Communication is a complex and multifaceted process that involves the exchange of information, ideas, and emotions between individuals. In the realm of communication theory, the Expectancy Violations Theory (EVT) stands out as a framework for understanding how people perceive and react to unexpected or unconventional behavior during interactions. Developed by Judee Burgoon in the late 1970s, EVT sheds light on how violations of social norms and personal space can influence our communication and relationships.
Expectancy Violations Theory is built on two fundamental concepts:
Expectancy: Expectancies are the predictions or beliefs individuals have about how others will behave during interpersonal interactions. These expectations are influenced by factors such as cultural norms, personal experiences, and context.
Violation: Violation occurs when someone’s behavior deviates from what is expected. These violations can be either positively or negatively valenced, meaning they can be perceived as either favorable or unfavorable.
Factors Influencing Expectancies
Several factors shape the expectations individuals hold in social and interpersonal interactions:
Context: The specific setting or situation can significantly influence expectations. For example, behavior that is acceptable at a party may not be suitable in a formal business meeting.
Relationship: The nature of the relationship between communicators plays a crucial role. Expectations may differ significantly between close friends, acquaintances, and professional colleagues.
Cultural Norms: Cultural norms and values strongly influence the expectations individuals have regarding communication. What is considered a violation in one culture may be perfectly normal in another.
Personal Traits: An individual’s personality traits and characteristics can also impact their expectations. For instance, an extroverted person may have different expectations about conversational dynamics than an introverted person.
Key Principles of Expectancy Violations Theory
EVT is grounded in several key principles that help us understand how people react to violations of their expectations:
Arousal and Cognitive Processing
One of the central principles of EVT is that expectancy violations create arousal, prompting individuals to pay closer attention to the communicator and the situation. This heightened arousal leads to cognitive processing, where individuals try to make sense of the violation and the intentions behind it.
Violation Valence
Expectancy violations can be either positively valenced (pleasant) or negatively valenced (unpleasant). Whether a violation is perceived positively or negatively depends on factors such as the nature of the relationship, cultural norms, and individual preferences.
Communicator Reward Valence
Communicator reward valence refers to the overall assessment of a communicator’s desirability based on factors such as attractiveness, credibility, and trustworthiness. This assessment influences how individuals react to violations. For example, a violation by a highly desirable communicator may be perceived more positively than a violation by a less desirable communicator.
Adaptation
EVT posits that individuals have a threshold for the amount of violation they can tolerate. When violations occur, individuals may adapt their communication behaviors to restore balance and reduce the discomfort caused by the violation. Adaptation strategies can include reciprocating the violation, altering the relationship, or avoiding further interaction.
Applications of Expectancy Violations Theory
Expectancy Violations Theory has numerous practical applications in various contexts, including:
Interpersonal Relationships
EVT offers valuable insights into how violations of personal space, communication norms, and expectations can impact relationships. It helps individuals navigate their own behaviors and reactions in relationships and offers guidance on how to manage violations to maintain healthy interpersonal connections.
Advertising and Marketing
In advertising and marketing, EVT is applied to understand how unexpected or unconventional advertisements can capture consumers’ attention and influence their perceptions of products and brands. Marketers use expectancy violations strategically to create memorable and persuasive campaigns.
Public Speaking and Presentation
Public speakers and presenters can use EVT principles to engage their audiences effectively. By strategically incorporating violations, such as humor or unexpected anecdotes, speakers can capture the audience’s attention and enhance the overall presentation.
Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
In negotiation and conflict resolution, understanding EVT can help parties anticipate and manage the reactions of others to violations of expectations. It can aid in finding common ground and resolving disputes more effectively.
Criticisms of Expectancy Violations Theory
While Expectancy Violations Theory has been influential in the field of communication, it is not without its criticisms:
Cultural and Contextual Variability
One criticism of EVT is its limited applicability across different cultural contexts. Cultural norms and expectations vary widely, making it challenging to apply a universal theory of expectancy violations. What may be considered a violation in one culture could be the norm in another.
Lack of Predictive Power
EVT has been criticized for its limited predictive power. It can explain why individuals react to specific violations but does not provide a comprehensive framework for predicting how individuals will respond in all situations. It is more descriptive than predictive.
