Analysis Of Judee Burgoon 's Expectancy Violations Theory

People expect others to remain a certain distance away depending on the relationship they have with someone. The closer a person is to another relationship wise (friends, relatives, partners) the more acceptable it is to be physically closer to them. The opposite can be said when strangers invade one’s personal boundaries at times it can be more than just uncomfortable having someone stand too close can also be seen as threatening. In an individualistic society, such as the one in the United States, being independent is highly encouraged. Rather than “all for one and one for all” people are told to work hard for themselves not for society as a whole. By sitting next to strangers not only did I infiltrate their boundaries but I also distracted them from their work by putting them in an uncomfortable situation. Since most subjects continued to do their work and mind their own business they held their needs as more important than interacting with me. When those two girls had an actual conversation with me and saw me as a friendly stranger rather than threatening they did not necessarily consider my needs but they did acknowledge my presence enough to set aside their work even if just for a moment. Being the social creatures that we are talking to others can put people at ease seeing that the people I sat next to took out their phones I saw that even though they did

The acceptable distance for a conversation between adults is greatly affected by the cultural background of the participants

Communication takes place in any and all locations, intentionally and unintentionally, and it can be positive or negative. Many of our personal traits and character qualities can affect how we communicate with other people, and how they communicate with us. Recently, I had an experience that further proved this point to me in a very real and tangible way.

To function effectively in today’s society people must communicate with one another. Yet for some individuals communication experiences are so unrewarding that they either consciously or unconsciously avoid situations where communication is required. (McCroskey & Richmond, 1979) The term ‘communication apprehension’ was coined by James McCroskey (1976a) and is defined as “an individual’s level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons” (McCroskey, 1984). In the last two decades communication apprehension and related constructs, such as reticence and unwillingness to communicate, have received extensive research and theoretical attention by scholars in communication and

The concept out of group one I found most intriguing were verbal communication rules such as regulative and constitutive. Together communication rules are collective understandings among members of a specific culture or social group about what communications means and which behaviors are acceptable in various situations. Communication is guided by rules can be learned through being socialized from a specific culture and the rules can monitor your communication and how we take to meaning of communication of others. The first form of communication I’m going to cover is regulative communication which is regulating interactions by identifying when, where, how, and with whom to converse about certain topics. Depend on upbringing in your culture you live in can dictate the behavior and communication response when conversing with others. For example in a formal environment such as a business meeting normally no one would interrupt when someone is making a formal presentation. In an informal environment such as a conversation of basketball players at the bar it might be appropriate to interrupt somebody when conversing. The culture I was brought up in is different depends on the person I’m communicating with and the environment. When my mother is talking to me I cannot disrupt her until she is done or ask me a question. If I do anything besides that in her eyes is being a defying child. On

According to Dyer (2013), the most commonly violated expectations are communication, decision-making, and conflict resolution and processes. The communication is a method to deliver messages between member to member in which communicating is necessary to accomplish the task effectively and obtain desire goal. The expectation of communication is easily violated because the members could have used a delivery method that violates the expectation of the member. In the Department of Defense (DoD), personal information that includes social security number and any personal sensitive information must be transmitted via encrypted message when sending the information electronically in accordance with 32 CFR 806b.29 (U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2013, p. 45). All members of the DoD expect the personal information be transmitted via encrypted message; however, the violation mostly occurs unintentionally. Thus, the sender who sent the personal sensitive information via unencrypted email has violated the expectation of the receiver and the sender has violated

Conversation is a ritual every person must encounter throughout their lives in order to function properly with one another in today’s society. However, every individual has a “different idea about what’s appropriate” when approaching someone in any sort of conversation; that is why we are referred to as individuals (Tannen 327). There are thousands of diverse languages to speak to one another with, in fact that means there are thousands of different ways to offend each other with our words. Within those languages there are several contrasting gestures that can offend any single person, such as the amount of times individuals apologize in one meeting, giving criticism too harshly, or thanking someone so often it does not seem genuine. In the article “What Do You Mean,” Deborah Tannen touches upon apologies, criticism, and thank yous in further detail to explain where individuals go wrong within conversation and how they can fix their actions. Individuals find it satisfying to please others by being polite because it is the ‘right’ thing to do, however like myself others need to stand up for themselves and get directly to the point now in order to avoid conflict later in life.

