Comm. 1 Midterm Review (Winter 09)

Communication within a person:

-Linguistic cognitive process is a way of talking to yourself.
-Talking to self, journaling, notes-to-self
-Thinking about other people & processing information

Researchers often study:
-Making attributions
-Forming impressions

Communication with another (dyad):

-Face-to-face or point-to-point
-Involves self-disclosure
-Relational Development/Intimacy

Researchers study:
-making friends

Interaction among three or more

-Pursuing common goal (social or task)

1 or a few individuals to an audience

-Face-to-face but with a “distance”
-Relatively one-way

Communication among members of organization

-Formal organizational structure (often large numbers of people, but does not have to be)
-Formal and informal networks, rules, norms

Communication between members of different groups

-People from different group membership communicating with one another.
-Interaction & identity influenced by group membership
-Distinction from interpersonal
-If the context of groups and group affiliations are applied then the conversation is intergroup

-Messages disseminated on large scale
-Mediated, through print or electronics
-Television gets the most research attention
-Typically professional communicators, these people are trained to communicate, it’s their job.
-Less immediate feedback

-Endorse freedom of expression
-understand communicators before evaluating/responding to their messages
-promote full access to comm. resources & opportunities
-promote comm. climates of mutual understanding
-condemn malicious communication
-advocate sharing of opinions
-accept consequences of communication

Systematic, quantitative analysis of message content (Enumerate variables and track their instances)

Purposes
-Describes media (or other comm.) content
-Content analysis of various media containing comm. Events.
--E.g., What issues get most news coverage?
-Assess image of particular group in media
--E.g., What are the portrayals of Democrats and Republicans?
--Gender & race
--Portrayals of the elderly

Representative Sample (of media messages) is essential
-Include national or local? National vs. local? Cable/Sat?

Need clear, specific definitions of content variables
-E.g., What counts as “biased” or “stereotypical”?
-Need for precise definitions

Limitations
-Can only describe content
-No information about why content is that way or the effects of it on audiences, etc.

Purpose: Ask people what they think or do

-Identify attitudes/behaviors in population
-e.g., Among group X such attitude or behavior Y exists
-Examine relationships between attitudes/behaviors, etc.
-Representative Sample = essential
-Good Questions = essential

Limitations:
-Cannot make causal conclusions
-Relies on self-reports

Purpose: draw causal conclusions

-Manipulate causal variable(s) (independent variable)
-Control everything else (story, format, etc.)
-Measure effect/outcome (dependent variable)

Needs random assignment & good manipulation (of variables).

Limits:
Participant Sample
Artificial Setting
Poor External Validity

1. Assumption of orderly universe.
2. Assumption of cause-effect relationship.
3. Assumption of scientific integrity

Participants
Channel/Medium
Noise
Feedback
Context/Setting

Comm. = systematic (encoding/decoding)
Comm. = symbolic
Comm. = transaction (exchange; irreversibility)

Linear Model

No context, No explicit channel, No feedback, No transaction

Linear Model

No Context
No Feedback

Symbolic: Demonstrates that signal sent is not signal received

Systematic: Demonstrates encoding/decoding in info source to transmitter

Transactional: n/a

Process Model

Noise not represented

Symbolic: Shows message & implicit channel

Systematic: Demonstrates encoding/decoding occurs simultaneously

Transactional?

- Components
- No feedback
Symbolic
Content of message is displayed

The things in the message matters at both ends

No transaction

S-M-C-R

-Barely any components represented, comm. is all one

-Metaphorical look at the process, no subtle details

Back and forth development.

Ancient Greek

-Ethical issues, power of persuasion, effective public speech, Sophists

Romans

-Importance of style & delivery
-3 objectives: instruct, please, and win over.

Middle Ages

-Importance of style, figures of speech
-Rhetoric established as liberal art

Renaissance

-Humanism & Enlightenment
-foundation of behaviorism

Behaviorist Tradition

-19th cent.: elocution movement
-20th cent.: behaviorism, establishment of comm. discipline, humanism vs. behaviorism debate.

the mechanics of public speaking, including proper pronunciation, posture and grammar

late 19th century

theory explaining how individuals respond to and interpret communication behavior when it violates their expectations

contemporary term for behaviorist approach
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see table on page 57

contemporary term for humanistic (rhetorical) study
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see table on page 57

an approach used not only to understand human behavior but ultimately to change society
--------------

see table on page 57

an approach in which reality is subjective, and power is an important issue
--------------

see table on page 57

Symbol (word) meaning is arbitrary

Language is rule-governed

Language is capable of displacement

We use a symbol to make reference to a referent.

symbol <-> reference <-> referent
(triangle of meaning)

Denotation vs. Connotation

God terms vs. Devil terms

Denotation - the explicit or direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression; agreed-upon meaning.

