half of these confederates were asked to communicate in a friendly, positive way, while the other half were told to act unfriendly. Since Walther designed the experiment to i nd out what communica-tion strategies people would use, he didn’t specify any particular way that the confederates should act to accomplish their goal. During the experiment, video cameras recorded the face-to-face conversa-tions from behind a one-way mirror, and all computer messages were saved. Afterward, trained raters categorized the different ways confederates communi-cated both verbal and nonverbal emotion. The naïve participants rated their partners on the degree of affection expressed during the discussion. SIP theory claims that human beings are creative communicators, able to use text-only channels to convey a level of relational warmth that eventually equals that expressed when face-to-face. The experiment’s results supported that claim. The mode of communication made no difference in the emotional tone perceived by naïve participants. Any discrepancy in warmth was due to the intention of each confederate—nice confederates successfully conveyed warmth, and grouchy confederates were perceived as mean. What verbal behaviors did confederates use in CMC to show that they were friendly? As you might expect, self-disclosure, praise, and statements of affection topped the list. These are core strategies of making an impression by reducing uncertainty and drawing close through social penetration (see Chapters 10 and 9). Yet surprisingly, indirect disagreement, a change of subject, and compliments offered while proposing a contrasting idea were also associated with friendliness. Each of these verbal techniques allows a partner to save face and defuse potential conl ict. Of course, face-to-face confederates could have used these same verbal behaviors—and indeed, some of them did. But what confederates said when physically present seemed insignii cant compared to how they showed it nonver-bally. Consistent with previous research, confederates relied on facial expression,
142 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Walther is convinced that the length of time CMC users have to send their mes-sages is the key factor that determines whether their text-only messages can achieve the level of intimacy that others develop face-to-face. Over an extended period, the issue is not the amount of social information that can be conveyed online; rather, it’s the rate at which that information mounts up. Because typing is slower than talking, text-based messages take longer to compose. How much longer? Walther i nds that any message spoken in person will take at least four times longer to say through CMC. 12 This four-to-one time differential explains why many early studies, con-ducted in controlled laboratories, seem to show that CMC is task-oriented and impersonal. With both modes of communication artii cially limited to 15–20 min-utes, CMC users don’t have time to garner enough social information to form a distinct impression of their partner. (They’ve had only a few sips rather than a gulp of relational cues.) Walther says a fair test for different channels of relational communication would extend the time limit for unacquainted online users so they could have the opportunity to send the same number of messages as strang-ers in the face-to-face condition. That’s how he designed the content-cues exper-iment reported in the previous section. When comparing 10 minutes of face-to-face conversation with 40 minutes of CMC, there was no difference in partner afi nity between the two modes. In real life, there’s usually no imposed time limit on online communication, whether in length or frequency. Since CMC conveys social information more slowly than face-to-face communication does, Walther advises online users to make up for the rate difference by sending messages more often. Not only does this practice help impression formation in personal relationships, but it’s also reassuring to virtual group partners who naturally wonder who their colleagues are, what they’re thinking, and if they’re going to do the work they’ve promised. Two other temporal factors can contribute to intimacy on the Internet—anticipated future interaction and chronemic cues. Anticipated future interaction wasn’t part of Walther’s original conception of SIP, but he now sees it as a way of extending psychological time. Recall that Chuck Berger claims our drive to reduce uncertainty about someone we’ve just met gets an added boost when we think we’re going to see each other again (see Chapter 10). Through his empirical research, Walther’s discovered that members of an online conference or task group start to trade relational messages when they are scheduled for multiple meetings. It’s as if the “shadow of the future” motivates them to encounter others on a per-sonal level. 13 Although Berger’s prediction was made with a face-to-face context in mind, Walther i nds that anticipation of future interaction is a better predictor of relational development than whether people meet online or in the l esh. Chronemics is the label nonverbal researchers use to describe how people perceive, use, and respond to issues of time in their interaction with others. Unlike tone of voice, interpersonal distance, or gestures ( vocalics, proxemics, Anticipated future interaction A way of extending psy-chological time; the likelihood of future interaction motivates CMC users to develop a relationship. EXTENDED TIME: THE CRUCIAL VARIABLE IN CMC eye contact, tone of voice, body position, and other nonverbal cues to convey how they felt about their partners. 11 In sum, the study supports Walther’s claim that people meeting online can begin a relationship just as effectively as if they had met face-to-face, but instead of forming their impressions of each other through nonverbal cues, they do so through the words they write.
CHAPTER 11: SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY 143kinesics ), time is the one nonverbal cue that’s not i ltered out in text-only CMC. A recipient can note the time of day an email was sent and then gauge the elapsed time between messages. Does this knowledge really affect a relationship? Walther’s research suggests that a late-night request sent to a teacher or boss will seem demanding, but a social message sent to a friend at the same hour will signal affection. As for time lag, Andrew Ledbetter, a former student of mine who is now a communication professor at Ohio University, recently followed up on Walther’s work with a study of reply rate between college-age friends. In the study, participants read an email message and a reply to that message. The text of the email exchange was the same for each participant, but the time stamp varied randomly: Participants either saw messages separated by one hour, one day, one week, or one month. The study revealed that replying within an hour yielded the most positive impressions, with some evidence that women may be more attuned to reply rate than men are. 14 So if you want to convey a positive impression, a fast reply is probably best, though you also may want to consider the tone conveyed by the time of day the message is sent. You now have the basic predictions of social information processing theory. SIP claims that CMC users can get to know each other and develop a mutual afi n-ity by using the medium’s available cues to manage their relational development—and throughout the 1990s, that was mostly text. The process will probably take longer than is typical in face-to-face bonding, but there’s no reason to believe their relationship will be any less personal. After offering a similar summary, Walther asks, “Is this the best that one can hope to attain when communicating electronically—the mere potential for intimacy where time permits?” 15 His answer is no—in a number of instances, CMC actually surpasses the quality of rela-tional communication that’s available when parties talk face-to-face. Walther’s hyper-personal perspective shows how this works. HYPERPERSONAL PERSPECTIVE: CLOSER THROUGH CMC THAN IN PERSON Walther uses the term hyperpersonal to label CMC relationships that are more intimate than romances or friendships would be if partners were physically together. Under the familiar sender-receiver-channel-feedback categories, he classii es four types of media effects that occur precisely because text-only CMC users aren’t face-to-face and don’t have a full range of communication cues with which to work. Specii cally, Walther’s hyperpersonal perspective depicts “how senders select, receivers magnify, channels promote, and feedback increases enhanced and selective communication behaviors in CMC.” 16 As you read through these four types of media effects, think about whether these apply beyond the text-based communication Walther originally addressed when he built this perspective. Sender: Selective Self-Presentation Walther claims that through selective self-presentation, people who meet online have an opportunity to make and sustain an overwhelmingly positive impres-sion. That’s because they can write about their most attractive traits, accomplish-ments, thoughts, and actions without fear of contradiction from their physical appearance, their inconsistent actions, or the objections of third parties who know their dark side. As a relationship develops, they can carefully edit the Hyperpersonal perspective   The claim that CMC rela-tionships are often more intimate that those devel-oped when partners are physically together. Selective self-presentation An online positive por-trayal without fear of contradiction, which en-ables people to create an overwhelmingly favor-able impression. Chronemics The study of people’s sys-tematic handling of time in their interaction with others.
144 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONbreadth and depth of their self-disclosure to conform to their cyber image, with-out worrying that nonverbal leakage will shatter their projected persona. Receiver: Overattribution of Similarity Attribution is a perceptual process whereby we observe what people do and then try to i gure out what they’re really like. Our basic interpretive bias is to assume that the specii c action we see rel ects the personality of the person who did it. People who do things like that are like that. But when it comes to reading a newsgroup post or email, we have very little to go on. Our only basis for judg-ment is the verbal behavior of the person who sent the message. Walther says that the absence of other cues doesn’t keep us from jumping to conclusions. To the contrary, he’s convinced that we’ll likely overattribute the meager informa-tion we have and create an idealized image of the sender. Walther draws on SIDE theory, developed by European social psychologists Martin Lea and Russell Spears, to explain this kind of over-the-top identii ca-tion. 17 SIDE is their acronym for social identity-deindividuation. As the title implies, some CMC relationships start when parties meet in online groups that center on a common interest, problem, or passion. Whether participants discuss documen-tary i lms, breastfeeding, or the chances of the Chicago Cubs reaching the World Series, they assume that others visiting the site are like them in one important way. In the absence of cues that focus on individual differences, their common-ality is all they have to go on as they form their impressions of each other. The result is an exaggerated sense of similarity and group solidarity. When this exces-sively positive image of others is paired with the anticipation of future interac-tion, virtual partners can SIP and SIDE into a hyperpersonal relationship. Channel: Communicating on Your Own Time Most forms of interpersonal communication require that parties synchronize their schedules in order to talk with each other. Although face-to-face interaction and phone conversations offer a sense of immediacy, co-presence is achieved at a high price. One partner’s desire to communicate often comes at a bad time for the other. An overture to talk that might be welcome one day can be an incon-venience, interruption, or intrusion the next. Parties may make a date to talk, of course, but locking in a time for communication raises expectations for signii -cance that may be hard to meet. And relationships are at risk when appointments are frequently canceled or, worse, forgotten. In contrast, online communication is mediated through a channel that gives partners the opportunity to communicate without having to attend to each other at the same time. Walther refers to some forms of CMC (such as email) as asyn-chronous channels of communication, meaning that parties can use them nonsi-multaneously. With time constraints relaxed, CMC users are free to write person-centered messages, knowing that the recipient will read the message at a convenient time. This is a big plus, especially when, like my student Katie and her grandparents, they are communicating across time zones, or their waking hours are out of sync. Walther notes an added benei t of nonsimultaneous CMC over face-to-face communication: “In asynchronous interaction one may plan, contemplate, and edit one’s comments more mindfully and deliberatively than one can in more Social identity-deindividuation (SIDE) A theory that suggests CMC users overestimate their similarity with oth-ers they meet in online interest groups. Asynchronous channel A nonsimultaneous me-dium of communication that each individual can use when he or she desires.
CHAPTER 11: SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY 145spontaneous, simultaneous talk.” 18 This is a tremendous advantage when deal-ing with touchy issues, misunderstandings, or conl ict between parties. Feedback: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Self-fuli lling prophecy is the tendency for a person’s expectation of others to evoke a response from them that coni rms what he or she anticipated. Believing it’s so can make it so. This process creates hyperpersonal relationships only if CMC parties i rst form highly favorable impressions of each other. As we’ve seen in the preceding sections, Walther thinks that’s likely to happen. Senders self-select what they reveal, receivers create an idealized image of their partner, and the channel lets users express themselves the way they want, when they want. What’s not to like? Self-fuli lling prophecy is triggered when that hyperpositive image is inten-tionally or inadvertently fed back to the other, creating the CMC equivalent of the looking-glass self (see Chapter 5). Walther even suggests that this phenomenon may improve relationships between groups with a strong history of tension and conl ict, such as those between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims. As Walther asks, “In CMC, when the turban and the yarmulke need not be visible during Self-fulfilling prophecy The tendency for a per-son’s expectation of oth-ers to evoke a response from them that confirms what was originally anticipated. “I can’t wait to see what you’re like online.” © Paul Noth/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
146 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONinteractions, can [similarities] be made more [meaningful] than differences?” 19 A recent test in the Israeli education system suggests the answer may be yes, as one Jewish student reported after spending more than a year communicating online in a multicultural course: “This coming year, I will begin teaching . . . and when I use the word ‘Arab’ in my class, it will sound different than it would have before the course.” 20 Walther suspects hyperpersonal communication may explain why this student’s attitude changed after prolonged online contact with people from another culture. The hyperpersonal perspective assumes that people communicate through text-only CMC. Although this still happens in international business meetings, online support groups, and hobby-focused discussion boards, Walther acknowl-edges that the web has moved far beyond text. 21 Do the propositions of SIP theory still apply when communicators have more nonverbal cues available? Walther and his colleagues have turned to Facebook, one of the Internet’s most popular social networking sites, to explore how users process social information across newer forms of CMC. THE WARRANTING VALUE OF INFORMATION: WHAT TO TRUST? Sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn—known as social networking sites —are now popular means of interpersonal CMC. Facebook, one of the most frequently visited social networking sites, launched in 2004 with a focus on col-lege students. By 2006, anyone on the Internet could create a proi le on the site. What sets social networking sites apart from the text-only CMC Walther originally studied is not only the inclusion of photos and video, but also the ability to create a personal proi le, build network connections (on Facebook, called “friends”), and add information to other people’s proi les. When users post information on their proi les, other users can supplement, or even contra-dict, that information. For Facebook users, such added information might include text-based comments on proi le content or links to photographs and video. In other words, sites such as Facebook display two types of information—that which is controlled by the proi le owner and that beyond the proi le owner’s direct control. Walther believes this is a difference that truly makes a difference in how Facebook users process social information. As an example, let’s say you view a new classmate’s Facebook proi le for the i rst time. The classmate describes herself as “quiet and studious,” lists her interests as “reading philosophy” and “playing solitaire,” and is part of a group titled “I’d rather stay in and read a good book.” Yet many of her friends’ com-ments describe her as “the life of the party,” with links to photographs of her socializing with large groups of people. If you think these messages contradict each other, who are you likely to believe—your classmate or her friends? Answer-ing this question is at the heart of Walther’s investigation of the warranting value of personal information, or what he describes as “the perceived validity of infor-mation presented online with respect to illuminating someone’s ofl ine charac-teristics.” 22 For both Walther and scholars of debate, the word “warrant” has a similar meaning to the word “reason”: If the information we’re reading has war-ranting value, then it gives us reason to believe the information is true. If communicating via traditional text-based CMC is like sipping through a straw, SIP assumes that “all water passing through the [straw] is the same sort of water.” 23 But Walther believes Facebook lets users sip two different kinds of Warranting value   Reason to believe that information is accurate, typically because the target of the information cannot manipulate it.
CHAPTER 11: SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY 147liquid at the same time. Like email messages, whose content is under the sole control of the sender, information posted by a proi le owner is low warrant infor-mation because he or she can manipulate it with ease. Walther argues that we may not trust this information: “Because online impressions are controllable, they are often suspect.” 24 But since the proi le owner can’t easily change what’s posted by friends, we’re more likely to accept this high warrant information as true. As Walther notes, this happens ofl ine, too: You might believe a classmate who says he’ll work hard with you on a group project, but you’ll probably give even greater weight to the testimony of his lab partner last term. For the purpose of impression formation, low warrant information is like a sip of grape juice, but high warrant information is like a taste of i ne wine. Walther and his colleagues have tested warranting value through a series of experiments, with participants randomly assigned to view different versions of fake Facebook proi les. These experiments coni rm that people trust high warrant information. In one study, the content of friends’ comments, or wall posts , inl u-enced evaluations of the proi le owner’s credibility and social attractiveness. Another experiment directly compared low and high warrant information, i nd-ing that friends’ comments overrode the proi le owner’s claims when forming impressions of extroversion and physical attractiveness. 25 These studies suggest that, unlike email, interpersonal information comes from both the self and other social networking site users. An outside observer won’t give those two sources equal weight. CRITIQUE: WALTHER’S CANDID ASSESSMENT Throughout this chapter, I’ve emphasized just how much online communication has changed since Walther began developing his theory. But you probably don’t need me to tell you that. In the past 10 years you’ve seen the rise of new forms of online communication, ranging from web-based video and text messaging to massively multiplayer online games. For this reason, some say CMC is one of the most difi cult communication contexts to study. Just as theorists begin to understand one technology, along comes the next. 26 Yet in this train of high-tech innovation, Walther’s theory stands strong. SIP remains popular among new media scholars because it meets all the criteria for a good social science theory outlined in Chapter 3. It offers clear, testable hypotheses about a relatively simple set of variables. It clearly explains differences and similarities between face-to-face and online communication. The theory predicts communication behavior across media that didn’t even exist when the theory was born, and SIP’s advice is prac-tically useful to many, ranging from spatially separated soulmates to international business partners. For all the theory’s success, Walther openly admits the existence of gaps and weaknesses in his analysis of CMC. For example, some studies suggest that online relationships form at the same pace or even faster than they do for people who meet face-to-face 27 —a i nding that contradicts one of SIP’s central claims. Walther also questions his original assumption that no matter what media people use, they are motivated by a similar desire to afi liate with others. Within a few years he had second thoughts about this claim and wrote, “A weakness apparent in the social information processing perspective is that it has not allowed for differences in the afi liation drive.” 28 He was specii cally referring to the motivating
148 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONeffect of anticipated future interaction. But Walther still doesn’t deal with the possibility that there could be basic personality differences between those who like to communicate online and those who don’t. Perhaps CMC users who join online discussion groups or enter chat rooms have a higher need for afi liation than the typical person whose relationships are developed through multichannel modes of communication. If so, that stronger desire might offset the limitations of using a restricted medium. Referring to his four-factor hyperpersonal perspective, Walther takes pains to label the sender-receiver-channel-feedback model a perspective rather than a theory. As a rigorous social scientist, he understands that a good theory should offer a central explanatory mechanism to drive a synthesis of the observed effects. Because the hyperpersonal perspective doesn’t have this kind of concep-tual engine, he admits that it’s open to signii cant criticism: It is not clear at all whether there are any necessary theoretical linkages among and between the four major components and the more detailed processes that the model specii es. In other words, its constructs and propositions are poorly interrelated, and its status as a robust theory is therefore tenuous. 29 Without a theoretical glue to hold together selective self-presentation, overattri-bution, nonsimultaneous communication, and self-fuli lling prophecy, it’s difi -cult, if not impossible, to test how these variables work together. Though SIP remains popular with CMC scholars, Walther argues that time and technological development have limited the theory’s scope. 30 His exploration of warranting value represents one attempt to expand SIP to newer forms of CMC. Like the core of SIP, a strength of Walther’s warranting work is its relative simplicity—but perhaps it is too simple. One series of experiments suggests that warranting may differ depending on the kind of information under scrutiny. For example, Walther speculates that warranting might depend on the information’s social desirability, or value in the eyes of society—somewhat like Mead’s concept of the generalized other (see Chapter 5). Physical attractiveness is one such socially desirable trait, and so we may even suspect that Facebook members alter their proi le pictures, erasing wrinkles and facial blemishes (or, for some older mem-bers, posting a picture of their younger self). 31 But society doesn’t care as much about other characteristics, like favorite restaurants or TV shows. For such qual-ities, Walther suspects that “the warranting principle may not as strongly apply.” 32 And so the idea of warranting remains a work in progress. Rather than being disheartened by Walther’s assessment of his theory, I’m encouraged by his candor. All theories have l aws and limitations. His honest evaluation gives me coni dence in his upbeat summary of relational opportuni-ties through CMC: The “Information Superhighway” is clearly not just a road for moving data from one place to another, but a roadside where people pass each other, occasionally meet, and decide to travel together. You can’t see very much of other drivers at i rst, unless you do travel together for some time. There are highway bandits, to be sure, who are not as they appear to be—one must drive defensively—and there are conl icts and disagreements online as there are off-road too. While early research suggested that numerous interpersonal collisions were impending, recent research i nds that interper-sonal information moves at slower speeds, and in doing so, the roadway is not as dangerous as once thought. It can even offer a relational joyride. 33
CHAPTER 11: SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY 149 1. SIP proposes that CMC conveys relational information just as well as face-to-face communication, with only one difference. What is that difference? 2. Recall a time when you felt particularly drawn to another person when com-municating through email, Facebook, or some other type of CMC. Why did you feel drawn to this person? Does the presence (or absence) of verbal cues or extended time explain your attraction? 3. The hyperpersonal perspective suggests that CMC effects of sender, receiver, chan-nel, and feedback promote greater intimacy. Which factor do you think has the greatest relational impact? Which has the least? 4. Your online partner seems wonderful—but, because it’s possible to create a i ctitious persona through CMC, you want to make sure he or she is “for real.” How would you i nd out? What might the warranting principle suggest you do to get trustworthy information? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Joseph B. Walther, “Interpersonal Effects in Computer-Mediated Interaction: A Relational Perspective,” Communication Research, Vol. 19, 1992, pp. 52–90. Hyperpersonal perspective: Joseph B. Walther, “Computer-Mediated Communication: Impersonal, Interpersonal, and Hyperpersonal Interaction,” Communication Research, Vol. 23, 1996, pp. 3–43. State of the art: Joseph B. Walther, “Social Information Processing Theory: Impressions and Relationship Development Online,” in Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communica-tion: Multiple Perspectives, Leslie A. Baxter and Dawn O. Braithwaite (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2008, pp. 391–404. Capsule summary of SIP and hyperpersonal perspective: Joseph B. Walther and Lisa C. Tidwell, “Computer-Mediated Communication: Interpersonal Interaction On-Line,” in Making Connections: Readings in Relational Communication, 2 nd ed., Kathleen M. Galvin and Pamela J. Cooper (eds.), Roxbury, Los Angeles, CA, 2000, pp. 322–329. Empirical support: Lisa C. Tidwell and Joseph B. Walther, “Computer-Mediated Com-munication Effects on Disclosure, Impressions, and Interpersonal Evaluations: Getting to Know One Another a Bit at a Time,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 28, 2002, pp. 317–348. CONVERSATIONS Most of my conversation with Joe Walther centers on CMC users who have a great afi nity for the Internet. Granted, they can develop strong impressions of others online, but does true intimacy require face-to-face communication? Are heavy CMC users more in love with the medium than with their partners? Can those who are socially shy develop better relationships through CMC? What code of ethical online behavior would he suggest? Walther offers advice to CMC partners who want to meet in person. He also discusses the scope of SIP and the hyperpersonal perspective—whether they apply to partners who want to sustain a long-distance relationship after i rst meeting face-to-face. View this segment online at www.mhhe.com/grifi n8 or www.ai rstlook.com.
150 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Verbal cues of affection in CMC: Joseph B. Walther, Tracy Loh, and Laura Granka, “The Interchange of Verbal and Nonverbal Cues in Computer-Mediated and Face-to-Face Afi n-ity,” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Vol. 24, 2005, pp. 36–65. Time effects in CMC: Joseph B. Walther, “Time Effects in Computer-Mediated Groups: Past, Present, and Future,” in Distributed Work, P. Hinds and S. Kiesler (eds.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002, pp. 235–257. Warranting: Joseph B. Walther, Brandon Van Der Heide, Lauren M. Hamel, and Hillary C. Shulman, “Self-Generated Versus Other-Generated Statements and Impressions in Computer-Mediated Communication: A Test of Warranting Theory Using Facebook,” Communication Research, Vol. 36, 2009, pp. 229–253. Internet support groups: Joseph B. Walther and Shawn Boyd, “Attraction to Computer-Mediated Social Support,” in Communication Technology and Society, C. A. Lin and D. Atkins (eds.), Hampton, Cresskill, NJ, 2002, pp. 153–188. Online dating: Jennifer L. Gibbs, Nicole B. Ellison, and Rebecca D. Heino, “Self-Presentation in Online Personals: The Role of Anticipated Future Interaction, Self-Disclosure, and Perceived Success in Internet Dating,” Communication Research , Vol. 33, 2006, pp. 152–177. To check your understanding of SIP and other theories,click on Theory Resources and then Self-Help Quizzes atwww.ai rstlook.com.
151Relationship Maintenance The term maintenance may call to mind an auto repair shop where workers with oil-stained coveralls and grease under their i ngernails struggle to service or i x a well-worn engine. The work is hard, the conditions are messy, and the repair is best performed by mechanics who have a good idea what they’re doing. This image of rugged work is appropriate when thinking about the ongoing effort required to maintain a close relationship. Forming a relational bond is often easier than sustaining it. The beginning stages of intimacy are typically i lled with excitement at discovering another human being who sees the world as we do, with the added touch of wonder that the person we like likes us as well. As the relationship becomes more established, however, irritating habits, conl ict, jealousy, and boredom can be the friction that threatens to pull the engine apart. The owner’s manual of a new “Intimacy” should warn that periodic maintenance is necessary for friends, romantic partners, and even blood relatives to make it for the long haul. Of course, personal relationships aren’t inanimate machines with interchange-able parts that can be adjusted with a wrench. Expanding the maintenance metaphor to living organisms underscores the importance of individualized attention in relational health. Humanist communication writer John Stewart refers to a pair’s “They’re a perfect match—she’s high-maintenance, and he can i x anything.”© Edward Koren/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
152 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONpersonal relationship as a “spiritual child,” born as the result of their coming together.1 His analogy stresses that a relationship requires continual care and nur-ture for sustained growth. Stewart thinks it’s impossible to totally kill a relationship as long as one of the “parents” is still alive. Yet when people ignore or abuse the spiritual children they’ve created, the results are stunted or maimed relationships. What does a healthy relationship look like? Through an extensive research program on relationship maintenance, Dan Canary (Arizona State University) and Laura Stafford (Ohio State University) conclude that long-term satisfying relation-ships have at least four characteristics—liking, trust, commitment, and control mutu-ality.2 The i rst three seem like old relational friends. But control mutuality is a less familiar concept. According to Canary and Stafford, it is “the degree to which partners agree about which of them should decide relational goals and behavioral routines.”3 They may have an egalitarian relationship, or perhaps one person regularly defers to the other but is genuinely happy to do so. Either way, they could each embrace the following statement: Both of us are satisi ed with the way we handle decisions. Stafford and Canary surveyed 662 married and single men and women involved in extended romantic relationships to i nd out what maintenance behav-iors promoted liking, trust, commitment, and control mutuality. They consis-tently discovered i ve interpersonal actions that contribute to long-term relational satisfaction:4Positivity—Cheerful, courteous talk, avoiding criticism. This upbeat form of communication is particularly linked to liking and control mutuality.Openness—Self-disclosure and frank talk about their relationship. The effect of transparency is roughly equal across the board.Assurances—Afi rming talk about the future of their relationship. These words especially promote commitment and liking.Networking—Spending time together with mutual friends and family. This joint social activity contributes to overall relational stability and satisfaction.Sharing tasks—Working together on routine jobs, chores, and assignments. This cooperation seems to affect control mutuality the most. Canary and Stafford note that not much relational maintenance research is theory-driven—including their work cited above. There are, however, at least three well-known theories that speak to the issue. I’ve already presented Thibaut and Kelley’s social exchange approach, which is an integral part of social penetration theory (see Chapter 9). These theorists regard interpersonal behavior and attitudes as the result of rewards and costs. Accordingly, when mutual benei ts outweigh partners’ costs, and these outcomes are well above each party’s comparison level (CL), liking and relational satisfaction should be high. And when parties perceive that their option for a closer relationship with someone else is dim—each one’s outcome exceeding the comparison level of alternatives (CLalt)—commitment will be strong and the relationship correspondingly stable. Finally, when both partners have invested a great deal of time, energy, and emotional resources in the relationship, the prospect of abandoning this investment becomes a barrier to breakup. You’ll i nd that liking, trust, commitment, and control mutuality are also concerns of the two relationship maintenance theories I introduce in this section.
15312CHAPTER Relational Dialectics of Leslie Baxter & Barbara Montgomery Leslie Baxter and Barbara Montgomery are central i gures in a growing group of communication scholars who study how communication creates and con-stantly changes close relationships. Baxter directs an extensive program of research at the University of Iowa. Montgomery is provost and vice president for academic affairs at Colorado State University-Pueblo. The i rst time Baxter conducted a series of in-depth interviews with peo-ple about their personal relationships, she quickly gave up any hope of dis-covering scientii c laws that neatly ordered the experiences of friends and lovers. I was struck by the contradictions, contingencies, non-rationalities, and multiple realities to which people gave voice in their narrative sense-making of their rela-tional lives. 1 Baxter saw no law of gravitational pull to predict interpersonal attraction, no co-efi cient of friction that would explain human conl ict. She found, instead, people struggling to interpret the mixed messages about their relationship that they both spoke and heard. Although Montgomery worked independently of Baxter, her experience was much the same. Baxter and Montgomery each analyzed tensions inherent in romantic rela-tionships and began to catalog the contradictions that couples voiced. They soon recognized the commonality of their work and co-authored a book on relating based on the premise that personal relationships are indeterminate processes of ongoing l ux. 2 Both scholars make it clear that the forces that strain romantic relationships are also at work among close friends and family members. They applaud the work of William Rawlins at Ohio University, who concentrates on the “commu-nicative predicaments of friendship,” and the narrative analysis of Art Bochner at the University of South Florida, who focuses on the complex contradictions within family systems. Whatever the form of intimacy, Baxter and Montgomery’s basic claim is that “social life is a dynamic knot of contradictions, a ceaseless interplay between contrary or opposing tendencies.” 3 Objective InterpretivePhenomenological tradition●
154 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Relational dialectics highlight the tension, struggle, and general messiness of close personal ties. According to Baxter, the best way we can grasp relationship dialectics is to look at a narrative in which competing discourses are etched in bold relief. The 2002 movie Bend It Like Beckham is especially helpful in illustrat-ing tensions within family, friendship, and romantic ties. Audiences of all ages and every ethnicity can identify with the relational struggles of Jesminder Bhamra, an Indian teenage girl brought up in the west end of London. Like many British teenage males, Jess is passionate about soccer, but she’s better than any of the guys she plays with in pickup games at the park. A poster of England’s football superstar David Beckham hangs on her bedroom wall and she often talks to his image about her game and her life. In the close-knit Indian expat community, Jess is at an age where girls are supposed to focus on marry-ing a well-regarded Indian boy—a union often arranged by their parents. Her mother insists that Jess quit “running around half-naked in front of men.” Her dad reluctantly agrees. “Jess, your mother’s right. It’s not nice. You must start behaving as a proper woman. OK ?” Jules, an English girl who sees Jess play, recruits her to play for an amateur women’s soccer team. Jess and Jules quickly become “mates,” bonded together by their goal-scoring ability and joint efforts to keep Jess’ participation a secret from her mom and dad. Their friendship is soon ruptured by Jules’ jealousy over a romantic interest between Jess and Joe, the team’s coach. Of course, that kind of relationship is out of bounds for Jess. The resulting tensions in Jess’ conversa-tions with her dad, best friend, and admired coach allow us to see the opposi-tional pull of contrasting forces, which is relational dialectics at work. Some viewers might assume that Jess’s up-again, down-again relationships with Joe, Jules, and her dad are due to her age, sex, birth order, ethnicity, or obsession with soccer. But Baxter and Montgomery caution us not to look at demographics or per-sonal traits when we want to understand the nature of close relationships. Neither biology nor biography can account for the struggle of contradictory tendencies that Jess and her signii cant others experience in this story. The tensions they face are common to all personal relationships, and those opposing pulls never quit. Contradiction is a core concept of relational dialectics. Contradiction refers to “the dynamic interplay between unii ed oppositions.” 4 A contradiction is formed “whenever two tendencies or forces are interdependent (the dialectical principle of unity) yet mutually negate one another (the dialectical principle of negation).” 5 According to Baxter, every personal relationship faces the same tension. Rather than bemoaning this relational fact of life, Baxter and Montgomery suggest that couples take advantage of the opportunity it provides: “From a relational dialectics perspective, bonding occurs in both interdependence with the other and indepen-dence from the other.” 6 One without the other diminishes the relationship. Baxter and Montgomery draw heavily on the thinking of Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian intellectual who survived the Stalinist regime. Bakhtin saw dialectical tension as the “deep structure” of all human experience. On the one hand, a centripetal, or centralizing, force pulls us together with others. On the other hand, a centrifugal, or decentralizing, force pushes us apart. In order to picture Bakhtin’s simultaneous and conl icting forces, imagine yourself playing “crack the whip” while skating with a group of friends. You Relational dialecticsA dynamic knot of con-tradictions in personal relationships; an unceas-ing interplay between contrary or opposing tendencies. THE TUG-OF-WAR DIALECTICS OF CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS
CHAPTER 12: RELATIONAL DIALECTICS 155volunteer to be the outermost person on a pinwheeling chain of skaters. As you accelerate, you feel the centripetal pull from the skater beside you, who has a viselike grip on your wrist. You also feel the opposing centrifugal force that threatens to rip you from your friend’s grasp and slingshot you away from the group. Skill at skating doesn’t reduce the conl icting pressures. In fact, the more speed you can handle, the greater the opposing forces. Baxter emphasizes that Bakhtin’s fusion-i ssion opposites have no ultimate resolution. Unlike the thesis-antithesis-synthesis stages of Hegelian or Marxist dialectics, there is no i nal synthesis or end stage of equilibrium. Relationships are always in l ux; the only certainty is certain change. For Bakhtin, this wasn’t bad news. He saw dialectical tension as providing an opportunity for dialogue, an occasion when partners could work out ways to mutually embrace the conl ict between unity with and differentiation from each other. Many Westerners are bothered by the idea of paradox, so Baxter and Mont-gomery work hard to translate the concept into familiar terms. At the start of her research interviews, Baxter introduces a dialectical perspective without ever using the phrase itself. She talks about people experiencing certain “pulls” or “tugs” in different directions. Her words call up the image of parties engaged in an ongoing tug-of-war created through their conversations. Within this metaphor, their communication exerts simultaneous pulls on both ends of a taut line—a relational rope under tension. It’s important to understand that when Baxter uses the term relational dialec-tics, she is not referring to being of two minds —the cognitive dilemma within the head of an individual who is grappling with conl icting desires. Instead, she’s describing the contradictions that are “located in the relationship between par-ties, produced and reproduced through the parties’ joint communicative activ-ity.” 7 So dialectical tension is the natural product or unavoidable result of our conversations rather than the motive force guiding what we say in them. And despite the fact that we tend to think of any kind of conl ict as detrimental to our relationships, Baxter and Montgomery believe that these contradictions can be constructive. That’s fortunate, because these theorists are convinced that dia-lectics in relationships are inevitable. While listening to hundreds of men and women talk about their relationships, Baxter spotted three recurring contradictions that challenge the traditional wis-dom of the theories described in the relationship development section. Recall that Rogers’ phenomenological approach assumes that closeness is the relational ideal, Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory posits a quest for interpersonal cer-tainty, and Altman and Taylor’s social penetration theory valorizes the transpar-ent or open self (see the introduction to Relationship Development, Chapter 10, and Chapter 9). But from the accounts she heard, Baxter concluded that these pursuits are only part of the story. Although most of us embrace the traditional ideals of closeness, certainty, and openness in our relationships, our actual communication within family, friendship, and romance seldom follows a straight path toward these goals. Bax-ter and Montgomery believe this is the case because we are also drawn toward the exact opposite—autonomy, novelty, and privacy. These conl icting forces can’t be resolved by simple “either/or” decisions. The “both/and” nature of THREE DIALECTICS THAT AFFECT RELATIONSHIPS
156 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONdialectical pressures guarantees that our relationships will be complex, messy, and always somewhat on edge. Baxter and Montgomery’s research has focused on three overarching rela-tional dialectics that affect almost every close relationship: integration–separation, stability–change, and expression–nonexpression. These oppositional pairs are listed on the left side of Figure 12–1. The terms within the chart label these contrasting forces as they are experienced in two different contexts. The Internal Dialectic column describes the three dialectics as they play out within a relationship. The External Dialectic column lists similar pulls that cause tension between a couple and their community. Unlike a typical Hollywood love story, the portrayals of Jess’ key relationships in Bend It Like Beckham are credible due to each pair’s continual struggles with these contradictions. Since Baxter insists that dialectics are created through conversation, I’ll quote extensively from the characters’ dia-logue in the i lm. All researchers who explore contradictions in close relationships agree that there is no i nite list of relational dialectics. Accordingly, the ragged edge at the bottom of the i gure suggests that these opposing forces are just the start of a longer list of contradictions that confront partners as they live out their relation-ship in real time and space. For example, Rawlins i nds that friends continually have to deal with the paradox of judgment and acceptance. In this section, how-ever, I’ll limit my review to the “Big Three” contradictions that Baxter and Mont-gomery discuss. Integration and Separation Baxter and Montgomery regard the contradiction between connection and autonomy as a primary strain within all relationships. If one side wins this me-we tug-of-war, the relationship loses: No relationship can exist by dei nition unless the parties sacrii ce some individual autonomy. However, too much connection paradoxically destroys the relationship because the individual identities become lost. 8 Integration –SeparationStability –ChangeExpression –NonexpressionConnection – AutonomyCertainty – UncertaintyOpenness – ClosednessInclusion – SeclusionExternal Dialectic(between couple and community)Internal Dialectic(within the relationship)Conventionality – UniquenessRevelation – ConcealmentFIGURE 12–1 Typical Dialectical Tensions Experienced by Relational Partners Based on Baxter and Montgomery, Relating: Dialogues and DialecticsInternal dialecticsOngoing tensions played out within a relationship.External dialecticsOngoing tensions between a couple and their community.Integration–separationA class of relational dialectics that includes connection–autonomy, inclusion–seclusion, and intimacy–independence.
CHAPTER 12: RELATIONAL DIALECTICS 157 Throughout Bend It Like Beckham , Jess and her father portray a “stay-away close” ambivalence toward each other that illustrates the connection–autonomy dialectic. Through much of the story she dei es his “no soccer” ban, going so far as taking a stealthy overnight trip with the team to play in Germany. As for her father, his words to her suggest that he’s more worried about what the Indian community thinks than he is about her—an external dialectic. Yet when an Indian friend offers to rush her away from her sister’s wedding reception to play in the championship game, Jess turns to her father and says, “Dad, it doesn’t matter. This is much more important. I don’t want to spoil the day for you.” He in turn tells her to go and “play well and make us proud.” Later that night at home with the extended family he strength-ens his connection with Jess by defending his decision to his irate wife: “Maybe you could handle her long face. I could not. I didn’t have the heart to stop her.” Bakhtin wrote that dialectical moments are occasions for dialogue. Perhaps the best example in the i lm comes after Jess receives a red card in a tournament game for retaliating against an opponent who fouled her. Although her shorthanded team holds on to win, Joe reads her the riot act in the locker room: “What the hell is wrong with you, Bhamra? I don’t ever want to see anything like that from you ever again. Do you hear me?” Without waiting for an answer, he turns and marches out. Jess runs after him and their dialogue rel ects the ongoing tension between connection and autonomy in their relationship: Jess: Why did you yell at me like that? You knew that the ref was out of order. Joe: You could have cost us the tournament. Jess: But it wasn’t my fault! You didn’t have to shout at me. Joe: Jess, I am your coach. I have to treat you the same as everyone else. Look, Jess, I saw it. She fouled you. She tugged your shirt. You just overreacted. That’s all. Jess: That’s not all. She called me a Paki, but I guess you wouldn’t understand what that feels like, would you? Joe: Jess, I’m Irish. Of course I’d understand what that feels like. [Joe then holds a sob-bing Jess against his chest, a long hug witnessed by her father.] Baxter and Montgomery maintain that even as partners struggle with the stresses of intimacy in their relationship vis-à-vis each other, as a couple they also face parallel yin–yang tensions with people in their social networks. The seclusion of private togetherness that is necessary for a relationship to gel runs counter to the inclusion of the couple with others in the community. The observed embrace certainly complicates Jess and Joe’s relationship. And unless they i nd a way to work through the dilemma between inclusion with outsiders and seclusion for themselves, the future of their relationship is in doubt. These opposing external forces surface again when Jess runs into Joe’s arms on a dimly lit soccer i eld to tell him that her parents will allow her to go to an American university on a soc-cer scholarship. But as Joe seeks their i rst kiss, she stops him, saying, “I’m sorry Joe. I can’t.” To a bafl ed Joe she explains, “Letting me go is a really big step for my mum and dad. I don’t know how they’d survive if I told them about you.” Stability and Change Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory makes a strong case for the idea that peo-ple strive for predictability in their relationships (see Chapter 10). Baxter and Montgomery don’t question our human search for interpersonal certainty, but
158 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONthey are convinced that Berger makes a mistake by ignoring our simultaneous efforts toward its opposite, novelty. We seek the bit of mystery, the touch of spontaneity, the occasional surprise that is necessary for having fun. Without the spice of variety to season our time together, the relationship becomes bland, boring, and, ultimately, emotionally dead. Early in their friendship, Jess asks about Jules’ romantic interest in Joe. Their brief conversation can be seen as a novel fantasy expressed in the imagery of the familiar —a conventional marriage to a partner who is out of bounds: Jess: Jules . . . you know Joe, do you like him? Jules: Nah, he’d get sacked if he was caught shagging one of his players. Jess: Really? Jules: I wish I could i nd a bloke like him. Everyone I know is a prat. They think girls can’t play as well as them, except Joe of course. Jess: Yeah, I hope I marry an Indian boy like him, too. The girls then laugh together—a tension release—and hug before they part. But dealing with dialectics is always tenuous. When the romantically unthink-able becomes possible for Jess, Jules lashes out: “You knew he was off-limits. Don’t pretend to be so innocent. . . . You’ve really hurt me, Jess! . . . You’ve betrayed me.” It would be easy to see Jess’ family relationships as a simplistic face-off between the conventionality of life in their culture versus the shocking uniqueness of an Indian girl playing soccer. That’s because so much of what Jesminder’s Stability–changeA class of relational dialectics that includes certainty–uncertainty, conventionality–uniqueness, predictability–surprise, and routine–novelty.“Would you guys mind if I slept alone for a change?”Copyright by Don Orehek, reproduced by permission.
CHAPTER 12: RELATIONAL DIALECTICS 159sister and parents say reproduces time-honored Indian norms and practices. As her sister warns, “Look, Jess . . . do you want to be the one that everyone stares at, at every family [gathering], ’cause you’ve married the English bloke?” And Jess’ dream to go to college in California, play pro soccer, and have the freedom to fall in love with her Irish coach seem a unii ed pull in the opposite direction. But neither Jess nor her father speak in a single voice. In conversations with friends Jess depicts herself as a dutiful daughter who gets top grades and doesn’t sleep around with guys. She also describes her parents’ real care for her, her desire not to hurt them, and her fear that her dad might no longer talk with her. And despite his apparently i rm stance against Jess playing English football, her father goes to watch her play and says he doesn’t want to see her disappointed. In compelling drama and in real life, the contradictory forces created through dialogue are quite complex. Expression and Nonexpression Recall that Irwin Altman, one of the founders of social penetration theory, ulti-mately came to the conclusion that self-disclosure and privacy operate in a cyclical, or wavelike, fashion over time. 9 Baxter and Montgomery pick up on Altman’s recognition that relationships aren’t on a straight-line path to intimacy. They see the pressures for openness and closedness waxing and waning like phases of the moon. If Jess’ communication to her parents seems somewhat schizophrenic, it’s because the dialectical forces for transparency and discretion are hard to juggle. Through most of the movie, Jess is closemouthed with her parents about the extent of her soccer playing and her romantic attraction to Joe, even after her dad discovers both secrets. But on the night following her sister’s wedding (and the tournament i nal) she decides to come clean about one of them: Mum, Dad . . . I played in the i nal today, and we won! . . . I played the best ever. And I was happy because I wasn’t sneaking off and lying to you. . . . Any-way, there was a scout from America today, and he’s offered me a place at a top university with a free scholarship and a chance to play football professionally. And I really want to go. And if I can’t tell you what I want now then I’ll never be happy whatever I do. Just as the openness-closedness dialectic is a source of ongoing tension within a relationship, a couple also faces the revelation and concealment dilemma of what to tell others. Baxter and Montgomery note that each possible advantage of “going public” is offset by a corresponding potential danger. For example, pub-lic disclosure is a relational rite of passage signaling partners and others that the tie that binds them together is strong. Jess seems to sense this relational fact of life when she tells Joe on the soccer i eld that her parents wouldn’t be able to handle the news of their attraction for each other. She doesn’t buy much time for their romance to develop because she’s leaving for school, and Joe can’t stand the uncertainty. As Jess and Jules say goodbye to their families before boarding the plane to America, Joe comes running down the concourse calling to Jess. They move a few feet away from the others and Joe implores, “Look. I can’t let you go without knowin’. . . . that even with the distance—and the concerns of your family—we still might have something. Don’t you think?” She gives Joe Expression–nonexpressionA class of relational dialectics that includes openness–closedness, revelation–concealment, candor–secrecy, and transparency–privacy.
160 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION(and her parents, if they turn to look) the answer through a long i rst kiss. At this climactic point in the i lm, the viewer realizes that the force i eld of dialectics has irrevocably changed, but will never disappear. Baxter says theories are like relationships—they aren’t stagnant. The good ones change and mature over time. As you know, Baxter’s early emphasis with Montgomery was on contradictory forces inherent in all relationships. But with-out abandoning anything said so far, Baxter now backgrounds the language of contradiction and dialectics, even to the point of referring to the second genera-tion of the theory as RDT 2.0 rather than relational dialectics. In her recent book Voicing Relationships: A Dialogic Perspective, Baxter focuses on the relational implications of Mikhail Bakhtin’s conception of dialogue. She explains that she uses the verb form of the word voice in the title “to suggest that relationships achieve meaning through the active interplay of multiple, com-peting discourses or voices.”10 RDT 2.0 highlights i ve dialogic strands within Bakhtin’s thought, as the Russian writer insisted that without dialogue, there is no relationship. Dialogue as Constitutive—Relationships in Communication Baxter states that a “constitutive approach to communication asks how commu-nication dei nes or constructs the social world, including our selves and our personal relationships.” 11 This dialogical notion is akin to the core commitments of symbolic interactionism and coordinated management of meaning (see Chapters 5 and 6). Recall that Mead claimed our concept of self is formed by interaction with others. Pearce and Cronen state that persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they cre-ate. If Baxter and these other theorists are right, it’s confusing to talk about “communication in relationships,” as if communication were just a feature of a couple’s relationship. A constitutive approach suggests that it works the other way around—communication creates and sustains the relationship. If a pair’s communication practices change, so does their relationship. Perhaps nowhere is the constitutive nature of dialogue more fascinating than in the study of interpersonal similarities and differences. 12 Traditional scholar-ship concentrates on similarities, regarding common attitudes, backgrounds, and interests as the positive glue that helps people stick together. (“My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.”) Within this framework, self-disclosure is seen as the most valuable form of communication because, by mutual revelation, people can discover similarities that already exist. In contrast, a dialogic view considers differences to be just as important as similarities and claims that both are created and evaluated through a couple’s dialogue. For example, a relative of mine married a man who is 20 years older than she is. The difference in their age is a chronological fact. But whether she and her husband regard their diverse dates of birth as a difference that makes a difference is the result of the language they use to talk about it. So is the extent to which they see that age gap as either positive or negative. Meaning is created DialogueCommunication that is constitutive, always in flux, capable of achiev-ing aesthetic moments.Constitutive dialogueCommunication that creates, sustains, and alters relationships and the social world; social construction. RDT 2.0: DRILLING DOWN ON BAKHTIN’S CONCEPT OF DIALOGUE
CHAPTER 12: RELATIONAL DIALECTICS 161through dialogue. Amber, a student in my communication theory class, gives voice to the tension created by conl icting discourses.My boyfriend Tyler is on the swim team and I know most of the guys well. The exceptions are the new freshmen, who Tyler said refer to me as “the girlfriend.” When I heard this I was surprised how much it irritated me. I obviously value my connection with him, otherwise we wouldn’t be dating. But as I told Tyler, I also have my own separate, independent identity outside of our relationship. This has become a very real tension.Dialogue as Utterance Chain—Building Block of MeaningAn utterance is what a person says in one conversational turn. For example, we’ve already looked at the statement Jess makes to her friend Jules about her coach, Joe: “I hope I marry an Indian boy like him.” According to Bakhtin and Baxter, that’s an utterance. But it isn’t simply a statement rel ecting her autono-mous desire for a certain type of man. The utterance is embedded in an utterance chain that includes things Jess has heard in the past and responses she anticipates hearing in the future. In that sense, the utterance chain that Baxter describes looks something like the CMM model of communication shown on page 74. Baxter highlights four links on the chain where the struggle of competing dis-courses can be heard.1. Cultural ideologies (throughout Jess’ past): Collectivism says, Marry an Indian man; honor your family’s wishes. Individualism says, It’s your choice; marry the man who makes you happy. Romanticism says, Marry for love; only one man is right for you. Rationalism says, Cross-cultural marriages are risky; don’t be impulsive.2. Relational history (from the immediate past): Jules is a friend, a valued teammate. Jules is a co-conspirator, keeping your soccer secret from your folks. Jules is your rival for Joe’s affection.3. Not-yet spoken response of partner to utterance (immediate future): Jules says I’m silly and laughs at me. Jules tells me to stay away from Joe. Jules swears that she’ll keep my secrets. Jules shares her frustration that Joe is off-limits.4. Normative evaluation of third party to utterance (further in future): Mother may say, Jesminder was seli sh. Sister may say, Jess was setting herself up for a fall. Her children may say, Jess was courageous. All of these competing voices within the utterance chain are in play with Jess’ statement about the man she hopes to marry. It’s as if she’s had an inner dialogue with all of these discourses, probably listening more to some than to others. Baxter regards the utterance chain as the basic building block in the con-struction project of creating meaning through dialogue. That’s why she says, “The core premise of dialogically grounded RDT is that meanings are wrought from the struggle of competing, often contradictory discourses.”13 Utterance chainsThe central building blocks of meaning- making, where utterances are linked to competing discourses already heard as well as those yet to be spoken.
