Communication Competence 9783110317459, 9783110317053

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Annegret F. Hannawa and Brian H. Spitzberg (Eds.) Communication Competence

Handbooks of Communication Science

Edited by Peter J. Schulz and Paul Cobley

Volume 22

Communication Competence Edited by Anngret F. Hannawa and Brian H. Spitzberg

DE GRUYTER MOUTON

The publication of this series has been partly funded by the Università della Svizzera italiana – University of Lugano.

ISBN 978-3-11-031705-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-031745-9 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-039522-8 ISSN 2199-6288 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Oliver Rossi/Photographer’s Choice RF/Gettyimages Typesetting: Meta Systems Publishing & Printservices GmbH, Wustermark Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series This volume is part of the series Handbooks of Communication Science, published from 2012 onwards by de Gruyter Mouton. When our generation of scholars was in their undergraduate years, and one happened to be studying communication, a series like this one was hard to imagine. There was, in fact, such a dearth of basic and reference literature that trying to make one’s way in communication studies as our generation did would be unimaginable to today’s undergraduates in the field. In truth, there was simply nothing much to turn to when you needed to cast a first glance at the key objects in the field of communication. The situation in the United States was slightly different; nevertheless, it is only within the last generation that the basic literature has really proliferated there. What one did when looking for an overview or just a quick reference was to turn to social science books in general, or to the handbooks or textbooks from the neighbouring disciplines such as psychology, sociology, political science, linguistics, and probably other fields. That situation has changed dramatically. There are more textbooks available on some subjects than even the most industrious undergraduate can read. The representative key multi-volume International Encyclopedia of Communication has now been available for some years. Overviews of subfields of communication exist in abundance. There is no longer a dearth for the curious undergraduate, who might nevertheless overlook the abundance of printed material and Google whatever he or she wants to know, to find a suitable Wikipedia entry within seconds. ‘Overview literature’ in an academic discipline serves to draw a balance. There has been a demand and a necessity to draw that balance in the field of communication and it is an indicator of the maturing of the discipline. Our project of a multi-volume series of Handbooks of Communication Science is a part of this coming-of-age movement of the field. It is certainly one of the largest endeavours of its kind within communication sciences, with almost two dozen volumes already planned. But it is also unique in its combination of several things. The series is a major publishing venture which aims to offer a portrait of the current state of the art in the study of communication. But it seeks to do more than just assemble our knowledge of communication structures and processes; it seeks to integrate this knowledge. It does so by offering comprehensive articles in all the volumes instead of small entries in the style of an encyclopedia. An extensive index in each Handbook in the series, serves the encyclopedic task of finding relevant specific pieces of information. There are already several handbooks in sub-disciplines of communication sciences such as political communication, methodology, organisational communication – but none so far has tried to comprehensively cover the discipline as a whole.

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For all that it is maturing, communication as a discipline is still young and one of its benefits is that it derives its theories and methods from a great variety of work in other, and often older, disciplines. One consequence of this is that there is a variety of approaches and traditions in the field. For the Handbooks in this series, this has created two necessities: commitment to a pluralism of approaches, and a commitment to honour the scholarly traditions of current work and its intellectual roots in the knowledge in earlier times. There is really no single object of communication sciences. However, if one were to posit one possible object it might be the human communicative act – often conceived as “someone communicates something to someone else.” This is the departure point for much study of communication and, in consonance with such study, it is also the departure point for this series of Handbooks. As such, the series does not attempt to adopt the untenable position of understanding communication sciences as the study of everything that can be conceived as communicating. Rather, while acknowledging that the study of communication must be multifaceted or fragmented, it also recognizes two very general approaches to communication which can be distinguished as: a) the semiotic or linguistic approach associated particularly with the humanities and developed especially where the Romance languages have been dominant and b) a quantitative approach associated with the hard and the social sciences and developed, especially, within an Anglo-German tradition. Although the relationship between these two approaches and between theory and research has not always been straightforward, the series does not privilege one above the other. In being committed to a plurality of approaches it assumes that different camps have something to tell each other. In this way, the Handbooks aspire to be relevant for all approaches to communication. The specific designation “communication science” for the Handbooks should be taken to indicate this commitment to plurality; like “the study of communication”, it merely designates the disciplined, methodologically informed, institutionalized study of (human) communication. On an operational level, the series aims at meeting the needs of undergraduates, postgraduates, academics and researchers across the area of communication studies. Integrating knowledge of communication structures and processes, it is dedicated to cultural and epistemological diversity, covering work originating from around the globe and applying very different scholarly approaches. To this end, the series is divided into 6 sections: “Theories and Models of Communication”, “Messages, Codes and Channels”, “Mode of Address, Communicative Situations and Contexts”, “Methodologies”, “Application areas” and “Futures”. As readers will see, the first four sections are fixed; yet it is in the nature of our field that the “Application areas” will expand. It is inevitable that the futures for the field promise to be intriguing with their proximity to the key concerns of human existence on this planet (and even beyond), with the continuing prospect in communication sciences that that future is increasingly susceptible of prediction.

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Note: administration on this series has been funded by the Università della Svizzera italiana – University of Lugano. Thanks go to the president of the university, Professor Piero Martinoli, as well as to the administration director, Albino Zgraggen. Peter J. Schulz, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano Paul Cobley, Middlesex University, London

Contents Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series

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I.

Introduction

1

Annegret F. Hannawa and Brian H. Spitzberg Welcome to the Handbook of Communication Competence

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II. Paradigms and perspectives

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Philip M. Backlund and Sherwyn P. Morreale Communication competence: Historical synopsis, definitions, applications, 11 and looking to the future

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Charles Pavitt Theoretical approaches to communicative competence

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Jason S. Wrench and Narissra Punyanunt-Carter Epistemological approaches to communication competence

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III. Codes

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Robert E. Sanders Competence in speaking in interactions

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Laura Guerrero and Leslie Ramos-Salazar Nonverbal skills in emotional communication

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Ulla Bunz and David Montez Computer-mediated communication competence

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IV. Components

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Chris R. Sawyer and Virginia P. Richmond Motivational factors and communication competence

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John O. Greene and Jenna McNallie 213 Competence knowledge

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Contents

Brian H. Spitzberg 10 The composition of competence: Communication skills

V.

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Personal factors

Michael J. Beatty and Paola Pascual-Ferrá 11 Genetics and communication competence Michael L. Hecht and Yu Lu 12 Culture and competence: Ethnicity and race

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VI. Contexts Tamara D. Afifi and Samantha Coveleski 13 Relational competence 317 William R. Cupach 14 Communication competence in the management of conflict

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Linda L. Putnam and Samantha Rae Powers 15 Developing negotiation competencies 367 Pamela Shockley-Zalabak 16 Communication competence in organizations and groups: Historic and emerging perspectives 397 Allen I. Huffcutt, Satoris S. Culbertson and Sarah E. Riforgiate 17 Functional forms of competence: Interviewing 431 Sherwyn P. Morreale 18 Instructional communication competence in higher education Marleah Dean and Richard L. Street, Jr. 19 Managing uncertainty in clinical encounters

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Stella Ting-Toomey and Tenzin Dorjee 20 Intercultural and intergroup communication competence: Toward an integrative perspective 503 Laura Stafford 21 Social communicative competencies across the life span

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VII. Intervention and assessment Brian H. Spitzberg 22 Assessing the state of assessment: Communication competence

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Joann Keyton 23 Outcomes and the criterion problem in communication competence 585 research Lynne Kelly and James A. Keaten 24 The transformation of everyday talk: The impact of communication 605 technology on notions of communication competence Vincent R. Waldron and Stephen Yungbluth 629 25 Training and intervention

VIII. The dark side of communication competence Loreen N. Olson 26 The dark underbelly of communication competence: How something good 657 can be bad? Annegret F. Hannawa 27 Miscommunication and error Anne M. Nicotera 28 Verbal and physical aggression

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IX. Epilogue Brian H. Spitzberg 29 Problems, paradoxes, and prospects in the study of communication 745 competence Biographical sketches Subject index Author index

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I. Introduction

Annegret F. Hannawa and Brian H. Spitzberg

1 Welcome to the Handbook of Communication Competence Beyond some of the basic necessities of survival, almost everything that matters to humans is derived from and through communication. How we learn the rules and norms of our language and culture, how we establish and negotiate relationships, how we manage production and markets, how we organize collective activities of governance and protection, and how we find meaning in the things we do on an everyday basis are all achieved entirely through the process of communication. Just because people communicate every day, however, does not mean that they are communicating competently. Numerous studies indicate that a meaningful proportion of the population experiences difficulties competently negotiating the necessities of everyday life through their communication. Particularly, research has evidenced that sizeable percentages of the “normal” population lack fundamental literacy and communication abilities. Bassett, Whittington and Staton-Spicer (1978), for example, found that approximately a third of the U.S. adult population was “functionally incompetent” in the basic skills of math, reading, and problem solving (see also Ilott 2001). A major attempt to assess the literacy of U.S. adults in 2002 estimated that 5 % of the U.S. population lacks English competency, 14 % lack basic prose competency (i.e., ability to “search, comprehend, and use information from continuous texts”), and 12 % lacked basic document literacy (i.e., ability to “search, comprehend, and use information from non-continuous texts in various formats” National Center for Education Statistics 2003: 2). An alternative way of thinking about population levels of competence is illustrated by asking what percentage of everyday interactions “go poorly” rather than well. Zelenski and Larsen (2000) found that although most encounters involved happiness and relaxation, 45 % of days involved boredom–frustration–anxiety emotions, and 16 % involved fear–anger–disgust. Spitzberg and Cupach (2007) reviewed various estimates of dark side experiences, including anger, breaches of propriety, bullying, communicative apprehension, disaffinity, discouraging conversations, hassles, hurt feelings, profanity, social rejection, sexual aggression, sexual harassment, shyness, social stress, threats, or troublesome relationships. The relative ubiquity with which most people encounter one or more of these forms of relationship or interaction suggests that interpersonal communication presents a minefield of challenges to competence. The available evidence indicates that there is a substantial need for better interpersonal skills among a significant proportion of the populace. Presumably, the rest of the population has room for meaningful improvement as well. While there is evidence that good communication experiences outnumber bad communication

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experiences in everyday life (e.g., Drury et al. 1998; Duck et al. 1991), the less frequent negative communication encounters may disproportionately influence wellbeing (Baumeister, et al. 2001; Rook 1984). This presumption is derived from a basic set of syllogistic axioms: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Communication constitutes relationships. Relationships are vital to quality and quantity of life. Therefore, communication is vital to quality and quantity of life. The greater the competence of communication, the greater the relationship quality. 5. The greater the relationship quality, the greater the quality of life. 6. Therefore, the greater the competence of communication, the greater the quality of life. Competence in communicating is clearly fundamental to social functioning. Some of the features that characterize modern society, however, pose new challenges to social interaction skills and make the concept of communication competence increasingly complex. For example, given the rapid evolution of technology as an integral medium for communicating, new competencies will be required as the divisions between interpersonal and mass communication increasingly dissolve (Hwang 2011; Kelly et al. 2010; Ledbetter 2009; Lee 2010; Spitzberg 2006).

Nature of the present volume Existing handbooks on this topic area have not discussed the implications of these societal changes in sufficient depth. The current literature also lacks a comprehensive reference book that stretches beyond disciplinary boundaries and discusses the foundational themes of communication competence in a systematic way. Our “Handbook of Communication Competence” extends the existing sources by providing a contemporary and comprehensive coverage of the major topics concerning the nature and achievement of appropriate and effective communication, primarily in interpersonal interactions.

Structure and contents The Handbook of Communication Competence is divided into twelve sections. The first section encompasses this introduction. Part II of the book contains three chapters that focus on historical and contemporary paradigms and perspectives on communication competence. In Chapter 2, Philip Backlund and Sherwyn Morreale trace the history of interpersonal competence inquiry and describe its evolution high-

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lighting significant milestones in the educational setting, outlining definitional issues, and the manner in which communication competence has influenced scholarship in other fields of study. In Chapter 3, Charles Pavitt applies three sets of communication theories to the subfield of communication competence; the first set including theories that describe how competent communication is produced, the second set explaining the genesis of competent interaction, and the third set accounting for observer judgments of communicator competence. In Chapter 4, Jason Wrench and Narissra Punyanunt-Carter critically review the historical evolution of methods for studying communication competence including both traditional survey-based research methods as well as emerging methods in behavioral analysis, simulation, and virtual reality. The third part of the handbook encompasses three chapters that discuss communication competence in light of the different codes of communication. Robert Sanders (Chapter 5) surveys empirical and theoretical work that accounts for the competence of speakers to make meaningful contributions to verbal interactions. Laura Guerrero and Leslie Ramos-Salazar (Chapter 6) discuss nonverbal skills related to encoding and decoding emotion in interpersonal interaction, with particular focus on emotional expressivity, emotional sensitivity, and emotional intelligence, highlighting how these and other skills contribute to developing and maintaining satisfying relationships. Finally, Ulla Bunz and Daniel Montez (Chapter 7) summarize the history and key theoretical and methodological paradigms of computermediated communication competence, highlighting its related core concepts and future research trends. Part IV entails three chapters that discuss the components of communication competence. First, Chris Sawyer and Virginia Richmond (Chapter 8) elaborate how motivational factors predict cognitive and behavioral patterns and social functioning in humans. John Greene and Jenna McNallie (Chapter 9) focus on knowledge resources persons need in order to communicate competently, concluding their review of memory systems and knowledge implementation in light of action assembly theory. Brian Spitzberg (Chapter 10) concludes the section with a chapter on the conceptualization and contents of communication skills. Part V of the handbook features two chapters that examine personal factors related to communication competence. Michael Beatty and Paola Pascual-Ferrá (Chapter 11) discuss research and theory related to aspects of competent social behaviors that are functions of neurobiological structures determined by genetic inheritance. Michael Hecht and Yu Lu (Chapter 12) explain cultural competence and its applications to relationships among various racial and ethnic groups; an important context in which language and other differences pose obstacles, challenges, and opportunities. The sixth section of the handbook elaborates communication competence in various contexts. The nine chapters in this section discuss 1. aspects of communication skills and competencies in close interpersonal relationships (Tamara Afifi

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and Samantha Coveleski), 2. the nature and functions of competent and incompetent forms of conflict communication (William Cupach), 3. definitions, characteristics, historical and contemporary perspectives on core communicative competencies that are essential for effective negotiation (Linda Putnam and Samantha Powers), 4. major historic perspectives and emerging trends of communication competency in a turbulent organizational world (Pamela Shockley-Zalabak), 5. effective and appropriate communication in employment interviews (Allen Huffcutt, Satoris Culbertson and Sarah Riforgiate), 6. main concerns, theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding communication competence in instructional settings (Sherwyn Morreale), 7. communicative skills of clinicians that can assist patients with managing uncertainty in clinical encounters (Marleah Dean and Richard Street), 8. theoretical trends and research issues on communication competence from intercultural and intergroup perspectives (Stella Ting-Toomey and Tenzin Dorjee), and 9. the development and evolution of communication skills across the life-span (Laura Stafford). Part VII of the handbook entails four chapters that discuss communication competence assessments and interventions. Brian Spitzberg (Chapter 22) examines the nature of measuring and operationalizing communication competence, presenting a taxonomy of measures and establishing a vocabulary of the basic concepts related to the assessment of communication competence. Joann Keyton (Chapter 23) reviews how communication competence research has identified and addressed the issues of outcomes, considering common categorizations, research designs, the role of context, and future directions. Lynne Kelly and James Keaten (Chapter 24) discuss the implications of channel choice and incorporation of mediated channels into everyday talk for the meaning of communication competence. Finally, Vince Waldron and Stephen Yungbluth (Chapter 25) review efforts to enhance communication competence through training and interventions in various contextual settings of relational, organizational, and community life. The eighth part of the handbook features three chapters that consider various aspects of the “dark side” of communication competence. Loreen Olson (Chapter 26) examines the dark side of competence in an attempt to further current theoretical and practical understandings of interpersonal skills and to capture the full essence of what it means to be a skilled communicator. Annegret Hannawa (Chapter 27) delivers a thought-provoking perspective on communication competence theory and research by introducing miscommunication and human error as normative standards underlying all human interactions. Anne Nicotera (Chapter 28) concludes the dark side section with a chapter in which she reviews the literature and key theoretical models on interpersonal verbal and physical aggression. In Part IX of the handbook, Brian Spitzberg delivers a stimulating epilogue in which he critically reflects upon the body of communication competence research that has accumulated to date. In his provocative epilogue, Spitzberg raises a number of enduring problems and paradoxes that reflect an inherent concern for great-

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er interdisciplinary recognition of the research and theorizing that is being done in the broader academy. Finally, Parts X–XII conclude our handbook with biographical sketches of the contributing authors, a glossary of terms, and an author index.

Conclusion Communication competence is vital to health, relationships, and all collective human endeavors. This volume gathers scholars from across the globe to examine the various facets of communication competence, including its history as an organizing concept, to its essential components and its application in interpersonal, group, institutional, and societal contexts. The book provides a state-of-the-art review for scholars and graduate students of communication science, as well as practitioners in counseling, developmental, health care, educational, intercultural consulting, and human resource management contexts. Its international and interdisciplinary scope makes it an indispensable reference that stands out among existing resources on the market. We hope that our handbook will stimulate heuristic discussions among scholars and practitioners whose work focuses on this research domain, and that it will advance communication competence scholarship into innovative future directions.

References Bassett, Ronald E., Nilwon Whittington and Ann Staton-Spicer. 1978. The basics in speaking and listening for high school graduates: What should be assessed? Communication Education 27. 293–303. Baumeister, Roy F., Ellen Bratslavsky, Catrin Finkenauer and Kathleen D. Vohs. 2001. Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology 5. 323–370. Drury, John, Liza Catan, Catherine Dennison and Roz Brody. 1998. Exploring teenagers’ accounts of bad communication: A new basis for intervention. Journal of Adolescence 21. 177–196. Duck, Steve, Deborah J. Rutt, Margaret H. Hurst and Heather Strejc. 1991. Some evident truths about conversations in everyday relationships: All communications are not created equal. Human Communication Research 18. 228–267. Hwang, Yoosun. 2011. Is communication competence still good for interpersonal media?: Mobile phone and instant messenger. Computers in Human Behavior 27. 924–934. doi:10.1016/ j.chb.2010.11.018 Ilott, Irene. 2001. Incompetence: An unspoken consensus. In: John Raven and John Stephenson (eds.), Competence in the Learning Society, 57–66. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Kelly, Lynne, James A. Keaten, Michael Hazel and Jason A. Williams. 2010. Effects of reticence, affect for communication channels, and self-perceived competence on usage of instant messaging. Communication Research Reports 27. 131–142. Ledbetter, Andrew M. 2009. Measuring online communication attitude: Instrument development and validation. Communication Monographs 76. 463–486.

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Lee, C. 2010. Managing perceived communication failures with affordances of ICTs. Computers in Human Behavior 26. 572–580. National Center for Education Statistics. 2003. National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL): A First Look at the Literacy of America’s Adults in the 21 st Century. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Education (NCES 206-470). Rook, Karen S. 1984. The negative side of social interaction: Impact on psychological well‑being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46. 1097–1108. Spitzberg, Brian H. and William R. Cupach (eds.). 2007. The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Spitzberg, Brian H. 2006. Preliminary development of a model and measure of computermediated communication (CMC) competence. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11. 629–666. Zelenski, John M. and Randy J. Larsen. 2000. The distribution of basic emotions in everyday life: A state and trait perspective from experience sampling data. Journal of Research in Personality 34. 178–197.

II. Paradigms and perspectives

Philip M. Backlund and Sherwyn P. Morreale

2 Communication competence: Historical synopsis, definitions, applications, and looking to the future Abstract: This chapter traces the history of communication competence as a concept and area of inquiry in the communication discipline. As a socio-psychological concept, competence was first examined by researchers in the early and middle 20th century, and has maintained a central place in both research and instruction since that time. The chapter describes the concept’s evolution over the years, highlights significant historical milestones in the educational setting, and outlines definitional issues and the manner in which communication competence has influenced scholarship in other fields of study. An international and intercultural perspective on communication competence and recommendations for future scholarly inquiry conclude the chapter. Keywords: communication competence, communication effectiveness, incompetence, rhetoric, liberal education, interpersonal competence, social judgment, intentionality, competence antecedents

Communication competence is similar to good art and pornography. Everyone knows it when they see it, but when pressed, they may have a difficult time describing what it is, exactly. It is not for want of trying. Over the past fifty years, scholars in the discipline of communication have written dozens of books and articles about communication competence, and the concept has evolved, expanded, and come to occupy a central place in the hearts and minds of communication scholars the world over (Rickheit and Strohner 2008). Indeed, as we shall see later in this chapter and in this volume, the concept has spread to many other fields and disciplinary areas of inquiry. This spread is a reflection of the centrality of spoken symbolic interaction in the lives and professions of literally every human being. While it is not the purpose of this chapter to provide a rationale for the importance of the instruction in communication (that was done earlier in Morreale and Pearson 2008), it is easy to find evidence that scholars across disciplines recognize the importance of communication and competence. One survey among business leaders revealed that a clear majority of employers believe that colleges and universities should place more emphasis on communication skills, critical thinking and analytical skills, and applied knowledge in real-world settings (Hart Research Associates 2013). Other national studies concur by pointing to the importance of instruction about the critical business communication skills needed in organizations and the workplace (Conrad and Newberry

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2012). Chapter 16 in this volume comprehensively describes the scholarship on communication competence in organizational settings and in groups. The recognition that communication knowledge and skills are important has become commonplace. Indeed, this is partly true because everyone communicates, and communication is the sine qua non of human existence. If everyone communicates, it is equally clear that not everyone communicates well all of the time. It is obvious that the degree to which individuals demonstrate competent communication varies widely from person to person. The basic question then becomes, what does competent communication look like? As the following chapters in this volume attest, and depending on the context and situation, this question is not always easy to answer. Parks (1994) said that there are many unknowns regarding communication competence, but there is also a remarkable level of societal consensus about what constitutes incompetence. When people “fail” at social interaction, say the wrong thing, damage someone’s self-esteem, or threaten others inappropriately, these people are frequently and easily judged as incompetent. Many communication scholars and teachers have addressed this incompetence, as well as strategies for achieving a satisfactory level of competence that would improve people’s lives. Communication researchers have devoted countless hours to studying a wide array of communication variables with the goal of identifying the predictors of successful communication. Educators have translated those research results into communication instruction designed to help students improve their communication. Many such research studies on instructional communication are documented in Chapter 18 of this volume. These three conditions – the centrality of communication to human existence, the fact that people vary in their ability to use communication effectively and appropriately, and our awareness of the value of instruction intended to improve a person’s ability to communicate – all provide a context for the development and refinement of the concept of communication competence. It is with these three conditions in mind that this chapter explores the origins, development, and expansion of this ubiquitous term. The chapter is divided into the following sections: – A synopsis of the historical evolution of the concept of competent communication; – Development of the concept in the national educational setting and communication discipline in the U.S.; – Definitions of communication competence and definitional issues; – A description of the components of communication competence; – Applications of communication competence in other fields and disciplines; – An international and intercultural perspective on the study of communication competence; – General recommendations for future scholarship on communication competence.

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1 The history and evolution of communication competence 1.1 Early roots in rhetoric We first consider the beginnings of competence in the study of rhetoric. Prior to the coining of the term communication competence, people analyzed the role of communication in human affairs and provided answers to the question “Why should we be concerned about human communication and its development?” While many have provided opinions, few have expressed it more eloquently than Cicero [1876]. It is by this one gift [the spoken word] that we are most distinguished from brute animals, that we converse together, and can express our thoughts by speech. Who therefore would not justly make this an object of admiration and think it worthy of the utmost exertions, to surpass mankind itself in that single excellence by which it claims superiority over brutes? (p. 187)

Clearly, Cicero conceived speech (oratory) as primarily being used to serve humanistic ends. This is an excellent rationale for the study of the spoken word, and for training in its use. Given this rationale, theorists and philosophers have attempted for eons to teach people how to use this unique and remarkable gift. One of the most celebrated of these, of course, was Aristotle [1941]. In a wide range of writings in the 4th century BCE, this Greek philosopher described the art and practice of rhetoric, of finding the available means of persuasion, and encouraging the development of its use by individuals and society. Aristotle described the effective and appropriate (that is, competent) speaker as someone who had the right blend of logic, emotion, and credibility. A Roman rhetorician, Quintilian [1903], writing in the 1st century CE, is widely credited with the phrase “a good man speaking well”. He brought a moral side to the question of competence. In his eyes, to be an effective speaker required a moral goodness in addition to knowledge and skills. Rhetoric continued for the next almost two thousand years as the organizing principle in discussions of competent communication. Minor embellishments occurred over the centuries, but the ideals of the ancient rhetoricians have remained remarkably resilient. During the Renaissance, rhetoric did shift emphasis to an aesthetic art with a central focus on proper conversational delivery, or “decorum” (Mohrmann 1972). Decorum requires delivery to be adapted with appropriate discretion to the context, and to the people in that context. This notion extended Aristotle’s admonition about analyzing the audience to a more empathetic orientation – being other-oriented.

1.2 Continuing evolution of communication competence The 18th and 19th centuries brought more interest in elocution and delivery. For example, Sheridan (1762) wrote that effective speaking included “the just and

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graceful management of the voice, countenance, and gesture in speaking” (p. 11). This emphasis implied that the competent communicator was one who “fit in and made the right impression”. This notion, as we will see, fits well with some of the later conceptualizations of the term. As the study of rhetoric moved into the 20th century, Richards (1965) took an interest in incompetent communication, focusing on the study of misunderstanding and its remedies. He developed an argument for what can be considered an essential element of competent communication: accuracy in meaning. Thus, according to Richards, the competent communicator communicates her/his meaning more accurately than a communicator who is judged less competent. Continuing the theme of rhetoric as the point of focus, Clark and Delia (1979) introduced the notion of goals and communication strategies to the discussion of rhetorical competence. They viewed rhetorical competence broadly as purposive, strategic message formulation. “The rhetorically competent speaker must not only define communicative goals, but must control the full resources of communication in fitting a message to concrete circumstances in accomplishing those defined ends” (1979: 193). The competent communicator then uses messages strategically to accomplish goals, and also intentionally controls the circumstances and context of the message environment. This point of view implies, perhaps, that a speaker cannot be accidentally competent even though an audience may judge the communicator as competent. Fisher (1980: 121) viewed rhetorical competence somewhat differently. He placed emphasis first on his belief that “the rationality of any verbal communicative interaction is grounded in rhetoric”. Next, he saw rhetoric as supported by the logic of good reasons, which suggests that rhetoric is a concept “that is selfperpetuating, nonmanipulative, bilateral, deliberative, reflexive, and attentive to data” (p. 121). He stated that “being reasonable, like being rational, is an essential ingredient of rhetorical competence” (p. 122). His view of rhetorical competence thus is less strategic than Delia’s. Fisher’s view supports more of a “come, let us reason together” approach, rather than the ability to construct communication strategies to achieve personal goals. Fisher’s view is reflected in later sources that emphasize the ability to work with other people in an effective and appropriate manner. Without a doubt, modern conceptions of communication competence have a solid foundation in the study of rhetoric. We next consider the origins of communication competence by examining its role in the educational arena over time. If we accept the two earlier points about the centrality of the spoken word in society and the importance of teaching individuals to become more competent communicators, we can examine the question: How does the concept of communication competence fit into the education of an individual?

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2 Development of communication competence in the national educational setting and communication discipline in the U.S. Educational theorists and philosophers have been and continue to be concerned with the goals of education. The question of educational goals or outcomes can be distilled down to this fundamental query: “If we are doing it right, what will an educated person look like?” The question is neither one of specific objectives, nor one of course content, but a macro view of the educated human being. Considering sixteen years of education (including college), considering the sum total of that experience, what constitutes the “fully educated person”? And what is the role of communication competence in that education? One recurring theme in discussions of educational goals is the concept of a “liberal” education. That notion has not lost relevance as many higher education institutions still struggle with articulating the role of general (liberal) education in the overall education of their students, and relatedly, the place of communication in that framework. Here is but one example of the early descriptions of liberal education. This quotation is taken from a committee representing the faculties of three universities: Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (General Education in School and College, 1953). The liberally educated man [sic] is articulate, both in speech and writing. He has feel for language, a respect for clarity and directness of expression, and knowledge of some language other than his own. He thinks logically, rationally, objectively, and knows the difference between fact and opinion. When the situation demands it, however, his thought is imaginative and creative rather than logical. (pp. 21–22)

The role of communication is readily apparent in this description that calls attention to the importance of using language effectively, speaking well, and clearly communicating to others. At about the same general time but before the concept of communication competence was identified, writers in communication studies also attempted to define the educated communicator. For example, Wallace, Smith, and Weaver (1963) said, “The field of speech is still committed to the ideal of the citizen-speaker first set up by the Roman schools, the ideal of a good man speaking well” (p. 333). Another notable communication scholar, Dance (1958), put it this way: The student must develop the ability to listen, view, and think critically; he must develop insight into his own speech habits; he must share in recent semantic investigations; and he must develop an awareness of socially accepted standards of good speech. (p. 152)

Dance and other communication educators continued attempts to define the goals of communication education, and (without using the term) to define the competent

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communicator. Their definitions served as springboards for developing educational strategies designed to increase the communication knowledge and skills of individuals. Then, as we moved along in time, factors in the educational arena outside communication studies lent urgency to the efforts and work within the communication discipline. The 1950s and the 1960s saw a number of writers describe perceived failures in the U.S.-American educational system. Books such as Silberman’s (1970) Crisis in the Classroom: The Re-making of American Education and Holt’s (1965/1982) How Children Fail, along with many other sources, pointed out a wide range of concerns and inadequacies in the education of the nation’s children. These concerns generated a number of national efforts designed to correct the perceived problems (Larson et al. 1978). Terms like “competency” and “competence” figured prominently in these efforts. Phrases such as “competency-based education”, “functional competencies”, and others were used to describe the specific knowledge and skills that contributed to mastery of a subject. In 1970, the terms “competence” and “competency” had not yet achieved their soon to be “fad” status, but that changed sharply in the mid-1970s. The competency movement swept the educational scene like few ideas before it. Literally dozens of educational reports called for a move to “competency-based” education. The federal government, most of the states, and most education associations climbed on the bandwagon, and evidence of increased attention to speaking and listening skills abounded. The federal government included speaking and listening in its definition of basic skills in 1978. That single event led to a significant increase in efforts by the states and their departments of education to define communication competence and develop curricula objectives for speaking and listening. As the states began to focus more attention on speaking and listening skills, academic associations in the communication discipline became involved.

2.1 The role of the National Communication Association The Speech Communication Association (SCA, which is now NCA) saw the competency movement as an opportunity to reach two important associational goals – to become more active in public education, and to increase the amount of time devoted to the teaching of speaking and listening skills in public schools. SCA’s official interest and support for the concept of communication competence began in 1973 with the initiation of the National Project of Speech Communication Competencies. The project was originated and sponsored by the SCA and supported with a grant from the Axe-Houghton Foundation (Allen and Brown 1976). The project culminated with the publication in 1976, Developing Communication Competence in Children: A Report of the Speech Communication Association’s National Project on Speech Communication Competencies, edited by Allen and Brown. The book described ef-

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fective and applied communication, including the means by which these aspects of communication behavior are learned and how they might enhance relationships. The endpoint of describing communication competence in Allen and Brown’s volume was the question of whether or not instruction can have any impact on the subsequent development of communication competence in children. Their review of the literature suggested that, in fact, communication instruction can positively impact future communication behaviors. In the summary of the volume, the authors foreshadowed later definitional efforts by describing communication competence in this manner: “Communication competence, unlike linguistic competence, involves an awareness of the transactions that occur between people. Competence in this perspective is tied to the actual performance of language in social contexts” (p. 248). The authors also came to the conclusion that communication behaviors leading to competence can be synthesized into five categories of communicative acts: 1. controlling behavior (self and others), 2. expression of feelings, 3. giving or seeking information, 4. facilitating social interaction through the performance of communication rituals, and 5. the ability to imagine. These five functions of communication then could form the basis for organizing communication instruction. Instruction in these areas, Allen and Brown held, would lead to increased communication competence. Brown (1976) also described the importance of interaction strategies as a part of interpersonal competence. He reviewed a number of definitions of interpersonal competence (Bochner and Kelley 1974; Foote and Cottrell 1955; Weinstein 1969) and concluded that competence, as a skill “is dependent upon the ability to take the role of another accurately, the possession of a varied and large repertoire of lines-of-action, and the possession of interpersonal resources that equip one with situationally appropriate tactics” (p. 72). He suggested that communication education can enhance a student’s communication repertoire and help develop the ability to take the role of the other. The National Communication (NCA) continued its exploration of communication competence with the publication of Assessing Functional Communication (Larson et al. 1978). This book’s focus on functional communication began with an attempt to distinguish between communication competence and communication effectiveness. Communication competence “implies a minimal level of ability, basically with respect to two characteristics: 1. meeting the minimal communicative demands of a situation and 2. exhibiting socially appropriate behaviors” (Larson et al. 1978: 2). For example, responding appropriately to a request for directions with recognition of the purpose of the request, and either providing the requested information or saying that, information is not known, would demonstrate minimal competence. “At the core of communication competence is the notion that communication is competent if it meets the functional demands of the situation” (p. 2). This source continued by reviewing other writers of the same time period who attempted to clarify communication effectiveness. For example, Bearison and Cas-

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sel (1975) spoke of communication effectiveness as the ability of a speaker to meet his/her listener’s information needs by coordinating the speaker’s own perspective of the communication topic with the perspective of the listener. McCroskey, Larson, and Knapp (1971) held that effectiveness could come from a wide range of outcomes including attaining communication goals, greater understanding, attitude or belief change, or even being liked by someone. In these writings, effectiveness seemed to imply the attainment of a personal goal beyond merely appropriately meeting the demands of the situation. As we will see in definitions provided in other sections of this chapter, communication competence became a blend of appropriateness (respecting norms and expectations) and effectiveness (goal attainment). Beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the present day, members of NCA and other disciplinary scholars in the U.S. developed suggested lists of competencies, as outlined in Table 1. These sources each attempt to identify the relevant dimensions of communication knowledge and skills that constitute a comprehensive description of competent communication. Tab. 1: U.S. Scholars’ descriptions of communication competencies, 1970s to present. Development of Functional Communication Competencies Pre K–Grade 6 and Development of Functional Communication Competencies Grades 7–12.

Barbara Wood (1976a, 1976b)

The basics in speaking and listening for high school graduates: What should be assessed?

Bassett, Whittington, and Staton-Spicer (1978)

Essential speaking and listening skills for elementary school students

Backlund (1985)

The progress of a study identifying the speaking and communication skills of college graduates

Corrallo (1994)

National Assessment of College Student Learning: Identifying College Graduate’s Essential Skills in Writing, Speech and Listening, and Critical Thinking

Jones (1995)

Communication is Life: Essential College Sophomore Speaking and Listening Competencies

Quianthy (1990)

Speaking, Listening, and Media Literacy Standards for K Through 12 Education

National Communication Association (1996)

What college students should know and be able to do

Rubin and Morreale (2000)

Communication curricula: History, recommendations, resources

Morreale and Backlund (2002)

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2.2 Communication competence in public education in the U.S. The efforts of NCA and public school language arts teachers did much to expand the inclusion of speaking and listening skills in public schools. This inclusion though was partially due to the competence movement and partially due to a widening recognition of the importance of speaking and listening instruction in public education. The competence movement declined in momentum by the middle of the 1980s. The efforts that followed, both at the K–12 and higher education levels, were motivated partly by the competence movement, but many of the changes in public schools regarding speaking and listening were not tied to “competence” directly. Other than occasional calls and reminders that communication competence should be an integral part of K–12 education, little of significance occurred until the Common Core English Language Arts State Standards were developed in 2008–2009 and adopted (at this writing) by 45 states (http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy Standards). In this national initiative, anchor standards were included for “Comprehension and Collaboration” and “Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas”. These communication standards/competencies were implemented in 2014–2015 and have the potential to significantly impact the teaching of communication in K–12 schools across the U.S. Against the backdrop just provided on the origins and development of the general notion of competent communication, we now turn our attention to a closer examination of definitions of the concept itself. Precisely, what is communication competence, and how has it been defined and conceptualized over time?

3 Definitions of communication competence and conceptual challenges Scholars and teachers have provided a variety of definitions of communication competence and related terms such as interpersonal competence, functional competence, and social competence. It is not the place of this chapter to sort out all these definitional opinions and arrive at the “best” definition. Rather, our purpose here is twofold: 1. to describe the evolutionary history of these definitions, and 2. to briefly illustrate the most central definitional issues. We begin with the word competence itself. In the preceding section, we described the emergence of the term as part of the competency movement in education during the 1950s and 1960s. The competency movement, for all of its positive effects, did not sufficiently define the word competence. Years later, Parks (1994) noted that the concept of competence means many things to different people and he suggested that a number of issues must be considered before any sort of coherent conceptualization can be determined. These issues, among others, included a basic definition of competence, whether competence is to be judged from an actor’s

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or an observer’s perspective, whether competence entails cognition or behavior, whether people are competent in some generalized sense or only in terms of specific situations, and whether competence requires behavior that is both appropriate and effective. Many of the questions raised by Parks were addressed comprehensively by Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) and in this volume in Chapters 3, 8, 9, and 10. The summary that follows is necessarily brief, and the reader is referred to the clarifying work of Spitzberg and Cupach for more in-depth examination of these issues.

3.1 Origins of definitions Early writings on communication competence followed patterns similar to the emergence of any new concept with a focus on the questions: “How do we define it?” and “How do we separate it from similar concepts?” Beginning with the word competence, Argyris (1965) provided a well-accepted definition of the term when he stated “The competence of a living organism means its fitness or ability to carry on those transactions with the environment, which result in its maintaining itself, growing and flourishing” (p. 59). Many later writers echoed that basic definition. Argyris continued by saying the competent organism is one that has the “knowledge and skills to interact effectively with its environment so that its existence is maintained and possibly enhanced” (p. 15). Most interesting in this description is the emphasis on knowledge and skills that are appropriate to the context. These characteristics will be reflected in later descriptions of the nature and essential components of communication competence. Another early writer, Hymes (1971), used the term to refer to the knowledge an individual has about the use of language in communication. Hymes pointed out that the first and perhaps most important definitional issue is a question about competence being rooted in knowledge or in behavior. Chomsky (1965), in combining the term competence with linguistics, made a distinction between linguistic competence and linguist performance in that competence was “… the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his language … the finite system of rules that enable him to comprehend and produce an infinite variety of novel sentences” (Nicholson 1974: 4). This view excluded performance, because “… performance is not competence but the expression or realization of competence in behavior” (Larson et al. 1978: 16). The distinction made by Chomsky between competence and performance fit for describing linguistics. However, harking back to Argyris’ emphasis on environment and behavior, theorists in communication competence moved away from Chomsky’s distinction to a full consideration of the role of behavior in defining communication competence. Building on these explanations, early definitions focused on behavior. Wiemann (1977) defined communication competence as “the ability of an interactant to choose among available communicative behaviors in order that he may success-

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fully accomplish his own interpersonal goals, while maintaining the face and line of his fellow interactants within the constraints of the situation” (p. 195). Backlund (1978) pointedly defined it as “the ability of an individual to demonstrate knowledge of the appropriate communicative behavior in a given situation” (p. 21). Parks (1994) offered this definition: “Communicative competence represents the degree to which individuals perceive they have satisfied their goals in a given social situation without jeopardizing their ability or opportunity to pursue their other subjectively more important goals” (p. 175). These definitions seem to stress communicating effectively and appropriately, regardless of what the situation expects of the individual. We now explore the challenge of understanding communication competence by considering some of the referents contained in these definitions in more depth.

3.2 Communication competence and competent behavior The notion of behavior as integral to communication competence had its beginnings during the same period as Chomsky’s description of linguistic competence. Indeed, competent behaviors came to be seen as necessary to individual mental health. In the 1950s, Sullivan (1953) placed interpersonal competence at the center of effective human functioning. Later, Wine (1981) described a new health competence model that echoed Sullivan and situated competent behavior at the center of positive human functioning and mental health. This theme was extended in the 1960s and 1970s through the development of the human potential movement. Maslow (1964) described the necessity for competent (though he didn’t use that term) communication as a component of the “fully actualized person”. Peak human functioning, in Maslow’s view, was based in communication and relationships with others. Rogers (1965) focused even more on communication behaviors in his description of the “ideal” person in On Becoming a Person. These books, and numerous others, attempted to identify the characteristics of positive human functioning and adjustment that would lead not only to social competence, but also to richer, more rewarding lives, all based on competent communication. At about the same time, Hymes (1971) indicated that competence is understood to be dependent on two things: (tacit) knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge to both reach personal goals and to enhance life. Conversely, other writers described the relationship between social incompetence and mental illness. For example, Zigler and Phillips (1960, 1961) and Zigler and Levine (1981) conducted a number of studies that correlated the inability to communicate competently in social situations with a variety of mental illnesses and pathologies. At the risk of over-simplifying the point, competent communication behavior is an indicator of a competent person; incompetent communication may indicate a range of personal and mental issues.

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Writings on both sides of this issue, actualization and pathology, clearly conceived of competent communication as situated in social judgments of mental health. If a person seeks to be a mentally healthy human being, then that person must learn the behaviors of a competent communicator. This point then leads to a consideration of competence as a social phenomenon.

3.3 Communication competence and social judgment If we accept the foregoing as true, then communication competence shifts from being something a person “has” or “does” to something a person is judged to have or do by others. This perspective suggests an array of issues and a related term – relational competence. Relational competence focuses on effectiveness and the perceptions of competence by the interactants in a given conversation or relationship. In an earlier writing, Goffman (1963) stated that relationship outcomes are framed in a mutual interdependence among people involved in an interaction. Competent communication is considered a coordinated process in which individuals achieve goals in a prosocial fashion. Wiemann (1977) recognized this relationship in his description of the competent communicator as the person who can have his/her way in the relationship, while maintaining a mutually acceptable definition of that relationship. Interestingly, Parks (1994) noted that actor and observer judgments of competence are only minimally related to each other. A series of studies by Spitzberg (1982, 1986) supported Parks’ notion by finding little or no correlation between actors’ self-evaluations of their own competence and the ratings of them provided by their conversational partners. Parks suggested that this difference in evaluations can be explained by the differences in conceptualization of competence from each communicator’s point-of-view. Communicators tend to conceive of their own competence from a goal-accomplishment perspective (e.g., “Did I accomplish my goals?”), while observers tend to judge competence from a perspective of social expectations (e.g., “Does s/he fit in?”). It is clear though, that the two perspectives are not mutually exclusive. Much of the time, the achievement of personal goals and self-efficacy is rooted in the ability to be seen by others as appropriate. If competence becomes a social judgment, and that judgment is rooted partly in the appropriateness of a specific communication behavior, then further examination of appropriateness is in order.

3.4 Communication competence and appropriateness Spitzberg (1988) argued that once contextual factors are implied, so is the concept of appropriateness or acceptability in that given context. Communication competence writers commonly ask for knowledge of what is appropriate in a given con-

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text, rather than what is appropriate, as in the case of linguistic or grammatical competence. Thus, Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) suggested that communicative competence may be defined as the ability to adapt messages appropriately to the given interaction context. Still, appropriateness is problematic. Judgments of competence and appropriateness frequently are in the mind of the observer who makes the judgment based on a multitude of factors. If we put the preceding ideas together, we now have a concept of communication competence that is rooted in performed behavior, evaluated by the observer (not the actor), and the evaluation is based on appropriateness. However, many writers about competence believe that appropriateness is not a sufficient defining criterion. Effectiveness becomes part of the definitional mix. Considering effectiveness, Spitzberg then described communication competence as the extent to which speakers achieve desired outcomes [effectiveness] through communication behavior acceptable to a situation (appropriateness) (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984; Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2013). Similarly, Rubin (1994) stated that “communication competence requires knowledge of appropriate and effective communication behaviors, a repertoire of skills which correspond to that knowledge, and the motivation to perform those skills in a socially appropriate and effective manner” (p. 75). These conceptualizations emphasize the accomplishment of personal goals through appropriate communication behavior, which brings to mind the matter of the communicator’s intentions for communicating.

3.5 Communication competence and intentionality Larson et al. (1978) posed two interesting questions: Does a person have to make a conscious decision about what to do in order to be considered competent? Or is merely the demonstration of behavior sufficient evidence for competence? For example, one of this chapter’s authors attended a home show at a county fair and watched a pitchman demonstrate a kitchen utensil. The pitchman was effective and persuaded many people to buy it. The author judged him highly competent and invited him to give a guest lecture in a persuasion class. When the pitchman arrived, it quickly became obvious that he could not explain a single persuasive technique. He could demonstrate the behavior but had no knowledge of how or why it worked. People judged him as competent, and he did intend to be competent, but he could not describe how or why he constructed his communication behavior in the manner he did. Moore (1994) stated the case this way: “To judge another person’s communication competence, we must have evidence that the individual not only can perform the behavior in question, but also possesses the required knowledge of the behavior. We have all seen the student who effectively exhibits an appropriate behavior in a speech, but who, upon further questioning, cannot explain why he or she used that behavior as opposed to others” (p. 89). The key distinction here is the differ-

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ence between intentional and unintentional competence. Unintentional competence is likely accidental competence or competence that is situationally bound (such as that pitchman) and not necessarily repeatable. Intentional competence and the knowledge of how to develop competent communication strategies in a variety of situations is far more desirable. The communicator can analyze a situation, select the most appropriate and effective communication behavior, and skillfully implement that behavior. The combination of knowledge and behavior will likely lead to more competent encounters than mere behavioral skill alone. Parks (1994) pointed to what he sees as a false distinction between cognition and behaviors. Accordingly, Parks says, “action occurs on both sides of the skin, cognition and overt behavior are merely different aspects of the same larger process” (p. 591). He stated that to be competent, we must not only “know” and “know how”, but also we must “do” and “know what we did” (p. 591). Thus, intentionality, or at least some degree of intentionality, on the part of the communicator is required for communication competence to exist. Few would argue then that competence is only behavior, that no cognitive awareness is necessary. Depending on the complexity of the situation, and as a communicator develops increased levels of competence, knowledge and intentionality become progressively more important. Our overview of the development of the concept of communication competence has led us now to describe, if not define, competence in this way: Competent communication involves intentional communication behaviors performed by the actor to effectively accomplish his or her goals, which are subsequently evaluated by the observer as competent, using the criterion of appropriateness.

This description implies consideration of the skills and behaviors exhibited by the actor, and the underlying knowledge and motivation held by that actor, which can result in a judgment of communication competence on the part of the observer. While the actor’s self-perception of his or her competence may be of some importance, the impression of competence on the observer, based on the following components of competence, is most critical.

4 The components of communication competence Over the years, scholars studying communication competence have attempted to identify general dimensions or components of competence, in which variations in performance can affect perceptions of effectiveness and appropriateness. These attempts raised an initial question about whether competence is a set of skills that can be identified, and perhaps taught and learned, or a set of traits inherent in individuals as “natural” to them as communicators. Parks (1994), for example, be-

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lieved that competence was an environmental response to a specific situation rather than a cluster of personality traits held by the actor. While that debate is not examined here, the reader can seek more information from communication scholars who have examined the question (Beatty, McCroskey, and Valencic 2001). The “nature/nurture” debate aside, many dimensions of competence have been proposed, discovered, and/or named. Given agreement that judgments of competence are rooted in individual interactions, some researchers have investigated the relationship between performance of specific communicative messages and global ratings of competence (Spitzberg 1984). Those efforts focused on what specific communication behaviors lead to a judgment of competence. A chronological review of the work on components of competence over several decades, presented in Table 2, illustrates the diversity of thinking in the area, as well as some degree of consensus on what constitutes communication competence. Tab. 2: Components of communication competence. 1950s to 1980s. Foote and Cottrell (1955) – – – – – –

White (1971)

cooperativeness – social appromutual support priateness empathy – linguistic and autonomy intellectual resourcefulness competence exerting control – ability to develover the environop and execute ment to achieve plans certain outcomes

Allen and Brown (1976)

Ruben (1976)

Feingold (1976)

– – – – –

– display of respect – interaction posture – orientation to knowledge – empathy – self (versus other) role-oriented behavior – interaction management – tolerance for ambiguity

– perceived as other oriented – adaptation to others – commitment to message – empathic listening

Spitzberg and Cupach (1984)

Spitzberg and Hecht (1984)

– adaptive behavior – crosssituational adaptability

– cognitive complexity – interaction management, empathy – role taking

controlling feeling informing ritualizing imagining

Wiemann (1977)

Hart, Carlson, and Eadie (1980)

Spitzberg (1983)

– affiliation/ support – empathy – social relaxation – behavioral flexibility – interaction management

– acceptance of – knowledge complexity – skill – avoidance of – impression rigidity – interaction consciousness – appreciation of communicability and ideas – intentional searching

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In spite of some variations in the identified components of competence outlined in Table 2, there seems to be some agreement on several dimensions. One clearly identified component of communicative competence, though different terms may describe it, is empathy (including affiliation and support). Some form of behavioral flexibility (adaptation) and interaction management also are present in many lists of components. There also is agreement that communication competence is characterized by the communicator being able to achieve his or her communicative goals (effectiveness), using communication behavior deemed acceptable to the situation and context (appropriateness). Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge (2013) suggest that, in any situation, a person can be inappropriate and ineffective, inappropriate and effective, appropriate and ineffective, or appropriate and effective. Moreover, these authors indicated that achieving the perception of competence in the situation is more likely if a person is motivated to communicate competently, knowledgeable about the communication process, and skilled in communicating in the given context. Variations in what communication scholars think constitutes competence has not stopped numerous other fields of study and academic disciplines from adopting and adapting the concept to fit their own needs. The next section of this chapter briefly discusses communication competence in several fields and disciplines other than communication.

5 Application of communication competence to other fields and disciplines If one searches for the term “communication competence” in any scholarly database, it becomes apparent that an array of other areas of inquiry have folded communication competence into their research. The content of the chapters in this present volume bears witness to the presence of the scholarly examination of competence in an array of communication contexts. Given this situation, one might reasonably ask if the use of the term in these fields is congruent with communication theory and scholarship. Have these fields developed their own conceptualizations of competence? To what extent have they relied on definitions and descriptors from the communication discipline and similar disciplines? Conversely, have conceptualizations from other disciplines informed understanding of competence in the communication discipline? We now consider these questions through an examination of the literature on communication competence in a small sample of disciplines, which in fact reside in or near the communication discipline, (media studies, medicine, and business). Some of the studies discussed here were conducted by researchers in those disciplines, while others were conducted in collaboration with communication scholars.

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5.1 Media studies Over the past few years, the means by which people communicate with each other have expanded in numerous and amazing ways. Some of these means or communication channels (instant messaging, Facebook, Twitter, texting, etc.) have been loosely referred to as “social media”. The name is indicative of social media’s function – socializing through various media. As we now describe, the research on communication competence and media, including social media, has been conducted by both communication scholars and researchers in other fields. Looking back, in 1998, Arneson and Arnett addressed the matter of communication competence in the information age. While not directly related to media, their premise held that communication faculty need to pay close attention to the developing demands of the information age in which students run the risk of information overload. They believed that a student’s communication competence is and will be impacted by increasing levels of information, and that competence must include the ability to handle that information. The lack of an ability to process the amount of information could lead to ineffective decisions about communication behavior due to incomplete or inadequate information. Moving into the 21st century, Jonas, Boos, and Sassenberg (2002) examined computer-mediated communication in management training programs. Interestingly, these researchers based their view of competence on Wiemann (1977) and examined competence within a defined relationship. They focused on communication in computer-mediated situations and defined failure as communication acts that do not fulfill the intention of the sender due to false, inappropriate, or exaggerated use of the medium. Their view was clearly from the sender, not the receiver’s viewpoint, as it attributed a lack of competence with misuse of the medium. In 2006, Spitzberg launched a series of investigations into computer-mediated communication competence. Spitzberg postulated a theory of computer-mediated communication (CMC) competence that exists on a continuum. As CMC competence increases, co-orientation, appropriateness, effectiveness, satisfaction, and preferred relational outcomes are more likely to occur. Competence, in this sense, is based on some of the same variables or components of competence as in face-toface interactions, with the addition of media as an intervening factor. A competent user of computer-mediated-communication will possess four specific skills (Spitzberg 2006: 1. concern for one’s CMC interaction partner, 2. use of interaction management to engage a partner actively and control the time and relevance of communication, 3. expressiveness or filling the CMC interaction with emotion, and 4. displaying confidence, mastery, and comfortableness as a CMC interactant. Spitzberg’s article spawned other studies that applied his CMC model to various contexts. For example, Wrench and Punyanunt-Carter (2007) investigated the relationships among computer-mediated communication competence, apprehension, self-efficacy, perceived confidence, and social presence. They found positive relationships among communication competence, self-efficacy, perceived confi-

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dence, and social presence, and a negative relationship between competence and apprehension. The study reinforced Spitzberg’s (2006) notion that people must be motivated to be competent in a CMC environment, possess specialized knowledge and technical know-how, and learn the conventions, rules, and roles that affect CMC interactions. Kelly, Keaten, Hazel, and Williams (2010) investigated competence in CMC with a particular focus on reticence. These researchers found that high reticent individuals perceive themselves as more competent communicators when their communication occurs online. The asynchronous nature of email and other social media produces a sense of control that may lead to increased self-perceived competence and decreased anxiety. CMC can give the communicator a feeling of safety and thus reported increases in perceptions of communication competence. This brief review does not do justice to the extensive body of research currently being conducted in media studies on computer-mediated communication. However, it is clear that any use of computer-mediated-communication can impact perceptions of communication competence due to the fact it adds at least one more step in the communication process. Chapter 7 of this volume summarizes research and theory on computer-mediated competence.

5.2 Medicine The examination of communication within the medical community has expanded considerably over the past thirty years. Beginning in the 1980s, scholars in the discipline of communication began to pay significant attention to the subfield of health communication. Journals such as Health Communication began to publish scholarship on numerous aspects of health communication, including such topics as doctor–patient relationships, medical information flow analysis, health information dissemination, disease prevention, communication disorders, and similar topics. This leads to a central question: Does the concept of communication competence appear in and influence any of the research in medical communication? A review of literature quickly reveals that the answer is yes. Next, is the use of this term within the medical community congruent with the definitions and concepts about competence generated in communication studies, as summarized earlier in this chapter? It appears that the answer to this question is mixed. One communication researcher, Kreps, with other colleagues including medically-educated professionals, developed and tested a relational model for health communication competence (Kreps 1988, 2001; Query and Kreps 1996) that was firmly rooted in communication literature but extended to include health communication competencies. The patient is at the center of the model, surrounded by medically-related factors, all of which impact communication competence. Behaviors associated with this model of health communication competence include empathy, non-judgmental listening, respect, message congruence, and interaction

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management. The model continues to be refined and tested, and it has attained wide acceptance in the health communication literature. Another group of researchers, including communication scholar Cegala, developed an extensive body of research focused on analyzing the role of communication competence during medical interviews and consultations (Cegala, McNeilis, and McGee 1995; McGee and Cegala 1998). Their view of communication competence is concerned with language use in medical settings and includes communication goals (the criterion for effectiveness) and appropriateness. This perspective fits well with the definitions of communication competence discussed earlier in the chapter. These researchers continued their work with the development of a medical communication competence scale (Cegala, Coleman, and Turner 1998). The scale assessed both the patient and provider’s perceptions, focusing on information provision, information seeking, and preparedness. Other studies in the medical community also have drawn on the work of and collaborated with communication scholars. Wright and colleagues (Wright et al. 2010; Wright 2011) applied the concept of communication competence to health workplace issues such as conflict, job burnout, and job satisfaction. Their definition of competence aligns with the definitions in this chapter, and they relied on Kreps’ model of health communication competence. Similarly, articles about communication competence of children from alcoholic families (Grant, Rosenfeld, and Cissna 2004), facilitator competence in medical education (Bylund, Brown, and Lubrano di Ciccone 2009), communication competence and informal caregivers (Lobchuk 2006; Query and Wright 2003), clinical supervision (Farmer 1988), and patient education (Parchman et al. 2009) all attest to the usefulness of the concept of competence, as described in communication literature, in the medical field. With the exception of the first article by Grant and colleagues, the other articles are authored by medically educated professionals. Certainly, researchers who come from a communication background tend to draw on communication literature as their source for definitions of communication competence. But it also is interesting to note that researchers with non-communication backgrounds are drawing on communication science for their research. In this present volume, Chapter 19 considers one of the less studied areas of inquiry in this field, managing uncertainty in medical encounters.

5.3 Business Another field where competent communication is considered important, and where we hear frequent calls for more effective communication skills, is business, which is not surprising. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers Job Outlook 2013 survey, communication is the highest-ranking skill that employers look for in new recruits. Given that level of attention, we can expect to see considerable interest in the concept of communication competence in the business litera-

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ture and scholarly research. The following description of articles provides a representative sample of the application of communication competence to business-related issues and challenges. Communication researchers early on began to apply the concept of communication competence to practical situations. For example, in 1982, Monge, Bachman, Dillard and Eisenberg wrote one of the first articles that applied the concept to model testing and scale development in a workplace setting. Another early study to use the concept in the business literature was a study by Berman and Hellweg (1989) that looked at the communication competence of supervisors. Then, Spano and Zimmerman (1995) examined social judgments of interpersonal communication competence in selection interviews. Both of these studies were solidly based in the communication literature on communication competence. Also in 1995, Hass and Arnold published a study about the role of listening in social judgments of communication competence with co-workers. Flauto (1999) researched the link between leadership and communication competence, using numerous communication sources to define the concept of competence. Later, McKinney and Kimsey (2004) extended the reach of communication competence by examining Vietnamese business managers’ perceptions of communication competence, as it relates to conflict management style, basing their work on communication literature. Payne (2005) explored the relationship between communication competence, job performance, and supervisory roles and based her operational definition of communication competence on Spitzberg and Cupach’s (1984) work. She defined organizational communication competence as “the judgment of successful communication where interactants’ goals are met using messages that are perceived as appropriate and effective within the organizational context” (p. 64). Algren and Eichhorn (2007) also used the scholarship of Spitzberg and his colleagues, together with Delia’s early conceptualizations of competence, in an exploration of gender differences and the cognitive communication competence of public relations practitioners. Another body of scholarship, while focused on communication competence in business settings, has not directly referred to communication literature. Sriussadaporn-Charoenngam and Jablin (1999) analyzed the communication competence of Thai organizations and managers. These researchers found that Thais who are “perceived to be communicatively competent know how to avoid conflict with others; control their emotions; display respect, tactfulness, modesty, and politeness; and use appropriate pronouns in addressing others” (p. 384). It is interesting to note from this study the role of culture in the social judgment of competence. This list is quite different than those provided earlier in this chapter. Pope-Ruark (2008), writing in the Business Communication Quarterly, examined communication competence in interviews. Pope-Ruark only used the term of competence in a generic fashion, with no specific definition or associated behaviors derived from communication scholarship. Lehtonen (2011) researched communica-

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tion competence in “PechaKucha” presentations (a form of PowerPoint presentation in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each). Lehtonen viewed competence as a type of knowledge that enables individuals to understand colleagues’ professional capabilities and is linked to credibility and professionalism. Downing (2011) researched the communication competence of sales agents in call centers, but did not directly define communication competence nor refer to communication literature. In his study, the communication behaviors he identified were interpersonal sensitivity, speaking confidently, attentiveness, perceptiveness, and responsiveness. As these studies indicate, the concept of communication competence, if not always labeled as such, has achieved recognition and proven useful to scholarship in areas of inquiry such as media studies, business, and medicine. Thus, the researchers in the discipline of communication who focus on communication competence – notably Spitzberg and other colleagues – apparently have found significant audiences outside their own discipline. In addition the concept has enjoyed a strong presence internationally and interculturally.

6 International and intercultural perspectives on communication competence An extensive body of literature on communication competence from international, intercultural, European and Asian viewpoints is available elsewhere (Deardorff 2009; Gudykunst and Mody 2002; Spitzberg and Changnon 2009). In this present volume, Chapter 20 emphasizes theory and research on communication competence from integrative intercultural and intergroup perspectives. Chapter 12 focuses on culture and competence, ethnicity, and race. As would be expected, this scholarship is produced by researchers in the U.S. and from around the world, and its significance now is enhanced by globalization and communication technologies ubiquitous in the 21st century. To provide a framework for appreciating Chapters 12 and 20, here in this chapter we consider the theoretical discussion of communicative rationality and communication competence provided by German philosopher and sociologist, Habermas (Eriksen and Weigard 2004). Like our earlier descriptions of competence as effective and goal-oriented, Habermas’ approach to competence rests on the argument that all communication and speech acts have an inherent telos (Greek word for “end”) or goal and, according to Habermas, the goal is mutual understanding. This internationally respected philosopher further argues that human beings have come to possess, through evolution, the communicative competence that can bring about such understanding, even across international and intercultural divides. Accordingly, the potential to transform the culturally diverse world and achieve a more humane and just society can be facilitated through communication compe-

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tence. Habermas contends that communicative competence and the ability to reason across differences are evolutionarily unique to human beings. On that high note regarding the importance of communication competence within, between, and among cultures and societies, we now turn our attention to where such scholarship might proceed in the future.

7 Conclusion and recommendations for future scholarly inquiry This chapter has traced the history and development of the concept of communication competence that is expansively explored in subsequent chapters in this volume. It is clear that the term enjoys wide popularity, nationally in the U.S., across fields and disciplines, and internationally, but it suffers from definitional inconsistency. As Table 2 illustrates, scholarly opinions have varied when it comes to identifying the knowledge and skills associated with and contributing to the presence or absence of communication competence. Dubin (1969), in his book on theory building, said that a theory must have an identifiable domain or area in which it operates. He likened domain to a fence – what is inside the fence and what is not. Communication competence still suffers, to some extent, from a lack of a welldefined fence. As noted earlier, attempts have been made to define the domain of communication competence, but consensus and the boundaries remain ill-defined. It seems as if every possible communication variable has been identified as an antecedent, predictor, or component of communication competence. Different scholars have different theories of competence, and the likelihood of everyone agreeing, either on a definition or constituent variables or components, seems unlikely, though it is surely necessary. That effort should go forward with particular attention to understanding and perhaps even assessing communication competence in specific cultures around the world, as well as interculturally. We do not know enough yet about how the concept varies across and between cultures, nor do we have sufficient understanding of how individuals can become more competent at communicating within and across the boundaries of country and culture. Pointedly, Arasaratnam and Doerfel (2005: 137) state that while intercultural communication competence is becoming a more relevant area of study in our increasingly multicultural communities, a model of that competence and a scale that translates well in different cultures is not yet developed. Given Habermas’ belief in the potential for communication competence to address the challenges that exist in the globalized and technologically-mediated 21st century, the study of this competence is critical. Thereby, the synthesis of literature in this volume mandates that scholars, educators, trainers, and even leaders in academic associations across countries and cultures should consider new and

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unique ways to convene, collaborate, and develop greater understanding of communication competence. Such convening and collaborating, of course, should consider new approaches and directions for how we study competence but also how we teach and train about it. The above recommendations are not intended to suggest that all the world’s challenges are communication problems, and that communication competence will solve all the problems. However, many challenges could be better managed by the use of competence attributes such as acceptance of complexity, avoidance of rigidity, other-oriented interaction management, adaptation to others, commitment to message clarity, and empathic listening – to name but a few. Furthermore, and on a more personal level, we know that most individuals who are motivated to communicate competently also get more from life, more success, and more happiness (Harter 1978; Koestner and McClelland 1990). In fact, research shows that competent communicators are healthier and have better relationships (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, and Layton 2010; Robles et al. 2014). So competent communication will not solve all the world’s ills, but as the chapters in this book will attest, it can make a very positive difference.

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Charles Pavitt

3 Theoretical approaches to communicative competence Abstract: The goal of this chapter is to summarize and classify scientific communication theories that provide accounts for competent communication. Some theories concentrate on knowledge-, motivation-, or skill-based message production. Other theories are relevant to knowledge-, motivation-, or skill-based message reception. Still others apply to dyadic or group interaction, including sets pertinent to behavioral adaptation and uncertainty reduction. Keywords: behavioral adaptation theories, Input-Process-Output models, interactive theories, message production theories, message reception theories, OrganismStimulus-Processing-Response models, uncertainty reduction theories

1 Introduction It has been written that there is a “dearth” of theories explicitly relevant to the topic area of communicative competence (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984: 74). Without arguing that issue, there is also a relatively wide range of scientific theories relevant to interpersonal interaction that provide explanations for the basis of competent communication. The goal of this chapter is to describe and categorize this range (see Wilson and Sabee 2003, for an analogous effort using a different organizational scheme). Before starting that task, it would be useful to define what I mean by scientific theory (Pavitt 2001). A scientific theory has two essential parts, a scientific explanation and some form of conceptual or formal model. Explanations are in essence stories that make confusing phenomena understandable to a given audience. What distinguishes a scientific explanation from other varieties (e.g., historical explanation) is that the story accounts for patterns of events (rather than just one or a few instances) through the description of some underlying mechanism that produces or drives the event pattern. A conceptual model is a symbolic representation of a theory’s proposed structure or hypothesized processes through diagram or verbal description; a formal model provides the same through equations or computer programs. A given theory’s model provides the framework on which its explanation is hung. Quite a few models directly relevant to communicative competence have been proposed (see for example those reviewed in Spitzberg and Changnon 2009), but very few are presented in conceptual or formal terms and linked with scientific explanations. Non-theoretical models will not be covered in this review.

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I will adapt to the purpose of this chapter three types of conceptual models that, as a group, undergird almost every extant “mainstream” theory in communication science (Pavitt 2009). The first two models are straightforward linear formulations. In the Organism-Stimulus-Processing-Response (OSPR) message production model, a person with given psychological characteristics (cognitions, traits, motivations, etc.; this is the O in the model), in a given situation (S), plans a message (P), and delivers it (R). Theories that focus on a person’s capability to send competent messages would fit under the OSPR message production umbrella. The corresponding OSPR message reception model also begins with a person possessing specific characteristics (O) who, after receiving a message (S), thinks about it (P), and responds to it psychologically and/or behaviorally (R). Theories that hone in on the judgments that people make about one another’s communicative competence are consistent with this model. The third type, the interactive Input-ProcessOutput (IPO) model, differs from the OSPR types in two ways. First, two or more people are explicitly included; in the tradition of writing in computer technology, when describing interactive IPO theories I will use the names Ann and Bob as labels for two imaginary communicators. Second, interactive IPO theories include continual feedback loops between communicators over time. Ann delivers a message (P) that Bob receives (O) and thinks about (I), and then Bob delivers a message in response to Ann (P) that Ann receives (O) and thinks about (I), and then Ann delivers a message in reaction to Bob (P) that Bob receives (O), and so on. The interactive IPO model includes approaches that describe how two or more people engage in competent interaction. In what follows, I use each of these models in turn when describing the fundamentals of a variety of scientific theories and their implications for communicative competence.

2 OSPR message production theories: The competent message producer As just noted, OSPR message production models involve a person with a given psychological makeup (O) who, in a given situation (S), designs (P) and then produces (R) a message. It follows that theories based on this model, when applied to communicative competence, would provide explanations for individual differences in the ability to produce competent messages. This characterization begs the question of what counts as a competent message. Past literature has generally stated that competent messages are both appropriate and effective, although these two criteria are often in conflict, and other standards such as efficiency and ethicality have also been proposed (Wilson and Sabee 2003). A second question implied by the OSPR message production model is how to characterize competence-relevant situations in a principled manner akin to, say, Fiedler’s (1964) three-dimensional

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scheme for classifying the situations faced by organizational team leaders. Relevant message production theories, however, generally skirt both this issue and details of the message itself. Most relevant theories focus on the O stage, the attributes that determine the communicator’s competence. It makes sense to consider these attributes in the context of the three necessities for the competent communicator: knowledge, motivation, and skill (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984). The competent communicator must know what needs to be known to produce messages with appropriate, effective, efficient, and/or ethical content. The competent communicator must want to or have a good reason to produce such messages. Given knowledge and motivation, the competent communicator must also have the ability to produce such messages. Theories differ in their emphasis on the three necessities; I shall cover each in turn.

2.1 Knowledge-based message production theories Theories of the OSPR message production set prioritizing the knowledge component share, to a greater or lesser extent, a group of underlying presumptions. First, communicators’ long-term memories include a well-organized structure of “procedural knowledge” that can be called upon in message design. Procedural knowledge consists of personally-relevant goals, the characteristics of often-experienced situations, and a repertoire of possible actions. Second, in response either to previous thought or to the perceived needs of a given situation, a few of the communicators’ possible goals become active, providing the needed motivation for this calling. Third, communicators think strategically in pursuit of these goals, in so doing using their procedural knowledge to concoct action plans guiding their message. The plan is organized both sequentially (what is said first, second, and third) and hierarchically (an abstract pragmatic/speech act level is on top, followed by levels representing the syntactic, semantic, and phonetic aspects of the intended message, along with accompanying nonverbal behavior). The message flows naturally from those plans. The first of these presumptions is relevant to the O part of the model and the second and third to the P part, such that these theories detail the architecture of those parts and, as mentioned earlier, basically take the S and R for granted. Fourth, communicative competence in OSPR knowledge-based message production theories lies in successful achievement of the communicator’s goals, although the specifics relevant to that achievement differ among relevant theories. A further distinction can be made between “bottom-up” and “top-down” theories of this type. The difference between the two sub-types rests in the extent to which communicators are pictured as responding to moment-to-moment events versus relying on a pre-planned strategy during conversation. The exemplar case of a knowledge-based bottom-up OSPR message production theory, one featured in Wilson and Sabee (2003), is Greene’s (1984) action assembly theory. In the first version of this theory (a second generation can be found in Greene 1997), communi-

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cator knowledge (O) consists of “procedural records” that describe actions that are implied by a given situation and the likely outcome of those actions; for example, if I apologize, then my wife will forgive me for having hurt her feelings. When a specific situation (S) occurs that calls for message production, such as my wife telling me her feelings have been hurt, a small proportion of the available procedural records are “activated” based on their match to the current situation, the relevance of the likely outcome of the action to the communicator’s goal, and their past activation level. These are then “assembled” into a plan (P) that guides the actual message (R). As the conversation continues, the situation constantly changes and different procedural records must be activated and assembled. As mentioned above, the O and P portions are described in detail, the S and R mostly taken for granted. The implications of action assembly theory for communicative competence are fairly clear, having been spelled out in Greene and Geddes (1993). First, a communicator must activate the optimum number and range of procedural records for goal achievement. If too few are activated, the communicator does not know what to say or how to say it; if too many, the communicator has too much to say and the resulting message becomes incoherent. In addition, past usage will increase the odds of a procedural record’s activation, which can have helpful or harmful consequences. On the plus side, repetitive use of a consistent set of procedural records makes it more likely that they will be activated together when called for by situation and goal; this is why one should practice one’s public speech before its deliverance. On the minus, oft-used procedural records may become activated when uncalled for, possibly resulting in the communicator saying something she has been thinking about which she later regrets. The exemplar for a top-down approach is Berger’s (1997) planning theory. Here, long-term memory includes a hierarchical structure of goals, previously formulated (“canned”) plans, procedural knowledge concerning possible communication strategies, and “declarative” knowledge pertaining to relevant topic areas (O). When facing an upcoming interaction (S), the communicator first searches longterm memory for a relevant canned plan. If one is found, it is adopted; if not, the communicator develops one based on available procedural and declarative knowledge (P). Plans themselves differ in complexity, with more complex plans including more steps and, in particular, alternative paths that can be taken at crucial points during the interaction depending upon the receiver’s responses during the interaction up to those points. Plan complexity is a function of goal importance and amount of relevant knowledge. As with action assembly theory, the plan directs the communicator’s message (R). Planning theory also includes a process by which the communicator can respond to plan failure (implied communicative incompetence) by altering the plan and then repeating it, with the alterations beginning at the phonetic level (saying the same thing louder and slower) and only moving up the plan hierarchy one level at a time when motivated by continued failure. It is

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safe to say that in planning theory, as goal achievement is usually more likely with more highly complex plans, the ability to concoct such plans is one facet of the competent communicator. A second implied component of competence is the ability to recognize and respond to plan failure. Other knowledge-based OSPR message production theories differ to a greater or lesser extent with action assembly and planning theories concerning the details of the communicator’s knowledge base. Each also boasts unique twists. Meyer’s (1997) approach has particular relevance to communicative competence by including explicit consideration of both message appropriateness and effectiveness as necessities. Although similar to action assembly theory in general structure and process, it divides the processing stage between the production of a tentative plan and a revision of that plan into a final form if its predicted outcomes are either inconsistent with the communicator’s primary goal or fail to satisfy the appropriateness versus effectiveness tradeoff. Smith’s (1982) contingency rules theory of interpersonal persuasion likewise approximates action assembly theory’s structure, but provides more detail concerning the match between O and S along with explicitly considering the receiver’s response to the message. Message producers are hypothesized to choose the type of message that best meets their estimate of the contextual factors most relevant to the message receiver, and their accuracy in that estimation determines the success of their persuasive attempt and, thus, their competence. Recent constructivist communication theory (Burleson 2007) has been explicit in tying message production-relevant knowledge to competent communication. Closer in spirit to planning theory, the complexity of one’s declarative knowledge structure relevant to social information helps determine the sophistication of one’s interactional goals, which in turn impacts the proficiency of communication plans and subsequent messages. Competence is particularly important in problematic circumstances, in which messages expressly designed to be effective for the specific audience, i.e. “person-centered” messages, are desirable. Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory differs from other members of this set by in effect assuming the communicator knows what to say and attending to the decision on how to say it; in essence ignoring the O and concentrating on the S and P. The situation includes three relevant aspects: the communicator’s degree of relational distance from and relative power in relation to the intended message receiver, and the degree of “imposition” the message implies for the receiver. In the processing stage, the communicator in essence combines the relational distance, relative power, and imposition indices into an implicit regression equation that allows the calculation of the ideal amount of threat to the positive face (selfregard) and/or negative face (freedom of action) of the communicator and/or receiver implied by the situation. The level of bluntness or politeness with which the resulting message is worded reflects the results of that calculation. Analogously with Meyer (1997), a competent message successfully navigates the appropriateness/effectiveness conflict through wording at the optimal politeness/bluntness level.

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2.2 Motivation-based message production theories Several motivation-based message production theories exist as alternatives to the knowledge-based theories. Buck’s (1997) read-out theory of spontaneous communication focuses on low-order physiological mechanisms that provide the capability to send spontaneous emotional messages. The perception of significant factors in the environment (potential danger) or one’s own physiological state (pain) serves as the motivator for emotional responses that are nonverbally expressed through body, face, or voice. Evolution has also resulted in the automatic recognition of these expressions by perceivers; an example might well be the basic facial displays associated with fundamental emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise) that appear to be recognized with close to one hundred percent accuracy across the world (Ekman and Friesen 1975). To be sure, we are able to consciously control our emotional displays to a degree, such that those who are skilled at manipulating their displays can fool at least some of their audience some of the time. Corresponding skill differences in accuracy of recognition also undoubtedly exist. Nonetheless, our nonverbal signals of strong spontaneous emotions are largely produced and recognized automatically. The resulting OSPR message production model consists of a person with their given biological inheritance (O) who, in a situation that provides sufficient motivation (S), undergoes a physiological reaction that includes a felt emotional response (P) and an associated nonverbal signal of that reaction (R). The corresponding OSPR message reception model includes a person with analogous biological inheritance (O) who, upon observing/hearing that signal (S), perceives it (P) and recognizes the sender’s emotion (R). Competent communication, in which the expressed emotion is correctly perceived, is largely assured. Psychological trait-based theories (see: Nicotera, Chapter 28) provide a somewhat different brand of motivation-based approach to message production; two examples will suffice. Argumentativeness is an individual difference factor relevant to the extent to which people enjoy the opportunity to discuss and take a side concerning controversial issues despite the expectation of disagreement. In Infante and Rancer’s (1982) trait-situation interactionist theory of argumentation, the opportunity to argue initiates both inherent approach and avoidance tendencies, with their relative strength determining the person’s characteristic degree of argumentativeness. A given circumstance induces a relevant incentive, such as persuading another person or enhancing one’s personal credibility. The drives toward and away from arguing in that circumstance are respectively a product of the person’s characteristic tendencies to approach and avoid argumentation multiplied by the perceived value and probability of success (in the case of approach) or failure (avoidance) at achieving the incentive. The resulting motivation to argue at that time is determined by the relative strength of the two products. The competent communicator is sufficiently argumentative without stumbling into verbal aggression (personal attack on the audience’s self-concepts).

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Schlenker and Leary’s (1982) self-presentation approach to social anxiety is likewise interactionist. Social anxiety is a feeling of apprehension that a person can suffer from the experience or expectation of being evaluated for performance during social interactions. For Schlenker and Leary, the possibility of social anxiety arises when the communicator wishes to control the audience’s impression of the communicator in a given way. The current situation influences the communicator’s assessment of the likelihood of leaving the desired impression. Social anxiety occurs when that assessed likelihood is low, due to the specific characteristics of the audience or the situation and/or a perception of deficits in one’s skill. Those high in chronic social anxiety are more likely to make low assessments, feel anxious in response, and either attempt to avoid communicating or, if they must, display anxiety behaviors (halting speech, nonverbal adaptors) in diverse situations. Social anxiety avoidance marks the competent communicator. In both theories, relevant traits (O) interact with situational factors (S) in determining communication-relevant motivations (P) and resulting behaviors (R).

2.3 Skill-based message production theories Assuming the presence of a communication plan and the motivation to act on it, a competent message producer needs the skill to actualize the plan into talk. Most of the theories described thus far presume this ability without further comment. Although primarily concerned with knowledge, Greene (1984) and Meyer (1997) are among the few that speak to the skill component in that each specifically hypothesizes knowledge elements on the syntactic, semantic, phonetic, and nonverbal levels along with the pragmatic, providing the communicator with what needs to be known to say the intended words in the intended order with the intended pronunciation accompanied by appropriate gestures. The closest to a full-blown OSPR skill-based message production theory is Barge and Hirokawa’s (1989) communication competency model of group leadership. Here, group members possess to a greater or lesser extent a set of skills (O) relevant to the group task (problem analysis, decision criteria establishment, solution proposal and evaluation, procedure governance) and relationships among group members (interaction management, acknowledgement of other members, expressiveness, involvement). The demands (S) of the situation (task complexity, member role clarity, group climate) as moderated by the group’s goal (task versus relational focus) determine the relative importance and overall need for the communicative expression of member skills (P). This expression in turn impacts decision quality, group member satisfaction and cohesiveness, and perceptions of leadership effectiveness (R). But the task is far more complex than implied by these theories. As part of the cooperative principle, a competent conversationalist strives to make statements easily comprehensible for listeners (Grice 1975). Competent utterances are composed in the context of what knowledge is and is not shared by the conversationalists (“common ground”; Clark and Marshall 1981) and the present topical focus of

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the conversation along with other potential topics (Schank 1977). For these reasons, a communication plan for a given utterance must among other things contain markers for correct reference (e.g., “a” for a concept new in the conversation, “the” for a concept already discussed) along with distinguishing what has previously been stated (“given” information) from what is being added (“new” information; Clark and Haviland 1977) through word order (“given” appears before “new” in sentences) and vocal stress (new information is stressed over given). Levelt (1989) proposed a very detailed multi-stage model of the entire speech production process, based on earlier theories of its specific parts. It begins with the preparation of a pragmatic/speech act plan consisting of a pre-verbal symbolic representation of the concepts to appear in talk along with information relevant to later sentence construction, such as marking the thematic focus and what is given versus new. It follows with the generation of a surface structure with chosen words organized in desired grammatical order along with markings for phonetic information such as stress and pausal patterns. This surface structure exploits a mental dictionary whose individual listings include semantic (Levelt’s example; eat means “ingest for nourishment or pleasure”), syntactic (eat is a verb that if used nonmetaphorically requires an animate subject and some form of food as object), morphologic (out of the basic root comes ate, eats, and eaten, with the later requiring a preliminary auxiliary verb such as “has” and usually a subsequent preposition such as “by” or “with”), phonetic (eat contains the two phonemes /i/ and /t/; eaten has stress on the first syllable) and stylistic (when eat is better or worse wording than “dine” or “gobble”). After this, the various segments of the surface structure are replaced by their phonetic counterparts, resulting in an articulatory plan. This is equivalent to what we “hear ourselves think.” It includes instructions concerning how each sound will be made, including among other aspects whether it is voiced (as in d) or unvoiced (as in t), where the tongue is located, and what parts of the mouth are to be constricted. The articulatory plan is turned into breath control and muscle movements, producing the actual sounds. All of these stages are occurring in parallel on consecutive segments of the pragmatic plan. Finally, the resulting speech is monitored to allow for self-correction of errors after the fact. With all this, Levelt failed to describe the genesis of nonverbal signals such as gestural illustrators and facial expressions that accompany and amplify the message, and representations for these must also be integrated someplace during the speech production process.

3 OSPR message reception theories: The competent message receiver As with message production, OSPR message reception theories divide into knowledge, motivation, and skill categories, which I cover in turn.

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3.1 Knowledge-based message reception theories Knowledge-based message reception theories involve a person with a given psychological makeup (O) who, after witnessing a communicative performance (S), thinks about that performance (P), and then makes a judgment (R) concerning that performance’s competence. In essence, these proposals imply that the process of making competence judgments is a specific instance of impression formation. Analogously with message production theories, the O and to a lesser extent P tend to be emphasized. I (Pavitt 2007) have previously characterized impression formation as a four-stage process: observing a behavior, attributing its cause to the person or the situation, forming the impression, and evaluating it. Most theories relevant to the process focus on either the behavior observation (Vallacher and Wegner 1985) or causal attribution (Kelley 1967; Malle 2004). As the third and fourth stages are most obviously relevant to competence judgments, these theories provide little help for us. The remaining theories direct their primary concern towards the O, P, and R parts of the message reception process. Beginning with the O, there are various possible options concerning the memory organization of the knowledge underlying competence judgments. Although not a theory, Wiemann’s (1977) foundational work on communicative competence implies one possibility. While its introduction and conclusion are written in terms of message production, a careful reading reveals that Wiemann’s research is better interpreted in terms of message reception. Research participants viewed recordings of staged “initial interactions” in which one of two actresses varied her interruptions, pauses, and topic changes. Participants then evaluated that actress on scales relevant to five dimensions: affiliation/support, behavioral flexibility, empathy, social relation, and general competence. The underlying supposition is an OSPR message reception model in which an observer who conceives of competence in terms of these dimensions (O) observes a communicative performance (S) and, through some undescribed thought process (P), makes judgments pertaining to those dimensions (R). It turned out that the data did not support distinguishing among the dimensions, but this result does not necessarily disconfirm the idea that observers have a dimensional conception of communicative competence. My inferential model of social judgment (a technical description is in Pavitt 2001), originally formulated for this very topic, provides a second possibility. Bob has a “prototype” representing his beliefs concerning the attributes of a competent communicator. Some of these are “attributional beliefs” that link the prototype’s label (“good communicator”) with characteristic behaviors (such as “a good communicator listens well” and “a good communicator actively uses facial expressions”) and traits (such as “a good communicator is expressive” and “a good communicator is open-minded”). These characteristics are also associated with one another through “covariational beliefs”, such as “listening well is related to actively using facial expressions”, “being supportive is related to being open-minded”, and “listening well is related with being open-minded”. During their interaction,

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Bob concludes from his observations that Ann has actively used facial expressions and listened well to him (stage one of the impression formation process). Bob then begins the process of forming an impression of Ann as a communicator by linking the label “Ann” both with these behaviors and with directly associated traits such as “is open-minded” and “is expressive” (stage two of the process). Then, using the covariational beliefs in the competent communicator prototype as the mold, Bob includes in his impression of Ann the other behaviors and traits in his conception of the good communicator, whether or not he has seen any relevant behavioral evidence. Thus, Ann is also judged to “appear relaxed and comfortable when speaking” and “be interesting”, along with the other characteristics in the prototype (stage three). Finally, using the attributional beliefs in the prototype as the basis for comparison, Bob judges his impression of Ann against his conception of the competent communicator and, in this case, gives Ann a positive evaluation (stage four). In OSPR terms, an observer with a belief structure featuring a competence-relevant prototype (O) watches an actor behave (S) and goes through the four stages of impression formation as just described (P), with the end result of a competence-relevant impression and evaluation of the actor (R). Constructivist communication theory’s (Burleson 2007) approach to social perception skill is consistent with this account, with the proviso that more complex belief structures result in more sophisticated impressions of others. I am not aware of any other full-blown theories of attribution or impression formation that have explicit relevance to communicative competence, but any such proposal can imply one. For example, the most sophisticated of these theories, Reed and Miller’s (1998) parallel distributed process model, has a very detailed account for all but the evaluation phase. In the theory, an observer’s thoughts about an observed target are a function of the extent to which long-term memory nodes representing impression-relevant concepts have been activated. One can imagine that observations could lead to nodes representing “good communicator” and “poor communicator” becoming differentially activated, resulting in a competence judgment. In contrast to, but complementary with impression formation theories is Bradac, Bowers, and Courtright’s (1980) model of the genesis and impact of variations in three paralinguistic variables of language: intensity (extremity versus neutrality concerning the topic), immediacy (association with the topic), and diversity (vocabulary range). Each is likely an inverted-U function of arousal, with highest levels with intermediate stress. Each also interacts with speaker/listener agreement, such that higher levels of each increase listener judgments of speaker competence when the two are in agreement but decrease these judgments with disagreement.

3.2 Motivation-based message reception theories Kim’s (2001) theory of cross-cultural adaptation is difficult to categorize. I place it here under the assumption that a “stranger’s” desire to adapt to and thrive within

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a differing “host culture”, such as an Asian in North America or vice versa, is a prerequisite for the process that the theory describes. Assuming such motivation, successful adaptation is encouraged by a stranger who has previous knowledge about the host culture, experience interacting with other cultures, and a flexible personality (O), within a culture that is open to strangers and similar to the stranger’s own (S). Adaptation occurs through a long series of encounters with host culture natives and media sources (P). These encounters can be quite stressful, but such anxiety serves as further motivation to adapt. The result (R) is the ability to communicate competently as both message sender and receiver with host culture natives, greater psychological well-being, and the integration of elements from both original and host culture into a new “intercultural identity” (Kim 2001).

3.3 Skill-based message reception theories Theories such as those above presuppose the skilled interpretation of the verbal and nonverbal aspects of messages. McClelland and Elman’s (1986) TRACE model of speech perception presumes the existence of a long-term memory structure consisting of highly interconnected nodes at the feature (sound characteristics), phoneme, and word levels. Sounds first activate their corresponding nodes at the feature level, with activation continuing for some period of time, allowing for the representation of the features of a sequence of sounds (the “trace”). The speech recognition system uses the trace to “propose” a “hypothesis”, i.e. tentatively activate the phoneme seemingly corresponding to each sound, based on the features of both the relevant sound and those sounds immediately before and after it. Linkages among nodes at the phoneme level provide further evidence, as some combinations (such as /m/ /f/) are much less likely than others (/m/ /i/). After a sufficient period of time, the hypothesized (most highly activated) phoneme is chosen. That phoneme’s node excites all word nodes that contain it, with the finally-chosen word that best matches the sequence of activated phonemes. TRACE has nothing to say specifically about high-level recognition at the syntactic and, perhaps most importantly, pragmatic levels, with the latter perhaps requiring a model resembling some inference process akin to that proposed by Searle (1975) for recognizing indirect speech acts. Analogous to Levelt’s (1989) effort with speech production, it also does not consider the nonverbal behavior that accompanies and aids in the interpretation of the verbal.

4 Interactive IPO models: The competent interaction Interactive IPO models highlight the interaction itself rather than the psychological structure and processes of the interactants. In this model, a message produced by

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one communicator (P) is perceived (O) and thought about (I) by a second communicator, who produces a message in response (P) to the first communicator. The first communicator then perceives (O), thinks about (I), and responds (P) to the second communicator in turn. In contrast with the OSPR model types described earlier, interactive IPO models feature multiple communicators engaged in continual feedback loops. In essence, the joint goal of the participants is to engage in a successful interaction, and it would follow that their ability to do so would indicate the competence of that interaction. Argyle’s (1972) social skill model provides a rough sketch of the form of interactive IPO models relevant to communicative competence. The motivation for Ann to engage in interaction with Bob comes from the drive to satisfy either a physiological need such as hunger or thirst or a psychological need such as dependency, affiliation, or dominance through social interaction. The relevant drive arouses in Ann a more specific interaction goal; just to name a few examples, to order a meal at a restaurant, ask for directions when lost, or direct a group to make a decision. In response to her goal and those perceptions, Ann designs a specific message (I) as part of an action plan and then delivers it (P). Bob is analogously motivated by a goal and the drive that underlies it, which may or may not be the same as Ann’s, and in light of that goal may selectively perceive (O) the content in Ann’s message. Bob then designs (I) and delivers (P) a response. Ann’s (O) perception of Bob’s message allows her to alter her action plan (I) and subsequent messages (P) in light of Bob’s. Argyle considered various implications of this model for social skill. The perceptual sensitivity of each interactant to one another, particularly in terms of nonverbal cues, speaks to individual competence on the output side, as does the breadth and depth of the repertoire of known techniques for interaction on the input end. As for the interaction itself, Argyle used as an example of interactional competence the ability of two people to take turns smoothly throughout the interaction without undue gaps or overlaps in their discussion. In the case of competence-relevant interactive IPO theories, the knowledge/ motivation/skill trichotomy is less useful as a classifier than the distinction between two theoretical subtypes that I will cover in detail; behavioral adaptation theories and uncertainty reduction theories. I finish with a description of an aggregate of interactive IPO theories that do not fit into any particular mold.

4.1 Behavioral adaptation theories Behavioral adaptation theories describe how two interactants coordinate their affiliation-related behaviors, such as the amount of distance and eye gaze between them along with smiling and touching, in response to changes in these behaviors by one or the other over time. These theories need to account for the fact that a change in one person’s behavioral intimacy can be responded to through the other person either reciprocating (making the same change), compensating (making the

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opposite change), or making no change at all. Thus if Ann were to increase the degree of liking implied by what she is doing by, say, moving closer to Bob, then Bob might begin smiling more (reciprocating her increase), gaze at her less (compensating for her increase), or not responding behaviorally. If instead Ann were to move farther from Bob, he would reciprocate by smiling less and compensate by gazing at her more. In either case, Ann would then respond in turn. In short, these theories posit a homeostatic process through which interactants manage their level of physiological arousal caused by, and resulting emotional response toward, the other’s level of behavior. As a group, the behavioral adaptation theories tend to accentuate the output portion of their explanations and take the input part for granted. To a greater or lesser extent, they share the following interactive IPO model: Ann changes her level of affiliation-relevant behavior (P). Bob notices this change and, under certain theory-specific conditions, becomes aroused by it (O). Bob then plans (I) and changes (P) his own behavior in response. Ann notes Bob’s behavioral changes, and again in certain circumstances becomes aroused (O), plans (I), and alters (P) her own subsequent actions. If a satisfactory homeostasis is achieved, the interaction can be considered to be competently performed. Given Argyle’s social skill model, it is not surprising that the forerunner of this group was Argyle and Dean’s (1965) affiliative conflict theory. The balance between drives toward and away from an intimate interaction with the other determines each interactant’s immediate need for affiliation. If the amount of implied liking Ann experiences from Bob’s behavior is greater or less than desired, arousal occurs, motivating a return to the most comfortable level. Disequilibrium can occur either if one or the other changes their behaviors sufficiently to send a clear signal of greater or lesser intimacy, or if they desire different levels of intimacy. Argyle and Dean (1965: 293) proposed that the two would work out a compromise level of expressed intimacy “more or less satisfactory to both.” Such a compromise would constitute a competent interaction. A textbook exemplar of an interactive IPO theory consistent with the Argyle social skill model and featured in the Wilson and Sabee (2003) review would be expectancy violation theory (EVT; Burgoon and Hale 1988). Ann and Bob enter their interaction with a range representing the expectancies of the affiliation-relevant behaviors one another will perform. If Ann performs a behavior outside of the range of Bob’s expectancies (P), in other words signals an unexpectedly large change in her affiliation-relevant behaviors, Bob becomes aroused and begins focusing on the behavior (O). Bob will first interpret the behavior (is that movement toward me a sign of attraction or aggression?) and then evaluate it as either positive or negative (I). This evaluation is influenced by Ann’s “communicator reward valence”; Bob views Ann as either a rewarding or punishing person with whom to interact. Bob is more likely to see a rewarding Ann’s move as signaling liking and a punishing Ann’s shift as aggressive. The final behavioral evaluation determines the recipient’s reaction. If Bob positively interprets Ann’s movement toward him,

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he reciprocates by, for example, smiling more often. If Bob negatively interprets Ann’s movement toward him, he compensates by, for instance, looking away from her (P). In any case, Ann will respond to Bob’s reciprocation or compensation through the same process, resulting in a “negotiation” between the two concerning acceptable behavior in their interaction. Their success in coming to an implied agreement in this matter determines the competence of the interaction. Expectancy violations theory later metamorphosed into interaction adaptation theory (Burgoon and White 1997), with a more complicated approach to each interactant’s behavioral decision process. Discrepancy arousal theory (Cappella and Greene 1982) is a somewhat different approach to behavioral adaptation between two people. Analogously with EVT, Ann and Bob have a range of expectations for the amount of involvement in their interaction the other should signal, including not only affiliation-relevant behaviors but also, for example, the length and amount of pauses between speaking turns, speech amount and volume, and body orientation. If Ann’s involvement level is either greater or lesser than Bob’s expectation, then Bob will become aroused, with the degree of arousal curvilinearly increasing with amount of discrepancy (the increase occurs at a slower rate as discrepancy goes up). Bob’s emotional experience of this arousal depends on its level, such that relatively low amounts are experienced as pleasurable but further increases less so, up to the limits of Bob’s expectation region. Beyond that border, Bob’s arousal level will become aversive, and ever more so with continued increases. Behavioral response is consistent with emotional experience. Thus, if Ann’s level of behavioral involvement is either slightly above or slightly below Bob’s expectation (P), then Bob will be mildly aroused (O), find that arousal pleasurable (I), and increase his own behavioral involvement (P). If Ann’s level is instead well above or below (P), Bob will be highly aroused (O), suffer it as painful (I), and decrease his behavioral involvement (P). Cappella and Greene (1982) described some implications of discrepancy arousal theory for communicative competence. Ann is going through the same process of arousal, emotion, and behavioral adaptation to Bob’s behavior as Bob is with Ann’s. This leads to the issue of their behavioral coordination. In normal circumstances there will be significant overlap between their acceptance regions, resulting in each finding the other’s degree of behavioral involvement to be pleasurable and increasing their own, leading to reciprocation and a competent interaction. The smaller the overlap between acceptance regions, the less often there would be pleasurable response and reciprocation and the more there would be displeasure and compensation. No overlap would mean no reciprocating at all and an absence of interactional competence. Discrepancy arousal theory implies that emotional responses to one another’s behavior are sufficient for explaining behavioral adaptation, whereas expectancy violations theory posits a mix of emotional and cognitive factors. Other theories

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within the behavioral adaptation set include arousal labeling (Patterson 1976) and cognitive valence (Andersen 1988). Both are more similar to expectancy violations theory than discrepancy arousal in this regard. Both expectancy violations and cognitive valence accounts explicitly refer to perceptions of a behavior’s appropriateness in judgments of its consistency with expectations. Barry and Oliver’s (1996) delineation of the role played by affect in dyadic negotiation is founded on expectancy violations. Each negotiator’s affective state at any one point during a negotiation can be improved or worsened by the extent to which one another’s tactics are more cooperative or contentious than expected, with their own tactics following suit. This implies a tendency for negotiators to match one another’s mood and level of cooperation as the negotiation progresses. The competent negotiation, then, is one in which both are cooperative. Communication accommodation theory (Gallois, Ogay, and Giles 2005) boasts a substantially different account for the psychological motivations responsible for reciprocation and compensation than the behavioral adaptation theories described thus far. At its core, communication accommodation theory is relevant to circumstances in which a communicator’s membership in a given social group, which could be defined by any number of features (such as age, gender, ethnicity, and occupation), is more salient than the communicator’s personal identity during an interaction. Reciprocation of an interactional partner’s behavior is more likely if that partner is either of the same social group or of a different social group that the communicator evaluates positively, whereas compensation is prevalent when the interactional partner is of a negatively-viewed social group. As with other behavioral adaptation theories, a competent interaction occurs when the behavioral responses of each to the other can achieve a mutually acceptable equilibrium.

4.2 Uncertainty reduction theories Whereas the behavioral adaptation theories are united in the assumption that interactive behavior is controlled by arousal processes, the basis of uncertainty reduction theories is a presumed motivation to come to understand our interactional partners. The original uncertainty reduction theory (Berger and Calabrese 1975) serves as the subset’s exemplar. Ann and Bob are strangers meeting for the first time and, as such, have high levels of uncertainty about one another. Ann’s high uncertainty (I) leads her to ask Bob a question about himself (“What is your name?”; P). Bob comprehends the question (O) and both answers and, given his own high uncertainty (I), asks one in return (“I’m Bob. What is yours?”; P). Ann’s uncertainty is slightly reduced by Bob’s answer (O), and her answer to his question lowers his. If this back and forth proceeds smoothly, each’s uncertainty continues to drop and their comfort with one another increases. As the conversation progresses, the ease of lowered uncertainty results in faster speech rates and fewer pauses, and a reduction in each’s felt need to quickly reciprocate short question–answer

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exchanges provides the time for longer speaking turns including the disclosure of more intimate self-relevant information. The end result is an increase in liking for one another, accompanied by more nonverbal expressions of this liking. The implication is that a competent interaction occurs when both Ann and Bob’s uncertainty is reduced sufficiently for mutual liking. Subsequent theories in this subset add additional motivational factors to the need for understanding. In predicted outcome value theory, Sunnafrank (1986) hypothesized that once enough information about one another has been exchanged for both Ann and Bob to make evaluations of expected outcomes from future interaction, understanding needs would be superseded by hedonistic needs, and interaction would only progress as the original uncertainty reduction theory proposed if both Bob and Ann forecast rewards from the effort. In contrast, expectations of costs result in actions to bring the interaction to a halt. A competent discussion could include either one with lowered uncertainty, positive forecasts, and a desire for future interactions or one with negative forecasts and a polite mutual withdrawal. Afifi and Weiner’s (2004) theory of motivated information management combines notions from expectancy violations theory with the realization that, rather than necessarily lowering uncertainty, people want to maintain it in a given comfort range and might even choose to increase it if it is lower than they like. Uncertainty outside of the comfort range leads to anxiety and a motivation to return to that range. A competent interaction succeeds in managing this return. Gudykunst’s (1993) anxiety/uncertainty management theory deserves special mention due to an explicit reference to communicative competence. Specifically relevant to interactions between strangers differing in culture or ethnicity, a competent interaction is one with few if any misunderstandings between discussants. Such an interchange is the product of mindfulness, i.e., conscious awareness of the situation and attention to details of the interaction on the part of both parties. Optimal amounts of both uncertainty and anxiety encourage mindfulness, whereas too much leads to its opposite (mindlessness) and too little results in an absence of motivation to interact in the first place.

4.3 Other interactive IPO theories There is a wide variety of other interactive IPO theories relevant to communicative competence that cannot be easily classified. The following is a summary of some of them, ordered roughly from the most psychologically based to the most socially founded. Affect-control theory (Heise 1979) is based on the idea that our attitudes toward another person can have two different aspects; an established or “fundamental” part based on our overall history of interaction with that person, and a temporary or “transient” part formed during one specific instance of interaction with that person. We are motivated to keep the two consistent with one another, and when the two parts of the attitude are in conflict, i.e. one is positive and the

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other negative, there is a drive to act in order to resolve the inconsistency. For example, if Ann likes Bob but Bob is critical of Ann, Ann’s fundamental and transient attitudes toward Bob are in conflict, and Ann is motivated to either reprimand Bob for his insult or ask Bob why he did so. Ann’s comment should put Bob in an analogous condition of attitudinal conflict, which could lead to an account and/or apology for his action. If Bob’s response is accepted by Ann, both should return to cognitive consistency. A proviso here, however, is that the two have analogous definitions of the situation, and an absence of such can have disastrous consequences. If Bob believes that the circumstance allows for criticism whereas Ann does not, a prolonged argument could ensue. As one’s fundamental attitude is an amalgam of one’s transient responses, one can imagine that too many exchanges of this type would lead the former to change for the worse. Thus a competent interaction requires similar definitions of the situation. Berscheid’s (1983) emotions-in-relationship theory is an extension into the interpersonal realm of Mandler’s (1975) account for the genesis of emotion. An “organized action sequence” (OAS) is a series of behavioral events directed toward satisfying a goal that have been performed in a given sequence frequently enough to function as a unit. The interruption of an OAS results in physiological arousal and the experience of emotion, which is then labeled positively or negatively depending on context. To the extent that two people are interdependent, the potential for interruptions of one another’s OAS is present. “Meshed” OASs occur when the OASs for two people facilitate goal achievement for both. Well-meshed OASs mean few interruptions and a calm relationship, but also the absence of surprises in positive contexts (e.g., an unexpected happy event) and potential boredom. It follows that a competent relationship would be highly intermeshed to prevent surprises in negative contexts but include occasional interruptions by one partner that are responded to positively by the other. In the original version of the coordinated management of meaning (Pearce and Cronen 1980), any communicator has a conception of the regulative rules governing socially-correct action and the constitutive rules defining the significance of these actions within the immediately relevant situation. The extent to which interactants’ relevant rule conceptions are consistent with one another determines the success or failure of goal achievement during their interaction. Pearce and Cronen had an explicit individual-level typology for communicative competence within this theory: minimal competence implies sufficient knowledge of regulative rules to conduct an interaction without an understanding of the constitutive rules describing their meaning; satisfactory competence means knowledge of both types of rules sufficient for successful interaction and understanding; and optimal competence signifies great enough understanding of the underlying circumstance to allow for intentional rule breakage designed to bring about positive change. But given that successful goal achievement requires rule conception consistency among interactants, it is better to view competence as a dyadic achievement in that vein.

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Communication privacy management theory (Petronio 2002) is founded on the notion that both those considering disclosing private information and those receiving and responding to disclosures make decisions concerning how vulnerable they wish to be to the risks inherent in such interchanges. Both disclosures and responses can be more or less direct, with more direct messages carrying greater potential for both risk and reward. Competent exchanges satisfying both parties are most likely when both disclosure and response are direct. Reciprocated indirect messages can also be competent when the discloser truly wishes an implicit reaction, but not when the discloser wants otherwise. Duncan and Fiske’s (1977) approach to turn-taking in conversation is the first of the theories to be described in this chapter based on a functional model of scientific explanation rather than a causal (the difference is explained well in Achinstein, 1983). At any given time, speaker Ann has a given level of desire to give up the floor to listener Bob, and Bob a desire to take the floor from Ann; their respective “transition-readiness states.” Both also have available to them a number of observable cues to signal their transition-readiness state to the other: gestures, posture, head position, pitch and volume of voice, along with syntactic cues in their verbal messages. Duncan and Fiske hypothesized that the number of relevant cues exhibited at a given time serves as an indication of the current level of one’s transition-readiness state; more cues, higher state. At the end of a syntactic unit, either Ann can reserve the floor for a while (e.g.,“… and not only that …”), Ann can give the floor to Bob (“What do you think?”), or the floor can go to the quickest speaker (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1978). Competent turn-taking in conversation without undue interruptions and long pauses requires the skilled use and recognition of the available cues on the part of all interactants. Bales’s (1953) functional theory of group equilibrium posits that “healthy” groups are able to juggle the sometimes-contradictory demands of task performance and cohesiveness maintenance through achieving optimum proportions and sequences of task-relevant “instrumental” and relationship-relevant “expressive” communicative acts. The healthy group produces several times as many positive expressive messages as negatives, and responds to stress inducements such as negative expressiveness with relevant instrumental work (explaining one’s negativity) followed by positive reactions. Competent group discussion insures the maintenance of cohesiveness without sacrificing proficient task work. Karau and Kelly’s (1992) attentional focus model adds time as a moderator, such that extreme time pressure disallows the expressive communicative acts that can return when temporal constraints have been lifted. “Sex-role orientation” is an individual difference variable, consisting of that portion of a person’s cognitive structure containing attributes relevant to either “masculinity” or “femininity”. These two function as independent dimensions, such that one’s sex-role orientation can not only be primarily masculine or feminine, but also both (“androgyny”) or neither (“undifferentiated”). Piggybacking on

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Bales, Ickes (1981) proposed that those with masculine orientations would prefer to send and receive instrumental forms of communication whereas feminines are more comfortable with expressive forms, particularly in regards to nonverbal indicators of interaction involvement. The resulting synthesis is an interactive IPO theory in which satisfaction with the interaction is a product of the degree to which Ann and Bob’s sex-role orientation and resulting communication style preferences intermesh. In a sense, the androgynous are more competent than the other types due to their ability to enact both instrumental and expressive techniques. Nonetheless, interactions as a whole are more likely to be satisfactory to both parties and thus performed competently if the interactants’ styles match, no matter what they are. Argyle, Furnham, and Graham (1981) considered the implications of assigning the possession of goals to social situations as well as to people (e.g., the goals of negotiation could include one negotiator gaining compliance from the other, the two reaching a compromise agreement, and the two maintaining a friendly relationship). The need for behavioral coordination among participants in pursuit of one or more of these goals has resulted in the emergence of a characteristic group of roles and rules associated with each situation along with a relevant repertoire of verbal and nonverbal actions that, when enacted by all participants, results in situational goal achievement. Assuming that each participant chooses personal goals from the situational goal set that are not inconsistent with one another (from the negotiation goal set, gaining compliance and reaching a compromise are inconsistent situational goals), it follows that performance of the relevant behavioral repertoire, that suggested by situational rules and roles, allows for both personal and situational goal fulfillment. Social skill, a central concept in the authors’ approach, consists of sufficient knowledge of relevant rules and roles and the ability to perform the needed behavioral repertoire, and as such is context-dependent. Situations that are particularly stressful, those in which participants tend to be uncomfortable, fearful, prone to embarrassment, or self-conscious, are those with a greater likelihood of social skill deficits. An interactive IPO account would stress the need for all participants to coordinate their behaviors in line with relevant rules and roles, allowing for satisfactory goal achievement.

5 Final remarks The goal of this chapter has been to review and classify scientific theories that have demonstrable implications for the concept of communicative competence. The focus on scientific theory limits attention to a subset of communication theory, leaving out other viewpoints with analogous relevance. A mention of two examples of these others must suffice. Baxter and Montgomery’s (1996) dialectic approach to close relationships makes specific reference to interactional competence, defining

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it consistently with the interactive IPO model as communicative patterns revealing the participants’ degree of success at fluidly and creatively managing the complexities and contradictions inherent in the contexts of their specific relationship. Adaptive structuration theory (DeSanctis and Poole 1994) is best modeled within the OSPR message production set. Here, the concept of communicative competence is implied by the extent to which the interaction of work teams using a group decision support system demonstrates a successful blend of the “spirit” (normative usage patterns) encouraged by the support system’s design, the restraints imposed by the task and organizational environment, and the implications of the team’s preexisting structure. Such a demonstration would encompass the degree of equality in team member participation and influence and the effectiveness of conflict management. Despite its limitations, if the discussion in this chapter has been successful in reaching its goal, it has demonstrated that, although there are very few theories of communicative competence per se, there are a great many theories that have obvious relevance to that topic. In fact, it could be argued that any theory that provides a good account for message production or message reception or interactional coordination has implications for communicative competence. Although I would not go so far as to say that we do not need any explicit theories of competent communication – as far as I am concerned, the more communication theories the better – I would say that, rather than despair of our poverty of competence theories, we should rejoice in our wealth of theories of communication that explain in their various ways how communication can be competently performed.

References Achinstein, Peter. 1983. The Nature of Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press. Afifi, Walid A. and Judith L. Weiner. 2004. Toward a theory of motivated information management. Communication Theory 14. 167–190. Andersen, Peter A. 1988. The cognitive valence theory of intimate communicative. In: Mark T. Palmer and George A. Barnett (eds.), Progress in Communicative Sciences, Volume 14. 39– 72. Stanford, CT: Ablex. Argyle, Michael. 1972. The Psychology of Interpersonal Behavior (2nd ed.). Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. Argyle, Michael and Janet Dean. 1965. Eye-contact, distance and affiliation. Sociometry 28. 289– 304. Argyle, Michael, Adrian Furnham and Jean Ann Graham. 1981. Social Situations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Bales, Robert F. 1953. The equilibrium problem in small groups. In: Talcott Parsons, Robert F. Bales and Edward A. Shils, Working Papers in the Theory of Action, 111–128. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Barge, J. Kevin and Randy Y. Hirokawa. 1989. Toward a communication competency model of group leadership. Small Group Behavior 20. 167–189.

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Barry, Bruce and Richard L. Oliver. 1996. Affect in dyadic negotiation: A model and propositions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 67. 127–143. Baxter, Leslie A. and Barbara M. Montgomery. 1996. Relating: Dialogues and Dialectics. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Berger, Charles R. 1997. Planning Strategic Interaction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Berger, Charles R. and Richard J. Calabrese. 1975. Some explorations in initial interaction and beyond: Toward a developmental theory of interpersonal communication. Human Communication Research 1. 99–112. Berscheid, Ellen. 1983. Emotions. In: Harold H. Kelley, Ellen Berscheid, Andrew Christensen, John H. Harvey, Ted L. Huston, George Levinger, Evie McClintock, Letitia Anne Peplau and Donald R. Peterson, Close Relationships, 110–168. San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman. Bradac, James J., John Waite Bowers and John A. Courtright. 1980. Lexical variations in intensity, immediacy, and diversity: An axiomatic theory and causal model. In: Robert N. St Clair and Howard Giles (eds.), The Social and Psychological Contexts of Language, 193–223. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Buck, Ross. 1997. From DNA to MTV: The spontaneous communication of emotional messages. In: John O. Greene (ed.), Message Production: Advances in Communication Theory, 313–339. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Burgoon, Judee K. and Jerold L. Hale. 1988. Nonverbal expectancy violations: Model elaboration and application to immediacy behavior. Communicative Monographs 55. 58–79. Burgoon, Judee K. and Cindy H. White. 1997. Researching nonverbal production: A view from interaction adaptation theory. In: John O. Greene (ed.), Message Production: Advances in Communicative Theory, 279–312. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Burleson, Brant R. 2007. Constructivism: A general theory of communication skill. In: Bryan B. Whaley and Wendy Samter (eds.), Explaining Communication: Contemporary Theories and Exemplars, 105–128. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Cappella, Joseph N. and John O. Greene. 1982. A discrepancy-arousal explanation of mutual influence in expressive behavior for adult and infant–adult interaction. Communicative Monographs 49. 89–114. Clark, Herbert H. and Susan E. Haviland. 1977. Comprehension and the given-new contract. In: Roy O. Freedle (ed.), Discourse Production and Comprehension, 1–40. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Clark, Herbert H. and Catherine R. Marshall. 1981. Definite reference and mutual knowledge. In: Aravind K. Koshi, Bonnie L. Webber and Ivan A. Sag (eds.), Elements of Discourse Understanding, 10–63. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DeSanctis, Gerardine and Marshall Scott Poole. 1994. Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science 5. 121–147. Duncan, Starkey, Jr., and Donald W. Fiske. 1977. Face-to-Face Interaction: Research, Methods, and Theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Ekman, Paul and Wallace V. Friesen. 1975. Unmasking the Face. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Fiedler, Fred E. 1964. A contingency model of leadership effectiveness. In: Leonard Berkowitz (ed.), Advance in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 1. 149–190. New York, NY: Academic Press. Gallois, Cindy, Tania Ogay and Howard Giles. 2005. Communication accommodation theory: A look back and a look ahead. In: William Gudykunst (ed.), Theorizing about Intercultural Communication, 121–148. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Greene, John O. 1984. A cognitive approach to human communicative: An action assembly theory. Communicative Monographs 51. 289–306.

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Greene, John O. 1997. A second generation action assembly theory. In: John O. Greene (ed.), Message Production: Advances in Communicative Theory, 151–170. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Greene, John O. and Deanna Geddes. 1993. An action assembly perspective on social skill. Communicative Theory 3. 26–49. Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In: Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3. Speech Acts, 41–58. New York: Academic. Gudykunst, William B. 1993. Toward a theory of effective interpersonal and intergroup communication: An anxiety/uncertainty management (AUM) perspective. In: Richard L. Wiseman and Jolene Koester (eds.), Intercultural Communication Competence, 33–71. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Heise, David R. 1979. Understanding Events. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ickes, William. 1981. Sex-role influences on dyadic interaction: A theoretical model. In: Clara Mayo and Nancy M. Henley (eds.), Gender and Nonverbal Behavior, 95–128. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag. Infante, Dominic A. and Andrew S. Rancer. 1982. Conceptualization and measure of argumentativeness. Journal of Personality Assessment 46(1). 72–80. Karau, Steven J. and Janice R. Kelly. 1992. The effects of time scarcity and time abundance on group performance quality and interaction process. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 28. 542–571. Kelley, Harold H. 1967. Attribution theory in social psychology. In: David Levine (ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, Vol. 15. 192–238. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Kim, Young Y. 2001. Becoming Intercultural: An Integrative Theory of Communication and Crosscultural Adaptation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Levelt, Willem J. M. 1989. Speaking: From Intention to Articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Malle, Bertram F. 2004. How the Mind Explains Behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mandler, George. 1975. Mind and Emotion. New York, NY: John Wiley. McClelland, James L. and Jeffrey L. Elman. 1986. Interactive processes in speech perception: The TRACE model. In: James L. McClelland, David E. Rumelhart and the PDP Research Group, Parallel Distributed Processing, Vol. 2. 58–121. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Meyer, Janet R. 1997. Cognitive influences on the ability to address interaction goals. In: J. O. Greene (ed.), Message Production: Advances in Communication Theory, 71–90. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Patterson, Miles L. 1976. An arousal model of interpersonal intimacy. Psychological Review 83. 235–245. Pavitt, Charles. 2001. Philosophy of Science and Communicative Theory. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers. Pavitt, Charles. 2007. Impression formation. In: Bryan B. Whaley and Wendy Samter (eds.), Explaining Communication: Contemporary Theories and Exemplars, 61–72. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pavitt, Charles. 2009. Alternative approaches to theorizing in communicative science. In: Charles R. Berger, Michael E. Roloff and David Roskos-Ewoldsen (eds.), Handbook of Communicative Science, 2nd ed., 37–54. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Pearce, W. Barnett and Vernon Cronen. 1980. Communication, Action, and Meaning. New York, NY: Praeger. Petronio, S. 2002. Boundaries of Privacy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Reed, Stephen J. and Lynn C. Miller. 1998. On the dynamics of meaning: An interactive activation and competition model of social perception. In: Stephen J. Reed and Lynn C. Miller (eds.), Connectionist Models of Social Reasoning and Social Behavior, 27–68. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Gail Jefferson. 1978. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation. In: Jim Schenkein (ed.), Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, 7–55. New York: Academic Press. Schank, Roger G. 1977. Rules and topics in conversation. Cognitive Science 1. 421–444. Schlenker, Barry R. and Mark R. Leary. 1982. Social anxiety and self-presentation: A conceptualization and model. Psychological Bulletin 92. 641–669. Searle, John. 1975. Indirect speech acts. In: Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3. Speech Acts, 59–82. New York: Academic Press. Smith, Mary John. 1982. Cognitive schemata and persuasive communication: Toward a contingency rules theory. In: Michael Burgoon (ed.), Communication Yearbook 6. 330–362. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Spitzberg, Brian H. and Gabrielle Changnon. 2009. Conceptualizing intercultural communicative competence. In: Darla K. Deardorff (ed.), The SAGE handbook of Intercultural Competence, 2– 52. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Spitzberg, Brian H. and William R. Cupach. 1984. Interpersonal Communicative Competence. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Sunnafrank, Michael. 1986. Predicted outcome value during initial interactions: A reformulation of uncertainty reduction theory. Human Communication Research 13. 3–33. Vallacher, Robin R. and Daniel M. Wegner. 1985. A Theory of Action Identification. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawence Erlbaum. Wiemann, John M. 1977. Explication and test of a model of communicative competence. Human Communication Research 3. 195–213. Wilson, Steven R. and Christina M. Sabee. 2003. Explicating communicative competence as a theoretical term. In: John O. Greene and Brant R. Burleson (eds.), Handbook of Communicative and Social Interaction Skills, 3–50. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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4 Epistemological approaches to communication competence Abstract: In this chapter we set out to provide an epistemological overview of the world of communication competence research. We start by examining the notion of “competence” as it has weaved in and out of the writings about communication starting with Grecian ideas and ending with postmodern critical perspectives on the topic. We then attempt to explore the various ways modern scholars have attempted to define and explain what “communication competence” is and how it can be studied. Then using Cone’s (1978) Behavioral Assessment Grid we outline a variety of different issues related to the study of communication competence. Lastly, we explore some issues regarding the selection and utilization of appropriate measures of communication competence within modern research endeavors. Keywords: epistemological approaches, theoretical foundations, historical understanding, foundations, dimensions, measurement Behavioral Assessment Grid

Communication competence is one of the most ambiguous and commonly referred to terms within the field of communication. The notion of competence is hardly a new one. In 1937, Edgar Doll argued for the need to measure social competence. Doll (1935, 1939, 1948, 1953) posited the importance of social competence and its relationship to communication and intelligence. Doll was interested in looking at the associations between social competence and social skills. Doll’s work was influential in helping us understand that mental retardation was genetic and often resulted in lacking social competence and delayed development. Another scholar who researched competence was Robert White (1959), who noted that humans have a number of primary drives including “visual exploration, grasping, crawling and walking, attention and perception, language and thinking, exploring novel objects and places, manipulating the surroundings, and producing effective changes in the environment” (p. 329). All of these drives help someone learn how to interact with her or his environment, which lead to one’s ability to develop and flourish. However, competence cannot be gained through these innate drives. Instead, competence is believed to be something that is strived toward to varying degrees of success through the course of one’s lifecycle. As such, competence is inherently about an individual’s capability to achieve a desired change in one’s environment. White (1963) later expanded his notions of competency to the realm of interpersonal interactions using case studies to illustrate his theory. White argued that interpersonal competence involved an individual’s ability to achieve a specific, con-

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scious or unconscious, effect on another individual. The degree to which the individual succeeded would then be seen as a measure of competence. Another important early researcher in communication competence was Chris Argyris. Stemming off of White’s earlier work (1963), Argyris (1965) created a behavioral coding system to examine a variety of communicative behaviors that were deemed “interpersonally competent” in work groups. One of his biggest contributions was the demonstration that individuals can grow in their interpersonal competence, which demonstrated that interpersonal competence can be learned. A third researcher who impacted the theoretical foundations of communication competence was Arthur Bochner. Bochner and Kelly (1974) noted that “interpersonal competence is a description of a person’s ability to interact effectively with other people” (p. 288). They argued that “developing appropriate strategies for interpersonal competence instruction requires an ability to assess it” (p. 288). They believed that if researchers can figure out the components of competence then it would be easy to create a model. Later, Bochner and Yerby (1977) investigated the creation of interpersonal communication competence skills. They discovered that competence was influenced by other’s perceptions. Bochner’s work had a huge impact on the theoretical understanding of competence. A fourth influential important researcher in the development of communication competence was John Wiemann (1975, 1977). Wiemann’s (1975) dissertation marks the first foray into this area of research within the field of communication under the term “communication competence”. Wiemann’s (1977) study developed a Likert-type mental measure for examining communication competence. The measure was designed to be utilized as an other-report tool for examining individual perceptions of another person’s communication competence. Each of these three pivotal moments approached communication competence from a different perspective on what communication competence is. White (1959, 1963) saw communication competence as a factor stemming from biological drives that could be refined. Argyris (1965) approached communication competence from the perspective of problem solving in group contexts. Wiemann saw communication competence in reference to five behavioral dimensions: 1. affiliation/support, 2. social relaxation, 3. empathy, 4. behavioral flexibility, and 5. interaction management skills. This difference of opinion to what the nature of “communication competence” is to begin with is one of the major problems scholars have historically had when understanding and discussing communication competence. Some of the pivotal moments in this discipline were the colloquy between McCroskey (1982), in which he channels issues originally raised by Chomsky and the responses (e.g., Spitzberg 1983). McCroskey (1982) provided two distinctions of competence: skill and learning. He argued that the fulfillment of goals through competence is not a necessary condition to perceive competence. At the same time, communication performance is not enough to determine if someone is competent. Spitzberg (1983) argued that relational interactants are important observers and deciders of a per-

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son’s communication competence. He declared that, “Competence is an impression resulting from the behaviors of the relational interactants, the context within which they are enacted, and the characteristics of the individuals involved” (p. 326). The problems the diversity of communication competence models create for measurement will be discussed later in this chapter. For now, it is important to note that conceptual foundations and operationalization of a latent psychological or behavioral variable is one that is extremely problematic without the agreement of theoretical perspectives. These three examples further illustrate just three of the different tools that scholars have utilized when attempting to measure the morphing concept of communication competence. White (1963) relied on case studies to drive home his theoretical perspective. Argyris (1965) utilized behavioral coding schemes. Wiemann (1977) created a summated rating scale for measuring communication competence. As there are different perspectives on the theoretical notions of communication competence, the field is also marked by a variety of different tools and methodologies that have been created and utilized to examine communication competence. The purpose of this chapter is not to examine each of the different measurement devices individually (see Chapter 22 for this). Instead, this chapter is going to examine common methods for analyzing communication competence while exploring some of the critical methodological concerns for the different methodological choices.

1 Epistemological traditions to communication competence There lies a very clear link between the very notions of knowledge and competence, so there is an inherent relationship between discussions of epistemology and those of competence (Sosa 2002). According to Moser (2002), epistemology is “the study of the nature of knowledge and justification: in particular, the study of a) the defining components, b) the substantive conditions or sources, and c) the limits of knowledge and justification” (p. 3). These three epistemic foundations have caused much controversy related to: 1. how one analyzes knowledge and justification (e.g., theory, evidence, etc.); 2. sources of knowledge and justification (e.g., positivism, post-positivism, interpretivism, critical, etc.); and 3. skepticism of knowledge and justification: a) epistemist (assent that knowledge of something is possible), b) academic (assent that knowledge of something is not possible), and c) Pyrrhonian (withholding assent to either a or b) (Klein 2002). For our purposes, we want to track the intellectual history associated with various epistemological perspectives that have existed for the study of communication competence (under a variety of different names). Table 1 contains a historical understanding of these different perspectives, which will be briefly examined in the coming pages. In Table 1, we have

Predominant perspective

Competence is primarily an individual’s ability to effectively create arguments in an effort to persuade others.

Competence involves an individual’s ability to capture an audience through the use of stylistic flourishes and prose. Furthermore, there was an explicit articulation on the necessary type of education someone needed to possess to be perceived as competent.

Competence involves the ability to create and deliver both effective polemics and homilia for the purposes of defending Christianity or converting others to Christianity.

Competence involves the interpretation of linguistic and non-linguistic expressions within religious texts.

Competence involved an individual’s effectiveness in gestures, posture, dress, and other nonverbal behaviors.

Competence is the art of understanding messages and making one’s own messages understood.

Competence involves an individual’s knowledge of her or his own language (syntax, grammar, and vocabulary) as opposed to the actual performance of language that allows a person to match sounds with meaning.

Methodology

Grecian Rhetoric

Roman Rhetoric

Christian Rhetoric

Classical Hermeneutics

Elocution

Modern Hermeneutics

Linguistics

Tab. 1: Methodological evolution of communication competence.

Researchers analyze individual’s actual linguistic abilities during oral interactions and evaluate those interactions against a scale of predefined proficiency descriptions.

Researchers studied both texts and actual communicative behavior to better understand how messages shape understanding.

Researchers studied micro-behaviors and systems of micro-behaviors that made individuals more effective speakers.

Theorists examined religious texts looking for deeper meaning within the texts themselves.

Theorists studied how to form logical arguments against heretics and the best ways to both orally and in written-form communicate these arguments.

Theorists studied what factors capture and persuaded an audience. Theorists also debated which courses of study were most necessary for effective speaking.

