Berger 1975
Berger 1975
Berger 1975
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selves about the appropriateness of their behavior in particular situations, while others do not.
These individual differences would suggest that the
learning of rules and norms appropriate to situations, whether through direct instruction or social
modeling, is not uniform for all individuals.
Findings to be discussed later indicate that
during the entry phase, communication content is
somewhat structured. For example, message content tends to be focused on demographic kinds of
information. The amount of information asked for
and given by the interactants tends to be symmetric. During the latter phases of the entry stage,
persons begin to explore each others attitudes and
opinions. The kinds of attitude issues explored are
of rather low consequence or low involvement. By
the end of the entry phase, the interactants have a
fairly confident estimate of whether or not they
will develop their relationship toward a more
intimate level.
The second phase of the communication transaction we have labeled the personal phase. This
phase begins when the interactants engage in
communication about central attitudinal issues,
personal problems, and basic values. This phase
could begin after a few minutes of interaction;
however, in most informal communication situations, the personal phase does not appear until the
individuals involved have interacted on repeated
occasions. While there are almost always rules and
norms which regulate communication behavior in
most situations, when interactants have moved to
the personal phase, communication is more spontaneous and less constrained by social desirability
norms. During this phase, persons may talk about
socially undesirable aspects of their personalities
and social relations. In the entry phase, such
information is not usually sought or given.
The final phase of the transaction we have
called the exit phase. During this phase decisions
are made concerning the desirability of future
interaction. Frequently, these decisions are discussed and plans for future interaction made. At a
more macroscopic level of analysis, the exit phase
of a relationship may occur over several interactions. Divorce is probably a good example. In
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amount of demographic (low intimacy) information asked for and given was highest during the
first minute of interaction. After the first minute,
statistically significant decreases in the amount of
demographic information exchanged were observed; while the amounts of information asked
for and given in such more intimate categories as
attitudes and opinions and other persons
increased. Studies by Cozby (1972), Ehrlich and
Graeven (19711, Sermat and Smyth (19731, Taylor, Altman, and Sorrentino (1969), and Taylor,
Altman, and Wheeler (1973) also support the
development of intimacy through time.
These outcomes are in agreement with the
observations of Altman and Taylor (1973) who
suggest that the early stages of the development of
a relationship are characterized by exchanges of
superficial information. While we agree that
most observers would tend to judge a conversation
consisting of exchanges of biographical information superficial, we feel that the kinds of
information asked for and given during the initial
phases of the entry stage are crucial for the
development of inferences about the persons
rendering the information.
As Jones and Goethals (1972) have pointed
out, primacy effects are more the rule than the
exception in person perception research. There are
conditions under which recency effects will obtain, but because of the prevalence of primacy
effects, we are forced to conclude that information exchanged early in the interaction has functional significance for the actors involved. Knowing that a given individual is a college professor
may well help to reduce uncertainty about his
political and social attitudes. Obviously, many of
the inferences drawn may be inaccurate. Nevertheless, persons do encode messages on the basis of
such imperfect knowledge.
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a reinforcement framework to explain the similarity-attraction relationship. He argues that attitude agreements are rewarding and that such
rewards lead to liking. By contrast, balance theorists (Heider, 1958) explain the similarity-liking
relationship by arguing that shared affect toward
an object will result in pressures toward liking.
Recently, Duck (1973) has developed a filter
hypothesis which asserts that different kinds of
similarity are important for liking at different
phases of the relationship. He suggests that at the
early stages of a relationship, similarity of attitudes tends to be a strong determinant of liking;
however, as the relationship progresses, conceptual
similarity along both content and structural dimensions becomes the significant determinant of
attraction. Duck employs Kellys (1955) theory of
personal constructs as a conceptual basis for his
predictions. He reports several studies, employing
a modified version of the Role Rep Test, which
show that friends do have significantly higher
levels of conceptual similarity than randomly
formed dyads.
There is an impressive amount of evidence
(Berscheid & Walster, 1969; Byrne, 1971) to demonstrate a positive relationship between attitude
similarity and interpersonal attraction. Moreover,
Ducks (1973) research supports a positive relationship between similarity of conceptual structure and friendship formation. In our view, both
types of similarity act to reduce the level of
uncertainty in a relationship; i.e., similarity of
attitudes and conceptual structure produces decreases in uncertainty, while dissimilarities along
attitude and conceptual dimensions raise uncertainty levels. Why do disagreements along attitude
dimensions tend to raise uncertainty? After all, if a
person holds an opinion opposed to mine, does
that not reduce my uncertainty about him?