Subjectivity in Assessment
The assessment of communicator reward valence and the perceived valence of violations can be highly subjective. What one person finds attractive or credible, another may not. This subjectivity can limit the theory’s precision.
Overemphasis on Negative Valence
Some critics argue that EVT places more emphasis on negative valence violations than on positive valence ones. While it acknowledges positive violations, it tends to focus more on discomfort and negative reactions.
Real-World Examples
To better understand how EVT operates in real-world scenarios, consider the following examples:
Example 1: Personal Space Violation
Imagine you are having a conversation with a colleague in a professional setting, and they stand much closer to you than you would expect. This personal space violation may create arousal and prompt you to adjust your behavior. Your perception of the violation’s valence may depend on factors such as your relationship with the colleague and the cultural norms in your workplace.
Example 2: Surprise Marriage Proposal
A surprise marriage proposal can be an example of a positive expectancy violation. When someone proposes in an unexpected or unconventional manner, it can create a positive violation that leads to heightened arousal and a positive emotional response. The recipient may feel pleasantly surprised and emotional, even though the proposal deviates from traditional expectations.
Example 3: Unconventional Advertising
Advertisers often use expectancy violations to capture viewers’ attention. Consider a humorous or provocative advertisement that breaks traditional advertising norms. The violation of expectations can create arousal and prompt viewers to remember the advertisement and the product it promotes.
Conclusion
Expectancy Violations Theory provides valuable insights into how people perceive and react to unexpected behaviors and communication deviations. It underscores the role of arousal, cognitive processing, and communicator reward valence in shaping our responses to violations of social norms and expectations. While EVT has its limitations and criticisms, it remains a useful framework for understanding the dynamics of communication in various contexts, from interpersonal relationships to advertising and public speaking.
Key Points:
Expectancy Violations Theory (EVT): Developed by Judee Burgoon, EVT explains how people perceive and react to unexpected or unconventional behavior during interactions based on violations of social norms and personal space.
Expectancy and Violation: EVT is based on two concepts: expectancy, which refers to predictions about others’ behavior, and violation, which occurs when behavior deviates from expectations.
Factors Influencing Expectancies: Context, relationship dynamics, cultural norms, and personal traits influence individuals’ expectations in social interactions.
Key Principles of EVT: EVT principles include arousal and cognitive processing, violation valence, communicator reward valence, and adaptation.
Applications: EVT has practical applications in interpersonal relationships, advertising and marketing, public speaking and presentation, negotiation and conflict resolution.
Criticisms: EVT faces criticisms regarding cultural and contextual variability, lack of predictive power, subjectivity in assessment, and overemphasis on negative valence violations.
Real-World Examples: Examples such as personal space violations, surprise marriage proposals, and unconventional advertising illustrate how EVT operates in different contexts.
Conclusion: Despite criticisms, EVT remains a valuable framework for understanding communication dynamics and the impact of expectancy violations on interpersonal interactions and various other contexts.
Convergent thinking occurs when the solution to a problem can be found by applying established rules and logical reasoning. Whereas divergent thinking is an unstructured problem-solving method where participants are encouraged to develop many innovative ideas or solutions to a given problem. Where convergent thinking might work for larger, mature organizations where divergent thinking is more suited for startups and innovative companies.
The concept of cognitive biases was introduced and popularized by the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972. Biases are seen as systematic errors and flaws that make humans deviate from the standards of rationality, thus making us inept at making good decisions under uncertainty.
Second-order thinking is a means of assessing the implications of our decisions by considering future consequences. Second-order thinking is a mental model that considers all future possibilities. It encourages individuals to think outside of the box so that they can prepare for every and eventuality. It also discourages the tendency for individuals to default to the most obvious choice.
Lateral thinking is a business strategy that involves approaching a problem from a different direction. The strategy attempts to remove traditionally formulaic and routine approaches to problem-solving by advocating creative thinking, therefore finding unconventional ways to solve a known problem. This sort of non-linear approach to problem-solving, can at times, create a big impact.
Bounded rationality is a concept attributed to Herbert Simon, an economist and political scientist interested in decision-making and how we make decisions in the real world. In fact, he believed that rather than optimizing (which was the mainstream view in the past decades) humans follow what he called satisficing.