The focus was on the study of logical arguments and other factors that persuaded audiences.

Methods of study

Noam Chomsky, Michael Canale, H. Paul Grice

Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger, Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel

A. A. Griffith, William Scott, Anna Russell

Philo of Alexandria, Origenes, Martin Luther

Origen, Gregory Thamaturgus, John Chrysostom, Lactantius, St. Augustine of Hippo

Cicero, Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, Plotinus

Plato, Isocrates (and the Sophists), Aristotle

Noted theorists

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Competence involves an individual’s successful ability intention, communicative action, and effects.

Competence is a tangible phenomenon that can be measured using the scientific method.

Providing a single definition of a postpositivist perspective on communication competence is impossible because it is less a methodological approach than it is a belief system. Common postpositivist beliefs that can impact perceptions of communication competence include falsification, naturalism, realism, transformational models, and emergent objectivity.

“The relational participant’s perception of the degree to which their interaction serves to meet relational and individual needs, while maintaining the authentic quality of their relationship” (Sass 1994, 146).

Competence is how in how a message is performed, which is above and beyond the content of the message itself.

A critical perspective on communication competence examines how societal and cultural notions of “competence” exist as barriers to authentic communication and human liberation.

Conversation Analysis

Positivistic

Postpositivistic

Interpretive

Performance

Critical

Sandra Hartog, Peter Halfpenny, Anthony Giddens

Karl Popper, Edgar Doll, John Wiemann, William Cupach, Brian Spitzberg, James McCroskey

George Psathas, Ioanna Dimitracopoulou

Critical theorists examine competence using a variety of different theoretical lenses including poststructuralism, Marixsm, feminism, and other lines of thought ranging from the Frankfurt School to Michele Foucault.

The focus of research is on the act of expression and the performer her or himself within the act.

Theodor Adorno, Antonio Gramsci, Carol Gilligan, Shirley Ardener, Dennis Mumby, Dale Spender, Julia Penelope

Milton Singer, J. L. Austin, Richard Bauman, Erving Goffman, Anya Peterson Royce, Judith Butler

Researchers use a wide range of methodologi- Carina Sass, Katherine Miller, cal approaches including: classical rhetorical Robert Elliott criticism, ethnomethodology, phenomenology, constructionist/constructivist analysis, participant-observation, and other natural research methods.

As of yet few researchers are truly examining communication competence from a postpositivistic perspective, but those who do use a wide range of methods including: discourse analysis, narrative analysis, agent-based modeling, and virtual assessment centers.

Researchers use experimental and survey based research methods to analyze an individual’s level of self-perceived communication competence and/or other perceived communication competence.

Researchers record, transcribe, and analyze how verbal and nonverbal communicative behavior leads to meaning understanding.

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named the methodological approach, provided a brief description of competence from this perspective, the methodological tools researchers use, and some prominent names in these fields. When possible, scholars who have actually examined communication competence from these various fields are listed. However, some fields could provide a definite voice to the overall discussion of communication competence but have not done so in any great depth yet. For these fields, more generalized members of these methodological perspectives have been listed as starting points for future discussion. Over the centuries, authors often wrote about something that resembled our modern understanding of communication competence. From Plato’s “noble lover” to the utilization of virtual assessment centers to evaluate an individual’s communicative behaviors, researchers have examined what it means to be a competent communicator. As can be seen in Table 1, a wide range of different methodological tools have been used over the years even though the most common set is still the positivists’ use of survey research and experimental designs. Chapter 22 later in this volume explores in more detail a taxonomy of different research measures that scholars have created. The rest of this chapter is going to review the historical evolution of methods including both traditional survey-based research methods for communication competence along with emerging methods in behavioral analysis, simulation, and virtual reality. This chapter will review the kinds of methodological choices or options for studying communication competence along with critical methodological concerns or issues in pursuing these choices.

2 Crystallization of the communication competence concept In 1988, Spitzberg defined communication competence as “the ability to interact well with others” (p. 68). He explained that the word “well” is related to the “accuracy, clarity, comprehensibility, coherence, expertise, effectiveness, and appropriateness” (p. 68). Gustav Friedrich (1994) argued that communication competence is the ability to make specific goals and to achieve them through the speaker’s knowledge of the context, their self, other, and communication theory. Friedrich’s work supports both McCroskey’s 1982 argument regarding communication competence as performance and Park’s argument about competence as effectiveness. McCroskey and McCroskey (1988) argued that scholars in the communication field have viewed communication competence in several different ways with various interpretations. Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) believed that competence was determined by the communicator’s ability to successfully achieve a specific task in an appropriate manner. Spitzberg and Cupach solidified this notion, but also traced it to basic conative models in psychology and even in our own field of communication studies (Rubin and Feezel 1985, 1986). Spitzberg and Cupach felt that

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it was important for speakers to adapt their messages appropriately to a communication context. In other words, a communicator needed to know when and how to communicate their objectives to others. Thus, there are two key elements to competence: appropriateness and effectiveness. Shimanoff (1980) argued that communication competence is rule-based and tells individuals how and when to communicate. Shimanoff described rules as “followable prescriptions that indicate what behaviors are obligated, preferred, or prohibited in certain contexts” (p. 57). Further, rules can be perceived in terms of appropriateness, responded to in terms of negativity, and be viewed as remedy to behavioral deviations. Shimanoff does not pay attention to the relational aspect of communication competence. A rather unique implication of Shimanoff’s rulesbased approach is that a rule can only be demonstrated when its violation is socially sanctioned. This suggests that the primary criterion of competence is the judgment of incompetence. Feingold (1977) posited that relationally competent communicators are empathetic, they are committed to the message, and they can adapt appropriately to the communication. Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) believed that relational competence happens when the focus is on the receiver of the message. They devised a relational competence component model that includes skills, outcomes, knowledge, and motivation. Motivation is regarded as a means between rewards and costs in the conversation. Knowledge is defined as a trait construct that is viewed in terms of the information of the subject or context of the conversation. Spitzberg and Hecht (1984) proposed that there are five common skills in regard to relational communication competence: 1. Immediacy is a nonverbal concept that is related to how psychologically close a person feels towards the other person. This concept is related to closeness, bonding, affection, and inclusion. A person who is immediate will display behaviors of interest, attraction, and intimacy. 2. Social anxiety is viewed as behaviors that display self or other adaptors, shakiness, sweating, or anxiousness. 3. Interaction management is considered to be the way that individuals respond to each other and take turns communicating with each other. 4. Expressiveness is the nonverbal and verbal behaviors that show that the participants are engaged in the interaction. 5. Other-orientation is the ability to be attentive to and interested in the other during the conversation. Each of these dimensions can also be related to Wiemann’s (1977) communication competence dimensions. Often unnoticed by the communication studies discipline, there is a resonance between these dimensions and those posited by Judee Burgoon. Even, though she does not focus on communication competence directly in her work, it is a vital competent in understanding relational communication (Bur-

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goon and Hale 1984, 1987). Immediacy can fit under affiliation, interaction management is the same in both, other-orientation can fit in the empathy category, and the social anxiety falls under the behavioral flexibility dimension. Spitzberg (1987, 1988, 1989, 1994, 2003) noted that communication competence has been examined in a wide variety of ways over the years. Many studies look at communication competence by perceiving another or themselves as either competent or not competent. Many of these studies operationalize communication competence in terms of a self-report assessment. These measures reference an interaction involved between the participants, other people, or self. In his extensive review of competence literature, Spitzberg (1987) discovered that there are six factors that can influence how we perceive competence: 1. interactional behavior; 2. self; 3. the partner or receiver of the message; 4. contexts; 5. time frame; 6. observers. In other words, competence can be observed in regard to “What? When? Who? Where? How and where it should be assessed?” (p. 4). Self-competence can be rated by the self, receiver, or the observer. The judgments of competence can be influenced by time, context, and variables of the interaction. Moreover, Spizberg and Cupach (1984) noted that there are different components that make up communication competence. Most of the measurements of competence are not systematic (Spitzberg 1986). Spitzberg argued that there is need for inductive theory when looking at competence. He further contended that “there is only a small to moderate amount of consensus among studies regarding the factors of communicative competence” (p. 6), and stated, that “there is virtually no accumulated evidence or support for the validity of these factors” (p. 6). Thus, it is hard to get an unequivocally valid impression of competence. Therefore, trying to answer the “what” question in regard to competence is very difficult. Knowing “when” competence should be assessed is also challenging because there are different variables that occur in various amounts of time, and evolve over time. For instance, Wiemann’s (1977) measurement asks participants to rate competence in a specific episode that occurs in a conversation in the relationship. Thus, this brings up the issue of competence being a state or trait characteristic when researchers measure competence in a specific time frame or over time. Stafford and Daly (1984) found that participants can remember approximately only 10 percent of a conversation that they were involved with only 5 minutes previously. Their findings suggest that time has an influence in what subjects can recall about an interaction and the recall may be biased. Further, when looking at who should rate competence, the answers are mixed. Spitzberg (1986) found that self-reports on competence are significantly different from partner reports. For example, self-estimates of cognitive ability correlate .33 with more objective estimates (Freund and Kasten 2012). Research often only finds a correlation between .25 and .50 between an interactant’s self-assessment and others’ perceptions of that interactant (Achenbach, Dumenci, & Rescorla 2002; Achenbach et al. 2005; Blanchard et al. 2009; Carrell and Willmington 1996, 1998; Conway and Huffcutt 1997; Cummings and

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Davies 2010; Fletcher and Kerr 2010; Harris and Schaubroeck 1988; Kenny 1994; Lanning et al. 2011; Viswesvaran, Ones, and Schmidt 1996). Careful analysis of such research, however, indicates that much of the lack of correlation between distinct third parties (e.g., between peers and supervisors) is due to measurement error (Viswesvaran and Ones 2002) and features of the assessment design and context (Ostroff, Atwater, and Feinberg 2004) rather than discrepancy of perspective. Furthermore, factors such as the objectivity and social desirability of the rating dimension systematically influence the correspondence among ratings (Heine and Renshaw 2002; Jawahar and Williams 1997; John and Robins 1993) – interpersonal and communication competence tend to reveal lower levels of correspondence than more objective forms of performance achievement (Viswesvaran, Ones, and Schmidt 1996; Viswesvaran and Ones 2002). Also, Rubin (1985) found that the relationship between an observer and self-rating of competence was 0.30, which means people have different perceptions of competence in the same situation. These discrepancies in viewpoints can be due to differences in race, gender, and involvement in the situation (Spitzberg 1986). In the same fashion, when researchers analyze where competence is assessed, it can vary due to the situational cues and relationship types. Competence can be different in a peer-to-peer interaction compared to a supervisor–supervisee relationship due to the power dynamic, familiarity, and structure of the interaction. Furthermore, ascertaining competence can be challenging because it is not always clear whether it is attributable to motivation, knowledge, or skills, and in which interactant(s). Nevertheless, Spitzberg (1987) believed that there are some promising approaches for measuring competence. The first approach is called the behavior analytic, which is systematic and involves five steps: “a) situation analysis, b) response enumeration, c) response evaluation, d) construction of instrument format, and e) instrument evaluation” (p. 32). The other approach is called the utility X generalizability decision. In this approach, the emphasis is more on measurement validation than measurement development. Assessment is used to select participants, outcomes, or theoretical propositions. Thus, the usefulness of the measure is to obtain the objectives that it was created for in a particular situation. Despite the fact that these approaches can give researchers a better understanding of competence, there are issues of validity and generalizability that are associated with each approach. Notwithstanding, competence is an important concept to study and becomes increasingly important in our ever changing world, because it impacts our society and our quality of life (Spitzberg 1986).

3 Conceptualizing and operationalizing communication competence Given these measurement issues, there are also a number of important methodological considerations that require examination. Conceptualizing what is meant by

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“communication competence” is one of the harder questions for communication competence researchers to truly answer in a concrete fashion. In addition to specifying a theoretical framework for a conceptualization and measurement of communication competence, researchers must also determine the best methods for operationalizing their theoretical perspective. Determining the theoretical basis for a new measure of communication competence and then testing that measure’s construct validity is extremely important in the measure development process (Sigtsma 2012). Unfortunately, even the major researchers who have examined the notions of communication competence have not been on the same page with a coherent definition of communication competence: behavior (Wiemann 1977), appropriate goal attainment (Spitzberg 1988), or knowledge (McCroskey 1982). Each of these perspectives will naturally lead to different operationalizations of communication competence. Not only are there different fundamental perspectives about the nature of communication competence, a wide range of different communication traits have been shown to be important when fleshing out communication competence as a specific concept. Spitzberg and Cupach (1989; see also: Spitzberg and Changnon 2011) and Spitzberg (1990, 1991, 2007) have noted over one hundred variables related to either interpersonal skills or interpersonal communication competence. A substantial amount of the research on communication competence tends to equate communication competence with communication skills or a variety of other interactional skills. In fact, the earliest measures of issues surrounding communication competence were skill-based (Spitzberg and Cupach 1989). With this wide range of differing perspectives on what should be included within a generalized understanding of communication competence, there ends up being considerably more variables than models to explain these variables (Spitzberg and Changnon 2009). In fact, a number of models have been proposed to explain communication competence (Littlejohn and Jabusch 1982; Rubin et al. 1993; Owen 1979; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984). Although these models help combine variables to see what is part of the larger concept of communication competence, no single model proposed is really complex enough to be definitive. In fact, there probably never will be a model to truly capture what is “communication competence” as a larger theoretical concept. One of the biggest methodological problems associated with communication competence is clearly the conceptualization of various measures. Many measures of communication competence view communication competence as a single factor construct (e.g., McCroskey and McCroskey 1988; Wiemann 1977). Conversely, many measures of communication competence see it as a multi-factor concept, but the exact number of factors varies widely: 25 factors (Spitzberg 2007), 10 factors (Rubin and Martin 1994), 7 factors (Riggio 1986), 5 factors (Buhrmester et al. 1988), 4 or 5 factors (Spitzberg, Brookshire, and Brunner 1990); 3 factors (Large and Giménez 2006), and 2 factors (Monge et al. 1982). Bubaš, Bratko, and Marusic (1999) examined 374 items from 23 scales designed to assess interpersonal communication competence, and determined that 2 to 6 dimensions could capture the construct.

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The number of factors that make up communication competence obviously can vary widely (for a longer listing of communication competence measures by factor type see Spitzberg and Cupach 1989).

3.1 The Behavioral Assessment Grid (BAG) In 1978 John Cone introduced the Behavioral Assessment Grid (BAG) as an explanation and typology for understanding how researchers could classify various behavioral assessments. Because of its inherent behavioral situatedness, communication competence measures have been examined through this lens in the past (Spitzberg 2003; Spitzberg and Cupach 1989; see also Chapter 22 in this volume). In Cone’s (1978) BAG he discusses three dimensions of behavioral assessment: behavioral contents, universes of generalization, and methods (Figure 1). For our discussion of methodology, we have opted to use the original Cone BAG, but an updated version of Cone’s BAG with an application towards measurement can be found in Chapter 22. Most forms of assessment do not fit into just one category or block in the behavioral grid. As such, these categories are not designed to be mutually exclusive but to allow for an overall framework for discussing and analyzing various forms of skills assessment.

Fig. 1: Cone’s Behavioral Assessment Grid Reprinted from Behavior Therapy, Vol. 9, John D. Cone, The Behavioral Assessment Grid (BAG): A conceptual framework and a taxonomy, 882–888, Copyright 1978, with permission from Elsevier.

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3.2 Behavioral contents The behavioral contents aspect of the BAG refers to the measurement of responses by Cone (1977). For the purposes of BAG, Cone classified three forms of measurement response: motor, physiological, and cognitive.

3.2.1 Motor Motor responses are those activities that involve the “striate musculature usually observable without instrumentation” (Cone 1978, 883). As such, any observable physical behavior constitutes a motor response: walking, running, gesturing, eye contact, etc. would comprise motor responses. Obviously, there are numerous purely motor-oriented measures that are important in the concept of communication competence. Many of the measures designed to examine other people include at least some items related to motor responses. Spitzberg’s (2007) Conversational Skills Rating Scale is a prime example of the types of motor responses that can be analyzed. Some of the items directly related to motor responses that are coded for within this measure include eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, head nods, laughing/smiling, posture, and shaking/nervous twitches.

3.2.2 Physiological Physiological measurements refer to those measures of the human body following specific stimuli. Floyd and Cole (2009) differentiate between two types of psychophysiology: wet and dry. The basic tenet of psychophysiology refers to the study of how behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and social events are reflected (and measurable) in an individual’s biological and chemical processes. Wet psychophysiology refers to the collection, measurement, and analysis of body fluids known to have external influencing factors: stress, fear, emotional state, etc. Often researchers look for specific hormones and immune system markers in an individual’s sweat, blood, urine, tears, etc. Conversely, dry psychophysiology refers to neural, muscular, and nervous systems. For example, examining one’s heart rate, galvanic skin response, muscle tension, etc. are common measurements involved in dry psychophysiology. Research by John Gottman and colleagues has examined the influence of psychophysiology in marital relationships. Gottman and Levison (1988) note that marital relationships succeed or fail overtime by how they handle negative affect. How couples handle negative affect has a direct impact on a wide range of physiological processes including, “increases in cardiac rate and cardiac contractility, sweating, deepened breathing, redirection of blood flow toward large skeletal muscles, and release of catecholamines (i.e. epinephrine and norepinephrine) from the adrenal medulla” (Gottman and Levinson 1988, p. 189). Couples rich

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with marital strife tend to experience more negative affect and the psychophysiological effects last longer than those couples who have lower levels of negative affect within the relationship. Historically, the discussion of physiological aspects of communication have not really played a part in the discussion of communication competence (Spitzberg and Cupach 1989; Spitzberg 2003). However, there is mounting evidence that an individual’s physiological makeup does play an important part in her or his ability to communicate competently with others (Beatty, McCroskey, and Floyd 2009; Beatty, McCroskey, and Valencic 2001; see also Chapter 19, this volume). In fact, research has shown that genetics plays a large part in altruism (Buck 2011; Buck and Ginsberg 1991; Thorpe and Danby 2006), empathy (Buck 2011; Buck and Ginsberg 1997; Knafo et al. 2008; Thorpe and Danby 2006), and social competence (Iarocci, Yager, and Elfers 2007; Laffey-Ardley and Thorpe 2006). On the flipside, research has demonstrated a wide range of specific genetic disorders that have a strong impact on one’s ability to communicate. Skuse et al. (1997) found that girls with Turner’s syndrome who inherited the single X-chromosome from their mothers were less likely to develop social skill problems when compared to those who inherited it from their fathers. The researchers argue that the X-chromosome is clearly a factor in social skills, but they did not discount the ability to improve social skills through training. Another common genetic disorder that leads to an array of communication problems is Asperger Syndrome. Individuals with Asperger Syndrome exhibit a range of communication behaviors that would be considered incompetent. For example, individuals with Asperger Syndrome exhibit non-competent eye behavior when communicating with others. According to Wiklund (2012) individuals with Asperger Syndrome avoid eye contact while communicating with others and do so in three primary ways: fixing one’s gaze straight ahead; letting one’s gaze wander around; and looking at one’s own hands when speaking. Lehtinen (2011) found that 84 percent of those children with Asperger Syndrome lacked eye contact when communicating with others. Other traditionally non-competent nonverbal behaviors Lehtinen found included creaky voices (35.3 %), quiet voice (31.4 %), pitch excursions (23.5 %), stretched syllables (17.6 %), and jerky speech rhythm (15.7 %). Furthermore, research examining how the brain processes communication has noted that the brain functions differently for those individuals with higher levels of anxiety while communicating. A number of studies have discussed the relationship between communication apprehension and communication competence (Donovan and MacIntyre 2004; McCroskey 2009; Teven et al. 2010; Zakahi and Duran 1985), so the research examining the effect of communication apprehension on how the brain functions is clearly important for communication competence researchers. Tillfors et al. (2001) conducted a study to examine the impact that social anxiety has on cerebral blood flow during periods of high anxiety. The participants were asked to prepare a speech, placed in a positron emission tomography (PET) scan,

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and asked to give the speech in front of a live audience or without an audience. The individuals with high levels of social phobia (when asked to speak in front of a live audience) had pronounced increases of blood flow in the subcortical regions of the brain, or those portions that are associated with danger response. Conversely, individuals with low levels of anxiety (when asked to speak in front of the live audience) were marked by increases of blood flow in the cerebral cortex indicated that evaluative processes were being utilized. This divergence between individuals with low versus high levels of social phobia demonstrates how the brain functions differently under these conditions, which clearly leads to increases of competent or incompetent communicative behavior. There is actually a wealth of mounting evidence examining the relationship between the cerebral cortex and effective communicative behavior (Pence et al. 2011). Overall, the study of physiological aspects and their relationship to human communication is barely underway. The majority of the research that sheds light on these issues has not been conducted within the field of communication by individuals with expressed interest in human communication. Knapp (2009) summed up the new directions physiological research in communication research is taking, “we will increasingly understand the hard-wired aspects of communication behavior; the reciprocal influence of biology on communication and communication on biology; the role of biological processes on personal and relationship health; and new strategies for developing communicative competence” (p. 278).

3.2.3 Cognitive The final behavioral content discussed by Cone (1978) is cognitive contents. Cognitive contents must be differentiated from motor contents. Where the act of speaking is clearly a motor response and commonly studied by individuals within the field of communication disorders, cognitive verbal acts can either refer to external verifiable referents or internal unverifiable referents. For example, when people are asked to self-evaluate their communicative competence, the perception is something that is ultimately internal and not easily verifiable because of the ambiguous nature of the term itself. In this case, the contents are purely cognitive and refer to a private perception. Conversely, if people are asked if they “talk a lot”, their publicly verifiable behavior could be measured against a perception of “average”, which could be an indication of motor ability and not cognitive processes. When examining measures of communication competence, the bulk of the commonly used measures are cognitively designed. Some of those measures are designed to examine an individual’s cognitive perception of her or his own communicative competence (e.g., Arasaratnam 2009; Bakke 2010; Buhrmester et al. 1988; Cegala 1981; Choon Mooi 2004; Duran 1993; Duran and Spitzberg 1995; Fanbin 2012; Guerrero 1994; McCroskey and McCroskey 1988; Rubin 1985; Rubin and Martin 1984; Spitzberg 2006) while other measures are designed to examine cognitive

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perceptions of others’ communicative behaviors (Douglas, O’Flaherty, and Snow 2000; Eadie and Paulson 1984; Guerrero 1994; Lindsey et al. 2009; Monge et al. 1982; Spitzberg 2007; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984; Spitzberg and Hurt 1987; Wheeless and Berryman-Fink 1985; Wiemann 1977). These are sometimes referred to as self-report or other-report measures, respectively, although such terminology has been applied inconsistently.

3.2.4 Variations on the Behavioral Assessment Grid Spitzberg (2003) added a fourth component to the BAG (see Chapter 22 for specific details). In Cone’s original model, he talks about three behavioral contents labeled cognitive, physiological, and motor. In the most recent version of Spitzberg’s updated BAG, he discusses four loci he labels affect/motivation, cognition/knowledge, behaviors/skills, and outcomes/evaluations. The first three of these loci are clearly in-line with Benjamin Bloom’s (1956) three domains of learning. Spitzberg also argues that some measures are more clearly focused on issues related to outcomes to communicative behavior.

3.3 Universes of generalization The universes of generalization contents aspect of the BAG refer to a concept originally posed by Chronbach et al. (1972) and then fleshed out by Cone (1977). Chronbach et al. argued that any given mental measure should be interpreted through the various relationships the measure enters, which reflects the notion that these relationships are essentially various ways of generalizing. Thus, any given score on a measure can belong to a number of different universes of generalization. The five universes of generalization identified by Cone are scorer, item, time setting, method, and dimensions.

3.3.1 Scorer With any given measure there exists an individual scorer and the universe of possible scorers. Whether looking at the inter-reliability of two different individuals watching the same behavior or looking at the consistency with which an individual completes a mental measure that includes a summated rating scale, the question of the individual scores existing within a universe of scores for the same measure must be called into question. If individuals vary too greatly from the universe of scores for a given measure, the scorer is not consistent or reliable. In essence, some forms of generalizability are dependent upon one another. Cone argues that in generalizability theory some relationships are dependent on others. “If data ob-

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tained from one scorer are not generalizable within the universe of scorers they are not going to be generalizable between that universe and others” (1977: 414).

3.3.2 Item Item generality is typically a concern of mental measure with a summated rating scale. In essence, for a measure to be truly generalizable, then using a form of statistical test of internal reliability is of primary utility (e.g., Kuder-Richardson and split-half reliability procedures). In essence, do sets of items (e.g., odds and evens, first half and last half, etc.) designed to measure a single concept consistent with the theoretical item universe. When differences in items occur, then the items themselves are conceptually problematic and do not standup to the test of item generalizability. Cone argues for similar methods when examining behavioral analysis. In essence, when coding for specific behaviors designed to measure a latent concept, there must be some generalizable driving force behind the clumping of those behaviors. “Thus, correlations between items (behaviors) across a group of subjects would help establish the extent to which observations of each behavior were generalizable to other members of the class” (Cone 1977: 417). Consistency in the pattern of behaviors would then be akin to the grouping of scale items as test of item generalizability within the theoretical universe.

3.3.3 Temporal Cone (1977) examines the temporal, or occasions of measurement, universe commonly referred to as time. Time is a function also of the participant universe. If a measure of communication competence is claimed to be a generalizable measure of the concept, then multiple measurements, across multiple times, with multiple samples from the universal population should be fairly consistent. Conversely, if trained coders are being used to evaluate the communicatively competent behavior of a sample, then that code book should be similarly usable by other trained coders with the same universal population, resulting in generally similar results. Furthermore, the generality of measures and their changes over relatively short lengths of time (like within a given college semester) need to be compared to those that occur over a longer period (perhaps even years). In the realm of communication competence, trait measures are likely to be considerably more stable over long periods of time when compared to their state counterparts.

3.3.4 Setting The fourth universe of generalizability is setting, or the extent to which data obtained within one specific context would be representative of those obtained in a

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different context. Many researchers utilize mental measures designed for one context in another without testing for its generalizability within the new context. Does communication competence examined within an experimental laboratory equate with actual communicatively competent behavior within other settings (e.g., classroom, family, social gathering, etc.)? Many researchers have utilized measures of communication competence within a completely new context without truly altering the basic structure of the measure (e.g., Wrench and Punyanunt 2007). This study, in particular, provides a clear example of the role of setting. In the Wrench and Punyanunt study, Wiemann’s (1977) measure of communication competence was used, but relevant items were rewritten to focus on the computer-mediated communication context. Although this is admittedly a common practice in research, there is a real concern that measures may not be completely valid when used in a context other than the ones in which they were originally intended or validated. As such, researchers should strive to explain their reasoning for using a pre-existing measure within a new context, and explain both the reliability and validity of the revised measure. We should mention that Spitzberg (2006) created a new measure for computer-mediated communication competence that contained a new operationalization for competence in the computer-mediated context.

3.3.5 Method The fifth universe of generalizability is method, or the comparability of data derived from different measures of a single phenomenon. With the plethora of different measures of communication competence, one must question the extent to which all of these measures are generalizable within the overarching theoretical universe communication competence. Typically, this universe of generalizability is measured through convergent validity, “the generalizability theory translation of which is ‘to what extent are the data generated by one method representative of or generalizable to data produced by other methods aimed at measuring the same behavior?’” (Cone 1977: 420).

3.3.6 Dimension The final universe of generalizability involves dimension(s). The previous universes all examine scores of various measures across different scorers, items, time, settings, and methods. Dimension, on the other hand, examines how scores on a single measure relate to scores on other measures (Cone 1977). For example, what is the relationship between communication competence and communication apprehension? This type of generalizability is commonly discussed as construct validity. “In generalizability theory terms, one is assessing the extent to which data on a

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particular behavioral dimension are representative of those obtainable from the universe of all behavioral dimensions” (Cone 1977: 420). For our purposes, we need to examine two important issues related to measure construction: alpha reliability and factor structure. First, there is a growing body of research examining the importance of the purpose of the measure and the utilization of alpha reliabilities. According to Streiner (2003a) although alpha reliability is commonly used as a measure of internal consistency of measures, its utilization is not always warranted. Streiner (2003b) argues that measures stemming from classical test theory are designed using a set of items all designed to measure a single (or coherent set of) hypothetical construct(s). If communication competence is a latent trait, then using alpha reliability as a test of internal consistency in various measures is statistically sound. Most measures commonly used by communication scholars adhere to the basic premises of classical test theory. However, Alvan Feinstein (1987) originally coined the term “clinimetrics” to refer to the practice of using quantitative research measures to evaluate symptoms, systems, and clinical findings. Streiner (2003c) argues that a distinction between clinimetrics and psychometrics for the process of measurement is not necessary and clinimetrics is ultimately a subset of psychometrics. For this reason, Steiner prefers the less medical term “index” instead of clinimetrics when referring to quantitative research measures to evaluate symptoms, systems, and clinical findings. For the purposes of communication competence, the question then becomes an issue of whether communication competence measures adhere to classical test theory or are indices. If communication competence is a scale, then the various items used to measure communication competence are all designed to measure a specific hypothetical construct that can be observed. Conversely, if communication competence measures are indexes, then “it cannot be observed directly but only inferred from other variables that can be measured” (Streiner 2003b, 219). If communication competence measures are indexes and not scales, then using alpha reliability to ascertain internal consistency is problematic because indexes are composed of causal indicators that are not necessarily interrelated with one another. Ultimately, “The blind use of coefficient alpha and other indexes of internal consistency, without considering whether they are appropriate for the measure, can lead to situations in which either a scale is wrongly dismissed for not being reliable or the indexes are unfairly criticized for not yielding useful results” (Streiner 2003b, 222). On the issue of clinimetrics, many researchers believe in keeping psychometrics and clinimetrics separate, arguing that psychometrics is better equipped to handle uni-dimensional measures while clinimetrics is better equipped to handle multi-dimensional indexes (de Vet, Terwee, and Bouter 2003; Fayers and Hand 2002; Feinstein 1987). Another problem related to the issue of measurement within communication competence involves the use and abuse of factor analyses. Park, Dailey, and Lemus (2002) examined the problems associated with the incorrect use of both principal

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components factor analyses (PCA) and exploratory factor analyses (EFA). “The goal of EFA is to find a latent structure of observed variables by un-covering common factors that influence the measured variables, whereas the goal of PCA is to reduce the measured variables to a smaller set of composite components that capture as much information as possible in the measured variables with as few components as possible” (Park, Dailey, and Lemus 2002, 563). Fundamentally, PCA and EFA ultimately involve how they both handle variance. A PCA does not distinguish between common and unique variance in an attempt to focus on the total variation between or among the variables. Essentially, a PCA is a data reduction model and not designed to examine latent variable structures, which is appropriate as long as a researcher does not overstep the bounds of a weighted summed score (Bartholomew 2004). EFA is concerned with shared variance and separates common and shared variance. Ultimately, factor analyses become a concern for communication competence especially when the number of items loading on a specific factor are low. Park, Dailey, and Lemus (2002) found that the majority of articles rely on the PCA even when an EFA would have been more appropriate. Borsboom (2006) has argued for a wider use of modern psychometric modeling techniques with preexisting measures, but his opinion on the matter is not clearly held by everyone (Clark 2006). Without pointing fingers, there are a number of measures that have come into existence examining some facet of communication competence that do not clearly identify what type of factor analysis was conducted nor provide a clear justification for their specific choice of factor analysis. Other articles mention the factor structure, but then fail to provide basic details about the newly developed measure (sampling adequacy, model variance, and/or factor loadings for items themselves). Admittedly, the inappropriate use of factor analyses within communication research is hardly a new phenomenon (McCroskey and Young 1979). Another important facet of factor analyses that has become more prevalent in the past decade in communication research is the need to demonstrate not just PCA or EFA but a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Brown (2006) argued that a CFA is useful for four basic purposes: 1. psychometric evaluation of measures; 2. construct validation; 3. testing method effects; and 4. testing measurement invariance. First, CFAs allow researchers to determine the number of constructs being measured within a single mental measure. A CFA can also help researchers understand how to score both sub-scales and the larger measure itself. Second, CFAs are invaluable tools when attempting to determine the discriminant and convergent validity of a measure. With convergent validity, a CFA can help identify similar and interrelated concepts. Conversely, a CFA helps demonstrate discriminant validity by clearly showing that concepts are not interrelated. Third, a CFA helps researchers determine testing method effects. “A method effect exists when additional covariation among indicators is introduced by the measurement approach [emphasis in original]” (Brown 2006: 3). Method effects are common in measures that contain a combination of both positively and negatively worded items. Unfortunately, EFAs

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and PCAs simply will not detect a method effect, which can lead to error within the structural model. Last, CFAs allow for the testing of measurement invariance. One problem associated with both EFAs and PCAs is the inability to distinguish invariance across groups. If a measure is supposed to be generalizable to a larger population, certain items on a measure may not be responded to similarly across different groups. A multiple groups CFA can look for error bias within a measure across various groups, which is clearly important for communication competence researchers who are conducting studies with large, diverse samples. Although CFAs are becoming more commonplace when examining various measures of communication competence (Bakke 2010; Ford et al. 2012; Hullman 2007; Huntley et al. 2012; Kelly et al. 2010; Large, Giménez, and McCarthy 2009; Wheeless and BerrymanFink 1985), there are still relatively few examining some of the older measures of communication competence (especially those with multi-factors). However, there are some psychometricians that argue for a less rigid use of CFA especially for measures that have a history of highly reliable factor structures (McCrae et al. 1996).

3.4 Methods The third part of Cone’s (1977) behavioral assessment taxonomy includes the methods utilized. For his purposes, Cone breaks down the various methods that social scientists utilize into two basic categories: indirect and direct.

3.4.1 Indirect measures Indirect measures of behaviors include both self-reports and other-reports of a person’s behavior. Cone (1977) identified three common methods of indirect measurement: interview, self-report, and rating by other. Interviews and self-reports are indirect measures because a researcher is asking a participant to recall information and either orally respond to a series of set questions or respond to a series of mental measures. Any time a researcher is relying on a participant’s knowledge or understanding of her or his own behavior, the researcher is relying on that individual to have an accurate portrayal of her or his own behavior. However, there is a wealth of research in the field of memory that clearly questions individual memory accuracy (Kahn and Victori 2011; Lemay and Neal 2013, 2014; Loftus 2004; Thomas, Hannula, and Loftus 2007). In fact, when faced with self-reports of previous memories after an emotional event that differ from current memories, individuals are actually more likely to believe their current memories than those memories recorded closer to the event itself (Hirst et al. 2009; Rimmele, Davachi, and Phelps 2012).

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The third form of indirect measurement is the rating by other, or when participants are asked to rate another person’s behavior. As with interviews and selfreports, there are always questions of the accuracy of memory and how it impacts these measurements.

3.4.2 Direct measures In contrast to indirect measures, direct measures gather examples of the behavior under question for purposes of evaluation. Cone (1978) identified five common forms of direct measurement: self-observation, analog: role play, analog: free behavior, naturalistic: role play, and naturalistic: free behavior. The first form of direct measurement is self-observation. Self-observations are different from self-reports because they require an individual to keep track of her or his behavior as it is occurring. These studies often rely on individuals to keep diaries of behavior, use of counters, marking a checklist, etc. Recent research has even started using cell phones as a tool for measurement. Participants are randomly sent text messages and asked to respond in the moment (Axén et al. 2012). The second and third forms of direct measurement are designed to be analogous to how someone would behave in a real situation. Primarily, both analog role plays and analog free behavior are designed to ask participants to behave in a manner that they would in a typical interaction. In role-plays an individual is asked to respond to a situation as if he or she was in a specific role (e.g., anxious speaker, confident interviewee, etc.). Conversely, in free behavior, an individual is presented with a situation and then asked to behave in a manner consistent with her or his typical behavior. As Cone (1977) notes, “in the first case both the situation and the behavior are structured … In the second, only the situation is structured; behavior is free to vary” (p. 884). Within the field of medicine (see also, Chapter 19, this volume), a whole new line of research designed to examine medical students’ and residents’ communicative skills has arisen through objective structured clinical evaluations (OSCEs). The use of OSCEs in medical training has been around since the mid-1990s, but has definitely risen in popularity since their development. The purpose of most OSCEs is to create role-play situations with standardized patients, individuals trained to act like real patients while exhibiting simulated set of symptoms. OSCEs are evaluated in one of two ways. Some OSCEs rely on health professionals to watch live or recorded interactions between students and patients, but others actually train the patients themselves to rate individual students. The latter method is often one requiring adjustment of scores in an effort to standardized how students are evaluated because of inconsistencies in patient-rater scoring (Raymond, Clauser, and Furman 2010). OSCEs have been shown to be a fairly invaluable tool for teaching both clinical and communication competencies within an applied medical setting (Nuovo, Ber-

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takis, and Azari 2006). Furthermore, research has demonstrated that communication skills exhibited within an OSCE translate to actual clinical practice when later evaluated, which is a good indication of the usefulness of this method of communication skill training for applied health professionals (Walsh, Bailey, and Koren 2009). OSCEs have also been adapted for non-medical training for use in clinical counseling or psychological programs (Roux et al. 2011) and social work programs (Lu et al. 2011). Overall, numerous communication skills assessment measures have been developed to examine communication skills during an OSCE (Baig, Violato, and Crutcher 2010; Huntley et al. 2012; Jiramaneerat 2009; Lu et al. 2011; Nuovo, Bertakis, and Azari 2006; Roux et al. 2011; for reviews see: Boon and Stewart 1998 and Schirmer et al. 2005). Another, less common technique, for evaluating student communication competence during interactions with patients is to train lay-people who follow medical students during clinical rounds (Bergus, Woodhead, and Kreiter 2009). These lay evaluations were shown to be correlated with both those of physician trainers and other medical student (Bergus, Woodhead, and Kreiter 2009). The last methods of direct measurement involve direct observations of individual behavior within a natural environment. Once again, it is theoretically possible to engage in both role plays and free behavior within a natural environment. However, Cone notes that free behavior is by far the more common of the two. Of course in the world today, a “natural” environment is one that is quickly becoming contested space. For digital natives, vast online worlds often replace face-to-face interactions (Castronova 2005). These spaces open up new avenues for communication but also have been shown to initiate different communication patterns than other means of communication (Freiermuth 2011). Our purpose for mentioning these new and thriving communicative spaces is not to discuss communication technologies or theories of mediated communication. Instead, our discussion on these spaces makes us question what is meant by a “natural environment” in the 21st century for research purposes. Is competent communication in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) the same as communication competence in face-toface interactions? How should researchers approach these different natural environments differently? Research has demonstrated that environments with increased communication realism do produce more naturalistic communicative behaviors (Biocca, Harms, and Burgoon 2003; Lee 2004; Williams, Caplan, and Xiong 2007; Walther 2006). In essence, as the synthetic worlds, as Castronova (2005) calls them, become more popular, prevalent, and life-like, strategies for measuring and evaluating communicative competence within these environments becomes more important. Recent research has also explored the concept of a virtual assessment center in industrial psychology literature. These virtual assessment centers are designed to help assess potential recruits on a wide range of skills, social competence being a common one assessed in the hiring process (Hasler 2009; Collins and Hartog 2011; McNelly, Ruggeberg, and Hall 2011).

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One area closely related to the notion of “synthetic worlds” in virtual research that does have promise for creating either a virtual space for role-plays or even a natural environment for research is virtual reality. One of the most important considerations when using virtual reality (VR) for research purposes is to ensure that the VR is perceived as realistic (Blascovich and Bailenson 2011). Surprisingly, VR research has demonstrated similarities between both face-to-face contexts and interpersonal interactions (Janssen et al. 2010; Yee and Bailenson 2007; Yee, Bailenson, and Ducheneaut 2009) and public speaking contexts (Jarrold et al. 2013; North et al. 2008; Slater et al. 2006). In fact, research conducted by Wallach, Safir, and Bar-Ziv (2009) used VR assisted cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help individuals with high levels of public speaking anxiety. The researchers compared the VR-CBT versus traditional CBT and found that the VR-CBT was actually more effective than traditional CBT. The researchers explain the difference because of the VR-CBT’s ability to place individuals into a realistic auditorium situation with virtual audience members, which is not possible with traditional CBT because of the cost. Furthermore, individuals in the VR-CBT condition were more likely to stay in the study than those assigned to the traditional CBT condition. One factor shown to impact presence within a VR environment is the similarity a participant perceives is to her or his virtual avatar (Aymerich-Franch, Karutz, and Bailenson 2012). In essence, seeing a likeness of one’s self in the virtual mirror helps individuals immerse themselves more fully into synthetic worlds, which is an important difference between VR research and research in other VR environments for gaming purposes. The researchers also conducted a long-term follow-up study and found those individuals in the VR-CBT condition still experienced lower levels of anxiety when compared to those who were in the traditional CBT condition (Safir, Wallach, and Bar-Ziv 2012). In essence, VR is a tool that is becoming more readily available and has huge implications not only for the measurement of communication competence but also how we go about training communication competence as well. However, there are some limitations. The current price for VR technology is not yet affordable for communication scholars without large grants to underwrite the hardware and software. Furthermore, some populations are extremely vulnerable to VR experiences. Segovia and Bailenson (2009) conducted a study examining the use of children in VR. The researchers found that children exposed to VR do not always differentiate between those memories from within VR and those from the external world. The implications of this finding demonstrate at least one group for whom VR methods may not be overwhelmingly appropriate.

3.4.3 Other measures In addition to those measures originally posed by Cone (1977), Spitzberg and Cupach (1989) discussed three additional measurement techniques: projective, in

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vivo, and task/objective criterion. The first of Spitzberg and Cupach’s (1989) additional measurement techniques is an indirect measure called projective methods. Projective methods involve presenting some kind of stimulus to a participant and then asking her or him to interpret or react to the situation. The participant’s interpretation or reaction is then analyzed. This method is considered indirect because it does not involve actual, but rather, possible behavior. One common technique is to provide a short scenario to participants and then ask the participants to script out how he or she sees the rest of the scenario playing (Berger and Bell 1988; Comstock and Buller 1991). The second measure that Spitzberg and Cupach (1989) included in their revised behavioral assessment grid were in vivo measures, which are a direct measure. In vivo measurements involve measures of people’s behaviors in non-scripted naturalistic environments (e.g., recorded telephone calls, recorded speeches, tapes of jury deliberations, etc.). Other possible measurements involve unobtrusive observations of social interactions in parks, malls, organizations, etc. In all of these cases, the goal is to observe how people behave and interact in a manner where the interaction being observed is not solely being observed for research purposes. See Chapter 22 for a greater explanation of these various types. The third measure that Spitzberg and Cupach (1989) included in their revised behavioral assessment grid are those measurements associated with a specific task or objective criterion. The goal in these cases is to see whether or not a research participant can achieve a specific goal (such as persuasion). If the research participant is successful, then the success is seen as a measure of that participant’s skill (Powers and Spitzberg 1986; Rubin 1982).

3.4.4 Overarching analysis Overall, Cone’s (1977) Behavioral Assessment Grid (BAG) with Spitzberg and Cupach’s (1989) additions provides a fairly robust taxonomy for analyzing measures of communicative behaviors. When the BAG was initially created, Cone saw the tool as a giant matrix of possibilities and not one where the individual components are analyzed in isolation. When examining Figure 1, it is important to understand the model as a heuristic structure for examining behavioral measurements across multiple dimensions. For example, a measure could be a cognitive (behavioral content), self-report (method), with item generalizability (universe of generalization). When creating a measure of communication competence, one important question that should be asked is who will conduct the assessment of a target’s communication competence. As discussed earlier, there are four primary assessors within communication competence research: self-report, self-observer, other-report and other-observer. First, the bulk of the measures created to assess communication

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competence were initially designed as self-report (e.g,, Arasaratnam 2009; Bakke 2010; Buhrmester et al. 1988; Cegala 1981; Choon Mooi 2004; Duran 1993; Duran and Spitzberg 1995; Fanbin 2012; Guerrero 1994; McCroskey and McCroskey 1988; Rubin 1985; Rubin and Martin 1984; Spitzberg 2006). Although self-reports are the most commonly used tool for examining communication competence, these reports are not always reflected in the perceptions of others. In fact, research has demonstrated that people’s self-reports of communication competence do not always relate very substantially with a co-interactant’s perceptions (Spitzberg and Cupach 1985; Spitzberg and Hurt 1987). Participants’ perception of their own communicative behavior also differs from ratings conducted by individuals not within a communicative interaction (Farrell et al. 1979). However, there is some research that does demonstrate that self and other-measurements can be highly correlated when the other-individual knows the participant very well (Marsh, Barnes, and Hocevar 1985). Second, there have been relatively few studies designed to use self-observation techniques to assess communication competence. However, Butler Ellis and Smith (2004) and Helm (2009) do approach the examination of facets of communication competence using diary analysis studies. The lack of a clear use of diary approaches in communication competence could be a new and unique way of examining this phenomenon over time. With the advent of mobile technology, participants could be asked to rate their communication competence at any given time to provide an overarching score instead of a single score in one instance. Third, the other-report measures have been created to examine a range of different targets’ communicative competence levels (Douglas, O’Flaherty, and Snow 2000; Eadie and Paulson 1984; Guerrero 1994; Monge et al. 1982; Spitzberg and Hurt 1987; Wheeless and Berryman-Fink 1985; Wiemann 1977). The final category of reports by assessor are other-observer measures (e.g., Lindsey et al. 2009; Spitzberg 2007; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984). The problems for observational measures are similar. First, the context in which the observation is being observed can greatly impact how people evaluate the interaction (Tracey and Guinee 1990). Hoyt (2000) noted that rater bias does have a strong impact on research findings “when multiple observers rate multiple targets on some attribute of interest, bias in ratings can affect (a) the mean of the obtained ratings, (b) the variance of the obtained ratings, or (c) the covariance of the obtained ratings with ratings of another attribute by the same observers” (p. 65). Some common forms of biases that have been shown to exist are familiarity with someone’s accent (Winke, Gass, and Myford 2013), gender (Spitzberg and Hurt 1987), halo effect (Holzbach 1978), homophily (Hill, O’Grady, and Price 1988), race (Turner et al. 1984), social style (May 2008). However, as Bernardin and Pence (1980) illustrated, these biases can be diminished through appropriate rater training. Although variations of all four are seen within the communication competence literature, each of these different measurement techniques has various upsides and pitfalls.

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4 Selecting an appropriate measure With the sheer number of different measures that exist within the realm of communication competence, determining what measure would be best utilized in a specific situation can be daunting. Although numerous measures exist for examining communication competence, it is important to think through specific strategies when deciding to select a specific measure. For an examination of a wide range of measures examining facets of communication competence see Spitzberg’s analysis of research measures in Chapter 22 in this volume. When looking through those various measures discussed in Chapter 22, it may be difficult to sift through the various measures and find the ones that are the most appropriate for a specific research situation. Backlund et al. (1982) created a rating scale to examine various existing measures that assessed oral communication and listening skills (Figure 2). Although this measure is not a perfect fit for determining which research measures are the most appropriate for a specific research project, the Instrument Rating Scale does provide a good launching point for a wider discussion of measure selection. Backlund et al.’s (1982) scale was initially intended to help identify measures that could be utilized to select assessments of speaking and listening skills within an educational environment. For the purposes of assessing classroom-based communication competence, the measures are still useful in their current form. Backlund et al.’s (1982) Instrument Rating Scale (IRS) provides enough generality to be useful (with a few additions) to evaluate a broad range of mental measures designed to examine communication skills. The IRS is still a useful tool when attempting to determine if measures are useful for determining speaking and listening competence both within and outside the traditional instructional environment. However, the IRS is not perfect for analyzing communicative competence measures as a whole. As such, the IRS was revised to reflect a more general checklist when evaluating the utility of a specific measure of communication competence (Figure 3). For example, question #2 can easily be tweaked to say “instrument distinguishes communication competence from other communication variables”. The purpose of the inclusion of the IRS in this chapter is to provide a practical set of guidelines to start a broader discussion of the measurement of communication competence and the selection of measures. Where Backlund et al.’s (1982) measure was primarily used to determine the usefulness of a speaking/listening assessment tool, this Communication Competence Rating Scale is really designed to be absolutely general when examining any type of mental measure that has been created within the field.

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Criteria 1 through 4 are evaluated on a dichotomous scale. Circle “yes” or “no” for each criterion. Criteria 5 through 9 and 11 through 15 are evaluated on a scale of 0 (−) to 3 (+). Indicate the score for each criterion in the space provided. Criterion 10 is evaluated on a variable scale that corresponds with the competencies as follows: 0 to 14 for speaking tests; 0–11 for listening tests; 0– 25 for tests that assess both speaking and listening. Thus, for each of these kinds of tests determine the number of competencies that are covered and enter that number in the space provided to the left. To the right, indicate the specific test item numbers that match the competencies. Rating Yes

No

 1.

Yes

No

 2.

Yes

No

 3.

Yes Earned Points ______

No Possible Points (3)

 4.

______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______

(3) (3) (3) (3) (3) (14) (11) (25) (3) (3) (3) (3) (3)

 6.  7.  8.  9. 10.

 5.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Criterion Stimulus materials require responder to perform as a speaker or listener. Instrument distinguishes speaking and listening performance from reading and writing ability. Instrument is free of sexual, cultural, racial, ethnic content and/or stereotyping. Instrument assess presence/absence of skills.

Instrument emphasizes application of skills in familiar situations. Instrument allows for optional settings. Instrument allows for a range of responses. Instrument is reliable. Instrument demonstrates concurrent validity. Instrument demonstrates content validity. Speaking (note test item numbers): Listening (note test item numbers): Integrative (note test item numbers): Administration procedures are detailed and standardized. Instrument is not likely to induce undue stress. Instrument is cost and time efficient. Instrument involves simple equipment. Instrument is suitable for target population.

To recommend approval, instrument should receive: a) a “yes” rating on each criterion, 1–4; b) no fewer than a total of 18 points on each criteria 5–9 and 11–15; c) no fewer than 10 points for a speaking test or 8 points for a listening test or 18 points for a speaking and listening test on criterion 10. Summary Rating Yes No a) Criteria 1 through 4 (circle one) ___ ___ b) Criteria 5 through 9 and 11 through 15 (enter total points): ___ ___ c) Criteria 10 (enter total points for appropriate test) Speaking: ___ ___ Listening: ___ ___ Both: ___ ___ Check One: Instrument approval recommended ___ Instrument approval not recommended ___ Fig. 2: Instrument rating scale. Used with permission by authors. © Backlund, Brown, Gurry and Jandt (1982).

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Criteria 1 through 4 are evaluated on a dichotomous scale. Circle “yes” or “no” for each criterion. Criteria 6 through 20 are evaluated on a scale of 0 (−) to 3 (+). Rating Yes

No

 1.

Yes

No

 2.

Yes

No

 3.

Yes

No

 4.

Yes Earned Points ______

No Possible Points (3)

 5.

 6.

______

(3)

 7.

______

(3)

 8.

______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______

(3) (3) (3) (3) (3) (3) (3) (3) (3)

 9.

______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______

(3) (3) (3) (3) (3) (3) (3)

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

10. 11. 12.

13.

Criterion Measure has a clear theoretical perspective that the various items are designed to measure. Measure distinguishes communication competence from other communication variables. Measure is free of sexual, cultural, racial, ethnic content and/or stereotyping. Measure assesses presence/absence of skills related to communication competence. Measure is appropriate for my current study.

Measure emphasizes communication competence in day-to-day communicative interactions. Measure can be used across various communicative contexts. Measure allows for a range of responses (not based on dichotomous yes/no type answers). Measure is reliable. All sub-factors (if present) are reliable. Measure demonstrates face or content validity. Measure demonstrates construct validity. Measure demonstrates criterion validity. Measure demonstrates predictive validity. Measure demonstrates concurrent validity. Measure demonstrates retrospective validity. Measure has clear, concisely worded items that are easily understandable. Directions for how the measure is scored are clear. Measure is not likely to induce undue stress. Measure is cost and time efficient. Measure involves simple equipment. Measure is suitable for target population. Administration procedures are detailed and standardized. Directions for the measure are clear.

To recommend approval, instrument should receive a “yes” rating on each criterion, 1–5. For items 6 to 20, the possible range is 0 to 57. As a researcher, you should decide what your theoretical cut off should be. Higher scores for a specific measure will lead to stronger results. Summary Rating a) Criteria 1 through 5 (all criteria are met) b) Criteria 6 through 20 (enter total points): Check One: Instrument approval recommended Instrument approval not recommended Fig. 3: Communication competence rating scale.

Yes ___ ___ ___ ___

No ___ ___

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5 Conclusion The purpose of this chapter was to examine common measurement issues related to communication competence. As discussed in Table 1, there have historically been a wide range of different methods philosophers, theologians, and researchers have used to ascertain what competent communication is. The majority of this chapter has focused primarily on which methods are commonly used today to explain communication competence. As you can see from our list of different methods for evaluating and discussing communication competence, we believe that a larger discussion about communication competence from a number of epistemological perspectives is actually warranted and invited. For example, although the strength of performance studies has grown within the discipline there have been few attempts to discuss communication competence from this perspective in recent years despite the tradition of seeing communication competence as performance (Bauman 1977; Bauman and Briggs 1990; Hymes 1975; McCroskey 1982). Bauman and Briggs (1990) argue “that audience evaluation of the communicative competence of performers forms a crucial dimension of performance” (p. 66). As for critical researchers, there was more of a focus on dissecting and understanding communication competence in the 1970s after the publication of Jürgen Habermas’ (1970) theory of communication competence that came on the heels of Noam Chomsky’s (1965) theory of syntax. In both cases, the theorists attempted to define and create a theoretical understanding of communication competence (predominantly from a linguistic perspective). Communication scholars responded to Habermas’ article in both conference presentations (Wenzel 1981) and in academic publications (Burleson and Kline 1979). Our understanding of both interpretive and critical research has grown immensely since the early 1980s, so we call in both interpretive and critical researchers to reexamine the notions of competence and its relationship to communication. Whether using a postmodern, feminist, queer, modern hermeneutical, Marxist, or other critical lens to view communication competence, the added theoretical value is immense to the study of such an important concept. Lastly, those scholars who approach the study of communication competence from a traditional social scientific (both positivistic and postpositivistic) point of view need to refine the methods that are used to study this phenomenon. Earlier in this chapter we proposed a number of issues for both of these epistemologies from clarifying operationalizations to debating whether various communication competence measures are research scales or indexes. Furthermore, we encourage the use of advanced modeling techniques to parcel out the various relationships between communication competence and other behavioral, communicative, and psychological variables. We also think that more advanced modeling techniques are needed to determine the actual nature of this thing we call communication competence. Are we dealing with a singular concept called “communication com-

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petence” or are we looking at a range of communicative behaviors that impact on what is called communication competence. Based on current modeling research, the latter is probably more accurate. Overall, the field of communication has a wide range of tools at its disposal to help us theorize, measure, analyze, and understand what is meant by communication competence. Our goal in this chapter was not to be a summation of every possible theory or method that could be employed to study communication competence. Instead, we see this as an opportunity to discuss what methods are used to study communication competence today and offer suggestions on how we can move forward.

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III. Codes

Robert E. Sanders

5 Competence in speaking in interactions Abstract: Verbal interaction is a matter of two or more parties contributing utterances to the emerging whole of an interaction through alternate turns at speaking. For their respective utterances to cohere into an interaction, incrementally produce a whole, and cumulatively achieve some intended end result, speakers are not free at any point to produce whatever utterance comes to mind. Instead, their utterances are progressively constrained so as to be responsive to what has been said so far, and anticipatory of the end result which the separate utterances combine to jointly bring about. Empirical and theoretical work will be surveyed that accounts for the competence of speakers to make meaningful contributions to interactions from two broad perspectives. One is that speakers acquire knowledge of rules, customs, practices, and norms, that delimit what utterances fit and cohere for the purposes at hand within the current, unfolding interaction. The other perspective is that people acquire knowledge of meaning relations and structural relations between utterances by which they combine to form a whole. Keywords: co-construction, constraints, effectiveness, goals, individual differences, interaction, meaningfulness, principles, rules

1 Introduction The study of speakers’ competence, and in this chapter, of speakers’ competence in interaction, is about speaking that meets a specified, high evaluative standard and the underlying knowledge and cognitions that enable speakers to achieve it. This may seem to be a different sense of being “competent” than the sense of being just good enough to meet a minimal standard – of being merely competent as a speaker rather than excellent – but it is more accurate to say that when it comes to being competent in speaking and interacting, the minimal standard is a high one. There is an empirical side to the study of speakers’ competence and a theoretical side. The empirical side is about what the observable aspects of speaking are that meet whatever evaluative standard is being applied for being competent. The theoretical side is about what knowledge and cognitions – including in some conceptualizations, what aptitudes, attitudes, and motivations – enable speakers to speak in a way that meets that high evaluative standard. This high evaluative standard is sometimes the one that is set by natives of a language, culture or community of practice, and sometimes it is a normative standard that researchers set. Over time, there has been a proliferation of subcategories of the competence construct that are tied to particular domains or aspects of speaking. However, there

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are fuzzy boundaries between some of them in terms of the underlying knowledge and cognitions involved, the evaluative standard involved, and/or the observable aspects of speaking that are pertinent. Besides linguistic competence and communicative competence, these include (alphabetically) cultural competence, discourse competence, fundamental competence, interactional competence, intercultural competence, interpersonal competence, organizational communication competence, pragmatic competence, relational competence, strategic competence, and social competence. These have arisen from the differing interests of several academic disciplines and professions in the quality and functionality of persons’ speaking along one or another evaluative dimension, especially in several subfields of Communication – mainly Interpersonal Communication, Language and Social Interaction, and Organizational Communication – Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, and Foreign Language Teaching, Psychology, Sociolinguistics/Ethnography, Education, Medicine, and Business. The upshot is that there are long-standing issues regarding the way “competence” is conceptualized that are cited at the beginning of almost all writing about competence. For that reason, these have to be addressed here as well. The first half of this chapter is therefore about these conceptual issues tied to competence in speaking generally, and the second half is about competence in speaking in interactions specifically.

2 Two conceptualizations of competence in speaking At bottom, there are two main conceptualizations of “competence” in speaking. A shorthand way of characterizing and differentiating them is that one is about the competence to speak effectively, and the other is about the competence to speak meaningfully, or be understood as one intends. These are of course two sides of the same coin: People speaking effectively must also speak meaningfully, and people speaking meaningfully are only speaking to effectively achieve goals. A considerable body of empirical work on naturally occurring talk in interaction, most notably by conversation analysts (e.g., Sidnell and Stivers 2013), has revealed a wide range of standardized discursive practices whose standardization can be rationalized equally well in terms of their meaningfulness and in terms of their effectiveness. And as discussed in the final section of this chapter, a way in which effectiveness in speaking is theoretically tied to meaningfulness in speaking has been developed. Generally, however, what makes speaking meaningful differs from what makes it effective, and so for the most part they have been studied as separate matters. The conceptualization of competence in speaking as a matter of speaking meaningfully emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. It began with Chomsky’s (1965) inter-

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est in the competence to reliably produce phonological strings that are recognizably of a particular language, and as such meaningful, and was broadened by Hymes (1964, 1974) to include the competence to produce discursive sequences and interactions that are recognizably orderly, situationally appropriate, and culturally meaningful. These conceptualizations have in common a central interest in what knowledge and cognitions people acquire that enable them to progress from producing the unintelligible gibberish of infants to the complex discursive objects routinely produced by older children and adults that are linguistically and socio-culturally meaningful within their community. The conceptualization of competence in speaking as a matter of speaking effectively emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, with foundations mainly in Communication (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984, 1989; Wiemann 1977). The matter of central interest in this conceptualization is what knowledge and cognitions – and attitudes and aptitudes – people acquire that enable them to reliably speak in ways that bring about intended results, and especially, socially desirable results, through their influence on others. Work since then has built on each of these foundational conceptualizations but not made any notable changes in them (cf. Rickheit and Strohner 2008). Either or both of two aspects of performing “effectively” have been considered. One aspect is effectiveness in achieving a goal in the immediate situation, where someone who is competent in this sense reliably achieves whatever his or her goal is from situation to situation. The other aspect is effectiveness across situations in achieving some particular goal, mainly enacting one’s part in some relationship, role, or activity, for example the competence involved in being an effective parent, or an effective debater, or, as in Gottman’s (1983) way of indexing a child’s social competence, in being effective at making friends and being liked. In either sense of being effective, the key is knowledge of means to ends, and experience and skills in producing means sufficient to bring about a particular end. When the focus is on speaking effectively, the evaluative standard for speaking well is a normative one. It has been tied mainly to the interpersonal contexts in which this conceptualization is usually applied, where speaking well has been defined as speaking in a way that achieves one’s goals with respect for, and collaboration and support from, others, so as to benefit others as well as oneself. The particulars of speaking that make it competent from this perspective are most commonly identified in terms of its prosocial qualities such as openness, directness, and cooperativeness, rather than any specific linguistic and vocal details that exhibit those qualities. The emphasis is on ways of speaking to achieve one’s goals without being controlling, such as taking turns, asking questions, requesting rather than directing, and so forth. The knowledge and cognitive processing that are required involve empathy and perspective-taking, and a general prosocial disposition. When the focus is on the competence to speak meaningfully, then the main evaluative standard for speaking well is a descriptive one, tied to what is best

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characterized as discursive well-formedness (i.e., speaking that is grammatical, semantically coherent, sequentially ordered, or that forms – or fits within – a structurally and functionally complete whole such as a classroom lesson or service encounter, and is therefore interpretable as the speaker intends). The particulars of speaking that make it competent in this sense involve the linguistic and vocal details of what is said that give it meaning, ranging from the micro details of vocal inflections and phrasing to the structure and sequential organization of sentences, discourses and interactions, activities and speech events. The knowledge and cognitive processing that are required involve principles and rules – generally a “system of rules” in that the rules are linked and interdependent, not discrete – for combining and interconnecting symbols (i.e., sounds into words, words into sentences, sentences into discourse, utterances into actions, and actions into interactions, activities, and speech events). These two main conceptualizations of “competence” (i.e., the competence to speak effectively versus the competence to speak meaningfully) are each responsive to, and account for, different basic facts. An interest in the basis for speaking effectively – in whatever way counts as effective and skillful – arises from the presumption that people are not equally able to speak effectively. This raises the questions of what the cognitive and experiential differences among people are such that some people can speak effectively and others cannot; and what, if anything, can be done through education, training, or therapy to bring about improvement. On the other hand, an interest in the basis for speaking meaningfully arises from the presumption that people are equally able to speak meaningfully (at least, people who are native speakers of the same language, socialized members of the same community, and not speech or hearing impaired) – otherwise people could not communicate. This raises the question of how people come to achieve an equivalent competence to speak meaningfully (in their language, in their communities) despite their cognitive and experiential differences. Generally, these two conceptualizations and related interests do not conflict. On one hand, what counts as speaking effectively, what details of speaking this includes, and individual differences and variables in the ability to speak effectively, are studied while taking for granted speakers’ equivalent competence to speak meaningfully. Conversely, what counts as speaking meaningfully, what details of speaking this includes, and the basis for individuals being equivalently competent to speak meaningfully, are studied while taking for granted that there are individual differences in speakers’ competence to speak effectively. However, these conceptualizations are at odds on one key point – the extent to which being competent is correlated with, or predictive of, performing well. In addition, there are four other matters on which the two conceptualizations differ. One is that they differ as to what is learned in becoming competent to speak effectively versus becoming competent to speak meaningfully. Another is that they differ as to what the learning process is. In addition, they differ as to whether competence is founded

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on the qualities and experience of the speaker and is therefore mutable, or whether it is founded on principles and a system of rules that speakers acquire and internalize but do not originate, and therefore is relatively fixed and enduring. And finally, they differ in regard to they way they are investigated.

2.1 The first difference in the two conceptualizations: Competence and performance 2.1.1 Competence as determinate of performance Work on the competence to speak effectively generally equates how competent someone is (which, again, is regarded as a variable across individuals) with how well he or she performs. This may have stemmed from use of the term “competence” by psychologists and educators in the 1950s and 1960s to refer to the ability of persons to act effectively, meeting such practical standards as acting skillfully and appropriately. Among other things this is the forerunner of the concept of competency-based education. This conceptualization has roots in such definitions as White’s (1959: 297), who defined “competence” as “an organism’s capacity to interact effectively with its environment” where “in the mammals, and certainly man, fitness to interact with the environment is slowly attained through prolonged feats of learning”. On that basis, the knowledge and cognitions for speaking effectively are regarded as being the sole determinant of performance. However, McCroskey (1982), who focused on the competence to speak effectively, had a dissenting view about this. McCroskey cautioned that there may be a contingent and variable gap between competence and performance (but not, as for Chomsky 1965, below, a principled one), in that someone who knows what to do to speak effectively (and thus is competent) may or may not have the skills and experience to actually do it.

2.1.2 Competence as a component of performance Chomsky (1965) focused linguistic theory on the systemics of human languages, which he theorized comprise a system of combinatorial rules that map base grammatical structures onto surface spoken or written sentences, deriving an indefinitely large set of meaningful expressions from a finite set of primitive phonetic or orthographic elements. He contended that speakers must know a language’s systemics in order to speak and understand it at all, and referred to a speaker-hearer’s knowledge/mastery of a language’s systemics as linguistic competence. But Chomsky contended that linguistic competence is imperfectly exhibited in linguistic performance due to intervening cognitive and affective states that may impair it. The upshot meta-theoretically is that a theory of competence cannot account for all the

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facts of performance; a theory of performance is needed in addition. The upshot methodologically is that the observable occurrences of speaking a language (performance) are not reliably informative about the competence – the underlying knowledge of the language’s systemics – needed to speak it grammatically. Hymes (1964, 1971, 1972) carried over and preserved the competence-performance distinction, but redrew the boundary lines to include speaking that is socioculturally as well as linguistically meaningful. He contended that Chomsky’s equation of the competence to speak meaningfully with just linguistic competence is too narrow, on the grounds that Chomsky’s distinction treats as matters of performance certain aspects of speaking that Hymes contended are actually matters of competence, but not linguistic competence to speak grammatically. These aspects of speaking involve what he later termed a communicative competence to speak and interact in culturally and situationally meaningful ways as well as linguistically meaningful ways, based (like linguistic competence) on speakers’ knowledge of cross-situational, enduring and shared, principles or a system of rules. As he summarized the issue early on, Hymes (1964) held that speakers must not only know the system of rules for producing grammatical sentences as Chomsky held, but also what he called “speaking rules” about when to speak, to whom, about what. The end result of verbal development is a child who … not only knows the grammatical rules of its language, but also speaking rules or some portion of them. Its conduct shows some knowledge of expectations about when speech is obligatory, when proscribed, and when informative as an act by virtue of being optional. It shows some knowledge of a system of speaking, a system characterized partly by the fact that not all theoretically possible combinations of such various factors of speech events as senders and addressors, receivers and addressees, channels, settings, codes and subcodes, topics, and message-forms can appropriately co-occur. It shows some knowledge of the hierarchy of functions which may characterize speech generally, or speech events particularly, in its society. And such knowledge is necessary, for of course it is not enough for the child to be able to produce any grammatical utterance. It would have to remain speechless if it could not connect utterances with situations [emphasis added] (Hymes 1964: 110).

Hymes (1974) later fleshed out what these principles and rules apply to (e.g., for a given speech event, they apply to such matters as who can speak, about what, in what setting, in what tone and manner), and called on researchers to find out the details of speaking meaningfully within specific speech events within specific communities, with the goal of discovering generalities of rules and principles within and across communities, and perhaps universals. In another discussion, Hymes (1971) observed that there are class, cultural, and relational differences in the way people who speak the same language speak it. He argued that Chomsky’s conceptualization that all speakers of a language are equally competent to speak it entails the false conclusion that certain ubiquitous variations in speaking (as had been documented in sociolinguistic research) must result from “irrational” situational and psychological factors that interfere with speaking

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it “correctly”. Hymes proposed to the contrary that there is a rationality in many such variations that arises from additional cultural and relational rules for speaking, and that knowledge of these constitutes a second, overarching, competence – a communicative competence regarding not only what is formally possible, but situationally feasible and appropriate, in speaking the language meaningfully.

2.2 The second difference in the two conceptualizations: What is learned A focus on speaking effectively posits in general that there are individual differences in what speakers learn regarding what problem(s) their speaking should or can solve or what goal(s) it should or can fulfill. In part, this is a matter of learning a repertoire of methods, practices, formulaic expressions, and speaking styles for achieving the identified end result – knowledge of “what” to do or “how”, essentially skills, that for this speaker have proven over time to reliably bring about that result. Discussions of speaking effectively often characterize a competent speaker as having developed a repertoire of diverse methods, practices, and formulae for achieving particular goals, but also stress that it is essential to speaking effectively to be capable of being adaptable and even creative as situations vary. But much research and theory focuses less on the specifics of such a repertoire and what is learned, and more on individual differences in underlying (psycho-social) qualities of persons who speak effectively that enable and motivate learning, and facilitate training. These involve personal traits and attributes from cognitive complexity to a generally prosocial – collaborative and supportive – orientation towards others, whether for its own sake or as necessary to win the other’s support for achieving one’s goals. These are arguably inherent, not learned, and govern or trickle down to the concrete particulars of speaking. Of the diverse qualities of speaking and interacting in an effective way that Blut et al. (2011) identified in their study of front-line sales personnel assessed as competent, they regarded the majority as ingrained, not learned or learnable. On that basis, the particulars of the speaking of someone who speaks effectively may be considered an externalization of their way of thinking as much or more as they are learned ways of speaking. In contrast, a focus on being competent to speak meaningfully posits that competence (as opposed to performance) depends entirely on what is learned, and is not at all contingent on psycho-social qualities of persons that differentiate them. What is learned is underlying principles or a system of rules that are uniform across speakers of the language in some community. These principles and rules are the basis for any competent speaker to calculate what would be linguistically, culturally, and situationally possible, feasible, and appropriate in the present situation – where those means of calculation also enable adaptation and creativity within and across situations. For example, principles or a system of rules of language and of speaking may distinguish the possibility, recognizability, and appropriateness of

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teasing someone versus criticizing them regarding some flaw in their comportment. And those rules also provide a basis for a speaker, any speaker, to work out a way to (linguistically) call attention to a flaw in the addressee’s comportment, such that (communicatively) it will count as teasing and not as criticism (or vice versa) for that particular speaker to call attention in that particular way to that particular flaw in that particular addressee’s comportment in that particular social and discursive context. However, as has been documented by conversation analysts (e.g., Sidnell and Stivers 2013) and ethnographers of communication and applied linguists (e.g., Paulston, Kiesling, and Rangel 2012), speakers (and communities) develop standardized discursive practices from the application of such rules over time. Such standardized ways of speaking are meaningful in a particular way and obviate the need for situated calculation.

2.3 The third difference in the two conceptualizations: The learning process Both conceptualizations of competence in speaking credit nature more than nurture as the foundation of speakers’ competence, but for quite different reasons. In regard to speaking effectively, learning is thought to be facilitated or inhibited by inborn qualities of the speaker and what, and how much, he or she is disposed to learn and capable of learning (nature). But within those limits, there is room for training children and adults to speak more effectively (nurture). In regard to the competence to speak meaningfully, learning is thought to depend on basically human (not individual) mental processes biologically fitted to learning the principles and system of rules that underlie speaking (nature). But exactly what principles or rules are learned (and in the case of language specifically, what phonology and orthography and what lexicon), and what standardized discursive practices, depends on the linguistic and socio-cultural environments in which the speaker grows up (nurture). Because it is presumed that everyone is fitted out for that learning in the same way (excepting speech or hearing impaired individuals), that it occurs preponderantly in early childhood, and that the principles and rules that are learned are constants, there is little room for individual differences, or training and improvement, in that basic competence. Learning a repertoire, even a diverse repertoire, of methods, practices, and formulaic expressions that make one competent to speak effectively involves a different process from learning underlying principles or rules that make one competent to speak meaningfully. Methods, practices, and formulae and their effect are exhibited directly in observable practices, and may be learned through some such process as observing and adopting a model’s way of speaking and its effects (cf. Bandura 1977), as well as overt training or even trial and error. These have in common that, as White (1959: 297) summarized it, “fitness to interact effectively with the environment … is slowly attained through prolonged feats of learning”.

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On the other hand, because underlying principles or a system of rules that give one the competence to speak meaningfully are imperfectly exhibited in observable practices, the learner has to infer “from the data of performance the underlying system of rules” (Chomsky 1965: 4). Consistent with this claim, there is clear empirical evidence that children do not learn their native language by simply imitating adult speech (e.g., in English, children may over-generalize the past tense rule, leading to such uniquely childish words as “runned”). Instead, they infer a system of rules from adult speech, and over time correct and refine it in a cyclic process that resembles hypothesis-making, hypothesis-testing, and hypothesis correction (Brown 1973). Chomsky (1965) premised that humans have an innate readiness and capacity to make such inferences specifically about the principles or system of rules of language – an innate capability that evidently atrophies after early childhood, given that the process of learning new languages later in childhood and especially adulthood is markedly different and more difficult. When it comes to learning speaking rules as described by Hymes, the learning process seems to be more interactive, still a matter of making inferences but with active guidance from mature speakers. Sterponi (2010) represents it as a process of socialization, which in contrast to language learning, gives family members and caregivers a prominent, active role in the learning process. It is important to take into account that such learning has to be motivated. Bruner (1975b), arguably accommodating Hymes’ broader idea of the competence to speak meaningfully, pointed out that children do not make inferences about underlying rules of language passively. They are motivated to make them in the course of “doing things with words” to overcome communicative deficits they experience (arguably, deficits in their effectiveness, although Bruner does not put it that way): Certain communicative functions or intentions are well in place before the child has mastered the formal language for expressing them linguistically. … Looked at naturalistically, it would seem as if the child were partly motivated to master language in order better to fulfill these functions in vivo. … … [T]he acquisition of a first language is very context-sensitive, by which is meant that it progresses far better when the child already grasps in some prelinguistic way the significance of what is being talked about or of the situation in which the talk is occurring. With an appreciation of context, the child seems better able to grasp not only the lexicon but the appropriate aspects of the grammar of a language. (Bruner 1990: 71).

2.4 The fourth difference in the two conceptualizations: The locus of competence If a speaker’s competence to speak effectively is based on a repertoire of diverse methods, practices, and formulaic expressions he or she has learned, coupled with

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personal attributes such as the speaker’s cognitive complexity (e.g., O’Keefe 1988) and disposition towards others, then competence is a property of the individual speaker, and varies across speakers. On that basis, how effectively a person speaks may change over time, and – up to the limits created by the person’s dispositions and aptitudes – be actively improved by consciousness raising, and training in new methods, practices, and formulaic expressions in new situations. This contrasts with the conceptualization of a speaker’s competence to speak meaningfully that is based on mastery of a system of rules or set of principles. Taking as a prototype Chomsky’s (1965, 1995) work on the systemics of human languages, a language is not a collection of meaningful acoustic or graphic strings encountered through the vagaries of individuals’ cognitions, motivations, and personal experience. A language is a system of rules for combining a finite set of primitive elements into an indefinitely large set of surface expressions that arise from universals of the way the human mind operates. On that basis, Chomsky contends that the systemics of all human languages are the same, and across languages, children acquire their native language in the same way at the same time through the same stages because humans are innately equipped at birth to do this. Similarly, even though the speaking rules Hymes (1964, 1974) focuses on vary from community to community, he assumed that there are such rules in every community, of the same kind regarding the same matters, and they must be shared. The competence to speak meaningfully that persons acquire therefore belongs to the language and the community, not the individual, and so it is fixed and enduring (at least over much or all of an individual’s life span). Accordingly, there is no way to achieve, and there can be no benefit from, “improvement” through training in a person’s competence to speak meaningfully.

2.5 The fifth difference in the two conceptualizations: Research questions and methods In studies of speaking effectively, it is generally regarded as an objective matter what psycho-social qualities speakers must have to speak effectively, and what qualities of speaking bear on its effectiveness, but what counts as speaking effectively in any instance is generally regarded as a relative and subjective matter across tasks, situations, and social contexts. Hence, it is the questions of what qualities of the speaker differentiate competent from less competent speakers, and what qualities of speaking are associated with speaking effectively, which have been investigated. The research on these matters has been done primarily in the laboratory and not in the field, although recent studies of speaking effectively in professional contexts are being done in the field (e.g., Blut et al. 2011; Nemeth 2008). Field studies of what qualities of speaking are effective rely mainly on interviews, sometimes also written or anecdotal reports of communication failure and success. In the laboratory, the question of what qualities of speaking are effective

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is studied by exposing respondents to speaking that varies in regard to certain qualities (independent variable), and measures how that affects attributions of competence to the speaker (dependent variable). For example, in an early and influential study, Wiemann (1977) found that as the frequency of interruptions, long pauses, and unilateral topic changes went down, ratings of speaker competence (effectiveness) went up. Alternately, the qualities of persons who do or do not speak effectively are investigated by grouping persons according to specified qualities (independent variable, such as cognitive complexity). Groups of persons are then compared in regard to self-reports or responses to hypothetical speaking situations and the speaking demands in them, finding out whether particulars of speaking or writing they report or produce are ones that are correlated with attributions of competence. In regard to the competence to speak meaningfully, it is generally regarded as an objective matter what the principles and system of rules are that competent speakers of a language in a community must know, and what qualities of speaking (related to well-formedness) bear on its meaningfulness. This is investigated in two primary ways. In regard to linguistic competence, analysts’ intuitions as native speakers are the main, but contingent, source of data about what is well-formed and “correct”, and what structural descriptions and equivalences and contrasts are valid. But these are subject to being validated by the associated rules cohering within a system of rules – a theory of competence – that are internally consistent and predictive of other intuitively sound descriptions and interconnections. In regard to communicative competence, the empirical data come mainly from observing naturally occurring cases, focusing on regularities in component details of what is said and the response to them, any incidents of understanding troubles or negative evaluations created by what is said, and sometimes from interviews with natives to get their accounts of such phenomena. Principles and rules inferred from these are subject to being tested on the basis of their internal consistency, predictiveness, and validation by native speakers.

3 Competence in speaking in interactions The two basic conceptualizations of “competence” (speaking effectively versus speaking meaningfully) carry over to two main approaches to the study of speakers’ competence in interactions. In both conceptualizations, an “interaction” is a sequence of turns at speaking produced alternately by the participants, where the participants are mutually engaged in an undertaking, and the talk produced at each turn is linked to and delimited by what else has been said (in terms of its content and its functionality as an action). To speak effectively in an interaction is a matter of contributing to it in a way that leads incrementally to the achievement of the speaker’s goal(s). To speak meaningfully in an interaction is a matter of contributing to it in a way that is responsive to what has been said so far, and pre-

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serves the coherence of the interaction, the identities and roles of the participants, and the relevance and attainability of the goals that led the participants to interact in the first place. In regard to speaking effectively, interaction is regarded as the main site of speaking to achieve goals, especially in interpersonal contexts (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984, 1989), and is thus the focus of much research on speaking effectively. Correspondingly, in regard to the competence to speak meaningfully, the interactional context and sequential placement of what is said is generally regarded as a key influence on its meaningfulness, and some regard it as the dominant influence. Such work focuses on evidence from studies of performance in naturally occurring interactions of the intricacy with which speakers design and sequentially position what they say that make it meaningful in the intended way. However, not all work on speaking meaningfully in interactions is overtly concerned with the competence to do so. While some of the ethnographic work on culturally contexted interaction, following Hymes (1964, 1974), has that concern (e.g., Philipsen 1995; Fitch 1998; Katriel 1986), the work of conversation analysts generally does not (Potter and te Molder 2005; Schegloff 2006). But even though a concern in relevant empirical studies with the competence to speak meaningfully in interactions is often more tacit than overt, these studies make evident that there is such a competence (Levinson 2006), and some effort to theoretically represent it has been made (Sanders 1987, 1997, 2003). A key difference between these two conceptualizations of competence in speaking in interactions is whether a competent speaker is regarded as having control (as opposed to exerting an influence) over the way the interaction proceeds. When the focus is on interacting effectively, then the answer is basically “yes”, in that it follows by definition that more effective individuals must be more able to exercise control over the interaction and what results from it than less effective speakers. When the focus is on the competence to interact meaningfully, the answer is basically “no” to the question of whether a competent speaker has control over the interaction and the meaningfulness of its components and the interaction as a whole. This is mainly because the meaningfulness of what is said in interaction depends in part on what the other has said that the speaker is responding to, and in part on what response the other then makes to what the speaker says. In that case, while each speaker has an influence over the interaction and the meaningfulness of what is said, in the end these are co-constructed. Even when the interaction proceeds exactly as one speaker wants it to, and what the speaker says is meaningful as he or she intended it would be, it still depends on how the other participates for that to happen.

3.1 The competence to interact effectively There is general agreement with Parks’ (1985, 1994) thesis that speaking effectively, or interacting effectively, is a matter of exerting as much control as possible over

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the interaction without interfering with the other’s achievement of his or her goals: “competent communicators … realize, however dimly, that their ability to pursue their own goals depends on the freedom of others to pursue their goals” (Parks 1985: 197). Wiemann (1977) has a similar view, which he links to Goffman’s perspective on encounters in public, and anticipates Brown and Levinson’s (1987) thinking about politeness: [C]ommunicative competence can be defined as the ability of an interactant to choose among available communicative behaviors in order that he [or she] may successfully accomplish his [or her] own interpersonal goals during an encounter while maintaining the face and line of his [or her] fellow interactants within the constraints of the situation [italics in original] (Wiemann 1977: 198).

This view that it is important to not interfere with the other’s efforts to achieve his or her goals, or to maintain his or her face, has some resemblance to the view among those who focus on interacting meaningfully that interactions are co-constructed. But the difference, as both Parks and Wiemann imply, is that those who focus on interacting effectively do not regard the active participation of the other, and co-construction of interactions, as inherent and unavoidable. They represent it as an option for a speaker about whether to defer in any way to the other – an option they indicate is advisable to take for practical reasons along the lines of the win-win approach to negotiation advocated by Fisher and Ury (1981). Some writers have proposed that a speaker’s competence in regard to effectiveness at achieving goals in interaction is therefore contingent on the speaker’s relationship with the other, presumably whether it warrants deference to (and from) the other. In that case, interacting effectively has a dyadic rather than individual basis: “[F]rom an interactional perspective, it makes no sense to talk about a person being competent apart from a specific relationship …” (Wiemann and Kelly 1981: 290) Consistent with this thinking, but parsing it further, Spitzberg and Cupach (1989) propose that within this general framework, there is an “interactional competence” specifically. This links effectiveness in speaking in interaction (indexed by increased attraction, satisfaction, and improved outcomes) to making adjustments in “style” over the course of an interaction that mesh with or accommodate the other’s style. A recurring theme in the findings of studies about qualities of individuals’ speaking in interactions that are rated as competent (effective) is that they are prosocial, presumably because this is the key to “maintaining the face and line presented by other relational participants” (Wiemann and Kelly 1981: 293) in the course of pursuing the speaker’s goals. Verbally, in addition to accommodating or meshing with the other’s speaking style, this has been found to involve procedural details such as taking turns (not interrupting), timing (sequential placement) of statements, and initiating topics. It has also been found to involve certain qualities of content. Speakers who are rated as competent to interact effectively speak clearly, are open/honest, empathic, request rather than direct, ask questions, admit mis-

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takes, express disagreement without belligerence, adopt situationally appropriate wording and style, and so forth. In recent years, an interest in assessing and improving how effectively speakers act and interact has developed in several professional contexts. It has become a central concern in regard to second language learning and foreign language teaching, where there is substantial agreement that language learning cannot be regarded as simply a matter of learning vocabulary and syntax. Rather, the core tenet of this work is that one cannot be said to have learned a language without also being able to participate effectively in interactions in that language. And this is regarded as a matter of learning conventional tasks and procedures, and the roles of participants, in the host society as well as the language itself (Hall, Hellerman, and Doehler 2011; Pallotti and Wagner 2011). Learners who become able to participate in interactions effectively are said to have acquired “interactional competence”. A concern with participating effectively in interaction has also arisen in the professional context of medicine. A conference of physicians produced the “Kalamazoo Consensus Statement” (Bayer-Fetzer 2001) in which they set out qualities of physicians’ speaking in interactions with patients they deemed to be “essential”. Schirmer et al. (2005: 185) summarized these as: establishing rapport with the patient, engaging the patient in discussion of concerns and issues, gathering information from the patient with both open- and closed-ended questions as needed, orienting to the patient’s perspective on the illness, sharing information in ways the patient can understand, reaching agreement with patient on a treatment plan, and bringing about closure without curtailing the patient’s opportunities to bring up other issues and concerns. It should be noted that these elements of physician-patient communication identified by physicians as interactionally effective have two aspects that are consistent with academic research. First, even though they are specific to the medical context, they have a consistent prosocial quality, and provide opportunities for the patient to pursue his/her goals as well. On the other hand, second, these are entirely about the physicians’ speaking, albeit in interaction with patients, and thus presuppose that the physician has a controlling position in the interaction. However, Schirmer et al. (2005), in introducing their project of evaluating different methods of assessing physicians’ competence (effectiveness) in interacting with patients, call attention to something recognized but not emphasized in earlier academic work. They found that there is interactional, relational, and contextual variability in what particulars of speaking would be effective that stands in the way of a standardized method of assessing a speaker’s competence to interact effectively, not just in a research laboratory but in actual professional contexts. This certainly complicates training: Assessing communication competence is complex. Skills that require performance are difficult to assess through disembodied means (such as written tests) but require in-vivo demonstra-

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tion. Further, competence is not defined solely by the presence and timing of effective verbal and nonverbal behaviors within the context of individual interactions with patients or families. Effective communication includes the ability to adapt, to be responsive, and to manage selfawareness during the process of talking and listening. Additionally, effective communication is not only dependent on the observable behaviors of the physician but also on the behaviors and perceptions of patients. What constitutes effective communication in one setting with one patient may be ineffective in another. The variation among patients and the subtleties of effective communication makes standardized evaluation difficult. (Schirmer et al. 2005: 184–185)

In a third, quite different professional context having to do with sales, Blut et al. (2011) conducted research on “the interaction competence of frontline employees” (p. 3), specifically the work of the sales force of industrial firms who generally have a pool of customers they work with. Blut et al. carried out interviews with salespersons and customers about what qualities of the salesperson’s speaking are effective, organized around a set of qualities already identified in past research. Blut et al. concluded from those interviews that there is variability across the stages of the sales process in what qualities of speaking are effective. They distinguished an initiation stage, a negotiation stage, and a relationship-care stage, and found that such qualities as enthusiasm and attentiveness are important mainly at the initiation stage, whereas such qualities as directness and assertiveness are important mainly at the negotiation stage. They also found that there is variability in “learnability” across those qualities. Qualities based on norms and skills are learnable (such as transparency, politeness, technical knowledge, and “rhetoric”) and qualities based on “personality” are not (such as empathy, assertiveness, and flexibility).

3.2 The competence to interact meaningfully Whereas interaction is the main focus of work on speaking effectively, it is not the only focus of work on the competence to speak meaningfully. It is a fourth basis for the meaningfulness of what is said, in addition to the linguistic meaning, pragmatic meaning, and cultural or sociolinguistic meaning of what is said. However, there is a growing adoption of the view of many conversation analysts, whose work is a primary source of what we know about interacting meaningfully, that the sequential position of what is said in an interaction is the primary and controlling influence on its situated meaning (Stivers 2013). This basis for situated meaning serves as a check on, and often supersedes, principles and rules of pragmatic meaning, and to a degree of cultural/communal meaning (e.g., Schegloff 1988; cf. Sanders 1999). Accordingly, there is reason to say that the competence to speak meaningfully is intertwined with the competence to interact meaningfully, and that the competence to interact meaningfully is based on knowing how what one says is connected to, constraining of, and constrained by, what the other says. For example, the utterance “I’ll be there by 3:00” has the linguistic meaning of a statement of future fact, and according to the constitutive rules of speech acts,

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would have the pragmatic meaning of a promise, under the conditions that this is what the hearer wants and that the speaker intends to be committed to that by having said it. As such, a response to the pragmatic meaning of that utterance in an interaction would be “Good, I’m counting on it.” But if the utterance “I’ll be there by 3:00” is said in an interaction in response to an offer (“If you get here by 1:30 we’ll get some lunch”), the linguistic meaning is unchanged, but within that interaction the utterance counts as an account for declining the offer of lunch, not a promise, so that it would not have the same situated meaning for the person who issued the invitation to respond with “Good, I’m counting on it.” Moreover, “I’ll be there by 3:00” would only have the meaning of an account within an interaction, in response to certain offers, invitations, or requests. In light of the contingent and variable influence that interaction has been shown to have on the meaning of what is said, conversation analysts are relatively sparing and cautious about formulating underlying principles and rules that would represent speakers’ competence. They give their primary attention to the observable details of utterances and their sequential placement that tie them to each other and influence their situated meaning. In addition, there is caution about theorizing in that it seems premature without more data, and also because theorizing at this stage might interfere with open-mindedness in observing and analyzing the facts of interaction. Nonetheless, through the lens of conversation analysis, there seem to be two core principles that would be a starting point in representing the competence to speak meaningfully in interactions. These core principles entail that interacting meaningfully results from there being interconnections between speakers’ sequentially ordered turns at speaking based on their linguistic, pragmatic, and/or cultural meaning that is produced through their design (composition, phrasing, vocalization) and sequential placement. The first core principle is that the meaning of what is said in position 1 delimits and warrants (or constrains, directs, invites, or creates a demand or opportunity for) what is meaningfully sayable next, in position 2. Tracy (1982) found that speakers are rated as competent (to interact meaningfully) who respond to the “issue” (or point) of what the other said, rather than digress on some side matter (or “event”) that was referred to. For example, if speaker A says “There’s a sale on shoes at that new department store today”, speaker B would be rated as less competent if he or she responded with criticism of opening a new department store instead of the issue speaker A indirectly raised of whether to go to the store for the sale. The second, related, core principle is that the meaning of what is said in position 2 is responsive to, and is thus implicative of, the meaning of what is said in position 1. Of course, it sometimes happens that there is no response at all to what is said in position 1, or that there is other talk that intervenes between what is said in position 1 and the response in position 2, for example, a “side sequence”, where more information is sought about what is said in position 1 before responding. But

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these principles of interconnection are upheld by the fact that something will either be said in position 2 eventually, or its absence will be discernible and accountable. Of the various ways in which speakers implement these core principles of interconnection between utterances in interaction, some of the most prominent involve the concepts of “adjacency pair”, “preference”, and “turn design”. The concept of adjacency pair (Schegloff and Sacks 1973) is that certain utterances in position 1 are paired with certain responses in position 2 by virtue of their meaning (also see Schegloff 2007). For example questions are paired with answers, greetings with greetings, offers with acceptance or decline, complaints with apologies or excuses and justifications, and so forth. The production of a so-called first pair part thus constrains what the other says or talks about next. Another implementation of this principle involves the concept of “preference”. Across the various phenomena associated with this principle, the common thread is that the action an utterance in position 1 counts as, and often its phrasing, “prefers” – is biased towards, invites or facilitates – certain responses rather than others, often either a supportive or a contrary response. For example, Pomerantz (1984) examined “second assessments” made in response to a prior speaker’s assessment (e.g., A says “It’s a beautiful day” and B says “Oh yes, it’s lovely”). Second assessments that agreed with the first were produced more fluently and directly, whereas second assessments that disagreed were said hesitatingly, in a hedged or mitigated way. This regularity is implicative of a preference or bias in first assessments towards agreement. Another way in which what is said in position 1 creates a preference or bias towards a response is to ask a question that includes a candidate answer, such as “Were you late because you missed the bus again?” instead of “Why are you late?” The candidate answer reveals what the speaker regards as either the normatively acceptable or normatively unacceptable answer, and thus “prefers” either affirmation of that candidate answer or denial (Pomerantz 1988; Pomerantz and Heritage 2013). There are also a variety of more pervasive and subtle ways in which turns at speaking are “designed” (composed and sequentially placed) to produce meaningful interconnections. For example, Schegloff (1996) found that sometimes a speaker will repeat/echo what the other just said, and that when this occurs in a particular sequential environment it has a certain meaning. The environment is where a speaker has been telling a story or reporting on something in such a way as to allude to some underlying thought or feeling, and the other may produce a formulation of what was being alluded to. Schegloff found that that formulation may be repeated/echoed by the speaker, and when it is, it functions to confirm that there was an allusion and that the other correctly understood it (see also Drew 2013 on various other aspects of turn design that establish connectivity). Some regard knowledge of these interconnections on which meaningful interactions are formed, and the interactional competence this knowledge represents, to be cross-linguistic and even pre-linguistic universals. Bruner (1975a) was at the

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forefront of research that showed that pre-linguistic children recognize and interact with their caregivers on the basis of such interconnections before they learn their first language. Both Sanders (1987) and Levinson (2006) have argued that when speakers of different languages and cultures interact, they can and do still work out ways of interacting meaningfully, indicating that they have a competence to do this that is independent of language and universal. And the studies collected by Gardner and Wagner (2004) show that speakers of a second language rely on many of the same ways of interconnecting utterances within interactions that they use when interacting in their first language. This idea of interactional competence as a universal contrasts with the view in work on second language learning that interactional competence in the tasks and procedures of a host culture is learned. But of course, there is no contradiction here, it is simply a matter of there being two senses of interactional competence – one involving knowledge of universals that make interacting meaningfully possible, the other involving culture-bound or institution-bound or professional knowledge that makes interacting effectively possible.

3.3 Speaking in interactions meaningfully and effectively A long-standing strand of conversation analysis that is increasingly prominent focuses on the empirical tie between speaking and interacting meaningfully and speaking and interacting effectively (Heritage 2005; for more specifics, see “Conversation Analysis and Intervention”, 2014, a special issue of Research on Language and Social Interaction that addresses ways of intervening in specific types of interaction such as helpline services to achieve greater effectiveness). From this perspective, the competence to speak meaningfully in an interaction provides a basis for speaking effectively, although actual performance presumably is also contingent on the variations in skills, aptitude, disposition, and experience that differentiate speakers and have been the focus of work on interacting effectively (Sanders 2003, 2007a). There has also been formulation of a theoretical basis for the interconnection between the competence to speak and interact meaningfully and competence to speak and interact effectively by Jacobs and Jackson (Jackson and Jacobs 1980, 2006; Jacobs 1987, 2002; Jacobs and Jackson 1983) and by Sanders (1987, 1991, 1995, 2003, 2007a, 2007b; Sanders and Fitch 2001). Both approaches take as given that speaking meaningfully in an interaction is a matter of producing utterances interconnected with other utterances into well-formed or coherent sequences. On that basis, each speaker places constraints on what the other can coherently, meaningfully, say next, and at the same time is constrained by what the other has said previously. But this creates a basis for speaking and interacting effectively. A speaker may exploit these constraints so as to make what he or she wants the other to say (or not say) meaningful in a personally, relationally, institutionally, and/or

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culturally desired (or undesired) way and thus more (or less) likely to be said. Depending on what goals the other has and what constraints his or her utterances place on the speaker, this may bring the other to produce utterances that fulfill the speaker’s goal(s) – perhaps providing the speaker with wanted information (as in an interview), or eliciting a wanted action, or wanted agreement, assent, compliance, commitment, support, or concession, or the withdrawal of opposition regarding a decision, action, plan, policy, and the like. The main difference – but not a conflict – between Jacobs and Jackson’s approach and Sanders’ involves the basis for and substance of the principles and rules by which they postulate utterances are interconnected to each other and to the end result they progressively lead to. The principles and rules Jacobs and Jackson propose are drawn mainly from work on argumentation, advocacy, and the resolution of disagreements, whereas the ones Sanders proposes have a broader basis in linguistics and pragmatics, such that interconnections among utterances involve basic meaning relations that apply to collaborative undertakings as well as contentious ones. Any theoretical synthesis of these two main conceptualizations of competence in interaction – the competence to interact meaningfully, and the competence to interact effectively – depends on there being a way to reconcile two key differences between them. One difference is that people are regarded as equivalently competent to speak and interact meaningfully, and yet as differing in regard to their competence to speak and interact effectively. Another difference related to that one is that there is no basis for training speakers to improve their competence to interact meaningfully, whereas there is a basis for training speakers to improve how effectively they interact. However, naturally occurring instances examined by Katriel (1986), Keenan (1973), Pratt and Wieder (1993), Sanders (1991, 2003, 2007b), and Tracy (1997; Tracy and Anderson 1999), among others, point in the direction of ways to preserve those differences within the synthesis that Jacobs and Jackson, and Sanders, each propose. In those studies, attention is given to “mistakes” speakers made in the design and positioning of what they said, in that they had an adverse effect on effectiveness in achieving their goals while they were nonetheless interacting meaningfully. There are two main sources of such “mistakes” and in regard to both, consistent with work on the competence to speak effectively, speakers can be trained to improve the effectiveness of their speaking in interaction. One source of mistakes is that the interaction constitutes a certain activity or ritual or speech event, and the speaker is unaware of how to participate, is not adequately prepared or tested, or is inexperienced (e.g., Keenan 1973 on a betrothal ritual; Pratt and Wieder 1993 on ceremonial speaking; Tracy 1997 on 911 calls). Without knowing the means to be adopted within that activity, and/or the ends achievable by those means, the speaker may interact meaningfully while being ineffective, having adopted means or sought ends that well-prepared, experienced, and acculturated participants reject or do not recognize. The remedy of course is to

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give persons education or training, and practice, in participating in such activities (Sanders 2003), often something accomplished through the process of socialization. The other, related, source of mistakes that interfere with achieving goals but not with interacting meaningfully involves personal qualities needed to participate effectively in certain interaction-based tasks, for example consulting, counseling, debating, deliberating, interrogating, interviewing, mediating, selling, or socializing. While such tasks are a matter of achieving one or another of a small, fixed set of ends (e.g., settlement of a dispute, diagnosis of a patient), the means of doing so are relatively open-ended, having to do with what may be talked about, in what way, at what point, as means to an end. This faces speakers with having to be flexible, spontaneous, even creative in producing responses and constraining what the other says, something that may depend mainly on individual differences in cognitive processing along the lines O’Keefe (1988) has proposed, not something remediable through training and experience. For example, Shailor (1994) analyzed a mediated negotiation between a divorced couple in which the lead co-mediator had certain biases about the positions taken by each party which she was unable to transcend, or to which she was blind. Her bias led her to make the “mistake” of responding to the issues at hand in a way that was interpretable as favoring the position and interests of the ex-wife over the ex-husband’s, precipitating the exhusband’s withdrawal and a failed negotiation. Even if additional training could make the mediator aware of that particular bias and able to overcome it, this would not likely make her more able to avoid other such biases or be better able to recognize and transcend them in the moment. Many interaction-based tasks are, like mediation, too varied and complex to provide novices with fixed procedures and protocols that increase effectiveness, as might be done in training speakers to engage in more circumscribed activities, such as taking emergency calls. A more suitable approach to helping speakers become more effective in these more open-ended interaction-based tasks has been adopted in some professional schools, such as the “standardized patient” exercises in medical schools and moot courts in law schools. These are ways to provide novices with opportunities to practice interacting to achieve goals, coupled with feedback from mentors (cf. Pomerantz, Ende, and Erickson 1995; Ratliff and Morris 1995). This approach builds on the competence of speakers to interact meaningfully, and calls the attention of novices to matters on which they personally are most vulnerable to making flawed judgments about what to say next that would work against their effectiveness. In addition, mentors may advise novices to adopt certain ways of responding or contributing at key moments in such interaction-based tasks that they have found are conducive to making progress on the task towards a desired outcome. For example, Fisher and Ury (1981) consider that it is valuable in a negotiation to find out the other’s interests that underlie their position, giving the negotiator a basis for proposing an alternate position that serves the other’s underlying interests just as well without harming the speaker’s. Sanders (2003)

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refers to this as the cultivation of a proficiency in a particular interaction-based task, as opposed to the speaker acquiring increased competence (where competence applies more generally, across tasks) or learning a skill (which applies more narrowly to more inflexible, regimented methods of carrying out a task).

4 Conclusion The value of separately studying each aspect of competence in speaking and interacting remains, even though there is a theoretical basis for interconnecting the competence to speak and interact meaningfully with the competence to speak and interact effectively. We can continue to make progress in understanding the basis and particulars of the shared competence to interact meaningfully without attending to individual differences in interacting effectively. Likewise, we can continue to make progress in understanding the basis and particulars of individual differences in interacting effectively if we continue to take the shared competence to interact meaningfully for granted. But there is also something to be gained from attending to their interconnection. While the well formedness and meaningfulness of what is said and the effectiveness of what is said are generally independent aspects of speaking and interacting – there can be one without the other – they are not always so. For those whose work focuses on the competence to speak and interact effectively, it is important to take into account that besides the skills, experience, attitudes, and attributes that distinguish effective speakers, meaning issues sometimes come to bear as well. Speakers are not free to say at each juncture of an interaction whatever they judge would be effective just then because of unwanted meanings that might result, given normative, relational, institutional, and cultural constraints on the meaning of saying this rather than that just then, or whether it would be meaningful at all to say it. For example, Brown and Levinson (1987) foresaw that there can be a conflict between giving information in a clear way versus a polite, face supportive, way. If giving information clearly would be optimally effective in a given situation, then issues of politeness (relational well formedness and meaningfulness) may interfere. This is manifested in Kanki and Palmer’s (1993) and Orasanu and Fischer’s (2008) findings about the practical dangers, and variations in speaking effectively, created by politeness constraints in aircraft cockpits, and Leonard, Graham, and Bonacum’s (2004) finding of analogous constraints in communication among medical professionals. At the same time, for those whose work focuses on the competence to speak and interact meaningfully, it is important to take into account that besides knowledge of the principles and systems of rules on which the well formedness and meaningfulness of speaking and interacting rest, there is often a practical/functional basis for the meaningfulness and meaning of what is said that bears on its

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effectiveness as well. This may manifest itself in differences in the effect of apparent meaning equivalents that reveal there is actually a meaning difference between them that bears on speaking and interacting effectively as well as meaningfully. For example, Heritage et al. (2007) found that in physician-patient interactions, after the patient presents his or her primary complaint, physicians were significantly more successful in eliciting and meeting any additional concerns patients had if the physician phrased the soliciting question as “Is there something else you want to address in the visit today?” (the “SOME condition”) compared with phrasing it as “Is there anything else you want to address in the visit today?” (the “ANY condition”). Regardless of the theoretical differences and theoretical interplay between these two conceptualizations of competence in speaking and interacting, they are both manifest in the same empirical phenomena, the actualities of performance in spoken interactions. People speaking and interacting so as to be effective unavoidably draw on their competence to speak and interact meaningfully. People speaking and interacting so as to be meaningful, and to mean something in particular, unavoidably draw on their competence to speak and interact effectively. Hence, beyond understanding the basis for each of those competences to engage meaningfully and to engage effectively in interaction, the challenge is to trace their interconnection in performance.

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Laura Guerrero and Leslie Ramos-Salazar

6 Nonverbal skills in emotional communication Abstract: This chapter centers on how social skills in encoding, decoding, and managing emotion function in people’s interpersonal interaction. After conceptualizing the terms emotional experience and emotional expression, the dual process model of nonverbal sending accuracy is discussed as a framework for understanding different types of communication related to emotional skill. Next, specific types of skills are reviewed, including emotional intelligence, emotional expression and sending ability, emotional sensitivity and decoding accuracy, and emotional control and management. The chapter ends with four conclusions: 1. people who possess skills in emotional communication are healthier and have happier relationships, 2. self-monitoring enhances the ability to enact skilled emotional communication, 3. different emotional skills are important depending on the emotion that a person is experiencing within a given situation, and 4. emotional expressions can be challenging to encode and decode because they tend to reflect social motives as well as experienced emotion. Keywords: decoding accuracy, emotion, emotional communication, emotional control, emotional expression, emotional expressivity, emotional intelligence, emotional sensitivity, nonverbal communication, social skills

Emotional communication plays a critical role in interpersonal interaction. Indeed, Berscheid and Ammazzalorso (2003) noted that “Close relationships are the setting in which people most frequently experience intense emotions, such as joy and love, and the negative emotions, such as anger and fear” (p. 308). How people express these emotions has real consequences for personal and relational well-being (Segrin and Taylor 2006, 2007). Some people are more adept than others at encoding, decoding, and managing emotional expression. In general, being able to encode and decode positive emotions accurately increases intimacy and promotes healthy relationships. Expressing negative emotions can either harm relationships or elicit support and closeness (Graham et al. 2008). Knowing when and how to express both positive and negative emotions, as well as how to manage them, are key social skills. Possessing these skills has been associated with having satisfying relationships with others (Flora and Segrin 1999) and being socially supportive (Riggio and Zimmerman 1991). Because social skills related to emotion are especially beneficial in promoting healthy interpersonal relationships (e.g., Schutte et al. 2001), this chapter focuses on social skills in encoding, decoding, and managing emotion within interpersonal

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contexts. This focus is consistent with Riggio’s (2006) work, which shows that nonverbal competence involves skills in these three areas, and Rosenthal (1979) and Riggio’s (1986) work showing that there are individual differences in these skills. To provide a broader communication framework for discussing these three skills, this chapter opens with a conceptualization of emotion and a discussion of Buck and Powers’ (2013) dual process model of nonverbal sending accuracy. Next, research on emotional intelligence is reviewed, followed by a discussion of three more specific skills related to encoding (emotional expressivity), decoding (emotional sensitivity), and managing (or regulating) emotion, as well as a discussion of how these skills are associated with one another. Finally, the chapter concludes with several principles related to nonverbal skills in emotional communication.

1 Foundations 1.1 Conceptualizing emotion Researchers have differentiated between emotional experience and emotional expression (Guerrero, Andersen, and Trost 1998). Emotional experience is the intrapersonal, internal reaction that a person has to an emotion-eliciting event. One of the key defining features of emotional experience is that the emotion experienced is a response to a stimulus rather than a more general mood that cannot be connected to a specific event. For example, if Sophie is angry because Josh insulted her, then the insult is the stimulus and the emotional experience of anger is the response. If, on the other hand, Sophie wakes up feeling irritable and angry without really knowing why, then she would be in a bad mood rather than experiencing an emotion. Emotional experience usually comprises four components: affect, cognition, action tendencies, and physiological changes (Frijda 1993). Affect is the generally positive or negative feeling that is associated with the emotional experience (Clore, Schwarz, and Conway 1994). The cognitive component typically involves appraising an event in a way that elicits emotion, such as seeing an oncoming car as a threat and feeling afraid. Action tendencies are innate, biological impulses that help people adapt to specific emotions (Lazarus 1991). For example, the action tendency associated with fear is to retreat. Finally, physiological changes such as increased heart rate and feeling warm often accompany emotional experiences. Some of these physiological changes, such as increased heart rate, cannot be seen by others. Other physiological changes, such as sweating and blushing, can be seen by others and therefore are part of the emotional experience due to their biological nature, but also part of emotional expression because they can be perceived by others.

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Emotional expression is the external reaction to the emotion-eliciting event. When people take action that is consistent with an action tendency, such as attacking when angry or approaching others when happy, they are outwardly expressing their emotions. Much emotional expression is nonverbal. For example, anger can be communicated with a clenched fist and happiness by a smile. Indeed, emotional expression typically involves nonverbal behavior, and sometimes involves verbal communication. Emotional expressions can be spontaneous read-outs of one’s internal states, or they can be intentional displays of communication, as is discussed in the dual process model of nonverbal sending accuracy.

1.2 The dual process model of nonverbal sending accuracy The dual process model (Buck and Powers 2013) helps explain how verbal and nonverbal messages function together. According to this model, communication occurs through two simultaneous streams – a symbolic stream that consists mainly of language, and a spontaneous stream that consists mainly of emotional expressions. Encoding within the symbolic stream is learned, intentional, and propositional, with senders constructing the message and receivers decoding language to understand the message. Symbolic communication tends to occur within the left hemisphere of the brain, which specializes in processing digital information. In contrast, encoding within the spontaneous stream is innate, automatic, and nonpropositional, with behavior reflecting a sender’s internal states and receivers picking up on these states by attending to the sender’s nonverbal communication. Spontaneous communication tends to occur within the right hemisphere of the brain, which specializes in processing information holistically (Buck and Powers 2013). These two streams of communication are theorized to function independently and to interact with one another. In almost any communicative exchange, both streams are operating simultaneously. A third type of communication, pseudospontaneous communication, occurs when a sender tries to control or manage the expression of internal states (Buck and Powers 2013). Unlike spontaneous communication, pseudospontaneous communication involves the intentional production of a message. For example, a scared person may act calm to avoid frightening a child, or coworkers may soften their anger when discussing a contentious issue with one another. Pseudospontaneous communication is similar to the idea of display rules, which represent common ways in which people alter their expression to be more socially and culturally appropriate (Ekman and Friesen 1975; Saarni 1993). Common display rules include simulation (i.e., acting like you are feeling an emotion when you are not), inhibition (i.e., acting like you are not feeling any emotion when you actually are), intensification (i.e., exaggerating the degree to which you are experiencing an emotion), deintensification (i.e., downplaying the degree to which you are experiencing an emo-

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Tab. 1: Nonverbal profiles for selected emotions. Emotion

Kinesic Cues

Vocalic Cues

Haptic Cues

Happiness

Smile with skin crinkled around the eyes Cheeks raised Backward head tilt Open body position Raised arms

Moderately loud and varied volume Fast tempo Moderately high pitch Large pitch variation

Swinging, shaking, lifting

Sadness

Frown (sometimes with bottom lip trembling) Slumped posture

Low volume Slow tempo Low pitched speaking High pitched crying monotone

Stroking, squeezing, lifting

Fear

Open mouth with tense lips Raised eyebrows Eyes wide open and dilated Backward head tilt Backward transfer of weight

Loud if in attack mode or quiet if in escape mode Fast tempo High pitch (if in attack mode) Small pitch variation

Trembling, shaking, squeezing

Anger

Square-shaped mouth or lips pressed together Furrowed eyebrows Backward head tilt Raised arms Clenched fist Erect posture

Loud Fast tempo High, rising pitch (if frustrated) Low pitch (if annoyed)

Squeezing, hitting, trembling

Surprise

Raised and arched eyebrows Eyes open wide with whites showing all around the iris Jaw dropped Hands over mouth

Fast tempo High pitch

Squeezing, lifting, shaking

tion), and masking (i.e., acting like you are experiencing a different emotion than you are actually feeling). The dual process model, then, includes components that are related to encoding, decoding, and managing communication. Given our focus on nonverbal skills related to emotion, this chapter discusses research and theory on spontaneous and pseudospontaneous communication. For spontaneous communication, encoding and decoding are more accurate to the extent that these processes reflect the underlying motivational and emotional state of the sender. For example, if a sender is sad, the extent to which her or his face, voice, and body reflects that sadness will impact sending accuracy. Table 1 lists common nonverbal behaviors associated with select emotions. As this table shows, senders who spontaneously frown,

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slump their shoulders, and speak in a slow monotone voice (among other nonverbal cues) are likely to have more sending accuracy when expressing sadness. Thus, according to the dual process model, if senders have an innate tendency to display these behaviors when sad, receivers will be better able to decode their emotion accurately, which could then lead receivers to engage in more appropriate responses, such as comforting behaviors. Indeed, because spontaneous communication is innate and automatic, the dual process model specifies that people are pre-attuned to understand this kind of communication (Buck and Powers 2013). Pseudospontaneous communication is related to managing or regulating emotion. In the dual process model, pseudospontaneous messages arise when the intended message is not consistent with one’s motivational-emotional state, leading a sender to “pose” an emotion (or a lack of emotion). Importantly, some researchers, and especially those advancing the behavioral ecology approach (Fridlund and Duchaine 1996) have contended that this type of communication is not disingenuous because it represents a mix of one’s emotional states and the message one intends to send. For example, if a mother curbs her display of anger toward her son because she loves him and wants to be perceived as firm but not overly harsh, her pseudospontaneous communication would reflect some anger (the motivational state) as well as love and concern (which prompted the mother to modify her emotional expression).

2 Skills related to emotional communication As this example illustrates, people commonly express emotions in ways that reflect both their internal feeling states and their personal and social goals. To be optimally successful in reaching their goals, people must possess skills related to emotional intelligence, and more specifically, to sending ability, decoding accuracy, and emotion management, as detailed next.

2.1 Emotional intelligence Similar to how the dual process model ties together different types of communication related to encoding, decoding, and managing messages, the concept of emotional intelligence includes these three processes. Emotional intelligence is the “ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action” (Salovey and Mayer 1990: 189). Thus, emotional intelligence encompasses a variety of related skills. These include being able to: encode and decode emotions accurately; use emotion in ways that help facilitate thought and better understand one’s own emotions and the emotions of others; grow emotionally; and manage emotions in

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socially appropriate ways that help one accomplish personal and relational goals (Brackett, Mayer, and Warner 2004). Scholars have also examined how emotional intelligence is related to being able to use emotions constructively to solve individual and relationship problems (Akerjordet and Severinsson 2004). To that end, emotional intelligence has been associated with effective problem-solving in workplace relationships (Jordan and Troth 2011). Research has also shown a link between emotional intelligence and the provision of social support in workplace, school, family, and nursing relationships (Akerjordet and Severinsson 2004; Dulewicz, Higgs, and Slaski 2003; Pau and Croucher 2003). Those who possess emotional intelligence are better able to cope with mental health issues and stress, and are able to respond appropriately to social environmental stressors (Ciarrochi, Dean, and Anderson 2002). For example, those high in emotional intelligence are better able to determine what constitutes socially appropriate behavior than those who are low in emotional intelligence, which helps them deal with difficult situations. Emotional intelligence has also been shown to associate with behaviors that promote the well-being of others, such as providing acknowledgement and guidance to foster good relationships (Adams 1998). Mortenson (2009) found that people from both the U.S. and China are more likely to seek social support if they possess social skills and trust others. Furthermore, those with social skills are better able to give and receive support in stressful situations (DiTommaso, Brannen, and Best 2004), which may help explain why social skills, such as emotional intelligence, are also associated with better mental and physical health (Segrin 1992). Emotional intelligence also has positive effects on relationships. Schutte et al. (2001) found that emotionally intelligent people were more cooperative and had more affectionate and satisfying relationships than less emotionally intelligent people. Emotional intelligence mediates individual reticence and communicative tendencies in family relationships, such that reticent individuals engage in more effective communication if they are high in emotional intelligence (Keaten and Kelly 2007). Emotional intelligence has also been associated with effective communication in friendships (Yousefi 2006) and relational satisfaction in marriages (Pokorski and Kuchcewicz 2012). Several explanations have been given for why emotional intelligence has positive effects on relationships. One reason is that individuals who are high in emotional intelligence are better able to regulate their emotions and are more sensitive to social situations (Pokorski and Kuchcewicz 2012). As a case in point, people with high emotional intelligence are more likely to possess self-monitoring skills, or the ability to adjust their self-presentation based on how they perceive others to be feeling (Schutte et al. 2001). Thus, when emotionally intelligent individuals recognize that their interactional partner is experiencing a negative emotion, such as hurt, they are likely to adjust their communication by providing support. On the other hand, when they decode their partner as experiencing positive emotions, they are likely to continue engaging in the behavior that fosters such emotion.

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Another explanation centers on how emotional intelligence guides people’s responses during conflict situations. Specifically, studies have shown that whereas emotional intelligence is positively related to satisfaction in cohabiting and marital relationships, engaging in withdrawal and suppressing emotions (which emotionally intelligent individuals are less likely to do) are negatively associated with satisfaction (Smith, Ciarrochi, and Heaven 2008; Smith, Heaven, and Ciarrochi 2008). In another study, partners who were high in emotional intelligence were more likely to display cooperative behaviors during conflict (Schutte et al. 2001). Together, these studies suggest that conflict behavior may partially mediate the association between emotional intelligence and relational satisfaction. As the aforementioned studies demonstrate, emotional intelligence is associated with communication that solves problems and provides social and emotional support during face-to-face interaction. Emotional intelligence is also associated with computer-mediated communication. People who tend to use email and social networking sites such as Facebook have been shown to possess higher emotional intelligence than those who do not use these modalities as often (Woods 2001). People with maladaptive uses of the Internet and mobile communication tend to possess low emotional intelligence and have difficulty regulating their own and others’ emotions (Beranuy et al. 2009). Specifically, those who are unskilled in these areas are more likely to get addicted to or rely on social media on the Internet, in part because they lack the skills necessary to communicate effectively in face-to-face situations or are fearful of rejection (McKenna, Green, and Gleason 2002; Young 2007). Thus, across both face-to-face and mediated communication, emotional intelligence is associated with a host of positive outcomes, whereas a lack of emotional intelligence is associated with a host of negative outcomes.

2.2 Emotional expressivity and sending ability As noted above, one ingredient in the recipe for emotional intelligence is the degree to which people encode emotions accurately. This skill is related to emotional expressivity, which has been defined as “individuals’ ability to express, spontaneously and accurately, felt emotional states as well as the ability to nonverbally express attitudes and cues of interpersonal orientation” (Riggio 1986: 651). Sabatelli and Rubin (1986) also defined emotional expressivity in terms of sending ability, with individuals who are high in emotional expressivity able to display positive and negative emotions clearly so that receivers can easily decode what they are feeling. Thus, emotional expressivity includes the display of both positive (e.g., happiness) and negative emotions (e.g., anger), which trigger human behavioral responses (Gross and John 1995). Sending or encoding nonverbal communication to others, such as smiling, is an example of emotional expressivity (Riggio 1986). Indeed, scholars have contended that emotional expressivity is primarily a nonverbal skill (Riggio 1986; Sabatelli and Rubin 1986).

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Emotional expressivity has been associated with personal traits, including general well-being (Buck et al. 1998) and health (Fernandez-Ballesteros, Ruiz, and Garde 1998; Leising, Müller, and Hahn 2007). Interestingly, Pennebaker, Zech, and Rime (2001) found that expressing emotions allows individuals to expand their understanding of their experiences. Scholars have found that emotional expressivity is positively related to personal traits such as extraversion, power dominance, and affiliativeness (Friedman 1979; Friedman, Riggio, and Segall 1980). Individuals high in emotional expressivity also report enjoying social interaction more than individuals low in emotional expressivity (Kring, Smith, and Neale 1994). In terms of health, those who are low in emotional expressivity tend to report increased blood pressure levels in addition to disrupted communication (Butler et al. 2003). Emotional expressivity has also been associated with interpersonal outcomes. In workplace contexts, group members tend to hold a preference for men with extraverted personalities who are perceived to be high in social and emotional expressivity (Riggio et al. 2003). Emotional expressivity also helps smooth over conversations in friendships (Levine and Feldman 1997). In addition, emotional expressivity promotes effective and healthy interpersonal interactions (Gottman and Levenson 1992; Simpson, Gangestad, and Nations 1996), which helps foster relational connection. Research suggests that emotional expressivity leads to interpersonal liking (Riggio and Friedman, 1986), cooperative behavior, and trustworthiness (Boone and Buck 2003). People who are perceived to be high in emotional expressivity tend to be perceived as both interpersonally and physically attractive (Sabatelli and Rubin 1986). In fact, Boone and Buck (2003) found that accuracy in sending emotional information exerts as great an effect on interpersonal attraction as does physical appearance. Other studies have examined the valence of emotional expressivity by determining whether expressing positive versus negative emotions has differential effects on relational quality. By definition, emotionally expressive people tend to express both positive and negative emotions clearly, but the expression of positive versus negative emotions has different interpersonal implications. Emotional expressivity typically has positive effects on relationships when the emotion being expressed is positive. The clear expression of positive emotions such as happiness signals to others that one is approachable and wants to develop or maintain a relationship (Harker and Keltner 2001). Positive emotional expressivity has also been associated with interpersonal attraction (Sabatelli and Rubin 1986) and overall marital satisfaction (Feeney, Noller, and Roberts 1998; Feeney 2002). Particularly husbands’ positive emotional expressivity predicts love and relationship maintenance (Gottman, Levenson, and Woodin 2001). However, the clear expression of negative emotions such as anger may lead to conflict and relational deterioration, especially if the anger is directed toward one’s partner (Burgoon and Bacue 2003; Lane and Hobfoll 1992). Anger expressions can increase arousal and stress, thereby disrupting the flow of communication (Butler

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et al. 2003). Interestingly though, if anger is expressed toward an outside source, such expression can encourage relational bonding by triggering social support from one’s partner (Kowaslski 1996). Similarly, when an individual is sad and expresses that sadness by crying in front of another person, such an expression of sadness may trigger social support and bond people together (Vingerhoets et al. 2000). Thus, when the emotion being expressed is negative, emotional expressivity can bond people together in cases where social support is elicited, but can harm relationships in cases where the negative emotion is directed toward the partner. Graham et al. (2008) conducted multiple studies supporting the idea that the expression of negative affect can sometimes elicit support and strengthen relationships. The key seems to be that negative expressions of emotion should be used selectively and with trusted receivers, and that such expressions should communicate one’s needs in a clear and constructive manner. Emotional expressivity has been associated with social support in face-to-face settings. Indeed, several researchers have found that emotional expressivity is associated with the ability to give and receive social support (Bonnano and Papa 2003; Vingerhoets et al. 2000). Emotional expressivity has also been shown to promote emotional contagion, which leads people to experience similar emotions and therefore feel more empathy toward one another (Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson 1994). Being emotionally expressive is also associated with giving sympathetic responses (Eisenberg et al. 1989). The link between emotional expressivity and social support may be partially explained by other research showing that individuals who are high in emotional expressivity tend to have more positive affect for others, which helps them function better in social settings (Burgin et al. 2012). Emotional expressivity also correlates positively with certain forms of computer-mediated communication. Research suggests that those who communicate in online settings using social networking sites such as Facebook and who possess emotional skills such as expressivity are able to project more positive images of themselves to other people than those who do not possess such skills (Weisbuch, Ivecic, and Ambady 2009). Individuals who engage in nonverbal expressivity and self-disclosure online are perceived as expressing their “real life” self, and are therefore seen as more likable on social networking sites (Weisbuch, Ivecic, and Ambady 2009). Another study suggests that shy individuals (who may lack emotional expressivity) are more likely to self-disclose and express themselves in online settings than in face-to-face settings (Stritzke, Nguyen, and Durkin 2004). The research reviewed above suggests that people who possess emotional expressivity generally have happier relationships and are more effective communicators. Based on this evidence, scholars have argued that emotional expressivity is adaptive because it fosters social interaction and coordination among people (e.g., Boone and Buck 2003). Given that emotional expressivity is conceptualized as a trait and an ability, it makes sense that this characteristic has evolved within the human species. Boone and Buck further argued that the reason emotional expres-

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sivity is adaptive is because it conveys trustworthiness, which promotes cooperation. As they note, “Emotional expressivity, which refers to the degree to which individuals accurately communicate their feeling states, is helpful to the cooperative process in that it reveals the desires and intentions of the individual and allows others to make heuristic decisions such as whether to cooperate or not” (p. 179). In support of the idea that emotional expressivity is associated with trustworthiness, studies have shown that people are judged as more believable to the extent that they are nonverbally expressive (Burgoon, Buller, and Guerrero 1995). Thus, emotional expressivity may be valuable not just in expressing individual emotions, but also in giving receivers a sense that they really know and can trust the emotionally expressive person.