In order to answer the above question, we must
consider the influence of affect direction on the
number of alternative attributions generated about
a person. Koenig (1971) has argued that when we
dislike another person, social norms demand that
we provide explanations for our dislike. When we
like someone, however, we do not have to provide
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Data supportive of Theorem 6 have been presented by Schachter (1959). Following from Festingers (1954) social comparison theory, Schachter found that persons preferred to affiliate with
similar others. While Theorem 6 would seem to
hold for initial interaction situations, there is some
evidence that under certain conditions, dissimilarities between persons will produce increases in the
amount of communication. Schachter (1 95 1)
found that the amount of communication directed
toward a deviant in a group tended to increase
through time. In highly cohesive groups to which
the group task was highly relevant, the amount of
communication directed toward the deviant tended to increase at first then to decrease. The
discrepancy between these findings and the social
comparison theory findings seems to involve the
nature of the interaction situation. Schachters
(1 95 1) deviation-rejection study involved a group
of persons interacting for the purpose of pro-
support for Theorem 11, although it seems reasonable to assume that since liking and nonverbal
affiliative expressiveness have been found to be
positively related, similarity and nonverbal affiliative expressiveness should also be found to be
positively related.
THEOREM 12: Intimacy level of communication content and information seeking are inversely related.
THEOREM 13: Intimacy level of communication content and reciprocity rate are inversely
related.
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the above four theorems. However, since Theorems 17 and 18 appear to be non-commonsensical
predictions, further comment is in order. First,
Theorem 17 suggests that as liking increases in a
relationship, the amount of information seeking
behavior will decrease. One operational indicator
of information seeking suggested earlier was the
number of questions asked per unit of time. It
would seem reasonable to suggest that as a relationship develops through time, there is less need
for questions to be asked. Frankfurts (1965)
findings support this suggestion. As the relationship develops, persons are more willing to proffer
information about themselves without specifically
being asked for it. Thus, if positive affect does
develop in a relationship through the reduction of
uncertainty then the necessity for extensive interrogation would also tend to decrease, thus producing a negative relationship between information seeking and liking. In the case of Theorem 18,
we have suggested that similarity tends to reduce
uncertainty and that reductions of uncertainty
obviate the necessity for extensive verbal interrogation. Thus, we would expect to find that similarity and information seeking are negatively related.
THEOREM 19: Reciprocity rate and liking are
negatively related.
THEOREM 20: Reciprocity rate and similarity
are negatively related.
THEOREM 21: Similarity and liking are positively related.
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cal findings by employing the uncertainty construct as a mediating variable. This implies that if
the effects of uncertainty were statistically removed from the similarity-attraction relationship,
the similarity-attraction relationship would weaken significantly.
BEYOND INITIAL INTERACTION
For the present time, we have elected to confine our theory to the initial stages of interaction
between strangers. Obviously, a full blown theory
of interaction development would have to stipulate broader boundary conditions than the present
one. We feel that one critical construct which
might be part of such an extension is frequency of
contact. The reason for our view is simply that in
all probability, persons who do not have frequent
contact with each other become uncertain about
each other; i.e., as the time between contacts
increases, persons opinions, beliefs, and behaviors
can change due to the influence of other persons
and events. When two persons face each other
after a long period of separation, they may have to
go through a certain amount of biographicdemographic scanning behavior in order t o update their knowledge of each other. Thus,
because of the possible strong link between contact frequency and uncertainty level, an extension
of the present formulation would have to take into
account this relationship.
In a broader social perspective, Toffler (1970)
has suggested that the rate of social change in the
United States is increasing. One ingredient in the
accelerated rate of change is the high level of
mobility experienced by both individuals and families. If the rate of social change is indeed increasing and persons are becoming more mobile, then
the necessity for going through the process explicated by the present model increases. Persons who
experience frequent moves and the necessity of
making new friends must go through the uncertainty reduction process more frequently than less
mobile persons. The crucial social question is
whether there is an upper limit of uncertainty that
the individual can tolerate. If there is, then it
would seem imperative that techniques be developed to help highly mobile persons form stable
relationships with others as quickly as possible.
For example, perhaps information about new
neighbors could be provided to a family about to
move into a new neighborhood. Advanced information about neighbors might aid the new family
in their adaptation to the new environment. While
this process may seem artificial and not very
spontaneous, it could help the highly mobile
family anchor themselves more quickly in their
new environment.
We believe that the present formuIation serves
to bring together a diverse body of findings as well
as to generate predictions for future research.
Some of the theorems generated by the model
have already received strong empirical support
while others have not been subjected to direct test.
Obviously, there are other relevant constructs
which might be explicitly incorporated into the
model. Some of these constructs will no doubt be
derived from the failure of the present model to
predict particular relationships. Thus, our view is
that the present formulation is a first effort.
Hopefully, subsequent research and reformulation
will result in a more general theory of the developmental aspects of interpersonal communication.
NOTES
1. The procedure for explicating the axioms and
theorems of the present theory is taken from
Blalock (1 969). Blalock suggests that assumed
ton, 1973.
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