Uncertainty Reduction Theory

Observation #10

February 25, 2015

Uncertainty Reduction Theory

A week ago I took my second little brother through my fraternity.  Tonight we sat in the study lounge of DeHority to get to know each other a little better.  We have known each other for about a month now and I feel like we have really gotten through most of the awkward getting to know you stages of our friendship; however, there are still many things that we do not know about each other.  For example, tonight he told me a story about why he decided to go Greek and disclosed a lot of private information that he had only told one other brother.  This story went on for quite awhile and all the time I simply let him speak without ever getting a turn to say much.

We talked about Uncertainty Reduction Theory being useful towards three types of people.  I believe the main reason that my little and I are trying to reduce our uncertainty towards each other involves the fact that I will clearly see him again and we can anticipate future interactions.  In our interactions tonight, we can look at several axioms to create several theorems from the theory as well.

First, it is necessary to resolve that uncertainty reduced between myself and my little.  According to the theory, one axiom states that verbal communication should therefore go up.  We can note this increase by realizing that we were meeting in person to chat with each other the night before my blog posts were due.  Also during this time, my little self disclosed some personal information that he had not told other people.  This follows axiom four from the theory.  Lastly, axiom five stated that as uncertainty decreased, so would our reciprocity during communication.

Combining these axioms allows us to create theories.  For example, as my little disclosed information about himself to me, our reciprocity dropped as he was allowed to tell his story without me budging in to make a comment or ask a question.

Social Judgement Theory

Observation #9
February 24, 2015
Social Judgement Theory

Growing up Catholic, I hear a lot of arguments against same sex marriage.  People around me say that homosexuals go to hell and that the Bible condemns same sex relationships, yet I believe that same sex couples deserve the same respect and dignity that heterosexual couples deserve.  A few months ago, I heard it said that same sex attraction was a biological malfunction and that it should not be acted upon, but it is not in itself a sin.  This notion that people who suffer from same sex attraction should be degraded because of a biological difference still baffles me and pushes me more into agreeing with idea that same sex couples should be allowed marriage rights.

I think that the first thing that I have to do when talking about same sex marriage is to realize that I have a very small latitude of acceptance and non commitment, yet two large latitudes of rejection of both sides.  My acceptance in equal marriage rights stems from the economic and societal benefits of being classified as married.  In today's society, partners in a civil union cannot see each other in the hospital or receive tax benefits as can married couples.  Because of the research and benefits and I have learned about marriage, I am able to see marriage beyond the scope of a close-minded Catholic who only sees marriage as a sacred bond.  In fact, I also see eye-to-eye with the Catholic church; therefore, my anchor lies on the idea that marriage equality is fine, but same sex couples should not be married in a church.

When I first hear an opinion, I judge its distance from this stance and then decide how I will react to it.  This reaction is ultimately gauged by a shift in my anchor towards or away from the idea.  More often than not, people will state ideas that are in my latitude of rejection and therefore cause me to shift my anchor further away from whatever point they are trying to prove.  This boomerang effect happens because the suggestion is not on the cusp of non commitment, yet still in my acceptance range, but instead falls within my rejection region.

Social Information Processing Theory

Observation #8
February 24, 2015
Social Information Processing Theory

I think that everything on Tinder can be explained by the Social Information Processing Theory, but there is this one girl on Tinder who I have have been talking to for about two weeks now.  She goes to Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne so I have really no way of communicating with her face-to-face right now and so Tinder is really all we have; however, I do believe that we are moving pretty steadily.  Within these two weeks I have learned quite a bit about her, but it is nice because I am able to respond to her questions when I am free and she can then respond to me when she finds time.  Additionally, I probably smudge the truth a bit when talking to her (oops) so that she will think that I am a little bit better than I am (running really does sound like a great concept and I am sure I would do it if we ever met and she liked running).