2.3 Emotional sensitivity and decoding accuracy Skills in encoding and expressivity are undoubtedly important, but if the receiver is unskilled in decoding, the message will not be interpreted correctly. Riggio (1986) defined emotional sensitivity as the ability to decode emotions, beliefs, attitudes, and social traits such as dominance. Emotional sensitivity is related to the broader construct of interpersonal sensitivity, which refers to the ability to perceive, understand, and respond to the internal states of others (Decety and Batson 2007; Hall and Bernieri 2001). Emotional sensitivity is also related to decoding accuracy; the more emotionally sensitive a receiver is, the more accurately he or she is able to interpret the meaning of a sender’s message. Determining whether or not nonverbal behaviors are decoded accurately, however, can be difficult. People tend to be more accurate decoders of certain emotions than others. Specifically, basic emotions – such as happiness, anger, sadness, and fear – tend to be decoded more accurately than blended emotions – such as jealousy, disappointment, and hurt. When negative emotions are decoded inaccurately, one negative emotion is often mistaken for another (Custrini and Feldman 1989; Hortaçsu and Ekinci 1992; Marsh, Adams, and Kleck 2005), so anger, for example, can easily be misinterpreted as disgust or fear. Negative emotions such as these are most likely to be decoded correctly when the emotion being expressed is intense (Hess, Blairy and Kleck 1997; Hortaçsu and Ekinci 1992). Studies focusing on how people decode emotions from the voice have produced similar findings. On the basis of vocal cues, people tend to make mistakes such as confusing fear with nervousness, pride or surprise with happiness, anger with contempt, and love with sympathy (Apple and Hecht 1982; Banse and Scherer 1996). Another factor that makes decoding emotional expressions difficult is that people engage in multiple nonverbal behaviors simultaneously and each behavior can have various meanings (Nowicki and Duke 1994). A person’s posture may be slumped and vocal affect may be dampened, which could indicate sadness, but this same person may be smiling and giving eye contact, which might signal happi-

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ness. Based on earlier work by Minskoff (1980a, 1980b), Nowicki and Duke also argued that accuracy entails being able to discriminate among different nonverbal behaviors, as well as being able to understand the social meanings of those behaviors, make sense of them in ways that facilitate smooth social interaction, and apply their meanings in ways that help people develop and maintain relationships. The notion that accuracy is sometimes impeded when multiple nonverbal cues are used is well-founded. Research has shown that receivers typically take between four and six different modalities into consideration when making judgments about the emotion a sender is experiencing (Planalp, DeFransisco, and Rutherford 1996). Common nonverbal modalities for decoding emotion include the face, voice, body, activity cues such as slamming a door, and physiological cues such as blushing (Planalp, DeFransisco, and Rutherford 1996). Guerrero and Floyd (2006) noted that communicators who are skilled in decoding are able to “discern how the various cues work together to show emotion, rather than focusing on one or two cues in isolation or examining the cues as an aggregate or average” (p. 125). At least three other conditions influence how accurately a person decodes nonverbal messages related to emotion (Burgoon and Bacue 2003). First, people need to have a working knowledge of display rules and when they are commonly used. Second, and somewhat relatedly, people must be able to distinguish between spontaneous and posed expressions. These two conditions relate back to the distinction between spontaneous and pseudospontaneous communication made earlier in this chapter. Spontaneous nonverbal cues may be easier to decode accurately because they are read-outs of internal states that people are predisposed to understand. With pseudospontaneous communication, however, the sender is intentionally changing the emotional expression so that it conforms to social or cultural norms or facilitates individual goals. This can make pseudospontaneous messages harder to decode because the messages are somewhat constructed rather than purely natural reactions to internal states. However, research also suggests that during interpersonal interaction, posed emotions are sometimes easier to decode than spontaneous emotions (Motley and Camden, 1988). This is because when people pose emotions, they display the cues that are stereotypically associated with the emotion they are posing. Receivers then decode those cues in line with stereotypes. These findings appear contradictory. On the one hand, spontaneous emotions are easy to decode when they are pure read-outs of emotion, but on the other hand, posed emotions are easy to decode when they reflect stereotypical emotional displays. During ongoing interpersonal interaction, however, neither of these types of emotional displays may occur very often since people typically experience a stream of different thoughts and emotions as they interact with one another. Moreover, posing an emotion when one is not feeling anything may be relatively easy. Posing an emotion when one is experiencing a different emotion may be much more difficult, making decoding more difficult as well. Overall, then, expressions that are completely posed or are pure read-outs of emotion may be easier to decode than expressions that are shaped by both internal emotion and display rules.

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The degree to which people can decode emotional expressions accurately has real consequences for relationships. Indeed, studies have demonstrated that decoding ability is a better predictor of marital satisfaction than encoding ability (Gottman and Porterfield 1981). When spouses have trouble decoding emotional expressions accurately, they experience more conflict within their marriage (Mograin and Vettesse 2003). Satisfied and dissatisfied couples also show differential skill in decoding emotions accurately when put into a conflict situation, with partners in satisfying relationships better able to decode one another’s emotions at various points during a conflict episode than partners in dissatisfying relationships (Noller and Ruzzene 1991). How people decode emotions is also important. Gaelick, Bodenhausen, and Wyer (1985) found that people tend to underestimate the extent to which partners communicate affectionate emotions during conflict, especially in comparison to hostile emotions. This led partners to reciprocate hostile emotional expressions more than affectionate emotional expressions. Thus, being able to accurately decode affectionate emotional expressions during conflict is a helpful social skill. Equally important is that people do not infer negativity from neutral expressions. Gottman (1979) found that partners in dissatisfying relationships tended to interpret messages that were intended to be affectively neutral as negative, whereas partners in satisfying relationships tended to interpret the same messages as positive. Koerner and Fitzpatrick (2002) added another dimension by looking at whether a partner’s emotions are decoded as being caused by the relationship (relational affect) or caused by an outside force (nonrelational affect). Couples tended to be more satisfied when they were able to accurately decode relational positive affect and nonrelational negative affect. In other words, partners in happy relationships were able to recognize when their partner’s positive affect was attributable to the relationship and when their partner’s negative affect was attributable to external forces.

2.4 Emotional control and the management of emotion As noted earlier, pseudospontaneous communication occurs when people try to control or manage their expression of emotion (Buck and Powers 2013). Being able to do so is an important communication skill. Riggio (1986) referred to this skill as emotional control, and noted that emotional control is related to self-monitoring. This skill also falls under the broader concept of emotion regulation, which encompasses “attempts individuals make to influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how these emotions are experienced and expressed” (Gross, Richards, and John 2006: 14). In addition to suppressing the expression of emotion, emotional management can also include intensifying or masking emotions. For example, during the Academy Awards, the faces of the nominees are often shown as they announce the win-

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ner. The nominees who do not win usually smile and clap as if they are happy, when in actuality they are likely to be at least somewhat disappointed. Thus, emotional management usually involves displaying an appropriate expression of emotion within a given context. Some scholars have used the term display rules to describe this type of management (Ekman and Friesen 1975; Saarni 1993). These scholars contend that people who use display rules hide their real feelings by displaying an altered expression. However, as noted previously, other scholars believe that when people manage their emotional expression, the resulting expression is a true reflection of their social motives rather than something artificial (Fridlund and Duchaine 1996). For example, if a wife curbs her expression of anger toward her husband because she loves him and does not want to fight, then her expression will reflect a mix of anger and her desire to get along with her husband. People may work especially hard to manage emotions when a relationship is first developing. Aune, Aune, and Buller (1994) found that in the early stages of romantic relationship development people tend to perceive expressions of negative emotion as inappropriate, and are therefore likely to inhibit, de-intensify, or mask their negative emotion. Guerrero and Andersen (2000) elaborated on this idea by noting that in the early stages of relationships individuals are usually on their best behavior, which includes expressing appropriate positive emotions while inhibiting most expressions of negative emotion. This type of emotional management is essential for making a good impression and fostering social attraction, both of which are often necessary ingredients for developing a new relationship. Therefore, individuals who are skilled in managing their emotions in this way are better able to develop close relationships. Interestingly, a second study by Aune, Buller, and Aune (1996) found a curvilinear relationship between relational stage and the management of negative emotion, such that people managed their expression more if the relationship was in an early or advanced stage versus an intermediate stage. Couples in developed, committed relationships may develop patterns for coping with negative emotion within their relationships, which may include curbing expressions of anger and other negative emotions. As noted above, couples in new relationships may inhibit expressions of negative emotion as part of a broader impression management strategy. In contrast, those in the intermediate stages of a relationship, such as those who have been dating for a while but are not fully committed, appear to experience and express the most emotion without exercising as much emotional control. Consistent with the idea that the inhibition of negative emotions can sometimes be beneficial in relationships, Feeney, Noller, and Roberts (1998) found that people were more satisfied with their relationships when their partner inhibited expressions of anger. However, inhibiting expressions of sadness had the opposite effect – when people inhibited (rather than expressed) sad emotion, their partners reported being less satisfied. These findings suggest that the type of negative emotion makes a difference. Intense expressions of anger are likely to lead to spirals

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of negative behavior, whereas expressions of sadness often elicit empathy and support from one’s partner. The way emotions are managed also makes a difference. Scholars have debated whether suppressing emotion has positive or negative effects on individual wellbeing and social relationships (Gross and Levenson 1997). On the one hand, suppressing emotion can lead people to bottle up their feelings and experience increased physiological arousal as evidenced by an accelerated heart rate and elevated blood pressure. When people suppress emotion during conversation, they are also more distracted and less responsive (Butler et al. 2003). On the other hand, acting happy when upset can actually lead people to experience less negative affect, as is evidenced by work on the facial feedback hypothesis (Buck 1980). According to this hypothesis, when people pose an emotion using a facial expression, the muscles in the face signal the brain to produce feelings consistent with that facial expression. Thus, an implication of the facial feedback hypothesis is that masking or de-intensifying negative emotions is healthy because it decreases negative affect. So how can these two areas of research be reconciled? Gross and Levenson (1997) argued that, in terms of emotional regulation, there is an optimal middle ground “somewhere between total strangulation and completely unfettered expression” (p. 96). Individuals who are socially skilled are unlikely to shut down emotionally or to express all of their feelings spontaneously. Instead they monitor others’ reactions and adjust their expressions accordingly. Also, there is a difference between suppressing negative emotions such as anger completely, versus deintensifying or masking them. The latter two processes generally produce healthier outcomes than the former. When people suppress or de-intensify emotions, another important consideration is whether or not they have reappraised the situation. Gross and John (2003) describe two processes that underlie emotion regulation. One is cognitive reappraisal, which involves cognitively reframing a negative emotion-eliciting situation so that it is viewed more positively. For example, during a conflict episode, an individual may be frustrated but also realize that talking about issues could help solve problems. Reappraisals are most likely to be successful if they occur early on when the person is first experiencing emotion. The other process is expressive suppression, which involves inhibiting the expression of emotions that one is experiencing as they are occurring. Gross and John (2003) found that people who employ cognitive reappraisal feel better about themselves, have closer relationships, and are liked more by others than those who employ expressive suppression.

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3 Associations among skills So far this chapter has focused on different skills related to nonverbal communication and emotion without considering in detail how those skills might interact. Burgoon and Bacue (2003) reviewed the literature on social skills and concluded that encoding and decoding skills are moderately correlated, such that those who are skilled in encoding emotion also tend to be good at decoding emotion, and vice versa. However, this association is modest – there is a tendency for people who are skilled in one area to be skilled in another area, but this is not always the case. Moreover, Elfenbein and Eisenkraft (2010) demonstrated, through meta-analysis, that the association between encoding and decoding only holds when senders are engaged in the intentional encoding of emotional information. In contrast, the spontaneous encoding of affect was not associated with better decoding. The association between encoding and decoding skills is also especially likely within the same channel or with similar types of messages. So someone who is adept at encoding emotion using her or his voice, also tends to be good at deciphering emotional information from another person’s voice. Similarly, someone who is good at sending messages related to liking and affiliation, is also likely to be good at reading those kinds of messages sent by another person. Buck and Powers (2013) provide a partial explanation for the relationship between encoding and decoding ability by proposing that: “A good sender can effectively and efficiently stimulate emotional expression in other persons, and thereby have that emotional information to draw on in making decisions” (p. 428). This process occurs through emotional sonar and identification of friend or foe (Buck and Powers 2013). Emotional sonar refers to the idea that if a sender is able to accurately send an emotional message to a receiver, that message will encourage an expressive response in the receiver, which will then help the sender read the receiver’s emotions better. Buck and Powers describe this as an “emotionally enriched ‘bubble’ of active and accurate emotion sonar” that good encoders and decoders carry with them (p. 428). Being able to identify someone as a friend or foe is an extension of this idea. Specifically, people who can accurately send and manage emotional expressions are able to get a better idea of whether receivers are friendly or hostile by watching their reactions to such expressions.

4 Conclusion The research on encoding, decoding, and managing emotional communication leads to four general principles related to social skills in emotional communication. First, people who are skilled in encoding, decoding, and managing emotion are healthier and have more satisfying relationships. Being better able to manage con-

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flict and be supportive may mediate the associations between these skills and positive health and relational outcomes. People with skills in emotional expressivity also tend to be perceived as more trustworthy and likable, which fosters better relationships. Second, self-monitoring enhances an individual’s ability to engage in skilled emotional communication. Self-monitoring is a component of emotional intelligence and is also an important part of being able to control one’s emotions effectively. Managing emotions effectively requires being able to make adjustments based on how social interaction is unfolding. Self-monitoring also helps people strike a balance between being overly expressive and overly regulatory when expressing emotions. Either extreme can have negative effects on social interaction and the perceptions people have of one another. Third, emotional skills operate in different ways depending on the emotion that a person is experiencing. Being able to express positive emotions and inhibit certain negative emotions, such as anger directed toward one’s partner, fosters healthier relationships. However, negative emotions should not be inhibited completely as this can lead to increased physiological arousal and leave problems unresolved. The key may be to de-intensify such expressions so that they are less threatening. The valence of emotion is also important in the decoding process. People tend to overestimate negativity and underestimate positivity, which can have detrimental effects on relationship functioning. When decoding errors are made, emotions with the same valence (e.g., anger versus fear) are more likely to be confused for one another. Fourth, whether encoding, decoding, or managing emotion, it is critical to remember that emotional expressions are usually not pure read-outs of emotion, nor are they completely posed. Instead, most expressions reflect the initial emotion that is experienced as well as people’s social motives. This makes emotional expressions more difficult to encode and decode with accuracy. In addition, when people are trying to manage their emotional expression, they usually have multiple goals in mind, such as wanting their partner to understand how they feel while also displaying emotion appropriately. People who are skilled in emotional communication are better able to discriminate between behaviors that are spontaneous versus posed, as well as better able to understand the social meanings of those behaviors. Overall, the literature reviewed in this chapter demonstrates that skills related to emotional communication matter in people’s everyday lives. Whether trying to be polite and smile while waiting in a long line, or trying to express one’s feeling of affection for a loved one, being able to express and manage emotions appropriately is an important communication skill. Likewise, being able to decode the emotional expressions of others is a crucial ingredient in the recipe for communication competence. Mastering these skills can enhance people’s personal and social lives.

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Ulla Bunz and David Montez

7 Computer-mediated communication competence Abstract: The chapter reviews the historical development of computer-mediated communication competence research, introducing key figures and terminology. Researchers’ variations in both conceptualization and operationalization are discussed and early theoretical models are presented. The chapter continues by reviewing ten related concepts (applied skill; cognitive aspects; communication ability; demographics; emotional and psychological factors; methodology; social context; structural resources; technological context; usage experience) and recent research trends within these broader categories. After discussing the limited theory development work in the area compared to the abundance of methodologicallyoriented contributions, the chapter concludes by making recommendations for future work in the area. These include the need for more consistent terminology, as well as for more theory-based research. Keywords: computer-mediated communication competence, theory building, literacy, experience, Internet skill, computer anxiety, gender, self-efficacy, social context, psychological factors

1 Historical development and key figures Narrowly defined to include just this term, the history of computer-mediated communication (CMC) competence begins with the work of Brian Spitzberg. Spitzberg established his expertise in the area of interpersonal communication competence and has widely published on this topic (e.g., Spitzberg and Cupach 1984, 1989). He formulated a theoretical discussion of CMC competence in an unpublished paper in 1997. The model was not published until 2001 when Spitzberg, together with Morreale and Barge, published the textbook Human Communication: Motivation, Knowledge, & Skills and included his CMC competence model in the book. Spitzberg’s CMC competence model (see Figure 1) postulates that CMC competence is a combination of individual factors (knowledge, motivation, skills, attentiveness, composure, coordination, expressiveness), CMC factors (richness, openness), message factors (ambiguity, complexity, emotionality), contextual factors (culture, time, relationship, situation, function), and outcomes (appropriateness, effectiveness, efficiency, understanding, satisfaction). The subtext of the textbook figure states, “The more motivated, knowledgeable, and skilled a communicator is in selecting and using CMC for a given type of message in a given medium, the more

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Fig. 1: Spitzberg’s Model of Computer-Mediated Communication Competence, adapted from Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2007: 406.

likely the communicator is to achieve competent outcomes” (Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2007: 406). Many of the CMC competence elements were drawn from Spitzberg’s more general work on communication competence and have been analyzed, individually and in various combinations, by many other scholars as is discussed in section 2 below. Even before the model was publicly published, researchers began using and testing the model, having become aware of it and its components via personal interactions with Spitzberg at academic conferences. Harper, then a doctoral student at Howard University, used Spitzberg’s original model and scale with his subject pool of African American college students. Harper (2000) found that several components of Spitzberg’s original model did not test significantly with this sample. Harper removed those components and re-analyzed his data. For example, Harper did not find significant results for Spitzberg’s contextual or message factors (Harper 2000: 166), similarly to Bunz (2003: 79–80) who excluded nearly half of the contextual and the message factors due to low reliability scores. Specifically, Harper suggests deleting a number of elements from the original model. Harper’s (2000: 93) modifications to the CMC model are: – From the variable “CMC competence”, remove motivation, interaction management, altercentrism, and composure, leaving knowledge, skills, expressiveness, efficacy, and general usage. – From the variable “Contextual factors”, remove status ratio, distance, and task ambiguity, leaving relational context, time duress, and media access. – From the variable “Message factors”, remove quantity, leaving equivocality, density, and complexity. – From the variable “Media factors”, remove richness, accessibility, velocity, plasticity, and interactivity, leaving immediacy. – From the variable “Outcomes”, remove no elements, leaving efficiency, productivity, co-orientation, appropriateness, effectiveness, and satisfaction.

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Around the same time, Bubas, a Croatian national, applied Spitzberg’s notions to theoretical (2001) and to organizational (with Radosevic and Hutinski 2003) contexts successfully. Bunz, who had spent the past year working on developing her Computer-Email-Web (CEW) Fluency scale (Bunz 2001), agreed to include several of Spitzberg’s items into her dissertation questionnaire (Bunz 2002). Later, Bunz (2003) used data from three separate studies to reduce the number of items and variables of the CMC competence scale. The adjusted scale contained seven main variables and 41 items compared to 31 elements in five variables and 105 items in Spitzberg’s original instrument, later (Spitzberg 2006) adjusted to 77 items in fifteen variables (motivation, knowledge, efficacy, coordination, attentiveness, expressiveness, composure, selectivity, appropriateness, effectiveness, clarity, satisfaction, attractiveness, efficiency/productivity, and general usage/experience). Bunz’s adjusted CMC competence instrument consists of: – comfort (containing items from Spitzberg’s motivation and knowledge elements) – contextual factors – efficacy – interaction management (called coordination by Spitzberg) – media factors – general usage – effectiveness That same year Spitzberg first presented his original scale and model to the larger academic community via a presentation at the International Communication Association conference (Spitzberg 2003). In the meantime, Harper continued to work in the area of computer-mediated communication, focusing on sex differences in technology use (2002). His study from 2005 measured frequency of email use for interpersonal versus organizational purposes and found sex differences. In one study, Harper (2003) used some of the items from Spitzberg’s CMC competence measure, showing that men scored lower on perceptions of four concepts (accessibility, velocity, interactivty, and immediacy). Both Bubas and Bunz continued their work in the CMC competence area. Bunz used both her CEW fluency scale and portions of the CMC competence scale in a series of studies published over several years (2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2012; Bunz, Curry, and Voon 2007; Rice and Bunz 2006). An unpublished paper presented at the National Communication Association conference (Bunz and Lever 2005) included a large-scale review of publications broadly related to CMC competence, a listing of concepts shown in the literature to influence CMC competence (or similar concepts such as digital literacy, fluency, or aptitude), and a listing of measurement instruments in the area. Bubas and Spitzberg presented a conference paper (2008) that included references to Spitzberg’s (2006) CMC competence publication in the Journal of Compu-

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ter-Mediated Communication. Bubas and Hutinski published a study in (2006) in which they used Spitzberg’s CMC competence model to investigate college students’ motivations for the use of the Internet. Bubas’ additional and more recent research has been focusing on technology use and applications to education. More recently, Spitzberg has continued his work on CMC competence as part of his overall study of communication competence. As such, the concept was part of a critical thinking assessment instrument (Spitzberg 2011). The constructs of motivation, knowledge, efficacy, coordination, attentiveness, expressiveness, composure, and adaptability were used. All except motivation and efficacy showed an increase from time one to time two in participants’ self-assessments. As an aggregate, CMC competence measures correlated significantly with several other variables, especially peer evaluations of the original subjects. Sherblom, Withers and Leonard (2013) applied Spitzberg’s (2006) CMC competence measure to collaborative learning in online classrooms and found that CMC knowledge is an important part of CMC competence. In addition, they conclude that instructors can use CMC motivational aspects to help students overcome computer anxiety. Spitzberg (2014) also included CMC competence in recent work on meme diffusion. He outlined a “multilevel meme diffusion (M3D) model, which seeks to integrate these theories and to stimulate new theory development in the fields of big data and new media” (article abstract), with “these theories” referring to evolutionary theory, information theory, meme theory, frame analysis, general systems theory, social identity theory, communicative competence theory, narrative rationality theory, social network analysis, and diffusion of innovations theory. CMC competence is only one component of this multi-component model, but as such continues Spitzberg’s efforts to integrate theory into CMC competence research. As discussed in sections 3 and 4 below, CMC competence research is not particularly theorydriven, so Spitzberg’s work adds particular value to the field. Some of this work on CMC competence has been cited occasionally, such as by Litt (2013) in her recent “review of past assessments and a look toward the future” (sub-title of article). Litt’s article and the overwhelming majority of past and current work in the area continue to be measurement-driven with little or no attempts by authors to strengthen a theoretical foundation.

2 Related core concepts and recent trends Looking beyond the specific term of CMC competence there is a vast body of literature on related concepts. Terminology used by researchers is not consistent by any means. Consequently, an equally large number of measurement scales and typologies exist. In 2005, Bunz (with Lever) presented an unpublished conference paper in which she reviewed and summarized some of the related work. Specifically, the manuscript provided an overview of influencing concepts as defined and opera-

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tionalized in previous research, and a list of existing measurement instruments. She identified approximately 350 research articles from a variety of disciplines, predominantly psychology, computer science, education, and communication. Bunz also listed more than 100 measurement instruments that had been created and/or used by the authors of the 350 articles. Since 2005, clearly the number of both related articles and instruments has continued to increase. However, a review of the recent literature shows that the main concepts used to study CMC competence (or its various iterations such as experience, expertise, aptitude, literacy, fluency, etc. combined with computer, Internet, media, technology, etc.) have not changed all that drastically. Sections 1–10 present identified concepts grouped alphabetically within ten clusters, along with some sources identified for each concept: 1. applied skill, 2. cognitive aspects, 3. communication ability, 4. demographics, 5. emotional and psychological factors, 6. methodology, 7. social context, 8. structural resources, 9. technological context, and 10. usage experience. The sources identified in sections 1–10 are by no means a comprehensive list of all literature in the area, but they do provide a broad array of scholarship stretching across multiple decades and countries. The following sections will review each of the ten conceptual clusters. Each section provides both older and more recent citations for each area and, where appropriate, discusses findings from the literature.

2.1 Applied skill The study of applied technology skill is one of the longer-lasting areas of interest. Since at least the 1980s, researchers have inquired into issues of how well (or not) people can actually use computers. Traditionally, “skill” is defined as being able to operate the computer (e.g., Lanier and White 1998), including skills such as programming, keyboarding, or, more recently, web searching (e.g., Hargittai 2002a). As computers used to be less user-friendly than they are today, a certain level of “technological know-how” or computer literacy was required from the user to even be able to operate the technology (e.g., Kay 1989a; 1993b). As mice, graphical user interfaces, and drag-and-drop were invented, being able to use the computer or related technologies such as the web became more intuitive and is now al-

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most taken for granted in developed countries. Nonetheless, applied skills are still fundamental as they are the pre-requisite for anything else that can be done with technology, such as interaction, information retrieval, or even entertainment. In more recent years, research has focused on applied skills of other technologies such as the Internet (e.g., Van Deursen 2012), online skill (defined by the authors as one’s ability to access and use a variety of web-based media as both consumer and producer of content; Livingstone and Helsper 2010), or the uploading and sharing of digital material (e.g., Leung and Lee 2012). It should be noted that different researches have used a variety of terms with much overlap between definitions. Table 1 provides a list of some of these terms and the researchers who have used them. Most of these researchers have created and used their own measurement scales, which makes meta-analysis or other statistical comparison between their results difficult. However, seen as a group and discounting slight variation in terminology and definition, these researchers’ work shows some commonalities. One of these commonalities is obvious – researchers strongly believe that applied skill is a variable in itself that deserves measurement, and is likely to influence other variables. Over the years, this base assumption has not changed, even as technology has changed, and it is one of the reasons why researchers continue to develop new scales. For example, Kay’s (1993b) work on people’s ability to program is outpaced by “wysiwyg” (i.e. “what you see is what you get”) editing systems where clicking of icons replaces the need for programming knowledge. Similarly, “experience”, defined in 1997 as being able to operate Windows 3.1 software and complete tasks in it by Miller, Stanney, and Wooten, evolved over time to encompass “sharing materials”, defined by Leung and Lee (2012) as being able to publish digital products one has created on the computer to the Internet. More specific results reflecting how applied skills do (or do not) affect other variables vary. Leung and Lee (2012), for example, found that applied skills were not predictors for measures of academic performance. Applied skills did, however, increase the likelihood that a person becomes addicted to the Internet, including gaming, according to the authors. Facer, Sutherland, Furlong, and Furlong (2001), who examined computer usage and experience in the home, found that their participants used the computer for predominantly practical and/or social reasons and not for the educational benefits that educational policies touted their use. Their results led the authors to call for a more careful examination of skills within context, rather than just by themselves. Thus, both social and technological context of use is related to applied skill, as other research reiterates (e.g., Haythornthwaite 2007). A third conclusion from examining work on applied skills points to the close connection between applied skills and emotional and/or psychological facts. Overall, there is strong evidence that one’s feelings toward and about technology is highly correlated with one’s applied skill level in using these and other technologies. For example, Schulenberg and Melton (2008) showed that computer aversion

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Tab. 1: Applied skills terminology in the literature. Computer efficacy

Bunz 2002; Bunz 2003; Bunz 2005

Computer fluency

Bunz 2002; Bunz 2004

Computer operational skills

Lanier and White 1998

Computer proficiency

Bradlow, Hoch and Hutchinson 2002

Computer skills

Dickerson and Green 2004; Garland and Noyes 2004

Creating materials

Correa 2010; Eshet-Alkalai 2004; Hargittai and Walejko 2008

Email fluency

Bunz 2002; Bunz 2004

Generic skills

Dickerson and Green 2004

Information seeking skill

Facer et al. 2001; Lanier and White 1998; Van Deursen, Van Dijk and Peters 2012

Internet skill

Gui and Argentin 2011; Hargittai 2010; Litt 2013; Van Deursen 2012; Van Deursen and Van Dijk 2010; Van Deursen, Van Dijk, and Peters 2012; Zimic 2009

Key boarding skill

Hemby 1999

Online fluency

Haythornthwaite 2007

Online skill

Hargittai 2002b; Hargittai and Shafer 2006; Hargittai and Hinnant 2008; Livingstone and Helsper 2010

Operational Internet skill

Gui and Argentin 2011; Van Deursen, Van Dijk and Peters 2012

Programming

National Assessment of Educational Progress 1986

Programming knowledge

Kay 1993b

Sharing materials

Hargittai and Walejko 2008; Leung and Lee 2012

Skills

Correa 2010; Hoffman and Blake 2003; Levinson 1986; Lin 2000; Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2007; Shih 2006; Spitzberg 2006; Woodrow 1992

Software knowledge

Kay 1993b

Technical know-how

Dickerson and Green 2004;

Web fluency

Bunz 2002; Bunz 2004

Web-editing fluency

Bunz 2002; Bunz 2004

Web-navigation fluency

Bunz 2002; Bunz 2004

Web use skill

Hargittai 2002a

Windows computer experience

Miller, Stanney, and Wooten 1997

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(equated to computer anxiety by the authors) correlates negatively with computer understanding and experience. On the other hand, computer confidence correlates positively with computer experience (see King, Bond, and Blandford 2002, who also provide a detailed review of anxiety-related concepts as used in a number of other research studies). The connection between applied skills and emotional and/ or psychological factors is also part of the discussion in section 2.5.

2.2 Cognitive aspects Cognitive abilities are often gained through education, but a diploma or degree is not required for application of intellectual abilities (e.g., Ramalingam and Wiedenbeck 1998). Accordingly, the “cognitive” category includes abilities usually acquired through schooling, such as mathematical or statistical knowledge (e.g., Miller, Stanney, and Wooten 1997; Ramalingam and Wiedenbeck 1998), or overall academic performance (Gordon et al. 2003). However, cognitive aspects extend beyond formal education to skills such as one’s critical thinking (e.g., Hemby 1999; Yang et al. 2013) or problem solving abilities (e.g., Lowther, Bassoppo-Moyo, and Morrison 1998), one’s cognitive or learning style (e.g., Hemby 1999), mental models (e.g., Nückles and Sturz 2006), or perceptual processes (e.g., Marquie, Jourdan-Bouddaert, and Huet 2002). A number of researchers have investigated knowledge (e.g., Bunz 2002; Gui and Argentin 2011; Hoffman and Blake 2003; Igbaria and Chakrabarti 1990; Lin 2000; Massoud 1991; Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2007; Nückles and Sturz 2006; Potosky 2007; Richter, Naumann, and Horz 2010; Shih 2006; Spitzberg 2006; Woodrow 1992) or computer literacy (e.g., Appel 2012; Chang 2008; Cheng, Plake and Stevens 1985; Ellsworth and Bowman 1982; Hoffman and Blake 2003; Kay 1990; King, Bond, and Blandford 2002; Lin 2000; Pask and Saunders 2004; Stanley 2003; Unlusoy et al. 2010). For the most part, cognitive aspects researched in relation to CMC competence do not depend on technology at all. While one cannot readily study the applied skill of “programming” without relating it to the computer, learning style or cognitive ability tend to be defined as independent variables on which other variables, in this case technology-related skills or abilities, depend. Both early and recent research has taken such an approach and the results have been fairly consistent. For example, as early as 1986, Levinson studied “aptitude” and showed clear differences between computer users with prior and/or more experience, and that these differences were not necessarily due to some inherent difference in aptitude. Similarly, Torkzadeh and Koufteros (1994) concluded that it is training that improves people’s level of accomplishment, and not necessarily their internal factors. Marquie, Jourdan-Bouddaert, and Huet’s (2002) research on older and younger users showed that “underconfidence” older people experienced in their computer abilities played an important part in their actual computer knowledge. “Underconfidence” is a perceptual, psychological aspect, not an objective measure of lower

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cognitive ability. Later studies investigating ability confirmed such results, finding that older users of technology, often stereotyped to be less “smart” about technology than younger users, are just as capable at appropriating skills as long as time is not restricted during the learning process (Broady, Chan, and Caputi 2010). In terms of literacy-type investigations, in addition to the computer literacy literature (see above), researchers have also investigated digital literacy (e.g., Eshet-Alkalai 2004; Eshet-Alkalai and Amichai-Hamburger 2004; Hargittai 2005; Hargittai 2009; Gui and Argentin 2011), information literacy (e.g., Bruce 1999; Eshet-Alkalai 2004; Pask and Saunders 2004), Internet literacy (e.g., Gui and Argentin 2011; Leung and Lee 2012), media literacy (e.g., Chang and Liu 2011; Chang et al. 2011; Livingstone 2004), and even photo-visual literacy (Eshet-Alkalai 2004), plus related concepts such as information retrieval (Hargittai 2002b), performance (e.g., Igbaria and Chakrabarti 1990; Leung and Lee 2012; Torkzadeh and Koufteros 1994), and strategic Internet skill (Van Deursen, Van Dijk, and Peters 2012). Spitzberg and colleagues (2006; Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2007) included “understanding” as a measure of cognitive ability. Eshet-Alkalai and Amichai-Hamburger (2004) used the concept of “cognitive presence” (as opposed to “social” or “emotional” presence) in their measure of different types of literacy. Their results showed that for complex tasks, older participants actually out-performed younger participants due to enhanced cognitive skill development. So, while younger users had higher “photo-visual literacy”, older users had the highest “information literacy”. Hargittai’s (2010) research further showed that levels of parental education affect young adults’ Internet literacy, adding evidence that cognitive ability is important in studying CMC competence, but extends beyond schooling into environmental aspects. While these results may not be representative of all literature in the area, they do show a general trend that the higher one’s cognitive “score” or ability, the better one will be at the technology-related variable under investigation. Such cognitive ability can be acquired via training and over time through both formal and informal processes.

2.3 Communication ability Communicative ability in the technology or online environment is usually investigated as a dependent variable. Even if applied skills and cognitive aspects are present, human communication via technology can still fail or be ineffective due to human (as opposed to technological) “malfunctioning”. For example, some people suffer from communication apprehension (e.g., Lustig and Andersen 1990; Scott and Rockwell 1997; Scott and Timmerman 2004; Susskind 2004) which can greatly influence their interactions with others. A person’s skill at verbal persuasion (e.g., Rajendran, Mitchell, and Rickards 2005; Torkzadeh and Koufteros 1994), networking, interpersonal relations (e.g., Durkin, Conti-Ramsden, and Walker 2010; Kout-

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amanis et al. 2013; Lustig and Andersen 1990; Riordan and Kreuz 2010), or exchange of information (e.g., Sassenberg, Boos, and Klappenroth 2001) are only enabled or facilitated by technology. Communication ability or competence, often of the written variety in technology contexts (e.g. Scott and Timmerman 2004; Volckaert-Legrier, Bernicot, and BertErboul 2009), is still a separate factor which is sometimes studied without taking into consideration the technological mediation per se. There are few early studies that actually investigated the direct relationship between communication competence and applied technological skill (e.g., Kay 1990), though it can be hypothesized that these are directly related in a technologically mediated environment. In recent years, several studies have shown that communication ability within a computer-mediated environment can be beneficial for people with a variety of learning or interaction disabilities (e.g., Durkin, Conti-Ramsden, and Walker 2010; Glenwright and Agbayewa 2012; Rajendran, Mitchell, and Rickards 2005). Research continues to investigate the absence of nonverbal cues in computer-mediated contexts and how people compensate for this absence (e.g., Hancock, Landrigan, and Silver 2007; Hatem, Kwan, and Miles 2012; Riordan and Kreuz 2010; Svensson and Westelius 2013). Generally speaking, research on computer-mediated communication examines the interaction between people via a technology, and research has shown that even those without communication apprehension or disabilities at times prefer CMC over face-to-face interactions (e.g., Casale, Tella, and Fioravanti 2013). Among other benefits, CMC allows people to manage impressions of themselves in more desirable ways (e.g., Walther, Deandrea, and Tong 2010). Research on the effectiveness of CMC shows positive, encouraging results in cue-rich environments such as SecondLife (Tan, Sutanto, and Phang 2012), indicating that task completion or communication effectiveness can be just as good via CMC as via face-to-face interaction (Tan, Tan, and Teo 2012). Some research has even shown that CMC can be beneficial for foreign language learning (e.g., Rama et al. 2012; Sahin 2009; Yang et al. 2013).

2.4 Demographics The study of demographic variables is common in the social sciences. Age (e.g. Baloğlu and Çevik 2008; Baloğlu and Çevik 2009; Broady, Chan, and Caputi 2010; Correa 2010; Dyck and Smither 1994; Elias, Smith, and Barney 2012; Gordon et al. 2003; Hargittai and Hinnant 2008; King, Bond, and Blandford 2002; Kubiatko 2013; Levinson 1986; Meelissen and Drent 2008; Morris 1994; Pope-Davis and Twing 1991; Rosen and Weil 1995; Unlusoy et al. 2010; Wu and Tsai 2007) and age-related variables such as childhood (e.g., Holloway and Valentine 2001; Livingstone and Helsper 2007; Tripp 2011), adolescence (e.g., Calvani et al. 2012; Leung and Lee 2012; Livingstone and Helsper 2010; Odendaal et al. 2006; Unlusoy et al. 2010;

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Tripp 2011), youth (e.g., Facer et al. 2001; Livingstone and Helsper 2007), and aging (Jacko et al. 2004) have been examined in most social science work related to CMC competence. In addition, the two variables of gender/sex (e.g., Colley and Comber 2003; Colley, Gale, and Harris 1994; Correa 2010; Corston and Colman 1996; DeYoung and Spence 2004; Dong and Zhang 2011; Durndell and Haag 2002; Facer et al. 2001; Gordon et al. 2003; Gui and Argentin 2011; Hargittai and Shafer 2006; Hargittai and Walejko 2008; Hemby 1999; Losh 2003; Lustig and Andersen 1990; Mitra et al. 2000; Okebukola and Woda 1993; Pope-Davis and Twing 1991; Ray, Sormunen, and Harris 1999; Rosen and Weil 1995; Schottenbauer et al. 2004; Shashaani 1994; Todman and Day 2006; Unlusoy et al. 2010; Vekiri and Chronaki 2008; Williams et al. 1993; Woodrow 1992) and socio-economic status (e.g., Gui and Argentin 2011; Hargittai and Hinnant 2008; Hargittai and Walejko 2008; Leung and Lee 2012; Okebukola and Woda 1993; Rosen and Weil 1995; Stanley 2003) are popular demographic correlates to CMC competence variables. Maybe surprisingly, comparatively little research exists on CMC competence and ethnicity (e.g., Correa 2010; Rosen and Weil 1995; Tripp 2011), though CMC competence itself has been examined within many different cultures. Digital divide literature generally claims a direct connection between these demographics and CMC competence. However, this linear relationship is debatable. Digital divide initiatives that have aimed at providing more access to technology to lower-income schools soon found that the issue is much more complex than whether one is able to afford a computer or not (e.g., Correa 2010; Eastin and LaRose 2000; Hargittai 2002b; Hargittai and Hinnant 2008; Livingstone and Helsper 2007; Stanley 2003; Van Deursen and Van Dijk 2010). Later digital divide studies found that demographic variables are influenced by social factors such as peer influence, and by emotional or psychological factors, such as believing that the technology will be of use in one’s life (also see section 2.5). A more recent trend within the study of demographic variables is the focus on the Internet competence of so-called Digital Natives (e.g., Bennett, Maton, and Kervin 2008; Hargittai 2010; Helsper and Eynon 2010; Gui and Argentin 2011; Jones et al. 2010) or the Net generation (e.g. Hargittai 2010; Jones et al. 2010; Zimic 2009), including comparisons to their parents. Overall, studies examining intergenerational differences have been inconclusive regarding a relationship between age and Internet skills (Bennett, Maton, and Kervin 2008; Bullen, Morgan, and Qayyum 2011; Helsper and Eynon, 2010). Similarly, studies examining technological use and competence, skill or aptitude among Digital Natives as an age group found considerable variation among those born in the past 30 years (e.g., Hargittai 2010), not unlike the high- versus low-skill divide that other research has found amongst the elderly (Bunz 2012) or the capital enhancing “second-level digital divide” Hargittai and Hinnant (2008) found among younger users. Also, CMC competence and gender/sex research shows varying and even conflicting results. Some studies (e.g., Bunz 2009; Bunz, Curry, and Voon 2007; Correa

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2010; Hargittai and Shafer 2006) showed women have higher computer anxiety but comparable skill to men, while other work showed that women outperform men on certain technology tasks (e.g., Dong and Zhang 2011; Unlusoy et al. 2010). Yet again a third group of work showed that men outperform women in technology use (e.g., Mitra et al. 2000). Cultural aspects may play a role here as non-US research seems to be more likely to show women out-performing men, at least in the literature examined for this chapter. Thus, while demographics may be the cause of many competence-related problems and the digital divide at large, the literature is neither unanimous on whether a direct cause–effect relationship exists or not, nor on the direction of existing relationships.

2.5 Emotional and psychological factors A large number of concepts have been used in previous research that investigated emotional and psychological factors. These factors can be grouped loosely into three groups – negative factors, positive factors, and factors that are less valueladen or can swing to both the positive and the negative side. Each group will be reviewed here briefly. To begin with, there is a large body of work on emotional and psychological factors that can have negative effects on related concepts such as CMC competence. As has been the case with other variables, researchers are using many different terms to describe similar notions. Fear, phobia, anxiety or apprehension (e.g. Baloğlu and Çevik 2008; Baloğlu and Çevik 2009; Barbeite and Weiss 2004; Caroll and Kendall 2002; Celik and Yesilyurt 2013; Ceyhan 2006; Ceyhan and Gürcan Namlu 2000; Charlton 2005; Corston and Colman 1996; DeYoung and Spence 2004; Durndell and Haag 2002; Dyck and Smither 1994; Erdogan 2009; Farina et al. 1991; Gaudron and Vignoli 2002; Gordon et al. 2003; Igbaria and Chakrabarti 1990; Igbaria and Parasuraman 1989; King, Bond, and Blandford 2002; Mitra et al. 2000; Morris 1994; Okebukola and Woda 1993; Okebukola, Sumampouw, and Jegede 1992; Pope-Davis and Twing 1991; Richter, Naumann, and Horz 2010; Schottenbauer et al. 2004; Schulenberg and Melton 2008; Scott and Rockwell 1997; Scott and Timmerman 2004; Susskind 2004; Todman and Day 2006; Todman and Drysdale 2004; Todman and Monaghan 1994; Tripp 2011; Venkatesh et al. 2003; Wilfong 2006) can hinder the development of applied skill, as was discussed in section 2.1. Such anxiety can even affect how people react to the mere possibility of future problems, such as anticipating y2k (“year-2000”) problems (Schottenbauer et al. 2004). Negative correlates such as computer anxiety can be overcome, however. According to Sherblom, Withers, and Leonard (2013), by increasing CMC motivation, teachers can help students counteract anxiety and help them in their development of CMC competence.

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In her comprehensive review of computer anxiety research, Powell (2013) documented how changes in technology and increased access to computers have impacted how anxiety is researched. Powell showed that the scales being used in recent scholarship are a combination of new (e.g. Ceyhan and Gürcan Namlu 2000; Venkatesh et al. 2003) and old (Heinssen, Glass, and Knight 1987; Marcoulides 1989) with some of the more dated scales (Heinssen, Glass, and Knight 1987) being used much more frequently than newer scales. As mentioned in section 2.4, anxiety and demographics are also often related. Durndell and Haag (2002), for example, found that Romanian females felt higher computer anxiety than Romanian males, leading the authors to conclude that certain Eastern European countries may be starting to show similar gender difference to Western European countries (in 2002). Similar results had already been shown by Okebukola and Woda (1993) with Australian high school students almost a decade earlier. As recent as 2009, Baloğlu and Çevik studied Turkish high school students and found that boys and girls differed only on certain sub-concepts of anxiety. Whether this is a result of the passing of time or of differences in culture would make for an interesting cross-cultural study. Psychological barriers in general (e.g., Correa 2010; Stanley 2003) as well as specific psychological factors such as discomfort with, aversion to, or resistance to technology (e.g., Parasuraman 2000; Schulenberg and Melton 2008; Susskind 2004) will certainly hinder the development of CMC competence. On the other hand, even those with high CMC competence may experience negative emotional or psychological effects, such as addiction (e.g., Leung and Lee 2012; Scott and Timmerman 2004), or alienation from their environments (e.g., Morris 1994). The second group of emotional and psychological correlates to CMC competence consists of factors that can have positive effects. Foremost here are variables related to positive attitudes such as acceptance (e.g., Davis 1989; Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw 1989; Dong and Zhang 2011; Lee, Hsieh, and Chen 2013; Peng et al. 2012; Venkatesh et al. 2003), comfort (e.g., Bunz 2002; Bunz 2003; Bunz 2005; Miller, Stanney and Wooten 1997), confidence (e.g., Cassidy and Eachus 2006; Colley, Gale, and Harris 1994; Kay 1993a; King, Bond, and Blandford 2002; Marquie, Jourdan-Bouddaert, and Huet 2002; Mitra et al. 2000; Pope-Davis and Twing 1991; Ross 1996; Szajna 1994; Wild 1996), liking or interest (e.g., Colley, Gale, and Harris 1994; King, Bond, and Blandford 2002; Mitra et al. 2000; Okebukola, Sumampouw, and Jegede 1992; Pope-Davis and Twing 1991; Szajna 1994), or the perception that one indeed has high levels of CMC competence or one of its sub-constructs (e.g., Beas and Salanova 2006; Bunz, Curry, and Voon 2007; Correa 2010; Hargittai and Shafer 2006; Kay 1993a; Kay 1993b; Lustig and Andersen 1990; Marquie, Jourdan-Bouddaert, and Huet 2002; Richter, Naumann, and Groeben 2000; Schulenberg and Melton 2008; Torkzadeh and Van Dyke 2002; Wu and Tsai 2007), especially selfefficacy (e.g., Barbeite and Weiss 2004; Beas and Salanova 2006; Charlton 2005; Cassidy and Eachus 2006; Davis 1989; Durndell and Haag 2002; Eastin and LaRose

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2000; Hasan 2003; Hemby 1999; Livingstone and Helsper 2010; Ramalingam and Wiedenbeck 1998; Shih 2006; Torkzadeh and Koufteros 1994; Torkzadeh and Van Dyke 2002; Vekiri and Chronaki 2008; Wilfong 2006). Within educational contexts, Vekiri and Chronaki (2008) showed that social support is a positive correlate to using technology and self-efficacy among Greek boys and girls. Liaw and Huang (2013) showed that interactive learning environments relate to a number of positive outcomes, such as self-regulation, perceived usefulness, and perceived self-efficacy. As Parasuraman (2000: 311) showed, both positive and negative personality traits including optimism, innovativeness, discomfort, and insecurity influence whether a person has “readiness” to use technology. Likewise, a number of emotional and psychological variables can be studied that in themselves may not have a positive or negative value, but instead can vary by person or circumstance. Consequently, a large number of studies have investigated attitudes from a more valuefree perspective (e.g. Beas and Salanova 2006; Broady, Chan, and Caputi 2010; Colley and Comber 2003; Corston and Colman 1996; Ellsworth and Bowman 1982; Garland and Noyes 2004; Igbaria and Chakrabarti 1990; Kay 1989b; Kubiatko 2013; Lee 1986; Leng 2011; Massoud 1991; Meelissen and Drent 2008; Palaigeorgiou et al. 2005; Richter, Naumann, and Horz 2010; Schottenbauer et al. 2004; Torkzadeh and Van Dyke 2002). Other studies have investigated motivation (e.g., Bubas 2003; Bunz 2002; Coovert and Goldstein 1980; Correa 2010; Hemby 1999; Kay 1993a; Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2007; Ramalingam and Wiedenbeck 1998; Smarkola 2008; Spitzberg 2006; Tripp 2011), people’s values (e.g., Ray, Sormunen, and Harris 1999; Vekiri and Chronaki 2008), and personality aspects (e.g., Bakke 2010; Ceyhan 2006; DeYoung and Spence 2004; Hemby 1999; Stanley 2003; Todman and Day 2006; Weil, Rosen, and Wugalter 1990; Wu and Tsai 2007). As mentioned in section 2.8, lack of motivation can prevent CMC competence development, even when structural resources are present (e.g., Smarkola 2008). On the other hand, increased information commitment predicts the use of more sophisticated search engine strategies (Wu and Tsai 2007). These results show that certain emotional and psychological variables can lean in both positive and negative directions. Similarly, Ray, Sormunen, and Harris (1999) showed that a positive attitude towards computers in the workplace is related to feeling greater comfort with technology use, especially for women. In their Dutch sample, Meelissen and Drent (2008) showed that fifth grade girls’ attitudes towards technology is affected positively by the computer experience of their female teachers. On the other hand, some results also showed that people with negative or low attitudes towards computers do not benefit from training as much as those with positive or high attitudes (Torkzadeh and Van Dyke 2002). Overall, the concepts combined into this main conceptual cluster are subjectively experienced and tend to be non-rational, but instead emotional or subconscious. Rather than an external social context (e.g., being at work versus being at

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home) or technological context (e.g., gaming versus blogging), these concepts describe the human or intrapersonal on-goings that are difficult to measure. The difficulty of measuring these concepts comes from their intrapersonal nature. Reflecting on one’s state of mind or state of emotion can lead to an alteration of that state. Response bias may result from perceived stigma of emotional or psychological responses one may experience, or a person’s wish to manage impressions. In addition, many emotional and psychological reactions are subconscious, meaning an individual may not even be fully aware of them, or their extent. Nonetheless, the concepts are highly influential on one’s usage experience and competence as an outcome in a technology-use process.

2.6 Methodology A number of studies were identified that investigated methodology itself and its impact on the results of a CMC competence-type study (e.g. Bradlow, Hoch and Hutchinson 2002; Litt 2013). The evidence implies that definitions and ways of measurement can change the outcome and meaning of results. The concepts reviewed in the other sections (e.g., sections 2.9 and 2.10) are a good example. For instance, a number of studies have employed the terms computer- or Internet experience. Operationalization, however, varies. To some, “experience” is simply defined by the number of years a person has been exposed to a certain technology. To others, “experience” is defined by the number of different tasks one has completed with the same technology. The operationalization is quite different and yet the same term is used, which can result in misleading conclusions or chains of evidence. Certainly, the field of computer-mediated communication – misnamed itself, as it includes the study of technologies other than the desktop computer – needs to strive for a more universal understanding of key concepts in the development of theoretical models. Regarding methodology itself, a slight emphasis on studying user self-reported behavior can be observed in the last ten years. For example, Chang and colleagues focused on the media literacy of Taiwanese elementary school children using selfassessment methods (e.g., Chang 2008; Chang et al. 2011). While one may question self-assessment as a method with young children, the authors showed that their resulting scale has both reliability and validity and that multi-dimensional approaches are suitable for detecting the interplay between students’ use of computer technology and their levels of competence. The importance of multi-faceted approaches was underlined also by Unlusoy and colleagues’ (2010) work with young teenagers in the Netherlands. Using a facetted approach allowed the authors to pinpoint gender differences more clearly, with girls showing higher competence than boys. Another example of methodology-focused research in this area is Page and Uncles’ (2004) study in which they demonstrated the advantages of including

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both qualitative and quantitative data in the development of user measurement scales. Even before these more recent examples of studies investigating methodology, other researchers occasionally examined the influence of methodology itself on competence measurement outcomes. Early on, Davis (1989) pointed to the need for validation of scales rather than just their development. Bradlow, Hoch, and Hutchinson (2002) emphasized the use of parametric test scoring methods and statistical calibration, and Kay (1993a) examined 15 scales published over a ten-year timespan to inform the development of a comprehensive instrument, making use of categorization of items. Categorization of items in itself is not unusual and drives much of the work in scale development. However, as Bubas’ (2003) work and some of the other research reviewed in section 1 showed, re-categorizing items into different categories or leaving out items changes a researcher’s results. Section 3.2 below returns to the topic of methodology and provides references to authors who published comprehensive reviews of types of methodology used in the area of competence research.

2.7 Social context As Spitzberg (2006) highlighted via his “situation” variable, Bunz (2002, 2003, 2005) via inclusion of contextual factors, and others via their research on environment (e.g., Igbaria and Chakrabarti 1990; Lowther, Bassoppo-Moyo, and Morrison 1998; Ray, Sormunen, and Harris 1999), social context is important. Yet, a surprisingly small number of studies were identified that focused on the social environment in which CMC competence is required or acquired, and almost all of this research seems to have been conducted after the year 2000. The work environment (e.g., Bruce 1999; Broady, Chan, and Caputi 2010; Ceyhan 2006; Elias, Smith, and Barney 2012; Felstead, Gallie, and Green 2003; Lee, Hsieh, and Chen 2013; Morris 1994; Scott and Timmerman 2004) was identified as a positive influence on competence. Other studies investigated gaming (e.g., Appel 2012; Leung and Lee 2012; Rama et al. 2012), the health context (e.g., Van Deursen 2012), and the family (e.g. Hargittai 2010; Lee 2013; Odendaal et al. 2006; Tripp 2011). One specific social context that has received noticeably more attention from researchers than others is the educational environment. While some researchers are likely making use of college student samples out of convenience or because of the direct link between college students’ need for using technology as part of their college experience and their resulting CMC competence (e.g., Broady, Chan, and Caputi 2010; Cassidy and Eachus 2006; Jones et al. 2010; Palaigeorgiou et al. 2005; Richter, Naumann, and Groeben 2000; Richter, Naumann, and Horz 2010), many are studying high school students (e.g., Gui and Argentin 2011; Meelissen and Drent 2008) both in- and outside of the school context (e.g., Holloway and Valentine 2001; Vekiri and Chronaki 2008), as well as elementary school pupils (e.g., Chang and Liu 2011; Chang et al. 2011; Lanier and White 1998; Tondeur, Valcke,

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and van Braak 2008) and middle school children (e.g., Tripp 2011). Limited research also exists on teachers’ use of or training with technology (e.g., Ceyan 2006; Leng 2011; Smarkola 2008; Tezci 2011). Interestingly, many of the more recent studies were conducted outside the United States in countries including China, Taiwan, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Greece. Of course, research on computer access in schools and long-term digital divide effects continues in the United States as well (e.g., Judge, Puckett, and Bell 2006; Wood and Howley 2012). In fact, the interplay between culture and competence has been researched repeatedly (e.g., Marcoulides and Wang 1990; Stanley 2003; Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2007; Spitzberg 2006; Tondeur, Valcke, and van Braak 2008; Tripp 2011). Tondeur, Valcke, and van Braak’s (2008) research in Flanders (a Flemish-speaking region within Belgium as opposed to the Frenchspeaking Wallonia region), for example, showed that cultural characteristics are associated with teachers’ computer use in school. Comparing the United States and China, Marcoulides and Wang (1990) found that variables such as computer anxiety cut across culture, influencing users in both countries similarly.

2.8 Structural resources Most often examined in the context of the digital divide, the presence or absence of computer technology resources primarily drives issues of access and exposure. As the digital divide literature points out, without proper resources and support (e.g., Lanier and White 1998), a person’s potential for technological aptitude or CMC competence is thwarted at the source. Access (e.g. Correa 2010) is often confused with or likened to experience with technology. It is certainly correct that without availability of technology, it is rather difficult to use it frequently. However, it is also possible that opportunity exists, such as in the form of technology centers (e.g., Stanley 2003), but people are not making use of these resources, partly for emotional and psychological reasons such as lack of motivation, or technology apprehension (also see section 2.5 above). Other authors who have examined structural resources as a factor in computermediated competence include, for example, Wild (1996). He showed that opportunity to use computers, such as in a school environment, is in itself not sufficient to motivate usage. Wild’s research supports earlier, similar conclusions by Rosen and Weil (1995), and Marcoulides and Wang (1990) who studied college-aged users. More recent research by Tripp (2011) showed that in some cases, access to computer technology may exist, but interpretation of the appropriate use of this resource varies between users. In her work on Hispanic families, she found conflicting perceptions of technology with younger users using computer technology for entertainment while older family members defined computers as more serious, educational tools. A child’s development of CMC competence may thus be hindered by rules established in the home (also see Facer et al. 2001; Lee 2013).

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Overall, the body of work shows that structural resources are a fundamental factor in competence development (especially the absence of resources), but in themselves not usually linked to competence in a linear fashion. Instead, the absence or presence of structural resources is usually intertwined with some of the other conceptual clusters reviewed in earlier sections.

2.9 Technological context Different studies have investigated varying technologies. For example, it stands to reason that a computer gaming environment (e.g., Facer et al. 2001) is different from information searching (e.g., Wu and Tsai 2007), and that a person’s high apti-

Tab. 2: CMC competence within specific technological contexts. Asynchronous communication

Bakke 2010; Nückles and Sturz 2006; Riordan and Kreuz 2010

Chat room

Tan, Sutanto and Phang 2012

Communication technology

Freedman 2002

Computer games

Facer et al. 2001; Rama et al. 2012

Computer science

National Assessment of Educational Progress 1986

E-learning

Lee, Hsieh, and Chen 2013; Liaw and Huang 2013

Function

Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2007; Spitzberg 2006

ICT

Holloway and Valentine 2001; Kubiatko 2013; Leng 2011; Odendaal et al. 2006; Tezci 2011

Instant messaging

Koutamanis et al. 2013

Internet safety

Lanier and White 1998

Medium factors

Bunz 2002; Bunz 2003; Bunz 2005; Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2007; Spitzberg 2006

Mobile devices

Bakke 2010

New technologies

Facer et al. 2001

Second Life

Tan, Sutanto, and Phang 2012; Tan, Tan, and Teo 2012

Social media

Appel 2012; Wohn et al. 2013

Social networking sites

Hargittai 2002a; Knobel and Lankshear 2008; Leung and Lee 2012

Type of website

Hargittai 2002a

Web searchers

Hargittai 2002b; Leung and Lee 2012

Web users

Susskind 2004

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tude in one does not necessarily translate to the other. The focus on technology skills is really a focus on technological contexts, rather than social contexts. While it seems useful to investigate varying technological contexts including ICT (e.g., Kubiatko 2013; Tezci 2011), such an approach is really technologically deterministic. A model or theory of CMC competence ought to apply to any or all technologies, and not be dependent on technology-specific criteria. At the time of writing, social media platforms (e.g. Wohn et al. 2013) such as Twitter have already lost their “newness” factor, being replaced by the more visually-oriented Vine. Developing new competence scales or measures for each new technology seems less useful than focusing on underlying similarities, as Spitzberg (2006) did in his “CMC factors” of richness and openness (see Figure 1). For researchers interested in CMC competence within a specific technological context, Table 2 can present a starting point for literature research.

2.10 Usage experience Often combined or confused with factors of access, the category of usage experience consists of variables that are person-centered. Frequency of technology use (e.g., Colley and Comber 2003; Shashaani 1994), different tasks performed, or types of technology used all build an individual’s personal experience level with technology over time (e.g., Dyck and Smither 1994; Potosky and Bobko 1998). Other factors influence the speed with which this personal experience level is built. Access is arguably one of those, but psychological factors such as motivation or fear of technology are just as important. Simply equating years of experience with actual experience level is an inaccurate measure, as it does not account for personal variables such as openness to change, or diversity of options tried. Overall, both conceptualization and operationalization of usage experience in the literature still varies a lot depending on each researcher’s individual interpretation. Some of the more frequently used terminology in this category include competence (e.g., Corston and Colman 1996; Lowther, Bassoppo-Moyo, and Morrison 1998; National Assessment of Educational Progress 1986; Shih 2006; Spitzberg 2006; Tompkins and Daly 1992), experience (e.g., Ballance and Ballance 1993; Colley and Comber 2003; Correa 2010; Dyck and Smither 1994; Farina et al. 1991; Hasan 2003; Hemby 1999; Igbaria and Chakrabarti 1990; Jacko et al. 2004; Lee 1986; Marcoulides and Wang 1990; Nückles and Sturz 2006; Okebukola and Woda 1993; Pope-Davis and Twing 1991; Potosky and Bobko 1998; Ramalingam and Wiedenbeck 1998; Richter, Naumann, and Groeben 2000; Rosen and Weil 1995; Smith, Caputi, and Rawstorne 2007; Szajna 1994; Todman and Day 2006; Todman and Drysdale 2004; Todman and Monaghan 1994; Torkzadeh and Koufteros 1994; Wilfong 2006; Williams 1993; Wu and Tsai 2007), and use, usage, or utilization (e.g., Bunz 2002; Bunz 2003; Bunz 2005; Eastin and LaRose 2000; Hargittai 2002a; Hargittai 2010; Hargittai and Hinnant 2008; Hargittai and Hsieh 2012; Okebukola, Su-

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mampouw, and Jegede 1992; Rosen and Weil 1995; Shashaani 1994; Smarkola 2008; Shih 2006; Tondeur, Valcke, and van Braak 2008; Vekiri and Chronaki 2008). A closer look at what exactly “experience” (or similar terms) means both on a general and a specific level is pertinent for future theory-oriented research or for meta-analysis. Without clear definitions and measures of such variables, comparison of results is questionable. Incorrect conceptual patterns may be identified that do not hold up when operationalized. For example, Wilfong (2006) distinguished between computer use and computer experience, with computer use being defined as frequency and duration of use (p. 1001), while computer experience was defined by him as specific knowledge (p. 1008). Eastin and LaRose (2006) on the other hand, operationalized both Internet experience and Internet use by timeframe (months since first logging onto the Internet for experience, and hours per day for use; see section on “Operational Measures”). A third example can be found in Smith, Caputi and Rawstorne’s (2007) article in which the authors noted that “computer experience” has been defined in at least 40 different studies (p. 128). They themselves differentiated between objective computer experience (defined as any kind of human–computer interaction across time) and subjective computer experience (defined as the internal processing of human–computer interaction). The operationalization of objective computer experience, as defined by the authors, includes both questions on the frequency and duration of use (pp. 131–132), bringing us full circle to Wilfong’s (2006) definition of computer use. Thus, researchers wishing to study CMC competence (or experience or use) need to be very clear on both their conceptualization and operationalization of constructs, as well as in their comparison of their own results to those of others. One cannot assume that usage of the same term guarantees the same meaning or measurement. No standard seems to have emerged over the past 30+ years.

2.11 Additional recent trends Over the past decade, an important development in scholarship examining concepts related to computer-mediated communication is the emergence of research conducted in non-Western contexts. This is an expected effect resulting from the exponential growth of mobile and other computational devices around the globe, including in non-First or even non-Second World countries. Such research generally corresponds in focus with the overall ten categories found throughout the body of literature. Some researchers have performed comparative analyses with nonWestern populations such as China, Turkey, or Taiwan (e.g., Chang and Liu 2011; Chang et al. 2011; Dong and Zhang 2011). In particular, these researchers have sought to examine aspects of media literacy and gender differences. Their results were provided as examples throughout the previous sections.

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3 Theoretical and methodological paradigms 3.1 Lack of theory development To date, Spitzberg’s (2006) article on CMC competence and the call to develop more theory in the area has not been heeded broadly. According to the Web of Knowledge in September 2014, Spitzberg’s article has been cited only nine times (Bowman, Westerman, and Claus 2012; Gimenez 2014; Livingstone and Helsper 2010; Ogata et al. 2012; Pilotte and Evangelou 2012; Rains and Young 2006; Rubin et al. 2011; Sutcliffe et al. 2011; Svensson and Westelius 2013) with none of these articles focusing specifically on theory development or testing. Of course, the Web of Science does not include all existing journals, especially not international journals, but compared to the vast body of literature that exists in the general area, it is clear that much work remains to be done on the development and testing of theoretical CMC competence paradigms. One study citing Spitzberg’s (2006) article without being included in the Web of Science is Bakke’s (2010) article on mobile communication competence. Here, Bakke extended technology-mediated communication competence beyond the computer or Internet to another contemporary device, the cell phone. The model resulting from his research consists of six factors (with the other five being comfort with use, mobile preference, asynchronous communication, communication efficacy, appropriateness, and affect) and 24 items. Bakke used Spitzberg’s (2006) CMC competence instrument and adapted its wording to refer to mobile phones instead of computers. His discussion also referenced motivation and context as important influences, and he proposed a mobile communication competence (MCC) model, taking CMC competence theory development in a lateral direction. Efforts at theory development related to CMC competence without direct reference to Spitzberg’s model or work exist. For example, Calvani, Fini, Ranieri, and Picci (2012) review literature on digital-, media-, and IT literacy (p. 798), much of which remains focused on the use of various technologies. Even information literacy, an essential component of digital literacy according to Eshet-Alkalai and Amichai-Hamburger (2004) contains the notion of being able to find (and interpret) data which usually includes the use of search engines or similar databases. Calvani and colleagues proposed their instant digital competence assessment (iDCA) model as a theoretical foundation, describing it as stemming from “reflections on the relationships between the mind and the medium, as they have historically emerged, and the related socio-cultural connotations” (p. 799). However, in the discussion of the findings the authors changed their language to “tool” instead of “theoretical model” when referring to the iDCA and provided no conceptual propositions for future theory-testing. Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, and Cammack (2004) set out to form a theory of new literacies several years before Spitzberg’s (2006) article was published. These authors,

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too, commented on the lack of unanimous definitions and proposed the following, fairly inclusive definition as a conceptual framework. The new literacies of the Internet and other ICTs include the skills, strategies, and dispositions necessary to successfully use and adapt to the rapidly changing information and communication technologies and contexts that continuously emerge in our world and influence all areas of our personal and professional lives. These new literacies allow us to use the Internet and other ICTs to identify important questions, locate information, critically evaluate the usefulness of that information, synthesize information to answer those questions, and then communicate the answers to others (Leu et al. 2004: 1572).

Noticeable about this definition is the integration of multiple components that have been studied as separate, unique concepts by other researchers, such as applied skills, information literacy, and multiple technological platforms. Furthermore, Leu and colleagues (2004: 1575) identified three main social forces that influence the development of new literacies, including global economic competition, the rapid emergence of the Internet (and, presumably, related technologies), and governmental public policy initiatives aimed at increasing literacy efforts. A thorough review of related literature led the authors to stipulate ten principles of what they call the “New Literacy Perspective” (Leu et al. 2004: 1589). These ten principles are: 1. The Internet and other ICTs are central technologies for literacy within a global community in an information age. 2. The Internet and other ICTs require new literacies to fully access their potential. 3. New literacies are deictic. 4. The relationship between literacy and technology is transactional. 5. New literacies are multiple in nature. 6. Critical literacies are central to the new literacies. 7. New forms of strategic knowledge are central to the new literacies. 8. Speed counts in important ways within the new literacies 9. Learning often is socially constructed within new literacies. 10. Teachers become more important, though their role changes, within new literacy classrooms. (Leu et al. 2004: 1589) These ideas clearly connect to the ten concept categories discussed above (applied skill; cognitive abilities; communication ability; demographics; emotional and psychological factors; methodology; social context; structural resources; and technological context). Leu and colleagues (2004) presented their New Literacies Perspective within an educational viewpoint where teachers aim to teach traditional reading and writing literacy in conjunction with emerging literacies. Their focus was thus not the development of CMC competence theory. Nonetheless, the authors’ ideas have many connections with Spitzberg’s original model in which he emphasized the communi-

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cative nature of CMC competence. Unfortunately, neither Spitzberg’s model nor Leu and colleagues’ work seems to have stimulated much theory testing.

3.2 Plethora of methodological work The vast majority of work done in the broad area of CMC competence is of quantitative nature. Spitzberg’s original measurement scale (2003; 2006) used Likert-scale items, and consequently so did the derivations of the scale developed and tested by Bunz (2003) and Harper (2000). Bunz’s (2005) listing of more than 100 measurement scales consisted predominantly of such survey questionnaire-type instruments where participants self-report. The volume of instruments is large and continues to grow as researchers develop new scales for new and emerging technologies (e.g., Appel 2012). While not providing a comprehensive review, Litt (2013) attempted to summarize the various types of methodologies employed by researchers in the area of “internet skills”. She, too, pointed to the variety of terminology used including skill, competence, knowledge, and fluency (Litt 2013: 613). Further, Litt separated the scholarship she reviewed into three main methodological categories: survey/ self-report measures, performance/observation measures, and combined/unique assessments (Litt 2013: 615–617). The self-report measures reviewed by Litt, including Spitzberg’s (2006) CMC competence scale, vary greatly in the number of items included but are almost all set up with Likert-type response options, as is common for self-report measures. Consequently, these types of measurement instruments lend themselves to high numbers of participants, increasing reliability. Validity, on the other hand, is less certain due to concerns that actual competence and perceived or desired competence may be conflated in self-reported measures (e.g. Bradlow, Hoch, and Hutchinson 2002). Similar concerns about self-report measures such as faulty recall, fear of stigma or desire to please the researcher, response rates, whether the person completing the survey is the intended respondent, response fatigue in the case of long questionnaires, and other concerns are long-standing and not confined to the area of CMC competence. Included in Litt’s performance/observation category are methodological approaches such as ethnography and interviews (e.g., Holloway and Valentine 2001; Tripp 2011). This category also includes experimental and laboratory studies (e.g., Hargittai 2002a), though these seem to be more rare. Litt pointed out that observational or experimental studies often lack generalizability as they tend to make use of very specific subject pools, but do provide high validity and “robust accounts of human behavior” (Litt 2013: 619). Litt’s final category, combined/unique assessments, reported on studies that combined self-report with laboratory studies (e.g. Bunz, Curry, and Voon 2007). It is unclear what defined Litt’s “unique” characteristics. Litt predicts that the combi-

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nation of quantitative and qualitative measures will increase in the future, basing this prediction on two cited sources from 2008. The articles reviewed for this chapter, some of which overlap with the work reviewed by Litt, do not show such a trend clearly but instead still show dominance of quantitative self-report measures. Even Hargittai (Litt’s mentor), together with Hsieh, worked towards creating an index of self-report measures that the authors then used in telephone surveys with over 5000 respondents (Hargittai and Hsieh 2012: 100). One observation resulting from the review of the literature for this chapter was the use of more multivariate approaches in more recent research. More researchers now integrate several variables into their research and also speculate on the variables’ inter-relationships while research two decades ago tended to be conceptualized more uni-directionally, looking for direct effects.

4 Priorities for future work Going forward, two recommendations emerge from the review above, one relating to measurement, the other to theory. The first recommendation concerns the need for more consistent use of terminology, as well as the operationalization of such terminology. It seems as if each researcher feels the need to develop his/her own scale based on slightly different interpretations of similar concepts. With such fragmentation, meta-analysis of the body of research is virtually impossible. Similarly, researchers still focus on specific technological platforms, treating each as if it required re-invention of the CMC competence “wheel”. Such focus ignores the accumulation of knowledge gained from prior research and seems ill-directed, unless one’s interest lies solely in usability issues or technical components. A competencebased measurement instrument should be designed for valid and reliable use across platforms. Spitzberg’s original scale included “CMC factors” that addressed the qualities of the medium itself. It may not have foreseen the development of Twitter, Vimeo, or whichever other current computer-based technology one chooses. However, the “richness”, “user-intuitive design”, or “interactivity” of any tool can be assessed by similar measurement items. Thus, rather than focusing on technology-specific criteria or treating each new technological platform as a new environment, researchers should focus on the underlying processes enabled by the technology. Using consistent measures in this manner, research efforts can build on each other more effectively. This recommendation is exactly opposite to Litt’s conclusion that led her to recommend “creating and updating more nuanced measures” (2013: 624) so that one can “account for changes in technology” (2013: 625). Litt’s suggestion is exactly what has happened in the area of CMC competence for the past twenty or more years, and it has contributed to the existing conceptual and operational fragmentation of the field. Instead, an instrument focusing on processes and broad

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characteristics of technologies would endure and be applicable to many platforms and contexts. The second recommendation evolves directly out of the first one and concerns the need for theory-building. As was mentioned repeatedly throughout the previous sections, the research body broadly related to CMC competence lacks efforts at theory-building or testing and is almost entirely measurement-driven. Spitzberg’s original model (1997) was built on his and his colleagues’ work on communication competence (outside of the CMC context). That area, reviewed in the other chapters of this handbook, is well-established and includes both theory testing and development. The fragmentation of measurement instruments used in the CMC competence-related literature, based on a diverse definition of literacy, competency, fluency or similar terms, prevents meta-analysis and complicates theory-building as noted by Leu, Kinzer, Coiro and Cammack (2004: 1571–1572) a decade ago. Furthermore, few researchers even seem to perceive the need for theory in their work. Once we better understand, define, and efficiently measure CMC competence, that concept in itself can be applied to a variety of contexts. In a technology-mediated context, technological competence is the prerequisite for effective and strategic mediated interactions. Working towards such an understanding, patterns of relationships between the large number of individual concepts were investigated and the broader categories defined above were identified. Such patterns help describe the underlying processes that lead to technological competence, and ultimately will contribute to the development of theory. As a step towards such theorybuilding, Figure 2 was constructed to represent patterns both observed in the literature and hypothesized. The figure is explained below. The model contains nine of the ten concept categories reviewed in the body of this chapter. The “methodology” category was excluded because a theoretical model should be cogent and independent of the specific methods used. A basic foundation for technological or CMC competence is one’s social context, which is often related to but not to be equated with demographic categories. This foundation, which describes one’s situation in society, affects at least four conditions. One of these conditions concerns cognitive aspects. Often but not always related to educational opportunities, critical thinking, learning ability, and opportunity to confront complex situations hone and affect one’s communication ability (written, verbal, with or without technology), and one’s usage experience in the form of openness to change and new experiences, personal involvement with various technologies, etc. The socio-demographic elements also influence three other conditions. These are, 1. availability of structural resources from the user’s perspective, such as access to technology, which is interrelated with 2. the variety of technology contexts a person is exposed to, which is also interrelated with 3. the development of one’s actual, applied skill level. It is hypothesized that the greater the exposure to technological resources, the higher the chance to experience a variety of technological

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Fig. 2: Contributing factors in determining level of computer-mediated or technological competence.

contexts and develop higher-level applied skills. However, such greater applied skill is not necessarily connected to greater usage experience in a linear way, due to emotional and psychological factors. Some people fear technology, a fear that may be raised by having to maneuver a variety of technological contexts, but may also abate as greater applied skill is acquired. Other people may not have the opportunity to experience a variety of technological contexts, but due to their motivation, their applied skills soar. Thus, emotional and psychological, people-internal factors present a buffer between the actual use of technology, and the usage experience one gains. Finally, both the usage experience and one’s communicative ability influence the ultimate outcome, one’s level of CMC competence. Future researchers are invited to test and refine this model so that patterns can be observed over time and a more solidified theory of CMC competence can emerge.

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IV. Components

Chris R. Sawyer and Virginia P. Richmond

8 Motivational factors and communication competence Abstract: Competent communication is influenced by so-called motivational states, defined as moment-by-moment changes in how arousal or energy is allocated to achieve personal goals. Often appearing as feelings, moods, or states, these varying levels of motivation are associated with constellations of traits that account for individual differences in thinking and action. Consequently, an array of motivational factors mediates the social functioning of humans including primary emotional states, dimensions of temperament, and feedback from peers and supervisors. This chapter examines competence motivation in light of recent research by communication scholars and other social scientists. Keywords: competence motivation, arousal, personal goals, self regulation, prime theory, temperament, communication apprehension, performance feedback, control theory

1 Introduction Established during childhood and continuing throughout life, the need to be socially effective and competent is pervasive among all cultures (Elliot and Dweck 2005). Achieving this goal enables humans to adapt successfully to their social environments and thereby contributes directly to their subjective wellbeing (Seligman 2011). However, acquiring communication competence is a complex developmental task encompassing cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains of learning (Spitzberg 1983; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984; cf. Bloom 1956). There can be little doubt that for many, becoming a competent communicator reflects a life-long pursuit. Generally, most communicators want to be effective as well as having others perceive them as competent. In fact, being both competent and effective goes to the very idea of credibility as a communicator (McCroskey and Richmond 1996). However, effectiveness and competence are among the words we take for granted, believing that everyone understands their subtle differences in meaning. This is simply not the case. One common misconception about communication is that being a competent communicator is synonymous with being an effective one. There are very real and important differences between competence and effectiveness. It is important to have a precise understanding of both concepts so that we can know if we, and those around us, are communicating effectively and competently. For example, in

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the college education system, we often find professors who are knowledgeable about the pedagogies used in their fields but are not at all effective when teaching. Likewise, there are communicators who can get the reactions they want from listeners without understanding why their audiences responded as they did. Apparently, a communicator may be effective without knowing much about communication or he or she may be competent without being effective. In this chapter, references to effectiveness will always mean communication effectiveness, which indicates the successful achievement of a communication goal, irrespective of whether the act of communicating is understood. We distinguish this from competence, which has several dimensions including understanding the way communication works whether one’s goals are attained or not. Spitzberg and Cupach’s (1984) tripartite model of communication competence as skill, knowledge, and motivation is both elegant and theoretically rich. For instance, within the cognitive domain of this model, knowledge can have a variety of meanings. Depending on the authors one might consult, knowledge refers to the use of communication scripts (Payne 2005), procedural knowledge versus content knowledge (Spitzberg and Cupach 1989), or even the ability to describe, explain, and predict the behaviors of others (Hazelton and Cupach 1986). Likewise, the notion of skill involves an array of actions and abilities – from verbal planning, like being able to make appropriate choices of what to say (Beatty and Heisel 2007), to discrete molecular-level behaviors, such as using direct eye contact and forward body posture to convey interest in one’s conversation partners (Spitzberg 2007). Another aspect of skill is the degree to which communicative behavior is appropriate, such as whether others perceive our use of communication as helpful, ethical, or suitable for a particular occasion. Motivation, the third component of the competence model, offers a range of possible meanings comparable to both knowledge and skill as described above. In this chapter, we shall discuss the factors most pertinent to competence motivation, which has been defined as the energizing of behavior in order to attain personal or professional goals (Elliot and Dweck 2005). We shall present a componential model of competence motivation applied to human social interaction. We will also discuss the role of affective states and temperament in communication competence, as well as the general strategies educators and employers often use to motivate others to communicate more competently.

2 A componential model of motivation for communication competence Although many scholars have written about this subject over the years, three components have been generally included in most explanations of how motivation works. Specifically, motivation has been described in terms of physical energy, per-

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sonal goals, and self regulated behaviors, such as approach and avoidance. It should be noted that these components are found in accounts of motivation for every type of human enterprise, including communication. We shall examine these components in turn showing how each applies to communication before proposing our own definition of motivation for competent communication.

2.1 Motivation as physical energy According to Bandura (1994), motivation refers to the extent to which activation or energy is converted into goal-directed behavior. During the first half of the 20th century, many influential writers gave energy a central role in their theories of motivation. Among the first was Hull (1943), who described motivation or drive as the sum total of all sources of energy irrespective of their relevance to accomplishing a particular task. According to this pooled energy concept, motivation represents an undifferentiated form of physiological activation that could be directed to accomplish a task. Following Hull, several notable scholars proposed subtle modifications of the pooled energy idea including learning theorists, early neuroscientists, social psychologists, and psychophysiologists (Boucsein and Backs 2000; Hansell 1989; Weiner 2010). Throughout much of this literature the term arousal, which was originally coined by Ax (1953), is often used interchangeably with energy and activation. Consequently, this perspective still dominates many contemporary writings on the subject. Individual differences in the physical capacities of nerve fibers contribute to the level of energy that is available to achieve one’s goals. For example, Pavlov’s (1927/1960) concept of nervous system strength describes the extent to which a person can continue to perform under adverse or highly stimulating conditions (Gray 1964; Strelau 1997). According to this principle, a weak nervous system is associated with a high degree of sensitivity to stress while a lower degree of reactivity is synonymous with a strong nervous system. In earlier empirical tests, individuals classified as having weak nervous systems were unable to communicate as well as their as counterparts with strong ones (Aminov, Guseva, and Levochkina 1986; Ivanova 1974). Arousability, or the degree to which a person reacts emotionally to a stimulus, is another such factor (Strelau 2008). Highly arousable communicators often become so strongly excited or upset during the initial stages of any challenging social encounter that they cannot maintain their energy levels for very long. Recast in terms of effort, highly arousable individuals tend to start tasks vigorously but can only maintain adequate performance levels for a relatively short period of time (Mehrabian 1995). They simply expend their energy early on and often become fatigued rather quickly. Further, high levels of arousability appear to impede the degree to which speakers adapt while giving public presentations (Roberts et al. 2005). The lesson here for complex communication activities such as public speak-

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ing is for highly arousable speakers to start their preparation early, plan for multiple work sessions, and to use several brief rehearsal periods before they are scheduled to present. In sum, the degree to which individuals can allocate or harness their own energies to accomplish a goal is limited by their reactions to stress and other strong stimuli. Energy, whether it is called arousal or activation, is central to numerous explanations of communication behavior including information exposure (Stephenson and Southwell 2006), panic during speech performance (Finn, Sawyer, and Behnke 2009), sensitization and habituation to stress (Bodie 2010), nonverbal communication (Hughes, Farley, and Rhodes 2010) and listening (Powers and Sawyer 2011). As a result, motivational factors such as arousal often influence human communication. Furthermore, the relationship between energy and communication appears to reflect the so-called Yerkes-Dodson (1908/2007) law that is, an “inverted Ushaped function composed of two monotonic functions, one that enhances performance and one that erodes it” (Behnke and Sawyer 1998: 240). Multiple arousal systems exist within the human nervous system and should be differentiated in studies of communication (Le Poire and Burgoon 1996). Applied to communication, arousal contributes to speaking and listening effectiveness when communicator arousal increases from low to moderate levels but will begin to degrade performance once high levels are attained. Consequently, the degree to which individuals are able to communicate competently relies, in part, on the level of energy available to them from moment-to-moment and whether their arousal is maintained at optimal levels (i.e., neither too little nor too great).

2.2 Motivation as energizing to achieve personal goals Motivation not only involves how much energy a person has at the ready, but also how that energy is directed towards achieving personal goals. Cupach, Canary, and Spitzberg (2010) divide personal goals into two main classes, namely identity goals and relational goals. When we wish to convey particular images of ourselves to others, we are seeking to achieve identity goals. For example, if we are offering criticism about another person we might wish to avoid appearing unfair or biased. Thus, we are striving to be perceived as fair and ethical in our treatment of the person we are criticizing. Another such identity goal would be to present ourselves in the best light possible during an interview. We might attempt to do this by presenting a professional appearance, arriving early for the interview, answering each question posed to us thoughtfully, and displaying politeness throughout the entire interaction. In this way, we are conveying professionalism, that we are well qualified to take the position, and a host of other favorable impressions. In this case, identity goals coincide with the need or desire of advancing our careers. Aside from self-promotion, there are three major relational goals for engaging in human communication: developing relationships, gaining compliance, and im-

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proving mutual understanding. First, communication is essential to relationship development. Most people have a very basic need to belong and exchange affection with others (Baumeister 2012; Floyd, Sargent, and Di Corcia 2004). Fulfilling this need is one reason we develop relationships. We also develop relationships out of needs for companionship, sharing, and love. Sometimes we may feel we are not receiving what we need from a relationship, or we cannot invest what the relationship requires. We are thus motivated to end the relationship. A second fundamental goal of communicating is to gain the compliance of others, such as when we attempt to influence their actions in some way. By “compliance gaining” we simply mean getting another person to engage in some behavior that is wanted by the source. The impetus to gain another person’s compliance derives from our need for control in our relationships, such as negotiating some change in a relationship or in the immediate situation (Javidi, Jordan, and Carlone 1994). For example, if it is your turn to clean the dishes but you have a very important exam to study for, you may try to get your friend to comply by doing this household chore for you. You could simply ask your friend to clean the dishes, you could demand, threaten, or you could offer your friend something in return. Your only motivation in this situation is to get your friend ‘s compliance in doing the task. Another fundamental goal of communicating is to increase understanding. We talk to other people to get information, clarify certain issues, expand our knowledge, and understand why the world operates as it does. Other people talk to us for the similar reasons. Relationship development also provides a good example of our need for understanding. Our desire to know how another person will behave toward us in a given interaction creates a need for information. When we have gained that knowledge, we have reduced our uncertainty about that person and have a better knowledge base upon which to predict her/his actions. Berger and Calabrese (1975) have termed this process “uncertainty reduction”.

2.3 Motivation as self-regulated behavior A third component described in a wide range of motivation theories is self-regulation of approach and avoidance behaviors, that is, whether we choose to engage in communication with others (approach) or to restrain ourselves from participating in conversations, group meetings, or public speaking (avoidance). Both approach and avoidance orientations contribute to communication competence, so long as they are properly regulated. This means that we must keep both tendencies in check so that irrespective of the situation we are engaging in appropriate behavior, otherwise, we may appear overly aggressive (too much approach orientation) or too timid (too much avoidance orientation) during our interactions with others. One of the more prominent explanations for approach and avoidance in communication is provided by reinforcement sensitivity theory (Pickering and Corr

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2008), which is based on the work of Jeffrey Alan Gray. For example, this model has been applied to persuasion (Lijiang and Dillard 2007; Yan, Dillard, and Shen 2010), assertiveness (Wahba and McCroskey 2005), verbal aggressiveness (Aloia and Solomon 2013), and speech anxiety (Sawyer and Behnke 1999). In his work on the neurophysiology of emotion, Gray (1982; Gray and McNaughton 2000) proposed two contrary neurological systems, called the behavioral approach system (BAS) and the behavior inhibition system (BIS), with both being controlled by a third circuit that he called the comparator. According to this perspective, humans continually monitor their environments for signs of reward and punishment. When reward is detected, the comparator triggers the BAS, which then impels a person to move energetically toward achieving some desired goal. On the other hand, the comparator will engage the BIS when punishment seems imminent. The operation of the BIS is synonymous with a state of anxiety and is associated with greater caution, escape, or freezing up. For example, let’s say you enter a coffee shop and see a friend with whom you’ve not spoken for a very long time. Because you’ve missed having conversations with him, you call his name and walk over to the table where he is sitting. When he invites you to sit down and spend time catching up, you’ve achieved your goal, i.e., having a conversation with an old friend. This is an instance in which the BAS was activated. On the contrary, if you had seen a person you dislike or with whom you’ve just had an serious argument you might feel so upset or anxious that you couldn’t decide what to order or where to sit. Depending on your level of discomfort, one option might be to simply walk out and find another coffee shop. Your choice to avoid having another unpleasant conversation with that person by walking away is an example of how the BIS guides social behavior.

2.4 Competence motivation and communication In light of the preceding discussion of communication, we may now re-define competence motivation (CM) as the willingness to direct one’s personal energies toward the knowledgeable use of appropriate interpersonal behavior in order to achieve self-selected identity and relational goals. Further, CM requires effective self-regulation of approach and avoidance behaviors. Despite its usefulness in explaining a wide variety of constructs, including communication competence (Spitzberg 1983; Spitzberg and Cupach 1989), CM is often difficult to observe directly, although its presence may be inferred by self-report scales, physiological indicators of strain, or behavioral measures such as persistence in performing tasks under stress. On the other hand, emotional states and traits are far more accessible and may be viewed as representing human motivation because they involve both arousal and a readiness to achieve particular goals. Competence motivation (CM), as defined above, is a broad construct and should be differentiated from other seemingly related terms. For example, effec-

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tance motivation, which refers to the developmental process whereby children gain a sense of competence by exploring and seeking to influence their environments (Harter 1978; White 1959), explains the emergence of self-efficacy beliefs during adolescence and early adulthood. Likewise, mastery motivation involves persistence at dedicated practice until expert performance is achieved (Ericsson and Charness 1999). Even for the most famous communicators throughout history, such as Hitler, Gandhi, Churchill, Martin Luther King, and Mother Teresa, many years of speaking to crowds were needed before they became highly effective communicators. Although effectance and mastery motivation bear some degree of similarity to CM both are more specialized in their use. Within the discipline of communication and related social science fields there are several lenses through which one might view CM. These are competence motivation as emotional readouts, competence motivation as communication temperament, and competence motivation as performance feedback. We shall consider each in order.

3 Competence motivation as emotional readout Motivational states appear to have played an important role in the social evolution of humans by facilitating their adaptation to environmental stressors and thereby improving their competitiveness as a species (Buck 2011). In particular, fundamental emotional states comprise a system of alarms or signals that guide the survival choices of humans. For example, states of fear are associated with heightened levels of physiological arousal (heart rate), vigilance, and cautious approach thereby preparing humans to engage threats (fight response), actively evade them (flight response), or remain motionless as the impending threat dissipates (freeze response) (Gray 1982; Gray and McNaughton 2000). Together with fear the emotions of disgust, anger, sadness, and joy are often called the five primes, a term derived from the acronym of primary, motivation, and emotion system (LeDoux 2014). According to Buck’s (1988, 1999) readout theory of emotion one is able to detect primes by measuring cognition, physiological changes, and expressive behaviors. Facial and vocal cues associated with the primes are used similarly across all human societies. All emotions have the dimensions of valence (positive vs. negative), arousal (i.e., how exciting or upsetting they are), and duration (i.e., how long they last from onset to release). Human emotional reactions may reflect feelings, moods, states, and traits. Because emotions involve physiological reactions that, in turn, cause physical sensations, we often refer to emotions as feelings. Feelings often act as an alarm system signaling to us when we sense that something may not be going as expected (Kappas 2011). For example, we often describe feeling nervous or having knots or butterflies in our stomach or the feeling of disappointment as having hurt feelings or

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being heartbroken. Feelings also help with decision making, such as when we say, “I had a gut feeling that I shouldn’t do that”. Whereas feelings are often fleeting, moods are more prolonged emotional reactions for which there is no referent (Keltner, Oatley, and Jenkins 2014). For example, when we feel sad for no apparent reason, we might say that we are just feeling down today. Moods can persist for undetermined periods of time and color our decisions and social interactions, whether we are happy and upbeat or dejected and sad (Forgas, 2003). Most of the literature in the field of communication deals with states and traits rather than feelings and moods. Unlike moods, states are transitory reactions that have a specific referent such as an object, person, or event. For example, feeling sad because a relationship has just ended is very different than just having a down mood. States are thus responses to stimuli and can fluctuate moment by moment. Behnke and Sawyer (2004), among others, were able to identify patterns of psychological state anxiety before, during, and following public speaking that were consistent with habituation (i.e., progressive relaxation) and sensitization, or an abrupt but persistent increase in stress. This is contrary to emotional traits, which are stable predispositions to experience recurrent levels of a particular emotion state over time. Another defining characteristic of traits is their connection to deeply embedded personality-like characteristics known as temperament, which have established degrees of heritability or genetic susceptibility. Based on numerous empirical studies, there is ample evidence that several domains of human functioning are at least partially dependent on the states and moods of individuals, particularly those that arise from their sense of wellbeing. With a few notable exceptions, the predominant trend is for positive moods or states to enhance performance. Conversely, many indicators of effectiveness are diminished by negative affect or mood states.

3.1 Effects of positive affect on communication competence Overall, when people feel better they tend to work and relate better to others. For example, previous research has established a strong link between group performance and positive mood. Positive emotional states are associated with speed of performing tasks (Miner and Glomb 2010). Groups with upbeat attitudes tend to get more work accomplished and with better quality than those teams with negative moods. This is because stress eventually degrades the quality of performance, though it may increase output over the short term (Kerr and Tindale 2004). Positive moods and states appear to directly impact creative problem solving. Vosburg (1998) concluded that mood impacts group performance because positive and negative moods engender differing thought processes. That is, positive moods are associated with producing greater numbers of alternative solutions while negative moods focus more on the quality of the ideas produced. As a result, negative moods inhibit creative thinking while positive ones facilitate it. Moreover, recent research

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has shown that while creativity is greater for positive than for negative emotional states, the effect is even greater when combined with extraversion (Stafford et al. 2010). Furthermore, the tendency for group leaders to display positive emotions contributes both to leadership effectiveness and the degree of positive emotions among members of the team. These, in turn, increase team performance (Chi, Chung, and Tsai 2011).

3.2 Effects of negative affect on communication competence By and large, negative emotional states such as fear and anger, impede communication effectiveness. Among the best examples of this generalization is the effect of anxiety on the delivery skills of speakers. Anxious speakers suffer from numerous signs of behavior inhibition (Finn, Sawyer, and Behnke 2003; Freeman, Sawyer and Behnke 1997), such as rigid gestures, deadpan facial expressions, and monotone vocal cues, and as a result are perceived as less competent and credible by their audiences. Negative motivational states and traits that have a deleterious effect on communication competence, such as communication apprehension and public speaking state anxiety, are replete in communication literature (Payne 2005). There are some exceptions to the general rule that positive emotions increase effective communication performance. Forgas (2007) found that speakers were able to produce more concrete and effective persuasive messages when they were in a negative mood rather than when their moods were positive. Furthermore, despite the generalization that positive emotions improve communication performance, Koch, Forgas, and Matovic (2013) found that speakers who had negative moods employed Grice’s (1975) maxims more often during conversations than those who were in positive moods. Sadness can improve memory and judgment accuracy while reducing gullibility, self-handicapping, and stereotyping (Forgas 2013). Moreover, certain types of creativity (George and Zhou 2002) can be fostered by negative emotional states. One possible explanation for these effects stems from studies of neurophysiology, namely, that negative emotional states induce greater deliberation when selecting communication strategies and politeness (Forgas 1999). Both are in line with the operation of Gray’s (1982; Gray and McNaughton 2000) comparator in that the behavior inhibition system (BIS) enhances vigilance and cautious approach

4 Competence motivation as temperament According to Turkheimer (2000), all behavior traits are heritable and the influence of one’s family is smaller than the effect of genetics on developing these traits.

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Communication researchers (Beatty, McCroskey, and Heisel 1998) wrote that the biology of an individual has a significant effect upon how a person communicates. Beatty and McCroskey (Beatty, McCroskey, and Heisel 1998) coined the term “communibiology”, which examines the biological, particularly genetic underpinnings of some communication behaviors. That is, several communication-related traits represent the temperamental expression of genes and as motivational factors condition the competence of communicators. Although this research paradigm has only begun to emerge within the field of communication studies during the last twenty years, its applicability to communication competence is well-established (Richmond, Wrench, and McCroskey 2013; see Chapter 11, this volume).

4.1 Affective traits and communication competence According to Eysenck (1998) there are three superordinate traits that influence human social behavior: extraversion, neutroticism, and psychoticism. Extraversion is the tendency to be outgoing and sociable. Neutroticism is the tendency to fluctuate between mania (really happy) and depressed (really sad). Psychoticism is the tendency to be antisocial and believe that society’s rules and norms do not apply to you. Affective orientation is another trait that will determine a person’s feelings about and attitudes toward communication. There must be a desire in the individual to care about communication and a desire to be a good communicator. Willingness to communicate (WTC) is a person’s general attitude toward talking with others. This concept has emerged in communication literature within the last 25 years, and recent research suggests that WTC and communication apprehension (CA) are related. Therefore, as the WTC decreases, then the willingness to communicate with other persons across a wide variety of contexts increases. Consequently, the person who is low in WTC is not as likely to acquire or develop effective communication skills as their high WTC counterparts (Riasati and Noordin 2011). Again, this low WTC is treatable but it takes time, money, and many positive instances of communication to change a low WTC to a moderate WTC. It is rare that a person with low WTC will change into a high WTC. Most low WTC individuals can become moderate WTCs (Teven et al. 2010). In Communication Apprehension, Avoidance, and Effectiveness (2013) Richmond, Wrench and McCroskey pointed out several heritable factors that can lead to communication incompetence. The remaining content will examine this basic motivation-based cause of communication incompetence.

4.2 Communication apprehension Communication apprehension (CA) is the fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons (McCroskey 2009).

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Approximately 20 percent of the general population suffers from communication apprehension (McCroskey 1972) and the higher their apprehension, the less likely the person will initiate and engage in communication (McCroskey 2009). By far, one of the largest groups of quiet people comprises those who are communication apprehensive. Many people desire to communicate with others and recognize the importance of doing so but are impeded by their anxiety about it. As a result, one of the most often used descriptors of highly apprehensive people is that they are “quiet”. Quietness contributes to communication incompetence, poorer performance in most aspects of life, such as: work, school, personal growth, and development (McCroskey 2009). Most of us recognize a shy person when we encounter one. However, the impacts of shyness can severely impact the communication competence of an individual (Arroyo and Harwood 2011). The shy person does not reach out communicatively to other persons. As a direct result, the shy person’s amount of communication is less than non-shy persons (Bruch et al. 1999). The shy person does not encounter the amount of communication or desire to communicate as non-shy persons. In conclusion, the shy person may be perceived as less competent than other communicators. In sum, shyness is the behavior of not communicating. CA is what a person feels (he or she is fearful or anxious or simply scared speechless) to talk at all, and WTC is one’s general inclination toward talking and shyness refers to the degree to which one refrains from actually talking. Subsequently, as a person becomes quiet, their personal, work, and school life can be severely impacted. Most have cures but the quiet person will need to seek help to as communication is often psychologically painful for them.

5 Competence motivation as performance feedback Many motivation scholars insist that the consequences of social behavior help to regulate the development of competence, including when others such as friends, family members, co-workers, and supervisors comment about our communication skills (Sutton, Hornsey, and Douglas 2012). Feedback interventions (FIs), such as managers filling out performances appraisals on their employees or professors providing written comments to students about their term papers are frequently regarded as best practices in the business (Applebaum, Roy, and Gilliland 2011) and the education (Clouder et al. 2012) communities. As a result, the pervasiveness of performance feedback contributes to a widespread belief by the general public that FIs are both necessary and ensure sufficient motivation to develop competence. When explaining the effects of FIs, scholars generally appeal to some version of control theory (Carver and Scheier 1981) or more recently explanations based on self-regulation such as Higgins’ (1997) concept of regulatory focus or London and

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Smither’s (2002) feedback orientation. A brief review of both the control theory and regulatory perspectives follows along with examples of new strategies for promoting competence motivation.

5.1 Control theory and feedback interventions Throughout life individuals develop and seek to maintain a set of internal standards that guide their social behavior. Carver and Scheier’s (1981) control theory posits that when humans realize that their conduct deviates from these internalized reference points, they will invigorate their efforts to attain them. Further, the degree of effort will be in direct proportion to the perceived gap between the internal standard and their behavior. Consequently, both positive and negative feedback are said to work equally well in improving CM. From the control theory perspective, humans are said to regulate their behavior by reducing errors, defined as the extent to which social behavior differs from an internal standard. It should be noted that many cognitive theorists accept these same general principles. One might conclude that motivating another person to improve would be a simple matter of telling them about where they’ve fallen short of the mark, a strategy called knowledge of performance. However, simply providing individuals with information about the quality of their work yields only modest improvements in competence. According to their meta-analysis of feedback intervention studies Kluger and DeNisi (1996) concluded that FIs are highly variable and resulted in lower levels of performance in more than a third of the cases reviewed. Kluger and DeNisi (1996) proposed feedback intervention theory (FIT) to help account for these confounding findings. Taking a lead from control theory, FIT proposes that individuals will be motivated to behave more competently when their performance is shown to fall short of a standard. Moreover, FIT predicts that a person’s effort to improve will be directly related to the feedback-standard gap, or the discrepancy between their performance and the standard described in the feedback message. Studies of FIT in communication have reported modest support for the theory when applied to public speaking instruction (King, Young, and Behnke 2000; Smith and King 2004). More recently, FI scholars have focused on the effects of instructor immediacy (Kerssen-Griep and Witt 2012; Martin and Mottet 2011) and communication climate (Dannels, Housley Gaffney, and Martin 2011) on the affective learning of students receiving feedback.

5.2 Regulatory focus Regulatory focus theory (RFT; Higgins 1997; Molden, Lee, and Higgins 2008) (RFT) begins with the premise that as humans strive to succeed within their physical and social environments they must satisfy both their needs for advancement (e.g.,

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nourishment, growth, and development) and for security, such as shelter, safety, and protection. Higgins (1997) proposed that each type of need evokes its own set of strategies and that these represent individual differences in self-regulation. That is, some people see themselves as continually striving to make gains in life while avoiding non-gains. In contrast, the primary aim of others is to be protected from threats while avoiding negative outcomes or losses. To use a common example, consider the differing motivations of two college students, both of whom want to earn an excellent grade on an upcoming public speaking assignment in their undergraduate communication studies course. The first student wants an “A” to improve her grade point average so that she may graduate with a special academic distinction such as magna cum laude. However, the second student desires the same grade so that he can keep from losing an important scholarship. According to regulatory focus theory, although both students are engaged in approach behaviors designed to earn an “A” in their course, the former displays a promotion focus (i.e., improving GPA to gain academic recognition) while the latter has a prevention focus, as reflected in striving not to lose the academic standing required for financial aid. In a series of studies, Kluger and his fellow researchers (Kluger 2001; Kluger, Lewinsohn, and Aiello 1994; Van Dijk and Kluger 2004, 2011) found that RFT accounted for the paradoxical findings reported in feedback intervention studies, namely, that both feedback signs (positive versus negative) and the performance standard gap can simultaneously produce beneficial and deleterious effects on competence (Kluger and DeNisi 1996, 1998). Specifically, Kluger, Lewinsohn, and Aiello (1994) reported that promotion-focused people have higher motivation and expend greater energy in the form of effort when receiving positive rather than negative feedback. However, the opposite was true for those with prevention focus. That is, under prevention focus, negative feedback generates higher levels of effort than when feedback is positive. Moreover, the type of task can also elicit either prevention or promotion focus (Van Dijk and Kluger 2011). Applied to our previous example, the student wanting an “A” in order to earn an academic distinction (promotion focused) would expend more effort to prepare an effective speech when given positive feedback or when assigned tasks that directly contribute to this goal than when receiving negative feedback. The opposite would hold true for the prevention-focused student. Because negative feedback indicates loss, in this case a greater likelihood of losing an academic scholarship, he will experience a sense of urgency and will likely work harder on his presentation and keep his scholarship. Taken together, the interaction of regulatory (promotion vs. prevention) focus with feedback sign (positive vs. negative) is one explanation for why the feedback performance gap can induce greater motivation and effort in some cases while diminishing it others.

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6 Conclusion The desire to be effective and to have others believe in one’s competence is universal and is reflected in a wide variety of human endeavors including communication (Higgins 2012). Motivation is crucial to this quest as one must dedicate substantial personal energies and effort over the course of the lifespan to develop and maintain impressions of communication competence. However, the failure to properly regulate emotional reactions can damage how others perceive one’s knowledge and skills thereby severely restricting communication effectiveness and appropriateness, as well. Energies are bounded by individual differences in physical capacities that follow well-understood physiological principles. Motivation is further reflected in the personal goals one selects and the appropriateness of approach and avoidance behaviors employed when seeking to achieve them. Consequently, competence motivation reflects a willingness to direct one’s personal energies in knowledgeable and appropriate ways to achieve one’s own identity and relational goals. According to the evolutionary perspective reviewed earlier in this chapter, certain basic emotions known as primes increase the chances for humans to succeed as a species. Reproductive fitness is also enhanced when individuals observe the appropriate use of display rules during social encounters. As a general rule, positive emotions are associated with higher levels of productivity, creativity, and effort. However, negative emotional states are not without benefit as well. Thus, competence motivation from this perspective equates to the improvement of competitiveness through the self-regulation of basic emotions. Seen through the lens of human temperament, competence motivation represents the influence of heritable communication-related traits. These include communication apprehension, shyness, willingness to communicate, and various dimensions of temperament. Competence is further affected by broadband, stable dispositions or traits such as Eysenck’s big three, which are also viewed as dimensions of temperament. Educators and work supervisors often use feedback interventions to prompt increased competence motivation among students and employees. However, the actual effectiveness of these messages is highly variable. Recent advances in motivation theory and measurement provide future social science researchers with the tools necessary to construct a more comprehensive account of how emotional reactions, including states and traits, contribute to competent communication. Of particular interest is how feedback messages affect subsequent performance by students and workers, alike. Furthermore, within the context of communication competence, motivation has been described as a set of contradictory motives that are in a constant state of dialectical tension (Spitzberg 1993). These, in turn, have been associated with the dark side of interpersonal communication (Spitzberg 1994). The role of competence

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motivation, as discussed in this chapter, should be examined in future studies of the dark side.

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9 Competence knowledge Abstract: The focus of this chapter is upon the acquired knowledge resources that a person must possess in order to communicate in an effective and appropriate manner. Following a general overview of various memory systems (e.g., declarative memory, procedural memory), a process-based approach to categorizing requisite knowledge types is introduced. More specifically, five broad process categories are developed: 1. message production and processing resources, 2. social coordination resources, 3. self-regulatory resources, 4. resources involved in the negotiation of “social reality”, and 5. resources involved in the pursuit of task goals. Within each type, further sub-categories are identified and discussed. Following this review, the chapter addresses the fact that a person may possess perfectly adequate knowledge resources, and be motivated to act in a competent fashion, and yet still behave in suboptimal ways. This observation serves to foreground processes of memory retrieval and knowledge implementation which are treated in the context of second generation action assembly theory’s characterizations of “activation” and “assembly”. A final section raises the possibility of reconsidering the entire project of surveying “competence knowledge” by treating such knowledge resources not as the source of competent social behavior, but rather as the product of social action. Keywords: communication competence, communication effectiveness, communication skill, communication skill training, goals-plans-action (GPA) models, interpersonal skill, message production, skill acquisition

Any attempt to organize a discussion of “competence knowledge” almost certainly requires some grounding or point of contact with the more general notion of what it means to be socially or communicatively competent. Unfortunately, as survey of this volume and other treatments (e.g., Hargie 2006; Wilson and Sabee 2003) reveals, the very nature of competence is a subject of considerable dispute. Indeed, one author (Phillips 1983: 25) has likened the task of defining competence to “trying to climb a greased pole”. Resolving the various definitional difficulties and controversies surrounding the topic is neither the focus nor project of this chapter, however, and we need only establish some working conception or definition as a point of departure for what follows. The approach here, then, is to adopt what is perhaps the most generally recognized and well-established conception of competence – that centering on twin considerations of effectiveness and appropriateness (see Rubin 1990; Segrin and Givertz 2003; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984; Wiemann 1977).1 On this view, the compe1 We should note that the basic effectiveness – appropriateness framework has been embellished and extended by various authors to include other considerations (see Spitzberg and Cupach 2011).

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tent communicator is able to behave in ways that further achievement of his or her ends while adhering to situational standards of proper social conduct. It should be clear that there are factors other than what a person “knows” that impact the effectiveness and appropriateness of his or her social behavior. Restricting the focus of this chapter to the knowledge component of social competence is significant, then, because we shall have less to say about factors such as motivation and emotion that also play important roles in people’s social conduct. Regarding the role of motivational factors, consider that an individual may have a perfectly adequate grasp of what he or she should do in some particular context, but have little inclination to actually implement or act on that knowledge. In analogous fashion, emotional forces such as heightened anger or anxiety may override a person’s best understanding of how to behave in an effective and appropriate way. It is also important to note at the outset that, on our construal of “knowledge”, we have chosen to focus on information that an individual has acquired in the course of, and as a result of, his or her lived experiences.2 Thus, we have, as much as possible, skirted innate dispositions such as personality traits (e.g., extraversion; see Costa and McCrae 1992; self-monitoring; see Gangestad and Snyder 2000) and behavioral propensities (e.g., styles of facial expression; see Ekman and Friesen 1975), as well as cognitive processing abilities and characteristics associated with infancy/youth (see Halford 2005) and old age (see Kemper and Hummert 1997; Salthouse 2009), even though these factors clearly bear upon the effectiveness and appropriateness of one’s communicative activities. This being said, although it is possible to distinguish a “knowledge” component of communication competence from other factors (thus making feasible a chapter focused on the former), it is important to recognize that the various pieces into which the “competence pie” can be sliced are, in fact, interrelated, and in what follows, while adhering to our primary focus on “competence knowledge”, here and there, we will necessarily (though certainly not comprehensively) touch upon related concerns.

1 The concept of “competence knowledge” and the role of long-term memory The significance of adopting the general working definition of communication competence outlined above is that it affords a succinct way of framing the focus of

2 By “lived experiences” here we mean to encompass both those knowledge resources acquired through one’s own actions and via vicarious observation of the actions of others (see Bandura 1977).

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this chapter. If “competence” refers to effectiveness and appropriateness, then our project becomes one of asking what knowledge a person must acquire and possess in order to communicate in an effective and appropriate fashion. This seemingly straightforward characterization, in turn, is crucial because it directly implicates issues of long-term memory systems and processes. That is, if competence knowledge is something that is possessed by individual social actors (thus giving rise to individual differences in communicative proficiency), then questions of how people “possess” (retain, store, remember) information come to the fore.

1.1 Long-term memory systems Detailed exposition of the nature of long-term memory is obviously beyond the scope of this chapter, but it is necessary that we establish a basic framework and terminology to set the stage for the discussion that follows. There are a great many models and conceptions of the nature of long-term memory (see Tulving and Craik 2000), and although these models diverge in important ways, it is still possible to identify certain conceptual conventions with which every cognitivist is conversant and that are particularly germane to the issues at hand. To begin, long-term memory (LTM) refers to a processing system that preserves a virtually limitless store of information, of various sorts, for indefinite spans (i.e., years, decades). LTM is distinguished from working memory (or short-term memory in some treatments) – a system where very limited amount of information is held for short durations (i.e., seconds), while that information is employed in an individual’s ongoing cognitive activities (see Miyake and Shah 1999). LTM itself comprises multiple distinct subsystems. Most important in the context of the present discussion is the distinction between the declarative and procedural memory systems. Declarative memory is commonly taken to be “knowledge that” – i.e., the “facts” (correct or incorrect) that an individual has acquired through his or her experiences (e.g., water boils at 212° F). This declarative memory system, in turn, includes semantic and episodic stores. Semantic memory is thought to encompass one’s general world knowledge (e.g., the boiling point of water, word meanings, events of human history, and so on). Episodic memory, in contrast, refers to the store of one’s personal experiences (i.e, the “episodes” of one’s life – e.g., memory of the day a teacher explained that water boils at 212° or what “civil disobedience” means, or what you were doing when you first witnessed or heard of the events of 9/11/01). Distinct from declarative memory (i.e., “knowledge that”), procedural memory is “knowledge how” – that is, memory for how to do things like drive a car, play the piano, or articulate the phonemes and words of one’s native language. The declarative/procedural memory-system distinction is significant for several reasons. Among these are that, while declarative knowledge can be acquired “all-atonce” (e.g., someone tells you something you did not previously know), procedural

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knowledge is acquired over time, through implementation and refinement (e.g., one learns to play a musical instrument over a period of years). Moreover, declarative information is typically available for verbal report – i.e., one can state the things he or she has learned about the world and recount his or her own experiences. In contrast, procedural knowledge (also termed implicit or tacit knowledge) very often is lost to verbalization – and if called upon to convey that information to another, a person may be forced to rely on demonstration rather than verbal description of how to carry out some activity. Tracing the general contours of the declarative/procedural distinction is an important first step in explicating the nature of competence knowledge, and indeed, in what follows we will see that competent communication involves the interplay of both sorts of information. Moreover, it is also the case that in carrying out any particular skilled activity a person may, at one time, rely on declarative memory, and, at another, on procedural information. That is, an individual may first learn a set of facts for carrying out a skill, and, over time, establish procedural memory representations for executing that same activity (see Greene 2003).

2 Domains of competence knowledge With an overview of basic LTM systems in place we can turn to the question of what knowledge a person needs to possess in order to communicate in an appropriate and effective manner. Clearly, the specific information, understandings, and competencies required in the conduct of people’s social lives are numerous and diverse; as a result, they resist efforts at easy definition and classification. Moreover, it would certainly be possible to arrive at any number of perfectly adequate systematic and principled conceptual schemes for organizing a discussion of the topic at hand. Here we have sought to strike a balance between breadth and parsimony: Without allowing “types” of competence knowledge to proliferate unmanageably, we have adopted a scheme that is reasonably encompassing (with no claim of exhaustiveness).3 Our approach is to focus on the processes that a person must carry out in order to communicate in a competent manner. In what follows, then, we address knowledge resources involved in: 1. message production and processing, 2. social coordination, 3. self-regulation, 4. negotiation of “social reality”, and 5. pursuit of task goals (see Table 1).

3 While our organizational scheme distinguishes various types of competence knowledge for expository purposes, there is no assumption of mutual exclusivity, and, in fact, there are numerous instances where specific sorts of knowledge can be seen to fit within multiple categories.

Language-Based Knowledge Nonverbal Knowledge Conceptual Frames Topical or Content Knowledge

Effective and Appropriate Social Coordination Knowledge Coordination of Meaning

Self-Regulatory Skills Self-Referent Conceptions

Message Production and Processing

Social Coordination

Self-Regulation

Objectives people should or might pursue in a given situation, such as the goal of giving a speech without appearing to be nervous Steps that must be taken to achieve goals, such as those necessary to give a public speech Evaluating and editing a message based on the effectiveness of a message, the implications for each individual and the relationship, and the truthfulness and relevance of the message

Pursuit of Task Goals

Goal Achievement Plans Conversational Moves

Goal-Setting

Face-saving strategies; providing social support; perceptions of self and other behavior (e.g., views of relational partners as bossy or condescending) Mental representations of types of relationships (parent–child, roommates, etc.) that include ideas on how the relationships typically progress and the dimensions (dominance and affiliation) involved Understanding the rules, norms, and social conventions at work in social settings like the classroom, the workplace, the grocery store Understanding how to be assertive and manage potential negative outcomes; using appropriate conflict management strategies (e.g., direct/cooperative, direct/negative)

Display rules; the ability or skills to simulate, mask, or intensify/deintensify an emotion Self-concepts, or beliefs about one’s self and social roles; self-esteem, or overall evaluation of self; self-efficacy, or self-confidence in one’s abilities to perform an action Beliefs about how a person should or should not act; evaluations of appropriateness of behaviors

Actively listening; how to contribute to a conversation; anticipating consequences or outcomes of communication choices

Appropriate greeting and leave-taking behavior; how to resolve interruptions

Phonemes; mapping speech sounds to word meanings; Grice’s (1975) conversational maxims Norms regarding touching, interpersonal distance, and eye gaze Schemata or scripts regarding communication behaviors, such as what to say on a first date Command or understanding of a particular area like botany, cooking, or Renaissance art

Examples

Negotiation of Conceptions of “Social Reality” Individual Identities Conceptions of Interpersonal Relationships Conceptions of the Nature of the Social Situation Managing Different Perceptions of “Social Reality”

Attitudes

Knowledge Domains

Content Areas

Tab. 1: Overview of knowledge domains.

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2.1 Message production and processing We begin with those knowledge resources most directly involved in fundamental processes of expression and comprehension. The most intensively scrutinized knowledge types of this sort are those related to the verbal features of human behavior where there are rich research traditions focused on the language-processing and -production competencies of both children and adults (see Gervain and Mehler 2010; Greene, in press; Miller and Eimas 1995; Samuel 2011). Examples of these language-based knowledge resources are those involved in basic processes such as discrimination of phonemes, segmenting an essentially continuous stream of speech into lexical units, mapping from speech sounds to word meanings, use of prosodic cues (e.g., patterns of stress) in message processing, utilization of syntactic rules, and so on. But language-based knowledge resources are not restricted to those involved in message production and processing at the level of sound units, words, and clauses. Other competence knowledge allows speakers and hearers to make, and comprehend, utterances as meaningful entries into ongoing conversations. Examples of knowledge of this sort include the resources captured in Grice’s (1975) classic treatment of “conversational maxims” – the assumptions that people hold about talk that allow them to make sense of what each other is saying, especially when a comment appears to violate one or more of those assumptions. Other examples of larger scale language-based resources are those that allow people to establish “local coherence” (e.g., Hobbs 1978) – that is, to track the connections between successive utterances even when, on the surface, they share no common lexical tokens (e.g., “We got a sitter for Saturday. I’ll bring the dessert.”). And, at a still larger level, other knowledge resources permit people to extract the overall gist, or “macrostructure”, of a story or conversation (van Dijk and Kintsch 1983). No less important than language-based cognitive resources for effective and appropriate social conduct are parallel resources involved in the production and processing of the nonverbal components of interpersonal interactions. Indeed, it is often observed that the importance of nonverbal skills may exceed those of the verbal channel, as, for example, in cross-cultural contexts, where others may be quite willing to forbear limited second-language skills, but be much less tolerant of people who “don’t know how to act”. Like language-based resources, those pertaining to nonverbal performance (both encoding and decoding) are very wide-ranging, incorporating the sweep of traditional divisions in the realm of nonverbal “channels” of behavior (e.g., kinesics, proxemics, haptics, oculesics, etc.; see Burgoon, Guerrero, and Manusov 2011). Thus, the competent communicator possesses (at least tacit) knowledge of appropriate gestures and facial expressions, norms regarding touching, interpersonal distance, eye gaze, and so on. The fact that language-based message resources have received comparatively greater attention should not be taken as an indication that relatively little is known

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about nonverbal resources and competencies. Indeed, at least five major traditions of systematic study can be seen to inform our understanding of requisite nonverbal skills (or procedural knowledge). These include programs of research on: 1. nonverbal behaviors associated with more, and less, positive social impressions (see Spitzberg and Dillard 2002), 2. children’s developmental acquisition of message encoding and decoding abilities (see Feldman and Tyler 2006), 3. efforts to teach adult populations more effective or appropriate nonverbal skills (see L’Abate and Milan 1985; Riggio 1992), as, for example, programs to address encoding deficits among psychiatric patients (see Trower, Bryant, and Argyle 1978) or training to improve deception-detection accuracy (see Frank and Feeley 2003), 4. examinations of trait-like individual differences in nonverbal encoding and decoding performance (e.g., “nonverbal expressivity”, “emotional intelligence”; see Rosenthal 1979; Salovey, Brackett, and Mayer 2004), and 5. treatments of cultural differences in nonverbal behavior and interpretation (see Matsumoto 2006). The third type of knowledge relevant to basic processes of message production and comprehension involves what might be termed “conceptual frames” – generalized memory representations of categories or events extracted from specific experiences. Doubtless the sorts of conceptual frames most familiar to communication scholars are notions of “schemata” and “scripts” (see Kellerman and Lim 2008; Unz 2008) that have been widely invoked in the study of a variety of communication phenomena (see Roskos-Ewoldsen and Monahan 2007). But conceptual frames also encompass understandings less propositional (i.e., conceptually based, as in standard treatments of schematic representations of people, relationships, events, etc.) and more sensorimotor in nature (i.e., aspects of perceptual and bodily experiences; see Johnson 1987). A final category of knowledge resources involved in the most fundamental dynamics of message-making and processing is “topical” or “content” knowledge – i.e., one’s command or understanding of a particular subject area (e.g., botany, cooking, Renaissance art). The basic idea here is that the more knowledgeable an individual is in some particular subject matter, the more likely it is that he or she will be better able to both produce and comprehend messages pertaining to that topic. The point would appear to be true beyond gainsaying – we would expect that, on balance, those physicians, physicists, and philosophers with the greatest grasp of their fields of study would be best equipped to discourse on relevant topics (and to follow the discourses of their peers). Systematic examination of the nature and role of topical knowledge is perhaps most advanced in the fields of education and teacher training, where, based on Shulman’s (1986) seminal treatment, effective instruction is thought to involve the conjunction of mastery of content and pedagogical technique to produce a tripartite amalgam of “content knowledge”, “pedagogical knowledge”, and “pedagogical content knowledge” – a formulation that has been adopted by scholars in the field of communication proper (e.g., Book 1989).

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2.2 Social coordination A second broad category of knowledge resources includes those involved in coordinating or interweaving one’s own actions with those of his or her conversational partners. It is these fundamental regulatory activities that Wiemann (1977) identified as the sine qua non (‘without which there is nothing’) of communication competence. Individuals who possess knowledge of this sort are more likely to engage in interactions in which they feel “in sync” or “on the same page” as their interlocutors (see Greene and Herbers 2011), and, conversely, skill deficits in this domain may contribute to strained, even draining, social encounters (Finkel et al. 2006). As with the basic building blocks involved in message production and processing discussed in the preceding section, it is possible to identify a number of specific knowledge types involved in effective and appropriate social coordination. These include knowledge of appropriate greeting and leave-taking behaviors (see Knuf 1990/1991) and the, typically tacit, command (or “understanding-in-action”) of the elegant system of rules governing conversational turn-taking, including resolution of interruptions and talk-overs (see Knapp and Hall 2010: 423–426; McLaughlin 1984). A second group of social-coordination resources involves understandings (again, often tacit) of how to make entries into ongoing conversations that are relevant and sensible to one’s interlocutor(s). There is a well-established tradition of research in communication science and cognate disciplines bearing on the conversational activities by which people accomplish the co-construction of talk and action (i.e., studies in the “Language and Social Interaction”, or “LSI”, tradition; see Sanders, Fitch, and Pomerantz 2000), but in the main scholars working in this area have eschewed notions of individual skill, instead framing their project as an examination of jointly produced interaction sequences. Nevertheless, Sanders (2003), working within the LSI perspective, has argued that people do differ in the quality of their social-coordination performance, and hence, that individual knowledge resources regarding discursive practices are brought to bear when people interact. More specifically, his analysis gives emphasis to “responsiveness” (i.e., whether [and to what extent] an entry into the conversation is responsive to something that has come before in the interaction) and “anticipatoriness” (i.e., foresight regarding the interactional consequences of a conversational entry) as essential elements of social coordination.

2.3 Self-regulation A third category of knowledge resources are those involved in monitoring and managing one’s own actions and activities. This category is quite broad, and it can be seen to encompass both self-regulatory skills (i.e., procedural knowledge) and declarative self-referent conceptions. With respect to the former, self-regulatory

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procedural knowledge resources are perhaps most prominently involved in manifestations of emotional control, composure, and decorum. Doubtless the best known example of knowledge resources of this sort is found in Ekman and Friesen’s (1975) treatment of display rules – techniques for managing expressions of emotion in socially appropriate ways. Thus, individuals may simulate an emotion that they don’t actually feel, mask a felt emotion, intensify or deintensify an emotional state, and so on. Regulatory resources of a very different sort involve self-relevant cognitions such as self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. These (and other) self-relevant constructs are characterized by empirical associations (e.g., people who believe that they possess many positive attributes tend also to have high self-esteem), but there are conceptual distinctions that merit discussion. Self-concept refers to the entire constellation of beliefs a person might hold about his or her social roles (e.g., parent, spouse), personal attributes (e.g., hard-working, honest), and so on (see Baumeister 1998). In contrast to this very large repository of self-relevant beliefs, one’s working self-concept encompasses those particular aspects of self that are relevant and available at any particular time (see Markus and Kunda 1986). Distinct from one’s beliefs about him- or herself, self-esteem refers to a person’s overall evaluation of self (in essence, one’s valuation or liking of self). Finally, primarily rooted in the work of Albert Bandura and his associates (see Bandura 2006), self-efficacy concerns an individual’s perception of his or her ability to engage in and accomplish some task-directed pursuit. The roles of self-relevant cognitions in guiding and shaping social conduct are numerous and far-reaching. In part, self-conceptions play a key role in determining what identity goals and ideals an individual will seek to pursue (see Gollwitzer and Wicklund 1985). In similar fashion, salient aspects of the self are prominent drivers of one’s verbal and nonverbal self-presentational behaviors (see section 2.4). Moreover, long-established lines of research show that motivations for accuracy, consistency, and enhancement of self-perceptions are involved in a wide array of social decisions and behaviors (see Baumeister 1998; Fiske and Taylor 2013). A different set of mechanisms bearing on social competence involves self-esteem and self-efficacy. In general, people with positive self-evaluations and perceptions of personal efficacy are more likely to engage in, and persist at, challenging activities (see Carver and Scheier 1998). Beyond this, and of particular importance in the context of the current discussion, self-esteem and self-efficacy are (inversely) related to the experience of social anxiety, with its attendant performance decrements (Patterson and Ritts 1997). Beyond memory representations underlying manifestation of decorum, composure, and control and the various types of self-relevant cognitions that bear on social conduct, there is a third body of self-regulatory knowledge resources with a long history of systematic investigation in the social and behavioral sciences. As early as 1935, Gordon Allport recognized the importance of the attitude construct

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for understanding human behavior, and although most conceptions of attitudes give greatest emphasis to their evaluative nature (see Eagly and Chaiken 1993), it is also the case that attitudes serve a self-regulatory function in shaping one’s behavior, particularly in the case of attitudes about how an individual should, or should not, comport him- or herself (see Ajzen 1985). Moreover, attitudes of this sort are likely to be most potent in their self-regulatory role when they are readily accessible from memory (Arpan, Rhodes, and Roskos-Ewoldsen 2007).

