Lecture 1: COM 225

1
Lecture 1 COM 225

• The First Three minutes

2
The Relationship

• The basic unit of relationship is not the person
  nor two individuals but interaction, behaviors
  responding to other behaviors.

3
In the presence of other people

• you are always expressing something about your
  relationship with the other person, whether
  conscious or not.
• Patterns are established because any behavior is
  potentially communicative.

4
patterns

• a) One pattern that emerges is the symmetrical
  relationship where communications respond in the
  same way and sometimes lead to power struggles.
• b) Another pattern is the complementary
  relationship where communications respond in
  opposing ways and has the potential for
  dominant-submissive relationships.

5
Charles Bergers Uncertainty Reduction Theory
(URT)

• addresses the basic process of how we gain
  knowledge about other people.
• 1. When we encounter a stranger we may have a
  strong desire to reduce uncertainty about this
  person.
• 2. People are motivated to predict behavior.
• 3. Our communication is planned to accomplish
  goals.
• 4. At highly uncertain moments we become more
  conscious of the planning we are doing.
• 5. Attraction of affiliation with another seems
  to positively correlate with uncertainty
  reduction.
• 6. Higher levels of uncertainty seem to create
  distance.

6
Howard Giles Accommodation Theory

• explains the ways in which people adjust their
  speech to one another.
• 1. Accommodation is usually a subconscious
  process.
• 2. Convergence occurs when two or more speakers
  speak more and more alike while divergence is
  when the speak more differently.
• 3. Accommodation can occur on a wide variety of
  behaviors.
• 4. Accommodation can be mutual or non mutual,
  partial or complete.
• 5. Accommodation is usually out of awareness.

7
Accommodation can have positive or negative
effects.

• a) Positive effects occur when accommodation
  leads to identification and bonding.
• b) Negative effects occur when accommodation is
  based on false perceptions.

8
(No Transcript)