Most of the time it’s just human nature to give someone so much room and when someone violates that space it just feel extremely awkward.  Most people don’t think about personal space it just happens and they only tend to think about is when people invade that space and then it becomes a problem.  After doing this I am really going to make it priority to give people their space I never really thought about it till now.  I learned that personal space is really important because it gives some one room to breathe. After doing this experiment I am really going to look at how much space people give me because with that space I am able to tell what kind of relationship the other person thinks we have and I will be able to act

Lastly is Public distance, which is 10 feet and beyond. The Public distance can be described as the public distance, giving you plenty of space between the message sender and receiver. In this distance, effective communicators adjust their nonverbal behavior to conform to the communicative rules of their

When it is said in pratt “Descriptions of interactions between people in conversation, classrooms, medical and bureaucratic settings, readily take it for granted that the situation is governed by a single set of rules or norms shared by all participants” (326). We are misguided and take it for granted because we are missing parts of our heritage also we are missing part of other cultures, so we don’t fully understand. As it is given to us in few bits and pieces. Well, where are you going with this? From my experience

“Expectancy violations exert significance on people’s interaction patterns, on their impressions of one another, and on the outcomes of their interactions” (Burgoon 1993:40). In other words, Judee Burgoon, founder of the expectancy violation theory, concluded from various experiments that people evaluate communication with others in a negative or positive regard, based on their expectation of the interaction and their opinion of the communicator. When people do not act in accordance with ones expectations, one resorts to evaluating their communication behavior, be it verbal or non verbal as well as how this behavior makes one feel. The following essay will further explore and explain the

In this era, one has to set a standard where respect is earned in all things. When you raise your demeanor, E. Goffman termed it as status, according to him there are three types of status and these are the following: Ascribed status (One that you are assigned based on biological factors such as race, sex, or age.) Achieved status (One that is earned through an individual’s own effort.) Master status (Status that has priority over all other statuses and generally determines a person’s overall position in society. The most common master statuses are those based on gender and race.) According to Goffman, we use various mechanisms, called sign vehicles, to present ourselves to others. The most commonly employed sign vehicles are the following: Social setting, appearance, the manner of interacting. The social setting is the physical place where interaction occurs. It could be a doctor’s examination room, a hallway, someone’s home, or a professor’s office. How we arrange our spaces, and what we put in them, conveys a lot of information about us. A person who lives in a large home with security guards, attack dogs, and motion detectors conveys the message that he or she is very important, wealthy, and powerful, and probably that uninvited visitors should stay away. On the other hand, the owner of a house with no fence, lots of lights, and a welcome mat would seem much more inviting

Sociologist Erving Goffman coined the term “ civil intention to refer to the ways in which people maintain a comfortable social order in public spaces by explicitly disattending to one another and their actions”. For example, when we go to public places, we rarely see people having a short conversation or even say hello to each other. In fact, this definition and epitome prove that the civil intention's phenomenon has become more common in modern life. Even though people operate civil inattention, in a particular situation they break the rules.

Expectations do not always align with the reality of a situation. Attempting to predict an individual’s response or reaction can be difficult due to the fact that a reaction takes into account pre-existing and external factors. Burgoon’s Expectancy Violations Theory analyses people’s reactions to unanticipated violations of social norms or expectations. This theory discusses many of the different factors that play a role when individuals form their expectancies such as context, relationship, communicator characteristics, and nonverbal communication.

Throughout the semester, we have studied numerous communication theories. Their purpose is to help understand exactly what happens when we interact with others. We might not necessarily agree with all of the theories, but the idea is to develop tools to evaluate situations we may encounter. Often, when the theories are explained in the readings or lecture, it is beneficial to apply the concepts to a "real life" situation. Using this approach, I will use a situation that many of us have faced, or will face, and analyze it according to a particular communication theory.