2.4 Negotiation of “social reality” A fourth group of knowledge resources essential to competent social interaction involves those employed in the presentation and negotiation of “social reality” – that is, the participants’ conceptions of their individual identities, their interpersonal relationship, the nature of the social situation, and so on. The idea here is that in the course of everyday interaction each participant implicitly or, sometimes, explicitly “presents” his or her view of self, of the other, of their relationship, etc. Often interactants’ respective construals of social reality will overlap to a considerable degree, but this is not necessarily the case, and where perspectives differ, communication may be problematic. As examples, a person who views her interlocutor as a peer and on equal footing may feel that the other is being “bossy” or condescending; one who sees a relationship as intimate or romantic may encounter difficulties when the other sees him simply as a friend; and problems may arise when one participant characterizes a group meeting as a “work session” and another as a “bull session”. Of the five overarching categories of competence knowledge discussed here, this is probably the broadest (and certainly it is the most extensively studied and theorized by scholars in the field of Communication proper). This group of memory resources includes knowledge structures involved in accurate and nuanced social perception (of people, relationships, and events). As in the classic constructivist framework in Communication (see Burleson and Bodie 2008), individuals with more differentiated and sophisticated knowledge representations should presumably have an advantage when accuracy in social perception is especially germane (see Burleson and Caplan 1998). Complementing the role of the memory representations involved in social perception (i.e., input processing) are the representations involved in behavioral production. If input-processing structures give rise to more (or less) accurate and sophisticated social perceptions, then the memory structures comprising the output system permit a person to act on those perceptions in more (or less) competent ways. On the output side of the system, then, are those knowledge resources underlying the wide range of skills and abilities pertaining to effective and appropriate self-presentation (see: Metts and Grohskopf 2003; Schlenker 2003), including verbal self-disclosures (see Tardy and Dindia 2006) and nonverbal behaviors enacted in pursuit of face and image goals (see DePaulo 1992). Other examples of identity-

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relevant skills involve strategies for mitigating embarrassment and other negative repercussions arising from flawed social performances (see Scott and Lyman 1968; Semin and Manstead 1983). Beyond the individual’s own role and identity concerns, other aspects of “enactment” knowledge relevant to social-reality presentation/negotiation processes are essentially alter-centric in the sense that they involve knowledge pertaining to providing support for the “face and line” (Goffman 1967) of the other. Examples here would include conveying attentiveness/interest, encouragement, respect, and so on (see Simon 2007; Mackenzie and Wallace, 2011; Trees, Kerssen-Griep, and Hess 2009). Along these same lines, a particularly fertile area of research in the field of Communication in recent years has centered on skills in providing emotional support and comfort to another (see MacGeorge, Feng, and Burleson 2011). Beyond the knowledge resources pertaining to skill sets such as these, perhaps the most widely known and influential treatment of strategies for addressing alteridentity concerns is found in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) seminal analysis of means for remediating “face threatening acts”. No less an element of “social reality” than each person’s construal of his or her own, and the other’s, identity, is each interactant’s construal of the nature of their interpersonal relationship. One aspect of the relationally relevant knowledge possessed by competent communicators involves “relational schemas” – i.e., memory representations of types of relationships (e.g., parent–child; roommates; romantic partners) and their various attributes, including appropriate behaviors for enacting such relationships (Andersen 1993). Moreover, because relationships are not static, people also possess “scripts” – representations of typical or expected sequences of behavior as individuals come together or grow apart (see Honeycutt and Cantrill 2001). The discussion in the preceding paragraph gave emphasis to understandings based on relationship types and stages, but beyond knowledge related to categories and sequences, it is possible to think about relationships in terms of dimensions – continua along which one relationship can be distinguished from another (e.g., satisfying–unsatisfying; cooperative–competitive; etc.). Obviously, human relationships differ (and are perceived by their participants to differ) in countless ways. At the same time, a long tradition of research and theorizing indicates that the complexities of interpersonal relationships reflect a relatively small number of underlying dimensions (see Burgoon and Hale 1984), with continua of affiliation (including intimacy, affection, etc.) and dominance (power, status, etc.) being especially salient in the negotiation of social reality (Dillard, Solomon, and Palmer 1999). With respect to the affiliation dimension of interpersonal relationships, competence knowledge includes a grasp of how, both verbally (Andersen and Guerrero 1998) and nonverbally (see Burgoon et al. 1984; Patterson 1983), intimacy is communicated, although, as with many of the knowledge resources discussed here, such knowledge may only be implicitly possessed and used (Palmer and Simmons 1995). In similar fashion, the competent communicator possesses skills and under-

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standings of how power/dominance is displayed and negotiated in social interaction (Dunbar and Abra 2010; Hall, Coats, and LeBeau 2005). As previously indicated, yet another aspect of social reality involves participants’ construals of the nature of the social situation. To a considerable extent, the knowledge resources involved in recognizing situational exigencies and enacting appropriate behaviors are those pertaining to social conventions – e.g., the rules, norms, and scripts (see: Kellermann and Lim 2008; Shimanoff 1980; Yanovitzky and Rimal 2006) operative in various social settings. Thus, the competent communicator understands (at some level) the nature of the situation (e.g., class lecture, fraternity party, wedding) and is able to act in ways that are in keeping with the demands of such a social context. Although a command of social conventions is a key element of the competent communicator’s repertoire, there is another “layer” of knowledge resources that comes into play in the presentation and negotiation of social situations (and social reality, more generally). The most sophisticated, and competent, communicators are able not simply to follow social conventions, but, in conjunction with their interlocutors, to actively construct and modify conventional standards in pursuit of their ends. This idea is clearly exemplified in the work on “message design logics” (e.g., O’Keefe 1988), which identifies three increasingly sophisticated ways of reasoning about constructing messages. Individuals employing an “expressive design logic” view social interaction as an opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings, even if doing so might be inappropriate or rude. More competent communicators, operating with a “conventional design logic”, apprehend social exchanges as “games played by rules”. Finally, and most relevant to the point being developed here, people following a “rhetorical design logic” understand interpersonal interaction as a context in which consensus (about identities, meanings, and ways of proceeding) is co-constructed by the participants. There is yet another particularly important set of knowledge resources bearing on the negotiation of social reality that has garnered considerable attention among Communication scholars. As was noted at the outset of this section, inherent in the very idea of “presentation and negotiation of social reality” is the possibility that interlocutors’ respective construals of identities, relationships, and so on, may be at odds. In those situations, skills at managing or resolving differences in perspective may come to the fore. Among this group of knowledge resources, then, are those pertaining to: 1. assertiveness and 2. conflict management. Assertiveness has been defined in a variety of ways (see Rakos 1991, 2006; Wilson and Gallois 1993), but generally it is taken to include behaviors such as refusing requests, expressing opinions, requests for behavior change on the part of another, and so. Consistent with the perspective sketched at the outset of this chapter, assertiveness is a learned skill rather than a personality disposition, and is often depicted as falling midway along a continuum bounded at one end by passivity (i.e., non-assertiveness) and at the other by aggressiveness – and to be superior to either of these extremes with respect to both personal and relational

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outcomes. At a more fine-grained level of analysis, an extensive research literature centers on the verbal and nonverbal characteristics of more and less skillful assertion and on techniques for assertiveness training (see Rakos 1991). As with assertiveness, where perspectives regarding salient aspects of social reality are at odds, techniques for managing conflict may be particularly important components of the competent communicator’s knowledge repertoire. Intuition and experience suggest that conflict can be done “well” or “poorly”, but the literature on what counts as “skillful” conflict management is nuanced and complex, and in some cases research findings fly in the face of commonsense understandings (see Roloff and Chiles 2011). Nevertheless, it is possible to offer some very general observations about the features of behavior that tend to characterize more competent conflict interchanges (with the understanding that these will not hold in every case). The behaviors enacted during conflict episodes lend themselves to any number of typologies and conceptual schemes, but there is some consensus (see Canary 2003) that these behaviors reflect two principal underlying dimensions: 1. direct– indirect (reflecting the degree to which one engages his or her interlocutor), and 2. cooperation–competition (reflecting the degree to which conflict behaviors are integrative versus distributive). Crossing these two dimensions yields four clusters of conflict-management behaviors: 1. direct/cooperative (e.g., sharing information, problem-solving), 2. direct/negative (e.g., blaming, threatening), 3. indirect/positive (e.g., agreeing to disagree; accepting differences), and 4. indirect/negative (e.g., stonewalling, active avoidance; see Cupach, Chapter 14). Research generally indicates that negative, competitive conflict strategies are dysfunctional (although the impact of cooperative strategies is not so uniformly positive or potent as one might suppose; see Roloff and Chiles 2011). Thus, among the knowledge resources of competent communicators are those that allow him or her to pursue courses of action other than coercion, personal criticism, and the like. In similar fashion, the competent communicator is able to draw upon a skill repertoire (including self-regulatory resources; see Section 2.3) that provides alternatives to, or overrides, nonverbal expressions of disgust, contempt, and so on that have been shown to be particularly corrosive in interpersonal relationships (see Kelly, Fincham, and Beach 2003). Finally, research on conflict episodes in intimate relationships demonstrates that interactions in distressed or dissatisfied couples tends to be characterized by patterns of negative escalation in which exchanges become increasingly hostile (see Gottman 1994). More satisfied couples, in contrast, are able to recognize such destructive patterns and to draw upon techniques for defusing such episodes.

2.5 Task pursuit The final group of knowledge resources examined here involves those employed in pursuit of one’s instrumental objectives (e.g., to make a sale, secure assistance, borrow a cup of sugar). One subset of this category pertains to goal setting – i.e.,

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what objectives should, or might, a person pursue in a given situation. The competent communicator is more likely to set appropriate goals, given the characteristics of his or her interlocutor, their relationship, and the nature of the social setting (see Wilson and Feng 2007). Both Wilson (e.g., 1995) and Meyer (e.g., 1997) have developed models of goal setting that draw upon common conceptions of associative network structures in LTM. In these models, individuals are assumed to have acquired memory links between features of social situations and goals appropriate to settings of that sort such that goal representations are activated when the corresponding situations are encountered. Distinct from the goals that people set for themselves in interactions with others are the plans that they develop for achieving those goals. There has been a great deal of work devoted to explicating the nature of plans and planning, both as they relate to communication and to other domains of human activity (see Berger 1997; Greene and Graves 2007). Plans are cognitive representations of a sequence of steps for achieving some end state. They are held to vary in a number of ways, including: 1. the number of steps (and intermediate states) specified in the plan, 2. the level of detail and abstraction in which actions are represented, and 3. the specification of contingencies or alternative courses of action. Plans may be stored in LTM as relatively intact and complete entities (as in the case of the aforementioned conception of “scripts”), or they may be constructed as needed from simpler means–ends knowledge relationships held in memory. As might be expected, individuals who are able to draw upon more adequate planning resources, and who are motivated and capable of formulating plans better suited to the exigencies of the situation, enjoy an advantage in acting in an effective and appropriate manner. Beyond the memory resources involved in goal-setting and planning are those employed in editing potential conversational moves. Consider that a person may arrive at a specification of an utterance for accomplishing his or her goals, but then, on the basis of acquired memory resources, suppress or reject that entry into the conversation because of its possible implications. Meyer’s (1997) model of message encoding mentioned above addresses precisely this aspect of talk in pursuit of interaction goals. Another prominent treatment is found in Hample and Dallinger’s work (e.g., 1987, 1990) on “cognitive editing”. They propose that the decision to enact or suppress conversational moves involves considerations of: 1. effectiveness (including concerns that a tactic is too negative to use), 2. person-centered factors (implications for each individual and their relationship), and 3. discourse competence, i.e., the truthfulness and relevance of a potential message.

3 Representation of competence knowledge To this point our discussion has centered on the types of knowledge that an individual must possess in order to behave in an effective and appropriate manner. In

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essence we have concerned ourselves with the question of cognitive content. Distinct from content considerations are issues of cognitive structure, i.e., how it is that competence information is represented in memory. At least four properties of memory representations require mention in this context (see Greene 1984, 2000). First, it is commonly recognized that the information utilized in the production of thought and action must be represented in a modular fashion – i.e., relatively small “packets” that permit any particular element to be flexibly employed in a variety of ways. Second, the content of these modular elements must reflect a range of levels of abstraction – some, for example, specifying sensorimotor codes for moving in a coordinated fashion and pronouncing the phonemes of one’s language, others coding rules of syntax and grammar, and still others pertaining to abstract conceptions of self, others, and “proper” social conduct. Third, while recognizing the principle of modular representation, it is also commonly held that larger configurations of memory elements may develop when those elements are repeatedly accessed and combined. These larger configurations of action specifications are thought to underlie the production of habits and routines that run off seemingly without awareness or conscious control. Finally, as a function of recency and frequency of use, memory structures are thought to vary in strength such that “stronger” elements are more readily brought to bear in one’s ongoing activities.

4 Competence knowledge in use: Processes of retrieval and integration Beyond considerations of content and representation, any treatment of “competence knowledge” must accord a place for the processes that operate over LTM structures. On one hand, functionalism as an approach to understanding human behavior requires specification of relevant processes (see Greene and Dorrance Hall 2013), and moreover, as Greene and Geddes (1993) illustrated, a person may have perfectly adequate knowledge resources, and be motivated to implement what he or she knows, and yet still behave in suboptimal ways. Consider the depiction of competence knowledge developed to this point: The competent social actor must possess a very large store of acquired knowledge (some of it tacit, some available to verbal report), held in memory in representational systems that range in levels of abstraction. Moreover, no knowledge repository, no matter how large, could possibly suffice as a “file-drawer” from which the social actor simply retrieves a competent response. Rather, any treatment of “competence knowledge” must accommodate the fact that appropriate and effective communication requires something more than pulling up a canned response: There is no encyclopedia, or even cookbook, for what to do and say. Instead, in response to social exigencies, the competent communicator thinks, says, and does things that he or she has never thought, enacted, or witnessed before.

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At minimum, then, addressing the topic of competence knowledge requires consideration of the nature of two fundamental processes. On one hand, there must be some process by which knowledge held in LTM is selectively retrieved such that appropriate memory content is more likely to come to the fore. Second, there must be some process by which elemental knowledge units, ranging across levels of abstraction, are combined, or integrated, in the production of behavior. The best known specification of these fundamental processes of retrieval and integration in the Communication literature is that given in second generation action assembly theory (AAT2; Greene 1997; 2000). According to AAT2, the memory content employed in message production is held in “procedural records” – modular units representing associations between features of: 1. action, 2. outcomes associated with those action features, and 3. situational features that are relevant to that same action – outcome relationship (i.e., the conditions under which the action–outcome relationship tends to hold). The retrieval of particular action specifications, then, involves “activation” – where the activation level of an action feature is incremented when the individual arrives at goals that correspond to the outcomes coded in a record and situational conditions that correspond to the situational features in the record. The upshot of the operation of the activation process is that, at any moment, a great many action features (think on the order of thousands) will be activated above their resting levels, thereby ushering in “assembly”, or the integration phase of message production. According to AAT2, assembly is essentially a process of “coalition formation” – activated action features that coincide with or complement other action features form coalitions. Those action features that do not find their way into coalitions quickly decay back to their resting levels. Most coalitions never enter consciousness, nor are they manifested in overt behavior – though neither consciousness nor overt manifestation is required for the other. In contrast to lay conceptions of human behavior where thought and action are seen to be relatively seamless and coherent (see Greene 2000), the depiction of behavioral production in AAT2 is of a chaotic, disjointed system – one whose properties are particularly relevant for understanding more (and less) competent social action.

5 Competence knowledge as product From the outset we have framed our project as a survey of what knowledge a person must acquire, possess, and in the end, be able to implement, in order to communicate in an effective and appropriate fashion. But, we would be remiss in our task if in this review we neglected mention of a very different way of apprehending the term “competence knowledge”. In essence, the treatment to this point has centered on knowledge resources as the fountainhead or ultimate source of competent social action. In contrast, one could take the term “competence knowledge” to refer

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to the product of effective and appropriate thought and action. On this construal, competence knowledge refers to ideational content, possessed either by an individual or group, that arises from the information-processing and message-making activities of one, or more, persons. Most obviously, this alternative take on competence knowledge involves the information that an individual has acquired (i.e., learned) as a result of his or her skills at message reception, interpretation, and storage. Thus, relative to their less competent counterparts, more communicatively competent students are likely to acquire a more complete command of course content. Similarly, individuals with greater listening skills, person-perception skills, and so on, are more likely to acquire more, and more sophisticated, insights about their interlocutors. And, as a third example, pertaining to the output side of the information-processing system, enhanced message-production skills may allow people to formulate message-relevant ideations that would elude their less competent counterparts (see Morgan et al. 2009). Moving beyond the individual’s knowledge and understandings, competenceknowledge-as-product also incorporates ideational content generated by a dyad or group as a result of the skills possessed by one or more of the participants. The classic example of this sort of dynamic would be the long-established tradition of research and training on group problem-solving and decision-making (see Hirokawa and Poole 1996). Here the root assumption is that communication skills will contribute to more adequate group processes and outcomes.4 A second example, of a slightly different sort, hinges on the notion that dyads or groups may collaborate not to address task-related objectives, but rather to justify or legitimate their attitudes or actions. An illustration of this type of activity is found among groups of smokers who very commonly work together to formulate rationalizations for continued smoking – and thereby assuage their concerns.

6 A look to the future As rich and diverse as research and theorizing about competence knowledge has been to date, it is no doubt the case that the breadth of work pertaining to this topic will only continue to expand. Particularly noteworthy in this regard are the implications of increasing exposure to social media on the various knowledge domains examined in this chapter. Already, tantalizing avenues of inquiry are emerging. For example, a burgeoning body of work examining Facebook exposure (time

4 It is important to note in this context that the very existence of communication influences on group outcomes is a source of considerable scholarly debate (see, for example, Hewes 2009 and his respondents).

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spent, number of friends) and use of other social networking sites indicates complex relationships with the sorts of self-relevant knowledge resources discussed above (e.g., Gentile et al. 2012; Kalpidou, Costin, and Morris 2011; Kim and Lee 2011). In a different vein, a study by Uhls and her associates (Uhls et al. 2014) demonstrated that, among preteens, just five days without exposure to electronic media (but in the presence of other children) significantly improved people’s ability to process nonverbal cues of emotion. It seems reasonable to expect that the continuing development, and adoption, of new technologies will be accompanied by studies of the impact of those technologies on social competence knowledge.

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10 The composition of competence: Communication skills “Some glory in their birth, some in their skill” William Shakespeare (Sonnet 91, circa 1609)

Abstract: The importance of communication skills and competence to the quality of life is reviewed. Given the importance of communication, distinctions are delineated among the concepts of communication skills and communication competence. Three general approaches to identification and typology of communication skills are reviewed. Bricolage enumeration approaches extract and list skills based on available literature and research. Empirical derivation approaches use data-based approaches to extract higher-order factors or dimensions of skills. A priori approaches employ theories or conceptual models to identify skills. The prospect of a more unified approach is discussed, with the suggestion that new applications to contexts, media, and applications suggest promise in future approaches to communication skills and competence. Keywords: skills, communication skills, communication competence, ability, quality, deficits

Shakespeare proposes that some are born to ability or greatness, whereas others must acquire such competencies. Communication ability probably has its origins in both sources as well. Communication is the sine qua non of social life. From the day we are born we rely on communication as the primary process through which we experience and negotiate everyday life and organize all collective human endeavors. To the degree that people vary in their abilities to engage in communication, it has distinct implications for that person’s capacity for adapting and adjusting to life. Writ large across time and the course of the human species, differences in communication abilities may well have played important evolutionary roles in adaptive fitness (Iarocci, Yager, and Elfers 2007; Ordoñana et al. 2013). Given the importance of communication abilities, a consideration of its nature, structure, and scope is in order. This chapter proceeds by examining: 1. the importance of communication skills and abilities; 2. the definitions and distinctions among the key concepts of ability, skill, and competence; 3. the content of communication competence skills; and 4. directions for moving forward in the study and theory of communication competence skills.

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1 The importance of competent communication Beyond some of the basic necessities of survival, almost everything that matters to humans is derived from and through communication. How we learn the rules and norms of our language and culture, how we establish and negotiate relationships and how we find meaning in the things we do on an everyday basis is achieved entirely through the process of communication. The central and integral role of communication can be summarized in a basic set of syllogistic axioms: A1: Communication constitutes relationships. A2: Relationships are vital to quality and quantity of life. A3: Therefore, communication is vital to quality and quantity of life. Furthermore: A4: The greater the competence of communication, the greater the relationship quality. A5: The greater the relationship quality, the greater the quality of life. A6: Therefore, the greater the competence of communication, the greater the quality of life. This reasoning is far from merely a disciple’s rose-colored lens through which to view a resident discipline. Meta-analytic research by Holt-Lunstad, Smith, and Layton (2010) across 148 studies and over 300,000 participants, demonstrates that the availability of social connections has a material influence on mortality, comparable to or exceeding the effect of smoking and far more significant than alcohol consumption, flu vaccination, physical activity, body mass index, hypertension treatment and air pollution exposure. Shor, Roelfs, and Yogev (2013) meta-analyzed 50 studies representing over 100,000 persons, finding that, controlling for covariates, “lower levels of emotional support are associated with an 11 % higher risk of mortality” (p. 631). At a more relationally-focused level, a meta-analysis of 126 published studies involving over 72,000 individuals, examined the relationship between marital quality and health. “Greater marital quality was related to better health, with mean effects sizes from r = .07 to .21, including lower risk of mortality (r = .11) and lower cardiovascular reactivity during marital conflict (r = –.13)” (Robles et al. 2014, p. 140). In other meta-analyses, marital quality was also related to psychological well-being across both cross-sectional (r = .37) and longitudinal (r = .25) studies (Proulx, Helms, and Buehler 2007), as well as “depression and depressive symptoms” (r = –.42 for women, r = –.37 for men; Whisman 2001). Social skills are also strongly implicated in the development of learning disabilities (Forness and Kavale 1996), personality disorders (Muralidharan et al. 2011), crime (Smångs 2010) and academic success (Durlak, Weissberg, and Pachan 2010; Reed and Spicer 2003; cf., Duncan et al. 2007). Finally, communication competence and skills are considered essential to getting a job (Huffcutt 2011; Huffcutt et al. 2001; Peterson

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1997; Salgado and Moscoso 2002), keeping a job (Halim and Abhyankar 2011), working well with coworkers (Aguado et al. 2014; Bachiochi et al. 2000; LePine et al. 2008; Mesmer-Magnus and DeChurch 2009; Ortiz de Guinea, Webster, and Staples 2012; Salas et al. 2008), leadership (Burke et al. 2006; Müller and Turner 2010; Kaplan, Klebanov, and Sorensen 2012) and career success (Miller Burke and Attridge 2011; Conrad and Newberry 2012; Lievens and Sackett 2012; Miller Burke and Attridge 2011; Semadar, Robins, and Ferris 2006). Societies invest substantial percentages of their GDP attempting to manage the risk factors of pollution, lack of exercise, weight, lack of education, underemployment and unemployment, smoking, and vocational education and yet they spend virtually nothing to systematically enhance people’s abilities to relate better to one another through better communication. Better communication, it seems, is not just a matter of life and death, but also the degree of well-being and quality of life in-between (Spitzberg and Cupach 2011). This is only a truly significant problem, however, if the evidence indicates that there are substantial proportions of the population that are not skilled or not competent in their use of communication skills. There is some evidence to this effect. Estimates of the overall social competence of the population are notoriously variable (e.g., Becher 2001; Ilott 2001; Ivanova et al. 2007; Roberts, Attkisson, and Rosenblatt 1998) and are likely to vary by context, skill, and perceiver. Nevertheless, population estimates of meaningful deficits in social functioning, skills or ability, or severe loneliness or alienation, tend to vary between approximately 5 and 25 % (Hecht and Wittchen 1988; Inglés, Hidalgo, and Méndez 2005; Ryan and Shim 2006; Rubin 1981; Spitzberg and Cupach 2011; Vangelisti and Daly 1989). Such variability is small comfort however, as it suggests that by most estimates, there is some meaningful proportion of the population that is experiencing difficulties competently negotiating the necessities of everyday social life through their communication. Such deficits are reflected in employers’ assessments of the competency levels of the workforce they see in their interviews and applications. A survey of over 400 employers in the U.S. (Casner-Lotto and Benner 2006) asked about the adequacy of skills of those entering the workforce with a four-year degree. Substantial percentages considered such entrants as “deficient” in core skills and proficiencies, including written communication (27.8 %), leadership (23.8 %), oral communications (9.8 %), critical thinking/problem-solving (9.0 %), teamwork and collaboration (8.1 %) and information technology application ability (3.4 %). Casner-Lotto and Benner (2006) report a Conference Board survey of employers, finding high percentages of graduates with only a high school degree were “deficient” in a variety of skills considered important for entering the job market, including: written communication (81 %), critical thinking/problem solving (70 %), oral communication (53 %), reading comprehension (38 %), teamwork/collaboration (35 %), and information technology application (22 %). Even substantial percentages of two-year

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college and technical school graduates were considered deficient in written communications (47 %), critical thinking/problem solving (23 %), and oral communication (21 %). Four-year college graduates were considered deficient mostly in written communication (28 %) and leadership skills (24 %). Rates of specific communication competency among professionals and managers range from as low as 10 % for symbolic influence, to a high of 67 % for persuasion (Klemp 2001). These deficits are made worse by evidence that people in general tend to overestimate their own communicative competence (Fay et al. 2008) and as deficiency in communication skills increase, the self-awareness of this deficit decreases (Dunning, Heath, and Suls 2004; Kruger and Dunning 1999). In one study, speakers overestimated their effectiveness in being understood (72 %) compared to the listeners’ actual success in understanding (61 %) and relative to actual success in being understood by a listener, 80 % of “speakers showed a tendency to systematically overestimate” the extent to which they had been effective in sending a message (Keysar and Henly 2002). Employees systematically tend to rate their own job performance higher than supervisors rate the performance of those employees (Jaramillo, Carrillat, and Locander 2005; Korsgaard, Meglino, and Lester 2004) and there is evidence that as employees inflate their relative competence self-evaluations, the worse their actual performance is (Atkins and Wood 2002; Ehrlinger et al. 2008; Eichinger and Lombardo 2003, 2004; Schlösser et al. 2013). The collective evidence indicates that 1. conservatively, between 5 and 25 % of the adult population is seriously deficient in one or more basic communication skills; and 2. the people most deficient in communication skills tend to be the ones most unaware of such deficits. This lack of self-reflective awareness may itself be an integral part of the skill deficiency. Even if the lower bound estimates are accepted as the most legitimate, the evidence indicates that there are significant reasons for concern and for further exploring the nature, function, and scope of communication skills.

2 Definitions and delineations For some, the phrase “competence skills” may at first seem like a redundancy. In order to disentangle these two terms, another term, ability, will need consideration. A set of definitions for these terms is provided below, along with a rationale for these definitions and distinctions. Competence is defined here as an inference, or subjective judgment, of quality. “Competence is a social concept, a comparative judgment about the worth of performance” (Gilbert 1978: 29). Quality is indexed by some evaluative criterion or criteria considered relevant to the domain of application. For example, in a driver’s licensing exam, the criteria may be safety, whereas in a spelling bee, the criterion may be accuracy of expressed oral reproductions of oral stimulus words. In the

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domain of social and communicative interaction, the most commonly recognized criteria of quality are appropriateness and effectiveness. Research indicates that self-evaluated competence can imply both “can” (I can make friends) and “being” (I have friends), although these have a tendency to be related (Hughes, Galbraith and White 2011). Appropriateness is the perceived legitimacy or acceptability of behavior or enactments in a given context. Effectiveness is the relative degree to which preferred alternative outcomes are achieved by behavior or enactments. In any given context, appropriateness and effectiveness may be significantly qualified by other moderating criteria, such as efficiency. Efficiency is the minimizing function of inputs (e.g., effort, complexity, preparation, time) relative to outputs (i.e., preferable outcomes achieved, perhaps also relative to dispreferred outcomes achieved). Whereas efficiency may be an important moderator of effectiveness in a team meeting, it seems far less important to phatic or social communication (Sandstrom and Dunn 2014). Other criteria are often identified that are particular to the domain being investigated (e.g., timely, clear, pertinent, credible, accurate, responsible; professional; concise; and sincere; Marques 2010). The subjective, evaluative nature of competence becomes a crucial component of fully comprehending the concept of skill and ability. For example, a developing literature on the dark side of interpersonal relations and communication has called attention to the functional ambivalence of skills (Cupach and Spitzberg 1994, 2010; Spitzberg and Cupach 1998, 2007). There are skills that are normatively viewed as positive that nevertheless can function in detrimental ways in individual and personal relationships and there are skills that are normatively viewed as negative that can instead function in individually and relationally productive ways (see e.g., McNulty and Fincham 2012a, 2012b). For example, research suggests that the mental health value of relationships is determined more by the quality (or competence) of those relationships rather than their mere existence (Leach et al. 2013). In order for skill in communication to be fully modeled, it will be essential that the objective behaviors be separated from their subjective evaluation. There are other, more objective, dimensions along which abilities and skills are often evaluated, including speed (i.e., rate of execution), accuracy (i.e., minimization of error rate), flexibility (i.e., capacity for adapting to situational exigencies) and multiple-task performance, or the capacity for application of more than one skill at a time (Greene 2003). Other more objective features would involve interactional features, such as timing coordination (e.g., gaps between speaking turns, overlaps of talk; Heldner and Edlund 2010), behavioral meshing, interaction rhythms, and behavioral simultaneity (Toma 2014) and behavioral mimicry (e.g., Schmidt et al. 2012; Sonnby-Borgstrom, Jönsson, and Svensson 2003). Ability is often associated with competence. Foote and Cottrell (1955: 36) state that “competence is a synonym for ability”. Matsumoto (2004: 273) claims that “competence is often associated with intelligence and ‘innate’ abilities”. Ability is the capacity for achieving an identified outcome through repeatable goal-directed

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enactments with a high degree of consistency and intentionality. Skills are the specific behavioral components that enable (i.e., make possible) that ability. Specifically, skills are defined as “intentionally repeatable, goal-directed behaviors and behavior sequences” (Spitzberg 2003: 95). Both abilities and skills share several common characteristics. First, most skills and abilities have both genetic and learned (Iarocci, Yager and Elfers 2007; Ordoñana et al. 2013; see also Beatty and Pascual-Ferrá, this volume) and intergenerational (Burke, Woszidlo and Segrin 2013) components. Some abilities may be primarily genetic (e.g., breathing, grasping), but even these are subject to substantial variation based on learning. For example, opera singers significantly alter and enhance their breathing and professional basketball players significantly alter and enhance their grasping abilities to serve their crafts. Second, abilities and skills are the surface manifestation of deeper cognitive, motivational and physiological capacities. Reflex movements and some communicative disorders, may make use of the same motor mechanisms that are used in some abilities and skills, but are probably substantially less accessible to the same higher-order cognitive and executive control processes involved in most complex social abilities and skills. Much of the foundation of concepts of abilities and skills in communication contexts are predicated on social learning theory (Bandura 1977, 1982, 1990) and cybernetic models of social skill adaptation (e.g., Argyle 1969, 1981; Argyle, Furnham, and Graham 1981). At a basic level, these conceptualizations assume that behavioral responses to self’s behaviors are observed, interpreted for their informational value in understanding appropriate pursuit of goals in a social context and this information is used to guide subsequent adaptation of goal-directed behavior. Third, abilities and skills are generally considered phenomena that can be defined and observed in relatively objective terms. Because abilities and skills have overtly observable behavioral components (in addition to cognitive and motivational components), at least part of their performance can be objectively described. These components and their enactment can be articulated at various levels of abstraction (Vallacher and Wegner 1987), from relatively molecular/micro to relatively molar/macro levels (Spitzberg, 2003). This continuum represents the granularity of conceptualizing and assessing the skill or ability and implicitly, the concreteness or objectivity of the behavior being described. Yet, even at relatively granular levels, whenever labels or categories are employed to represent a class of behaviors or behavioral deficits or disturbances, there is room for varying degrees of overlap and disagreement across skills and their labels. For example, there are a variety of classification systems for speech sound disorders, representing varying degrees of overlap and non-overlap across taxonomies, despite the highly biological nature of the disorders (Waring and Knight 2013). More as an exemplar in typical interaction, knowing when it is appropriate to take a turn at talk in a conversation (Heldner and Edlund 2010; Nevile 2007; Wilson and Wilson 2005) can be described in ways

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varying from “take turns with minimal disruption to the flow of conversation” (highly molar/macro) to “try to avoid overlap, interruptions and long delays in talk initiation” (moderate/mezzo), to more molecular or micro descriptions of prosody, volume, intonation shifts, postural rigidity, eye contact initiation, response tokens, discourse and syntactic markers, talk projection, deep versus shallow interruptions and counter-phased. Similarly, a person might be described generally as “a good public speaker”, which is a highly molar impression of some composite of microlevel skills that comprised the basis for such an inference. Explicit theoretical models have been proposed to contend with these issues of abstraction. For example, Pavitt (1982, 1989, 1990; Pavitt and Haight 1982, 1985, 1986; see also Canary and MacGregor 2008) proposed that people formulate a cognitive prototype of a “competent communication”, which is a relatively abstract valenced mental model of a good communicator. This prototype is variegated into some sets of more molecular behaviors or skills that are believed to be associated with or linked to that prototype. So, to the extent that people tend to believe that competent communicators make moderate amounts of eye contact and follow up comments with occasional questions that are topically relevant, then these skills become inferentially linked to the prototype. Presumably the prototype can operate in dual directions. That is, the conclusion that someone was a competent communicator might drive conclusions that the person must have engaged in the behaviors that are linked to that inference. Conversely, encountering a communicator who engages in a set of behaviors that a perceiver associates with a competent prototype is likely to thereby imply that communicator’s competence. Vallacher, Wegner, and Somoza (1989) proposed an action identification theory regarding overlearning and skill. In particular, difficult and challenging tasks require an attention to the micro-level features of the skills required to manage the task. Once that skill becomes mastered at a higher level of proficiency, it becomes more efficient to cognitively package those micro-level concepts into broader, more macro-level understandings of the skill and task. Thus, for example, when communicators were given a difficult task, they performed more competently (i.e., fewer speech errors, greater satisfaction) when focused more on the micro-level features of their behavior and the task, but when the task was easy, attention to such microlevel details actually impaired competent performance. In general, “performance can be disrupted when attention is drawn to the overlearned details of an action” (Vallacher, Wegner, and Somoza 1989: 204). This helps explain why the most proficient or competent performers in any skilled domain often are incapable of articulating how or why they are so much more competent than others – they no longer have cognitive access to the overlearned content of their skills. Fourth, the relative objectivity of skills and their variation in abstraction and granularity are important characteristics to their potential for intervention and improvement. The ability to learn and improve is also characteristic of abilities and skills and are crucial to the potential for analyzing, teaching, and learning the

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specific components of the ability or skill. A fifth characteristic of abilities and skills and closely related to the previous two common characteristics, is that abilities and skills manifest individual differences and variability. That is, people vary in their abilities and skills. This may seem obvious, but it is fundamental to the prospect of measuring abilities and skills and requires attention to the underlying distributional assumptions. For example, abilities are commonly assumed to be normally distributed, yet empirical research on a variety of indicators of achievement and performance quality suggest that many abilities and skills (e.g., acting, sports, scholarly publication) are distributed in a Paretian manner, with a small percentage of excellent performers and the vast tailing distribution comprising the substantial majority of the population consisting of mediocre abilities in such domains of achievement (Aguinis and O’Boyle 2014; O’Boyle and Aguinis 2012; cf., Beck, Beatty, and Sackett 2014). If there is no variability, then no concept of relative subjective quality of performance is possible. Sixth, abilities and skills intrinsically involve chronemic features, such as sequence and timing (Nevile 2007). Skills occur in time and space. Turn-taking, narration, humor, greeting rituals, politeness phenomena, accounts, and other forms of social skill are not mere composites of behavioral subroutines. Instead, they are considered skilled in part because of the adaptation of their sequence and timing to the context. Imagine performing any basic speech acts in reverse and their sensitivity to timing becomes obvious. Seventh, abilities and skills are necessarily embedded in social context. The skill of twerking may involve a combination of genetic and learned abilities and it may consist of objectively definable actions, but it seems difficult to argue that it is some form of fundamental or intrinsic human skill. Its connection to evolutionary adaptive functions, or biological imperatives, is at most indirect. Its relevance, nomenclature, and importance are socially defined and constructed. Thus, humans may be hard-wired to communicate and even develop language, but any particular applied use of such abilities in a manner that could be considered “skilled” will be substantially mediated by social perceptions of contextual relevance, appropriateness, effectiveness, and so forth. These distinctions among ability, skill and competence are not universally held. Competence is widely understood as a synonym for ability and all three terms are often thought to be, at some level, fundamentally objective phenomena. Such a belief is understandable, when applied to binary types of outcomes, such as the ability to make a free throw in basketball, or the ability to articulate a particular phoneme according to a given pragmatic rule of pronunciation and speaker comprehension. When applied to “social ability”, “social skills”, and “social competence”, however, there are probably few if any binary outcomes to define performance. Instead, the vast majority, if not all, social communication activities involve gradations of quality, as defined by the participants, their social context, and their ongoing interactional negotiation.

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Even in common usage, the implicit subjective continuum of quality is implicit in these terms. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED online 2014), for example, traces one of the earliest relevant meanings of “skill” to mean “a sense of what is right or fitting” and “a wise and sensible act” (1175, 1568, respectively) and as a “capability of accomplishing something with precision and certainty; practical knowledge in combination with ability; cleverness, expertness. Also, an ability to perform a function, acquired or learnt with practice” (1300). The word “ability” arose around a similar era (1398), meaning “suitableness of adaptation for a purpose; fitness, aptitude” and “the quality in a person or thing which makes an action possible; suitable or sufficient power or proficiency; capability, capacity to do” (italics in original). Competence originated with somewhat different origins than later attributed, but by the 1800s, could be used to characterize the “adequacy of a work; legitimacy of a logical conclusion; propriety”. All three common uses, therefore, imply subjective dimensions of quality: “right”, “fitting”, “wise”, “sensible”, “fitness”, “quality”, “cleverness”, “expertness”, “suitableness”, “adequacy”, “legitimacy”, and “propriety”. As early as the 1930s, Doll (1935, 1953) was investigating an analogue to social intelligence in the form of social competence, which was defined “as a functional composite of human traits which subserves social usefulness as reflected in self-sufficiency and in service to others” (Doll 1953: 2). The intrinsically subjective nature of competence judgments necessarily locates competence in the realm of the evaluative. Consistent with McFall (1982) and Spitzberg and Cupach (1984), ability will be used here as a reference to the substrate cognitive, affective, and physiological processes that enable skills, skills will refer to the observable behavioral sequences and enactments that are performed in a communication episode, and competence will refer to the evaluations made of those skills (Spitzberg 2013. This distinction between “skills” as discrete behaviors and “competence” as a social evaluation has been recognized by many others and suggests a potential growing consensus (e.g., Rose-Krasnor 1997; Sheridan, Hungelmann, and Maughan 1999). Despite this scholarly position, people continue in common usage to confuse the concepts. For example, in noting the variability in definitions, Lillvist and colleagues (2009) found that teachers tend to define social competence primarily as intrapersonal skills (e.g., self-esteem, empathy, autonomy, problem-solving, engagement), or as interpersonal relations (e.g., popularity, peer group leadership, communication, and interaction). The fact requires consideration that the qualifiers “social” and “communicative” are often used to delimit or categorize the concepts of skills and competence. The term social suggests merely that the skill or competence evaluation occur in a context of two or more people engaged in interaction. The term communication indicates that a process of influence and meaning exchange is, has, or will occur as a consequence of interaction. If the Palo Alto School’s axiom is accepted regarding the impossibility of not communicating in a social context, that “one cannot not communicate” (Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson 1967), then the terms “social” and “communicative” are redundant in reference to competence and skills.

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A particular extension of this axiom has implications for understanding skills that is widely understood, but seldom explicitly articulated. Skills are often conceptualized, labeled, or proposed that represent the lack of some set of behaviors. For example, social anxiety, communication apprehension, shyness, low verbal productivity, passivity, and withdrawal are often identified as skill deficits. Thus, a person who twitches, stutters, or displays “nervous” shaking of hands or limbs is often presumed to “lack” a social skill. If one cannot not communicate, then shaking and twitches communicate this lack of skill. The question then becomes, what is the skill of “not” twitching or shaking? As such, any skill deficit carries with it an implicit suggestion of its opposite – the skill that implies a proficiency rather than a deficit of that skill. In the case of social anxiety or communication apprehension, the skill might be defined as “confidence”, “composure”, or “relaxation”, or “assertiveness”. It seems clear, however, that these opposites have shades of meaning and implication that are themselves distinct. Similarly, verbal supportiveness or benevolence appears to imply its opposite of verbal aggressiveness (Kotowski et al. 2009; Levine et al. 2004). Thus, conceptual distinctions must be made in any given instance whether a skill can be defined as “not” doing something (e.g., shaking or twitches), or if by implication, the skill is defined by precisely what is being done instead. That is, skills often need to be defined by negative or absence indicators as well as positive or presence indicators as well. In general, skills are probably best conceived in aspirational terms, which represent the positive or more ideal aspects of the skill, rather than the mere avoidance of not demonstrating deficits of the skill. This may involve unlearning in the process of learning or re-learning a behavioral sequence of behaviors. To a large extent, this issue is intertwined with common notions of “minimal” versus “optimal” competence approaches. A person might be considered minimally competent when completing a mock or analogue interview without any verbal stumbles or dysfluencies and optimally competent if the fluency displayed not only avoided stumbles, but also demonstrated moderately varying prosody, pitch, rhythm, and facial expressiveness consistent with such vocal variety. The tripartite distinction of ability, skill, and competence permits three separate approaches to enumerating communication competence skills: the enabling abilities, the manifest behavioral skills, and the types of evaluations applied to those skills. Because the abilities are covered elsewhere in this volume and given that the emphasis here is on the skills element, this chapter will focus on skills that are normatively associated with subjective evaluations of quality (i.e., competence). It is well understood that this latter distinction, between manifest behavioral skills and the subjective judgments applied to those skills, raises a wide variety of challenges (Spitzberg 1993, 1994a). Two of the most vexing problems in distinguishing skills from competence are: 1. perceptual discrepancy – there may be skills commonly defined or assumed as competent, but not uniformly perceived as competent by interactants or judges, or

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skills defined as incompetent but perceived as competent by interactants or judges (Achenbach 2005; Blanchard et al. 2009; Carrell and Willmington 1996, 1998; Conway and Huffcutt 1997; Cummings et al. 2010; Harris and Schaubroeck 1988; Kenny 1994; Lanning et al. 2011; Leising et al. 2011; Mabe and West 1982; Renk and Phares 2004; Spitzberg 1993, 1994a); and 2. perceptual ambivalence – there may be skills that are perceived as effective but not appropriate, or appropriate but not effective, thereby confusing the competence of the behavior (Garner 2012; Nicotera et al. 2012; Spitzberg, 1993, 1994a). Rather than view these as definitional problems, however, they may be more productively viewed as theoretical and empirical problems to be resolved in particular applications and based on local circumstances of the researchers, or the interlocutors. For example, biased self-assessment in itself appears to be a marker of communicative incompetence – those whose self-perceptions are inflated relative to peers’ views are the most likely to be communicatively incompetent (Dunning, Heath, and Suls 2004; Ehrlinger et al. 2008; Kruger and Dunning 1999). If theory and measurement are to advance, they will require greater consensus on definitional distinctions. The challenges of definition are further revealed by the research on the composition of communicative competence and the skills that elicit such judgments of competence.

3 The contents of social skills There are many approaches to identifying the skills of competent communication. Although there are many variations on such approaches, most appear to fall into one of three methods of skill identification. First, skills can be selectively extracted from the relevant existing conceptual or empirical literature and then enumerated. This approach is referred to here as the bricolage enumeration method. Bricolage derives from the French for tinkering and is recognized as assembling something from the diverse materials available. A second method involves empirical derivation, in which skills are observed, measured, and linked to some defined outcome(s) or criteria relevant to competence. Third, skills may be selectively derived from conceptual or theoretical models that explicitly conjecture or posit the importance or relevance of the skill. This approach is referred to as the a priori conceptual method. These approaches are not mutually exclusive and indeed, are probably most usefully applied in combination.

3.1 Bricolage enumeration approaches Historically, one of the most common is probably one of the least useful – the selective “list technique” (Spitzberg 1987). The list approach involves selective citation of skills either derived from existing literature or positing a priori skills expect-

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ed to comprise competence in communication. To some degree, most emerging literatures are likely to evolve with a substantial dose of the list approach to identifying skills or abilities or components comprising competence. A problem with such approaches, however, is that there is minimal assurance of representativeness, empirical validity, and freedom from theoretical or cultural biases (e.g., Spitzberg 1993, 1994a, 1994b). Some approaches to listing skills, in contrast, systematically attempt to achieve reasonable levels of representativeness by seeking relative exhaustion and saturation of literature in a given domain. For example, Spitzberg and Cupach (1989, 2011) identified over 100 empirically-derived factors or dimensions of interpersonal or communicative competence. Spitzberg and Cupach (2002) identified over 100 skills that had demonstrated empirical associations with marital (mal)adjustment or (dis)satisfaction. Spitzberg and Changnon (2009) identified over 100 skills and competencies associated with intercultural communication competence. If such lists remained mere procrustean enumerations of skills, they would serve relatively little theoretical value. However, such lists were subsequently recategorized either through the lens of an a priori conceptual model, or by a more inductively-based classification. Such attempts at classification serve to identify potential underlying commonalities that might be masked by fragmented or disciplinary argot. In these accumulations, Spitzberg and colleagues identified that most of the skills and competencies could be roughly categorized into a quintadic configuration of motivation, knowledge, skills, context, and outcomes. Within the skills component, most skills could be classified into one of four basic clusters or families of communication skills: attentiveness, composure, coordination, and expressiveness. Attentiveness is the skill of paying attention to, interest in, and concern for other interlocutors in the communicative context. It includes skills such as, but not exclusively limited to, listening, eye contact, body orientation, topic continuance and follow-up, and asking of questions. Composure is the skill of displaying calm, confidence, and a sense of control over one’s actions. Composed speech tends to appear purposeful and coherent and consistent with communicator intentions. It would be displayed both by a lack of certain negative indicators (e.g., twitches, dysfluencies, asymmetric body animation), as well as more positive indicators (e.g., internal fluency and coherence of verbal utterances, consistency of bodily and facial expressions with verbal content). Coordination skills refer to the nondisruptive management of the ebb and flow of the communicative interchange. It involves the entering into, initiation of, maintenance of, and closure of or exit from interaction sequences and episodes. Coordination includes behaviors involved in turn-taking, topic initiation, balancing of talk time or verbal productivity, interruptions, overlap, response latencies, and topic maintenance. Expressiveness skills refer to the variation and animation of verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Expressiveness capitalizes on variability in intensity, rate, extremity, and activity levels of movement and speech and the degree to which these facets comport with the in-

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tended speech acts being produced. This tetradic classification of communication skills has been translated into several assessment approaches (e.g., Spitzberg 2007, 2011; Spitzberg and Hurt 1987). Klein, DeRouin, and Salas (2006) classified over 400 terms or skills associated with workplace interpersonal skills into two macro categories, each with several more micro subcategories. First, communication skills comprised active listening, oral communication, written communication, assertive communication, and nonverbal communication. Second, relationship-building skills consisted of cooperation and coordination, trust, intercultural sensitivity, service orientation, self-presentation, social influence, and conflict resolution and negotiation. Each of these was formally defined and related skills were also identified. This classification was presented as a taxonomy of interpersonal skills. Klein (2009: 68) conducted a metaanalysis of several search engines and reviews on the terms “interpersonal skills, social skills, people skills, interpersonal skills training, social skills training, communication skills, active listening, nonverbal communication, assertive communication, relationship-building skills, cooperation and coordination, cross-cultural relations, intercultural sensitivity, customer service orientation, empathy, self-presentation, influence, persuasion and conflict resolution and negotiation”. The resulting articles were screened for relevance and coded according to 22 variables. Klein identified “communication”, “relationship-building”, “general interpersonal skills”, and “knowledge of interpersonal skills” as categories capable of encapsulating most studies. The bricolage enumeration approach is best viewed as preparatory to one of the other two approaches. That is, generating broad lists of skills is valuable in surveying the domain of relevant skills. By itself, however, generating lists accomplishes relatively little in the development of theory or testable research propositions. There is also relatively little quality control in such approaches to assure that social validity concerns are considered (i.e., whether the skills selected are actually important and relevant to a given domain).

3.2 Empirical derivation approaches There is at least one empirically-based approach to identification of competence skills. This endeavor is a methodologically rigorous approach to the list or enumeration method. Meta-analytic methods can be applied to skills research traditions to identify those types of skills that are linked to relevant outcomes, or even simply represented throughout a given literature. Arthur et al. (2003; see also Sagie and Magnezy 1997) sought to identify interpersonal skills relevant to workplace assessment centers. Examining 34 articles reporting dimensions of assessment, they identified six dimensions that could demonstrate criterion-related validity: communication (i.e., conveying oral or written information and responding to questions or challenges), consideration/awareness (i.e., demonstrating concern or consideration for feelings and needs of others and an awareness of the effects or implications

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of institutional decisions), drive (i.e., initiation, activity, and achievement level), influencing others (i.e., ability to persuade others and influence the convictions of others), organizing and planning (i.e., systematic arrangement of work and resources for efficient task accomplishment), problem solving (i.e., gathering, comprehension, analysis, and use of relevant information in managing institutional challenges), and tolerance for stress/uncertainty (i.e., maintains composure and effectiveness in diverse situations involving pressure or challenge). Many if not most of these dimensions included, or were primarily defined by, communication-relevant skills. A second type of empirical approach is exemplified in the work by Wisecarver, Carpenter, and Kilcullen (2007; see also: Carpenter and Wisecarver 2004; Carpenter et al. 2005: 87), in which they inductively identified job performance dimensions of Special Forces personnel in the military. They recognized that “because Special Forces missions are executed in foreign countries with indigenous personnel, effective interaction skills are crucial for success”. Thus, they reduced 15 dimensions of job performance ratings to six latent factors: job-specific task proficiency (including teaching others, building effective relations with indigenous populations, using language, planning/preparing for missions, decision-making), non-job specific task proficiency (including confronting physical challenges, navigating in the field, being safety conscious, first aid), management (including managing administrative duties, troubleshooting/solving problems), peer-team interaction (including handling interpersonal situations, contribution to the team effort), discipline (i.e., honesty/integrity) and effort (i.e., showing initiative and effort). Factor analysis indicated the value of splitting the job-specific task factor (planning/preparing for missions, decision-making) into an additional interpersonal job-specific task proficiency factor (i.e., teaching others, building effective relations, using language). Other empirically-derived approaches have attempted to sample the communication behaviors of employees and then identify their importance or competence. Each of these studies engaged in an iterative inductive process of generating representative behaviors and then analyzed the behaviors in terms of their frequency, importance, or competence. For example, Gray and Murray (2011; see also Conrad and Newberry 2012) identified 27 communication skills used by accountants and asked practicing accountants the importance of these skills and the degree to which new graduates demonstrated those skills. The skills were categorized into the following macro classes: listening skills, collegial communication skills, client communication skills, communication skills with management, and general audience analysis skills. Keyton et al. (2013) inductively generated 163 communication tasks performed in organizational contexts and had employees rate the frequency of encountering these skills in the previous workday. When the top 44 behaviors were factor-analyzed, four factors emerged, representing the skills of informationsharing (e.g., explaining, addressing others, giving feedback), relational maintenance (e.g., questioning, accommodating others, using humor, telling stories), ex-

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pressing negative emotions (e.g., expressing frustration, complaining), and organizing (e.g., scheduling, seeking approval, managing others, resolving problems). A recently developing approach stands to potentially define much of the future of understanding communication competence and skills and yet has arrived from fields seldom affiliated with cognate communication disciplines. A line of research centered in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is increasingly demonstrating that new skills constructs can be empirically derived from patterns of automatically recorded communication behavior and that these skills are powerfully predictive or discriminative of 1. type of activity or conversation, function of communication, location of interactants; 2. subjective evaluations of satisfaction, interest, attraction; and 3. objective outcomes such as cooperativeness of negotiated outcome, distribution of speaking time, and participation and exchange of business cards or contact information for subsequent romantic dating (see: Curhan and Pentland 2007; Eagle and Pentland 2009; Jayagopi et al. 2012; Kim et al. 2012; Olguín et al. 2009; Paradiso et al. 2010; for review, see: Pentland 2007). Specifically, among other innovations, this group has designed “sociometric badges” that are mechanical devices worn by persons and that can automatically record activities such as sitting, standing, walking, running, body orientation toward other interlocutors, interactant proximity, who is talking with whom and a variety of chronemic and paralinguistic cues, such as total speaking time, frequency of speaking turns, silences, and frequency of successful and unsuccessful interruptions. Furthermore, to the extent that all participants in a social network or system are wearing these badges, relational or interactional features of these behavior streams can be analyzed using social network approaches, which gets beyond the mere individual level of analysis. As an example of empirically-derived skills, Curhan and Pentland (2007) identified four patterns of “social signaling”: activity, engagement, emphasis, and mirroring. Activity is measured by the amount or proportion of time a person is speaking. In the social skills literature it is commonly referred to as talk-time and has long been recognized as a strong predictor of subjective impressions of quality and influence (Dillard and Spitzberg, 1984). It is also closely related to the coordination and attentiveness skills noted above. Engagement is the impact of one person on the other(s) as indexed by turn-taking patterns, modeled as a Markov process (i.e., the conditional probability that one person is speaking given the prior state of speaking or not speaking of the prior person). High engagement reflects high rates of back-and-forth contribution, whereas low engagement reflects long latencies between turns. Engagement is therefore related to the expressiveness and coordination skills noted above. Emphasis refers to speech prosody, comprised of the variations in volume and pitch of speech production. Greater dynamic range in volume and pitch reflects greater emphasis in speech. This is clearly related to the expressiveness skill noted previously. Finally, mirroring represents dyadic mimicry of behavior. In the case of Curhan and Pentland’s (2007) research, mirroring was mod-

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eled in relation to the rate of reciprocated short utterances as a particular type of proxy for vocal mimicry. Other potential skills identified include displays of excitement (rapid and very modulated body movement and speech), freezing (minimal body movement or speech), determination (rapid responses with minimal body movement or speech modulation), and friendly (highly modulated body movement and speech combined with mirroring and listening behavior). The social relevance of these skills was demonstrated in a negotiation experiment, in which only the first five minutes of conversation was significantly and often strongly predictive of negotiation outcomes, accounting for 30 % of the variance in personal outcomes. In their programs of work, they have found that they could account for 1. 96 % of the variance of daily human activities by the eigenbehaviors of “the weekend pattern, the working late pattern and the socializing pattern” (Pentland 2007: 62); 2. 95 % of the variance in individual conversational proximity by knowing other interactants’ proximity; 3. over 90 % of affiliations and friendships; 4. 80 % of business card exchanges in business meetings; 5. 72 % of exchange of phone numbers in a speed dating activity; and 6. 87 % of ratings of successful outcomes of a call center (Pentland 2007). They have also demonstrated an ability to differentiate brainstorming from decision-making interactions based on the profile of behaviors comprising these social signals (Jayagopi et al. 2012) and guide feedback interventions that increase the collaborativeness of decisionmaking groups (Kim et al. 2012). All of this is thus far accomplished with no analysis of the content of the speech processes being monitored. Empirically-derived approaches have the benefit of providing a degree of objectivity in regard to comprehensiveness and the search for underlying causes and dimensions of communication skills. As such, they provide the best path toward theory-testing and knowledge accumulation. On the other hand, as is often the case, the principle of GIGO (garbage in–garbage out) may apply. If a thorough, systematic, and objective approach is not undertaken in the earliest stages of populating the skills, then it is unlikely that productive results can be achieved.

3.3 A priori conceptual approaches A third approach to identifying the communication skills involved in competence is theoretical in nature. Here the term “theory” is taken broadly to include a priori models, conceptual schemes, taxonomies, or typologies. To the extent that existing measures or assessments are overlaid or fit into such models or schemes, it would also be considered a theoretical approach. There are easily hundreds of models and conceptual schemes speculating on the structure of interpersonal relations and communicative abilities. Some approaches propose elegant binary separations, such as speaking and listening (Monge et al. 1982), or displaying versus perceiving behavior (e.g., Elfenbein and Eisenkraft 2010; Elfenbein et al. 2010). One of the most resilient families of conceptual

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schemas presents two-dimensional models to map interpersonal behavior and, implicitly or explicitly, the skills that reflect those quadrants or circumplex facets (e.g., Benjamin 1974; Benjamin, Rothweiler, and Critchfield 2006; D’Andrade and Wish 1985; Leary 1957; Schrodt 2005; Wish, D’Andrade, and Goodnow 1980). An alternative approach to mapping the domain of communication skills is to consider the skills selected for review by major edited volumes on the topic. Early approaches tended to typologize skills according to contexts. Hollin and Trower (1986) proposed viewing social skills with(in): children, adolescents/young adults, education, with delinquents, adults, managers, criminals, elderly and in community or intercultural contexts. Contemporary typologies of interpersonal communication skills retain a significant influence of context, although they also tend to emphasize the functional aspects of skills as well. For example, Hargie (1997) selected the following to comprise the major skills of interest: nonverbal, questioning, reinforcement, reflecting, explaining, self-disclosure, listening, humor/laughter, asserting/confronting, group, negotiating/bargaining, relational, and interviewing. Greene and Burleson (2003) selected: 1. fundamental: nonverbal communication, interaction remediation, message production, message reception, impression management; 2. function-focused: informing/explaining, arguing, persuasion, managing conflict, emotional support, narrative; 3. personal relationship: friendship skills, romantic relationship skills, couple communication skills, parenting skills; and 4. negotiation, group decision-making, health communication, and intercultural communication. A priori conceptual approaches have the advantage of being able to see the “big picture” of an area and make choices about what needs to be included and what needs to be excluded. Everyday communicators can be surprisingly ignorant or forgetful about their actual communication behavior. According to a study by Stafford and Daly (1984), interactants could only accurately recall about 10 % of the detail of a conversation they had only five minutes prior. Comparing automated sensing of conversations to the self-reported diaries of four interactants across two days of data, Choudhury and Pentland (2003) found that the interactants only agreed about half of the time in identifying the conversations they had encountered with each other. In short, empirically-derived approaches carry with them the credibility of statistical inference, but they are often based on flawed self-reports of such behaviors, which may or may not reflect actual skills, or the actual skills that are most important. On the other hand, a priori conceptual approaches suffer from the theoretical, paradigmatic and the socio-cultural biases of the authors (Spitzberg 1994b).

4 Emerging from the nettle chaos The current state of nettle chaos in conceptualizing communication competence presents a truly daunting terrain to navigate (Rickheit, Strohner, and Vorwerg

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2008). Competence is applied to each new context or topic that arises, including such diverse applications as the following: leadership competence (Singh 2013), social work competence (Bakx et al. 2002), civic competence (Hoskins, Saisana, and Villalba 2014; Shah, McLeod, and Lee 2009), intercultural competence (Spitzberg and Changnon, 2009; van der Zee and van Oudenhoven 2013), secondlanguage speaking (Sawaki 2007), sales (Downing 2011; Rentz et al. 2002), accountancy (Gray and Murray 2011), organizational (Jablin and Sias 2013; Payne 2005), mobile communication (Bakke 2010; Hwang 2011), computer-mediated communication (Sanders 2011; Spitzberg 2006), social media (Jenkins-Guarnieri, Wright, and Johnson 2013), digital competence (media competence (Koltay 2011; Pérez-Mateo, Romero, and Romeu 2014; Perrin and Ehrensberger-Dow 2008; Southard 2011), public speaking (Schreiber, Paul, and Shibley 2012), flirtation (Egland, Spitzberg, and Zormeier 1996), heterosocial (Grover, Nangle, Serwik, Fales and Prenoveau 2013), romantic (Shulman, Davila, and Shachar-Shapira 2011) and relational competence (L’Abate et al. 2010). Competence and communication skills are often difficult to differentiate from a panoply of cognate constructs. Competence can be found under a variety of rubrics, including: Emotional/social/cultural intelligence (Barchard and Hakstian 2004; Crowne 2013; Joseph and Newman 2010; Troth, Jordan and Lawrence 2012), soft skills (Balaji and Somashekar 2009; Marques 2013), political skill (Ferris et al. 2005; Lvina et al. 2012), linguistic competence, interpersonal/conversational/social/interaction skills competence, social functioning, social problem-solving, social self-efficacy, nonverbal communication competence (Puccinelli 2008, 2010), social effectiveness (Heggestad and Morrison 2008; Schlegel, Grandjean, and Scherer 2013), as well as interpersonal difficulties (Inglés, Hidalgo, and Méndez 2005) and strengths (Hatcher and Rogers 2012). Measures of competence are commonly translated and examined for their ability to reproduce factor structures and reliability in other cultures and languages, such as Poland (Górska 2011), Switzerland (Hofmann, Schori, and Abel 2012), Mexico (Torres 2013), Korea (Yum 2012) and Japan (Matsudaira, Fukuhara, and Kitamura 2008). Such generalizability is also examined for various age groups, such as preschool (Santos, Peceguina, Daniel, Shin and Vaughn 2013), elementary school children (Fink, Rosnay, Peterson and Slaughter 2013) and middle-school children (Ying-Chun, Hong, and Zhi-Yong 2006). Such work is essential for long-term accumulation of knowledge, but also are likely to remain only as good as the original formulations of these measures. Such semantic, conceptual, and empirical chaos is not uncommon in the social sciences. There are approaches to sorting through some of these ambiguities. For example, Spitzberg and Cupach (2011) propose aligning skills and competence along a continuum from more micro-level behaviors and skills (e.g., encouragements/agreements, head nods, asking questions) to mezzo-level dimensions (e.g., attentiveness, composure, coordination), which would then be linked through em-

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Fig. 1: A taxonomic approach to associating communication skills to competencies.

pirical research to both skill functions (e.g., empathy, concern, support) and their associated mezzo-level functions (e.g., intimacy, predictability, openness). Finally, at any level of this typology, skill components could be empirically associated with the subjective molar evaluations (e.g., appropriateness, effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, etc.) that are considered most relevant. An example of organizing constructs in this way is depicted in Figure 1. Each set of skill components and each paired set of associations could itself represent a study, but eventually the intent would be a more comprehensive map of the domain of communication skills and their relationship to competence. In addition to formulating higher-order organizing schemes and models for the expansive research on communicative competence and skills, it will be important to continue pursuing intervention strategies that demonstrate skill enhancement. Ordinarily, it seems improbable that it would be possible, much less advisable, to teach skills before it is clear what those skills are and how they fit into a broader conceptual framework. Nevertheless, research generally indicates that a variety of communication and social skills can be improved through training (see, e.g., Arthur et al. 1998; Blanch-Hartigan, Andrzejewski, and Hill 2012; Blanchard et al. 2009; Hawkins et al. 2012; Hill and Lent 2006; McAllister, Duncan, and Hawkins

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2012). Research also indicates that there are certain modalities or technologies (e.g., Cook, Levinson, and Garside 2010) that facilitate learning and learning transfer, such as types of feedback (Fukkink, Trienekens, and Kramer 2011; Kluger and DeNisi 1996), role-playing (Stokoe 2013), behavior modeling (Taylor, Russ-Eft, and Chan 2005) and open training objectives (Blume et al. 2010). It is natural then that such practical applications occur alongside ongoing theory and assessment development. Chaos can give rise to insight and order. There are reasonable theoretical architectures for explaining skills (e.g., Greene 1997, 2000, 2003), but not necessarily for describing skills. This deficit exists in part because the definition or description of a skill will always to some extent be an individual, social, and cultural (co)construction. That is, people will always be able to invent new things they seek to do through communication. Some functions seem relatively durable, such as to influence, to explain, to entertain, and so forth. Other skills (e.g., speed of comprehensible articulation) seem to serve fairly specific functions or contexts (e.g., auctioneering). Thus, any typology or taxonomy of communication skills will to some degree be a particular instantiation of a particular time, place, and purpose, all of which are socially mercurial. This does not prevent theory construction so much as open the theorists and psychometrician’s toolboxes. The intent of this chapter has been primarily devoted to clarifying some of the implications of carefully considering the options and choices involved in selecting and using those tools.

5 Glory by birth or by skill The terrain of human communication is a vast canvas upon which many maps may be applied. No single map will be sufficient, but this is not the same as suggesting that all maps are equally valid. As suggested in Chapter 22, conceptualization and assessment need to complement one another in making a priori decisions that will inform subsequent assessment efforts. Valid approaches to understanding communication skills will not be born from simple lists of skills or factor analyses of items derived from such lists. Formulating conceptions of skills is itself a skill and should be informed by a vast existing literature and an extensive history of lessons learned about the a priori decisions that need to be made and the skills to be mastered before a valid approach to communication skills is likely to emerge.

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V. Personal factors

Michael J. Beatty and Paola Pascual-Ferrá

11 Genetics and communication competence Abstract: Behavioral genetics research has indicated that a wide range of social behaviors and behavioral patterns are functions of neurobiological structures that are partly determined by genetic inheritance. Aspects of social behaviors associated with the dimensions of communication competence are among them. This chapter reviews the relevant research and theory. Keywords: genetic inheritance, neurobiological moderators, studies of twins, genetics, message processing

Everyday experience is probably sufficient to lead to the conclusion that some people are more competent than others in social situations. Even casual observation reveals that, at one end of the continuum are articulate, witty, confident, and appropriately responsive communicators that balance listening and talk time, and seem interesting as well as interested in others. At the other end of the continuum, their less competent counterparts struggle to maintain conversations, behave either in reticent or arrogant ways, say little or dominate conversations, and either use inappropriate humor or demonstrate no sense of humor whatsoever. One theoretically compelling set of questions concerns factors that account for differences among communicators with respect to communicator competence. Is competence acquired or learned through observation of others or through direct experience? Can social competence be taught to everyone or just those pre-disposed toward competence? Is social competence merely a behavioral manifestation of inborn neurobiological functions due to genetic inheritance or other purely biological sources such as prenatal exposure to particular hormones? Although it might be tempting to simply conclude that communication competence consists of patterns of behavior that are shaped by nature and nurture, a scientific treatment of the issue requires somewhat more precision regarding the relative contributions of biology and social experience. In this chapter, we lay out the broader biological and evolutionary context for understanding communication competence within a genetic inheritance paradigm, we review research findings and relevant evidence, and, finally, we suggest directions for future research and theory regarding communication competence. However, such an endeavor entails a set of assumptions about the purpose of the discipline of communication, which can be understood within a broader conceptual orientation.

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1 Conceptual orientation As a point of departure, it is relevant to the ensuing discussion that our conceptual orientation is that the discipline of communication should be viewed as the scientific study of the ways in which people construct, use, and respond to messages. Within this framework, communication competence constitutes just one type of message production process to be explained scientifically. However, four dimensions of the treatment of communication competence in this chapter require explanation to put the discussion of potential genetic contributions to individual differences in communication competence in proper perspective.

1.1 A scientific perspective Beatty and Pence (2010: 3–4) remarked that A commitment to scientific explanation often runs counter to the widespread remedial impulse in our discipline. A commitment to scientific explanation requires that competing theories are evaluated and endorsed first and foremost on the basis of predictive power … Conclusions drawn from treatment studies or skills programs are often cited as evidence against biologically-based positions but inspection of studies cited usually reveals serious design flaws and/or effects that are small enough to fit within the parameters of variance in a construct not explained by the theoretical models being challenged.

Certainly, the discipline of communication has a strong tradition anchored in undergraduate courses designed to improve student skills in contexts such as public speaking and group discussion. Indeed, that tradition is alive and well today with most communication departments regularly offering multiple sections of public speaking. Although theory has become increasingly prevalent in undergraduate curricula, many members of our profession continue to be invested in skills training and confidence-building as the justification for communication programs. Despite the appeal of claims to substantially improve students’ competence and reduce their apprehension about communicating, program assessments must comport to the principles of experimental design, free of threats to internal validity such as selection effect, maturation effect, history effect, regression to the mean, instrument decay or any interactions among these threats (e.g., Campbell and Stanley 1963). A commitment to scientific explanation disallows the use of results from unscientific assessments and anecdotal observations derived from one’s teaching experience as evidence that communication behaviors are substantially moldable rather than hardwired. In addition to matters regarding the criteria for evaluating evidence, a scientific approach strives toward a complete accounting of the communication behavior of interest. The ultimate goal in science is to construct models that completely explain phenomena. Einstein’s classic equation, E = mc2 accounts completely for E (i.e.,

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energy). It does not merely account for 20 % of the variance in energy. Similarly, adopting a scientific perspective on communication leads to the goal of complete and comprehensive understanding of the communication-related phenomenon of interest, in this case communication competence. This point is important because it accounts for what might be seen as a preoccupation with variance accounted for in genetic-related models of human behavior. Mere statistical significance, while often indicating that a research paradigm is promising, is insufficient from the complete explanation standpoint. This point also underscores the emphasis on measurement and psychometric improvement, and on statistical corrections until measures can be refined. As will be discussed, the lack of predictive power is often attributable to imperfect measurement but can be easily misinterpreted as indicating an inadequate theoretical model.

1.2 Primacy of biological/genetic factors as exogenous variables Social experience and learning approaches to the acquisition of social competence and those based in genetic inheritance do not start on equal footing. As Beatty, McCroskey, and Valencic (2001: 1) observed whatever the exact point in time we believe life begins during pregnancy, there is consensus that we are biological beings long before we are social beings. If it were proven beyond any doubt that we are programmed through genetic inheritance and prenatal care such that every aspect of our social behavior were determined, there would be no need for any additional speculation regarding why we communicate in the ways we do.

More recently, Beatty and Pence (2010: 4) made the same point, asserting that “explanations relying on social experience are necessary only to the extent that evidence indicates that humans are not already ‘hardwired’ … at birth.” The point is not that sufficient evidence exists to establish that individual differences in patterns of communication are already hardwired at birth but, rather, that humans are not likely blank states, and that thresholds of genetic inheritance and purely biological substrates of communicative performance should be established before assuming that other social constructs are necessary. At present, it is fair to say that theories that rely on influence of social environment to explain how humans come to communicate as they do seem to treat humans as blank slates. Clues to the primacy of genetic inheritance, however, can be gleaned from the work of scientists studying primates, humankind’s closest biological relatives, in their natural environment (e.g., Goodall 1986). Social interaction is not limited to humans. Chimpanzees, for example, engage in a wide range of social behavior with varying degrees of success among individuals. They comfort and seek comfort after experiencing pain, when fearful, or subsequent to loss. They warn others of impending danger. Smaller chimpanzees solicit the aid of larger chimpanzees in re-

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sponse to bullies. Moreover, bands of male chimpanzees organize and carry out raids on neighboring bands over food, water, territorial encroachment, and breeding opportunities. Assuming that chimpanzees living in isolation are not influenced by media, the social interaction as pattern of behavior central to survival for primates seems to emanate from a natural impulse, social organization, and therefore the need for communication, facilitated survival of humans in much the same way as it has for other primates (Pinker 2002). It seems reasonable, therefore, to work from the assumption that the basic template for patterns of communication are in place before the individual confronts social contingencies. In discussing the potential influence of genetic inheritance on the development of communication competence, it is important to distinguish between monomorphic and polymorphic genes. Monomorphic genes are responsible for differences between species (Pinker 2002). As Pinker (2002: 119) put it, they are why humans “grow bigger than a squirrel”. Humans and gorillas, for instance, are 95 percent similar in terms of monomorphic genes. Slight differences matter, as our monomorphic genes are 90 percent similar to salamanders. Polymorphic genes are responsible for individual differences within species. Thus, the language instinct that differentiates us from most other living things is due to monomorphic genes but individual differences among humans with respect to communication would be traceable to polymorphic genes. The distinction between monomorphic and polymorphic gene effects is central to the way the treatment of genetics and communication competence is framed in this chapter. Monomorphic genes, such as FOXP2 (Vicario 2013), are thought to underlie differences in language development between humans and other species. From that perspective, FOXP2 might be described as a generic antecedent to human communication competence in the broad sense. However, as we alluded to at the outset, within the discipline of communication the term communication competence refers to the ability to construct messages that facilitate goal-achievement and also fulfill social appropriateness expectations rather than merely the ability to construct well-formed sentences. That is, it is possible to clearly articulate a sentence composed of correctly-used words and conforming to the rules of grammar and syntax but from a strategic perspective be ineffective and inappropriate to the occasion. It is the possible contribution of genetic inheritance to individual differences in communication competence in the sense of effectiveness and appropriateness that is of interest in this chapter. As such, polymorphic rather than monomorphic gene effects such as those associated with FOXP2 are most relevant to the present discussion. Although a few researchers have speculated that FOXP2 might have polymorphic implications of differences in language acquisition (Vicario 2013), no studies have yet been conducted to investigate the possibility nor has theorizing included strategic aspects such as effectiveness and appropriateness within interpersonal contexts. Therefore, a comprehensive review of research linking the FOXP2 gene to general language development in humans is beyond the scope and purpose of this chapter.

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1.3 Effects of genetic inheritance on behavior is indirect (mediated) A common misconception about genetically based models of human behavior is that specific behaviors are directly influenced by a specific gene (Nelson 2004). However, most attempts to model the influence of genes on human behavior propose that brain structures and processes, which are the product of multiple genes – often interacting in the statistical sense, mediate gene effects on behavior. As Zuckerman (1995: 331–332) noted, “we do not inherit personality traits or even behavior mechanisms as such. What is inherited are chemical templates that produce and regulate proteins involved in the structure of nervous systems and neurotransmitters, enzymes, and hormones that regulate them … we are born with different reactivity of brain structures and levels of regulators.” In the communication literature, Zuckerman’s observation is manifest in Beatty’s (2005) mediated effects model, which specified the genetic inheritance leads to neurobiological characteristics, which lead to particular traits, which in turn implement specific behavior in response to situational demands. Within this framework, individual communicative acts, whether competent or incompetent, occur because the demands of the social situation excite particular neurobiological systems that implement the observed behavior. Differences in verbal plans and enacted behaviors, therefore, are due to differences in the thresholds for triggering various neurobiological processes underlying situational assessment, strategic planning, and particular action (For a detailed discussion of these processes, see Beatty, McCroskey, and Valencic 2001). Making sense out of the statistical associations between genetic inheritance and behavior requires a sound grasp of the statistical characteristics of mediated models. Readers familiar with mediated effects models understand that the correlation between any two variables at the beginning and end of a causal chain are equal to the product of all the correlations between variables included in the chain. In terms of Beatty’s (2005) model, the correlation between the presence/absence of the requisite genes and behavior is equal to the product of: 1. the correlation between presence/ absence of the requisite genes and neurobiological characteristics, 2. the correlation between neurobiological characteristics and the behavior relevant trait, and 3. the correlation between the behavior relevant trait and the particular behavior. As such, even if each correlation between components of the model were .70, the correlation between presence or absence of the specified genes and a particular behavior would be comparatively smaller, .343. Moreover, calculations for expected degrees of association between genetic inheritance and behavior are further complicated if multiple genes or multiple neurobiological dimensions are required to account for variables in causal chains. This is particularly true if antecedent variables in models interact. Frequently, the brain structures and processes underlying patterns of behavior are products of complex interactions among multiple genes (For a discussion, see Beatty et al. 2002). Ulti-

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mately, it is important to note that genetic inheritance is likely to be more significant about the origin of individual differences in the antecedents to behavior and less informative about particular behavioral choices.

1.4 Genetic effects depend on cognitive operations underlying message planning Based on the assumption that if genetic inheritance contributes to individual differences in communication competence, its effects are mediated by brain structures/ processes, the relative influence of genetic inheritance likely depends on the type of cognitive operations underlying particular message strategies. For example, messages enacted in response to social demands can be spontaneously crafted, requiring multiple complex cognitive operations associated with constructing responses to novel stimuli. Some of these operations would be goal-setting, assessment of social expectations, construction of alternative strategies, considering possible consequences of each alternative, and language choice and selecting the alternative. According to computational theory (Chomsky 1975), the human mind is sufficiently powerful to execute all of the required computations rapidly enough to competently engage in social interaction. On the other hand, communication scholars have noted that much social interaction is routine (see Berger 2002). Therefore, knowledge structures, or prepared chunks of dialogue are essentially downloaded for implementation for the sake of efficiency. The theoretical foundation for this view resides in dynamic memory theory (Schank 1999). Clearly, everyday social interaction involves discourse that varies in degree to the extent it is spontaneously constructed or prepared and ritualistic. However, assessing the potential role of genetic inheritance of (in)competent performance in social situations requires attention to the level of preparedness of messages because the brain regions that implement the cognitive operations underlying spontaneous message construction differ from those underlying recall and implementation of knowledge structures (Beatty and Heisel 2007).

2 Methodological issues in behavioral genetics Behavioral geneticists have employed studies of twins to provide indirect tests of the potential effects of genetic inheritance on traits, patterns of behavior, and specific acts. The study of twins is informative about genetic inheritance because “monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs are genetically identical whereas dizygotic (DZ) pairs share only 50 percent of their genes” (Hughes and Cutting 1999: 429). Comparing the “within-pair correlations therefore provides an estimate of the proportion of trait variance attributable to genetic influences, the heritability of the trait” (Hu-

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ghes and Cutting 1999: 429). Traits, patterns of behavior, and specific behavioral responses that are highly heritable are identifiable on the basis of high correlations for identical (MZ) twins on the construct and relatively low correlations for fraternal (DZ) twins. Heritability coefficients are calculated on the bases of MZ and DZ correlations. The traditional formula for calculating heritability (h2), developed by Falconer (1989), was based on two assumptions: 1. MZ twins share 100 percent of their genes, and 2. gene effects are additive. Additive genes are responsible for the variation in a trait or behavior transmissible from parents to offspring. In contrast, nonadditive gene effects define the variance in a trait or behavior not directly inherited from parents. Generally speaking, when the trait or behavior is fairly narrow in scope or unidimensional, nonadditive gene effects are most often attributed to gene by environment interaction (Lykken 1995). However, in complex traits and behavior, such as those underlying individual differences in communication competence, nonadditive gene effects might suggest gene × gene interactions. Broad heritability refers to the sum of additive and nonadditive effects. If the construct of interest is the product of nonadditive gene effects, Falconer’s formula, h2 = 2 (RMZ – RDZ), where RMZ represents the MZ correlation and RDZ represents the DZ correlation, inflates the heritability estimates. This in turn deflates the effects estimated for shared environment. Two observations about the overall body of research on twins tend to mitigate concern about nonadditive gene effects on social interaction variables in general. First, studies such as Tellegen et al. (1988) observed only additive effects when data were coded according to whether twinpairs were 1. MZ verses DZ, and 2. raised together or raised apart. Second, DZ correlations across 35 studies of twins looking at various dimensions of interpersonal affiliation were only slightly less than half of the magnitude of MZ correlations. In the face of clear evidence the gene effects are nonadditive or in cases where DZ correlations are borderline, many researchers adopt conservative approaches to calculating h2, the most popular of which consists of simply using the MZ correlations as the estimate of h2 (Lykken 1995). When gene effects are decidedly additive, it is possible to calculate the effects of shared environmental effects (c2) from twins data, c2 = RMZ – h2, and nonshared environmental effects, e2 = 1 – RMZ (Plomin 1986). Shared environment is relatively straightforward, representing common family, educational, and social background. Nonshared environment, on the other hand, is somewhat misleading in that it does not merely consist of the unique experiences of each twin. Statistically speaking, nonshared environment estimates also contain the “residual term” (Rushton et al. 1986: 1195). In other words, in addition to unique social experiences, nonshared environment consists of all sorts of errors, including measurement error. Given the formula for e2, errors that alternate RMZ are deposited in nonshared environment effects estimates. Therefore, as Beatty and Pence (2010: 9) pointed out, “unique social experiences that affect one twin but not the other would be represented in

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the nonshared environment component but a nonzero estimate of the nonshared environment isn’t sufficient to establish that such effects took place.” When gene effects are nonadditive, however, estimates of shared environment effects are compromised because nonadditive gene effects implicate possible gene × environment interaction rather than main effects for the environment. During initial behavior genetics research, data were sorted into 2 (MZ twins/ DZ twins) by 2 (raised together/raised apart) matrices to tease out genetic inheritance effects from shared environment effects. However, as Zuckerman (1994: 245) observed, “There is little difference between the correlations for identical twins who were raised apart and those raised together.” Other researchers (e.g., Lykken 1995) point to that basic finding as a rationale for dropping the distinction regarding whether twins are raised together or apart from formulae for estimating heritability.

3 Studies of twins pertaining to communication competence Beatty and associates (2002) meta-analyzed the studies of twins involving social interaction variables that also have been cited in major professional journals in communication and scholarly reference texts. Their literature search included an electronic search using PsychInfo, Biological Abstracts, Bioethics Online, EBSCOhost, Eric, Healthstar, and the General Science Index database, a review of research journals that published studies of twins, and a scan of the reference lists of all articles retrieved through the electronic searches and scanning of journals. After deleting duplications and narrowing the study sample to research that reported quantitative results, Beatty et al. (2002) settled on 40 studies that covered 20 different social interaction constructs, which could be sorted into three broad categories: 1. interpersonal affiliation, 2. social anxiety, and 3. aggressiveness. In their metaanalysis, Beatty et al. (2002) applied constructive criteria for calculating h2, using the RMZ as the estimate. They reported mean heritability effects computed on disattenuated correlations of .70 for interpersonal affiliation studies, .65 for social anxiety studies, and .58 for aggressiveness studies that included verbal aggression in some studies. Importantly, Beatty et al. (2002) found no difference due to whether data were self-report or observer-based and they found genetic inheritance effects were stronger as the age of study participants increased. This finding for age as a moderator was consistent with genetic effects unfolding and becoming more manifest with time but inconsistent with the notion that experience across a lifespan moderates genetic inheritance. Although many of the 26 studies contained in the interpersonal affiliation cluster represented broad personality variables related to social interaction (e.g., extraversion) or behaviors, such as talkativeness, which might actually be characteristic

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Tab. 1: Study citation, variable studies, measurement approach, sample size, and correlations for eight studies relevant to communication competence. Study

Variable

Measurement

N

RMZ

RDZ

Dworkin (1979)

Self-monitoring

Self-report

 88

.46

.16

Matheny and Dolan (1980)

Sociability

Observer rating

210

.69

.07

Mathews et al. (1981)

Empathic concern

Self-report

230

.59

.07

Goldsmith and Gottesman (1981)

Spontaneous Conversation

Observer rating

680

.37

.17

Rushton et al. (1986)

Empathy

Self-report

573

.68

.25

McGuire et al. (1994)

Social competence Self-report

190

.65

.20

Losoya et al. (1997)

Pleasantness

Self-report

313

.63

.08

Hughes and Cutting (1999)

Perspective-taking

Coder scored

250

.80

.32

Beatty et al. (2001)

Wit

Self-report

210

.72

.27

Note: RMZ and RDZ correlations are disattenuated. Attenuated correlations are reported in Beatty et al. (2002).

of incompetent communicators, nine studies focused on variables that are conceptually relevant to communication competence. In addition to McGuire et al.’s (1994) study of social competence, the other studies in the nine-study cluster just mentioned examined self-monitoring (Dworkin 1979), perspective-taking (Hughes and Cutting 1999), wit (Beatty, Marshall, and Rudd 2001), spontaneous conversation (Goldsmith and Gottesman 1981), empathy (Mathews et al. 1981), sociability (Matheny and Dolan 1980), and pleasantness (Losoya et al. 1997). These studies, the variable studied, the measurement approach used, sample size, and the disattenuated RMZ and RDZ correlations reported in Beatty et al. (2002) for each study are presented in Table 1. Based on the preceding discussion of methodological issues provided in this chapter, the data displayed in Table 1 lead to three informative albeit tentative propositions. First, the average sample weighted RMZ correlation for the study results presented is .60 (N = 2744, K = 9), indicating a substantial effect of genetic inheritance, with RMZ and RDZ for social competence, in particular, indicating a slightly stronger

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genetic inheritance effect (i.e., RMZ = .65, RDZ = .20). Second, the average sample weighted RDZ was .18, far less than half of the RMZ correlation. This result suggests nonadditive gene effects. It is, therefore, possible that genetic inheritance and environment interact to produce patterns of social behavior and orientations associated with communication competence. Third, strong influences of genetic inheritance were not restricted to variables measured via self-report scales. The pattern of RMZ and RDZ correlations examined in this chapter is similar to those for social anxiety reported in Beatty et al (2002), which included one study focused on social composure (RMZ = .69, RDZ = .28).

4 Neurobiological moderators Self-regulation or self-control of emotional impulses is considered central to social competence in general (e.g., Eisenberg and Fabes 1992). Certainly, the ability to censor inappropriate comments and remarks that are likely to produce results counter to a communicator’s interaction goals plays an important role in communication competence. Furthermore, the ability to regulate counterproductive emotions such as anger, fear, or even too much enthusiasm, supports effective and appropriate communicative behavior. In this regard, a large body of neuroscience research suggests that functional properties of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) produce stable individual differences in the ability to self-regulate emotion and behavior (for comprehensive general reviews, see Davidson 2000, 2004; for reviews focused specifically on social interaction, see Pence et al. 2011). Although increased electrical activity in either the left or right side of the PFC can be produced when specific emotional states are induced (e.g., Harmon-Jones and Siegelman 2001), self-regulation or self-control is heavily dependent on differences between resting alpha range (8–13 HZ) electrical activity in the two sides of the PFC (Davidson 2000). Self-regulatory ability is greatest in those in which electrical activity is symmetrical. In part, the theoretical significance of anterior PFC functional asymmetry for genetic perspectives on communication competence resides in the fact that empirical relationships between social interaction variables, including social competence, are based on resting levels of asymmetry in the anterior region of the PFC rather than levels stimulated by situationally induced states. Meta-analysis of 12 studies (Pence et al. 2011) indicated that differences in electrical activity in the left and right anterior region, even when individuals are not engaged in social interaction, account for substantial amounts of variance in traits and social behaviors (average r = .44), with all of the variance in correlations across studies attributable to sampling error. Within the set of studies examined in Pence et al., one investigated the relationship between anterior cortex asymmetry and perspective-taking (Sabbagh and Flynn 2006) while another focused on anterior cortex asymmetry and social compe-

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tence in children (Fox et al. 1995). The attenuated correlations were −.49 and −.47, respectively, indicating the greater the asymmetry in anterior cortex functioning, the lower the perspective-taking ability and social competence. Two lines of research support the proposition that baseline (a)symmetry in the functioning of the anterior cortex represents a neurobiological trait or substrate underlying individual differences in social interaction: 1. the magnitude of testretest correlations for resting and asymmetry are quite high and consistent with expectations regarding stable traits (Davidson 2000), and 2. consistent baseline levels of asymmetry in the anterior cortex, correlated with affectivity, have been observed in infants with 4 months of birth (e.g., Davidson and Fox 1982). Thus, inborn functional differences in between the left and right side of the anterior cortex presumed to be constructions of genetic programs (Davidson 2000) moderate emotional reactions and impulses to behave in a particular way. The finding that symmetry in the anterior cortex correlated with prosocial orientations and behaviors, whereas antisocial orientations and reactions are associated with asymmetry (Pence et al. 2011), is not entirely novel. Communication scholars have long been interested in the effects of overall brain hemisphericity on communication competence in general (Sellers and Stacks 1990), as well as on specific competencies such as decoding facial displays of emotion (Floyd and Mikkelson 2003). However, in the past decade, researchers have become attentive to localized areas, especially within the PFC, in attempts to map the neurobiological processes underlying cognitive processes involved in the construction, use, and reception of interpersonal messages. In addition to baseline functioning as a neurobiological substrate relevant to communication competence, individual differences in activation potential or arousability (Strelau 1994) appear to be associated with traits relevant to interpersonal communication and social behavior. For example, adapting messages to interaction partners requires that sources are able to construct a reasonably accurate version of partners’ perspectives on the topic under discussion. Heisel and Beatty (2006) found that activity in both the orbitofrontal and dorsolateral cortex implements perspective-taking attempts. Moreover, they detected individual differences in the amount of activation in those regions. The major regions of the brain theoretically involved in deploying knowledge structures involve memory. Fluent, effective, and socially appropriate responses that are basically downloaded require rapid matching of memory packet to the situation recall of the particular alternative choices, selection of the most effective and appropriate response from all of the alternatives, and uploading the knowledge structures into memory in the first place requires considerable powers of memory. Research indicates that memory capacity and recall ability are facets of intelligence, which is among the most genetically inheritable individual differences (Eysenck 1986). As important as neurobiological structures/processes are as moderators of genetic effects when routine conversation permits the use of knowledge structures,

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genetically inherited functioning associated with general and verbal intelligence probably has more profound effects when social situations demand spontaneously crafted messages. In such cases, fluency and other dimensions of effectiveness cannot be acquired through rehearsal. Lai and colleagues (2001) identified a gene (FOXP2) responsible for triggering the cascade of genes necessary for language fluency. Defects in FOXP2 preclude the acquisition of fluency regardless of preparation and practice. Moreover, even within the population of communicators with normal FOXP2 genes, variation in the ability to respond to novel situational demands, communication-related or otherwise, correlated with activity in the dorsolateral PFC when responding to novel tasks. Measuring electrical activity in the cortex while participants constructed verbal plans in response to an unfolding compliance-gaining scenario, Beatty and Heisel (2007) found that significant increases in dorsolateral PFC occurred when novel social influence strategies were required. Deficits in the ability to access dorsolateral PFC involvement would be expected to inhibit spontaneous message construction. Eysenck (1995: 98–99, 240–242) summarized experiments designed to examine individual differences based on the ability to generate creative verbal responses. Using a variation of the free word association test introduced by Galton (1879), these studies suggest that individual differences exist in the proclivity to respond spontaneously and creatively rather than normatively or in a routine manner to verbal tasks, and that these differences have some genetic foundation. Mednick (1962) observed that in a word association task, for example, most individuals respond with a word that appears frequently in the sample of responses compiled from other participants’ responses. However, a sizeable number of participants respond in ways that are unique, pairing responses to stimulus words that either do not appear or only rarely occur in the entire database. These individual differences are not random. Unique or novel responses to stimulus words occur more frequently for participants that score low on a measure of socialization (Eysenck’s P), which studies of twins indicate is highly heritable (Eysenck 1986).

5 Summary In this chapter, we reviewed the evidence, albeit indirect, regarding the role of genetic inheritance in the production of messages that vary with respect to competent communication. The results of twin studies of variables related to competent communication as well as social competence itself consistently indicate a sizable effect of genetic inheritance. Although the evidence does not support the proposition that competence is mostly heritable, models of communication competence will fall far short of comprehensive explanation if the possible role of genetic inheritance is overlooked. The present chapter outlined the issues that require attention

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to fully consider the degree to which individual differences in communication competence are heritable.

References Beatty, Michael J. 2005. Fallacies in the textual analysis of the communibiological literature. Communication Theory 15. 456–457. Beatty, Michael J. and Alan D. Heisel. 2007. Spectrum analysis of cortical activity during verbal planning: Physical evidence for the formation of social interaction rituals. Human Communication Research 33. 48–63. Beatty, Michael J., Alan D. Heisel, Alice E. Hall, Timothy R. Levine and Betty H. La France. 2002. What can we learn from the study of twins about genetic and environmental influences on interpersonal affiliation, aggressiveness, and social anxiety: A meta-analytic study. Communication Monographs 69. 1–18. Beatty, Michael J., Lenora A. Marshall and Jill E. Rudd. 2001 A twins study of communicative adaptability: Heritability of individual differences. Quarterly Journal of Speech 87(4). 366– 377. Beatty, Michael J., James C. McCroskey and Kristin M. Valencic. 2001. The Biology of Communication: A Communibiological Perspective. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Beatty, Michael J. and Michelle E. Pence. 2010. Verbal aggressiveness as an expression of selected biological influences. In: Theodore A. Avtgis and Andrew S. Rancer (eds.), Arguments, Aggression, and Conflict: New Directions in Theory and Research, 3–25. New York: Routledge. Berger, Charles R. 2002. Goals and knowledge structures in social interaction. In: Mark L. Knapp and John A. Daly (eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal Communication (3rd ed.), 181–212. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Campbell, Donald T. and Julian C. Stanley. 1963. Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research. Boston: Houghton Mufflin. Chomsky, Noam. 1975. Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon. Davidson, Richard J. 2000. The neuroscience of affective style. In: Michael S. Gazzaniga (ed.), The New Cognitive Neurosciences (2nd ed.), 1149–1159. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Davidson, Richard J. 2004. What does the prefrontal cortex “do” in affect: Perspectives on frontal EEG asymmetry research. Biological Psychology 67. 219–233. Davidson, Richard J. and Nathan A. Fox. 1982. Asymmetrical brain activity discriminates between positive and negative affective stimuli in human infants. Science 218. 1235–1239. Dworkin, Robert H. 1979. Genetic and environmental influences on person–situation interactions. Journal of Research in Personality 13. 155–168. Eisenberg, Norman and Richard A. Fabes. 1992. Emotion, regulation, and the development of social competence. In: Margaret S. Clark (ed.), Emotion and Social Behavior, 119–150. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Eysenck, Hans J. 1986. Can personality study ever be scientific? Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 1. 3–19. Eysenck, Hans J. 1995. Genius: The Natural History of Creativity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Falconer, Douglas S. 1989. Introduction to Quantitative Genetics. New York: Wiley. Fox, Nathan A., Kenneth H. Rubin, Susan D. Calkins, Timothy R. Marshall, Robert J. Coplan, Stephen W. Porges, James M. Long and Shannon Stewart. 1995. Frontal activation asymmetry and social competence at four years of age. Child Development 66. 1770–1784.

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Floyd, Kory and Alan C. Mikkelson. 2003. Effect of brain laterality on accuracy of decoding facial displays of emotion. Communication Quarterly 51. 417–435. Galton, Francis. 1879. Psychometric experiments. Brain 2. 149–162. Goldsmith, H. Hill and Irving I. Gottesman. 1981. Origin of variation in behavioral styles: A longitudinal study of temperament in young twins. Child Development 52. 91–103. Goodall, Jane. 1986. The Chimpanzees of Gomba: Patterns of Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harmon-Jones, Eddie and Jonathan Siegelman. 2001. State anger and prefrontal brain activity; Evidence that insult-related relative left-prefrontal activation is associated with experienced anger and aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80. 797–803. Heisel, Alan D. and Michael J. Beatty. 2006. Are cognitive representations of friends’ request refusals implemented in the orbitofrontal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices?: A cognitive neuroscience approach to “theory of mind” in relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 23. 249–265. Hughes, Claire and Alexandra L. Cutting. 1999. Nature, nurture, and individual differences in early understanding of mind. Psychological Science 10. 429–432. Lai, Cecilia S. L., Simon E. Fisher, Jane A. Hurst, Faraneh Vargha-Khadem and Anthony P. Monaco. 2001. A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in severe speech and language disorders. Nature 413. 519–523. Losoya, Sandra H., Suzanne Callor, David C. Rowe and H. Hill Goldsmith. 1997. Origins of family similarity in parenting: A study of twins and adoptive siblings. Developmental Psychology 33. 1012–1023. Lykken, David T. 1995. The Antisocial Personalities. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Matheny, Adam P. and Anne B. Dolan. 1980. A twin study of personality and temperament during middle childhood. Journal of Research in Personality 14. 224–234. Mathews, Karen A., Daniel Batson, Joseph Horn and Ray Rosenman. 1981. “Principles in his nature which interest him in the fortunes of others …”: The heritability of empathic concern for others. Journal of Personality 49. 237–247. McGuire, Shirley, Jenae M. Neiderhiser, David Reiss, E. Mavis Hetherington and Robert Plomin. 1994. Genetic and environmental influences on perceptions of self‐worth and competence in adolescence: A study of twins, full siblings, and step‐siblings. Child Development 65. 785– 799. Mednick, Sarnoff. 1962. The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review 69. 220–232. Nelson, Christian K. 2004. Classifying communibiology’s texts: Implications for genre theory. Communication Theory 14. 141–165. Pence, Michelle E., Alan D. Heisel, Amber Reinhart, Yan Tian and Michael J. Beatty. 2011. Resting prefrontal cortex asymmetry and communication apprehension, verbal aggression, and other social interaction constructs: A meta-analytic review. Communication Research Reports 28. 287–295. Pinker, Steven. 2002. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Viking. Plomin, Robert. 1986. Behavioral genetic methods. Journal of Personality 54. 226–261. Rushton, J. Philippe, David W. Fulker, Michael C. Neale, David K. B. Nias and Hans J. Eysenck. 1986. Altruism and aggression: The heritability of individual differences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50. 1192–1198. Sabbagh, Mark A. and Jessica Flynn. 2006. Mid-frontal EEG alpha asymmetries predict individual differences in one aspect of theory of mind: Mental state decoding. Social Neuroscience 1. 299–308. Schank, Roger C. 1999. Dynamic Memory Revisited. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Sellers, Daniel E. and Don W. Stacks. 1990. Toward a hemispheric processing approach to communication competence. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 5. 45–59.

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Strelau, Jan. 1994. The concept of arousal and arousability as used in temperament studies. In: John E. Bates and Theodore D. Wachs (eds.), Temperament: Individual Differences in the Interface with Biology and Behavior, 117–141. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Tellegen, Auke, David T. Lykken, Thomas J. Bouchard, Kimerly J. Wilcox, Nancy L. Segal and Stephen Rich. 1988. Personality similarity in twins reared apart and together. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54. 1031–1039. Vicario, Carmelo M. 2013. FOXP2 gene and language development: The molecular substrate of the gestural-origin theory of speech? Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 7. 1–3. Zuckerman, Marvin. 1994. Behavioral Expressions and Biosocial Bases of Sensation-Seeking. New York: Cambridge University Press. Zuckerman, Marvin. 1995. Good and bad humors: Biochemical bases of personality and its disorders. Psychological Science 6. 325–332.

Michael L. Hecht and Yu Lu

12 Culture and competence: Ethnicity and race Abstract: Increased racial/ethnic diversity and mobility worldwide is leading inevitably to more frequent communication across racial/ethnic cultures where cultural communication competence is vital. Instead of treating cultures as static, demographic categories, we explicate these competencies by adopting the definition in speech code theory that views culture as the codes and practices that accomplish goals. Consequently, cultural communication competence would constitute the codes and practices that help achieve communication goals in specific contexts with specific groups of people. The codes describe the rule systems that define communication competence in various cultures such as the expectations of appropriate and effective communication in a given context. Practices are the enactments of competent communication often considered skills. Finally, functions describe desirable communication outcomes and provide an understanding of what it takes to achieve those outcomes. Lack of communication competence across racial/ ethnic cultures is implicated in adverse physical, psychological, educational, and relational outcomes. The chapter uses the health context as an exemplar to examine how codes and practices affect health outcomes and how interventions can improve cultural health communication competencies. Keywords: ethnicity, race, culture, ethnic glossing, codes, practices, functions, health disparities

1 Introduction The racial and ethnic diversity around the “global village” requires the attention of anyone studying communication processes. Based on a sample of 160 countries around the globe, Fearon (2003) found 822 ethnic groups that were larger than 1 % of the total population for their respective countries, and half of the countries worldwide have between three to six ethnic groups that constitute a significant proportion of their national populations. Such racial/ethnic diversity continues to increase with rising immigration in different parts of the world, such as England and Wales (Office for National Statistics 2013), Canada (National Household Survey 2011), New Zealand (Statistics New Zealand 2013), China (National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China 2011), and South Korea (National Statistics 2012). The United States, in particular, shows an increasing level of diversity, and projections suggest that the country soon will become a “minority majority nation”

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(i.e., whites will make up less than 50 % of all ethnic/racial groups) (U.S. Census 2012). With such increasing racial/ethnic diversity and mobility across national borders, communication across ethnic and racial cultures inevitably raises questions about communication competencies that must be addressed and reflected in theory, research, and practice. This chapter discusses communication competence in an ethnic/racial cultural context in which language and other differences pose obstacles and challenges as well as opportunities. The focus is on racial/ethnic minority groups and describing the challenges they may face, such as discrimination, poor education outcomes, poor parent–child relationships, and disparities of health care and health outcomes, which are influenced by a lack of cultural communication competence. Much of the literature is drawn from the U.S. culture but is intended as exemplars to illustrate cultural competence issues that exist in other national and cultural contexts. The health care context is discussed in greater detail given its significant influence on people’s lives with particular consideration to how ethnic/racial cultural competence plays a role in improving health care access and quality; thereby reducing health disparities (see also, Chapter 19 in this volume). The chapter concludes with suggestions on cultural competence interventions.

2 Communication competence Spitzberg (1988) defined communication competence as “the ability to interact well with others” where “the term ‘well’ refers to accuracy, clarity, comprehensibility, coherence, expertise, effectiveness and appropriateness” (p. 68). The judgment of competence is based on social evaluations of what is appropriate and effective (Spitzberg 2000), and it involves values, rules, norms, and expectancies. The dimensions of communication competence are identified as motivation (an individual’s approach/avoidance orientation in various social situations), knowledge (plans of action, knowledge of how to act, procedural knowledge), and skill (behaviors actually performed) (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984). These three interdependent dimensions correspond with cognitive (knowledge and understanding), affective (attitudes and feelings), and behavioral (behavioral skills) components. This chapter is premised on the belief that ethnic/racial culture is intricately implicated in all of these aspects of competence.

3 Culture To provide an in-depth analysis of how ethnic/racial culture and competence are intertwined, it is important to first define culture. Here, we avoid treating ethnic/

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racial culture and competence as a demographic category so as not to over-simplify its complexity and richness (Schoenberg et al. 2005). The categorical approach leads to what Trimble (1990) called “ethnic glossing” in which cultures are treated as homogenous groupings. This homogenous view is inconsistent with findings that have demonstrated at least as many variations within as across groups (Mann et al. 1998). Categorizing also suggests that individuals have a single cultural affiliation; this assumption is at odds with a mobile, multicultural world in which multiracial/ethnic children are becoming more common and multiple identities are typically salient in any interaction (e.g., gender, ethnic, role identities). This view has important implications for understanding competent communication adaptation for various subgroups within a larger group, especially when overlapping memberships and multiple identities exist. In this chapter, we adopt the definition of culture suggested in speech code theory (Philipsen, Coutu, and Covarrubias 2005). We argue that defining culture as a speech code that is enacted through communication in a community context is appropriate in recognizing variations within racial/ethnic groups and multiple identities because it focuses on processes, functions, and structures that are common across a variety of cultural definitions (Baldwin et al. 2006). Hence, this definition provides a better framework to discuss communication competence. Speech code theory is based on the ethnography of communication (Philipsen, Coutu, and Covarrubias 2005) that takes a bottom up approach to observe communicative conduct of people in a community, grounding definitions of culture in the interpretations and explanations of situated conduct that produces codes of meaning and value. In other words, human beings draw on contextual factors and previous experiences with similar incidences or interactions and similar populations to interpret and explain speech conduct. These explanations form codes of meaning and value that are enacted, formulated, and reformulated through speech conduct. A key concept in this theory, speech code, is defined as “a system of sociallyconstructed symbols and meanings, premises, and rules, pertaining to communicative conduct” (Philipsen 1997: 126). Thus, speech code is a construct that observeranalysts formulate to interpret and explain communicative conduct in a particular speech community. Specifically, the observer notices and uses resources to interpret and judge participants’ lives within a community. Based on these observations, researchers construct hypotheses about the lives of the people in the community, which is then used for future interpretations and evaluations. These formulated hypotheses are considered the speech codes (structures) that are enacted in practices (processes) to achieve outcomes (functions). One virtue of this theory is it suggests that culture is seen as an evolving complex of structures, functions, and processes that humans observe, describe, and socially construct over the course of their social lives. This theory centers on the person who can construct, deconstruct, ignore, alter, or adapt it to new purposes. At the same time, the theory abstracts the codes, practices, and functions to describe situated cultures. This approach highlights the flexibility and fluidity of cul-

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ture, and conceptualizes it not as a static entity, but rather as a constantly constructed and evolving process that is co-created through human interactions and conduct. This view of culture is important in analyzing communication competence among racial and ethnic groups as it situates communication competence in what is appropriate and normative for specific groups or other subgroup identities (e.g., based on socioeconomic status, profession, etc.) and requires adaptation to the various cultural codes, practices, and functions within a social context. The emphasis of this theory is on observing, formulating hypothesis, and then interpreting and evaluating, which is particularly helpful in approaching racial/ethnic groups without preconceptions of the culture and the people being studied. The use of this theory represents an emerging trend in culturally grounded research (Hecht and Krieger 2006). While developed using an ethnographic method, we believe the theory is appropriate to methodological pluralism. Keeping this definition of culture in mind, we turn to cultural communication competence.

4 Defining culturally competent communication Communication competence is clearly implicated by the definition of culture as constituting codes and practices that accomplish goals. These codes are the rule systems that define competence; practices are the enactments of competent communication, and functions are the goals they achieve. However, the task is problematic because, as yet, there is no single, universally accepted definition of cultural competence. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS 2001) defines cultural competence as “the ability … to understand and respond effectively to the cultural and linguistic needs” (p. 25) of interactants. Cross et al. (1989) defined cultural competence as “a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enables that system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in crosscultural situations” (p. 13). Orlandi (1992) defined it as “a set of academic and interpersonal skills that allow individuals to increase their understanding and appreciation of cultural differences and similarities within, among, and between groups” (p. vi). Further, Moritsugu (1999) focused on culture-specific knowledge and defined cultural competence as “the knowledge and understanding of a specific culture that enables an individual to effectively communicate and function within that culture. This competence usually entails details regarding language and metalanguage, values, and customs, symbols and worldviews” (p. 62). Dunn (2002) defined cultural competence as “the ability to communicate between and among cultures and to demonstrate skill outside one’s culture of origin” (p. 107). Despite their variety, these definitions describe cultural competence as practices (e.g., behaviors, attitudes, knowledge enacting competent communication) and

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functions (e.g., effective communication). Codes are implicated in some of these definitions (e.g., policies, language, values, customs, symbols, and worldviews), although others focus exclusively on practices and functions. Our conclusion is that cultural communication competence is best seen as focusing on three main areas: codes and how competence is manifested within and across cultures, practices that have been described to enact cultural communication competence in various cultures, and functions of cultural communication competence in various communication contexts. Further, we argue that ethnicity and race are best seen as cultural constructions. As argued above, reifying each into categorical constructs distorts the within group variance and has limited applicability. Instead, cultures construct “ethnicity” and “race” and establish codes, practices, and functions in the process. We turn next to discussions of the codes, practices, and functions of ethnic/racial communication competence. For stylistic purposes, we drop the “ethnic/racial” modifier in this discussion.

5 Codes of cultural communication competence Codes are the rules that determine what is considered culturally competent communication and that describe the expectations of appropriate and effective communication given the context. Additionally, codes are based on shared common verbal and nonverbal behavioral patterns, common rules, and common goals (Collier, Ribeau, and Hecht 1986). These cultural codes are not assumed, rather are co-constructed by the individuals within the cultural systems and affected by their immediate environments such as neighborhoods (Dressler, Dos Santos, and Balieiro 1996). For example, Philipsen (1975) described the speech codes required to construct “manhood” in a south-side Chicago neighborhood he labeled “teamsterville”. Carbaugh (1988) also explicated American speech codes that were represented by discussions on the Phil Donahue Television Show. During interactions across racial/ethnic groups, a lack of shared codes can be problematic. For example, African Americans and European Americans may differ in what constitutes competent communication (Hecht, Larkey, and Johnson 1992). Various researchers have explored such code differences, including rules or norms for assertiveness expressions (Ryoko 1999), facework (Leersnyder, Boiger, and Mesquita 2013; Ting-Toomey 2005) and politeness (Bailey 1997). Cultures also differ on rules for the preferred amount and perceptions of eye contact. Many European Americans view avoidance of eye contact as a sign of dishonesty, whereas African Americans are more likely view it as a show of respect for a superior (Gilliam and Van Den Berg 1980). Among many Native Americans in the United States, direct eye contact when addressing a superior is interpreted as rude or disrespectful (Kalbfleisch 2009). Likewise, Middle Eastern cultures, largely

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Muslim, have strict rules regarding eye contact between the sexes that permit only a brief moment of eye contact between a man and a woman, if at all (Simpson and Carter 2008). In Asian, Latin American, and African cultures, extended eye contact can be taken as an affront or a challenge of authority (Zhang 2006) and these differences may manifest themselves among recent immigrants. Similar cross-cultural differences are found in other communication aspects, such as how people show respect to others (Bailey 1997), express their emotions (Mesquita and Frijda 1992), and persuade others (Glenn and Stevenson 1977). The communication rule mismatch probably manifests itself the most among immigrant families. Many immigrant children adopt the rule systems of their host cultures while their parents are typically slower to adopt, which results in obstacles in parent–child communications. For example, the U.S. culture encourages greater verbal expressiveness in showing affection than do many other cultures. In the United States, Korean and Vietnamese immigrant parents, who come from traditionally more reserved cultures, may not respond verbally to their children, which can result in hurt feelings among the children (Pyke 2000). Korean American college students also tend to adhere less strongly to the Asian cultural codes than do their parents, which sometimes results in parent–child conflicts, especially about dating and marriage (Ahn, Kim, and Park 2008). Such code mismatches can also be observed in educational contexts among international students. Many sojourning Chinese students share rules for competent classroom communication – face negotiation, maintaining roles, harmony and relationships – that are not compatible with New Zealand classrooms (Holmes 2006). Many international students in the United States also experience a shift from the lecture method that uses a teacher-centered class management style in their home cultures to a freer, more interactive student-centered learning environment. This means that students must adapt to solving problems instead of memorizing facts, and they must learn to locate information themselves instead of depending on their teachers (Ladd and Ruby 1999). Furthermore, many international students in Australia must learn to overcome their intercultural communication apprehension and push themselves to participate in class discussions (Robertson 2000), which sometimes is considered inappropriate in their familiar teacher-centered learning environments. As discussed, code differences pose challenges in interactions for individuals from different racial/ethnic groups. Groups and their members must attempt to take the perspective of the other culture to understand the codes, or they must share or develop codes to establish successful relationships in intercultural encounters (Collier, Ribeau, and Hecht 1986). These issues are even more problematic when the multi-layered nature of identity is considered (Hecht and Choi 2012). Rarely does an interactant enact a single identity; rather, multiple identities sometimes compete with each other. For example, a teacher may enact gender, national, ethnic, and role (teacher) identities. With the matrix of rules and expectations

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evoked by individual identities and the complex interaction between two or more identities, it is a wonder that accommodation through communication convergence occurs as frequently as it does (Gallois, Ogay, and Giles 2005). Therefore, it is relevant to turn the discussion to practices that enable competent communication.

6 Practices of cultural communication competence Researchers have identified multiple domains of culturally competent communication practices (Burchum 2002; Campinha-Bacote 2003; Papadopoulos and Lees 2002; Suh 2004). For instance, Burchum (2002) suggested six domains of cultural competence: cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural understanding, cultural sensitivity, cultural interaction, and cultural skill. Campinha-Bacote (2003) identified five domains: cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural skill, cultural encounters, and cultural desire. Despite the differences, researchers stress similar domains of cultural competence in different cultural competence models, typically including cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural sensitivity, cultural skill, cultural encounter/interaction, and cultural desire. The first domain, cultural awareness, is the practice of developing consciousness of a culture (including one’s own culture) and the ways in which culture shapes values and beliefs (Burchum 2002). The second domain is cultural knowledge, which refers to the acquisition and processing of information about different cultures (Burchum 2002). The third domain is cultural sensitivity or the ability to appreciate, respect, and value cultural diversity and realize how one’s personal and professional cultural identity influences practice (Burchum 2002). The fourth domain is cultural skill, which refers to the ability to communicate effectively with those of other cultures, including using various procedures and techniques to accommodate cultural beliefs based on the occasion (Burchum 2002). A fifth domain is cultural interaction or encounter, which includes the personal contact, communication, and exchanges that occur between individuals of different cultures (Burchum 2002). The sixth domain, cultural desire, is the motivation to seek cultural encounters, obtain cultural knowledge, conduct culturally sensitive assessments, develop cultural awareness, and become culturally competent (Campinha-Bacote 2003). These domains can be categorized into the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components as described by communication competence theory (Spitzberg and Changnon 2009; Suh 2004).

7 Functions of cultural communication competence As noted, culture is functional because it defines desirable outcomes and provides an understanding of what it takes to achieve those outcomes. Unfortunately, in the

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realm of communication across racial/ethnic groups, less desirable outcomes are more frequent. In a U.S. national survey, 39 % of Latinos, 27 % of Asian Americans, 23 % of African Americans, and 16 % of whites reported communication problems related to culture (Collins et al. 2002). Thus, cultural communication competence has important implications for the outcomes that people experience including physical, psychological, and material well-being of racial/ethnic minority groups. These outcomes, in particular, have implications for key experiences in various contexts, including interpersonal relationships, education, and family processes in which cultural communication occurs. In interpersonal interactions among people of different racial/ethnic backgrounds, miscommunications and relational problems that result from a lack of cultural communication competence can be caused by both language barriers and a lack of cultural understanding. For example, according to the 2010 American Community Survey (U.S. Census 2012), the U.S. foreign-born population was estimated to be 40 million, which accounted for 13 % of the total U.S. population. Among this population, 100 commonly spoken languages exist in the United States (Shin and Bruno 2003). The U.S. Census (2010) estimated that 55.4 million people (20 % of the U.S. population) speak a language other than English at home, half of whom are considered to have limited English proficiency. As a result, English as a second language (L2) skills are one of the most immediate determinants of intercultural interaction quality (MacIntyre et al. 2003). Message transmission during communication is severely impaired when people do not share a common language or when they lack of adequate L2 proficiency. In addition, language learners are sometimes watchful and defensive when using L2, especially when attention is paid to their language competence (Matsuoka and Evans 2005). Non-native language speakers also are likely to perceive themselves as less competent communicators (Burroughs, Marie, and McCroskey 2003), which may result in them being less motivated to communicate interculturally compared to native speakers (Lu and Hsu 2008). In addition to language barriers, a lack of shared cultural background can lead to communication problems in interpersonal interactions. As discussed above, individuals from different cultures often differ in their cultural communication styles, such as assertiveness expressions (Ryoko 1999), facework (Leersnyder, Boiger, and Mesquita 2013; Ting-Toomey 2005), and politeness (Bailey 1997), all of which may cause misunderstanding in interpersonal interactions. Many significant outcomes exist for these problematic interactions and lack of skills. We examine these implications through a functional analysis of education and family contexts, given their importance in so many other areas of life. Cultural communication competence has a significant influence on educational attainment. For example, in the United States, ethnic minority students, including those of African, Latino, and Native American heritages constitute a proportionally smaller share in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

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(STEM) fields (Cooper and Burciaga 2011). Moreover, one in five school-age children in the United States come from immigrant families (Suarez-Orozco and SuarezOrozco 2001) and are more likely to fail in school compared to native students because of lower levels of communication competence in the host culture (Huguet, Navarro, and Janes 2007). Further, only 50 % of immigrant students finish obligatory education levels compared to two-thirds of native students who finish them (Moreno-Manso et al. 2013). Over 60 % of immigrant school children go no further than primary education (Moreno-Manso et al. 2013). These poor educational outcomes are attributable to some combination of at least three primary causes. First, immigrant students in primary school (9–10 years old) have poorer linguistic knowledge (Moreno-Manso et al. 2013) and, in general, experience problems with the language used in school (Stanat et al. 2012). Limited English proficiency, especially in reading and writing, negatively affects students’ school achievement, which results in achievement gaps between native speaking and English learner students (Grant and Wong 2003). Second, poor educational outcomes result from cultural differences in communication and learning styles. International and immigrant students may have different cultural communication and learning styles, which pose challenges in adjusting to new educational environments and may result in worse educational outcomes (Holmes 2006; Ladd and Ruby 1999). Third, students who lack the confidence in language and cultural competence may be apprehensive of communications and that could deter them from participating in class discussions (Robertson et al. 2000). This apprehension places them at higher academic risk of failing in school or dropping out before graduation (Chesebro et al. 1992). Cultural communication competence affects the well-being of family members and parent–child relationships, which is complicated by both language and culture. Language barriers of immigrant families are known to lead to a range of adjustment problems, such as in interpersonal relationships and education attainments as mentioned earlier. For children of recent immigrants, language barriers can present additional challenges. While many children are themselves bilingual, their parents and grandparents may not be. As a result, these children find themselves serving as “language and culture brokers” to their elders (Kam, Cleveland, and Hecht 2010). In other words, these children have to serve as intermediaries, putting them in positions of power and giving them access to information that may be inappropriate to their age and/or family roles. Fortunately, the outcomes of language and cultural brokering are not universally negative for these youth. Brokering frequency leaves children little free time to engage in risky behavior, and positive feelings about their brokering may help reduce their risky behaviors (Kam 2011). Another challenge facing immigrant families concerns the parent–child relationship. Immigrant children who are born and/or grew up in the United States tend to learn English and the American culture faster than their parents, and they

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have higher acculturation levels. The discrepancy in acculturation levels between parent and child, or the acculturation gap, tends to negatively influence parent– child communications and relationships (Unger et al. 2009), and may result in experiences of alienation (Qin 2006). Qin (2006) suggested that the acculturation gap among immigrant parents and children leads to the development of different frames of reference. Immigrant parents tend to compare their children to those in their home cultures, whereas immigrant children compare their parents to the parents of non-immigrant friends or other parents depicted in mainstream media. A mismatch of expectations and behaviors between parents and children can occur and lead to dissatisfaction in parent–child relationships. These parent–child communication and relationship issues further contribute to a range of interpersonal, school, and health outcomes. Adjustment in parent–child relationships is positively associated with the child’s quality of relationships with his or her peers (Schneider, Atkinson, and Tardif 2001), school outcomes (Pianta, Nimetz, and Bennett 1997), and school adjustment (Magnus et al. 1999). Similarly, it is negatively associated with youth substance use and delinquent behaviors (Griffin et al. 2000). Culturally sensitive parental training might alleviate these problems (Forehand and Kotchick 1996) although immigrant families are difficult to enroll in such interventions.

8 Cultural communication competence in health care: An exemplar We turn next to a more in-depth analysis of cultural communication competence using the health care context as an exemplar (see also Chapter 19 in this volume). We choose the health care context because of the importance of health outcomes and the ongoing discussion of health disparities that racial and ethnic minority groups tend to suffer (Ndiaye et al. 2008). For instance, in the United States, racial/ ethnic minority groups are often less likely to have health insurance (Flores et al. 1998), thus, they have worse quality of health care (Weech-Maldonado et al. 2003). They also are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards at work (Frumkin, Walker, and Friedman-Jimenez 1999) and at home (Adeola 1994), and health disparities occur as a result. African Americans have the highest rates of mortality from heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, and HIV/AIDS of any U.S. racial/ethnic group, while American Indians have highest rates of diabetes and liver disease, and Asian Americans experience higher rates of stomach, liver, and cervical cancers compared to national averages (Smedley, Stith, and Nelson 2003). Further, Hispanics are more likely than are whites to die from diabetes (Smedley, Stith, and Nelson 2003). Racial/ethnic-based health disparities also are reported in other health areas and

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other parts of the world. Such disparities include the risk of HIV infection among men who have sex with men in Canada and the U.K. (Millett et al. 2012), diabetic outcomes between black and white patients in the U.K. (Alshamsan et al. 2012), and cancer survival rate between Maori and non-Maori patients in New Zealand (Hill et al. 2010). Thus, health disparities based on ethnicity and race appear to be prevalent worldwide. These health disparities are, at least in part, attributable to a lack of cultural competence in the health care system. In general, minorities may receive fewer or lower quality services as a result of communication problems, including inadequate communication, poor message choices, language barriers, and a general lack of intercultural competence (Hecht and Lu 2014), all of which pose issues with access to healthcare. Thus, a lack of cultural competence and, specifically, a lack of shared codes and incompetent practices, contribute to health disparities. Furthermore, an improvement in cultural competence among patients and providers can potentially reduce health disparities (Brach and Fraserirector 2000). Researchers address cultural competence in health communication by examining two main content areas: the health care system and patient-specific issues.

8.1 Cultural competence in the health care system Healthcare access is a crucial contributor to health disparities and is, in part, attributed to communication competence. For example, health promotion messages frequently do not reach underserved groups, usually racial/ethnic minorities, because they are often poorly designed in content and form (O’Malley, Kerner, and Johnson 1999). As a result, such populations may not be aware of the available health care services or may lack knowledge needed in accessing and using these services. Even when access issues are overcome, other barriers exist. Cultural (in)competence is found in barriers presented in three areas of the health care system: organizational, structural, and clinical (interpersonal) (Betancourt et al. 2003). Organizational barriers refer to leadership and workforce factors, such as unrepresentativeness of racial/ethnic minorities in policy making. Structural barriers refer to factors related to health providers within the health care system, such as the availability of interpreter services for racial/ethnic minorities and health education materials for providers. Finally, clinical barriers describe culturally diverse health beliefs and medical practices across racial/ethnic groups that affect health care. Organizational barriers, such as racial/ethnic incongruence between patient and doctor, may contribute to problems (Johnson et al. 2004). Healthcare providers often communicate with racial/ethnic minority patients who are not from the provider’s own cultural background. As a result, the cultural orientation of the medical care system, or its providers, may not be congruent with the cultural perspectives of some patient groups (Johnson et al. 2004). When this incongruence occurs, potential challenges in communicating with patients tend to arise. Such challenges

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include accurately describing health care, effectively using an unskilled interpreter to interview or counsel a patient, eliciting a patient’s perspective on his or her illness during a consultation, and eliciting a patient’s perspective of healing and medication therapy during a consultation (White-Means et al. 2009). Consequently, patient–provider communications may not serve all groups equally (Johnson et al. 2004). Unfortunately health professionals, particularly whites in the U.S. medical system, often lack cultural communication competence. Non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics in medicine and pharmacy as well as multi-racial nursing students report significantly higher cultural competency scores than do their non-Hispanic white counterparts (White-Means et al. 2009). In addition, health professionals tend to have limited knowledge of the influence of culture on patient–doctor relationships and communication. As a result, providers tend to lack the motivation to address cultural issues during medical encounters (Rosenberg et al. 2006). For example, U.S. nurses are generally found to be unprepared educationally to achieve an adequate level of cultural competence required to communicate competently in the context of culturally diverse workplaces (Kavanagh et al. 1999). Cultural incompetence of health professionals is manifested in many ways, and perhaps none is more consequential than biases and stereotyping among health care providers (Johnson et al. 2004). For example, White-Means et al. (2009) found a general preference for whites versus blacks and for light skin versus dark skin among professionals in medical, pharmacy, and nursing schools. Such biases manifest a lack of cultural competence, especially in terms of partial knowledge or inadequate understanding of minority populations. A lack of cultural knowledge can lead to stereotypical assumptions that, for example, all members of a group think and behave in the same way, thus ignoring differences that reflect gender, class, age, and experience. Even worse, the failure to recognize cultural differences, a feeling that these differences are not significant, or a belief that attention to individualized care will transcend such differences, can result in discrimination in health care delivery, whether intended or unintended (Johnson et al. 2004). Cultural biases that result in poor provider–patient communication affect minority health care profoundly. Providers may communicate lower expectations to patients in disadvantaged social positions because of race/ethnicity, income, education, etc. compared to their more advantaged counterparts. Such lowered expectations may, in turn, affect the amount and quality of health information patients receive and their subsequent health behaviors (Van Ryn and Fu 2003). By itself, racism/discrimination experienced by individuals often leads to worse physical and mental health outcomes (Hecht and Lu 2014). Conversely, improvement in cultural competence can play a positive role in reducing or even eliminating health disparities (Campinha-Bacote 2003). Physician communication competence is important to ensure that patients understand medi-

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cal advice and health behaviors (Parchman et al. 2009). For example, considering patient compliance with health care instructions, medical training has traditionally focused on diagnosis and treatment of disease. The assumption has generally been that if these two factors are satisfactorily managed, the desired outcomes of care will inevitably follow. When it does not, failure is often blamed on patient noncompliance. However, the cultural competence of health care providers in providing sufficient health information, treatment suggestions, and ensuring patient understanding has largely been ignored. Thus, improved cultural competence of health care providers enhances patient outcomes such as patient satisfaction (Betancourt and Green 2010) and compliance with treatment regimens (Langer 1999).

