Ch 7 Cognitive Dissonance SPC3210 Exam 2 Study Guide The Principle of Minimal Justification Using the least amount of effort incentive to achieve the greatest result 1 20 experiment Buyers Remorse The dissonance we experience after making a large purchase and the steps taken to justify our actions Confidence in your decision Bettors were asked how confident they were about the horse they bet on directly after placing the bet more confident after than before Doomsday Cults Leaders used selective interpretation to justify why their predictions didn t come true in order to reduce the dissonance of followers and reenergize the zeal of the followers Critique Strengths Of Cognitive Dissonance Theory Criticisms Dissonance as the core concept is lacking Self concept interferes with dissonance Lack of practical utility Testability issues hard to DISprove Broad Scope Ch 8 Expectancy Violations Theory EVT developed by Judee Burgoon Critique Strengths Of Cognitive Dissonance Theory Heuristic value TON of research Offers insight into the relationship between attitudes cognitions affect behavior EVT of examining the influence that nonverbal communication has on message production in fact the theory was initially called Nonverbal Expectancy Violations Theory The term nonverbal was dropped in order to include all types of behaviors that violate expectations EVT that people in general have certain expectations about the behavior verbal and nonverbal of others EVT not only examines these expectations but also examines what happens when verbal and nonverbal expectations are violated One major focus of EVT The use of personal space and distance in conversations also called Proxemics Humans have two competing needs when it comes to space Affiliation and personal space Affiliation refers to the need to belong to a group Personal Space is the invisible variable volume of space surrounding an individual which defines that individual s preferred distance from others Edward Hall identified four primary zones of personal space in North American culture intimate personal social and public distance Intimate distance 0 18 inches intimate relationships Personal distance 18 inches 4 feet family and close friends Social distance 4 12 feet casual social settings Public distance 12 feet and beyond formal meetings discussions Altman says there are 3 types of territories primary secondary and public Primary territories Are the exclusive domain of an individual and are usually marked to indicate ownership Secondary territories Signal some sort of personal connection with an area or object While they are not exclusive to an individual the person does identify with them Public territories Involve no personal affiliations and include those areas that are open to all people Territoriality is frequently accompanied by two behaviors Prevention and reaction Prevention behaviors are warnings used to prevent other people or groups from invading a territory or territories and can include offensive displays as well as markers or symbols Reaction behaviors are usually the resulting response to an attempt to prevent access to an object or area Assumptions of EVT Expectancies drive human interaction Expectancies are learned People make predictions about nonverbal behavior Expectancies drive human interaction expectancies are the cognitions and behaviors that we think will happen in conversations interactions with others and include verbal and non verbal behavior expectancies are a result of social norms stereotypes gossip hearsay and individual idiosyncrasies the two types of expectancies are preinteractional the potential to interact and interactional actually performing in the interaction cultural background also has an influence on what our expectations are and how we believe we should act Expectancies are learned we learn behaviors from society in general and from individuals we encounter in various social situations it is important to recognize and understand what we know about others and how we have interacted with these others in the past because it informs our expectations for future interactions People make predictions about nonverbal behavior nonverbal behavior is ambiguous and can be interpreted in many different ways so it is important to understand that our predictions evaluations often based on attractiveness posture personal space etc may be inaccurate Reward Valence is the positive or negative characteristics that an individual brings to an interaction a behavior performed by a high reward source may be interpreted as positive while the same behavior performed by a low reward source could be considered negative Arousal refers to the consequences associated with deviations from expected behavior it cause a person to focus more on the source of the behavior than the behavior itself a k a orienting response Arousal can be cognitive awareness of a violation or physical e g moving away from the source of the violation Threat threshold Threshold is the distance at which you feel uncomfortable physically and psychologically in the presence of someone who has violated your expectations Threats normally occur after arousal awareness to of an expectancy violation and are usually associated with distance expectancy violations Violation valence the positive or negative evaluation of an expectancy violation violation valences are often hard to judge and occur on a positive negative continuum sometimes we use reward valence as a tool to help us decide the violation valence if we like the person the violation is evaluated positively if we don t like the person the violation is evaluated negatively Expectancy violations can be positive or negative Critique of EVT Scope and Boundaries wide scope that encompasses a variety of behaviors but originally grounded in the notion of personal space Clarity concepts can be difficult to distinguish in terms of measurement and testability Has practical value in society Ch 9 Uncertainty Reduction Theory URT developed by Berger and Calabrese URT explains how we use communication both verbal and nonverbal as a tool to find out information about others in order to feel comfortable in our daily interactions Prediction is the ability to foresee our and others behavior Explanation is the ability to understand these behaviors Uncertainty occurs when the number of potential different behaviors is high and there is not enough information to determine how people will act react in a given situation so
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