Connotation -Implicit, emotional, evaluative connections to the word.

Democracy, Freedom, Human Rights

vs.

Profanities, Racial Slurs

-Adjusting speech toward or away from another person’s speech
-Adjustment usually based on group identity

-subject to multiple interpretations
-Intentional imprecise language

the heterogeneity of an individual's words for any given referent.

how many synonyms one has for something.

high linguistic diversity gives people a better impression.

see cocultural theory

certain accents give individuals more power: British accents.

identity labels can detract from an individual's true identity

5 Assumptions

1. a hierarchy exists that privileges certain groups of people.
2. privilege includes setting comm. norms.
3. speech not conforming to valued speech may be excluded or negatively stereotyped.
4. relational comm. should be feminine
5. these structures impede progress of persons whose comm. do not conform to the norms

field of study that emphasizes how language is used in specific situations to accomplish goals

see: speech act theory, locutionary, illocutionary, perlocutionary, conversational rules, contextual rules

refers to the utterance itself

describes what one does with one's utterance; what the utterance accomplishes

refers to the effect an utterance has

govern ways communicators organize conversation

turn taking

appropriate for context

see:

dialect, lexical choice, grammar, pronunciation, gender, age, regionality, ethnicity & race, education & occupation, jargon

variation of language distinguished by its vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation

vocabulary

feminene vs. masculine communication

cohort effect

content

context

influence of shared characteristics of a group that was born and reared in the same general period

geographic location strongly influence language use

see dialect

confrontational vs. avoidant

shared language for certain educations and occupations

jargon

specialized terms for a profession

disconfirming - comments that reject or invalidate a positive self-image of our conversational partners

confirming - comments that validate positive self-images of others

private - refer to what can be known only to the speaker or anyone the speaker discloses the meaning too

shared - requires some correspondence between the message as perceived by the sender and receiver

inference
equivocal language
abstract language
dichotomies
euphemisms

the more abstract a term, the greater our chances of misunderstanding

problems arise in inferring meaning from language

bivalent meaning rather than multivalent meaning can cause conceptual fallacy

Success vs. Failure

but there are intermediate degrees!

euphemistic language can misrepresent what is being said

pragmatics of communication

connotation, illocution & perlocution

metacommunication

communication about communiction

non-euphemistic language accurately & clearly describes the individual

euphemisms are vague

euphemisms are overly defensive, imply shame instead of equality, portrays individual as touchy & belligerent

nonverbal can:

Complement verbal

Regulate verbal
-To control the progression of conversation.

Substitute verbal
-Hand motions, congratulatory hugs
-Nonverbal but oral; paralinguistic: cheering, yelling

Contradict verbal

all aspects of spoken language except the words themselves; includes rate, volume, pitch, stress, etc.

see:
Vocalizations
Voice Qualities

uttered sounds that do not have the structure of language

• Pitch – vocal frequency
• Volume – loudness of the voice
• Rate – pace of speech
• Fluency – smoothness of language
• Air flow – amount of air flowing during speech
• Quality – resonance, nasality
• Accent – pronunciation
[media: video; clip from show: Ed TV, man with thick southern accent (sawyer-ish)]
• Intonation – rising and falling of speech, the way the tones are put in to speech.

• Pitch – vocal frequency
• Volume – loudness of the voice
• Rate – pace of speech
• Fluency – smoothness of language
• Air flow – amount of air flowing during speech
• Quality – resonance, nasality
• Accent – pronunciation
[media: video; clip from show: Ed TV, man with thick southern accent (sawyer-ish)]
• Intonation – rising and falling of speech, the way the tones are put in to speech.

Body Displays - hair color/style, piercings etc.