8.2 Cultural competence among patients Because competence is a relational issue (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984), one cannot ignore all of the players involved in communication interactions. The competence of patients also may be an issue, and patient competency is implicated in many ways. For example, U.S. patients with poor English language proficiency are less likely to receive regular medical care (Johnson et al. 2004) and are more likely to face higher risks of nonadherence to medication (Flores 2006). One reason patient competence is important is because some of the structural problems described above can be overcome if patients have adequate cultural communication competence and health literacy. As a relational phenomenon, it is not completely incumbent on the system or provider to overcome barriers. For example, racial/ethnic incongruence between patient and provider may pose less of a challenge if minority patients have adequate knowledge of health care. Unfortunately, minority patients often lack knowledge of culture and its effect on health care quality. Additionally, their own minority cultural ways of expressing stress and anxiety are not necessarily appropriate in the majority culture context (Rosenberg et al. 2006). As a result, ethnic minorities usually rate the quality of health care more negatively than do whites (Johnson et al. 2004). For instance, racial/ ethnic minority patients are more likely than are majority patients to report that their doctor does not listen to everything they say, they do not fully understand their doctor, or they have questions during the visit but do not ask them (Collins et al. 2002). Johnson et al. (2004) reported that, in the United States, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians were more likely than whites to perceive bias and a lack of cultural competence in the health system. Specifically, minorities perceive that: 1. they would have received better medical care if they belonged to a different race/ethnic group and 2. the medical staff judged them unfairly or treated them with disrespect based on race/ethnicity and how well they spoke English. Other patient factors also influence the communication processes. Immigrant acculturation level, for example, influences health care access and use, experience, and compliance. Immigrant patients, who are usually racial/ethnic minorities, are

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often less verbally and affectively expressive during medical encounters (Cooper et al. 2003), which negatively affects the amount of information and treatment they receive from physicians (Street 1991). Here, acculturation level, as reflected in language proficiency and cultural knowledge, is the main factor. A lack of adequate language proficiency in health care settings, including knowledge of terminology and procedures, poses a barrier to health care access, affects the quality of care (e.g., amount of information) that patients receive, and results in inappropriate care because of poorly communicated or interpreted symptoms and treatment (Flores 2006). Considering these factors, culturally competent language interpretation is needed. However, one study in the United States reported that no interpreter was used in 46 % of emergency department cases that involved patients with limited English proficiency (Baker et al. 1996). Moreover, few clinicians receive training in working with interpreters (Flores et al. 2003) and the quality of interpreting does not always meet the needs of the patients or their families, especially when using untrained persons, such as family members or bilingual staff members (Karliner et al. 2007).

8.3 Cultural communication competence interventions in health care Consequently, interventions to improve cultural competence are necessary and essential for public health. Improvement in cultural competence can lead to more appropriate services, such as prevention and screening activities undertaken with full knowledge of risk factors, better informed diagnoses, treatment options formulated and presented in cultural contexts, and patient education on treatment regimens culturally tailored to improve the likelihood of adherence (Brach and Fraserirector 2000). The question, then, is how to improve cultural competence. Brach and Fraserirector (2000) suggested that improvement of cultural competence can be achieved by providing access and changing clinician and patient behaviors, including improved communication, increased trust, greater knowledge of epidemiology and treatment efficacy, and expanded understanding of patients’ cultural behaviors and environments. Given that interventions involve a web of issues that require involvement of all parties because of the relational nature of competence (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984), cultural competence intervention is a complex challenge that requires broad improvements that target not only the health care system and health care providers but also patients’ competence levels (Brach and Fraserirector 2000). In this section, we provide suggestions based on our review of the relevant literature. Given the cultural competence issues in the health care system discussed above, programs designed to address systemic issues in the cultural competence of health care delivery seem to be a natural choice. Techniques frequently dis-

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cussed in the literature to develop a culturally competent health system align broadly with the following categories: 1. interpreter services, 2. recruitment and retention policies for minority staff, 3. training, 4. coordinating with traditional healers, 5. use of community health workers, 6. culturally competent health promotion, 7. including family and/or community members in care-giving, 8. immersion into another culture, and 9. administrative or organizational accommodations (Brach and Fraserirector 2000). These techniques correspond with and can be categorized into structural, clinical, and organizational components of a culturally competent health system (Betancourt et al. 2003). Betancourt et al. suggested that interventions should include innovations in the health care system and structural design to ensure that minorities obtain quality health care (structural), educational initiatives that aim to teach providers the tools and skills to deliver quality care to diverse populations (clinical), and efforts to increase the numbers of under-represented minorities in the health profession, including health care leadership (organizational). Among these, the technique mostly commonly discussed and incorporated in practice is training culturally competent health professionals. Because structural changes are usually more difficult to achieve, many health care interventions involve cultural training for health providers, such as nurses and physicians. Interventions that target the cultural competence of health care professionals facilitate communication between providers and patients and can mitigate misunderstandings, improve relationships, and promote health care quality (Kumagai and Lypson 2009). Moreover, cultural competence of providers facilitates the intercultural connections between providers and patients from the targeted racial/ethnic groups (Kavanagh et al. 1999). A shift in cultural orientation and change of cultural competence enables providers to attend to associations between the dynamic relationships within unfamiliar social, political, and economic circumstances. Developing such relationships allows providers to develop co-responsibility with consumer groups to advocate improved health and health care. In addition, cultural competence allows providers to understand the health and illness perspectives and behaviors of patients, family health care decisions, treatment expectations, and compliance with health care treatment plans (St Clair and McKenry 1999). Recognizing the importance of health providers’ cultural competence, scholars have conceptualized ways to improve their cultural competence training (De Leon Siantz 2008; Lu and Hecht 2014; Padela and Punekar 2009). Rosenberg et al. (2006) discussed two commonly used training methods; one focuses on the physician themselves, the other on the patients. First is the Balint group method, which emphasizes physicians’ self-awareness of being a parent, child, man/woman, professional, and so forth, rather than teaching culture-specific competencies. This selfawareness of identity increases physicians’ cultural sensitivity overall and helps them become more competent in communicating with varied patient populations.

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The second approach seeks to shift physicians from their present disease-focused paradigms toward the practice of a more patient-centered care paradigm. Patient-centered care is designed to “see the illness through the patients’ eyes” to provide services based on patients’ needs, and includes outcomes that patients care about (e.g., patient satisfaction) in the outcome evaluation system (Saha, Beach, and Cooper 2008). Instruction in a patient-centered approach seeks to motivate learning about aspects of patients’ cultures that affect their illness experience and learning skills to elicit patients’ perspectives. Lavizzo-Mourey and Mackenzie (1996) suggested that cultural competence training of health providers must involve demonstrated awareness and integration of three population-specific issues: health-related beliefs and cultural values, disease incidence and prevalence, and treatment efficacy. First, failure to address the variations in health beliefs in the clinical setting threatens patient satisfaction and, potentially, threatens clinical outcomes. Thus, cultural sensitivity or cultural appropriateness in delivering health care to a culturally diverse patient population by recognizing the variations in beliefs and values is especially important. Second, disease incidence varies among racial and ethnic subpopulations. Accurate data can guide decisions to allocate resources effectively for health education, screening, and treatment programs to address more prevalent diseases of the targeted population. Third, treatment efficacy can vary among different populations; therefore, flexibility in diagnostic and treatment protocols or formularies is needed to deliver the most cost-effective (not necessarily the cheapest) treatment for the population served. Overall, cultural competence of health providers requires knowledge of the cultural group they are serving and culturally appropriate services to fit patients’ needs based on cultural awareness and training skills (Lu and Hecht 2014). Eight content areas taught within a commonly accepted rubric of cross-cultural education curriculum include general cultural concepts, racism and stereotyping, physician–patient relationships, language, specific cultural content, access issues, socioeconomic status, and gender roles and sexuality (Dolhun, Munoz, and Grumbach 2003). Lu and Hecht (2014) suggested including acculturation in provider training to enhance awareness that individual immigrants might take different routes in adjusting to the new majority culture. For example, some immigrants may adhere to their original culture after an extended stay in the host culture, while others may assimilate to the host culture and become familiar with its health care practices. In practice, instead of assuming an original cultural identity of patients based on their ethnicities, health providers may need to assess the patients’ acculturation levels and adjust the care accordingly. In addition to those targeting health care providers, researchers have developed a number of interventions for targeting minority communities and patients to enhance the organizational aspects of the healthcare system. Some of these interventions begin by including communities in the healthcare system by recruiting

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and retaining minority staff in health care, using community health workers, coordinating with traditional healers, and including family and community members in health decision-making. Including minority staff in health care, with their shared cultural beliefs and common language, can improve communication, create a more welcoming environment, and structure the health system to better reflect the needs of minority communities (Cooper-Patrick et al. 1999). In addition, minority staff can create a multi-cultural work environment, which promotes learning of culturally appropriate provider behaviors of non-white health professionals (Paez et al. 2008). Using community health workers helps bring in individuals who had not previously sought care, provides cultural linkages, overcomes distrust, and contributes to patient–provider communications. Such improvements increase the likelihood of patient follow-up and provide more cost-effective health services to isolated communities that have traditionally lacked access (Goicoechea-Balbona 1997; Riddick 1998). Systems of healing represent the worldviews, social organization, and traditional forms of spirituality of the cultures that practice them (Kirmayer 2012). Not surprisingly then, community members report high comfort levels in seeking traditional healing (Hartmann and Gone 2012), which places great value in coordinating with traditional healers within the healthcare system. Moreover, including traditional healing in the health care system helps clinicians better understand the alignment between the values and worldviews in which their own health system is embedded and those held by their patients (Hartmann and Gone 2012), which consists of an important component of cultural awareness. Last, the potential for including family and community members in health decision-making may ensure cultural appropriateness of care because many cultures place family at the center of health-related decision-making (Quinn et al. 2012). Outside the health care system, culturally competent health promotion for community members also is needed to encourage healthy behaviors, prevention, risk reduction, early detection and treatment, and proper care of chronic or acute diseases (Kok, van den Borne, and Mullen 1997). Netto et al. (2010) reviewed interventions that targeted minority groups to prevent coronary heart diseases and summarized five principals for adapting behavioral interventions for ethnic minority groups: 1. use community resources to publicize the intervention and increase accessibility; 2. identify and address barriers to access and participation; 3. develop communication strategies that are sensitive to language use and information requirements; 4. work with cultural and religious values that either promote or hinder behavioral change; and 5. accommodate varying degrees of cultural identification. Specifically, culturally competent health promotion programs may include brief interventions, such as screening services in the community and public information campaigns. Thus, messages and materials need to be carefully designed to incorporate culture-specific attitudes and values.

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In addition to specific suggestions of developing culturally competent health interventions, targeting and tailoring are two commonly discussed intervention approaches to ensure delivery of culturally appropriate care to minority groups. The targeting approach identifies a specific group and develops interventions based on shared group characteristics, while tailoring focuses on individuals and interventions that are intended to reach specific persons (Kreuter et al. 2003). Both approaches start with a well-developed understanding of the audience and base the intervention development on this understanding. At the minority group level, DiazCuellar and Evans (2013) suggested that to provide optimal care with a diverse world population, it is necessary to understand the health care and health promotion needs for various groups, which include health-seeking behaviors, cultural beliefs and values, attitudes, cultural nuances, and perceptions about health. Among minority groups, individuals may share a range of cultural characteristics (e.g., individualistic); however, salience of these characteristics may vary by person and may require individual-level measurement and adjustment (Kreuter et al. 2003). We argue that a cultural grounding approach (Hecht and Krieger 2006) is appropriate and key to culturally competent health promotion intervention development. Culturally grounded interventions are informed by knowledge of the targeted culture with the active participation of cultural insiders in message design, production, and distribution. Following a cultural grounding approach, culturally competent health interventions should inductively identify shared and salient identities of minority group members and develop messages that consider local perspectives. As discussed, cultural competence interventions should target the health care system, health providers, and minority individuals and communities. Delivering the interventions is the next issue. A large number of organizations and institutions have been involved and devoted to developing cultural competence programs, including public (federal, state, and local) and private sector initiatives (health care institutions or professional organizations, foundations, academic institutions/policy research organizations, and others) (The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation 2003). Those in the healthcare field use different channels of interventions, including online resources (e.g., websites providing information for health providers); workbooks or brochures that introduce culture, cultural biases, and cultural competence; and in-person training programs based in schools or hospitals. Lie et al. (2011) reviewed existing cultural competence intervention programs and concluded that, in general, these programs are effective in improving health providers’ cultural competence. However, they pointed out that most existing evaluation studies have focused on provider competencies, such as improved knowledge, attitudes, and skills, but rarely on patient outcomes, such as health improvement. Other cultural competence efforts, such as health care system updates, community bridging activities, and training of individual community members are rarely evaluated.

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One challenge is how best to measure racial/ethnic minority group membership or identification. Scales to measure (multi-group) ethnic identity (Brown et al. 2014; Yoon 2011) and, consequently, cultural congruence are needed to ensure that evaluation reflects the true complexity of ethnic/racial cultures. Overall, a better evaluation system is needed to enhance intervention development.

9 Conclusion The theoretical understanding of communication competence must reflect the pervasiveness of racial/ethnic variations and the importance of communicating across these differences. Research clearly demonstrates that, at the very least, language and other cultural factors add complexity to the challenges of competent communication. Competency in intra-ethnic communication does not guarantee success in inter-ethnic communication. In everyday experiences, the lack of communication competence during an encounter is often attributed to a lack of cultural competence or adaptation. We suggest that race and ethnicity should not be treated as categorical variables because of the existing variations within racial/ethnic groups and the multiple identities of racial/ethnic minority individuals. Instead, we use a speech code theory, which conceptualizes cultural communication competence as the codes and practices that help achieve communication goals in specific contexts with specific groups of people. Health, one particularly consequential context, serves as an extended exemplar to discuss, in depth, the role of cultural competence; specifically, how codes and practices affect health outcomes and how interventions can improve cultural communication competencies. We suggest that culturally competent interventions target all parties involved in communication, including the health care system, health providers, the racial/ethnic minority communities, and minority individuals to ensure health care access and quality and to reduce health disparities. An efficient program evaluation system also is necessary to provide feedback for current interventions and to contribute to the theory of effective intervention development. This exemplar is intended to show the important role that cultural competence plays in affecting outcomes as well as the complexity of the challenges involved. Lessons could be learned from the exemplar, not only for cultural competence programs, but also for other areas such as education, interpersonal relationships, etc. Overall, lack of cultural competence contributes to disparities in various physical, psychological, educational, and rational outcomes across racial/ethnic groups. Despite the existing body of literature that addresses solutions or interventions, more research is needed to provide powerful theories and practices. Clearly, the challenges to cultural competence theory and practice are great, but so are the potential rewards in quality of life that addressing these challenges can bring.

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Suarez-Orozco, Carola and Marcelo Suarez-Orozco. 2001. Children of Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Suh, Eunyoung E. 2004. The model of cultural competence through an evolutionary concept analysis. Journal of Transcultural Nursing 15(2). 93–102. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2003. Compendium of Cultural Competence Initiatives in Health Care. Retrieved from http://www.azdhs.gov/bhs/pdf/culturalComp/ccih.pdf Ting-Toomey, Stella. 2005. The matrix of face: An updated face-negotiation theory. In: William B. Gudykunst (ed.), Theorizing about Intercultural Communication, 71–92. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Trimble, Joseph E. 1990. Ethnic specification, validation prospects, and the future of drug use research. International Journal of the Addictions 25. 149–170. Unger, Jennifer B., Anamara Ritt-Olson, Daniel W. Soto and Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati. 2009. Parent–child acculturation discrepancies as a risk factor for substance use among Hispanic adolescents in southern California. Journal of Immigrant Minority Health 11. 149–157. U.S. Census. 2010. Language Use in the United States: 2007: American Community Survey Reports. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/acs-12.pdf U.S. Census. 2012. The Foreign-born Population in the United States: 2010: American Community Survey Reports. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acs-19.pdf United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Office of Minority Health. 2001. National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health Care Final Report. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://www.omhrc.gov/clas/index.htm Van Ryn, Michelle and Steven S. Fu. 2003. Paved with good intentions: Do public health and human service providers contribute to racial/ethnic disparities in health? American Journal of Public Health 93(2). 248–255. Weech-Maldonado, Robert, Leo S. Morales, Marc Elliott, Karen Spritzer, Grant Marshall and Ron D. Hays. 2003. Race/ethnicity, language, and patients’ assessments of care in medicaid managed care. Health Service Research 38(3). 789–808. White-Means, Shelley, Zhiyong Dong, Meghan Hufstader and Lawrence T. Brown. 2009. Cultural competency, race and skin tone bias among pharmacy, nursing, and medical students: Implications for addressing health disparities. Medical Care Research and Review 6(4). 436– 455. Yoon, Eunju. 2011. Measuring ethnic identity in the Ethnic Identity Scale and the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure – Revised. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 17(2). 144. Zhang, Li. 2006. Communication in academic libraries: An East Asian perspective. Reference Services Review 34(1). 164–176.

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13 Relational competence Abstract: Communication competence has generally been held as the ability to appropriately and effectively use communication to obtain a desired outcome or goal. Traditionally, the focus of communication competence has been on how behaviors and cognitions, such as cognitive complexity, empathy, role-taking, and interaction management, are enlisted for goal achievement. This chapter takes a “macro approach” to competence in relationships by first reviewing the operation of these fundamental behaviors and related cognitions in close relationships. Shifting, then, to a wider frame, we expand the traditional perspective to include a broader set of communication processes and remark on communication skills that could be considered relational competence. Focusing on those communication processes that influence the ability of individuals to acquire, develop, and maintain satisfying relationships, we situate relational competence as a complex and dynamic phenomenon. Some of these processes, such as social support, affection, and information regulation vary from incompetent to competent depending on their use. Other communication processes, such as hurtful messages, verbal aggression, and violence, are more likely to be destructive and incompetent. What remains for future research is to disentangle the subtle differences in the characteristics of verbal and nonverbal messages that make them more or less skilled and functional as well as helpful or harmful. Keywords: competence, relational competence, relationships, attachment, information management, hurtful messages, conflict, aggression

One might think it would be easy to describe what constitutes competence in relationships. Such a task, however, can be daunting because communication competence is ultimately what many communication scholars spend a lifetime trying to decipher. This task is particularly arduous because interpersonal interaction is the epitome of relationships and social integration (Spitzberg 2003). Being a competent communicator, therefore, is essential to developing and maintaining relationships, particularly healthy relationships. Being a competent communicator could ultimately determine whether a relationship survives, let alone flourishes. Competence also reveals itself in many different communicative behaviors in relationships. Some of these behaviors, however, could arguably be more central to the notion of competence than others. In this chapter, we take a “macro approach” to competence in relationships by outlining some of the fundamental behaviors and related cognitions that comprise competence in close relationships. We then expand the traditional focus of communication competence to other communication skills in close relationships that

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could be considered a part of the realm of relational competence. Relational competence involves the ability to “facilitate the acquisition, development, and maintenance of mutually satisfying relationships” (Hansson, Jones, and Carpenter 1984: 273). Although the communication patterns that create and maintain mutually satisfying relationships are varied, we provide examples of central communication skills that have been shown to affect people’s ability to maintain healthy close relationships. Determining what constitutes a mutually satisfying relationship is also difficult because it can involve characteristics like relationship duration, trust, happiness, closeness, satisfaction, and commitment. Most of these characteristics, however, revolve around the idea of relational quality. Relational competence involves communication skills or communication competencies that allow people to maintain quality relationships. As such, we begin by discussing the broader notion of communication competence in relationships and how these skills are developed. After providing this foundation, we explore other essential communication skills, such as social support, affection, and conflict management, and their functionality in relationships.

1 Traditional conceptualizations of communication competence 1.1 Communication competence and related skills Communication competence is a complex concept to define. While its complexity can prove problematic for research, understanding its sophistication is an essential tool for untangling relational communication phenomena. In general, communication competence is people’s ability to appropriately and effectively use communication to obtain a desired outcome or goal (Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach 1994). Communication competence is typically situationally determined (Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach 1994). But, it can also constitute a larger set of communication “traits” that are relatively stable across situations (see Merrill and Afifi 2012). Literature associated with competence can be categorized around seven conceptual clusters (fundamental competence, social competence, interpersonal competence, linguistic competence, communicative competence, and social skills (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984) with each emphasizing a different aspect of competence. The clusters vary in their conceptualization of competence and their number and overlap demonstrate the potential for competence to become unclear and nebulous. Competence, itself, can be understood as an ability and a quality (Spitzberg 1993). As an ability, competence is the capacity of a person to enable the repeated performance of goal-directed behavioral routines. As a quality, competence is the evaluation of several criteria of a behavioral performance (i.e., dialogical criteria, clarity, understanding, efficiency, satisfaction, effectiveness, and appropriateness;

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Spitzberg 2003) or a person’s capacity for this behavioral performance. Competence also serves three essential roles in relationships (Spitzberg 1993). First, as an ability, competence fundamentally facilitates the development and management of relationships. As such, those who are skilled in relational competence have an advantage in relationships. Second, as an evaluation, competence plays a mediating role between the behavior itself and a person’s reaction to that behavior. How a person reacts to an actor’s behavior is dependent on a person’s evaluation of the actor’s communication competence. This means that the perception of competence is a vital component in relationship initiation and maintenance. The third role of competence in relationships is its manifestation in the self’s evaluations of one’s own competence, or “self-competence” (Spitzberg 1993: 138). The degree to which a person perceives him- or herself to be competent in a given interaction will determine the person’s decisions regarding pursuit and management of goals. Interestingly, people often rate their own competence higher than the ratings provided by their interaction partners (Alicke and Govorun 2005; Canary and Spitzberg 1990). While conceptualizing competence serves an orienting purpose, doing so begs the question: What are the sources of competence? According to Spitzberg and Canary (1984), four constructs represent the underlying processes of competence: cognitive complexity, empathy, role-taking, and interaction management. Cognitive complexity is rooted in the constructivist approach to communication (Delia, O’Keefe, and O’Keefe 1982). The assumption is that people organize what they know and experience into cognitive schemata. In communication, the schemata of importance are referred to as interpersonal constructs (Delia, O’Keefe, and O’Keefe 1982). They use these constructs as a filter, base, and referent for evaluating and interacting with the world around them. Cognitive complexity is the number, abstractness, and interrelatedness of these interpersonal constructs. As people’s cognitive complexity increases, their ability to make differentiated and complex interpretations of relational situations increases. These cognitive skills are essential for becoming interpersonally competent (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984). Even when individuals are rated high in cognitive complexity, however, other factors, such as being emotionally upset or cognitively taxed, can impair their ability to evaluate messages (Bodie et al. 2011). In light of this, competent relational communication cannot be studied in the isolated individual nor in ignorance of their potential for being able to adequately process messages (Burleson 2010). Empathy and role-taking are often used interchangeably, but Spitzberg (1980) distinguishes empathy as an emotional reaction to, or affective experience of, another person’s emotional state. Role-taking is conceptualized separately as the cognitive construction of another person’s role in order to manage interactions. However, as the terms are related, they together represent the “adaptiveness” quality of competence (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984: 45). By taking the role of others, even at a young age, one develops interpersonal constructs that permits more comprehensive adjustment to one’s interaction partner (Hale 1980). Indeed, the ability to

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empathize is often a crucial part of relational competence (see Davis and Oathout 1987). Interaction management is the ability to handle the procedural aspects of structuring and maintaining a conversation (Wiemann 1977). Very similar to aspects of control, interaction management includes actions such as topic negotiation, turn taking, entering and exiting interactions, and handling topical development smoothly (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984). Even though this explication of constructs underlying competence assumes that behaviors can be reproduced, it is important to understand that competence is a context-specific phenomenon (e.g., Spitzberg 1991).

1.2 Multiple goals and social influence Although communication in relationships is a complex and messy process, some order can be brought to the chaos if interaction is assumed to be goal-directed. Whenever people communicate, they rely on goals and plans (Kellermann 1992). More often than not, people juggle their own desires and intentions with those of spouses, dating partners, family members, and friends. This negotiation often takes place in communicative encounters. Given that competence typically is considered the capacity to perform an appropriate behavior effectively for a particular purpose within a particular situation, evaluations of competence hinge on the identification of the interactants’ goals, plans, and eventual actions. Relational competence is judged according to how individuals balance their goals and plans with those of others. This assumption is especially salient in goals-plans-actions (GPA) theories. GPA theories conceptualize message production as a three-step process in which goals form plans, which manifest in externally executed actions. Goals are future states of affairs that an individual is committed to achieving or maintaining (Dillard 1997). Plans are cognitive representations of behaviors that are intended to enable goal attainment (Berger 1997). Actions are the behaviors enacted in an effort to realize a goal (Dillard 2008). Communication competence in GPA theories is exhibited in the message production process as one manages situational ambiguity, increasing complexity of plans, plan modification, and goal multiplicity (Wilson and Sabee 2003). As the number of goals increases, the complexity of plans and planning increases (Dillard 2008). Competent communicators are able to quickly format a plan and take action in ambiguous situations. They also are able to handle complex plans that are subject to change either before interaction, after an interaction, or while an interaction is taking place (Berger 1997). Focusing on message production, GPA theories assume competent communicators have an “anticipatory mindset” (Wilson and Sabee 2003: 23) That is, they are able to recognize the effectiveness of their actions and revise their plans before and during interaction in order to maximize the potential for goal achievement.

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Before interaction begins, goals drive the initial cognitive processes. Commonly occurring in relational communication, desired future states of affairs become interactional goals when the desired state requires compliance and approval of others (Wilson and Morgan 2006). In order to realize their goals, individuals must engage in communication and coordination with others. Of the seven common primary goals identified in interpersonal influence research (Dillard 2008), Wilson and Morgan (2006) note that four goals, specifically, frame the interactions in close relationship: giving advice, obtaining assistance, convincing others to share an activity, and eliciting support for a third party. Secondary goals are related to the primary goal in that they exist only because of the primary goal, but they may, and often are, contradictory to the primary goal (Dillard 2008). People attempt to accomplish multiple goals through interaction (Dillard and Knobloch 2011). Although the pursuit of multiple conflicting goals is distressing and drains cognitive resources (Kahneman 2003), being perceived as communicatively competent often depends on one’s ability to manage multiple goals (Wilson and Sabee 2003). Managing multiple goals is essential to avoiding relational conflicts that might arise from departing from any one of five categories of secondary goals: a) identity goals, or desires to act consistently with one’s beliefs, morals, and values; b) interaction goals, or desires to maintain a positive self image, to avoid other people losing “face”, and to say things that are relevant and coherent in light of the larger conversation; c) relational resource goals, or desires to maintain valued relationships; d) personal resource goals, or desires to avoid unnecessary risking or wasting one’s time, money, or safety; and e) arousal-management, or desires to avoid or reduce anxiety or nervousness (Dillard, Segrin, and Harden 1989). For example, one spouse is skilled at cleaning and would like to give her less-skilled partner advice on how to wash dishes more effectively. The more skilled spouse’s primary goal is to give advice, but her secondary goal could be to avoid threatening her partner’s “face”. Another secondary goal could be that the more skilled spouse desires to act consistently with his belief that married couples should always be supportive. Should his partner feel threatened by the advice, the more skilled spouse would unintentionally violate her own identity goal. The ability to anticipate these outcomes, however, permits the spouse to adjust her plans (Berger 1997), build in contingencies (Wilson and Sabee 2003), and design new messages in order to maximize the attainment of all goals. While GPA theories provide a framework for understanding the source of tension between multiple goals, how that tension is resolved is more specifically addressed by the message design logic approach to message production. Originated by O’Keefe (1988), a message producer can employ one of three different fundamental, communication-constituting premises in reasoning from goals to messages. A premise, or logic, drives the message production resulting in expressive, conventional, or rhetorical message design logics. This approach is still goal-based, but details the consistent types of message tailoring to a particular situation rather

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than stable structures of motivation and action (O’Keefe and McCornack 1987). Goals are considered implicit in social structures, and messages are designed in ways that support the logic of how to accomplish various goals (O’Keefe 1988). Using an expressive message design logic, individuals will simply express the thoughts and feelings that the situation provokes in them. When communicating in conventional message design logic, language is treated as a means of expressing propositions, but the propositions are specified and constrained by the social effect one wants to achieve. In rhetorical message design logic, individuals attempt to cultivate an interpersonal consensus about the social situation that is desirable (O’Keefe 1988). In accordance with multiple goals perspectives, message design logics assume that communication is purposeful (Caughlin 2010). In a study on reactions to HIV disclosures, Caughlin et al. (2008) found all three types of message design logics present in reactions to a hypothetical scenario in which participants were asked to imagine their sibling had just disclosed a positive HIV diagnosis to them. They found that the more sophisticated the message design logic, the higher participants rated the message in appropriateness, supportiveness, sensitivity, and helpfulness. These results suggest that message design logic is an indicator of relational communication competence. Competence in difficult interpersonal situations is essential to maintaining harmonious relationships. Whether communication decisions are competent depends on the goals of the communicator and the meaning of those actions, which might not be clear or agree upon to everyone involved in the interaction (Wilson and Morgan 2006). From a multiple goals perspective, the meaning of communication behaviors is not inherent to those behaviors, but is instead dependent on the interpretation of those behaviors (Caughlin 2010). Thus, not only does competent relational communication involve managing multiple goals, but it must also involve managing the interpretation of one’s goals. For example, families of lung cancer patients report frequent avoidance of discussions pertaining to informational and emotional issues despite also reporting that they are very open about the patient’s illness and death (Caughlin et al. 2011). Although avoidance of some topics may seem to contradict the family’s identity goal (being communicatively open), Caughlin et al. (2011) found that this served as a coping mechanism. This alludes to the existence of a second goal (e.g., to maintain hope and optimism) and demonstrates how avoidance is not inherently problematic (Afifi, Caughlin, and Afifi 2007). Explicit topic avoidance is often used with the goal of protecting one’s privacy or autonomy (Afifi 2003; Petronio 2002), but the communicator simultaneously risks his/her communicative behavior being interpreted as rude or face threatening (Brown and Levinson 1987). Messages that convey the primary goal of topic avoidance are evaluated as more competent when they also contain a message component that addresses a secondary goal of expressing gratitude (Donovan-Kicken et al. 2011). Similarly, end-

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of-life talk is most effective in families when family members are able to attend to two goals: discussing end-of-life decisions and addressing identity and relational goals (Scott and Caughlin 2012). End-of-life decision discussions bring up uncertainties about expectations of family member roles and responsibilities. When children, for example, are able to reassure a father that they will take care of him as he wishes in his later years, the children are able to satisfy identity goals (e.g., it is morally right to take care of my father; my father needs to perceive me as a person who will do this) and address the primary goal of discussing end-of-life care (Scott and Caughlin 2012). Even though competence in managing multiple goals in relationships is related to the ability to craft sophisticated messages, competent relational communication is highly dependent on situational factors and others’ interpretations.

2 Broadening the notion of communication competence in relationships In the aforementioned sections, we examined more traditional notions of communication competence in relationships. There are other communication skills, however, that are perhaps more subtle that equally contribute to competence in close relationships. At the foundation of many of these communication skills are individuals’ attachment orientations.

2.1 Attachment, social support, and affection At a basic level, all human beings long to feel secure, loved, and supported. Close relationships are a primary source of the fulfillment of these needs. Competence in close relationships often means that partners, friends, and family members have secure attachments and can provide a “secure base” for one another (Bowlby 1982). Attachments are the bonds that people develop with others as a result of their primary caregivers’ availability and responsiveness to their needs as children (Bowlby 1982; Jang, Smith, and Levine 2002). Parents who have children with secure attachments provide a safe space from which their children can explore the world and seek support when they are uncertain or stressed (Bowlby 1982). Attachments are rooted in the degree to which people can trust others (i.e., anxiety) and want to approach or avoid relationships (Collins and Feeney 2004; Guerrero, Faranelli, and McEwan 2009). Attachments shape the way individuals communicate in close relationships across the lifespan (Jang, Smith, and Levine 2002). Individuals with secure attachments could be considered more competent communicators, given that they tend

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to be moderately disclosive, expressive and socially supportive, emotionally stable, and able to give and receive affection freely (LePoire, Shepard, and Duggan 1999). These communication competencies have important implications for relational and personal well-being. For example, research shows that people who are more anxious in relationships tend to emphasize the negativity in their conflict and use more negative emotions with their romantic partners (e.g., Feeney 1999). Moreover, people who are avoidant in relationships tend to be reserved emotionally in order to prevent conflict and emotional intimacy with their romantic partner (Feeney 1999). Although attachments often change, research shows that they are relatively stable across the lifespan (e.g., Simpson et al. 2007). That is, people’s attachments often change, particularly with major life events that can influence the attachments (e.g., traumas, divorce, death, significant life events, being with a supportive partner), but they have still been shown to remain relatively consistent across the lifespan. Along with attachment, more broadly, being able to communicate effective social support, specifically, is an important characteristic of relational competence. Sometimes social support can hurt personal and relational health if it is not used appropriately. Essentially, the effectiveness of social support is mediated by its appropriateness. For instance, sometimes people can be “overly helpful” in their support, making the other person’s stress worse. Coyne and Smith (1991) found that wives who were over- protective of their husbands following the husbands’ myocardial infarction not only increased the husbands’ distress, but also their own distress. Research on natural disasters also suggests that sometimes people are able to provide good support initially, but are unable to sustain quality support because they are experiencing the same stressors and their resources are also drained (Afifi, Afifi, and Merrill 2014; Kaniasty and Norris 1993). Or, sometimes individuals provide poor support if they feel like the person deserved his/her stress (Kaniasty and Norris 1993). Research points to clear instances where social support can be considered incompetent, resulting in deteriorating personal and relational health. Although there are times when social support can be harmful, social support tends to buffer the negative impact of stress on people’s mental and physical health (Albrecht and Goldsmith 2003; Burleson 2009). For example, research indicates that parents’ social support, particularly the support by the mother, can help children succeed even when they grow up in poverty stricken, violent neighborhoods (Evans et al. 2007). Better quality support tends to include messages that are “high person-centered” where a support provider recognizes the depth of the support receiver’s situation, elaborates on the person’s feelings, and provides comfort (Burleson 1982, 2008). More incompetent social support tends to be characterized as low person-centered messages where the support receiver’s feelings and opinions are dismissed as invalid and there is little comfort or elaboration on that person’s thoughts (Burleson 1982, 2008). Social support is also effective when it matches the other person’s expectations and desires for support (Joseph and Afifi 2013).

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Researchers need to take into account the fact that social support is often a process that transpires through multiple conversations and that the relationship with the person offering the support matters. For instance, if someone is ruminating or mulling over an issue, a best friend telling that person to stop thinking about it, which would typically be considered a low person-centered message, might be effective and exactly what the person needs to hear to stop ruminating (Afifi et al. 2013). In general, however, social support that is more high person-centered, on average, tends to be more effective than low person-centered messages. Social support also gets communicated nonverbally, often through affection. Similar to social support, affection serves an important stress reduction function and is a crucial component of communication competence in close relationships. According to Affection Exchange Theory (Floyd 2002, 2006), expressing and receiving affection helps prepare the body to fight against stress, as well as protect individuals from the negative effects of stress on their health. The theory suggests that the more people give and receive affection, the better their body is able to adapt to acute and chronic stress, which ultimately promotes better health. Giving and receiving affection has been shown to reduce cholesterol and produce healthier cortisol and other biological stress responses (Floyd and Riforgiate 2009). For example, Floyd (2006) found that the amount of affection individuals communicated to others throughout a typical workday was predictive of higher waking cortisol levels and aggregate cortisol values. Higher waking cortisol values are indicative of better health because the body needs a certain amount of cortisol to fight the stress it experiences during the day. Floyd (2006) also found that expressed affection was positively associated with the amount of morning-to-evening decrease in cortisol, which is a diurnal rhythm that is indicative of healthy adaptation to stress. Overall, affection and social support may provide a sense of security, which ultimately reduces stress and promote better physical and mental health, as well as relational quality.

2.2 Information regulation As with many of the other communication skills described in this chapter, people’s ability to regulate or appropriately manage the flow and content of their private information is essential to relational competence (see Petronio 2002). This management often involves regulating one’s own and others’ private information through disclosures, avoidance, and secrets. When it comes to competence, people often believe that secrecy and avoidance are destructive patterns of communication in relationships. Granted, an overwhelming amount of research shows that secrecy, both from the perception of the person keeping the secret and the perception of the person from whom the secret is being kept, is negatively associated with relationship satisfaction (e.g., Vangelisti and Caughlin 1997). People are more dissatisfied and tend to have more conflicted relationships when they are keeping secrets

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and/or they think others are keeping secrets from them (Aldeis and Afifi 2014). A similar finding exists for avoidance (see Caughlin and Golish 2002). Still, most people report keeping secrets from those close to them (Afifi, Olson, and Armstrong 2005; Afifi and Steuber 2009). Some secrets are also positive in nature. What often tends to create an emotional wedge in relationships is when people feel like they cannot talk to their relational partners or family members about certain topics and withhold information as a result (Afifi, Olson, and Armstrong 2005). When people feel like others will react negatively to their disclosures, they often avoid disclosing sensitive information (Afifi, Olson, and Armstrong 2005). Fortunately, research shows that when people reveal information and the reaction is positive, people are more likely to disclose to that person in the future (Afifi and Steuber 2009). Part of relational competence involves building trust with close others, so that people feel like they have the communication efficacy necessary to disclose sensitive information if they want to do so. As most theories of privacy in relationships (e.g., Communication Privacy Management, Petronio 2002; Relational Dialectic Theory, Baxter and Montgomery 1996) also suggest, people typically need a balance of disclosure and privacy to build and maintain healthy relationships. Communication competence often involves finding the appropriate balance between openness and closedness in one’s personal relationships. As a whole, the United States is a culture that tends to privilege openness and equates it with healthy relationships (Petronio 2002). Yet, avoidance serves important functions in relationships. As Roloff and colleagues (e.g., Roloff and Wright 2009; Roloff and Ifert 2000) contend, whether avoidance helps or hinders relationships depends on how it is used and the function it serves. For instance, research shows that people who have been happily married for years tend to learn what topics to discuss and what topics to avoid with their spouse (Roloff and Ifert 2000). It would be dissatisfying to the relationship to introduce every complaint to one’s partner (Roloff and Ifert 2000). In addition, avoidance is typically viewed as a negative coping strategy in the coping literature (Raush et al. 1974). There are instances, however, where avoidance may serve an important stress reduction function. When a stressor is out of one’s control, avoidance might be a better strategy than active problem solving. For example, avoidance may be functional for adolescents who perceive that their parents’ conflict is out of their control (Afifi et al. 2008). Avoiding talking about their parents’ conflict may help de-escalate conflict and shelter children from some of its harmful effects. At the same time, extensive use of avoidance or using avoidance instead of discussing an important issue, could be detrimental to one’s personal and relational health (Roloff and Ifert 2000). Similar to the general definition of communication competence discussed at the beginning of this chapter, the functionality of avoidance depends upon the particular context at hand and the positive and negative impact it can have on the relationship. A similar argument about the functionality of witholding information in relationships holds true for self-disclosure, particularly self-disclosure about one’s

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stress. Research in psychology has shown for years that disclosure is cathartic and health-promoting (see Derlega et al. 2004). According to the Fever Model (Stiles, Shuster, and Harrigan 1992), when a stressor builds inside the body, it can breed rumination and anxiety and disclosing it can rid the body of the stress and restore its health. Indeed, Pennebaker’s research (Pennebaker and Beall 1986; Petrie, Booth, and Pennebaker 1988) has shown that writing about a stressor is associated with better health. Most of this research, however, does not take into account the response from the recipient of the information or the dyadic nature of the relationship (Kelly and MacReady 2009). Sometimes the response from the recipient of the disclosure can make the stress worse instead of better. Other times, people can disclose their stress and unknowingly spread it onto the recipients. Other research shows that disclosing too much about one’s stress or verbally ruminating is associated with increased anxiety and depressive symptoms (Rose 2002). Likewise, people who share their stressor with others when it should be coped with alone can inadvertently spread their stress onto them (Afifi, Hutchinson, and Krouse 2006). For example, parents who talk inappropriately about the other parent to their child can contribute to the child’s poor mental health (Afifi and McManus 2010). Talking about one’s stress serves an important coping mechanism and relational partners need to be able to share their stress with each other, but talking about it too much and in negatively valenced and/or inappropriate ways, can result in stress contagion and potentially make the discloser and the target feel worse (Afifi et al. 2014). Consequently, relational competence involves knowing when and how to regulate one’s private information to build and maintain healthy relationships.

2.3 Hurtful messages Hurtful messages are sometimes an example of communication incompetence that can have potent effects on close relationships. Hurtful messages are not always incompetent. Sometimes people hurt others simply because they relay information that is difficult for a loved one to hear, but it needs to be communicated. But, it is the way that people communicate hurtful messages that makes the messages more or less hurtful to the receivers. Hurtful messages can create feelings of hurt. Hurt feelings are powerful emotions at the crossroads of relational turbulence, abuse, persuasion, and support (see Vangelisti 1994, 2009a). They involve emotional injury or harm that is elicited and defined by the interpersonal relationship with the person who committed the hurtful act (Vangelisti 2009b). Feeling hurt is characterized by feeling deserving of the hurt, a devaluation of the self and/or relationship with the offender, and feelings of vulnerability (Vangelisti 2009b). Informed by appraisal theory, hurt feelings emerge from appraisals of a negative evaluation that arise from a perceived discrepancy between one’s desired and perceived relational value (Leary and Leder 2009). Although the state of hurt as a distinct emotion continues to be contested among scholars (Vangelisti 2009b), the cause and revela-

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tion of hurt feelings is inherently communicative because of the nonverbal and verbal communication of the hurtful messages and necessitates a pre-existing human relationship in which parties are invested. While physical abuse can certainly result in hurt feelings, the sophisticated and devious potential of language exacts much more calculated and potent affronts (Vangelisti 2009b). At the same time, since hurt feelings are the result of the recipient’s appraisal process, messages can be unintentionally hurtful. Hurtful messages, therefore, are subject to interpretation. Hurtful messages can have emotional, relational, and physiological consequences. Hurtful messages inflict a level of perceived hurt intensity. Types of hurtful speech acts include accusations, evaluations, directives, advice, expressions of desire, disclosures of information, questions, threats, jokes, and lies (Vangelisti 1994). The harmful effects of hurtful messages manifest themselves physiologically. Biological indicators demonstrate the extent of hurtful messages, with self-reported hurt feelings being positively associated with salivary cortisol (Priem, McLaren, and Solomon 2010). Elevated cortisol levels after being exposed to hurtful messages evidence their power to create stress (Priem, McLaren, and Solomon 2010). Perceptions of hurt, particularly when the hurt was perceived to be inflicted intentionally, tend to foster emotional distancing. This occurs because hurt, by definition, involves feelings of vulnerability, and those who are hurt experience a desire to distance themselves from the source of their pain (Vangelisti and Young 2000). The relationship between the intensity of hurt and the amount of relational distancing is moderated, however, by the recipient’s perception that the hurt was intentionally inflicted (McLaren and Solomon 2008; Vangelisti and Young 2000). Messages are perceived as more hurtful when they are believed to be inflicted intentionally (McLaren and Solomon 2008). The experience of feeling hurt also varies as a function of relational uncertainty, partner involvement, and gender, but evidence suggests that certain messages hurt more than others because of the relational meaning inferred from the interaction itself (McLaren, Solomon, and Priem 2012). Because of the capacity of messages to do significant relational damage, preventing hurt requires careful attention to potential appraisals of the communicative contribution to the interaction. Intentionally hurtful messages afford fewer options for redress and so more hurtful messages prompt more relational withdrawal (McLaren and Solomon 2008). Mixed evidence confuses the conclusion about whether active (explicit partner rejection) or passive (being ignored, excluded) disassociations are more hurtful (Leary et al. 1998; Feeney 2004), but politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987) would suggest the active rejection is more hurtful. This is because active disassociation is an explicit face threat and passive disassociation is more ambiguous (Goldsmith and Donovon-Kicken 2009). Communicators, however, do not always intend to inflict hurt on their partners. When hurt is not intended, potentially hurtful messages can be mitigated by using different wording or a different use of humor or directness (Goldsmith and

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Donovon-Kicken 2009). The communicative decisions leading up to the delivery of the content is also important. When an interaction is characterized by affection and minimal offense, the eventual transgression caused by the hurtful message is perceived to be less serious (Goldsmith and Donovon-Kicken 2009). Likewise, individuals in satisfying relationships are more likely to perceive partner transgressions as unintentional (Vangelisti 2007). As such, perceptions of the severity of hurt come not just from the message itself, but from the larger context of the conversation and the larger context of the relationship.

2.4 Conflict management skills The ability to effectively and appropriately manage conflict is also essential to the livelihood of quality interpersonal relationships (see Cupach, Chapter 14 this volume). Conflict is normal and healthy in relationships. In fact, conflict is an important way in which people resolve issues in their relationships. What is essential is how the conflict is managed. Unfortunately, most research has focused on destructive or incompetent conflict patterns in interpersonal relationships at the expense of more productive or competent conflict tendencies. The goal is typically to identify unhealthy conflict patterns in an effort to ameliorate them and prevent their recurrence. Unhealthy conflict is often (but not always) prolonged and repeated, unresolved, and includes extreme reactions and emotions (e.g., avoidance, perpetual sadness, coercion, anger, aggression) that undermine the purpose of the conflict and prevent people from reaching a mutually satisfying solution (Afifi, Joseph, and Aldeis 2012). Examples of destructive conflict behaviors include excessive and ineffective uses of avoidance (Roloff and Ifert 2000), demand-withdraw patterns (e.g., Caughlin 2002), Gottman’s (1994) four horsemen (i.,e., criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling), and negativity (e.g., Huston et al. 2001). Demandwithdraw patterns exist when one person demands or nags to talk about an issue and the other person withdraws or refuses to talk about it (Caughlin 2002). When these patterns become recurring, they can result in dissatisfaction, poor mental health, and relationship dissolution (see Christensen and Heavey 1990). Many of these conflict tendencies are learned in childhood (Canary, Cupach, and Messman 1995). Children often socially model their parents’ conflict tendencies and carry them over into their own adult relationships (Amato and Booth 2001). For example, research on divorce shows that children with divorced parents are more likely to get divorced themselves later in life, perhaps because their lifelong notion of commitment is weakened, but also because they are repeating their parents’ ineffective conflict management skills (see Amato 2000; Amato and Booth 2001). In particular, when children are exposed to on-going conflict that is hostile, coercive, and/or they become enmeshed in it, it has an adverse impact on their well-being and future relationships (Noller et al. 2000).

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It is important for parents to model effective conflict management for their children. Parents should avoid engaging in negative conflict patterns in front of their children. At the same time, they should not completely avoid conflict. Marital couples have the greatest amount of conflict within the first ten years of marriage. Over time, conflict tends to subside in healthy couples. The way of disagreeing may be healthy or unhealthy, but disagreements themselves are neither healthy nor unhealthy. Children need to see their parents model healthy disagreements about important issues, talk about the issues calmly, and collaborate to find creative solutions. Conflict management is constructive when people listen to each other’s perspectives and empathize, provide emotional support, moderate their emotions, and create solutions that are mutually satisfying (Perlman, Garfinkel, and Turrell 2007). In addition, people’s conflict management tendencies can become more or less competent when paired with the tendencies of their romantic partner. The matching of couples’ conflict behaviors is equally as important as people’s personal conflict skills (see Gottman 1994). The pairing of two people together who are highly competitive can result in vastly incompatible conflict tendencies than a competitor paired with an avoidant person. Moreover, the synergy, communicatively and physiologically, that is created within relationships and larger relational systems (e.g., families) can magnify negative conflict patterns in relationships and corresponding ill effects. For example, research shows that family members’ cortisol levels are more highly correlated when they are physically together and during more stressful moments of the day, when there is negative affect, and/or high levels of conflict in the home (e.g., Saxbe and Repetti 2010). Negative conflict can be stressful and this stress can spill over onto others who are in close proximity to each other. Competent communicators learn how to regulate their emotions so that their conflict does not get out of control and inadvertently spill over onto others on a regular basis.

2.5 Aggression and violence Two of the more explicit examples of communicative incompetence are aggression and violence. Eventually, both partners will perceive an incompatibility that will need to be negotiated within their relationship. In some situations, these negotiations escalate to aggression and violence. Escalation from negotiation to violence occurs for a constellation of reasons. Factors derive from inherent traits, situational elements and, arguably, a lack of relational competence (see Nicotera, Chapter 28, this volume). Due to the layering of various individual, family, community, and societal factors, abuse and aggression in relational and familial contexts may be best approached from an ecological model with communication emphasized as the primary phenomenon of interest (Dailey, Lee, and Spitzberg 2004). The ecological model permits a unified analysis of interactions within a system (DePanfilis 1986). This is necessary to understand two opposite reactions to verbal aggressiveness in

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relational communication: reciprocity and the chilling effect. Reciprocity refers to occasions when the recipient of verbal aggression responds to his or her partner with verbal aggression. Abusive couples have significantly more reciprocity in their verbal aggression than nonviolent distressed and non-distressed couples (Sabourin, Infante, and Rudd 1993). An opposite consequence to verbal aggressiveness is the chilling effect (Cloven and Roloff 1993; Roloff and Cloven 1990). The chilling effect occurs when people withhold complaints or threatening information because they fear that the other person may respond negatively (Cloven and Roloff 1993). Some initial evidence for the chilling effect suggested that greater anticipation of aggressive reactions from a dating partner is associated with more withholding of complaints about controlling behaviors (Cloven and Roloff 1993). Research on families shows that parents who are more conformity-oriented or who have strict expectations for appropriate behavior might foster patterns of concealment in children due to fears of their parents’ negative evaluations if their secrets were to be revealed (Afifi, Olson, and Armstrong 2005). Like reciprocity of verbal aggression, the chilling effect begins with negative communication from one party, but is realized only in the interaction between people. When verbal aggressiveness escalates, violence can follow. Violence is an explicit indicator of communicative incompetence, but the way the incompetence reveals itself differs depending upon the type of violence and the context in which it is situated. Finite distinctions among different types of communication patterns that foster incompetence have emerged over time. Until the 1990s, domestic violence research generated ill-informed and contradictory findings because it was based on simplistic conceptualizations of violence and abuse (Johnson and Ferraro 2000). In contrast to the assumption that domestic violence only involves a heterosexual male battering his heterosexual wife into submission, Johnson (2008) forwarded a more universal typology of domestic violence in order to make important theoretical and practical distinctions. According to Johnson (2008), there are four types of intimate partner violence: violent resistance, situational couple violence, intimate terrorism, and mutual violent resistance. Intimate terrorism (IT) refers to the use of violence and other behaviors as a means to gain general control over one’s partner. Violent resistance refers to the set of actions a partner enacts in order to “fight back” against an abusive spouse. Situational couple violence (SCV; also known as common couple violence) involves violence that is situationally provoked. Because SCV is rooted in the events of a particular situation, there is no attempt to gain control or pattern of influence. SCV, has a lower per-couple frequency of violence compared to IT, and does not involve one partner controlling the other and the violence does not escalate over time. SCV and IT also differ in that IT victims experience more severe violent episodes and report more incidents of depression and post-traumatic stress disorders (Johnson and Leone 2005). All of these forms of violence represent different relational communication skill deficits. Such distinctions help people differentiate various forms of violence, the communi-

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cation patterns that underlie them, and what people can do to prevent their occurrence (see also Spitzberg 2009; 2013). When people think of abusers, they might only think of them as lacking communication competence. It is true that individuals who are abusive tend to lack communication competence in many ways. But, in some situations, it is because the person is so skilled communicatively, at least initially, that the violence and control only become apparent over time or in momentary episodes. Individuals who are abusive might be charismatic and gregarious, which is why it is easy to fall in love with them (Rosen 1996). Abusers are often socially skilled – at least at the onset of the relationship and in the public sphere (Rosen 1996). There are may also be distinct differences in communication competence when considering the various types of violence. For example, while SCV could be the result of moments of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral lapses in competence, intimate terrorism requires a sophisticated understanding of social influence and the ability to implement those influence messages to garner control (Olson 2002). Yet, both forms of violence have the possibility of being equally destructive. There are other cases of abuse that are also the result of incompetence. For example, Anderson (2010) notes that abusive mothers have unrealistic expectations for child behavior and they attribute negative intentions to children’s behavior. Romantic partners of abusers may attempt to control child behavior by using abuse themselves in order to avoid having their child misbehavior and anger the abusive partner (Slep and O’Leary 2005). Due to the cognitively demanding emotional upset of being a victim of abuse themselves, adult victims may use abuse with their children instead of other forms of disciplinary action. Future research is necessary to better delineate how competence and incompetence reveal themselves in different forms of violence and how these communication patterns are intertwined with others involved.

3 Final thoughts Communication competence is a complex and dynamic phenomenon in relationships. Even though communication competence has traditionally been conceptualized as behaviors and cognitions, such cognitive complexity, empathy, role-taking, and interaction management, that help people achieve their goals (Spitzberg and Canary 1984), we expanded on this perspective to include a broader set of communication processes. Some of these communication processes, such as social support, affection, and information regulation, can be competent or incompetent depending upon how they are used. Other communication processes, such as hurtful messages, verbal aggression, and violence, tend to be more incompetent and destructive. Even hurtful messages, however, can vary in their skill level and their ability to help or hurt a relationship. Sometimes people may need to communicate a message that might be deemed as hurtful by a receiver in order to actually help

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the receiver and the relationship (e.g., the need to lose weight to prevent type II diabetes; the need to stop an addiction; the need to stop ruminating because it’s harming the relationship). In this chapter we have challenged researchers to broaden their traditional notion of communication competence in relationships to include other communication skills. But, the question then becomes, how are these communication skills a part of relational competence? If we go back to the definition of relational competence used in this chapter, we are reminded that relational competence involves the ability to “facilitate the acquisition, development, and maintenance of mutually satisfying relationships” (Hannson, Jones, and Carpenter 1984: 273). All of the behaviors we describe in this chapter focus on individuals’ communicative capabilities to acquire, develop, and maintain quality relationships. The central component that crosses all of these behaviors is their functionality. Behaviors like social support, affection, the ability to successfully regulate private information, and the ability to communicate hurtful information, are essential to the building of close relationships, their survival, and their ability to thrive, particularly under stressful circumstances. The future challenge for scholars is to decipher the characteristics of verbal and nonverbal messages that make them more or less skilled and functional. Seemingly “incompetent” behaviors involving hurtful messages and violence can actually seem quite skilled, especially when they include subtle communication patterns and cognitions like evasion, social influence, and cognitive complexity that make the victim seem like he/she is the one who is incompetent. But, these behaviors can do irreparable damage to the relationship and everyone involved. Additional research is necessary that explores the “grey areas” where social support, affection, disclosure, and avoidance go from competent behaviors that enhance personal and relational health to incompetent behaviors that are harmful.

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Spitzberg, Brian H. and Daniel J. Canary. 1984. Interpersonal Communication Competence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Spitzberg, Brian H., Daniel J. Canary and William R. Cupach. 1994. A competence-based approach to the study of interpersonal conflict. In: Douglas D. Cahn (ed.), Conflict in Personal Relationships, 183–202. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Spitzberg, Brian H. and William R. Cupach. 1984. Interpersonal Communication Competence. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, Inc. Stiles, William B., Paul L. Shuster and Jinni A. Harrigan. 1992. Disclosure and anxiety: A test of the fever model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63. 980–988. Vangelisti, Anita L. 1994. Messages that hurt. In: William R. Cupach and Brian H. Spitzberg (eds.), The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication, 53–82. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Vangelisti, Anita L. 2007. Communicating hurt. In: Brian H. Spitzberg and William R. Cupach (eds.), The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication, 2nd ed., 121–142. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Vangelisti, Anita L. 2009a. Challenges in conceptualizing social support. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 26(1). 39–51. Vangelisti, Anita L. 2009b. Handbook of Hurt Feelings in Close Relationships. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Vangelisti, Anita L. and John P. Caughlin, John P. 1997. Revealing family secrets: The influence of topic, function, and relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 14. 679–705. Vangelisti, Anita L. and Stacy L. Young. 2000. When words hurt: The effects of perceived intentionality on interpersonal relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 17(3). 393–424. Wiemann, John M. 1977. Explication and test of a model of communicative competence. Human Communication Research 3(3). 195–213. Wilson, Steven R. and Christina M. Sabee. 2003. Explicating communicative competence as a theoretical term. In: John O. Greene and Brant R. Burleson (eds.), Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction Skills, 3–50. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Wilson, Steven R. and Wendy M. Morgan. 2006. Goals-plans-action theories: Theories of goals, plans, and planning processes in families. In: Dawn Braithwaite and Leslie A. Baxter (eds.), Engaging Theories in Family Communication: Multiple Perspectives 66–81. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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14 Communication competence in the management of conflict Abstract: This essay explicates the communication competence model of conflict. The model proposes that conflict communication influences judgments of competence, which in turn, influence relational outcomes. In particular, integrative conflict behaviors tend to be judged as relatively appropriate and effective communication, thereby enhancing relational outcomes such as attraction, trust, control mutuality, intimacy, and relational satisfaction. Distributive conflict behaviors, on the other hand, are perceived to be less appropriate and less effective, which consequently damages relational outcomes. A review of empirical studies from the domains of interpersonal and organizational communication generally supports these claims, and demonstrates that competence judgments mediate the association between conflict communication and relational outcomes. The competence model has been applied principally to friendships, dating relationships, marital relationships, and decision-making task relationships in a workplace setting. It would be beneficial to test the model in other types of relationships where conflict is common, such as sibling relationships, parent–child relationships, and relationships between service-providers and clients. In addition, a more complete picture of the role of competence judgments will require exploring how more complex sequences and patterns of conflict behaviors relate to competence judgments. Keywords: communication competence model, conflict, confrontation, criticism, disagreement, face, facework, goals, incompatibility

Conflict is a natural and endemic feature of interpersonal connection. It is the inevitable consequence of the interdependent nature of people’s relationships with one another. Conflict figures prominently in relationships between married partners, friends, family members, relatives, co-workers, neighbors, and others (Argyle and Furnham 1983). Although the word conflict often carries negative connotations and its experience tends to be aversive, it can also yield positive consequences. When conflict is handled poorly, it can produce personal distress, leave opportunities unfulfilled, damage or destroy social and personal relationships, and lead to psychological or physical aggression. When conflict is managed competently, however, it can diminish anxiety, solve problems, enhance relationship closeness and solidarity, and foster prosocial, non-aggressive patterns of interaction. The ability to manage conflict successfully is a fundamental aspect of interpersonal competence (e.g., Buhrmester et al. 1988; Grover et al. 2012).

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In this essay I present the competence model of conflict (Cupach, Canary, and Spitzberg 2010: 19–39; Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach 1994). This model sheds light on the various ways that conflict communication contributes to both constructive and destructive relational outcomes. I begin by elaborating the definition of conflict and discussing the circumstances that create it. Next, I summarize the communicative manifestations of conflict behavior, followed by an explication of the competence model of conflict and its implications. The focus of this chapter is circumscribed to interpersonal conflict and not social, political, international, or intergroup conflict, although some of the principles discussed here are applicable to these contexts as well.

1 The nature of conflict There are numerous approaches to conceptualizing conflict (Putnam 2013). The definition adopted here contains elements common to many definitions of conflict (e.g., Folger, Poole, and Stutman 2001: 5–6; Wilmot and Hocker 2011: 11–19). Specifically, interpersonal conflict occurs when interdependent people perceive that their goals are incompatible and see each other as interfering with the achievement of their own goals, resulting in tension or struggle between them. To say that people in conflict are interdependent means they are capable of affecting each other’s goal achievement. When individuals are unconnected such that they cannot influence each other’s outcomes, then there is little actual basis for conflict. The greater the degree of relational interdependence between people, the greater the opportunity for conflict (Braiker and Kelley 1979). The fact that incompatibility and interference are perceived allows for the fact that some conflicts are misunderstandings or false conflicts (Deutsch 1973: 14–15). People sometimes labor under the assumption that their own goals clash with another’s goals when in fact the goals are mutually compatible. On occasion one might anticipate that a partner is going to disrupt or block one’s goals when the partner would actually support and enable those goals if they were made apparent. Clear communication about goals can reveal sources of misunderstanding, thereby resolving such conflict. Much conflict, however, stems from people’s recognition that their goals are truly at odds, in which case communication is needed for more than accomplishing clarity – that is, communication is used to seek compliance, exert influence, and explore viable options for mutual goal achievement. Since incompatibility concerns the goals individuals hold and interference represents goal blockage, it is worth elaborating on the nature of goals in conflict. The following sections examine the nature and complexity of goals, as well as the topics of conflict that signal goal incompatibility.

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1.1 The nature of goals Goals are outcomes that people desire (Dillard 1997). They stem from needs, wants, and values that motivate human behavior. By implication, goals also include aversive circumstances that people wish to avoid. It is obvious that goals vary in their importance to an individual. Trivial goals are easily abandoned or substituted in the face of obstacles, whereas important goals are pursued more persistently. Two features in particular are associated with the amount of effort devoted to goal pursuit: the desirability of the goal and the attainability of the goal (Latham and Locke 2013). The more value attached to a particular goal, the harder actors work to achieve the goal. As goals get more difficult to achieve, goal striving effort is escalated (Di Paula and Campbell 2002). When effort needed exceeds the value of the goal, then the goal is abandoned. If the goal is so valuable that extraordinary effort in its pursuit is warranted, then the goal pursuit continues unless or until the pursuer recognizes that goal accomplishment is illusory, at which point the goal is abandoned in favor of alternative goals worthy of pursuit. One of the challenges of managing conflict is that the goal structure is complex. Each person is motivated by multiple and simultaneous goals (see also, Sawyer and Richmond, Chapter 8, this volume). Clark and Delia (1979) proposed that in all social encounters, communicators simultaneously possess at least three types of goals: instrumental, relational, and identity. Instrumental goals concern the salient issues where individuals are seeking compliance from the other. Relational goals pertain to the type and quality of relationship a person desires with another, such as maintaining closeness or trust. In some circumstances, the relational goal may be to redefine, disengage, sabotage, or terminate a relationship. Identity goals (also referred to as self-presentation goals) include maintaining and saving one’s face, keeping, bolstering, or repairing one’s reputation, and supporting the partner’s face and desired identity (although there are some occasions when one’s goal is to attack another’s face or discredit another’s identity). As an example, a person’s salient instrumental goal might be getting a reluctant spouse to agree to go camping for vacation. At the same time, there are relational goals (i.e., wanting to make the partner happy, wanting to maintain marital satisfaction and commitment) and identity goals (wanting to be seen as fair and respectful of partner) that influence the manner in which the instrumental goal is pursued and constrain the degree of persistence in pursuing the instrumental goal (Wilson 2002: 137–139). Regardless of the manifest instrumental subject of incompatibility, there is always the concomitant (often latent) identity goal of maintaining face. In other words, people normally expect during interactions with others that that their proffered social identities will be validated (Goffman 1967: 5–45). Face entails various needs that others are expected to fulfill. Lim and Bowers (1991), for example, suggest that all individuals possess the need to have others respect their autonomy, fellowship, and competence. The need for autonomy reflects the desire to be free from undue imposition and restraint, tantamount to what Brown and Levinson

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(1987: 62) refer to as negative face. The need for fellowship and competence reflect desires to be included and accepted by others, and to have others respect one’s abilities and accomplishments. These largely correspond to Brown and Levinson’s (1987: 62) notion of positive face. In addition to these face needs, Ting-Toomey (2005) argues there are others, such as status face, reliability face, and moral face. Status face concerns the “need for others to admire our tangible and intangible assets or resources such as appearance, social attractiveness, reputation, position, power, and material worth” (Ting-Toomey 2005: 81). Reliability face refers to the desire to have others see us as “trustworthy, dependable, reliable, loyal, and consistent” (p. 81). Moral face entails the “need for others to respect our sense of integrity, dignity, honor, propriety, and moral uprightness” (p. 81). In general, when face needs are thwarted, people feel a range of negative emotions, ranging from embarrassment to hurt and anger (Goffman 1967: 5–45; Ting-Toomey 2005). In a similar vein, Fisher and Shapiro (2005: 15–18) contend that underlying the substantive, tangible interests in a negotiation are important intangible “core concerns” that need to be honored. These include people’s desire for appreciation, affiliation, autonomy, status, and possessing a comfortable role. These concerns are tantamount to face needs. Consistent with the literature on face (Goffman 1967: 5–45; Ting-Toomey 2005), Fisher and Shapiro (2005: 146–147) contend that when these needs are unfulfilled, communicators experience counterproductive negative emotions that undermine successful negotiation. Conflict interactions are particularly challenging because they tend to interfere with fulfillment of face needs (Cupach, Canary, and Spitzberg 2010: 127–129; Cupach and Metts 1994: 57–63; Cupach and Carson 2012). First, the perception of interference from another party runs contrary to the need for autonomy. Perceived interference occurs when one’s goal is blocked by another or when another seeks to accomplish a goal at one’s own expense or inconvenience. Second, perceived goal interference can translate into perceived disapproval. If you disagree with my goal, then you disagree with me, which threatens my face needs for acceptance and affiliation. Third, face is further threatened by the escalation of conflict when communication becomes more demanding, belligerent, defensive, and aggressive. These manifestations exacerbate face threats for both parties, as the focus of the interaction shifts from discussion of substantive issues to defending one’s own face, in part by further attacking the face of the partner. Conflicts are further complicated by the fact that relational and identity goals overlap. Undermining face goals implicates relational goals. Relationships are constructed by merging individual identities and each person’s identity is, in part, defined by the shared relationship (Wood 1982). When identity is threatened by a partner, then by implication the shared relationship is called into question (Cupach and Metts 1994: 36–41). Feeling rejected or diminished by another results in feeling that the other devalues the shared relationship (e.g., Leary and Springer 2001; Leary et al. 1998). In this way, face threats undermine both relational and identity goals.

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Although relational and identity goals are often latent, they can be the manifest focus of some conflicts. In particular, a relational goal can be the focal instrumental goal that initiates the conflict. This occurs when one’s primary objective is to change the definition of a relationship (e.g., escalate or diminish its intimacy; Cody, Canary, and Smith 1994; Dillard 1989; Wilson et al. 2009), terminate a relationship (Baxter 1985; Cody 1982; Metts 1992), or reconcile a lapsed relationship (Bevan, Cameron, and Dillow 2003; Cupach et al. 2011; Patterson and O’Hair 1992). A relational goal may also emerge during a conflict about something else, such as when one’s dissatisfaction with a friendship becomes salient during a discussion about a relationship transgression. Similarly, when one’s face is threatened, the goal of defending one’s identity may take precedence, overshadowing other goals. When one is insulted, for example, the emergent objective may be to seek an apology from the offender and repair one’s spoiled identity. The simultaneous presence of multiple goals presents challenges for parties to a conflict. First, an individual’s own goals can conflict with one another. My desire to complain to my partner about her annoying behavior runs contrary to my goal of reducing conflict in our relationship, as well as not wanting to be seen as a curmudgeon. Second, conflict interaction tends to produce emergent goals and issues beyond those that instigated the initial conflict discussion. For example, as conflict episodes escalate in intensity, the issues of disagreement tend to expand in number, and relational and identity goals become more salient. “This shift in goals helps explain the common observation that a conflict can begin about one topic (e.g., paying rent on time, which is an instrumental concern) and end on a completely different matter (e.g., questioning one’s responsibility and commitment, which implicates relational and self-presentation goals)” (Canary and Lakey 2006: 195). Third, conflict discussions often exhibit multiple issues related to multiple goals that vary in abstraction and complexity (Sillars et al. 2000). “Content and relational issues get confounded for relational partners, contributing to the complexity of conflict management. Consequently, partners can engage in conflict with each other, but not necessarily about the same issues. In other words, they may be arguing together, but they may not be having the same conflict” (Cupach 2000: 698). This suggests that even when perceived incompatibilities are real, misunderstandings about the issues add a layer of complexity to conflict management that may not be apparent to partners or observers. Fourth, individuals possess varying degrees of awareness of their own goals and their partner’s goals in a conflict. Lack of mindfulness about one’s own goals and insensitivity to a partner’s goals tends to escalate conflicts and render their management more difficult (Canary and Lakey 2006, 2013; Lakey and Canary 2002).

1.2 Triggers of perceived goal incompatibility The diversity of potentially incompatible goals giving rise to conflict is apparent in the various topics of conflict. These topics represent what the conflict is about, at

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least on the surface. Peterson (1983; also see Witteman 1992) proposed that interpersonal conflicts are often precipitated by rebuffs, illegitimate demands, criticisms, and cumulative annoyances. Dissatisfaction stemming from goal incompatibility finds its expression in complaining (Cupach 2007; Cupach and Carson 2012). Alberts (1988, 1989) examined the content of married and cohabiting couples’ conversational complaints and found that they fit into five primary categories. Complaints were about a partner’s behavior, personal characteristics, performance, personal appearance, and complaining. Similarly, Tracy, Van Dusen, and Robinson (1987) found that people reported being criticized regarding their performance or skill, appearance, the way they treated the complainer or others, personality, and decisions and attitudes. Particularly serious conflict arises from relational transgressions and betrayals. Such events occur when a partner is perceived to have violated a significant relationship rule or expectation (Emmers-Sommer 2003; Metts 1994; Roloff and Cloven 1994). Typical examples include instances of infidelity, deception, aggression or abuse, broken promises, and insensitive or disrespectful behavior (e.g., Cameron, Ross, and Holmes 2002; Fitness 2001; Jones and Burdette 1994; Jones et al. 2001; Metts and Cupach 2007). In a study of sources of conflict within friendships, friends reported having conflict about unfulfilled obligations (e.g., keeping promises, repaying debts), interference with autonomy, sharing activities, sharing space and possessions, rival relationships (resulting in a decline of time spent together), annoying behaviors, disapproval of relationship choices (e.g., not liking a friend’s friend), relationship intimacy (e.g., one wanting more than the other), and communication breakdowns (Samter and Cupach 1998). Marital partners typically report conflict pertaining to disagreements about sex, communication, finances, household division of labor, child rearing, jealousy, shared leisure time, and so forth (Gottman 1979: 133–135, 155–162; Mead et al. 1990). Kurdek (1994) studied individuals in gay, lesbian, and heterosexual relationships, asking how often they argued about various topics. He found that the topics clustered into six primary content areas: power (e.g., lack of equality), social issues (e.g., politics), personal flaws (e.g., smoking), distrust (e.g., lying), intimacy (e.g., lack of affection), and personal distance (e.g., frequent physical distance). Clearly, the diversity of conflict topics reported by individuals in various types of relationships demonstrates instrumental, relational, and identity sources of perceived incompatibility.

2 Characterizing conflict behavior Conflict behavior is manifested in a wide variety of messages and message patterns. In an effort to parsimoniously represent conflict communication, researchers have proposed diverse conceptual schemes and measurement devices. Schemes

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that depict generalized and habituated action tendencies across conflict episodes refer to conflict styles (e.g., Conrad 1991; Sternberg and Dobson 1987; Sternberg and Soriano 1984), whereas approaches to communication in specific conflict episodes are referred to as conflict strategies (Sillars and Wilmot 1994). Conflict tactics are specific performed behaviors that instantiate styles and strategies (e.g., changing the topic is a tactic that can be employed to fulfill a strategy of avoidance). One of the most common schemes for depicting conflict styles and strategies is known as the dual concerns model, and is grounded in the early work by Blake and Mouton (1970) that was designed to depict managerial styles. Several authors have adapted the principles in Blake and Mouton’s model to explain approaches to conflict in both organizational (e.g., Kilmann and Thomas 1977; Rahim 1983; Shockley-Zalabak 1988; Weider-Hatfield 1988; Womack 1988) and interpersonal settings (e.g., Hammock et al. 1990; Utley, Richardson, and Pilkington 1989). Behavioral approaches to conflict are defined based on two underlying dimensions: one’s concern for one’s own goals (also called assertiveness) and one’s concern for other’s goals (also called cooperativeness). Crossing these two dimensions yields five characteristic ways of managing conflict. Authors ascribe different labels to each of these five conflict styles or strategies, but the terms for each carry the same meaning. When one is highly concerned with own goals and relatively unconcerned about other’s goals, conflict is described as dominating (Rahim and Bonoma 1979), competing (Thomas 1976), forcing (Blake and Mouton 1970), and contending (Pruitt and Kim 2004: 37–41). Being concerned primarily with the partner accomplishing his or her goals but relatively unconcerned about accomplishing one’s own goals is called obliging (Rahim and Bonoma 1979), accommodating (Thomas 1976), smoothing (Blake and Mouton 1970), and yielding (Pruitt and Kim 2004: 37–41). When concern about achieving both own and other’s goals is low, conflict is described as avoiding (Rahim and Bonoma 1979; Thomas 1976) and withdrawal (Blake and Mouton 1970). High concern for both own and partner’s goals is labeled integrating (Rahim and Bonoma 1979), collaborating (Thomas 1976), and problem-solving (Blake and Mouton 1970; Pruitt and Kim 2004: 37–41). The term compromising is ascribed to circumstances where concern for both own and other’s goals is moderate (Rahim and Bonoma 1979; Thomas 1976). An alternative three-category approach to conflict behavior has also been employed. In this scheme, specific conflict behaviors (i.e., conflict tactics) are classified as being integrative (i.e., collaborative, positive, problem-solving), distributive (i.e, competitive, negative, controlling) or avoidant (i.e., non-confrontational, evasive) (e.g., Canary and Cupach 1988; Kimsey and Fuller 2003; Putnam and Wilson 1982; Sillars 1980; Sillars et al. 1982; Wilson and Waltman 1988). In this tripartite conceptualization, compromise can be seen as a form of integration, and giving into the other can be seen as a form of avoidance. Researchers have proposed a number of underlying dimensions that can be used to characterize conflict behaviors. One such dimension is the extent of conflict

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engagement versus avoidance. This dimension distinguishes conflict behavior as direct versus indirect (Sillars and Canary 2013; Sillars, Canary, and Tafoya 2004) or active versus passive (Hojjat 2000; Rusbult 1987; Sternberg and Dobson 1987; van de Vliert and Euwema 1994). Another common dimension used to characterize conflict behaviors is affective valence (Hojjat 2000; Woodin 2011), either positive or negative. This dimension has been variously labeled agreeableness (i.e., pleasant and relaxed rather than unpleasant and strainful; van de Vliert and Euwema 1994), cooperativeness versus competitiveness (Canary, Lakey, and Sillars 2013; Sillars, Canary, and Tafoya 2004), and face honoring versus face attacking (Sillars and Canary 2013). Researchers have crossed these two dimensions to classify myriad communication strategies and tactics. For example, Overall et al. (2009) categorized strategies as negative and direct (e.g., derogating the partner, displaying negative affect, making partner feel inferior), negative and indirect (e.g., making the partner feel guilty, debasing the self, pouting), positive and direct (e.g., seeking information, rationally explaining behavior or point of view), and positive and indirect (e.g., softening persuasion attempts, encouraging the partner to express feelings, expressing positive affect). Similarly, Sillars and Canary (2013; see also Canary, Lakey, and Sillars 2013; Sillars, Canary, and Tafoya 2004) coded behaviors contained in several observation coding schemes into four categories. These were negotiation – direct and face honoring (e.g., accepting responsibility, exchanging information, making supportive remarks), direct fighting – direct and face attacking (e.g., disparaging the partner, making threats, showing a hostile tone), non-confrontation – indirect and face honoring (e.g., asking questions, using lighthearted humor, making affectionate physical contact) and indirect fighting – indirect and face attacking (e.g., denying that conflict exists, withdrawing from the conflict, making irrelevant comments). Woodin (2011) created an alternate scheme by crossing the dimension of valence with the dimension of intensity (i.e., the force with which behaviors are displayed). This yielded a typology of five types of conflict behavior. Negative affect was divided into hostility (high intensity), distress (moderate intensity), and withdrawal (low intensity); positive affect was divided into problem solving (low intensity) and intimacy (high intensity). Aside from classifying individual behaviors enacted during conflict, researchers have also observed interactive patterns of behavior in conflict episodes (see Messman and Canary 1998 for review). One of the most robust findings in the conflict literature is that reciprocity of negative affect is corrosive to relationships (e.g., Alberts 1988; Alberts and Driscoll 1992; Gottman 1979: 105–130; Ting-Toomey 1983). Negative reciprocity is seen in sequences of behavior where belligerent complaints draw counter-complaints, and hostile reproaches and personal attacks elicit defensiveness and counter-attacks. One common pattern of interaction during conflict is the demand-withdraw sequence (Caughlin and Scott 2010; Caughlin and Vangelisti 2000; Christensen and

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Heavey 1990). This pattern involves one partner engaging in confrontation while the other partner attempts to avoid the conflict. The sequence can begin with either demanding or withdrawing behavior; i.e., demanding can lead to withdrawing, and withdrawing can lead to demanding. Research indicates that chronic demandwithdraw patterns are often, but not always, associated with relationship dissatisfaction and dissolution (e.g., Caughlin 2002; Caughlin and Huston 2002; Heavey, Christensen, and Malamuth 1995; Schrodt, Witt, and Shimkowski 2014). Gottman (1994: 108–117) identified another corrosive pattern of behavior in marital conflicts. The pattern consists of a sequential cascade of four types of behaviors: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. He observed that compared to non-distressed married couples, distressed couples showed a tendency to express personal criticism, which elicited scornful and disdaining displays of contempt. Contempt, in turn, stimulated defensiveness marked by a whining tone, making excuses, and denying responsibility. This resulted in stonewalling that communicated smugness, icy distance, and unwillingness to engage the conflict issues. Habitual displays of this pattern of conflict interaction pattern were associated with relationship dissatisfaction and dissolution.

3 The competence model of conflict The model of relational competence was originally devised to account for the role of communication quality in interpersonal relationships (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984: 99–152). The model has been applied specifically to episodes of conflict in interpersonal (Canary and Lakey 2006; Canary and Spitzberg 1990; Cupach, Canary, and Spitzberg 2010: 19–39; Cupach and Carson 2012; Guerrero 2013; Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach 1994) and task/organizational (Gross and Guerrero 2000; Gross, Guerrero, and Alberts 2004; Papa and Canary 1995; Suppiah and Rose 2006) settings. In these applications, it is referred to as the competence model of conflict.

3.1 Features of the competence model of conflict In this model, competence does not reside in behavior or performance. Rather, competence is conceptualized as the judgment of quality reflected in communication behavior. Competence refers to impressions communicators form about their own and others’ communication performance (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984: 100– 106, 115–117; 2011). These impressions are based upon two fundamental criteria: effectiveness and appropriateness. “Effectiveness represents the extent to which an interactant accomplishes preferred outcomes [i.e., goals] through communication” (Spitzberg and Cupach 2011: 495). “Appropriateness is the extent to which a communicative performance is judged legitimate within a given context” (Spitzberg

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and Cupach 2011: 496). Thus, appropriateness accrues to behavior that meets the existing and emerging rules and expectations for the communicative encounter. Generally, people are in the best position to determine if their own goals are accomplished, whereas others are in a better position to judge if one has communicated appropriately. Competent communication entails both appropriateness and effectiveness (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984: 100–106; 2011). Communication that is perceived to be both appropriate and effective is judged to be competent. By choice or due to lack of ability, one may be incompetent by being effective but inappropriate, or appropriate but ineffective, or both inappropriate and ineffective. In a conflict, for example, one might give up a personal goal in order to accommodate a partner (i.e, be appropriate yet ineffective) or force a partner to comply with one’s own wishes through domination (i.e., be effective but inappropriate). “Effectiveness in the intrapersonal sense – that is, the accomplishment of an individual’s goals – may be incompetent in an interpersonal sense if such effectiveness precludes the possibility of others accomplishing their own goals” (Wiemann 1977: 196). The competence model makes some general theoretical predictions regarding the associations between conflict styles or strategies and judgments of appropriateness and effectiveness (Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach 1994). An integrative approach to conflict is considered optimizing in the sense that it affords the greatest opportunity for mutual gain and satisfaction of goals for both partners. Collaborative problem-solving is most likely to yield positive judgments of both appropriateness and effectiveness. A dominating or competing approach to conflict is maximizing in the competence model, insofar as it prioritizes effectiveness over appropriateness. Approaching conflict with an obliging or accommodating orientation represents sufficing in the competence model. Yielding to one’s partner’s concerns at the expense of one’s own concerns is most likely to result in high appropriateness but low effectiveness. Avoiding conflict in the competence model is considered minimizing since the concerns of both parties are neglected. These theoretical predictions are abstract and general, and should not be taken as absolute. An important tenet of the competence model is that assessments of appropriateness and effectiveness are necessarily contextual (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984: 106–109; 2011). In a specific conflict, historical, personal, temporal, and circumstantial factors can moderate judgments of communication behavior. A person could engage in conflict avoidance, for example, thereby being ineffective at resolving a substantive dispute and drawing a partner’s judgment that the avoidance is inappropriate. Although this technically could be labeled incompetent, it could be a preferred and desirable communication strategy insofar as it effectively accomplishes a superseding goal of avoiding escalation to violence. In the broader context, preventing violence at the expense of resolving the substantive issue could also be regarded as the morally appropriate course. Thus, what appears to be incompetent may actually be optimal. In another example, one may be expressly dominant and harsh in

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criticizing a partner’s risky, life-threatening behavior. Although the tone appears inappropriate to the partner, the goal of protecting the partner’s health and wellbeing deliberately trumps any desire to be polite and is more important than appearing to be competent. Appropriateness and effectiveness are judged in relative terms. One may deem that a goal was “largely”, although not completely, achieved. Perhaps several goals, but not all goals, were achieved in a conflict. It is also possible to discern a modicum of incremental success in an episode of conflict, with the recognition that full goal achievement will require multiple efforts over time. When there are few opportunities for gain in a conflict, minimizing losses may be the measure of success. In short, effectiveness is measured in degrees. Similarly, assessments of appropriateness are made on a continuum. One may judge that a partner, although making some inappropriate remarks, was nevertheless relatively appropriate when considering the conflict discussion as a whole. A faux pas or raised voice or minor insult can be seen as mildly inappropriate, whereas abusive aggression and hostility could be perceived as extremely inappropriate. Because perceived incompatibility drives conflict, meeting the dual criteria of effectiveness and appropriateness can be particularly challenging in conflict episodes. Where the perceived incompatibility is accurate, accomplishing one’s own goals might occur at the expense of the partner’s goal achievement (i.e., being effective could undermine being appropriate). Alternatively, in order to accommodate a partner’s goals in a conflict, one might have to sacrifice one’s own goals; that is, being appropriate could mitigate one’s own effectiveness. Although the effectiveness and appropriateness criteria are in tension with one another in conflict situations, they can be compatible. Indeed, the pathway to one’s own goal accomplishment can be paved by facilitating a partner’s goal achievement. Communication competence requires that exerting control to achieve goals must be tempered with collaboration (Spitzberg and Cupach 1989: 20–22). As Parks (1985: 197) noted, competent communicators “realize, however dimly, that their ability to pursue their own goals depends on the freedom of others to pursue their goals”. In addition to the pragmatic value of appropriateness contributing to one’s own goal achievement, there is a moral imperative underlying the criterion of appropriateness (Cupach, Canary, and Spitzberg 2010: 285–286). As Canary and Lakey (2006: 186) observed, “a competence-based approach that emphasizes both people’s rights to pursue their goals implies that neither person should exploit the other, harm the other, or even ignore the other. In other words, a competencebased approach suggests that people treat each other in an ethical manner.”

3.2 Empirical support for the competence model of conflict This section summarizes the research that has directly tested aspects of the competence based model of conflict. Lakey and Canary (2002) conducted an investigation

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to test the relevance of both actor goal achievement and sensitivity to partner’s goals in judgments of competence. They studied dyads by having students recruit a close relationship partner (i.e., family member, close friend, romantic partner) to participate with them in the study. Each dyad jointly identified a recent conflict they experienced together that they then reported about individually. In addition to reporting on their own integrative and distributive strategies employed in the conflict, each participant reported on their awareness and sensitivity to their own goals and partners’ goals, their own effectiveness, their partners’ appropriateness, partners’ communication competence, and partners’ sensitivity to the respondent’s goals. Results supported the authors’ predictions: 1. actors’ goal achievement was positively associated with partners’ ratings of actors’ communication competence; 2. partners’ perceptions of actors’ sensitivity to partners’ goals were positively associated with partners’ ratings of actors’ communication competence; 3. actors’ perceived sensitivity to their partner’s goals predicted partners’ ratings of actors’ communication competence; 4. people who received the highest ratings of communication competence from their partners also received the highest ratings for sensitivity to partners’ goals and rated themselves high in own goals achieved; 5. ratings of both effectiveness (self-judged) and appropriateness (partner-judged) were positively associated with actors’ perceptions of their awareness of and sensitivity to partners’ goals; 6. ratings of both effectiveness (self-judged) and appropriateness (partner-judged) were positively associated with partners’ ratings of actors’ awareness of and sensitivity to their partners’ goals; and 7. actors’ perceptions of their awareness of and sensitivity to their partners’ goals was positively associated with using integrative conflict behaviors, and negatively associated with distributive conflict behaviors. Collectively these findings provide robust support for the idea that one’s communication competence is tied directly to one’s sensitivity to partner’s goals, particularly in a conflict episode. In an early test of the competence model of conflict, Canary and Spitzberg (1987) asked participants to read a hypothetical scenario and rate the perceived appropriateness and effectiveness of the communicator who was portrayed as attempting to seek compliance of another. Two different scenarios were employed. One scenario depicted the communicator trying to convince a boyfriend or girlfriend to go out socializing despite the partner’s busy schedule. In another scenario, the communicator attempted to persuade a same-sex roommate to clean up a mess. Message strategy was manipulated within each scenario such that the persuader used one of three types of messages: integrative, distributive, or avoidance. As predicted, communicators using the integrative message were rated as being both more effective and appropriate compared to communicators who used either the distributive or avoidant message. Subsequent studies (summarized below) using different samples and methodologies have generally replicated these findings (Canary and Cupach 1988; Canary, Cupach, and Serpe 2001; Canary and Spitzberg 1989). In addition, Canary and Spitzberg (1987) showed evidence that perceptions

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of competence can translate into other favorable assessments. Specifically they found that perceptions of communicator appropriateness and effectiveness were positively associated with ratings of the communicator’s social attractiveness, and to a lesser but significant extent, task attractiveness. Gross, Guerrero, and Alberts (2004; also see Gross and Guerrero 2000) extended the competence model to short-term task-oriented dyads. They paired unacquainted students from management and business-related classes and assigned them to make a joint decision involving the downsizing of a retail department from four employees to two. Participants were given descriptions containing pros and cons of each employee as a basis for their discussions. After decisions were made, individuals rated their own use and their partners’ use of three conflict strategies: non-confrontation (e.g., “I side-stepped disagreements when they arose”), solution orientation (e.g., “I blended my ideas with my co-worker to create new alternatives for resolving a disagreement”), and control (e.g., “I asserted my opinion forcefully”). Participants also rated their own and their partners’ appropriateness and effectiveness. The findings were consistent with competence model predictions. Participants’ own use of solution orientation was positively associated with self-ratings of both appropriateness and effectiveness. Similarly, partners’ use of solution orientation was positively associated with ratings of partners’ appropriateness and effectiveness. One’s own use of control was positively associated with ratings of one’s own effectiveness (but unrelated to own appropriateness), whereas partners’ use of control was negatively associated with ratings of partners’ appropriateness (but unrelated to partners’ effectiveness). Finally, one’s own use of non-confrontation was negatively associated with self-ratings of appropriateness and effectiveness, and partners’ use of non-confrontation was negatively associated with ratings of partners’ appropriateness and effectiveness. The authors note that “perceptions of the nonconfrontational strategy exhibited stronger and more consistent negative associations with competence measures than is typically found in the literature on interpersonal conflict” (Gross, Guerrero, and Alberts 2004: 262). This is not surprising. In a short-term decision-making task, the importance of relational goals is diminished and avoidance is a less sensible strategy. It fails to accomplish the assigned task and it is inappropriate for the context. Nicotera and colleagues (2012) applied the competence model to aggressive communication. They were interested specifically in the perceived competence of argumentative communication and verbally aggressive communication. Argumentativeness involves defending a point of view, using evidence and reasoning, focusing on issues, and refuting another’s arguments (Rancer and Avtgis 2006). Verbal aggressiveness focuses on attacking another person’s self-concept by using threats, insults, hostility, and the like (Rancer and Avtgis 2006). Nicotera et al. employed a 2 × 2 design of hypothetical scenarios that depicted a person using either high or low levels of argumentativeness, and either high or low levels of verbal aggressive-

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ness. Participants each read one scenario and rated the portrayed communicator on dimensions of effectiveness and appropriateness. As expected, argumentative communication was perceived to be more effective than nonargumentative communication, and verbally aggressive communication was perceived to be less appropriate than communication that was not verbally aggressive. Argumentative communication was also more appropriate than nonargumentative communication, but there was no effect for verbally aggressive communication on ratings of effectiveness. There were some interesting interaction effects of communication on ratings of appropriateness and effectiveness (Nicotera et al. 2012). Argumentative communication without verbal aggression was clearly rated the most appropriate and most effective compared to all other conditions. Communication that was both verbally aggressive and argumentative was seen as less effective than argumentative communication without verbal aggression. However, communication that was verbally aggressive but not argumentative was seen as more effective than communication that was neither verbally aggressive nor argumentative. Communication that was neither verbally aggressive nor argumentative was perceived to be the least effective. Nonargumentative but verbally aggressive communication was less effective than either argumentative communication with verbal aggressiveness or argumentative communication without verbal aggressiveness. For ratings of appropriateness, argumentative communication without verbal aggressiveness was rated as more appropriate than argumentative communication with verbal aggressiveness. Communication that was argumentative but not verbally aggressive was perceived to be more appropriate than communication that was neither argumentative nor verbally aggressive. Verbally aggressive communication without argumentativeness was perceived to be less appropriate than any other condition. Communication that was high in both argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness did not differ in appropriateness ratings compared to communication that was low in both argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness. One important implication of competence judgments is that they influence the effects of conflict behavior on relationship outcomes (Cupach, Canary, and Spitzberg 2010: 20–22, 130; Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach 1994). In other words, conflict behavior is judged through a competence lens, and these judgments in turn influence relationship quality (see Figure 1). Several studies have evidenced this mediating role of competence judgments in conflict episodes. Canary and Cupach (1988) asked students to recruit a partner (i.e., romantic partner, friend, roommate) to participate with them in a study of conflict. Each dyad identified a recent conflict they recalled, and individuals then separately completed surveys about that conflict. Participants completed measures assessing characteristics of their relationship with the conflict partner, specifically trust, control mutuality, intimacy, and relational satisfaction. Next, individuals reported their use of integrative, distributive, and avoidance strategies during the recalled conflict. Then participants rated their own communication satisfaction and their partner’s communication compe-

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Fig. 1: The competence model of conflict.

tence associated with the conflict episode. Communication satisfaction was proposed as an affective episodic reaction that is positively associated with partners’ communication competence, and along with perceived competence, operating as a filter that mediates the association between conflict behaviors and relational outcomes. Consistent with the proposed model, Canary and Cupach (1988) found that partners’ use of integrative conflict behaviors was positively associated with communication satisfaction and ratings of partner’s communication competence. Communication satisfaction and partner’s communication competence, in turn, were positively associated with the relational features of trust, control mutuality, intimacy, and relational satisfaction. Partner’s use of distributive conflict behaviors predicted less communication satisfaction and lower partner communication competence, which in turn predicted lower levels of trust, control mutuality, intimacy, and relational satisfaction. Partner’s distributive behavior also had a direct negative effect on relational outcomes, above and beyond the effect mediated by the episodic variables. Partner’s avoidance conflict behavior was unrelated to either the episodic perceptions or the relational outcomes. Canary and Cupach (1988: 321) explain this latter finding as follows: “The paradox of avoidance is that one is not often aware of it if his or her partner engaged in it. Further, avoidance often leads to interpersonal misperceptions, for example that the conflict has been resolved or effectively managed.” The authors also refer to evidence that avoidance can yield either constructive or destructive outcomes, depending how and when it is deployed (e.g., Fitzpatrick, Fallis, and Vance 1982; Raush et al. 1974: 63–83; Rusbult 1987; Wang, Fink, and Cai 2012). Canary and Spitzberg (1989) replicated the findings of Canary and Cupach (1988). They asked students to recall a recent conflict with a partner of the opposite sex (romantic intimates, roommates, friends, parents, etc.). Participants completed measures of their partner’s use of integrative, distributive, and avoidant behaviors

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during the conflict, their partner’s communication competence associated with the conflict episode, and their judgments of relational quality with their conflict partner. The competence construct comprised measures of partner’s specific appropriateness (i.e., evaluations of particular remarks within the interaction), general appropriateness (i.e., global impressions of episodic behavior), effectiveness, and a global impression of the partner’s competence. Measures of relational satisfaction, trust, intimacy, and control mutuality composed the relational quality construct. Results revealed that partners’ perceived integrative conflict behaviors were positively associated with assessments of partners’ competence, whereas distributive and avoidance behaviors were both negatively associated with competence. Furthermore, judgments of partner competence were positively associated with relational quality, and mediated the effects of conflict behavior on relational quality. Canary and Spitzberg (1989: 644) summarized, “evaluations of partner’s competence function as a relational interpretive screen. Conflict messages are assessed as more or less appropriate, effective, and globally competent, and these assessments then affect features of trust, control mutuality, intimacy, and relational satisfaction.” Canary, Cupach, and Serpe (2001) provided additional evidence of the mediating effect of competence judgments. The researchers collected data from 132 married couples at two points in time, five weeks apart. In each data collection, couples agreed on a recent conflict (within the past two weeks) that they would each report on independently. Participants rated their own use of integrative and distributive conflict behaviors, their communication satisfaction with the conflict episode, and their partner’s communication competence in the episode. Relational quality was indexed with measures of trust and liking/loving of partner. As expected, one’s integrative conflict behaviors were positively associated with partner’s episodic evaluations, and one’s distributive conflict behaviors were negatively associated with partner’s episodic assessments. Integrative behaviors were perceived to be competent and satisfying, whereas distributive behaviors were perceived to be incompetent and dissatisfying. Moreover, these episodic assessments translated into judgments of relational quality for both husbands and wives. In other words, the episodic assessments of satisfaction and competence mediated the negative effects of distributive conflict behaviors and the positive effects of integrative conflict behaviors on relational quality. The authors also proposed that relational quality at Time 1 would predict conflict behaviors at Time 2 (five weeks later), but failed to support this prediction. Instead, a person’s Time 2 conflict behaviors were predicted by their own Time 1 conflict behaviors and their partner’s Time 2 behaviors.

3.3 Implications of the competence model for the management of conflict Communication competence is valued because of its optimizing nature. It usually affords the best opportunity for both parties to achieve individual goals, including

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the mutual desire to maintain face and sustain a desired relationship beyond the conflict. In this sense the competence model comports with Deutsch’s (1973: 20– 32) crude law of social relations, which stipulates that competitive approaches to conflict tend to be destructive for relationships, whereas cooperative approaches to conflict tend to be constructive for relationships. According to the competence model, constructive and destructive outcomes are a function of interpretations of communication behavior. To the extent communication is perceived to be competent, constructive relational outcomes are more likely, and to the extent communication is seen as incompetent, destructive relational outcomes are more likely. Cooperative and collaborative communication optimizes the chances for perceived competence, while competitive and antagonistic communication undermines perceptions of competence. It is important to clarify that communicators do not always desire to be competent (Jones 1989; Spitzberg 1993, 1994). Indeed, being interpersonally incompetent in a conflict is sometimes a strategic choice. “There are occasions when critics deliberately privilege the criterion of effectiveness over the criterion of appropriateness; that is, they choose to be personally effective rather than interpersonally competent” (Cupach and Carson 2012: 146). This can occur when the instrumental goal of gaining compliance from a partner (e.g., to change partner’s behavior) trumps identity and relational goals. Communicators also may deliberately threaten another’s face when the goal is to get justice or revenge (Yoshimura 2007), in which case one acts inappropriately precisely in order to be effective. In s similar vein, one may abandon an instrumental goal in the face of resistance because the relationship is valued more than the instrumental goal (Cloven and Roloff 1993). In this case one would rather appear appropriate in lieu of being effective. There are also circumstances where one avoids conflict in the short-term in an attempt to become effective later on, such as when one needs time to acquire resources or allies in order to be effective. One may avoid conflict altogether and acquiesce to a partner simply because the goal being abandoned is relatively trivial (Cupach 2007). Even when one wishes to be competent in conflict, there can be impediments. Accomplishing competence requires skill (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984: 129–130, 136–137; 1989: 8–14; 2011). One must have the ability to select and enact behaviors at the right time, in the appropriate sequence, and commensurate with the context at hand. Even when one is knowledgeable about appropriate and effective communication, and despite being motivated to implement that knowledge, one might not be successful in performance. Mood, personality, biases, prejudices, and prior experience can undermine or facilitate one’s conflict management skills. Of course the most skilled communicator can be thwarted by his or her partner. It is in this sense that competence requires coordination between partners. If my partner has more power and greater will, then my best effort may not be able to be personally effective. In fact, it may cause me to reciprocate belligerent behav-

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iors, thereby undermining my own appropriateness as well. If my partner refuses to engage me in a conflict, no matter what strategy I employ – direct or indirect, positive or negative – I may simply be unable to effectively get my goal accomplished. The fact that conflict is highly prone to eliciting face threats requires communicators to be especially attentive to face needs. During normal interaction, the mutual maintenance of face is taken for granted (Cupach and Metts 1994: 4; Goffman 1967: 5–45). But as noted earlier, conflict tends to be face-threatening. Therefore, facework is an important skill for managing conflict in a competent manner. Facework is behavior designed to protect face and to repair damage caused by facethreatening actions (Goffman 1967: 5–45). Facework is accomplished in conflict in three general ways. First, face threat inherent in conflict can be avoided when one withholds complaints and disagreements that are relatively unimportant and whose expression would jeopardize other more subjectively important goals (Cupach 2007). Second, pursuing goals in ways that are demanding, hostile, combative, insulting, derisive, derogating, coercive, etc., exacerbate threat to the partner’s face and contribute to partners’ defensiveness (Cupach and Carson 2002). Approaching conflict in ways that are conciliatory, complimentary, respectful, reasoned, tactful, diplomatic, and polite can mitigate some of the face threat involved in expressing disagreement or criticism (Cupach 2007; Cupach and Carson 2012). Finally, despite one’s best benevolent intentions, conflict discussions can include put-downs, snubs, insults, rudeness, pouting, yelling, personal attacks, and other offensive behaviors that exacerbate face threat, even when the precipitating conflict is satisfactorily resolved, and even in relationships that are relatively satisfying. Indeed, disagreement about the appropriateness of the manner of communication during a conflict is itself a source of conflict (Braiker and Kelley 1979). Moreover, conflicts are sometimes precipitated precisely because one has behaved badly, such as in committing a relational transgression. Therefore, apologizing for offensive behavior (which either caused the conflict or emerged during the conflict discussion) is an important type of facework. Seeking forgiveness attempts to redress the face loss due to offensive behavior. When one forgives an offending partner, one abandons the motivation to retaliate and reestablishes a benevolent orientation toward the partner (Fitness 2001; Metts and Cupach 2007). Forgiveness also provides a relational frame that facilitates successful management of future conflicts. In the context of marital conflict, for example, Fincham and colleagues contend that forgiveness is “an important element of marital transactions precisely because spouses often hurt one another and, in the absence of forgiveness, it may be common for lingering effects to exert their influence on subsequent efforts to resolve marital problems” (Fincham, Beach, and Davila 2004: 78). The lack of forgiveness for offenses can perpetuate destructive conflict behaviors and undermine constructive problem solving. Remedial facework can promote forgiveness, which

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contributes to successful management of subsequent conflicts (Fincham, Beach, and Davila 2004).

3.4 Taking stock of the competence model The competence model of conflict management offers a useful and parsimonious framework for linking conflict behavior to relationship outcomes. Research evidences consistent empirical support for tenets of the model. Despite these strengths, the broad strokes with which the model characterizes conflict action and outcomes leave some unexplored nuances. A couple of specific limitations indicate important ways in which the model could be expanded and elaborated. First, the competence model of conflict has been confined to a limited number of relationship types and outcomes. The research has focused mostly on friendships, dating relationships, marital relationships, and decision-making task relationships in a workplace setting. Generality of the competence model needs to be tested by applying it to additional relationship types where conflict is common, such as sibling relationships, parent–child relationships, peer relationships in different kinds of work environments, and relationships between service-providers and clients. Including a broader range of relationship types in applying the competence model should shed light on the ways in which the nature of the relationship constitutes a contextual factor in moderating the ways that competence judgments affect relationship qualities. Moreover, the competence model has focused primarily on global outcomes reflecting relationship quality, such as satisfaction, liking, and trust. Given the diversity of goals potentially present in any given conflict, it would be useful to examine a broader domain of conflict consequences. Communication and the subsequent judgments of competence are likely to influence an array of outcomes such as respect, loyalty, credibility, compliance, resistance, selfefficacy, and so forth. As the importance of individual goals varies in conflicts, so too will the relevance of outcomes. Taking into account a broader domain of outcomes will offer a more complete picture of the role of competence perceptions in conflict. A second limitation of the competence model of conflict is that it tends to gloss over the complexity of message exchanges. In its current version, the model associates broad categories of behavior with relational outcomes. In its simplicity, the model depicts constructive conflict behaviors as eliciting positive competence judgments, which in turn are favorable for relationship stability. In reality, a person’s behavior in a given conflict is often a mixture of prosocial and antisocial actions; strategies are blended or alternated as conflict episodes unfold. A couple’s behaviors form complex and contingent interaction patterns that influence the course of conflict (Messman and Canary 1998). In addition, some significant conflicts have a serial character, such that episodes of confrontation about an unresolved issue wax and wane over time, and the character of the conflict interaction

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is partly a function of its prior history. A more complete picture of the role of competence judgments will require exploring how more complex sequences and patterns of conflict behaviors relate to competence judgments. In summary, expanding the competence model to assess more varied conflict outcomes, different relationships, and more complex interaction patterns would significantly enhance utility of the model and our understanding of conflict.

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15 Developing negotiation competencies Abstract: This chapter reviews the communication competencies for effective negotiation that surface in two research traditions: the social psychological and social constructivist perspectives. Communication competency is the subset of knowledge and behaviors that influences negotiation performance. Three major skills surface as communication competencies in the social psychological tradition: control in terms of meeting negotiator goals, signaling collaboration through taking account of the other party, and adaptation. Competencies that surface in the social constructivist approach include the coordination of differences, the co-construction of meanings, directing communication sequences, and ability to change the negotiation game. This paper contends that negotiators who develop optimal communication competencies are able to move outside their existing systems, alter the direction of the process, and produce new ways of understanding problems to transform the bargaining situation. These findings have implications for revamping negotiation training and pedagogy. In particular, training and pedagogy need to focus on helping parties diagnose communication patterns, disrupt dysfunctional interactions, and redirect the course of negotiations. Keywords: negotiation skills, negotiation framing, collaboration, balancing negotiation dilemmas, issue development, transforming negotiation interaction

Negotiation is a commonplace activity. While once the exclusive domain of formal collective bargaining, buyer–seller transactions, and international diplomacy, this activity is part of routine interactions in the workplace, the family, legal contexts, and interpersonal relationships. Workers negotiate with their bosses and their colleagues about job assignments; children negotiate with their parents regarding bedtime; lawyers negotiate to settle legal claims for clients; and friends negotiate about what movie to attend. In effect, negotiation is something everyone does as part of routine activities as well as major accomplishments, such as obtaining a job, getting a raise, buying a house, or orchestrating a corporate merger. As a result, people need to understand what negotiation is and how to hone their competencies and skills in this activity. This chapter focuses on the communication competencies essential for effective negotiation. While skills focus on behaviors related to particular criteria or outcomes, competencies refer to a subset of knowledge and behaviors that influence negotiation performance (Roloff, Putnam, and Anastasiou 2003). Hence, a particular competence encompasses skills and broadly refers to having an understanding of the negotiation process, managing interactions effectively, and learning how to transform negotiation situations. Communication is fundamental to de-

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veloping these competencies through engaging and managing social interactions and systems of meaning about the process. Specifically, communication not only refers to the moves and countermoves in negotiation; but also to the ongoing and dynamic social interactions that evolve over time, as well as to the abilities of negotiators to make wise choices within this flow of conversation, coordinated actions, and co-constructed meanings. To unpack communication competencies in negotiation, this chapter examines two different approaches – a social psychological one that centers on behaviors, skills, and knowledge that individuals need for effective negotiation and a social constructive one that focuses on understanding negotiation as a system shaped by multiple levels of meaning and the emerging flow of interaction. Based on the latter approach, we contend that individuals who develop optimal communication competence are able to move outside of the existing interaction system, alter the direction of the negotiation process, and produce new ways to understand problems as well as to transform the situation (Barge 2013; Harris 1979; Putnam 2010a). To this aim, this chapter addresses the following topics: definitions and characteristics of negotiation, the historical development of communication and negotiation research, contemporary theoretical and methodological approaches, and the core competencies that surface from research and exemplify these two main approaches. The chapter concludes by making recommendations for future research in this area of communication and negotiation competencies.

1 Definition and overview of negotiation Negotiation is a process in which two or more interdependent parties engage in a give and take exchange in search of a mutually acceptable settlement (Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry 2011: 3). It is a particular type of social interaction, one in which parties cooperate to reach a solution, but one in which they simultaneously compete for resources or strive for incompatible ends. As a classic example, in a buyer–seller negotiation, both the buyer and the seller want the sale to be made, but the buyer typically wants to pay less money, while the seller wants the buyer to pay more money. The nature of this mixed cooperative and competitive situation poses a dilemma in that parties typically avoid full disclosure of information for fear of being exploited, but they also must share some priorities and preferences to avoid escalating disagreement. Because the two parties need each other to achieve their own goals, they choose to work together to find a mutually agreeable solution. Furthermore, negotiation is a process that changes over time through mutual adjustment; that is, one party acts and the other reacts, creating twists and turns in the interaction that shape the direction of the process. As with conflict, negotiation

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interaction develops its own momentum over time – one that can lead parties to become rigidly committed to their positions, spiral out of control, and escalate toward no settlement (Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim 1994). An integral feature of negotiation is its outcome. Hence, gaining an understanding of how the mutual adjustment process works and how to achieve win–win outcomes is a key negotiation competence. Win–win, as opposed to lose–lose outcomes, results from both parties achieving their goals while win–lose settlements meet the desires of only one party. Thus, the competencies discussed in this chapter are aimed at reaching win–win or mutually beneficial agreements. Overall, as a particular type of social interaction, negotiation is a process in which two or more interdependent parties search for an acceptable agreement in the distribution of resources or the resolution of a dispute or problem.

1.1 Historical development Communication scholars have been researching negotiation for more than thirty years. Initially, investigators conducted laboratory studies that drew from three perspectives: game theory, social exchange, and distributive and integrative bargaining. Game theory focuses on the combination of moves linked to differential rewards for negotiators (Smith 1969; Steinfatt and Miller 1974). As such, it emphasizes static variables such as payoffs, utilities, and options as opposed to the communicative development of the bargaining process (Bostrom 1968). Challenging this focus, Beisecker (1970) began to emphasize verbal persuasive strategies in negotiation, such as the role of cooperative and competitive messages in bargaining (Deutsch 1973; Johnson, McCarty, and Allen 1976). Based on these changes, communication scholars in the 1980s began to use social exchange models in which negotiators maximized their profits based on such resources as status and control. Through harnessing exchange theory, scholars examined obligations to trade resources of equivalent value (Roloff and Campion 1985), to match strategies and tactics (Donohue, Diez, and Hamilton 1984), and to reciprocate negotiation interaction patterns (Putnam and Jones 1982). Concurrent with the adoption of social exchange models, communication scholars drew from Walton and McKersie’s (1965) classic work on distributive and integrative negotiation. In distributive negotiation, parties view their outcomes as fixed; hence, they engage in a win–lose style of interaction to attain the largest share of a fixed pie. In the distributive model, negotiators employ such communicative tactics as attacking arguments, withholding information, and giving threats (Donohue 1981a; Putnam and Wilson 1989); whereas in integrative bargaining, participants conceive of their outcomes as flexible; thus, they engage in problem solving, generating alternative solutions, making concessions, and striving for a settlement that meets the needs of both parties (Donohue and Roberto 1996; Tutzauer and Roloff 1988).

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1.2 Contemporary theoretical and methodological approaches Since the 1980s, scholars have expanded their theoretical purviews through embracing systems interaction models, developmental perspectives, and discourse analysis. In systems interaction approaches, scholars code verbal and nonverbal messages to depict the dynamic and multifunctional communication system that shapes negotiated outcomes (Olekalns and Smith 2003). In the developmental perspective, researchers investigate how these interactions evolve over time (Liu 2009), form types of sequential patterns (Olekalns and Weingart 2008; Taylor and Thomas 2008), reveal phases or stages of negotiation (Holmes 1992; Olekalns, Brett, and Weingart 2003; Putnam, Wilson, and Turner 1990), and identify transitions that shift the pattern of communication (McGinn, Lingo, and Ciano 2004). This work is highly interdisciplinary and encompasses research in social psychology, management, linguistics, and communication. A more recent perspective that negotiation researchers have employed is discourse and interpretive analyses. Scholars who embrace this approach focus on talk in negotiation (Glenn and Susskind 2010), features of language use and emotional reactions (Martinovsky 2014; Rogan and Hammer 1995); the framing of issues in negotiation (Putnam and Holmer 1992); and the use of narratives and rituals (Friedman 1995; Putnam, Van Hoeven, and Bullis 1991). Discourse and interpretive analyses rely heavily on bargaining history, negotiation context, and interactional relationships as key factors that shape language use and symbolic forms. As this overview suggests, scholars have employed an array of methods to study negotiation interactions, ones that range from experimental laboratory designs to field studies. Early researchers have relied heavily on quantitative analyses through using questionnaires and surveys (Williams 1993), but also through coding transcripts of audio and video recorded bargaining. Laboratory studies employ buyer–seller simulations, cross-cultural negotiations, and organizational role play scenarios (Adair and Brett 2005; Jordan and Roloff 1997), while naturalistic field studies have examined teacher–administrator negotiations (Donohue, Diez, and Hamilton 1984; Putnam 2004a; Putnam and Geist 1985), actual and simulated hostage negotiations (Donohue and Roberto 1993; Rogan, Hammer, and Van Zandt 1997), and plea bargaining interactions (Maynard 1984). Using ethnographic methods, researchers have taken field notes, interviewed participants, and studied relevant documents (Putnam, Van Hoeven, and Bullis 1991). These approaches illustrate the breadth and diversity of methods that communication scholars have used and their efforts to make the field setting vital to understanding the negotiation process. General competence in negotiation often centers on payoff-based outcomes, for example, reaching optimal deals or attaining mutually satisfactory agreements (Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry 2011). Optimality typically refers to specific purchase prices or resource settlements in which “there is no agreement that would make any party better off without decreasing the outcomes to any other party” (Neal and

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Bazerman 1991, 23). Thus, in negotiating the distribution of resources or solutions to problems, models of rational decision making set forth a range or a frontier of efficient solutions that would maximize gains for both parties. With this approach, competent negotiators are able to recognize this frontier and ensure that they do not accept a solution that would be suboptimal or below an efficient settlement. Thus, negotiators aim for a balance between claiming resources and creating them to develop an optimal point in which they can reach the best settlement for both parties. Similarly, bargaining competence is often linked to the ability to attain mutually satisfactory outcomes, even if these outcomes are not necessarily optimal. In this approach, parties strive for a settlement which will meet the underlying needs of both negotiators (Pruitt 1981). Payoff-based measures of competence, however, often conceal how bargainers communicate to reach these outcomes. The research then often focuses on communication skills that help bargainers discover the other party’s needs or gather information regarding the range of optimal settlements. For example, communication skills such as asking questions, sharing information, and engaging in problem exploration are often linked to integrative outcomes (Donohue, Diez, and WeiderHatfield 1984; Roloff, Putnam, and Anastasiou 2003). A few studies examine the skills of highly effective negotiators, irrespective of types of outcomes. For example, a major study conducted in Great Britain sampled a mixture of professional negotiators, including union and management representatives and contract negotiators (Rackham and Carlisle 1978a, 1978b). Researchers assembled these bargainers, recorded simulated interactions, and analyzed how skilled and unskilled negotiators performed during their interactions. In their classification of participants, skilled negotiators had a track record of success, had a low incidence of contract rejections by constituents, and were identified as effective by both colleagues and opponents. Less skilled negotiators failed to meet one of the criteria listed above or lacked specific success data. These studies revealed differences in performances between skilled and unskilled negotiators, ones that can be linked to their behaviors and their communication competencies. Given the paucity of studies that directly test communication competencies in negotiation, this chapter extrapolates from the existing literature. This extrapolation integrates dimensions and features of communication competencies with studies of specific bargaining skills, behaviors, and cognitions drawn from the social psychological and the social constructionist traditions.

2 The social psychological perspective The social psychological approach highlights behaviors and cognitions. Behaviors refers to the skills and abilities on which judgments of competence are based while cognitions concentrate on the knowledge or understanding of those abilities to

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make choices among them (Jablin and Sias 2001). Moreover, research on behavioral competencies typically centers on two dimensions: effectiveness in implementing communicative skills to accomplish goals and the appropriateness in using them to adhere to the norms and rules of particular situations (Canary and Spitzberg 1987; Spitzberg and Cupach 1989). For the most part, research within the social psychological tradition casts competence as a discrete or dichotomous variable of effective or ineffective or appropriate or inappropriate rather than as a continuous variable that incorporates levels, such as temporary learning states, thresholds of sufficiency, and deep level proficiencies (Jablin and Sias 2001). In this way, competence is the intersection of abilities perceived to be effective and appropriate. Scholars have linked both effectiveness and appropriateness to communication competencies in conflict management styles, interpersonal conflicts, and intercultural conflict interactions, but not to negotiation per se (Brew et al. 2011; Canary and Spitzberg 1989). This section concentrates primarily on the effectiveness and appropriateness of particular negotiation behaviors and further subdivides them into three types of competence – exercising control, engaging in collaboration, and fostering adaptation (Parks 1994). Communication competence as control focuses on effectiveness in goal-directed behaviors and the knowledge of how to behave to achieve particular goals, while competence in collaboration centers on sustaining interaction and taking the other party’s identity and actions into account. The third type, adaptation, refers to the knowledge of and sensitivity to different situations and the ability Tab. 1: Communication competencies in negotiation. Perspective

Social Psychological

Social Constructivist

Focus

Behaviors – the skills and abil- Social Systems – the competencies needed to ities that guide judgments of function effectively within a complex system of competence social interaction Cognitions – the knowledge or understanding of the behaviors that form competence

Competencies

Control – knowing about and strategically using goal-directed behaviors to reach agreements Collaboration – taking the other party’s needs and actions into account Adaptation – sensitivity to differences and having the ability to alter behaviors to fit changing situations

Social eloquence – embracing and continuing to hold diametrically opposed realities together Relational eloquence – grasping multiple ways that parties make sense of their situations and construct new meanings Systematic eloquence – understanding how an ongoing interaction system is evolving and how to intervene to redirect its flow Transcendent eloquence – transforming the course of an interaction to develop new understandings of problems and new ways to work together

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to alter behaviors to adapt to changing situational factors and responses from others (see Table 1). These three competencies, which are prevalent in the negotiation research, also encompass knowledge of and the ability to make choices in using communicative behaviors. Thus, ability is critical to the execution of behaviors that are seen as effective and appropriate in negotiation.

2.1 Control: Meeting individual goals This area of competence focuses on the strategies and communicative behaviors that help negotiators meet their individual goals, needs, or desires. Specific skills that help negotiators exercise control include planning effectively, presenting arguments and offers, and engaging in information seeking behaviors. Research has revealed that effective negotiators engage in extensive planning and preparation, but do so with flexibility. In a survey of 351 lawyers, Williams (1993) observed that the most effective negotiators analyzed issues rationally and were well-prepared on legal facts, while ineffective ones were either too trusting, too critical of their opponent’s position, or made excessive demands that were inconsistent with the facts of a case. Yet this careful planning was counterbalanced with developing a wide array of alternatives, casting goals broadly, and identifying common ground with their opponents (Rackham and Carlisle 1978b). These findings indicate that competent negotiators exercise control through being flexible on the means or ways of reaching their goals while being firm on their needs and interests (Pruitt 1981).

2.1.1 Control through presenting offers and arguments In addition to planning, competent bargainers exert control through their presentations of offers, their uses of arguments, and their organization of issues. Specifically, they provide extreme but reasonable opening offers, ones that are palatable to their opponents but allow room for movement (Allen, Donohue, and Stewart 1990). They are also less likely to respond immediately with a counterproposal when their opponents make concessions (Rackham and Carlisle 1978a). Responding immediately tends to complicate the issue when the talk is centered on the opponents’ positions. In their use of argumentation, effective negotiators advocate for their own positions and refute their opponents’ stances; but ironically, while giving fewer reasons to support their positions than do less successful bargainers (Rackham and Carlisle 1978a). Basically, they are selective and employ only their strongest or best arguments to substantiate their claims rather than using a mixture of strong and weak ones. They also react to their opponents’ evidence and reasoning by introducing new ideas that are favorable to their own position (Donohue 1981b). Finally, effective negotiators assemble issues in packages rather than present them as single

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agenda items (Tutzauer and Roloff 1988). Packaging multiple issues allows bargainers to trade high priority items for low priority ones and provides them with options for developing creative proposals. Thus, competent negotiators exercise control through using such skills as making extreme opening offers, pausing before responding to counteroffers, advancing only their strongest arguments, and packaging issues to develop creative options.

2.1.2 Control through information management Another way that competent negotiators exercise control is to employ more information management behaviors than do less competent bargainers (Rackham and Carlisle 1978a). This management of information flow, however, draws on effective communication skills in the phrasing of questions, labeling or signaling the intent of a request, and employing summary statements to test information (Rackham and Carlisle 1978a). Specifically, effective bargainers ask manageable questions that extend ideas, push for priorities, clarify positions, and prepare the opponent for further questions (Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry 2011: 145–146). Manageable questions are typically open-ended, low in emotionality, and gauge how the other person feels about a proposal; for example, such questions as, “What do you think of these options?” or “How did you develop these conclusions?” Unmanageable questions are leading and loaded or use statements framed as questions that often produce defensiveness or make the other person feel uncomfortable, such as, “Do you mean to tell me that these are the only terms that you will accept?” (Lewick, Saunders, and Barry 2011: 146). In distributive negotiation, manageable questions substantiate claims while in integrative bargaining, they gain information about the opponent’s interests and priorities (Hyder, Prietula, and Weingart 2000). To avoid resistance in answering questions, effective negotiators allow the respondent to save face, minimize power differentials, use broad questions that begin with why, what, or how, and attend to question sequences (Miles 2013). Effective negotiators also explicitly label or call attention to a communicative behavior that they are likely to perform; for example, “I’d like to make a concession.” or “Could I ask you a question?” In the flurry of fast moving interactions, these messages slow down the process, signal the bargainer’s intent, and call attention to the behavior. In addition, effective negotiators paraphrase and question to test for understanding of proposals. They engage in active listening in which they restate the other party’s message in their own language. Paraphrasing is a skill that encourages negotiators to clarify their feelings, priorities, and frames of reference (Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry 2011: 148). Furthermore, effective negotiators make more summary statements than do less skilled negotiators. They recap what they hear, summarize the progress of the negotiation, and articulate the key

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points of agreement and disagreement between the parties (Rackham and Carlisle 1978a). In summary, judgments of competence in exercising control focus on the actual behaviors and skills that bargainers use. For the most part, competent negotiators engage in intense planning but are flexible in implementing their plans. Their competencies stem from the knowledge and use of specific communicative behaviors aimed to control the negotiation process, including using extreme opening offers, relying on strong arguments, and engaging in packaging issues. They use more information management behaviors than do less competent negotiators, particularly through the skills of asking manageable questions, labeling types of messages, using paraphrasing statements, and summarizing the progress of the negotiation.

2.2 Collaboration: Taking the other person’s needs into account As Table 1 shows, collaboration as a communication competence refers to a willingness to take the other party’s identity, needs, and actions into account; hence, it differs from control by focusing on the other person’s concerns (Parks 1994). In negotiation, participants realize that their own goals are interdependent with their opponents’ objectives, thus being effective in meeting their own needs requires attending to the ongoing relationship with their counterparts. Engaging in collaboration also entails both effectiveness and appropriateness as key criteria for competence (Parks 1994).

2.2.1 Collaboration and the use of explicit and implicit cues Research reveals that competent bargainers collaborate through explicitly expressing concerns about their opponent’s needs and interests, effectively balancing the dilemmas of honesty and trust, avoiding rude and deceptive strategies, and using emotional expressions appropriately. In particular, negotiators signal willingness to collaborate by making explicit statements that express concern for their opponents’ needs and interests and by announcing their intent to increase joint benefits (Lindskold and Han 1988). Also, negotiators engage in collaboration by employing implicit signals to demonstrate concern for the other party. For example, frequent use of communality words, such as we or our, are deemed more collaborative and effective than relying on first or second person pronouns (Vogelzang, Euwema, and Nauta 1997). Nonverbal signs of collaboration, such as synchronized gestures, convergent posture, or positive facial affect, convey interest in the other party and aid in establishing rapport (Drolet and Morris 2000). Moreover, both nonverbal and linguistic mimicry serve as implicit signals of coordination and cooperation. Nonverbal mimicry, for example, mirroring the pen tapping or forward lean of the other party, improves relational outcomes, especially

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if these actions occur in the early stages of negotiation (Maddux, Mullen, and Galinsky 2008). Linguistic mimicry, that is, using the same vocabulary or naming as a way of signaling openness and trust, also improves collaboration when it occurs early in the bargaining (Swaab, Maddux, and Sinaceur 2011). In effect, using explicit and implicit expressions of concern for the other party signals collaboration and combined with such integrative strategies as problem solving and making concessions serves as examples of this type of communicative competence. 2.2.2 Collaboration through balancing negotiation dilemmas Collaboration also occurs by effectively balancing the dilemmas of honesty and trust (Kelley 1966). Too much candor and trust lead to exploitation in which one party gives few concessions and takes advantage of the other negotiator (DeRue et al. 2009). Too little trust and complete withholding of information, however, often results in an impasse; thus, openness and trust exist in a curvilinear relationship with effective negotiation. Competent negotiators then engage in collaboration by disclosing information incrementally, signaling trust nonverbally through positive vocal tone and facial expressions (Boone and Buck 2003), being clear and specific about what they expect in the process, and delivering on commitments made in their interactions (Schurr and Ozanne 1985). Furthermore, bargainers who accurately disclose their own circumstances engage in collaboration through showing that they are genuinely trying to reach a mutual agreement (Paese and Gilin 2000). In general, competent negotiators enact collaboration by finding a balance between trust and caution as well as openness and disclosure of information (Lewicki and Polin 2013). 2.2.3 Collaboration and adhering to social decorum Bargainers also convey their intent to collaborate with the other party by upholding rules of decorum and not violating social norms of the situation. In their behaviors, they refrain from using face-threatening messages, aggressive statements, rude and deceptive strategies, and excessive interruptions that often insult the other party or could derail the negotiation process (Donohue 1981a, 1981b; Greenhalgh and Chapman 1998). They also avoid using such behaviors as linguistic irritators; for example, “My proposal is generous, fair, or reasonable,” which implies that the other party’s proposal is not. To enact collaboration, effective negotiators also monitor how they phrase statements to avoid imperative demands and to emphasize the content of arguments. They understand that the phrasing of messages reveals both content and relational functions that guide how the other party interprets their cues (Diez 1984). In effect, competent negotiators collaborate through enacting appropriate social norms, avoiding rude and insulting messages, and attending to how they present their messages.

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2.2.4 Collaboration by using appropriate emotional expression Similar to social decorum, effective negotiators enact collaboration through their knowledge of how to respond to the other party’s emotional expressions. Past studies on emotional expression in negotiation led to contradictory findings, namely, that demonstrating emotions, such as anger, often escalates conflict but these displays also provide information that can enhance collaboration (Kumar 1997). Specifically, expressions of anger escalate conflict by triggering reciprocal anger from the other party, fostering retaliation, and leading to less concern for the other party (Allred et al. 1997; Friedman et al. 2004). Effective negotiators, however, understand that an emotional outburst also serves as a danger signal to motivate parties to work together (Schroth, Bain-Chekal, and Caldwell 2005); hence they refrain from reciprocal anger or retaliation. In expressing their own emotions, effective negotiators direct their responses to offers placed on the table or to the negotiation process itself rather than to the opponent (Steinel, Van Kleef, and Harinck 2008); emotions directed at the other bargainer typically trigger negative responses and deter collaboration (Van Kleef 2010). In bargaining situations in which emotional displays are prohibited, violation of this norm leads to strong negative reactions and even feelings of revenge (Van Kleef and Cote 2007). In effect, negotiators who engage in appropriate emotional expressions provide useful information that can foster collaboration and aid in developing competence. Thus, as Gray (2003) suggests, competent negotiators should use emotional expressions to gain information, signal areas for attention, indicate that the other party is being heard, and promote collaboration. In summary, collaboration as a communication competence entails taking the other party’s needs and actions into account. This competence relies on explicit and implicit verbal and nonverbal cues, such as communal language and nonverbal mimicry, as behaviors that convey concern for the other party. Competent negotiators signal collaboration through balancing cooperation and competition and through avoiding inappropriate behaviors, such as verbal aggression, face-threatening messages, and linguistic irritators that violate social norms. Finally, they direct their emotional reactions to offers and issues instead of to the other party, and they use the other party’s emotional expression as information to uncover underlying concerns.

