THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF
COMMUNICATION SUMMARY
Psychology in Society Minor
2020-2021
,Table of contents
Week 1: What do we talk about? .................................................................................................. 3
Reading: Dillard, J.P., Segrin, C., & Harden, J.M. (1989). Primary and secondary goals in the
production of interpersonal influence messages. Communication Monographs, 56, 19-38 (only
study pages 19- 24 and Table 2). ........................................................................................................ 3
Reading: Greene, J. O. (1984). A cognitive approach to human communication: An action assembly
theory. Communication Monographs, 51, 289–306 (only study pages 289-294). ............................. 5
Reading: Goldsmith, D.J., & Baxter, L.A. (1996). Constituting relationships in talk: A taxonomy of
speech events in social and personal relationships. Human Communication Research, 23, 87-114
(only study pages 87-94 and 103-111)................................................................................................ 7
Reading: Baumeister, R.F., Zhang, L., & Vohs, K.D. (2004). Gossip as cultural learning. Review of
General Psychology, 8, 111-121.......................................................................................................... 9
Lecture notes .................................................................................................................................... 12
Week 2: How do we speak? ........................................................................................................ 15
Reading: Elbert, S.P., & Dijkstra, A. (2014). An experimental test of the relationship between voice
intonation and persuasion in the domain of health. Psychology & Health, 29, 1014–1031. ........... 15
Reading: Fuertes, J.N., Potere, J.C., & Ramirez, K.Y. (2002). Effects of speech accents on
interpersonal evaluations: Implications for counseling practice and research. Cultural Diversity and
Ethnic Minority Psychology, 8, 346-356 ........................................................................................... 17
Reading: Poyatos, F. (2002). Nonverbal communication across disciplines. Volume II.
Paralanguage, kinesics, silence, personal and environmental interaction. Chapter I. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins ................................................................................................................................. 20
Lecture notes .................................................................................................................................... 22
Week 3: What do we show? ....................................................................................................... 24
Reading: Ekman, P., & Sullivan, M.O. (2006). From flawed self-assessment to blatant whoppers:
The utility of voluntary behavior in detecting deception. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 24, 673-
686. ................................................................................................................................................... 24
Reading: Gordon, R.A., Druckman, D., Rozelle, R.M., & Baxter, J.C. (2006). Non-verbal behaviour as
communication: Approaches, issues and research. In O. Hargie (Ed), The Handbook of
Communication Skills (pp. 73-95). East Sussex: Routledge. ............................................................. 27
Reading: Maricchiolo, F., Gnisci, A., Bonaiuto, M., & Ficca, G. (2009). Effects of different type of
hand gestures in persuasive speech on receiver’s evaluations. Language and Cognitive Processes,
24, 239-266. ...................................................................................................................................... 34
Lecture notes .................................................................................................................................... 37
Week 4: How can we understand the complexity of communication?.......................................... 40
Reading: Andersen, P.A. (2015). Arousal Theories of Interaction Adaptation. The International
Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Communication................................................................................ 40
Reading: Burgoon, J. K. (2015). Expectancy Violations Theory. The International Encyclopedia of
Interpersonal Communication. ......................................................................................................... 44
Reading: Dragojevic, M., Gasiorek, J., & Giles, H. (2015). Communication Accommodation Theory.
The International Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Communication (only pages 1 to 8). ................... 46
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, Reading: Miller-Ott, A., & Kelly, L. (2015). The Presence of Cell Phones in Romantic Partner Face-
to-Face Interactions: An Expectancy Violation Theory Approach. The Southern Communication
Journal, 80(4), 253–270. ................................................................................................................... 48
Lecture notes .................................................................................................................................... 51
Week 5: How do cultures differ? ................................................................................................ 56
Reading: Brantley-Hill, S. M., & Brinthaupt, T. M. (2014). Perceptions of affectionate
communication among people with unfavorable and favorable attitudes toward homosexuality.
