Expectancy violations theory
Expectancy violations theory is a theory of communication that analyzes how individuals respond to unanticipated violations of social norms and expectations. The theory was proposed by Judee K. Burgoon in the late 1970s and continued through the 1980s and 1990s as "nonverbal expectancy violations theory", based on Burgoon's research studying proxemics. Burgoon's work initially analyzed individuals' allowances and expectations of personal distance and how responses to personal distance violations were influenced by the level of liking and relationship to the violators. The theory was later changed to its current name when other researchers began to focus on violations of social behavior expectations beyond nonverbal communication.
This theory sees communication as an exchange of behaviors, where one individual's behavior can be used to violate the expectations of another. Participants in communication will perceive the exchange either positively or negatively, depending upon an existing personal relationship or how favorably the violation is perceived. Violations of expectancies cause arousal and compel the recipient to initiate a series of cognitive appraisals of the violation. The theory predicts that expectancies influence the outcome of the communication interaction as either positive or negative and predicts that positive violations increase the attraction of the violator and negative violations decrease the attraction of the violator.
Beyond proxemics and examining how people interpret violations in many given communicative contexts, EVT also makes specific predictions about individuals' reaction to given expectation violations: individuals reciprocate or match someone's unexpected behavior, and they also compensate or counteract by doing the opposite of the communicator's behavior.
Components
The EVT examines three main components in interpersonal communication situations: Expectancies, communicator reward valence, and violation valence.Expectancy
Expectancy refers to what an individual anticipates will happen in a given situation. Expectancies are primarily based upon social norms and specific characteristics and idiosyncrasies of the communicators.Burgoon notes that people do not view others' behaviors as random. Rather, they have various expectations of how others should think and behave. EVT proposes that observation and interaction with others leads to expectancies. The two types of expectancies noted are predictive and prescriptive. Predictive expectations are "behaviors we expect to see because they are the most typical," and vary across cultures. They let people know what to expect based upon what typically occurs within the context of a particular environment and relationship. For example, a husband and wife may have an evening routine in which the husband always washes the dishes. If he were to ignore the dirty dishes one night, this might be seen as a predictive discrepancy. Prescriptive expectations, on the other hand, are based upon "beliefs about what behaviors should be performed" and "what is needed and desired". If a person walks into a police department to report a crime, the person will have an expectation that the police will file a report and follow up with an investigation.
Judee Burgoon and Jerold Hale categorize existing expectations into two types based on the process of interaction: pre-interactional and interactional expectations. Pre-interactional expectations are the package of knowledge and skills a person already has before entering a conversation. For example, aggressive attitudes may not be expected if previous experience has not included dealing with similar attitudes. Interactional expectations form the abilities equipped to conduct an ongoing conversation. Proper reactions and nodding to show listening behaviors are expected in a conversation.
When the theory was first proposed, EVT identified three factors which influence a person's expectations: Interactant variables, environmental variables, and variables related to the nature of the interaction. Interactant variables are the traits of those persons involved in the communication, such as sex, attractiveness, race, culture, status, and age. Environmental variables include the amount of space available and the nature of the territory surrounding the interaction. Interaction variables include social norms, purpose of the interaction, and formality of the situation.
These factors later evolved into communicator characteristics, relational characteristics, and context. Communicator characteristics include personal features such as an individual's appearance, personality and communication style. It also includes factors such as age, sex, and ethnic background. Relational characteristics refer to factors such as similarity, familiarity, status and liking. The type of relationship one individual shares within another, the previous experiences shared between the individuals, and how close they are with one another are also relational characteristics that influence expectations. Context encompasses both environment and interaction characteristics. Communicator characteristics lead to distinctions between males and females in assessing the extent to which their nonverbal expressions of power and dominance effect immediacy behaviors. Immediacy cues such as conversational distance, lean, body orientation, gaze, and touch may differ between the genders as they create psychological closeness or distance between the interactants.
Behavioural expectations may also shift depending on the environment one is experiencing. For example, a visit to a church will produce different expectations than a social function. The expected violations will therefore be altered. Similarly, expectations differ based on culture. In Europe, one may expect to be greeted with three kisses on alternating cheeks, but this is not the case in the United States.
Communicator reward valence
The communicator reward valence is an evaluation one makes about the person who committed a violation of expectancy. Em Griffin summarizes the concept behind communicator reward valence as "the sum of positive and negative attributes brought to the encounter plus the potential to reward or punish in the future". The social exchange theory explains that individuals seek to reward some and seek to avoid punishing others. When one individual interacts with another, Burgoon believes he or she will assess the "positive and negative attributes that person brings to the encounter". If the person has the ability to reward or punish the receiver in the future, then the person has a positive reward valence. Rewards simply refer to the person's ability to provide a want or need. It can be represented by several features, such as communicators with high social class, reputation, knowledge, positive emotional support, physical attractiveness, and so on. The term 'communicator reward valence' is used to describe the results of this assessment. For example, people will feel encouraged during conversation when the listener is nodding, making eye contact, and responding actively. Conversely, if the listener is avoiding eye contact, yawning, and texting, it is implied they have no interest in the interaction and the speaker may feel violated. The deviation of expectations does not always yield negative results, which depends on the degree of reward held by the reward communicator. An action might be viewed as positive by a high-reward communicator, as the same action might be seen as negative by a lower-reward communicator.When examining the context, relationship, and communicator's characteristics in a given encounter, individuals will arrive at an expectation for how that person should behave. Changing even one of these expectancy variables may lead to a different expectation. For example, in different cultures, directly looking into a speaker's eyes, especially in a personal conversation, can represent distinct meanings.
Violation valence
Behavior violations arouse and distract, calling attention to the qualities of the violator and the relationship between the interactants. A key component of EVT is the notion of violation valence, or the association the receiver places on the behavior violation. A violatee's response to an expectancy violation can be positive or negative, and is dependent on two conditions: positive or negative interpretation of the behavior and the nature of the violator. The nature of the violator is evaluated through many categories – attractiveness, prestige, ability to provide resources, or associated relationship. For instance, a violation of one's personal distance might have more positive valence if committed by a wealthy, powerful, physically appealing member of the opposite sex than a filthy, poor, homeless person with foul breath. The evaluation of the violation is based upon the relationship between the particular behavior and the valence of the actor. A person's preinteractional expectancies, especially personal attributes, may cause a perceiver to evaluate the communication behaviorof a target differently in terms of assigning positive and negative valenced expectancies.
Another perspective of violation valence is that the perceived positive or negative value assigned to a breach of expectations is inconsequential of who the violator is. This perspective places much greater weight on the act of the breach itself than the violator.
Arousal
Expectancy violations refer to actions which are noticeably discrepant from an expectancy and are classified as outside the range of expectancy. The term 'arousal value' is used to describe the consequences of deviations from expectations. When individuals' expectations are violated, their interests or attentions are aroused.When arousal occurs, one's interest or attention to the deviation increases, resulting in less attention paid to the message and more attention to the source of the arousal. There are two kinds of arousals. Cognitive arousal is an idea that people will be mentally aware of the violation. Physical occurs when people have body actions and behaviors in response to the deviations from their expectations. For example, when one experiences physical arousal, he or she chooses to move out of the physical space, keep the distance with other conversationalists, or stretch his or her body. Beth Le Poire and Judee Burgoon research to examine physical arousal in conversation. The result shows that after participants report their cognitive arousal, physically speaking, their heart rate decreases and pulse volume increase.