2.3 Negotiator adaptation Unlike control and collaboration, which are rooted in negotiation skills and behaviors, adaptation as a communication competence refers to the abilities of negotiators to alter their approaches to fit changing situations as well as their opponents’ responses (see Table 1). To assess negotiator adaptation, this review draws on stud-

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ies in which researchers observe or test negotiators across different bargaining situations, including cross-cultural interactions. Overall, competent communicators adapt to both distributive and integrative bargaining as well as different professional contexts. Most negotiations entail a combination of both distributive and integrative interactions, either in stage development or as simultaneously enacted (Putnam 1990); however, research shows that negotiators have difficulty shifting strategies and adapting to the two types of bargaining (Weingart et al. 1990). Specifically, both naïve and experienced participants treat negotiation as a competitive encounter and overuse distributive strategies, thus producing suboptimal outcomes (Thompson 1990). To be adaptive, effective negotiators need to have a repertoire of integrative and distributive strategies, become comfortable and versatile in using them, recognize which strategies would be most appropriate for what situations, and be able to switch tactics as circumstances change (Roloff, Putnam, and Anastasiou 2003). In like manner, research shows that negotiators have trouble adapting to different professional contexts. Basically, reaching an agreement in one bargaining situation does not lead to transferring skills or adapting to a new context, unless the parties have internalized broad-based negotiation principles (Gillespie et al. 1999). Other studies indicate that bargainers who learn skills that are appropriate for one context, such as joint venture negotiation, have difficulty adapting them to other professional settings, such as sales or labor-management bargaining (Karras 1970). Parallel to the research on bargaining contexts, studies have shown that parties often have difficulty in adapting to diverse cultural environments. Overall, differences in communication between high and low context cultures influence adaptability (Morris and Gelfand 2004). In low context individualist cultures, bargainers rely on language and the other party’s behaviors to interpret the meanings of actions while in high context collectivist cultures, bargainers depend on indirect cues that reside in the social context to make sense of interactions. These differences affect how bargainers adapt to cross-cultural negotiations. In particular, Japanese bargainers in cross-cultural transactions use direct information exchange and reduce their influence attempts to adapt to U.S. negotiators, while U.S. negotiators continue to use their prototypical styles of communication (Adair, Okumura, and Brett 2001). In general, negotiators from high context cultures use more diverse and fluid patterns of negotiating and adapt to their counterparts more frequently than do bargainers from low context countries (Adair and Brett 2005). Overall, research indicates that negotiators are less competent in adapting to different situations than in exercising control and engaging in collaboration. This difficulty may stem, in part, from concentrating on skills rather than on developing a coherent system of knowledge that parallels expertise (Roloff, Putnam, and Anastasiou 2003). Developing communication competencies then calls for negotiators to understand the knowledge systems that form the foundation for recognizing differences and altering behaviors to fit diverse bargaining circumstances and contexts.

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2.4 Summary and critique of the social psychological perspective Research that fits the social psychological perspective identifies a number of communicative behaviors and skills that bargainers use to attain their goals. These behaviors cluster into three types of communication competence: control, which relates to knowing and using goal-directed behaviors strategically to reach agreements; collaboration, which refers to taking the other party’s identity and actions into account; and adaptation, which entails sensitivity to differences and the ability to alter behaviors to fit changing situations (Parks 1994). To be competent, negotiators need to activate particular behaviors and skills linked to these competencies and make effective and appropriate decisions in implementing them. Table 2 presents a summary and comparison of the behaviors and skills linked to these three types of competencies. The literature on negotiator skills suggests that bargainers exercise control through extensive planning with flexibility in mind; selecting opening offers that are extreme but reasonable; recognizing and using only the strongest arguments to support positions; developing ways to package issues; and gathering relevant information through asking manageable questions, labeling types of requests, paraphrasing to clarify understandings, and summarizing to assess progress in the negotiation. Overall, studies reveal that negotiators, for the most part, demonstrate competence through the ways that their skills and abilities interact with perceptions of effective and appropriate behaviors. Collaboration as a type of communicative competence is fundamental to negotiation, particularly for integrative bargaining. Research on negotiation skills indicates that effective bargainers take the other party’s needs into account through using explicit cues as well as implicit ones, such as communal language, nonverbal mirroring, and linguistic mimicry. They strive to build trust by balancing negotiation dilemmas, engaging in exploratory problem solving, and revealing information incrementally. Importantly, this competence is linked to avoiding social error, such as exhibiting verbal aggressiveness, using linguistic irritators, and issuing face-threatening messages; thus, appropriateness and social decorum are key aspects of collaboration. Expressing emotions in negotiation also takes the other party into account by directing negative emotions toward offers and responding to them in ways that signal that the other party is being heard. In general, research reveals that skilled negotiators exhibit this competence through enacting effective problem solving and avoiding inappropriate behaviors that can dismantle collaboration. Adaptation as a type of communication competence includes being aware of or sensitive to differences as well as altering behaviors to fit changing situations. Negotiation studies reveal that trained negotiators have difficulty shifting their strategies from distributive to integrative bargaining, altering behaviors to fit differ-

Skills

Competencies

Balancing negotiation dilemmas of honesty and trust Adhering to the norms of social decorum

Effectively presenting offers and arguments

Engaging in effective planning

Effectively managing information

Using explicit and implicit cues to signal moves

Meeting individual goals

Adapting to diverse cultural environments

Adapting to different professional contexts

Adapting to different negotiation contexts

Enacting issue development

Developing a rhythm of dissonance

Holding differences together

Co-constructing meanings through joint storytelling

Recognizing and altering the framing of situations

Relational Eloquence

Social Eloquence

Adaptation

Control

Collaboration

Social Constructivist

Social Psychological

Tab. 2: Negotiation skills for communication competence.

Identifying turning points and critical moments

Recognizing different types of interaction patterns

Directing the flow of interactions

Systematic Eloquence

Reframing and punctuating events differently

Acting as an observer to reflect on the negotiation process

Positioning and directing interaction sequences

Transcendent Eloquence

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ent professional contexts, and adapting to the other party in cross-cultural exchanges. Bargainers from high-context cultures, however, are more adaptive than ones from low-context backgrounds (Adair, Okumura, and Brett, 2001). This finding suggests that knowledge of skills and demonstrated effectiveness in one type of negotiation setting do not necessarily lead to adaptation in different situations. One explanation for this finding is that negotiation training focuses too much on developing surface-level skills rather than on knowledge of deep-level systems that foster adaptation. Moreover, assumptions that stem from the social psychological perspective may deter trainers and researchers from focusing on deep-level knowledge systems. Specifically, the social psychological approach emphasizes individual motivations, skills, and knowledge, irrespective of the communication system (Barge 2013). As noted earlier, it also casts competence as a dichotomous variable that becomes isolated from the social context. The social constructivist approach addresses these shortfalls by locating communication competence in an ongoing system of interaction, the co-development of participants’ meanings, and continual adaptation that bargainers make within this complex system. In this view, competence becomes a dynamic that is capable of fitting the logic of the system as well as efforts to change the form and pattern of it. Adaptation then occurs in situ within a communication system rather than by transferring skills and behaviors to new situations.

3 The social constructivist perspective Communication competence within the social constructivist view assumes that negotiators are entangled in an ongoing complex social system. The ability to understand, shape, and change this system becomes the critical indicator of competence. It presumes that communication accomplishes negotiation through the ways that ongoing social interaction evolves over time (Barge 2013). Negotiation then is a system that unfolds moment to moment by constructing interactions jointly and making sense of them as the process evolves; hence, bargainers are improvising rather than enacting a preset script (McGinn and Keros 2002). Communication competence in this approach stems from an individual’s abilities to understand and perform within a particular communication system; hence, it cannot be described in isolation of this system. It entails both normative and transformative competencies. Normative competence contributes to effectiveness in game playing; specifically, knowing the rules and norms of a situation, knowing what actions and meanings facilitate coordination, and understanding how the logic of the system works (Pearce 1994, 2008). In negotiation, normative competence stems from co-developing a sequence of relational, procedural, and informational actions that fit different logics of exchange; for example, working together, distributive bargaining, or haggling (McGinn and Keros 2002). Transformative com-

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petence, in turn, fosters game mastery by enabling individuals to choose what game to play and how to disrupt or alter it. In negotiation, enacting transformative competence often changes the logic of the system by producing new understandings of problems, creating new insights about relationships, or enacting new definitions of the situation (Putnam 2010a). These two types of communication competence position this construct as a continuous variable that functions in degrees from minimal to optimal levels (Barge 2013). With minimal competence, communicators have difficulty determining the logic of exchange (i.e., the pattern of interactions that define the game), are unable to produce normative competence, and generally function outside the system. Satisfactory competence refers to communicators who are enmeshed in the system, play the game well, but cannot change or enact a different system. Optimal competence entails the ability to move both inside and outside the system; that is, negotiators can choose to fit within the existing logic or move outside it and change the nature of the game (Harris 1979; Pearce and Cronen 1980). Developing cognitive and behavioral skills, as exemplified in the social psychological approach, contributes to knowing the logic of the game and playing it effectively, but optimal competence stems from understanding the interaction system and being able to transform it. This review of the negotiation literature in the social constructivist tradition focuses on four types of communication patterns that contribute to optimal competence: social, relational, systems, and transcendent eloquence (see Table 2). Eloquence refers to the grace, smoothness, or sophistication of a person’s performance within a social system (Pearce 1989). It highlights the types of discourses, co-constructed meanings, and rhythms that facilitate moving effectively within the system, developing junctures to disrupt it, and fostering transformation to move outside it.

3.1 Social eloquence: The coordination of differences Communication competence in this category focuses on developing an interaction system that embraces diametrically opposed realities and continues to hold differences together. It highlights how negotiators develop the interactive performance of differentiating positions by enacting issue development and a rhythm of dissonance (Putnam 2010a). Issue development refers to the ways that deliberations about issues introduce new content, drop out sub-points, and generally alter the meaning of the issue over time. In differentiating positions, competent negotiators sharply distinguish their opposing views as they diagnose them, decipher relationships among them, and legitimate them (Pearce and Littlejohn 1997). As they diagnose them, issues or agenda items evolve, splinter, realign, and become reshaped in the process of issue development (Putnam and Geist 1985). For example, in a teachers’ negotiation, bargainers initially labeled the amount of preparation time

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as an inequity issue; however, during ongoing interactions between the parties, this issue splintered and then realigned to become a problem of scheduling and administrative assignment of classes. This realignment process works with differences to coordinate them and use them to open spaces that might alter the definition and nature of a problem. Thus, developing an ability to engage in issue development and to juxtapose differences in negotiation fosters social eloquence as a type of communication competence. In like manner, an individual’s ability to enact a rhythm that intertwines dissonance-resonance and to balance discord and harmony provides a way to avoid discursive closure. Discursive closure occurs when interaction patterns close off doubts and possible objections by talking over others, ignoring hesitations, and dismissing challenges. Linked to the inherent negotiation dilemma, negotiation interactions characterized by too much harmony, trust, and assurance often stunt issue development, closing off meanings, silencing alternative positions, and creating pseudo or suboptimal agreements (Putnam 2010b). In this case, a competent negotiator needs to challenge positions, confront the other party, and juxtapose differences. In like manner, excessive use of competitive tactics, refusal to share information, and absence of concessions places too much emphasis on dissonance that can escalate conflict and lead to an impasse. Hence, competent negotiators need to intervene to maintain a rhythm that balances dilemmas, holds differences together, and buffers against detrimental effects (see Table 2). Through understanding the flow of interaction, negotiators can change communication patterns when the conversation shifts too much toward resonance or too much toward dissonance.

3.2 Relational eloquence: The co-construction of meanings In addition to valuing differences, another ability that the social constructivist approach emphasizes is relational eloquence. This concept refers to an individual’s capacity to grasp multiple ways in which parties make sense of their situations and how they can construct new meanings through their interactions (Wasserman, Gallegos, and Ferdman 2008). In particular, a negotiator’s ability to recognize and alter the framing of a situation and to engage in joint storytelling contributes to codeveloping meanings between parties. Framing refers to the ways that disputants present their worldviews or mental pictures of a problem (Putnam 2010a). Similar to a picture, the artist casts some images in a scene as situated in the foreground and others as in the background. In like manner, when negotiators describe their situations, they frame them by privileging certain features and excluding other elements from the scene. One practice that enacts framing is a negotiator’s use of language to name or label a situation and to imply who or what caused it (Felstiner, Abel, and Sarat 1980–1981). For example, one negotiator might name a problem as “inequity in

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workloads” while another might call it “just following the job description”. These different ways of naming the problem stem from and become part of how bargainers frame their issues, often in radically different ways. Another feature closely tied to naming is the way that a person’s language use implies blame. These patterns of naming and blaming often lead a disputant to become defensive and resistant to how the other party sees the situation. By developing and using alternative labels to broaden the nature of a problem, competent negotiators can create new meanings and thereby shift how both parties conceptualize a situation (Putnam 2004b). Asking questions that highlight different levels of meaning (for example, moving from specific to general concerns or shifting from the use of literal language to metaphors or symbolic descriptions) help bargainers search for and construct their framing together. A negotiator’s ability to understand his or her own framing, to comprehend the opponent’s worldview, and to employ different language that shifts the naming and blaming of issues, is a communication competence that engages parties in the co-development of meanings. Another type of communication competence that is relevant to relational eloquence centers on the co-construction of meanings through joint storytelling (see Table 2). Joint storytelling entails developing a new or different storyline to depict problems. In this practice, effective negotiators introduce new elements to their stories, integrate diverse viewpoints, and pull multiple stories together in a coherent fashion that enables bargainers to move forward (Barge 2013). Constructing joint stories can unite parties through what they have in common or what they jointly want to avoid. Specifically, collective stories of victimhood, optimism, and powerlessness have aligned members of opposing stakeholder groups through the ways that their lived experiences of an intractable conflict lead to alternative actions (Brummans et al. 2008). In another study, co-telling stories of common enemies united teachers and administrators through constructing meanings about the roles of third parties in negotiations (Putnam, Van Hoeven, and Bullis 1991). To develop this type of competence, bargainers employ story questions that serve to enlarge the scene in which a problem resides. Story questions explore the history of an issue and probe the background of problems and relationships. As such, they expand the context of a problem and help parties agree on how events are linked together (Pearce and Littlejohn 1997). In effect, competent negotiators introduce narrative topics that align disputants’ worldviews, connect diverse stories, and use story questions to develop relational eloquence that aids in co-constructing meanings between parties.

3.3 Systematic eloquence: Directing communication sequences As a communication competence, systematic eloquence is the ability to understand how an ongoing interaction system is evolving and how to intervene to redirect its

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flow. Drawing from research on interacts or sequences of messages (Donohue, Diez, and Hamilton 1984; Putnam and Jones 1982), competent bargainers treat negotiation as a dance and focus on learning the steps, guiding the moves and turns, and finding ways to redirect dysfunctional patterns (Adair and Brett 2005; Kolb 2004). Sequences of communication acts influence how the negotiation process develops through narrowing a bargainer’s response options and developing self-sustaining patterns that are difficult to change (Adair and Loewenstein 2013; Weingart et al. 1999). Similar to the rhythm of dissonance, focusing on the sequences of communicative acts searches for those pivotal moments in which a negotiator can intervene to change patterns and prevent undesirable future interactions. As a type of competence, learning the steps of the negotiation dance entails recognizing communication patterns and their effects (Olekalns and Smith 2000). Effective negotiators know that reciprocating contentious tactics, such as threats and demands, typically leads to distressed interactions, conflict escalation, and negotiation impasse (Brett, Shapiro, and Lytle 1998; Putnam and Jones 1982; Weingart et al. 1999). Rather than continuing these patterns, effective negotiators shift the dance through using similar reciprocal strategies but different tactics or balancing the other party’s tactic, such as following an offensive comment with a defensive message (Adair and Brett 2005). Negotiators can also respond to the other party with an opposite move (such as giving information instead of continuing a series of attacking arguments or raising a procedural question in response to defending a position) to alter the development of a tightly reciprocal pattern and make a shift from competitive to cooperative negotiation (Brett, Shapiro, and Lytle 1998, Putnam and Jones 1982). Also, as Table 2 shows, competent bargainers are able to identify critical moments or sudden shifts in patterns that can turn the tide of a negotiation (Druckman 2001; Druckman and Olekalns 2011, 2013). Three types of patterns signal these moments: stage transitions, interruptions, and moves and turns. Competent negotiators recognize when an interaction pattern needs to move to the next stage of activity; hence, they make stage transitions through introducing changes in specific events that move the bargaining forward (Druckman 1986). Interruptions redirect the process through out-of-keeping acts that challenge the logic of the interaction, call attention to the negotiation process, or highlight the need to reach an agreement (McGinn, Lingo, and Ciano 2004). Taking a recess or temporal break from the negotiation also serves as an interruption, one that disrupts the dynamics of the interaction, gives negotiators an opportunity to assess the process, and enables them to start interacting differently (Kolb 2004). Effective bargainers also capitalize on strategic turns to alter the course of a negotiation (Kolb 2004). A strategic turn is an individual’s response to moves that the other party has made, ones that challenges a negotiator’s self-image or credibility. Rather than reacting with defensiveness, competent negotiators resist this positioning through interrupting the process, questioning something puzzling about it,

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or recasting the accusation. These turns can become transformative if they shift the negotiation from blaming and defending to creating moments for learning and exploring new ways to view the situation.

3.4 Transcendent eloquence: Changing the negotiation game Transcendent eloquence focuses on how bargainers can transform or alter the course of a negotiation (see Table 1). Transformation refers to those moments in the bargaining when a “lightbulb goes on and illuminates the situation in an entirely different way” (Putnam 2010a: 325). Through transformation, effective negotiators develop new understandings of problems and find alternative ways to work together. As a type of communication competence, each form of eloquence contributes to transcendence, if a negotiator strives for optimal competence in using them. In effect, awareness and use of the communication abilities involved in coordinating differences, co-constructing meanings, and changing interaction sequences sets forth opportunities to transform negotiation through such practices as issue development, framing, joint storytelling, disrupting dysfunctional sequences, capitalizing on turning points, and employing strategic turns. Embedded in these competencies are three communication skills that Barge (2013) sees as pivotal to transcendence: positioning, reframing (also called sensemaking), and playing. The skill of positioning entails awareness of the reflexive interplay of conversations within their social arrangements. It focuses on the ways that parties isolate certain elements of situations that resonate with them and how they assess whether their developing interactions enable or constrain them. It is a form of self-awareness in which competent negotiators shift from being participants to acting as observers who can reflect on what they are doing and then intervene to shift the interaction in alternative directions (see Table 2) Reframing focuses on changing the thrust and direction of a negotiation while parties are in the midst of it. To do this, competent negotiators punctuate stories in different ways through altering how they cast beginnings and endings of ongoing streams of experience (Barge 2013). Punctuation is the way that disputants bracket out sequences of conflict episodes and then organize them differently into meaningful patterns of interaction (Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson 1967). This skill is also tied to creating alternative causal explanations for why events happened (Putnam 2013). In effect, competent negotiators introduce alternative forms of punctuation to highlight different ways that parties could account for their experiences. This competence has the potential to alter meanings and change the definitions of problems. A final communication skill that Barge (2013) discusses is the ability to engage in playing. Playing involves “playing around with” or “trying out” alternative meanings through affirming the other party and naming events in different ways. It entails respecting the other person’s interests and needs and connecting with them through working together. Playing is a valuable skill for effective integrative

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negotiation because it relies on a discovery process that could unearth underlying needs and generate alternatives for win–win outcomes.

3.5 Summary and critique of the social constructivist perspective Overall, the social constructivist approach in negotiation research highlights the communication competencies needed to function effectively within a social system as well as to transform it. Aimed at distinguishing among levels, it casts satisfactory competence as the ability to play the game well and optimal competence as an additional proficiency of changing the nature of the game. At the satisfactory level, competent negotiators shape the system through differentiating positions between parties, enacting a rhythm or balance between dissonance and resonance, co-constructing meanings through framing and joint storytelling, and facilitating movement to the next bargaining stage. Optimal competence adds another level of mastery that focuses on transforming issues, renaming events, shifting patterns of blame, enlarging situations through co-telling stories, seizing turning points to alter the course of a negotiation, and reframing situations through punctuating events differently. These transcendent activities incorporate the communicative skills of playing with meanings and positioning interaction sequences in diverse ways. This approach situates competent negotiators as both understanding and performing effectively and appropriately within a communication system. It incorporates but broadens the focus on individual skills by centering on meanings, stories, history of situations, and improvisational acts; that is, it treats competence as arising in situ rather than as isolated traits or states of individuals. It also views competence as dynamic rather than static and as embodying surface-level as well as deep-level abilities. Several shortfalls, however, characterize this approach. In particular, the social constructivist view is highly descriptive and needs postulates, empirical tests, and specific observations to investigate types of competencies and levels of communication competence. For example, empirical studies could isolate exemplars of types of eloquence and contrast minimal, satisfactory, and optimal proficiencies. These studies could move the social constructivist work away from describing behaviors to articulating the conditions that enable negotiators to exhibit these competencies, especially ones that aid in transforming negotiations.

4 Conclusion and future directions This chapter focuses on the communication competencies for effective and appropriate negotiation. Drawing on two different perspectives, it highlights the skills,

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behaviors, and abilities linked to particular competencies. It treats competence as more than satisfying each bargainer’s goals but as a proficiency in negotiation. In the social psychological approach, communication competence refers to the knowledge and use of behaviors needed to achieve mutually satisfactory agreements, such as employing goal-directed skills to enact control, taking the other party’s identity and needs into account to promote collaboration, and being sensitive to differences to enable adaptation across bargaining contexts. Research on skilled, successful, and trained negotiators reveals particular communicative behaviors linked to all three types of competence – exercising control, developing collaboration, and adapting to different situations (see Table 2). Each of them subsumes an array of communication skills that negotiators need to know and activate to reach mutually satisfactory agreements. In the social constructivist approach, communication competence focuses on understanding, shaping, and transforming the negotiation system during its enactment. Scholars have identified three levels of competence – minimal, satisfactory, and optimal – which distinguish bargainers who function effectively in negotiation from ones who can alter the direction of its development. As Table 1 summarizes, four key communication competencies surface in this approach – juxtaposing and embracing differences (social eloquence), fostering the co-construction of meanings between parties (relational eloquence), learning and intervening in the sequences of interaction development (systemic eloquence), and transforming the negotiation by enacting alternative meanings and interaction patterns (transcendent eloquence). Each type encompasses an array of communication skills, behaviors, and capabilities that serve as ways to enact these competencies (see Table 2). Both perspectives incorporate cognitive as well as behavioral proficiencies and emphasize the development, effective use, and appropriateness of particular communicative skills. Both approaches identify an array of behaviors linked to their respective goals. Importantly, no one skill is sufficient for optimal competence or proficiency in negotiation. This array of communicative behaviors, while clustered into types of competencies (for example, types of eloquence) and dimensions (for instance, effectiveness or appropriateness), emerges as lists of negotiator communicative skills rather than as strongly integrated proficiencies. Both approaches, then, need theoretical guidance in developing hierarchies and logical relationships among competencies, skills, and abilities. In general, this review suggests that adaptation in the social-psychological view and transcendent eloquence in the social constructivist approach form the highest level competencies that subsume the other skills, behaviors, and cognitions. Adaptation is the least researched and developed communication competence in the negotiation literature; hence, researchers need to investigate how particular control and collaboration behaviors function differently across circumstances. In contrast, the social constructivist view situates transcendence as the optimal competence that subsumes social, relational, and systems eloquence. Yet the skills and behaviors

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linked to satisfactory and optimal competence need to be empirically tested and interrelated. Hence, future research needs to incorporate theory development as part of understanding communication competence in negotiation. In addition, future research needs to center on multiple units of analysis within a negotiation context rather than relying on individuals and dyads. Jablin and Sias (2001) contend that competence is embedded in group, organizational, and cultural systems that reciprocally influence them; it is globally and not just locally produced. Studies of cross-cultural negotiations point to this influence by identifying how bargainers function differently in intercultural environments. This work suggests that scholars need to develop techniques for assessing the conditions and features of embedded contexts that shape the use of skills and behaviors linked to particular competencies. Finally, researchers and practitioners need to revamp negotiation training and pedagogy to focus on developing communication competencies rather than teaching isolated skills and behaviors. Most trainers emphasize conceptual knowledge and the development of practical and analytical skills for effective negotiation (Lewicki 1986). These courses operate from expert models and draw on rational and economic perspectives of transactions and structuring deals. In teaching about communication, they emphasize active listening, engaging in problem solving, making offers, and formulating questions as key skills (Bordone 2000; Cobb 2000). They rely on simulations and role playing exercises for experiential training and analyzing communication skills and behaviors (Landry and Donnellon 1999). Even though they incorporate conceptual knowledge, training programs typically receive low marks in helping negotiators transfer skills to real-life experiences (Lewicki 1997). Moreover, few training or pedagogical programs teach communication competencies per se or even how to activate, assemble, and implement clusters of skills related to particular competencies. In general, most courses privilege tactical knowledge of control and collaboration skills to the exclusion of adaptation (Roloff, Putnam, and Anastasiou 2003). Negotiation training needs to privilege aggregate communication behaviors linked to principles, knowledge systems, and variations across contexts. Moreover, training needs to emphasize communication systems, specifically ways to intervene and disrupt dysfunctional interaction sequences, how meanings shape actions, and how language patterns play a pivotal role in framing and reframing problems. As this chapter suggests, communication competence is closely related to the goals of negotiation, particularly ones within different research traditions. To continue developing lists of communicative skills and behaviors for distributive or integrative outcomes seems myopic at this point in time. Researchers need to engage in theory development within scholarly traditions and place communication competence at the center of training and pedagogical activities. If this construct, as Jablin and Sias (2001) contend, is part social science and part art, then researchers

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need to unite these different traditions and embrace both adaptation and transformation as the ultimate aims of negotiation. Thus, the most promising direction for future research on communicative competence and negotiation is finding ways to capture both the science and the art of this unique form of social interaction.

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16 Communication competence in organizations and groups: Historic and emerging perspectives Abstract: This chapter seeks to illustrate major perspectives for communication competence in both organizational and group contexts. Specifically, the chapter will describe contexts important for understanding organizational and group communication competence, examine theoretical traditions and frameworks for communication competence, describe methodological approaches in research, present communication competence skills identified from diverse research perspectives, discuss communication competence applications in specific contexts and professional settings, present perceived and reported impacts of communication competence, and finally, suggest ongoing and emerging needs in organizational and group communication competence research. Keywords: organizational communication, group communication, competence definitions, competence applications, competence impacts,

1 Introduction Perspectives for organizational and group communication competence are diverse and generally more complimentary than contradictory. Central to these diverse perspectives is the almost universal agreement that organizational and group communication competence is important, can be developed, has influence on a variety of organizational and group outcomes, and is subjected to various types of perceptions and evaluations. This chapter seeks to illustrate major perspectives for communication competence in both organizational and group contexts. Specifically, the chapter will describe contexts important for understanding organizational and group communication competence, examine theoretical traditions and frameworks for communication competence, describe methodological approaches in research, present communication competence skills identified from diverse research perspectives, discuss communication competence applications in specific contexts and professional settings, present perceived and reported impacts of communication competence, and finally, suggest ongoing and emerging needs in organizational and group communication competence research.

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2 Contexts and processes for organizational and group communication competence In this complex and information-rich conceptual world, the key to organizational excellence frequently is characterized as effective communication. Communication within organizations and groups is responsible for solving increasingly complex problems creatively. There is widespread agreement that excellence in organizational and group work is more than the efficient management of large volumes of facts. Organizational and group excellence stems from the dedicated commitment of people, people who are motivated to work together and who share similar values and visions about the results of their efforts. Viewing communication as the key to organizational excellence is not new. As early as 1938, Barnard, in his now-famous work, The Functions of the Executive, described as a primary responsibility of executives the development and maintenance of a system of communication. Research since that time to the present has linked organizational and group communication to managerial effectiveness, the integration of work units across organizational levels, characteristics of effective supervision, job and communication satisfaction, innovation, adaptability, creativity, and overall organizational effectiveness and performance (Shockley-Zalabak 2012: 4–5). While most of the literature in organizational and group communication competence focuses on formal organizations and groups, it is important to acknowledge the concept of communication competence extends to both formal and informal settings. Indeed it can be argued that the communication competence of leaders and members may be more influential in informal settings where no permanent structures ensure the continuation of the organization or group. Complicating understanding communication competence in organizations and groups is the reality that organizations and groups are not simple or singular constructs. The contexts for organizational and group communication competence are, at a minimum, the macro organization, various types of groups within both formal and informal organizations, individual contributors to both organizations and groups, dyads in organizations, organizational and group leaders, and diverse organizational and group stakeholders. Competence evaluations are ascribed both within and across all of these contexts. General competence evaluations are ascribed to the macro organization, group, inter-group, and stakeholder units. Individual competence contributes to overall organizational and group evaluations as well as individual evaluations. Communication competence is related to problem solving and decision making, creativity and innovation, conflict processes, crisis leadership, organizational change, and ethical and value choices. These complex contexts and processes have become the subject of research from diverse theoretical traditions and frameworks. Although theories and frameworks are mostly complimentary, their applications and development continue to

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rest in large measure on interpersonal communication competence traditions. It is this dependence that presents both strengths and challenges as organizational and group communication research seeks to understand increasingly complex contexts and processes.

3 Theoretical traditions and frameworks The historical roots of theoretical traditions and frameworks for organizational and group communication competence began with classic rhetorical traditions. Communication competence has been linked to rhetorical traditions beginning with the sophists around 467 B.C. and continuing with the influence of Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, the Renaissance, and rhetorical traditions of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984: 15–21; Shockley-Zalabak 2012: 5). Quintilian’s ideal of the “good man speaking well” focuses both on the individual as the unit of analysis and relates to the “good communicator” theme identified by numerous studies of workforce needs (Shockley-Zalabak 2012: 5). Specifically, contemporary organizations seek individuals who can speak well, listen, write, persuade others, and exhibit interpersonal skills. Competent communicators are expected to gather information and work well in small-group problem-solving situations. From historical roots to the present, most traditions and frameworks support communication competence as having theoretical, methodological, and practical relevance (Rickheit, Strohner, and Vorwerg 2010).

3.1 Focus on individuals Initially, the individual was the focus of theoretical traditions and frameworks routinely applied to descriptions of organizational and group communication competence. Communication competence was depicted as individual process understanding, interpersonal sensitivity, communication skills, and ethical understanding (Littlejohn and Jabush 1982). Spitzberg (1983: 327) conceptualized communication competence as the umbrella under which the constructs of motivation, knowledge, and skills could be thoughtfully understood. Johnson (1983) argued the development of human communication was both biological and social; communication competence should evaluate theory and findings in relationship to the developmental-biological nature of human communication. In partial support of the Johnson view and expanding on earlier work, Cooley and Roach (1984: 24–25) suggested competence theory rested on physical and psychological observations of individuals and the cultures and contexts in which they communicate. In an early application of communication competence theory to organizational and group contexts, Sypher (1984: 105–113) emphasized the importance of individ-

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ual abilities in organizations. Sypher summarized earlier approaches to competence which identified trait, behavioral, and social cognitive approaches. The trait approach was characterized by equating competence with personality traits or abilities. The behavioral approaches emphasized the performance of the communicator while social cognitive approaches and, in particular, constructivism, emphasized the contextual nature of communication competence. In supporting the earlier Sypher approach, Burleson (2007), acknowledging Delia, O’Keefe, and O’Keefe (1982), contended the theoretical perspective of constructivism (the communicative, interactive nature of the construction of social realities) could explain individual differences in the ability to communicate and account for what is evaluated as skillful or competent. Specifically, Burleson focused on distinguishable communication processes such as interpreting people and social situations (social perception), producing messages, and receiving and processing messages generated by others. In a review of early studies of the organizational communication competence, Rubin (1990: 129) concluded organizational competence perspectives describe communication competence as a sum of the individual part (the people). Later work in organizational communication competence, while continuing the focus on the individual, begins to broaden descriptions of the contexts in which individuals and groups interact. For example, Keyton et al. (2013: 154–155) claim competence is communication effectiveness and call for focusing on communication processes occurring in work behaviors and tasks. They contend three major models of communication competence exist: 1. the trait model which focuses on relatively enduring personality dispositions; 2. the functional model which focuses on message production, message processing, and social perceptions; and 3. the interpersonal skill model where researchers focus on the development of behavioral repertoires, understanding of social norms, and abilities to select effective behaviors from among known alternatives. Purhonen (2007), in a study of small and medium enterprises (SME) internationalization, describes interpersonal communication competence and extends competence frameworks to include intercultural and network interactions.

3.2 Focus on systems and organizations Although recognized as important, few competence frameworks focus on the organization as a whole or the larger systems in which organizations and groups are embedded. Jablin and Sias (2001) provided an important expansion of thinking about organizational communication competence when they proposed the competence concept is best understood by an ecological model that revolves around four systems: (1) the microsystem, which contains the developing organizational member and other persons in the immediate work environment (e.g., supervisors, coworkers, and clients); (2) the meso-

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system, which represents the interrelations among various microsystems (e.g., what individuals learn in their project teams may affect their competence in the functional work groups in which they are members); (3) the macrosystem, which does not represent the immediate context in which an individual works, but does impinge on him or her (e.g., major divisions of the organization and the organization itself as a whole); and (4) the exosystem, which represents the overarching cultural belief system, forms of knowledge, social, technological, and political ideologies. In brief, an ecological perspective emphasizes system embeddedness. That is the actions of one element of the system affect the other elements. (2001: 6)

Jablin and Sias went on to describe globalization and technology influences for communication. They suggested these emerging realities have changed forever notions of what is a competent communicator. Based on assumptions that entire organizations and institutions are evaluated along competence dimensions, Shockley-Zalabak (2012: 7–8; 2015: 8) adapted the Littlejohn and Jabusch (1982) four basic competence components of process understanding, interpersonal sensitivity, communication skills, and ethical responsibility to organizations and groups. As such, organizational communication competence was described as based on knowledge, sensitivity, skills, and values. This competence-based approach describes knowledge as the ability to understand the organizational communication environment including technical competence, situational awareness, analytical capability, and message production and reception. The sensitivity component is described as an ability to sense organizational and environmental meanings and feelings accurately. Skills competence is characterized as abilities to analyze organizational situations accurately and to initiate and consume organizational and environmental messages effectively. Lastly, values competence refers to the importance of taking responsibility for effective communication, thereby contributing to organizational excellence. Values competence develops through organization-wide assumption of responsibility as well as individual responsibility for participation in organizational communication. Values competence also examines ethical dilemmas relating to organizational communication and the importance of values to organizational and group cultures. In related research, Shockley-Zalabak, Morreale, and Hackman (2010) extend concepts of trust usually described at individual levels to organization-wide contexts. As it has been for individuals, competence was identified as an important component of organization-wide trust. Based on this perspective, Hackman and Johnson (2013: 252) explain: Competence is belief in the effectiveness of coworkers, leaders, and the entire organization. Members are convinced that the organization can survive through generating new products, meeting competitive pressures, and locating new markets. Leaders help foster perceptions of competence by creating a compelling and relevant purpose and vision. In addition, they promote competent individuals into leadership positions, design organizational structure to focus on results, focus the organization on its core capabilities, and manage change.

The focus on systems and entire organizations is more complimentary than contradictory to the competence focus on individuals. The systems and organization-wide

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emphasis provides the potential for theoretical constructions which address issues of multiple interactions across stakeholder groups, the emergence of global interactions often mediated by communications technologies, the impact of local and global cultures, the permeability of organizational boundaries, the individual with a multiplicity of sometimes conflicting relationships, roles, and responsibilities, the exercises of power and control, and numerous other possibilities.

3.3 Focus on groups Although not explicitly connected to communication competence in groups, major theoretical perspectives for groups imply the importance of competence and challenge how evaluations of competence can marginalize members not fitting dominant competence expectations. Waldeck et al. (2002) describe distinctions for functional, symbolic convergence, structuration, and bona fide group perspectives with implications for competence. The basic premise for functional theory is described as, “group performance depends on how well communication functions within the context of a group to satisfy requisite conditions for successful group problem solving and decision making” (2002: 4). Symbolic convergence theory has as a basic assumption that, “humans, by nature, interpret and give meaning to the signs, objects, and people they encounter” (2002: 9). Structuration theory has as “its crux the recursive relationship between collective action and social institutions. Interpretive schemes link communication (interaction) and signification (structure). Norms link morality (interaction) and legitimation (structure). Facilities link power (interaction) and domination (structure)” (2002: 13). Finally, the bona fide group perspective rests on “recognition of the embeddedness of small groups in larger organizational systems and, hence, the inclusion of embeddedness as a proposition central to the perspective and to the study of small groups” (2002: 15). Regardless of the perspective taken, all of these approaches center on human interaction in groups and larger systems and the consequences of those interactions contributing to perceptions and evaluations of competence. Expanding on major theoretical perspectives for group interactions, Poole (1999), in a description of the value of feminist theory for understanding group processes, illuminated the perspective of feminist scholars who contend group theory and research have depended too much on the general model of discourse which privileges as competent rationality and disputational discourse over a variety of collaborative strategies frequently associated with women. Group competence research identifies task, relationships, processes, and outcomes as central to models of group competence. Beebe and Barge (1994) illustrate and summarize much of this work with descriptions of four models: First, a procedural model assumes that effective decisions will be reached if a set of procedures, decision techniques, or agendas are followed. Second, an outcomes model proposes that a

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decision is effective if it produces a desired and intended result. The consequences of the decision, not the group processes that achieved them, are most important in assessing decision quality. High-quality decisions are distinguished by a high number of positive as opposed to negative consequences. Third, an appropriateness model incorporates elements of both the procedural and outcomes model. Given the nature of the group decision-making situation, a decision may be viewed as appropriate if it is warranted by the group’s charge and is based on warranted rational inferences and reasons. Finally, a task model is based on the assumption that behaviors can be analyzed and described by explicating specific skills. The skills necessary to perform the task are identified and described so that others may perform the essential functions. These competing models of group decision making provide some insight into how researchers may go about assessing an individual’s communication competence within a small group. (1994: 263)

Task and relational competence are common dimensions in group competence research and specifically in research on group leaders. Both Barge and Hirokawa (1989) and Myers, Shimotsu, and Claus (2013) contend leaders are responsible for task achievement and relationship development and maintenance in groups with communication competence central to those responsibilities. Leaders assist groups in overcoming barriers to achievement and manage, mostly through communication, the task and relationship processes necessary for task or goal achievement. Group competence research, more than its organization-wide counterpart, addresses not only individual roles, relationships, behaviors, and responsibilities but includes group processes where both individuals and entire groups can be described along competence dimensions. For example, Barge and Hirokawa (1989) applied the task and relational competence dimensions to group processes: task competence was depicted as problem orientation, criteria establishment, solution activity, and procedural activity while relational competence was identified as interaction management, expressiveness, other-orientation, and relaxation. In a later discussion of group processes, LePine et al. (2008: 275–294) articulate domains of team processes (transition, action, and interpersonal processes) with relationships to team effectiveness criteria of performance and member satisfaction. While not directly utilizing competence language, their performance and satisfaction criteria can be said to form a team or group competence description. LePine et al. utilize for their analysis the concept of performance episodes where teams, in a distinguishable time period, perform and evaluate work. Transition episodes in this performance episode construct are when teams assess their previous efforts to prepare for upcoming work. Action processes occur during performance episodes when primary work is accomplished. Interpersonal processes occur during and between performance episodes. Transition processes include mission analysis, goal specification, and strategy formulation and planning; action processes focus on monitoring progress toward goals, systems monitoring, team monitoring, and backup behavior; and interpersonal processes include conflict management, motivating and confidence building, and affect management.

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3.4 Summary: Organizational and group communication competence perspectives and frameworks The discussion to this point has traced the historical traditions and frameworks for organizational and group communication competence from early classic rhetorical traditions to the present with descriptions and frameworks of communication competence ranging from individual applications to complex systems and group processes. Communication competence for individuals was characterized as an umbrella construct for motivation, knowledge, and skills. The focus on individuals as a unit for study also included physical and psychological observations of individuals and the cultures and contexts in which they communicate. In early work, trait, behavioral, and cognitive approaches were applied in organizational settings. Constructivism was posited as an important theoretical perspective contributing to explanations of differences among individuals as well as contributing to understanding perceptions and behaviors evaluated as competent. In both organizational and group settings, scholars extended the individual focus to a process understanding including interpersonal, intercultural, and network interactions. Expanding on process perspectives, the ecological model described microsystems, mesosystems, macrosystems, and the exosystem. Competence understanding and evaluations were implicitly embedded in major descriptions of each of the systems. Extending interpersonal competence dimensions to organizational settings, organizational communication competence was described as having dimensions of knowledge, sensitivity, skills, and values. Additionally, perceptions of organizational competence were related to organizational trust evaluations. With specific emphasis on groups, theoretical perspectives of functional, symbolic convergence, structuration, and bona fide groups were described and related to implicit evaluations of competence. Feminist theory illustrated challenges to prevailing models of discourse privileging as competent rationality and disputational discourse over more collaborative discourse. Task and relational competence were described as well as processes of group communication interactions. Taken as a whole, the theoretical perspectives and frameworks for organizational and group communication competence share common dimensions and concerns. They do not, as of yet, provide theoretical perspectives for competence in the fluid circumstances of many macro organizations or groups working across organizations and diverse organizational and cultural boundaries.

4 Methods and issues for assessing organizational and group communication competence Although substantial agreement exists about the importance of communication competence for organizations and groups, diverse perspectives exist about the

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methods, issues, and challenges faced when assessing organizational and group competence. These diverse approaches and perspectives, in some respects, reflect the diverse theoretical and definitional underpinnings of organizational and group communication competence.

4.1 Methods, issues, and assessment for organization-wide communication competence In 1994, Shockley-Zalabak and Hulbert-Johnson provided one of the first comprehensive reviews of assessments for organizational communication competence. At that time, they concluded there was no comprehensive framework for describing organizational communication competence, determining what levels of assessment should be examined, or how organizational communication competence should be assessed. Research conducted prior to 1994 underscored the need for broad-based communication capabilities with an emphasis on ethical behaviors. The ShockleyZalabak and Hulbert Johnson review concluded much of the research prior to 1994 was based on adapted frameworks from interpersonal and public speaking communication contexts. The 63 instruments reviewed were widely utilized in business, industry, and government to assess the organizational communication competence of members and organizational communication patterns as a whole. With rare exceptions, these instruments did not assess organizations at the macro level but conceptualized organizational communication competence as residing with individuals or as measures of an organization’s climate and culture. A limited number of instruments identified conflict styles as indicators of competence. By far the most frequently assessed organizational members were managers with an emphasis on the competence, or lack thereof, of their styles. Shockley-Zalabak and Hulbert-Johnson concluded many of the instruments had been developed without adequate attention to providing theoretical rationale, psychometric data, and developmental processes. Several instruments provided normative data to assess competence without reporting data and procedures utilized to derive the reported norms. The majority of the instruments provided individuals with profiles of themselves often contrasted to normative data and frequently both implicitly and explicitly claiming competence evaluations. Earlier, in expressing concern about equating interpersonal competence with organizational communication competence, Monge et al. (1982) argued attempts to force organizational communication competence onto interpersonal competence were problematic due to the nature of organizational communication relationships which were characterized as more non-interpersonal than interpersonal or intimate. In ensuing years, organization-wide competence was embedded or assumed to be embedded in work describing effective leaders, communication auditing, climate studies, communication satisfaction research, and work on organization-wide trust. (Shockley-Zalabak and Morley 1989, 1994; Shockley-Zalabak, Morreale, and Hackman 2010; and Shockley-Zalabak 2015)

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A discussion of opportunities to address issues of assessment for the organizationwide context follows in the ongoing and emerging needs section of the chapter.

4.2 Methods, issues, and assessment for group communication competence As in the organization-wide context, methods, issues, and assessments for group communication competence are complex. Beebe and Barge (1994) provided a framework for addressing challenges of small group communication competence and assessment: “1. what is a group communication skill; 2. what are the criteria for competent small group communication; 3. what is the appropriate unit of analysis for group communication competence; and 4. what is an appropriate method for measuring group communication competence?” (1994: 261–268). Beebe and Barge discussed the challenges to determining the unit of analysis for research: the individual, the group as a whole, or competence as a systemic concept. The individual perspective has researchers concentrating on the individual as the unit of analysis. The group as the unit of analysis describes how the behaviors collectively described for the entire group influence productivity. Competence as a systemic concept can describe the individual within the group as to his or her contributions or lack thereof to the goals of the group and describe the fit and contributions of the entire group within a larger organization. Although not directly aimed at group competence research, Poole, Keyton, and Frey (1999) described challenges for group communication researchers and considerations for research design with direct applicability to group competence research. Specifically, they described important level of analysis issues and addressed a key reality of groups, namely their fluidity and permeability of group boundaries and borders. They went on to suggest studying groups requires studying behaviors and the systemic nature of groups over time. In responding to the challenges of studying ever-changing groups, Frey (1994) and Dollar and Merrigan (2002) call for more naturalistic study of groups. Ethnography, with its opportunities to make observations in situ using a variety of qualitative methods including textual analysis, provides researchers the opportunity to move beyond simple decision making processes in groups to concentrate on change, innovation, and relationship processes with potential for competence evaluations. As with organizational communication, several hundred assessment tools have been developed to measure various aspects of group member behavior and overall group contributions. Beebe and Barge (1994: 275) concluded, “a review of the instruments summarized reveals no general consensus as to key input variables validly and reliably measured in organizational settings”. Organizational and group communication competence assessment face similar challenges to those identified by Spitzberg and Hurt (1987) for interpersonal competence assessment. Specifical-

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ly, Spitzberg and Hurt (1987), following a review by Spitzberg of 130 interpersonal communication competence instruments, concluded few were comprehensive and most lacked sufficient validity. In 1989, Spitzberg and Cupach (pp. 76–216) provided the most comprehensive review available to date of competence measurement instruments and concluded many of the issues earlier identified by Spitzberg remained.

4.3 Specific contexts for organizational and group communication competence assessment Specific contexts such as internal communication, trauma/emergency settings, and organizational training have generated tailored competence assessments. These contexts, sometimes based on particular professions, have stimulated development of assessments of communication competence to measure specific responses to communication and communication protocols used to improve effectiveness. For example, Meng and Lin Pan (2012) report the measurement of long-term competence in internal communication. They conclude measurement efforts in internal employee communication have significantly relied on measures of employee participation, engagement, satisfaction, and productivity. Parker-Raley et al. (2012), in describing the development of the assessment of pediatric resuscitation communication, report, “trauma team communication effectiveness is usually not assessed during pediatric trauma resuscitations. Consequently, ineffective team communication is regarded as a root cause of medical errors made within the trauma setting” (2012: 102). The authors go on to describe the development of the Assessment of Pediatric Resuscitation Communication (APRC), examine how it can be validated, and how it can improve overall competence and outcomes in interprofessional medical communication. Sue DeWine (1987) described the literally millions of dollars spent on communication competence training in both for-profit and non-profit sectors. DeWine suggested the importance of developing an evaluation tool which went beyond assessing how well participants liked a training program to determining the application of specific skills sets to work tasks. The degree to which training participants perceived they have mastered the skills also was a goal of the assessment. DeWine reported the development of the Communication Training Impact Questionnaire (CTIQ) achieved both goals. These assessment approaches as examples of competence evaluation in specific contexts support the overall perspective that existing assessments serve diverse purposes with the underlying assumption that communication competence is important for literally everyone in organizational and group contexts.

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4.4 Moving forward with organizational and group competence assessment The future of organizational and group competence assessment requires more complex and nuanced theoretical underpinnings and more robust measurement strategies. Seibold (2011: 18–28) describes important changes over time in organizational and group communication measurement. Seibold contends new theoretical advances and new measures, new topics and new measures, new measures bridging to other areas of communication, new measures bridging to other disciplines, and new measures for engagement all contribute to opportunities for new approaches to measurement and provide new constraints influencing the quality of measurement. While Seibold does not specifically reference communication competence, his comments reflect many of the issues associated with expanding our understanding of communication competence in organizational and group settings. In sum, assessments of organizational and group communication competence use multiple methods and definitions of competence constructs. More quantitative than qualitative in nature, assessments have varying degrees of rigor in their development and in reporting of basic psychometric properties. Methodological issues also include the ambiguity of competence constructs, selection of units of analysis appropriate to organizational and group communication contexts, and approaches to measurement which employ multiple methodologies. Assessments rarely utilize diverse organizational or group performance data. Most assessments are “snapshots in time” without the capacity to address longitudinal organizational and group issues or performance.

5 Communication competence: Broad constructs and skills The following section describes skills associated with broad constructs of communication competence. Specifically, organization-wide, group, and leader/manager/ supervisor skills are identified and grouped into broad competence constructs or categories. The studies reveal both the complexity and the diversity of approaches to describing competence. Table 1 describes communication competence skills in organization-wide contexts with both individual and organization-wide skills listed. Table 2 presents communication competence skills in groups and teams while Table 3 identifies leader/manager/supervisor skills associated with communication competence. None of the tables are represented as fully comprehensive. Constructs and identified skills are selected to illustrate the diverse perspectives found in organization and group literature.

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5.1 Organization-wide: Constructs and skills Tab. 1: Communication competence constructs with identified skills: Organization-wide context. Knowledge – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Genre understanding (Brinkman and van der Geest 2003) Contextual understanding (Wolvin and Cohen 2012) Understands complexity for listening (Wolvin and Cohen 2012) Understands content for listening (Burnside-Lawry 2012) Technical expertise (Abraham and Karns 2009) Business expertise (Abraham and Karns 2009) Problem solving expertise (Abraham and Karns 2009) Decision making processes (Shockley-Zalabak 2015) Planning (Szpekman 2000) Change management (Szpekman 2000) Research (Szpekman 2000) Organizational knowledge (Szpekman 2000) Ability to analyze needs (Rainey, Turner, and Dayton 2005) Organizing (Keyton et al. 2013) Interaction management (Gorden and Nevins 1993) Understands complexity (Gregory 2009) Assessment of communication quality (Zaremba 2010) Understands proactive crisis communication planning (Zaremba 2010) Network links (Zaremba 2010) Strategic communication (Shockley-Zalabak 2015) Communication planning (Shockley-Zalabak 2015) Project management (Szpekman 2000)

Sensitivity – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Concern for others (Zaremba 2010) Awareness of emotional barriers to listening (Wolvin and Cohen 2012) Ability to collaborate with co-workers ( Monge et al. 1982; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) Relationship maintenance (Keyton et al. 2013) Conflict management (Morse and Piland 1981; Rubin 1990) Ability to be reflexive and self-examining (McRae and Short 2010) Sensitivity and understanding of relationships with others (English, Manton, and Walker 2007) Listening (Rubin 1990) Attentive and focused listening (Burnside-Lawry 2012) Supportive/emphatic listening (Burnside-Lawry 2012) Understanding instructions (Rubin 1990) Nonverbal encoding and decoding (Puccinelli 2010) Dealing with ambiguity (Eid and Fyfe 2009) Sensitivity to the needs of others (Monge et al. 1982) Sensitive to rhetorical considerations (Brinkman and van der Geest 2003) Empathy (Gorden and Nevins 1993) Social relationships (Gorden and Nevins 1993) Sensitivity for communicating critical information (Zarmeba 2010) Social perception (Burleson 2007) Perspective taking (Sypher 1984; Rubin 1990)

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Tab. 1: (continued) Skills – Command of language (Monge et al. 1982; Brinkman and van der Geest 2003) – Written communication/text craftsmenship/business writing (Monge et al. 1982; Rubin 1990; Szpekman 2000; Brinkman and van der Geest 2003; Rainey, Turner, and Dayton 2005) – Listening (Monge et al. 1982; Burnside-Lawry 2012; Wolvin and Cohen 2012; Zaremba 2010) – Coaching (Melcrum 2012) – Feedback (Brinkman and van der Geest 2003) – Argumentation (Hackman and Johnson 2013) – Producing/encoding messages (Monge et al. 1982; Burleson 2007) – Decoding/receiving messages (Monge et al. 1982; Burleson 2007) – Giving orders (Morse and Piland 1981) – Documentation (Jones 2011) – Interviewing (Rider, Voklan, and Hafler 2008) – Leading meetings (Zaremba 2010) – Information sharing (Keyton et al. 2013 – Interaction management (Sypher 1984) – Persuading (Rubin 1990) – Instructing (Rubin 1990) – Foreign language proficiency (Abraham and Karns 2009) – Time management (Abraham and Karns 2009) – Body language (Burnside-Lawry 2012) – Advising (Rubin 1990) – Strategic communication (Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Communications technologies (Zaremba 2010) – Channel selection (Zaremba 2010) – Conflict management (Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Presentational speaking (Rubin 1990; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) Values – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Ethical issues (Zaremba 2010; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) Listening (non-judgmental and ethical) (Wolvin and Cohen2012) Open-minded (Abraham and Karns 2009) Dependable (Abraham and Karns 2009) Results oriented (Abraham and Karns 2009) Hard work (Abraham and Karns 2009) Imaginative (Abraham and Karns 2009) Risk Taking (Abraham and Karns 2009) Qualtiy focus (Abraham and Karns 2009) Flexible/adaptable (Sypher 1984; Abraham and Karns 2009) Civility (Troester and Mester 2007) Work values (Shockley-Zalabak 2015) Integrity (English, Manton, and Walker 2007; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) Confidentiality (English, Manton, and Walker 2007) Business ethics (Staley and Shockley-Zalabak 1985) Interpersonal ethics (Staley and Shockley-Zalabak 1985)

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Skills for organization-wide competence routinely are described at both the individual and more collective levels. Research from the early 1980s to the present demonstrates how diverse are the skills identified in major work. Early on, Monge et al. (1982) proposed a two factor model of communication competence in the workplace: encoding and decoding. Encoding skills included a command of language, writing, clear expression of ideas, and responding quickly to messages. Decoding skills were described as listening, paying attention to others, and being sensitive to the needs of others. Based on interpretative approaches to understanding competence, Sypher (1984) described the efficacy of a social cognition approach to communication competence in the organization. The key competence characteristics of this approach were perspective-taking or empathy, interaction management, and behavioral flexibility. Sypher reported, “research conducted in organizational settings highlighted specific social cognitive abilities related to individual organizational success (e.g., cognitive differentiation, perspective-taking, self-monitoring, and listening). This research showed that higher-level organizational members and supervisors evidenced superior social cognitive functioning” (1984: 123). Staley and Shockley-Zalabak (1985), utilizing the Littlejohn and Jabusch (1982) model of communication competence (discussed earlier in this chapter) surveyed employers to determine which skills described under the Littlejohn and Jabush conceptualization of process understanding, interpersonal sensitivity, communication skills, and ethical responsibility were most important in the workplace. Their findings included encoding and decoding skills and added dimensions not articulated in the Monge et al. factors. The highest rated skills were: Knowledge/process understanding – Business writing; principles of clarity, style, and organization; leadership styles and techniques for managers; Sensitivity – Learning to accept responsibility for individual communication behavior; building superior-subordinate and peer relationships; managing conflict; understanding how interpersonal communication and organizational communication may differ; and displaying selfmotivation and independence; Skills – Business writing; letters, memos, reports, resumes, editing and rewriting, listening, selection and information gathering interview techniques, and telephone communication; and Ethics/Values – Business ethics and interpersonal ethics. In later work, Zaremba (2010: 12–13) and Gorden and Nevins (1993: 40–52) identify essentials and skills for organizational communication which support the concepts of knowledge, sensitivity, skills, and values as important constructs for organization-wide communication competence. Specifically Zaremba (2010) identifies knowledge competence as 1. selecting appropriate methods of communicating; 2. generating a proactive crisis communication plan; 3. establishing networks to link departments; and 4. assessing organizational communication quality. The Zaremba description of sensitivity includes 1. concern for welfare of others and 2. providing supportive and constructive critical information. Skills described by Zaremba include the encoding skills of 1. expression of ideas

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orally; 2. proficient use of communications technologies; 3. expression of ideas in writing; 4. constructively delivering critical information; 5. distribution of credible, accurate, and timely information; and 6. executing proactive crisis communication plans. Decoding skills in the Zaremba work focus on active and efficient listening. Values focus on concern for ethical issues and continual self-awareness. Gorden and Nevins (1993) describe knowledge related to environmental control and sensitivity related to empathy, concern for others, supportiveness, and immediacy. Encoding skills were identified as self-disclosure, assertiveness, and expressiveness. For both Zaremba and Gorden and Nevins interpersonal relationships within the organization remain the level of analysis for organization-wide competence research. Keyton et al. (2013), utilizing an interpersonal skills approach to competence, explored verbal communication behaviors in the workplace extending the interpersonal cognitive approach to a behavioral approach. The authors developed the 43 item Workplace Communication Behavior Inventory and subjected the instrument to rigorous testing. A four-factor model emerged: 1. information sharing with marker items of seeking information and answering questions; 2. relational maintenance with marker items of creating small talk and joking; 3. expressing negative emotion with marker items of expressing frustration and complaining; and 4. organizing with marker items of scheduling and managing others.

5.2 Group: Constructs and skills Tab. 2: Communication competence constructs with identified skills: Group and team member context. Task competence – Define problems (Beebe, Barge, and McCormick 1995; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Analyze problems (Beebe, Barge, and McCormick 1995; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Identify problem/solution criteria (Beebe, Barge, and McCormick 1995; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Generate solutions (Beebe, Barge, and McCormick 1995; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Evaluate solutions/alternatives (Beebe, Barge, and McCormick 1995; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Maintain task focus (Beebe, Barge, and McCormick 1995) – Synthesize (Barge 2009) – Decision making (Barge 2009) – Information management (Barge 2009) – Learning (Barge 2009) – Initiating structure/interaction (Myers, Shimotsu, and Claus 2013) – Goal setting (Myers, Shimotsu, and Claus 2013) – Listening (Myers, Shimotsu, and Claus 2013) – Group work processes (Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Establishing criteria (Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Seeking opinions (Goodall 1990) – Consensus testing (Goodall 1990)

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Tab. 2: (continued) Relational competence – Manage conflict (Beebe, Barge, and McCormick 1995) – Maintain supportive climate (Beebe, Barge, and McCormick 1995) – Manage group interaction (Beebe, Barge, and McCormick 1995; Myers, Shimotsu, and Claus 2013) – Humor (Myers, Shimotsu, and Claus 2013) – Nonverbal behaviors (Myers, Shimotsu, and Claus 2013) – Creating positive relationships (Barge 2009) – Affirmation (Barge 2009) – Challenging self and others (Barge 2009) – Harmonizing (Goodall 1990) – Compromising (Goodall 1990) – Supporting and encouraging (Goodall 1990) – Gatekeeping (Goodall 1990) – Relating (Barge 2009)

The “Competent Group Communicator” developed by Beebe, Barge, and McCormick (1995: 39 page electronic version) was designed to assess the performance of individuals in task-oriented small group discussion. The authors identified support for both task and relational competencies. Task competencies were: 1. define the problem; 2. analyze the problem: 3. identify criteria; 4. generate solutions; 5. evaluate solutions or alternatives; and 6. maintain task focus. Relational competencies were 1. manage conflict; 2. maintain a supportive climate; and 3. manage group interaction. Myers, Shimotsu, and Claus (2013), when describing work group dynamics in getting people to work cohesively and effectively in small groups, also support the task and relational competencies model. The authors identify, “three key task communication competencies: initiating structure, goal setting and listening” (2013: 257). Relational communication competencies are described as skills used in managing all group relationships. Two key competencies are presented for within group competence: nonverbal behaviors and humor. In a procedural approach to participating in groups within organizations, Goodall (1990: 86–121) described task-oriented roles, maintenance roles, and selforiented roles and how they contribute to effective or ineffective group work. Taskoriented roles were described as: initiating interaction, giving information/seeking opinions, giving opinions/seeking groups’ evaluation of opinions, elaborating or clarifying ideas, orienting and summarizing, and consensus testing. Maintenance roles included: harmonizing, compromising, supporting and encouraging, gatekeeping, establishing criteria, and assessing group feelings. In one of the early descriptions of what contributes to less than competent communication, Goodall described self-oriented roles. Specifically, self-oriented roles were generally perceived as not contributing to the well-being of the group and were identified as: blocking, withdrawing, dominating, and aggression. Goodall identified skills for

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participating in small groups which included: attending meetings, understanding the charge and objectives of the group, listening to leaders, listening to group members, preparing for discussion, asking relevant questions, offering suggestions and giving advice, providing use information, evaluating the responses of others, and preparing for the next group interaction. In a discussion of social groups, workgroups, and teams, Barge (2009) discusses the embedded nature of groups and describes key communication activities which contribute to individual and overall group performance. These key communication activities are: information management, decision making, learning, and relating. Information management is characterized by setting clear engaging direction, facilitating group structure, creating supportive organizational contexts, providing for expert coaching, and the presence of adequate material resources. Decision making is characterized by developing an understanding of the problem, identifying criteria for problem solving, generating a range of alternatives for problem solution, and evaluating the positive and negative impacts of alternatives. Learning is characterized as the ability to access the whole among the parts, making connections between the parts, testing assumptions, learning through inquiry and disclosure, and creating shared meanings among large numbers of people. Relating rests with creative positive relationships within a group that foster learning with a balance between affirmation and challenge.

5.3 Communication competence: Listening Listening is both a cognitive process and a communication skill. The following researchers have devoted considerable attention to the importance of listening for the organizational and group context. Wolvin and Cohen (2012) provide a five-dimension competence model useful for understanding the complexities of the listening process. The five-dimension model includes: cognitive (understanding the complexity of the listening process and the multiple ways of listening and decoding information); affective (awareness of emotional barriers for listening); behavioral (focusing on the speaker’s message); contextual (awareness of the setting); and ethical (attempts to listen to messages and then evaluate them as contrasted to making early judgments). Wolvin (2009) describes discriminative listening, comprehensive listening, therapeutic listening, critical listening, and appreciative inquiry. Wolvin contends listening competence is more than behavioral techniques, “Competence in listening, then, demands both knowing about listening and doing or engaging in appropriate listening behavior. Clearly, there are cognitive, behavioral, and affective dimensions to listening competency” (2009: 144). In support of the cognitive, behavioral, and affective approach, Burnside-Lawry (2012) describes competent organizational members as: open minded, attentive/focused, willing to listen, understands/comprehends, establishes eye contact, responds appropriately,

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cares, is interested, is approachable, uses body language appropriately, is supportive/empathic, is patient, hears well, is optimistic, and is knowledgeable.

5.4 Communication competence: Skills for leaders, managers, and specific professions Tab. 3: Communication Competence Constructs with identified skills: Manager/supervisor/leader Context. Task competence – Planning/organizing (Bachiochi et al. 2000; Keyton et al. 2013; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Problem solving (Bachiochi et al. 2000; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Decision making (Bachiochi et al. 2000; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) – Delegating/sharing power/empowerment (Bachiochi et al. 2000; Burke et al. 2006) – Facilitating (Bachiochi et al. 2000; Burke et al. 2006) – Motivating (Bachiochi et al. 2000; Burke et al. 2006) – Boundary spanning (Burke et al. 2006) – Teamwork (Steyn and White 2011) – Media (Perrin and Ehrensberger-Dow 2010) – Task focus (Burke et al. 2006) Relational competence – – – – – – –

Conflict management (Bachiochi et al. 2000; Shockley-Zalabak 2015) Argumentation (Hackman and Johnson 2013) Coaching/mentoring (Bachiochi et al. 2000;Melcrum 2012) Person focused (Bachiochi et al. 2000; Burke et al. 2006) Transformational (Burke et al. 2006) Communicating information (Bachiochi et al. 2000) Feedback (Bachiochi et al. 2000; Shockley-Zalabak 2015)

Leaders, managers, and supervisors have been the subject of the majority of the individual competence assessment research in organizations and groups and team settings. This work frequently specifies what organizations are seeking from employees in leader positions. For example, in examining human resource managers’ perceptions of selected communication competencies, English, Manton, and Walker (2007) studied selected communication competencies: 1. writing and speaking; 2. interpersonal/collaborative competencies; and 3. global communication competencies. The human resource managers examined the importance of 44 competencies rating the following ten as most important: 1. uses personal integrity in all communication (includes all relevant information, and does not present any deceptive information); 2. maintains appropriate confidentiality; 3. recognizes the importance of neat, organized, and attractive written documents; 4. spells correctly;

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5. punctuates and uses correct grammatical written communication; 6. knowledge of general principles of writing effective business communication; 7. effectively proof reads, edits, and revises written communication; 8. understands the importance of business relationships with superiors, coworkers, subordinates, customers, vendors, and other business associates; and 9. writes effective resumes and letters of application. Szpekman (2000) reports a survey of high-performing companies from which Bank of America developed a model of communication competence and developed a new structure for communications professionals. Szpekman identifies five key areas of desired competence: business knowledge, organizational communication planning, change management, research, writing and editing, and project management. Purhonen (2012: 18) provides specifications of interpersonal communication competence in organizational and international business communication contexts for small and medium enterprises (SMEs): communication skill, knowledge, motivation, relational competence, leadership competence, and business communication skills. The Purhonen description summarizes many of the major concepts of individual competence in organizations. Table 3 presents competence constructs and skills identified for managers, supervisors, and leaders.

6 Specific professions and contexts for organizational and group communication competence Specific professions and work applications of communication competence both support and extend concepts for organizational and group descriptions. Interesting work relates communication competence to the professions of health care, engineering, accounting, communications, and tour guides. The contexts of globalization, crisis management, affirmative action hiring and promotion, and technical communications also illustrate the importance of context in increasingly complex and fluid environments.

6.1 Specific professions Health communication, unlike many (but not all) other contexts of organizational communication, utilizes structured communication protocols which, in turn, are evaluated for their competence or effectiveness. Hickey et al. (2012) describe one such protocol in a hospital which implemented a standardized communication process including techniques of assertion, closed-loop communication, and a situation

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briefing model. The protocol was observed during patient rounds and handoffs. Statistically significant improvements in measured outcomes were recorded over a period of 18 months. Another example of protocol communication is the COMFORT model which utilizes empirically derived communication competencies to train physicians for effective breaking of bad news in the physician–patient/family interactions (Villagran et al. 2010). Additionally, communication interactions have been studied with regard to the communication competence of medical students, residents, and consultants (Wouda and van de Wiel 2011); as a promoter or barrier in hospital team communication (Rabøl et al. 2012); and as a critical component of direct patient care ( Rider, Volkan, and Hafler 2008). Communication competence also has been the focus of those interested in engineering design projects, new product development, and building collective competence in interdisciplinary research teams. Brinkman and van der Geest (2003), in examining both engineering accreditation standards and professional work in engineering , described four layers of communication skills where competence is required for engineers: 1. text craftsmanship in both oral and written forms of communication; 2. genre competence for the types of texts associated with engineering work; 3. strategic communicative competence including language skills and rhetorical considerations including audience and overall goals; and 4. feedback competence. While similar to other conceptualizations of communication competence in organizations and groups, the specific reference to genre competence adds to the understanding of what was described earlier as knowledge competence. Thompson (2009), in describing collective communication competence (CCC) in interdisciplinary research teams, concludes communication processes contributing to CCC include spending time together, practicing trust, discussing language differences, and engaging in team tasks. Thompson (2009: 278) found, “Demonstrating presence, engaging in reflexive and backstage communication, and shared laughter facilitated and often expedited CCC development, whereas sarcastic humor, unproductive debates of expertise, expressions of boredom, and jockeying for power challenged and deteriorated the team’s CCC.” Berchicci and Tucci (2010) illustrate the importance of shared team values and the ability to incorporate or assimilate user feedback (a form of listening competence) into the successful development of new product definitions. The accounting profession, in similar fashion to engineering, has genre specific knowledge competencies which are described as critical to career success (Jones 2011). Specifically, Jones (2011: 247), claims, “There is universal agreement that communication skills are core competencies required of accounting professionals though the world.” Jones, in research conducted with employers of accountants, found that writing and documentation competencies were the most important for accountants to demonstrate communication competence. Managers, senior communication practitioners, consultants, and tour guides were described in a series of studies as less dependent on specific genre skills and

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more likely to be perceived as competent with broad skill constructs more aligned with the overall organizational and group literature. For example, Melcrum Ltd (2012: 31) contends core competencies, “that every manager needs to be an effective communicator are insight; feedback/coaching skills; listening skills; and, of course, communication”. McRae and Short (2010: 115) describe six competencies that are prerequisites for those leading multicultural groups: “the ability to be reflective and self-examining; an understanding that the task of the consultant/leader is to further the learning of the group, with a focus on authority relations; the embodiment of genuine curiosity about what is happening in the group as a whole; and acceptance that the experience of others is as valid as one’s own; the capacity to work collaboratively with the experiences of others in understanding the group as a whole; and the capacity to be vulnerable in service of one’s own learning and the learning of the group”. Gregory (2008) describes the core communication competencies of private sector communication professionals as: strategic/long term view; leading and supporting; understanding others; maintaining a positive outlook; taking responsibility for high standards; communicating; making decisions and acting; networking; investigating and analyzing; and preparing thoroughly. Zerfass and Franke (2013) provide a theoretical framework for internal communication consulting which relies on expert or process consulting competencies. According to Zerfass and Franke (2013: 128) the activities in which the consultant engages include: “a) recommending communication activities and techniques; b) providing and supporting communication competencies, structures, and processes; c) integrating communicative insights into task-related decision making; and d) building and encouraging awareness of the communicative dimension of any management activities or task-related decisions.” In their study of French, German, and American tourists’ perceptions of tour guide communicative competence, Leclerc and Martin (2004) report differences in competence perceptions based on nationality group. Leclerc and Martin found American tourists ranked the nonverbal dimensions of approachability, poise, attentiveness, and touch and the three verbal dimensions of language adaptability, interpersonal inclusion, and assertiveness differently from their French and German counterparts. The Americans generally ranked nonverbal and verbal competence as more important than others. Underscoring the often subtle and complex nature of perceptions of competence influenced by gender and culture, Steyn and White (2011) identify communication and teamwork competence as critical for female journalists to navigate the invisible nets, labyrinths, and glass ceilings of cultures in South Asian newsrooms. Although not related to specific professions, three additional communication competencies appear in the literature. Hackman and Johnson (2013: 176–181) describe argumentative competence as important for leaders. They believe argumentative competence is developed through stating the controversy in proposition form, inventing arguments, presenting and defending individual positions, and managing interpersonal relations. Troester and Mester (2007: 26–27) introduce civil-

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ity as a necessary communication skill for business and professional communication. Troester and Mester contend, “Civil communicators are more competent communicators because they are better listeners and craft the verbal and nonverbal components of their messages with special sensitivity to the nature of their fellow communicators. Civil communication competence begins at the affective level with attitudes of respect, valuing, and a degree of self-sacrifice toward others that begin to shape positive business and organizational environments” (2007: 27). Finally, media competence, as described by Perrin and Ehrensberger-Dow (2010), is especially relevant for many although certainly not all organizational and group members. Of particular importance in their research is language use appropriate for various media. The frameworks and skills discussed thus far illustrate agreement about the importance of communication competence in organizational and group settings and provide evidence of the diverse approaches to describing and evaluating competence.

6.2 Contexts Context was not specifically identified in early conceptualizations of communication competence. As theory and frameworks for understanding competence have become more nuanced, the importance of context increasingly is recognized. Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge (2013: 5–41) acknowledge the importance of context when they describe communication competence as, “the extent to which speakers achieve desired outcomes through communication behavior acceptable to a situation” (2013: 25). They describe appropriate and effective communication as occurring, “when you act in ways suitable to the norms and expectations of contexts and situations you encounter. Effective communication occurs when you are able to achieve the most desirable objectives or outcomes in contexts” (2013: 5). Globalization, resulting from rapidly expanding technological connectivity, gives rise to expanding issues for organizations and groups with regard to intercultural or multicultural communication. Intercultural and multicultural communication is frequently framed as communication among peoples with differing perspectives on communication competence based on their respective traditions, experiences, and cultures. Layered and intertwined with national and local cultures are the respective traditions, experiences, and the often multiple cultures of organizations and groups. As Cheney et al. (2011: 416) suggest, “The notion of competence is therefore not something fixed and unchanging. It is contextual and extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define as a set of objective characteristics.” In the most comprehensive review to date conceptualizing intercultural competence, Spitzberg and Changnon (2009) identify the rich conceptual traditions developed over decades of work on intercultural competence and provide over 300 terms and concepts related to interpersonal and intercultural competence. Spitzberg and Changnon urge development of more integrated models and measures realizing that the

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diversity of terms and concepts problematizes understanding in more specific applications or contexts. Storti (2009) applies concepts of interpersonal competence to training for cross-cultural work settings. Storti contends four fundamentals are necessary for intercultural competence in training: 1. defining culture and its manifestations in interactions with people from differing cultures; 2. identifying key values and assumptions of one’s own culture; 3. identifying key values and assumptions of others’ cultures; and 4. identifying differences and approaches for dealing with differences. Moran, Youngdahl, and Moran (2009) suggest ten aspects of the complex nature of culture which must be considered for any leader to be competent with multi-cultural project members. The ten aspects include: 1. sense of self; 2. communication and language use; 3. dress and appearance; 4. food and feeding habits; 5. time and time consciousness; 6. relationships; 7. values and norms; 8. beliefs and attitudes; 9. mental process and learning; and 10. work habits and practices. While the ten are not all aspects of communication interactions, it is difficult to imagine that all ten do not become messages and perceptions of one type or another and, therefore, become subject to evaluations of communication competence. Crisis communication contexts, whether in multicultural settings or not, call on sophisticated communication competence from diverse organizational members. Eid and Fyfe (2009) identify core competencies for public sector decisionmakers faced with crisis: managing information, dealing with ambiguity, and horizontal thinking. Shockley-Zalabak (2015: 367) suggests competent organizational crisis communication 1. informs publics; 2. acknowledges events with both empathy and a desire to establish credibility; 3. assists publics in understanding risks and current state of information; and 4. honestly examines problems. Hiring and promotional policies and practices encouraging ethnic and racial diversity or utilizing various affirmative action policies and practices have been both supported and contested. In recent work, Miller (2012: 230) related the affirmative action context to both self and other perceptions of competence. Specifically, Miller describes the affirmative action context where both self-views of competence and the views of others can be impacted by perceptions of the influence of affirmative action policies or programs on who is hired and who is promoted. Finally, Rainey, Turner, and Dayton (2005) describe the technical communications context as requiring distinct core competencies not frequently identified in other contexts. For example, they (2005: 324) identify as most important, “1. the ability to collaborate with subject-matter experts, 2. ability to collaborate with coworkers, 3. ability to provide clear writing for a specific audience directed by clearly defined purposes, 4. ability to analyze user’s needs, and 5. the ability to assess and learn new technology competence.” Globalization, crisis management, affirmative action hiring and promotion, and technical communications represent only a few important examples where communication competence and perceptions of competence are impacted by the

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complexity of contexts. These contexts, however, illustrate the importance of understanding context, relating context to achieving desired outcomes, and examining how context shapes perceptions of competence.

7 Perceived and measured outcomes related to communication competence The prior sections of this chapter underscore the often unspoken assumption that communication competence is related to effectiveness even if that effectiveness is not well defined or measured. Communication competence is linked to personal satisfaction, goal achievement, and a host of desirable organizational and group outcomes. As with the competence construct itself, outcomes are variously defined and no specific construct describes effectiveness or outcomes assumptions. There is a significant body of literature which links functional communication skills to generally positive outcomes although no causal relationship has been adequately established. Brant Burleson (2007: 107–108) reviews many of the findings which support skilled communicators as more likely than others to achieve both personally and professionally. Skilled or competent communicators generally earn more, are more upwardly mobile, are employed without interruptions, and are likely to be satisfied with their work lives more than their less skilled counterparts. Skilled communicators can influence others using their competencies and may even assist less skilled communicators with improving their own interactions. Using a relational model of communication competence which incorporates motivation, knowledge, and skill, Payne (2005) specifically addresses workplace communication issues. Payne reports high performing employees were more motivated to adapt their communication and were more skilled at expressing empathy than lower performing counterparts. Supervisors report more motivation to verbally communicate and empathize than non-supervisors. Sharbrough, Simmons, and Cantrill (2006) describe the use of motivating language with its relationship to communication competence and its impact on job satisfaction and perceived supervisor effectiveness. Again, competence is theorized to influence the desired relationships between supervisors and employees. Downing (2011) reports a linkage between communication competence and call center agents’ sales effectiveness. In sum we can conclude assumptions of linkages between communication competence in organizations and in groups are both intuitive and most often correlational in nature. In an interesting evaluation of CEO characteristics and abilities, Kaplan, Klevanov, and Sorensen (2012) report a contrast between the communication competence of CEO candidates and their execution skills to determine what most contributed to performance over time. Their subsequent findings supported performance of CEOs as more related to CEOs’ general abilities and execution skills than to their communication competence. While not suggesting communication competence is

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not important, the findings encourage future competence work to specify relationships with other characteristics, experiences, and contexts. In a meta-analytic review of 72 studies on information sharing and team performance, Mesmer-Magnus and DeChurch (2009) conclude competent information sharing is related to team performance, cohesion, decision satisfaction, and knowledge integration. Pentland (2012) and LePine et al. (2008) both report relationships between communication and team performance. Pentland suggests team performance is directly related to three aspects of communication: energy (the number and nature of exchanges among team members); engagement (distribution of energy among team members); and exploration (communication engaged in outside the team). Higher energy and engagement when coupled with exploration are described as improving team performance. LePine et al. describe competent team processes as directly impacting team cohesion, potency, performance, and satisfaction. They did conclude team size and task interdependence were moderating influences for communication processes and team performance. The variety of constructs utilized and lack of definitional clarity makes broad conclusions about the relationships of communication competence and performance or outcomes difficult. Much of the work to date has utilized the individual as the unit of analysis. For individuals, relationship of positive outcomes to communication competence has been established in organization and group contexts. Certainly research supports competence over incompetence in virtually all studies. However valuable, work at the individual unit of analysis does not automatically translate to organizational or group competence. While group performance studies are increasing, understanding competence at the organization-wide context remains a challenge.

8 Ongoing and emerging needs in organizational and group communication competence work Throughout this chapter diverse perspectives and impacts of organizational and group communication competence have been described. In general, communication competence work in organizations and groups has depended on interpersonal competence work for much of the conceptual foundations currently in use. In the work that moves beyond the individual as a unit of analysis and offers more generalized constructs for the organizational and group context, theoretical clarity and rigorous testing of proposed constructs remain as challenges. The assumptions of the importance of organizational and group communication competence remain unchallenged although impact and outcome work is plagued by lack of definitional clarity and measurement rigor. A review of the current body of work assists in framing ongoing and emerging needs in communication competence work for organizational and group contexts.

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The unit of analysis becomes a central focus of opportunity. Individuals in organizations remain important subjects of attention. However, the macro organization, in its ever changing forms and environment, provides fertile opportunities to understand a broader construct of communication competence with a myriad of interactions both within and external to the organization. Informal organizations and groups with fluid boundaries are important contexts for further study. It would appear going forward that three overarching units of analysis should be considered for communication competence work in organizations and groups: individuals, groups and teams, and the macro organization. Although these units of analysis are dominant in current work, distinctions about roles, relationships, processes, and performance over time have not been extensively formulated or explored. At the individual unit of analysis it will be important to specify the role or roles for which competence assessments are intended. Is the individual an individual contributor, member of a group or team, or a leader, manager, or supervisor, or in multiple roles? What are the task and relational expectations for these roles? Currently we have extensive formulations of skills associated with diverse organizational and group roles. Based on existing work, meta-analytic techniques could be utilized to better formulate factors or sets of skills which represent competence in diverse roles. Particular attention should be paid to the individual contributor not in a leadership or managerial position. This formulation could answer critics who see the importance of interpersonal communication competence constructs but believe their applicability should be tested in more impersonal and structured organizational and group settings. The task and relational constructs for group and team communication competence have been established over an extended period of time. The challenge remains to assess groups and teams over time with fluid membership and permeable boundaries. This challenge can be partially met by longitudinal research designs which focus on the group or team as the unit of analysis, assess the task and relational competence skills and processes utilized over time, and relate the assessments to group or team outcomes. These designs most likely will require both quantitative and qualitative methodologies for data collection and will also require triangulated data from other organizational sources in order to assess relationships of competence skill sets or factors to performance. Assessment of competence for the macro organization requires a determination of broad constructs for organization-wide assessment. While the knowledge, sensitivity, skills, and values construct has merit, it also is possible to effectively organize research design by task and relational factors as well as motivation, knowledge, and skills. Assessment instruments could be developed utilizing the vast purposed sets of competence descriptions previously reported and determining if stable factors can be identified across differing sizes and types of organizations. As for the group and team context, triangulated data from other organizational sources can be developed to relate macro-organizational communication compe-

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Tab. 4: Macro-organization data elements with potential to relate communication competence to factors of performance. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Financial performance Competitive positioning Productivity compared to industry/sector benchmarks Levels of collaboration and cooperation Performance in strategic alliances Flexibility and coordination costs Employee commitment and morale Customer/donor/other stakeholder loyalty Innovation environment Support for change initiatives Leader effectiveness Productivity in virtual teams Employee turnover rates Employee absenteeism Accidents and worker compensation claims Litigation records Ethical legal abuses Media coverage Crisis management Industry/sector reputation Employee satisfaction

tence factors to elements of performance. Table 4 identifies data elements with potential to relate competence factors to performance. Additional research is needed to determine multicultural communication competence for individuals, groups, and entire organizations. The approaches described above can be adapted for these opportunities. Competent interactions with diverse stakeholders hold potential for examination. The challenges of innovation, creativity, technology, crisis, and globalization all can be related through various units of analysis to constructs of communication competence. Ethical communication and concepts of communication competence can and should be expanded. Finally, opportunities for organizational and group work should support understanding the impact of dysfunctions in communication competence. While the above-mentioned ongoing and emerging needs do not represent a fully comprehensive view of opportunities, the opportunities discussed underscore the importance of the often ambiguous, but important constructs of organizational and group communication competence. Everything we know about organizational life suggests the needs for understanding and building communication competence will only increase. It is an exciting and challenging future.

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Allen I. Huffcutt, Satoris S. Culbertson and Sarah E. Riforgiate

17 Functional forms of competence: Interviewing Abstract: Employment interviews are ubiquitous in the workplace, providing a necessary step in the hiring process and influencing organizational composition and applicant employment. Research pertaining to professional interviewing is frequently conducted outside of the communication discipline, yet the nature of the interview interaction is highly communicative. The purpose of this chapter is to develop a solid foundation for understanding communication in employment interviews by utilizing the concept of communication competence as a theoretical basis. Specifically, we address aspects of communication effectiveness and appropriateness in employment interviews, including how they vary according to the degree of their standardization. For instance, both parties (interviewer and interviewee) have the goal of reducing uncertainty, although the nature of those goals differ (e.g., organizational perspectives regarding potential interviewee performance verses interviewee perceptions of job fit and the likelihood of being offered the job). Directions for future research are presented, including a pressing need for research examining how the two parties adjust communication during the interaction based on perceptions of the other’s communication behaviors. Keywords: employment interviews, job applicant interviews, impression management, uncertainty reduction, instrumental goals, relational goals, self-presentation goals

1 Functional forms of competence: Interviewing In Western cultures, it is almost inconceivable to obtain a job without going through at least one interview. Indeed, as Huffcutt and Culbertson (2011: 185) noted, “It would appear that there is a basic human need to want personal contact with others before placing them in a position of importance … as if a part of the human make-up does not trust objective information completely.” Even if an applicant looks stellar in all respects and clearly would be a great addition to the organization (e.g., credentials, accomplishments), it is likely that someone in the hiring organization hierarchy would still want to see them in person. Not surprisingly, employment interviews are one of the most widely researched aspects of organizations. While other techniques are also utilized in organizational selection, such as tests of mental ability and personality, what distinguishes employment interviews is that they represent a communication event between the organization and the

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applicants. Applicants have the opportunity to articulate their qualifications, and in the process, attempt to convince the interviewer that they are a viable choice for the job. Conversely, the interviewer seeks to gather as much information as possible in order to make his/her own evaluation of the merits of each applicant. Further, applicants may utilize the interview to obtain additional information about the nature of the job and those they would be working with, and also the climate and culture of the organization (Jablin 1987; Kinser 2002). Similarly, the interviewer may provide additional information to the applicants to promote the job and/or the organization. Of both scientific and practical significance is the idea that the communication between applicants and interviewers is typically interactive. Once an interview begins, both parties have an opportunity to co-create meaning through mutual listening, processing, and formulating responses. Indeed, interview communication can be thought of a spiral, with the back and forth interaction determining the size and nature of the various loops, their intricate tangents, and the directions in which they go. Moreover, because each applicant is different, the overall communication (including the degree of co-created meaning) is likely to vary considerably from applicant to applicant, often ending up in unexpected directions. Just like the number of possible spiral patterns, the number of potential interview communication patterns is virtually unlimited. Yet, and somewhat surprisingly, the communication aspects of interviews have been one of the least researched among the array of possible employment interview topics. The most popular topics appear to revolve around psychometric characteristics such as reliability and validity (e.g., Berry, Sackett, and Landers 2007), which is not surprising given that they relate directly to their usefulness (e.g., accuracy) for selecting new employees. Other popular topics include the cognitive decisionmaking processes of interviewers (e.g., Struthers, Colwill, and Perry 1992), the influence of demographic features such as race and gender (e.g., McCarthy, Van Iddekinge, and Campion 2010), the impact of nonverbal communication such as posture, smiling, and nodding (e.g., Tsai, Huang, and Yu 2012), applicant reactions such as fairness (e.g., Truxillo, Steiner, and Gilliland 2004), and impression management (Levashina and Campion 2007). Further, research on interview communication tends to be one-way, such as the influence that the applicant has on the interviewer or the influence that the interviewer has on the applicant. To illustrate, research on impression management, one of the most communication-based topics in the interview literature, addresses the strategies that applicants use to create a favorable impression on the interviewer (Barrick, Shaffer, and DeGrassi 2009). For instance, applicants may use ingratiation as a deliberate strategy to compliment the interviewer and increase his/her liking of them (Ellis et al. 2002). What is not typically addressed is how those strategies influence the thought processes and subsequent communication of the interviewer, and in turn, how the modified communication of the interviewer affects the applicants.

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In summary, research on the communication aspects of employment interviews appears to be a secondary topic, often explored in a tangential and unidirectional manner. The lack of a strong theoretical grounding appears to be a contributing factor. With this in mind, the purpose of this chapter is to develop a solid theoretical foundation for understanding communication in employment interviews, utilizing the concept of communication competence from the communication literature (an area that seems of obvious relevance, but is rarely utilized in interview research). We begin with a careful analysis of the key aspects of communication in employment interviews. Then we discuss what constitutes communication competence, including the role of goals and motivation, and further, how communication principles can be applied to employment interviews. Following that, implications of structuring (i.e., standardizing) the interview format are examined. We conclude with a discussion of future directions and suggestions for enhancing the employment interview as a means of communication within the workplace.

2 Unique aspects of communication in employment interviews Communication is an evolving, cooperative process that goes beyond the simple sharing of information. Verbal and nonverbal messages are exchanged, relational cues are observed and interpreted, and lasting perceptions are formed (Baxter 2004; Braithwaite and Baxter 2008). To fully constitute communication, both parties must be interactively engaged and play an important role. Many forms of communication would fall under this rubric, including interaction among peers, with significant others, between parents and children, and between employees and their managers. That said, there are some unique aspects of employment interviews that distinguish them from more traditional interactions. Specifically, there are five key aspects of communication in interview settings, which are described below. Individually, these aspects may not sound particularly unusual, but in combination, they unite to form a unique communication dynamic. In fact, we argue that very few interactions contain all five of these aspects, making interviews worthy of additional study from a communicative perspective. First, in most cases the applicant and the interviewer do not know each other prior to being introduced as part of the employment selection process. There may be exceptions, such as when both are from the local community (particularly a smaller one), belong to a mutual social or athletic organization (or have children in them), and/or the applicant has interviewed with that organization previously. But, in a vast majority of cases, the two parties meet for the first time. Second, the interaction between the applicant and the interviewer is typically of very limited duration. Employment interviews often average around 20–30 min-

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utes. When the interview is over, the interaction generally ends. The only exception would be when an applicant is brought back for a second interview with the same interviewer. Even then, the total time of their interaction (combined from both interviews) is still relatively short. Third, roles and expectations are clearly defined prior to an interview (Kinser 2002). Considering the first two aspects, this one is particularly unique. Despite the fact that applicants and interviewers will have just met and that they will only interact for a short time, both know what role they should play and have clear expectations as to the process (particularly the unofficial “rules” that should be followed, such as allowing the interviewer to take the lead). Specifically, applicants know they will be asked about their background, their qualifications, and their reasons for desiring that position. Yet, at the same time, their goal is to present themselves in the best possible light, which may involve selective presentation of themselves. Interviewers know that they are expected to take the lead in the interview, and that their goal is to uncover as much relevant information as possible (see Einhorn 1981). Fourth, there is uncertainty regarding the content and/or tone of the interview. Despite pre-established roles and expectations, applicants do not have a clear picture of how the interview will proceed once it starts. While it is true that there are ritualized formalities such as exchanging names and asking how the other party is doing (Berger and Bradac 1982), beyond that there is uncertainty. As noted earlier, each interview is different, and can go off in different, even unexpected, directions. Applicants may anticipate some of the questions (e.g., strengths and weaknesses), but cannot anticipate all of them. Further, they cannot know ahead of time whether the interviewer will be outgoing or quiet, or whether the interviewer will even like them. On the other side of the desk, the interviewer does not know ahead of time whether an applicant will be lively and enthusiastic or more shy and withdrawn. Fifth, there is a considerable difference in power status. As a representative of the hiring organization, the interviewer clearly has power over the applicants because he/she gets to decide whom to hire (or least whom to recommend). That power is amplified because the outcome is not just obtaining the job, but also the benefits, opportunities for promotion, and retirement funding that go along with it. In short, the interviewer has the power to make a decision that will have a lifelong influence on the applicants. It is important to note that some applicants may have power as well, but not in the same sense. That is, once an offer is extended, the power may shift in that the applicant can decline it or make certain demands during the negotiation process. For highly desirable applicants who are sought after by multiple organizations, this can be considerable power. Nevertheless, the issue here is the interaction that takes place during the employment interview, in which the interviewer typically holds the power. In summary, interview communication entails a temporary exchange between two unfamiliar people, one where there are clear goals and expectations, a marked differential in power, and potentially high stakes in the outcome, yet with a rela-

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tively high degree of uncertainty remaining. While there are a number of communication contexts that contain some and perhaps many of these features, there are few that contain all of them. To better understand the unique dynamics of communication in the context of interviews, it seems logical to turn to the field of communication itself.

3 Communication competence in employment interviews Considering the centrality of communication throughout the employment interview process, communication competence serves as a particularly useful theoretical framework in interpreting existing research and framing future studies. Communication competence involves perceptions of two key aspects of an interaction: effectiveness and appropriateness. We review both of these aspects below.

3.1 Interaction effectiveness Effectiveness is a judgment made by an individual regarding his/her ability to accomplish individual goals as a result of the interaction. An interaction would be deemed effective if that individual thought he/she stood to achieve desired goals, and ineffective if not. There are numerous goals that interviewers and applicants can have within an employment interview context. For example, as an overarching goal, the employment interview occurs to determine whether a relationship – the employment relationship – will develop after the interview. In this manner, both the applicant and the interviewer must decide whether to avoid, restrict, or seek future contact. In the employment context, will the interviewer offer a job and will the applicant accept an offer if one is made? Beyond the overarching goal of determining employment, there are other, more specific goals that interviewers and applicants have when engaging in an employment interview. We provide a brief outline of goals along with relevant research related to them. We note that these goal categories are not necessarily exhaustive or mutually exclusive. Rather, we offer them simply as a framework for better understanding the ways in which people may direct their motivations in order to be more effective in employment interviews.

3.1.1 Uncertainty reduction and predictability enhancement goals In line with the basic tenets of Berger and Calabrese’s (1975) uncertainty reduction theory (URT) and Sunnafrank’s (1986) predicted outcome value theory (POV), both interviewers and applicants have goals of reducing uncertainty and increasing pre-

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dictability. Although interviews generate cognitive uncertainty (apprehension regarding beliefs and attitudes of oneself and relational others), they generally are highly routinized and not likely to create considerable behavioral uncertainty (concerns or doubts regarding the predictability of behavior in certain situations; Berger 1979; Berger and Bradec 1982). As URT and POV suggest, interviewers have an explicit goal of becoming more certain about the applicant as a potential hire, ultimately trying to predict how well the applicant will perform on the job. Being in the position of control (at least during the interview itself), interviewers are presumably able to engage in multiple forms of uncertainty reduction behaviors. Whether utilizing passive (i.e., unobtrusive observation of applicants), active (i.e., seeking information from third parties or through manipulation of the interview environment), or interactive strategies (i.e., obtaining information from applicants directly through interrogative means), interviewers can elicit information that serves to reduce their uncertainty regarding the applicant and achieve their own goals for the interaction. On the other hand, applicants also want to reduce uncertainty and increase predictability. Specifically, applicants want to get a feel for whether they are managing impressions effectively and if they will ultimately be offered the job. Even those applicants who may enter an interview in a position of power (e.g., they are the top choice and have alternative offers) are still likely on the lower end of the power differential, at least until an offer is extended. As such, while they can still engage in uncertainty reduction behaviors, they are most likely to be passive lest they run the risk of usurping the established power differential and upsetting the natural balance of the employment interview.

3.1.2 Instrumental goals Interviewers and applicants also have individual goals that vary throughout the interview interaction and can shift in importance as the conversation unfolds. One such goal category that relates to communication competence is instrumental goals, or goals that focus on a tangible outcome (Canary and Lakey 2013; Clark and Delia 1979). Instrumental goals tend to be one of the most salient goals and are easy to identify because of their explicit focus on demonstrable results (Cupach, Canary, and Spitzberg 2010). For example, an interviewer’s instrumental goal is generally to identify the best applicant for a position. An applicant’s instrumental goal is to gain an offer of employment. These goals may be mutually compatible. However, if an interviewer is assessing multiple applicants, these goals may conflict. For example, the interviewer may want to hire the applicant but offer a lower salary range or different job duties than the applicant desires, the interviewer may view the applicant as less qualified or suitable for the position compared to other applicants and not extend an offer, or the applicant may compare the position with others he/she has interviewed for and decline an offer.

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3.1.3 Relational goals Yet another type of goal that is present in interviews and relates to communication competence is the relational/interpersonal goal (Canary and Lakey 2013; Clark and Delia 1979). Specifically, “relational goals involve achieving, maintaining, and deescalating a relationship” (Canary and Lakey 2013: 151). Relational goals are also important in the interviewing process as both the interviewer and applicant must determine if they would like to pursue a working relationship with each other in the future. Einhorn (1981) highlighted the importance of making relational connections with organizations and interviewers, noting that successful applicants directly reference the organization four times more frequently and refer directly to the interviewers three times more frequently compared to unsuccessful applicants. Thus, rather than treating an interview as simply a screening process, successful applicants actively work to relate directly to the interviewers to build relational connections and rapport. Interviewers also see the importance of rapport-building, with many interviewers disregarding researchers’ suggestions for the reduction of unstructured interaction (discussed in the following section on the influence of interview standardization), and instead opting to include unstructured interaction and “small talk” into their interviews (e.g., as a way to put applicants at ease; Chapman and Zweig 2005). Preliminary results suggest that the communication processes involved in the rapport-building phase do influence subsequent interview processes (Chapman and Zweig 2005; Barrick, Swider, and Stewart 2010). For example, researchers have found that rapport building impacts the interviewer’s ratings of applicants, even when the information covered is not job-relevant (Barrick, Swider, and Stewart 2012). However, this research line was never developed sufficiently to assess the actual communication interplay and resulting effects. For instance, it is possible that applicants who skillfully navigate the small-talk phase gain an advantage because the interviewer becomes more positive about them and asks them easier questions during the actual interview. Nevertheless, considering the constitutive process of communication, relationship goals are an important aspect to account for in the interview context. The interviewer and applicant must be able to see the relationship as worth continuing, even if the interviewer will not work directly with the applicant.

3.1.4 Self-presentation goals Finally, individuals may have self-presentation/identity goals (Canary and Lakey 2013; Clark and Delia 1979). Self-presentation goals reflect how individuals present themselves to others and how the communicated image reflects the individual’s

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identity (Lakey and Canary 2013). Interviews can be particularly threatening for applicants seeking employment. From their initial contact with the interviewer, applicants must strive to present themselves in the best possible manner. As applicants attempt to project an image of competence and that they are worthy of hire, they work on presenting a positive identity to the interviewer. However, applicants also realize that they are being compared to others who have similar qualifications. Regardless of whether they are hired, applicants generally want to be viewed in the best possible light and project their identity in ways to highlight positive qualities. Simultaneously, the interviewer also wants to be seen as competent as an individual and as a representative of the organization. It is a commonly accepted notion that first impressions matter (e.g., Hogarth and Einhorn 1992; Mantonakis et al. 2009), and research on the employment interview has supported this proposition. For example, how an applicant is dressed can have an impact on how the interviewer rates the applicant (Forsythe 1990), as can the applicant’s handshake at the start of the interview (Stewart et al. 2008). Indeed, there are common norms for such things, and applicants who are able to make better initial impressions in employment interviews (e.g., through rapport building, as described above) are more likely to be evaluated more positively and have a better chance of getting an employment offer compared to applicants who fail to make as good a first impression (Barrick et al. 2012; Barrick, Swider, and Stewart 2010). Impression management, of course, is not limited to initial interactions, but rather exists throughout the entire employment interview process. Social interactions are rife with influence tactics (Rusbult and Van Lange 2003), and the employment interview is no different. Applicants frequently engage in behaviors intended to portray themselves in a different, more positive light to interviewers. Within employment interviews, there are four distinct types of faking behaviors: slight image creation, extensive image creation, image protection, and ingratiation (Levashina and Campion 2007). Image protection (e.g., the omission or masking of potentially questionable or negative details from one’s responses) and ingratiation (e.g., flattering the interviewer and/or the organization) involve minor distortions of the truth to appear stronger or more interpersonally attractive to the interviewer. Similarly, slight image creation includes embellishment, tailoring, and fit-enhancing, a form of deception in which, according to Levin and Zickar (2002), nearly everyone engages. Conversely, extensive image creation includes constructing, inventing, and/or borrowing facts about one’s qualifications and experiences. Whether minor distortions or outright fabrication, impression management attempts within employment interviews are particularly prevalent (Ellis et al. 2002; Levashina and Campion 2007; Weiss and Feldman 2006). To put it in perspective, Levashina and Campion (2007) reported that over 90 percent of undergraduate job applicants engaged in faking during employment interviews. It has even been suggested that such impression management tactics are so commonplace that they are almost expected of applicants. As Swider et al. (2011:

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1283) noted, “Interviewers expect, even demand, that interviewees describe their past experiences positively when given an experience-based question during the structured interview. Thus, when savvy interviewees ‘polish’ their image and convey they are valuable employees (i.e., self-promotion), they benefit.” As such, it appears that there is not as much of an expectation for complete truthfulness within employment interviews as there is for “strategic truthfulness” aimed at presenting oneself in the best, most appealing light as possible. Of course, the ways in which applicants present themselves is not always intentional. As noted above, there is some research in the interview literature on the influence of applicant nonverbal communication on interviewers. This research has focused primarily on aspects such as smiling, handshake, and posture, and generally has found some (albeit modest) effects on interviewers and their ratings. For instance, in a meta-analysis, Curtin (2003) found a positive and significant correlation between a composite of nonverbal behaviors and cues (i.e., he combined all nonverbal variables into a single latent variable) and interviewer ratings. Further, he found that nonverbal cues acted as a partial moderator between verbal content and interviewer ratings (see also Levine and Feldman 2002; Rasmussen 1984). Although more limited, there is also some research focusing on paralinguistic aspects of communication in interviews. For instance, DeGroot and Motowidlo (1999) used sophisticated voice and speech software and found that a vocal cue composite that included pitch, pitch variability, speech rate, pauses, and amplitude variability correlated .32 with interviewer ratings. In a different vein, Lievens and Peeters (2008) found that self-focused, verbal impression management attempts correlated .40 with ratings on a structured interview focusing on past experiences. Collectively, this body of research suggests that paralinguistic features such as these can exert significant influence on interviewers and on the ratings they make.

3.2 Interaction appropriateness The other key aspect of communication competence, appropriateness, is determined by each interactant. It is a judgment made by one party regarding the extent to which the other party meets expectations and follows social norms appropriate for that interaction. For instance, a person on a first date might believe the interaction to be inappropriate if the other person starts talking about marriage. In regards to employment interviews, an applicant should view the interaction as appropriate if the interviewer sets the pace and tempo and dictates the flow of the conversation. Unfortunately, research involving appropriateness in interviews is relatively sparse. One area that has garnered relatively little attention and has not developed further is that of “relational control”, which assesses who, within a relationship, is in control (Engler-Parish and Millar 1989). Within the employment interview con-

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text, this refers to the interplay of applicant and interviewer attempts at dominance and the resulting effects. In one of the few studies in this area, Tullar (1989) found that when interviewers attempted to structure the conversation, unsuccessful applicants tried to structure the conversation in return. In contrast, consistent with the notion of complementarity (e.g., Moskowitz, Ho, and Turcotte-Tremblay 2007), successful applicants tended to be submissive when the interviewer was dominant and dominant when the interviewer was submissive. Essentially, matching communication patterns of dominance or submissiveness were perceived as less favorable compared to complementary patterns.

3.3 Interaction skill, knowledge, and motivation In addition to effectiveness and appropriateness, communication competence is largely determined by an individual’s skill, knowledge, and motivation in the exchange (Cupach and Canary 2000). While the concept of communication competence has largely been applied in conflict research (Canary and Spitzberg 1990) and health communication (Wright et al. 2013), it offers an important lens to view the interview process as well to examine how interviewer and applicants meet goals and expectations (Spano and Zimmerman 1995). While at some level individuals seek to meet instrumental, relational, and self-presentation goals of their own and the other party, these goals can vary in both level of abstraction and importance throughout employment interviews. Relevant to this discussion is the notion of social skills (Ferris, Witt, and Hochwarter 2001), a concept that has been studied to a relatively small extent within the employment interview context (e.g., Schuler and Funke 1989; see Salgado and Moscoso 2002 for a meta-analysis of six correlations). Such limited treatment is unfortunate, as social skills could play a central role in interview communication. For instance, social skills could be the underlying construct behind specific communicative practices such as impressions management and relational control. Additional relevant concepts when discussing skill, knowledge, and motivation can be borrowed from social psychology. For instance, Lee (1996) found some support for the idea that applicants higher on self-monitoring would vary the warmth of their nonverbal behaviors depending on the warmth of the interviewer, while applicants lower on self-monitoring would not adapt or change their behavior based on their interviewer. Other social constructs such as attributional tendencies and conformity could also add to our understanding of competent interview communication. For instance, the degree to which interviewers make attributions of competence early on in the interview and the resulting effects on subsequent communication could be examined.

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4 The influence of interview standardization on communication One of the most highly researched aspects of the employment interview is structure, namely the level of standardization inherent in the interview questions and response scoring. In a completely unstructured interview, the content and the evaluation process are left largely up to the discretion of the interviewer. In a highly structured interview, there is a high level of standardization across applicants in terms of both the questions asked and the scoring procedures used (Campion, Palmer, and Campion 1998). The rationale for using a highly structured interview is that it reduces the procedural variability across applicants (Huffcutt and Arthur 1994). In such interviews, the same questions are posed to all applicants, in the same order, with the same amount of time allowed for responses. Even probing for further information is minimized, if not entirely avoided, within such interviews. In addition, performance in highly structured interviews is determined on the basis of a standardized scoring system, with behaviorally anchored rating scales provided for each question individually. In some ways, the highly structured interview with its greater emphasis on standardization and lower focus on rapport building (Chapman and Zweig 2005) is almost akin to a paper-and-pencil psychological test (e.g., mental ability, personality) or an oral exam in which the interviewer asks the same questions to all applicants, with little room for open, unstructured dialogue. In terms of how structured interviews fare in practice, researchers have consistently found that highly structured interviews, compared to their unstructured counterparts, are preferable as they tend to be more reliable (Conway, Jako, and Goodman 1995; Huffcutt, Culbertson, and Weyhrauch 2013), better predictors of job performance (Huffcutt, Culbertson, and Weyhrauch 2014; Wiesner and Cronshaw 1988), and fairer, with fewer mean differences on the basis of sex and race (Huffcutt and Roth 1998). With such evidence, it is not surprising that much attention has been paid to the way in which structure can be enhanced within interviews, including the types of questions that can or should be asked. For example, two specific types of questions, situational (i.e., future-oriented “what would you do” questions; Latham et al. 1980) and behavior description (i.e., past-oriented “tell me about a time when” questions; Janz 1982), have received considerable attention from organizational scholars. When these specific question types are utilized within employment interviews, structure is enhanced, and consequently reliability, validity, and fairness similarly heightened; the routinization of the discussion between the interviewer and the applicant is similarly increased. Despite the overwhelming empirical evidence suggesting that structure in employment interviews is ideal from a psychometric perspective (in that it increases the reliability and predictive validity of the interview), interviewers frequently dis-

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miss researchers' suggestions for the reduction of unstructured interaction, opting to go “off script” in order to build rapport and put applicants at ease (Barrick et al. 2012; Chapman and Zweig 2005). As Barrick et al. (2012: 331) noted, “there is a limit to the amount of structure that can be imposed upon the interview before it becomes an impersonal, mechanical process”. Unstructured interviews afford the interviewer a great deal of discretion in the questions asked, as well as what would constitute a good versus poor response. In such interviews, the interviewer poses whatever question he or she desires of applicants, allowing as much or as little probing as deemed necessary, with however much time applicants need for responding. Such interviews are often rated using a global scale, with the interviewer making a holistic judgment of the applicant’s performance. Although the empirical literature derived from management and psychology suggests that structured interviews are ideal, communication scholars have questioned the supposed unbiased nature of highly structured interviews (Buzzanell 1999; Kinser 2002). Whereas structured interviews are often used in order to remove bias and create an equal playing field (Buzzanell 1999), this format also operates on assumptions that ideal applicants will demonstrate “task orientation, self-promotion, and competition” (Kinser 2002: 249). Specifically, these assumptions mirror stereotypical expectations for a masculinized ideal worker (Trethewey 1999). As Trethewey (2000: para. 9) explains: In a very real sense, organizations valorize traits and characteristics that are stereotypically masculine, including an emphasis on rationality, long-range and abstract concerns, assertiveness and the drive for individual success. In contrast, the traits that are typically attributed to women, such as an emphasis on feeling or emotion, devotion to detail, and an orientation toward affiliative relationships, are often denied legitimacy in organizational life.

Further, highly structured interview practices not only prefer masculine, dominantgroup communication behaviors (i.e., assertiveness, direct eye contact), but also limit the opportunity for non-dominant groups (e.g., non-White, feminine) to explain their qualifications in a less direct manner through rapport building (Buzzanell 1999). Therefore, various structures in interviewing formats offer different benefits and constraints on interactions during the interview process, necessitating consideration when selecting a format.

5 Future directions Research reviewed in this chapter highlights aspects of the communication process in the interview context. While the chapter notes studies which intersect with verbal and nonverbal communication research, there are many ways communication scholars can add to this conversation. Indeed messages and nonverbal cues are central in how interviewers and applicants coordinate information-sharing and de-

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velop impressions regarding “fit” during the interview process, yet the predominance of research in this area has occurred in other disciplines. Communication scholars are well-poised to extend understanding of employment interviews through application of communication theories and research. Specifically, communication competence is a useful theoretical lens to explore how individuals use appropriateness to meet others’ goals, while gauging effectiveness in satisfying their own goals during an interview. Communication competence can be used as an overarching framework to explore and evaluate individual verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors and interactional two-way coordination of communication. In addition, it can be used at organizational and macro (societal) levels using a range of more specific interpersonal and organization communication theories. At the individual level, interviewers and applicants likely have different, although not always competing, goals in mind. Analysis of message strategy (including nonverbal manipulations) prior to the interview for each of these parties could offer insight into the interview exchange and effective outcomes. This speaks to many educational programs where job applicants are “taught” or “coached in” communication techniques for interviewing (i.e. Pope-Ruark 2008). Further, message strategy would be of interest to interviewers in terms of modifying communication to illicit reliable responses and reduce biases that may occur in interview interactions. Additionally, communication competence in relation to identity management theory (Cupach and Imahori 1993) could extend current understanding of how parties manage their communication to meet identity goals, particularly in interviews involving cultural differences. Perhaps one of the most pressing areas for further research occurs at the dyadic level in terms of how the “process” of communication impacts assessments of both parties regarding the competence of self and other. For example, communication accommodation theory (Giles and Ogay 2007) or interaction adaptation theory (Burgoon, Stern, and Dillman 1995; Floyd and Burgoon 1999) could help further identify how individuals adjust communication during the interaction based on their perceptions of their interview partner’s communication behaviors. Also, interpersonal deception theory (Burgoon and Buller 1984) provides an interesting interactive theoretical framework regarding how individuals employ and detect genuine versus contrived communication behaviors during the course of an interaction; this research could be quite informative for interviewing, particularly as organizations want to hire the most qualified applicant over someone who is embellishing qualifications. Further, dialectic theory (Baxter 1990) would be useful in understanding the tensions that exist and influence communication behaviors between an interviewer and applicant in terms of information content and disclosures. Finally, Jablin (1987) readily identifies the interview as part of the anticipatory socialization stage in organizational assimilation theory, yet deeper analysis of communication disclosures and cues during the interview process may offer insight for applicants, interviewers, and other organizational members.

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Considering a larger organizational view of communication patterns and processes, organizational sensemaking theory (Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005) provides a fruitful way to explore how organizational members frame and make sense of the interview interaction over time through communication, meaningmaking, and the resulting processes supporting that understanding. Further, Giddens’ (1986) theory of structuration provides a lens to explore the duality of structure and the ways in which agents produce, reproduce, and resist organizational norms throughout interview communication exchanges that then relate to larger organizational discourses of structure. While these theoretical lenses are certainly not exhaustive, they illustrate that the communication field is well-poised to enhance the current understanding of interview processes as a unique interpersonal and organizational communication event. Communication competence, including effectiveness in reaching goals and appropriateness in meeting others’ expectations, weaves through the interview process and potential theoretical frames at multiple levels. However, as this chapter notes, although employment interviews are not heavily studied by communication scholars, research pertaining to verbal and nonverbal communication during the interview process is not lacking. Clearly interviews are a central process to organizations and individuals’ employment. What might be most exciting is the opportunity for interdisciplinary approaches to this important topic, enabling a more nuanced perspective on the interview process that spans across different fields of study. The research included in this chapter points to productive partnerships across disciplines to better understand the employment interview.

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Sherwyn P. Morreale

18 Instructional communication competence in higher education Abstract: Instructional communication is concerned with the processes related to teaching and learning and the communication competence of educators in all academic disciplines. In the communication discipline, the formal study of instructional communication dates back many years. This chapter provides an overview of the discipline’s main priorities and approaches to understanding communication competence in instructional settings in higher education. Historical developments, theoretical perspectives, and methodological traditions for studying instructional communication competence are described, including a set of core components of instructional communication competence. A discussion follows of interdisciplinary and international efforts in the area, then instructional communication competence is connected to valued life outcomes for students. Finally, recommendations for theory development and future research questions in this vital area of inquiry for teachers and administrators in higher education are provided. Keywords: classroom communication, communication education, communication pedagogy, instructional communication competence, instructional communication components, instructional communication history, instructional communication research, instructional communication theory, student communication competence, teacher communication competence

Instruction and teaching are inherently communicative acts. Without a doubt, a critical relationship exists between teaching and instructional communication competence, that is, what it means to teach effectively and appropriately. To understand the complexities of this relationship, this discussion begins by distinguishing among three different domains of scholarly inquiry that constitute communication education (Simonds and Cooper 2007). In the domain of communication pedagogy, scholars are concerned with appropriate and effective ways of teaching communication subjects, like public speaking, interpersonal and group communication, and mass and organizational communication. Scholars in the domain of developmental communication consider how people gain or develop communication skills, for example, how language development occurs in children or how students develop public speaking competence. In contrast to these two domains, instructional communication scholars are more interested in how communication is used to teach, regardless of academic discipline, like how math or physics teachers use communication, as well as communication teachers.

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If that is instructional communication, then competence in instructional communication can be understood by considering a conceptual definition and several descriptions of it. While precise definitions are scant in academic literature, one team of scholars offers the following, “Instructional communication competence is the teacher-instructor’s motivation, knowledge and skill to select, enact and evaluate effective and appropriate, verbal and nonverbal, interpersonal and instructional messages filtered by student-learner development and reciprocal feedback” (Worley et al. 2007: 208). This definition appears grounded in Spitzberg’s description of communication competence as the extent to which speakers achieve desired outcomes [effectiveness] through communication behavior acceptable to a situation [appropriateness] (Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge 2013; Spitzberg 2000). In the writing by Worley et al. (2007), award-winning teachers more simply state that instructional communication competence involves content knowledge and the ability to communicate that knowledge engagingly to students. Accordingly, competence is not centered in teachers, but in their ability to facilitate learning. Awardwinning teachers appear to enact this instructional communication competence in three ways. They understand the ebb and flow of the classroom context; they use a wide repertoire of communication behaviors; and they emphasize relationships, which are foundational to learning and a key outcome of instructional competence (Worley et al. 2007). Other prominent scholars, McCroskey, Richmond, and McCroskey (2006), take a somewhat different approach and clarify instructional communication competence as the third leg of a three-legged stool. The three legs are competence in the subject matter of interest, competence in pedagogy and teaching skills in general, and the third leg – competence in instructional communication and classroom communication. We now explore that “third leg” by highlighting historical developments, theoretical perspectives, and methodological traditions used for studying instructional communication and competence, including a set of core components of that competence. We then describe interdisciplinary and international efforts in this area of inquiry and valued life outcomes for students of instructional communication competence. We conclude with recommendations for future research in this vital area of inquiry.

1 Historical developments in instructional communication The historical roots of instructional communication competence date back to the beginnings of communication as a field and then a discipline (McCroskey, Richmond, and McCroskey 2006). In the early 20th century, the founders of the first professional association in the field (the Public Speaking Conference of the Eastern States, now the Eastern Communication Association), and the first national associ-

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ation of scholars of communication (the National Association of Teachers of Speech, now the National Communication Association), held teaching of speech as their central concern and area of research. The first journal published by the National Communication Association (NCA), the Quarterly Journal of Speech (1915 to present), concentrated mainly on understanding and improving public speaking instruction. Thus, the work of early instructional researchers, throughout the first half of the 20th century, was concentrated in the domain of communication pedagogy, speech, and public speaking. Not until the 1970s did communication scholars begin to turn their attention to instruction outside public speaking classrooms, to the role of communication in teaching in other subjects and other disciplines. In 1977, the first article on instructional communication used desired outcomes, what the researchers are trying to accomplish, to distinguish between communication pedagogy and instructional communication (Scott and Wheeless 1977). As already suggested, the former, communication pedagogy, contains scholarship directed toward the most appropriate and effective ways of teaching in communication curricula. In one such early study, McLaughlin and Erickson (1981) sought to identify the human relations skills of the ideal teacher in an interpersonal communication course. Among the findings, students in interpersonal courses perceived the use of integrative behaviors (participates, accepts differences, gives approval) as closer to their concept of the ideal teacher, rather than dominative behaviors (relocates, postpones, disapproves). According to Scott and Wheeless (1977), the desired outcome of scholarship in instructional communication is to discover how various communication variables impact learning processes, across and within all disciplines. For example, Smith and Land (1980) examined the impact of mathematics teachers’ use of mazes (false starts or halts in speech, redundant words, and words that do not make sense), vague terms in their language, and additional, unexpected content. The researchers considered the effects of these verbal behaviors, and of teacher clarity, on students’ evaluations of instruction and achievement in the math course. Among the findings was a cause–effect relationship between teacher mazes and student achievement, and to a less significant degree, a cause–effect relationship between teacher vagueness terms and student achievement. The teachers’ use of additional unexpected content had no significant effect on student learning. At around the same time that these studies appeared, the publication of the first book entirely concerned with instructional communication was fittingly entitled, Communication in the Classroom (Hurt, Scott, and McCroskey 1978). The historical development of instructional communication and instructional communication competence also can be traced by considering how the scholarly communication associations categorized the area of inquiry (McCroskey and McCroskey 2006). Prior to the 1970s, several professional associations had informal interest groups on instructional communication. But in 1972, through the efforts of Barbara Lieb Brilhart who worked in the NCA National Office and Robert Kibler

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(then of Florida State University), the International Communication Association (ICA) established the first Instructional Communication Division. Creation of that division legitimized research in the area of inquiry by providing for programs and paper presentations at the association’s annual convention. Then in 1977, ICA provided a national outlet for publication of instructional communication research in their Communication Yearbook series. By then, the third oldest journal published by the National Communication Association, Communication Education, had begun to accept scholarship on instructional communication as well as on public speaking and communication pedagogy. Journals sponsored by regional communication associations, like the Eastern Communication Association, also opened their pages to the work of scholars interested in how communication influences teaching and learning. Instructional communication research may not have gained an academic foothold until the 1970s, but it moved forward with alacrity. The scholarly associations themselves contributed to understanding instructional competence. In 1988, for example, the National Communication Association outlined a set of competencies teachers should use in order to enact competent classroom communication. Using a message-centered approach, NCA called for teachers to demonstrate communication competence, as outlined in Table 1, through their use of five types of communication messages (Cooper 1988). Today, the instructional communication divisions in most academic associations often are among the most active at regional, national, and international conventions. Tab. 1: Communication competencies for teachers. Type of Messages

Teachers should demonstrate competence in how they send and receive messages that:

Informative Messages Affective Messages Imaginative Messages Ritualistic Messages Persuasive Messages

Give or obtain information Express or respond to feelings Speculate, theorize, or fantasize Maintain social relationships and facilitate interaction Seek to convince

Source: Cooper 1988

As instructional communication research evolved, scholars who mainly focused on students’ public speaking skills and performance began to extend their scholarship to include communication apprehension, public speaking anxiety, and reticence. McCroskey (1976), one of the most prolific and influential researchers in this area, clarified apprehension and anxiety conceptually and authored many related studies. Other student factors that began to interest instructional communication scholars included characteristics like the gender, culture, and ethnicity of student populations (McCroskey, Richmond, and McCroskey 2006). Collier and Powell

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(1990), for example, examined the role of students’ ethnicity and instructional communication in classroom systems. Instructor factors of interest included behaviors like teachers’ use of power and affinity-seeking strategies, nonverbal immediacy, assertiveness, responsiveness cues, humor, and self-disclosure (McCroskey, Richmond, and McCroskey 2006). For example, McGlone and Anderson (1973) conducted an early investigation of teachers’ personalities and task-related behaviors, and dimensions of teacher credibility. Kher, Molstad, and Donahue (1999) investigated college teachers’ use of humor to enhance the effectiveness of their teaching in what they referred to as dreaded courses. Other characteristics of instructors such as their gender, sexual orientation, age, race, and accent more recently have been the subject of scrutiny (McLean 2007; Russ, Simonds, and Hunt 2002). In contrast with studies focused primarily on students or on teachers, Myers, Martin, and Mottet (2002) integrated a concern for student factors and a concern for instructor factors. These researchers explored how student motives to communicate with their instructors are influenced by perceptions of both instructor socio-communicative style and student socio-communicative orientation. Inherent in the majority of the more contemporary research studies is a concern for communication competence. While the term instructional communication competence may not be stated explicitly in the studies, improving communication and achieving communication competence typically is an implicit goal. A concern for using the results of such studies in order to communicate more competently, effectively, and appropriately is omnipresent in the work of scholars and researchers in this area of inquiry. Based on the historical evolution of this area of inquiry, we next discuss theoretical perspectives regarding instructional communication and competence. Instructional communication currently is considered a subfield in the communication discipline. Like other subfields, that status is confirmed by divisionality in leading scholarly associations, as well as by an evolving body of theories.