The Dunning-Kruger effect describes a cognitive bias where people with low ability in a task overestimate their ability to perform that task well. Consumers or businesses that do not possess the requisite knowledge make bad decisions. What’s more, knowledge gaps prevent the person or business from seeing their mistakes.
Occam’s Razor states that one should not increase (beyond reason) the number of entities required to explain anything. All things being equal, the simplest solution is often the best one. The principle is attributed to 14th-century English theologian William of Ockham.
The Lindy Effect is a theory about the ageing of non-perishable things, like technology or ideas. Popularized by author Nicholas Nassim Taleb, the Lindy Effect states that non-perishable things like technology age – linearly – in reverse. Therefore, the older an idea or a technology, the same will be its life expectancy.
Antifragility was first coined as a term by author, and options trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Antifragility is a characteristic of systems that thrive as a result of stressors, volatility, and randomness. Therefore, Antifragile is the opposite of fragile. Where a fragile thing breaks up to volatility; a robust thing resists volatility. An antifragile thing gets stronger from volatility (provided the level of stressors and randomness doesn’t pass a certain threshold).
Systems thinking is a holistic means of investigating the factors and interactions that could contribute to a potential outcome. It is about thinking non-linearly, and understanding the second-order consequences of actions and input into the system.
Vertical thinking, on the other hand, is a problem-solving approach that favors a selective, analytical, structured, and sequential mindset. The focus of vertical thinking is to arrive at a reasoned, defined solution.
Maslow’s Hammer, otherwise known as the law of the instrument or the Einstellung effect, is a cognitive bias causing an over-reliance on a familiar tool. This can be expressed as the tendency to overuse a known tool (perhaps a hammer) to solve issues that might require a different tool. This problem is persistent in the business world where perhaps known tools or frameworks might be used in the wrong context (like business plans used as planning tools instead of only investors’ pitches).
The Peter Principle was first described by Canadian sociologist Lawrence J. Peter in his 1969 book The Peter Principle. The Peter Principle states that people are continually promoted within an organization until they reach their level of incompetence.
The straw man fallacy describes an argument that misrepresents an opponent’s stance to make rebuttal more convenient. The straw man fallacy is a type of informal logical fallacy, defined as a flaw in the structure of an argument that renders it invalid.
The Streisand Effect is a paradoxical phenomenon where the act of suppressing information to reduce visibility causes it to become more visible. In 2003, Streisand attempted to suppress aerial photographs of her Californian home by suing photographer Kenneth Adelman for an invasion of privacy. Adelman, who Streisand assumed was paparazzi, was instead taking photographs to document and study coastal erosion. In her quest for more privacy, Streisand’s efforts had the opposite effect.
As highlighted by German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer in the paper “Heuristic Decision Making,” the term heuristic is of Greek origin, meaning “serving to find out or discover.” More precisely, a heuristic is a fast and accurate way to make decisions in the real world, which is driven by uncertainty.
The recognition heuristic is a psychological model of judgment and decision making. It is part of a suite of simple and economical heuristics proposed by psychologists Daniel Goldstein and Gerd Gigerenzer. The recognition heuristic argues that inferences are made about an object based on whether it is recognized or not.
The representativeness heuristic was first described by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. The representativeness heuristic judges the probability of an event according to the degree to which that event resembles a broader class. When queried, most will choose the first option because the description of John matches the stereotype we may hold for an archaeologist.
The take-the-best heuristic is a decision-making shortcut that helps an individual choose between several alternatives. The take-the-best (TTB) heuristic decides between two or more alternatives based on a single good attribute, otherwise known as a cue. In the process, less desirable attributes are ignored.
The bundling bias is a cognitive bias in e-commerce where a consumer tends not to use all of the products bought as a group, or bundle. Bundling occurs when individual products or services are sold together as a bundle. Common examples are tickets and experiences. The bundling bias dictates that consumers are less likely to use each item in the bundle. This means that the value of the bundle and indeed the value of each item in the bundle is decreased.
The Barnum Effect is a cognitive bias where individuals believe that generic information – which applies to most people – is specifically tailored for themselves.