Journal of Homosexuality, 61(2), 270–287. ...................................................................................... 56
Reading: Gudykunst, W. B. (2004). Bridging Differences: Effective Intergroup Communication.
Understanding cultural differences. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE Publications, Inc. ........................ 59
Reading: Matsumoto, D. (1990). Cultural similarities and differences in display rules. Motivation
and Emotion, 14, 195-214................................................................................................................. 64
Lecture notes .................................................................................................................................... 66
Week 6: How do we communicate through new media? ............................................................. 71
Reading: Derks, D., Fischer, A.H., & Bos, A.E, R. (2008). The role of emotion in computer-mediated
communication: A review. Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 766-785. ....................................... 71
Reading: Koudenburg, N. (2018). Regulating shared reality with micro-dynamics in the form of
conversation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 23, 47–51. ................................................................ 75
Reading: Toma, C.L., Hancock, J.T., & Ellison, N.B. (2008). Separating fact from fiction: An
examination of deceptive self-presentation in online dating profiles. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1023-1036. ................................................................................................. 77
Reading: 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. Behavioural and
Cognitive Psychotherapy, 41, 280-289. ............................................................................................ 82
Lecture notes .................................................................................................................................... 84
Week 7: How can we communicate with computers?.................................................................. 87
Reading: Chidambaram, V., Chiang, Y., & Mutlu, B. (2012). Designing persuasive robots: How
robots might persuade people using vocal and nonverbal cues. Presentation at the International
conference on human-robot interaction. ......................................................................................... 87
Reading: Kreps, G.L., & Neuhauser, L. (2013). Artificial intelligence and immediacy: Designing
health communication to personally engage consumers and providers. Patient and Education and
Counseling, 92, 205-210. .................................................................................................................. 91
Reading: Nass, C., & Moon, Y. (2000). Machines and mindlessness: Social responses to computers.
Journal of Social Issues, 56, 81-103. ................................................................................................. 94
Lecture notes .................................................................................................................................... 99
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,Week 1: What do we talk about?
We talk all day, about very different topics. But where do we talk about; about the weather, about
other people, about tomorrow? And why do we talk about these things? These issues concern the goals
and functions of our conversations.
Reading: Dillard, J.P., Segrin, C., & Harden, J.M. (1989). Primary and secondary goals in
the production of interpersonal influence messages. Communication Monographs, 56,
19-38 (only study pages 19- 24 and Table 2).
• Argument: an individual’s activities, prior to and during an interpersonal influence attempt,
may be explained by his or her goals. Two classes of goals are defined:
1. Primary or influence goals which instigate the influence process
2. Secondary goals which shape it
• Results of study suggest the existence of five secondary goals: identity goals, interaction goals,
personal resource goals, relational resource goals, and arousal management goals.
• The thrust of this paper is to suggest that a theory of the production of influence messages
might be profitably undertaken from the perspective of a goal-planning-action (GPA)
sequence.
o Goals are taken to be desired future states of affairs. For our purposes, we broaden
that definition to include the desires individuals have to maintain certain states.
Goals and interpersonal influence
• Marwell and Schmitt’s exchange theory approach to compliance-gaining behaviour isolated
two general types of goals which sources consider when making an influence attempt.
o They contend that social actors must confront the issue of how to behave so as to
produce the desired outcome, i.e. how to be effective while at the same time
considering the costs associated with different approaches.
• This thinking is echoed in the claim that persuasive strategy selection is based on twin criteria:
1. The desire to be effective
2. The desire to conform to the constraints inherent in the particular situation in which
the influence attempt takes place
• Similarly, we treat goals as belonging to one of two general classes: primary and secondary.
• In interpersonal influence attempts, the desire to bring about behavioural change in a target
person is the primary goal.
• Instead of focusing on the types of influence goals which individuals might possess, we
consider that influence (primary) goals may vary in strength.
o The attractiveness (to the source) of the influence goal determines the source’s desire
to bring about the sought-after behavioural change in the target.