162 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Dialogue as Dialectical Flux—The Complexity of Close Relationships We’ve already explored Bakhtin’s and Baxter’s conviction that all social life is the product of “a contradiction-ridden, tension-i lled unity of two embattled tenden-cies.” 14 The existence of these contrasting forces means that developing and sus-taining a relationship is bound to be an unpredictable, uni nalizable, indeterminate process—more like playing improvisational jazz than following the score of a familiar song. Since a relationship is created through dialogue that’s always in l ux, Baxter thinks we shouldn’t be surprised that the construction project moves “by i ts and starts, in what can be an erratic process of backward-forward, up-and-down motion.” 15 It’s messy. Figure 12–2 is an attempt to capture the complexity of relationships as seen through the lens of dialectical l ux. Note that each of the relational forces dis-cussed in the chapter is shown in tension with every other pole. For example, autonomy is in opposition not only with connection but also with certainty and all the other relational forces. This chaotic jumble of contradictions is far removed from such idyllic notions of communication as a one-way route to interpersonal closeness, shared meaning, or increased certainty. Simultaneous expression of opposing voices is the exception rather than the rule, according to Baxter. At any given time, most relationship partners bring one voice to the foreground while pushing the other one to the background. Baxter and Montgomery have identii ed two typical conversational strategies for responding to relational dialectics: 1. Spiraling inversion is switching back and forth between two contrasting voices, responding i rst to one pull, then the other. This spiraling shift describes the inconsistency of Jess’ communication with her family. Her lies about what she’s doing are followed by incredible candor. Her open admis-sions precede times of silence and deception. 2. Segmentation is a compartmentalizing tactic by which partners isolate dif-ferent aspects of their relationship. Some issues and activities resonate with one dialectical tug, while other concerns and actions resonate with the oppos-ing pull. For example, Joe seeks to separate his roles as coach and boyfriend, a distinction Jess tries to duplicate. His “I am your coach” statement makes a clear-cut distinction. When Jules askes Jess whether Joe is treating her too hard, her response is more mixed. “He was really nice. Just really profes-sional.” Viewers may smile at this mixed message, but from a dialogical per-spective, her answer is a healthy rel ection of the multiple discourses that create her ever-changing relationship with Joe.certaintyconnectionopennessautonomyuncertaintyconventionalityseclusionclosednessinclusionrevelationuniquenessconcealmentFIGURE 12–2 The Messiness of Personal RelationshipsDialectical fluxThe unpredictable, unfi-nalizable, indeterminate nature of personal relationships.Spiraling inversionSwitching back and forth between two contrasting voices, responding first to one pull, then the other.SegmentationA compartmentalizing tactic by which partners isolate different aspects of their relationship.
CHAPTER 12: RELATIONAL DIALECTICS 163 Dialogue as Aesthetic Moment—Creating Unity in Diversity Taking her lead from Bakhtin’s work, Baxter describes dialogue as an aesthetic accomplishment, “a momentary sense of unity through a profound respect for the disparate voices in dialogue.” 16 Parties are fully aware of their discursive strug-gle and create something new out of it. That mutual sense of completion or whole-ness in the midst of fragmented experience doesn’t last. It’s a l eeting moment that can’t be sustained. Yet memories of that magic moment can support a couple through the turbulence that goes with the territory of any close relationship. For romantic partners, turning points such as the relationship-dei ning talk or the i rst time they make love may be aesthetic moments. Baxter suggests that a meaningful ritual can be an aesthetic moment for all participants because it’s “a joint performance in which competing, contradictory voices in everyday social life are brought together simultaneously.” 17 For example, a marriage renewal cere-mony where a couple exchanges newly crafted vows is often the occasion of an aesthetic moment for all participants. 18 So too the communion rail where people with diverse beliefs and practices may feel that they are one before the same God. The turning point in Bend It Like Beckham occurs in a moving scene in the Bhamra home after Jess has fervently made known her dream of playing soccer in America. Hers is a desire that clearly rejects the traditional role of women in this close-knit Indian enclave—a role that her sister has enthusiastically embraced in her wedding earlier that day. As one family friend whispers to another after Jess’ declaration, “She’s dead meat.” Yet the sisters’ father takes these polar-opposite visions of life and integrates them into a unii ed whole. He recounts a story of his own timidity and suffering when he experienced rejection, and then says: I don’t want Jessie to suffer. I don’t want her to make the same mistakes her father made of accepting life, or accepting situations. I want her to i ght. I want her to win. Because I’ve seen her playing. She’s—She’s brilliant. I don’t think anybody has the right stopping her. Two daughters made happy on one day. What else could a father ask for? Dialogue as Critical Sensibility—A Critique of Dominant Voices The i fth sense of dialogue is an obligation to critique dominant voices, especially those that suppress opposing viewpoints. Bakhtin’s analysis of a medieval car-nival laid the groundwork for Baxter’s understanding of this function. 19 Much like the court jester, the carnivalesque eye is characterized by “mockery of all serious, ‘closed’ attitudes about the world.” 20 Power imbalances, hierarchal rela-tionships, and judgments are set aside. The lofty and low, the wise and the foolish co-mingle. Competing discourses are still present, but opposition is temporarily suspended in a playful quality of interplay. Within the scholarly study of personal relationships, Baxter believes that a critical sensitivity provides a needed correction to the theories of relationship development presented in Chapters 9 through 11. Each of these theories offers a single path to romance, friendship, or close family ties. And within relational practice, she is critical of those who regard their partners as objects of inl uence. This manipulative mindset frames a relationship as one of power and domination, which then ridicules or silences opposing points of view.21 Baxter opposes any communication practice that ignores or gags another’s voice.Critical sensibilityAn obligation to critique dominant voices, especially those that sup-press opposing view-points; a responsibility to advocate for those who are muted.Aesthetic momentA fleeting sense of unity through a profound respect for disparate voices in dialogue.
164 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Consistent with this multivocal emphasis, the entirety of Bend It Like Beckham can be seen as the triumphant story of a young girl who resists traditional forces that would keep her silenced—a journey from monologue to dialogue. The direc-tor and co-writer of the i lm, Gurinder Chadha, admits it’s autobiographical. She notes that “Beckham’s uncanny ability to ‘bend’ the ball around a wall of play-ers into the goal is a great metaphor for what young girls (and i lm directors) go though. You see your goal, you know where you want to go, but you’ve got to twist and turn and bend the rules to get there.” 22 CRITIQUE: MEETING THE CRITERIA FOR A GOOD INTERPRETIVE THEORY Some communication scholars question whether relational dialectics should be considered a theory at all: It lacks the structural intricacies of formal theories of prediction and explanation; it offers no extensive hierarchical array of axiomatic or propositional arguments. It does not represent a single unitary statement of generalizable predictions. 26 You may be surprised that Baxter and Montgomery agree with that judgment. In fact, they are the ones who wrote those words. That’s because the traditional goals of a scientii c theory that they mention are not at all what these theorists are try-ing to accomplish. They don’t even think these goals are plausible when theorizing about relationships. Instead, they offer relational dialectics as a sensitizing theory, one that should be judged on the basis of its ability to help us see close relation-ships in a new light. 27 So an appropriate critique of their theory should apply the standards for evaluating an interpretive theory that I introduced in Chapter 3. Principle of veracityTruthful statements are preferable to lies in the absence of special cir-cumstances that overcome the negative weight. ETHICAL REFLECTION: SISSELA BOK’S PRINCIPLE OF VERACITY Does lying only bend the rules, or does it break and trash them as well? By looking at lies from the perspective of all who are affected by them, philosopher Sissela Bok hopes to establish when, or if, lies can be justii ed. Bok rejects an absolute prohibition of lying. She believes that “there are at least some circumstances which warrant a lie . . . foremost among them, when innocent lives are at stake, and where only a lie can del ect the dan-ger.” 23 But she also rejects consequentialist ethics , which judge acts on the basis of whether we think they will result in harm or benei t. That approach repre-sents a kind of bottom-line accounting that treats an act as morally neutral until we i gure out if it will have positive or negative outcomes. Bok doesn’t view lies as neutral. She is convinced that all lies drag around an initial neg-ative weight that must be factored into any ethical equation. Her principle of veracity asserts that “truthful statements are preferable to lies in the absence of special considerations.” 24 Bok contends that we need the principle of veracity because liars engage in a tragic self-delusion. When they count the cost of deceit, they usually anticipate only their own short-term losses. Liars downplay the impact of their falsehood on the persons deceived and almost always ignore the long-term effects on them-selves and everyone else. Bok warns, “Trust and integrity are precious resources, easily squandered, hard to regain. They can thrive only on a foundation of respect for veracity.” 25 Jess may not be dead meat, but the things she says to her folks in the future might be tough for them to swallow. Consequentialist ethicsJudging actions solely on the basis of their beneficial or harmful outcomes.
CHAPTER 12: RELATIONAL DIALECTICS 165As I briel y address these i ve criteria, you’ll i nd that I think relational dialectics stacks up quite well. 1. A new understanding of people. Baxter and Montgomery offer read-ers a whole new way to make sense out of their close relationships. I i nd that many students feel a tremendous sense of relief when they read about relational dialectics. That’s because the theory helps them realize that the ongoing tensions they experience with their friend, family member, or roman-tic partner are an inevitable part of relational life. Competing discourses aren’t necessarily a warning sign that something is terribly wrong with their partner or themselves. 2. A community of agreement. Leslie Baxter’s two decades of work in relational dialectics has received high acclaim from scholars who study close personal ties. The International Association for Relationship Research designated her monograph “Relationships as Dialogues” as its 2004 Distinguished Scholar Article, an honor bestowed only once a year. Baxter’s research has changed the landscape within the i eld of study known as personal relationships. 3. Clarii cation of values. By encouraging a diverse group of people to talk about their relationships, and taking what they say seriously, Baxter and Montgomery model the high value that Bakhtin placed on hearing multiple voices. Yet Baxter continues to critique her own research for heavy reliance on self-report data from surveys and interviews, and she laments the relative lack of dialogue studies focusing on talk between relational parties. Given her increas-ing emphasis on dialogue, however, this disconnect between theory and research methodology will hopefully soon be bridged.28 4. Reform of society. Not only does Baxter listen to multiple voices, but her theory seeks to carve out a space where muted or ignored voices can be heard. Relational dialectics creates a critical sensibility that encourages dialogue rather than monologue. In this way the theory is a force for change—not only in personal relationships, but in the public sphere as well. 5. Aesthetic appeal. Figure 12–2 illustrates the difi culty of crafting an artistic representation when the objects of study—in this case, relationships—are inherently messy. Baxter’s task becomes even more difi cult given her commit-ment to unraveling Bakhtin’s multistranded conception of dialogue. Since the Russian philosopher wrote in his native language, it’s difi cult to translate his nuanced ideas into English in an elegant way. Accuracy has to come before artistry. Baxter’s Voicing Relationships is a tough read as well. Yet in describing l eeting moments of wholeness, Baxter holds out the promise of an aesthetic ideal to which all of us can aspire—an image that could make slogging through the morass of relational contradictions feel less frustrating. And Montgomery’s imagery suggests that dealing with dialectics can actually be fun: I have been told that riding a unicycle becomes enjoyable when you accept that you are constantly in the process of falling. The task then becomes one of continually playing one force against another, countering one pull with an opposing motion and adapting the wheel under you so that you remain in movement by maintaining and controlling the fall. If successful, one is propelled along in a state of sustained imbalance that is sometimes awkward and sometimes elegant. From a dialectical perspective, sustaining a relationship seems to be a very similar process. 29
166 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Leslie A. Baxter and Barbara M. Montgomery, Relating: Dia-logues and Dialectics, Guilford, New York, 1996. RDT 2.0: Leslie A. Baxter, Voicing Relationships: A Dialogical Perspective, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2011. Dialogue: Leslie A. Baxter, “Relationships as Dialogues,” Personal Relationships, Vol. 11, 2004, pp. 1–22. Summary statement: Leslie A. Baxter and Dawn O. Braithwaite, “Relational Dialectics Theory,” in Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication: Multiple Perspectives, Leslie A. Baxter and Dawn O. Braithwaite (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2008, pp. 349–361. Personal narrative of the theory’s development: Leslie A. Baxter, “A Tale of Two Voices,” Journal of Family Communication, Vol. 4, 2004, pp. 181–192. SELF-QUIZwww.mhhe.com/grifi n8 CONVERSATIONS At the start of our conversation, Leslie Baxter states that all communication involves the interplay of differences, which are often competing or in opposition to each other. She explains why this dialectic tension isn’t a problem to be solved, but an occasion for a relationship to change and grow. Baxter cautions that we’ve been seduced into thinking relating is easy, when in fact it’s hard work. Most of our discussion centers on ways to cope with the interplay of dif-ferences we experience. She urges partners to rel ect carefully on rituals that celebrate both their unity and diversity, and offers other practical suggestions as well. View this segment online at www.mhhe.com/grifi n8 or www.ai rstlook.com. QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS 1. How many different synonyms and equivalent phrases can you list that come close to capturing what Baxter and Montgomery mean by the word dialectic? What do these words have in common? 2. Which of the seven theories discussed in previous chapters would Baxter and Montgomery consider simplistic or nondialogical? 3. What conl icting pulls place the most strain on your closest personal rela-tionship? To what extent do you and your partner use spiraling inversion, seg-mentation, and dialogue to deal with that tension? 4. Why wouldn’t typical scale items like the following reveal opposing dis-courses in a close relationship, even if they exist? What characterizes your relationship? Intimacy :____:____:____:____:____:____:____: Independence
CHAPTER 12: RELATIONAL DIALECTICS 167Bakhtin on dialectics: Mikhail Bakhtin, “Discourse in the Novel,” in The Dialogic Imag-ination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, Cary Emerson and Michael Holquist (trans.), Uni-versity of Texas, Austin, TX, 1981, pp. 259–422.Bakhtin on utterance chain: Mikhail Bakhtin, “The Problem of Speech Genres,” in Speech Genres & Other Late Essays, Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (eds.), V. W. McGee (trans.), University of Texas, Austin, TX, 1986, pp. 60–102. Friendship dialectics: William Rawlins, Friendship Matters: Communication, Dialectics, and the Life Course, Aldine de Gruyter, New York, 1992. Comparing, contrasting, and critiquing different dialectical approaches: Barbara M. Mont-gomery and Leslie A. Baxter (eds.), Dialectical Approaches to Studying Personal Relationships, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 1998. Critique: Leslie A. Baxter, “Relational Dialectics Theory: Multivocal Dialogues of Family Communication,” in Engaging Theories in Family Communication: Multiple Perspec-tives, Dawn O. Braithwaite and Leslie A. Baxter (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2006, pp. 130–145.To access titles and cue points from feature i lms that illustraterelational dialectics and other theories, click onSuggested Movie Clips under Theory Resources at www.ai rstlook.com.
16813CHAPTER Communication Privacy Management Theory of Sandra Petronio Altman and Taylor’s social penetration theory focused on self-disclosure as the primary way to develop close relationships (see Chapter 9). Yet Altman, as well as Baxter and Montgomery, eventually concluded that openness is only part of the story. We also have a desire for privacy (see Chapter 11). Suppose you visit your school’s health center because you’re concerned about abnormal bleeding or a suspicious lump below the belt. Upon careful examination, the doctor says that you may have cervical or testicular cancer; exploratory surgery will be nec-essary. While not life-threatening if caught in time, it is cancer, and you fear that it could put at risk your ability to have children. Who will you tell right away—an immediate family member, a romantic partner, a good friend, maybe all three, or perhaps none of them? Sandra Petronio, a communication professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis agrees with Altman that revealing this private informa-tion might strengthen your relationships with these signii cant people in your life. The disclosure would also give them a chance to offer you comfort and perhaps help you i gure out a course of action to deal with this disturbing diagnosis. However, disclosing your medical condition could stress your relationships if it turns out that people can’t handle your scary and potentially embarrassing news, or if they carelessly blab about it to others. And even if people you coni de in respond well, sharing coni dential information always reduces your privacy. Petronio sees communication privacy management theory (CPM) as a map of the way people navigate privacy. She wants us to think of privacy boundaries that encompass information we have but others don’t know. Privacy boundaries can range from thin and porous i lters to thick, impenetrable barriers that shield deep, dark secrets. But whenever we share a portion of that information with someone, we are reshaping a privacy boundary. Having a mental image of protective boundaries is central to understanding the i ve core principles of Petronio’s CPM: 1 1. People believe they own and have a right to control their private information. Privacy boundaries A metaphor to show how people think of the bor-ders between private and public information. Objective InterpretiveSocio-cultural traditionCybernetic tradition●
CHAPTER 13: COMMUNICATION PRIVACY MANAGEMENT THEORY 169 2. People control their private information through the use of personal privacy rules. 3. When others are told or given access to a person’s private information, they become co-owners of that information. 4. Co-owners of private information need to negotiate mutually agreeable privacy rules about telling others. 5. When co-owners of private information don’t effectively negotiate and fol-low mutually held privacy rules, boundary turbulence is the likely result. Although these i ve statements seem deceptively simple, the management processes they describe are often quite complex. In the rest of the chapter I’ll unpack the mental considerations and communication behaviors that each prin-ciple summarizes. The evidence for their validity comes from more than 100 research studies over a wide range of face-to-face situations where there’s a dia-lectical tension between privacy and disclosure. Since Petronio’s own research has cut across interpersonal, family, and health communication contexts, I’ll con-tinue to use a variety of medical issues to illustrate how people manage their private information. 1. OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF PRIVATE INFORMATION People believe they own and have a right to control their private information. Instead of talking about self-disclosure as many relational theorists do, Petronio refers to the disclosure of private information . There are four reasons she favors this term. In the i rst place, a lot of the private information we tell others isn’t about ourselves. The revelation may be about other people or convey news of an impersonal nature. Another reason she avoids the self-disclosure label is that it’s usually associated with interpersonal intimacy. For example, all three theories in the Relationship Development section assume that self-disclosure is a primary way to develop close personal ties (see Chapters 9–11). Yet Petronio notes that there are many other motives for disclosing private information. 2 For example, we could desire to relieve a burden, prevent a wrong, make an impression, gain control, or simply enjoy self-expression. A third reason Petronio chooses to talk about the disclosure of private infor-mation is that the phrase has a neutral connotation, as opposed to self – disclosure , which has a positive feel. The outcome of disclosing private information may turn out well, but as bartenders and hairdressers can attest, it might be unwelcome—a real downer. Finally, while the term self-disclosure focuses on the unilateral act of the discloser, Petronio’s preferred description directs attention to the content of what’s said and how the coni dant handles this now not-so-private information. In that sense it’s a more complete communication theory. How do we regard the private information we manage? The i rst principle of communication privacy management theory is quite clear: We see it as ours; we believe it belongs to us. Whether that perception is accurate isn’t the issue. Our conviction is so strong that Petronio dei nes privacy as “the feeling one has the right to own private information.” 3 You may feel that way about your over-all GPA or even the grade you get in this course. Private information   The content of potential disclosures; information that can be owned. Privacy The feeling that one has the right to own private information.
170 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Ownership conveys both rights and obligations. Privacy bolsters our sense of autonomy and makes us feel less vulnerable. That’s the upside. But Petronio also suggests that ownership of private information can be a liability. She claims that when we are privy to something others don’t know, we understand that we are responsible for that information and will be held accountable for how we handle it. That’s why we seek to control who else gets to know. Within the context of medical privacy, probably no group faces more pres-sure for disclosure than those who have an observable stigma. For example, complete strangers often ask intrusive questions of those who are paralyzed that they wouldn’t think of asking an able-bodied person. In a research study entitled “Just How Much Did That Wheelchair Cost?” University of Nebraska commu-nication professor Dawn Braithwaite reports how the physically disabled man-age their privacy boundaries. She found that in most cases paraplegics will answer a question if they deem it appropriate to the discussion or if it’s posed by a kid. But if they think it comes out of sheer nosiness or morbid curiosity, they avoid answering or respond to the question with sarcasm. One respondent reported that there are “times that people come up to me and say point blank . . ., ’How did you get in that wheelchair?’ ‘Well,’ I’ll ask, ’Which story do you want? Do you want the real story, do you want my story of Vietnam, or do you want my story about my romantic endeavors?’” Another person coni ned to a wheel-chair admitted, “I’m not beyond rolling over toes, really. I have been in situations where . . . there’s really no other alternative.” 4 The people Braithwaite interviewed obviously believe they own their private information, and they actively work to maintain control of what, when, and with whom it is shared. The i rst principle of CPM says that’s true for all of us. Our sense of ownership motivates us to create boundaries that will control the spread of what we know. The second principle of CPM addresses how thick those boundaries might be. 2. RULES FOR CONCEALING AND REVEALING People control their private information through the use of personal privacy rules. Petronio refers to communication privacy management theory as a rule-based theory. 5 By this she means CPM offers an interpretive approach that runs coun-ter to an objective or scientii c quest to discover universal laws that accurately predict where people will draw their privacy boundaries. Instead, a rules per-spective tries to discern why individuals make the choices they do about con-cealing or revealing private information. When Petronio spots a pattern of disclosure within a group of people and these folks offer similar explanations for their actions, she articulates the internalized rules that appear to guide their decisions. These rules are guides for interpretation rather than ironclad laws. Yet in practice, they help people feel they have control over their private information. CPM maintains that i ve factors play into the way we develop our own privacy rules: culture, gender, motivation, context, and risk/benei t ratios. These foundational criteria are evident in a study Petronio conducted among children and adolescents who reported that they were victims of sexual abuse. 6 After gaining permission from their parents, Petronio asked 38 victims between the ages of 7 and 18 to describe how they made the decision to tell someone what Rule-based theory A theory that assumes we can best understand peo-ple’s freely chosen ac-tions if we study the system of rules they use to interpret and manage their lives.
CHAPTER 13: COMMUNICATION PRIVACY MANAGEMENT THEORY 171had happened. I’ll draw upon her i ndings to illustrate the i ve constants in rule-making for privacy. Culture. Cultures differ on the value of openness and disclosure. The United States is a patchwork of many subcultures, but Petronio notes that, over-all, U.S. citizens are highly individualistic. This means they have a bias toward locking doors, keeping secrets, and preserving privacy. Regarding victims of sexual abuse, there’s no i rm evidence among Anglos, Hispanics, African Amer-icans, or Asians that one group is more at risk than the others. But other research-ers have found that there is a difference about who suffers in silence. Presumably because of the Asian emphasis on submissiveness, obedience, family loyalty, and sex-talk taboos, Asian American children who are sexually abused are less likely than other kids to tell their mothers. 7 Gender. Popular wisdom suggests that women disclose more than men, yet research on this issue is mixed at best. What is clear, however, is that both men and women more easily reveal private information to a woman than to a man. 8 Perhaps this is especially true when a young girl is sexually abused by an older man. As one female victim explained why she chose to tell her mother, “She’s my mom and she’s a grown-up, you know, and she’s a girl.” 9 Motivation. Petronio emphasizes attraction and liking as interpersonal motives that can loosen privacy boundaries that could not otherwise be breached. That’s certainly the case when a sexual perpetrator has sworn the victim to secrecy under threat of dire consequences. Some victims lowered their barriers and provided access when they also felt the additional force of reci-procity. As one girl reported, “A sudden bond formed between [us by] her say-ing, you know, ’I was molested’ and knowing that all of a sudden I wasn’t all by myself. . . . I could trust her because I knew that she could feel the scariness. . . .” 10 Context. Traumatic events can temporarily or permanently disrupt the inl uence of culture, gender, and motivation when people craft their rules for privacy. Petronio has in mind the diagnosis of AIDS, the suicide or murder of a loved one, the loss of a limb, physical paralysis, experiencing the carnage of war or natural disaster, and sexual abuse as a child. Any of these events can generate privacy boundaries that are initially impenetrable. The sufferer i rst struggles to cope; talk may come later. The abused children who spoke to Petronio often shared what it took for them to feel secure before they were willing to be open about their experience. The abuser had to be away from the home or out of the car and doors had to be locked, with just the abused child and coni dant together. Disclosure usually came while doing ordinary things together such as cooking, washing dishes, watching TV, or shopping. These mundane activities, which require no eye contact, seemed to offer the child a sense of normalcy and control that made a very abnormal conversation possible. Risk/benei t ratio. Think back to the mental calculations that social exchange theory claims we make before deciding how we’ll act (see Chapter 9). We add up the benei ts and subtract the costs of each option in order to do what we think will have the best outcome. Risk/benei t ratios do the math for both reveal-ing and concealing private information. Typical benei ts for revealing are relief from stress, gaining social support, drawing closer to the person we tell, and
172 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONthe chance to inl uence others. Realistic risks are embarrassment, rejection, diminished power, and everyone i nding out our secret. All of these benei ts and risks can come into play when sexually abused children adopt a rule that will guide their decision to speak out or keep silent. Because the stakes are high and it’s so hard for them to know what response they’ll get, many of these kids use partial disclosure to test the waters before fully diving in. For example, one girl in Petronio’s study said to her mother, “Mom, I’ve got to tell you something. He’s been walking around the house with no clothes on.” 11 When the mother showed that she believed her daughter, the girl then told her what her stepfather had done. 3. DISCLOSURE CREATES A CONFIDANT AND CO-OWNER When others are told or discover a person’s private information, they become co-owners of that information. Sandra Petronio regards CPM as a full-l edged communication theory. By this she means that a person can’t just consider self in deciding whether to conceal or reveal. The act of disclosing private information creates a coni dant and draws that person into a collective privacy boundary , whether willingly or reluctantly. What does co-ownership mean? First, the discloser must realize that the personal privacy boundary encompassing the information has morphed into a collective boundary that seldom shrinks back to being solely personal. That would only be possible if the coni dant were to die or suffer loss of memory. Once you let the cat out of the bag, it’s hard to stuff him back in. Thus, those who own private information should consider carefully before sharing it with others. Second, as co-owners, people tend to feel a sense of responsibility for the information. That doesn’t mean, however, that they perceive an equal responsibility. For example, the original owner may still feel like the sole title-holder and assume that others will follow his or her lead when access to the information is an issue. Despite this perception, “once the information is known, others ’in the know’ may have their own interpretation of how the informa-tion should be managed.” 12 Finally, those who had the information foisted upon them may be much more casual about protecting it than those who sought it. Petronio’s study of how the caregiving staff and elderly residents in nursing homes try to manage their privacy illustrates the complexities of co-owning pri-vate information. 13 Through in-depth interviews she found that new residents face a sharp loss of privacy and autonomy when entering the home. For example, they can only bring a few personal possessions with them, many require a care-giver’s assistance to go to the bathroom, patients who are coni ned to wheel-chairs are at the mercy of staff as to their dining partners at meals, and seniors with poor vision need a nurse to read them their mail. Although caregivers’ loss of privacy is not as great, they are forced to take on responsibilities they’d rather not have. Residents expect them to track down possessions, offer bathroom help without being intrusive, push their wheelchairs slowly when and where they want to go, and keep secret the family’s social and i nancial news that was in the letters. For the nursing home caregivers and the residents to mesh their pri-vacy desires and responsibilities in a way that satisi es both groups is a real achievement. Collective privacy boundary An intersection of per-sonal privacy boundaries of co-owners of private information, all of whom are responsible for the information.
CHAPTER 13: COMMUNICATION PRIVACY MANAGEMENT THEORY 173 This pivotal fourth principle of CPM is where Petronio moves from being descrip-tive to prescriptive. With the i rst three principles she’s been mapping out how people handle their private information—they think they own it and they control it (Principle 1) through the use of privacy rules (Principle 2). If they disclose some of that private information, the recipients become co-owners of a patch of common informational territory, which entails both rights and responsibilities (Principle 3). Principle 4 assumes that the privacy boundaries co-owners place around this particular piece of information won’t necessarily look the same. But she thinks that for the sake of relational harmony they ought to be congruent, so this principle is a plea for co-owners to negotiate mutual privacy boundaries . Or, using the map metaphor, she urges parties to collaboratively draw the same borders around their common piece of informational real estate. The overall process of co-managing collective boundaries that Petronio envi-sions isn’t simple. These negotiations focus on boundary ownership, boundary linkage, and boundary permeability . In order to illustrate what’s involved in coor-dinating boundary management rules, I’ll use the privacy/disclosure issue that’s received the most attention from health communication practitioners and scholars—HIV status. Consider the plight of Nate, who goes to see his doctor because of a persis-tent fever and swollen glands. After running a series of tests, the doctor regret-fully informs Nate that he’s HIV positive. She assures Nate that this isn’t a death sentence. With the advent of HAART—highly active anti-retroviral therapy—Nate may never have to experience the worsening, telltale symptoms of AIDS. Mutual privacy boundary A synchronized collec-tive privacy boundary that co-owners share because they have nego-tiated common privacy rules. 4. COORDINATING MUTUAL PRIVACY BOUNDARIES Co-owners of private information need to negotiate mutually agreeable privacy rules about telling others. © Eric Lewis/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
174 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONBut the news comes as a real blow. When he was in college, Nate engaged in risky bisexual behavior that his wife, Becky, knows nothing about. He’s embar-rassed and dreads telling her. Yet even if his state didn’t have a mandatory partner notii cation program, he feels morally bound to tell her if for no other reason than she needs to be tested and protected from his infection. He believes Becky will “stand by her man,” but fears rejection from anyone else who hears about his condition. He doesn’t want his extended family, friends, or co-workers to i nd out. But once he tells Becky, she may have different ideas about who else should hear and how much they should be told. For the sake of their relation-ship, Petronio believes they need to synchronize their privacy rules. Boundary Ownership—Who Should Decide? We’ve already seen that co-ownership of private information involves a joint responsibility for its containment or release. But not all boundary ownership is 50-50. One person may have a greater stake in how the information is handled or feel that they should have total control of how it’s used. If so, that person is usually the original owner. When the coni dant agrees that the original owner has the right to call the shots, Petronio refers to that recipient as a shareholder who is “fully vested in keeping the information according to the original owner’s privacy rules.” 14 Nate obviously hopes this will be the case, but it doesn’t seem that Becky i ts well into the shareholder role. So if Nate clings to the belief that he alone should make the rules about how to manage the information, he will lose the chance to negotiate a mutually satisfying agreement with Becky, almost guaranteeing a turbulent future. Petronio’s description of how a person becomes a coni dant sheds light on the degree of control this recipient has. 15 The deliberate coni dant intentionally seeks private information, often in order to help others out. For example, doctors, coun-selors, attorneys, and clergy solicit personal information only after they assure clients that they have a privacy policy that severely limits their right to reveal the information to others. As a general rule of thumb, the more eager people are to take on the role of coni dant, the less control they have over what they hear. Conversely, a reluctant coni dant doesn’t want the disclosure, doesn’t expect it, and may i nd the revealed information an unwelcome burden. Picture the hapless airplane travelers who must listen to their seatmates’ life stories. Even though reluctant coni dants often feel a vague sense of responsibility when they hear someone else’s private information, they usually don’t feel a strong obliga-tion to follow the privacy guidelines of the discloser. If the reluctant recipient comes across the information by accident, he or she will be even less likely to cede control of revealing/concealing to the original owner. So if someone comes across our private thoughts jotted in a journal or encoded in an email, those thoughts may become quite public. As for Becky, her role as Nate’s coni dant probably shifts when he makes his startling revelation. She didn’t initiate this health conversation and, like many long-term partners, she may at i rst listen with half an ear out of a sense of obligation. But once he drops his bombshell, she’ll be all ears and deliberately probe for more details. Given Becky’s probable fear, hurt, and anger that Nate never told her of his possible exposure to HIV, we might expect her to follow her own privacy rules rather than being constrained by his. If she later discovers that Nate has infected her with HIV, his rules will be history. Boundary ownership The rights and responsi-bilities that co-owners of private information have to control its spread. Shareholder A confidant fully com-mitted to handling private information ac-cording to the original owner’s privacy rules. Deliberate confidant A recipient who sought out private information. Reluctant confidant A co-owner of private in-formation who did not seek it nor want it.
CHAPTER 13: COMMUNICATION PRIVACY MANAGEMENT THEORY 175 Boundary Linkage—Who Else Gets to Know? Boundary linkage is the process of the coni dant being linked into the privacy boundary of the person who revealed the information. When Nate discloses his HIV status to Becky, she’ll share responsibility for what happens in the future with that information. As for Nate, his privacy boundary will morph into an expanded, joint boundary of a different shape. He clearly wants his condition to remain the couple’s secret, but will that happen? The major consideration in boundary linkage is the nature of the pair’s rela-tionship. When the revealer and recipient have a close, trusting relationship, there’s a good chance that the recipient will deal with the new information the way the discloser wants. But even though Nate and Becky would both say they’ve had i ve years of a loving marriage, news that her husband is HIV pos-itive is likely to rock Becky’s world. Her i rst question will probably be, How did this happen? and she won’t be satisi ed with a vague answer or a claim that it came from a blood transfusion. As Nate reveals a sexual past that he always felt he alone owned, Becky’s trust in Nate may take a big hit. From her perspective, she had a right to know about anything that could so profoundly affect her life and their relationship. She might indeed be committed to stay with Nate “in sickness and in health as long as we both shall live,” but that doesn’t mean she’ll agree to a shroud of secrecy. If the couple follows Petronio’s advice to negotiate who else gets to know, they might bring up the following considerations, each of which is supported by research on the privacy and disclosure of HIV status. 16 Becky might insist that she can’t live with the stress of keeping Nate’s infection secret; she’s willing to keep her father in the dark but needs to tell her mother. She also wants the ongoing social support of at least one close friend who knows what she’s living with and can help her cope. For his part, Nate voices his fear of the prejudice that he knows HIV victims encounter. 17 When people i nd out that he has HIV, he’s apt to lose his job, his insurance, his buddies, and the respect of others. He can’t possibly tell his folks about the diagnosis because they know nothing of his bisexual past. Nate imag-ines his shocked father bemoaning, “My son’s a homo,” and then slamming the door on him forever. As for Becky telling her mother, he’s seen her close-knit family in action. If his mother-in-law i nds out, he’s sure the rest of the family will know by the end of the day. At this point, Nate and Becky aren’t even close to agreeing on who else can know what they know. Boundary Permeability—How Much Information Can Flow? Boundary permeability refers to the degree that privacy boundaries are porous. Some boundaries are protected by ironclad rules with those in-the-know sworn to secrecy. These barriers are impervious to penetration. Petronio refers to such informational barriers as closed, thick, or stretched tight . Often that information is quarantined because public revelation would be highly embarrassing for those in the inner circle. At the other extreme, some boundaries are quite porous. Petronio describes them as open, thin, or loosely held . Information permeates them easily. As bar-riers to disclosure, they are a façade. To the extent that privacy rules are supposed to check the l ow of insider information, they are honored in the Boundary linkage An alliance formed by co-owners of private in-formation as to who else should be able to know. Boundary permeability The extent to which a boundary permits private information to flow to third parties.
176 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONbreach. As the movie Mean Girls illustrates, some coni dences are meant to be spread. Permeability is a matter of degree. Many coordinated access rules are crafted to be i lters, letting some private information seep through, while other related facts are closely guarded. You may wonder how this could apply to Nate and Becky’s situation. Isn’t HIV infection like pregnancy—an either/or thing? Bio-logically, yes, but Petronio describes a number of ways that disclosure could be partial. For example, Nate might talk about movies that sympathetically portray AIDS victims, enthusing about the Oscar-winning performances of Tom Hanks in Philadelphia and Sean Penn in Milk . Or, similar to the sexually abused children that Petronio interviewed, he could drop hints about his condition and watch for signs that others would handle further disclosure well. Along that line, some gay and lesbian victims reveal their sexual orientation to others i rst, later speak-ing of their HIV status only if the response to the i rst disclosure is nonjudgmen-tal. As with boundary linkage and boundary ownership, collaborative boundary permeability doesn’t happen by accident. The practical takeaway that CPM offers is an insistence that disclosers and their coni dants need to negotiate mutual rules for possible third-party dissemination. 5. BOUNDARY TURBULENCE—RELATIONSHIPS AT RISK When co-owners of private information don’t effectively negotiate and follow jointly held privacy rules, boundary turbulence is the likely result. When boundary coordination fails, turbulence is the result. Petronio uses the metaphor of boundary turbulence to refer to “disruptions in the way that co-owners control and regulate the l ow of private information to third parties.” 18 The examples she offers make it clear that turbulence can quickly destroy the trust between revealers and recipients that has built up over time. Communica-tion scholar Leanne Knobloch (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) dei nes relational turbulence as “people’s increased reactivity to relationship cir-cumstances, which is manifest in extreme cognitive appraisals, intense emotional reactions, and zealous behavioral responses.” 19 Our response to turbulence isn’t always negative, but the way it affects our thoughts, feelings, and actions can radically alter our relationships with others. Petronio lists a variety of factors that can lead to boundary turbulence, which I’ll lump into three categories—fuzzy boundaries, intentional breaches, and mis-takes. 20 I’ll illustrate the i rst two from research she’s conducted on family and friends as health care advocates—the triangular interactions that occur when patients bring someone with them to their doctor’s appointments. 21 Fuzzy Boundaries Typical of many interactions where private information is shared, Petronio has found that patients and the advocates they bring with them have rarely dis-cussed what can and can’t be revealed. She places the onus on the friend or family member: “Curiously, these informal advocates did not appear to confer with the patient before entering the medical situation to i nd out when or if the advocate should disclose private medical information.” 22 Having no recognized mutual boundaries and only a vague idea of the patient’s expectations, advocates Boundary turbulence Disruption of privacy management and rela-tional trust that occurs when collective privacy boundaries aren’t synchronized.
CHAPTER 13: COMMUNICATION PRIVACY MANAGEMENT THEORY 177resort to using their own privacy rules to guide what they say. The result is turbulence and a patient who is often embarrassed or unhappy. In like manner, doctor–patient coni dentiality can be compromised. As one doctor admitted, “When the patient is accompanied by a friend or relative, we’re often unclear about that companion’s function in the interview.” 23 From the legal standpoint, once the patient invites someone else into the mix, the physician no longer has to be concerned about coni dentiality. But the patient may be shocked when his wife hears the doctor reveal alarming test results, offer a depressing prognosis, or refer to a previous medical condition that she knew nothing about. Intentional Breaches Sometimes those who are now-in-the-know understand that the original owner will be horrii ed if they blab it about, yet they reveal the secret anyway. They may do so to actually hurt the original owner or simply because breaking the coni dence works to their personal advantage. A painful romantic breakup is the classic case when the spurned partner lashes out by revealing intimate details that make the other look bad. Petronio didn’t run across disloyal breaches in her study of unofi cial health advocates, but she did discover intentional boundary crossings when advocates faced a coni dentiality dilemma . These occurred when patients said things to their doctor that advocates knew weren’t true or avoided revealing embarrassing medical information that advocates knew was important for the physician to know. Petronio cites the example of a man who tells his cardiologist that he quit smoking after his heart surgery. His daughter who’s present is in a quandary. She could respect her father’s privacy but by her silence put his health at risk. Or she could violate family privacy rules by revealing his continued smoking so that the doctor can make an informed medical decision. She faces a tragic moral choice where whatever she does is wrong. Petronio found that advocates placed in this position opt for health over privacy, and speculates, “Perhaps in cases when safety or well-being is at stake, privacy issues seem less signii cant for those trying to help.” 24 In support of this interpretation, she notes that one man poignantly explained why he breached his wife’s privacy boundary —because I did not want my wife to die. Mistakes Not all boundary and relational turbulence comes from privacy rules out of sync or the intentional breach of boundaries. Sometimes people create turmoil by making mistakes, such as letting secrets slip out when their guard is down after having a few drinks. Medical personnel are just as prone to committing com-munication blunders as the rest of us. For instance, doctors make errors of judg-ment when they discuss private cases in public places. Petronio cites a report of two doctors on a crowded hospital elevator debating the merits of removing a portion of a man’s lung. One of the passengers who heard them was the patient’s wife. 25 We commit the same type of mistake if we assume that only friends will access private information we post on Facebook or we don’t recognize that peo-ple around us can hear our end of a cell phone conversation. A miscalculation in timing can cause similar distress. Doctors and nurses have been known to phone Confidentiality dilemma The tragic moral choice confidants face when they must breach a col-lective privacy boundary in order to promote the original owner’s welfare.
178 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONpeople in the middle of the workday to tell them that they have cancer. There’s no good way to deliver that devastating news. But to do it at a time when the person may be interacting with co-workers takes away the chance to process the stark reality in private. I have my own medical example of what Petronio calls the bungling of topic rules, although bungling is too strong a term for the brief words of a woman who meant to put me at ease. As I was rolled into the operating room in a tranquil-ized state, I saw that the surgical nurse was a former student who’d taken all of my classes and had babysat my children. She bent down to me and whispered, “Don’t worry, Em, people under anesthesia say all sorts of bizarre things, but we never take them seriously.” I was no longer tranquil. CRITIQUE: KEEN DIAGNOSIS, GOOD PRESCRIPTION, LESS AMBIGUITY CPM is a communication theory that nicely fuli lls i ve of the six criteria for a good interpretive theory. Petronio painstakingly maps out the different ways people handle private information and discerns why they make the choices they do. This understanding of people is furthered by the qualitative research that she and other communication scholars conduct to expand their knowledge of privacy management. Typically their research takes the form of open-ended interviews such as those Petronio conducted with sexually abused children, but Petronio also draws on the results of quantitative research to support the theory’s conclusions. This extensive research and the fact that CPM provides a needed focus on privacy, where before there had been a theoretical void, has created a community of agree-ment on the worth of the theory among communication scholars. In medical terms, CPM provides an astute diagnosis of the use and abuse of privacy rules. As for clarii cation of values , CPM presents privacy as valuable in its own right, not relationally inferior to openness, transparency, or self-disclosure. Addi-tionally, Petronio upholds mutually coordinated privacy rules as the best way to establish effective boundaries that protect co-owned private information. It’s a bit of a stretch to say that the theory calls for a radical reform of society the way some critical theories do, but Petronio clearly believes that healthy relationships within a community depend on trust and that they’ll be less at risk when people follow her research-based prescription for the prevention of turbulence. The interpretive criterion that CPM does not meet well is aesthetic appeal, which is a matter of both style and clarity. Petronio’s organizational style is one of arranging her insights into multiple lists. The result is a confusing array of classii cations where the connection between the lists isn’t always apparent, nor is the relationship among items within a given category. Clarity is a problem as well. For example, in Principle 4 and throughout much of her writing, Petronio indicates that people who co-own private information should negotiate mutual privacy rules. Yet in another summary version of CPM, Petronio seems to directly contradict this principle. She writes, “As co-owners, the recipients have a responsibility to care for the information in the way that the original owner desires.” 26 That’s acquiescence or submission, not negotiation. It’s also confus-ing, as is Petronio’s frequent use of qualii ers such as may be, tend to be, possibly, perhaps, and sometimes. Petronio is aware of these problems. In 2004, she wrote a wonderfully trans-parent article entitled “Road to Developing Communication Privacy Manage-ment Theory: Narrative in Process, Please Stand By.” She describes “a stage of
CHAPTER 13: COMMUNICATION PRIVACY MANAGEMENT THEORY 179theory building where much is in place and many of the conceptual blocks are identii ed, yet the way they i t together shift and change, rendering the connec-tions temporarily ambiguous.” 27 I regard that as an accurate description of where the theory was then, but since that time she has further developed CPM to reduce the ambiguity. For example, her recent repackaging of the theory under the i ve basic principles I’ve presented is a major organizational improvement. And the three subtitle questions I used to clarify the functions of boundary own-ership, linkage, and permeability came straight from that same chapter, which she co-authored with Ashley Duggan in 2009. 28 There are two gaps in the theory coverage that bear mention. Petronio writes convincingly about the value of co-owner negotiation and how quickly trust can be lost when privacy rules are breached. 29 Yet she currently doesn’t offer insight on how to conduct those negotiations, nor does she describe after-the-fact rem-edies for the mistrust that boundary turbulence stirs up. I believe Petronio needs to expand CPM to suggest how to effectively negotiate mutual boundaries and offer ways and means to settle the turbulence that occurs when collective privacy boundaries are violated. Petronio is now working on a new book about CPM, with chapters entitled “Diagnostic Method” and “Repair Tool” that will address these thorny issues. In the spirit of her 2004 narrative cited above, she urges us to “stay tuned.” 30 1. In Principle 2, Petronio cites i ve foundational criteria that affect our personal privacy rules . Which factor most shapes the rules you adopt? Is there one factor that seems to include or trump the other four? 2. Petronio states that ownership and control of private information don’t always go together. Can you imagine a situation where you are the sole owner of a secret yet have no control over its disclosure or discovery? 3. CPM states that those who are privy to private information can avoid bound-ary turbulence by negotiating mutual privacy rules . Why do you think that many disclosers and their coni dants fail to have this discussion? 4. CPM is a rules theory that is supported by qualitative research . Why would a quantitative researcher have a problem testing the theory using an experimental design? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Sandra Petronio, Boundaries of Privacy: Dialectics of Discourse, State University of New York, Albany, NY, 2002. Summary statement: Sandra Petronio, “Communication Privacy Management Theory,” in Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication: Multiple Perspectives, Leslie A. Baxter and Dawn O. Braithwaite (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2008, pp. 309–322. Summary statement: Mary Claire Morr Serewicz and Sandra Petronio, “Communica-tion Privacy Management Theory,” in Explaining Communication: Contemporary Theories and Exemplars, Bryan Whaley and Wendy Samter (eds.), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2007, pp. 257–273. Five principles of CPM applied: Ashley Duggan and Sandra Petronio, “When Your Child Is in Crisis: Navigating Medical Needs with Issues of Privacy Management,” in Parent
180 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONand Children Communicating with Society, Thomas J. Socha (ed.), Routledge, New York, 2009, pp. 117–132. Initial version: Sandra Petronio, “Communication Boundary Management: A Theo-retical Model of Managing Disclosure of Private Information Between Married Couples,” Communication Theory, Vol. 1, 1991, pp. 311–335. Privacy/disclosure dialectic: Kathryn Greene, Valerian Derlega, Gust Yep, and Sandra Petronio, Privacy and Disclosure of HIV in Interpersonal Relationships: A Sourcebook for Researchers and Practitioners, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2003. Research review on secrecy: Sandra Petronio (ed.), Balancing the Secrets of Private Disclo-sure, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2000. Development of CPM: Sandra Petronio, “Road to Developing Communication Privacy Management Theory: Narrative in Process, Please Stand By,” Journal of Family Communica-tion, Vol. 4, 2004, pp. 193–207. Coni dants: Sandra Petronio and Jennifer Reierson, “Regulating the Privacy of Coni -dentiality: Grasping the Complexities through Communication Privacy Management Theory,” in Uncertainty, Information Management, and Disclosure Decisions: Theories and Applications , Tamara D. Ai i and Walid A. Ai i (eds.), Routledge, New York, 2009, pp. 365–383.For a short bio, curriculum vitae, or to contact Em,click on Em Grifi n at the bottom of the home page atwww.ai rstlook.com.
