5. THOERIES MESSAGE PRODUCTION

1. AL AKHAWAYN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS STUDIES 5. THOERIES MESSAGE PRODUCTION Lecture by Prof. Dr. Mohammed Ibahrine based on Littlejohn’s Theories of Human Communication

2. Introduction • Communication can be viewed as an information-based and message-centered process • Many communication theories address these concerns • The theories of message production tend not use social explanations • Rather, these theories view message production as psychological matters, focusing on individual characteristics and processes

3. Introduction • These theories tend to be of three types • The first involves trait explanations, which focus on relatively static characteristics of individuals and the ways these characteristics are associated with other variables • They predict that when you have a certain personality trait, you will tend to communicate in certain ways or produce certain kinds of messages

4. Introduction • The second type of theory of message production rely on behavioral explanations • These tend to focus on types of behavior • How that behavior develops and how certain behaviors are associated with other behaviors, feelings and traits

5. Introduction • The third type of theory of message production involves cognitive explanations, which attempt to capture the mechanism of the mind

6. 1. TRAITS AND BEHAVIORS • The most commonly held belief among psychology researchers today is that: • Yourbehavior is determined by a combination of traits and situational factors • How you communicate at any given moment depends on • Your traits as an individual and the situation in which you find yourself

7. 1.1 Three Examples of Traits • We feature three interesting and well-developed traits

8. 1.1.1 Conversational Narcissism • Narcissism loosely self-love • Anita Vangelisti, Mark Knapp, and John Daly have identified a communication trait that they call conversational narcissism, or the tendency to be self-absorbed in conversation • Conversational narcissists tend to inflate their self-importance by such behaviors as "one-upping" or boasting

9. 1.1.1 Conversational Narcissism • They tend to want to control the flow of conversation, especially to provide opportunities for them to talk about themselves • They are known to use nonverbal, exhibitionist behaviors such as exaggerated gestures • They tend to be insensitive or non-responsive to others

10. 1.1.2 Argumentativeness • This is the tendency to engage in conversations about controversial topics to support your own point of view, and to refute opposing beliefs • Dominic Infante believes that argumentativeness can • Improve learning • Help people see others' points of view • Enhance credibility • Build communication skill

11. 1.1.2 Argumentativeness • Argumentative individuals are by definition assertive, although not all assertive people are argumentative • These authors distinguish between argumentativeness, which is a positive trait and • Verbal aggressiveness and hostility, which are negative ones • Knowing how to argue properly may be a solution to otherwise hurtful aggressive tendencies

12. 1.1.3 Social and Communicative Anxiety • James McCroskey is best-known for his work on communication apprehension • Although everyone has occasional stage fright, trait CA is an enduring tendency to be apprehensive about communication in a variety of settings • Normal apprehension is not a problem, but pathological CA, in which an individual suffers persistent and extreme fear of communication, certainly is

13. 1.1.3 Social and Communicative Anxiety • Abnormally high CA creates serious personal problems, including extreme discomfort and avoidance of communication to the point of preventing productive and happy participation in society

14. 1.1.3 Social and Communicative Anxiety • Social and communicative anxiety has • Physiological aspects such as heart rate and blushing • Behavioral manifestations such as avoidance and self-protection • Cognitive dimension such as self-focus and negative thoughts

15. 1.1.3 Social and Communicative Anxiety • Negative thinking can lead to anxious self-preoccupation that • Keeps a person from considering all of the information and cues in the environment • Disrupts normal information processing • Leads to reinforcing behaviors such as withdrawal.

