1. Inside the Head:
Theories of Cognition and
Intrapersonal Communication

2.  Communication has early roots in psychology
 Cognitive scholars are concerned with the mental
processes that are used to process stimuli and generate
particular effects
 Contrasts behavioral view that focuses solely on
external causes (or stimuli) and behavioral effects

3. 1. Message Design Logics
2. Communication Accommodation Theory
3. Uncertainty Reduction Theory
4. Expectancy Violations Theory

4.  O’Keefe
 Premise: Message Design Logics predicts that people
strategically design messages sent to others

5.  Three types of Design
1. Expressive design
2. Conventional design
3. Rhetorical design

6.  Problems interacting with different MDL styles
 When individuals share the same MDL:
 they are more likely to acknowledge communication
problems
 When individuals have different MDLs:
 they are more likely to blame their problems on the
other’s bad intentions, mistaken beliefs, or undesirable
personality characteristics

7.  Giles & Coupland
 Premise: when individuals interact with others, they
will accommodate their speech and language patterns,
either by matching their partner’s speech or by
differentiating their speech and language use

8.  Individuals belong to a wide variety of social groups
 These groups shape each person’s collective identity
 In-groups: social affiliations to which an individual feels
he or she belongs
 Out-groups: social affiliations to which a person feels
that he or she does not belong
 Language, speech, and nonverbal messages all
communicate one’s in-group and out-group status

9.  Individuals adjust their speech and conversational
patterns either to assimilate with or to deviate from
others
 Convergence: altering your speech and behavior so that it
matches that of your conversational partner
 Divergence: rather than match your partner’s
communication patterns, you seek to make your speech
different

10.  Predictions
 When a person wants to be viewed as part of an in-
group, s/he will accommodate by convergence
 When a persona wants to be viewed as distinct from a
certain group, s/he will alter your speech through
divergence
 In addition to expressing disagreement or rejection of a
speaker, divergence also illustrates one’s cultural identity
or differences in one’s status.

11.  Accommodation is not always appropriate or effective
 When in doubt, individuals rely on social norms to
inform their decision to accommodate (or not)

12. Positive Effects Negative Effects
 Increased attraction,  Incorrect stereotypes of
social approval, and out-group, perceived
increased persuasion condescension, loss of
personal identity

13. Positive Effects Negative Effects
 Protects cultural  Perceived disdain for
identity, asserts out-group, perceived
power differences, lack of effort, and
and increased increased psychological
sympathy distance

14.  Berger & Calabrese
 Premise: URT explains and predict when, why, and
how individuals use communication to minimize their
doubts when interacting with others

15.  URT functions based on three assumptions
 Primary goal of communication is to minimize
uncertainties that we have about the world
 Individuals experience uncertainty regularly; the
experience of uncertainty is unpleasant
 Communication is the primary vehicle for reducing
uncertainty

16.  Reducing uncertainty
 3 antecedent conditions: influence whether we have
the motivation to reduce uncertainty
 Anticipation of future interaction
 Incentive value
 Deviance

17.  Two types of uncertainty
 Behavioral uncertainty
 Cognitive uncertainty

18. 8 Axioms that research has established follow from the principles
of URT:
 Verbal communication reduces uncertainty
 Welcoming nonverbal expressions reduce uncertainty
 The greater the uncertainty, the more information-seeking behaviors
 When uncertainty is high, intimacy is low
 High uncertainty leads to more reciprocal communication strategies
 Greater similarities between communicators reduces uncertainty
 As uncertainty decreases, liking increases
 Shared communication networks and ties reduce uncertainty

19.  Berger (1995, 1997) noted that much of social
interaction is goal driven; we communicate for a
reason and we create plans to guide interaction
 Uncertainty reduction strategies
 Passive strategy
 Active strategy
 Interactive strategy

20.  Burgoon
 Premise: explains the meanings that people attribute
to the violation of their personal space and predicts
their response to such infringements
 Assumptions
 EVT builds on numerous axioms
 Primary assumption: humans have competing needs for
personal space and for affiliation

