Expectancy Violation Theory 10 17 2011 Expectancy Violation Theory o Judy Burgoon 1978 A Communication Model of Personal Space Violations Explication and an Initial Test Predict what happens when our expectations for behavior are violated in conversation o In order to predict must first be able to explain how people create meaning when these expectancies are violated Interpersonal interaction Proxemic orientation use of space and violation of it o Proxemic Research 4 spaces Intimate distance 0 18 inches Personal distances 18 inches 4 feet Everyday conversation personal space Social distance 4 12 feet Public distance 12 feet beyond Audience Territoriality Altman has to do with things that are ours the space we perceive to be ours objects space o Primary territories things and spaces that our actually ours laptop backpack apartment o Secondary territories act is if they re yours but they are not really yours simply because you use them school seat in class o Public territory actually not yours public domain library beach We have expectations for behavior Assumptions driving EVT Communication in general is driven by expectations o When expectations are not met it is problematic Expectations are learned o Where do we learn them Experience Culture People make predictions about nonverbal behavior Key concepts Proxemic zones our use of personal space Expectancy violations Expectancies are our thoughts and ideas about what is appropriate in any given communication situation o Violation is when those thoughts and ideas don t match up with what actually occurs Arousal cognitive and or physical o Heightened awareness of what s going on o Tolerance of a violation ex touch in terms of Threat threshold distance usually Violation valance o Perceive closeness from an interaction as negative or positive how do you assess the unexpected behavior o Interpret meaning of violation and decide if you like it or not Communication reward valance o How you view the communicator o There s something that you have that I want so I will accept you Criticisms Explanations Doesn t count for culture People hold expectations about the nonverbal behavior of others Unexpected changes in conversational distance between communicators i e expectancy violations are arousing and ambiguous o Cause arousal and ambiguity we don t really know what to make of them o Sometimes it s not ambiguous it just happens o Perception we make of violation is how favorably the violator is perceived High reward value Low reward value To reduce this arousal ambiguity we attempt to interpret meaning from expectancy violations The higher the reward value of the communicator the more likely we will assign positive meaning i e positive violation valence to the EV o Rewards can be anything attention o Individual act Even though it s an interaction we re studying the individual reaction to the behavior Evaluation of EVT Positives Clear in scope and boundaries o United States culture boundaries Valid Testable Heuristic o Can we see it operating in real life o You can make predictions from it o Then test and see if it holds true o Expands to include future studies Verbal violations Emotional communication Uncertainty reduction Relational communication Conversation management Impression management Social influence o Expectancies Individual communicator factors gender age appearance Relational factors prior relational history level of liking Context factors culture norms Cognitive Dissonance 10 17 2011 Persuasion social influence Historical Background Leon Festinger James Carlsmith in 1959 research o Consistency Theory under this category Mind is the mediator between stimulus and response People organize information into a pattern with previously encountered stimuli When information Stimulus is consistent with the pattern we feel consonant but when it doesn t fit we feel discomfort dissonance Cognition about binge drinking I think that it is really cool gets people to like me and let s say I watch a documentary that the statistics regarding death and binge drinking is high Those cognitions are dissonant with the cognition I had before the documentary because I used to think it was cool o If my friends agree with me that drinking is cool that s consonance Discomfort arises from discrepancy between current and past stimuli Goal Explain predict and control o Explain explain attitude change when people experience psychological inconsistency o Predict attitude change o Control attitude change and behavior Definition o A feeling of discomfort resulting from inconsistent attitudes thoughts and behaviors o State of psychological discomfort or tensions that motivates us to achieve consonance Concepts o Cognitions ways of knowing beliefs judgments and thoughts o Dissonance disequilibrium imbalance psychological discomfort o Consonance psychological equity o Irrelevance unrelated cognitions Resistance to change o Determines the likelihood that the cognition you have will change o Less resistance cognitions are easier to change o Depends on responsiveness to reality o Depends on degree of pain loss or satisfaction resulting from behavior EXAMPLE binge drinking get statistics that it s not that cool more resistant if there is no response to the reality of the statistics If you get satisfaction from binge drinking it is worth the risk Spreading alternatives o Increase desirability of chosen alternative o Decrease desirability of rejected alternative Droid vs iPhone Compare positive of Droid to negative of iPhone that you bought o Increasing desire in your mind of what you have Magnitude of dissonance o Quantitative amount of dissonance o Depends on the number and importance of cognitions Number of dissonant cognitions number of dissonant cognition number of consonant cognition FORMULA o Affected by the rationale o Ratio quantitative amount of dissonance that you feel Assumptions of CDT o People like to be in psychological equilibrium they desire o Dissonance results from psychological inconsistencies not logical o Inconsistency psychological imbalance is an aversive state it s consistency inconsistencies uncomfortable o The discomfort caused by inconsistency motivates efforts to reduce dissonance Cognitive Dissonance Theory o When cognitions behaviors are inconsistent with each other we experience cognitive dissonance which leads to discomfort which in turn motivates change to restore consonance How to Reduce Dissonance o Given the ratio increase consonant
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