Clothing & Accessories - artifacts

- Eye contact / gaze
- Can signal immediacy, confidence
- Avoidance often taken as dishonesty, insincerity, discomfort

nonverbal communication sent by the body

see:
gestures
posture
movement
facial expressions
oculesics

way people use time as a message

monochronic & polychronic use of time

monochronic - one task/behavior at a time
polychronic - multiple activities

study of communicative function of touch

professional touch - functional touch needed to accomplish something in a profession

social-polite touch - part of daily interaction

friendship touch - conveys warmth, closeness and caring

love-intimate touch - touch used with one's romantic partners and family, long kisses etc.

demand touching - used to establish dominance and power

signals that accompany speech to clarify or emphasize

gestures that stand for a specific verbal meaning

gestures used to manage emotions

gestures used to control conversation

males are often discouraged from showing sadness, females are criticized for showing anger.

prolonged eye contact can communicate aggression

functional/professional touch
social-polite touch
friendship touch
love-intimate touch
demand touching

comm. within a person

see:
attention, organization, interpretation, impression formation, attribution

-Perception is selective
• Our attention is only focused on certain objects of our (brain’s) choosing
• Everyone uses selective attention
• People get distracted, they don’t pay attention.

physiological & psychological factors affecting attention (internal)

factors of salience, factors of vividness affecting attention (external)

process by which one recognizes what sensory input represents

• Proximity: we perceive separate stimuli as related if close to each other
• We tend to group things together depending on their proximity to one another
• Similarity: we perceive stimuli as related if similar to each other.
-we tend to group things together depending on their similarity to one another.
• Closure: we see incomplete patterns as complete
• we tend to augment our perceptions to match our preconceptions
• Figure Ground: we perceive images as having an object (figure) and background (ground)

act of assigning meaning to sensory information

Perception is evaluated
• We try to interpret/make sense of our perceptions and draw conclusions

Society
• We simplify the complex info we perceive
• Biases influence our conclusions

The way we combine information to get a general “sense” of a person

What gets the Greatest Weight? (in the weighted average)

info about or from:

stable traits, credible source, received first, extreme/unusual behavior, negative traits, central traits

Anchors for a person’s personality. When we catch one, it tends to have more weight.

warmth vs. coldness

Halo Effect
-Initial impression (pos or neg) influence how we weight future information

Contrast Effect
-Impressions influenced by what just came before (e.g., “a tough act to follow”)

Stereotyping
-Assume person has certain traits or behaviors because of group membership

Internal Attribution
-We see it as caused by the person/self; within the person’s control

External Attribution
-We see it as caused by the situation or other factors outside the person’s control

Fundamental Attribution Error
Self-Serving Bias

tendency to attribute others' behavior to internal causes

tendency to give one's self more credit than is due when good things happen and to accept too little responsibility for those things that go wrong

when an individual expects something to occur, the expectation increases the likelihood that it will

idea that people's self images arise primarily from the ways that others view them and from the many messages they have received from others about who they are

organizational structures or templates that tell what information belongs together and how to "read" or understand what is perceived

the ability to form mental models of the world

relatively fixed sequence of events that functions as a guide or template for communication or behavior

a cognitive process used to organize information by placing it into larger groupings of information

tendency to give one's self own negative behavior to external causes and one's positive actions to internal states

degree to which a person's constructs are detailed, involved or numerous

categories people develop to help them organize information

see:

Dual Nature of Interpersonal Messages, relational development, models, self-disclosure, conflict

Content Level
• The “what” of the message
• Typically conveyed verbally

Relational Level
• Information about how interactants feel about themselves & each other in the relationship
• Can be conveyed verbally or nonverbally (more often nonverbally)
• “I love you” has a lot of relational meaning
• Relational messages are often expressed ambiguously
• Can be consistent or inconsistent with content level

• Physical attractiveness
• Similarity
• Proximity
-• Physical proximity to each other increases attraction
-• Online dating creates a quasi-proximity
-• Notice that some friendships disappear with the loss of proximity

• We are in uncertain relationships and we are motivated to go about increasing certainty.
• We attempt to get information about the other person:
• passively – observe the other
• actively – seek information from 3rd party
• interactively – talk to the other
• reducing uncertainty (e.g., finding similarities) increases liking

Deliberately revealing info about oneself
---------

Breadth & Depth of disclosure

Breadth - how wide is the range of information disclosed
Depth - how deep is the information disclosed

• Impression management
-- Sometimes you reveal something about yourself to impress someone
• Relationship maintenance/enhancement
• Reciprocity
• Catharsis
-- purging of emotional tensions
• self-clarification/validation
-- helps clear things in your head

Staircase of differences in each level during development

Initiating & Experimenting, Intensifying, Integrating, Bonding
Differentiating, Circumscribing, Stagnating & Avoiding, Terminating

both people behave so as to appear pleasant and likable, then seek to learn about each other