• Secondary goals → this second general class of goals includes objectives of several sorts that
derive directly from more general motivations that are recurrent in a person’s life.
• This paper identifies the existence of four secondary goals:
1. Identity goals are objectives related to the self-concept. As such, they are internal
standards of behaviour which may or may not overlap with expectations about how
others would or should behave. They derive from one’s moral standards, principles
for living and personal preferences concerning one’s own conduct.
2. Interaction goals are concerned with social appropriateness. They represent the
source’s desire to manage his or her impression successfully, to ensure a smooth flow
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, to the communication event, to avoid threatening the face of the other interactant,
and to produce messages which are relevant and coherent.
3. The focus of resource goals is on increasing or maintaining valued assets. Those assets
may be of three types:
▪ Relational assets encompass all those personal rewards and gratifications
which arise from participation in a relationship with the target. The substance
of these goals would be likely to include such things as attention, positive
stimulation, emotional support and social comparison.
▪ Material assets consist of all of those physical objects, including money, for
which the source has some attachment.
▪ Physical assets refers to all of those aspects of the source’s health which might
be compromised in an interpersonal influence attempt.
4. It is assumed that communication events themselves have arousal properties and that
this arousal is internally experienced as pleasurable or unpleasurable. Similar to
several theories which seek to explain aspects of interpersonal interaction, it is further
assumed that persons have a desire to maintain a state of arousal which falls within
certain idiosyncratically preferred boundaries. This objective is represented by
arousal management goals. Most often this will mean that people attempt to dampen
the apprehension induced by participation or in anticipation of making a interpersonal
influence attempt.
Distinguishing primary and secondary goals
• These two classes of goals differ along several lines:
o First, primary or influence goals are considered the more central of the two classes
because they define interpersonal influence situations.
o Second, awareness of a primary goal stimulates a consideration of secondary goals →
the primary goal provides the initial push which activates the cognitive calculus that
incorporates all of the secondary goals. Secondary goals then function to shape, and
typically to constrain, the behaviours whose overriding purpose is to alter the
behaviour of the target.
o Last, it is important to note that the notion of the influence goal alone has no
substance. Rather, that content must be drawn from the substance of one or more of
the secondary goals. Thus influence goals are secondary goals which have become
temporarily important.
STUDY 1: THE SUBSTANCE OF GOALS
• The primary function of the first study was to gather data reflecting the concerns which
individual sources face in interpersonal influence situations.
• In this study they obtained open-ended self-reports of the constraints individuals perceived
as shaping their own influence behaviour, in order to gain some sense of the extent to which
their theorizing about the substance of goals was grounded in the phenomenology of actors.
• The second purpose of the study was to generate a pool of statements closely tied to the
decisions which shape interpersonal influence behaviour. With the intention to use these
statements as a basis for constructing a series of closed-ended scales which tap people’s
perceptions of their own goals.
• Method
o Materials and procedure→ five versions of a questionnaire were devised, each of
which contained two hypothetical interpersonal influence situations. A set of
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, situations which varied on all of the perceptual dimensions which persons use to
assess compliance-gaining situations were developed. Following each situation was a
general description and an example of the fourteen compliance-gaining strategies. If
participants would not use a strategy, they were asked to provide a written
justification for their decision.
o Participants → one hundred students enrolled in the undergraduate communication
classes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison served as respondents and received
extra credit for their participation.
▪ Twenty persons responded to each of the five versions of the questionnaire;
gender and age data were missing in two cases.
▪ The mean age of the participants was 22.1 years.
o Analysis → a content analysis of the justifications for not using strategies was
conducted.