According to the Social Information Processing Theory, my relationship with this girl will progress about four times as slow as a normal relationship because it lacks nonverbal clues; however, I believe that the asynchronous nature of Tinder allows for a nonverbal clue not found in face-to-face interactions.  Since she is able to respond at her own convenience, I can gauge how engaged she is in the conversation based on how quickly she responds after I say something.  There are times when we will be talking and it will be going great, but then there are other times when there will be a sudden, unexplained pause from one of us.

Additionally, because I do not have to see her, it is easier to select the self that I wish to present to her.  Sometimes I get into a pickle when I bring up that I used to run cross country - I have not ran cross country in about seven years now, but it still seems applicable in so many conversations when people bring up working out.  There is something in me that always wants to run, but until these opportunities to present myself in this light arise, the part of me that wants to run is always overshadowed.

Symbolic Convergence

Observation #7
February 24, 2015
Symbolic Convergence

I served as Director of Stewardship this year for Ball State University Dance Marathon.  There were twenty-one other members on the executive council.  Each Wednesday, we would meet for our weekly exec meetings and they would typically last around two hours.  Each meeting began with a question to get to know everyone a little better.  These questions could range anywhere from our power song to our goals for the year, but the only thing we all knew when we went into the question was that it would get extremely off topic.

Even though our exec meetings each week were geared towards discussing goals and ideas for our upcoming weeks until the marathon, we would often discuss during these meetings things that would never actually happen.  For example, we would spend ten minutes discussing multiple ways that we might get recognition from John Green or Ellen Degeneres, yet we all realized that the likelihood of this happening was zero.  Though these were off topic, the theory of Symbolic Convergence notes that these group chains allowed the group to come together.  It later became a running joke that whenever we would try to discuss an idea, we would try to figure out how it could tie in to our overarching dream of attracting attention from Ellen (we never did).

Even though we all knew that these discussions about getting Ellen to come to our marathon would get us nowhere, we still continued to have them.  I think that at the end of the day, this fantasy drew us together because it kept our mind off of the stress of our positions for awhile and allowed us to see where we all wanted this marathon to go.  We knew that Ellen was not a realistic possibility, but through dreaming to have Ellen at our marathon, I think that we were able to bring some great people like President Paul Ferguson and current Miss Indiana to our marathon.

Interactional View

Observation #6
February 24, 2015
Interactional View

I briefly described this situation in class, but basically I have come to accept a sequence of events in my family.  When I come home for breaks, my family likes to ask if I have changed my major yet (I have a history of changing it a lot).  When they realize that I have not changed my major, my mom complains that I never call home, then my brother complains that I have downgraded from my initial major of Actuarial Science.  I am not sure who decided that my happiness should not be considered in how good a major is for me, but I bite my tongue and play along anyways.  He is a third year law school student anyways, so he clearly knows more than me about life.

This is a game that my family likes to play.  When I come home, I already know the sequence of questions I will be asked along with my stock answers to every question.  The rules have been set from day one.  I once tried to rock the boat and give a response that would be unexpected, but it was reprimanded and I have since gone back to my usual responses.  This is how my family operates.  We have a certain family homeostasis in our family and I have been pegged as the child who will not stand up for himself or rebel.  This made it extremely difficult for me to defend my decision to change to a Math Education major during my freshman year and now makes it difficult to defend my decision to change to an Org. Comm major.

We talked about how the only way to break the family homeostasis is through metacommunication, but I do not think that this will ever work with my family.  I am not extremely close with my family and it still feels awkward when they want to have a group hug or chat about life.  I can only imagine the awkwardness that would ensue if we ever decided to look at the problems within our family's dynamic and work to break away from them.

Relational Dialectics

Observation #5
February 23, 2015
Relational Dialectics

As you have probably learned by now, Meagan and I are pretty close friends outside of the Communication Theory class.  I really appreciate Meagan and I's friendship because she is a spontaneous person, which is something that I would not consider myself.  Her spontaneity really shines when she gets bored.  This is when she suggests some pretty bizarre ideas (usually involving food).  For example, usually when we get lunch after this class, she suggests the Atrium since we do not have to go outside; however, on rare occasions she likes to spice up the lunch and suggest we go to Noyer.  While I thoroughly appreciate her trying to switch it up, we still usually go to the Atrium since it is cold outside.