First-principles thinking – sometimes called reasoning from first principles – is used to reverse-engineer complex problems and encourage creativity. It involves breaking down problems into basic elements and reassembling them from the ground up. Elon Musk is among the strongest proponents of this way of thinking.
The ladder of inference is a conscious or subconscious thinking process where an individual moves from a fact to a decision or action. The ladder of inference was created by academic Chris Argyris to illustrate how people form and then use mental models to make decisions.
Goodhart’s Law is named after British monetary policy theorist and economist Charles Goodhart. Speaking at a conference in Sydney in 1975, Goodhart said that “any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” Goodhart’s Law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
The Six Thinking Hats model was created by psychologist Edward de Bono in 1986, who noted that personality type was a key driver of how people approached problem-solving. For example, optimists view situations differently from pessimists. Analytical individuals may generate ideas that a more emotional person would not, and vice versa.
The Mandela effect is a phenomenon where a large group of people remembers an event differently from how it occurred. The Mandela effect was first described in relation to Fiona Broome, who believed that former South African President Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s. While Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and died 23 years later, Broome remembered news coverage of his death in prison and even a speech from his widow. Of course, neither event occurred in reality. But Broome was later to discover that she was not the only one with the same recollection of events.
The bandwagon effect tells us that the more a belief or idea has been adopted by more people within a group, the more the individual adoption of that idea might increase within the same group. This is the psychological effect that leads to herd mentality. What in marketing can be associated with social proof.
Moore’s law states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles approximately every two years. This observation was made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965 and it become a guiding principle for the semiconductor industry and has had far-reaching implications for technology as a whole.
Disruptive innovation as a term was first described by Clayton M. Christensen, an American academic and business consultant whom The Economist called “the most influential management thinker of his time.” Disruptive innovation describes the process by which a product or service takes hold at the bottom of a market and eventually displaces established competitors, products, firms, or alliances.
Value migration was first described by author Adrian Slywotzky in his 1996 book Value Migration – How to Think Several Moves Ahead of the Competition. Value migration is the transferal of value-creating forces from outdated business models to something better able to satisfy consumer demands.
The bye-now effect describes the tendency for consumers to think of the word “buy” when they read the word “bye”. In a study that tracked diners at a name-your-own-price restaurant, each diner was asked to read one of two phrases before ordering their meal. The first phrase, “so long”, resulted in diners paying an average of $32 per meal. But when diners recited the phrase “bye bye” before ordering, the average price per meal rose to $45.
Groupthink occurs when well-intentioned individuals make non-optimal or irrational decisions based on a belief that dissent is impossible or on a motivation to conform. Groupthink occurs when members of a group reach a consensus without critical reasoning or evaluation of the alternatives and their consequences.
A stereotype is a fixed and over-generalized belief about a particular group or class of people. These beliefs are based on the false assumption that certain characteristics are common to every individual residing in that group. Many stereotypes have a long and sometimes controversial history and are a direct consequence of various political, social, or economic events. Stereotyping is the process of making assumptions about a person or group of people based on various attributes, including gender, race, religion, or physical traits.
Murphy’s Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Murphy’s Law was named after aerospace engineer Edward A. Murphy. During his time working at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949, Murphy cursed a technician who had improperly wired an electrical component and said, “If there is any way to do it wrong, he’ll find it.”
The law of unintended consequences was first mentioned by British philosopher John Locke when writing to parliament about the unintended effects of interest rate rises. However, it was popularized in 1936 by American sociologist Robert K. Merton who looked at unexpected, unanticipated, and unintended consequences and their impact on society.
Fundamental attribution error is a bias people display when judging the behavior of others. The tendency is to over-emphasize personal characteristics and under-emphasize environmental and situational factors.
Outcome bias describes a tendency to evaluate a decision based on its outcome and not on the process by which the decision was reached. In other words, the quality of a decision is only determined once the outcome is known. Outcome bias occurs when a decision is based on the outcome of previous events without regard for how those events developed.
Hindsight bias is the tendency for people to perceive past events as more predictable than they actually were. The result of a presidential election, for example, seems more obvious when the winner is announced. The same can also be said for the avid sports fan who predicted the correct outcome of a match regardless of whether their team won or lost. Hindsight bias, therefore, is the tendency for an individual to convince themselves that they accurately predicted an event before it happened.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