14CHAPTER The Interactional View of Paul Watzlawick The Franklin family is in trouble. A perceptive observer could spot their difi cul-ties despite their successful façade. Sonia Franklin is an accomplished pianist who teaches advanced music theory and keyboard technique in her home. Her husband, Stan, will soon become a partner in a Big Four accounting i rm. Their daughter, Laurie, is an honor student, an ofi cer in her high school class, and the number two player on the tennis team. But Laurie’s younger brother, Mike, has dropped all pretense of interest in studies, sports, or social life. His only passion is drinking beer and smoking pot. Each of the Franklins reacts to Mike’s substance abuse in different but less than helpful ways. Stan denies that his son has a problem. Boys will be boys, and he’s sure Mike will grow out of this phase. The only time he and Mike actu-ally talked about the problem, Stan said, “I want you to cut back on your drink-ing—not for me and your mother—but for your own sake.” Laurie has always felt responsible for her kid brother and is scared because Mike is getting wasted every few days. She makes him promise that he’ll quit using and continues to introduce him to her straightlaced friends in the hope that he’ll get in with a good crowd. Sonia worries that alcohol and drugs will ruin her son’s future. One weekday morning when he woke up with a hangover, she wrote a note to the school say-ing Mike had the l u. She also called a lawyer to help Mike when he was stopped for drunk driving. Although she promised never to tell his father about these incidents, she chides Stan for his lack of concern. The more she nags, the more he withdraws. Mike feels caught in a vicious circle. Smoking pot helps him relax, but then his family gets more upset, which makes him want to smoke more, which. . . . During a tense dinner-table discussion he lashes out: “You want to know why I use? Go look in a mirror.” Although the rest of the family sees Mike as “the problem,” psychotherapist Paul Watzlawick would have described the whole family system as disturbed. He formed his theory of social interaction by looking at dysfunctional patterns within families in order to gain insight into healthy communication. 181Objective InterpretiveCybernetic tradition●
182 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Picture a family as a mobile suspended from the ceiling. Each i gure is connected to the rest of the structure by a strong thread tied at exactly the right place to keep the system in balance. Tug on any string and the force sends a shock wave throughout the whole network. Sever a thread and the entire system tilts in disequilibrium. The threads in the mobile analogy represent communication rules that hold the family together. Paul Watzlawick believed that in order to understand the movement of any single i gure in the family system, one has to examine the com-munication patterns among all its members. He regarded the communication that the family members have among themselves about their relationships as especially important. Watzlawick (pronounced VAHT-sla-vick) was a senior research fellow at the Mental Research Institute of Palo Alto, California, and clinical professor of psy-chiatry at Stanford University. He was one of about 20 scholars and therapists who were inspired by and worked with anthropologist Gregory Bateson. The common denominator that continues to draw the Palo Alto Group together is a commitment to studying interpersonal interaction as part of an entire system. They reject the idea that individual motives and personality traits determine the nature of communication within a family. In fact, the Palo Alto researchers care little about why a person acts in a certain way, but they have a great interest in how that behavior affects everyone in the group. A systems approach to family relationships dei es simplistic explanations of why people act as they do. For example, some pop psychology books on body language claim that a listener standing in a hands-on-hips position is skeptical about what the speaker is saying. Watzlawick was certainly interested in the reaction others have to this posture, but he didn’t think that a particu-lar way of standing should be viewed as part of a cause-and-effect chain of events: a → b → c → d Relationships are not simple, nor are they “things,” as suggested by the statement “We have a good relationship.” Relationships are complex functions in the same sense that mathematical functions link multiple variables: x 5 b2 1 2ca 2 5d Just as x will be affected by the value of a, b, c, or d, so the hands-on-hips stance can be due to a variety of attitudes, emotions, or physical conditions. Maybe the stance does show skepticism. But it also might rel ect boredom, a feeling of awkwardness, aching shoulder muscles, or self-consciousness about middle-aged “hip-handles.” Watzlawick used the math metaphor throughout his book Pragmatics of Human Communication. Along with co-authors Janet Beavin Bavelas and Don Jackson, he presented key axioms that describe the “tentative calculus of human communication.” These axioms make up the grammar of conversation, or, to use another analogy that runs through the book, the rules of the game. There is nothing particularly playful about the game the Franklins are play-ing. Psychologist Alan Watts says that “life is a game where rule No. 1 is: This Family system A self-regulating, interde-pendent network of feedback loops guided by members’ rules; the behavior of each person affects and is affected by the behavior of another. THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM
CHAPTER 14: THE INTERACTIONAL VIEW 183is no game, this is serious.” 1 Watzlawick dei ned games as sequences of behavior governed by rules. Even though Sonia and Stan are involved in an unhealthy game without end of nag-withdrawal-nag-withdrawal, they continue to play because it serves a function for both of them. (Sonia feels superior; Stan avoids hassles with his son.) Neither party may recognize what’s going on, but their rules are a something-for-something bargain. Mike’s drinking and his family’s distress may i t into the same category. (Getting drunk not only relieves tension temporarily, it’s also a great excuse for sidestepping the pressure to excel, which is the name of the game in the Franklin family.) Lest we be tempted to see the Franklins’ relationships as typical of all families dealing with addiction, Watzlawick warned that each family plays a one-of-a-kind game with homemade rules. Just as CMM claims that persons-in-conversa-tion co-construct their own social worlds (see Chapter 6), the Palo Alto Group insists that each family system creates its own reality. That conviction shapes its approach to family therapy: In the systemic approach, we try to understand as quickly as possible the function-ing of this system: What kind of reality has this particular system constructed for itself? Incidentally, this rules out categorizations because one of the basic principles of systems theory is that “every system is its own best explanation.” 2 AXIOMS OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS The network of communication rules that governs the Franklins’ interaction makes it extremely difi cult for any of them to change their behavior. Watzlawick, Bavelas, and Jackson used the label family homeostasis to describe what many family counselors agree is the tacit collusion of family members to maintain the status quo. Interactional theorists believe that we’ll fail to recognize this destruc-tive resistance to change unless we understand the following axioms, or rules, of communication. 3 One Cannot Not Communicate You’ve undoubtedly been caught in situations where you feel obliged to talk but would rather avoid the commitment to respond that’s inherent in all communi-cation—like in high school when you come home from a date or a party and your mother meets you inside the door and says, “Tell me all about it.” Or per-haps you currently need to study but your roommate wants to chat. In an attempt to avoid communication, you could bluntly state that your test the following morning makes studying more important than socializing. But voicing your desire for privacy can stretch the rules of good behavior and result in awkward silence that speaks loudly about the relationship. You could l ood your mother with a torrent of meaningless words about the evening, merely say it was “i ne” as you duck into your room, or plead fatigue, a headache, or a sore throat. Watzlawick called this the symptom strategy and said it suggests, “ I wouldn’t mind talking to you, but something stronger than I, for which I cannot be blamed, prevents me.” Whatever you do, however, it would be naïve not to realize that your mother will analyze your behavior for clues about the evening’s activities. His face an immobile mask, Mike Franklin may mutely encounter his parents. But he communicates in spite of himself by his Family homeostasisThe tacit collusion of family members to maintain the status quo.Symptom strategyAscribing our silence to something beyond our control that renders com-munication justifiably impossible—sleepiness, headache, drunkenness, etc.GamesSequences of behavior governed by rules.
184 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONfacial expression and his silence. Communication is inevitable. Those nonverbal messages will obviously have an impact on the rest of his family. A corollary to the i rst axiom is that “one cannot not inl uence.” 4 Communication = Content + Relationship The heading is a shorthand version of the formal axiom “Every communication has a content and relationship aspect such that the latter classii es the former and is therefore metacommunication.” 5 Watzlawick chose to rename the two aspects of communication that Gregory Bateson had originally called report and command. Report, or content, is what is said. Command, or relationship, is how it’s said. Edna Rogers, University of Utah communication professor and early interpreter of the interactional view, illustrates the difference with a two-word message: The content level provides information based on what the message is about, while the relational level “gives off” information on how the message is to be interpreted. For example, the content of the comment “You’re late” refers to time, but at the relational level the comment typically implies a form of criticism of the other’s lack of responsibility or concern. 6 Figure 14–1 outlines the content–relationship distinction that is crucial to the interactional model. Yet neither the equation in the heading above nor the terms in the i gure quite capture the way relationship surrounds content and provides a context, or atmosphere, for interpretation. It’s the difference between data fed into a computer and the program that directs how the data should be processed. In written communication, punctuation gives direction as to how the words should be understood. Shifting a question mark to an exclamation point alters the meaning of the message. Right? Right! In spoken communication, however, tone of voice, emphasis on certain words, facial cues, and so forth direct how the message was meant to be interpreted. Watzlawick referred to the relational aspect of interaction as metacommu-nication. It is communication about communication. Metacommunication says, “This is how I see myself, this is how I see you, this is how I see you seeing me. . . .” According to Watzlawick, relationship messages are always the most important element in any communication—healthy or otherwise. But when a family is in trouble, metacommunication dominates the discussion. Mike ContentThe report part of a mes-sage; what is said verbally.RelationshipThe command part of the message; how it’s said nonverbally.MetacommunicationCommunication about communication.FIGURE 14–1 The Content and Relationship Levels of CommunicationReportWhat is saidComputer dataWordsVerbal channelCommandRelationshipContentHow it is saidComputer programPunctuationNonverbal channelMetacommunicationCommunication
CHAPTER 14: THE INTERACTIONAL VIEW 185Franklin’s dinner-table outburst is an example of pathological metacommuni-cation that shakes the entire family system. The Palo Alto Group is convinced it would be a mistake for the Franklins to ignore Mike’s attack in the hope that the tension will go away. Sick family relationships get better only when family members are willing to talk with each other about their patterns of communication. The Nature of a Relationship Depends on How Both Parties Punctuate the Communication Sequence Consider the relational tangle described in one of the Knots composed by British psychotherapist R. D. Laing to describe disturbed relationships. He can’t be happy when there’s so much suffering in the world She can’t be happy if he is unhappy She wants to be happy He does not feel entitled to be happy She wants him to be happy and he wants her to be happy He feels guilty if he is happy and guilty if she is not happy She wants both to be happy He wants her to be happy So they are both unhappy 7 The poem describes a couple tied in knots, and their communication about unhappiness and guilt is the cord that binds them. An outsider who observes the sequence of interaction in the diagram below will spot a reciprocal pattern of guilt and depression that has no beginning or end. But the woman enmeshed in the system punctuates or cleaves the sequence with point p, r, or t as the start-ing point. She’s convinced that the man’s guilt is the cause of her unhappiness. Equally ensnared in the system, the man punctuates the sequence by desig-nating the woman’s need for happiness at point q or s as the initial event. He’s quite sure that her depression is the reason he feels guilty. Asking either of them, Who started it? wouldn’t help because the question merely feeds into their fruit-less struggle for control. Watzlawick suggested that “what is typical about the sequence and makes it a problem of punctuation is that the individual concerned conceives of him or herself only as reacting to, but not as provoking, these attitudes.” 8 This is true for both adult Franklins. Stan sees himself as withdrawing from Sonia only HisguiltHisguiltrq. . . pst . . .HisguiltHerdepressionHerdepressionPunctuateInterpreting an ongoing sequence of events by labeling one event as the cause and the following event as the response.
186 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONbecause of her constant nagging. Sonia feels certain that she wouldn’t harp on the issue if Stan would face the problem of Mike’s drinking. All Communication Is Either Symmetrical or Complementary This axiom continues to focus on metacommunication. While dei nitions of rela-tionships include the issues of belongingness, affection, trust, and intimacy, the interactional view pays particular attention to questions of control, status, and power. Remember that Bateson’s original label for relationship communication was command. According to Watzlawick, symmetrical interchange is based on equal power; complementary communication is based on differences in power. He makes no attempt to label one type as good and the other as bad. Healthy rela-tionships have both kinds of communication. In terms of ability, the women in the Franklin family have a symmetrical relationship; neither one tries to control the other. Sonia has expertise on the piano; Laurie excels on the tennis court. Each of them performs without the other claiming dominance. Fortunately, their skills are in separate arenas. Too much similarity can set the stage for an anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better competition. Sonia’s relationship with Mike is complementary. Her type of mothering is strong on control. She hides the extent of Mike’s drinking from his father, lies to school ofi cials, and hires a lawyer on the sly to bail her son out of trouble with the police. By continuing to treat Mike as a child, she maintains their domi-nant–submissive relationship. Although complementary relationships aren’t always destructive, the status difference between Mike and the rest of the Frank-lins is stressing the family system. The interactional view holds that there is no way to label a relationship on the basis of a single verbal statement. Judgments that an interaction is either symmetrical or complementary require a sequence of at least two messages—a statement from one person and a response from the other. While at Michigan State University, communication researchers Edna Rogers and Richard Farace devised a coding scheme to categorize ongoing marital interaction on the crucial issue of who controls the relationship. One-up communication () is movement to gain control of the exchange. A bid for dominance includes messages that instruct, order, interrupt, contradict, change topics, or fail to support what the other person said. One-down communi-cation () is movement to yield control of the exchange. The bid for submission is evidenced by agreement with what the other person said. Despite Watzlawick’s contention that all discourse is either symmetrical or complementary, Rogers and Farace code one-across communication () as well. They dei ne it as transitory com-munication that moves toward neutralizing control. Figure 14–2 presents the matrix of possible relational transactions. The pairs that are circled show a symmetrical interaction. The pairs in triangles indicate complementary relations. The pairs in squares reveal transitory communication. As Rogers’ later research shows, bids for dominance () don’t necessarily result in successful control of the interaction (). 9 Matt, a student in my comm theory class, gained new insight about his relationship with his mother when he read this section:I’m really pumped on the interactional view. What makes me wide-eyed is how Watzlawick breaks down family communication into symmetrical and Symmetrical interchangeInteraction based on equal power.Complementary interchangeInteraction based on accepted differences of power.One-up communicationA conversational move to gain control of the exchange; attempted domination.One-down communicationA conversational move to yield control of the exchange; attempted submission.One-across communicationA conversational move to neutralize or level control within the exchange; when just one party uses it, the interchange is labeled transitory.
CHAPTER 14: THE INTERACTIONAL VIEW 187 Family systems are highly resistant to change. This inertia is especially apparent in a home where someone has an addiction. Each family member occupies a role that serves the status quo. In the Franklin family, Mike, of course, is the one with “the problem.” With the best of intentions, Sonia is the enabler who cushions Mike from feeling the pain caused by his chemical abuse. Stan is the “deny-er,” while Laurie is the family “hero” who compensates for her brother’s failure. Family therapists note that when one person in a distressed family gets better, another member often gets worse. If Mike stopped drinking and using pot, Laurie might quit the tennis team, ignore her studies, or start smoking marijuana herself. Dysfunctional families coni rm the adage “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Watzlawick saw family members as often caught in the double bind of mutu-ally exclusive expectations, which Bateson originally described. Parental mes-sages such as “You ought to love me” or “Be spontaneous” place children in an untenable position. The children are bound to violate some aspect of the injunc-tion no matter how they respond. (Love can only be freely given; spontaneity on demand is impossible.) The paradox of the double bind is that the high-status party in a complementary relationship insists that the low-status person act as if the relationship were symmetrical—which it isn’t. Stan’s demand that his son stay sober for his own sake places Mike in a no-win situation. He can’t obey his dad and be autonomous at the same time. FIGURE 14–2 Matrix of Transactional TypesAdapted from Rogers and Farace, “Analysis of Relational Communication in Dyads: New Measurement Procedures”One-upOne-upOne-acrossOne-downResponse to MessageOne-acrossOne-downInitialMessage= SymmetricalKey:= Transitory= ComplementaryEnablerWithin addiction culture, a person whose nonassertive behavior allows others to continue in their substance abuse.Double bindA person trapped under mutually exclusive expectations; specifically, the powerful party in a complementary relationship insists that the low-power party act as if it were symmetrical. TRAPPED IN A SYSTEM WITH NO PLACE TO GO complementary. It brings to mind a statement my father would often say: “You and your mother argue and have heated arguments because you are so similar.” I usu-ally dismissed this idea as baloney. I’d respond, “What, Mom and I similar? Yeah, right—look how often we disagree!” Looking back through the eyes of Watzlawick, Dad was right. Mom and I were both shooting out one-up messages, thus forming an ongoing symmetrical interaction that wasn’t very comfortable.
188 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONReframingThe process of instituting change by stepping outside of a situation and reinterpreting what it means. REFRAMING: CHANGING THE GAME BY CHANGING THE RULES How can the members of the Franklin family break out of their never-ending game and experience real change in the way they relate to each other? According to Watzlawick, effective change for the whole family will come about only when members are helped to step outside the system and see the self-defeating nature of the rules under which they’re playing. He calls this process reframing: To reframe . . . means to change the conceptual and/or emotional setting or view-point in relation to which a situation is experienced and to place it in another frame which i ts the “facts” of the same concrete situation equally well or even better, and thereby changes its entire meaning. 10 Watzlawick compared reframing to the process of waking up from a bad dream. He pointed out that during a nightmare you may run, hide, i ght, scream, jump off a cliff, or try dozens of other things to make the situation better, but nothing really changes. Relief comes only when you step outside the system by waking up. Without the intervention of a timely alarm clock or a caring room-mate, relief can be a long time coming. Reframing is the sudden “aha” of looking at things in a new light. Suppose you could talk with Watzlawick about your struggles to keep up with the assign-ments for your comm theory class. You’ve chosen to be a communication major, so you believe you ought to like studying the material. Since you don’t, you think there’s something wrong with you. You also know that your family is making a i nancial sacrii ce for you to be in college, so you feel guilty that you aren’t get-ting good grades or experiencing deep gratitude for their help. In fact, you resent having to be grateful. If you described these dilemmas to Watzlawick, he would want you to reframe your attitudes as unrealistic and immature —nightmarish interpretations for most college students. Even under the best of circumstances, he’d explain, studying is an unpleasant necessity and to believe that it should be fun is ridic-ulous. As far as your folks are concerned, they have a right to your gratitude, but this doesn’t mean you have to enjoy being thankful. So it’s up to you. You can “continue in these immature outlooks or have the adult courage to reject them and to begin to look at life as a mixture of pleasant and unpleasant things.” 11 The facts haven’t changed, but he’s given you a new way to interpret them. If you accept Watzlawick’s frame, you’ll probably cope better and feel less pain. For the Franklins, reframing means they must radically change their perspec-tive. One way to do this is by adopting the view of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) that Mike’s addiction is a disease over which he has no control. His drinking is not a sign of moral weakness or an intentional rebuff of his family’s values—he drinks because he’s an alcoholic. The AA interpretation would imply that the Franklins need to abandon their fruitless search for someone to blame. Despite Mike’s look-in-the-mirror accusation, the members of his family aren’t respon-sible for his addiction. They didn’t cause it, they can’t cure it, and they can’t control it. It’s a disease. Does that mean Mike’s not responsible for being chem-ically dependent? Right . . . but he is responsible for putting all of his energy into getting well. Accepting a new frame implies rejecting the old one. The Franklins must admit that their so-called solutions are as much a problem as their son’s drink-ing. Mike will never seek treatment for his illness as long as his family continues
CHAPTER 14: THE INTERACTIONAL VIEW 189to shield him from the consequences of his behavior. Reframing will help Sonia see that writing excuses and hiring lawyers may be less caring than letting her son get kicked out of school or allowing his driver’s license to be suspended. Adopting a tough-love perspective or any new interpretive frame is usually accomplished only with outside help. For Watzlawick, that meant therapy. As a social constructionist, he wouldn’t try to discover the “real” reason Mike drinks or worry if it’s “true” that some people are genetically predisposed to addiction. In his view, the purpose of therapy is the lessening of pain. He would regard the disease model of addiction as an alternative construction—a i ction, perhaps, but for the Franklin family a useful and less painful one. 12 Conversely, self-help groups called Families Anonymous (FA) are intensely committed to the addiction model as the way to realign the family network. Just as AA gives support to the recovering alcoholic, FA offers support for those who face chemical dependency within their own families. At each meeting, partici-pants read aloud a brief selection entitled “Helping,” in which they pledge to avoid manipulation, control, overprotectiveness, or any other effort to make the addicted family member i t a standard or an image. The reading closes with radical words for worried parents: “I can change myself. Others I can only love.” 13 That’s changing the game by changing the rules. Addiction modelAssumes alcoholism and other addictions are diseases to be cured rather than character disorders to be con-demned. “Instead of ‘It sucks’ you could say, ‘It doesn’t speak to me.’”© Mike Twohy/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com CRITIQUE: ADJUSTMENTS NEEDED WITHIN THE SYSTEM Janet Beavin Bavelas co-authored Pragmatics of Human Communication with Wat-zlawick in 1967. Twenty-i ve years later, she reviewed the status of the axioms that are the central focus of the interactional view. 14 Based on the research pro-gram she conducted at the University of Victoria in Canada, Bavelas recommends
190 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONmodifying some axioms of the theory. Her proposal serves as an informed cri-tique of the original theory. The i rst axiom claims that we cannot not communicate. Perhaps because of the catchy way it’s stated, this axiom has been both challenged and defended more than the others. Although Bavelas is fascinated by the way people avoid eye contact or physically position themselves to communicate that they don’t want to communicate, she now concedes that not all nonverbal behavior is communi-cation. Observers may draw inferences from what they see, but in the absence of a sender–receiver relationship and the intentional use of a shared code, Bavelas would describe nonverbal behavior as informative rather than communicative. As Figure 14–1 shows, the Palo Alto Group treated the verbal and nonver-bal channels as providing different kinds of information. Bavelas now thinks that the notion of functionally separate channels dedicated to different uses is wrong. She suggests a whole-message model that treats verbal and nonverbal acts as completely integrated and often interchangeable. In effect, she has erased the broken vertical line that divides Figure 14–1 down the middle—a major shift in thinking. The content/relationship distinction of another axiom is still viable for Bavelas. As did Watzlawick, she continues to believe that the content of com-munication is always embedded in the relationship environment. Looking back, however, she thinks they confused readers by sometimes equating the term metacommunication with all communication about a relationship. She now wants to reserve the word for explicit communication about the process of com-municating. Examples of metacommunication narrowly dei ned would be Lau-rie Franklin telling her brother, “Don’t talk to me like a kid,” and Mike’s response, “What do you mean by that?” Laurie’s raised eyebrows and Mike’s angry tone of voice would also be part of their tightly integrated packages of meaning. Systems theories involving people are difi cult to evaluate because of their equii nality —a characteristic that means a given behavioral outcome could be caused by any or many factors that are interconnected. Due to this feature, it’s hard to know when the system is out of whack. However, I i nd Bavelas’ disen-chantment with a theoretical system that she helped create disquieting and a reason to question its validity. Despite these doubts, I’m impressed with the impact that Watzlawick and his associates have had on the i eld of interpersonal communication. The publi-cation of Pragmatics of Human Communication marked the beginning of wide-spread study of the way communication patterns sustain or destroy relationships. The interactional view has also encouraged communication scholars to go beyond narrow cause-and-effect assumptions. The entanglements Watzlawick described rel ect the complexities of real-life relationships that most of us know. In that way, the interactional view is similar to the other two theories covered in this section on relationship maintenance. EquifinalityA systems-theory assumption that a given outcome could have occurred due to any or many interconnected factors rather than being a result in a cause-effect relationship. QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS 1. Systems theorists compare the family system to a mobile. What part of the mobile represents metacommunication? If you were constructing a mobile to model your family, how would you depict symmetrical and complementary relationships? Whole-message modelRegards verbal and nonverbal components of a message as com-pletely integrated and often interchangeable.
CHAPTER 14: THE INTERACTIONAL VIEW 191 Recommended resource: Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin Bavelas, and Don Jackson, Prag-matics of Human Communication, W. W. Norton, New York, 1967. Seminal ideas of the Palo Alto Group: Gregory Bateson, “Information and Codii cation,” in Communication, Jurgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson (eds.), W. W. Norton, New York, 1951, pp. 168–211. System theory: B. Aubrey Fisher, “The Pragmatic Perspective of Human Communica-tion: A View from System Theory,” in Human Communication Theory, Frank E. X. Dance (ed.), Harper & Row, New York, 1982, pp. 192–219. Relational control: L. Edna Rogers and Richard Farace, “Analysis of Relational Com-munication in Dyads: New Measurement Procedures,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 1, 1975, pp. 222–239. Relational control in families: L. Edna Rogers, “Relational Communication Theory: An Interactional Family Theory,” in Engaging Theories in Family Communication: Multiple Per-spectives, Dawn O. Braithwaite and Leslie A. Baxter (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2006, pp. 115–129. Reframing: Paul Watzlawick, John H. Weakland, and Richard Fisch, Change, W. W. Norton, New York, 1974, pp. 92–160. Pathological punctuation: R. D. Laing, Knots, Pantheon Books, New York, 1970. Whether one cannot not communicate: Theodore Clevenger, Jr., “Can One Not Com-municate? A Conl ict of Models,” Communication Studies, Vol. 42, 1991, pp. 340–353. Social construction approach to therapy: Paul Watzlawick and Michael Hoyt, “Construct-ing Therapeutic Realities: A Conversation with Paul Watzlawick,” in Handbook of Construc-tive Therapies, Michael Hoyt (ed.), Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, 1997, pp. 183–196. Theory adjustments: Janet Beavin Bavelas, “Research into the Pragmatics of Human Communication,” Journal of Strategic and Systemic Therapies, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1992, pp. 15–29. Dawn of communication theory: Wolfram Lutterer, “The Two Beginnings of Communi-cation Theory,” Kybernetes, Vol. 36, 2007, pp. 1022–1025. Current face of the theory: L. Edna Rogers and Valentin Escudero (eds.), Relational Com-munication: An Interactional Perspective to Study Process and Form, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mah-wah, NJ, 2004. Critique: Carol Wilder, “The Palo Alto Group: Difi culties and Directions of the Interac-tional View for Human Communication Research,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 5, 1979, pp. 171–186. A SECOND LOOK 2. For decades, the United States and the former Soviet Union were engaged in a nuclear arms race. How does Watzlawick’s axiom about the punctuation of communication sequences explain the belligerence of both nations? 3. Can you make up something your instructor might say that would place you in a double bind? Under what conditions would this be merely laughable rather than frustrating? 4. Read one of the letters printed in the “Ask Amy” or “Dear Abby” column of your daily newspaper. How could you reframe the situation the writer describes?
192 Influence Getting a person to play a role in an unfamiliar situation can be a powerful method of inl uence. To explore its effectiveness, Yale social psychologists Irving Janis and Leon Mann surveyed students at a women’s college to i nd out their attitudes and behavior toward smoking—a practice quite resistant to change. 1 They later asked many who smoked to take part in a role play that supposedly assessed their acting ability. Each woman was to take the role of a patient who had gone to the doctor because of a continual cough. She was now back in his ofi ce to get the results of a battery of tests the doctor had ordered. She had no script to follow and could respond to the other actor in whatever way she desired. 2 One researcher then ushered her into a room that was decked out with a scale, sterilizer, l uorescent light for reading X-rays, and a medical school diploma on the wall. The room even smelled of disinfectant. The second experimenter wore a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. Speaking in an author-itative tone of voice, the “doctor” came right to the point. Her chest X-ray gave a positive indication of lung cancer and the diagnosis was coni rmed by lab tests. Without question, this condition had developed over a long time. He then paused to let the young woman respond. Often she would say that she’d been smoking too much. Most students eventually asked what they could do. The doctor wasn’t optimistic, “We need to operate immediately. Can you be prepared to check into the hospital tomorrow afternoon?” The surgery only had a 50-50 chance of success of stopping the cancer’s spread. At this point the mini drama could go in a number of directions. The student might express fear for her life, anguish over broken plans for graduation, hesitancy over what to tell her parents or i ancé, anger at God, or disbelief that it was happening to her. No matter how the dialogue went, the young woman got caught up in the situation and emotionally involved with the link between smoking and cancer. Janis and Mann waited two weeks for the effects of the role play to take hold and then rechecked attitudes toward cigarette smoking. They found that role-play students expressed less favorable opinions toward smoking than they had before. They also discovered that the average cigarettes-per-day habit had dropped from 24 (more than a pack a day) to 14—a dramatic decrease in actual smoking behavior. The attitudes of smokers in the control group who didn’t have the role-play experience remained the same as before. So did their 24 cigarettes-per-day habit. Relapse is common when smokers try to cut back or quit “cold turkey.” Many i nd the force of nicotine addiction, cigarette advertising, and friends who smoke hard to resist. Yet after eight months the slippage was slight. On average, those who participated in the emotional role play lit up 15 times a day—only one cigarette more. Why is role play so effective in this case? In their book, New Techniques of Persuasion, the late Gerald Miller (Michigan State University) and Michael Burgoon (University of Arizona) suggest three possibilities. Role play makes for immediacy. The cigarette–cancer connection becomes more real to the smoker when she can’t get the image of the doctor delivering bad news out of her mind. There’s also personal involvement. The smoker can no longer stand aloof from the threat of
INFLUENCE 193cancer when she’s actively stating her fears to the doctor. Finally, Miller and Burgoon suggest we consider the effect of nonverbal messages, such as the doctor pointing to the patient’s X-ray. “The impact of this simple behavioral sequence may well transcend the effects of an extended medical lecture on the dangers of cigarette smoking.” 3 I’ve recounted this experiment because it illustrates and measures what inl uence theorists, researchers, and many practitioners value. Will a persuasive approach change people’s inner attitudes—their beliefs, their emotional response, and what they intend to do? Will that attitude shift be matched by a change in actual behavior? Are these changes so deep-seated that they will resist forces that tend to draw them back into old patterns of thinking and behavior? And will they last over time? The three theories that follow suggest different routes to this kind of effective interpersonal inl uence and, most important, explain why they work. “I’m through playing doctor. With insurance forms, co-payments, and malpractice suits, it’s just no fun!” © Chris Wildt. Reprinted by permission of www.CartoonStock.com
19415CHAPTER Social Judgment Theoryof Muzafer Sherif My son, Jim, is an airline pilot—a job that has changed dramatically since the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. When he walks through the airport he overhears a variety of comments about the safety of air travel. I’ve listed 11 statements that rel ect the range of attitudes he’s heard expressed. Read through these opinions and consider the diversity of viewpoints they repre-sent. a. Airlines aren’t willing to spend money on tight security. b. All life is risk. Flying is like anything else. c. Anyone willing to die for a cause can hijack an airplane. d. Air marshals with guns can deter terrorists. e. There are old pilots and bold pilots; there are no old, bold pilots. f. Pilots drink before they l y to quell their fears of skyjacking. g. Getting there by plane is safer than taking the train or bus. h. American pilots are trained to handle any in-l ight emergency. i. It’s easy to get into the cockpit of a jet airplane. j. Passenger screening is better since checkers were federalized. k. The odds of a plane crash are 1 in 10 million. Take a few minutes to mark your reactions to these statements. If you follow each instruction before jumping ahead to the next one, you’ll have a chance to experience what social judgment theory predicts. 1. To begin, read through the items again and underline the single statement that most closely represents your point of view. 2. Now look and see whether any other items seem reasonable. Circle the letters in front of those acceptable statements. 3. Reread the remaining statements and cross out the letters in front of any that are objectionable to you. After you cross out these unreasonable ideas, you may have marked all 11 statements one way or another. It’s also pos-sible that you’ll leave some items unmarked. ●Objective InterpretiveSocio-psychological tradition
CHAPTER 15: SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY 195 THREE LATITUDES: ACCEPTANCE, REJECTION, AND NONCOMMITMENT I’ve just taken you through on paper what social judgment theory says happens in our heads. We hear a message and immediately judge where it should be placed on the attitude scale in our minds. According to the late Muzafer Sherif, a social psychologist at the University of Oklahoma, this subconscious sorting out of ideas occurs at the instant of perception. We weigh every new idea by comparing it with our present point of view. He called his analysis of attitudes the social judgment–involvement approach, but most scholars refer to it simply as social judgment theory. Sherif believed that the three responses you made on the previous page are necessary to determine your attitude toward airline safety, or any other attitude structure. In all probability you circled a range of statements that seemed reason-able to you and crossed out a number of opinions you couldn’t accept. That’s why Sherif would see your attitude as a latitude rather than as any single state-ment you underlined. He wrote that an “individual’s stand is not represented adequately as a point along a continuum. Different persons espousing the same position may differ considerably in their tolerance around this point.” 1 He saw an attitude as an amalgam of three zones. The i rst zone is called the latitude of acceptance. It’s made up of the item you underlined and any others you circled as acceptable. A second zone is the latitude of rejection. It consists of the opinions you crossed out as objectionable. The leftover statements, if any, dei ne the latitude of noncommitment. These were the items you found neither objectionable nor acceptable. They’re akin to marking undecided or no opinion on a traditional attitude survey. Sherif said we need to know the location and width of each of these interrelated latitudes in order to describe a person’s attitude structure. Suppose Jim encounters a man in the airport named Ned, who is complaining about the dangers of l ight as evidenced by 9/11 terrorism. Assume that Jim would like to persuade Ned that l ying is absolutely safe, or at least much less risky than anxious Ned believes. Social judgment theory recommends that Jim try to i gure out the location and breadth of the man’s three latitudes before presenting his case. Figure 15–1 shows where Ned places those 11 statements along the mental yardstick he uses to gauge safety. As you will discover in the next few pages, if my son has a good idea of this cognitive map, he’ll have a much better chance of crafting a message that will persuade Ned to be more optimistic about l ying. Social judgment–involvement   Perception and evaluation of an idea by comparing it with current attitudes. Latitude of acceptance   The range of ideas that a person sees as reason-able or worthy of consid-eration. Latitude of rejection   The range of ideas that a person sees as unreason-able or objectionable. Latitude of noncommitment   The range of ideas that a person sees as neither acceptable nor objectionable. EGO-INVOLVEMENT: HOW MUCH DO YOU CARE? There’s one other thing about Ned’s attitude structure that Jim needs to know—how important the issue of air safety is in Ned’s life. Sherif called this concept ego-involvement. Ego-involvement refers to how crucial an issue is in our lives. Is it central to our well-being? Do we think about it a lot? Does our attitude on the matter go a long way toward dei ning who we are? In Figure 15–1 , I’ve used an anchor to represent the position that most closely represents Ned’s point of view—that l ying is dangerous because fanatics are willing to die for their cause. Sherif said that’s what our favored position does; it anchors all our other thoughts about the topic. If air safety were only a casual concern for Ned, it would be i tting to rep-resent his stance with a small anchor that could easily be dragged to a new position. That’s probably the case for some of the nonl iers in the terminal who Ego-involvement The importance or cen-trality of an issue to a person’s life, often dem-onstrated by membership in a group with a known stand.
196 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONare simply picking up a rental car, dropping off Aunt Juanita for her l ight, or perhaps retrieving a lost bag for a friend. These folks are for safe l ights and against crashes, but for them air safety isn’t a major personal concern. Despite the fact that images of airplanes slamming into the twin towers of the World Trade Center are stenciled into most people’s minds, not everyone who l ies dwells on the topic. Those people don’t argue about it, stew over it, or get sweaty palms when their jet roars down the runway. As long as everything seems normal, their ego-involvement is moderate. But for Ned and others like him, the issue is crucial. They are fearful l iers who swap horror stories of knowing someone who died on a hijacked plane. They experience panic when three swarthy men board their l ight to Chicago. Others may experience only passing anxiety about l ying, but since Ned’s fear is deep-seated, the hefty anchor shown in Figure 15–1 is appropriate. People with attitude proi les similar to Ned’s are highly ego-involved. Some join an airline passenger association that lobbies Congress for stricter safety regulations. One way Sherif dei ned high ego-involvement was membership in a group with a known stand. My son’s pilot’s license, Air Line Pilots Association union card, and employment with a major airline are indications that he’s at least as ego-involved in the issue as Ned. Of course, his coni dence in airline safety is at the other end of the spectrum. Three features of Ned’s attitude structure are typical of people with high ego-involvement in an issue. The i rst indication is that his latitude of noncom-mitment is almost nonexistent. People who don’t care about an issue usually have a wide latitude of noncommitment, but Ned has only one statement in that category. He may not be sure about old, bold pilots, but he has dei nite opinions on everything else. Second, Ned rejects all i ve statements that offer assurances of safety. Accord-ing to social judgment theory, a wide latitude of rejection is a typical sign of high ego-involvement. Ned has intense feelings about the potential dangers of l ying; 1234567891011DANGERSAFETYLatitude of RejectionLatitude of AcceptanceLatitude of NoncommitmentLatitude of RejectionPilots scared/drinkHijackers willing to dieCockpit entry easyAirlines skimp on securityNo old, bold pilotsLife is a riskPlane safer than trainScreening federalizedAir marshal protectsCrisis-trained pilotsCrash odds 1 in 10 millionFIGURE 15–1 Ned’s Cognitive Map Regarding Air Safety
CHAPTER 15: SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY 197he sees safety as a black-and-white issue. Persons with low ego-involvement would probably see more gray area. Note that the effects of high ego-involvement on perception may be similar to those of low cognitive complexity on the per-ception of personal characteristics (see Chapter 8). The person with high ego-involvement may have trouble distinguishing between actual improvements in safety and empty assurances. The person with low cognitive complexity may perceive groups of people as all the same. In both cases, the observer blurs dif-ferences that could make a difference. Finally, people who hold extreme opinions on either side of an issue almost always care deeply. While it’s possible to feel passionate about middle-of-the-road positions, social judgment researchers i nd that massive attitude anchors are usually located toward the ends of the scale. Extreme positions and high ego-involvement go together. That’s why religion, sex, and politics are tradition-ally taboo topics in the wardroom of a U.S. Navy ship at sea. When passions run deep, radical opinions are common, and there’s little tolerance for diversity. Everything I’ve presented up to this point is how social judgment theory describes the cognitive structure of a person’s attitude. We now turn to the two-step mental process that Sherif said is triggered when that person hears or reads a message. Ned will i rst evaluate the content of the message to see where it falls vis-à-vis his own position—how far it is from his anchor. That’s the judgment phase of social judgment theory. In the second stage of the process, Ned will adjust his anchored attitude toward or away from the message he’s just encoun-tered. The next two sections explain the way Sherif said the two stages of this inl uence process work. Sherif claimed that we use our own anchored attitude as a comparison point when we hear a discrepant message. He believed there is a parallel between systematic biases in the judgments we make in the physical world and the way we determine other people’s attitudes. I recently set up three pails of water in my class to illus-trate this principle. Even though the contents looked the same, the water in the left bucket was just above freezing, the water in the right bucket was just below scalding, and the water in the middle bucket was lukewarm. A student volun-teered to plunge her left hand into the left bucket and her right hand into the right bucket at the same time. Twenty seconds was about all she could take. I then asked her to plunge both hands into the middle bucket and judge the temperature of the water. Of course, this produced a bafl ing experience, because her left hand “told” her the water was hot, while her right hand sent a message that it was cold. Sherif hypothesized a similar contrast effect when people who are “hot” for an idea hear a message on the topic that doesn’t have the same i re. Judged by their standard, even warm messages strike them as cold. Sherif’s social judgment–involvement label nicely captures the idea of a link between ego-involvement and perception. Highly committed people have large latitudes of rejection. Any mes-sage that falls within that range will be perceived by them as more discrepant from their anchor than it really is. The message is mentally pushed away to a position that is farther out—not within the latitude of acceptance—so the hearer doesn’t have to deal with it as a viable option. Contrast A perceptual error whereby people judge messages that fall within their latitude of rejection as further from their an-chor than they really are. JUDGING THE MESSAGE: CONTRAST AND ASSIMILATION ERRORS
198 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION All of this is bad news for Jim as he tries to dispel Ned’s fears. He’ll prob-ably address Ned’s concerns head on: Look, Ned, statistics show you’re much safer l ying than taking the train or bus. In fact, the most dangerous part of l ying is the drive to the airport. I know you worry about terrorists, but with the new full-body scanners the TSA is using, there’s no way that guns, knives, or explosives can get on board. And you should know there’s been an undercover air marshal riding shotgun back in coach on my last three trips. Jim hopes these points will be reassuring. If Ned hears them as they were intended, they will register at 7, 8, and 9 on his mental scale, where a 1 repre-sents total danger and an 11 indicates complete safety. However, social judg-ment theory says Ned won’t hear them that way. Because the message falls within Ned’s latitude of rejection, he’s likely to judge the words as even further away from his anchor, perhaps at 9, 10, and 11. The words will strike Ned as unbelievable, self-serving, pilot propaganda—a false guarantee of safety that he’s quick to reject. Contrast is a perceptual distortion that leads to polarization of ideas. But according to Sherif, it happens only when a message falls within the latitude of rejection. Assimilation is the opposite error of judgment. It’s the rubberband effect that draws an idea toward the hearer’s anchor so it seems that she and the speaker share the same opinion. Assimilation takes place when a message falls within the latitude of acceptance. For example, suppose Jim tells Ned that his airline isn’t willing to spend money on effective security. Although that message is at 4 on Ned’s cognitive map, he will hear it as more similar to his anchoring attitude than it really is, perhaps at 3. Sherif was unclear about how people judge a message that falls within their latitude of noncommitment. Most interpreters assume that perceptual bias will not kick in and that the message will be heard roughly as intended. Assimilation A perceptual error whereby people judge messages that fall within their latitude of accep-tance as less discrepant from their anchor than they really are. Judging how close or how far a message is from our own anchored position is the i rst stage of attitude change. Shifting our anchor in response is the second. Sherif thought that both stages of the inl uence process usually take place below the level of consciousness. According to social judgment theory, once we’ve judged a new message to be within our latitude of acceptance, we will adjust our attitude somewhat to accommodate the new input. The persuasive effect will be positive but partial. We won’t travel the whole distance, but there will be some measurable move-ment toward the speaker’s perceived position. How much movement? Sherif wasn’t specii c, but he did claim that the greater the discrepancy, the more hearers will adjust their attitudes. Thus, the message that persuades the most is the one that is most discrepant from the listener’s position yet falls within his or her latitude of acceptance or latitude of noncommitment. If we’ve judged a message to be within our latitude of rejection, we will also adjust our attitude, but in this case away from what we think the speaker is advo-cating. Since people who are highly ego-involved in a topic have a broad range of DISCREPANCY AND ATTITUDE CHANGE
CHAPTER 15: SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY 199rejection, most messages aimed to persuade them are in danger of actually driv-ing them further away. This predicted boomerang effect suggests that people are often driven rather than drawn to the attitude positions they occupy. The mental processes Sherif described are automatic. He reduced interper-sonal inl uence to the issue of the distance between the message and the hearer’s position: Stripped to its bare essential, the problem of attitude change is the problem of the degree of discrepancy from communication and the felt necessity of coping with the discrepancy. 2 So the only space for volition in social judgment theory is the choice of alterna-tive messages available to the person who’s trying to persuade. Boomerang effect Attitude change in the opposite direction of what the message advo-cates; listeners driven away from rather than drawn to an idea. PRACTICAL ADVICE FOR THE PERSUADER Sherif would have advised Jim to avoid messages that claim l ying is safer than taking the bus or train. Ned simply won’t believe them, and they may push him deeper into his anti-aviation stance. To make sure his words have a positive effect, Jim should select a message that falls at the edge of Ned’s latitude of acceptance. Even after the perceptual process of assimilation kicks in, Ned will “We think you could gain much wider support simply by re-languaging your bigotry.”© William Haefeli/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
200 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONstill judge Jim’s message to be discrepant from his point of view and shift his attitude slightly in that direction. Ned, you’re right. For years the airlines—mine included—didn’t invest the money it takes to successfully screen passengers. But 9/11 has changed all that. Every ticket you buy has a surcharge to pay for tight security. And the days of the cow-boy pilot are over. Because it’s my job to protect hundreds of lives in a 100-million-dollar airplane, I do it by the book every l ight. I know that if I get my butt there safely, yours will get there that way too. Jim might try a riskier strategy to produce greater attitude shift. He could use the rather ambiguous statement about there being no old, bold pilots. Ambiguity can often serve better than clarity. When George W. Bush started campaigning for president, he called himself a “compassionate conservative.” Nobody knew exactly what the label meant, so the term stayed out of voters’ latitude of rejection. Tanya Donelly, former lead singer for Belly, takes the same approach. She says she writes lyrics that are intentionally vague so as to appeal to a wider audience. 3 If Jim goes this route and Ned presses for clarii cation on the absence of old, bold pilots, Jim can explain that rigorous cockpit check-rides weeded out those who take chances. But this approach could backi re and feed Ned’s fears if the statement calls to mind an image of reckless pilots about to crash and burn. The idea of crafting a message to fall within Ned’s latitude of acceptance or noncommitment is frustrating to Jim. He wants more change than these strate-gies offer. But it’s all he can get in a one-shot attempt. If he were talking to an open-minded person with wide latitudes of acceptance and noncommitment, a bigger shift would be possible. Toby, a student in my class, saw himself that way over a wide range of issues: Time and time again I i nd myself easily persuaded. Afterward I wonder, How did I get talked into this one? Credit it to my l exibility, willingness to try, or naïve trust in people’s motives. I always pay attention to advice given by a friend or an expert. Social judgment theory would say that I simply have a wide latitude of noncommitment. That’s because I have low ego-involvement most of the time. The situation is not a hill to die on, so why should I get my pride involved? Toby isn’t typical. We’re more likely to encounter people who are dogmatic on every issue. “Don’t confuse me with the facts,” they say. “My mind is made up.” These cantankerous souls have chronically wide latitudes of rejection. This probably doesn’t describe Ned. His highly skeptical attitude is likely limited to fear of l ying. But when Jim is dealing with a highly ego-involved traveler, he has to work within a narrow range. True conversion from one end of the scale to the other is a rare phenomenon. The only way to stimulate large-scale change is through a series of small, successive movements. Persuasion is a gradual process. It’s also a social process. The lack of an interpersonal bond between Jim and Ned limits the amount of inl uence that’s possible. If Ned heard strong reassur-ances of airline safety from his friends and family, it might occasion a major shift. Sherif noted that “most dramatic cases of attitude change, the most widespread and enduring, are those involving changes in reference groups with differing values.” 4 Reference groups   Groups that members use to define their identity.