16. 1.2 Traits, Temperament and Biology • Psychologists have been exploring biological bases of human behavior and traits have explained in terms of genetic predisposition • Traits are predispositions of temperament rooted in genetically determined neurobiological structures or brain activity

17. 1.2 Traits, Temperament and Biology • limbic system of the brain controls emotion and our emotional differences often relate these brain differences • The more sensitive your limbic system, the more anxiety you experience

18. 1.2 Traits, Temperament and Biology • The problem for highly apprehensive individuals is that they will experience extreme fear in the process of giving the speech, making the overall experience unpleasant

19. 1.3 Accommodation and Adaptation • If you observe interaction closely, you will notice that speakers frequently adjust their behaviors to one another • Sometimes speakers do just the opposite and actually exaggerate their differences

20. 1.3 Accommodation and Adaptation • 1.3.1 Accommodation Theory • One of the most influential behavioral theories of communication, accommodation theory, was formulated by Howard Giles • Giles has confirmed the common observation that communicators often seem to mimic one another's behavior • They call this convergence or coming together • The opposite, divergence, or moving apart, happens when speakers begin to exaggerate their differences

21. 1.3 Accommodation and Adaptation • 1.3.1 Accommodation Theory • Convergence or divergence can be mutual or can be non-mutual • Convergence can also be partial or complete • Accommodation is sometimes done consciously • The speaker is usually unaware of doing it • People sometimes converge not with the other person's actual speech but with a stereotype

22. 1.3 Accommodation and Adaptation • 1.3.1 Accommodation Theory • Accommodation is often associated with power • The rewards of speech convergence can be substantial, so are the costs • Convergence requires effort and it may mean the loss of personal identity • You may work to maintain your own style when you want to reinforce your identity

23. 1.3 Accommodation and Adaptation • 1.3.2 Interaction Adaptation Theory • Judee Burgoon noticed that communicators have a kind of interactional synchrony, a coordinated back-and-forth pattern • If you were to videotape a conversation with a friend, you would probably notice this effect • Using the lens of interaction adaptation theory, you would begin to notice that you and your friend's behavior are influencing each other, creating the pattern

24. 1.3 Accommodation and Adaptation • 1.3.2 Interaction Adaptation Theory • When you begin communicating with anotherperson, you have a rough idea about what will happen • This is your interaction position, the place where you will begin • It is determined by a combination of factors that the theorists cleverly named RED, which stands for requirements, expectations, and desires

25. 1.3 Accommodation and Adaptation • 1.3.2 Interaction Adaptation Theory • Requirements: Your requirements are the things you really need in the interaction • These may be biological as in a request for food, or they may be social in terms of needed affiliation, continued friendship, or even managing a smooth interaction

26. 1.3 Accommodation and Adaptation • 1.3.2 Interaction Adaptation Theory • Expectations: are the patterns you predict will happen • If you are not that familiar with the other person, you will rely on social norms of politeness and aspects of the situation such as the purpose of the meeting • If you know the other person well, your expectations will probably be based largely on past experience

27. 1.3 Accommodation and Adaptation • 1.3.2 Interaction Adaptation Theory • Desires: are what you want to accomplish, what you hope will happen

28. 2. COGNITIVE THEORIES • The cognitive tradition concentrates on the mental processes that mediate between stimulus and response • The content of the cognitive system consists of the information-thoughts, attitudes and concepts • The structure of the system reflects how you organize the content of your thoughts within your memory banks as well as the procedures, or operations, you manage this content-how you actually change and use it on a daily basis

29. 2. 1 Theories of Planning and Action • 2.1.1 Action Assembly Theory • Developed by John Greene, action assembly theory examines the ways you organize your knowledge and use it in communication • According to the action assembly theory, you have both • Content knowledge => You know about thing • Procedural knowledge => You know how to do things

30. 2. 1 Theories of Planning and Action • 2.1.1 Action Assembly Theory • Procedural records: The associations that have been most frequently or most recently activated so that certain nodes tend to cluster together into modules • Unitized assemblies: are highly efficient routines that require little effort

31. 2. 1 Theories of Planning and Action • 2.1.2 Planning Theory • Well-known theory of planning in the communication field was produced by Charles Berger to explain the process that individuals go through in planning their communication behavior • Berger defines plans as: • “Hierarchical cognitive representations of goal-directed action sequences” • In simple terms: • “Plans are mental images of the steps one will go through to meet a goal”

32. 2. 1 Theories of Planning and Action • 2.1.2 Planning Theory • Planning is the process of thinking up these action plans • Because communication is so important in achieving goals, • Planning messages is a critical concern • Communication is central in meeting social goals • Goals are arranged in hierarchies • Achieving certain goals first makes it possible to achieve other ones later