2 Contemporary theoretical perspectives and theories in instructional communication Over time, communication theorists have tried to explain competence in instructional communication in a variety of ways. Early in the 21st century, some scholars focused their work on developing descriptions of students’ communication competence – what college students need to learn in order to communicate well. Knowledge and skills about communication were explicated in lists of what college students should know and be able to do (Rubin and Morreale 2000), and descriptions of college students’ communication competence appeared in national and international encyclopedias (Morreale 2008, 2011). Assessing student learning of commu-

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nication knowledge and skills also took on importance for some researchers and theorists (Morreale and Backlund 2000), whereas others focused more on what teachers need to do in order to achieve effectiveness and communication competence (Cortez, Gayle, and Preiss 2006). The pedagogical issues underlying and influencing teacher effectiveness include, for example, the instructor’s ability to create and maintain productive classroom cultures and climates, teacher efficacy, credibility, and the effective use of pedagogical activities. Both sets of scholars, those interested in students’ competence and those interested in teachers’ competence, drew on theories from other disciplines such as education, psychology, educational psychology, and sociology. They also relied on two homegrown bodies of theory in the communication discipline – relational communication theories and rhetorical theories – to explore, explain, and predict what makes teaching and learning more productive (Beebe and Mottet 2009). In general, relational theories consider how people communicate interpersonally in relationships to manage their interactions with others. Rhetorical theories are more concerned with how people present messages to others, and how communication is used to influence others. Scholars interested in students’ processes of learning tend to use a relational perspective, which considers how students use verbal and nonverbal messages to interact with and relate to the teacher and one another. Scholars interested in what teachers should do tend to use a rhetorical perspective to examine how teachers use verbal and nonverbal messages to influence or persuade students to do and/or think what they want them to do and think. Greater clarity about the role of theory in instructional communication may be gleaned from considering three relevant theoretical paradigms or perspectives (Cortez, Gayle, and Preiss 2006), followed by contrasting a fourth and newer paradigm to those three. Then descriptions of categories of research, and specific theories proven useful to instructional communication researchers, are outlined. The first theoretical perspective, often referred to as the process–product paradigm, is based on the notion that teacher behaviors precede and are most responsible for student learning and achievement. Theorists and researchers taking this approach see teaching and learning as a process that includes the verbal and nonverbal messages teachers use to influence students. They measure learning as a product of what the teacher does (Beebe and Mottet 2009). Learning products may include a comparison of what students know before and at the end of a course of study, their perceptions of what they learn, or their affective responses to the learning process. The process–product paradigm is clearly grounded in a rhetorical perspective on teaching and learning, with the teacher as the agent of change and students as audience members who are influenced by the teacher. What the teacher does influences some aspect of affective, behavioral, or cognitive learning as the outcome. An example of this paradigm is an early study that examined the relationship between perceived teacher communication behavior and student perceptions

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of teaching effectiveness and student learning (Andersen and Norton 1981). Teachers who were perceived as having greater interpersonal solidarity and a more positive communicator style (more dramatic, open, relaxed, impression leaving, and friendly) were perceived as more effective. Positive perceptions of teacher communicator style resulted in greater student affect toward the instructor, the course content, and the overall course. A second theoretical perspective, a student-mediated paradigm, addresses what some see as a missing element in the more common process–product paradigm – students’ responsibilities in their own learning processes. Theorists and researchers using this approach focus on shifting the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student. Such scholars are concerned with what students bring to the learning process – their skills and willingness to learn and engage in new ideas and new ways of thinking. The research in this area also may explore how students’ personal traits or characteristics – for instance, age, gender, or ethnicity – might enhance learning outcomes despite any limitations in the learning environment. The student-mediated paradigm is grounded in a relational/interpersonal perspective and sees students’ motivation to learn as a strong influence and intermediary of teacher effectiveness. An example of this paradigm is a study by Canary and MacGregor (2008) in which the two researchers responded to what they described as a dearth in studies of student classroom behavior over the last twenty years, by contrast to teacher behavior. These researchers examined communicative differences between ideal students and less than ideal students and identified five sets of student behaviors: intellectually stimulated, participative, absent, confrontational, and silent. A third theoretical perspective, a culture-of-the-school paradigm, is concerned mainly with the impact of the educational situation and context on teaching and learning. Researchers and theorists committed to this approach believe the school environment and the culture in the classroom have a significant effect on students’ ability to engage in their own learning processes. Such scholars are interested in how academic institutions and faculty set rules and establish structures and norms that affect student learning. The culture-of-the-school paradigm posits that the situation and teaching and learning processes are designed in ways to either help or hinder student learning. An example of this paradigm is in a book chapter by McLean (2007) on student learning and the classroom management techniques that Asian female teachers use to establish credibility in the community college setting. McLean focuses on cultural diversity in higher education and how community colleges are working with the challenge of varying student demographics. This challenge is compounded when Asian-born instructors are teaching communication-related courses to a predominantly native English-speaking student body. A well-known theorist in the scholarship of teaching and learning arena saw some shortcomings in how these three theoretical perspectives interrelate. In point-

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ing to the inadequacies, Gayle (2004) proposed a different way to capture the richness of student–faculty interactions. Gayle’s recommended fourth approach, the interaction paradigm, states that both partners in the educational equation – teachers and students – have obligations and responsibilities to the instructional process. She describes three relational factors that affect the teaching and learning relationship: dialogue, community-building, and growth through collegiality. The strength of the interaction paradigm is that it simultaneously focuses on the relationship between teachers and students, the responsibilities of both partners in the teaching and learning process, and aspects of the environment and context in which teaching and learning occurs. A study in an online technology journal effectively illustrates this most recent theoretical paradigm (Edwards et al. 2011). The purpose the study by Edwards et al. was to examine sense of classroom community (the environment) as a mediating variable between teacher communicative behaviors (teacher confirmation) and positive student outcomes related to student motivation and affective learning. Results of the study show how instructors can use communicative behaviors to improve students’ sense of classroom community. In addition to reviewing these dominant theoretical perspectives, a look at published reviews of the most useful theories over time in instructional communication is informative. In 1977, during the decade of a surge in interest in instructional communication, the first published article in the area provided an overview of theory and research (Scott and Wheeless 1977). The authors called attention to the challenge of identifying specific instructional communication theories. Given the lack of identifiable theories, they also reviewed and classified programs of research on instructional communication into the six domains listed in column one of Table 2. Tab. 2: Categories of research on instructional communication in 1977 and 1984. 1977 categories of research

1984 categories of research

Teachers as sources and receivers Students as sources and receivers Message variables Learning strategies Media Feedback and reinforcement

Teacher characteristics Students characteristics Teacher strategies Speech criticism and student evaluation Speech content Speech communication programs

Sources: Scott and Wheeless 1977; Staton-Spicer and Wulff 1984

In 1984, two other instructional communication scholars revisited the challenge of categorizing and synthesizing theory and research, published from 1974 to 1982 (Staton-Spicer and Wulff). Like their predecessors (Scott and Wheeless 1977), these two scholars did not find identifiable instructional communication theories, and instead produced a somewhat different set of six categories of exist-

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ing research (see second column in Table 2). Also like their predecessors, the scholars pointed to a lack of a coherent theory for instructional communication and the need for more integration of research studies as a base for developing theory (Staton-Spicer and Wulff 1984). They called for the development of instructional communication theory that would help researchers more effectively explore, explain, and predict teacher and student communication. Moving forward, in 2001, a third systematic review of the instructional communication research literature, from the 1990s, did produce eleven categories of theories that have been tested in the instructional context or used to explain the effects and relationships of variables in research studies (Waldeck, Kearney, and Plax 2001). Table 3 identifies and describes each of the eleven categories of theories. The theories would not be considered instructional communication theories. Rather, they are multi-disciplinary theories that are highly relevant and useful to instructional communication research as the description of each theory indicates.

Tab. 3: Categories of theories in instructional communication research in the 1990s. Theories in instructional communication research

Description of theories and use by instructional communication researchers

Arousal Theory of Motivation (Gorham 1988)

According to this theory, individuals take certain actions to either decrease or increase their levels of arousal. This theory has been used to explain the impact of teacher nonverbal immediacy behaviors on students’ motivation to pay attention and learn.

ARCS Instructional Design Model (Keller 1987)

This model focuses on motivating people, with ARCS standing for: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction. It calls attention to teachers making material relevant to students, for example, in distance education where student motivation is key to learning.

Bases of Power (French and Raven 1959)

Five bases or sources of power include: Coercive, Reward, Legitimate, Referent, and Expert, plus a sixth distinct base of power: Informational. This conception is essential to the study of the impact of teachers’ use of power and influence on gaining students’ compliance and cooperation.

Attribution Theory (Heider 1958)

This theory states that individuals are highly motivated to make sense of the world around them by explaining or attributing the cause and effect of behaviors of others and themselves. For example, the theory has been used to examine students’ perceptions of the cause of any learning problems they may experience.

Expectancy and Learned Helplessness (Maier and Seligman 1976)

This theoretical perspective suggests that individuals learn to expect positive or negative outcomes as a result of their behaviors. When outcomes are not predictable, they learn helplessness. This theory has informed a long line of research on communication apprehension and how people learn public speaking anxiety.

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Tab. 3: (continued) Theories in instructional communication research

Description of theories and use by instructional communication researchers

Arousal Valence Theory (Andersen 1998)

Individuals hold expectations of their environments based on their cultural background, past experiences, the context, etc. This theory has been used to explain how students react and respond to teachers as a function of their distinct expectations in the learning situation.

Approach/Avoidance (Mehrabian 1971)

Individuals approach or move toward encounters they like and evaluate highly, and they avoid or move away from encounters they dislike or evaluate negatively. This notion has been used to explain many aspects of teacher–student interactions and relationships, for instance, the effects of teacher immediacy, student apprehension, and student willingness to communicate.

Information Processing Theory (Delia, O’Keefe, and O’Keefe 1982)

This theory is concerned with how people interpret messages based on their cognitive abilities and the complexity of the message. Instructional researchers have used this theory to study how factors like message complexity and motivation to process messages affect students’ apprehension in instructional situations.

Social/Learning/Cognitive Theory (Bandura 1977)

Individuals learn by observing others’ behaviors and how they manage problems, not by what they themselves do. This theory is considered particularly relevant to media studies focused on how television viewers learn about the world.

Cultivation Theory (Gerbner et al. 1994)

Individuals, particularly heavy television viewers, come to believe over time that the reality depicted in the media is truer than their own experiences. As media become more omnipresent in a technology-mediated society, this theory may take on more importance for instructional communication researchers.

Developmental Theories (Piaget 1977)

These theories hypothesize that as children develop, they become more sophisticated in their ability to differentiate among stimuli in their environments. Such theories have been used to study children’s development of communication competence, as well as the effects of their exposure to various media.

Source: Waldeck, Kearney, and Plax 2001

The three scholars who produced this list of theories also categorized instructional communication programs of research resulting in the six presented in Table 4 (Waldeck, Kearney, and Plax 2001). This most recent set of research programs is both similar to and, in some ways, different from the lists presented in 1977 (Scott and Wheeless) and 1984 (Staton-Spicer and Wulff). For example, and not surprisingly, pedagogical methods and technology is a new category in the 2001 list.

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Tab. 4: Programs of research on instructional communication in the 1990s. Programs of research – – – – – –

Student communication Teacher communication Mass media effects on children Pedagogical methods and technology Classroom management Teacher–student interaction

Source: Waldeck, Kearney, and Plax. 2001

Several observations emerge from this overview of theoretical perspectives and the theories used in instructional communication research. These are not novel comments in that the scholars who produced the descriptions of research categories in 1977 (Scott and Wheeless), 1984 (Staton-Spicer and Wulff), and 2001 (Waldeck, Kearney, and Plax) made some of the same observations. Research studies focused on instructional communication either test theories from other communication contexts, like interpersonal communication, or they draw on theories from other disciplines, like psychology and education. Indeed, most studies are theoretically grounded in borrowed theories. The borrowed theories have proven useful to instructional communication researchers, but this area of inquiry is entering its fifth decade of active and prolific research. It may be time to produce context-specific theories about instructional communication and begin to test those theories. Our discussion continues by considering research methods and models typically used in instructional communication.

3 Methodological traditions and research models in instructional communication As in most other areas of study in the discipline, three traditions have guided instructional communication research (Simonds and Cooper 2007). Instructional communication researchers have leaned, and perhaps still lean, most heavily on a positivistic tradition. Quantitative methods are used most often to investigate teacher and student communication and to test instructional communication theory (Beebe and Mottet 2009), though some researchers also have made use of interpretive and critical methods. Researchers in the positivistic tradition use quantitative methods to test hypotheses and answer research questions about classroom communication, students’ behaviors, and an array of variables related to teacher effectiveness. The goal of this

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tradition is to explain and make predictions about students’ and teachers’ communication behaviors that can be observed through systematic investigation using statistics and various computational techniques. Instructional researchers in this tradition investigate why some communication behaviors and interactions succeed and can be deemed competent, while others fail to achieve the communicators’ goals. One of the most popular designs for instructional communication research in the positivistic tradition is the experimental model, which is used when random assignment is possible. The experimenter controls and manipulates one or more variables in the learning environment in a way that is expected to have an effect on one or more learning outcomes. With regard to theory, the experimental research design is most in line with the process–product theoretical paradigm, in that the teacher behaviors precede and are expected to be most responsible for student learning and achievement. For example, an experimental study by Comstock, Rowell, and Bowers (1995) found a curvilinear relationship between teacher nonverbal immediacy behaviors and actual cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning. Teacher nonverbal immediacy was operationalized at three levels and acted out by a guest instructor in three, separate, ten-minute workshops. The content of each workshop was the same, but the teacher’s behavior exhibited varying levels of nonverbal immediacy. As predicted by the researchers, both low and high levels of teacher immediacy had negative effects on students’ motivation and actual cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning. More complex, and considered by some to be the gold standard for instructional research in the positivistic tradition (McCroskey, Richmond, and McCroskey 2006) is the split-class design. This design is intended to rectify confounding halo effects in traditional classroom research. If the same students complete both the measures about teachers’ communication behaviors and the outcome measures, a halo effect of an artificially-high relationship between behaviors and outcomes may confound the results. Using the split-class design, students are randomly administered different measures or instruments, rather than all students responding to the same measures. The class is split and half of the students respond to the measures of teachers’ communication behaviors and the other half respond to the study’s outcomes measures. Christophel (1990) introduced this design to instructional communication research in a landmark examination of immediacy and learning. Two studies investigated the relationship between teacher immediacy and student motivation and the combined impact of these factors on learning. Study 1 employed a more common design in which all students completed all instruments based on recalling learning experiences in a preceding class. Study 2 used a spit-class design in which the measurement instruments were randomly split between two groups of students in one intact class. The second study allowed Christophel to compare and test for possible halo effects between the split-class and the more traditional design. Corre-

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lations revealed significant relationships between learning and both immediacy and motivation in both studies. However, a noticeable difference was found in the correlations between verbal and nonverbal immediacy with motivation. Study 1 reported the highest simple correlation with verbal immediacy, while in Study 2 (split-class design) nonverbal immediacy was the highest simple correlation. Interestingly, the only distinguishable difference between the two studies was implementation of different measures to collect data. Researchers in the interpretive tradition use methods similar to qualitative inquiry with the goal of developing understanding of the deep meaning of classroom processes. This tradition assumes that reality is socially constructed, and the interpretive researcher is merely the vehicle through which reality is revealed. Meaning, or perceptions of reality, are negotiated or co-created by teachers and students in and through their interactions in and outside the classroom. The researcher’s interpretations, based on observing interactions, play a key role in this kind of research. The researcher warrants her or his conclusions by using rich descriptions of observations rather than statistical evidence, as in the positivistic tradition. Although statistics are not prohibited for interpretive research, their use is less frequent than in positivistic research. A research design well-suited to instructional research in the interpretive tradition is a naturalistic study. The researchers examine and study teacher and student communication interactions in their natural environment – typically the classroom. This type of research is often utilized in situations where conducting an experimental study is impractical, cost prohibitive, or would unduly affect the teachers’ or students’ communication behaviors. Naturalistic observations differ from experimental designs in the positivistic tradition in that they involve looking at and observing communication behaviors with no attempts at intervention on the part of the researcher. That is, the communication events would occur whether or not a researcher were there to observe them, so the observer comes to a naturally occurring encounter. The researcher’s interpretations of their observations then are used to draw conclusions about the communication behaviors of interest. With regard to theory, a naturalistic study may be most compatible with the interaction paradigm that focuses on relational factors among teachers and students, in particular settings that affect teaching and learning. An interpretive study conducted in a classroom at an Historically Black College and University exemplifies this tradition (Boone 2003). Boone examined the communicative impact of the Black English speech pattern, known as call-response, on African American students in their natural educational environment. The study clarified how this mode of discourse distinctly impacts the educational environment as experienced by an African American college professor and her students. Call-response is an African-derived communication process of verbal and nonverbal interactions in which the speaker’s statements (“calls”) are interspersed with expressions (“responses”) from the listeners. This type of reciprocal speech event

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serves to unite the speaker and the audience in a collective experience emphasizing community, with no sharp distinction between the speaker and the audience. Boone used detailed field notes, videotapes of classroom interactions, participant observation, and in-depth interviews to collect data for this study. Results of the study indicate that, by engaging in call-response, the students and instructor together benefited by sharing deeply embedded and unique African American cultural values. Finally, researchers in the critical tradition, unlike positivistic and interpretive researchers, are interested in challenging the values they deem inherent in the status quo of higher education. They see social influence and power in the classroom as mainly rested in the hands of teachers, administrators, and the academic institution. In general, critical researchers’ goals are to examine how any misuse of influence and power might affect the less empowered students based on factors like gender, sexual orientation, or ethnic status. Critical researchers in instructional communication examine the role of classroom communication in such misuse of influence and power. Those who embrace the critical approach to instructional communication are concerned about communication in the classroom that privileges existing social and political agendas. Methodologically, studies in the critical tradition typically are based on the direct participation of those whose reality is being studied – students, teachers, administrators – throughout the research process. However, the critical researcher surrenders his or her position of power and concentrates on challenging existing values and processes that may marginalize some student populations. One critical instructional study challenged communication research on “at-risk” students, as relying on misunderstandings of identity as stable traits and characteristics (Fassett and Warren 2005). The researchers explored educational identity using an indepth interview with an “at-risk” student. They challenged assumptions about educational success and failure of at-risk students, based on how a researcher’s ideology may affect perceptions of educational risk and at-risk students. Sprague (1992: 20), a notable critical scholar, poses six research questions, paraphrased below, that have been insufficiently explored by instructional communication researchers. The effect of not investigating questions such as these, according to Sprague, is the privileging of existing social and political arrangements. As these questions seem to suggest, the need is to first describe who is responsible for the current status of educational systems, rather than probe why the situation exists as it does. 1. If schools exist to serve limited interests and perpetuate existing social arrangements and norms, who decides what interests are served and what arrangements are preserved? 2. If teachers are not entertainers, information transmitters, or even systems managers, but are transformative intellectuals who can radically transform culture, what kind of culture do they want to create?

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3.

If development is not psychologically pre-programmed, but culturally and interpersonally shaped, then whose definition of competence and maturity should prevail? 4. If knowledge is not a given set of facts, but rather a socially constructed text, who decides what counts as knowledge in schools? 5. If language does not transmit meaning, but rather constitutes meaning, whose language and therefore whose meanings should guide educational dialogue? 6. If power is not a harmless tool used to manipulate others, but a subtle and pervasive social force, who deserves that power over students? Instructional communication researchers, whether using positivistic, interpretive, or critical methods, have tended to focus on several different variables that we might refer to as essential components of instructional communication competence. While this list is by no means exhaustive, the six core components described in Table 5 often are present, in varying degrees, in learning environments in which communication competence is practiced or observed (Beebe and Mottet 2009). Note, of course, that these core components primarily are about what instructors say and do, the rhetorical dimension of competence, rather than students’ communication competence in the classroom. Also note that these components could be

Tab. 5: Core components of instructional communication competence. Components of instructional communication competence

Description of the component

Immediacy (one of the most researched instructional communication variables)

The perception of physical and psychological closeness achieved by communication behaviors that enhance the quality of verbal and nonverbal interactions with another.

Affinity-seeking

Feelings of liking or attraction to the other person that result from verbal and nonverbal behaviors, which are used to develop high levels of attraction in a relationship.

Relational Power (including behavioral alteration techniques)

The ability to influence another person, either based on role or position or being trusted and liked.

Credibility

The perception of character, intelligence, and goodwill that a person is deemed to possess.

Clarity

Speaking articulately and audibly, staying on task, and using commonly understood vocabulary.

Humor

Humorous statements related to course material, nonverbal behaviors, self-deprecating humor, humorous props, sarcasm, and unintentional humor.

Source: Beebe and Mottet 2009

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positively or negatively affected by how competently instructors use communication technology in instructional settings. Using an understanding of methodological traditions and research models, the next question to consider is the extent to which work on instructional communication and competence is enhanced through collaboration across disciplines and nationalities.

4 Interdisciplinary and international efforts in instructional communication Most, if not all, academic disciplines care deeply about teaching their own subject matter. As evidence, scholarly examination of teaching often occurs within disciplines and disciplinary societies sponsor journals or other publications that address issues related to teaching and learning in their particular area of study (e.g., Academy of Management 2014; American Psychological Association 2014; National Association of Biology Teachers 2014; National Communication Association 2014). In addition, some national and international efforts have encouraged and supported multi-disciplinary inquiry over the years. The Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching Learning, for example, has in the past and still supports conversations about instruction across disciplines (see http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/ scholarship-teaching-learning). Even so, rich opportunities for more cross-fertilization of instructional communication with other disciplines abound. We have already suggested the extent to which education, as a field of study, and instructional communication are closely related. But a perfunctory review of primary journals and secondary summaries about teaching competence in the education field reveals scarcely a mention of scholarly inquiry about instructional communication competence, much less collaborative inquiry by the two disciplines. The following six categories and programs of research, pursued by communication scholars in the 1990s (from Table 4), certainly could enrich and be enriched by insights from scholars in education, sociology, psychology, and educational psychology. 1. Student communication 2. Teacher communication 3. Mass media effects on children 4. Pedagogical methods and technology 5. Classroom management 6. Teacher–student interaction Sociologists could collaborate with communication researchers on studies about the classroom as a social system, and the impact of socio-cultural communication

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behaviors on teaching and learning. The extensive body of communication research on the affective aspects of competence – willingness to communicate, communication apprehension and anxiety, approach and avoidance communication behaviors – could be deepened by more collaboration with scholars in psychology and educational psychology. Such collaborations would provide useful insights into the psychological underpinnings of motivation to communicate. Indeed, instructional communication studies often are informed by theory and research designs borrowed from other disciplines, but they are not sufficiently informed by multi-disciplinary collaboration and points of view. But, where and how has scholarship on instructional communication made a contribution outside communication studies? During the late 1980s, 1990s, and the first decade of the 2000s, instructional scholars advocated for communication in other disciplines on their campuses through the “Communication-Across-the-Curriculum” initiative. As part of that initiative, instructional communication experts, Darling and Dannels (2003), responded to requests from engineering education and industry to assist in developing better communication skills for engineers. Teams of engineering educators worked collaboratively with these communication scholars to incorporate speaking and writing in engineering education. Other similar cross-disciplinary work, based on communication-across-the curriculum, has flourished on college campuses, as described in a review of the initiative conducted by Dannels and Housley Gaffney (2009). In 2001–2002, another national initiative, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, added communication as one of the new disciplines from which Carnegie Scholars could be selected. The goal of the Carnegie Scholars Program was and still is to support scholarship that improves student learning and advances teaching in all disciplines and fields in higher education. Through the participation and contributions of the communication discipline’s first Carnegie Scholars, Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, Barbara Gayle, and Tracy Russo, communication research on instructional competence gained a wider national audience (Morreale 2001). Finally, we consider the visibility and positioning of instructional communication internationally. Just as there is some interest in instructional communication across disciplines, so too, there is an interest across nationalities and geographical boundaries. Since 2007, when the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning published its first issue, instructional communication researchers have served on the review board and published their work in this international electronic journal. In one of the first issues of the journal, U.S.-based scholar, Carrell (2007), described a naturalistic study and reflected on her undergraduate students’ shifts in perception, motivation, and learning, as a result of a university trip to the Amazon rainforest. Disciplinary associations and their educational journals also are internationalizing. For over a decade, the National Communication Association’s journal, Com-

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munication Education, has encouraged submissions of manuscripts authored or coauthored by researchers based in countries other than the U.S. and/or focused on topics of cross-cultural interest. In a study reported in Communication Education in 2001, Roach and Byrne compared student perceptions of three variables – instructors’ power, affinity-seeking behaviors, and nonverbal immediacy cues – in American and German classrooms. American instructors were perceived as significantly higher on the three variables, and American students reported significantly higher perceptions of cognitive learning than German students did. In 2002, also in Communication Education, Johnson and Miller expressed concern about the ethnocentricity of previous U.S.-based research on teacher immediacy behaviors and students’ perceptions of learning and teacher credibility. In a cross-cultural study of students from a university in the U.S. and a university in Kenya, the researchers identified a positive relationship between teachers’ verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviors and students’ perceptions of the teachers as more effective and credible in both countries. International research on communication and instruction is not limited to journals published in the U.S. by American academic associations. For example, in 2011, a study in the Chinese Journal of Communication examined the willingness to communicate of Chinese students studying English as a foreign language in a Chinese college classroom (Yu). Yu’s study found a direct influence of students’ selfperceived communication competence on their willingness to communicate in English. In 2012, a study in the International Journal of Educational Management investigated the challenges and obstacles faced by beginning teachers in higher education in Pakistan (Sarwar, Aslam, and Rasheed). These studies serve to illustrate that instructional communication scholarship is reaching a wider, more interdisciplinary, and international audience of readers. Given the expanded readership, we next consider the usefulness and value of communication instruction and communication competence to all students in higher education.

5 Instructional communication competence and valued life outcomes for students Instructional communication and students’ communication competence clearly are connected to valued life outcomes for students, both personally and professionally. One national study provides rationale for the claim that learning how to communicate competently, through communication pedagogy and instructional communication, is critical to students’ personal and professional success. Thematic analysis of 93 journal and newspaper articles, reports, and surveys points to the centrality of communication in developing the whole person, improving the educational en-

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terprise, being a responsible social and cultural participant in the world, succeeding in one’s career and in business, enhancing organizational processes and organizational life, and being able to address several newer concerns in the 21st century including health communication, crisis communication, crime, and policing (Morreale and Pearson 2008). This particular study, though insightful, does not directly address the impact of a teacher’s use of the core components of instructional communication competence (see list in Table 5) on students’ life outcomes. However, the earlier referenced studies in this writing, as well as several other recent research efforts, do suggest the six core components of instructional communication competence substantially impact student learning and thereby also may have a moderating effect on students’ future life outcomes. Table 6 summarizes the results of those studies, linking their findings to the six core components of instructional communication. The description of studies in Table 6 is illustrative and, by no means, a comprehensive meta-analysis of the expansive body of literature and studies on instructional communication. Such an analysis remains to be done, though this summary does suggest gaps and opportunities for future investigation. Immediacy, for example, appears to have gotten more attention as a core component of instructional communication, by contrast to the other components. These studies, as well as others over the years, do provide evidence that a teacher’s use of the six core components of instructional communication competence can have a positive impact on student learning. If a student in any discipline learns more pertinent information about their particular area of study, as a result of the teacher’s communication competence, other positive effects, professionally and personally, are bound to accrue. Longitudinal studies in higher education and across academic disciplines to support this broad claim do not exist. However, it is intuitively obvious that if a teacher has robust curricula but cannot communicate competently, some of the knowledge and associated positive life outcomes may be lost to some of the students. Conversely, a teacher with competent instructional skills, but without meaningful content, may teach enthusiastically but be of less real instructional benefit to the students. In combination, substantive content and instructional communication competence on the part of instructors should have moderating and positive effects on students’ ability to learn and then achieve valued outcomes in their personal and professional lives (Baron and Kenny 1986). We now have a general sense of instructional communication competence – descriptively, theoretically, methodologically, and across disciplines and geography. We also have summarized the core components of instructional competence and their value to teaching and learning in all disciplines. How then should researchers and scholars interested in instructional communication extend their work in order to contribute most usefully to this critical area of inquiry?

Findings of studies (dependent variables)

Christophel (1990) found significant correlations between teacher immediacy behaviors and student learning and motivation. Comadena, Hunt, and Simonds (2007) examined the effects of nonverbal immediacy, but clarity and caring as well, on student motivation, and affective and cognitive learning. The study found that the three predicting variables, most particularly teacher immediacy and clarity, played key roles in enhancing student learning. Comstock, Rowell, and Bowers (1995) identified a curvilinear relationship between teacher nonverbal immediacy behaviors and actual cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning. Johnson and Miller (2002) identified a positive relationship between verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviors and students’ perceptions of their teachers as more effective and credible, in universities in Kenya and the U.S. Mottet et al. (2007) investigated the effects of instructors’ nonverbal immediacy behaviors on students’ perceptions of instructor credibility in a course with a heavy workload. The study showed that the immediacy behaviors preserved students’ perceptions of instructors’ credibility and neutralized their concerns about the course workload. Roach and Byrne (2001) found a significantly higher impact on student learning, of instructors’ nonverbal immediacy cues, use of power, and affinity-seeking behaviors, in American classrooms by comparison to German classrooms.

Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds (2007) studied the effects of teachers’ use of self disclosure (an affinity-seeking behavior), via Facebook, on college students’ expectations about motivation, affective learning, and classroom climate Students who visited the Facebook page of a teacher high in self-disclosure, by contrast to those who did not, anticipated higher levels of motivation to learn, affective learning, and expectations of a more positive classroom climate. See also Comadena, Hunt, and Simonds (2007) and Roach and Byrne (2001) under Immediacy.

Fassett and Warren (2005) examined assumptions about educational success and failure of at-risk students, based on how a researcher’s ideology may affect perceptions of educational risk and at-risk students. Sprinkle et al. (2006) probed the impact of a teacher’s combined use of fear appeals (anti-social statements) and efficacy (pro-social statements) on students’ affective learning, motivation, and likelihood of taking another course from or visiting the instructor for help. The combined use of fear and efficacy interacted to positively influence students’ perceptions of the four outcome variables. See also Roach and Byrne (2001) under Immediacy.

Components (predictors of student learning)

Immediacy

Affinity-seeking

Relational Power

Tab. 6: Six core components of instructional communication competence and student learning.

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McGlone and Anderson (1973) were among the first researchers to separate the concept of teacher credibility from general source credibility. They investigated and discovered some moderating effects of college teachers’ personalities and taskrelated behaviors on students’ perceptions of teachers’ credibility over time. McLean (2007) examined classroom management techniques that Asian female teachers use to establish credibility. The study found that Asian-born instructors are particularly challenged when teaching communication courses to a predominantly native English-speaking student body. Russ, Simonds, and Hunt (2002) explored the influence of instructor sexual orientation on students’ perceptions of teacher credibility. The study found that students perceive a gay teacher as significantly less credible than straight teachers. See also Johnson and Miller (2002) and Mottet et al. (2007) under Immediacy.

Smith and Land (1980) examined the impact of mathematics teachers’ use of language, verbal communication, and clarity on students’ evaluations of instruction and achievement in a math course. The researchers observed a cause–effect relationship between the predictor and outcome variables. See also Comadena, Hunt, and Simonds (2007) under Immediacy.

Kher, Molstad, and Donahue (1999) observed that teachers’ appropriate and timely use of humor, in what they referred to as dreaded college courses, can foster mutual openness and respect and contribute to overall teaching effectiveness. Torok, McMorris, and Lin (2004) examined how students perceive college professors’ uses of various types of humor during class. Appropriately used, humor has the potential to humanize, illustrate, defuse, encourage, reduce anxiety, and keep people thinking.

Credibility

Clarity

Humor

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6 Priorities for future scholarship on instructional communication and competence The advantage of a review and synthesis of any scholarly field or subfield is that it gives the reviewer a new perspective on what is known and perhaps what needs to be known. The two early reviews of theories in instructional communication (Scott and Wheeless 1977; Staton-Spicer and Wulff 1984), expressed concern about a lack of a coherent theory for instructional communication and the need to integrate research studies as a base for theory development. Later, Waldeck, Kearney, and Plax (2001) made similar observations stating that instructional communication researchers either test theories from other communication contexts, or they draw on theories from other disciplines. Given that the first of these observations was proffered over thirty years ago, three priorities for instructional communication competence and for future scholarship are apparent. A need exists to: – Develop a coherent theory of instructional communication competence – not just instructional communication. – Test systematically the six core components of instructional communication competence, and their interactions, regarding their effectiveness and appropriateness to instruction across disciplines. – Apply the six core components of instructional communication competence to communication challenges teachers face in the 21st century.

6.1 Toward a theory of instructional communication competence Over the last several decades, researchers and scholars have issued calls for the development of a coherent theory of instructional communication. Most recently, Beebe and Mottet (2009: 356) claimed that, “… a unified theory of instructional communication has yet to emerge from the research”. We suggest here that the need is, more precisely, for a theory about instructional communication competence, which would explain what it means for instructors, and students, to communicate most competently in instructional settings. Such a theory could be developed and then tested based on the established body of scholarship on competent communication (Spitzberg 2000), and from the findings of researchers who have identified the six core components of instructional communication (Beebe and Mottet 2009). Spitzberg’s (2000) theoretical description of communication competence, as effectiveness and appropriateness, and Beebe and Mottet’s (2009) description of six core components of instructional communication (see Table 5) could be incorporated into theoretical propositions about instructional communication competence, such as the following: 1. Teachers who display communication competence effectively achieve their desired goals for students using verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors

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considered appropriate to the particular learning situation and context. These teachers incorporate into their teaching praxis the six core components of instructional communication: immediacy, affinity-seeking, relational power, credibility, clarity, and humor. The use of the six core components of instructional communication, verbally and nonverbally in instructional contexts, increases the likelihood of teachers being perceived as competent (i.e., appropriate and effective), thereby increasing the likelihood of improved student learning and relational outcomes.

6.2 Testing core components of instructional communication competence across disciplines The effects of teachers’ use of the six core components of instructional communication, individually and interactively, have been investigated in a variety of studies over the years. However, most of the studies that resulted in the development of the list of core components occurred in communication classes and only in a limited manner in other disciplines. Since instructional communication scholars are interested in how communication is used to teach, regardless of academic discipline, the components need to be applied and tested systematically in a variety of other disciplines. Although disciplinary effects in the use of the core components is not a surety, in order for instructional communication scholarship to be most valuable across higher education, research questions, such as the following, could be investigated: 1. To what extent, if at all, do the six components of instructional communication – immediacy, affinity-seeking, relational power, credibility, clarity, and humor – vary in effectiveness and appropriateness, depending on the academic discipline? 2. Based on academic discipline, which of the six core components most effectively encourages and promotes student learning? 3. Based on academic discipline, which of the six core components least effectively encourages and promotes student learning? 4. Based on academic discipline, are there any “missing components” of instructional communication competence?

6.3 Application of core components of instructional communication competence to instruction in the 21st century The effectiveness and appropriateness of the six core components of instructional competence, individually or collectively, also could be investigated with regard to the instructional challenges teachers in higher education nowadays face. Those

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challenges include but are not limited to new and emerging instructional technologies, globalization of educational institutions, and diversity in college classrooms. Moreover, assessment opportunities and challenges abound in higher education and answers to research questions, such as the following, could help respond to those mandates: 1. To what extent, if at all, do the six components of instructional communication – immediacy, affinity-seeking, relational power, credibility, clarity, and humor – vary in effectiveness and appropriateness, if the instructional context is technology-mediated? 2. To what extent, if at all, do the six components of instructional communication – immediacy, affinity-seeking, relational power, credibility, clarity, and humor – vary in effectiveness and appropriateness, if the instructional context is a global educational institution? 3. To what extent, if at all, do the six components of instructional communication – immediacy, affinity-seeking, relational power, credibility, clarity, and humor — vary in effectiveness and appropriateness as a function of diversity, such as gender of students, gender of teacher, race or ethnicity of students or teacher, or sexual orientation of students or teacher?

7 Summary and future directions We began our discussion of instructional communication by referring to teaching as a communicative act. It therefore falls to communication researchers to continue studying the critical relationship between communication and instructional competence. In discussing the historical development of instructional communication, we noted that communication scholars first concentrated their work in the domain of communication pedagogy, focusing on speech and public speaking. Then, by the 1970s, they turned their attention to the role of communication in teaching in other disciplines. Regional, national, and international academic associations, and their scholarly journals, supported the work of the instructional communication researchers. The theoretical perspectives that have characterized their efforts include the process–product paradigm, student-mediated paradigm, culture-of-the-school paradigm, and, more recently, the interaction paradigm that focuses on both partners in the educational equation, teachers and students, and on the teaching and learning process. By the 1990s, eleven categories of theories were identified as useful in instructional research, as well as six types of research programs: student communication, teacher communication, mass media effects on children, pedagogical methods and technology, classroom management, and teacher–student interaction. Methodological traditions and research models that have guided instructional communication research over time include the positivistic, interpretive, and

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critical traditions. That research has been only somewhat interdisciplinary and international with the exception of initiatives like those of the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and communication-across-the-curriculum. Most recently, in 2009, six variables, referred to here as essential or core components of instructional communication competence, were outlined: immediacy, affinity-seeking, relational power, credibility, clarity, and humor. Communication researchers have studied the direct impact of teachers’ use of these core components on student learning, but not their impact on students’ future life outcomes. A coherent theory of instructional communication competence is yet to be advanced, and some of the research questions recommended here are in need of further investigation. Nonetheless, communication scholars have contributed immensely to understanding the role of communication in teaching and learning. This review intends to support and inform those scholars, as they actively engage in instructional communication research intended to improve teacher–student communication in higher education in all academic disciplines. We close this discussion, as we began it, metaphorically. Recall that McCroskey, Richmond, and McCroskey (2006), referred to instructional communication as the third leg of a three-legged stool, the third leg being competence in instructional communication and classroom communication. We choose chair as our metaphor, using the six core components of instructional competence! C H A I R

= = = = =

clarity and credibility humor affinity-seeking immediacy relational power

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19 Managing uncertainty in clinical encounters Abstract: One of the most understudied and problematic aspects of communication skills in medical encounters is the management of uncertainty. This chapter reviews evidence related to theories of uncertainty in health and illness, different sources of uncertainty, the psychosocial effects of medical uncertainty, and communicative skills clinicians can use to assist patients 'manage' uncertainty. We then demonstrate how these communication skills can be learned and routinely applied in delivery of health care in order to improve health outcomes. We conclude with particular priorities for future research exploring uncertainty management in clinical encounters. Keywords: managing uncertainty, communication competence, cognitive communication skills, affective communication skills, communication skill training

1 Introduction Uncertainty is inherent in all health and illness experiences (Babrow and Kline 2000). Previous research has explored uncertainty in a variety of health and illness contexts including pregnancy and breastfeeding, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, genetic diseases, and especially cancer (see, for example, Brashers et al. 2000, 2003; Dean 2014; Ellington et al. 2011; Han et al. 2011; Koerber, Brice, and Tombs 2012; Matthias and Babrow 2007; Middleton, La Voie, and Brown 2012; Miller 2014; Parrott, Peters, and Traeder 2012). Because uncertainty is inherent, it frequently cannot be completely eliminated (Epstein and Street 2007). A newly diagnosed cancer patient may experience uncertainty about survival, which may be mitigated by engaging in treatment, but then at the end of treatment, she may worry about reoccurrence. Likewise, a person living with diabetes may experience uncertainty regarding symptoms, which may be resolved after talking with a clinician, but then worry about the disease’s impact on life expectancy and mortality (Middleton, La Voie, and Brown 2012). As such, communicative skills for managing uncertainty are essential (Babrow, Kasch, and Ford 1998). Unfortunately, managing uncertainty is one of the most understudied and problematic aspects of communication skills in medical encounters (Decker, Haase, and Bell 2007; Epstein and Street 2007; Politi and Street 2011b), and the specific strategies with which to manage uncertainty are poorly understood (Bailey et al. 2004; Mishel 1999).

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The purpose of this chapter is to review the uncertainty management literature. Specifically, we present evidence related to theories of uncertainty in health and illness, different sources of uncertainty, the psychosocial effects of medical uncertainty, and communicative skills clinicians and patients can use to manage the uncertainty. We then discuss how such skills can be learned and routinely applied in health care delivery in order to improve health outcomes. Finally, we conclude with particular priorities for future research exploring uncertainty management in clinical encounters.

2 Uncertainty 2.1 Theories of uncertainty in health and illness Uncertainty has been conceptualized in several different ways. Broadly, uncertainty occurs when an individual believes certain aspects of an illness (e.g., prognosis, treatment, or recovery) are inconsistent, too complex, unknown or unclear, and unpredictable or random (Mishel et al. 2005). Despite the varying definitions of uncertainty, there are three important theories that seek to explain uncertainty in the health care context – the theory of uncertainty in illness (Mishel 1988), problematic integration theory (Babrow 1992), and theory of uncertainty management (Brashers et al. 2000). The Theory of Uncertainty in Illness (TUI) proposes that uncertainty is produced when an individual’s present experience regarding the nature of an illness lacks a complete cognitive representation. In other words, some component(s) of the illness event are missing such that an individual does not have a sufficient understanding of factors related to her health and well-being (Mishel 1988). There are three important components of this uncertainty. The first component, symptom patterns, refers to an individual’s ability to recognize symptom patterns regarding her intensity, frequency, predictability, and expected outcomes. The second component, event familiarity, is the ability to organize an illness event within the context of a time and place. Lastly, event congruence refers to an individual’s ability to comprehend the consistency between what is expected and what actually is experienced for an illness-related event. Thus, according to TUI, when a patient is uncertain, she is not able to form cognitive representations for her illness due to little or no information, knowledge, or experience with the symptoms and/or how to manage the uncertainty (Mishel 1988; Mishel and Braden 1987). Failure to effectively manage this uncertainty can result in poor decision-making, negative psychosocial consequences, and lower quality of life (Christman et al. 1988; Mishel 1999; Wong and Bramwell 1992). In terms of managing the uncertainty, patients need to perceive their clinicians to be credible sources for information in helping them comprehend and make

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meaning out of their illness and choose the best course of therapeutic action (Mishel 1990). Patients also rely on other resources for understanding and interpreting issues related to their health including the Internet, print, audio, or video materials, friends and family, and cultural and religious beliefs (Sparks and Villagran 2010). In short, the relationship between uncertainty and stress is influenced by the vagueness of events and a lack of comprehensible and coherent information (Mishel 1984). The second theory is Problem Integration (PI) theory. This theory explains that individuals orient their lives in terms of expectations and evaluations; it seeks to understand how people seek information to manage their uncertainty when dealing with an illness (Babrow 1992, 1995, 2001). There are two main components of PI – probabilistic orientations and evaluative orientations. Probabilistic orientations are rooted in cognition and refer to the likelihood that an event or issue may occur in an individual’s lifetime. Evaluative orientations are rooted in emotions and refer to the assessment of the desirability of a possible outcome. In other words, uncertainty arises when individuals’ judgments about the likelihood of wanted or unwanted outcomes are incompatible (Babrow 2001; Sparks and Villagran 2010). PI theory offers several advantages to understanding uncertainty in clinical encounters. One advantage is that it provides clinicians with multiple explanations for different kinds of uncertainties that can coexist on many levels (Hines et al. 2001). For example, a cancer patient may be uncertain about what course of treatment to take. This uncertainty may exist because, on one level, the patient is overwhelmed with the amount of information provided about each possible treatment; while at the same time, she may be uncertain about whether the treatment strategy will rid her of the illness. Second, PI theory assists in understanding the relational context of uncertainty as patients and clinicians must work through the uncertainty together to achieve a shared understanding of the problem and decide on appropriate actions to take to address the problem. Third, it emphasizes the importance of communication as a resource for managing uncertainty (Babrow 1995; Sparks and Villagran 2010). In sum, PI theory asserts that communication shapes our perceptions of the world especially as it relates to problematic integrations (Babrow 2001). The last theory is Uncertainty Management Theory (UMT). This theory speaks to communication and uncertainty management. According to Brashers and his colleagues (2000), uncertainty management means making specific choices based on the perceived threat and information. Said differently, individuals assess their uncertainty in order to determine potential harm and benefits. Such assessments are intertwined with emotions such as anxiety and worry but also hope and optimism. Individuals’ assessments and emotional responses then produce possible routes of behavior and psychological actions to manage the experienced uncertainty. There are two main types of uncertainty management – information seeking and information avoidance (Brashers et al. 2003). Though both strategies can assist

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in managing uncertainty, each has their own purposes. The goal of information seeking is typically to reduce uncertainty, whereas the goal of information avoidance is to retreat from overwhelming or distressing information. In this way, a key tenet of UMT is that uncertainty management is not equivalent to uncertainty reduction. When the threat of information is perceived high, then individuals might seek out contrary information to increase the uncertainty and ultimately reduce the threat (Brashers et al. 2000). For example, a person who may worry about having an HIV infection from unprotected sex may increase uncertainty so as to reduce the threat of testing positive for HIV/AIDS. In short, successfully managing uncertainty involves “the negotiation of identity, relationships, levels of knowledge, and physical and psychological well-being” (p. 81). Taken together, these theoretical perspectives emphasize three important aspects of medical uncertainty. First, although uncertainty at any one point in time may be reduced and sometimes eliminated, more often it ebbs and flows over time. For instance, a cancer patient’s uncertainty about the treatment experience may be reduced when her treatment is completed; however, a different form of uncertainty emerges when she is no longer actively participating in treating the cancer and consequently worrying about future recurrence. Second, people differ in their preferences for managing uncertainty such that sometimes individuals choose to maintain or even increase their uncertainty as a management mechanism (Bylund et al. 2012). For example, a patient may know his partner has tested positive for HIV/ AIDS but decide not to be tested because he does not want to burden himself with the knowledge of having the virus. Lastly, uncertainty cannot always be eliminated and therefore must be managed communicatively (Epstein and Street 2007). Overall, patients will make various decisions to manage uncertainties in an effort to maximize their health and well-being, and clinicians must determine their patients’ preferences in order to assist them in managing those uncertainties.

2.2 Sources of uncertainty Previous research has established different sources of uncertainty. Many sources relate to the amount or quality of available information. Informational uncertainty is caused by unusable, inapplicable, or even unavailable scientific evidence (Politi, Lewis, and Frosch 2013). For example, a treatment might be relatively new and thus clinical evidence is lacking (Truog, Campbell, and Curtis 2008), and this unavailable data might cause clinicians to feel unprepared to talk about the new treatment with a patient (Brehaut et al. 2008; Davison et al. 2006). Ambiguity uncertainty is defined as uncertainty related to conflicting evidence or strength of evidence. Missing or inconsistent data, differences in study results, and conflicting clinical recommendations produce ambiguity uncertainty (Politi, Lewis, and Frosch 2013; Politi and Street 2011a, 2011b; Politi, Han, and Col 2007). In other words, these sources of uncertainty can be evoked by too little information, complicated or con-

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flicting information, or too much information (Brashers 2001; Epstein and Street 2007; Mishel 1999; Shaha et al. 2008). Finally, there is also uncertainty related to the likelihood of future health states. Stochastic uncertainty refers to being uncertain about future outcomes or events related to an illness and/or its treatment (Politi and Street 2011a, 2011b; Politi, Lewis, and Frosch 2013). For instance, how likely it is that an individual will get cancer or that a cancer treatment will cure the disease. Yet much of the current research on medical uncertainty focuses on communicating risk. Politi, Han, and Col (2007) identify the following sources of such uncertainty: 1. anticipated future risks; 2. ambiguity regarding risks’ strength or validity; 3. personal risk significance (e.g., timing); 4. complex risk information (e.g., multiplicity, instability, etc.); and 5. ignorance. Han and colleagues (2011) extended these conceptions of medical uncertainty to include the decision-making process as well as medical and organizational features of health care institutions. Uncertainty exists on a continuum from disease-centered to patient-centered. Diseasecentered uncertainty focuses on scientific or data-centered issues including diagnosis, prognosis, causal explanations, and treatment recommendations (e.g., risk information, estimates of outcome probability). Practical or system-centered uncertainty relates to the structures and care processes (e.g., what care does the patient need and how does she get it). Lastly, personal or patient-centered uncertainty refers to psychosocial and existential issues and concerns related to a patient’s unique situation, and how the patient perceives and manages the uncertainty (e.g., preventive actions, spirituality) (Han et al. 2011). In sum, medical uncertainty is caused by several factors and centers around different illness issues. Uncertainty stems from potential unknown outcomes, ambiguous symptoms, the unpredictable course of the illness, the treatment and recovery’s intensity and timing, and concerns regarding illnesses’ impact on social, cognitive, and emotional functioning (Stewart, Lynn, and Mishel 2010).

2.3 Psychosocial effects of medical uncertainty Uncertainty can be attributed to feeling unsure about the “best” course of action or choice to make in a situation (Shaha et al. 2008) due to a lack of information in the present and about the future. This feeling of being unsure and uncertainty’s unpredictability can cause several detrimental effects including, but not limited to, the following: emotional distress, anxiety, stress, and depression (Christman et al. 1988; Neville 1998; Shaha et al. 2008; Stewart, Lynn, and Mishel 2010). Said differently, incompetently managed uncertainty in clinical encounters leads to psychological and emotional distress when coping resources are lacking or inadequate to resolve uncertainty or when it is not possible to manage the negative emotions associated with uncertainty (Mishel 1988; Stewart, Lynn, and Mishel 2010).

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Also, because medical decisions are often based on uncertain or unknown evidence (BMJ Clinical Evidence 2007; Peters et al. 2007), patients can have a difficult time making medical choices (Mishel 1999; Politi and Street 2011b; Wong and Bramwell 1992). It would make sense then that clinicians would explicitly discuss uncertainty, yet uncertainty is rarely discussed in clinical encounters (Politi, Han, and Col 2007). Clinicians may avoid such conversations for a variety of reasons including the following: previous medical training emphasizing certainty (Johnson et al. 1988), fear that discussing uncertainty will result in more anxiety (Babrow and Kline 2000; Brashers 2001), or personal discomfort with uncertainty due to paternalistic decision-making styles (Légaré et al. 2006). Lastly, incompetently managed uncertainty may result in loss of control (or sense of control), low resourcefulness, and lower quality of life. For example, Dirksen (2000) found uncertainty among breast cancer survivors was a significant predictor of low resourcefulness, meaning the more uncertainty survivors experienced the less they felt in control of their circumstance and future. However, when survivors had resources (e.g., social support), they were better able to cope and manage their uncertainty. Finally, uncertainties related to illness can complicate relationships by adding a level of stress, whether with clinicians, family members, friends, or coworkers, which in turn can complicate treatment and aggravate the illness (Ford, Babrow, and Stohl 1996). In short, medical uncertainty is evident when an individual’s information about illness is unclear, inconsistent, unpredictable, or too complex. Such uncertainty results in negative psychosocial effects including emotional distress, low quality of life, poor decisions, and loss of control. In order to manage such medical uncertainty, clinicians can engage in particular communication strategies, and communication strategies for managing uncertainty can best be described within a conceptual framework of communication competence.

3 Communication competence and the management of uncertainty 3.1 Communication competence as a process and as an outcome Communication competence traditionally has been conceptualized in two main ways – as an individual outcome (e.g., competent communication) and as a process (e.g., communicating competently) (Street 2003). Communication competence as an outcome can be defined as the communicator’s success in accomplishing personal and relational goals when interacting appropriately with others (Parks 1994; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984; Street 2003; Wiemann 1977). Importantly, communicative “success” is a perception, and these perceptions can arise from many

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different perspectives (e.g., the patient, the clinician, an observer, etc.), all or none of which may be consistent with another (Street and de Haes 2013). For example, a clinician may believe she effectively helped a patient manage her uncertainty about a hip replacement as treatment for osteoarthritis, while the patient may feel the clinician did not listen to her preferences or concerns about other treatment options such as pain management and exercise. Furthermore, the clinician may perceive that her communication behaviors appropriately followed what is expected in a medical interaction, but the patient may perceive the clinician’s communication violated accepted norms. Lastly, a particular perspective (e.g., the patient’s, a preceptor’s) may be privileged over others (e.g., the clinician’s) depending on authority granted to the evaluator (Street 2003; Street 2013). So, in an ideal sense, competent communication from this perspective occurs when relevant stakeholders mutually perceive that relevant personal and relational goals are achieved through communication that follows the accepted normative behaviors for a medical interaction. With respect to communication competence as a process, one approach is to look at what attributes individual communicators must have in order to communicate competently. One such attribute is motivation, an individual’s desire to communicate in effective and appropriate ways. Without such motivation, a communicator may apply insufficient effort to achieve desired personal and relational goals in the interaction. Second, communicators also need the knowledge or cognitive understanding required to communicate effectively, which includes knowledge about the topic, the interlocutors, situational exigencies, and the communicative tactics that could help achieve the goals of the encounter (Greene 1984). Finally, an individual’s communicative skills refer to her ability to produce the communication behaviors effectively in real time (Greene 1984; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984). The limitation of this approach to communication competence is that it downplays the creative and interactional aspects by which effective interaction is achieved. Communicating competently is constitutive, meaning it is collaboratively constructed during interactions. For instance, achieving a shared understanding about a health problem (e.g., treating hypertension) requires the clinician and patient to communicate with each other in a way that accomplishes that understanding (e.g., clinician gave clear explanation of risks of high blood pressure and treatment options; patient states her preferences and asks questions about what she did not understand). In other words, competent communicators do not exist in isolation, and interactants must work together to accomplish a common goal (Street and de Haes 2013). Thus, while individuals must have the individual capacity to communicate competently (sufficient motivation, knowledge, and skills), ultimately the success of the encounter is jointly achieved through the communicative exchange of the participants (Salmon and Young 2011). Thus, in this chapter, we approach competent communication with respect to managing uncertainty from a functional communication perspective – one that embraces communication competence as both process and outcomes – which is discussed next.

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3.2 A functional approach to communication competence In our view, a functional approach to communication focuses on the key tasks or “work” communication must do well in order to achieve the interaction’s goals. While there could be any number of important communicative tasks in clinician– patient care, Epstein and Street (2007) identify six key functions – effective information exchange, fostering healing relationships, responding to emotions, making quality decisions, enabling patient self-management, and with respect to this chapter, managing uncertainty. Street and de Haes (2013) have in turn proposed a theory-driven functional approach to conceptualizing communication skills as a situation-specific, goal-oriented process (see also, Hulsman 2009; Rao et al. 2010) intended to achieve immediate (e.g., shared understanding, trust, reassurance) or intermediate (e.g., commitment to treatment, self-care skills) outcomes that improve patients’ health and well-being (see, for instance, Street et al. 2009). The functional approach to conceptualizing communication skills is in contrast to a consensus approach (see, Bachmann 2013, for an example). In a consensus approach, the most crucial medical communication elements are discussed and determined by a group of experts over time. The advantage here is the final agreed upon elements reflect a diverse number of educators’ and scholars’ expertise and experiences (Street and de Haes 2013). However, just because a clinician may be knowledgeable in competent communication skills does not mean she can enact them; furthermore, there is no guarantee for improved health outcomes due to the lack of situational and contextual factors. Table 1 provides an overview of the differences between these two approaches to communication skills. Since functional, competent communication is situation-specific, communicative capacity is a skill set that is distinctive from communicative outcomes (Epstein and Street 2007; van den Eertwegh et al. 2013). One’s repertoire of communicative

Tab. 1: Functional vs. Consensus Approach to communication skills. Functional Approach to communication skills

Consensus Approach to communication skills

– Theory drives communication skills and subsequent outcomes – Desired tasks or goals are important to understand in order to know what communication skills to enact – Breakdown of goals and associated communication skills increases success of improving health outcomes – Skills are used based on particular circumstances and contexts

– Consensus provides a variety of different experts’ knowledge and experiences – Knowledge is considered the basis for demonstrating communication skills – Good diverse range of communication skills in repertoire but no guarantee of being able to enact them – No guarantee of improvement in health outcomes due to lack of contextual and situational factors

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skills represent one’s cognitive and behavioral capacity to perform potentially desirable behaviors (e.g., drawn from one’s communicative “tool box”), whereas communicative competence refers to the extent to which situationally appropriate behaviors were deployed, in conjunction with those of interlocutors, to achieve the encounter’s desired goals (e.g., communicative outcomes such as mutual understanding, agreement on a course of action) (Hulsman 2009). With the communication function managing uncertainty, Street and de Haes (2013) identify important clinician communication skills (e.g., explaining information to minimize uncertainty, talking about the uncertainty and formulating a plan to deal with it, and discussing why certain uncertainty is related to the patient’s health and/or healthcare), which are in turn associated with particular functional outcomes (e.g., less uncertainty about health and healthcare, effective management with uncertainty, and clear understanding of the reasons for uncertainty). For instance, in the context of cancer and genetics, if it is important to explore how a patient is managing the uncertainty about being informed of tests indicating a high genetic risk for breast and ovarian cancer, then the goal is accomplished whether she self-initiates a discussion of her concerns with the clinician, or whether the discussion is prompted by the clinician (e.g., “How are you managing knowing your cancer risk?”). Thus, communicating competently necessitates specific skills that could be useful in the management of uncertainty. But it also requires the ability to assess whether the skills needed for a particular situation were deployed so that uncertainty was managed satisfactorily. We now discuss cognitive, affective, and behavioral communicative skills that for competently managing medical uncertainty.

3.3 Communication skills clinicians may utilize to assist patients manage uncertainty In this section, we discuss communication skills clinicians can engage in to assist their patients in managing medical uncertainty. Previous research (see Camerer and Weber 1992; Han, Moser, and Klein 2006; McCormack et al. 2011; Politi, Han, and Col 2007) suggests three types of domains for managing uncertainty: 1. cognitive skills, 2. affective skills, and 3. behavioral skills. Cognitive communication skills encompass recognizing and identifying sources of uncertainty. Affective communication skills address emotional issues through acknowledgement and validation, active listening, and empathy. Behavioral communication skills include providing information, offering resources, and teaching patients self-management skills. Table 2 provides some examples of these skills as applied to clinician–patient interactions. These examples, however, should not be used as standard language but rather in a flexible manner to determine patients’ preferences. Before discussing specific communication skills for managing uncertainty, it is important to note that the quality of the clinician–patient relationship, specifically

Acknowledgement and Validation: Recognizing and affirming displayed uncertainty.

Affective

Behavioral

Identification: Recognizing medical uncertainty, identifying the sources of the uncertainty, and confirming understanding of the uncertainty

Cognitive

P: I am so scared about the future. Lupus? It’s a lifelong disease. I looked online, and there are so many treatments and all have a number of side effects. Where do we start? How long do we wait to see if something works? And some treatment involves chemotherapy agents!! I’m just overwhelmed. C: Mmm (nodding). I can understand why you would be concerned about a future reoccurrence given your family’s history. P: I mean how do I live with worrying all the time? C: I know it is difficult to function daily with such a burden. Remember, I am here to support you as your clinician (gently touches the survivor’s arm with her hand). Can you think of anything I can do to help you cope with this uncertainty?

P: I have been reviewing the material you gave me last week on HIV/AIDS, and it seems like there is some conflicting recommendations for a person in my position. I mean how am I supposed to deal with this if there’s inconsistent evidence? C: Just to clarify, it sounds like you are concerned about the conflicting information regarding prognosis. Is that correct? P: Right.

Sample conversation

Information: Providing P: I am so overwhelmed with all of the decisions I have to make now that we have the results from the biopsy. detailed, clear content in Do I choose to only have surgery, or do I have chemotherapy and surgery, or do I have surgery, chemotherapy, understandable ways and radiation? based on preferences. C: I know it is a lot to handle at the moment. I can provide you with lots of information about each type of treatment option based on your biopsy results. Once you read and understand the information, then we can talk more about it, and see if you have any questions. P: That sounds like a good plan. Thank you!

Empathy: The process where one shares and understands another’s emotions and thoughts.

Communication skill

Domain Category

Tab. 2: Communicative skills for managing uncertainty.

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Self-management: The ability to self-manage one’s illness through navigating the healthcare system, seeking information, dealing with side effects, and finding help when needed.

Offering resources: Giving additional resources to the patient like counseling or social support groups

C: I understand that you are trying to deal with the possibility of being diagnosed with cancer in the future. There are several self-care skills you can practice to assist in reducing that uncertainty. P: OK … (a bit hesitant) C: For example, you might try journaling when it feels like your thoughts will not go away. Get it all out on paper and see it there. Once it’s out, leave it there on the page. Then try to mediate on the positive – you have NOT been diagnosed with cancer; you simply have a high risk, and there are lots of things we can do together to help make sure you never have to deal with the effects of cancer. P: I guess that makes sense … Alright, I will try the next time and see if those ideas help at all. C: There are also several support groups for people like you. I can provide you with a list, if you would like? P: Yes, that sounds good.

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as it relates to trust and shared understanding, is essential to assisting patients manage their uncertainty (Arora 2003; Mishel et al. 2005; Quill and Suchman 1993). Clinicians can engage in particular patient-centered communication strategies such as validating patients’ uneasiness with uncertainty, involving patients in decision-making, and clarifying values and goals in order to reduce the negative health impacts of uncertainty (Han 2013; Politi and Street 2011a, 2011b). Furthermore, clinicians must acquire some insight, either directly or indirectly, regarding patients’ preferences in order to determine how best to deal with the patients’ uncertainty both short-term and long-term (Hoff and Hermeren 2011).

3.3.1 Cognitive communication skills for managing uncertainty Cognitive communication skills for managing uncertainty include recognition and identification of uncertainty sources. These skills assist in creating shared understanding between clinicians and patients for why uncertainty exists (Mishel et al. 2005; McCormack et al. 2011). As discussed previously, sources of uncertainty may include the unknown future, unclear roles or responsibilities, complex or conflicting medical information/evidence, and personal risk (Kasper et al. 2008; Politi, Han, and Col 2007). Therefore, when patients describe medical uncertainty, clinicians should recognize and identify the sources or reasons by engaging in openended questions and eliciting concerns (e.g., “Why do you think you feel uncertain about the future?”) (Street 1991, 1992). Additionally, once clinicians identify the source of uncertainty, they should confirm they have a clear understanding of the patient’s uncertainty (e.g., “So you feel uncertain about your future because your mother and aunt had cancer at a young age, correct?”) (McCormack et al. 2011). See Table 2 for an example of a conversation that illustrates cognitive uncertainty management skills.

3.3.2 Affective communication skills for managing uncertainty Affective communication skills seek to address the emotional side of uncertainty such as anxiety and distress (McCormack et al. 2011). Though such skills are less prominent in the uncertainty management literature, they are important because the ability to manage uncertainty relies on patients’ emotional states (Epstein and Street 2007; Han 2013). One affective communication skill to assist individuals in dealing with the uncertainty-induced emotions is through acknowledgement and validation (Dean and Street 2014). After clinicians recognize and identify the source of uncertainty experienced, they should acknowledge the patients’ emotional concerns regarding the uncertainty. To do this, clinicians can perform techniques such as active listening (Razavi and Delvaux 1997) and continuing to ask open-ended questions, as both skills provide space for patients to elaborate their concerns and worries (Street

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1991, 1992). Clinicians can actively listen by distinguishing and responding to patients’ verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors in order to understand the patients’ experience (Egan 1994). Acknowledging uncertainty validates patients’ experience of uncertainty (Politi, Han, and Col 2007), which may contribute to a sense of feeling known (e.g., feeling fears and concerns are heard and understood and being reassured that one will not be being abandoned during care) (Anderson et al. 2008; Street et al. 2009). By acknowledging and validating uncertainty, clinicians and patients can come to a shared understanding of the sources of uncertainty, and the extent to which it is reducible or irreducible (Epstein and Street 2007; McCormack et al. 2011). Another affective communication skill is empathy. Empathy is defined as the sharing and understanding of individuals’ emotions and thoughts (Eide et al. 2011). Clinicians can be empathetic by demonstrating respect, acting as a partner, and providing supportive communication messages to the patient (Arborelius and Österberg 1995). Clinicians can also inquire about patients’ concerns, demonstrate interest and understanding for their circumstances, and build rapport (Street 1991, 1992). See Table 2 for an example of a conversation that implements affective uncertainty management skills.

3.3.3 Behavioral strategies for managing uncertainty The last category for managing uncertainty consists of behavioral communication skills that promote information, resources, and self-management. First, prior research treats providing information as the main mechanism for managing uncertainty (Brashers et al. 2003; McCormack et al. 2011; Miller 2014; Mishel et al. 2005; Mishel 1988; Politi and Street 2007). Under situations of uncertainty, it is helpful not only to present information in clear, detailed, and understandable ways but also to clarify what is “known” versus “unknown” (e.g., risks and benefits of treatment options) (Epstein, Alper, and Quill 2004; Epstein and Street 2007; Fagerlin, Zikmund-Fisher, and Ubel 2011; McCormack et al. 2011). Moreover, information enables individuals to interpret their situation, which can then provide closure for the uncertainty (Mishel 1990). For example, Miller (2014) found cancer survivors seek information from their clinicians in order to manage their illness-related uncertainty as well as uncertainty about their care. It is important to note short-term uncertainty may often be alleviated with information, but long-term uncertainty may require teaching patients how to self-manage their uncertainty by creating time boundaries for how long the uncertainty might be tolerated (McCormack et al. 2011), which is discussed last. A second behavioral communication skill is offering resources like counseling or social support groups because communicating with similar others in these contexts is helpful for managing uncertainty (McCormack et al. 2011; Mishel et al. 2005). For instance, Brashers and his colleagues’ (2004) study of people living with

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HIV/AIDS found social support from others assists in managing uncertainty in the following ways: 1. helping with information seeking and information avoiding, 2. offering instrumental support, 3. assisting skill development, 4. providing acceptance and validation, 5. creating a space for ventilation, and 6. encouraging perspective shifts. The last behavioral communication skill is self-management. Self-management is the perceived ability to self-manage one’s illness through navigating the healthcare system, seeking information, dealing with side effects, and finding help when needed (Bodenheimer, Wagner, and Grumbach 2002; Bodenheimer et al., 2002; Epstein and Street 2007) and is especially helpful for long-term uncertainty (McCormack et al. 2011). Clinicians can engage in certain skills in order to assist patients in caring for themselves (Epstein and Street 2007). Specific self-care skills for managing uncertainty include the following: creating action plans, laying out contingencies, journaling, meditating on positive images, and engaging in positive thinking and calming self-talk (Mishel et al. 2005; Fatter and Hayes 2013; Ullrich and Lutgendorf 2002; Utley and Garza 2011). These self-care skills are helpful in managing uncertainty across illnesses. For instance, an HIV/AIDS patient and her clinician may create a timeframe to assist in digesting the multiple treatment options and then come back together to discuss the options by a certain date. A mother and her clinician may construct a plan for addressing if her child has Down syndrome. Finally, a patient who has a genetically high predisposition for developing breast and ovarian cancer may engage in selfcare skills such as journaling and mediating to deal with a possible future cancer diagnosis. See Table 2 for an example of a conversation that implements behavioral uncertainty management skills. In summary, managing uncertainty requires competent, patient-centered communication between the clinician and patient. Cognitive, affective, and behavioral communicative skills provide particular ways in which individuals may manage medical uncertainty. Cognitive skills include recognizing and identifying uncertainty sources. Affective skills encompass acknowledging and validating emotions, listening actively, and being empathetic. Lastly, behavioral skills involve providing information, offering resources, and teaching self-management.

4 How communication skills are learned and applied to health care delivery 4.1 Theoretical notions of communication skills that manage uncertainty and the associated functional health outcomes With an understanding of communication skills that clinicians can employ to assist patients in managing their medical uncertainty, we now move on to discuss theo-

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Tab. 3: Theoretical notions, communication skills, and functional outcomes for managing uncertainty. Uncertainty domain

Theoretical notions

Communication skill

Functional outcome

Cognitive

TUI

Identifying sources of uncertainty

Patient understands reasons for her uncertainty and what is known vs. unknown

Affective

PIT

Acknowledging and validating uncertainty

Patient feels her concerns are important and is reassured that she will not be being abandoned during care

Engaging in active listening

Patient knows clinician wants to hear and understand her situation

Demonstrating empathy

Patient feels the clinician understands her thoughts and feelings

TUI/PIT/UMT

Providing information

Patient gains more information (and knowledge) where it was previously lacking

UMT

Offering resources

Patient has the means to seek additional social support and assistance

Teaching self-management

Patient has the ability to take care of herself outside the clinical setting

Behavioral

retical notions of communication skills and the ways in which the skills can contribute to managing uncertainty in health care. As previously stated, managing uncertainty has not received much attention from a communication skills perspective despite the importance of viewing communication competence as a process and identifying communication skills in a theory-driven way (Street and de Haes 2014). Thus, we conclude by presenting an organizational framework for communication skills, their theoretical notions, and functional outcomes. See Table 3 for an overview. The first cognitive communication skill – identifying sources of uncertainty – can be linked to the theory of uncertainty in illness (TUI) because of its emphasis on cognitive representations and the importance of overcoming event vagueness and lack of comprehensible/coherent information (Mishel 1988). The desired functional outcome of identifying uncertainty sources is that the patient understands reasons for her uncertainty and what is known versus unknown (Epstein and Street 2007). To achieve this outcome, clinicians can determine if uncertainty exists

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through open-ended questions, categorize expressed uncertainty into reducible and irreducible categories by checking understanding, and ultimately reiterate understanding of the uncertainty. Within the affective domain of managing uncertainty, problematic integration theory (PIT) is helpful. PIT’s inclusion of evaluative orientations (e.g., emotional assessment of a desired possible outcome) (Babrow 2001) supports the importance of affective communication skills to manage uncertainty. First, acknowledging and validating uncertainty through supportive communication and building rapport addresses patients’ emotional distress and anxiety, which can make the patient feel her concerns are important and reassures her that she will not be abandoned during care. Engaging in active listening communicates to the patient that the clinician wants to hear and understand her situation. Lastly, empathetically responding to emotions by encouraging emotional expression and providing nonverbal and verbal reassurances helps the patient feel the clinician understands her actual thoughts and feelings. Finally, behavioral communication skills are supported by all three theories but especially uncertainty management theory. As discussed previously, TUI, PIT, and UMT all speak to the importance of information in managing uncertainty at some level (Babrow 2001; Brashers et al. 2003; Mishel 1988). Yet UMT’s focus on information seeking and information avoidance provides a valuable theoretical basis for the provision of information as a way to manage medical uncertainty. Specifically, providing information results in knowledge gain. To assess what information is desired by patients, clinicians should determine patients’ information needs, provide information and check understanding simultaneously, and clarify any confusing or difficult information. At the same time, it is important for clinicians to respect patients who do not want additional information (e.g., avoid information) as a way to manage their uncertainty. The behavioral communication skill offering resources is also supported by UMT. Brashers and colleagues’ (2004) research on uncertainty management and social support provides a theoretical framework for connecting patients experiencing uncertainty to additional resources like counseling and social support groups. Explaining the benefits of such resources and determining when such referrals are needed enhances the patient’s means to seek additional support and assistance outside the clinical setting (Dean and Street 2014). Finally, though no theory directly speaks to teaching self-management skills, previous research does support self-management’s ability to assist patients in managing their uncertainty (e.g., Epstein and Street 2007; Mishel et al. 2005). Whether formulating a plan to deal with uncertainty and laying out potential contingencies to encouraging journaling, meditation, or positive thinking and self-talk, self-care skills enable the patient to take care of herself outside the clinical setting. To teach these skills, clinicians can seek patients’ preferences for clinician involvement, make partnership statements, create decision trees and timelines, review next

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steps, and provide evidence for personal reflection and positive imagery (Epstein and Street; Mishel et al. 2005).

4.2 Teaching communication skills to manage medical uncertainty How then can clinicians effectively teach patients to manage their uncertainty? Communication skill trainings are one answer. Although there are several strategies used in communication skill trainings, the most successful strategies are the learner-centered, practice-oriented active and interactive strategies (Berkhof et al. 2011; Libert et al. 2001; Merckaert et al. 2005). Active/interactive teaching strategies encompass not only discussing training skills but practicing them; these strategies are in contrast to passive strategies, which usually consist of lectures (Berkhof et al. 2011). There are three main active/interactive strategies that have been shown to be effective in teaching communication skills – role-play, feedback, and discussions – and these strategies can be used to teach clinicians how to manage patients’ medical uncertainty. Role-play is a teaching strategy where participants act out designated roles in order to practice communication skills (Berkhof et al. 2011). According to Rider and Keefer (2006), role-play is an effective teaching strategy for all education levels of clinicians because it emphasizes effective listening skills and provides information to patients. Role-play provides clinicians with the opportunity to practice recognizing common verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors (e.g., noticing a patient’s body tense up during a long period of silence) that signal important information and then appropriately respond with information (e.g., “It looks like you are overwhelmed with this news. What information would be helpful to know right now?”). Several studies have reported evidence for role-play’s effectiveness because it is based in active learning (e.g., Aspegren 1999; Gysels, Richardson, and Higginson 2005; Libert et al. 2001; Rao et al. 2007). For instance, Lane and Rollnick (2007) found role-play with simulated patients or colleagues improved physicians’ communication skills more than didactic strategies (e.g., lectures/presentations). In regards to managing uncertainty, role-play would be effective to teach all three uncertainty management domains and the associated communication skills but especially affective communication skills like empathy and validation of emotions. Feedback is a strategy where physicians learn from their own communicative behaviors by receiving constructive information from skilled instructors, colleagues/peers, and sometimes standardized or real patients. Feedback should provide specific communication skill strengths and weaknesses (Brown et al. 2010). It can be oral or written and structured or unstructured. Feedback is especially effective when used in association with role-play because clinicians are able to practice and then adjust their behavior based on the provided feedback (Berkhof et al. 2011). For instance, Brown and colleagues (2010) developed a communication skills train-

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ing for oncology physicians that combined role-play and feedback. First, physicians engaged in the role-play to practice communication skills associated with Epstein and Street’s (2007) six clinician–patient communication functions discussed earlier (e.g., effective information exchange, fostering healing relationships, responding to emotions, making quality decisions, enabling patient selfmanagement, and managing uncertainty). Then, feedback was provided formally from the instructors as well as provided informally by fellow trainees. Regardless of type of health care clinician or context of care, combining these two teaching strategies would be particularly effective in instructing cognitive and affective communication skills for managing patients’ uncertainty. Lastly, discussion encompasses conversations about communication skills among instructors/facilitators and clinicians. The purpose of discussion is to hear multiple perspectives about a particular skill in order to better perform the skill as well as discuss issues that may be more challenging or unconventional. Discussion can be used in large or small groups to talk about many different skills such as patient-centered interviewing, breaking bad news, obtaining a medical history, and with respect to this chapter, managing uncertainty. It is important to note that small group discussion has shown to be more effective than large group discussion (Gysels, Richardson, and Higginson 2005 Libert et al. 2001). Small discussion groups would be especially helpful to teach behavioral communication skills such as self-care skills. In sum, achieving communication competence is the purpose of a communication skills training. Yet instead of just focusing on teaching clinicians specific competent communication skills, we need to teach clinicians how to achieve competent communication with their communication interactants, whether that is patients, family members, or other clinicians. A basic foundational belief that communication competence is a process rather than an outcome will assist clinicians in better performing competent skills and thus produce better health outcomes. Such belief should be emphasized throughout uncertainty management communication skill trainings.

5 Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter reviews literature on managing uncertainty in clinical encounters. Specifically, we describe theories of uncertainty in illness and health, different sources of uncertainty, and its psychosocial effects of uncertainty, as well as present communicative skills clinicians can use to manage medical uncertainty. We also discuss how communication competence skills related to managing uncertainty can be taught and routinely applied in delivery of health care in order to improve health outcomes. Finally, we conclude with main priorities for future research in this area.

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Priorities for future work Given the scarcity of research examining uncertainty management, there are several priorities for future research. First, and broadly, future research should focus on managing uncertainty (Epstein and Street 2007). Despite the advancement and application of the uncertainty management theories and research discussed in this chapter, much literature especially in the medical field still views uncertainty from a reductionist perspective (Brashers 2001). Yet it is clear, based on a variety of research in health and illness contexts, medical uncertainty cannot always be eliminated. As Brashers (2001) stated, “‘reducing uncertainty’ is not the same as ‘managing the effects of uncertainty’” (p. 489). Thus, more research needs to examine competent communication skills for managing uncertainty in clinical encounters. For example, it is important for researchers to test how clinician–patient communication about uncertainty sources and uncertainty management strategies impact health outcomes. Qualitative research could investigate patients’ uncertain health experiences and strategies they find helpful in managing their uncertainty (see, Dean 2014 for an example). Then based on qualitative research, hypotheses could test how clinician–patient communication about the patient-centered communication function managing uncertainty leads to intermediate and long-term health outcomes (Epstein and Street 2007; Street et al. 2009). By testing proposed pathway models, scholars can further understand how communication impacts health outcomes. Second, one needed area for further investigation is the connection between managing uncertainty and making collaborative decisions (Politi, Han, and Col 2007; Politi and Street 2011a). This is important because collaborative decisionmaking can be impeded by uncertainty. Hence, by assessing conversations between clinicians and patients regarding uncertainty and making decisions, we can continue to understand the ways in which we can assist patients in managing their medical uncertainty in order to come to a common understanding during the decisionmaking process (Politi and Street 2011a). Finally, and practically, researchers need to develop communication skill trainings from a functional communication competence perspective (Street and de Haes 2013). Uncertainty management inventions should be theory-driven (e.g., based in uncertainty in illness theory, problematic integration theory, or uncertainty management theory), and doing so validates the communication skill trainings.

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20 Intercultural and intergroup communication competence: Toward an integrative perspective Abstract: Communication competence or effectiveness has been investigated in multiple intercultural communication contexts. Interestingly, while intercultural competence scholars have borrowed ideas heavily from the interpersonal competence field, they appeared to have glossed over some essential constructs such as social identity membership phenomenon, intergroup attitudes, group vitality, communication accommodation, and the dynamics of intergroup dialogue in the fertile intergroup communication research arena. Additionally, to the best of our knowledge, intergroup communication scholars have also paid negligible attention to theorizing about the particular phenomenon of “intergroup communication competence”. In both research domains, a shared vocabulary can be developed to account systematically for the antecedents, processes, and outcomes of identitysensitive competence issues. An integrative theorizing effort on intercultural–intergroup communication competence will enhance our identity-sensitive awareness, knowledge, open-hearted attitudes, and skillsets in communicating with diverse socio-cultural membership groups responsively. Understanding the distinctive and overlapped features of intercultural and intergroup competence can pave the way to a fuller picture of helping immigrants and co-culture members/host nationals to communicate appropriately, effectively, and adaptively. In addition, the threefold prism (i.e., being in-the-moment present, meta-cognition awareness, affective attunement) of mindfulness is also posited as a key link in threading and practicing the competence criteria, components, and outcomes. Keywords: affective attunement, competence desired outcomes, conflict competence, cultural frame-shifting, ethnocentrism, ethnorelativism, face negotiation, flexible mindset and skillset, identity negotiation, identity-support communicative strategies, intergroup dialogue, social group memberships

1 Introduction/rationale While separate strands of research have been conducted on intercultural communication competence and intergroup communication in general, to the best of our knowledge, Gudykunst’s (1993, 2005) Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) theory – an intercultural communication theory – may come closest to integrating some of the critical constructs in the intergroup research domain. For example,

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AUM theory has included the social categorization of strangers as one of the antecedents causing anxiety and uncertainty that could be reduced mindfully leading to effective communication as an outcome. Closely following, Orbe, Everett, and Putnam (2013) and Camara and Orbe (2010) have also applied multiple intergroup identities and ingroup/outgroup concepts to the extension of co-culture theory in explaining interracial and interethnic conflict tensions. More recently, Oliha (2012) made a strong appeal to include marginalized and silenced voices from diverse international and intergroup identity arenas. Overall, the label “competence” has not been a widely-used term (as versus, for example, intergroup communication effectiveness) in the intergroup communication research literature. Traditionally, whereas the intercultural communication competence domain tends to draw theories and research concepts from the international management, interpersonal communication, and intercultural communication fields, the intergroup communication domain tends to base its theorizing effort from the social group processes, social psychology, and intergroup relations areas. While there are some clear distinctive foci in each domain, there are also some fascinating overlaps in which each domain can inform the other domain with regard to how to develop intercultural and intergroup communication competence optimally. With the accelerating identity diversity of immigrants and co-culture members in both heterogeneous and even homogenous societies, identity transformation and complexity is here to stay. An integrative theorizing effort on intercultural– intergroup communication competence will enhance our awareness, knowledge, open-minded attitudes, and skills in dealing with diverse socio-cultural membership groups adroitly. Understanding the distinctive and overlapped features of intercultural and intergroup communication competence can pave the way to a fuller picture of helping immigrants and co-culture members/host nationals to communicate appropriately, effectively, and adaptively. Co-culture members or communities, as defined by Orbe, Everett, and Putnam (2013: 673), refer to the lived experiences of a variety of “nondominant” groups, including “people of color, women, persons with disabilities, gays/lesbians/bisexuals, and those form a lower socioeconomic background”. As early as the 1970s, Tajfel (1978) argued that at least 70 percent of what are termed interpersonal interactions are actually highly intergroup in nature. More recently, Giles (2012) states that perhaps even the 70 percent number could be an underestimate. This certainly highlights the importance and pervasiveness of intercultural and intergroup interactions in everyday life. Sociocultural group memberships and other identity diversity issues are central to understanding both intercultural and intergroup communication (Giles 2012; Ting-Toomey 1999, 2005a). The combined factors of the larger social ecological environment, the communication context, the sociocultural membership characteristics, the distinctive personal identity features, the in situ encounter, and the actual strategic identity negotiation process all play a critical role in shaping the assessment of intercultural–intergroup communication competence processes and outcomes.

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This chapter is organized in eight sections. In the preceding section, we advocated for an integrative perspective in fusing intercultural communication competence theorizing work with essential intergroup communication constructs. In the next section, we define intercultural and intergroup communication competence criteria in assessing intercultural–intergroup identity-based interaction. In the third, fourth, and fifth sections, competence components of culture-sensitive and identity-sensitive knowledge, flexible mindset, and operational competence skillsets are identified and discussed. In the sixth section, the role of mindfulness in linking competence criteria and competence components is systematically addressed. In the seventh section, desired internal and external competence outcomes are proposed. Lastly, directions for future theorizing and research efforts in the intercultural-intergroup communication competence domain are proffered.

2 Intercultural and intergroup communication competence criteria Before discussing some core issues in intercultural and intergroup communication competence, we offer an integrative working model here as a guiding framework to connect the various key sectors in understanding the “big picture” of intercultural– intergroup communication competence (see Figure 1).

Fig. 1: Intercultural and intergroup communication competence: A working model.

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The integrative working model consists of connective pathways between the core concepts of: intercultural–intergroup communication competence criteria, mindfulness, competence components, and desired outcomes, and macro-to-micro social ecological contexts. While the social ecological contexts will not be directly addressed in this chapter (interested readers can consult Bronfenbrenner 1979, 2005; Dorjee, Baig, and Ting-Toomey 2013; Oetzel and Ting-Toomey 2011; TingToomey and Oetzel 2013), the impact of macro-exo and meso-micro contexts in developing competence components are acknowledged in the working model. This section begins with a discussion of the competence criteria sector.

2.1 Intercultural communication competence criteria Multiple identity-related intercultural communication theories (e.g., Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory: Gudykunst 2005; or Integrative Communication Theory: Kim 2005) attempt to explain and unpack the phenomenon of intercultural communication competence. However, Identity Negotiation Theory (INT: TingToomey 1986, 1999, 2005a) is most compatible with the intergroup communication perspective because some of its select constructs were drawn from a Social Identity Theory (SIT) lens (Tajfel 1978, 1981; Tajfel and Turner 1979). According to SIT (Tajfel and Turner 1979), social (or socio-cultural) identities can include ethnic membership identity, social class identity, and family role issues, and personal identities can include any unique attributes that we associate with our individuated self in comparison to the selves of others. Thus, each individual’s composite identity has group membership, relational roles, and individual self-reflexive implications. Understanding both social and personal identities in intercultural–intergroup communication encounters is critical because a person’s conjoint socio-cultural and personal identities constantly shape her or his social cognition, affective being, and behavioral tendencies. Relatedly, using a multiplelayered, differentiated lens in assessing and relating to social and personal complexity identity issues (Brewer 1991, 1997, 2010) contributes to a more nuanced and dynamic view of communication competence. Individuals mostly acquired their composite identity through a socio-cultural conditioning process, individual lived experiences, and repeated intergroup and interpersonal interaction experiences. This involves identity negotiation. The term negotiation in INT (Ting-Toomey 2005a) refers to the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages between two or more communicators in maintaining, threatening, or uplifting the various socio-cultural group-based and/or unique personal-based identity images of the other in situ. In collectivistic group-oriented cultural communities such as Guatemala, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam, and West Africa, individuals may be more concerned with communal sociocultural-oriented identity issues. In individualistic cultural communities such as Belgium, Denmark, France,

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New Zealand, and Switzerland, however, individuals may be more concerned with individual-based personal identity issues (Triandis 1995). In a multicultural-immigrant society, distinctive ethnic and cultural identity salience issues (e.g., ethnic-oriented, assimilated, bicultural, or marginal identity issues) and intergroup relationship concerns play a prominent role in the INT framework. For example, in relating cultural/ethnic identity issues with interpersonal conflict communication styles in four U.S. ethnic/racial groups, Ting-Toomey et al. (2000) uncovered that while strong ethnic identity-oriented individuals tend to use conflict interaction styles reflecting their heritage values, bicultural identityoriented individuals tend to use a wider range of conflict repertoires flexibly more so than other ethnic identity types. By understanding the role of identity negotiation more in depth in the context of intercultural–intergroup competence, individuals can learn to monitor interaction processes and outcomes more mindfully and, hopefully, with identity attunement. Drawing from the INT framework, intercultural communication competence is conceptualized as the optimal integration of the necessary culture and ethnic-identity sensitive knowledge, ethnorelative attitudes, and interaction skills to manage identity-based issues appropriately, effectively, and adaptively and to achieve desired identity outcomes with interpretive attunement. The INT has been mostly tested by researchers (e.g., see Collie et al. 2010) in studying immigrants’ or minority group members’ acculturation processes, international sojourners’ intercultural adjustment processes (e.g., see Hotta and Ting-Toomey 2013), and mindful identity transformation process in unfamiliar cultural boundaries (Fisher-Yoshida 2005; Ting-Toomey 2009a). From the INT lens, the criteria for evaluating intercultural communication competence have been borrowed from the field of interpersonal competence especially concerning the criteria of appropriateness and effectiveness (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984, 1989, 2002, 2011). These two criteria, with the added feature of adaptability (Ting-Toomey 1999), can serve as evaluative yardsticks of whether an intercultural or intergroup communicator has been perceived as behaving competently or not in an interaction episode. Communication appropriateness refers to the degree to which the exchanged behaviors are regarded as proper and match the expectations generated by the insiders of the culture. To behave “properly” in any given cultural situation, competent negotiators need to have the relevant value knowledge schema of the larger situational norms that guide the interaction episode (Spitzberg and Cupach 2002). They also need to acquire the specific knowledge schema of what constitutes appropriate or inappropriate language/verbal and nonverbal style patterns that can promote quality intercultural trust-building relationships. Communication effectiveness refers to the degree to which communicators achieve mutually shared meaning and integrative goal-related outcomes in the interaction episode (Spitzberg and Cupach 2011). To engage in effective communication strategies, intercultural negotiators need to have a wide range of verbal and nonverbal behavioral repertoires

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to make mindful choices and creating momentums to move their individual or interdependent goal outcomes forward. Communication effectiveness has been achieved when multiple meanings are attended to with accuracy and in a culturally-sensitive manner, and personal and mutually desired goals have been worked out in a strategic and creative direction (Canary, Lakey, and Sillars 2013). More importantly, the above criteria are positively interdependent. When one manages an interaction situation appropriately, the “good faith” behaviors can induce reciprocal interaction effectiveness, and vice versa. To behave both appropriately and effectively in managing a diverse range of intercultural situations, one needs to be mentally and behaviorally nimble and flexible. Communication adaptability refers to our ability to change our interaction behaviors and goals to meet the specific needs of the situation (Arasaratnam 2007; Arasaratnam and Doerfel 2005; Molinsky 2007; Ting-Toomey 2004, 2009b). It implies mental, affective, and behavioral flexibility in dealing with the minute-tominute unfolding intercultural drama and situation lithely and creatively. To move towards behavioral flexibility and adaptation, a mindful communicator will need to integrate culturally-sensitive and identity-sensitive knowledge concerning self and others, and, infuse the knowledge base with open-minded attitudes and diversified behavioral practice.

2.2 Intergroup communication competence criteria From the lens of intergroup communication theorizing frameworks, intergroup communication is defined in terms of how social contexts and group memberships affect the ways in which individuals communicate with members of their own groups (called ingroups and with a sense of interdependent shared fate and familiarity) and members of other groups (called outgroups and with a sense of psychological distance; Giles 2012). Intergroup communication competence can be defined as individuals engaging in appropriate, effective, and adaptive interaction in a given social context informed by knowledge, attitudes, and skills about diverse group membership identity issues in conjunction with personal identity issues. Considerable research informs us about interpersonal communication competence (Canary, Lakey, and Sillars 2013; Spitzberg 2009; Spitzberg and Cupach 2011). However, theoretically, interpersonal communication competence does not necessarily entail intergroup communication competence because the latter involves sociocultural identity and relational dynamics (Petronio et al. 1998). Practically, no interpersonal communication is totally devoid of sociocultural membership influence during the course of the relationship development trajectory. Most importantly, from the intergroup communication frameworks, social contexts are very different from interpersonal contexts (Giles and Hewstone 1982; Harwood, Giles, and Palomares 2005). For example, those with inter-personal (i.e., individuated-personalized) communication skills may competently relate to each

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other as individuals; however, they may lack competent communication skills to relate to each other as members of different social groups such as elders and adolescents, or health care providers and patients (Hummert 2010; Villagran and Sparks 2010). From a U.S.-centric research viewfinder, interpersonal communication (i.e., recognizing and valuing the unique-distinctive personal identity features of the individuals) often connotes “better quality” communication than intergroup communication. However, the intergroup perspective recognizes the critical importance and the pervasive influence of social group membership contexts on the minute-to-minute dynamic shifting of the communication processes between the two or more individuals from diverse membership communities (see Giles 2012; Giles, Reid, and Harwood 2010; Harwood and Giles 2005). We firmly believe that in the field of human communication studies, it is equally important to probe the conceptualization of “quality intergroup communication” on par with the study of “quality interpersonal communication” in multiple interactional arenas. Intergenerational communication, for example, aptly illustrates how much of communication between elders and young adults has been mediated by stereotypic perceptions of each other (Hummert 2010; see later section). Concurrently, identity knowledge concerning elders and young adults’ values and communication patterns provides some reasonable generalizations about the dyadic pairs. Mindful communicators will utilize this knowledge-based information but not rigidly adhere to the preconceived knowledge categories as mindless communicators would. Intergroup communication competence involves mindfully communicating appropriately, effectively, and adaptively to each other in social contexts. Intergroup appropriateness refers to the extent to which the exchanged communicative behaviors accord with or match the social group expectations of the recipient/s of the message. For this, intergroup interactants need to acquire the knowledge schema of what is regarded as proper or improper behavior according to the social expectations of the respective group membership. For example, in the social context of the North American universities, students may call their professors by their first names whereas in other social contexts such as in India and Tibet students address their professors by their respectful titles such as Sir, Madam, Professor Raman, or Gen la (the term refers to gender neutral honorific title for Teacher in Tibetan). What is considered as appropriate intergroup address is determined by the normative expectation standards of the respective social contexts. Students must learn about these appropriate behaviors and then mindfully practice them when relating to their professors in the particular social context. Intergroup effectiveness refers to the extent to which communicators assign shared meaning to the exchanged communicative behaviors in social contexts and achieve interactional goals such as instrumental and relational goals. From an intergroup perspective, meanings are socially constructed and consensually agreed upon by members both within and between groups. For example, Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists regard Swastika (in its original form associated with Indus Valley

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Civilization) as a symbol with positive and sacred meaning whereas others tormented by the Hitler and Nazi regime regard the same symbol (diagonally placed on the Nazi flag) with negative meaning. In the year 2010 in Pretend City – a Children’s museum – in Irvine, CA, a Hindu Swastika woven on a tapestry was displayed as a part of East Indian Heritage Exhibition, which caused uproar among diverse group members. Some voiced negative criticism of the symbol on the ground of insensitivity and demanded the symbol to be removed from the exhibit. The museum did that, but others voiced concerns about the importance of the sacred symbol to the East Indians and demanded respect for it. This case vividly illustrates the need for effective intergroup communication in addressing conflict issues. In the social context of the East Indian Heritage Exhibition, it seems situationally appropriate and proper to hang the sacred Swastika tapestry for all to enjoy and respect. However, in the socio-historical context of the Nazis atrocities on Jews, the blatant display of the tapestry created further insult, injury, and hurt to some community members. In terms of socially constructed meaning, the Indians attributed positive meanings and significance to the beautiful tapestry, while the victims and survivors of the Nazi regime attributed negative meanings and painful memories concerning the embroidered wall-hanging in a public space. This real-life scenario illustrates that intergroup communicators from both communities need to be sensitive to the situational context of proper and improper actions. They also need to learn to effectively negotiate the attributed meanings of verbal and nonverbal symbols to understand each other’s group membership identity issues. Competent intergroup communication involves mindfully attuning to the situational dynamics and also negotiating the conflicting meanings of such symbols in a conjoint effective manner. Furthermore, intergroup communication competence also requires adaptability. Adaptability refers to communicators’ abilities to be cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally flexible and agile in attuning to each other’s identity signals (and also instrumental goals) in particular contexts. Cognitively, intergroup communicators need to constantly “minding their minds” in creating identity differentiations and identity complexities in observing and assessing the multifaceted identities of an unfamiliar other in situ. Affectively, they need to be empathetic to each other’s mindsets, heart-sets, worldviews, and perspectives. Behaviorally, they need to change or adjust their actual behaviors in order to reach desired intergroup outcomes and situational needs. For example, in resolving the above case, members from both communities can mindfully attune to contrasting meanings of the symbol in different socio-cultural contexts and interpret its meaning accordingly. Adaptive intergroup communication involves being mindful of when to converge to or diverge from the distinctive style of the other group member, or maintain one’s style in particular social contexts. Intentional code-switching or dialect-switching to adapt appropriately is an excellent example of mindful intergroup communication adaptability.

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In order to accomplish both the internal and external desired outcomes of intercultural–intergroup competence development, communicators need to acquire the necessary sociocultural-sensitive and identity-sensitive knowledge, enhance their ethnorelative mindset, and practice elastic communication skillsets in relevance to the given context. We will now turn to a discussion of these three key components of intercultural–intergroup communication competence.

3 Culture-sensitive and identity-sensitive knowledge content component In the context of developing intercultural communication knowledge content competence, the cognitive knowledge component here refers to the mastery and deep understanding of the macro and micro layers, complex identity diversities, value contents, norms, and interaction scripts of the unfamiliar cultural system. TingToomey (2009b) proposes that the following knowledge elements should constitute the baseline cognitive knowledge structures of a competent intercultural communicator: developing deep knowledge contents of the cultural worldviews and value variation dimensions, understanding cultural/ethnic and social/personal identity issues, mastering language proficiency and distinctive verbal interaction styles, and appreciating commonalities and differences of cross-cultural nonverbal codes.

3.1 Intercultural value patterns’ knowledge Understanding the cultural value patterns of individualism–collectivism and small–large power distance (Hofstede 2001) is a useful starting point to gain awareness of broad-based value dimensions of multiple cultures. Indeed, the GLOBE research project (House et al. 2004) provided evidence that the foundational constructs of individualism–collectivism and small–large power distance permeate 62 countries (and with a sample size of 17,370 middle managers from three industries) at societal, organizational, and individual levels of analysis. Individualism refers to the broad value tendencies of a culture in emphasizing the importance of the “I” identity over the “we” identity, individual rights over group interests, and ego-focused emotions over socially-focused emotions. In comparison, collectivism refers to the broad value tendencies of a culture in emphasizing the importance of the “we” identity over the “I” identity, ingroup interests over individual wants, and other-face concerns over self-face concerns. The meaning of face is generally conceptualized as how we want others to see us and treat us and how we actually treat others in association with their social self-conception expectations. In everyday interactions, individuals are constantly making con-

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scious or unconscious choices concerning face-saving and face-honoring issues across interpersonal, intercultural, and intergroup contexts. While face is about a claimed sense of interactional identity in a particular situation, facework is about verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors that protect/save self, other, or mutual face (Ting-Toomey 1999, 2005b). The meaning construction of the role of face and the strategic competence of enacting various facework strategies vary in accordance to cultural system values’ level, individual level, and situational level. Indeed, we would like to point out here that both Hofstede’s (2001) and House et al.’s (2004) international research studies have been critiqued for using overgeneralized value dimensions to superimpose on an entire national group and treating national culture as a homogeneous entity (Thomas 2006; Ting-Toomey 2010b) and neglecting nuanced differentiations within broad-based identity categories. We agree with this assessment to a certain extent, however, we also believe the importance of using some cultural or more importantly identity-based (recognizing the importance of multiple personal and also socio-cultural identities in situ) explanations to advance theories in the multiple camps of interpretive, critical, and functional research paradigms. As a suggestion, by viewing individualism and collectivism as a dynamic continuum in a particular situation (and chrono-developmental time) with conflicting and complementary elements and multiple layers, cultural and ethnic and personal identity diversities within a particular situation and a larger sociocultural speech community can be accounted for (see Ting-Toomey 2010b). Another important value dimension that is critical in understanding communication competence is the dimension of power distance (Carl, Gupta, and Javidan 2004). Power distance, from the workplace values’ analysis standpoint, refers to the way in which a corporate culture approaches and deals with status differences and social hierarchies. People in small power distance corporate cultures tend to value equal power distributions, symmetrical relations, a mixture of positive and negative messages in feedback sessions, and merit-based equitable reward and cost distributions. People in large power distance corporate cultures tend to accept unequal power distributions, asymmetrical relations, authoritative feedback from experts and the likes, and rewards/sanctions based on rank, role, status, age, and even gender identity. In combining both individualism–collectivism and small–large power distance value patterns, four predominant corporate value dimension approaches emerge along the two continua: impartial, status-achievement, benevolent, and communal (Ting-Toomey and Oetzel 2001, 2013). The impartial approach reflects a combination of an individualistic and small power distance value orientation; the statusachievement approach consists of a combination of an individualistic and large power distance value orientation; the benevolent approach reflects a combination of a collectivistic and large power distance value orientation; and the communal approach consists of a combination of collectivistic and small power distance value orientation.

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Additionally, the following intercultural knowledge structures are critical: comprehending culture shock and adjustment/reentry issues, recognizing immigrants’ and refugees’ complex acculturation processes in a diverse society, realizing the filters of ethnocentrism-stereotypes-prejudice-power dynamic issues between coculture groups, practicing flexible intercultural conflict styles and collaborating on common-interest goals, grappling with diverse forms of intercultural–intimate relationships, and last but not least, developing a meta-ethics principled stance (Ting-Toomey and Chung 2012).

3.2 Intergroup identity-sensitive knowledge A plethora of meta-analytic studies investigated intergroup contact – real or imagined – to reduce prejudice and improve intergroup relations among other things (Beelmann and Heinemann 2014; Miles and Crisp 2014; Pettigrew and Tropp 2006, 2008; Pettigrew et al. 2011; Riek, Mania, and Gaertner 2006). Taken together, many of these studies indicate that intergroup contact involving positive attitudes and positive interaction (accommodative behaviors) and moderators (e.g., lowering anxiety about intergroup contact and enhancing empathy and perspective taking) reduce intergroup biases and further intergroup relations. Harwood and Joyce (2012) argued that communicative variables such as communicative anxiety, selfdisclosure, and relational solidarity among others can mediate intergroup contact’s effects. According to Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), effectively communicating with each other at interpersonal and intergroup levels requires convergence or accommodation (Gallois, Ogay, and Giles 2005). Convergence or accommodation involves matching the communication styles, such as speech patterns and dialects, and paralinguistic features and nonverbal gestures, of each other in social context. In contrast, divergence is a communication strategy that accentuates the language/verbal distinctiveness and other nonverbal features between the intergroup communicators, especially in perceived undesirable intergroup situations. In general, when people want to increase attraction and approval, they choose to converge or accommodate toward the other’s interactional style in the interdependent social context (Dorjee, Giles, and Barker 2011). Intergroup communication competence involves understanding and competently negotiating identity orientations, motivations, and communicative strategies between interactants in social contexts. According to CAT (Gallois, Ogay, and Giles 2005), social history contexts can shape initial orientations toward each other in an encounter. In the absence of intergroup conflict history and intergroup vitality factors, people are likely to orient to each other interpersonally. The term “intergroup vitality” refers to the strength and density of socio-cultural groups based on status, demographic strength, and institutional support (Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor 1977). In other words, when intergroup antecedents are not salient, different people

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from diverse identity membership groups can and may possibly communicate interpersonally with each other. Conversely, any salient intergroup social context factors such as intergroup hostility or even intergroup vitality characteristics can orient people to relate to each other as social group members as in intergenerational interactions and police and civilian interactions (see Giles, Choi, and Dixon 2010; Hummert 2010). Thus, social contexts (i.e., settings with unfamiliarity/degree of strangeness, and with salient role-based features) frame initial orientations in encounters leading to intergroup or interpersonal interactions. Intergroup communication competence involves knowing these distinctions. Social identity orientation emphasis changes the dynamics of communication from interpersonal to intergroup interactions. For example, divergent or consensual interpretations of race relational history between African Americans and European Americans in the United States can change the dynamics of communication between two individuals from these ethno-racial backgrounds (Hecht, Jackson, and Ribeau 2003). In this case, identity-sensitive knowledge about the slavery history of the African American socio-cultural membership group and the differentiated knowledge concerning the personal/unique identity stance of the communication partners may help to promote competent or incompetent intergroup interaction. Concurrently, if intergroup threat is perceived, personal identity is de-emphasized and polarized social identity is primed in the process, in turn affecting relationship trust-building levels and desired outcomes. Competent intergroup communicators need to attend to these matters from a co-orientation standpoint and from both a situated social identity and personal identity lens. Furthermore, realizing one’s own and other motivations in an intergroup communicative situation can also shape and change the dynamics of the process and outcome of communication.

4 Developing flexible mindset and open-hearted attitudes’ component According to Spitzberg and Changnon (2009), dominant models of human competence since 1950s assume that knowledge, motivation, and skills are the core components of competence. We prefer to use the term “flexible mindset” – a broader term – rather than motivation to discuss intercultural and intergroup communication competencies. Flexible mindset includes motivational drives as well as a host of other concomitant attitudes (e.g., mindful attunement and intergroup attitudes) that could affect intercultural–intergroup communication competencies. From a motivational point of view, willingness to interact is vital to competent interactions among individuals from different social-cultural backgrounds. Additionally, how individuals perceive each other can affect social interaction and communication outcomes. Arguably, willingness to interact and affective attunement are filtered

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through intercultural–intergroup perceptions, ethnocentrism, and stereotypes (see Giles, Reid, and Harwood 2010). An open-hearted attitude implies the combination of compassion for self and empathy for others, and at the same time exercising due wisdom and balance. An open-hearted attitude is nonjudgmental and acknowledges things as they are, with equanimity and transparency. The Dalai Lama, for example, connects with people from all walks of life with an open-hearted attitude and emphasizing the deep commonality and the interdependent fate of humanity on physical, mental, affective, ethical, and ecological levels. He treats all individuals equally without being judgmental and emphasizes being transparent in all interactions, with courage and without fears. Competent intercultural and intergroup communicators need to develop a keen sense of self-awareness of their own ethnocentric mental habits and learn to intentionally shift their ethnocentric tendencies to alternative ethnorelative worldviews.

4.1 Recognizing the developmental states of ethnocentrism and ethnorelativism Ethnocentrism comes from two Greek words. Ethno refers to “one’s own ethnic or cultural group”, and centrism means that “one’s own group should be looked upon as the center of the world”. Ethnocentrism refers to considering the views and standards of our own ingroup as more important than any outgroups. Outgroups are at a disadvantage because we constantly judge them based on our own group’s standards and values. Examples of such standards include beliefs that one’s own group practices the correct religion, employs the best ways of educating their children, and votes for the most qualified political candidates. Ethnocentrism is a defense mechanism that elevates our own culture above other cultures, and we expect that all other groups should follow our way of living and behaving because it is the most reasonable and proper way. Ethnocentrism is reinforced and learned through a deep cultural conditioning process. We favor ingroup standards and communication practices because we are familiar and feel secured with those standards and norms. Ethnocentrism consists of both implicit and explicit attitudes toward outgroup members’ customs or behaviors. We display ethnocentric tendencies for three reasons: 1. we tend to define what goes on in our own culture as natural and correct and what goes on in other cultures as unnatural and incorrect; 2. we tend to perceive ingroup values, customs, norms, and roles as universally applicable; and 3. we tend to experience distance from the outgroup, especially when our group identity is threatened or under attack (Stephan, Stephan, and Gudykunst 1999; Ting-Toomey and Chung 2012). While interacting with outgroup members, our ethnocentric tendencies may be blurred by our perception of privilege. Privilege is an “invisible package of unearned assets” (McIntosh 2002: 424) that one is oblivious to, and it can be based on group membership color,

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ethnicity, gender, social status, and geographical location. By assuming even on an unconscious level that we “deserve” certain rights or advantages over others, this attitude represents one aspect of ethnocentric thinking. To counteract rigid ethnocentric attitudes, Bennett and Bennett (2004) developed the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS), which captures how individuals experience cultural difference via various change zones. The core assumption of the DMIS is that as an individual experiences cultural differences in a more complex and nuanced manner, her competence in dealing with these cultural differences increases. The DMIS identifies three “states” of ethnocentrism and three “states” of ethnorelativism. Each state reflects a particular cognitive-affective worldview expressed in certain kinds of attitudes and behaviors related to cultural differences. The three states of ethnocentrism include: denial of cultural difference, defense against cultural difference, and minimization of cultural difference. Denial of cultural difference is the state in which one’s own cultural difference is experienced as the only real one. Other cultures are avoided by maintaining psychological or physical isolation. If “dissimilar others” impinge on our ingroup existence, we may act aggressively to eliminate the difference. Defense against cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture (or adopted culture) is experienced as the only good one. The world is organized as “we” versus “them” – we are the “superior” group, and they are the “inferior” one. Individuals in this state are highly threatened by outgroup members and they tend to be hyper-critical of outgroups. Alternatively, individuals can also experience a “reverse defense” state in which their “adopted culture” is viewed as far superior to their homeland culture. Minimization of cultural difference is the state in which elements (e.g., nonverbal eye contact system or value dimensions) of one’s own culture are viewed as “universals”. Individuals under this state tend to proclaim that beyond superficial food customs or holiday celebration differences, at the core, human beings are all the same – the same like my preferred behaviors or values in my own familiar ingroups (Bennett and Bennett 2004). The next set of three states reflects the development of ethnorelativism. The three ethnorelative states include: acceptance of cultural difference, adaptation to cultural difference, and integration of cultural difference (Bennett and Bennett 2004). Acceptance of cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture is experienced as one out of many possible diverse and complex cultural experiences. Individuals at this state are curious and respectful of cultural differences on the cognitive level. Adaptation to cultural difference is that state in which the experience of another culture yields perceptual shifting – seeing things from the other cultural angle – and also behavioral adaptation appropriate to that cultural frame of reference (e.g., viewing “lateness” differently and based on the new culture’s polychronic “sense making” norms and practices). Integration of cultural difference is the state in which the individual intentionally (on cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels) incorporates diverse cultural worldviews into one’s identity and is

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able to transform polarized value sets into complementary value sets. In this state, a person can communicate fluidly as a cultural bridge person or mediator in a culturally appropriate and globally effective manner (Leung et al. 2008; Maddux and Galinsky 2009; Mezirow 2000; Pusch 2009).

4.2 Recognizing intergroup attitudes based on group vitality Intergroup attitudes based on group vitality can affect communication competence perceptions among members of different social groups. Vitality of a group can be measured at three levels: demography, status, and institutional support (Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor 1977; Giles and Johnson 1987). Demography includes population, immigration, emigration, birth, and mortality factors. Status includes social standing and economic status. Institutional support includes governmental, school, university, and organizational support to sustain and promote group vitality factors such as language, arts, cultures, and education. In social interactions, these group vitality factors influence intergroup relations and communication (see Clement, Baker, and MacIntyre 2003). A society or nation consists of many groups which are referred to by terms such as dominant versus subordinate or co-culture groups (Orbe, Everett, and Putnam 2013). For example, in the United States of America, European Americans constitute the dominant group while others (e.g., African Americans, Latino/Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans) constitute subordinate groups or co-culture groups (Orbe, Everett, and Putnam 2013). These groups differ widely across the above-mentioned group vitality dimensions, shaping intergroup communication dynamics and competence perceptions. For example, subordinate or co-culture group members who perceive low ingroup vitality may defer to asymmetrical power distance interaction and accommodate to dominant group members’ interaction styles. Conversely, co-culture members who perceive high-status group vitality or pride and solidarity may enact or even dramatize ingroup interaction styles or speech dialects. The default mindset appears to be that individuals who experience high group vitality on a consistent daily basis would more likely expect individuals with low group vitality to accommodate to them in most social interactions. Anecdotal evidence indicates that in the United States of America, which is considered the land and home of immigrants, many individuals from the dominant group do demand or expect recent immigrant group members to learn and speak English fluently in a relatively short time span and in any social setting. Theoretically, communication accommodation can come from either side in social interaction, however, in reality, dominant group members tend to expect minority or co-culture group members to accommodate to their communicative needs due to their sometimes unearned cultural/societal privilege of birth, inherited wealth, namesake, or being white

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(McIntosh 2002). The greater the perceived ingroup vitality and intergroup gap, the greater the role of power and its effects on intergroup interactions. In particular, intergroup attitudes can hamper or facilitate intergroup communication competence (e.g., Giles and Rakic 2014). CAT argues that social-historical contexts and intergroup perceptions are critical to intergroup communication and accommodative practices (Gallois, Ogay, and Giles 2005; Soliz and Giles 2014). For example, in WWII, many mainstream U.S. Americans harshly stereotyped and enacted direct prejudice and racism against Japanese Americans based on intergroup fear and anxiety. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 and thus officially uprooted and imprisoned 120,000 plus first-generation, second-generation to third-generation Japanese Americans and sending them to internment camps in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and remote parts of California and elsewhere. Many of these native-born Americans of Japanese descent experienced first-hand direct institutional prejudice and discrimination from their mainstream American cohorts. Fast forward to recent event, since 9/11 many mainstream U.S. Americans have developed negative stereotypes of Muslims including Muslim Americans. These stereotypes and intergroup hostility between many Muslim countries such as Iran and Iraq and the United States of America hinder intergroup communication competence among the members of these groups. Thus, all forms of ethnocentrism (indifference, avoidance, and disparaging remarks) prevail in intergroup hostility and polarized situations. Unfortunately, much of communication among people from these groups is filtered through ethnocentrism and stereotypes. Members from these groups tend to perceive others’ identity and existence as threats to their own identity (e.g., Middle East Conflict). On either side, group members accentuate intergroup differences for ingroup identity solidarity and distinctiveness and ignore possible commonalities. Conversely, intergroup attraction and approval among friendly nations and groups such as the United States of America and the United Kingdom facilitate intergroup cooperation and, concurrently, more opportunities to practice competent communication processes and outcomes. Positive intergroup attitudes such as intergroup appreciation and win–win benefits and rewards help to enhance further intergroup dialogue and attunement and promote inclusive communication practices. In fostering more intergroup cooperative opportunities, intergroup differences are attenuated whereas intergroup commonalities are accentuated. As a result, ethnorelativism prevails in favorable intergroup settings. Thus, favorable intergroup attitudes promote intergroup relations and competent interactions (e.g., Ellis and Moaz 2012; Kim 2013). In sum, intergroup attitudes matter for intergroup communication competence. While negative or unfavorable intergroup attitudes such as intergroup hostility, ethnocentrism, and stereotypes hinder intergroup communication competence, positive or favorable intergroup attitudes such as ethnorelative mindset together with an open-hearted posture promote intergroup communication competence. These attitudes are related to practicing competence skills.

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5 Activating competent intercultural–intergroup communication skillsets’ component Dynamic and flexible intercultural and intergroup attitudes have to be translated and connected to concrete verbal and nonverbal behavioral practices. Intercultural–intergroup communication competence skillsets refer to the operational skills that are needed to negotiate appropriately, effectively, and adaptively on multiple levels of content, relationship, and identity issues coupled with accurate meaning encoding and decoding processes. While host nationals need to increase their knowledge, open-hearted attitudes, and culture-sensitive skills in dealing with the macro–micro interactional issues that impact incoming strangers, immigrants, refugees, and co-culture group members, co-culture group members also need to learn to swing between the various identity dialectical poles creatively and elastically in crafting their strategic identity negotiation processes and desired outcomes. According to Figure 1, competent intercultural and intergroup communication desired outcomes include the capacity to frame-switch (an internal cognitive-affective transformation process and moving from ethnocentric to ethnorelative state) and code-switch (an external language–dialect convergence/divergence, to verbal and nonverbal dynamic adaptive process) in conjunction with instrumental productivity and deriving communication satisfaction on multiple situational levels. Satisfactory identity negotiation outcomes include the feeling of being understood, respected, and affirmatively valued between the local hosts and incoming guests, sojourners, transplanted immigrants, and minority identity or co-culture members (Ting-Toomey 2005a). These are important internal and external factors affecting the activation of general and particular intercultural and intergroup communication identity-supportive skillsets.

5.1 General identity-support and identity-distancing communicative strategies Identity-support communicative strategies such as mindful listening and dialogue, shared empowerment and alliance formation strategies, identity confirmation and empathetic inclusion behaviors, and social justice advocacies are some productive identity interaction moves that can promote satisfactory intergroup and interpersonal relationships. Identity-rejection strategies such as mindless attendance and ego-focused monologue, power dominance or patronization, indifferent attitudes or identity-minimizing messages can maximize intergroup distancing. Unfortunately, in most emotionally aggravating situations between polarized identity groups, individuals’ sociocultural memberships or personal identities are often being disrespected and even bypassed.

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From an intergroup theorizing standpoint, as social beings, people generally seek social approval from each other in interactions. CAT (Gallois, Ogay, and Giles 2005) contends that the extent to which social approval is sought can shape communicative accommodation in interactions. Accommodation leads to fulfilling interactional needs and goals (i.e., identity and relational maintenance goals) and therefore, it is central to interpersonal and intergroup communication competencies. Accommodation is defined as adjusting to or from the communicative styles of each other in interactions. An intergroup perspective informs us that every individual has at least two types of identity, namely a personal/unique individual identity and social/group membership identity (Ting-Toomey and Dorjee 2014). If personal identity were primed and emphasized in interactions, the concerned communicators would more likely than not accommodate to each other’s interpersonal identity needs and goals. However, if social identity were primed and emphasized in interactions, they would more likely than not accommodate to each other’s intergroup identity needs and goals. CAT provides three communicative strategies for effectively communicating in interpersonal and intergroup contexts and these are: convergence or accommodative strategy, divergence or nonaccommodative strategy, and maintenance strategy (Gallois, Ogay, and Giles 2005; Giles, Coupland, and Coupland 1991). In general, these strategies are used in social interactions such as how elders and youngsters relate to each other. Group memberships influence their perceptions and situated communication strategies. In the following discussions, these ideas are defined and clarified via more specific CAT terms. Convergence or accommodation is a communicative strategy through which interactants adjust or converge towards each other’s communicative behavior (e.g., matching the other’s accents, paralinguistic qualities, or use of phrases). Conversely, divergence or nonaccommodation is a communicative strategy through which interactants accentuate their differences in communicative behaviors (e.g., code switching, speaking mixed languages or accents, and avoiding interaction). Maintenance is a communicative strategy through which interactions persist in their original communication style regardless of each other’s communicative behavior (e.g., speaking Indian English as usual, speaking American English as usual, or speaking native language as usual). All these critical CAT concepts also correspond to the general criterion of communication adaptability in the intercultural communication competence context. For the last two and half decades, intercultural communication scholars have attached much research importance to the phenomenon of intercultural communication competence as supported by extant theorizing and substantive research work (see Deardorff 2009; Wiseman and Koester 1993). An added nuanced intergroup communication perspective with its emphasis on intergroup identity motivations, filtered perceptions, situations, and practice of strategic intergroup communicative strategies can greatly enhance our theorizing of intergroup–intercultural communication competencies.

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For example, according to Hummert (2010), individuals who belong to intergenerational groups perceive each other as members of different social groups while relating to each other. For competent communication to take place, both generational members need to be mindful of what is regarded as appropriate, effective, and adaptive communication from an ethonorelative point of view. From elderly members’ viewpoint, competent communication involves young individuals accommodating to their styles and needs appropriately, effectively, and adaptively. For example, if they have a hearing problem (which may happen due to aging), then young adults should speak louder to promote effective communication, but if they hear well, then speaking loudly would be perceived as incompetent and patronizing communicative behavior. Elders do not appreciate over-accommodation or under-accommodation by young interactants in particular situational scenes. Over-accommodation – such as overly expressive and excessive concern for vocal clarity enunciations, verbal message over-simplifications, verbatim repetitions, and artificial nonverbal posturing – is a case of patronizing behavior that is perceived to be demeaning and humiliating to elders. In contrast, under-accommodation is a failure to adapt to the communicative needs and styles of others and reflect communication insensitivity and incompetence (in this case, for example to the elders who have hearing or impaired vision problem). Intergenerational communication competence should be devoid of over- and under-accommodation styles. In other words, accommodative strategies used by the young adults for elders should be appropriate to the situations and, concurrently, promote effective intergroup and interpersonal communication goals. Likewise, elders should adopt intergroup-sensitive convergence or even maintenance communicative strategies sometimes if they are appropriate to the particular elder– youngster social interactive situations. For some young adults, when elders behave inappropriately, they feel embarrassed, especially in front of their peers. However, if the elders do not display some intergenerational communication sensitivity, they may also be perceived as rigid and creating identity intergroup communicative distance. It is important to note here that perceived accommodation or non-accommodation is often much more important than actual behavioral accommodation or divergence. Intergenerational communication competence entails mindfully negotiating these intergenerational perceptual and actual encounters and moving toward desired internal and external outcomes. Overall, competent intergroup communicators must attend to the influence of social-historical relationships, the actual ongoing interpersonal relationship formation, and inter-subjective perceptions of communication especially in problematic intergroup–interpersonal conflict situations.

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5.2 Enacting competent intergroup conflict dialogue: Principles and strategies Conflict is an inevitable part of interpersonal, intercultural, and intergroup relationships and conflict partners need competent negotiation skills based on knowledge, ethnorelative mindset and open-hearted attitudes, and situational savviness to handle diverse conflict topics and contexts. In particular, competent intergroup negotiation skills include mindfully and appropriately communicating to each other identity sensitivity, respect, and identity understanding in intergroup conflict situations (Barge 2006; Broome 2013). A polarized intergroup conflict is an antagonistic, emotionally-laden process embedded in social categorization and social group memberships (Harboom and Wallensteen 2010). Intergroup dialogue is one of the most reasonable ways to address and resolve intergroup conflict issues (Broome 2013; Saunders 2009). Among recent intergroup conflict studies, Dorjee (2013) provided a unique and concrete dialogic approach to intergroup conflict resolution. It is a constructive win–win integrative approach that essentially takes into account the superordinate goals of both conflict parties. Dorjee (2013) recommended the Middle Way Approach-Based Dialogue (MWAD) and a win–win intergroup attitude to competently resolve intergroup conflict issues. MWA-D is theoretically grounded in the Middle Way Philosophy of Buddhism (Gyatso 1999; Tsong-Khapa 2000). In Buddhism, practitioners adopt a Middle Way compass that is free of extreme antithetical standpoints such as nihilism (i.e., absolute nonexistence) and eternalism (i.e., reification of intrinsic and objective existence). MWA-D translates this philosophy into conflict resolution approach. MWA-D is based on five core principles: 1. Dialogue is central to resolving the core issue of intergroup conflict; 2. recognizing a positive interdependent relationship in conflict situations can lead to intergroup harmony; 3. advocating high mutual face concerns can lead to intergroup harmony; 4. creative thinking to transcend polarized hardline positions is essential to resolve intergroup issues; and 5. middle way solutions can resolve intergroup conflicts amicably (for details, see Dorjee 2013). Intergroup and intercultural conflict parties have to think for both sides and think outside the usual toolbox to creatively resolve issues with imagination, conviction, and “big picture” vision. Dorjee (2013) applied this challenge to the Sino-Tibetan conflicts. However, the complex intergroup conflicts still continue, primarily because only Tibetan representatives have committed themselves to the MWA-D, but not their conflict cohorts (i.e., the Communist Chinese leadership). The Dalai Lama advocates on the global level that all human conflicts should be resolved through mindful dialogue and nonviolence (www.dalailama.com). His Holiness de-emphasizes polarized social categorizations such as “We” and “They” and accentuates the notion of the superordinate identity of “One World and Humanity” to address various worldwide conflicts and peacemaking issues. At least

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two implications can be proffered based on MWA-D. One, intergroup communication competence requires both conflict parties to be mindful of identity sensitivity, respect, and identity understanding in the dialogue process, and sustained mindful dialogues take time. Two, superordinate goals may resolve intergroup hostility and conflict provided all concerned parties recognize and support them in dialogue. To promote the recognition of the development of superordinate goals, we may have to hold on to hope in a tenacious manner and not give up too easily and practice the inhale–exhale communicative role of mindfulness.

6 Mindfulness: The connective link among competence criteria, components, and outcomes As discussed in Section 5, in order to be a competent intercultural–intergroup communicator, an individual needs to develop a sense of mindful orientation to selfidentity and other-identity issues, the perceived intercultural–intergroup situation, the unfolding process and desired outcomes. According to Figure 1, mindfulness promotes increased culture-sensitive and identity-sensitive knowledge, open-hearted attitudes, and communication skillsets, and vice versa. As an individual communicator increases her or his identity-sensitive knowledge, ethnorelative attitudes, and skillsets, she or he also increases her or his mindfulness quotient. All these enhanced capacities for mindfulness and competence components ultimately prompt constructive transformation in internal frame-shifting of ethnocentric state to ethnorelative state and also external code-switching of verbal and nonverbal adroitness.

6.1 Mindfulness: General characteristics The roots of mindfulness practice are in the contemplative practices common to both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. It is, at once, a spiritual, meditative, reflective, psychological, and an applied way of intentional living and communicating. According to Buddhist practice, mindfulness means attending to one’s own internal assumptions, emerging emotions, intentions, cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors. Mindful reflexivity requires us to tune in to our own cultural and personal habitual assumptions in scanning a communication scene. It also means “emptying our mindset” and de-cluttering internal noises so that we can listen with an in-the-moment pure heart (Ting-Toomey 1999, 2009b). Following the works of Thich Nhat Hanh (1991, 1998) and Jon Kabat-Zinn (1994), mindfulness means tracking an unfolding communication episode with one-pointed wakefulness and watchfulness.

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From a Western psychological lens, mindfulness means attuning to the other person’s communication assumptions, attitudes, perspectives, and communication styles (Burgoon, Berger, and Waldron 2000). Langer’s (1989, 1997) concept of mindfulness includes these characteristics: a) learning to see the unfamiliar behaviors presented in the communication situation as novel or fresh, b) learning to view the interaction situation from multiple viewpoints or angles, c) learning to attend to the communication situation and the person with whom we are interacting holistically, and d) learning to create new categories through which the unfamiliar behavior may be understood. Applying this mindfulness orientation to intercultural and intergroup interaction situations suggests a readiness and commitment to shift one’s frame of reference from an ethnocentric lens to an ethnorelative viewfinder and increases the possibility of interpreting events from the other person’s cultural frame of reference. In a recent theorizing effort, a threefold-faceted prism of mindfulness was introduced (Ting-Toomey 2010a): being present in the immediate time and space orientation, meta-cognition awareness, and affective attunement. The core ideas of the threefold facets of mindfulness have been derived from an integration of three strands of research studies: research on mindfulness (e.g., Baer, Smith, and Allen 2004; Brown and Ryan 2003; Hoskins 1999; Siegel 2007), research on cultural intelligence (e.g., Earley and Ang 2003; Earley and Peterson 2004; Thomas 2006), and research on intercultural–interpersonal conflict competence (Canary and Lakey 2013; Canary, Lakey, and Sillars 2013; Ting-Toomey 2009a, 2009b, 2011; Ting-Toomey and Kurogi 1998).

6.2 Mindfulness: The threefold facets 6.2.1 The being present orientation facet The key to cultivating mindfulness is being fully present to attend to the self, others, and the communicative situation within multilayered socio-ecological contexts including the sociocultural membership context. On the micro-level, there are two foci of practicing “being present”: in-the-moment orientation to experience and in-the-moment self-regulated judgment. The former refers to developing an acute sense of awareness of one’s bodily and emotional sensations toward the problematic intercultural encounter situation. According to Nagata (2004), the term “body-mindfulness” refers to the ability to tune into one’s own state of being and the ability to manage one’s own energy via conscious breathing. In-the-moment orientation to experience connotes sustained awareness and attention of one’s ebbs and flows of emotional states, bodily sensations, moods, and behavioral swings. In-the-moment self-regulated judgment means being aware of our own ethnocentric judgments and intentionally shifting focus to suspend our reactive lens to

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an ethnorelative viewfinder. Countless intercultural studies have provided evidence that open-mindedness, cultural curiosity, and high tolerance for ambiguity are some of the key features of an ethnorelative mindset. In fact, according to Baer, Smith, and Allen’s (2004) “Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills” (KIMS), mindfulness has four factors: observing internal and external stimuli, describing and labeling phenomena nonjudgmentally, acting with awareness and undivided attention, and accepting events and experiences without judging them. Another study on mindfulness (Brown and Ryan 2003, the “Mindful Awareness Attention Scale” or “MAAS”) emphasizes the “sustained attention to the present moment” as a core component of mindfulness. Thus, the radiant facet of “being fully present and observing without judgment” may undergird the other two mindfulness facets.

6.2.2 The meta-cognition awareness facet Thomas (2006) uses the concept of mindfulness as the metacognitive strategy that links meta-thinking, knowledge, and behavioral flexibility. The “cultural intelligence” research team led by Van Dyne, Ang, and Koh (2009) also emphasize the concept of meta-cognition as a higher-order cognitive process of “thinking about thinking” (i.e., awareness, planning, and checking) and the importance of monitoring and modifying reactive cognitive schemata to understand the new cultural environment. Awareness in this context refers to the real-time consciousness of understanding how the role of culture influences one’s own and other’s mental processes and behaviors, in association with the actual cultural situation. Planning refers to thinking “strategically” ahead and being aware of the short-term and long-term implications of such behaviors. It also implies cultivating multiple visions and diverse behavioral strategies to handle the challenging intercultural or intergroup situation astutely. Checking connotes the intentional review of mental maps and adjusting habituated mental patterns to new mental maps and novel cultural scripts.