CHAPTER 15: SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY 201 Research on the predictions of social judgment theory (SJT) requires highly ego-involving issues where strong resistance to some persuasive messages is likely. The topics of sufi cient sleep, alcohol consumption, and asking for money seem to be ripe for checking out the theory’s validity. Sufi cient sleep. In an early experiment testing social judgment theory, psychologists Stephen Bochner (University of New South Wales) and Chester Insko (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) queried college students about how much sleep they thought a person should get each night. 5 Before the study, most college students accepted the conventional wisdom that the human body functions best with eight hours of sleep. They then read an article written by an expert in the i eld that claimed young adults actually need much less. The message was the same for all with one crucial difference. Some students were told they needed eight hours, some seven, some six, and so on, right down the line. The i nal group actually read that humans need no sleep at all! Then each group had a chance to give their opinions. Sherif’s theory suggests that the fewer hours recommended, the more stu-dents will be swayed until they begin to regard the message as patently ridicu-lous. The results shown in Figure 15–2 coni rm this prediction. Persuasion increased as the hours advocated were reduced to 3, a message that caused stu-dents to revise their estimate of optimum sleep down to 6.3 hours. Anything less than 3 hours apparently fell outside their latitude of acceptance and became progressively ineffective. But a highly credible speaker can shrink the hearer’s latitude of rejection. When the “expert” in the sleep study was a Nobel Prize-winning physiologist rather than a YMCA director, persuasion increased. Alcohol consumption. In the fall of 2004, Michigan State University com-munication professors Sandi Smith, Charles Atkin, and three other university colleagues measured students’ perception of drinking behavior at the school. 6 They found a campus-wide pluralistic ignorance of the actual amount of booze ATTITUDES ON SLEEP, BOOZE, AND MONEY: EVIDENCE SUPPORTING SJT FIGURE 15–2 Sleep Study ResultsAdapted from Bochner and Insko, “Communicator Discrepancy, Source Credibility and Opinion Change”86.06.26.46.66.8Students’postmessageopinion ofsleep needed(in hours)Optimal sleep advocated by expert(in hours)7.07.27.47.67.876543210zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
202 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONconsumed by students who drink at a party. Whereas reported alcohol consump-tion averaged 5.3 drinks—with 63 percent downing i ve drinks or less—students thought the norm was closer to six drinks (5.9 percent). This gap concerned health center ofi cials because perceived social norms affect behavior—in this case, the idea encouraged risky binge drinking. In preparation for a campus-wide social norm campaign to correct the misperception, Smith and Atkin measured student body latitudes of acceptance, noncommitment, and rejection of various messages to publicize the actual norm. Based on their research they selected the following true phrase to be included in every communication about student drinking behavior: “Most (63 percent) drink zero to i ve when they party.” The message fell within most students’ latitude of noncommitment—as discrepant from cam-pus opinion as possible while still being believable. The intensive, three-month campaign involved posters across campus, table tents in the cafeteria, and multiple ads in the campus newspaper and in a news magazine handed out at orientation. Almost all students reported see-ing the zero-to-i ve-drinks message many times. The campaign was a success. When Smith and Atkin measured perception of drinking in the spring, they found that students had lowered their estimate to 4.9—one drink less than they had thought in the fall. Even more impressive, the average of number of drinks consumed at a party during that time span fell from 5.3 to 4.5—almost a full glass or mug. Like the lung-cancer role-play experiment reported in the introduction to this section, this research validates an effective strategy to induce lasting change in beliefs and behavior, even when the issue is highly ego-involving. But Smith and Atkin are quick to note that the campaign was not a rigorous test of social judgment theory. They didn’t design the campaign to see if messages pre-sented within students’ latitudes of acceptance or rejection would have had an equal or even greater positive effect. Yet their effort certainly afi rms the wis-dom of checking how prior beliefs affect the credibility of messages meant to persuade. Asking for money. An anecdotal story of SJT in action comes from a uni-versity development director I know who was making a call on a rich alumnus. He anticipated that the prospective donor would give as much as $10,000. He made his pitch and asked what the wealthy businessman could do. The man protested that it had been a lean year and that times were tough—he couldn’t possibly contribute more than $20,000. The fundraiser i gured that he had seri-ously underestimated the giver’s latitude of acceptance and that $20,000 was on the low end of that range. Without missing a beat he replied, “Trevor, do you really think that’s enough?” The alumnus wrote a check for $25,000. How do you feel about the fundraising ploy just described? The persuasive technique obviously worked, but the application of social judgment theory raises some thorny ethical questions. Is it legitimate for fundraisers to alter their pitch based on a potential donor’s latitude of acceptance? Is it all right for politicians to be intentionally vague so that their message has broad appeal? Or consider my son’s genuine desire to allay the fears of the l ying public. The theory claims Jim will be more effective by presenting a soft-sell message at mid-scale rather than stating his genuine conviction that l ying is safer than driving. Are these choices you want to make, or want others to make when they try to inl uence you? Pluralistic ignorance The mistaken idea that everyone else is doing or thinking something that they aren’t.
CHAPTER 15: SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY 203 The social norm campaign on alcohol consumption and the college fundraiser’s appeal for a generous contribution demonstrate that social judgment theory has practical utility —one of the six criteria of a good scientii c theory. The trick for the inl uence practitioner is i guring out where the other person’s latitudes of acceptance, noncommitment, and rejection lie. That’s what audience analysis, market research, and focus groups are all about, but it’s hard to imagine Jim handing a questionnaire to every jittery traveler in the departure lounge. Social judgment theory offers specii c predictions about what happens in the mind of someone who hears or reads a message that falls within his or her lati-tude of acceptance or rejection. Sherif’s appeal to the perceptual distortions of assimilation and contrast, as well as the crucial role of ego-involvement, offer a compelling explanation of what goes on behind the eyes. Yet like all cognitive explanations put forth in this section of the book, these mental structures and processes can’t be seen. We can only infer what’s going on inside the head by observing the input and the output—the message and a person’s response. The SJT explanation of persuasion is complex, but given Sherif’s claim that an atti-tude can’t be identii ed by a single point on a continuum, it’s hard to imagine a simpler account of what’s happening. As the studies I’ve described demonstrate, social judgment theory requires quantitative research, and that’s the kind social scientists have designed. But com-pared to the hundreds of empirical studies run to test and rei ne other leading theories of persuasion, the research base of SJT is relatively small. That may be because it’s hard to locate a wide range of experimental subjects who run the gamut of high to low ego-involvement and hold widely different opinions on the same topic. And once they are willing to participate, the process of locating their three latitudes can be tedious for everyone involved. Even so, specii c pre-dictions of SJT are testable; some have been supported and a few found to fail. For example, Bochner and Insko’s sleep experiment coni rms that as long as a message remains outside people’s latitudes of rejection, the more discrepant it is from the anchor and the greater the attitude shift in the desired direction will be. On the other hand, the boomerang effect that SJT predicts can happen when a message is delivered in the latitude of rejection is not often found. (Students who read the bizarre claim that the body thrives with zero hours of sleep per day didn’t then decide that eight hours were too few.) Despite the questions that surround social judgment theory, it is an elegant conception of the persuasion process that falls well within my latitude of accep-tance. There’s an intuitive appeal to the idea of crafting a message just short of the latitude of rejection in order to be as effectively discrepant as possible. That would be my message to Jim as he confronts a variety of air travelers. I wonder in what latitude of attitude my advice will fall? CRITIQUE: A THEORY WELL WITHIN THE LATITUDE OF ACCEPTANCE 1. How does the concept of attitudes as latitudes help you understand your atti-tude toward the various requirements of this course? 2. Suppose you i nd out that the fellow sitting next to you is highly ego-involved in the issue of gun control. Based on social judgment theory, what three predic-tions about his attitude structure would be reasonable to make? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS
204 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 3. What practical advice does social judgment theory offer if you want to ask your boss for a raise? 4. Do you have any ethical qualms about applying the wisdom of social judg-ment theory? Why or why not? SELF-QUIZ www.mhhe.com/grifi n8 A SECOND LOOK Recommended resources: Donald Granberg, “Social Judgment Theory,” in Communication Yearbook 6, Michael Burgoon (ed.), Sage, Beverly Hills, CA, 1982, pp. 304–329; Daniel J. O’Keefe, “Social Judgment Theory,” in Persuasion: Theory and Research, Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1990, pp. 29–44. Original conception: Carolyn Sherif, Muzafer Sherif, and Roger Nebergall, Attitude and Attitude Change: The Social Judgment–Involvement Approach, W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA, 1965. Attitudes as latitudes: Kenneth Sereno and Edward Bodaken, “Ego-Involvement and Attitude Change: Toward a Reconceptualization of Persuasive Effect,” Speech Monographs, Vol. 39, 1972, pp. 151–158. Ego-involvement: William W. Wilmot, “Ego-Involvement: A Confusing Variable in Speech Communication Research,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. 57, 1971, pp. 429–436. Test of two-stage hypothesis: Gian Sarup, Robert Suchner, and Gitanjali Gaylord, “Con-trast Effects and Attitude Change: A Test of the Two-Stage Hypothesis of Social Judgment Theory,” Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 54, 1991, pp. 364–372. Assimilation and contrast: Alison Ledgerwood and Shelly Chaiken, “Priming Us and Them: Automatic Assimilation and Contrast in Group Attitudes,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Vol. 93, 2007, pp. 940–956. Message discrepancy: Stan Kaplowitz and Edward Fink, “Message Discrepancy and Persuasion,” in Progress in Communication Sciences: Advances in Persuasion, Vol. 13, George Barnett and Frank Boster (eds.), Ablex, Greenwich, CT, 1997, pp. 75–106. Boomerang effect: Hilobumi Sakaki, “Experimental Studies of Boomerang Effects Fol-lowing Persuasive Communication,” Psychologia, Vol. 27, No. 2, 1984, pp. 84–88. Sleep study: Stephen Bochner and Chester Insko, “Communicator Discrepancy, Source Credibility and Opinion Change,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 4, 1966, pp. 614–621. Changing social norms for drinking on campus: Sandi Smith, Charles Atkin, Dennis Martell, Rebecca Allen, and Larry Hembroff, “A Social Judgment Theory Approach to Conducting Formative Research in a Social Norms Campaign,” Communication Theory , Vol. 16, 2006, pp. 141–152. Critique: Hee Sun Park, Timothy Levine, Catherine Y. K. Waterman, Tierney Oregon, and Sarah Forager, “The Effects of Argument Quality and Involvement Type on Attitude Forma-tion and Attitude Change,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 33, 2007, pp. 81–102.
16CHAPTER Elaboration Likelihood Model of Richard Petty & John Cacioppo Like a number of women whose children are out of the home, Rita Francisco has gone back to college. Her program isn’t an aimless sampling of classes to i ll empty hours—she has enrolled in every course that will help her become a more persuasive advocate. Rita is a woman on a mission. Rita’s teenage daughter was killed when the car she was riding in smashed into a stone wall. After drinking three cans of beer at a party, the girl’s 18-year-old boyfriend lost control on a curve while driving 80 miles per hour. Rita’s son walks with a permanent limp as a result of injuries sustained when a high school girl plowed through the parking lot of a 7-Eleven on a Friday night. When the county prosecutor obtained a DUI (driving under the inl uence) conviction, it only fueled Rita’s resolve to get young drinking drivers off the road. She has become active with Mothers Against Drunk Driving and works to convince any-one who will listen that zero-tolerance laws, which make it illegal for drivers under the age of 21 to have any measurable amount of alcohol in their system, should be strictly enforced. Rita also wants to persuade others that young adults caught driving with more than 0.02 percent blood alcohol content should auto-matically lose their driver’s licenses until they are 21. This is a tough sell on most college campuses. While her classmates can appreciate the tragic reasons underlying her fervor, few subscribe to what they believe is a drastic solution. As a nontraditional, older student, Rita realizes that her younger classmates could easily dismiss her campaign as the ranting of a hysterical parent. She’s determined to develop the most effective persuasive strategy possible and wonders if she would have the most success by presenting well-reasoned arguments for enforcing zero-tolerance laws. Then again, couldn’t she sway students more by lining up highly credible people to endorse her proposal? Objective InterpretiveSocio-psychological tradition●205
206 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Ohio State psychologist Richard Petty thinks Rita is asking the right questions. He conducted his Ph.D. dissertation study using the topic of teenage driving to test the relative effectiveness of strong-message arguments and high source cred-ibility. He found that the results varied depending on which of two mental routes to attitude change a listener happened to use. Petty labeled the two cognitive processes the central route and the peripheral route. He sees the distinction as help-ful in reconciling much of the conl icting data of persuasion research. Along with his University of Chicago colleague John Cacioppo, he launched an inten-sive program of study to discover the best way for a persuader to activate each route. The central route involves message elaboration. Elaboration is “the extent to which a person carefully thinks about issue-relevant arguments contained in a persuasive communication.” 1 In an attempt to process new information ratio-nally, people using the central route carefully scrutinize the ideas, try to i gure out if they have true merit, and mull over their implications. Similar to Berger’s characterization of strategic message plans, elaboration requires high levels of cognitive effort (see Chapter 10). The peripheral route offers a mental shortcut path to accepting or rejecting a message “without any active thinking about the attributes of the issue or the object of consideration.” 2 Instead of doing extensive cognitive work, recipi-ents rely on a variety of cues that allow them to make quick decisions. Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University lists six cues that trigger a “click, whirr” programmed response. 3 These cues allow us to l y the peripheral route on auto-matic pilot: 1. Reciprocation—“You owe me.” 2. Consistency—“We’ve always done it that way.” 3. Social proof—“Everybody’s doing it.” 4. Liking—“Love me, love my ideas.” 5. Authority—“Just because I say so.” 6. Scarcity—“Quick, before they’re all gone.” Figure 16–1 shows a simplii ed version of Petty and Cacioppo’s elabora-tion likelihood model (ELM) as it applies to Rita’s situation. Although their model with its twin-route metaphor seems to suggest two mutually exclusive paths to persuasion, the theorists stress that the central route and the periph-eral route are poles on a cognitive processing continuum that shows the degree of mental effort a person exerts when evaluating a message. 4 The elaboration scale at the top represents effortful scrutiny of arguments on the left-hand side and mindless reliance on noncontent cues on the right. Most messages receive middle-ground attention between these poles, but there’s always a trade-off. The more Rita’s listeners work to discern the merits of strict zero tolerance enforcement, the less they’ll be inl uenced by peripheral factors such as their friends’ scofi ng laughter at her suggestion. Conversely, the more her hearers are affected by content-irrelevant factors such as Rita’s age, accent, or appear-ance, the less they will be affected by her ideas. We’ll work down the model one level at a time in order to understand Petty and Cacioppo’s predictions about the likelihood of Rita’s message being scrutinized by students at her college. THE CENTRAL AND PERIPHERAL ROUTES TO PERSUASION Central routeMessage elaboration; the path of cognitive process-ing that involves scrutiny of message content.Message elaborationThe extent to which a person carefully thinks about issue-relevant argu-ments contained in a per-suasive communication.Peripheral routeA mental shortcut process that accepts or rejects a message based on irrel-evant cues as opposed to actively thinking about the issue.
CHAPTER 16: ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL 207PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATIONEnforce ÒZero ToleranceÓCentral Route(message elaboration)Peripheral Route(no message elaboration)MOTIVATED TO PROCESS?Personal relevanceNeed for cognitionABLE TO PROCESS?Free from distractionSufficient knowledgePERIPHERAL CUESSpeaker credibilityReaction of othersExternal rewardsTYPE OF COGNITIVEPROCESSINGArgument qualityInitial attitudeSTRONG POSITIVEATTITUDE CHANGEEnduring, resistant,predicts behaviorSTRONG NEGATIVEATTITUDE CHANGEEnduring, resistant,predicts behaviorWEAK ATTITUDECHANGETemporary, vulnerable,does not predict behaviorNO CHANGEOF ATTITUDEMENTAL EFFORTMENTAL EFFORTHIGHHIGHLOWLOWNoNoNoFavorable caseUnfavorable caseYesYesYesNeutral caseFIGURE 16–1 The Elaboration Likelihood ModelAdapted from Petty and Cacioppo, “The Elaboration Likelihood Model: Current Status and Controversies”Petty and Cacioppo assume that people are motivated to hold correct attitudes. The authors admit that we aren’t always logical, but they think we make a good effort not to kid ourselves in our search for truth. We want to maintain reason-able positions. But a person can examine only a limited number of ideas. We are exposed to so many persuasive messages that we would experience a tremendous infor-mation overload if we tried to interact with every variant idea we heard or read about. The only way to solve this problem is by being “lazy” toward most issues in life. Petty and Cacioppo claim we have a large-mesh mental i lter that allows items we regard as less important to l ow through without being processed very carefully. But statements about things that are personally relevant get trapped and tested. In the terminology of social judgment theory (see Chapter 15), we’re motivated to elaborate only ideas with which we are highly ego-involved. There are few things in life more important to young Americans than the right to drive. A license is the closest thing our society has to an adolescent rite MOTIVATION FOR ELABORATION: IS IT WORTH THE EFFORT?
208 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONof passage; for some it is a passport to freedom. It seems unlikely, therefore, that students would regard Rita’s zero-tolerance proposal as trivial. Yet threat-ening the loss of license may have less personal relevance to students who don’t drink, or to those who already make sure they don’t drive when they drink. And if students over 21 aren’t worried about who’s driving on the road, they too may feel that Rita’s proposal has little to do with them. So ELM’s authors would regard teenage students who drive after drinking a few beers as espe-cially motivated to grapple with arguments about automatic driver’s license suspension. Petty and Cacioppo maintain that as long as people have a personal stake in accepting or rejecting an idea, they will be much more inl uenced by what a message says than by the characteristics of the person who says it. But when a topic is no longer relevant, it gets sidetracked to the periphery of the mind, where credibility cues take on greater importance. Without the motivation of personal relevance, there probably will be little elaboration. The theorists do recognize, however, that some people have a need for cog-nitive clarity, regardless of the issue. In fact, they’ve developed a Need for Cogni-tion Scale to identify individuals who are most likely to carefully consider message arguments. 5 Four of the items state: I really enjoy a task that involves coming up with new solutions to problems. I prefer my life to be i lled with puzzles that I must solve. I like tasks that require little thought once I’ve learned them. Thinking is not my idea of fun. If you substantially agree with the i rst two statements and take issue with the last two, Petty and Cacioppo would anticipate that you’d be a person who works through many of the ideas and arguments you hear. ABILITY FOR ELABORATION: CAN THEY DO IT? Once people have shown an inclination to think about the content of a message (motivation), the next issue is whether they are able to do so. Since Rita’s imme-diate audience consists of young men and women who have duly impressed a college admissions ofi cer with their ability to think, you would imagine that the question of ability would be moot. But issue-relevant thinking (elaboration) takes more than intelligence. It also requires concentration. Distraction disrupts elaboration. Rita’s classmates will be hard-pressed to think about her point of view if it’s expressed amid the din of a student union snack bar where you can’t hear yourself think. Or perhaps she presents her solu-tion for highway safety when students are trying to concentrate on something else—an upcoming exam, a letter from home, or a mental replay of the winning shot in an intramural basketball game. Rita may face the same challenge as television advertisers who have only the l eeting attention of viewers. Like them, Rita can use repetition to ensure that her main point comes across, but too much commotion will short-circuit a rea-soned consideration of the message, no matter how much repetition is used. In that case, students will use the peripheral route and judge the message by cues that indicate whether Rita is a competent and trustworthy person.Need for cognitionDesire for cognitive clar-ity; an enjoyment of thinking through ideas even when they aren’t personally relevant.
CHAPTER 16: ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL 209 TYPE OF ELABORATION: OBJECTIVE VERSUS BIASED THINKING As you can see from the downward l ow in the central path of their model ( Fig-ure 16–1 ), Petty and Cacioppo believe that motivation and ability strongly increase the likelihood that a message will be elaborated in the minds of listeners. Yet as social judgment theory suggests, they may not process the information in a fair and objective manner. Rita might have the undivided attention of students who care deeply about the right to drive, but discover that they’ve already built up an organized structure of knowledge concerning the issue. When Rita claims that the alcohol-related fatal crash rate for young drivers is double that of drivers over 21, a student may counter with the fact that teenagers drive twice as many miles and are therefore just as safe as adults. Whether or not the statistics are true or the argument is valid isn’t the issue. The point is that those who have already thought a lot about drinking and driving safety will probably have made up their minds and be biased in the way they process Rita’s message. Petty and Cacioppo refer to biased elaboration as top-down thinking in which a predetermined conclusion colors the supporting data underneath. They contrast this with objective elaboration, or bottom-up thinking, which lets facts speak for themselves. Biased elaboration merely bolsters previous ideas. Perhaps you’ve seen a picture of Rodin’s famous statue, The Thinker, a man sitting with his head propped in one hand. If the thinker already has a set of beliefs to contemplate, Petty and Cacioppo’s research shows that addi-tional thought will merely i x them in stone. Rita shouldn’t assume that audi-ence elaboration will always help her cause; it depends on whether it’s biased elaboration or objective elaboration. It also depends on the quality of her arguments. Biased elaborationTop-down thinking in which predetermined conclusions color the supporting data.Objective elaborationBottom-up thinking in which facts are scrutinized without bias; seeking truth wherever it might lead. ELABORATED ARGUMENTS: STRONG, WEAK, AND NEUTRAL If Rita manages to win an unbiased hearing from students at her school, Petty and Cacioppo say her cause will rise or fall on the perceived strength of her arguments. The two theorists have no absolute standard for what distinguishes a cogent argument from one that’s specious. They simply dei ne a strong mes-sage as one that generates favorable thoughts when it’s heard and scrutinized. Petty and Cacioppo predict that thoughtful consideration of strong argu-ments will produce major shifts in attitude in the direction desired by the per-suader. Suppose Rita states the following: National Safety Council statistics show that drivers in the 16–20 age group account for 15 percent of the miles driven in the United States, yet they are responsible for 25 percent of the highway deaths that involve alcohol. This evidence could give students cause for pause. They may not be comfortable with the facts, but some of them might i nd the statistics quite compelling and a reason to reconsider their stance. According to ELM, the enhanced thinking of those who respond favorably will cause their change in position to persist over time , resist counterpersuasion , and predict future behavior —the “triple crown” of interpersonal inl uence. However, persuasive attempts that are processed through the central route can have dramatically negative effects as well. If, despite her strong convictions, Rita isn’t able to come up with a strong argument for changing Strong argumentsClaims that generate favorable thoughts when examined.
210 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONthe current law, her persuasive attempt might actually backi re. For example, suppose she makes this argument: When underage drinkers are arrested for violating zero-tolerance rules of the road, automatic suspension of their licenses would allow the secretary of state’s ofi ce to reduce its backlog of work. This would give government ofi cials time to check driving records so that they could keep dangerous motorists off the road. This weak argument is guaranteed to offend the sensibilities of anyone who thinks about it. Rather than compelling listeners to enlist in Rita’s cause, it will only give them a reason to oppose her point of view more vigorously. The elabo-rated idea will cause a boomerang effect that will last over time, defy other efforts to change it, and affect subsequent behavior. These are the same signii cant effects that the elaborated strong argument produces, but in the opposite direction. Rita’s ideas could produce an ambivalent reaction. Listeners who carefully exam-ine her ideas may end up feeling neither pro nor con toward her evidence. Their neutral or mixed response obviously means that they won’t change their attitudes as a result of processing through the central route. For them, thinking about the pros and cons of the issue reinforces their original attitudes, whatever they may be. PERIPHERAL CUES: AN ALTERNATIVE ROUTE OF INFLUENCE Although the majority of this chapter has dealt with the central cognitive route to attitude change, most messages are processed on the less-effortful peripheral path. Signposts along the way direct the hearer to favor or oppose the persuad-er’s point of view without ever engaging in what Petty and Cacioppo call “issue-relevant thinking.” 6 There is no inner dialogue about the merits of the proposal. As explained earlier, the hearer who uses the peripheral route relies on a variety of cues as an aid in reaching a quick decision. The most obvious cues are tangible rewards linked to agreement with the advocate’s position. Food, sex, and money are traditional inducements to change. I once overheard the conclusion of a transaction between a young man and a college senior who was trying to persuade him to donate blood in order to fuli ll her class assignment. “Okay, it’s agreed,” she said. “You give blood for me today, and I’ll have you over to my place for dinner tomor-row night.” Although this type of social exchange has been going on for centuries, Petty and Cacioppo would still describe it as peripheral. Public compliance to the request for blood? Yes. Private acceptance of its importance? Not likely. For many students of persuasion, source credibility is the most interesting cue on the peripheral route. Four decades of research coni rm that people who are likable and have expertise on the issue in question can have a persuasive impact regardless of what arguments they present. Rita’s appearance, manner of talking, and background credentials will speak so loudly that some students won’t really hear what she says. Which students? According to Petty and Cacioppo, those students who are unmotivated or unable to scrutinize her mes-sage and therefore switch to the peripheral path. Listeners who believe that Rita’s twin tragedies have given her wisdom beyond their own will shift to a position more sympathetic to her point of view. The same holds true for those who see her as pleasant and warm. But there are students who will regard her grammatical mistakes as a sign of ignorance, or they’ll be turned off by a maternal manner that reminds them of a lecture from mom. These peripheral route critics will become more skeptical of Rita’s position.
CHAPTER 16: ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL 211Note that attitude change on this outside track can be either positive or negative, but it lacks the robust persistence, invulnerability, or link to behavior that we see in change that comes from message elaboration. Nicely illustrating the fragility of peripheral route change, Holly wrote the following entry in her application log: In his short story “Salvation,” Langston Hughes recounts his childhood experi-ence at a religious revival in his town. For days the old ladies of the church had been praying for the conversion of all the “little lambs” of the congregation. After working the congregation to a fever pitch, the preacher gave an altar call aimed at the children, and one after another they cried and went forward to be saved from hell. The author and his friend didn’t feel anything, but after what seemed like forever, his friend went up so all the hubbub would i nally stop. Langston knew that his friend hadn’t really been converted, but since God didn’t smite him for lying, he i gured it would be safe for him to fake it as well, which he did. When the revival was over, the congregation calmed down and everyone went home praising the Lord. Langston says that was the day he stopped believing in God.“In the interest of streamlining the judicial process, we’ll skip the evidence and go directly to sentencing.”© J.B. Handelsman/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
212 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION The preacher relied on peripheral cues. Langston went forward because of the expectation of authority i gures, heightened emotion, and conformity pressure. But there was no elaboration of the message, no grappling with the issue, and certainly no encounter with God. The result of this peripheral route processing was as ELM predicts—his “salvation” didn’t even last through the night. Understanding the importance of role models for persuasion, Rita scans the pages of Rolling Stone to see if singer Dave Matthews might have said something about teenage drivers. The music of the Dave Matthews Band is widely acclaimed by students at her college, and Matthews recently put on a live concert near the school. By somehow associating her message with credible people, she can achieve change in many students’ attitudes. But it probably won’t last long, stand up to attack, or affect their behavior. Petty and Cacioppo say that a fragile change is all that can be expected through the peripheral route. Yet what if Dave Matthews’ tour bus were run off the road by a drunk teen-age fan, and a band member met the same fate as Rita’s daughter? Would that tragic death and Matthews’ avowal that “friends don’t let friends drive drunk” cue students to a permanent shift in attitude and behavior? Fortunately, the band is still intact, but a high-proi le tragedy in the sports world suggests that the effect of even powerful peripheral cues is short-lived at best. In 1991, basketball superstar Magic Johnson held a candid press conference to announce that he had tested positive for HIV. At the time, such a diagnosis seemed like a death sentence; the story dominated network news coverage for days. University of South Florida psychologists Louis Penner and Barbara Fritzsche had just completed a study showing that many people had little sympathy for AIDS victims who had contracted the disease through sexual transmission. When asked to volunteer a few hours to help a patient stay in school, a little more than half of the women and none of the men in the study volunteered. Penner and Fritzsche extended their study when they heard of Magic Johnson’s illness. 7 They wondered if the tragedy that had befallen this popular star and his pledge to become an advocate for those with the disease would cause students to react more positively toward people with AIDS. For a while it did. The week after Johnson’s announcement, 80 percent of the men offered assistance. That number tapered off to 30 percent, however, within a few months. The proportion of women helping dipped below 40 percent in the same period. Penner and Fritzsche observed that people didn’t grapple with the substance of Magic Johnson’s message; rather, they paid attention to the man who was presenting it. Consistent with ELM’s main thesis, the research-ers concluded that “changes that occur because of ‘peripheral cues’ such as . . . being a well liked celebrity are less permanent than those that occur because of the substantive content of the persuasion attempt.” 8 Penner and Fritzsche could have added that the effects of star performer endorsements are subject to the sharp ups and downs of celebrity status. For example, the Dave Matthews Band has been so environmentally “green” that a Ben and Jerry’s l avor of ice cream was named after one of the band’s songs. Yet that image was besmirched when their tour bus dumped 80 gallons of human waste through a grated bridge over the Chicago River. Much of the foul-smelling PUSHING THE LIMITS OF PERIPHERAL POWER
CHAPTER 16: ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL 213sewage doused tourists having dinner on the deck of a sightseeing boat passing under the bridge. So any comment by Matthews on safe and sane driving might be treated with derision rather than help Rita’s cause. 9 Nike feared the same reaction when Tiger Woods publicly fell from grace. Although most ELM research has measured the effects of peripheral cues by studying credibility, a speaker’s competence or character could also be a stimulus to effortful message elaboration. For example, the high regard that millions of sports fans had for Magic Johnson might for the i rst time have made it possible to scrutinize proposals for the prevention and treatment of AIDS without a moral stigma biasing each idea. Or the fact that Johnson’s magic wasn’t strong enough to repel HIV might cause someone to think deeply, “If it happened to a guy like Magic, it could happen to me.” Even though Figure 16–1 identii es speaker credibil-ity, reaction of others, and external rewards as variables that promote mindless accep-tance via the peripheral route, Petty and Cacioppo emphasize that it’s impossible to compile a list of cues that are strictly peripheral. 10 To illustrate this point, consider the multiple roles that the mood of the person listening to Rita’s message might play in her attempt to persuade. Rita assumes that her classmate Sam will be a more sympathetic audience if she can present her ideas when he’s in a good mood. And she’s right, as long as Sam processes her message through the peripheral route without thinking too hard about what she’s saying. His positive outlook prompts him to see her proposal in a favorable light. Yet if Sam is somewhat willing and able to work through her arguments (mod-erate elaboration), his upbeat mood could actually turn out to be a disad vantage. He was feeling up, but he becomes depressed when he thinks about the death and disi gurement Rita describes. The loss of warm feelings could bias him against Rita’s arguments. Petty suggests that Sam might process her arguments more objectively if his original mood had matched the downbeat nature of Rita’s experience. 11 Many variables like perceived credibility or the mood of the listener can act as peripheral cues. Yet if one of them motivates listeners to scrutinize the message or affects their evaluation of arguments, it no longer serves as a “no-brainer.” There is no variable that’s always a shortcut on the peripheral route. CHOOSING A ROUTE: PRACTICAL ADVICE FOR THE PERSUADER Petty and Cacioppo’s advice for Rita (and the rest of us) is clear. She needs to determine the likelihood that her listeners will give their undivided attention to evaluating her proposal. If it appears that they have the motivation and ability to elaborate the message, she had best come armed with facts and i gures to support her case. A pleasant smile, an emotional appeal, or the loss of her daugh-ter won’t make any difference. Since it’s only by thoughtful consideration that her listeners can experience a lasting change in attitude, Rita probably hopes they can go the central route. But even if they do, it’s still difi cult to build a compelling persuasive case. If she fails to do her homework and presents weak arguments, the people who are ready to think will shift their attitude to a more antagonistic position. If Rita determines that her hearers are unable or unwilling to think through the details of her plan, she’ll be more successful choosing a delivery strategy that emphasizes the package rather than the contents. This could include a Speaker credibilityAudience perception of the message source’s ex-pertise, character, and dynamism; typically a peripheral cue.
214 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONheartrending account of her daughter’s death, a smooth presentation, and an ongoing effort to build friendships with the students. Perhaps bringing home-made cookies to class or offering rides to the mall would aid in making her an attractive source. But as we’ve already seen, the effects will probably be temporary. It’s not likely that Rita will get many people to elaborate her message in a way that ends up favorable for her cause. Most persuaders avoid the central route because the audience won’t go with them or they i nd it is too difi cult to generate compelling arguments. But Rita really doesn’t have a choice. Driver’s licenses (and perhaps beer) are so important to most of these stu-dents that they’ll be ready to dissect every part of her plan. They won’t be won over by a friendly smile. Rita will have to develop thoughtful and well-reasoned arguments if she is to change their minds. Given the depth of her conviction, she thinks it’s worth a try. ETHICAL REFLECTION: NILSEN’S SIGNIFICANT CHOICE ELM describes persuasion that’s effective. University of Washington professor emeritus Thomas Nilsen is concerned with what’s ethical. Consistent with the democratic values of a free society, he proposes that persuasive speech is ethical to the extent that it maximizes people’s ability to exercise free choice. Since many political, religious, and commercial messages are routinely designed to bypass rather than appeal to a listener’s rational faculties, Nilsen upholds the value of signii cant choice in unequivocal terms: When we communicate to inl uence the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of others, the ethical touchstone is the degree of free, informed, rational and critical choice—signii cant choice—that is fostered by our speaking. 12 For Nilsen, truly free choice is the test of ethical inl uence because “only a self-determining being can be a moral being; without signii cant choice, there is no morality.” 13 To support his claim, he cites two classic essays on the freedom of speech. John Milton’s Areopagitica 14 argues against prior restraint of any ideas, no matter how heretical. John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty 15 advocates a free market-place of ideas because the only way to test an argument is to hear it presented by a true believer who defends it in earnest. Philosophers and rhetoricians have compared persuasion to a lover making fervent appeals to his beloved—wooing an audience, for example. Nilsen’s ethic of signii cant choice is nicely captured in the courtship analogy because true love cannot be coerced; it must be freely given. Inspired by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s description of the ethical religious persuader as lover, 16 I have elsewhere presented a typology of false (unethical) lovers: 17 Smother lovers won’t take no for an answer; their persistence is obnoxious. Legalistic lovers have a set image of what the other should be. Flirts are in love with love; they value response, not the other person. Seducers try deception and l attery to entice the other to submit. Rapists use force of threats, guilt, or conformity pressure to have their way. In differing degrees, all i ve types of unethical persuader violate the human dignity of the persons they pursue by taking away choice that is informed and free.
CHAPTER 16: ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL 215 CRITIQUE: ELABORATING THE MODEL For the last 20 years, ELM has been a leading, if not the leading, theory of persuasion and attitude change. Petty, Cacioppo, and their students have pub-lished more than a hundred articles on different parts of the model, and their initial dual-process conception has stimulated additional research, application, and critique. In a recent status review, the theorists state that “the term ‘elabo-ration’ is used to suggest that people add something of their own to the specii c information provided in the communication.” 18 Consistent with their dei ni-tion, Petty and Cacioppo have elaborated their original theory by making it increas-ingly more complex, less predictive, and less able to offer dei nitive advice to the inl uence practitioner. This is not the direction in which a scientii c theory wants to go. I have been unable to capture all of these elaborations in a short chapter, but Miami University communication researcher Paul Mongeau and communication consultant James Stiff believe that Petty and Cacioppo face an even greater prob-lem. They charge that “descriptions of the ELM are sufi ciently imprecise and ambiguous as to prevent an adequate test of the entire model.” 19 One place this stands out is in ELM’s silence as to what makes a strong or weak argument. Petty and Cacioppo dei ne a good message as “one containing arguments such that when subjects are instructed to think about the message, the thoughts they generate are fundamentally favorable.” 20 In other words, the arguments are regarded as strong if the people are persuaded but weak if folks are turned off. Like my childhood friend described in Chapter 3, ELM seems to have its own “never-miss shot.” Until such time as the ELM theorists can identify what makes a case weak or strong apart from its ultimate effect on the listener, it doesn’t make much sense to include strength of argument as a key variable within the model. Yet even if Petty and Cacioppo’s theory is too vague or their view of argu-ment strength is too slippery, their elaboration likelihood model is impressive because it pulls together and makes sense out of diverse research results that have puzzled communication theorists for years. For example, why do most people pay less attention to the communication than they do to the communica-tor? And if speaker credibility is so important, why does its effect dissipate so quickly? ELM’s explanation is that few listeners are motivated and able to do the mental work required for a major shift in attitude. The two-path hypothesis also helps clarify why good evidence and reasoning can sometimes have a life-changing impact but usually make no difference at all. Attitude-change research often yields results that seem confusing or contra-dictory. Petty and Cacioppo’s ELM takes many disjointed i ndings and pulls them together into a unii ed whole. This integrative function makes it a valuable theory of inl uence. Nilsen obviously would approve of persuasive appeals that encourage mes-sage elaboration through ELM’s central route. But his standard of signii cant choice is not always easy to apply. Do emotional appeals seductively short-circuit our ability to make rational choices, or does heightened emotion actually free us up to consider new options? Signii cant choice, like beauty and credibility, may be in the eye of the beholder.
216 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONA SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: “Richard E. Petty, John T. Cacioppo, Alan J. Strathman, and Joseph R. Priester, “To Think or Not to Think: Exploring Two Routes to Persuasion,” in Persuasion: Psychological Insights and Perspectives, 2 nd ed., Timothy Brock and Melanie Green (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2005, pp. 81–116. Full statement: Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo, Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1986. Effect of involvement: Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo, “Involvement and Per-suasion: Tradition Versus Integration,” Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 107, 1990, pp. 367–374. Postulates and research: Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo, “The Elaboration Like-lihood Model of Persuasion,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 19, Leon-ard Berkowitz (ed.), Academic Press, Orlando, FL, 1986, pp. 124–205. Message arguments versus source credibility: Richard E. Petty, John T. Cacioppo, and R. Goldman, “Personal Involvement as a Determinant of Argument-Based Persuasion,” Jour-nal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 41, 1981, pp. 847–855. Effects of evidence: John Reinard, “The Empirical Study of the Persuasive Effects of Evidence: The Status After Fifty Years of Research,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 15, 1988, pp. 3–59. Effects of credibility: Richard E. Petty, “Multiple Roles for Source Credibility Under High Elaboration: It’s All in the Timing,” Social Cognition, Vol. 25, 2007, pp. 536–552. Mindless cues: Robert B. Cialdini, Inl uence: Science and Practice, 4 th ed., Allyn and Bacon, Needham Heights, MA, 2001. Cues that affect elaboration: Duane Wegener and Richard E. Petty, “Understanding Effects of Mood Through the Elaboration Likelihood and Flexible Correction Models,” in Theories of Mood and Cognition: A User’s Guidebook, L. L. Martin and G. L. Clore (eds.), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2001, pp. 177–210. Major developments in the history of persuasion theory: Richard E. Petty and Pablo Brinol, “Persuasion: From Single to Multiple to Metacognitive Processes,” Perspectives on Psycho-logical Science, Vol. 3, 2008, pp. 137–147. Status and controversies: Richard E. Petty and Duane Wegener, “The Elaboration Like-lihood Model: Current Status and Controversies,” in Shelly Chaiken and Yaacov Trope (eds.), Dual Process Theories in Social Psychology, Guilford, New York, 1999, pp. 41–72. Critiques of ELM: “Forum: Specifying the ELM,” Communication Theory, Vol. 3, 1993. (Paul Mongeau and James Stiff, “Specifying Causal Relationships in the Elaboration Likeli-hood Model,” pp. 65–72; Mike Allen and Rodney Reynolds, “The Elaboration Likelihood Model and the Sleeper Effect: An Assessment of Attitude Change over Time,” pp. 73–82.) 1. Can you think of i ve different words or phrases that capture the idea of message elaboration? 2. What peripheral cues do you usually monitor when someone is trying to inl u-ence you? 3. Petty and Cacioppo want to persuade you that their elaboration likelihood model is a mirror of reality. Do you process their arguments for its accuracy closer to your central route or your peripheral route? Why not the other way? 4. Students of persuasion often wonder whether high credibility or strong argu-ments sway people more. How would ELM theorists respond to that question? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS
217 HEALTH-CONSCIOUS SMOKERS: DEALING WITH DISSONANCE When Festinger i rst published his theory in 1957, he chose the topic of smoking to illustrate the concept of dissonance. Although authoritative medical reports on the link between smoking and lung cancer were just beginning to surface, DISSONANCE: DISCORD BETWEEN BEHAVIOR AND BELIEF Aesop’s fable is the source of the phrase sour grapes. The story illustrates what former Stanford University social psychologist Leon Festinger called cognitive dissonance. It is the distressing mental state that people feel when they “i nd themselves doing things that don’t i t with what they know, or having opinions that do not i t with other opinions they hold.” 2 The fox’s retreat from the grape arbor clashed with his knowledge that the grapes were tasty. By changing his attitude toward the grapes, he provided an acceptable explanation for abandoning his efforts to reach them. Festinger considered the need to avoid dissonance to be just as basic as the need for safety or the need to satisfy hunger. It is an aversive drive that goads us to be consistent. The tension of dissonance motivates us to change either our behavior or our belief in an effort to avoid that distressing feeling. The more important the issue and the greater the discrepancy between our behavior and our belief, the higher the magnitude of dissonance we will feel. In extreme cases cog-nitive dissonance is like our cringing response to i ngernails being scraped on a blackboard—we’ll do anything to get away from the awful sound. C ognitive dissonance The distressing mental state caused by inconsis-tency between a person’s two beliefs or a belief and an action.17CHAPTER Cognitive Dissonance Theory of Leon Festinger Aesop tells a story about a fox that tried in vain to reach a cluster of grapes dangling from a vine above his head. The fox leaped high to grasp the grapes, but the delicious-looking fruit remained just out of reach of his snapping jaws. After a few attempts the fox gave up and said to himself, “These grapes are sour, and if I had some I would not eat them.” 1 Objective InterpretiveSocio-psychological tradition●
218 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONthere was already general concern across the United States that cigarette smoking might cause cancer. Ten years prior, country-and-western singer Tex Williams recorded Capitol Records’ i rst million-seller, “Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette).” The gravelly voiced vocalist expressed doubt that smoking would affect his health, but the chorus was unambiguous: Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette Puff, puff, puff until you smoke yourself to death Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate That you hate to make him wait But you just gotta have another cigarette. 3 At the time, many smokers and nonsmokers alike laughingly referred to ciga-rettes as “cofi n nails.” But as the number and certainty of medical reports link-ing smoking with lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease increased, humorous references to cigarettes no longer seemed very funny. For the i rst time in their lives, a hundred million Americans had to grapple with two incompat-ible cognitions: 1. Smoking is dangerous to my health. 2. I smoke cigarettes. Consider the plight of Cliff, a habitual smoker confronted by medical claims that smoking is hazardous to his health—an idea that strongly conl icts with his pack-a-day practice. Festinger said the contradiction is so clear and uncomfort-able that something has to give—either the use of cigarettes or the belief that smoking them will hurt him. “Whether the behavior or the cognition changes will be determined by which has the weakest resistance to change.” 4 For Cliff it’s no contest. He lights up and dismisses the health risk. In his discussion of smoking, Festinger suggested a number of mental gymnastics that Cliff might use to avoid dissonance while he smokes. 5 Perhaps the most typical way for the smoker to avoid mental anguish is to trivialize or simply deny the link between smoking and cancer. I think the research is sketchy, the results are mixed, and the warnings are based on junk science. After the surgeon general’s report on smoking was issued in 1964, denial became an uphill cognitive path to climb, but many smokers continue to go that route. Smokers may counter thoughts of scary health consequences by reminding themselves of other effects they see as positive. Smoking helps me relax, I like the taste, and it gives me a look of sophistication. These were the motives that cigarette advertising appealed to when Festinger i rst published his theory. For example, Old Gold was the primary radio sponsor for Chicago Cubs baseball: “We’re tobacco men, not medicine men,” their ads proclaimed. “For a treat instead of a treatment, try Old Gold. . . . There’s not a cough in a carload.” Although it’s hard for smokers to pretend they aren’t lighting up, they can elude nagging thoughts of trauma by telling themselves that the dire warnings don’t apply to them since they are moderate smokers, or because they’ll soon quit . My boyfriend is a chain smoker, but I smoke less than a pack a day. As soon as I i nish school, I’ll have no problem stopping. Conversely, other smokers manage dissonance by disclaiming any ongoing responsibility for a habit they can’t kick. Let’s face it, cigarettes are addictive. I’m hooked. To be sure, most behaviors are not as difi cult to change as the habit of smoking, but Festinger noted that almost all of our actions are more entrenched than the thoughts we have about them. Thus the
CHAPTER 17: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY 219focus of his theory is on the belief and attitude changes that take place because of cognitive dissonance. REDUCING DISSONANCE BETWEEN ACTIONS AND ATTITUDES Festinger hypothesized three mental mechanisms that people use to ensure that their actions and attitudes are in harmony. Dissonance researchers refer to them as selective exposure, postdecision dissonance, and minimal justii cation. I’ll continue to illustrate these cognitive processes by referring to the practice of smoking, but they are equally applicable to other forms of substance abuse or addiction—alcohol, drugs, food, sex, pornography, gambling, money, shopping, workaholism. Most of us can spot at least one topic on that list where we struggle with an inconsistency between our thoughts and our actions. So if smoking isn’t an issue for you, apply these ways of reducing dissonance in an area that is. Hypothesis 1: Selective Exposure Prevents Dissonance Festinger claimed that people avoid information that‘s likely to increase disso-nance. 6 Not only do we tend to listen to opinions and select reading materials that are consistent with our existing beliefs, we usually choose to be with people who are like us. By taking care to “stick with our own kind,” we can maintain the relative comfort of the status quo. Like-minded people buffer us from ideas that could cause discomfort. In that sense, the process of making friends is a way to select our own propaganda. The selective exposure hypothesis explains why most political conservatives only watch TV broadcasts of the Republican convention and liberals stick to coverage of the Democratic conclave. That’s why media-effects scholars who hold that the mass media have a minimal effect on their audience were quick to embrace Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance. 7 So we should expect smokers to turn a blind eye to information about the dangers of cigarettes. But once the surgeon general’s health warning was stamped on every pack of cig-arettes, it was difi cult for smokers to avoid dissonant information. Would that enforced exposure induce smokers to quit—or at least admit they were slowly killing themselves? Apparently not. Festinger reported an early Minnesota study that showed the more people smoked, the less they were convinced that smok-ing caused cancer. 8 That i nding held true even after the government mandated that every cigarette ad prominently display the surgeon general’s warning. Four decades later, two communication researchers looked back over 18 exper-iments where people were put in dissonant situations and then had to choose what kind of information they would listen to or read. Dave D’Alessio (University of Connecticut-Stamford) and Mike Allen (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) dis-covered that the results consistently supported the selective exposure hypothesis. 9 People tended to select information that lined up with what they already believed and ignored facts or ideas that ran counter to those beliefs. But the strength of this tendency was relatively small. Selective exposure explained only about 5 percent of why they chose the information they did. That leaves 95 percent unexplained. That modest i nding hasn’t deterred the sponsors of two media persuasion campaigns from taking the power of selective exposure quite seriously. A Uni-versity of California, San Francisco, survey taken in 2006 documented that S elective exposureT he tendency people have to avoid informa-tion that would create cognitive dissonance be-cause it’s incompatible with their current beliefs.