33. 2. 1 Theories of Planning and Action • 2.1.2 Planning Theory • Berger refers to • 1. Specific domain knowledge => • information about the topic • loans and relatives • 2. General domain knowledge => • information about how to communicate • persuading people

34. 2. 2 Theories of Message Selection • 2.2.1 Compliance Gaining • Compliance gaining involves trying to get other people to do what you want them to do, or • Stop doing something you do not like • Compliance gaining is power-oriented • Gerald Marwell and David Schmitt have developed five general strategies

35. 2. 2 Theories of Message Selection • 2.2.1 Compliance Gaining • Five general strategies: • 1. Rewarding • 2. Punishing • 3. Expertise • 4. Impersonal Commitments • 5. personal commitments

36. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Theories of message selection imagine that communicators choose abstract strategies for accomplishing their communication goals • In contrast, theories of message design imagine a more complex scenario in which communicators actually design messages that are in line with their intentions within the situations they face

37. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Politeness • When we communicate we most often try to accomplish several things at once, and politeness, or protecting the face of the other person, is often one of the goals we aim to achieve • The best-known theoretical treatment of politeness and face is that of Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson • This theory states that in everyday life we design messages that protect face and achieve other goals as well

38. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Politeness • Brown and Levinson believe that politeness js often a goal because it is a culturally universal value • Different cultures have different levels of required politeness and different ways of being polite, but all people have the need to be appreciated and protected, • This is called face needs

39. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Politeness • Positive face is the desire to be appreciated and approved, to be liked and honored • Positive politeness is designed to meet these desires • Negative face is the desire to be free from imposition or intrusion • Negative politeness is designed to protect the other person when negative face need are threatened

40. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Politeness

41. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Politeness • Politeness is especially important whenever we must threaten another person's face, which happens frequently in our relations with others • We commit face-threatening acts (FTAs) whenever we behave in a way that could potentially fail to meet positive or negative face needs

42. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Politeness • Face threatening is normal and not itself a problem, but it • must be handled in certain ways to mitigate potential problems that could result • There are a wide range of ways to handle FTAs, and we do not always do it the same way • Whether we deliver an FTA, how we do so, and what forms of politeness are used depend on a variety of things

43. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Message Design Logic. • Barbara O'Keefe’s thesis is that people think differently • about communication and messages • They employ different logics in deciding what to say to another person in a given situation • She uses the term message design logic to describe the thought processes behind messages

44. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Message Design Logic. • O'Keefe outlines three possible message design logics that range from least Person-centered to most person-centered • The expressive logicsees communication as a mode of self-expression for communicating feelings and thoughts • Its messages are open and reactive in nature, with little attention given to the needs or desires of others • An example of a message resulting from this logic would be an angry response to a friend who forgot to get tickets to a concert

45. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Message Design Logic. • The conventional logicsees communication as a game to be played by rules • Here communication is a means of self-expression that proceeds according to accepted rules and norms including the rights and responsibilities of each person involved • This logic aims to design messages that are polite, appropriate, and based on rules that everyone is supposed to know

46. 2. 3 Theories of Message Design • Message Design Logic. • The rhetorical logicviews communication as a way of changing the rules through negotiation • Messages designed with this logic tend to be flexible, insightful, and person-centered • They tend to reframe the situation so that various goals are integrated into a seamless whole

47. 3 COMMENTARY AND CRITIQUE • Cognitive approaches have been very popular in the United States • The individualistic approach is common in the study of communication • The autonomous person is the primary unit of analysis in much Western thinking • It views the single human mind as the locus of for processing and understanding information and generating message

48. 3 COMMENTARY AND CRITIQUE • Yet the individualistic approach is not the only way to understand communication • The defining feature of communication is that it happens between people • Vernon Cronen is one of the harshest critics of individualism in communication theory

49. 3 COMMENTARY AND CRITIQUE • Cronen outlines several intellectual problems: • Individualistic approaches fail to depict meaning as emergent and social • They detach the person from social process • They ignore interactional pattern • They fail to take conjoint production into account • It threatens human values, cultural differences and institutional change • It muddy ethical questions of responsability