• Results and discussion
o Reliability was 95% (twice the number of agreements over the total units for coder
one plus the total units for coder two).
o For the classification task, the overall categorical alpha was .87.
o Cohen’s kappa was also calculated and found to be 0.83 (almost perfect).
o The fact that the statements can be coded with such precision suggests that the goal
categories may be conceptually differentiated from one another.
o In sum, the data from study one provided an indication of the potential utility of the
set of goals constructs. The coding of justifications proved to be highly reliable, and
with the possible exception of the arousal management goal, the distribution of
statements suggested that persons engaged in strategic influence are aware of and
concern themselves with these goals.
*And study the table 2.
Reading: Greene, J. O. (1984). A cognitive approach to human communication: An
action assembly theory. Communication Monographs, 51, 289–306 (only study pages
289-294).
• An essential characteristic of human communicative behaviour is that it is at once novel and
creative yet pattern and repetitive.
• “The whole function of thought is to produce habits of action…” (Peirce, 1878, p. 292) → bent
upon pursuing a cognitive approach would do well to remember that humans are, above all,
actors, and that the “stuff” of social interaction is behaviour.
• The cognitive system has developed to facilitate action, and further, that the functions of the
cognitive system are best understood in terms of their implications for action.
• Emphasizes on the need for theories of output processes and to present an initial model of
cognitive structures and processes underlying the production of verbal and nonverbal
behaviours in ongoing interactions.
• The task of developing a model of the communicative output system is a formidable one,
indeed, although inroads are being made in this domain.
• A moment’s reflection reveals that the social behaviour of any individual is composed of a
repertoire of repetitive words, topics, themes, and instrumental phrases, yet any particular
discourse is almost certainly a unique combination of these elements.
o Bregman (1977) argues that all behaviour can be viewed as novel compositions of
established properties.
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, • If we are to develop models of the communicative output system, then we must come to grips
with the concurrent novel and repetitive aspects of social behaviour. The phenomenon itself
suggests two basic processes: selection of old elements and construction of novel patterns.
o These processes of selection and construction clearly involve issues of memory
storage, retrieval, and utilization. Thus, only those classes of explanation which
involve such conceptions are likely candidates for adequate theory in this domain.
• Given a commitment to cognitivism we might inquire after the requirements for an adequate
cognitive theory. Fundamental to the cognitive perspective is the assumption that in order to
yield falsifiable predictions a theory must specify both the information structures of the mind
and the processes which operate over those structures.
o Specification of structure involves articulating the structural metaphor(s) which
define the units of information residing in the cognitive system and the nature of the
information stored in those units.
o Specification of process involves detailing the information transformations resulting
from the application of the process as well as characterizing the temporal parameters
and serial versus parallel nature of the process.
o In addition to this assumption concerning the need to specify structures and process,
a second basic tenet of cognitivism is that it is possible to develop multiple, distinct
models each of which is sufficient to account for observed input-output regularities.
A GENERAL THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
• The human mind is a repository of both conceptual and procedural knowledge.
o Procedural knowledge → refers to stored action specifications, at a range of levels of
abstraction, upon which an individual may draw in order to accomplish his or her
desired ends. So, the procedural store represents those things we have learned to do,
and not to do, in order to act efficaciously.
• While it would certainly be possible to store procedural information in complex
configurations, the production of novel behaviour would require decomposition of such
complex elements into more fundamental units appropriate to the situation at hand.
• A representational system which involved complex action specifications would hardly be
parsimonious since many elements of a behavioural sequence do repeat themselves in a
variety of communication contexts.
o This has led cognitive theorists to propose conceptions of “scripts” and “event
schemata” which share the common elements of similar action sequences.
• Finally, when procedural information is stored as discrete units, new information can easily
be accommodated.
• In short, a modular conception of the elements of procedural memory provides a solution to
the problems of production of novel behaviour, storage requirements, and knowledge
acquisition.
• However, it is obvious that all of the elements of the procedural store do not impact upon all
behaviours, thus there must be some process of selection operating over these procedural
records.
o In order for a particular record to impact upon behaviour its level of activation must
exceed some threshold value.
o Activation level could serve as a selection mechanism if it is assumed that occurrences
of particular situational values also act as activating conditions.