220 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION75 percent of Hollywood i lms show attractive actors smoking, and that this modeling encourages young teens raised in smoke-free homes to adopt the prac-tice. With some success, Harvard School of Public Health researchers are now proactively challenging directors not to introduce smoking into their i lms. For example, none of the fashion models nor any other characters in The Devil Wears Prada smoked. Audiences didn’t seem to notice or mind. 10 The “Don’t Pass Gas” broadcast campaign of the American Legacy Founda-tion uses barnyard humor to convince the public of the intrusiveness of putrid gas. Presented in the style of a Dr. Seuss rhyme, one ad goes: I will not pass gas on a train. I will not pass gas on a plane. I will not pass gas in my house. I will not pass gas near my spouse. I will not pass gas in a bar. I will not pass gas in a car. I will not pass gas where little ones are, no matter how near or how far. I will not pass gas in your face, because the gas I pass is worse than mace. 11 Only after listeners are either laughing or totally grossed out by the image of passing gas are they told that the limerick refers to secondhand smoke. It’s a message most people would tune out had it not been for the use of humor with a twist. German psychologist Dieter Frey surveyed all the pertinent research on selec-tive exposure and concluded that even when we know we’re going to hear dis-crepant ideas, the avoidance mechanism doesn’t kick in if we don’t regard the dissonant information as a threat.12 Warm personal relationships are probably the best guarantee that we’ll consider ideas that would otherwise seem threatening. Hypothesis 2: Postdecision Dissonance Creates a Need for Reassurance According to Festinger, close-call decisions can generate huge amounts of internal tension after the decision has been made. Three conditions heighten postdecision dissonance : (1) the more important the issue, (2) the longer an individual delays in choosing between two equally attractive options, and (3) the greater the difi culty involved in reversing the decision once it’s been made. To the extent that these conditions are present, the person will agonize over whether he or she made the right choice. 13 Sometimes referred to as “morning-after-the-night-before” regrets, the misgivings or second thoughts that plague us after a tough choice motivate us to seek reassuring information and social support for our decision. A classic example of postdecision dissonance is the mental turmoil a person experiences after signing a contract to buy a new car. The cost is high, there are many competing models from which to choose, and the down payment commits the customer to go through with the purchase. It’s not unusual to i nd a customer in the library, poring over the pages of the Consumer Reports auto issue after plac-ing an order. The buyer is seeking information that coni rms the decision already made and quiets nagging doubts. The toughest decision a smoker makes is whether or not to stop smoking—cold turkey. It’s an agonizing decision, and one often delayed. Many who recover from multiple addictions testify that quitting smoking is harder than giving up booze. Just as many alcoholics turn to Alcoholics Anonymous for social support, people who try to give up tobacco often need at least one friend, family member, romantic partner, or co-worker who’s also going through the pangs of withdrawal. They can remind each other that it’s worth the effort. Postdecision dissonanceStrong doubts experi-enced after making an important, close-call de-cision that is difficult to reverse.
CHAPTER 17: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY 221 The decision to stop smoking doesn’t fuli ll Festinger’s third condition of a once-and-for-all, no-going-back, i nal choice. One can always go back to smok-ing. In fact, those who swear off cigarettes typically have a few lapses, and total relapses are common. Encouragement and social support are necessary to tamp down the doubts and fears that follow this tough decision. Smokers who consciously decide not to quit face similar qualms and anxiet-ies. They are bombarded with messages telling them they are putting their health at risk. People who care for them deeply are urging them to stop, and they may be surrounded by nonsmokers who look down on them because they don’t. University of Kentucky communication professor Alan DeSantis describes the camaraderie he found among regular customers at a Kentucky cigar shop. Just as smoke from cigars drives some folks away, DeSantis concludes that the friend-ship and collective rationalization of those who smoke cigars together hold post-decision dissonance at bay. He also sees Cigar Ai cionado as serving the same function. He writes that although the magazine professes to simply celebrate the good life, it actually serves “to relieve the cognitive dissonance associated with the consumption of a potentially dangerous product by adding cognitions, triv-ializing dissonant information, selectively exposing readers to pro-smoking information, and creating a social support network of fellow cigar smokers.” 14 Hypothesis 3: Minimal Justification for Action Induces a Shift in Attitude Suppose someone wanted to persuade an ex-smoker who is dying of lung cancer to stop publicly bashing the tobacco industry and to respect cigarette companies’ right to market their product. That is one of the assignments given to Nick Nay-lor, the chief spokesman for tobacco companies in the movie Thank You for Smok-ing . His job is to convince “Big Tobacco’s” former advertising icon—the Marlboro Man—to switch from outspoken critic to silent partner. Before cognitive disso-nance theory, conventional wisdom would have suggested that Naylor work i rst to change the bitter man’s attitude toward the industry. If he could convince the cowboy that the cigarette companies are well-intentioned, then the man would change his communication behavior. It seemed natural to think of attitude and behavior as the beginning and end of a cause-and-effect sequence. Attitude → Behavior But Festinger’s minimal justii cation hypothesis reversed the sequence. That hypoth-esis suggests that the best way for Naylor to change the Marlboro Man’s attitude toward his former employers is to get him to quit speaking out against them. Behavior → Attitude Festinger attached one important condition, however. Instead of giving the cow-boy massive incentives to abandon his public critique ($100,000 in cash, lifetime health care for his wife, or a threat to harm his kids), Naylor should offer the minimum enticement necessary to induce him to quietly step off his soap box. Festinger concluded: Thus if one wanted to obtain private change in addition to mere public compli-ance, the best way to do this would be to offer just enough reward or punishment to elicit overt compliance. 15 Minimal justification hypothesis A claim that the best way to stimulate an attitude change in others is to of-fer just enough incentive to elicit counterattitudinal behavior.
222 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Naylor does it the old-fashioned way by throwing lots of money at him. He goes to the Marlboro Man’s rundown ranch with a briefcase i lled with bundles of hundred-dollar bills, which he pours out on the l oor. He labels the money a gift rather than a bribe, but makes it clear that the cowboy can’t keep the money if he continues to denounce the tobacco companies. As it turns out, the offer is more than enough because the dying man is worried about how his family will manage after he’s gone. So the Marlboro Man takes both the money and a vow of silence, but remains antagonistic toward his former employers. Compliance without inner conviction. Of course for Naylor, that is enough. There is, however, a brief moment in their discussion that suggests the potential of a minimal justii cation strategy. When the Marlboro Man looks long-ingly at the cash, he wonders out loud if he might keep half the money and still denounce the tobacco companies. His question reveals that somewhere between 50 percent and 100 percent of the cash on the l oor there’s a tipping point where the cowboy becomes willing to be bought off. Festinger predicted that if Naylor were to offer that “just-enough” amount, not only would the Marlboro Man alter his communication behavior, but the dissonance he would feel would cause him to be less angry at the cigarette companies. Festinger’s startling $1/$20 experi-ment shows how this might work. A CLASSIC EXPERIMENT: “WOULD I LIE FOR A DOLLAR?” There is nothing particularly radical about Festinger’s i rst two hypotheses. His selective exposure prediction nicely explains why political rallies attract the party faithful and why the audience for religious radio and television tends to be made up of committed believers. As for postdecision dissonance, all of us have tried to convince ourselves that we’ve made the right choice after facing a close-call decision. But Festinger’s minimal justii cation hypothesis is counterintuitive. Will a small incentive to act really induce a corresponding attitude change when heaping on the benei ts won’t? Festinger’s famous $1/$20 experiment supported his claim that it will. Festinger and James Carlsmith recruited Stanford University men to par-ticipate in a psychological study supposedly investigating industrial rela-tions. 16 As each man arrived at the lab, he was assigned the boring and repetitive task of sorting a large batch of spools into sets of 12 and turning square pegs a quarter turn to the right. The procedure was designed to be both monotonous and tiring. At the end of an hour the experimenter approached the subject and made a request. He claimed that a student assis-tant had failed to show up and that he needed someone to i ll in by telling a potential female subject in the waiting room how much fun the experiment was. Dissonance researchers call this counterattitudinal advocacy . We’d call it lying. Some of the men were promised $20 to express enthusiasm about the task; others were offered only $1. It is comforting to know that six of the men refused to take part in the deception, but most students tried to recruit the young woman. The gist of the typical conversation was similar for both payment conditions: She: “I heard it was boring.” He: “Oh no, it’s really quite fun.” C ompliance Public conformity to an-other’s expectation with-out necessarily having a private conviction that matches the behavior. Counterattitudinal advocacy Publicly urging others to believe or do something that is opposed to what the advocate actually believes.
CHAPTER 17: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY 223 What differed were privately expressed attitudes after the study was over. Stu-dents who lied for $20 later confessed that they thought the task of sorting spools was dull. Those who lied for $1 maintained that it was quite enjoyable. (Festinger and Carlsmith practiced their own form of deception in the study—subjects never received the promised money.) By now you should have a pretty good idea how Festinger analyzed the results. He noted that $20 was a huge sum of money (worth more than $100 in today’s economy). If a student felt qualms about telling a “white lie,” the cash was a ready justii cation. Thus, the student felt little or no tension between his action and his attitude. But the men who lied for a dollar had lots of cognitive work to do. The logical inconsistency of saying a boring task was interesting had to be explained away through an internal dialogue: I’m a Stanford man. Am I the kind of guy who would lie for a dollar? No way. Actually, what I told the girl was true. The experiment was a lot of fun. Festinger said that $1 was just barely enough to induce compliance to the exper-imenter’s request, and so the students had to create another justii cation. They changed their attitude toward the task to bring it into line with their behavior. THREE STATE-OF-THE-ART REVISIONS: THE CAUSE AND EFFECT OF DISSONANCE The $1/$20 study has been replicated and modii ed many times in an effort to i gure out why minimal incentives for inconsistent behavior cause a change in attitude when large rewards don’t. Dissonance researchers also seek to close off loopholes that would admit other explanations for the attitude change that follows induced compliance. Based on hundreds of experimental studies, most persuasion researchers today subscribe to one of three revisions of Festinger’s original theory. In order to understand each of the options described in the following sections, it will help if you picture the overall dissonance arousal and reduction process as Festinger imagined it. Figure 17–1 shows that four-step sequence. 1. Self-Consistency: The Rationalizing Animal University of California social psychologist Elliot Aronson was attracted to cogni-tive dissonance theory because of Festinger’s startling minimal justii cation pre-diction, but he quickly determined that the theory in its original form had some “conceptual fuzziness.” Specii cally, it failed to state the conditions under which a person would dei nitely experience dissonance, the A→B link in Figure 17–1 . For example, when early disciples of Festinger were uncertain what the theory predicted, their advice to each other was, “If you want to be sure, ask Leon.” Aronson concluded that the issue isn’t logical inconsistency—as Festinger maintained—but psychological inconsistency. We aren’t rational animals; we are FIGURE 17–1 Festinger’s Process Model of Cognitive DissonanceBased on Festinger, Cognitive Dissonance TheoryAttitude/BehaviorInconsistencyDissonanceCreatedABAttitudeChangeCDissonanceReducedD
224 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONrationalizing animals who want to appear reasonable to ourselves. Aronson interprets the $1/$20 experiment as a study of self-esteem maintenance. “If dis-sonance exists, it is because the individual’s behavior is inconsistent with his self-concept.” 17 The Stanford men were in a bind because they regarded them-selves as decent, truthful human beings. In fact, the higher their self-esteem, the more dissonance they would feel when they told the waiting woman that the study was fun. Conversely, if they had seen themselves as liars, cheats, or jerks, they would have felt no tension. As Aronson puts it, “If a person conceives of himself as a ‘schnook,’ he will be expected to behave like a ‘schnook.’” 18 Following the lead of Festinger’s $1/$20 experiment, most research on his minimum justii cation hypothesis involves public counterattitudinal advocacy. University of Oregon marketing professor Lynn Kahle measured college stu-dents’ self-esteem and then asked them to write a brief essay advocating cigarette smoking, which they thought would be read to junior high students. Similar to Festinger, he offered participants either $2 or $10 for writing the essays. If Aron-son’s version of dissonance theory is right, college students who received the minimal justii cation of $2 for fabricating a pro-smoking essay and who also possessed high self-esteem to protect should have experienced the most disso-nance at point B in Figure 17–1 . And when their attitude change toward smoking was measured at point C, they should have been more favorable toward the idea of kids smoking. That’s what Kahle found. He concludes that “the interaction between Esteem and Pay follows directly from Aronson’s rei nement of disso-nance theory that dissonance results from a discrepancy between cognitions about self and cognitions about behavior.” 19 According to Aronson, the amount of dissonance a person can experience is directly proportional to the effort he or she has invested in the behavior. This idea prompted Esther to offer two examples in her class application log:When I think of cognitive dissonance, I immediately think of my college friends who joined a fraternity or sorority. Those who experienced little hazing don’t think house membership is a big deal. But those who had to go through weeks of hazing, embarrassment, and performing illegal or immoral tasks are quite loyal to their chapter. They see Greek brotherhood or sisterhood as the coolest thing ever. In order to self-justify the things they voluntarily endured, they heightened their love for their fraternity or sorority. I fear that the Marines operate in the same way. Every Marine I know seems obsessed with the Corps and likely has a tattoo to prove it. I wish I thought this was purely due to their love of what the Marines stand for, but I think much of it has to do with the terrible things they went through to make the grade. In order to feel better about their decision to put themselves through pain, they decide being a Marine is the greatest thing in the world. Even the reactions of Aesop’s fox make sense in light of the animal’s low invest-ment of energy. Aronson points out that the fox wouldn’t think the grapes were sour if he had spent the whole afternoon jumping to get them. Attitudes follow behavior when the investment of effort is high. 2. Personal Responsibility for Bad Outcomes (the New Look) Princeton psychologist Joel Cooper agrees with Aronson that logical inconsis-tency at point A in Figure 17–1 doesn’t automatically create dissonance at point B.
CHAPTER 17: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY 225Yet he’s not convinced that Aronson’s concern for self-consistency captures the real cause of the acute mental discomfort. In his “new-look” model of cognitive dissonance, Cooper argues that it’s the knowledge that one’s actions have unnecessarily hurt another person that generates dissonance. For example, in the minimal justii cation condition of the $1/$20 experiment, the Stanford men willingly “duped a fellow student to look forward to an exciting experience” while knowing “full well that the waiting participant was in for an immense letdown.” 20 Cooper concludes that dissonance is “a state of arousal caused by behaving in such a way as to feel personally responsible for bringing about an aversive event.” 21 Note that the acceptance of personal responsibility requires that the per-son know ahead of time that his or her action will have negative consequences for someone else and yet still choose to do the dirty deed. The reactions of par-ticipants in minimal justii cation experiments show that they often feel bad about the potential effects of their messages. Purdue University social psychologists Richard Heslin and Michael Amo also used a pro-smoking message prepared for junior high kids, but in this case the setup was more involving and potentially more harmful. Students in college public speaking classes were induced to deliver impromptu speeches to tell uninformed and uncommitted seventh grade kids that smoking pot wouldn’t hurt them. The speakers saw their videotaped speeches and were reminded that they’d be identii ed as actually having pro-marijuana senti-ments. The speakers were quite aware that their message might harm kids. One speaker blurted out, “What would my church say if they knew I was doing this?” Another pleaded, “Please don’t use my speech. I don’t want the course credit; just don’t use my speech!” 22 Yet they changed their attitude in the direction of their advocacy. As Heslin and Amo note, their fears and atti-tude shift also give credence to Aronson’s self-consistency interpretation of dissonance. DILBERT © Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
226 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 3. Self-Affirmation to Dissipate Dissonance While the revisions offered by Aronson (self-consistency) and Cooper (new look) address dissonance creation at the front end of Festinger’s model, Stanford psy-chologist Claude Steele’s self-afi rmation approach speaks to the question of dis-sonance reduction at the back end of the model—point D of Figure 17–1 . Steele doesn’t assume that dissonance always drives people to justify their actions by changing their attitudes. He thinks that some fortunate people can call up a host of positive thoughts about themselves that will blot out a concern for restoring consistency. If he’s right, high self-esteem is a resource for dissonance reduction. According to Steele, most people are greatly motivated to maintain an over-all self-image of moral and adaptive adequacy. For a participant in the $1/$20 experiment, there’s no question that lying to a fellow student makes it harder to preserve that favorable self-concept. But if the guy ignores the ethical slip and focuses instead on his good grades, athletic ability, social skills, and helpful-ness to friends who are hurting, the dissonance will be only a blip on the radar screen of his mind and will quickly fade away. Thus, Steele believes that denial, forgetfulness, and trivialization of the incident are alternatives to attitude change, but only for the person who already has high self-esteem. At the start of his presidential campaign, Senator Barack Obama announced on The Late Show with David Letterman that he’d quit smoking. If he later relapses—as he has—the potential for cognitive dissonance is great. But accord-ing to Steele’s self-afi rmation approach, Obama might remind himself of his esteem-raising qualities, which include “gifted orator, award winning author, and proven intellect who was the i rst black president of the Harvard Law Review, ” 23 not to mention president of the United States and winner of the Nobel peace prize. In light of his charismatic personality and these accomplishments, Obama might regard relapse as a mere blip rather than a major contradiction. Aronson, Cooper, and Steele offer their respective revisions as more accurate accounts of what goes on in people’s heads than Festinger’s original theory pro-vided. But we don’t have to pick one and trash the others. Self-consistency, personal responsibility for bad outcomes, and self-afi rmation aren’t mutually exclusive explanations. As Cooper suggests, “They each describe a distinct and important piece of the overall dissonance process and, in doing so, make a unique contribution to our understanding of how cognitions about the self medi-ate cognitive dissonance and arousal and reduction.” 24 THEORY INTO PRACTICE: PERSUASION THROUGH DISSONANCE I’ve placed this chapter in the section on interpersonal inl uence because Festinger and his followers focus on attitude change as an end product of dissonance. Suppose you know someone named Sam who holds an opinion that you’re con-vinced is harmful or wrong. What practical advice does the theory offer that might help you alter Sam’s conviction? For openers, don’t promise lavish benei ts if Sam abandons that attitude or warn of dire consequences if he doesn’t. A massive reward–punishment strategy may gain behavioral compliance, but the hard sell seldom wins the heart or mind of the person being bribed or pressured. Instead, work to develop a
CHAPTER 17: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY 227friendly relationship with Sam. That way your own position will tend to bypass the selective exposure screen that Sam and the rest of us put up to avoid threaten-ing ideas. And if Sam eventually adopts your viewpoint, an ongoing bond means you’ll be around to offer reassurance when postdecision dissonance kicks in. To be an effective agent of change, you should offer just enough encourage-ment (minimal justii cation) for Sam to try out novel behavior that departs from his usual way of thinking. Avoid making an offer that Sam can’t refuse. As long as counterattitudinal actions are freely chosen and publicly taken, people are more likely to adopt beliefs that support what they’ve done. The greater the effort involved in acting this way, the greater the chance that their attitudes will change to match their actions. Finally, as you seek to induce compliance, try to get Sam to count the cost of doing what you want and to grasp the potential downside of that behavior for others (personal responsibility for negative outcomes). That kind of understanding will increase the probability that Sam’s attitude will shift to be consistent with his actions. And if things turn sour, your relationship won’t. CRITIQUE: DISSONANCE OVER DISSONANCE When Festinger died in 1989, his obituary in American Psychologist testii ed to the impact of his work: Like Dostoyevski and like Picasso, Festinger set in motion a style of research and theory in the social sciences that is now the common property of all creative work-ers in the i eld. . . . Leon is to social psychology what Freud is to clinical psychol-ogy and Piaget to developmental psychology. 25 As the Dilbert cartoon in this chapter suggests, cognitive dissonance is one of the few theories in this book that has achieved name recognition within popular culture. Yet despite this wide inl uence, Festinger’s original theory and its con-temporary revisions contain a serious l aw. Like my boyhood friend’s never-miss shot in his driveway basketball court (see Chapter 3), it’s hard to think of a way that the theory can be proved wrong. Look again at the four stages of the dissonance process diagram in Figure 17–1 . Almost all the creative efforts of dissonance researchers have been aimed at inducing counterattitudinal advocacy at point A—getting people to say some-thing in public that is inconsistent with what they believe in private. When researchers i nd an attitude shift at point C, they automatically assume that dis-sonance was built up at point B and is gone by point D. But they don’t test to see whether dissonance is actually there. Festinger never specii ed a reliable way to detect the degree of dissonance a person experiences, if any. Psychologist Patricia Devine and her University of Wisconsin–Madison colleagues refer to such an instrument as a dissonance ther-mometer. They applaud researchers’ occasional attempts to gauge the arousal com-ponent of dissonance through physiological measures such as galvanic skin response. (When our drive state increases, we have sweaty palms.) But they are even more encouraged at the possibility of assessing the psychological discomfort component of dissonance by means of a self-report measure of affect. Until some kind of dissonance thermometer is a standard part of dissonance research, we will never know if the distressing mental state is for real. Dissonance thermometerA hypothetical, reliable gauge of the dissonance a person feels as a result of inconsistency.
228 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Cornell University psychologist Daryl Bem doesn’t think it is. He agrees that attitudes change when people act counter to their beliefs with minimal justii -cation, but he claims that self-perception is a much simpler explanation than cognitive dissonance. He believes we judge our internal dispositions the same way others do—by observing our behavior. Bem ran his own $1/$20 study to test his alternative explanation. 26 People heard a recording of a Stanford man’s enthusiastic account of the spool-sorting, peg-turning task. Some listeners were told he received $1 for recruiting the female subject. Since he had little obvious reason to lie, they assumed that he really liked the task. Other listeners were told that the man received $20 to recruit the woman. These folks assumed that the man was bored with the task and was lying to get the money. Bem’s subjects didn’t speculate about what was going on inside the Stanford man’s head. They simply judged his attitude by looking at what he did under the circumstances. If people don’t need an under-standing of cognitive dissonance to forecast how the men would react, Bem asks, why should social scientists? Bem is convinced that cognitive dissonance theory is like the mousetrap pictured on page 27—much too convoluted. He opts for simplicity. Advocates of cognitive dissonance in the i eld of communication counter that nothing about mental processes is simple. When we deal with what goes on behind the eyes, we should expect and appreciate complexity. Festinger’s theory has energized scientii cally oriented communication scholars for more than 50 years. I feel no dissonance by including cognitive dissonance theory in this text. QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS 1. Cognitive dissonance is a distressing mental state. When did you last experi-ence this aversive drive? Why might you have trouble answering that question? 2. The results of Festinger’s famous $1/$20 experiment can be explained in a number of different ways. Which explanation do you i nd most satisfying? 3. Suppose you want your friends to change their sexist attitudes. What advice does the minimal justii cation hypothesis offer? 4. I see cognitive dissonance theory as a “never-miss shot.” What would it take to make the theory testable? A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Joel Cooper, Robert Mirabile, and Steven Scher, “Actions and Attitudes: The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance,” in Persuasion: Psychological Insights and Perspectives, 2 nd ed., Timothy Brock and Melanie Green (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2005, pp. 63–79. Original statement: Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Stanford Univer-sity, Stanford, CA, 1957. Theory update: Eddie Harmon-Jones and Judson Mills (eds.), Cognitive Dissonance: Progress on a Pivotal Theory in Social Psychology, American Psychological Association, Wash-ington, DC, 1999. Engaging account of theory’s development: Elliot Aronson, “The Evolution of Cognitive Dissonance Theory: A Personal Appraisal,” in The Science of Social Inl uence: Advances and Future Progress, Anthon Prankanis (ed.), Psychology Press, New York, 2007, pp. 115–135.Self-perception theoryThe claim that we deter-mine our attitudes the same way outside ob-servers do—by observ-ing our behavior; an alternative to cognitive dissonance theory.
CHAPTER 17: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY 229 Selective exposure: Eva Jones, Stefan Schulz-Hardt, Dieter Frey, and Norman Thelen, “Coni rmation Bias in Sequential Information Search after Preliminary Decisions: An Expansion of Dissonance Theoretical Research on Selective Exposure to Information,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 80, 2001, pp. 557–571. Postdecision dissonance: Dave D’Alessio and Mike Allen, “Selective Exposure and Dis-sonance after Decisions,” Psychological Reports, Vol. 91, 2002, pp. 527–532. $1/$20 experiment: Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith, “Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 58, 1959, pp. 203–210. Self-consistency revision: Ruth Thibodeau and Elliot Aronson, “Taking a Closer Look: Reasserting the Role of the Self-Concept in Dissonance Theory,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 18, 1992, pp. 591–602. New-look revision: Joel Cooper and Russell Fazio, “A New Look at Dissonance The-ory,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 17, Leonard Berkowitz (ed.), Aca-demic Press, Orlando, FL, 1984, pp. 229–262. Self-afi rmation revision: Claude Steele, “The Psychology of Self-Afi rmation: Sustain-ing the Integrity of the Self,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 21, Leonard Berkowitz (ed.), Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1988, pp. 261–302. Role of weapons of mass destruction and dissonance in the invasion of Iraq: Jeff Stone and Nicholas Fernandez, “How Behavior Shapes Attitudes: Cognitive Dissonance Processes,” in Attitudes and Attitude Change, William Crano and Radmila Prislin (eds.), Psychology Press, New York, 2008, pp. 313–334. Critique: Daryl Bem, “Self-Perception: An Alternative Interpretation of Cognitive Dis-sonance Phenomena,” Psychological Review, Vol. 74, 1967, pp. 183–200. Critique: Daniel O’Keefe, “Cognitive Dissonance Theory,” in Persuasion: Theory and Research, 2 nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2002, pp. 77–100. Experiencing cognitive dissonance may require a strong need for esteem. To access a chapter on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that appeared in a previous edition, click on Theory List at www.ai rstlook.com .
DIVISION THREEGroup and Public Communication GROUP COMMUNICATIONCHAPTER 18. Functional Perspective on Group Decision Making (Hirokawa & Gouran)CHAPTER 19. Symbolic Convergence Theory (Bormann) ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATIONCHAPTER 20. Cultural Approach to Organizations (Geertz & Pacanowsky)CHAPTER 21. Critical Theory of Communication in Organizations (Deetz) PUBLIC RHETORICCHAPTER 22. The Rhetoric (Aristotle)CHAPTER 23. Dramatism (Burke)CHAPTER 24. Narrative Paradigm (Fisher)
231Group CommunicationOn the morning of January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. For the i rst time, the l ight carried a civil-ian schoolteacher, Christa McAuliffe, as part of the crew. Seventy-three seconds after liftoff, millions of school children watched on television as the rocket dis-integrated in a i ery explosion, and the capsule with its crew of seven plunged into the Atlantic Ocean. For many Americans, the Challenger disaster marked the end of a love affair with space. As they learned in the months that followed, the tragedy could have been—and should have been—avoided. An independent presidential commission identii ed the primary cause of the accident as failure in an O-ring that was supposed to seal a joint, thus allowing volatile rocket fuel to spew out during the “burn.” But the commission also concluded that a highly l awed decision process was an important contributing cause of the disaster. Communication, as well as combustion, was responsible for the tragedy. The day before the launch, rocket engineers had talked about the l ight being risky. They worried that the O-ring seals had never been tested below 53 degrees Fahrenheit. As one of them later testii ed, with launch-time temperature in the 20s, getting the O-rings to seal gaps would be like “trying to shove a brick into a crack versus a sponge.”1 Yet during the i nal “go/no-go” conference, all agreed that the rocket was ready to l y. Yale social psychologist Irving Janis was convinced that this grievous error wasn’t an isolated incident. He had spotted the same group dynamic in other tragic government and corporate decisions. Janis didn’t regard chief executives or their advisors as stupid, lazy, or evil. Rather he saw them as victims of “group-think.” He dei ned groupthink as “a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”2 This concurrence-seeking tendency emerges only when the group is characterized by “a warm clubby atmosphere” in which members desire to maintain relationships within the group at all costs. As a result, they auto-matically apply the “preserve group harmony” test to every decision they face.3 Janis maintained that the superglue of solidarity that bonds people together can also cause their mental processes to get stuck. Janis’ concept of groupthink highlights the accepted wisdom in the i eld that there are two functions that communication needs to address in any group—a task function and a relationship function. Task-focused communication moves the group along toward its goal; relational communication holds the group together. Some people concentrate on getting the job done, while others are much more concerned about relationships within the group. Task-oriented individuals are the pistons that drive the group machine. Relationship-oriented members are the lubricant that prevents excessive friction from destroying the group. Good groups require both kinds of people. Harvard social psychologist Robert Bales was an early theorist who formally made the connection between specii c types of communication and accom-plishing these two functions.4 Bales said group locomotion won’t happen unless
232 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONmembers both ask for and offer information, opinions, and suggestions on how the group should proceed. Bales claimed that the most effective groups are those in which the verbal requests and responses are roughly equal in number. If every-one is asking and nobody’s offering answers, the group won’t make progress toward the goal. If, on the other hand, no one asks and everyone declares, the group will still be stuck. As for socio-emotional communication (Bales’ label for relational concern), he regarded showing agreement, showing solidarity, and reducing tension by sto-rytelling as positive forms of communication that make the group cohesive. He saw showing disagreement, antagonism, and tension as negative moves that tend to pull the group apart. Yet Bales found that groups work best when there are a few negative voices. That squares with Janis’ recommendation. He suggests that skepticism and blunt critiques are correctives to groupthink. That kind of communication could have saved the lives of the Challenger crew and Americans’ support for the space shuttle program.“Now, let’s hear it for good old Al, whose idea this Group Think was in the i rst place.”© Whitney Darrow, Jr./The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
233Objective InterpretiveSocio-psychological tradition Cybernetic tradition● Functional Perspective on Group Decision Makingof Randy Hirokawa & Dennis Gouran A cynic once said that a camel is a horse put together by a committee. Others upset by their experience with group decision making give voice to their frustra-tion with equally disparaging quips: 1 “If you want something done, do it yourself.” “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” “A committee is a group that keeps minutes and wastes hours.” “Committees lure fresh ideas down a cul-de-sac and quietly strangle them.” Randy Hirokawa (dean of liberal arts, University of Hawaii at Hilo) and Dennis Gouran (professor of communication, Pennsylvania State University) believe that these pessimistic views are unwarranted. Assuming that group members care about the issue, are reasonably intelligent, and face a challenging task that calls for more facts, new ideas, or clear thinking, Hirokawa and Gouran are convinced that group interaction has a positive effect on the i nal decision. Hirokawa seeks quality solutions. 2 Gouran desires decisions that are appropriate . 3 Both scholars regard talk as the social tool that helps groups reach better conclu-sions than they otherwise would. As the Hebrew proverb suggests, “Without counsel plans go wrong, but with many advisers they succeed.” 4 The functional perspective specii es what communication must accomplish for jointly made decisions to be wise. Gouran laid the groundwork for the theory with his early writing on group decision making. Hirokawa developed the core prin-ciples of the theory during his graduate studies, and for 20 years his research tested and rei ned the theory. On the chance that you might be intrigued by a behind-the-scenes look at real-life group decisions made by college students living together, I’ll illustrate the functional perspective by drawing on my experience conducting a two-week off-campus class that students called the “Island Course.” Functional perspective A prescriptive approach that describes and pre-dicts task-group perfor-mance when four communication func-tions are fulfilled. 18CHAPTER
234 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION For 20 years I taught a group dynamics seminar limited to eight students on a remote island in northern Lake Michigan. Travel to and from the island was by a single-engine airplane, and we lived together in a cabin—the only structure on the island. Except when a few of us l ew off the island to the mainland to get food, our sole communication was with each other. There’s no cell phone service or Internet access on the island. Course alumni look back and consider our iso-lation as similar to the original Survivor series, yet with a cooperative rather than a competitive agenda. No one was ever voted off the island. The island course was primarily a venture in experiential education. We learned about group dynamics by studying our own interaction. I asked students to adopt the role of participant-observer. Whatever happened among us became a subject for group discussion. Still, the course maintained traditional academic features—four hours of class per day, assigned readings, and i nal grades. Within that hybrid framework, class members had to decide on a daily schedule, who would do each job necessary for group living, how limited funds for food and fuel would be spent, and on what basis I would assign grades. They understood that they had to live with their decisions for the i rst half of the course, but could change things for the second week. As for my role, I let them know that I wouldn’t be an active participant in the choices they made—they were really free to decide as they saw i t. I’d pro-vide any information they asked for, with the exception of revealing how other island-course groups had handled these issues or disclosing my own personal preferences. In the survey that alums i lled out up to two decades after the course, Kelly’s response rel ected the general consensus: I remember Em’s role best for what he didn’t do. It was my i rst real experience with a leader who laid back intentionally so that we had to come to our own conclusion—a real democracy. It was refreshing to deal with someone in charge who didn’t give all the answers. We were responsible for how things turned out.As Hirokawa and Gouran predict, how things turned out hinged on the absence or presence of four types of communication. FOUR FUNCTIONS OF EFFECTIVE DECISION MAKING Consistent with the approach of Bales and other pioneer researchers, Hirokawa and Gouran draw an analogy between small groups and biological systems. Complex living organisms must satisfy a number of functions, such as respira-tion, circulation, digestion, and elimination of bodily waste, if they are to survive and thrive in an ever-changing environment. In like manner, Hirokawa and Gouran see the group decision-making process as needing to fuli ll four task requirements if members are to reach a high-quality solution. They refer to these conditions as requisite functions of effective decision making—thus the “func-tional perspective” label. 5 The four functions are (1) problem analysis, (2) goal setting, (3) identii cation of alternatives, and (4) evaluation of positive and nega-tive characteristics of each alternative. 1. Analysis of the Problem Is something going on that requires improvement or change? To answer that ques-tion, group members must take a realistic look at current conditions. Defenders of Requisite functions Requirements for positive group outcome; problem analysis, goal setting, identification of alterna-tives, and evaluation of pluses and minuses for each.
CHAPTER 18: FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON GROUP DECISION MAKING 235the status quo are fond of saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t i x it.” But, as Hirokawa warns, any misunderstanding of the situation tends to be compounded when the members make their i nal decision. He also notes that the clearest example of faulty analysis is the failure to recognize a potential threat when one really exists. 6 After people acknowledge a need to be addressed, they still must i gure out the nature, extent, and probable cause(s) of the problem that confronts the group. The i rst night on the island, students faced the task of drawing up a daily schedule. Because that decision affected other choices, I’ll describe how two groups in different summers handled problem analysis and how they fuli lled the other three requisite functions that Hirokawa and Gouran identify. I’ll refer to them as the blue group and the green group . The blue group never did any overt problem analysis. To them, scheduling seemed a simple matter. They jumped to pooling suggestions for what would make the two weeks ideal without ever considering the unique problems that island living posed. Their conversation centered on building in as much time as possible to go outside to enjoy the island during the day and each other at night. Most class members noted that sleeping in late most mornings was also an idea with great appeal. Conversely, the green group started out by exploring what situational limita-tions they had to factor into their decision. The close quarters of the small cabin proved to be a problem because it provided no aural—and very little visual—privacy. A few light sleepers admitted that it would be impossible for them to get to sleep at night, or to stay asleep in the morning, if someone was talking or walk-ing around. Despite hundreds of dollars budgeted for food and fuel, they also analyzed the potential problem of running the all-terrain cycle. Their cost i gures showed that they’d run out of money before the end of the course unless they could limit the use of the diesel generator to no more than 10 hours a day. This problem analysis strongly informed the schedule they i nally worked out. 2. Goal Setting Because group members need to be clear on what they are trying to accomplish, Hirokawa and Gouran regard discussion of goals and objectives as the second requisite function of decision making. A group needs to establish criteria by which to judge proposed solutions. These criteria must set forth the minimal qualities that an acceptable solution must possess. If the group fails to satisfy this task requirement, it’s likely that the decision will be driven by power or passion rather than reason. 7 Even before they began discussing alternatives, the green group reached a consensus on the specii c criteria their schedule had to meet. They agreed that the schedule should include four hours of class as well as windows wide enough for students to prepare and enjoy decent meals and clean up afterward. Members insisted that there be a minimum of six hours of free time to play, study, or chill out. They also specii ed a nighttime block of at least seven hours for sleeping, where both the generator and conversation in the cabin would be turned off. And based upon their problem analysis, they wanted to craft an energy-sensitive schedule that wouldn’t require the generator to be used for more than 10 hours a day. With the possible exceptions of decent meals and energy sensitive, these were measurable goals that could be used to gauge the quality of their i nal decision. Problem analysis Determining the nature, extent, and cause(s) of the problem facing the group. Goal setting Establishing criteria by which to judge proposed solutions.
236 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Unlike the green group, the blue group never spoke of goals, objectives, targets, or criteria. Their discussion made it clear that fun-in-the-sun and lots of casual time together were high priorities. But these overlapping desires are quite subjective and open to multiple interpretations. With no dei nitive goals to focus their discussion, it’s difi cult for group members to know whether they’re mak-ing an appropriate decision. Or, as sports enthusiasts put it, You don’t know you’re winning if you don’t keep score. 3. Identification of Alternatives Hirokawa and Gouran stress the importance of marshaling a number of alterna-tive solutions from which group members can choose: If no one calls attention to the need for generating as many alternatives as is realistically possible, then relatively few may be introduced, and the corresponding possibility of i nding the acceptable answer will be low. 8 Both island-course groups wanted to schedule time when they could enjoy the island. Swimming, sunbathing, stone-skipping contests, playing volleyball and Identification of alternatives Generation of options to sufficiently solve the problem. “Gentlemen, the fact that all my horses and all my men couldn’t put Humpty together again simply proves to me that I must have more horses and more men.”© Dana Fradon/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
CHAPTER 18: FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON GROUP DECISION MAKING 237soccer, trailblazing, riding the ATC, treasure hunting, bird watching, picking wild raspberries, building tree forts in the woods, and just lolling in the hammock were a few of the daylight activities suggested by blue and green course mem-bers alike. But the groups varied greatly on the number of options they generated for scheduling class and meals. The blue group seemed to have tunnel vision and could only picture a schedule with two hours of class in the morning and two hours at night. No other options were seriously considered. They were equally locked into the traditional practice of lunch at noon and dinner at six. One tentatively suggested alternative was shot down before it could be explained. A girl in the green group had read an article on brainstorming before the course and urged classmates, “Let’s see how many different ideas we can think of for when we’ll eat.” They took her up on it and suggested a dozen meal plans: late breakfast; no breakfast; brunch instead of breakfast and lunch; one big meal a day at noon; dinner at noon and light supper in the evening; a picnic snack to eat in the afternoon; four light meals a day; and a mix of these options. The green group wasn’t quite as creative with alternatives for class, yet they went beyond the two-hours-in-the-morning-and-two-at-night plan that seemed written in stone for the blue group. Different class members suggested three hours in the morning and one at night; four hours in the morning with two breaks; three class sessions of 80 minutes in the morning, afternoon, and night; three hours of class at night when the generator would be on anyway; all classes during daylight hours so the generator wouldn’t have to be on. Their i nal deci-sion turned out to be a combination of three of these ideas. 4. Evaluation of Positive and Negative Characteristics After a group has identii ed alternative solutions, the participants must take care to test the relative merits of each option against the criteria they believe are important. This point-by-point comparison doesn’t take place automatically. Hirokawa and Gouran warn that groups get sloppy and often need one member to remind the others to consider both the positive and negative features of each alternative. Because blue group members concentrated on only one schedule option, their evaluation of its characteristics was rather brief. They did a nice job of articulating the benei ts they saw in their plan—a similarity to campus schedule, afternoons free for outdoor recreation, late-night opportunity to strengthen rela-tionships, and a chance to sleep in before a late morning class. What’s not to like? The blue group never addressed that issue. Hirokawa notes that some group tasks have a negative bias in that spotting the downside of each alternative is more important than identifying its positive qualities. 9 Since students were new to island living, it turned out that focusing on the disadvantages inherent in any plan would have been time well spent. The green group discussed the pluses and minuses of every alternative. They concluded that late-night activity came at the cost of money they’d rather spend on food. They also saw that long class sessions in this idyllic setting could result in boredom and resentment. And for many of the meal plans they were consid-ering, the amount of time spent in preparation, eating, and cleanup struck them as excessive. These realizations led them to adopt the novel schedule displayed on the left side of Figure 18–1 . Note that the three shorter classes meet in day-light hours. Since there are only two sit-down meals with prep and cleanup, Evaluation of positive and negative characteristics Testing the relative merits of each option against the criteria selected; weighing the benefits and costs.
238 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONthere’s more free time for whatever people want to do. And there are more than eight hours of darkness for course members and the generator to be at rest. When the green group members i rst looked at their schedule shown in Figure 18–1 , some had second thoughts. For them, it seemed bizarre to be going to bed at 10 p.m., with some folks rising at 6:30 in the morning. But one girl suggested advancing all clocks, watches, and times on the schedule ahead by one hour. “We’ll feel better about going to bed at 11, and our schedule will still be in sync with the sun,” she explained. The others were intrigued by the elegant simplicity of her idea, so before turning in that night, we switched to Island Daylight Saving Time. Our body clocks were quick to adjust as well. Predictable Outcomes So what difference did Hirokawa and Gouran’s four requisite functions make for these two island groups? Over the course of two weeks, how did these con-trasting schedules turn out in practice? Both groups stuck to their plan for the i rst week, but by the i fth day, the class that didn’t address the four functions was struggling. No one in the blue group went to sleep before midnight, and once someone got up early in the morning, no one else could sleep. Students slept only six or seven hours, and those who planned to sleep in were irritated at others who woke them up. The two-hour class at night became a real drag; no one looked forward to that time together. Perhaps the biggest problem triggered by the blue group’s decision was pro-longed use of the generator. Extended activity in the cabin resulted in the gen-erator running more than 12 hours a day, at a cost that took a big bite out of the food budget. The blue group made some adjustments the second week, but the menu for our last few meals seemed to consist of grubs and yucca roots. On the other hand, the eight students in the green group were quite satisi ed with the schedule they crafted. They saved time and energy by eating only two meals in the cabin, holding all classes during daylight hours, and preparing the afternoon picnic snack and the brunch at the same time. They had more time for fun in the sun than the blue group did, and looked forward to the abbreviated evening class as a lead-in to a relaxed dinner. The well-rested green group took great pride in limiting generator use to eight hours per day and celebrated with a T-bone steak dinner the last night with the money they’d saved. In addition, there was enough room in the budget to guarantee unlimited rides on the ATC. As Hirokawa and Gouran suggest, it took BLUEGROUPGREENGROUPSleep in Generator onwhen neededBreakfastClass(2 hours)Class(90 min)Class(90 min)Class(1 hour)CompletebrunchCoffeeTeaCocoaClass(2 hours)LightsoutLunchFree timeFree timePicnic at leisure[The Green Group time line depicts their proposal before advancing it an hour to “Island Daylight Saving Time.”]DinnerFree timeLightsoutDinnerFree time789101112123456789101112FIGURE 18–1 Blue and Green Group Schedules for the Island Course
CHAPTER 18: FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON GROUP DECISION MAKING 239discussion of all four requisite functions to hammer out a quality solution that was appropriate for the island course. PRIORITIZING THE FOUR FUNCTIONS The word prioritizing refers to addressing the four requisite functions in a logical progression. Hirokawa originally thought that no one sequence or group agenda does the job better. As long as the group ends up dealing with all four functions, the route its members take won’t make much difference. Yet he’s discovered the groups that successfully resolve especially difi cult problems usually take a com-mon decision-making path. 10 The term prioritizing in the title also refers to the question of which function is most important in order for a group to maximize the probability of a high-quality decision. Hirokawa and Gouran originally thought that no single func-tion is inherently more important than any of the others. 11 But as Hirokawa admits, in a paper entitled, “To Err Is Human, To Correct for It Divine,” they were wrong. The paper reports on a meta-analysis of 60 empirical research stud-ies on the functional perspective. The study concludes that of the four functions, evaluation of negative consequences of alternative solutions is by far the most crucial to ensure a quality decision. 12 Perhaps to stress its importance, Hirokawa now splits up the overall evaluation function into a positive one and a negative one, and speaks of i ve requisite functions rather than four. Figure 18–2 portrays the path that seems to offer a natural problem-solving progression. Groups start with problem analysis, then deal with goal setting and identifying alternatives, and end by evaluating the positive and negative characteristics of each alternative before making a i nal choice. This decision-making l ow parallels the advice I once heard on National Public Radio’s Car Talk. Asked how car owners should handle close-call decisions on auto repair, mechanics Tom and Ray Magliozzi (“Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers”) gave a street-smart answer that ran something like this: First, i gure out what’s broke. Then, make up your mind how good you want to i x it. Or before that ask your mechanic to list the choices you’ve got. Either way, you gotta do both. Finally, weigh the bang-for-the-buck that each job gives. Then decide. FIGURE 18–2 An Effective Decision-Making Path from the Functional PerspectiveEVALUATION OFPOSITIVES ANDNEGATIVESHIGH-QUALITYDECISIONPROBLEMANALYSISIDENTIFICATIONOFALTERNATIVESGOAL SETTING
240 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION After reading about these three types of communication in her comm theory course, Lydia recognized that her comments had been disruptive rather than counteractive during a crucial discussion: I think group decision making is important, even vital, yet I am the worst at it. When I was in high school, I applied to be a foreign exchange student to Germany. For our i nal selection task the six i nalists had to come up with a solution to a problem, then present it to the directors. Based on the group process, the directors would select the four of us who would go. Judging by Hirokawa and Gouran’s theory, I see why I never went to Germany. I’d like to say it’s because I tend to promote different alternatives, however, I can see how my smart/sarcastic com-ments tend to disrupt and take away from the task of problem analysis and goal setting. I wish I had a chance to do it over—after my big personality change, of course. THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN FULFILLING THE FUNCTIONS Most communication scholars believe that discussion among members has a sig-nii cant effect on the quality of group decisions. Traditional wisdom suggests that talk is the medium, channel, or conduit, through which information travels between participants. 13 Verbal interaction makes it possible for members to (1) dis-tribute and pool information, (2) catch and remedy errors, and (3) inl uence each other. But distractions and nonproductive conversation create channel noise causing a loss of information. Group researcher Ivan Steiner claimed that 14 Actual Group 5 Potential 2 Losses Due Productivity Productivity to ProcessesIt follows that communication is best when it doesn’t obstruct or distort the free l ow of ideas. While not rejecting this traditional view, Hirokawa believes that communica-tion plays a more active role in crafting quality decisions. Like social construc-tionists (see Chapters 6, 12, and 14), he regards group discussion as a tool or instrument that group members use to create the social reality in which decisions are made. 15 Discussion exerts its own impact on the end product of the group. How does this work in practice? Think of the dark, wide lines in Figure 18–2 as safe trails through a dense thicket—paths that connect the four key task functions and lead ultimately to the goal of a high-quality group decision. Members can eas-ily wander off that goal path and get caught up in a tangle of prickerbushes that thwart the group’s progress. The bushes in this analogy represent distractions or barriers that retard movement toward the goal. Hirokawa and Gouran list a num-ber of thorny obstacles—ignorance of the issue, faulty facts, misguided assump-tions, sloppy evaluation of options, illogical inferences, disregard of procedural norms, and undue inl uence by powerful members. They believe that people go astray through talk, but they also believe that communication has the power to pull them back onto the goal-directed path. Consistent with these convictions, Hirokawa and Gouran outline three types of communication in decision-making groups: 1. Promotive—interaction that moves the group along the goal path by calling attention to one of the four requisite decision-making functions.