This relates to Relational Dialectics with an internal dialectic tension.  Specifically, this situation responses to the tension between stability and change.  In this case, Meagan and I keep our stability of always getting lunch together on Wednesday and Friday after our Communication Theory; however, we still want to change our location from time to time.  This is an important balance in Meagan and I's relationship.  She enjoys keeping things more stable for me, yet I enjoy letting her change things about the lunch from time to time.  This interruption in stability allows our friendship to keep going and growing.  I prefer to know what to expect each Wednesday and Friday after class; however, I still want to have some sort of surprise.

Relational Dialectics suggests that this balance between change and stability is what keep Meagan and I's friendship afloat.  If we were to remove Meagan's spontaneity for change, then we would get bored with the same routine.  If we were to remove my preference for stability, then we would lose any consistency in our friendship and grow aggravated when we ran out of new things to do.

Social Penetration Theory

Observation #4
February 1, 2015
Social Penetration Theory

In September of my freshman year, one of the girls I had just met at the beginning of the year asked me about my love life before we watched a movie.  I felt extremely uncomfortable and basically just said that I was single; however, in the month that I had known her, we had talked extensively about the similarities and differences between our high schools.  Our two schools were considered "sister schools," yet neither of us really knew anything about the other's school until these discussions took place.  We would talk about our school policies, demographics, grading systems and diversity in great details, yet when my friend asked me about my love life, I wasn't having it.

According to the social penetration theory, each topic in our life has a certain breadth and depth on which we are willing to discuss it with people.  In this case, I was willing to talk with my friend in great breadth and depth about our high schools.  The breadth was wide because we talked about schooling in a variety of contexts, yet the depth was great because we did not stop at the surface of these topics, but continued further into the topics.  On the other hand, the breadth and depth of the conversation about my love life was almost nonexistent.  I would not tell her about past romances, current love life, or future hopes for my romances.

In this case, I was not willing self disclose much with my friend.  According to the social penetration theory, self disclosure leads to intimacy when it is gradual, orderly, and reciprocal.  I think that part of my lack in depth dealt with the non-gradual process that my friend tried to talk about my love life.  There was no gradual questions about who I was seeing or anything along those lines, but she jumped straight to asking me about my entire love life.  Also, it was not reciprocal in that she was only asking  for my love life, but never gave me any insight into her own.

Expectancy Violations Theory

Observation #3
February 1, 2015
Expectancy Violation Theory

I think that most of my friendship with Meagan can be explained by the Expectancy Violations Theory.  Today when she came to my room to talk about schoolwork, instead of saying, "Hello Max, how has your day been?" she sat on my lap and licked my face.  Also, she did not knock before coming into my room, but rather just walked in without notice.  Despite these strange behaviors,

According to the Expectancy Violations Theory, how we predict something to occur is based on context, relationship, and communicator characteristics.  In order to understand how the Expectancy Violations Theory explains my response to Meagan's unexpected behavior, we have to understand Meagan and I's friendship.  Meagan and I really only became friends in December after she started dating my soon to be housemate.  Since then, we have become extremely close- to the point where let down a lot of our guard while around each other.

The Expectancy Violations Theory includes a one to two step sequence to determine how someone will react to an unexpected violation of social norms.  The first step tells us to look at the violation itself.  In this case, I will look into Meagan licking my face (though the same sequence could be used to determine my reaction to her charging into my room).  Normally, someone licking my face will yield a negative remark in my mind; however, physical touch is my secondary love language so it makes sense that it might be more ambiguous.  Since the behavior is not always bad or always good, we move onto the second step - communicator reward valence.  In this case, we have to look at my perception of Meagan.  Because I see Meagan as a friend and not as a potential threat, I was able to perceive her strange actions in a positive light.