21.  EVT makes predictions as to how individuals will react
to a given violation
 Reciprocate: match someone’s behavior
 Compensate: counteract by doing the opposite of your
partner’s behavior

22.  Core Concepts
 Expectancy
 Context of the behavior
 Relationship with the person in question
 Communicator’s characteristics
 Violation valance (+/-)
 Communicator reward valence (+/-)

23.  Predicting reactions when expectations are violated
 Predictable patterns develop
 (VV +) + (CRV+) = reciprocate
 (VV -) + (CRV-) = reciprocate
 (VV -) + (CRV+) = compensate
 (VV +) + (CRV-) = reciprocate or compensate

24. Between People:
Theories of Interpersonal Communication

25.  Interpersonal Communication: messages that occur
between two, interdependent persons, with a focus on
how interpersonal messages are offered to initiate,
define, maintain, or further a relationship
 IPC refers to both content and quality of messages and
the possibility of further relationship development

26. 1. Politeness Theory
2. Social Exchange Theory
3. Dialectical Perspective
4. Communication Privacy Management Theory

27.  Brown and Levinson
 Premise: politeness theory explains how we manage
our own and others’ identities through interaction, in
particular, through the use of politeness strategies

28.  Assumption: all individuals are concerned with
maintaining face
 Face: desired self-image that you wish to present to
others; includes awareness that interactional partners
have own face needs
 Positive face
 Negative face
 It is difficult to achieve positive and negative face
simultaneously

29.  Assumptions
 Humans are rational and goal oriented with respect to
achieving face needs
 We have choices and make communicative decisions to
maintain face
 “Everyone’s face depends on everyone else’s [face] being
maintained” (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p.61).
 Some behaviors are fundamentally face threatening;
inevitably we will hurt someone’s face
 Face-threatening acts (FTAs)

30.  Preserving Face
 Preventive facework
 Corrective facework

31.  Strategies for committing a FTA
 Avoidance
 Go off record
 Negative politeness
 Positive politeness
 Bald on record

32.  People choose their FTA strategy tactically
 Three factors influence strategy choice:
 Prestige
 Power
 Risk

33.  Thibaut & Kelley
 Premise: Social exchange theory (SET) explains when
and why individuals continue and develop some
personal relationships while ending others

34.  Assumptions
 Relationships are a function of comparing benefits
gained versus costs to attain benefits
 People want to make the most of the benefits, while
lessening the costs (minimax principle)
 By nature, humans are selfish; you tend to look out for
yourself first and foremost.

35.  Core Components
 Outcome (O): ratio of rewards to costs in a given
relationship
Rewards – Costs = Outcome
 Comparison level (CL): what rewards do I expect to
receive in this relationship?
 Comparison level of alternatives (Clalt): what other
options do I have?

36.  Predictions
 Outcomes > CL = satisfied
 Outcomes< CL = dissatisfied
 Outcome > CLalt = stay
 Outcome < CLalt = terminate

37.  Baxter & Montgomery
 Premise: explains how individuals sustain
relationships over time

38.  Assumptions
 Praxis : Relationships have a dynamic trajectory
 Change: Relationships change
 Contradictions (dialectics): Partners have essential
but different needs
 Totality: Change in one partner will affect the other

39.  Internal dialectics: central tensions between
partners
 Autonomy<—>Connection
 Openness<—>Closedness
 Predictability<—>Novelty

40.  External dialectics: central tensions that a dyad
experiences when interacting with other people
 Inclusion<—>Seclusion
 Revelation<—>Concealment
 Conventionality<—>Uniqueness

41.  Relationships are sustained, not maintained
 To sustain a relationship, dialectical tensions must be
managed
 Four primary strategies
1. Selection strategy
2. Cyclic alteration
3. Segmentation
4. Integration

42.  Petronio
 Premise: CPM’s explains why and how people make
decisions about whether to reveal or conceal private
information based on specific rules