CHAPTER 18: FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON GROUP DECISION MAKING 241 2. Disruptive—interaction that diverts, retards, or frustrates group members’ abil-ity to achieve the four task functions. 3. Counteractive—interaction that members use to get the group back on track. Hirokawa and Gouran suggest that most comments from group members disrupt rather than promote progress toward the goal. They conclude, therefore, that “effective group decision-making is perhaps best understood as a conse-quence of the exercise of counteractive inl uence.” 16 In other words, someone has to say something that will get the group back on track. Hirokawa has made repeated efforts to develop a conversational coding sys-tem that classii es the function of specii c statements. Much like Bales’ interaction categories outlined in the introduction to group communication, Hirokawa’s Function-Oriented Interaction Coding System (FOICS) requires researchers to categorize each functional utterance, which is “an uninterrupted statement of a single member that appears to perform a specii ed function within the group interaction process.” 17 Figure 18–3 shows a FOICS checklist that researchers might use to analyze communication within a group. As you can see, raters are asked to make two judgments: (1) Which of the four requisite functions, if any, does an utterance address? and (2) Does the remark facilitate ( promote ), inhibit ( disrupt ), or redirect ( counteract ) the group’s focus on that function? Ideally, this 4 3 3 classii cation scheme provides 12 discrete categories of group discussion. With that informa-tion, researchers could determine the effect of communication on the quality of the decision the group makes. In practice, however, analyzing the content of group discussion is fraught with difi culty. In the i rst place, independent raters i nd it hard to agree on how a statement should be coded. Extensive training boosts the reliability of their judg-ments, but Hirokawa is keenly aware that a single comment may serve multiple functions. In addition, words that appear helpful on the surface may have hidden power to disrupt, or vice versa. The process of coding comments has turned out to be an ongoing problem for all researchers who want to study the nature and effects of group communication. Functional utterance An uninterrupted state-ment of a single member that appears to perform a specific function. FOICS Function Oriented Inter-action Coding System; a tool to record and clas-sify the function of utter-ances during a group’s discussion. FIGURE 18–3 Function-Oriented Interaction Coding System (FOICS) ChecklistPromoteDisruptCounteractProblemAnalysisGoalSettingEvaluation ofPositives/NegativesIdentificationof Alternatives THOUGHTFUL ADVICE FOR THOSE WHO KNOW THEY ARE RIGHT How can you and I use the functional perspective to facilitate better group deci-sions? We can start with a healthy dose of humility concerning the wisdom of our own opinions. Hirokawa and Gouran report that groups often abandon the rational path due to the persuasive efforts of members who are convinced that
242 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONthey alone have the right answer. Their discussion style proclaims, “Don’t confuse me with the facts; my mind’s made up,” and they wear down the opposition. We can make sure we don’t come to the table with the sort of closed-minded attitude that torpedoes honest discussion. Additionally, we should be wary of pushing any “intuitive hunch” or “gut feeling” that we can’t back up with reasonable evidence. These are errors to avoid. We can also take proactive measures to promote clear thinking within the group. In almost every article they write, Hirokawa and Gouran acknowledge their intellectual debt to early-twentieth-century American pragmatist philoso-pher John Dewey. 18 Dewey’s pragmatism was based on the hopeful assumption that practical decisions can be brought under more intelligent control through the process of rational inquiry. 19 He advocated a six-step process of rel ective thinking that parallels a doctor’s approach to treating a patient: 20 1. Recognize symptoms of illness. 2. Diagnose the cause of the ailment. 3. Establish criteria for wellness. 4. Consider possible remedies. 5. Test to determine which solutions will work. 6. Implement or prescribe the best solution. Note that Hirokawa and Gouran’s four requisite functions are almost exact rep-licas of steps 2, 3, 4, and 5 in Dewey’s rel ective-thinking process. Both lists recommend that group members discuss issues in a way that promotes problem analysis, goal setting, discovery of alternatives, and evaluation of these options. When we’re tempted to make remarks that will detract from the process, Hiro-kawa and Gouran suggest we bite our tongues. And when others say things that sidetrack the group from fuli lling the four functional requisites, the theorists urge us to counter with a comment aimed at getting the group back on a ratio-nal path. You may be hesitant to counteract the dubious logic of a powerful leader or a high-status member of the group, but Hirokawa and Gouran don’t advocate direct criticism. Instead, they recommend a strategy of insisting on a careful process. By raising questions, calling for more alternatives, and urging a thor-ough evaluation of evidence, a low-status member can have a high-power impact on the quality of the i nal decision. Reflective thinking Thinking that favors ra-tional consideration over intuitive hunches or pres-sure from those with clout. ETHICAL REFLECTION: HABERMAS’ DISCOURSE ETHICS German philosopher Jürgen Habermas suggests a rational group process through which people can determine right from wrong—a different kind of decision than Hirokawa and Gouran usually study. In order to develop guidelines for ethical action, the Frankfurt School critical theorist pictures a diverse group of people engaged in public discourse. Habermas’ ethical approach seeks an after-the-fact discussion about what we did in a particular situation and why we decided to do it. Being ethical means being accountable. 21 Habermas assumes that people within a given culture or community can pretty much agree on the good they want to accomplish, and over time they’ve built up practical wisdom on how to achieve it. For example, your campus news-paper reporters assume that it’s good for students to know more about what’s
CHAPTER 18: FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON GROUP DECISION MAKING 243going on within the school’s administration (“the people’s right to know”) and that guaranteeing coni dentiality to insiders is the best way to i nd out (“protect-ing their sources”). This newsroom common sense is a good place to start doing journalistic ethics, but reporters’ justii cation of the practice typically lacks rel ec-tive rigor. It often doesn’t take into account the interests of everyone affected by their stories. Habermas’ discourse ethics sets up a discursive test for the validity of any moral claim. The person who performed an act must be prepared to discuss what he or she did and why he or she did it in an open forum. This deliberative pro-cess is a two-stage process of justii cation and application. The actor must reveal the general ethical principle that he or she used to justify the action and then show why it was the appropriate thing to do in those particular circumstances. Habermas imagines an ideal speech situation where participants are free to listen to reason and speak their minds without fear of constraint or control. 22 He’s convinced that the validity of any ethical consensus can be reached only to the extent that three requirements are met: 23 1. Requirement for access. All people affected by the ethical norm being debated can attend and be heard, regardless of their status. That means that donors, administrators, professors, students, and minimum-wage staff at the school are welcome at the table without prejudice. 2. Requirement for argument. All participants are expected to exchange their points of view in the spirit of genuine reciprocity and mutual understand-ing. They aren’t merely trying to advance their own interests but are trying to i gure out whether an action serves the common good. 3. Requirement for justii cation. Everyone is committed to a standard of uni-versalization. What makes ethical claims legitimate is their “acceptance not only among those who agree to live with and by them but by anyone affected by them.” 24 Habermas understands that thoroughly noncoercive dialogue is a utopian dream, yet he i nds his conception of the ideal speech situation helpful in gauging the degree to which a discussion is rational. This, of course, is a major goal of Hirokawa’s, Gouran’s, and Dewey’s. The trick is getting group members to do it. Discourse ethics Jürgen Habermas’ vision of the ideal speech situa-tion in which diverse participants could ratio-nally reach a consensus on universal ethical standards. Ideal speech situation A discourse on ethical accountability in which discussants represent all who will be affected by the decision, pursue dis-course in a spirit of seek-ing the common good, and are committed to find-ing universal standards. CRITIQUE: IS RATIONALITY OVERRATED? In their review of small-group communication literature, John Cragan and David Wright conclude that there are three leading theories. 25 One is Bormann’s sym-bolic convergence theory, discussed in the next chapter. The second is Scott Poole’s adaptive structuration theory, which you can read about in the theory list section of www.ai rstlook.com . The third is Hirokawa and Gouran’s functional perspective. In their critique of the functional perspective, Purdue University communica-tion researchers Cynthia Stohl and Michael Holmes explain why it is so highly regarded: The basic premise of the perspective, that communication serves task functions and the accomplishment of those functions should be associated with effective group decisions, is intuitively appealing and sensible. It also meets the standards of an objective theory in that it explains, is testable, simple, and practical. 26
244 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONAs a result, many communication scholars endorse the theory as a model for group discussion and decision making. One of my students is so convinced that he wrote, “A list of the four functions should be woven into the carpet of every committee room.” Yet Hirokawa’s exclusive focus on rational talk may be the reason research-ers get mixed results when they test his theory’s predictions. 27 Note that the FOICS method of coding conversation all but ignores comments about relation-ships inside or outside the group. By treating relational statements as a distrac-tion, Hirokawa commits the same mistake that the late Aubrey Fisher admitted he made in his own task-focused research: 28 The original purpose of the investigation . . . was to observe verbal task behavior free from the confounding variables of the socioemotional dimension. That pur-pose, of course, was doomed to failure. The two dimensions are interdependent. 29 Stohl and Holmes’ critique frames the same issue in a slightly different way. They contend that most real-life groups have a prior decision-making history and are embedded within a larger organization. They advocate adding a histori-cal function that requires the group to talk about how past decisions were made. They also recommend an institutional function that is satisi ed when members discuss the reality of power brokers and stakeholders who aren’t at the table, but whose views clearly affect and are affected by the group decision. Dennis Gouran has recently raised doubts about how useful the functional perspective may be for many small-group discussions. 30 He notes that almost all group dynamics research has dealt with decision making and problem solv-ing. Although he and Hirokawa attempted to craft a one-size-i ts-all model for group communication, he now believes it’s benei cial for members to fuli ll the four requisite functions only when they are addressing questions of policy. That’s not always the case. Investigative panels and juries deal with questions of fact such as “What happened?” or “Who’s responsible?” College admission boards and product design teams face questions of conjecture, trying to i gure out what’s likely to happen in an uncertain future without any current way of knowing if their predictions are right. Religious groups and addiction recovery support groups face emotionally loaded questions of value, members sharing or debating what they believe is acceptable, appropriate, ethical, or morally right. None of these questions has a discernable “right” or “high-quality” answer. Gouran doesn’t believe that these alternative group goals invalidate the functional perspective, but he does suggest their existence shows that the theory isn’t relevant in every situation. The scope of the functional perspective is more limited than i rst thought. 1. Hirokawa and Gouran claim that small groups are like living systems. Do you see parallels between the four functional requisites of task groups and the body’s need for respiration, circulation, digestion, and elimination? 2. Given that the functional theory focuses on decision-making and problem-solving groups, why is its silence on relationship issues a problem? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS
CHAPTER 18: FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON GROUP DECISION MAKING 245 A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Dennis Gouran, Randy Hirokawa, Kelly Julian, and Geoff Leatham, “The Evolution and Current Status of the Functional Perspective on Communi-cation in Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Groups,” in Communication Yearbook 16, Stanley Deetz (ed.), Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1993, pp. 573–600. Original statement: Dennis Gouran and Randy Hirokawa, “The Role of Communica-tion in Decision-Making Groups: A Functional Perspective,” in Communications in Transi-tion, Mary Mander (ed.), Praeger, New York, 1983, pp. 168–185. Research review: Randy Hirokawa, “From the Tiny Pond to the Big Ocean: Studying Communication and Group Decision-Making Effectiveness from a Functional Perspec-tive,” 1999 B. Aubrey Fisher Memorial Lecture, Department of Communication, Univer-sity of Utah, Salt Lake City UT. Role of communication: Randy Hirokawa and Dirk Scheerhorn, “Communication in Faulty Group Decision-Making,” in Communication and Group Decision-Making, Randy Hirokawa and M. Scott Poole (eds.), Sage, Beverly Hills, CA, 1986, pp. 63–80. Coding group interaction: Randy Hirokawa, “Functional Approaches to the Study of Group Discussion,” Small Group Research, Vol. 25, 1994, pp. 542–550. Additional propositions: Dennis Gouran and Randy Hirokawa, “Effective Decision Making and Problem Solving in Groups: A Functional Perspective,” in Small Group Com-munication: Theory and Practice, 8 th ed., Randy Hirokawa, Robert Cathcart, et al. (eds.), Roxbury, Los Angeles, CA, 2003, pp. 27–38. For chapter self-quizzes go to the book’s Online Learning Center at www.mhhe.com/grifi n8 SELF-QUIZ CONVERSATIONS As you might expect from an objective theorist discussing a rational theory, Randy Hirokawa gives clear, concise responses to my opening questions about group decision making. Is it possible he will i nd a yet undiscovered i fth function? Are jokes a form of distruptive communication? But as the con-versation continues, Hirokawa voices ideas not usually heard from thorough-going empiricists. He refers to the irony of questionable motives producing benei cial actions, a subjective standard to determine whether a decision is good, and his belief that there are no guarantees in life. Many students con-sider this conversation the best of the bunch. View this segment online at www.mhhe.com/grifi n8 or www.ai rstlook.com 3. Think of a time when you’ve been part of a task group that strayed from the goal path. What counteractive statement could you have made that might have brought it back on track? 4. Why might you i nd it frustrating to use Hirokawa’s Function-Oriented Inter-action Coding System (FOICS) to analyze a group discussion?
246 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Survey of group theories taking a functional perspective: Andrea B. Hollingshead, Gwen Wittenbaum, et al., “A Look at Groups from the Functional Perspective,” in Theories of Small Groups: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, M. Scott Poole and Andrea B. Hollingshead (eds.), Sage, London, 2005, pp. 21–62. Requisite functions accomplished face-to-face vs. CMC: Shu-Chu Sarrina Li, “Computer-Mediated Communication and Group Decision Making: A Functional Perspective,” Small Group Research, Vol. 38, 2007, pp. 593–614. Critique: Cynthia Stohl and Michael Holmes, “A Functional Perspective for Bona Fide Groups,” Communication Yearbook 16, 1993, pp. 601–614. Theorist’s assessment of limited scope: Dennis Gouran, “Rel ections on the Type of Ques-tion as a Determinant of the Form of Interaction in Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Discussions,” Communication Quarterly, Vol. 53, 2003, pp. 111–125. For a chapter–length descriptionof Irving Janis’ Groupthink,click on Theory List atwww.ai rstlook.com.
247Objective InterpretiveRhetorical traditionSocio-psychological tradition ● Symbolic Convergence Theoryof Ernest Bormann In the introduction to this section on group communication, I refer to Harvard social psychologist Robert Bales’ work to categorize comments made in small-group discussions. On the basis of his research with zero-history problem-solving groups in his lab, Bales discovered that dramatizing was a signii cant type of communication that often fostered group cohesiveness. 1 The late University of Minnesota communication professor Ernest Bormann picked up on Bales’ i nd-ing and undertook a more extensive study of newly formed groups to examine leadership emergence, decision making, norms, cohesiveness, and a number of other features of group life. 2 Similar to Bales, Bormann and his team of colleagues observed that group members often dramatized events happening outside the group, things that took place at previous meetings, or what might possibly occur among them in the future. Sometimes these stories fell l at and the discussion moved in a different direction. But at other times group members responded enthusiastically by adding on to the story or chiming in with their own matching narratives. When the drama was enhanced in this way, members developed a common group consciousness and drew closer together. On the basis of extensive case studies, Bormann set forth the central explanatory principle of symbolic convergence theory (SCT): Sharing group fantasies creates symbolic convergence. 3 When she read about Bormann’s theory, Maggie had no difi culty illustrating this core claim. Two weeks before my communication course began, she served as a student leader in the “Wheaton Passage” program for new freshmen that’s held at a camp in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. One of the stated goals of this optional offering is to build intentional community. In her application log, Maggie wrote of unplanned communication that achieved this end. Cabin 8 was the rustic, run-down cabin that my group of Passage students was assigned to live in for the week. My co-leader and I decked the cabin out with decorations by hanging Christmas lights and origami doves, yet there was no 19CHAPTER
248 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONescaping the massive holes in the screens, sticky messes in the drawers, and the spiders residing in the rafters. The night students arrived, we walked our group of girls past the brand new cabins, arrived at our old cabin, and presented Cabin 8—their home for a week. Needless to say, they were less than pleased. The next day as our group was trekking to our morning activity, one of the girls brought up what she thought the perfect cabin would look like. Others jumped in with their ideas. For 10 minutes, each girl contributed something to the discussion of the fantasy cabin. Hot tubs, screened-in porches, soft carpet, lounge chairs, and a glass roof for stargazing were all mentioned as features in their ideal cabin. Look-ing back on this experience, I see how this shared fantasy played a role in our cabin bonding. As the week went on, our dream cabin became a running joke within our group that helped students develop a sense of closeness—what they deemed “hardcoreness.” While living in the crummy cabin, they frequently revis-ited the image of the ideal cabin they created in their conversation. DRAMATIZING MESSAGES: CREATIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF THERE-AND-THEN Many comments in task-oriented discussion groups offer lines of argument, fac-tual information, members’ opinions, and suggestions for how the group should proceed. That’s the kind of member contribution Hirokawa and Gouran’s func-tional perspective values (see Chapter 18). Advocates of rational discussion believe it’s usually disruptive and counterproductive when someone cracks a joke, describes a movie, or starts talking about plans for the upcoming weekend. Not so for Bormann. SCT classii es these examples and many other forms of speaking as dramatizing messages and believes that conversations about things outside of what’s going on right now can often serve the group well. A dramatizing message is one that contains imaginative language such as a pun or other wordplay, double entendre, i gure of speech (e.g., metaphor, simile, personii cation), analogy, anecdote, allegory, fable, narrative, or other creative expression of ideas. Whatever the form, the dramatizing message describes events occurring somewhere else and/or at some time other than the here-and-now. 4 Notice i rst that a group member’s words must paint a picture or call to mind an image in order to be labeled a dramatizing message. A report that the Dow Jones stock average rose 500 points can be important news for members, but it’s not dramatizing in the way that Bormann used the term. Second, a vivid message would qualify as dramatizing if it either describes something outside the group or portrays an event that has happened within the group in the past or might happen to the group in the future. Comments that have no imagery or those that refer to what’s currently going on in the group make up the bulk of most group discussions. They aren’t dramatizing messages. When Maggie’s girls started to verbally construct their ideal cabin, they were using imaginative language to talk about what they’d like to see in the future, probably wishing it would magically appear that night. If in a darker tone one of the girls expressed her hope that someone would set i re to the cabin before they returned, that message would also be dramatizing. But if the group of girls sat around in the cabin grousing about the spiders, mosquitoes, and sticky goo in the drawers, those comments would be about the here-and-now and wouldn’t be dei ned as dramatizing messages. Why is this distinction so important to Bormann and SCT advocates? Because dramatizing messages are interpretive. They aren’t knee-jerk responses to Dramatizing message Imaginative language by a group member describ-ing past, future, or out-side events; creative interpretations of there-and-then.
CHAPTER 19: SYMBOLIC CONVERGENCE THEORY 249experiences of the moment. “Dramatizing accounts of past occurrences artisti-cally organize what are usually more complex, ambiguous, and chaotic experi-ences.” 5 They help the speaker, and sometimes the listeners, make sense out of a confusing situation or bring some clarity to an uncertain future. Whether or not other group members connect with their imagery, dramatizing messages are creative interpretations of the there-and-then. Some people use the term fantasy to refer to children’s literature, sexual desire, or things “not true.” Bormann, however, reserved the term fantasy for dramatiz-ing messages that are enthusiastically embraced by the whole group. Most dra-matizing messages don’t get that kind of reaction. They often fall on deaf ears, or group members listen but take a ho-hum attitude toward what was said. Of course, an embarrassing silence or a quick change of subject makes it obvious that the dramatizing message has fallen l at. There may even be group members who openly oppose what was said. Yet as Bormann noted, “Some dramatizing messages cause a symbolic explosion in the form of a chain reaction in which members join in until the entire group comes alive.” 6 He described what he had seen when a fantasy chains out in this way: The tempo of the conversation would pick up. People would grow excited, inter-rupt one another, blush, laugh, forget their self-consciousness. The tone of the meeting, often quiet and tense immediately prior to the dramatizing, would FANTASY CHAIN REACTIONS: UNPREDICTABLE SYMBOLIC EXPLOSIONS “Pardon us, Harrison, if the board fails to share your enthusiasm for the foliage up in Darien.” © Jack Ziegler/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
250 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONbecome lively, animated, and boisterous, the chaining process, involving both the verbal and nonverbal communication, indicating participation in the drama. 7 A concrete example of a fantasy chain and its results may be helpful. Uni-versity of Kentucky communication professor Alan DeSantis asks us to picture a group of Kentucky-born, middle-aged white guys sitting around a cigar store smoking hand-rolled imported cigars. As the topic shifts from college basketball to the risk of smoking, the owner tells the story of a heart surgeon who came into the shop after having been on duty for 36 hours. After lighting up, the doc-tor blew out a big mouthful of smoke and said, “This is the most relaxed I have felt in days. Now how can that be bad for you?” 8 Whether or not the doctor really said this isn’t the issue. Symbolic conver-gence theory is concerned with the group’s response to the tale. In this case the patrons chuckle in appreciation, nod in agreement, or say “You’ve got it!” to punctuate the narrative. Some vie to tell their own stories that dismiss the harm of cigar smoking, a pastime that they consider a benign hobby. Bormann said that we can spot a fantasy chain through a common response to the imagery. DeSantis, who was a cigar-smoking participant-observer among the shop’s regu-lar customers, afi rms that the group’s response to the owner’s story paralleled Bormann’s description above. Symbolic convergence researchers have had little success predicting when a fantasy will ignite and trigger a chain reaction. They’ve found there’s a better chance of a fantasy chaining out when the group is frustrated (as were Maggie’s girls) or when they are bogged down in an effort to solve a thorny problem. Also, members with rhetorical skill seem to have a better chance of providing the spark, but there’s no guarantee that their words will ignite others. And even when a skillful image-maker does spark a fantasy chain, he or she has little control over where the conversation will go. Fantasy chains seem to have a life of their own. But once a fantasy chain catches i re, symbolic convergence theory predicts that the group will converge around a fantasy theme. Fantasy chain A symbolic explosion of lively agreement within a group in response to a member’s dramatizing message. FANTASY THEMES—CONTENT, MOTIVES, CUES, TYPES Bormann’s technical dei nition of fantasy is “the creative and imaginative shared interpretation of events that fuli lls a group’s psychological or rhetorical needs.” 9 Think of a fantasy theme as the content of the dramatizing message that suc-cessfully sparks a fantasy chain. As such, it’s the theory’s basic unit of analysis. Because fantasy themes rel ect and create a group’s culture, all SCT researchers seek to identify the fantasy theme or themes that group members share. When spotted, fantasy themes are consistently ordered and always interpretive, and they inevitably put the group’s slant on things. That is, fantasy themes act as a rhetorical means to sway doubters or naysayers. When a fantasy chains out among core patrons in the cigar store, we would expect to see that same theme run throughout multiple narratives—à la Seinfeld . Perhaps the hero of every man’s account is a famous cigar smoker who lived into old age without ill effects—George Burns, Winston Churchill, or Fidel Castro. Or maybe each image rel ects a meddling government bureaucrat who wants to limit their right to enjoy a cigar in a public place. Along with examples of long-lived smokers, group fantasies might focus on the difference between cigars and cigarettes, safety in moderation, inconsistent scientii c i ndings concerning Fantasy The creative and imagi-native shared interpreta-tion of events that fulfills a group’s psychological or rhetorical needs. Fantasy theme Content of the fantasy that has chained out within a group; SCT’s basic unit of analysis.
CHAPTER 19: SYMBOLIC CONVERGENCE THEORY 251cancer, the greater risks of everyday living, and the health benei ts of relaxation that come from smoking a good cigar. All of these fantasies have the same basic theme— cigar smoking is safe . Bormann suggested that group members’ meanings, emotions, motives, and actions are apparent in their fantasy themes. We can see all four of these in DeSantis’ description of the angst that the core group of patrons experienced at the premature death of their friend Greg. Like the rest of the store’s regulars who sat around smoking, Greg had scoffed at the health risks of their practice. Now they were confronted with the sobering fact of his fatal heart attack. Within a week of the funeral, however, his smoking buddies had constructed a verbal collage of images depicting Greg’s stressful lifestyle. The store owner voiced their consensus: “Smoking had nothing to do with his death. He lived, drank and played hard and it took a toll on him at the end.” 10   Meaning: Hard living killed Greg. Emotion: Reduction of fear, relief. Motive: Desire to smoke with buddies. Action: Not going to quit. Bormann and symbolic convergence theory advocates have found that many fantasy themes are indexed by a symbolic cue . A symbolic cue is “an agreed-upon trigger that sets off the group members to respond as they did when they i rst shared the fantasy.” 11 It could be a code word, nonverbal gesture, phrase, slogan, inside joke, bumper sticker, or any shorthand way of re-establishing the full force of shared fantasy. In the Kentucky smoke shop where these fantasy themes were voiced, any mention of criticism of cigar smoking from family or friends was the cue that set off a new round of protest among store regulars. Their emotional reaction was captured on a T-shirt sold at the store that satirized the Surgeon General’s cautionary statement: “Warning—Harassing me about my smoking can be hazardous to your health.” 12 The meaning of a given fantasy theme is quite specii c. Because clusters of related fantasy themes sometimes surface again and again in different groups, Bormann found it helpful to have a label to classify this phenomenon when it occurs. He used the term fantasy type to describe these well-worn symbolic paths. Fantasy types are “greater abstractions incorporating several concrete fantasy themes” and they exist “when shared meaning is taken for granted.” 13 The cigar store group’s fantasy theme of family and friends criticizing their smoking could be considered part of a larger “get-off-my-case” fantasy type. Perhaps that’s a fantasy type that you and your friends have drawn upon when talking about your lifestyle, even if you’ve never smoked a cigar. Or students at your school may share stock fantasy types about Saturday night parties, the food on campus, professors who never seem to be in their ofi ces, or the guy who always bails out at the last minute on a group project. Symbolic cue An agreed-upon trigger that sets off group mem-bers to respond as they did when they first shared the fantasy. Fantasy type A cluster of related fan-tasy themes; greater ab-stractions incorporating several concrete fantasy themes that exist when shared meaning is taken for granted. SYMBOLIC CONVERGENCE: GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS AND OFTEN COHESIVENESS The discussion of dramatizing messages, fantasy chains, and fantasy themes has dealt with the i rst part of SCT’s core principle: Sharing group fantasies creates symbolic convergence. We’re now ready to look at what that sharing creates—symbolic convergence. For Bormann, symbolic convergence meant the way in which “two or more private symbol worlds incline toward each other, come more closely together, or even overlap.” 14 As those worlds intersect, group members develop a unique group consciousness. No longer do members think in terms of
252 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION I, me, and mine. As symbolic overlap takes place, they begin to think and speak about we, us, and ours . Do shared fantasies really cause this group transformation? Bormann insisted that they do. Some limited commonality of words and images may naturally occur when group members interact often enough over a long period of time. But the process is accelerated and extended way beyond what otherwise might happen when members participate in one or more fantasy chains that create joint fantasy themes. Bormann used a variety of terms to portray the effect of group consciousness— common ground, meeting of the minds, mutual understanding, groupi-ness, common social reality, and empathic communion. Once a group experiences symbolic convergence, Bormann suggested that it’s important for members to memorialize their group consciousness with a name and recorded history ( saga ) that recalls moments when fantasies chained out. He did that with his U of M colleagues who met in the Bormann home every Wednesday night to discuss the ideas that make up symbolic convergence theory. They called themselves the Turtle Racers —presumably based on an illustrated poster with the caption “Behold the turtle who makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.” The image of a turtle race seemed doubly appropriate to their history of theory building when Bormann described the work going for-ward in i ts and starts. Symbolic convergence usually results in heightened group cohesiveness —members attracted to each other and sticking together through thick and thin. But not always. Bormann regarded symbolic convergence as usually a necessary but not sufi cient cause of cohesiveness. Groups that do little fantasizing are seldom highly attractive and cohesive. Such groups tend to be boring and ordinary. The cohesive groups have usually done considerable fantasizing, but not all groups that fantasize a lot are rewarding and cohesive. The fantasies that chain may contribute to creating a social reality that is warm, friendly and hard working, that provides the group with a strong identity and self image, and that gives members a sense of purpose and meaning for their group’s work. On the other hand, the fantasies may develop a group climate that is fascinating, frustrating, and punishing. 15 Bormann went on to say that fantasy themes in those negative groups are riddled with conl ict and that the humor expressed tends to be satire, ridicule, or sarcasm. I was in such a group my sophomore year of college, and he was right—it was fascinating. Fortunately I had enough sense to get out. Symbolic convergence Two or more private symbol worlds incline to-ward each other, come more closely together, or even overlap; group con-sciousness, cohesiveness. RHETORICAL VISION: A COMPOSITE DRAMA SHARED BY A RHETORICAL COMMUNITY Up to this point in the chapter, my description and illustration of symbolic con-vergence theory has focused on shared fantasies in small-group settings. That’s where SCT was spawned. But early in the theory’s development, the Turtle Rac-ers discovered that shared fantasies weren’t coni ned to a small-group context. As Bormann explained, “Fantasies that begin in small groups often are worked into public speeches, become picked up by mass media and ‘spread out across larger publics.’” 16 Once attuned to the basic concepts of SCT, these scholars spot-ted swirling batches of related fantasy themes and types in all sorts of commu-nication texts. Bormann coined the term rhetorical vision to designate “a Rhetorical vision A composite drama that catches up large groups of people into a common symbolic reality.
CHAPTER 19: SYMBOLIC CONVERGENCE THEORY 253composite drama that catches up large groups of people into a common symbolic reality.” 17 He called the wide-ranging body of people who share that reality a rhetorical community . The majority of research conducted using SCT has been aimed at capturing the rhetorical visions of dispersed rhetorical communities and i guring out how their communication created their unii ed fantasies. Researchers don’t have the benei t of sitting in a room with the whole community while waiting for a fan-tasy to chain out as evidence of a fantasy theme. So Bormann and his colleagues developed a procedure called fantasy theme analysis to discover fantasy themes and rhetorical visions that have already been created. Fantasy Theme Analysis Fantasy theme analysis is a specii c type of rhetorical criticism that’s built on two basic assumptions. First, people create their social reality—a premise shared by many interpretive theorists (see Chapters 5, 6, 12, and 13). Second, people’s meanings, motives, and emotions can be seen in their rhetoric. So when a dis-persed community embraces the same rhetorical vision, that’s reality for them. They aren’t pretending. A rhetorical critic using fantasy theme analysis looks for recurring fantasy themes in the text. If found, the critic should then discern if these shared fanta-sies are woven together into a rhetorical vision. In addition to using the basic SCT concepts already discussed, Bormann suggested that the critic look for at least four features that are present in all rhetorical visions. 18 1. Characters: Are there heroes to root for and villains to despise? 2. Plot lines: Do characters act in a way consistent with the rhetorical vision? 3. Scene: How do descriptions of time and place increase the drama’s impact? 4. Sanctioning agent: Who or what legitimates the rhetorical vision? I’ll describe a fantasy theme analysis of Internet websites to show how these tools can reveal a rhetorical vision and show how it’s created and sustained within a dispersed rhetorical community. The Symbolic Creation of a Pro-Eating Disorder Rhetorical Vision For those who are anorexic and/or bulimic, the world of face-to-face commu-nication can be a lonely place. Afraid of condemnation if they reveal their eating disorder, they often live a life of secrecy, deception, and guilt. Although 12-step programs extend social support to those who want to overcome their disease, not all people with food disorders want to change. The Internet offers hundreds of pro-eating disorder websites where those who resist recovery can anonymously interact with like-minded others. Wayne State University com-munication professor Jessi McCabe conducted a fantasy theme analysis to “explore how group exchanges on these websites redei ne a reality largely rejected by the cultural norm and what elements contribute to creating this worldview.” 19 She chose the 12 most active pro-food disorder sites for her analysis. The message boards on the three most popular sites—Blue Dragon Fly, Pro-Ana Suicide Society, and Fragile Innocence—had a combined member-ship of more than 25,000 users. Fantasy theme analysis A type of rhetorical criti-cism used to detect fan-tasy themes and rhetorical visions; the interpretive methodology of SCT.
254 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Fantasy types are an SCT category midway between specii c fantasy themes and an overall rhetorical vision. McCabe found that two contrasting fantasy types emerged in her analysis—a positive one and a negative one. She labeled the positive fantasy type “The humorous world of Ana and Mia.” Within this world, fantasy chains reinforce site users’ eating habits and shared reality. Across the message boards, members personify their disorders as characters in an ongoing drama. Members depict their own goals, struggles, and emotions through the personii ca-tion of Ana and Mia. Anorexia and bulimia are given life and attributed human-like emotions and qualities, which are justii ed by the sanctioning agent, humor. The most favorable depiction is a girl named Ana (anorexia), who represents the goal of the group, the idolization of perfection in this reality. Perfection is about having self-control and being thin. Personii ed through Ana is a yearning for being untouchable and perfect. 20 Message-board users write about Ana as their hero. (“Ana knows what to say to make me feel better.” 21 ) They also confess lapses and seek her forgiveness. (“Dear Ana, I am sorry that I failed you. . . . Not only did I fail you but I binged.”) Unlike Ana, Mia (bulimia) isn’t seen as perfect. Her role in the drama is to stir up the emotions users feel as they struggle to get down to the elusive perfect weight. Site users rarely describe Mia in positive terms. One post complains, “Mia is SO loud and annoying . . . my Mom heard Mia because she can’t keep her [stinking] mouth shut!” Yet other messages reluctantly suggest Mia is needed. “Sometimes she is all right . . . she lets me eat . . . keeps my body pure.” The third character in this ongoing drama is the villainous ED (eating disorder). He represents the social norm of moderation and recovery from addiction. McCabe explains why he’s so feared: “Members not only try to avoid ED for fear of recovery but the group knows that accepting ED means a loss of community and a reentry into a reality in which eating disorders are a negative attribute.” 22 The discussion of these three characters constructs an alternative world where high-risk dieters aren’t hassled. Despite the lurking presence of ED, who reminds everyone of another reality “out there,” this positive fantasy type is a closed world where anorexics and bulimics feel safe. McCabe sees humor as the sanctioning agent that makes this constructed reality legitimate for site users. The satirical exchange of experiences turns discussion of a deadly disease into a game that validates what these users are doing, saying, and living. Conversely, the negative fantasy type portrayed on these message boards is “Surviving encounters with The Real World,” a distressing place for those who visit these websites. McCabe notes that almost all users log on to get tips on “safe” foods and how to hide their eating habits and symptoms from friends and family. The scene of the struggle in “the real world” is almost always part of this fantasy type. Many posts include references to time and space. I hate coming home at night. . . . I am with Ana all day and I cannot eat . . . but when I get home Ana stays at the door and I just binge. How can I live with Mia if we are sharing community bathrooms in our dorm? McCabe doesn’t explicitly address plot lines in her fantasy theme analysis, but from her rich description two plots seem paramount. The i rst is acting in multiple ways to reduce weight—dieting, exercising, and purging. The second plot is doing whatever one has to do to keep the extent of this obsession with food a secret from those who don’t share it.
CHAPTER 19: SYMBOLIC CONVERGENCE THEORY 255 McCabe concludes that the rhetorical vision of the pro-eating disorder com-munity is the uneasy coexistence of these two contrasting fantasy types— The humorous world of Ana and Mia and Surviving encounters with The Real World. She writes, “The rhetorical vision shared by this group is the effort to maintain a disease within settings where their belief is challenged and get back to the state where the personii cation of the disease can proliferate.” 23 THEORY INTO PRACTICE: ADVICE TO IMPROVE YOUR COLLEGE EXPERIENCE As you’ve gained an understanding of symbolic convergence theory, you’ve probably thought about its implications for a group in which you take part. No matter what your role in the group, Bormann offered the following advice: 24 • When the group begins to share a drama that in your opinion would con-tribute to a healthy culture, you should pick up the drama and feed the chain. • If the fantasies are destructive, creating group paranoia or depression, cut the chain off whenever possible. • To build cohesiveness, use personii cation to identify your group. • Be sure to encourage the sharing of dramas depicting your group history early in your meetings. • Remember that a conscious rhetorical effort on your part can succeed in igniting a chain reaction, but the fantasy may take an unexpected turn. Bormann and his followers have also used fantasy theme analysis to improve organizational communication, conduct market research, and assess public opin-ion. To illustrate the pragmatic value of the methodology, John Cragan (Illinois State University) and Donald Shields (University of Missouri–St. Louis) require students in their applied research classes to analyze the way that high school seniors talk about college. They i nd that most rhetorical visions employ one of three competing master analogues—a righteous vision, a social vision, or a prag-matic vision. 25 Potential applicants who embrace a righteous vision are interested in a school’s academic excellence, the reputation of its faculty, and special programs that it offers. Those who adopt a social vision view college as a means of getting away from home, meeting new friends, and joining others in a variety of social activi-ties. High school seniors who buy into a pragmatic vision are looking for a mar-ketable degree that will help them get a good job. (What was your vision when you entered college?) Knowledge of these distinct visions could help admissions ofi cers at your school develop a strategy to appeal to high school students who would most appreciate the character of their campus. That knowledge could also help you i gure out if you’re at a school that can best meet your needs. CRITIQUE: JUDGING SCT AS BOTH A SCIENTIFIC AND INTERPRETIVE THEORY Ernest Bormann claimed that symbolic convergence theory is both objective and interpretive. The theory’s basic explanatory hypothesis— sharing group fantasies creates symbolic convergence— is framed as a universal principle that holds for all people, in any culture, at any time, in any communication context. 26 Dei nitely objective. But the methodology of determining fantasy themes, fantasy types,
256 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONand rhetorical visions is rhetorical criticism—a humanistic approach that’s undeniably interpretive. Perhaps this unusual mix has stimulated many of the 1,000 original research studies that have examined and applied the theory over the last 40 years. 27 Bormann wryly noted that one positive result from SCT has been the collaboration between “muddleheaded anecdotalists and hardheaded empiricists.” 28 When the six standards for judging a social science theory and the six criteria for evaluating an interpretive theory are applied to SCT, the theory stacks up remarkably well. I’ll single out four of these benchmarks for further discussion. 1. A good objective theory explains what occurs and why it happened. The concept of symbolic convergence can help us make sense of chaotic group discussions. Even though group leaders urge members to speak one at a time and stick to the point , participants often go off on verbal tangents. According to SCT, graphic digressions and boisterous talk aren’t signs of a l awed process; rather, they are evidence that the group is chaining out a fantasy and developing a group con-sciousness. This explanation of how groups become cohesive is a strength of the theory. However, Boston College communication professor James Olufowote doesn’t believe Bormann’s explanation goes far enough. In a sympathetic critique aimed at making the theory better, he contends that “SCT does not sufi ciently explain why humans are predisposed to dramatizing reality and sharing fantasy in the i rst place.” 29 2. A good objective theory predicts what’s going to happen. SCT clearly predicts that when a fantasy chain erupts among members, symbolic convergence will occur. The theory even suggests that without shared fantasies, there will be no cohe-siveness. But as discussed earlier in the chapter, SCT researchers have had little success predicting when a dramatizing message will trigger a chain reaction. Bormann noted that uncertainty about the future isn’t bothersome in other sci-entii c theories. He saw symbolic convergence theory as similar to Darwin’s bio-logical theory of evolution in that respect. An evolutionary theory can explain the way modern humans evolved from earlier humanoid individuals. But, such theories cannot predict the future path of evolu-tion. . . . SCT involves a careful cataloguing of group consciousness through time. The theory also includes a description of the dynamic forces that provide a neces-sary and sufi cient set of causes to explain the discovered communication patterns. For an evolution theory the dynamic may be the survival of the i ttest. For SCT the dynamic is the process of group sharing. 30 3. A good interpretive theory clarii es people’s values. There’s no doubt that fantasy theme analysis uncovers the values of a rhetorical community. It does that well. But Olufowote is concerned about the unexamined values that undergird SCT. 31 One concern is an ideology of convergence. The terms that describe its effects— common ground, meeting of the minds, empathic communion, etc.—make it clear that the theory has a pro-social bias. Shall we look at the convergence of hate groups or pro-eating disorder websites as a positive outcome? A second concern Olufowote expresses is an egalitarian assumption that ignores issues of power within groups. For example, do all members of a group benei t equally when a fantasy chains out? Does an inside joke become a symbolic cue at the expense of one of the members? A i nal concern is about the way members of a rhetorical community are characterized. The communities described
CHAPTER 19: SYMBOLIC CONVERGENCE THEORY 257come across as conl ict-free, differences among members are ignored, and there’s little discussion of the inner tension a member feels when the multiple rhetorical visions he or she embraces don’t mesh. 4. A good interpretive theory offers a new understanding of people. SCT’s method of fantasy theme analysis does this exceptionally well by directing rhetorical critics to focus on symbolic language. A few scholars charge that the best fantasy theme analyses are the result of critics’ astute perception or acumen rather than the method they use. 32 Bormann acknowledged that some critics do it better than others. But he noted that regardless of how perceptive the critic, the method used makes a huge difference. For example, a Marxist critique looks for economic exploitation; a feminist critique looks for patterns of male dominance. Think how different the analyses of cigar store smokers or pro-eating disorder message-board users would be if DeSantis or McCabe hadn’t zeroed in on imaginative language. With that lens in place, fantasy theme analysts uncover rhetorical visions as varied as the communities they study. When I read a well-written fantasy theme analysis, I gain a greater appreciation for the fascinating diversity within the human race. 1. As a rhetorically sensitive scholar, Bormann dei ned SCT terms carefully. Can you distinguish the difference between dramatizing messages and fantasies ? Do you understand why it’s a difference that makes a difference? 2. Some critics dismiss SCT as a cookie-cutter approach to group analysis. Could this be said of most social science theories? Bormann regarded the charge as a compliment. 33 Can you i gure out why he was pleased rather than offended? 3. Bormann insisted that SCT is an objective theory that’s valid any time and in any culture, but that its methodology, fantasy theme analysis, is interpretive. Do you regard SCT as a better objective or interpretive theory? Why? 4. Bormann was intrigued with a T-shirt that proclaims, “I have given up my search for truth. Now I want to i nd a good fantasy.” 34 Based on what you’ve read, does this slogan rel ect the symbolic world of SCT advocates? Does it rel ect yours? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS A SECOND LOOK Recommended resource: Ernest G. Bormann, John Cragan, and Donald Shields, “Three Decades of Developing, Grounding, and Using Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT),” in Communication Yearbook 25, William Gudykunst (ed.), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2001, pp. 271–313. Brief summary: Ernest Bormann, “Symbolic Convergence Theory,” in Small Group Com-munication Theory & Practice: An Anthology, 8 th ed., Randy Hirokawa, Robert Cathcart, Larry Samovar, and Linda Henman (eds.), Roxbury, Los Angeles, CA, 2003, pp. 39–47. Early statement of the theory: Ernest G. Bormann, “Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. 58, 1972, pp. 396–407. Small-group context: Ernest G. Bormann and Nancy C. Bormann, Effective Small Group Communication, 5 th ed., Burgess, Edina, MN, 1992, pp. 105–126.
258 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Organizational context: Ernest G. Bormann, “Symbolic Convergence: Organizational Communication and Culture,” in Communication and Organizations: An Interpretive Approach, Linda Putnam and Michael Pacanowsky (eds.), Sage, Beverly Hills, CA, 1983, pp. 99–122. Fantasy theme analysis: Sonja K. Foss, Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice, 4 th ed., Waveland, Prospect Heights, IL, 2009, pp. 97–136. Practical applications of assessing rhetorical visions: John F. Cragan and Donald C. Shields, Symbolic Theories in Applied Communication Research: Bormann, Burke, and Fisher, Hampton, Cresskill, NJ, 1995, pp. 161–198. Cigar store ethnography: Alan D. DeSantis, “Smoke Screen: An Ethnographic Study of a Cigar Shop’s Collective Rationalization,” Health Communication, Vol. 14, 2002, pp. 167–198. Pro-eating disorder website analysis: Jessi McCabe, “Resisting Alienation: The Social Construction of Internet Communities Supporting Eating Disorders,” Communication Stud-ies, Vol. 60, 2009, pp. 1–15. Early critique: G. P. Mohrmann, “An Essay on Fantasy Theme Criticism” and “Fantasy Theme Criticism: A Peroration,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. 68, 1982, pp. 109–132, 306–313. Response to early critics: Ernest G. Bormann, John Cragan, and Donald Shields, “In Defense of Symbolic Convergence Theory: A Look at the Theory and Its Criticisms After Two Decades,” Communication Theory, Vol. 4, 1994, pp. 259–294. Contemporary critique: James O. Olufowote, “Rousing and Redirecting a Sleeping Giant: Symbolic Convergence Theory and Complexities in the Communicative Constitu-tion of Collective Action,” Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 19, 2006, pp. 451–492.Will our group stay like this or will it change?That question is answered by Poole’s Adaptive Structuration Theory,which appeared in previous editions. Click on Theory List atwww.ai rstlook.com.