Initial display of self, superficial disclosure, small talk, audition

both people seek to increase intimacy and connectedness

• Self-disclosure increases, nicknames, “we” pronouns, personal idioms, verbal shortcuts
• Not considered as a unit, but we-language is still used. “what should we do tonight?”
• Verbal shortcuts – code words with personal meaning

both people portray themselves as a couple

• Cultivate opinions as couple, others treat you as couple, romance, common property.
• The two individuals are considered as a unit
• E.g., a host would always invite both of you.

characterized by public commitment

• Public ritual, formal binding, social & institutional support
• Privileges gained with formal binding: hospital visits, etc.

couples increase interpersonal distance

• Talk about differences, more “me/you” than “we,” less time together.

couples discuss safe topics

• Less information exchange, topics controlled, superficial communication, decrease of reciprocity.

couples try to prevent change and then avoid each other

• Almost no communication, marking time, avoid face-to-face
• People like familiarity, they get used to things, they don’t like change so having to take action takes a lot of emotional and physical work.
• One big factor the leads to termination is meeting someone else. (interesting)

couples end relationship

• Summary statements
--A “debriefing” of the relationship
• future apart talk
--considerations for future affairs

relationships involve contradictory feelings

autonomy/connection
expressiveness/privacy
change/predictability

one's need to connect with others and the simultaneous need to feel independent or autonomous

need to be open and to self-disclose while also maintain some privacy

desire for events that are new, spontaneous, and unplanned while simultaneously needing some aspects of life to be stable and predictable

Avoidance, Accommodate, Competition, Compromise, Collaboration, Passive-Aggressive

goal: avoid conflict

o Physical avoidance - Can be implemented as the conflict starts. The person leaves as soon as the conflict begins. Can be implemented ahead of time.

o Denial - Deny the conflict to avoid it

o Postponement - Defer conflict to a later time

o Resorting to formal rules - Formal rules allow people to avoid conflict

o Controlling the process - Arguing about how your arguing (metacomm.)

o Gunnysacking - Storing away information about the others transgressions

o Sarcasm - Allows an individual to say their actual thoughts and later deny.

goal: appeasement

accommodation tactics:

o Openly giving in
o Choose your battles
o Appeasement is acceptable when the conflict is over something trivial to the appeasing party.
o Appeasement is acceptable when the conflict is of overwhelming importance to the other party.

• Keep thoughts to self
• Send subtle, indirect negative messages
• Reciprocate transgression without stating punitive intention

Goal: To win & make the other lose.

Tactics:

assertiveness
direct aggression
hostility

presumptive attribution - debase enemy's argument by saying it’s founded on an invalid reason (usually when its not)
• “the only reason your arguing is because your jealous”

threats & ultimatums

debase your enemy's argument by claiming its founded on an invalid reason (conflict competition)

Goal: both gain something w/ sacrifice

restating positions - I want this, you want this, okay then I want this.

experimental integration - each party submits their most preferred position and move towards a mean between 2 extremes

Goal: everybody wins

Flexible goals & perspective

• Description rather than blame
• “I”-language
• High disclosure
• Showing empathy; validating needs

labeling / name calling
threats

issue expansion
--Not hysterical: historical

coalition formation - well everyone else says X

quid pro quo

conflating escalation/reduction tactics "well I'm sorry your stupid"

- Break larger conflicts into smaller parts
- Ask for more information
- Metacommunication
- Respond to all levels of conflict (facts & feelings)
- Accept responsibility

1) role limited interaction
2) friendly relations
3) moves towards friendship
4) nascent friendship
5) stabilized friendship
6) waning friendship

1) interaction is based solely on specific social roles

2) potential friends assess each other to determine common interests and values

3) moving beyond social roles and indicating a desire for a more personal relationship

4) beginning friendship

5) friendship that lasts over time

6) friendship in decline or even ending

a model of relationship development in which couples move both towards and away from commitment over the course of their relationship

as people communicate they become more familiar with each other and become closer

behaviors that couples perform that help maintain their relationships

joking, spending time, talking about one's day, encouraging self-disclosure, expressing commitment

sudden death - relationships end without prior warning for at least one participant

passing away - relationships decline over time

deception - concealment, distortion or lying

truth bias - tendency to not suspect one's intimates of deception

jealousy - a complex and often painful emotion that occurs when a person perceives a threat to an existing relationship

Knapp's Model
Rawlins Model

see page 222