43.  6 Major Principles
1. Public<—>Private dialectical tension is central
2. Private information: information that is inaccessible to
others
 Possession is central feature
 We make choices about sharing private information: to whom,
what, when, where, and how we share
3. Privacy Rules: guide sharing of private information
 Cultural criteria
 Gender criteria
 Motivational criteria
 Contextual criteria
 Risk-benefit criteria

44.  Major principles continued:
4. Boundaries
 Personal boundaries: contain individual information.
 Collective boundaries: contain shared information.
5. Boundary Coordination: maintaining collective
boundaries
 Boundary linkage—alliances between the owners of the
information
 Boundary ownership—rights and responsibilities bourn by
the owners of the information
 Boundary permeability—how easily information is passed
through the boundary
6. Boundary Turbulence: occurs when the rules for
privacy management are not clear

45. My Way:
Explaining Theories of Persuasion

46.  Persuasion: “human communication that is designed
to influence others by modifying their beliefs, values,
or attitudes” (Simons, 1976, p. 21).
(NOTE: What happened to actions?)
 Requirements for message to be considered persuasive:
1. Goal-driven sender
2. Communication is the means to achieve goal
3. Receiver must have free will

47. 1. Social Judgment Theory
2. Elaboration Likelihood Model
3. Theory of Planned Behavior
4. Inoculation Theory

48.  Sherif & colleagues
 Premise: SJT focuses on peoples’ assessment of
persuasive messages; people make evaluations about
the content of messages based on their anchors, or
stance, on a particular topic message

49.  A person’s attitudes can be placed into one of three
categories
 Latitude of acceptance
 Latitude of rejection
 Latitude of noncommitment

50.  A person’s reaction to a persuasive message depends
on his or her stance
 Persuader must map receivers’ attitudes and ego-
involvement toward a topic
 Highly ego involved =
 Larger latitude of rejection
 Smaller latitude of noncommitment.

51.  Social judgment explains responses through two
processes:
 Contrast effect
 Assimilation effect

52.  Petty & Caccipopo
 Premise: persuasion is a cognitive event; the targets of
persuasive messages use metal processes of motivation
and reasoning to accept or reject persuasive messages

53.  Two Routes to Persuasion
 Centrally routed messages
 Peripherally routed messages

54. 1. Central Route:
 Information, rational arguments, and evidence
 Much more likely to create long-term change
 Succeed only when two factors are met:
 Motivated target
 Able target

55.  Central route relies on strong arguments:
 Strong arguments create a positive cognitive response
 Neutral arguments create a noncommittal cognitive
response
 Weak arguments create a negative cognitive response

56. 2. Peripheral Route
 When target’s motivation or ability is missing,
persuader can use the peripheral route
 Peripheral messages rely on a target’s emotional
involvement
 Persuade through superficial means
 Lead to only short-term changes, if any change at all

57. Seven Peripheral Cues (Strategies)
1. Authority
2. Commitment
3. Contrast
4. Liking
5. Reciprocity
6. Scarcity
7. Social proof

58.  Peripheral messages can be evaluated as:
 Positive peripheral messages
 Neutral peripheral messages
 Negative peripheral messages

59.  Fishbein & Ajzen
 Premise: all behavior is intentional, or goal-driven.
Attitudes and behavioral norms predict behavioral
intention.

60.  Attitudes: our sum of beliefs about something
 Made of two components
 One’s evaluation of the object
 One’s belief strength
 Normative beliefs: perceptions about what others in
your social network expect you to do

61.  Evolution of a theory—
 A third predictor has been added to the theory:
 Perceived behavioral control is comprised of two
elements:
 Self-efficiency
 Controllability

62.  McGuire
 Premise: explains how targets can resist persuasion

63.  People are more resistant to persuasion when an
inoculation process takes place
 Two major components to an inoculation message:
1. Threat
2. Refutational preemption
(See Table 7.1)