The Social Psychology of Communication
Literature Summary
Table of Contents
Week 1: What do we talk about?...........................................................................................3
Reading 1: Dillard, J.P., Segrin, C., & Harden, J.M. (1989). Primary and secondary goals in
the production of interpersonal influence messages. (p. 19-24 & table 2) ................................. 3
Reading 2: Greene, J. O. (1984). A cognitive approach to human communication: An action
assembly theory. (p. 289-294) ..................................................................................................... 5
Reading 3: Goldsmith, D.J., & Baxter, L.A. (1996). Constituting relationships in talk: A
taxonomy of speech events in social and personal relationships. (p. 87-94 & 103-111)............. 7
Reading 4: Baumeister, R.F., Zhang, L., & Vohs, K.D. (2004). Gossip as cultural learning. (p.
111-121) ..................................................................................................................................... 10
Week 2: How do we speak? ................................................................................................. 16
Reading 1: Elbert, S.P., & Dijkstra, A. (2014). An experimental test of the relationship
between voice intonation and persuasion in the domain of health. ......................................... 16
Reading 2: Fuertes, J.N., Potere, J.C., & Ramirez, K.Y. (2002). Effects of speech accents on
interpersonal evaluations: Implications for counseling practice and research. ...................... 18
Reading 3: Poyatos, F. (2002). Nonverbal communication across disciplines. Volume II.
Paralanguage, kinesics, silence, personal and environmental interaction. .............................. 22
Week 3: What do we show?................................................................................................. 24
Reading 1: Ekman, P., & Sullivan, M.O. (2006). From flawed self-assessment to blatant
whoppers: The utility of voluntary behavior in detecting deception. ...................................... 24
Reading 2: Gordon, R.A., Druckman, D., Rozelle, R.M., & Baxter, J.C. (2006). Non-verbal
behaviour as communication: Approaches, issues and research. ............................................ 27
Reading 3: Maricchiolo, F., Gnisci, A., Bonaiuto, M., & Ficca, G. (2009). Effects of different
type of hand gestures in persuasive speech on receiver’s evaluations. .................................... 32
Week 4: How can we understand the complexity of communication? ................................ 36
Reading 1: Andersen, P.A. (2015). Arousal Theories of Interaction Adaptation. ................... 36
Reading 2: Burgoon, J. K. (2015). Expectancy Violations Theory. ......................................... 40
, Reading 3: Dragojevic, M., Gasiorek, J., & Giles, H. (2015). Communication Accommodation
Theory. ...................................................................................................................................... 44
Reading 4: Miller-Ott, A., & Kelly, L. (2015). The Presence of Cell Phones in Romantic
Partner Face-to-Face Interactions: An Expectancy Violation Theory Approach. .................. 47
Week 5: How do cultures differ? ........................................................................................ 50
Reading 1: Brantley-Hill, S. M., & Brinthaupt, T. M. (2014). Perceptions of affectionate
communication among people with unfavorable and favorable attitudes toward
homosexuality............................................................................................................................ 50
Reading 2: Gudykunst, W. B. (2004). Bridging Differences: Effective Intergroup
Communication. ........................................................................................................................ 52
Reading 3: Matsumoto, D. (1990). Cultural similarities and differences in display rules....... 55
Week 6: How do we communicate through new media?..................................................... 59
Reading 1: Derks, D., Fischer, A.H., & Bos, A.E, R. (2008). The role of emotion in computer-
mediated communication: A review. ........................................................................................ 59
Reading 2: Koudenburg, N. (2018). Regulating shared reality with micro-dynamics in the
form of conversation. ................................................................................................................ 64
Reading 3: Toma, C.L., Hancock, J.T., & Ellison, N.B. (2008). Separating fact from fiction:
An examination of deceptive self-presentation in online dating profiles. ................................ 67
Reading 4: Paxling, B., Lundgren, S., Norman, A., Almlov, J., Carlbring, P., Cuijpers, P., &
Andersson, G. (2013). Therapist behaviours in Internet-delivered cognitive behaviour
therapy: Analyses of email correspondence in the treatment of generalized Anxiety Disorder.
................................................................................................................................................... 70
Week 7: How can we communicate with computers? ......................................................... 72
Reading 1: Chidambaram, V., Chiang, Y., & Mutlu, B. (2012). Designing persuasive robots:
How robots might persuade people using vocal and nonverbal cues....................................... 72
Method/experimental design..................................................................................................... 72
Reading 2: Kreps, G.L., & Neuhauser, L. (2013). Artificial intelligence and immediacy:
Designing health communication to personally engage consumers and providers. ................ 74
Reading 3: Nass, C., & Moon, Y. (2000). Machines and mindlessness: Social responses to
computers. ................................................................................................................................. 76
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,Week 1: What do we talk about?
Reading 1: Dillard, J.P., Segrin, C., & Harden, J.M. (1989). Primary and
secondary goals in the production of interpersonal influence messages. (p.
19-24 & table 2)
Introduction
Individual’s activities, prior to and during an interpersonal influence attempt, may be
explained by his/her goals.
1. Primary/influence goals: Instigate the influence process.
2. Secondary goals: Shape it.
• Individuals attempt to influence others in order to achieve their own ends (study
of compliance-gaining).
• Goals of altering the behavior of another is believed to engender planning, which
in turn guides the actions of the source.
Goals and interpersonal influence
• Compliance-gaining theory: Isolates two types of goals: Social actors must
confront the issue of how to behave so as to produce the desired outcome, while at
the same time considering the costs associated with different approaches.
• Persuasive strategy selection is based on twin criteria:
1. Desire to be effective
2. Desire to conform the constraints inherent in the particular situation in which the
influence attempt takes place.
• From this assumption comes forth two types of goals.
1. Primary/influence goals (bring about behavioral change in a target person)
2. Secondary goals (objectives of several sorts that derive directly from more general
motivations recurring in a person’s life)
• Four secondary goals.
1. Identity goals (related to the self-concept, internal standards of behavior that may or
may not overlap with expectations about how others should behave. Derive from
morals, principles, preferences).
2. Interaction goals (social appropriateness, represents source’s desire to manage
impression successfully).
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, 3. Resource goals (focus on increasing/maintaining valued assets. Assets can be three
types: Relational (personal rewards and gratifications: Attention, positive stimulation,
emotional support, social comparison), material (physical objects including money)
and physical (aspects of the source’s health which might be compromised in an
interpersonal influence attempt)).
4. Arousal management goals (communication events have arousal properties, are
experienced as pleasurable or unpleasurable. People have a desire to maintain a state
of arousal, that is the arousal management goal.
Distinguishing primary and secondary goals
• Two classes differ.
• Primary goals are more central (define interpersonal situations).
• Awareness of a primary goal stimulated a consideration of secondary goals
(primary goal = initial push, activated cognitive calculus that incorporates all the
secondary goals. Secondary goals function to shape and constrain the behaviors to
alter the behavior of the target)
• Notion of influence goal alone has no substance.
Study 1: The substance of goals
• Function: Gather data reflecting concerns which individual sources face in
interpersonal influence situations.
• Data from study one provided an indication of the potential utility of the set of
goal constructs. Statements suggested that persons engaged in strategic influence
are aware of and concern themselves with these goals.
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