Week 11

In week 11, we studied about uncertainty reduction theory, which is a theory of interpersonal communication relationship development. According to Griffin (2009, p.125), "Berger notes that "the beginnings of personal relationships are fraught with uncertainties." What Berger trying to say is that, when we meet with someone for the first time, our main objective is to reduce the uncertainty or the doubt we have on that person. Trenholm and Jensen (1991, p.156) stated that "the more uncertainty we experience, the less we can predict events." Griffin (2009, p.125) also stated that this theory focuses on how the social interaction is used to increase the knowledge and to generate an understanding.

There is three condition that increases our wants or drive to reduce the uncertainty; "anticipation of future interaction" (Griffin, 2009, p.125), "incentive value" (Griffin, 2009, p.125) and "deviance" (Griffin, 2009, p.125).  Anticipation of future interaction is when you know that you are going to meet that person again. Incentive value is actually the benefit of having him or her as a friend. Deviance, which Napier and Gershenfeld (1993, p.155) define it as, "an act that violates a shared idea about what should or should not be done at a particular time."

In Griffin (2009, p.126), Berger stated that there is two types of uncertainty; behavioral questions and cognitive questions. Behavioral questions refers to how an individual should act or behave during certain situation when meeting someone new. Cognitive questions refers to how the person is as an individual, whether the person is shy or short-tempered or fussy.

In this uncertainty reduction theory, there is the axiomatic theory. The axiomatic theory is the certainty of uncertainty, by which a person has to go through a series of axioms to explain the relationship between uncertainty and the eight key variables. Axioms are what we see as truth without proving it. According to Grifffin (2009, p.126) are "verbal communication, nonverbal warmth, information seeking, self-disclosure, reciprocity, similarity, liking and shared networks."

The first axiom is verbal communication, if the verbal communication between people who just met increases, the uncertainty decreases. Griffin (2009, p.126) said that "as words begin to flow, you'll discover things about each other that make you feel more confident in each other's presence."

The second axiom is nonverbal warmth. Nonverbal means the body language, for example eye contact, body posture and so on. When there is an increase of nonverbal expressiveness, the uncertainty decreases. So when that person is already comfortable with the person, the body language will change from a stiff and awkward body posture to a more relaxing and less stressful  body posture.

Information seek is the next axiom, where the more information you seek about a person, the more the uncertainty you have on the person. Its the matter of trusting that person, the more you trust that person, there will be less question asked and hence less doubt about that person. There's three different strategies when seeking information; passive strategy, active strategy and interactive strategy.

Passive strategy is when the person is seeking information about the person just by observing him/her. Active strategy is seeking information of the other person via the third person, since the third person is a mutual friend so he/she must have info about the other person. Interactive strategy is seeking information via face-to-face directly with the other person.

The fourth axiom is self disclosure, where the more a person self disclose to the person he or she just met, the uncertainty level will lessen. The more intimate a person get with another person the doubtful feeling he or she have towards him or her will slowly fade. The fifth axiom is reciproctity, where according to Griffin (2009, p.127), when "high levels of uncertainty produce high rates of reciproctiy. Low levels of uncertainty produce low levels of reciprocity."

The sixth axiom is similarity. Where the more common thing they have, the uncertainty will reduce and the less common thing they have, the uncertainty will increase. The second last axiom is liking, the more a person like another person, the less the uncertainty there is. The last axiom is shared networks in which Griffin (2009, p.128) said that "shared communication networks reduce uncertainty, while lack of shared networks increases uncertainty."

Then there's theorems, where it is the logical force of uncertainty axioms. Griffin (2009, p.128) define theorem as "a proposition that logically and necessarily follows from two axioms." This theorems are created by pairing the axioms. To deal with uncertain responses, a message plan has been developed. Message plan is "mental representations of action sequences that may be used to achieve goals." (Griffin, 2009, p.129). In others words, we think before we talk. There is three strategy in message plan; seeking information, plan complexity and hedging. Seeking information has been explained above. Plan complexity is "a characteristic of a message plan based on the level of detail it provides and the number of contingencies it covers." (Griffin, 2009, p.131). Hedging is the "use of strategic ambiguity and humor to provide a way for both parties to save face when a message fails to achieve its goal."

There's another one strategy which is hierarchy hypothesis. Griffin (2009, p.131) define it as "the prediction that when people are thwarted in their attempts to achieve goals, their first tendency is to alter lower-level elements of their message." When a person don't understand what you say, we switch our modes of talk so that they understand, like talking slowly or explaining what you just said even further.

Another theory also created by this theory which is the Anxiety Uncertainty Management theory, which is an intercultural theory. Where this theory states that the more uncertainty and anxiety will lead to misunderstanding between strangers who don't communicate well. The aim of Anxiety Uncertainty Management theory is the effective communication not how close you get to that person. Effective communication is "the extend to which a person interpreting a message does so in a way that's relatively similar to what was intended; minimizing misunderstanding. " (Griffin, 2009, p.132).

For this theory I'm going to use the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith as an example. The movie showed how Mr. Smith, played by Brad Pitt, and Mrs. Smith, played by Angelina Jollie, met. They met at a foreign country, where Mrs. Smith came into the hotel and stared at Mr. Smith for a few minutes or so. This shows axiom 2, non-verbal warmth It also showed axiom 3, information seeking, by using the passive strategy. Mr. Smith brought Mrs. Smith inside the room and they started to communicate with each other, where axiom 1, verbal communication can be seen. Later after that event, they hung out at a bar and raise a glass of alcohol to dodging bullets. This show that they have self disclose each other and they also had similarities. They started dancing together later in the movie which shows non-verbal warmth and before they dance, Mrs. Smith asked whether Mr. Smith could dance, which shows seeking information and using the interactive strategy. When they started kissing shows that axiom 7, liking, to a level called love.


References:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7th ed.). Glencoe, IL: McGraw Hill.


Trenholm, S. and Jensen, A. (1991). Interpersonal Communication (2nd Ed.). California: Wadsworth Publishing Company.