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, • It seems plausible to suggest that the activating conditions for any element of procedural
knowledge are comprised of desired outcome plus any initial conditions which have proven
relevant in past goal pursuits.
o While a given goal may excite a number of action-outcome records, the most highly
activated elements will be those with initial conditions which match present
conditions.
• Some researchers have made use of a strength construct where strength of a memory
element varies as a function of the recency and frequency of activation of the element → such
strengthening processes protect the system against incorrect procedures in that those actions
which fail to result in desired outcomes will tend to have less strength.
• The output representation is assumed to reflect number of levels of abstraction.
o Lower-level representations reflect the relatively autonomous functioning of
procedural records which correspond to that level of abstraction.
o Higher-order abstractions may be concretized in keeping with existing environmental
and system-configurational factors relevant to lower-level representations.
• In short, the content of any representational level at any moment is due to:
1. Constraints imposed by higher-level representations
2. Existing procedural records at that level of abstraction
3. Activating conditions relevant to that level of abstraction
• See conclusion.
Reading: Goldsmith, D.J., & Baxter, L.A. (1996). Constituting relationships in talk: A
taxonomy of speech events in social and personal relationships. Human Communication
Research, 23, 87-114 (only study pages 87-94 and 103-111).
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE “SPEECH EVENT” CONSTRUCT
• The speech event has been highlighted as the basic unit of sociality in a number of “social
approaches” to communication.
o The speech event is conceived as a jointly enacted communication episode that is
characterized by an internal coherence or unity and punctuated by clear beginning
and ending boundaries.
o The focus of terms like this one is away from the communicative acts of autonomous
individuals to a focus on the joint accomplishments of participants as they interact.
▪ An important residual consequence of the focus on individual acts has been
an overemphasis on the instrumental, goal-directed function of
communication.
▪ Alternative constitutive function of communication → our social and personal
relationships are embodied or constituted by the various kinds of jointly
enacted communication episodes that occur. These episodes constitute a
relationship, and the types of episodes partners enact together constitute a
particular kind of relationship.
• Small talk has typically been viewed as an instrument by which the individual reduces
uncertainty in initial interaction, thereby providing the groundwork for the accomplishment
of the relational goal of increased intimacy in the relationship.
o Recognition of the constitutive function of small talk focuses instead on the ways in
which relationships exist in small talk.
▪ When partners enact small talk, that is the nature of their relationship; an
ongoing pattern of conversations that are limited to small talk constitutes a
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, particular kind of relationship between the parties, and they reproduce this
relationship type every time they engage in small talk.
• Mutual recognition of various kinds of speech events makes it possible for parties to jointly
enact various kinds of relationships and interpret the significance of those enactments.
o Some relationships might be constituted solely in phatic speech events, others by the
ability to engage in both superficial and intimate conversation.
• Joint communicative enactments no doubt co-occur in systematic ways with relationship
types differentiated on sociological and psychological grounds, but the speech event unit of
analysis also affords us a way to recognize differences within a given relationship type and
changes in relationships over time.
• Identifying the types of speech events individuals recognize, the terms they use to refer to
those events, and the dimensions by which they distinguish between events provides a
potential basis for mapping the communicative activities that constitute relationships.
• Practically, it might prove difficult to observe all the joint enactments of talk through which
an individual’s relationships are constructed; however, a taxonomy of commonly understood
terms for speech events makes it feasible for individuals to report on the events in which they
engage in various relationships.
RELATED RESEARCH LITERATURE
• Our focus on the speech events of everyday interpersonal life is related to four bodies of
research: diary studies, studies of situations, research on cognitive memory structures, and
ethnographic studies of speech events.
o Diary studies → respondents record specific information about interaction episodes
as they occur in their daily lives. These studies provide substantial baseline data about
everyday talk, suggesting that mundane, everyday interaction has a significance
heretofore overlooked by communication researchers.