259Organizational Communication What do the following organizations have in common—the United States Navy, McDonald’s, General Motors, and the Green Bay Packers ? The i rst three are gigantic organizations, the middle two sell a tangible product, and the last three are pub-licly owned corporations that try to make a proi t. But in terms of organizational communication, their most important common feature is that each is a prime example of classical management theory in action. Figure OC–1 lists some of the principles of this traditional approach to management. The Mechanistic Approach. Classical management theory places a premium on productivity, precision, and efi ciency. As York University (Toronto) distin-guished research professor Gareth Morgan notes, these are the very qualities that you expect from a well-designed, smoothly running machine. Morgan uses the machine metaphor because he i nds signii cant parallels between mechanical devices and the way managers traditionally think about their organizations. 1 In classical management theory, workers are seen as cogs in vast machines that func-tion smoothly as long as their range of motion is clearly dei ned and their actions are lubricated with an adequate hourly wage. Machines repeat straightforward, repetitive tasks, just as McDonald’s work-ers have cooked more than 100 billion hamburgers, each one in exactly the same way. Machines have interchangeable parts that can be replaced when broken or worn out, just as a National Football League coach can insert a new player into the tight-end slot when the current starter is injured or begins to slow down. A new Chevrolet comes with a thick operator’s manual that specii es how the car should be driven, but the General Motors employees’ handbook is thicker and contains even more detailed instructions on how things are done within the company. As for the U.S. Navy, the l eet is an integral part of the country’s war machine, and ofi cers at every level are most comfortable when it runs like one. FIGURE OC–1 Selected Principles of Classical Management Theory Excerpted from Gareth Morgan, “Organizations as Machines” in Images of Organizations Unity of command—an employee should receive orders from only one superior.Scalar chain—the line of authority from superior to subordinate, which runs from top to bottom of the organization; this chain, which results from the unity-of-command principle, should be used as a channel for communication and decision making.Division of work—management should aim to achieve a degree of specialization designed to achieve the goal of the organization in an efficient manner.Authority and responsibility—attention should be paid to the right to give orders and to exact obedience; an appropriate balance between authority and responsibility should be achieved.Discipline—obedience, application, energy, behavior, and outward marks of respect in accordance with agreed rules and customs.Subordination of individual interest to general interest—through firmness, example, fair agreements, and constant supervision.
260 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Both theories in this section view classical management theory as outmoded and reject the mechanistic analogies on which bureaucratic organizations are based. The theorists offer alternative ways of thinking about organizing people and the tasks they do. Each approach is based on a different image of the orga-nization that counters the dominant machine model. The cultural approach looks for shared meanings that are unique to a given organization. The critical approach looks at organizations as political systems where conl ict and power should be negotiated openly. Karl Weick sees organizations as living organisms that must adapt or die.His information systems approach is a third alternative to mechanistic thinking.For his theory covered in previous editions, click on Theory List at www.ai rstlook.com.“Human Resources.”© Peter Steiner/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
20CHAPTER Cultural Approach to Organizations of Clifford Geertz & Michael Pacanowsky Princeton anthropologist Clifford Geertz writes that “man is an animal sus-pended in webs of signii cance that he himself has spun.” 1 He pictures culture as those webs. In order to travel across the strands toward the center of the web, an outsider must discover the common interpretations that hold the web together. Culture is shared meaning, shared understanding, shared sensemaking. Geertz has conducted i eld research in the islands of Indonesia and on the Moroccan highlands, rural settings remote from industrial activity. His best-known monograph is an in-depth symbolic analysis of the Balinese cocki ght. Geertz has never written a treatise on the bottom line, never tried to decipher the signii cance of the ofi ce Christmas party, and never met a payroll—a dis-qualifying sin in the eyes of many business professionals. Despite his silence on the topic of big business, Geertz’ interpretive approach has proved useful in making sense of organizational activity. In the i eld of communication, former University of Colorado professor Michael Pacanowsky has applied Geertz’ cultural insights to organizational life. He says that if culture consists of webs of meaning that people have spun, and if spun webs imply the act of spinning, “then we need to concern ourselves not only with the structures of cultural webs, but with the process of their spinning as well.” 2 That process is communication. It is communication that “creates and constitutes the taken-for-granted reality of the world.” 3 CULTURE AS A METAPHOR OF ORGANIZATIONAL LIFE The use of culture as a root metaphor was undoubtedly stimulated by Western fascination with the economic success of Japanese corporations in the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, when American business leaders traveled to the Far East to study methods of production, they discovered that the superior quantity and quality of Japan’s industrial output had less to do with technology than with 261●Objective InterpretiveSocio-cultural tradition
262 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONworkers’ shared cultural value of loyalty to each other and to their corporation. Organizations look radically different depending on how people in the host cul-ture structure meaning. Communal face-saving in Japan is foreign to the class antagonism of Great Britain or the we’re-number-one competitive mindset of the United States. Today the term corporate culture means different things to different people. Some observers use the phrase to describe the surrounding environment that constrains a company’s freedom of action. (U.S. workers would scoff at sing-ing a corporate anthem at the start of their working day.) Others use the term to refer to a quality or property of the organization. (Acme Gizmo is a friendly place to work.) They speak of culture as synonymous with image, character, or climate . But Pacanowsky is committed to Geertz’ symbolic approach and thus considers culture as more than a single variable in organizational research: Organizational culture is not just another piece of the puzzle; it is the puzzle. From our point of view, culture is not something an organization has; a culture is some-thing an organization is. 4 WHAT CULTURE IS; WHAT CULTURE IS NOT Geertz admits that the concept of culture as systems of shared meaning is somewhat vague and difi cult to grasp. Unlike popular usage, which equates culture with concerts and art museums, he refuses to use the word to signify less primitive . No modern anthropologist would fall into the trap of classifying people as high- or low-culture. Culture is not whole or undivided. Geertz points out that even close-knit societies have subcultures and countercultures within their boundaries. For example, employees in the sales and accounting departments of the same com-pany may eye each other warily—the i rst group calling the accountants number crunchers and bean counters , the accountants in turn labeling members of the sales force fast talkers and glad-handers . Despite their differences, both groups may regard the blue-collar bowling night of the production workers as a strange ritual compared with their own weekend ritual of a round of golf. For Pacanowsky, the web of organizational culture is the residue of employ-ees’ performances—“those very actions by which members constitute and reveal their culture to themselves and to others.” 5 He notes that job performance may play only a minor role in the enactment of corporate culture. People do get the job done, true (though probably not with the singleminded task-orientation communication texts would have us believe); but people in organiza-tions also gossip, joke, knife one another, initiate romantic involvements, cue new employees to ways of doing the least amount of work that still avoids hassles from a supervisor, talk sports, arrange picnics. 6 Geertz calls these cultural performances “an ensemble of texts . . . which the anthropologist strains to read over the shoulder of those to whom they properly belong.” 7 The elusive nature of culture prompts Geertz to label its study a soft science . It is “not an experimental science in search of law, but an interpretive one in search of meaning.” 8 The corporate observer is one part scientist, one part drama critic. Culture Webs of significance; sys-tems of shared meaning. Cultural performance Actions by which mem-bers constitute and re-veal their culture to themselves and others; an ensemble of texts.
CHAPTER 20: CULTURAL APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONS 263 The fact that symbolic expression requires interpretation is nicely captured in a story about Pablo Picasso recorded by York University (Toronto) professor Gareth Morgan. 9 A man commissioned Picasso to paint a portrait of his wife. Startled by the nonrepresentational image on the canvas, the woman’s husband complained, “It isn’t how she really looks.” When asked by the painter how she really looked, the man produced a photograph from his wallet. Picasso’s comment: “Small, isn’t she?” THICK DESCRIPTION: WHAT ETHNOGRAPHERS DO Geertz refers to himself as an ethnographer . You’ll recall that I i rst introduced his name when I presented ethnography as one of the four main communication research methodologies (see Chapter 3). Just as geographers chart the physical territory, ethnographers map out social discourse. They do this “to discover who people think they are, what they think they are doing, and to what end they think they are doing it.” 10 There’s no shortcut for the months of participant observation required to collect an exhaustive account of interaction. Without that raw material, there would be nothing to interpret. Geertz spent years in Indonesia and Morocco, developing his deep descrip-tion of separate cultures. Pacanowsky initially invested nine months with W. L. Gore & Associates, best known for its Gore-Tex line of sports clothing and equip-ment. Like Geertz, he was completely open about his research goals, and during the last i ve months of his research he participated fully in problem-solving con-ferences at the company. Later, Pacanowsky spent additional time at the W. L. Gore plants in Delaware as a consultant. In order to become intimately familiar with an organization as members experience it , ethnographers must commit to the long haul. Later, Pacanowsky committed to the long haul of working full time at Gore, this despite his earlier caution against “going native.” He had previously warned that the researcher must maintain a posture of radical naïveté and allow himself or herself to experience organizational life as “strange,” so that he or she will be sure to prompt organiza-tional members for the resources (or knowledge) they are drawing upon which allow them to take for granted those very same organizational experiences. 11 The daily written accounts of intensive observation invariably i ll the pages of many ethnographic notebooks. The visual image of these journals stacked on top of each other would be sufi cient justii cation for Geertz to refer to ethnography as thick description . The term, however, describes the intertwined layers of common meaning that underlie what a particular people say and do. Thick descriptions are powerful reconstructions, not just detailed observations.12 Since Geertz popu-lized the concept, most ethnographers realize that their task is to:1. Accurately describe talk and actions and the context in which they occur. 2. Capture the thoughts, emotions, and web of social interactions.3. Assign motivation, intention, or purpose to what people say and do.4. Artfully write this up so readers feel they’ve experienced the events.5. Interpret what happened; explain what it means within this culture.13Thick description is tracing the many strands of a cultural web and tracking evolving meaning. No matter how high the stack of an ethnographer’s notes, without interpretation, they would still be thin description. Ethnography Mapping out social dis-course; discovering who people within a culture think they are, what they think they are doing, and to what end they think they are doing it. Thick description A record of the inter-twined layers of common meaning that underlie what a particular people say and do.
264 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Thick description starts with a state of bewilderment. What the devil’s going on? Geertz asks himself as he wades into a new culture. The only way to reduce the puzzlement is to observe as if one were a stranger in a foreign land. This can be difi cult for a manager who is already enmeshed in a specii c corporate culture. He or she might overlook many of the signs that point to common interpretation. Worse, the manager might assume that ofi ce humor or the company grapevine has the same signii cance for people in this culture as it does for those in a previ-ous place of employment. Geertz says it will always be different. Behaviorists would probably consider employee trips to the ofi ce water-cooler or coffee machine of little interest. If they did regard these breaks worth studying, they would tend to note the number of trips and length of stay for each worker. Ethnographers would be more interested in the signii cance this seemingly mundane activity had for these particular employees. Instead of a neat statistical summary, they’d record pages of dialogue while workers were standing around with a cup in their hands. Pacanowsky fears that a frequency count would only bleach human behavior of the very properties that interest him. Classifying perfor-mances across organizations would yield superi cial generalizations at the cost of localized insight. He’d rather i nd out what makes a particular tribal culture unique. Although Pacanowsky would pay attention to all cultural performances, he would be particularly sensitive to the imaginative language members used, the stories they told, and the nonverbal rites and rituals they practiced. Taken together, these three forms of communication provide helpful access to the unique shared meanings within an organization. METAPHORS: TAKING LANGUAGE SERIOUSLY When used by members throughout an organization (and not just management), metaphors can offer the ethnographer a starting place for accessing the shared meaning of a corporate culture. Pacanowsky records a number of prominent met-aphors used at W. L. Gore & Associates, none more signii cant than the oft-heard reference within the company to Gore as a lattice organization . 14 If one tried to graph the lines of communication at Gore, the map would look like a lattice rather than the traditional pyramid-shaped organizational chart. The crosshatched lines would show the importance of one-on-one communication and rel ect the fact that no person within the company needs permission to talk to anyone else. Easy access to others is facilitated by an average plant size of 150 employees, with voice mail and paging systems that encourage quick responses. This lack of hierarchical authority within the lattice organization is captured in the egalitarian title of associate given to every worker. People do have differ-ential status at Gore, but it comes from technical expertise, a track record of good judgment, and evidence of follow-through that leads to accomplishment. The company’s stated objective (singular) is “to make money and have fun.” 15 The founder, Bill Gore, was famous for popping into associates’ ofi ces and ask-ing, “Did you make any money today? Did you have any fun today?” But work at Gore is not frivolous. The waterline operating principle makes it clear that associates should check with others before making signii cant decisions: Each of us will consult with appropriate Associates who will share the responsibil-ity of taking any action that has the potential of serious harm to the reputation, success, or survival of the Enterprise. The analogy is that our Enterprise is like a ship that we are all in together. Boring holes above the waterline is not serious, but below the waterline, holes could sink us. 16 Metaphor Clarifies what is unknown or confusing by equating it with an image that’s more familiar or vivid.
CHAPTER 20: CULTURAL APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONS 265 After nine months of studying communication performances at W. L. Gore & Associates, Pacanowsky l oated three different metaphors of his own to describe crucial features of that unique culture. 17 He thought of Gore as a cluster of peasant villages in its passion for decentralization and its extraordinary orality. He saw Gore like a large improvisational jazz group because of its attraction for people who love to create something new but still want to i t in with other like-minded players. And he compared the people at Gore to factions in Colonial America inasmuch as the majority of associates thought that the company’s innovative charter was the best thing since the invention of the wheel, yet a signii cant minority were cynical about the idealistic goals. For both the discovery and the communication of corporate culture, ethnographers i nd metaphor a valuable tool. When Kevin read about the emphasis that Pacanowsky placed on metaphors, he analyzed their use among fellow computer-savvy student employees at Wheaton:As a student worker at ResNet, the technical support branch of our campus Internet service provider, I have become aware of our corporate culture. One thing I have noticed is we often talk about our department using the metaphor of a fortress wall. Computing Services makes decisions and institutes policy, and it’s our responsibility to handle the waves of students with resulting problems. We talk about “stemming the l ow” of students with problems and “manning the phones” or “manning the desk.” We also talk about how we “take the blow” for the decisions of our superiors.This realization later served Kevin and Wheaton students well when, after grad-uation, Kevin was hired to be the manager of the ResNet program. Desiring to change the fortress mentality that had permeated the organization, Kevin in effect “lowered the drawbridge” to give students easy access to computer help. He extended hours into the evening, established help desks in each of the dorms, and did away with the keypad locked door that had prevented face-to-face contact with frustrated users. Two years later, ResNet workers talked about themselves as guiding students on paths through a jungle—a more proactive metaphor that suggests the culture has changed. THE SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATION OF STORY Stories that are told over and over provide a convenient window through which to view corporate webs of signii cance. Pacanowsky asks, “Has a good story been told that takes you to the heart of the matter?” 18 He focuses on the scriptlike qualities of narratives that portray an employee’s part in the company play. Although workers have room to improvise, the anecdotes provide clues as to what it means to perform a task in this particular theater. Stories capture mem-orable performances and pass on the passion the actor felt at the time. Pacanowsky suggests three types of narrative that dramatize organizational life. Corporate stories carry the ideology of management and reinforce company policy. Every McDonald’s franchisee hears about the late Ray Kroc, who, when he was chairman of the board, picked up trash from the parking lot when he’d visit a store. Personal stories are those that company personnel tell about themselves, often dei ning how they would like to be seen within the organization. If you’ve seen NBC’s hit television comedy The Ofi ce , you’ve witnessed Dwight Schrute’s inter-views with the camera crew. During these interviews, he talks about his excel-lence as an employee and how he deserves the respect of others in the Dunder Mifl in paper company. These are Dwight’s personal accounts. Corporate stories Tales that carry manage-ment ideology and rein-force company policy. Personal stories Tales told by employees that put them in a favor-able light.
266 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Collegial stories are positive or negative anecdotes told about others in the organization. When the camera crew interviews Dwight’s colleagues Jim and Pam, we hear stories of Dwight’s eccentricity and lack of basic social awareness. These collegial stories describe Dwight as someone who is not to be taken seri-ously. Since these tales aren’t usually sanctioned by management, collegial accounts pass on how the organization “really works.” Stories at Dixie Throughout most of my life, I’ve had access to some of the cultural lore of Dixie Communications, a medium-size corporation that operates a newspaper and a television station in a Southern city. Like so many other regional companies, Dixie has been taken over by an out-of-state corporation that has no local ties. The following three narratives are shorthand versions of stories heard again and again throughout the company. Although the original publisher has been dead for many years, old-timers fondly recall how he would spend Christmas Eve with the workers in the press room. Their account is invariably linked with reminders that he initiated health benei ts and proi t sharing prior to any union demand. (Corporate story) The current comptroller is the highest-ranking “local boy” in the corporation. He often tells the story about the i rst annual audit he performed long before computers were installed. Puzzled when he ran across a bill for 50 pounds of pigeon feed, he discovered that the company used homing pigeons to send in news copy and circula-tion orders from a town across the bay. The story usually concludes with an editorial comment about pigeons being more reliable than the new machines. His self-presentation reminds listeners that he has always been cost-conscious, yet it also aligns him with the human side of the “warm people versus cold machines” issue. (Personal story) Shortly after the takeover, a department head encouraged the new publisher to meet with his people for a few minutes at the end of the day. The new boss declined the invitation on the grounds of efi ciency: “To be quite candid, I don’t want to know about a woman’s sick child or a man’s vacation plans. That kind of information makes it harder to i re a person.” Spoken in a cold, superior tone, the words quite candid are always part of the story. (Collegial story) Both Geertz and Pacanowsky caution against any analysis that says, “This story means. . . .” Narratives contain a mosaic of signii cance and defy a simplistic, one-on-one translation of symbols. Yet taken as a whole, the three stories reveal an uneasiness with the new management. This interpretation is consistent with repeated metaphorical references to the old Dixie as family and the new Dixie as a faceless computer . Fiction as a Form of Scholarly Discourse Not only has Pacanowsky shown that narratives are a prime source of cultural wisdom for the ethnographer, he has also demonstrated that scholars can use a i ctional format to convey the results of their research. In the Quarterly Journal of Speech , Pacanowsky published an imaginative account that captures the angst felt within a subculture of academics. In the introduction he claims that “i ctional descriptions, by the very nature of their implicitness and impres-sionism can fully capture (can I be so strong?) both the bold outlines and the Collegial stories Positive or negative an-ecdotes about others in the organization; de-scriptions of how things “really work.”
CHAPTER 20: CULTURAL APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONS 267crucial nuances of cultural ethos.” 19 Figure 20–1 features an excerpt of a i ctional conversation between two communication professors during an annual conven-tion. Nick Trujillo, a co-author with Pacanowsky on other organizational culture articles, refers to the piece as a confessional tale . 20 FIGURE 20–1 Excerpt from “Slouching Towards Chicago” by Michael Pacanowsky He and Radner were such different people, and they were not really close friends. But at every convention, they would get together over dinner and appraise their professional careers and personal lives in a surpisingly intimate manner. One year, Radner had side-splitting tales to tell of his affair with the wife of his department chairman. The next year, he cried as he worked his way through the details of his divorce. For his part, Jack was inclined to reflect on the transitions of his life—how strangely happy he was to have gotten married in a church, how being a father brought him to heights of joy and depths of anger he’d never before felt capable of experiencing, how he would become seized by intense physical cold on those occasions when he really thought about his father’s death. “Our lives in review” was the way Jack thought about those dinners with Radner.“You know,” said Radner, “in seven years, I have authored or co-authored 48 conven-tion papers, and published 14 articles in refereed journals, and had 10 chapters invited for various textbooks and readers. . . But you’re a known item in the field. People read your work. They talk about it. They get worked up about it. I mean, I hate to admit it, but it’s true. Nobody really gets worked up about my stuff. But your stuff—”“Hype. I get calls in the night from 24-year-old groundbreakers-to-be who can’t add. ‘I have to put together my prospectus and I don’t want to do a traditional, quantitative study, and I read your article in QJ, and I wondered if you could send me anything else you’ve written that I can use to, you know, develop my position, I mean, everybody here is so traditional, I don’t know if they’ll let me do an interpretive study . . .’ on and on.”“But that’s what I mean. People get excited.”“I don’t. You know what I want? What I want more than 70 articles or people getting excited or calling me up? What I want is to write one good solid book-length piece of interpretive research. No more diddly articles. No more ‘this is what we should be doing.’ Just one solid book. And then I’d get excited.”“Why don’t you then?”“I can’t!” Jack pounded the table with his fist. “I gotta worry about tenure. I gotta worry about building my vita. So I piss away my time on these damned convention papers, on these ‘take-a-potshot-at-the-other-guy’ articles instead of—”“Oh, come on. You’re going to get tenure. Why don’t you stop doing this other shit and work on a book?”It was not a question that Jack had never heard before, not with the frequency with which he would launch into his ‘pissing my life away’ refrain. But maybe it was because it was during “life in review” that the question suddenly hit him with a force and an eerieness that he hadn’t felt before. He was silent for a moment. “Because,” he said finally, shaken with the realization, ”I don’t know if I really have it in me to write a book. And it scares me to think I might find that out.”Slouching Towards Chicago RITUAL: THIS IS THE WAY IT’S ALWAYS BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE Geertz wrote about the Balinese rite of cocki ghting because the contest repre-sented more than a game. “It is only apparently cocks that are i ghting there. Actually it is men.” The cocki ght is a dramatization of status. “Its function is interpretive: It is a Balinese reading of Balinese experience, a story they tell them-selves about themselves.” 21
268 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONRitualTexts that articulate mul-tiple aspects of cultural life, often marking rites of passage or life transitions. Pacanowsky agrees with Geertz that some rituals (like the Balinese cocki ght) are “texts” that articulate multiple aspects of cultural life. 22 These rituals are nearly sacred, and any attempt to change them meets with strong resistance. Although the emphasis on improvisation and novelty reduces the importance of ritual at Gore, organizational rites at more traditional companies weave together many threads of corporate culture. More than a generation ago, workers in the classii ed advertising department at Dixie created an integrative rite that survives to the present. The department is staffed by more than 50 telephone sales representatives who work out of a large common room. At Dixie, these representatives not only take the “two lines/two days/two dollars” personal ads over the phone, they also initiate callbacks to i nd out if customers were successful and might want to sell other items. Compared with similar operations at other papers, classii ed advertising at Dixie is a major proi t center with low employee turnover. The department continues to have the family atmosphere of premerger Dixie. Most of the phone representatives are women under the age of 40. They regard Max, the male manager who has held his posi-tion for 35 years, as a father confessor —a warm, nonjudgmental person who has genuine concern for their lives. Whenever a female employee has a baby, Max visits her in the hospital and offers help to those at home preparing for her return. Women announce their pregnancy by taping a dime within a large picture frame on the outer wall of Max’ ofi ce, inscribing their name and anticipated day of delivery. This rite of integration serves multiple functions for the women: At a time of potential anxiety, it is an occasion for public afi rmation from the larger community. The rite is a point of contact between work and those outside Dixie. Employees often take pride in describing the ritual to customers and friends. Although the dime-on-the-wall practice originated with the workers, the autho-rized chronicle of decades of expected births proclaims a sense of permanence. It says, in effect: “The company doesn’t consider motherhood a liability; your job will be here when you get back.” From the management’s standpoint, the rite ensures that there will be no surprises. Max has plenty of time to schedule the employee’s maternity leave, arrange for another salesperson to cover her accounts, and anticipate stresses that she might be encountering. It is tempting to read economic signii cance into the fact that employees use dimes to symbolize this major change in their lives. But the women involved refer to the small size of the token rather than its monetary value. Geertz and Pacanowsky would caution that this is their story; we should listen to their interpretation. CAN THE MANAGER BE AN AGENT OF CULTURAL CHANGE? The popularity of the cultural metaphor when it was i rst introduced to the corporate world in the 1980s was undoubtedly due to business leaders’ desire to shape interpretation within the organization. Symbols are the tools of manage-ment. Executives don’t operate forklifts or produce widgets; they cast vision, state goals, process information, send memos, and engage in other symbolic behavior. If they believe that culture is the key to worker commitment, produc-tivity, and sales, the possibility of changing culture becomes a seductive idea.
CHAPTER 20: CULTURAL APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONS 269Creating favorable metaphors, planting organizational stories, and establishing rites would seem an ideal way to create a corporate myth that would serve managerial interests. But once a corporate culture exists, can it be altered by a manager? Geertz regards shared interpretations as naturally emerging from all members of a group rather than consciously engineered by leaders. In The Ofi ce , Jim, Pam, Stanley, and Phyllis all play a part in developing their corporate culture. And you’ll notice that, despite his best efforts, manager Michael Scott can’t alter it single-handedly. Man-agers may articulate a new vision in a fresh vocabulary, but it is the workers who smile, sigh, snicker, or scoff. For example, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which will be discussed in Chapter 22, was powerful because he struck a chord that was already vibrating within millions of listeners. Shared meanings are hard to dispel. Symbol watchers within a company quickly discount the words of management if they don’t square with perfor-mance. But even if culture could be changed, there still remains the question of whether it should be. Symbolic anthropologists have traditionally adopted a non-intrusive style appropriate to examining i ne crystal—look, admire, but don’t touch. So managers who regard themselves as agents of cultural change create bull-in-a-china-shop fears for ethnographers who have ethical concerns about how their corporate analyses might be used. University of Massachusetts man-agement professor Linda Smircich notes that ethnographers would draw back in horror at the idea of using their data to extend a tribal priest’s control over the population, yet most communication consultants are hired by top management to do just that. 23 CRITIQUE: IS THE CULTURAL APPROACH USEFUL? The cultural approach adopts and rei nes the qualitative research methodology of ethnography to gain a new understanding of a specii c group of people. A crucial part of that understanding is a clarii cation of values within the culture under study. Ethnographers are also clear about the value they place on being nonjudgmental in their interpretation. Today, however, there isn’t the excitement about the cultural approach to organizations that there was when interpretive scholars introduced it in the 1980s. Perhaps that’s because many researchers trained in organizational communication are hired as consultants by corporate managers who are looking for change. By now you understand that Geertz DILBERT © Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
270 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONwould regard the quest to alter culture as both inappropriate and virtually impossible. This purist position exposes him and his admirers within our disci-pline to criticism from corporate consultants who not only desire to understand organizational communication but also want to inl uence it. A different kind of objection comes from critical theorists who fault the cul-tural approach because interpretive scholars like Geertz and Pacanowsky refuse to evaluate the customs that they portray. For example, if Pacanowsky were to discover that female associates at Gore hit a glass ceiling when they try to advance, these advocates insist that he should expose and deplore this injustice rather than merely describe and interpret it for readers. 24 For researchers who take a cultural approach to organizational life, both of these objections miss the point of their work. Contrary to the traditional aims of consultants paid by the organizations they study, the purpose of ethnography is not to change the organization or help managers exert more control. Nor is it to pass moral judgment or reform society. The goal of symbolic analysis is to create a better understanding of what it takes to function effectively within a cul-ture. In most organizations, members are free to decide whether they want to belong. A sensitive cultural analysis could help them make an intelligent choice. There might be another reason why interest in the cultural approach has waned in the last decades. In Chapter 3, I cited aesthetic appeal as one of the criteria for a good interpretive theory. The force of an ethnographic analysis depends in large measure on the prose in which it’s couched. In the Times Literary Supplement (U.K.), T. M. Luhrmann gives testimony to the compelling power of Geertz’ writing: “Rarely has there been a social scientist who has also been so acute a writer; perhaps there has never been one so quotable.” 25 Indeed, Geertz’ interpretation of a Balinese cocki ght reads like an engrossing novel that the reader can’t put down. Though Pacanowsky writes well, it may not be until a perceptive ethnographer with Geertz’ compelling way with words focuses on organizational life that the cultural approach will spark renewed interest. www.mhhe.com/grifi n8SELF-QUIZ QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS 1. Based on the concept of organizational culture as a system of shared meaning , how would you describe the culture at your school to a prospective student? 2. Consider Pacanowsky’s “Slouching Towards Chicago” as an ethnographer’s thick description. What can you deduce about Jack and Radner’s subculture from the fragment of narrative in Figure 20–1 ? 3. Think of your extended family as an organizational culture. What family ritual might you analyze to interpret the webs of signii cance you share for someone visiting your home? 4. What favorite story do you tell others about your most recent place of employment? Is it a corporate, personal, or collegial narrative?
CHAPTER 20: CULTURAL APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONS 271 Recommended resource: Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books, New York, 1973. (See especially “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture,” pp. 3–30; and “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cocki ght,” pp. 412–453.) Culture as performance: Michael Pacanowsky and Nick O’Donnell-Trujillo, “Organiza-tional Communication as Cultural Performance,” Communication Monographs, Vol. 50, 1983, pp. 127–147. Nonmanagerial orientation: Michael Pacanowsky and Nick O’Donnell-Trujillo, “Com-munication and Organizational Cultures,” Western Journal of Speech Communication , Vol. 46, 1982, pp. 115–130. Thick description: Joseph G. Ponterotto, “Brief Note on the Origins, Evolution, and Meaning of the Qualitative Research Concept ‘Thick Description,’” The Qualitative Report, Vol. 11, 2006, pp. 538–549. Cultural metaphor: Gareth Morgan, “Creating Social Reality: Organizations as Cul-tures,” in Images of Organization, Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1986, pp. 111–140. Corporate ethnography: Michael Pacanowsky, “Communication in the Empowering Organization,” in Communication Yearbook 11, James Anderson (ed.), Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1988, pp. 356–379. Corporate stories: Joanne Martin, Martha Feldman, Mary Jo Hatch, and Sim Sitkin, “The Uniqueness Paradox in Organizational Stories,” Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 28, 1983, pp. 438–453. Rites: Harrison Trice and Janice Beyer, “Studying Organizational Cultures Through Rites and Ceremonials,” Academy of Management Review, Vol. 9, 1984, pp. 653–669. Interpretive vs. objective approach: Linda L. Putnam, “The Interpretive Perspective: An Alternative to Functionalism,” in Communication and Organizations: An Interpretive Approach, Linda L. Putnam and Michael Pacanowsky (eds.), Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1982, pp. 31–54. Brief autobiography: Clifford Geertz, A Life of Learning (ACLS Occasional Paper No. 45), American Council of Learned Societies, New York, 1999. Webs of shared meaning at the ballpark: Nick Trujillo, “Interpreting (the Work and the Talk of) Baseball: Perspectives on Ballpark Culture,” Western Journal of Communication, Vol. 56, 1992, pp. 350–371. Fiction as scholarship: Michael Pacanowsky, “Slouching Towards Chicago,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. 74, 1988, pp. 453–469. Current scholarship: Anat Fafaeli and Monica Worline, “Symbols in Organizational Culture,” in Handbook of Organizational Culture & Climate, Neal Ashkanasy, Celeste P. M. Wilderom, and Mark Peterson (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2000, pp. 71–84. Interpretive research: Bryan Taylor and Nick Trujillo, “Qualitative Research Methods,” in The New Handbook of Organizational Communication, Fredric Jablin and Linda L. Putnam (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2001, pp. 161–194. Rationale for corporate ethnography: Brigitte Jordan and Brinda Dalal, “Persuasive Encoun-ters: Ethnography in the Corporation,” Field Methods, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2006, pp. 1–24. A SECOND LOOK
272 Critical Theory of Communication in Organizations of Stanley Deetz Based on a true story, the 1999 i lm Erin Brockovich dramatizes the four-year quest of a novice legal researcher to win compensation and damages for victims of corporate irresponsibility. 1 Played by Julia Roberts, who received the year’s Best Actress Academy Award for her performance, Brockovich becomes an advocate for more than 600 people poisoned by water contaminated by Pacii c Gas & Electric (PG&E). As the story unfolds, Brockovich uncovers a series of managerial decisions that eventually cost the company $333 million—the largest judgment awarded in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. Aimed at cutting corporate costs, these managerial moves also resulted in catastrophic health problems for the residents of Hinkley, California, and cost some of them their lives. Like most producers of electricity, PG&E used water to cool the turbine blades of its generators. But it added a rust inhibitor containing hexavalent chro-mium to prolong the life of the blades. Unlike other chromium compounds that are benign or even benei cial, scientists have long known that chrome 6 is harm-ful to humans and animals. Highly toxic water was piped into unlined outdoor ponds, where it seeped into the ground and contaminated the well water in the nearby town. Long-term residents experienced chronic headaches and nose-bleeds, bone deterioration, liver failure, lung failure, reproductive failure, heart failure, and many forms of lethal cancer. Using the chrome 6 additive was a bad decision from the start. Internal com-pany documents reveal that decades before the danger became public, managers in the San Francisco headquarters knew about the well water contamination. Deciding not to i x the problem was the second tragic decision. Directing Hinkley branch ofi cials to say nothing about the contaminated water was the third. Company-paid doctors treated those who became ill but told patients that there was no connection between the generating plant and their illnesses. And when a regulatory board mandated an environmental cleanup, plant managers assured a ●Objective InterpretiveCritical tradition21 CHAPTER
CHAPTER 21: CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS 273meeting of 200 concerned citizens that the chromium additive was harmless and even sent out a pamphlet saying that it was good for them. Actually, the water contained 10 times the allowable level of hexavalent chromium. PG&E managers showed continual bad judgment when Ed Masry, the law-yer who employed Erin, tried to negotiate for a family in which the father had Hodgkin’s disease and the mother faced a hysterectomy and a double mastec-tomy. They sent a low-level l unky who offered to buy their home for $250,000 but had no authority to negotiate or discuss health claims. Yet he apparently had been instructed to warn Ed and Erin that they were dealing with a $28 billion company. Big mistake. PG&E later had to pay that family $5 million. Erin Brockovich is just one of many feature i lms about corporate managers who make decisions without regard for the negative consequences to their employees, consumers, or the general public—others include The Informant, The Insider, Roger and Me, Silkwood, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. These movies tap a growing concern among Americans that something is wrong with the way decisions are reached at the highest levels of business. The modern corporation is protected from direct public control, yet it’s the place where the crucial decisions that affect the everyday lives of citizens are made. University of Colorado communication professor Stanley Deetz has developed a critical communication theory to explore ways to ensure the i nancial health of corporations while taking into account diverse—and often noneconomic—human interests. Deetz does this by i rst demonstrating how corporations have become political as well as economic institutions. He then employs advances in communi-cation theory to point out how communication practices within corporations can distort decision making. Finally, he outlines how workplaces can become more productive and democratic through communication reforms. CORPORATE COLONIZATION AND CONTROL OF EVERYDAY LIFE Deetz views multinational corporations such as GM, AT&T, IBM, Time Warner, Disney, and Microsoft as the dominant force in society—more powerful than the church, state, or family in their ability to inl uence the lives of individuals. For example, more than 90 percent of the mass media outlets—newspaper, broadcast, cable, telephone, and satellite—are owned by just a handful of corporations. 2 Deetz notes that hourly reports of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average underscore the absence of an equivalent index of quality in the arts, health care, or the envi-ronment. Media preoccupation with corporate well-being makes President George W. Bush’s post–9/11 equation of consumer spending with patriotism seem almost logical. The corporate executive suite is the place where most decisions are made regarding the use of natural resources, development of new technologies, prod-uct availability, and working relations among people. Deetz says that corpora-tions “control and colonize” modern life in ways that no government or public body since the feudal era ever thought possible. 3 Yet the fallout of corporate control is a sharp decrease in quality of life for the vast majority of citizens. Within the lifetime of most of today’s college students, the average American workweek has increased from 40 to 50 hours, and leisure time has declined by a corresponding 10 hours. Despite the fact that 85 percent of families with chil-dren now have mothers working outside the home, their real standard of living Corporate colonization Encroachment of modern corporations into every area of life outside the workplace.
274 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONhas decreased over the last two decades. The number of full-time workers whose income has fallen below the poverty line has doubled, yet compensation for chief executive ofi cers (CEOs) has risen from 24 times to 290 times that of the average worker. 4 Deetz suggests that “we need to consider in depth what type of ‘busi-ness’ this is, who the moral claimants are, how privilege is organized, and what the possible democratic responses are.” 5 Deetz’ theory of communication is critical in that he wants to critique the easy assumption that “what’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” More specii cally, he wants to examine communication practices in organizations that undermine fully representative decision making and thus reduce the quality, innovation, and fairness of company policy. INFORMATION OR COMMUNICATION: TRANSMISSION OR THE CREATION OF MEANING Deetz begins his analysis by challenging the view that communication is the transmission of information. Even though a majority of human communication scholars now dismiss the familiar source → message → channel → receiver con-ception of communication, the conduit model is still taken for granted in orga-nizations and in everyday life. There’s an intuitive appeal in the idea that words refer to real things—that by using the right words we can express state-of-the-art knowledge. As Deetz notes, “Clearly, the public really wants to believe in an independent reality.” 6 He warns, however, that as long as we accept the notion that communication is merely the transmission of information, we will continue to perpetuate corporate dominance over every aspect of our lives. Consider PG&E’s annual report. The sanitized numbers present themselves as facts compiled and categorized according to “standard accounting proce-dures.” But Deetz contends that each line item is constitutive —created by corpo-rate decision makers who have the power to make their decisions stick. What seems to be value-free information is really meaning in formation . The end-of-the-year audit is not fact—it’s artifact. All corporate information is an outcome of political processes that are usually undemocratic and have consequences that usually hurt democracy. In place of the information model of messages, Deetz presents a communication model that regards language as the principal medium through which social real-ity is created and sustained. He states that “language does not represent things that already exist. In fact, language is a part of the production of the thing that we treat as being self-evident and natural within the society.” 7 Humanists like I. A. Richards have long pointed out that meanings are in people, not in words (see Chapter 4). But Deetz moves even further away from a representational view of language when he raises the question, Whose meanings are in people? Once we accept that organizational forms are continually produced and reproduced through language, we’ll understand that corporations like PG&E produce not only electricity, but also meaning. People who adopt the lingo of big business may not be aware that they are putting corporate values into play. For example, the bottom line on a proi t-and-loss statement is only that—the last line on the i nancial report. But a CEO’s continual use of the term bottom line to justify all managerial deci-sions produces a perceived reality that shuts out nonfinancial considerations. When ordinary citizens begin to use this economic idiom to characterize the deciding or crucial factor in their own family decisions, they reinforce and Information modelA view that communica-tion is merely a conduit for the transmission of in-formation about the real world.Communication modelA view that language is the principal medium through which social re-ality is created and sus-tained.
CHAPTER 21: CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS 275expand the inl uence of corporate thinking in life without even realizing they are doing so. Figure 21–1 contrasts Deetz’ communication approach to organizational practices with an information approach that regards language as neutral and neutered. Like Pearce and Cronen (see Chapter 6), Deetz considers commu-nication to be the ongoing social construction of meaning. But his critical theory differs from CMM in that he thinks the issue of power runs through all language and communication. Deetz would not be surprised that PG&E workers or residents of Hinkley had no say in the plant’s environmental policies. He believes that managerial control often takes precedence over rep-resentation of conl icting interests and long-term company and community health. The fundamental issue in my analysis is control and how different groups are rep-resented in decision making. . . . Since industrialization, managers in American corporations have primarily operated from a philosophy of control. 8 The upper level of Figure 21–1 represents corporate decision processes that systematically exclude the voices of people who are directly affected by the deci-sions. Deetz labels this practice managerial control . The bottom half of the i gure pictures decision processes that invite open dialogue among all stakeholders. Deetz calls this practice codetermination . When coupled with the constitutive view of communication, codetermination represents the “collaborative collective con-structions of self, other, and the world” 9 that Deetz believes are the product of participatory democracy. The 2 3 2 nature of Figure 21–1 yields four different ways in which public decisions—including corporate ones—can be made: strategy, consent, involvement, and participation. Deetz’ analysis of these four corporate practices provides the core of his critique of managerialism. CodeterminationCollaborative decision making; participatory de-mocracy in the work-place.FIGURE 21–1 Two Approaches to Organizational PracticeBased on Deetz, Transforming Communication, Transforming Business, Chapter 7 INFORMATIONMODELManagerial Control:Codetermination:COMMUNICATIONMODELStrategyInvolvementConsentParticipation
276 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION STRATEGY: OVERT MANAGERIAL MOVES TO EXTEND CONTROL Consistent with Deetz’ view of corporate control, Erin Brockovich never portrays a PG&E manager whom the viewer can despise. Deetz makes it clear that indi-vidual managers are not the problem. The real culprit is managerialism . Deetz describes managerialism as discourse based on “a kind of systematic logic, a set of routine practices, and ideology” that values control above all else. 10 Stockhold-ers want proi ts and workers desire freedom, but management craves control. Whenever there’s a corporate disaster or scandal, the public and media look for a scapegoat or “bad apple” who’s responsible. Deetz thinks that’s short-sighted because it diverts attention away from a failed managerial system based on control. He cites social psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s book The Lucifer Effect, which suggests we’d do well to stop talking about a few bad apples and look at the consequences of what happens when you put good people in bad barrels.11 Erin Brockovich offers a glimpse of managerial control when lawyer Ed teams up with a large corporate i rm to pursue the legal actions against the power company. Although Erin is the one who did extensive research at the county water board and later spent months garnering signed complaints from all 634 adult residents of Hinkley, the “suits” at the large i rm regard her as unprofes-sional and try to shut her out from their deliberations. Many workers experience that same dictatorial style in the expressed and implied messages that come down from the top: “Because I’m the boss.” “Because I say so.” “If you don’t like it, quit.” “It’s my way or the highway.” Some employees do object by saying, in effect, “Take this job and shove it,” but this doesn’t increase representation. Choice is often limited to loyalty or exit—“love it or leave it.” Without a voice, workers have no say in the decisions that affect them during the majority of their waking hours. Deetz argues that while control of this sort is disappearing in most enlightened corporations, new forms of control based in communication systems impede any real worker voice in structuring their work. Stockholders face the same either/or dilemma. They can choose to hold their shares or sell them, but neither option offers a way to inl uence corporate policy. Although management presents itself as making decisions on behalf of stockhold-ers (the owners), Deetz says that the interests of the two groups are often not the same. Because of stock options and “golden parachutes,” top management has benei ted more than any other group from the merger mania of the last two decades. Whereas long-term growth would help the average investor, quick prof-its and tight control of costs are the manager’s ticket up the corporate ladder. Regardless of a company’s product line or service, “control is the management product and is most clearly the one on which individual advancement rests.” 12 Initially, managers may regard efi ciency as a means to the end of higher proi ts. Deetz is convinced, however, that the desire for control soon becomes a valued end in itself. The desire for control can even exceed the desire for corpo-rate performance. Talking in terms of money is often more for control than respect for efi ciency or proi ts. The control drive of managerialism seeks the medium of its extension, and money is it. . . . Everything that cannot be adequately translated into money is implicitly ManagerialismA systematic logic, set of routine practices, and ideology that values control over all other concerns.
CHAPTER 21: CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS 277suppressed, and all competing rights of decisions regarding one’s life are made marginal. 13 Nowhere is this quest for control more apparent than in the corporate aver-sion to public conl ict. The managerial rule of thumb seems to be that conl ict is to be “dealt with” rather than openly discussed. Managers are rewarded for “putting out i res,” “running a tight ship,” or “making things run smoothly.” The impersonal nature of these metaphors suggests that executives should place responsibility to the company ahead of personal feelings or ethical concerns. In the corporate context, claims of “company policy” and “just doing my job” pro-vide sufi cient moral justii cation for suppressing almost any act of employee resistance or dissent. Other than accelerating advancement on the managerial career path, there is little evidence that strategic control has benei cial effects. Deetz claims that most corporate successes (or failures) are the result of factors beyond managerial con-trol. 14 Control does have distinct disadvantages, however. The cost is high, and workers resent the constant surveillance. Frequent references to “clearing out the deadwood” or “trimming the fat” create an understandable jumpiness among employees, and sometimes their fear is acted out in covert rebellion, as illustrated in Erin Brockovich . When the suit against PG&E appears to be dead in the water because there is no proof that the parent company knew what was going on, a man approaches Erin in a bar. He asks her what she would do if he told her he’d been ordered to shred documents about the toxic water when he worked at the local plant. The papers included a letter from corporate headquarters that says, in effect, The water is poisonous, but it would be better for all involved if this weren’t discussed with the community. Erin asks him if he destroyed the papers as he was told to do. With a conspiratorial smile, he admits that he wasn’t a very good employee. Because dominance creates this kind of resistance, most modern managers pre-fer to maintain control through the voluntary consent of the worker rather than by relying on the strategic use of raw power. CONSENT: UNWITTING ALLEGIANCE TO COVERT CONTROL Deetz is for capitalism, but he’s convinced that corporations are unreasonable. “They expect more than a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay; they want love, respect, and above all loyalty.” 15 Even though the company gets the workers’ most rested, alert, and chemical-free portion of the day, apparently that’s not enough. Management insists that allegiance to the company should come before family, friends, church, and community. Through the process Deetz calls consent , most employees willingly give that loyalty without getting much in return. “Consent is the term I use to designate the variety of situations and processes in which someone actively, though unknowingly, accomplishes the interests of others in the faulty attempt to fuli ll his or her own interests. The person is complicit in her or his own victimization.” 16 Lynn, a former student of mine, wrote an application log entry for Deetz’ critical theory that poignantly captures the human cost of consent: My father was very loyal to his company in the interest of moving up the ladder for pay increases. When my brother and I were babies and toddlers, my family ConsentThe process by which employees actively, though unknowingly, ac-complish managerial in-terests in a faulty attempt to fulfill their own.
278 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONlived in four different places in three years because the company required that we move. Later on, my father spent much of his time traveling and lived in New York for over six months while the rest of us lived in Baltimore. During my high school years, he worked until about eight or nine o’clock in the evening even though it wasn’t demanded of him. His entire department was often there because it was common practice to spend that much time getting the job done. I would love to see the ideal world where employees have a lot more power in their communication within a large company. I think that it would possibly save families like mine from growing up without a full-time father. I can see further implications. If employees, especially men, feel like they have more power in the workplace, they will be less likely to come home and feel the need to prove their power at home by demeaning their wives in many different ways. I think that if Deetz’ proposals ever worked on a wide scale, our country would see a decrease in domestic violence. How do companies manage to strike such an unfair bargain with their employees? It’s tempting to point to the workaholism of Lynn’s father as the core of the problem, but Deetz lays more of the blame on managerial control of work-place language, information, forms, symbols, rituals, and stories. Although these are the practices that Pacanowsky and other interpretive scholars treat as indica-tors of a given organizational culture (see Chapter 20), Deetz views them as attempts to produce and reproduce a culture that is sympathetic to managerial interests. All corporations have their own sets of constitutive practices. The ques-tion he asks is not What do these mean? Rather, it is Whose meanings are these? Managerialism promotes worker consent through a process of systematically distorted communication. Unlike strategic control, which is open and deliberate, systematically distorted communication operates under the radar. When this happens, expectations and norms within a group setting restrict what can be openly expressed or even thought. Deetz emphasizes that the workers deceive themselves because they believe they are interacting freely, while in reality only certain options are available. As an example, Deetz notes that arbitrary author-ity relations within an organization may be disguised as legitimate divisions Systematically distorted communicationOperating outside of em-ployees’ awareness, a form of discourse that re-stricts what can be said orevenconsidered.DILBERT © Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
CHAPTER 21: CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS 279of labor. That way any talk about power relations must assume the validity of the status quo, thus reproducing the organizational hierarchy rather than challenging it. Real interactive decisions can’t be made in such a context. Systematically distorted communication requires suppression of potential con-l ict. This process, which Deetz calls discursive closure, occurs in a variety of ways. For example, certain groups of people within an organization may be classii ed as “disqualii ed” to speak on important issues. Arbitrary dei nitions can be labeled “natural” to avoid further discussion. The values that guided a manager’s judgment call may be kept hidden so that it appears to be an objective decision. A group may discourage members from talking about certain subjects. Or the organization may allow the discussion of a topic such as gender-linked job classii cation or pay dif-ferences but discount its importance or quickly divert attention to other issues. Deetz suggests that the force of an organizational practice is strongest when no one even thinks about it. If someone were to question such a routine, employ-ees would be hard-pressed to explain why it is standard operating procedure. The best response they could muster would be a nonanswer: “That’s the way it’s done around here.” Practices that have this taken-for-granted quality are often equated with common sense. Without a clear understanding that commu-nication produces rather than rel ects reality (the right side of Figure 21–1), employees will unknowingly consent to the managerial mentality that wants to expand corporate control. INVOLVEMENT: FREE EXPRESSION OF IDEAS, BUT NO VOICE For anyone who has a stake in corporate decisions (all of us?), shifting from managerial control at the top of Figure 21–1 to involvement at the bottom is a crucial move. In political terms, it represents a switch from autocracy to liberal democracy—from managerial decisions made behind closed doors to open dis-cussions where all have the opportunity to express their opinions. Employee involvement in corporate choices began with a suggestion box mounted on a wall. In some companies, this invitation for expression evolved over decades into open forums that look like early-American town meetings. At their best, these attempts at corporate democracy are based on a commitment to free speech and the value of an open marketplace of ideas (see Nilsen’s ethic of signii cant choice, pp. 214–215). Deetz claims that liberal eighteenth-century Jeffersonian democracy was based on three notions about communication: (1) freedom of speech guaranteed equitable participation in decision making; (2) persuasion and advocacy were the best ways to reach a good decision; and (3) autonomous individuals could then make up their own minds. Taken together, this meant truth would emerge from the free l ow of information in an open marketplace of ideas. As long as people shared the same values, an information-transfer model of communication worked well.17 But in a heterogeneous, postmodern society that’s seldom the case. Organizations in the twenty-i rst century must operate in a pluralistic and inter-connected world. People have always been different, but it used to be that moun-tains and oceans made it possible to stick with your own kind. Today in business and government, that’s almost impossible. You can’t expect much empathy from a person raised in a different culture, who has had radically different experiences, and who holds a worldview that you might i nd disturbing. And isolation is no longer an option. As the worldwide economic meltdown in 2008 and the 2010 BP Gulf oil InvolvementStakeholders’ free ex-pression of ideas that may, or may not, affect managerial decisions.Discursive closureSuppression of conflict without employees real-izing that they are com-plicit in their own censorship.
280 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONParticipationStakeholder democracy; the process by which all stakeholders in an orga-nization negotiate power and openly reach collab-orative decisions.spill illustrate, whatever happens up the road or overseas will surely affect us all. Deetz is convinced that if Thomas Jefferson lived downwind of a factory hog farm, the Declaration of Independence he wrote would be a different document.18 An information-transfer view of communication doesn’t work well today. As Deetz surveys present-day corporate communication practices, he con-cludes that “the right of expression appears more central than the right to be informed or to have an effect.” 19 Through involvement in discussions of com-pany policy, employees have a chance to air their grievances, state their desires, and recommend alternative ways of working. Many managers use these sessions as a way to give employees a chance to let off steam. But advocacy is not nego-tiation. When workers i nd out that their ideas aren’t represented in the i nal decision, they quickly become cynical about the process. Both in national politics and in corporate governance, meaningful democracy requires not only that people have a chance to discuss the issues, they also need to have a voice in the i nal outcome. Forums provide the opportunity for involve-ment, but voice is not just having a say. It means expressing interests that are freely and openly formed, and then having those interests rel ected in joint deci-sions. That’s real participation. Deetz says it’s only possible when all stakeholders realize that their communication creates reality rather than merely describing it. PARTICIPATION: STAKEHOLDER DEMOCRACY IN ACTION Deetz’ theory of communication is critical, but not just negative. While he strongly criticizes the managerial strategy of increasing control over workers, engineering their consent, and granting them free expression without giving them a voice in decisions, he also believes that joint, open decisions in the workplace are pos-sible. Deetz is convinced that “meaningful democratic participation creates better citizens and better social choices, and provides important economic benei ts.” 20 One of the goals of his theory is to reclaim the possibility of open negotiations of power. He calls it stakeholder democracy . The i rst move Deetz makes is to expand the list of people who should have a say in how a corporation is run. Besides managers, he sees at least six groups of stakeholders with multiple needs and desires. 21 Investors seek security of principal and a decent return on their investment. Workers seek a reasonable wage, safe working conditions, a chance to take pride in their labor, security of employment, and time for their families. Consumers seek quality goods and services at a fair price. Suppliers seek a stable demand for their resource with timely payment upon delivery. Host communities seek payment for services provided, stable employment, environ-mental care, and the quality of family and public life enhanced rather than diminished. Greater society and the world community seek environmental care, economic stability, overall civility, and fair treatment of all constituent groups (racial, ethnic, gender). Deetz notes that some stakeholders have taken greater risks and made longer-term investments in a company than typical owners of stock or top-level manag-ers. 22 He believes it’s imperative that those who are affected by corporate decisions have a say in how such decisions are made. Of course, this stance runs counter to traditional notions of exclusive stockholder rights or managerial prerogatives, but
CHAPTER 21: CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS 281Deetz says there’s no legitimate basis for privileging one group of stakeholders over another. He reminds us that nature did not make corporations—we did. The rights and responsibilities of people are not given in advance by nature or by a privileged, universal value structure, but are negotiated through interaction. 23 As you scan the class of stakeholders and their interests, listed on the opposite page, it’s obvious that current corporate governance is not set up to address their social, i nancial, and ecological goals. In this age of Enron and Halliburton, relying My children tend to prefer breakfast cereals that I find to be less than ideal. I also notice that morning after morning they tend to continually re-read the same boxes from which they pour cereal. From what I can tell, nothing on the boxes is untrue and some of it is based on good scientific evidence. The happy children and characters pictured on the box resemble my own kids and the nutritional information seems sound. My issue is not the truth of what’s shown, but who gets a turn to speak on the box and what they decide to leave out.I finally decided to replace these boxes with clear plastic containers where I could insert my own text. I put in pictures of overweight, dumpy children who had eaten a lot of sugar cereals. I included descriptions of the labor practices of the producing company, and if I really disliked the cereal, I included the amount of rat hair allowed by the Food and Drug Administration.Some people worry that I’m manipulating my children by making everyday information political. But I think they miss the point. I don’t make the information on the box political—it already is. And making it obvious that this information is politicized doesn’t make it good or bad information. It only shows that all information is sponsored. All data, whether scientific or not, is value-laden and hence political.Truth per se is not the issue on the cereal box. Kellogg, Post, General Mills, government agencies and I have different preferences and therefore produce and reproduce different truths. None of us is more noble or evil by producing a particular truth. But in routine everyday life, Kellogg has a much greater opportunity to provide its perspective than I or others do. The discussion that my substitute package stimulates is more important than the issue of truth alone.Do I or others manipulate my children? We all may—the manufacturer and the government via invisible privilege, not making it clear that other information is interesting and relevant. I too manipulate if I use my parental power to enforce my preference on my children. But the consequences in my household are quite different. We have lively breakfast conversations as we discuss what is worth knowing and what we’d like to know. My kids write their own texts for my cereal. As a result, we all end up making more openly-chosen, complex decisions at the supermarket.Don’t Get Boxed InFIGURE 21–2 A Morning Exercise Created by Stan Deetz
282 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONon managerial goodwill would seem a joke. Some would expect government to insert social values into the marketplace, but, except for brief periods of time following a crisis, government policy is largely inl uenced by business leaders and lobbyists. Free-enterprise advocates suggest that the unseen hand of the market will sort things out, but that reduces all values to a matter of dollars and cents—and those not equitably. Deetz offers his appraisal and previews his solution:Collectively, stewardship, government regulation and markets offer weak mecha-nisms for value inclusion and virtually no support for communication processes that create win/win situations where multiple stakeholders can successfully pursue their mutual interests. . . . Ultimately, the best hope rests in getting wider social values into the decisional premises, processes and routines in business rather than trying to direct them from the outside. This draws our attention to new forms of governance and communication.24PARC modelPolitically attentive relational constructionism; a collaborative view of communication based in conflict.POLITICALLY ATTENTIVE RELATIONAL CONSTRUCTIONISM (PARC)Deetz proposes a politically attentive relational constructionism model (PARC) as an enriched form of many critical theories of communication, including four other media and feminist theories presented in later chapters.25 He refers to PARC as “a collaborative constitutive view of communication based in conl ict rather than in person-centered and consensus oriented models of communication.”26 The politically attentive feature of PARC refers to honestly exploring the power-in-play behind so-called neutral facts and taken-for-granted positions. For example, a PARC approach would examine specii c “standard accounting practices” to uncover how they came to be—who benei ted and who suffered loss by their adoption. Since he regards all information as political, Deetz believesan organization’s stakeholders need to recover conl ict that was repressed in order to get all interests on the table. Only in this way can benei cial and fair negotiations take place. The relational constructionism feature of PARC refers to the social construction of communication—the constitutive nature of language. Deetz shares this core commitment with a growing number of theorists in the discipline. He uses the term relational rather than social because he wants to be clear that it not only covers social relationships created by persons-in-conversation, but also refers to the meaning we give everything we label in the world—money, proi t, work, bankruptcy, pollution, love, quality time, and anything else. Perhaps the best way to picture an application of PARC within an organiza-tion is to look at the list of requirements for negotiation among stakeholders that Deetz lays down.271. Stakeholders who have divergent interests, not set positions.2. Stakeholders who possess roughly the same level of communication skill.3. Authority relationships and power positions are set aside.4. All stakeholders have an equal opportunity to express themselves.5. Stakeholders’ wants are openly investigated in order to determine their interests.6. Participants transparently share information and how decisions are made.7. Facts and knowledge claims are revisited to see how they were created.
CHAPTER 21: CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS 2838. Focusing on outcomes and interests rather than bargaining on rival solutions.9. Stakeholders jointly make decisions rather than just having “their say.” This may strike you as a daunting set of conditions, but those trained in the art of conl ict mediation and negotiation are quite familiar with most of these prin-ciples and with using them for the benei t of all parties. It’s not surprising that Deetz, the director of peace and conl ict studies at his university, i nds them useful in the PARC model. Deetz would have managers take the role of mediators rather than persuad-ers. They would coordinate the conl icting interests of all parties affected by corporate decisions. He understands that even those who are committed to open dialogue would feel insecure as they relinquished control. He suggests that a good way for them to start is to “complicate” their perceptions of subordinates and other stakeholders by being around them, talking with them, and learning their hopes, dreams, fears, values, and needs. Managers could take notes on how to do this from Erin Brockovich. That’s how she communicated with people in Hinkley. Once PG&E discovered that contaminated wastewater was leaching into the underground aquifer, Deetz would envision a negotiation that would include more than corporate executives and stockholders. Consumers, employees who came in contact with the water, Hinkley residents developing tumors, and per-haps Erin Brockovich herself would also be at the table. Certainly the discussions would be heated. From Deetz’ perspective, that would be OK. The i nal decision on how to handle the problem would have to incorporate all of their interests. ETHICAL REFLECTION: WEST’S PROPHETIC PRAGMATISM Cornel West is a pragmatist philosopher who is now a professor of religion at Princeton University. Along with the best-known American pragmatist, John Dewey (see Chapter 18), West regards pragmatism as “a mode of cultural critical action that focuses on the ways and means by which human beings have, do, and can overcome obstacles, dispose predicaments, and settle problematic situ-ations.” 28 The moral obstacle West wants to overcome is the institutional oppres-sion of “the disadvantaged, degraded, and dejected” people who struggle on the margins of society. 29 They face racism, sexual discrimination, and economic injus-tice. West agrees with the analysis of Christian realist Reinhold Niebuhr, who deplored the inhuman treatment of workers in Henry Ford’s auto factory. 30 Both men said that these evils exist not just because of ignorance or apathy—they are the result of pervasive human sin. West is also sympathetic to a Marxist critique of capitalism, 31 but his own brand of pragmatism is deeply rooted in the narratives of the Scriptures: I have dubbed it “prophetic” in that it harks back to the Jewish and Christian tradition of prophets who brought urgent and compassionate critique to bear on the evils of their day. The mark of the prophet is to speak the truth in love with courage—come what may. 32 For example, Hebrew prophets like Amos demanded social justice for the pow-erless; Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan reminds believers that they are responsible to help those who are hurting, whoever and wherever they are. 33
284 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION As a prophetic pragmatist, Cornel West applauds an action-oriented approach to empower rather than exploit the disadvantaged, degraded, and dejected who are excluded from decision-making processes. Deetz’ call for all stakeholders to have an effective say in corporate decisions that affect their lives aligns well with West’s commitments. Yet the specii c ethical implications of West’s prophetic prag-matism aren’t always clear-cut. In 1995 he took l ak from most whites and many blacks for supporting Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March on Washington. West acknowledged that he faced a tragic moral choice: “After all, I am a radical democrat devoted to a downward redistribution of wealth and a Christian freedom-i ghter in the King legacy—which condemns any xenophobia, including patriarchy, homophobia, and anti-semitism.” 34 These commitments put him at odds with Farrakhan’s rhetoric. But West said that he and Farrakhan agreed on the importance of highlighting black suffering, and he was galvanized by Dr. Martin Luther King’s example of forming alliances and coalitions across racial, gender, class, and religious lines. And so he marched. CRITIQUE: IS WORKPLACE DEMOCRACY JUST A DREAM? Deetz’ approach to corporate decision making is inherently attractive because it is built on values that many of us in the i eld of communication share. By reserving a seat at the decision-making table for every class of stakeholders, Deetz afi rms the importance of democratic participation, fairness, equality, diversity, and cooperation. Without question, Deetz’ insistence on the constitutive nature of all commu-nication can help us understand consent practices in the workplace. Yet his advo-cacy of stakeholder rights and participatory democracy isn’t necessarily furthered by his constructionist view of communication. In fact, his reform agenda could be hindered. If, contrary to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, there are no self-evident truths on which to stand, everything is in play and it doesn’t make much sense to assume that we have a right to participate in decisions that affect us. Political realism may be another problem. As applied to corporate life, Deetz’ theory is a critique of managerialism. Arizona State University communication professor Robert McPhee offers a somewhat tongue-in-cheek summary: “If we just didn’t i nd it natural and right and unavoidable to hand power over to managers, everything would be very different and our problems would be solved.” 35 Although a caricature, this capsule statement underscores the prob-lematic nature of the stakeholder negotiations that Deetz pictures and the incred-ible difi culty of getting all parties to sit at the table as equals. Deetz admits that a positive alternative to managerialism is difi cult to work out in conception and in practice.36 Moving from the dark quadrant of consent to the clear quadrant of participation in Figure 21–1 is a quantum leap. The PARC model moves critical theory to a higher level of conceptual sophistication. As for stakeholder participation in practice, Deetz i nds that businesses increasingly recog-nize they must work with others. He cites cases where resources are scarce—river basin governance, mineral extraction, environmental choices, as well as social and economic development. Stakeholders at the table often include governmental agencies, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, special-interest groups, and community members. Deetz reports that “critical theories work to increase equality by surfacing unnecessary and harmful control mechanisms, showing the
CHAPTER 21: CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS 285importance of different forms of knowledge and values, and building interaction processes that make this greater equality meaningful and productive.”37 Moving from the theory to the theorist, Deetz insists that critical scholars should be “i lled with care, thought, and good humor.” 38 That third quality may surprise you, for like prophets, critical theorists have the reputation of being a rather grim bunch. But Deetz suggests that with good humor we can smile at our inconsistencies, contradictions, and bruised pride. We are to take the plight of the oppressed—not ourselves—seriously. “The righteousness and pretense is gone, we must act without knowing for sure. The grand narratives are dead, but there is meaning and pleasure in the little ones. The pleasure embarrasses us but also gives us energy and a smile at ourselves.” 39 To sample a mix of Deetz’ care, thought, and humor, read through his morning exercise printed on the cereal box in Figure 21–2. I i nd the contents a compelling reason not to dismiss his theory. CONVERSATIONS In this eight-minute segment, critical theorist Stan Deetz offers a host of pithy opinions. Here’s a sample. On communication : “The i eld for a long time argued that meanings were in people. I raise the opposite kind of question: Whose meanings are in people?” On management : “A lot of managers talk about thinking out of the box, but they don’t understand . . . that you do not think out of the box by commanding the box.” On corporate assets : “Their primary assets are not what investors gave them, but what employees gave them. . . . Their primary assets go down the elevator every night.” And there are lots more. Watch and discover your favorites. View this segment online at www.mhhe.com.grifi n8 or www.ai rstlook.com. Recommended resource: Stanley Deetz, Transforming Communication, Transforming Busi-ness: Building Responsive and Responsible Workplaces, Hampton, Cresskill, NJ, 1995. Critical foundation: Stanley Deetz, Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization: Devel-opments in Communication and the Politics of Everyday Life, State University of New York, Albany, NY, 1992. QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS 1. Deetz contrasts information models that assume language rel ects reality with communication models that assume reality emerges out of a relationship among self, others, language, and the world. What other theories already covered i t the communication model? 2. Managers use strategy and consent to maintain control over subordinates. According to Deetz, which practice is more effective? Why? 3. The stakeholder model requires participation , not just involvement . What is the difference between the two practices? 4. To what extent do you agree with the following statement: “Autocracy at work is the price we pay for democracy after hours”? Does it apply equally to work in the classroom? A SE COND LOOK
286 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Critique of communication theory and practice: Stanley Deetz, “Critical Theory,” in Engag-ing Organizational Communication Theory: Multiple Perspectives, S. May and Dennis Mumby (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2004, pp. 85–111. Overview of organizational communication: Stanley Deetz, “Conceptual Foundations,” in The New Handbook of Organizational Communication, 2 nd ed., Fred Jablin and Linda Put-nam (eds.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2000, pp. 3–46. Review of critical approach to organizational communication: George Cheney et al., “Democracy, Participation, and Communication at Work: A Multidisciplinary Review,” in Communication Yearbook 21 , Michael Roloff (ed.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1998, pp. 35–91. Organizational politics: “Interests, Conl ict, and Power: Organizations as Political Sys-tems,” Gareth Morgan, Images of Organizations, 2 nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1997, pp. 153–213. Ethical foundations of stakeholder theory: Tanni Hass and Stanley Deetz, “Between the Gen-eralized and the Concrete Other,” in Rethinking Organizational & Managerial Communication from Feminist Perspectives, Patrice M. Buzzanell (ed.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2000, pp. 24–46. International Communication Association 1997 presidential address: Stanley Deetz, “Com-munication in the Age of Negotiation,” Journal of Communication, Vol. 47, No. 4, 1997, pp. 118–135. PARC model overview: Stanley Deetz, “The Rise of Stakeholder Governance Models and the Redesign of Communication Necessary for Them,” in Revista Organicom 7: A Comunicação na Gestão para Sustentabilidade das Organizações, M. Kunsch (ed.), Difusão, São Paulo, Brazil, 2009, p. 2.Extensive treatment of PARC model: Stanley Deetz and G. Radford, Communication The-ory at the Crossroads: Theorizing for Globalization, Pluralism and Collaborative Needs, Wiley-Blackford, Oxford, in press.PARC model vis-à-vis Habermas’ theory of communicative action: Stanley Deetz, “Politi-cally Attentive Relational Constructionism (PARC) and Making a Difference in a Plural-istic, Independent World,” in Distinctive Qualities in Communication Research, Donal Carbaugh and Patrice M. Buzzanell (eds.), Routledge, New York, 2010, pp. 32–51. Review and critique: Branislav Kovaˇci´c, “The Democracy and Organizational Com-munication Theories of Deetz, Mumby, and Associates,” in Watershed Research Traditions in Communication Theory, Donald Cushman and Branislav Kovaˇci´c (eds.), State University of New York, Albany, NY, 1995, pp. 211–238. To access titles and cue points of scenes from other feature i lms that illustrate managerial control, click on Suggested Movie Clips under Theory Resources at www.ai rstlook.com.
Public Rhetoric Aristotle dei ned rhetoric as “an ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion.” 1 That designation centers attention on the intentional act of using words to have an effect. I use the term public rhetoric in this section to refer to a speaking context in which the speaker has an opportunity to monitor and adjust to the response of his or her immediate audience. For citizens in ancient Greece, knowing how to speak in public was part of their democratic responsibility. Later on, when Rome ruled the world, rhetori-cal ability was a survival skill in the rough-and-tumble politics of the forum. Rhetoricians have always had a special interest in judicial argument, legislative de-bate, political rallies, religious sermons, and speeches given at special celebrations. In each setting, teachers and practitioners championed the art of rhetoric as a means of ensuring that speakers of truth would not be at a disadvantage when trying to win the hearts and minds of an audience. The Greeks and Romans distinguished i ve parts, or divisions, of the study of rhetoric: 1. Invention —discovery of convincing arguments 2. Arrangement —organization of material for best impact 3. Style —selection of compelling and appropriate language 4. Delivery —coordination of voice and gestures 5. Memory —mastery and rehearsal of content With the possible exception of memory, these concerns of rhetoric require that a speaker i rst analyze and then adapt to a specii c group of listeners. We can, of course, react to the idea of audience adaptation in two different ways. If we view speakers who adjust their message to i t a specii c audience in a posi-tive light, we’ll praise their rhetorical sensitivity and l exibility. If we view them negatively, we’ll condemn them for their pandering and lack of commitment to the truth. Rhetorical thought across history swings back and forth between these two conl icting poles. The words of most rhetoricians rel ect the tension they feel between “telling it like it is” and telling it in such a way that the audi-ence will listen. Greek philosopher Plato regarded rhetoric as mostly l attery. Far from seeing it as an art, he described rhetoric as a knack —similar to the clever use of cosmet-ics. Both are attempts to make things seem better than they really are. 2 In spite of his scorn, Plato imagined an ideal rhetoric based on a speaker’s understanding of listeners with different natures and dispositions. Plato’s ideal discourse was an elite form of dialogue meant for private, rather than public, consumption. This philosophic, one-on-one mode of communica-tion is known as dialectic (a different meaning for the term than its use in Baxter and Montgomery’s relational dialectics). Unlike typical oratory in Athens, where speakers addressed large audiences on civic issues, Plato’s dialectic focused on exploring eternal Truths in an intimate setting. Although Plato hoped that philosophic dialectic would supplant public rhetoric, his best student, Aristotle, rejuvenated public rhetoric as a serious academic subject. More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle’s Rhetoric systematically explored the topics 287
288 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONof speaker, message, and audience. His ideas have stood the test of time and form a large portion of the advice presented in contemporary public speaking texts. But even though Aristotle dei ned rhetoric as the art of discovering all available means of persuasion, this conception doesn’t solve the problem of how to get audiences to listen to hard truths. Religious rhetors face the same paradox. In many ways the apostle Paul seemed to personify the lover of diverse souls that Plato had earlier described. In his i rst letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds the people of Corinth that he made a conscious deci-sion to let his message speak for itself: “My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom.” 3 Yet further on in the same letter he outlines a conscious rhetorical strategy: “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.” 4 Four centuries later, Augustine continued to justify the con-scious use of rhetoric by the church. Why, he asked, should defenders of truth be long-winded, confusing, and boring, when the speech of liars was brief, clear, and persuasive? The tension between the logic of a message and the appeal it has for an audience isn’t easily resolved. British philosopher Francis Bacon sought to integrate the two concerns when he wrote that “the duty of rhetoric is to apply Reason to Imagination for the better moving of the will.” 5 The three rhetoricians I introduce in this section continue to face the dilemma that rhetoricians have struggled with since Plato: “How do you move an audience without changing your message or losing your integrity?” As you read, see which theorist comes up with an answer that is most satisfying for you. “I found the old format much more exciting.” © Arnie Levin/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
22CHAPTERThe Rhetoric of Aristotle Aristotle was a student of Plato in the golden age of Greek civilization, four centuries before the birth of Christ. He became a respected instructor at Plato’s Academy but disagreed with his mentor over the place of public speaking in Athenian life. Ancient Greece was known for its traveling speech teachers called Soph-ists. Particularly in Athens, those teachers trained aspiring lawyers and politi-cians to participate effectively in the courts and deliberative councils. In hindsight, they appear to have been innovative educators who offered a needed and wanted service. 1 But since their advice was underdeveloped theoretically, Plato scoffed at the Sophists’ oratorical devices. His skepticism is mirrored today in the negative way people use the term mere rhetoric to label the speech of tricky lawyers, mealy-mouthed politicians, spellbinding preachers, and fast-talking salespeople. Aristotle, like Plato, deplored the demagoguery of speakers using their skill to move an audience while showing a casual indifference to the truth. But unlike Plato, he saw the tools of rhetoric as a neutral means by which the ora-tor could either accomplish noble ends or further fraud: “. . . by using these justly one would do the greatest good, and unjustly, the greatest harm.” 2 Aris-totle believed that truth has a moral superiority that makes it more acceptable than falsehood. But unscrupulous opponents of the truth may fool a dull audi-ence unless an ethical speaker uses all possible means of persuasion to coun-ter the error. Speakers who neglect the art of rhetoric have only themselves to blame when their hearers choose falsehood. Success requires wisdom and eloquence. Both the Politics and the Ethics of Aristotle are polished and well-organized books compared with the rough prose and arrangement of his text on rhetoric. The Rhetoric apparently consists of Aristotle’s reworked lecture notes for his course at the academy. Despite the uneven nature of the writing, the Rhetoric is a searching study of audience psychology. Aristotle raised rhetoric to a science by systematically exploring the effects of the speaker, the speech, and the audi-ence. He regarded the speaker’s use of this knowledge as an art. Quite likely, the text your communication department uses for its public speaking classes is basically a contemporary recasting of the audience analysis provided by Aristotle more than two thousand years ago. 289Objective InterpretiveRhetorical tradition●
290 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION RHETORIC: MAKING PERSUASION PROBABLE Aristotle saw the function of rhetoric as the discovery in each case of “the avail-able means of persuasion.” He never spelled out what he meant by persuasion, but his concern with noncoercive methods makes it clear that he ruled out force of law, torture, and war. His threefold classii cation of speech situations accord-ing to the nature of the audience shows that he had affairs of state in mind. The i rst in Aristotle’s classii cation is courtroom (forensic) speaking, which addresses judges who are trying to render a just decision about actions alleged to have taken place in the past. The closing arguments presented by the prosecution and defense in the corruption trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich are examples of judicial rhetoric centered on guilt or innocence. The second, ceremo-nial (epideictic) speaking, heaps praise or blame on another for the benei t of present-day audiences. For example, Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address in order to honor “the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here.” But his ultimate purpose was to inspire listeners to persevere in their i ght to preserve the Union. The third, political (deliberative) speaking, attempts to inl uence legislators or voters who decide future policy. The 2008 presidential debates gave Barack Obama and John McCain a chance to sway undecided voters. These different temporal orientations could call for diverse rhetorical appeals. Because his students were familiar with the question-and-answer style of Socratic dialogue, Aristotle classii ed rhetoric as a counterpart or an offshoot of dialectic. Dialectic is one-on-one discussion; rhetoric is one person addressing many. Dialectic is a search for truth; rhetoric tries to demonstrate truth that’s already been found. Dialectic answers general philosophical questions; rhetoric addresses specii c, practical ones. Dialectic deals with certainty; rhetoric deals with probability. Aristotle saw this last distinction as particularly important: Rhetoric is the art of discovering ways to make truth seem more probable to an audience that isn’t completely convinced. RHETORICAL PROOF: LOGOS, ETHOS, PATHOS According to Aristotle, the available means of persuasion can be artistic or inar-tistic. Inartistic or external proofs are those that the speaker doesn’t create. These would include testimonies of witnesses or documents such as letters and con-tracts. Artistic or internal proofs are those that the speaker creates. There are three kinds of artistic proofs: logical ( logos ), ethical ( ethos ), and emotional ( pathos ). Logical proof comes from the line of argument in the speech, ethical proof is the way the speaker’s character is revealed through the message, and emotional proof is the feeling the speech draws out of the hearers. Some form of logos, ethos, and pathos is present in every public presentation, but perhaps no other modern-day speech has brought all three appeals together as effectively as Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream,” delivered in 1963 to civil rights marchers in Washington, D.C. In the year 2000, American public address scholars selected King’s “I Have a Dream” as the greatest speech of the twentieth century. We’ll look at this artistic speech throughout the rest of the chapter to illustrate Aristotle’s rhetorical theory. Case Study: “I Have a Dream” At the end of August 1963, a quarter of a million people assembled at the Lin-coln Memorial in a united march on Washington. The rally capped a long, hot RhetoricDiscovering all possible means of persuasion.Inartistic proofsExternal evidence the speaker doesn’t create.Artistic proofsInternal proofs that contain logical, ethical, or emotional appeals.
CHAPTER 22: THE RHETORIC 291summer of sit-ins protesting racial discrimination in the South. (The i lm Mis-sissippi Burning portrays one of the tragic racial conl icts of that year.) Two months before the march, President John F. Kennedy submitted a civil rights bill to Congress that would begin to rectify the racial injustices, but its passage was seriously in doubt. The organizers of the march hoped that it would put pressure on Congress to outlaw segregation in the South, but they also wanted the demonstration to raise the national consciousness about economic exploita-tion of blacks around the country. Martin Luther King shared the platform with a dozen other civil rights lead-ers, each limited to a i ve-minute presentation. King’s successful Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, freedom rides across the South, and solitary coni nement in a Birmingham jail set him apart in the eyes of demonstrators and TV viewers. The last of the group to speak, King had a dual purpose. In the face of a Black Muslim call for violence, he urged blacks to continue their nonviolent struggle without hatred. He also implored white people to get involved in the quest for freedom and equality, to be part of a dream fuli lled rather than contribute to an unjust nightmare. A few years after King’s assassination, I experienced the impact his speech continued to have upon the African-American community. Teaching public address in a volunteer street academy, I read the speech out loud to illustrate matters of style. The students needed no written text. As I came to the last third of the speech, they recited the eloquent “I have a dream” portion word for word with great passion. When we i nished, all of us were teary-eyed. David Garrow, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of King, called the speech the “rhetorical achievement of a lifetime, the clarion call that conveyed the moral power of the movement’s cause to the millions who watched the live national network coverage.” 3 King shifted the burden of proof onto those who opposed racial equality. Aristotle’s three rhetorical proofs can help us understand how he made the status quo of segregation an ugly option for the moral listener. Logical Proof: Lines of Argument That Make Sense Aristotle focused on two forms of logos —the enthymeme and the example. He regarded the enthymeme as “the strongest of the proofs.” 4 An enthymeme is merely an incomplete version of a formal deductive syllogism. To illustrate, logicians might create the following syllogism out of one of King’s lines of reasoning: Major or general premise: All people are created equal. Minor or specii c premise: I am a person. Conclusion: I am equal to other people. Typical enthymemes, however, leave out a premise that is already accepted by the audience: All people are created equal. . . . I am equal to other people. In terms of style, the enthymeme is more artistic than a stilted syllogistic argument. But as emeritus University of Wisconsin rhetorician Lloyd Bitzer notes, Aristotle had a greater reason for advising the speaker to suppress the statement of a premise that the listeners already believe. Because they are jointly produced by the audience, enthymemes intuitively unite speaker and audience and provide the strongest possible proof. . . . The audience itself helps construct the proof by which it is persuaded. 5 LogosLogical proof, which comes from the line of argument in a speech.
292 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Most rhetorical analysis looks for enthymemes embedded in one or two lines of text. In the case of “I Have a Dream,” the whole speech is one giant enthymeme. If the logic of the speech were to be expressed as a syllogism, the reasoning would be as follows: Major premise: God will reward nonviolence. Minor premise: We are pursuing our dream nonviolently. Conclusion: God will grant us our dream. King used the i rst two-thirds of the speech to establish the validity of the minor premise. White listeners are reminded that blacks have been “battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by winds of police brutality.” They have “come fresh from narrow jail cells” and are “veterans of creative suffering.” Blacks are urged to meet “physical force with soul force,” not to allow “creative protest to degenerate into physical violence,” and never to “satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” The movement is to continue to be nonviolent. King used the last third of the speech to establish his conclusion; he painted the dream in vivid color. It included King’s hope that his four children would not be “judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” He pictured an Alabama where “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” And in a swirling climax, he shared a vision of all God’s children singing, “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty we are free at last.” But he never articu-lated the major premise. He didn’t need to. King and his audience were already committed to the truth of the major premise—that God would reward their commitment to nonviolence. Aristotle stressed that audience analysis is crucial to the effective use of the enthymeme. The centrality of the church in American black history, the religious roots of the civil rights protest, and the crowd’s frequent response of “My Lord” suggest that King knew his audience well. He never stated what to them was obvious, and this strengthened rather than weakened his logical appeal. The enthymeme uses deductive logic—moving from global principle to spe-cii c truth. Arguing by example uses inductive reasoning—drawing a i nal con-clusion from specii c cases. Since King mentioned few examples of discrimination, it might appear that he failed to use all possible means of logical persuasion. But pictures of snarling police dogs, electric cattle prods used on peaceful demonstra-tors, and signs over drinking fountains stating “Whites only” appeared nightly on TV news. As with the missing major premise of the enthymeme, King’s audi-ence supplied its own vivid images. Ethical Proof: Perceived Source Credibility According to Aristotle, it’s not enough for a speech to contain plausible argu-ment. The speaker must seem credible as well. Many audience impressions are formed before the speaker even begins. As poet Ralph Waldo Emerson cautioned more than a century ago, “Use what language you will, you can never say any-thing but what you are.” 6 Some who watched Martin Luther King on television undoubtedly tuned him out because he was black. But surprisingly, Aristotle said little about a speaker’s background or reputation. He was more interested in audience perceptions that are shaped by what the speaker does or doesn’t say. EnthymemeAn incomplete version of a formal deductive syl-logism that is created by leaving out a premise already accepted by the audience or by leaving an obvious conclusion unstated.
CHAPTER 22: THE RHETORIC 293In the Rhetoric he identii ed three qualities that build high source credibility— intelligence , character , and goodwill . 1. Perceived Intelligence. The quality of intelligence has more to do with practical wisdom (phronesis) and shared values than it does with training at Plato’s Academy. Audiences judge intelligence by the overlap between their beliefs and the speaker’s ideas. (“My idea of an agreeable speaker is one who agrees with me.”) King quoted the Bible, the United States Constitution, the patriotic hymn “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” Shakespeare’s King Lear , and the Negro spiritual “We Shall Overcome.” With the exception of violent terrorists and racial bigots, it’s hard to imagine anyone with whom he didn’t establish strong value identii cation. 2. Virtuous Character. Character has to do with the speaker’s image as a good and honest person. Even though he and other blacks were victims of “unspeakable horrors of police brutality,” King warned against a “distrust of all white people” and against “drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” It would be difi cult to maintain an image of the speaker as an evil racist while he was being charitable toward his enemies and optimistic about the future. 3. Goodwill. Goodwill is a positive judgment of the speaker’s intention toward the audience. Aristotle thought it possible for an orator to possess extraor-dinary intelligence and sterling character yet still not have the listeners’ best interest at heart. King was obviously not trying to reach “the vicious racists” of Alabama, but no one was given reason to think he bore them ill will. His dream included “black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics.” Although Aristotle’s comments on ethos were stated in a few brief sentences, no other portion of his Rhetoric has received such close scientii c scrutiny. The results of sophisticated testing of audience attitudes show that his three-factor theory of source credibility stands up remarkably well. 7 Listeners dei nitely think “I see our next speaker needs no introduction. . . .”© 2010, Reprinted courtesy of Bunny HoestEthosPerceived credibility, which comes from the speaker’s intelligence, character, and goodwill toward the audience, as these personal character-istics are revealed through the message.
294 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONin terms of competence (intelligence), trustworthiness (character), and care (good-will). As Martin Luther King spoke in front of the Lincoln Memorial, most listen-ers perceived him as strong in all three. Emotional Proof: Striking a Responsive Chord Recent scholarship suggests that Aristotle was quite skeptical about the emotion-laden public oratory typical of his era. 8 He preferred the reason-based discussion characteristic of relatively small councils and executive deliberative bodies. Yet he understood that public rhetoric, if practiced ethically, benei ts society. Thus, Aristotle set forth a theory of pathos . He offered it not to take advantage of an audience’s destructive emotions, but as a corrective measure that could help a speaker craft emotional appeals that inspire reasoned civic decision making. To this end, he cataloged a series of opposite feelings, then explained the conditions under which each mood is experienced, and i nally described how the speaker can get an audience to feel that way. Aristotle scholar and translator George Kennedy claims that this analysis of pathos is “the earliest systematic discussion of human psychology.” 9 If Aristotle’s advice sounds familiar, it may be a sign that human nature hasn’t changed much in the last 2,300 years. Anger versus Mildness. Aristotle’s discussion of anger was an early ver-sion of Freud’s frustration–aggression hypothesis. People feel angry when they are thwarted in their attempt to fuli ll a need. Remind them of interpersonal slights, and they’ll become irate. Show them that the offender is sorry, deserves praise, or has great power, and the audience will calm down. Love or Friendship versus Hatred. Consistent with present-day research on attraction, Aristotle considered similarity the key to mutual warmth. The speaker should point out common goals, experiences, attitudes, and desires. In the absence of these positive forces, a common enemy can be used to create solidarity. Fear versus Coni dence. Fear comes from a mental image of potential disaster. The speaker should paint a vivid word picture of the tragedy, showing that its occurrence is probable. Coni dence can be built up by describing the danger as remote. Indignation versus Pity. We all have a built-in sense of fairness. As the producers of 60 Minutes prove weekly, it’s easy to arouse a sense of injustice by describing an arbitrary use of power upon those who are helpless. Admiration versus Envy. People admire moral virtue, power, wealth, and beauty. By demonstrating that an individual has acquired life’s goods through hard work rather than mere luck, admiration will increase. THE FIVE CANONS OF RHETORIC Although the organization of Aristotle’s Rhetoric is somewhat puzzling, scholars and practitioners synthesize his words into four distinct standards for measuring the quality of a speaker: the construction of an argument (invention), ordering of material (arrangement), selection of language (style), and techniques of deliv-ery. Later writers add memory to the list of skills the accomplished speaker must master. As previewed in the introduction to this section on public rhetoric, the PathosEmotional proof, which comes from the feelings the speech draws out of those who hear it.Canons of rhetoricThe principle divisions of the art of persuasion es-tablished by ancient rhet-oricians—invention, arrangement, style, deliv-ery, and memory.
CHAPTER 22: THE RHETORIC 295i ve canons of rhetoric have set the agenda of public address instruction for more than 2,000 years. Aristotle’s advice strikes most students of public speaking as surprisingly up-to-date. Invention. To generate effective enthymemes and examples, the speaker draws on both specialized knowledge about the subject and general lines of reasoning common to all kinds of speeches. Imagining the mind as a storehouse of wisdom or an informational landscape, Aristotle called these stock argu-ments topoi , a Greek term that can be translated as “topics” or “places.” As Cornell University literature professor Lane Cooper explains, “In these special regions the orator hunts for arguments as a hunter hunts for game.” 10 When King argues, “We refuse to believe that there are insufi cient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation,” he marshals the specii c American topic or premise that the United States is a land of opportunity. When he contends that “many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny,” he estab-lishes a causal connection that draws from Aristotle’s general topics of cause/effect and motive. Arrangement. According to Aristotle, you should avoid complicated schemes of organization. “There are two parts to a speech; for it is necessary i rst to state the subject and then to demonstrate it.” 11 The introduction should cap-ture attention, establish your credibility, and make clear the purpose of the speech. The conclusion should remind your listeners what you’ve said and leave them feeling good about you and your ideas. Like speech teachers today, Aristotle decried starting with jokes that have nothing to do with the topic, insisting on three-point outlines, and waiting until the end of the speech to reveal the main point. Style. Aristotle’s treatment of style in the Rhetoric focuses on metaphor. He believed that “to learn easily is naturally pleasant to all people” and that “met-aphor most brings about learning.” 12 Furthermore, he taught that “metaphor espe-cially has clarity and sweetness and strangeness.” 13 But for Aristotle, metaphors were more than aids for comprehension or aesthetic appreciation. Metaphors help an audience visualize—a “bringing-before-the-eyes” process that energizes listeners and moves them to action. 14 King was a master of metaphor: The Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. To rise from the dark and desolate valleys of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. King’s use of metaphor was not restricted to images drawn from nature. Perhaps his most convincing imagery was an extended analogy picturing the march on Washington as people of color going to the federal bank to cash a check written by the Founding Fathers. America had defaulted on the promissory note and had sent back the check marked “insufi cient funds.” But the marchers refused to believe that the bank of justice was bankrupt, that the vaults of opportunity were empty. These persuasive images gathered listeners’ knowledge of racial discrimination into a powerful l ood of reason: Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. 15 InventionA speaker’s “hunt” for arguments that will be effective in a particular speech.
296 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Delivery. Audiences reject delivery that seems planned or staged. Natural-ness is persuasive; artii ce just the opposite. Any form of presentation that calls attention to itself takes away from the speaker’s proofs. Memory. Aristotle’s students needed no reminder that good speakers are able to draw upon a collection of ideas and phrases stored in the mind. Still, Roman teachers of rhetoric found it necessary to stress the importance of memory. In our present age of word processing and teleprompters, memory seems to be a lost art. Yet the stirring I-have-a-dream litany at the end of King’s speech departed from his prepared text and effectively pulled together lines he had used before. Unlike King and many Athenian orators, most of us aren’t speaking in public every day. For us, the modern equivalent of memory is rehearsal. ETHICAL REFLECTION: ARISTOTLE’S GOLDEN MEAN Aristotle’s Rhetoric is the i rst known systematic treatise on audience analysis and adaptation. His work therefore begs the same question discussed in the introduc-tion to this section on public rhetoric: Is it ethical to alter a message to make it more acceptable for a particular audience? The way I’ve phrased the question rel ects a Western bias for linking moral-ity with behavior. Does an act produce benei t or harm? Is it right or wrong to do a certain deed? Aristotle, however, spoke of ethics in terms of character rather than conduct, inward disposition instead of outward behavior. He took the Greek admiration for moderation and elevated it to a theory of virtue. When Barry Goldwater was selected as the Republican party’s nominee for president in 1964, he boldly stated: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice . . . moderation in the pursuit of justice is not virtue.” 16 Aristotle would have strongly disagreed. He assumed virtue stands between the two vices. 17 Aristotle saw wisdom in the person who avoids excess on either side. Moderation is best; virtue develops habits that seek to walk an intermediate path. This middle way is known as the golden mean . That’s because out of the four cardinal virtues—courage, justice, temperance, and practical wisdom—temperance is the one that explains the three others. As for audience adaptation, Aristotle would have counseled against the prac-tice of telling people only what they want to hear, pandering to the crowd, or “wimping out” by not stating what we really think. He would be equally against a disregard of audience sensitivities, riding roughshod over listeners’ beliefs, or adopting a take-no-prisoners, lay-waste-the-town rhetorical belligerence. The golden mean would lie in winsome straight talk, gentle assertiveness, and appro-priate adaptation. Whether the issue is truth-telling, self-disclosure, or risk-taking when mak-ing decisions, Aristotle’s golden mean suggests other middle-way communica-tion practices: Extreme Golden Mean Extreme Lies Truthful statements Brutal honesty Secrecy Transparency Soul-baring Cowardice Courage Recklessness Golden meanThe virtue of moderation; the virtuous person de-velops habits that avoid extremes.
CHAPTER 22: THE RHETORIC 297 CRITIQUE: STANDING THE TEST OF TIME For many teachers of public speaking, criticizing Aristotle’s Rhetoric is like doubt-ing Einstein’s theory of relativity or belittling Shakespeare’s King Lear. Yet the Greek philosopher often seems less clear than he urged his students to be. Schol-ars are puzzled by Aristotle’s failure to dei ne the exact meaning of enthymeme , his confusing system of classifying metaphor according to type, and the blurred distinctions he made between deliberative (political) and epideictic (ceremonial) speaking. At the beginning of the Rhetoric , Aristotle promised a systematic study of logos, ethos, and pathos , but he failed to follow that three-part plan. Instead, it appears that he grouped the material in a speech-audience-speaker order. Even those who claim that there’s a conceptual unity to Aristotle’s theory admit that the book is “an editorial jumble.” 18 We must remember, however, that Aristotle’s Rhetoric consists of lecture notes rather than a treatise prepared for the public. To reconstruct Aristotle’s meaning, scholars must consult his other writings on philosophy, politics, ethics, drama, and biology. Such detective work is inherently imprecise. Some present-day critics are bothered by the Rhetoric’s view of the audience as passive. Speakers in Aristotle’s world seem to be able to accomplish any goal as long as they prepare their speeches with careful thought and accurate audience analysis. Other critics wish Aristotle had considered a fourth compo-nent of rhetoric—the situation. Any analysis of King’s address apart from the context of the march on Washington would certainly be incomplete. Referring to Aristotle’s manuscript in a rare moment of sincere appreciation, French skeptic Voltaire declared what many communication teachers would echo today: “I do not believe there is a single rei nement of the art that escapes him.” 19 Despite the shortcomings and perplexities of this work, it remains a foundational text of our discipline—a starting point for social scientists and rhetoricians alike. 1. For most people today, the term rhetoric has unfavorable associations. What synonym or phrase captures what Aristotle meant yet doesn’t carry a negative connotation? 2. What enthymemes have advocates on each side of the abortion issue employed in their public deliberative rhetoric ? 3. Aristotle divided ethos into issues of intelligence, character, and goodwill . Which quality is most important to you when you hear a campaign address, sermon, or other public speech? 4. Most scholars who dei ne themselves as rhetoricians identify with the humanities rather than the sciences. Can you support the claim that Aristotle took a scientii c approach to rhetoric ? QUESTIONS TO SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS The golden mean will often prove to be the best way to persuade others. But for Aristotle, that was not the ethical issue. Aristotle advocated the middle way because it is the well-worn path taken by virtuous people.
298 GROUP AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Recommended resource: Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civil Discourse, George A. Kennedy (ed. and trans.), Oxford University, New York, 1991. Key scholarship: Richard Leo Enos and Lois Peters Agnew (eds.), Landmark Essays on Aristotelian Rhetoric, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 1998. Rhetoric as art: George A. Kennedy, “Philosophical Rhetoric,” in Classical Rhetoric, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 1980, pp. 41–85. Rhetoric as science: James L. Golden, Goodwin F. Berquist, and William E. Coleman, The Rhetoric of Western Thought, Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, IA, 1976, pp. 25–39. Twenty-i rst-century interpretation: Alan Gross and Arthu