▪ the diary method demonstrated that the value and quality of communication
differs for acquaintances, friends, lovers, and family.
o Studies of Social Situations → Much of this work has sought to identify the underlying
dimensions that organize hypothetical situations selected by researchers, asking
respondents to complete Likerttype or semantic-differentia1 scales on several
features, for example, intimate-nonintimate, friendly-unfriendly, pleasant-
unpleasant.
o Research on Cognitive Memory Structures → Cognitively oriented researchers in
interpersonal communication are amassing a substantial body of work on the
cognitive representations of action scenes. For example, memory organization
packets (MOPs) provide individuals with cognitive structures for a variety of activities,
including dating, disclosing, and sharing activities.
▪ MOPs, schemas, scripts, and the like are cognitive structures of individual
minds posited by researchers to explain how individuals produce and
interpret behaviours; although constructed in memory based on a person’s
experiences in the social world, they are conceptually located within the
individual.
o Ethnographic Studies of Speech Events → Ethnographic studies share with our
research program a focus on everyday talk and respondent-defined units and
dimensions.
▪ the assumption that our participants do enact and recognize a common range
of speech events
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, ▪ Our concern is not with illuminating the cultural system of values, beliefs,
symbols, and meanings that makes enactment and interpretation of these
common speech events possible; rather, we are interested in describing the
events in terms that are widely recognizable to participants and then
documenting the frequency and variety of occurrence of these events in
various types of social and personal relationships.
EVENTS THAT CONSTITUTE RELATIONSHIPS
• The taxonomy of speech events provides a basis for identifying the types of events and the
frequency of events that occur in social and personal relationships and for locating common
patterns in the ways in which talk constitutes these relationships.
• All reported dyadic relationships were categorized by the researchers into one of the following
types based on respondent descriptions: acquaintanceship (e.g., someone I'd met once),
friendship (e.g., my roommate, a buddy of mine), close friendship (e.g., my best friend from
high school), nonmarital romantic (e.g., my boyfriend/girlfriend), marital, parent-child, sibling,
and other (e.g., ex-partners, divorced spouses, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents).
• The speech events from supragenres one and two dominated the data set, particularly the
speech events of gossip, joking around, catching up, small talk, and recapping the day's events;
these five speech events collectively accounted for 48.9% of all recorded dyadic interactions.
• In short, different relationship forms appear to enact qualitatively different types of
informal, superficial speech events.
• Our suspicion is that many speech events that share a similar dimensional profile cannot
function as equivalents for one another → i.e. gossip presumes a certain degree of mutual
knowledge and trust between parties.
o This points to the embeddedness of relationships in larger social networks:
Relationship parties use their mutual understanding of network members as a
resource in constituting their particular relationship.
o Goal-directed talk, particularly making plans, also occupies an important constitutive
strand in the enactment of friendships, romantic relationships, and kin relationships.
CONCLUSION
• When we observe the actions of relational partners, it is possible to view those actions not as
causes of relational outcomes or as effects of relational states but as moves in larger episodes
that are the observable enactment of the relationship.
• Because the events we have identified are grounded in participants’ own understandings, our
taxonomy can help illuminate the communicative benchmarks that contribute to relational
participants’ own sense making.
• We have suggested several ways in which relational features such as mutual knowledge, trust,
and relational continuity might be constructed in the concrete practices of gossiping,
recapping the day’s events, and catching up.
• Our findings suggest that relationship parties have a large, shared repository of speech event
types with which to constitute a diverse range of relationship forms.
Reading: Baumeister, R.F., Zhang, L., & Vohs, K.D. (2004). Gossip as cultural learning.
Review of General Psychology, 8, 111-121.
• To complement views of gossip as essentially a means of gaining information about
individuals, cementing social bonds, and engaging in indirect aggression, the authors propose
that gossip serves to help people learn about how to live in their cultural society.
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