6.2.3 The affective attunement facet Identity negotiation work in vulnerable intercultural–intergroup encounters is fundamentally an affective arousal experience (e.g., in perceived intergroup identity threat or face loss situations). According to Nabi’s (2010) research, human emotion is a psychological construct with five defining characteristics: 1. a subjective feeling state, 2. the physiological feature of arousal, 3. cognitive appraisal or assessment of a situation, 4. a motivational feature (including behavioral intentions or action readiness), and 5. motor actions. Two dimensions generally undergird the motivational base of human affective experience: an emotional arousal dimension

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(intensity: high/low activation) and a valence dimension (direction: pleasure/displeasure; approach/flee). Bolls (2010) argues that emotion is “the fuel that energizes human communication” and that our brains are equipped with an embodied affect system that codes the encounter episode as a high or low emotional arousal episode, and a pleasant or unpleasant interpersonal experience. When an emotional arousal episode is triggered (e.g., “Swastika Story” as identified earlier), emotions such as surprise, fear, anger, pain, or contempt may be experienced and aroused, and particular patterns of thoughts are instantaneously recalled or formed. Such patterns of thoughts and reactive emotions are usually subconsciously acquired from our socio-historical contexts, past experiences, religious identity, everyday social surroundings, social media, peer group influence and family socialization upbringing. In a typical intergroup stereotyped or prejudiced scenario, the short-cut social emotive and social cognitive appraisal process often primes our motivation to either react in flight or flee mode. Alternatively, competent intergroup communicators can choose to mindfully attune to their emerging emotional states, practice some body-mindfulness, and intentionally create particular strategic options and choices. According to Devine’s (1989) research, for example, both high-prejudiced and low-prejudiced individuals activated their cultural stereotypes in the presence of the stereotyped group, but the low-prejudiced individuals were able to exercise intentional self-monitoring in replacing their stereotypes with alternative mental images more so than the high-prejudiced individuals. They used a mindful attunement process to create a more differentiated and complex view of the dissimilar, stereotyped group. In sum, the cultivation of mindfulness is an art form of reconciling several communication paradoxes: being strategic versus being spontaneous, being focused versus being expanding, and digging in versus reaching out. Harnessing mindful communication practice relies heavily on inter-subjective perceptions: from reflexive self-perception to introducing perception shifts about others to being aware of how one is being perceived by others in a stigmatized or a non-stigmatized manner. Interpersonal competence/incompetence perception is often formed based on the criteria of perceived communication appropriateness, effectiveness, and adaptability and filtered through the threefold facets of mindfulness. This threefold prism of mindfulness is also directly linked to the developmental acquisition of culture-sensitive and identity-sensitive knowledge, ethnorelative attitudes, and operational skillsets’ competence components. Reciprocally, increased knowledge, open-hearted attitudes, and competent skills also concomitantly enhance the mindfulness quotient and “being-in-the-moment” context-sensitive practice. We believe that the paths between mindfulness and the various competency components are bi-directional as opposed to a one-way linear trajectory.

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7 Intercultural–intergroup communication competence: Desired outcomes According to Spitzberg and Changnon (2009) and Deardorf (2009), one of the future directions for theorizing about intercultural–intergroup communication competence is to include the component of desired outcomes in framing the various competence issues. We concur with their viewpoint, and we believe that mindfulness of both internal process-outcomes such as cultural frame-switching (Hong et al. 2000) and external process-outcomes such as goal achievements and face identity support will propel individuals forward to complete the intercultural–intergroup communication competence cycle. We also emphasize here the tight interconnection between the terms “process” and “outcome” as dynamic processes of transformation – from appropriate and adaptive internal frame-shifting to external code-switching in attunement to the multiple identities and needs of the communicators, the interactional process, and the situational goals. We view “competence outcomes” as the continuous development of internal mental agility, flexibility, and an open-hearted ethnorelative attitude, and the “external outcomes” as identity, relational, and situational goal accomplishments, and a general sense of instrumental productivity and communicative satisfaction (Hecht, Jackson, and Ribeau 2003; Hecht et al. 2005). For example, Nguyen and Benet-Martinez (2010) uncovered that bicultural or multicultural immigrant individuals can utilize a cultural frame switching strategy by switching between two or more cultural cognitive schemata or frames to guide the application of appropriate and effective behaviors in diverse cultural settings – depending on whom they are interacting with and the conversational goals and contexts. These bicultural individuals often utilize their sensitivity to socio-cultural membership cues to “shift” between the two cultural interpretive schemata – for example, from small to large power distance respect-deference attitudinal dimensions. They can also cognitively “put forth” one cultural interpretive frame (e.g., utilizing a collectivistic reasoning frame versus an individualistic reasoning frame) in the foreground over another to negotiate their identity strategically in intercultural–intergroup interactions. They can also integrate both cultural cognitive frames in synchronicity (Benet-Martinez and Haritatos 2005; Benet-Martinez, Lee, and Leu 2006). In fact, Toomey, Dorjee, and Ting-Toomey’s study (2013) provided additional evidence that competent bicultural individuals (i.e., Asian-Caucasian bicultural-biracial individuals) can swing adaptively in a cultural frame-switching and frame-shifting progression of a double-swing dance model in activating their communal mindset versus their individualistic mindset. In the interpersonal–intercultural conflict competence research realm, desired external outcomes often emphasize the achievement of instrumental, relational, and/or self-presentation interactional goals (Canary and Lakey 2013; Ting-Toomey and Oetzel 2001). Interculturally stated, the satisfaction and the active negotiation

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of face identity issues constitute one of the premium interactional goals in managing intercultural–intergroup conflicts competently (Ting-Toomey 2005a, 2005b). While face is about a claimed sense of favorable interactional identity in a particular situation, facework is about verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors that protect/save self, other, or mutual face (Oetzel and Ting-Toomey 2003; Oetzel, Garcia, and Ting-Toomey 2008). Thus, from the integrative framework of the intergroup-intercultural competence lens, the satisfaction of group membership approval, inclusion, and acceptance, and the satisfaction of ingroup/outgroup membership identity respect or face validation issues may constitute some core desired external (and also internal) outcome scopes. The more mindful communicators can satisfy multiple face needs (e.g., autonomy face, inclusion face, status face, competence face, and moral face), the more they are likely to be perceived as competent and dynamic communicators within a given situational context (TingToomey, 2005b). In particular, facework competence emphasizes the mindful capacity of conflict negotiators in managing emotional frustrations non-reactively and transforming ingrained conflict habits flexibly. A respectful, mutual-face and communal-face sensitive lens would likely cultivate productive conflict dialogue openings, entries, passages, and closures. When both conflict parties from divergent socio-cultural membership groups are committed to working hard in developing a “third ear” to listen mindfully and empathetically and a “third eye” to observe holistically, they are more likely to move toward a transformational facework path and a mutualattuning face-saving and face-honoring satisfying outcome. Lastly, according to INT (Ting-Toomey 2005a), the broader needs to be understood, respected, and affirmatively valued on the core humanistic level, the socio-cultural membership level, and the personal identity level are some evolving outcomes in the movement toward intercultural and intergroup communication satisfaction and fulfillment.

8 Intercultural–intergroup communication competence: Recommendations This chapter presented an extensive discussion of the complementary nature of intercultural and intergroup communication competence issues – from identifying particular criteria to evaluating intercultural and intergroup competence to the skillsets that are needed to become a competent intercultural–intergroup negotiator. We have also offered an integrative working model (see Figure 1) as a guiding framework to thread through the various criteria, components, mindfulness, and outcomes of intercultural–intergroup communication competence. We have elaborated on the importance of understanding the three competence criteria of appropriateness, effectiveness, and adaptability, and the importance of acquiring culture-sensitive and identity-sensitive knowledge, developing an ethno-

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relative mindset and open-hearted attitudes, and activating competent intercultural–intergroup communication skillsets. We have also expanded on the general characteristics and the particular threefold facets of mindfulness in connecting with the three competence components and final outcomes.

8.1 Future theorizing and researching directions We acknowledge that our proposed working model needs further theorizing effort and empirical testing. For the purpose of this chapter, the model worked as an organizational map and compass to connect sectors and link various theoretical components. Some future directions that can be gleaned from this working model and the ideas discussed in this chapter include researching the role of mindfulness and the mutual identity attunement process. While we have identified three facets of mindfulness, more rigorous testing of these facets in connection with the three components of communication competence is critically needed. Which facet of mindfulness links meaningfully and in an explanatory manner with which competence component(s) would be a fascinating future investigation. Furthermore, Spitzberg and Changnon (2009) lamented the neglected study of physiological and emotional aspects of intercultural–interpersonal communication competence in the field. We believe the deeper exploration of the concepts of “body-mindfulness” (Nagata 2004) and “emotional attunement” (Ting-Toomey 2014) may yield some fruitful directions for future research. Competence-related emotions such as anger and compassion, hurt and emotional repair, forgiveness and reconciliation can be more deeply probed to understand the vulnerable tipping points for why individuals are motivated to engage in identity-support or identityrejection communication strategies in intergroup and intercultural relationship trust-building or trust-busting interactive processes. In the realm of intergroup communication research, to the best of our knowledge, the construct of “competence” appears to be a sorely neglected area in theorizing and research (Giles 2012; Taylor, King, and Usborne 2010). Furthermore, the “desired internal and external outcomes” component appears to remain fuzzy and elusive for both intergroup and intercultural competence researchers to ponder. Gudykunst (2005) defined effective communication in terms of minimizing misunderstanding in intercultural and intergroup interactions. We took this effective communication idea further and focused our attention on “identity negotiation” appropriateness, effectiveness, and adaptability via the multifaceted prism of mindfulness. We also have incorporated some of the concepts from Identity Negotiation Theory (Ting-Toomey 2005a), Face-Negotiation Theory (Ting-Toomey 2005b), and Communication Accommodation Theory (Gallois, Ogay, and Giles 2005) in piecing the possible internal and external outcomes for understanding intergroup and intercultural interactional competence. Many of these concepts and connective pathways in the context of developmental intercultural–intergroup competence

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practice await further rigorous testing, analysis, and probing. We appreciate and value a diversity of meta-theoretical lenses and theoretical perspectives from multiple academic disciplines to theorize and grapple with the fascinating intertwined phenomena of intercultural communication competence and intergroup communication competence. We also recognize the balanced importance, validity, and utility of interpretive, critical, positivistic research perspectives in enhancing our understanding of intergroup and intercultural communication adroitness. Accordingly, we acknowledge the use of both qualitative/critical and quantitative methodologies (and also triangulated or mixed methods) as viable ways to capture the breadth and depth of communication competence on multiple social ecological analytical levels. Our approach to intercultural and intergroup communication competence avoids extreme “objectivist” and “subjectivist” assumptions and factors in the all-important and critical mediating role of “mindfulness” for communication competence across diverse cultures, ethnicities, and membership communities. We believe in the twin directions of pursuing fully both a situational-general and a situational-specific perspective in understanding intercultural and intergroup communication competence and incompetence issues especially concerning interactions between stigmatized identity groups with non-stigmatized identity groups at multiple levels of identity contact complexity. Generally, we believe that the goals of the particular competence research to be pursued should determine the most appropriate methodology/ies to be adopted, because attachment to a particular methodology may suggest selective bias. Research questions should guide our research design, not one’s preferential methodology. We do appreciate a diversity of methodologies to research intercultural and intergroup communication competence on multiple social ecological systems levels. Large-scale longitudinal communication survey studies, interaction analysis experimental studies, real-life news case studies from global and local arenas, coorientation/network views and narratives of interviewees from diverse stigmatized identity groups will further enhance the researching effort of intercultural–intergroup communication competence. Other methodological approaches such as community-based participatory research method, mixed-method and triangulation method designs, alternative creative methods such as incorporating identity artifacts/images, self-identity mapping and story-telling memoirs, social media textmessages and journals will also contribute to a deeper understanding of topicalsensitive and situational-sensitive issues of intercultural and intergroup communication competence.

8.2 Conclusion To conclude, intercultural communication competence scholars, while borrowing ideas heavily from the interpersonal communication competence field, appear to

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have glossed over some essential constructs such as social identity phenomenon, intergroup attitudes, group vitality, communication accommodation, and the dynamics of intergroup dialogue in the intergroup communication field that can surely enhance our understanding of intercultural and intergroup interaction competence. In addition, to the best of our knowledge, intergroup communication scholars have also paid negligible attention to theorizing about the particular phenomenon of “intergroup communication competence” and moving beyond the investigation of communication effectiveness on the message exchange level to including particular outcome concepts such as internal frame switching, external code-switching, to intergroup and intercultural communication productivity and satisfaction. In both research domains, a shared vocabulary can be developed to more systematically account for the antecedents, processes, and outcomes of identity-sensitive intergroup–intercultural competence issues. Our proposed working model on intercultural–intergroup communication competence in this chapter is meant as an opening for a dialogue in probing the commonalities and distinctive concepts existing in intercultural communication competence and intergroup communication encounter. Given the pervasive nature and identity diversity of intergroup interactions in everyday life, intergroup communication scholars are best positioned to use their expertise to contribute theoretically to the knowledge and application of intergroup and intercultural communication competence. Concurrently, the criteria and components of intercultural communication competence in general and the conjoint phenomenon of “mindfulness” gleaned from the intercultural conflict interaction literature can also help to clarify the boundary conditions in which communicators are perceived as competent or incompetent negotiators as they strategically converge toward or diverge from their fellow communication partners in particular intergroup encounters. Overall, competent intercultural–intergroup communicators are adaptive individuals who mindfully attune to self-identity and other-identity issues in a given context. Having the astute ability to read the situation holistically, they have the nimble mindset and open-hearted attitudes to acknowledge socio-cultural group membership issues and distinctive personal identity issues with a nuanced, differentiated lens. Mindful intercultural–intergroup communicators assume a non-reactive and non-judgmental role in their initial stance. They also practice the use of meta- ethics contextualism view in actively seeking information from multiple cultural and group membership sources (Dorjee, Baig, and Ting-Toomey 2013; TingToomey 2011) before rendering a culturally-sensitive and also culturally-inclusive decision. Not only can they maintain their equanimity during the intense communication turbulence stage, but they can also visualize multiple explanations, pathways, detours, and solutions through the give-and-take, middle-way dialogue forum. Interculturally and intergroup-wise, dynamic competent communicators use their identity-sensitive knowledge, their open-hearted attitudes, and their optimal

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operational communication skills to make the outsiders and unfamiliar others feel welcomed and connected in multiple situations – from breath-to-breath, identityto-identity, and heart-to-heart.

Acknowledgements The authors want to thank the editors, Dr Annegret F. Hannawa and Dr Brian H. Spitzberg, for their astute comments and detailed reviews of this manuscript.

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Tajfel, Henri. 1978. The achievement of group differentiation. In: Henri Tajfel (ed.), Differentiation between Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, 77–100. London: Academic Press Tajfel, Henri. 1981. Human Groups and Social Categories. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Tajfel, Henri and John Turner. 1979. An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In: Steven Worchel and William G. Austin (eds.), The Psychology of Intergroup Relations, 33–47. Monterey, CA: Brooks-Cole. Taylor, Donald, Michael King and Esther Usborne. 2010. Towards theoretical diversity in intergroup communication. In: Howard Giles, Scott Reid and Jake Harwood (eds.), Dynamics of Intergroup Communication, 263–276. New York: Peter Lang. Thich Nhat Hanh. 1991. Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. New York: Bantam Books. Thich, Nhat Hanh. 1998. The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. Berkeley, CA: Parallex Press. Thomas, David C. 2006. Domain and development of cultural intelligence: The importance of mindfulness. Group and Organizational Management 31. 78–99. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 1986. Interpersonal ties in intergroup communication. In: William.B. Gudykunst (ed.), Intergroup Communication, 114–126. London: Edward Arnold. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 1999. Communicating across Cultures. New York: The Guilford Press. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 2004. Translating conflict face-negotiation theory into practice. In: Dan Landis, Janet Bennett and Milton Bennett (eds.), Handbook of Intercultural Training, 3rd ed., 217–248. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 2005a. Identity negotiation theory: Crossing cultural boundaries. In: William. B. Gudykunst (ed.), Theorizing about Intercultural Communication, 211–233. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 2005b. The matrix of face: An updated face-negotiation theory. In: William. B. Gudykunst (ed.), Theorizing about Intercultural Communication, 71–92. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 2009a. A mindful approach to managing conflicts in intercultural-intimate couples. In: Terry A. Karis and Kyle D. Killian (eds.), Intercultural Couples: Exploring Diversity in Intimate Relationships, 455–458. New York: Routledge. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 2009b. Intercultural conflict competence as a facet of intercultural competence development: Multiple conceptual approaches. In: Darla K. Deardorff (ed.), The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence, 100–120. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 2010a. Mindfulness. In: Ronald L. Jackson (ed.), Sage Encyclopedia of Identity, Vol. 1. 455–458. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 2010b. Applying dimensional values in understanding intercultural communication. Communication Monographs 77. 169–180. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 2011. Intercultural communication ethics: Multiple layered issues. In: George Cheney, Steve May and Debashish Munshi (eds.), The ICA Handbook of Communication Ethics, 335–352. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Ting-Toomey, Stella. 2014. Managing identity issues in intercultural conflict communication: Developing a multicultural identity attunement lens. In: Veronica Benet-Martinez and Ying-Yi Hong (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Multicultural Identity, 485–506. New York: Oxford University Press. Ting-Toomey, Stella and Leeva C. Chung. 2012. Understanding Intercultural Communication, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Ting-Toomey, Stella and Tenzin Dorjee. 2014. Language, identity, and culture: A process competence perspective. In: Thomas Holtgraves (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Language and Social Psychology, 27–45. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Ting-Toomey, Stella and Atsuko Kurogi. 1998. Facework competence in intercultural conflict: An updated face-negotiation theory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 22. 187–225. Ting-Toomey, Stella and John G. Oetzel. 2001. Managing Intercultural Conflict Effectively. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ting-Toomey, Stella and John G. Oetzel. 2013. Culture-based situational conflict model: An update and expansion. In: John G. Oetzel and Stella Ting-Toomey (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Conflict Communication, 2nd ed., 763–789. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Ting-Toomey, Stella, Kimberlie Yee-Jung, Robin Shapiro, Wintilo Garcia, Trina Wright and John G. Oetzel. 2000. Ethnic/cultural identity salience and conflict styles in four U.S. ethnic groups. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 24. 47–81. Toomey, Adrian, Tenzin Dorjee and Stella Ting-Toomey. 2013. Bicultural identity negotiation, conflicts, and intergroup communication strategies. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 42. 112–134. Triandis, Harry. 1995. Individualism and Collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Tsong-Khapa. 2000. The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment: Lamrim Chenmo (Vol. 3. Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, Trans.). Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion. Van Dyne, Linn, Soon Ang and Christine Koh. 2009. Cultural intelligence: Measurement and scale development. In: Michael A. Moodian (ed.), Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence: Exploring the Cross-cultural Dynamics within Organizations, 233–254. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Villagran, Melinda M. and Lisa Sparks. 2010. Social identity and health contexts. In: Howard Giles, Scott Reid and Jake Harwood (eds.), Dynamics of Intergroup Communication, 235–247. New York: Peter Lang. Wiseman, Richard and Jolene Koester (eds.). 1993. Intercultural Communication Competence. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Laura Stafford

21 Social communicative competencies across the life span Abstract: Five areas of social communicative competencies are considered. The areas explored are pragmatic competencies; emotional and social support; conflict management; emotional interpretation and expression; and interactive media competencies. Most research in these areas has centered on early childhood/adolescence and the elderly, and thus they are the focus here. Social communication competencies are important to study due to their link with positive attributes, especially satisfying relationships, throughout life. The same skills that serve us well as children such as regulating our emotional expressions, offering support to others, and managing conflict, remain relevant in old age. It is typically assumed that social competencies grow until young adulthood where they level off and are maintained until old age, at which time declines begin. This position is questioned. Though some pragmatic competencies may begin to decline (e.g., the use of complex grammatical constructions), other pragmatic competencies, such as conversational skills, may continue to improve. Our ability to offer social support is maintained or even increases. Our conflict management skills may continue to evolve well into old age. Communication competencies over the life span are perhaps better characterized as adaptions to life, rather considered as a model of development and decline. Keywords: communication competence, social competence, lifespan, pragmatic competencies, social support, emotional regulation, conflict management

Terms such as communicative competencies, conversational competencies, social competencies, and social skills are used interchangeably by some and are defined uniquely by others. Overall, little agreement exists as to the terms used or the demarcations among them. Despite multiple related constructs and myriad definitions, Segrin and Givertz (2003) proposed that on an abstract level social skills refer to the “ability to interact with others in a way that is both appropriate and effective” (p. 136). In a similar vein, social communicative competencies have been considered as the “ability to achieve personal goals in social interaction while simultaneously maintaining positive relationships” (Rubin and Rose-Krasnor 1992: 285). Indeed, the central theme in much current scholarship on communication competencies is the entwinement of social communicative competencies and social connections; positive social relationships are the sine qua non of social communicative competencies.

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It is important to consider social communicative competencies throughout the life span as at virtually every life stage they are associated with successful relationships with friends and family as well as with occupational and academic success. Similarly, deficits in social communicative competencies have been linked to depression, loneliness, low self-esteem and a lack of self-efficacy throughout life. Before outlining the social communicative competencies reviewed herein, issues surrounding their development are first considered.

1 Controversies and questions Several questions or controversies surround the study of the development of social communicative competencies during the lifetime. Stafford (1993) summarized these as: What are the roles of heredity versus environment? What is the influence of earlier versus later experiences? What are the processes and paths of development; and what are the cultural constructions? The question of nature verses nurture continues to be debated in regard to communication competencies and like many other aspects of human development, there is general agreement that both nature and nurture play a role (see Beatty and Pascual-Ferra, Chapter 11, in this volume). Hart, Newell, and Olsen (2003) summarized and acknowledged the contributions of molecular genetics research, behavior-genetics research, temperament research and research from physiological perspectives in helping us understand the nature part of social communicative development. As scholars of interpersonal communication however, we have placed much more emphasis on the nurture part of the development of social communicative competencies. When it comes to the development of communication competencies in children and young adults, the quest has been to unearth the optimal parenting practices, be they styles such as authoritative, authoritarian or permissive (e.g., Darling and Steinberg 1993), or interaction patterns such as conversational or conformity orientations (e.g., Koesten 2004) that facilitate communication competencies. In summarizing the literature on the relationship between parenting and social communicative competencies Stafford (2013: 265) concluded that, “To date, we can offer global conclusions that appropriate levels of parental warmth and control, positive (or at least non-conflicted) interaction between co-parents, perceived equitable treatment of siblings, and positive sibling relationships appear to facilitate the school age child’s short term social and academic competencies as well as longterm adolescent and adult socialization.” As amorphous as this conclusion is, we know even less about what types of interactions might influence social communicative competencies into middle and old age. Rather than focusing on what facilitates development when it comes to the elderly, research has tended to focus on what contributes to decline. It has

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been forwarded that the limited and frequently negative ways in which individuals interact with the elderly are related to losses in communicative competencies. That is, individuals repeatedly interact with the elderly based on stereotypes of dependency or incompetence (Hummert et al. 2004). Individuals may over-accommodate or engage in patronizing speech. Consistent exposure to such interaction styles results in self-fulfilling prophecies and the decline of competencies, whereas elderly individuals who are not subjected to such problematic environments, but enriched ones instead, should not only not decline, but should continue to flourish (Barker, Giles, and Harwood 2004). Alternatively, communication skills in old age might be thought of not in terms of growth and decline, but rather as adaptation (see e.g., Pecchioni, Wright, and Nussbaum 2005). In addition to understanding the role of nature and nurture in facilitating optimal competencies or stemming their decay, some work has considered reasons why individuals might have deficits. In summarizing this body of research, Segrin and Givertz (2003) noted several environmental factors have been linked to poor skills. Some people lack role models as children from which to observe and learn. Emotional or psychological problems, such as depression or anxiety, or experiences of traumatic life events can be factors. Such problems and events sometimes lead to a withdrawal from social interactions and an atrophy of abilities or a lack of confidence or self-efficacy. Some individuals have limited opportunities or experiences to practice and thus fall short in environments where the skills are needed. These reasons are relevant throughout the life span. The absence of a socially competent model is perhaps most relevant in young children as the lack of a model during the childhood might well set the stage for decreased abilities throughout life. Traumatic events however, can occur at any age. A lack of opportunities can also occur at any age, but is most often raised as a concern among the elderly. The second controversy raised is, what is the influence of earlier versus later experiences? In other words, what is the importance of early parenting and other early life experiences in predicting adult communicative competencies? As noted above, there is some evidence that early parenting does have an association with adult social communicative competencies. However, the question remains as to how much influence and how immutable these influences might be. It is difficult to ascertain the extent to which early childhood interaction is a unique contributor to adult competencies (Stafford 2013). Yet, it is unlikely that early childhood experiences are immutable. In general, in Western societies, there is a strong cultural belief that social communicative deficits can be remediated through interventions at any age. Most work centers on addressing deficits in childhood and most work within childhood is focused on addressing skill deficiencies in various clinical populations. However, there are a number of training programs aimed toward middle-aged adults, who are already considered competent in efforts to further enhance abilities. Examples include career-specific skills such as patient–provider communication or mari-

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tal enrichment, or programs such as Toast Masters or Dale Carnegie. Improving competencies or learning new competencies does not stop in middle age. For example, programs for teaching elderly individuals social interactive media competences are emerging (see e.g., Magsamen-Conrad, in press). The third question raised is what are the processes and paths of development? Most work considers ages and stages of development and has assumed a rather continuous developmental path. Understanding development as a series of continuous stages does not allow for much consideration of individual differences or the possibility that development is discontinuous. It also does not consider the possibility that courses of development are constantly changing as individuals interact with their environments (Stafford 2013). Nonetheless, an ages and stages approach is a convenient way to organize literature on the development of communication competencies. A final question is that of cultural constructions. The optimal or even acceptable skills or behaviors considered as communicative competencies vary across cultures and even within cultures over time. Social competence is very much a subjective evaluative term. Social communicative competencies might be considered as those skills that aid individuals in achieving socially desirable outcomes, and as those socially desirable outcomes change over time, so do the needed social skills to achieve those outcomes. For example, in the last century we have seen a shift in the desired attributes of a child from compliance and obedience to independence (Smith 1999). In addition, the current focus on friendships as the mark of successful socialization in children and adolescents has not always been the case. Though no answers to these continuing questions and controversies are attempted here, it must be acknowledged that it is against the backdrop of these issues that the pursuit of understanding the development of social communicative competencies occurs.

2 Competencies considered Before middle childhood, primary, though not exclusive, research attention is on language development. In regard to communication development, the primary use of communication in children from the fourth month to the third year of life is creating effects. Children come to recognize that communication is interpersonal in nature; children use it to create effects or achieve responses from others. From the ages of three to five, children begin to exhibit conversational competence (e.g., give and take in conversation). Around age five, children start to acquire skills in monitoring their own and others’ communication. By middle childhood, primary interest has shifted from language development to social competencies and there is a substantive body of research on the social communicative competencies of middle childhood.

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Until old age, there is progressively less research on each life stage. The dearth of research on other age groups seems to imply that social communicative competencies are generally assumed to be relatively stable throughout life, until supposed declines with old age are manifest. However, as already indicated, many skills improve in old age. Further, in some research a life-span perspective to communication competence is adopted. This perspective rejects the idea found in much scholarship that ageing is equated with decay and decline. Rather, from a life-span perspective, development is seen as adaptions of gain and loss; positive development continues to occur throughout life (Baltes 1987; Pecchioni, Wright, and Nussbaum 2005). Keeping in mind the subjective and changing nature of social competencies, it is possible to identify some global areas of competencies that are generally valued in Western culture today and also are considered important for individuals from childhood to old age. Stafford (2004, 2013) in discussing communication competencies of middle-childhood listed three core global areas of social behaviors including the provision of emotional and social support, conflict management, and emotional interpretation and expression. Samter (2003), in discussing competencies needed for maintaining successful friendships across the life span, noted similar categories and added pragmatic competencies. The four global categories of pragmatic competencies, emotional and social support, conflict management, and emotional interpretation and expression are considered here. Last, a fifth group of competencies, interactive media competencies is also discussed. Of course, across all social communicative competencies, individuals must be able to make inferences about others’ inner states and have an understanding of social contexts, social rules and social conventions, as well as be motivated to invoke those competencies. Pragmatic competence refers to “the appropriate use of language in context” (Gertner, Rice, and Hadley 1994: 914). Samter (2003) included in this category not only the ability to participate appropriately in conversations, but also abilities related to speech production. By extension, the abilities related to comprehension are included here as well. Some pragmatic competencies may well decline in old age. For example Underwood (2010) reported that, vision and hearing loss impacts both language production and comprehension. However other skills, such as many conversation skills, do not appear to decline. Rather, older adults adapt to losses in such a way that conversational interactions remain unaffected (Hooper and Cralidis 2009). The second group of competencies, emotional interpretation and expression is often only considered relevant during childhood as it is assumed that the ability to interpret the emotions of others and to regulate our own emotional displays is a skill that is successfully achieved by the end of childhood and maintained throughout the life span. A similar construct, emotional competence, has been defined as “the ability to identify and describe emotions, the ability to understand emotions, and the ability to manage emotions in an effective and non-defensive

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manner” (Ciarrochi et al. 2003: 104). Research indicates that emotional competence continues to develop at least through adolescence and there is some indication that individuals may continue to enhance these abilities through old age (e.g., Scheibe and Carstensen 2010). The third group of social communicative competencies discussed is the ability to provide emotional support and caring. This refers to “the support efforts directed at overcoming sadness, anxiety, fear anger, and other negative emotions” (Burleson and Kunkel 1996: 111). Older adults continue to provide emotional support to their grown children and grandchildren as well as their friends and siblings. Next, conflict management is considered. Competent conflict management involves the ability to engage in conflict resolution and employ persuasive argumentation. This can entail finding mutually acceptable solutions to problems such as the ability to provide emotional support. It appears that conflict management skills continue to improve through old age (Luong, Charles, and Fingerman 2011). Finally, computer mediated communication competencies are considered. The ability to use interactive media may be considered a skill and research interest in computer mediated communication competencies is emerging (e.g., Spitzberg 2006). Interactive media is also a way in which social communicative competences, such as providing support or managing conflict, may be enacted. That is, interactive technologies have been argued to be the means to the same types of interactions we have always had. “We discuss common interests, provide social support, express affection, coordinate activities, engage in small talk, play games, share humor, argue viewpoints, offer offence, annoy, anger and ignore our friends and families regardless of communication mode” (Stafford and Hillyer 2012: 307). Thus, questions about the relationship between interactive media use and global social competencies, as well as social connections, have been raised.

3 Middle childhood and early adolescence There has been a great deal of research attention on peer acceptance, peer rejection and friendship during middle childhood and extending into early adolescence. The social competencies required during adolescence are marked by an increasingly complex set of social demands and expectations (Samter 2003). All areas of competencies are assumed to continue to develop throughout childhood and those who are more advanced are more likely to be accepted by and be friends with their peers. Also, some research centers on the links between social competencies and deviant behavior such as drug use and other risky behaviors. The general consensus is that those who are less socially skilled are more likely to engage in these risky behaviors. This link is thought to occur as those who are less socially competent during middle childhood are less likely to be accepted by peers and peer rejection is linked to risky behaviors in adolescence (Dishion, Nelson, and Yasui 2005).

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3.1 Pragmatic competencies Children with language impairments or language difficulties are viewed less positively than their peers by late childhood. Furthermore, individuals with language difficulties are also typically less skilled in conversation. Conversational interaction skills include the “the ability to take turns, respond when spoken to, maintain coherent discourse, be a receptive listener, make appropriate requests, and communicate clearly” (Samter 2003: 645). Popular children are more likely to possess these pragmatic competencies than less popular ones (Wolters et al. 2014).

3.2 Emotional interpretation and regulation Around the age of five, children begin to monitor and evaluate their own communication and begin to become adept at altering messages to be socially appropriate (Haslett and Samter 1997). Children also begin to understand and follow cultural “display rules”. Display rules refer to the appropriate suppression or expression of emotions (Ekman and Friesen 1975). During early childhood, children come to realize that the emotions they feel do not necessarily correspond to the emotions they should display. A child learns to mask the happiness sometimes felt with a rival’s loss or to substitute gratitude for disappointment with the less than ideal birthday present. Understanding and enacting these rules is significant as peers tend to ostracize children who fail to exhibit the required emotional fronts. Importantly, a child must learn to manage anger. Children unable to express anger in socially acceptable ways, which often means masking or hiding anger, have difficulty with peers. Children who successfully project appropriate emotions are more likely to be accepted and befriended (Stafford 2004). Along with projecting appropriate emotions is the ability to read those emotions in others. Research indicates that children increase in the ability to read facial emotional expressions from the age of two into adolescence (van Beek and Dubas 2008). Research also indicates that children who are skilled at decoding emotional displays of others and those who are better at this skill from ages of about six to ten are also more popular than those lagging in this ability (Nowicki and Duke 1992). There is less research on emotional communicative competencies during adolescence than during middle childhood. However, some research has indicated that the ability to interpret emotional facial expressions continues to increase throughout adolescence. It has even been proposed that the ability to decode nuanced facial expressions may not develop until well into adolescence (Thomas et al. 2007). Teenagers who are better able to interpret the emotions of others are less likely to behave aggressively and are more likely to be perceived as friendly by their peers. Alternatively, teenagers who have difficulty in interpreting the emotions of others and regulating their own emotions are more likely to be at risk for early engagement of sexual activities and the use of hard drugs (Hessler and Katz 2010).

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3.3 Emotional support The “capacity to provide emotional support is a central component of the child’s social competence” (Burleson and Kunkel 1996: 108). Providing emotional support is linked to the ability to engage in perspective taking and to empathize, both of which are believed to emerge during middle childhood. The provision of emotional support includes comforting, expressing sympathy, advising, helping and sharing (Clark, MacGeorge, and Robinson 2008). Burleson and Kunkel (1996) outlined three general skills a child must have to capably provide emotional support: the ability to acquire knowledge about their feelings, to integrate information, and to take another’s perspective. The importance of emotional support is seen during this time as children begin to describe friends as people who help and support each other, instead of simply being those one plays with (Merrell and Gimpel 1998). Further, the ability to provide emotional support becomes increasingly important for children through middle childhood and into adolescence as they turn more and more to peers for emotional support and less to parents and families. As Buhrmester (1990: 1102) pointed out, “Adolescent friendship demands great facility in a number of close relationship competencies”.

3.4 Conflict management In attempts to get what they want, two and three year-olds offer requests or issue demands. Around age four, children are capable of offering reasons for requests and attempt to persuade others. In early middle childhood (ages 4–8), children follow more politeness rules in their persuasive techniques and become more sensitive to the desires of others. As children move toward adolescence, they offer more reasons, find more holes in their opponents’ arguments, and offer longer arguments (Stein and Albro 2001). Throughout childhood, children’s persuasive abilities continue to mature. Children are better able to motivate others and act as advocates for proposals (Kline and Clinton 1998). Children increase in sophistication in persuasion and argumentation during their pre-teen years (Kline 1998). However, children continue having difficulty analyzing the reasoning of others until adolescence (Kline and OseroffVarnell 1993). In regard to conflict resolution, by around the age of eleven or twelve, the ability to identify and offer alternative solutions to conflicts increases (Kline 1998). Adolescents are more able to seek consensus to resolve problems (Kline and Clinton 1998). Children and teenagers who can arrive at amicable conflict resolution and avoid aggression are more likely to be well-liked.

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3.5 Social interactive media The ability to use interactive media may be considered a skill and research interest in computer mediated communication competencies is emerging (e.g., Spitzberg 2006). Interactive media is also a way social communicative competences, such as providing support, may be enacted. Additionally, questions about the relationship between interactive media use and global social competencies, as well as social connections, have been raised. Among children, little work has specifically addressed interactive media skills. This lack of research is perhaps due to the assumption that today’s children are “digital natives”. There has been much recent interest in digital natives versus digital immigrants, though the question remains as to how much of the population are truly digital natives as wide varieties in technology use are still found within and between different populations. For example, parental income, as well as education and familiarity with new media are highly predictive of interactive media use by children (e.g., Bittman et al. 2011). However, interest is emerging in new media literacy skills of children and their potential link to educational achievement (Alper 2013). When it comes to social connections and new media use and children, more attention has been paid to potential risks (e.g., cyber-bullying) than to potential positive features. When we consider teenagers, the same risks, such as cyber-bullying and sexting, are of concern. However, the potential relationships between interactive media use and both social connections and social communicative competencies are also beginning to be explored. The question has been raised as to whether face-toface social communicative competency deficiencies among adolescents might be further impaired or remediated through online connections. Some research indicates that those with limited social skills and poorer friendship qualities may be able improve their social communicative competencies and lessen social anxiety through online interaction, thus facilitating their face-to-face communication competencies (Stritzke, Nguyen, and Durkin 2004). However, others have reported that although those lacking social communication competencies develop online ties, the most severely socially challenged allow these online relationships to interfere with face-to-face relationships rather than aiding them (Kim, LaRose, and Wei 2009). That is, young people’s use of interactive media has been found to increase social anxiety and loneliness as well as to enhance communication skills and create broader social connections (Clifton et al. 2013). In general, however, it appears that face-to-face communication competencies and mediated interpersonal communication competencies go hand-in-hand (Hwang 2011).

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4 Elderly There is no agreed upon marker of when one becomes “elderly”, however age 65 is frequently invoked. The span of 65–80 which has been referred to as the “young old” (Baltes 1987), commands the majority of research attention. The usual presumption when it comes to communication competencies among older adults is one of deficits and loss. However, a life-span developmental perspective views aging as adaptation. A life-span perspective in regard to communication “allows us to consider how individuals respond adaptively to the physical, mental, and emotional changes which accompany aging” (Underwood 2010: 146). From this perspective comes the exploration of gains, as well as study of successful adaptions, in addition to losses. The need for social communication competencies has sometimes been said to be more pronounced for the elderly than for young or middle-aged adults given the often increased dependence on others due to limited physical mobility. Similarly, there has been much concern for the elderly in regard to social connections as research has frequently indicated that the elderly tend to have smaller networks than younger adults. However, Luong, Charles, and Fingerman (2011) concluded that although older adults might have smaller social networks, they tend to be more satisfied with those networks. Indeed, Mares and Fitzpatrick (2004) concluded that in contrast to the assumptions of isolation, older people maintain strong family ties. Social connections are indeed vital to continued well-being into old age and social competencies remain important to those connections just like any age. As Harwood (2007) pointed out, people are less likely to visit and interact with those who are less socially adept.

4.1 Pragmatic competencies Harwood (2007) outlined several challenges that older adults face in the course of “normal aging”. As we age our short-term memory capacities change impacting language comprehension. Cognitive changes have also been linked to some changes in language production such as the use of less complex language structures. The general findings are that increased age is associated with increased difficulties in both comprehension and production (Underwood 2010). Furthermore, as we age we also encounter varying degrees of difficulty with psychomotor skills and sensory skills, including vision loss and hearing loss. These are related to comprehension and production. The inability to hear a sentence of course negates the ability to understand it. In summarizing the literature however, Harwood (2007) proposed that normative aging usually has a relatively small impact on most communicative abilities. First, he argued that differences may be exaggerated to some degree. That is, statis-

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tically significant effects found in laboratory studies may be negligible outside of the lab. In addition, the loss of some abilities, for example the loss of complex grammar comprehension and construction, is likely of little importance in daily activities. Williams and Nussbaum (2001: 81) concluded that “despite the evidence suggestive of language and processing effects of age-related changes in older adulthood, the implication that such effects are equal to reduced communicative competence is not supported”. Moreover, some areas appear to improve. Vocabulary steadily increases at least into the 70s, though age influences on vocabulary are over-shadowed by education (Verhaeghen 2003). Conversational skills hold their own or continue to increase as do abilities to create shared meaning and understanding (Samter 1993; Williams and Nussbaum 2001). Older adults are also frequently master storytellers with the ability to relate complex narratives and adapt those stories to their audience (Kemper et al. 1990).

4.2 Emotional interpretation and regulation The ability to invoke display rules to suppress or manipulate one’s outward expressions has been linked to social adjustment throughout the life span (Bonanno et al. 2004). Findings suggest that older adults are both less reactive to negative emotional information and are better able to regulate their emotional expressions than adolescents and young and middle age adults (Mattias et al. 2005). When it comes to interpreting the emotions of others, some research suggests that this skill continues to develop and other research suggests that though the ability may not continue to increase, it also does not decline (Bucks et al. 2008).

4.3 Emotional support The expectations for friends in old age are quite similar to those beginning in late adolescence (Rawlins 2004). From late adolescence on, a friend is “someone to talk to, to depend on for practical and emotional assistance, and to enjoy spending time with” (Rawlins 2004: 274). The ability to provide emotional assistance continues to be an important component of friendship. Likewise a significant part of older adults’ intergenerational communication is the provision of social and emotional support to adult children and grandchildren (Williams and Nussbaum 2001). Research indicates that elderly individuals tend to be more skilled at offering social support to their friends than younger individuals. It has been suggested that social support competencies may continue to evolve given that abilities to empathize seem to continue to grow with older adults’ life-experiences (Nussbaum et al. 2000).

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4.4 Conflict management Effective conflict management may be a skill that continues to improve across the life span. Older adults may bring greater social expertise to bear in avoiding confrontations in order to preserve harmonious relationships (Luong, Charles, and Fingerman 2011). Similarly, Bergstrom and Nussbaum (1996) argued that conflict skill is learned throughout the lifetime and that elderly adults bring their life experiences in order to derive solution-oriented, cooperative means of conflict management. Sillars (1980) found older adults to be less likely to engage in passive-indirect conflict, to be less controlling, less concerned for their own needs and self-interests and more concerned with the needs of others in conflict situations. In addition, in potential conflict situations, older adults have been found to have a positivity bias, a decreased focus on negative exchanges, and are more likely to overlook or forgive (Luong, Charles, and Fingerman 2011).

4.5 Social interactive media Though the competencies of younger people in regard to interactive media have been given relatively little attention, there is a great deal of interest in the competencies of older individuals. In contrast to the predominate fears of the risks encountered by teens and the potential for negative impact on social lives, the almost uniform assumption is that interactive media will improve the social connections of older adults. That is, research interest is due to the presumed isolation from others and thus the connections that might come from the use of social media. Older adults are less likely than other ages to be skilled in interactive media. Given the timing of the advent of social media, it is not possible to say such skills have declined; they are simply less likely to have been developed in the first place. Acquiring these skills as a senior has been equated with the same difficulty as learning a new language (Logan 2000). Concerns have been raised about limited access, unfamiliarity, or inability to use such devices. Barriers to older adults’ use of interactive media technologies include some functional capabilities such as physical limitations. For example, a loss of manual dexterity or poor vision can make mobile devices difficult to use. Hearing loss can interfere with the ability to understand speech over a smart phone or tablet. The structural barrier of cost also sometimes occurs. For many, limitations include a lack of knowledge concerning the technology, a lack of knowledge as to personal relevance, a lack of self-efficacy, performance anxiety, and attitudes toward the media (Charness and Holley 2004). Despite some potential barriers, the use of social media can play an important role in social and family connections (Leist 2013). Those who do use new media in conjunction with more traditional means, effectively maintain and even improve their relations with others, especially younger relatives who may rely more on social media (Cornejo, Tentori, and Favela 2013). Interactive media use has been

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found to strengthen the ties of older adults to individuals they have face-to-face relationships with (Cornejo, Tentori, and Favela 2013). Thus, the competencies of older adults with interactive media technologies are certainly an important area of both research and societal interest.

5 Cautionary comments Some notes of caution must be mentioned in regard to the generalizations offered in this chapter. First, despite the positive association between social communicative competencies and a cornucopia of valued societal outcomes, and the association between skill deficits and a plethora of undesirable ones, a cause-and-effect relationship is not necessarily at play. For example, individuals with emotional problems may have both poor relationships and poor social communicative competencies. If a cause-and-effect relationship is at play, it is possible that the direction is not known. A child who is aggressive might alienate peers leading to decreased social opportunities, and thus deceased abilities which in turn further restrict opportunities. Second, most research is conducted based on ages or stages. Consideration must be given to the great variability of social skills within any age group as well as the oft-times great ranges of ages within one category. For example, some research includes those as young as fifty in the elderly category. There is tremendous variably in abilities at any particular age and even greater variability when one considers individuals over a particular age as all belonging to a singular age group. As Rawlins (2004) pointed out, “old age” may span forty or more years; some individuals may be retired for as many years as they spent in their previous occupations. Individuals continue to evolve and gain life experiences during this time. Other problems also exist with age (or stage) approaches to the development of social communication competencies. Using age to understand development offers many advantages for research and practice. It is comparatively easy to develop statistical norms for competencies at any given age. However, consideration of age as the driving factor in development usually leaves out other variables such as social class, education, cognitive development, emotional development, or life-experiences, which in many cases may be more relevant for the competency at hand than age per se (Stafford 1993). Third, though individuals might have the requisite skills, their motivation or their ability to enact them may be highly contingent upon their relationship with the other individual and the situation at hand. For example, young children are much more likely to use appropriate social display rules with their peers than with their parents. Negotiation among peers from early childhood to early young adulthood increases whereas the use of coercion declines. The ability to disengage or walk away from a conflict or potential conflict with peers also increases. Interest-

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ingly, though this trend is seen with peers, it is not seen with siblings. Children continue to attempt to resolve conflict with coercion when it comes to their brothers and sisters well into young adulthood (Laursen, Finkelstein, and Betts 2001) Context is also meaningful. The most readily seen contextual factor is the difference in social skills needed in different cultures. With increasing globalization comes increased concern with intercultural communication competencies (Hajek and Giles 2003). Being proficient in another country’s language does not ensure that one is skilled in the social competencies required for successful social interactions. Context does not necessarily refer to a different culture. In general, individuals are less likely to be able to perform social skills in novel situations for example, and this seems to be even more the case for elderly individuals. In routine situations, the majority of older adults are able to compensate for age-related issues by relying upon their strengths. However, in unfamiliar settings and with time constraints, the ability to enact some competencies may be lessened (Ryan 1996). In some situations, individuals might not lack the knowledge, but may experience too much anxiety or a lack of self-efficacy to be socially competent. Of course, adaptability may be seen as a social skill itself and some people are not hindered by unfamiliar surroundings as much as others. In the introduction, the idea of cultural constructions of social competencies was introduced. It is important to note that most research on the development of communication competencies has been conducted on white middle-class children and white middle-class elderly adults. Also, this chapter is based on research conducted almost exclusively in North America, Europe, and Australia. Furthermore, the role that social class or ethnicity might play in what is valued as socially appropriate competencies has been given limited consideration in the extant literature. Finally, it is important to remember that differences in the ways individuals communicate at different ages are not necessarily related to maturation. Most studies of communication competencies are cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. The extent to which cohort effects versus maturation occurs in competencies is not clear. For example, older adults have been found to be more interested in preserving relationships through conflict avoidance than young adults. However, when today’s older adults were children it is possible that a greater societal emphasis was placed on harmony than for today’s young adults, who are encouraged to be independent and self-sufficient. Thus, it is possible that when today’s young adults are elderly, this focus on harmonious relationships might not be apparent. People might not mellow with age; they might simply be enacting the values they learned when they were young.

6 Conclusion In sum, despite these numerous limitations, some tentative generalizations based on the extant literature have been offered. Social communication competencies are

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important to study due to their link with positive attributes, especially satisfying relationships, throughout life. The same skills that serve us well as children such as regulating our emotional expressions, offering support to others, and managing conflict, remain relevant in old age. It is typically assumed that social competencies grow until young adulthood where they level off and are maintained until old age, at which time declines begin. This is often not the case. Though some pragmatic competencies may begin to decline (e.g., the use of complex grammatical constructions), other pragmatic competencies, such as conversational skills, may continue to improve. Our ability to offer social support is maintained or even increases. Our conflict management skills may continue to evolve well into old age. Communication competencies over the life span are perhaps not best characterized by a model of development and decline, but rather as adaptations to life.

References Alper, Meryl. 2013. Developmentally appropriate new media literacies: Supporting cultural competencies and social skills in early childhood education. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 13(2). 175–196. Baltes, Paul. 1987. Theoretical propositions of life-span developmental psychology: On the dynamics between growth and decline. Developmental Psychology 23(5). 611–626. Barker, Valerie, Howard Giles and Jake Harwood. 2004. Inter- and intragroup perspectives on intergenerational communication. In: Jon F. Nussbaum, and Justine Coupland (eds.), Handbook of Communication and Aging Research, 2nd ed., 139–166. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Beatty and Pascual-Ferra, Chapter 11, in this volume Bergstrom, Mark. J. and Jon F. Nussbaum. 1996. Cohort difference in interpersonal conflict: Implications for the older patient–younger care provider interaction. Health Communication 8(3). 233–248. Bittman, Michael, Leonie Rutherford, Jude Brown and Lens Unsworth. 2011. Digital natives?: New and old media and children’s outcomes. Australian Journal of Education (ACER Press) 55(2). 161–175. Bonanno, George A., Anthony Papa, Kathleen Lalande, Maren Westphal and Karin Coifman. 2004. The importance of being flexible: The ability to both enhance and suppress emotional expression predicts long-term adjustment. Psychological Science 15(7). 482–487. Bucks, Romala S., Matthew Garner, Louise Tarrant, Brendan P. Bradley and Karin Mogg. 2008. Interpretation of emotionally ambiguous faces in older adults. The Journal of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Sciences 63(6). 337–343. Buhrmester, Duane. 1990. Intimacy of friendship, interpersonal competence, and adjustment during preadolescence and adolescence. Child Development 61. 1101–1111. Burleson, Brant R. and Adrianne W. Kunkel. 1996. The socialization of emotional support skills in childhood. In: Gregory R. Pierce, Barbara R. Sarason and Irwin G. Sarason (eds.), Handbook of Social Support and the Family, 105–140. New York, NY: Plenum Press. Charness, Neil H. and Patricia Holley. 2004. The new media and older adults: Usable and useful? American Behavioral Scientist 48(4). 416–433. Ciarrochi, Joseph V., Coralie J. Wilson, Frank P. Deane and Debra Rickwood. 2003. Emotional competence and age as predictors of willingness to seek help from formal and informal sources. Counselling Psychology Quarterly 16. 103–120.

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Clark, Ruth A., Erina L. MacGeorge and Lakesha Robinson. 2008. Evaluation of peer comforting strategies by children adolescents. Human Communication Research 34. 319–345. Clifton, Andrew, Deborah Goodal, Sasha Ban and Eileen Birks. 2013. New perspectives on the contribution of digital technology and social media use to improve the mental wellbeing of children and young people: A state-of-the art review. Neonatal, Pediatric and Child Health Nursing 16(1). 19–26. Cornejo, Raymundo, Mónica Tentori and Jesús Favela. 2013. Enriching in person encounters through social media. A study on family connectedness for the elderly. Internationel Journal of Human Computer Studies 71(9). 889–899. Darling, Nancy and Laurence Steinberg. 1993. Parenting style as context: An interactive model. Psychological Bulletin 113(3). 487–496. Dishion, Thomas J., Sarah E. Nelson and Miwa Yasui, M. 2005. Predicting early adolescent gang involvement from middle school adaptation. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 34(1). 62–73. Ekman, Paul and Walalce V. Friesen. 1975. Unmasking the Face: A Guide to Recognizing Emotions from Facial Clues. New York, NY: Prentice-Hall. Gertner, Bethany L., Mabel L. Rice and Pamela A. Hadley. 1994. The influence of communicative competence on peer preferences in a preschool classroom. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 37. 913–923. Hajek, Christopher S. and Howard Giles. 2003. New directions in intercultural communication competence: The process model. In: John O. Greene and Brant R. Burleson (eds.), Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction Skills, 935–958. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hart, Craig H., Lloyd D. Newell and Susanne F. Olsen. 2003. Parenting skills and socialcommunicative competence in childhood. In: John O. Greene and Brant R. Burleson (eds.), Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction Skills, 753–800. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Harwood, Jake. 2007. Understanding Communication and Aging: Developing Knowledge and Awareness. Los Angeles, CA; Sage Publications. Haslett, Beth B. and Wendy Samter. 1997. Children Communicating: The First Five Years. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hessler, Danielle M. and Lynn F. Katz. 2010. Associations between emotional competence and adolescent risky behavior. Journal of Adolescence 33(1). 241–246. Hooper, Celia R. and Ann Cralidis. 2009. Normal changes in the speech of older adults: You’ve still got what it takes; it just takes a little longer!. Perspectives on Gerontology 14(2). 47–56. Hummert, Mary L., Teri A. Garstka, Ellen B. Ryan and Jane L. Bonnesen. 2004. The role of age stereotypes in interpersonal communication. In: Jon F. Nussbaum, and Justine Coupland (eds.), Handbook of Communication and Aging Research (2nd ed.), 91–114. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hwang, Yoosun. 2011. Is communication still good for interpersonal media?: Mobile phone and instant messenger. Computers in Human Behavior 27(2). 924–934. Kemper, Susan, Shannon Rash, Donna Kynette and Suzanne Norman. 1990. Telling stories: The structure of older adults’ narratives. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 2. 205–228. Kim, Junghyun, Robert LaRose and Wei Peng. 2009. Loneliness as the cause and effect of problematic internet use: The relationship between internet use and psychological wellbeing. CyberPsychology and Behavior 12(4). 451–455. Kline, Susan L. 1998. Influence opportunities and the development of argumentation competencies in childhood. Argumentation 12. 367–385. Kline, Susan L. and Barbara L. Clinton. 1998. Developments in children’s persuasive message practices. Communication Education 47. 120–136.

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Kline, Susan L. and Dee Oseroff-Varnell. 1993. The development of argument analysis skills in children. Argumentation and Advocacy 30. 1–16. Koesten, Joy. 2004. Family communication patterns, sex of subject, and communication competence. Communication Monographs 71(2). 226–244. Laursen, Brett, Benjamin D. Finkelstein and Noel T. Betts. 2001. A developmental meta-analysis of peer conflict resolution. Developmental Review 21(4). 423–449. Leist, Anja K. 2013. Social media use of older adults: A mini-review. Gerontology 59(4). 378–384. Logan, Robert K. 2000. The Sixth Language: Learning a Living in the Internet Age. Toronto, ON: Stoddart Publications. Luong, Gloria., Susan T. Charles and Karen L. Fingerman. 2011. Better with age: Social relationships across adulthood. Journal of Personal and Social Relations 28. 9–23. Magsamen-Conrad, K. in press. An intergenerational community partnership to build relationships and improve technology literacy. Community Works Journal. Mares, Marie-Louise and Mary A. Fitzpatrick. 2004. Communication in close relationships. In: Jon F. Nussbaum, and Justine Coupland (eds.), Handbook of Communication and Aging Research (2nd ed.), 251–272. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mattias, Kliegel, Theo Jäger, Louise H. Phillips, Esther Federspiel, Adrian Imfeld, Marianne Keller and Daniel Zimprich. 2005. Effects of sad mood on time-based prospective memory. Cognition and Emotion 19(8). 1199–1213. Merrell, Kenneth W. and Gretchen A. Gimpel. 1998. Social Skills of Children and Adolescents: Conceptualization, Assessment, Treatment. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Nowicki, Stephen and Marshall P. Duke. 1992. The association of children’s nonverbal decoding abilities with their popularity, locus of control, and academic achievement. The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development 153(4). 85–393. Nussbaum, Jon F., Loretta L. Pecchioni, James D. Robinson and Teresa L. Thompson. 2000. Communication and Aging. New York, NY: Routledge. Pecchioni, Loretta L., Kevin B. Wright and Jon F. Nussbaum. 2005. Life-span Communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Rawlins, William K. 2004. Friendships in later life. In: Jon F. Nussbaum and Justine Coupland (eds.), Handbook of Communication and Aging Research (2nd ed.), 273–304. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Rubin, K. H., and Rose-Krasnor, L. 1992. Interpersonal problem solving. In: V. B. Hasselt and M. Hersen (eds.), Handbook of Social Development, 283–323. New York, NY: Plenum. Ryan, E. B. 1996. Psychosocial perspectives on discourse and hearing differences among older adults. Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology 20(2). 95–100. Samter, Wendy. 2003. Friendship interaction skills across the life-span. In: John O. Greene and Brant R. Burleson (eds.), Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction, 637–684. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Scheibe, Susanne and Laura L. Carstensen. 2010. Emotional aging: Recent findings and future trends. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences 65. 135–144. Segrin, Chris and Michelle Givertz. 2003. Methods of social skills training and development. In: John O. Greene and Brant R. Burleson (eds.), Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction, 135–178. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Sillars, Alan L. 1980. Attributions and communication in roommate conflicts. Communication Monographs 47(3). 180–200. Smith, T. W. 1999. The Emerging 21 st Century American Family. (No. 42). University of Chicago: National Opinion Research Center. Spitzberg, Brian H. 2006. Preliminary development of a model and measure of computermediated communication (CMC) competence. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication 11(2). 629–666.

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Stafford, Laura. 1993. Interaction Between Parents and Children. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Stafford, Laura. 2004. Communication competencies and social-cultural priorities of middle childhood. In: Anita Vangelisti (ed.), The Handbook of Family Communication, 311–332. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Stafford, Laura. 2013. Parent and sibling interactions during middle childhood. In: Anita L. Vangelisti (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Family Communication (2nd ed.), 256–270. New York, NY: Routledge. Stafford, Laura and Joshua D. Hillyer. 2012. Information and communication technologies in personal relationships. Review of Communication 12(4). 290–312. Stein, Nancy L. and Elizaabeth R. Albro. 2001. The origins and nature of arguments: Studies in conflict understanding, emotion and negotiation. Discourse Processes 32. 113–133. Stritzke, Werner G. K., Anh Nguyen and Kevin Durkin. 2004. Shyness and computer-mediated communication: A self-presentational theory perspective. Media Psychology 6(1). 1–22. Thomas, Laura A., Michael D. De Bellis, Reiko Graham and Kevin S. LaBar. 2007. Development of emotional facial recognition in late childhood and adolescence. Developmental Science 10(5), 547–548. Underwood, Kate. 2010. Interactive remembering: Insights into the communicative competence of older adults. Journal of Aging Studies 24(3). 145–166. van Beek, Yolanda and Judith S. Dubas. 2008. Age and gender differences in decoding basic and non-basic facial expressions in late childhood and early adolescence. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 32(1). 37–52. Verhaeghen, Paul. 2003. Aging and vocabulary score: A meta-analysis. Psychology and Aging 18(2). 332–339. Williams, Angie and Jon F. Nussbaum. 2001. Intergenerational Communication Across the Life Span. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wolters, Nina, Harry Knoors, Antonius Cillessen and Ludo Verhoeven. 2014. Behavioral, personality, and communicative predictors of acceptance and popularity in early adolescence. The Journal of Early Adolescence 34. 585–605.

VII. Intervention and assessment

Brian H. Spitzberg

22 Assessing the state of assessment: Communication competence Abstract: The key concepts, dimensions and decisions involved in assessing communication competence are reviewed. Competence assessment depends first upon locating competence in skills or abilities, or in impressions of those skills and abilities. The criteria of competence, such as accuracy, appropriateness and effectiveness, also require inclusion. A taxonomy of communicative competence measurement dimensions is explicated, and its implications for developing and validating competence assessments are explored. The three basic dimensions are locus, directness and generalization. Key issues and challenges are identified through the exploration of the questions: What, who, where, how, and why assessments are being made. Keywords: ability, competence, criteria, curvilinearity, reliability, validity

“And measure for measure”

Shakespeare’s (1623) play, Measure for Measure, speaks of a fundamental principle of reciprocity, in this case a crime of equal measure for a crime already committed. The idea of attempting to achieve a direct correspondence between one thing and another is at the heart of all measurement. Shakespeare’s inspiration for this notion is often associated with the Bible, Matthew 7:2: “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” As with meeting justice, however, seeking direct correspondence between one thing and another thing representing it, correspondence is difficult to achieve in practice. When one measure fails to represent the other, it renders a secondary failure, doing its own injustice to the original idea or action. In general, in the social sciences the ultimate value of concepts can only be judged in the marketplace of measurement and operationalization. This is no exception in regard to communicative competence. This chapter examines the nature of measuring and operationalizing communication competence. In the process, it will establish a vocabulary of basic concepts related to such assessment and to the scope of communication competence itself. This boundary-setting will circumscribe the relevant domains of communication competence that require measurement. In the process, the chapter will examine some of the more challenging issues involved in assessing communication competence and identify measurement exemplars in various domains of communicative

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competence. It draws upon both prior considerations of such issues (e.g., Spitzberg 1987, 1988, 2000, 2003; Spitzberg and Cupach 1989), as well as prior compendia and reviews of measures related to communicative competence (i.e., Backlund and Wakefield 2010; Breen, Donlon, and Whitaker 1977; Byram 1997; Christ 1994; Daly 1994; Hargie 1997a; Larson et al. 1978; Morreale and Backlund 2007; Morreale et al. 1994; Nangle et al. 2010; Rubin and Mead 1984; Rubin, Palmgreen, and Sypher 2004; Rubin et al. 2009; Wrench, Jowi and Goodboy 2010).

1 A synoptic view of communication competence A synoptic overview of communication competence reveals that it has been contemplated in a scholarly way at least since the time of Aristotle (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984, 2011). Aristotle’s Rhetoric represented an attempt to systematically identify the available means of persuasion in any situation. Aristotle’s interest was in part a response to his mentor Plato, who distrusted the role that rhetoric could play in distorting the search for truth. Aristotle reasoned that a science of rhetoric would be the best protection and palliative from such potential rhetorical abuses. Post-renaissance scholarship began to expand beyond Aristotle’s focus on just persuasive communication in public venues and his rationalist approaches to investigating the phenomenon. By the 1700s, an elocutionist school of instruction attempted to link psychological faculties and emotions to overt and specific learnable behaviors. These skills would be taught to people seeking to communicate specific emotions in their oratory. By the time of the mid-twentieth century, scientific methods began establishing a foothold in the study of communication. Combined with the statistical and psychometric assumptions developed in areas such as the study of intellectual competence, the study of social competence (Doll 1935; Gilliland and Burke 1926; Hunt 1928; Thorndike 1920) began to emerge as a conceptual and empirical model for measuring social and communicative competence. Behaviorist methodologies emerged to exemplify the existence of basic abilities and their tractability in response to environmental stimuli. Other more qualitative methods emerged in sociology and symbolic interactionism in which naturalistic, ethnographic, and qualitative methods provided models for interpreting individual native competencies and behavioral norms. These various academic tributaries have today carved a landscape providing a methodological panoply for measuring and operationalizing communicative competence. Communicative competence is commonly considered from one of two broad perspectives: abilities or impressions. From an abilities perspective, competence is the potential to perform certain repeatable, goal-directed sequences of overt behaviors (Hargie 1997a; Spitzberg 2003). Within this perspective, competence is similar to concepts of potentiality, capability, or faculty. In almost all domains of human endeavor, however, the brute fact of a person’s ability to perform an act is seldom

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as important as the question of how well such an act is performed. The ability to make eye contact probably matters far less in most circumstances to whether or not a person makes eye contact appropriate to the context. Such concerns are less about the brute ability and more about the skill, facility, adeptness, expertise, prowess, talent, proficiency, or mastery of applying the ability in context. These inherently subjective terms reflect value judgments, inferences and impressions of competence – whether or not an ability has been manifested in a way that results in positive judgments of a person’s communicative ability. There are, for example, disabilities that restrict whether or not a person can see and therefore make eye contact, or speak and therefore orally verbalize questions. Because of the equifinality and multifinality of communication (Spitzberg 2013), people with such disabilities can generally find ways of communicating competently, because they find substitute ways of expressing an idea or accomplishing a particular function or outcome (equifinality), they experience unanticipated yet preferable outcomes using their available familiar communication skills (multifinality), or because those making judgments of competence compensate for the person’s disabilities, either in their own skill adaptation or by adjusting their expectancies and evaluations. Thus, in general, an impression perspective of competence locates the construct in the evaluative judgments made of a person’s communication. These two perspectives can be integrated in a comprehensive model (Spitzberg 2013), in which the question is how objective skills (i.e., repeatable functional behaviors) are correlated or functionally related to judgments of competence (i.e., quality). There are many dimensions of quality and some may be particular to a given context. For example, a dimension of quality for a salesperson might be that person’s unit or service sales or profits for a given period of time. At a more general level, however, three dimensions of quality are generally considered relevant to communication: accuracy, effectiveness, and appropriateness. Accuracy refers to the degree to which the symbols and behaviors used in a communicative encounter or set of encounters renders fidelity in representing a given text or meaning, or the degree of fidelity in the reproduction of similar meanings or understandings in at least one communicator’s mind in the minds of other communicators. Accuracy is related to such concepts as mutual understanding, empathic understanding, co-orientation, basic communication fidelity, uncertainty reduction, information transfer, and clarity. Accuracy is highly relevant to certain contexts involving complex tasks with relatively little margin of error, such as cockpit communication, surgical and medical encounters, military operations, and paired computer programming. In the everyday pragmatics of communication encounters, however, people are often constrained by concerns about impression management and relationship management. Thus, in many communicative encounters, pure accuracy can be substantially subordinate to other interactant objectives. Indeed, much of the universal pragmatic of politeness (Brown and Levin-

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son 1978) and relational level of communication (Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson 1967) involve the strategic use of ambiguity, equivocation, taken-for-granted suppositions, unspoken implications, and nonverbal demeanor, all of which limit the value of accuracy as a universal criterion of competence. Effectiveness refers to the degree to which relatively preferable outcomes are accomplished through a process of communication. The relative nature of effectiveness is important to consider, given that there may be true conversational dilemmas in which any conceivable form of communication nevertheless yields punishing or dissatisfying outcomes (e.g., the delivery of bad news). In such situations, effectiveness is gauged by the degree to which the least costly communication tactic is taken. What constitutes the substance or content of effectiveness may vary from context to context. For example, in the cockpit and in medical operations, effectiveness might encompass clarity or accuracy as one of its key indicators. As such, effectiveness can encompass accuracy and clarity as subordinate criteria. Appropriateness refers to the degree to which communication in a given encounter is evaluated as legitimate to, or an adequate fit to, the context in which it is enacted. Appropriateness is often equated with conformity to the rules of a situation, but it can be distinguished in an important sense. The most appropriate behavior in a given context may require behavior that violates the existing rules, which may be found overly restrictive. Highly competent communicators may be able to renegotiate, bend, or otherwise re-define the rules of a given context and encounter. Given that effectiveness is a cognitive or affective criterion that is tethered to a communicator’s own objectives and intentions, it generally is best referenced by the communicator making such judgments. In contrast, the others who populate a communicative encounter represent those who are in the best position to evaluate whether or not their own sense of propriety has been violated or fulfilled. Thus, appropriateness is a judgment generally best made by others. Despite this obvious notion, relatively few studies and measures of competence explicitly recognize the need to differentiate the locus of perception in these criteria of judgment.

2 A taxonomy of measures of communicative competence Communicative competence is a human construct – unlike the function of an organ or the use of an opposable thumb, the quality of a person’s communication is not an inherently objective phenomenon. What constitutes quality may vary from situation to situation, community to community, era to era, and relationship to relationship. As such, the measurement of communicative competence must always flow to some substantial degree from a conceptual perspective grounded in the priorities of a given context. Assuming that communicative competence has

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Fig. 1: The behavioral assessment grid (BAG; adapted from: Cone 1978; Spitzberg 2003; Spitzberg and Cupach 1989).

been theorized, modeled, or conceptualized, issues of measurement can proceed. It is small surprise that with many approaches to conceptualizing competence, there are also many approaches to measuring it. In order to examine the approaches to measuring competence, a grounding taxonomy is needed. Spitzberg and colleagues (Spitzberg 2003; Spitzberg and Cupach 1989) adapted a behavioral assessment grid by Cone (1978), which provides one way of organizing behaviorally-based measures. It is laid out along three dimensions, which intersect to identify potential forms of measures. The three dimensions are locus, directness and generalization (see Figure 1). Locus refers to whether the primary focus of measurement is on cognition, affect, behavior, or outcomes of some communicative process. Any given measure may cross over these foci. Directness refers to the degree to which the measure focuses on objective, discrete levels of behavior, or depends on reports about such behavior mediated by the interpretations of self or other(s). Generalization refers to the degree to which the items or data of measurement apply, or are expected to apply, consistently across various domains of interest, such as time, context, perceiver, and method. The intersection of these dimensions define operational spaces, such that measures can be compared based on their unique features along these dimensions. The grid also provides a heuristic function by indicating measurement spaces that may not have been explored by existing measures. The locus dimension recognizes that some approaches to communicative competence focus on different conative domains. For example, research on communication apprehension, social anxiety, and shyness all reflect attention toward the

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affective or motivational domain of communicating competently. Similarly, research on the accuracy of nonverbal sensitivity and expressiveness, mirror neurons, and empathy may focus in part on the inner emotional experience of a communicator. Other measures of communicative competence may focus more on the cognitive planning, interpretive schemata, goal formulation, cognitive complexity, rule knowledge, perspective-taking, or linguistic or role knowledge relevant to an interactional context. Such constructs tend to fit more in the cognitive domain of communicative competence. Given that there is no communication without behavior, measures that focus at least in part on skills and their behavioral constituents represent a common denominator across communicative competence measures. Finally, some measures focus on evaluative judgments of a communicative process, or some measure of outcomes. For example, using sales figures or lack of recorded medical errors might be taken as proxies of the competence of communication. Although it is possible to have a measure of communicative competence that is exclusively behavioral (e.g., the number of times a person makes eye contact in a conversation could be viewed as a measure of competence), it seems reasonable to conclude that no theoretical account of communicative competence could be complete without some constructs representing motivation, knowledge, and outcomes in addition to the behavioral domain. The directness dimension is relatively open-ended and is not considered a comprehensive representation of all potential methods. For example, the discovery of mirror neurons opened the possibility of using FMRi and other techniques of measuring aspects of communicative competence. Such constructs and such measurement technologies, could not be anticipated a priori and thus reveal the potential for future innovations in measurement methods. To date, most measures of competence can be aligned broadly along a dimension of directness, reflecting the degree to which interpretive processes mediate the behavioral data taken to reflect communicative competence. Interview and projective techniques tend to involve structured theoretical constructs that are overlaid upon a communicator’s self-reports of impressions. Self-reference measures reflect by far the most common approach, influenced heavily by the psychological trait paradigm, in which people self-report their own behavior and abilities, which are taken as proxies of underlying characteristics representing competence. Self-reports are often compared to other-reference measures, whether in studies of empathic accuracy, workplace 360° assessments, or expert or peer judgments of candidate social skills. Case records reflecting certain communicative achievements may be available for inspection and coding, such as medical records demonstrating that certain information was successfully elicited during a health appraisal interview. Such records depend, nevertheless, on reporting of what occurred in a given communicative encounter. Role-play and simulation approaches involve scenarios in which confederates or other interactants are given a scenario to act as if it were a naturally occurring encounter. Typically such encounters are recorded and later evaluated by third

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parties who have expertise or a stake in the outcome. Three common applications of such techniques involve interview role-plays, social skills training and assessment role-plays, and simulated or standardized patient assessments in health education contexts. There may be more elaborate approaches, such as table-top exercises for military or emergency response scenarios. Future assessments will likely rely significantly more on interacting in cyberspace with artificially intelligent avatars. Obviously there is still generally a need for self-reference and/or other-reference in addition to such simulation methods. Artifact and signal-based methods represent approaches that would use some residual products of a communicative encounter to indicate communication competence. Although there are few instances of this approach, methods that investigate voting outcomes, turnover, or health clinic visits after a political, organizational, or persuasive campaign can be taken as measures of communicative competence. Although indirect indicators of the competence of communication itself, these are direct observations of explicit and discrete behaviors and therefore fall on the direct side of the continuum. Naturalistic approaches to studying competence generally come out of conversation analytic methods, in which naturally-recorded interactions are examined in detail to identify specific instances in which native speakers sequentially co-construct interactional achievements. Identifying the communication competencies of expressing hope, or avoiding sensitive topics, in a medical encounter illustrate an attempt to locate the competence as directly as possible in the interactional behavior itself. The final type of direct behavioral measurement is physiological. Developments in the study of facial affect expression and recognition, mirror neuron and fMRI signals of empathic activity (Gerdes, Lietz, and Segal 2011) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (emdr; Jeffries and Davis 2013) are exemplary of approaches that may have direct implications for measuring communicative competence. A variety of developments in the study of communicative disorders and their underlying physiological components may also provide direct implications for a more physiologically-grounded theory of communicative competence. The generalization dimension arrays ways in which the data of a given measure of competence is expected to, or actually, demonstrates consistency across various domains. The three major areas of generalization are: external, internal, and observer. External generalization refers to the extent to which measures of competence in one application correspond to other applications. Specifically, method or format generalization examines whether measuring in one method (e.g., self-report) generalizes to other methods (e.g., role-play performance). Generalization across settings, contexts, or relationships involves correspondence across types of situations or encounter. For example, research using the same measure that finds that a husband and wife communicate incompetently with one another, but competently with friends or strangers (Levenson and Gottman 1978) may be taken as a

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limitation of the measure, or as an indication that competence is relationally moderated. Generalization across times or episodes concerns the state-versus-trait issue of the degree to which competence is a stable individual characteristic. The setting and time facets of generalization are clearly correlated, given that measuring competence across situations necessarily entails measuring it across time. However, there may be generalized competence within certain contexts (e.g., a married couple may communicate incompetently in a consistent way within their relationship encounters, but may be inconsistently competent in encounters outside of their relationship). Internal forms of generalization refer to psychometric issues typically addressed through analyses such as internal reliability, Rasch analysis, item response theory analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis, and multidimensional scaling. Item abstraction refers to the extent to which items at very molecular or granular levels of abstraction correspond to items cast at a more molar or general level. For example, the item “made eye contact” is fairly molecular and “paid attention” is fairly molar, but making eye contact may be one of the important indicators a rater looks for when making the judgment about paying attention. The last two domains of generalization concern the extent to which a measure of a given interactant’s competence produces similar results across raters or observers and the extent to which a given observer or rater produces similar evaluations across interactants. The latter issue gets at aspects of rater biases and judgment stability, whereas the former gets at aspects of trait and dispositional consistency of performance as perceived across observers. The intersection of these three dimensions create a matrix within which existing measures can be categorized and compared and within which new measures might be devised. There may be cells, however, that are likely to remain null as a result of paradigmatic constraints. For example, conversation analysis typically avoids mentalistic constructs as a source of interpretation, so it might be unlikely for there to be a naturalistic measure of cognition expected to generalize across settings or time.

3 Key issues in developing and validating measures of communicative competence The primary decisions involved in selecting, or developing and validating, a measure of communicative competence revolve around the prototypical heuristic questions of what, who, when, where, and how (Spitzberg 1987): What motivations, knowledge, and behaviors need to be assessed? Who needs to perform the assessment? What time frame of communication (i.e., when) needs to be assessed? Where should the communication be contextualized or situated for assessment? How

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should the operationalization be comprised and configured? Addressing each of these questions, in turn, tend to turn on the broader question of why – why is this particular measure needed? Each of these decisions has significant implications for function and validity of a measure and most ought to derive from theoretical assumptions about the nature of communication and competence.

3.1 What? The question of “what” refers to the conceptual constituents of communicative competence. What physiological/affective, cognitive, and behavioral components comprise competence? Answering this question helps address another question – what is the scope of assessment? Because the determination of what comprises a “skill” is an inherently interpretive venture and given a potentially infinite scope of contexts to which communication might potentially apply, there is an infinite number of potential communication skills. This quandary is somewhat analogous to Chomsky’s (1965) claim that a finite language is logically capable of producing an infinite number of sentences. There may be a finite number of communication modes (e.g., verbal and nonverbal), but the constituents of these modes are capable of an infinite range of sequential variations and potential applications to communicative situations. An interesting example of the potential of coding new skills not previously envisioned is demonstrated in the work by Pentland (2012) and others (Pentland et al. 2005; Curhan and Pentland 2007; Eagle and Pentland 2009) using automated sociometric badge technologies to automatically assess who talks to whom how often. From such structural indices, four basic social signals were quantified: activity level (the frequency of participation in conversation), engagement (the influence of one person’s turns on other people’s speaking turns), stress (variation in prosodic vocal pitch), and mirroring (degree to which a person engages in short interjection sequences when interacting with others). Such skills are not particularly intuitive and depend significantly on the particular method of behavioral capture for their feasibility and potential validity. If the potential domain of communicative skills is infinite, then some basis must be formulated for determining what constitutes an adequate corpus of communicative content for a measure. This is far from a straightforward task. For example, whenever a systematic attempt is made to identify all of the relevant communicative competencies or skills in a given domain, the list turns out to be extensive. Such efforts in the area of communicative competence in general (Spitzberg 2011; Spitzberg and Cupach 1989), interpersonal competence (Spitzberg and Cupach 2002), marital communication (Spitzberg and Cupach 2011), and intercultural competence (Spitzberg and Changnon 2009) have each demonstrated well over 100 skills that could be identified in the existing literature. In each of these domains, however, the authors argued that these were not all likely to be different skills, so much as separate labels for similar underlying functional skills. The vast majority

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of the skills identified in these domains could be interpreted along dimensions of higher-order skills such as attentiveness, composure, coordination, and expressiveness. Other efforts to capture the content and scope of competence in a given arena reveal similar types of hierarchical organization, in which a wide variety of molecular skills are identified as organized according to a more molar level of dimensionality. Klein, DeRouin, and Salas (2006; see also: Klein 2009) meta-analyzed interpersonal skills and identified five communication skills (active listening, oral communication, written communication, assertive communication, nonverbal communication) and seven relationship-building skills (cooperation/coordination, trust, intercultural sensitivity, service orientation, self-presentation, social influence, conflict/negotiation). In a systematic attempt to identify interpersonal performance in military education contexts (Wisecarver, Carpenter, and Kilcullen 2007; see also: Carpenter and Wisecarver 2004; Carpenter et al. 2005), four higher-order team-building performance competencies were identified, each of which could be defined by more molecular skills: energizing others (influencing others, rewarding), directing others (coordinating, training and developing, managing perceptions, managing others’ relationships, establishing and maintaining control, role modeling, managing personnel), exchanging information (informing, gathering information) and building relationships (courtesy, helping others, networking/maintaining relationships, adapting to the social environment). Each of these more molecular skills could obviously be specified in the form of even more molecular skill composites. These skills seem almost non-overlapping with the teamwork skills identified by the meta-analysis by LePine et al. (2008), who identified: transition processes, mission analysis, goal specification, strategy formulation and planning, monitoring progress toward goals, systems monitoring, team monitoring and backup behavior, coordination, conflict management, motivation and confidence building, and affect management. The difference between these approaches illustrate that different skills maps can nevertheless represent the same territory. No single map is the territory and any communicative territory can be represented usefully by multiple maps. There are two typical approaches to identifying the requisite territory that needs mapping: inductive and deductive. Inductive (bottom-up) approaches survey existing research literature and/or survey people in relatively open-ended manner and extract the relevant behaviors and skills that occur with sufficient regularity as a representative sample of the competence domain. The resulting inductivelygenerated list then is refined by seeking sensible and higher-order items or coding categories into which the list can be fit. For example, in the domain of interpersonal communication, Spitzberg and Hurt (1987; see also: Spitzberg 2007) initially surveyed hundreds of existing social skills measures, dozens of factor-analysis studies of communication competence and social skill measures and conducted an analysis of open-ended surveys of participant nominations of communication skills. The

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result was a list of 25 interaction behaviors that became the Conversational Skills Rating Scale (Spitzberg 2007). The deductive (top-down) approach identifies an existing, or formulates a new, conceptual schema or model to guide the assessment content. For example, in the domain of health professional communication, professionals may formulate a consensus statement on the skills that are important (e.g., Bachmann et al. 2013; von Fragstein et al. 2008; Kiessling et al. 2010; Makoul and Schofield 1999). Street and De Haes (2013) conceptualize seven important communication functions in medical encounters and identify the specific communication skills and their respective outcomes that would represent a reasonable curriculum for communication instruction and assessment. A priori theory, models, or expert conceptions of necessary or important competencies can be used as a framework from which to derive the contents of a competence measure.

3.2 Who? Measures have to be administered and completed by someone, about someone. Research demonstrates that different loci and foci of perception and judgment represent distinct perspectives (Spitzberg and Cupach 1985). For example, self-estimates of cognitive ability correlate .33 with more objective estimates (Freund and Kasten 2012). Research often only finds a correlation between .25 and .50 between an interactant’s self-assessment and others’ perceptions of that interactant (Achenbach, Dumenci, and Rescorla 2002; Achenbach et al. 2005; Blanchard et al. 2009; Carrell and Willmington 1996, 1998; Conway and Huffcutt 1997; Cummings et al. 2010; Fletcher and Kerr 2010; Harris and Schaubroeck 1988; Kenny 1994; Lanning et al. 2011; Leising et al. 2011; Mabe and West 1982; Ready et al. 2000; Renk and Phares 2004; Swami, Waters, and Furnham 2010; Viswesvaran, Ones, and Schmidt 1996). Careful analysis of such research indicates that much of the lack of correlation between distinct third-parties (e.g., between peers and supervisors) is due to measurement error (Viswesvaran, Schmidt, and Ones 2002) and features of the assessment design and context (Ostroff, Atwater, and Feinberg 2004) rather than sheer discrepancy of perspective. Furthermore, factors such as the objectivity and social desirability of the rating dimension systematically influence the correspondence among ratings (Heine and Renshaw 2002; Jawahar and Wilson 1997). Perhaps the most insidious prospect is that biased self-assessment is itself a marker of communicative incompetence. That is, those whose self-perceptions are inflated are the most likely to be communicatively incompetent (Dunning, Heath, and Suls 2004; Kruger and Dunning 1999; Schlösser et al. 2013). It is apparent that any single perspective is subject to biases and that multiple assessment loci are preferable. Yet, having multiple perspectives does not resolve the question of which perspective(s) to trust as the most valid, or how to aggregate such perspectives.

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3.3 When? When competence is assessed has less to do with clock time and more to do with the state-trait, or episodic vs. dispositional, issue of assessing communicative competence. If competence in communicating is assumed to be grounded deeply in the interactional context itself, then there is little reason to assess it as a dispositional trait. In contrast, grounding competence assessments in a particular context, episode, or encounter may substantially limit the generalizability of the measurement. Certain high-stakes assessments, such as interviews, medical handoff exchanges, auditions, speed dating, and so forth, simply presume that the encounter is a sufficient indicator of a person’s competence. In most assessment contexts, however, there is an objective of extending the measure to future behavior of the person or persons. This time continuum from past to present to future will have substantive implications for measurement. The initial issue is simply in the tense of an item: – Past: “I have generally had difficulty initiating conversations with strangers.” – Present (state, episodic): “I experienced difficulty initiating conversation with this stranger in this encounter.” – Future: “I expect I will have difficulty initiating conversations with strangers in this type of situation.” – Contextual: “I have difficulty initiating conversations with strangers in large social affairs, such as parties and receptions.” – Trait: “I have difficulty initiating conversations with strangers.” This is just the operational aspect of the time continuum. The additional question is whether or not there is a theoretical or empirical assumption that the past or present should be predictive of the future. Thus, many trait measures assume that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior and that people’s self-perceptions or their behavior in a situation is representative of their future behavior. Other aspects of the time continuum have to do with potentially important psychometric issues that receive relatively little attention in the communicative competence measurement literature (Spitzberg 1987). For example, as time goes by, do people’s memories of their own behavior reveal systematic biases in favoring certain types of information rather than other types of information? Do people tend to forget molecular behaviors by mentally coding them into higher-order mental constructs or dimensions? If so, placing time frames on people’s reports of their communication becomes an important methodological parameter. For example, should people’s self-reports of their communication competence be bounded to the last decade, the last year, the last month, or the last week?

3.4 Where? The question of “where” concerns the role of context. That “communicative competence is contextual” is one of the most axiomatic assumptions in the literature and

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ironically, one of the least directly addressed. The first problem is that the concept of context is generally neither formally defined nor directly assessed. Interest in contexts and their theoretical integration into implicit or explicit models of communication competence have certainly been addressed (e.g., Argyle, Furnham, and Graham 1981; Forgas 1983; Heise 1979; Spitzberg and Brunner 1991), but most measures presume the relevance of context in relatively non-systematic ways. The most typical way in which context is incorporated into communicative competence measurement is by drilling down into a context and formulating the communicative competencies found or expected to be relevant to that context. Thus, there are dozens of measures of general health practitioner communicative competence (e.g., Blanch-Hartigan 2011; Boon and Stewart 1998; Duffy et al. 2004; Hobgood et al. 2002; Klakovich and Dela Cruz 2006; Makoul 2001; Nuovo, Bertakis, and Azari 2006; Schirmer et al. 2005) and measures of health practitioner communicative competence in empathy (e.g., Fields et al. 2011; Hojat et al. 2011), patientcenteredness (e.g., McCormack et al. 2011), active listening (e.g., Fassaert et al. 2007), respect (Beach et al. 2006), relational communication (e.g., Gallagher, Hartung, and Gregory 2001), oral/aural competence (Helitzer et al. 2012), and nonverbal competence (Gallagher et al. 2005). Context may also be operationalized as a function of the medium (e.g., Spitzberg 2006). These just illustrate the diversity in a single broad context – health care. Measures have proliferated in most such contexts. Whereas research often examines the degree of shared variance of measures within a given context, only rarely are measures compared across contexts. In some instances, this is sensible because of the particular competencies implied by the context (e.g., taking a patient’s history), but there is certainly substantial potential that many measures are merely reinventing wheels that do not need reinvention.

3.5 How? The question of “how” refers to the actual operationalization decisions involved in converting a set of concepts into an actual measurement instrument. It addresses many of the other questions by applying answers to these questions to the actual measurement design. If it is a “report” instrument, the items must be written in a form appropriate to the person doing the reporting. If it is specific to a particular context, then the skills relevant to that context need to be translated into items or coding categories or other measures that validly reflect these skills. For example, consider the following items from a popular measure of communicative competence (Wiemann 1977): – People can go to S with their problems. – S generally knows how others feel. – S generally knows what type of behavior is appropriate in any given situation. – S interrupts others too much. – S is “rewarding” to talk to.

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S S S S S S S S S

is an effective conversationalist. is easy to talk to. is generally relaxed when conversing with a new acquaintance. is not afraid to speak with people in authority. likes to use his/her voice and body expressively. pays attention to the conversation. treats people as individuals. usually does not make unusual demands on his/her friends. won’t argue with someone just to prove he/she is right.

These items tend to be either summed across, or factor-analyzed. Yet, consider the various ways in which these items imply important yet unarticulated measurement assumptions. First, although the measure has been converted to self-report locus, it clearly is written primarily as an other-rated locus measure. Yet, some items presume little knowledge beyond the observation of a given episode of interaction (e.g., “easy to talk to”, “pays attention to the conversation”), whereas others presume ample opportunity to observe and know the person being assessed (e.g., “people can go to S with their problems”, “generally knows how others feel”). Second, the items vary considerably in their abstraction. Any behavior may contribute to being an “effective conversationalist” in any situation, but behaving in a “relaxed” manner specifically when conversing with a new acquaintance is a particular skill in a particular situation with a particular type of person. Similarly, any behavior or skill may contribute to being “rewarding” or “easy” to talk to, but avoiding arguments “just to prove” oneself right is a specific behavior (ignoring for the moment if performing a skill should be defined by something that is not done as opposed to something that is done – not doing something necessarily doing something else instead; see Spitzberg, Chapter 10). Third, notice that evaluative subjective judgments are built into some items (e.g., “too much”, “easy”, “appropriate”, “effective”), whereas other items are relatively descriptive (e.g., “won’t argue”, “relaxed”, “does not make unusual demands”). Some items seem relatively descriptive (e.g., “speak with people in authority”, “use his/her voice and body expressively”) but interject unobservable mental attributions into such judgments (e.g., “not afraid to …,” “likes to use …”). Fourth, the role of context is obscured by being diffused in selective manner. For example, whereas some items are explicitly context-independent (e.g., “S is ‘rewarding’ to talk to”, “S is an effective conversationalist”, “S is easy to talk to”), others refer only to fairly particular contexts (e.g., hearing others’ “problems”, “conversing with a new acquaintance”, and speaking “with people in authority”). Finally, some items seem only somewhat distantly related to actual communication behaviors or skills. Some items refer to knowledge (“S generally knows how others feel”), outcomes (e.g., “S is ‘rewarding’ to talk to”, “S is an effective conversationalist”) and others are relatively vague regarding what behaviors might be

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involved (e.g., “S treats people as individuals”). Other items say something about communication, but say nothing about the communication that describes what about the communication is competent (e.g., “rewarding” or “easy to talk to”). Thus, devising a valid measure of communicative competence involves clearly and well-conceived answers to the questions of what, who, when, where, and how. Assuming such questions have been thought through and satisfactorily addressed, the question remains if the measure is a valid measure.

4 Validity issues Validity generally refers to whether a measure is measuring what it is intended to measure. The most obvious problem with determining the validity of measures of communicative competence is that the core concept itself is often poorly defined conceptually. Many measures derive from a “list” technique in which authors either borrow skills or constructs from other measures, which themselves have not been well-validated, or generate their own list of intuitively relevant skills. Even when a broad list of skills is identified, seldom are the interrelationships of those skills conceptualized in advance. Thus, skills often reveal factor structures, which are taken as evidence that the skill is constitutive of competence, which is merely a statistically foregone result of selecting those skills to begin with. Assuming that early development generates a broadly representative set of items or skills to measure and that the design aspects reflect sound answers to the questions identified above, the question of validity still presents significant problems. The first is to identify what qualifies as a justifiable criterion of competence. In a particular context, it may be evaluated by criteria very specific to that context. In compliance-gaining situations (e.g., persuasive health or political campaigns, sales situations, date request, etc.), the relevant criteria may be tangible outcomes (e.g., engaging in healthier behavior, voting, purchase decisions, date acceptance, etc.). If more subjective criteria are considered justified, then measures for those constructs need to be identified or developed. For example, competence has been related generally to clarity, understanding, accuracy, attractiveness, credibility, trust, satisfaction, appropriateness, and effectiveness. Measures exist for each of these criteria, but just like measures of communicative competence, they vary in the care and validity of their design and development as well. Assuming that criteria measures are available, the question often still arises who can best serve to adjudicate the measures. For example, in determining whether a medical student has achieved adequate communicative competence in a standardized patient encounter, should those students’ own instructional faculty, independent practicing physicians, nurses, trained raters, or peers be considered the most appropriate judges? If separate evaluators reach different or discrepant views

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of the student’s competence, is there a reasonable algorithm for reaching a summary judgment?

5 Reliability issues In regard to reliability, it is not a foregone conclusion that competence measures need to achieve high levels of inter-item consistency. Streiner (2003), for example, emphasizes that there is a difference between scales and indexes. A scale is comprised of items or indicators that are theoretically intercorrelated, whereas an index is a composite of items or indicators that may not themselves be related, but accumulate to provide a valid indicator of something. The causal connection between items and the construct are reversed. For example, test measures of vocabulary, problem solving and counterfactual reasoning may be understood as behavioral manifestations of an underlying or latent theoretical construct of critical thinking. These measured manifestations are psychometrically viewed as caused by the latent unobserved construct of intelligence or critical thinking ability. In this instance, vocabulary, problem solving and abstract reasoning are expected to correlate with each other as behavioral manifestations of the same underlying construct and are therefore expected to display reasonable inter-item correlations (i.e., high internal consistency). In contrast, in an index, various indicators are viewed as independent causes of an unobserved outcome. Thus, for example, lack of eye contact, nonempathic assertiveness, and closed body orientation might independently cause a person to view a communicator as incompetent, whereas a lack of speaking turns, excessive eye contact, and facial inexpressiveness might cause another person to conclude a communicator is incompetent. In both instances, disparate behaviors are cues of incompetence, so an index might need to include such disparate indicators even if they might not be consistently correlated with one another. Summing across these varied indicators may still provide a valid index of a person’s perceived inability to create a competent impression on others. The issue of comparing scales and indexes is important for additional psychometric reasons other than reliability. For example, factor analysis depends on the assumption that factors (unobserved latent variables) account for consistent intercorrelations among their constituent items. In regard to behavioral measures, however, it is not obvious that competencies would be reflected in particular composites of intercorrelated behavioral items. For example, what skill or competence does eye contact load on in regard to competence: empathy, turn-taking, nonverbal expressiveness, flirtation, humor, attentiveness, aggression, conflict management, or some other competence? Eye contact can be an important compositional predictor of any or all of these competencies, but so should the ability to ask questions. Yet, in general, there is relatively little reason to expect eye contact to correlate consistently with asking questions across all these competencies. Furthermore, if

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it cross-loads, it would often be excluded from measures for being a noisy item. If this reasoning is extended, therefore, factor analysis is not always a valid representation of underlying unobserved variables, nor a valid framework for deriving ideal measures of competence (Spitzberg, Brookshire, and Brunner 1990). There may be many instances in which behaviors and evaluations of behaviors are more validly viewed as indexes rather than scales.

6 Subtleties and controversies in measuring communicative competence The basics of who, what, where, when, and how are relatively well-established as assessment concerns. Issues such as whether competence is viewed as a state or trait, or who is in the best position to make judgments of competence of whom, are far from resolved. Among the more subtle and challenging remaining issues in assessing communication competence are the roles of context, ideology, optimality, and curvilinearity.

6.1 Contextuality There may be an infinite variety of contexts in which communication competence could be assessed, but some are likely to present more salient features than others. Among the most salient features in communication evaluation is culture (Spitzberg 1989; Spitzberg and Brunner 1989; Spitzberg and Changnon 2009). Cultures vary across a wide variety of dimensions and may develop somewhat unique beliefs, values, norms, rules, expectations, and contextual patterns of behavior that are constitutive of communication competence. Eye contact may be universal, but the ways in which eye contact is expected to be used and the weight such behavior has on various dimensions of evaluation may differ from culture to culture (Lustig and Spitzberg 1993). The development and validation of competence assessments ultimately need to formulate either culturally-sensitive item content, or validate the cross-cultural psychometric and structural generality of item content.

6.2 Ideology Most scholars of communication competence avoid issues of ideology, but such issues inevitably underlie assessment decisions. Ideology refers to the degree to which values either implicitly or explicitly inform the development of an assessment (Spitzberg 1993, 1994a). Gender is an ideological feature of assessments in regard to the gendered nature of item selection and proposed conceptual compo-

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nents. For example, adaptability, attentiveness, empathy, perspective-taking, person-centeredness, dialogic orientation, other orientation, listening, nonverbal sensitivity, and collaboration are all communal in approach, which loads higher on feminine values. In contrast, assertiveness, confidence, composure, control, influence, goal-setting, time management, structuration, and opinion expression all load more highly on instrumental dimensions, which are more closely aligned with masculine orientations to the world. This gendered composition can interact with cultural dimensions as well, as some cultures may prefer more feminine communication in certain contexts and more masculine communication in other contexts (Spitzberg and Brunner 1989; Spitzberg 1993, 1994a).

6.3 Optimality A fundamental issue facing educational institutions and professional societies is whether to view competence as a minimal bar, or an optimal bar, of performance. If appropriateness and effectiveness are crossed as dimensions, four possibilities arise: minimizing, sufficing, maximizing, and optimizing. Minimizing locates someone who is incompetent (i.e., inappropriate and ineffective). Sufficing communicators are viewed as having behaved appropriately but not effectively. This is akin to a normative perspective that communicators have to at least meet the bar of behaving at some normal appropriate level compared to others. Maximizing approaches operationalize competence by the outcome, even when achieving that effectiveness violated standards of appropriateness. Optimizing approaches seek a balance and ideally a full achievement of, communication that is perceived as both appropriate and effective. Optimizing communication is particularly difficult to achieve in some contexts that pit appropriateness and effectiveness against one another, such as transgressions and conflicts. For example, in a conflict encounter, an actor’s attempt to achieve a particular goal (i.e., to be effective) is perceived as prevented by a co-actor’s behavior, in which the co-actor views the actor’s behavior as inappropriate. These four domains illustrate that using a singular criterion of competence in communication limits the possibilities of conceptualizing the full implications of measurement.

6.4 Curvilinearity A final challenge of developing assessments is that at the granular level of measuring communication, competence consists of the performance of behaviors that tend to be curvilinear to impressions of competence. In general, it is always possible, if not probable, that there can be “too much of a good thing” (Grant and Schwartz 2011). Textbooks and assessments that simply assume that more eye contact, questions, listening, active feedback, and so forth, are more competent are clearly in-

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complete. Research indicates that many behaviors associated with communication competence, such as eye contact, speaking time, questions, nonverbal immediacy, and interpersonal closeness, are curvilinear to impressions of competence (Spitzberg 1993, 1994a, 2013). One of the assessment solutions to such curvilinearity is to separate the behavioral content of items from the evaluation scales applied to those behaviors. Similar to the social skills validation paradigms, rating the extent to which a person engaged in objective behaviors can be correlated to the evaluation of that person’s appropriateness and effectiveness, competence, or quality of performance. By separating the evaluation from the behavior, the role of curvilinearity can be explored explicitly.

7 Measure for measure Assessing the state of communication competence assessment is a daunting task. Despite hundreds and hundreds of measures of communication competence (Spitzberg 2003; Spitzberg and Cupach 1989, 2011), numerous limitations and uncertain validity plague most assessment approaches. There are no simple solutions to the valid assessment of communication competence. There are no complex solutions, yet. As the value of communication is increasingly recognized in certain high impact and profile contexts (e.g., business, diplomatic, political, health care, etc.), intensive efforts have begun to be pursued with appropriate resources and programmatic approach. Such intensive efforts will be required for valid assessment to result.

8 Future measures for measure The lore and legacy of social scientific measurement has long understood the principle of “garbage in, garbage out” (GIGO). What is often overlooked by this aphorism is that the data that comprise the “garbage in” can result from impoverished grounding principles rather than the relative poverty of the data sources themselves. Much of the problems identified herein are a result of scholars’ either a) ignorance of the lessons and research of the past, both within and across disciplines (i.e., it is not possible to know what needs to be done until it is known what has been done), or b) inattention to basic a priori intentional conceptual decisions, such as “why this particular skill and how does this particular skill relate to the other skills that will comprise the measure of interpersonal skill or communication competence”. Addressing these two issues – conducting comprehensive background research on the domain and deciding what the nature of the skills are that will be assessed – would go far in improving the state of assessment.

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A second important improvement in assessment will begin to arise when scholars begin to move beyond a constant process of confusing ability and inference, macro-level skills with micro-level skills and confusing the literature by redundantly proliferating labels for skills. The term “empathy” is a good example of a skill that has largely lost its conceptual value because of the multitude of ways in which it has been defined, conceptualized, and operationalized. It is not clear if it is cognitive, emotional, or behavioral, or some combination and what its distinctiveness is vis-à-vis listening, attentiveness, other-orientation, concern, interest, altercentrism, regard, perspective-taking, or decentering. If these issues are not determined prior to measurement development, it is unlikely that GIGO will be avoided. Advancements along these lines will depend on professional associations to appoint task forces to facilitate consensual statements on such core competencies and solid comprehensive approaches and research programs to develop and validate corresponding assessments.

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Joann Keyton

23 Outcomes and the criterion problem in communication competence research Abstract: Across the breadth of communication competence research, one issue that remains problematic is how outcomes or criteria are positioned in the research design. Seven questions frame this inquiry: a) Has outcome-based (or outcomesbased) research dominated this area of inquiry? b) What outcomes have been explored relative to communication competence? c) Should communicative outcomes be preferred? d) How can outcomes of communication competence research be categorized or otherwise meaningfully organized? e) How have the research designs used by scholars in the study of communication competence facilitated or inhibited learning about outcomes? f) What’s the role of context in outcome-based communication competence research? g) What next steps should researchers designing communication competence studies take? After a brief review of the communication competence research, the second section addresses outcome(s)-based research as an issue of research design. A model of communication competence describes how communication competence can be included in research designs as first-, second-, and third-order effects. The third section then examines how communication competence across contexts has been positioned in research designs. In the fourth section, ideas for how communication scholars can more effectively design studies to improve the outcome focus of communication competency research are proposed. The chapter concludes by returning to the seven questions that framed this review. Keywords: communication competence, research design, competence as outcome, context, research methods, applied research, competence as predictor

Early in the development of the relational communication construct, Cupach and Spitzberg (1983) suggested that more work needs to be done on outcomes relevant to communication competence. For instance, which outcomes are relevant to which classes of communication situations? Can a taxonomy of such outcomes be usefully developed? And which outcomes are positively related to competent interaction, and which ones are negatively related? Are dispositional [trait] measures of competence related more to outcomes that are not event-focused or episode-specific (e.g., relational satisfaction, interpersonal solidary)? (p. 375)

Now as then, “answers to these questions are essential to the development of an adequate theory of interpersonal communication competence” (Cupach and Spitzberg 1983: 375).

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This chapter examines how communication competence research has identified and addressed the issues of outcomes. As such, this chapter asks and hopes to answer the following questions: a) Has outcome-based (or outcomes-based) research dominated this area of inquiry?; b) What outcomes have been explored relative to communication competence?; c) Should communicative outcomes be preferred?; d) How can outcomes of communication competence research be categorized or otherwise meaningfully organized?; e) How have the research designs used by scholars in the study of communication competence facilitated or inhibited learning about outcomes?; f) What’s the role of context in outcome-based communication competence research?; and g) What next steps should researchers designing communication competence studies take? Because this volume is dedicated to communication competence research, the first section of the chapter provides only a very brief description of the communication competence construct, as other chapters in the volume (see Backlund and Morreale, Chapter 2) have elaborated on this. The second section is devoted to a description of outcome(s)-based research as a design issue; and the third section reviews the communication competence research and examines how communication competence has been positioned in research designs. The conclusion answers the questions posed, and this penultimate question: What can communication scholars do to improve the outcome focus of communication competency research? First, a brief description of communication competence is in order.

1 Communication competence construct From its amorphous beginnings, communication competence, also described as competence in conversational interaction (Cupach and Spitzberg 1983), has carried many labels. It is a truism that people prefer to be communicatively competent, and that communicators are evaluated for their competence by others. Thus, the skill or ability of communication competence is sought across all communication contexts, but especially in interpersonal relationships, work environments, as well as community and political settings. In essence, several ideas of communication competence have developed and become centrally located in the construct. The most central of these is the idea that communication competence is based on appropriateness and effectiveness, and that it is not the presence of one of these, but the combination that is important. With the development of key operationalizations of communication competence (e.g., Rubin and Martin 1994; Spitzberg 1988; Spitzberg and Cupach 1989; Wiemann 1977), other context specific measures have been developed. Despite some differences in their conceptual make up, at a molar level all operationalizations prize appropriateness and effectiveness.

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1.1 Conceptualizing communication competence Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) set forth foundational assumptions in their model of relational communication competence; these have implications for the study of communication competence. Their first assumption is that “relationally competent communication is conceptualized as a function of perceived appropriateness and effectiveness” (italics original: p. 100). Evaluations of these two constructs are subjective, not objective or standardized. Therefore, communication has to occur before its appropriateness or effectiveness can be self- or other-evaluated. Another of their assumptions is that communication is context bound; that is, communication is a social activity and can never be performed without consideration of the environment and conversational goals of specific actors in a specific setting, which is further contextualized by constraints or facilitators (i.e., norms, values, prescribed roles). This underscores the point that communication competence can only be evaluated as or after it occurs in a specific context. Spitzberg and Cupach’s third assumption is that “competence is a matter of degree” (p. 109). This assumption positions communication competence on a continuum in which a) “there may be more than one optimal set of outcomes” (p. 110), and b) any outcome may be more or less effective than other alternatives. Their fourth assumption is that competence is both molar (cognitive) and molecular (behavioral). Thus, in its fullest evaluation, communication competence is based on a) a combination of impressions of actor, setting, and interaction – both known and unknown, as well as b) specific behaviors that occur in an interaction encounter. Spitzberg and Cupach’s (1984) fifth assumption is that communication competence is functional, goal-oriented, and expectation based. “Given the contextual nature of competence judgments, a given behavioral sequence can be assessed as competent only if it is related to functional outcomes of competence” (p. 113). Thus, the sixth assumption: communication competence is relationally based. For research design, both self and other evaluations are needed to make a credible evaluation and determination of competence in any specific setting. Essentially, “self and other ratings interact to affect conversational outcomes” (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984: 115). The seventh and final assumption is that competence is an impression “based on the behavioral minutiae of a given episode and the history of the relationship” (p. 115) that is the setting of the interaction. This again reaffirms the position that impressions or evaluations of communication competence cannot occur until interaction is occurring or has occurred. While some interaction behaviors may increase the likelihood that a communicator will be perceived as competent, any behavior by itself cannot produce impressions of competence (Spitzberg 2009, 2013; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984). Together, these assumptions underscore the importance of studying motivation, knowledge, and skills in evaluating the outcomes of communication competence – of which Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) identified several (i.e., communication satisfaction, feeling good, interpersonal attraction, interpersonal solidarity, re-

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lational satisfaction, relational trust, negotiation and conflict satisfaction, and intimacy) that “provide criteria of competent interaction” (p. 137). Thus, the model of communication competence is broadly based making it highly likely that some studies of communication motivation, knowledge, and skills (or some set of these) as predictors of an outcome like those just mentioned are essentially examinations of communication competence without being labeled so. Reviewing Spitzberg and Cupach’s table of competence measures and related constructs (1984: table 5.1, 170–174; see also Spitzberg and Changnon 2009; Spitzberg and Cupach 2002, 2011) reminds us that communication competence research may not be identifiable purely through a journal article title, abstract, or keywords. Nevertheless, studies on these related constructs can inform communication competence research and practice. As Spitzberg (2011) has described, the conative model of communication competence (Spitzberg 2000, 2009, 2013; Spitzberg and Brunner 1991; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984) “predicts that motivation, knowledge, and skills predict impressions of competence” which is “typically tested by treating “appropriateness, effectiveness, clarity, satisfaction, and attractiveness as criterion outcomes of competence interaction, with the various motivational, knowledge, and skills constructs as predictors” (p. 160). This model is shown in Figure 1. Since the introduction of the model, communication research (i.e., designs, statistical analyses, qualitative designs and analyses) has become more sophisticated allowing new issues and questions to be raised. The first issue is whether the conative model of communication competence can be used as a model for designing research questions and hypotheses. Another issue is if the model can support research that makes the distinction

Appropriateness

Effectiveness

Motivation

Knowledge

Skills

Competent interaction

Clarity

Satisfaction

Attractiveness

Fig. 1: Conative Model of Communication Competence (Spitzberg 2000, 2009; Spitzberg and Brunner 1991; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984).

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between impressions or perceptions of communicatively competent behavior and the behaviors themselves. A third issue focuses on the locus of evaluation. All of the listed outcomes (i.e., appropriateness, effectiveness, clarity, satisfaction) are first order effects and could be evaluated by either the communicator or the communicator’s partner. Some outcomes (i.e., appropriateness, effectiveness, clarity) could be evaluated by a more objective third party. A fourth issue focuses on the truncated notion of the model. That is, the model ends with evaluations of the communication. A more robust model would include non-communicative secondary outcomes (i.e., efficiency gains/losses or personnel costs/savings associated with, for example, training and monitoring call center agents in their delivery of service to customers, or minimizing office visits and health costs when health care associates can direct patients to effective, but lower cost, services). Extending the outcomes of a model of communication competence would satisfy the so what question. That is, what are the measurable, observable outcomes for which communicating competently matters? The next section describes outcomes-based research.

2 Outcomes research design Outcomes research focuses on the end results. Especially prominent in health care research and driven by federally funded research, this type of research design helps to develop practical applications, inform individuals, and inform policy. Outcome-based research is also prominent in social work, counseling, psychotherapy, education, and nearly all disciplines in which interventions – especially communicative or communication-related interventions – are used, evaluated, and measured. Sometimes labeled as program evaluation or applied research, its primary aim is to evaluate the impact of some intervention. In the case of communication competence, a study could be designed to test the effects of competence training on participants’ abilities to use communicatively competent behaviors after the training. Particularly prevalent in the health care fields, the distinctive quality of outcome-based research is “its focus on questions that are relevant to optimizing efforts to promote the health of patients and populations, with an emphasis on aligning decisions to the preferences, values and goals of those individuals” (Krumholz 2011: 137). Restated for studies of communication competence, the general research question would ask: Which efforts promote the communication competence of an individual? and How does communication competence influence non-communicative outcomes? Designs of this nature would allow educators, counselors, and trainers, for example, to make decisions about teaching, advice-giving, and programs that increase the communication competence of individuals. Because our focus is on

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communication competence, we must also be concerned about the mediating effects of the communication competence of the educators, counselors, and trainers who deliver this expertise, advice, or training. Thus, sophisticated research designs would also evaluate the communication processes used by these providers. Other views of outcomes-based research (see Berzon and Lobo 2006) focus on clinical outcomes (the most typical), but also economic outcomes (i.e., the costbenefit of treatments), and humanistic outcomes (or quality of life indicators) – with the assumption that these three outcome types are interrelated. But, admittedly, there are many definitions of outcomes research making it more useful to think of outcomes research as an umbrella expression (Jefford, Stockler, and Tattersall 2003). Most certainly, outcomes can be arrayed in terms of first, second, and further order effects. For example, in their research on stalking, Spitzberg and Cupach (2014) identify a hierarchy of effects that stalking can have on the individual and the broader social context. As a form of communication, stalking can create first order effects for the victim, such as behavioral, affective, and physical trauma. Stalking can also result in second order effects, such as increasing the perceived risk of victimization to friends. At the third level, stalking can have effects on cultural belief systems and societal suspicion. Thus outcomes can occur immediately after the interaction or at some future point and can be evaluated for the actors in the communication event, as well as others with whom actors interact (directly or indirectly).

2.1 Types of outcome-based research designs Although frequently associated with the experimental model, nonexperimental designs can also be outcome-based. De Vaus (2001) warns against conflating research design with the method by which data are collected, as “there is nothing intrinsic about any research design that requires a particular method of data collection” (p. 9). In the health field, published outcome-based research has been designed as randomized trials, cross-sectional studies, observational cohort studies, economic analyses, meta-analyses, systematic review, pre/post designs, and simulations (Krumholz 2011). While behavioral outcomes may be the ultimate standard in health studies, outcomes research also is used to assess perceptions, preferences, and satisfaction (Jefford, Stockler, and Tattersall 2003). While relative little qualitative research is labeled as outcomes research, Shaw (2003) provides cogent arguments as to why and how qualitative methods could be used in outcomes-based research. McLeod (2011) also champions qualitative designs for outcomes research by explaining that one problem of experimental designs is that the participants and interventions studied are likely not representative of the reality of intervention based therapy. He points to this division being made salient by the way in which researchers adhere (or not) to conventions in writing

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their studies. Researchers using quantitative designs report their findings in a consistent structure, whereas researchers using qualitative designs often lack a strong rationale as well as structure. When qualitative designs have been used in outcomes-based research, most use some form of individual or group interview. But other forms of qualitative data could be useful, such as transcripts of sessions, diaries, case notes, narratives, participant observation, and autobiographical writing (McLeod 2011). Especially revealing is McLeod’s claim that qualitative evaluation is better for exploring ineffectiveness, as qualitative designs are better able to explore the range or limits of behavior. Thus, qualitative outcomes research can explore why and how interventions were effective (or not), whereas quantitative outcomes design are more positively valenced. In cardiology, Curry, Nembhard, and Bradley (2009) advocate combining quantitative and qualitative research methods in outcomes-based research to “capitalize on the respective strengths of each approach” (p. 1442). McLeod (2011) also takes a stand and argues that “these approaches can converge” (p. 262) so that each is drawing upon its strengths, and, at the same time, contributing a fuller understanding of why such an outcome occurred. Thus, as McLeod argues, there is “no single methodology [that] has a monopoly on truth” (p. 242). Outcome-based communication competence research should be designed to explore the positive effects of communicating competently thus making it more likely that individuals choose this type of communication more frequently. Simply stated, outcome-based research is designed to study the influence of one behavior on others – and especially to evaluate the impact of any intervention designed to influence a person’s ability to communicate more competently. Some of these issues were first raised when communication competence was included in the health communication domain. Health communication outcomes research (see Kreps, O’Hair, and Hart 1995) includes a temporal component to examine over time effects. As a result, a great deal of the communication competence research does not evaluate second or third order effects. That is, what is the impact of the communication beyond evaluative perceptions? Does the evaluation of a conversational partner’s communication competence influence one to communicate differently with that person next time? Or communicate with similar others differently? In comparison, health outcome models (see Kreps, O’Hair, and Hart 1995) address extended sets of cognitive, behavioral, and physiological outcomes, and communication competence research could and should have knowledge and behavioral applications. Finally, communication competence research generally maintains an individual-level focus rather than extending the model to relational units (e.g., parent–child, nurse–patient, teacher–student, team or unit). To encourage a more sophisticated approach to communication competence research – and one that has potential for changing communication practices – an outcome model of communication competence would reflect the components

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Actor and Partner Perceptions of

Communicator’s Motivation, Knowledge, and Skills

Contextually Situated Communcatively Competent Behavior

First order effects on actors

Appropriateness Effectiveness Clarity Satisfaction Attractiveness Second order effects on immediate others

Third order effects on community or culture

Relationship Strength Enhanced Capability to Communicate in the Future

Fig. 2: Outcome-based communication competence research design model.

depicted in Figure 2, in which antecedent conditions are the motivation to communicate competently, knowledge of how to communicate competently, and the practiced skill to do so. When those three converge in a particular setting, a communicator could be said to be communicating competently (a process), and this could and should be verified at the behavioral level. Outcomes of a communicator’s competence should be evaluated at the individual level, from the other actor’s viewpoint, and also at the relational level (dyad or group) in the form of relationship strength and capability to work together (or communicate) in the future. In this way, the concepts of appropriateness and effectiveness which have been long tied to communication competence are articulated at both the individual actor level, but also at an interdependent level of communicators. The communication competence research design model (Figure 2) then should be extended to investigating second order effects and third order effects. For example, does communicating competently with one work team member have an influence on the communication competence of other team members? Does the communication competence of this work team influence the communication competence of other works teams or larger organizational units? Spitzberg’s (2009, 2013) later theoretical development of communication competence should also inform outcomes-based research in that equifinality and multifinality are present. That is, no one set of communication behaviors will always be perceived as competent in any one setting, or by all persons across the same setting. Further, any set of communication behaviors can produce different outcomes in different settings or in communicating with different people. These axioms can be used in evaluating alternative claims or alternative explanations of communication competence. These axioms also suggest that there is likely to be some range

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of communicatively competent behaviors for any particular communication setting or event. Thus, researchers should be looking for a best practice range rather than looking for the best communicative behaviors. By using the original communication competence model (which is a conceptual model of the construct) as a basis and adding outcome-based design features, a research design model emerges. Such a model also invites comparisons within and across contexts that will enhance the practicality of communication competence research.

3 Positioning communication competence in outcome research designs There are two very basic ways of positioning communication competence relative to outcomes-based research. The first is more common in that communication competence is the dependent or criterion variable. In these studies, research designs explore which individual or contextual factors result in impressions of communication competence. The second is to conceptualize or study outcomes facilitated by such competent interaction. Each of these is reviewed next by describing the method used in several published studies.

3.1 Communication competence as the outcome In Canary and Spitzberg’s (1990) descriptive design, members of student dyads (i.e., friends, dating partners, marital partner, family members, and others) who had experienced a conflict within the prior two weeks each completed conflict and competence measures. Essentially, the design allowed researchers to explore the effect of individuals’ views of conflict on perceptions of communication competence. As often is the case, actors judged themselves more globally competent than partners judged them. Moreover, partners more than actors relied on the conflict tactics in their competence assessments of the actor. In this descriptive design, conflict management influenced impressions of communication competence. To test their assertion that competence is influenced by the social context of actors, Spitzberg and Brunner (1991) used a recalled scenario as the stimulus. Hypotheses proposed that self and coactor motivation to interact, knowledge of interaction, and interaction skill, as well as actor contextual expectancy, would influence actor’s ratings of self and other. For actors, motivation and skills were significant predictors of competence; for coactors the full model was supported. Overall, motivation appeared “to be somewhat more important than knowledge in predicting actor’s ratings of both actor’s and coactor’s competence” (p. 43). Hullman (2004) used a post-test design to examine the influence of message design logic and motive on communication effectiveness and appropriateness

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(i.e., communication competence). College students were the participants. First, messages were developed according to message design logic and motive conditions resulting in 24 conversations between the participant and a friend; the conversations were designed as not to be persuasive. Participants evaluated each conversation with Canary and Spitzberg’s (1987) Conversational Appropriate and Effectiveness Scales. Hullman found that message design in this context did not predict effectiveness, although effectiveness and appropriateness scores were correlated. Communication competence in instructional settings has also been examined in designs in which competence is positioned as an outcome variable. Canary and MacGregor (2008) designed a study to differentiate between ideal and less than ideal students and then asked if the communication behaviors of these two groups of students predict teachers’ perceptions of their competence. University teachers responded twice to the Student Communicator Inventory (SCI) and a single competence item – once for an ideal and again for a less than ideal student. Teacher evaluations on the SCI clearly distinguished between ideal and not so ideal students; moreover ideal students were evaluated as more competent than less ideal students. In this case, the items of the SCI (internal factors: intellectually motivated, participative, absent, confrontational, silent) predicted teachers’ perception of students’ competence. Research in the organizational context also makes predictions about communication competence. Two examples both used working adults as research participants. First, Teven, McCroskey, and Richmond (2006) found that when a supervisor is perceived as having Machiavellian tendencies, he or she is also perceived as being less credible (competent is one subconstruct of this credibility measure). Second, Garner (2012) studied how participants’ manner of presenting dissent messages to a supervisor or coworker influenced their perceptions of their effectiveness and appropriateness using Canary and Spitzberg’s (1987) Conversational Appropriateness and Conversational Effectiveness scales. Findings revealed that dissent messages that presented solutions, used circumvention, or used repetition were effective whereas dissent messages that used coalition building were ineffective. With regard to appropriateness, dissent messages that presented solutions and those with factual appeals were perceived as appropriate whereas dissent messages that included pressure tactics or humor were inappropriate. Across the studies, researchers presumed that some communicative feature influences the presence and/or degree of communication competence. In these cases, communication competence is the outcome being sought. These studies provide evidence that being communicatively competent can be enhanced.

3.2 Communication competence as the predictor of outcomes The second way of positioning communication competence relative to outcomesbased research is to place communication competence in the role of the independ-

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ent or predictor variable. If we accept the premise that “communication skills are the repeatable goal-oriented action sequences involved in message production and interaction” (Spitzberg 2011: 147), then communication scholars should be developing and testing outcome-based research designs that provide evidence of competence. That is, an individual’s competence should lead to goal achievement and to other measurable outcomes. Thus, researchers would ask: What happens when communicators are competent? And why? Working from the premise that “a true demonstration of communication competence includes both a self-perception of effectiveness while also generating a perception of effectiveness and appropriateness from the perspective of one’s partner” (p. 549), Arroyo and Segrin (2011) asked early adult same-sex friend dyads to respond to Wiemann’s (1977) Communication Competence Scale to create self- and other-ratings. Testing their data with the actor–partner interdependence model (Kenny, Kashy, and Cook 2006) revealed that “as people rate their own communication competence more favorably, their satisfaction with and commitment to their relationship increases” (pp. 555–556). The same effects occur when people rate their friend’s communication competence as higher. Thus, communication competence leads to greater relational satisfaction and relational commitment. Simply, being communicatively competent with friends leads to increased relational strength. Looking at the more negative side of interpersonal relationships, McManus and Donovan (2012) examined parent–child conversations in families in which separation or divorce had occurred. Parent–young adult child dyads came to a lab to talk about a divorce/separation-related topic. Prior to the 10 minute conversation, the young adult children evaluated their parent’s perceived communication competence with Guerrero’s (1994) five-item generalized Communication Competence Scale. Afterwards, questionnaires captured the young adult children’s measures of their parents’ perceived ambiguity, relational closeness, and relational well-being. As predicted, the higher the perception of parent communication competence, the less ambiguity children perceived during the conversation. Alternately, “when parents were viewed to be less communicatively competent, children were more likely to perceive multiple interpretations for parents’ messages” (McManus and Donovan 2012: 269). Using structural equation modeling to better support more complex theoretical propositions, Wright et al. (2010) examined if health care workers’ self-reported communication competence leads to lower stress, and greater social support satisfaction. Their predictions were supported, and a mediation test established that perceived communication competence was found to be an important predictor of organizational outcomes such as perceived stress and perceived job burnout. Using communication competence as an exogenous variable in a more complex design clearly positions communication competence as a predictor. In the context of domestic violence workers (Babin, Palazzolo, and Rivera 2012), higher communication competence did predict the extent to which they ex-

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perienced reduced personal accomplishment (i.e., feelings of incompetence or inability to relate to clients), but did not predict reductions of emotional exhaustion or depersonalization. The authors conclude, “while communication competence might relate to advocates’ ability to manage the task-related aspects of working with victims, it does not relate to their ability to manage the emotional aspects of working with victims” (p. 159). Organizations are another sought after context for studies of communication competence as predictors. As one example, Madlock (2008) examined if supervisor communication competence influenced the outcomes of employee self-reports of job and communication satisfaction. Working adults evaluated their supervisor by responding to Monge, Backman, Dillard, and Eisenberg’s (1982) Communicator Competence Questionnaire. In comparing a supervisor’s communication competence to employee’s perceptions of leader task and relational leadership style, communication competence accounted for significantly more variance in employee communication satisfaction and employee job satisfaction. In a second example, Myers and Kassing’s (1998) study of undergraduate students with summer jobs revealed that the perceived communication competence of supervisors contributed to students’ organizational identification. Across the studies, researchers presumed that the presence and/or degree of communication competence will result in some type of first order communicative outcome (i.e., impression of more/less ambiguity, communication satisfaction), and first order non-communicative outcome (less perceived stress and job burnout, reduced personal accomplishment, job satisfaction, organizational identification). These studies provide evidence that being communicatively competent matters.

4 Improving the outcome focus of communication competence research 4.1 Evaluating across contexts Given the facilitators and constraints imposed by certain contexts, it makes sense that scholars have generated specific contextual operationalizations of communication competence. What is unclear is to what degree, and on what dimensions, these contexts are similar or different. One taxonomy could help scholars in comparing the context of their studies and their findings. Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) adapted Thomas and Bookwalter’s (1982) relevant contextual features. Questions guide the six categories. For example, “What culture is this?” is the guiding question for the evaluative or affective dimension (e.g., intimate or formal). “Where is this?” is the guiding question for how the setting or environment is perceived (e.g., unusual). “What kind (or type) of situation is this?” focuses on status and relational types (e.g., formal social event, group discussion). “How do I see myself in rela-

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tion to the people around me?” focuses on the nature of the relationship (e.g., cooperative vs. competitive). “What is the purpose of my communication?” focuses on behavioral (e.g., informing) and psychological (e.g., identity) features of the actor. The sixth question, “Do I see myself as able to enact the appropriate behavior?” asks if the actor perceives that he or she can behave in the best possible way. Unfortunately, it does not appear that scholars have adopted this taxonomy to make connections among the varying contexts in which communication competence is instrumental. A meta-review of the communication competence literature using these six questions as points of comparison would be valuable in helping to understand the context-specific and context-generalizable aspects of communication competence. For example, it might be discovered that regardless of context, displays and impressions of competence vary systematically between low-status and high-status situations.

4.2 Exploring methodological alternatives Descriptive studies often infer through theory or arguments advanced that the communication competence of one member in a specified relationship influences another variable. Although some of the theory and arguments advanced appear sound, common-method variance and the reliance on data collection from questionnaires at the same setting weakens these claims of directional influence. To date, communication competence has largely been explored quantitatively using questionnaires collecting data at one point in time. In addition to the methodological considerations described by Spitzberg and Cupach (1984; also see Chapter 4, Wrench and Punyanunt), quantitative designs and statistical methods have continued to develop. Several of these are noted here: experiments, structural equation modeling, time-sharing experiments, longitudinal designs, and metaanalysis, as are qualitative designs. The use of experimental research design is relatively unusual in communication competence research. Most of these manipulate types of communication and evaluate appropriateness and effectiveness as the outcome. Thus, in these designs, evaluation of communication leads to assessments of competence. An example is Weber, Goodboy, and Cayanus’s (2010) study that used video manipulations of a male flirting to initiate conversation with a female. While participants rated thirdparty introductions (i.e., as indicating that the actor knows a friend or relative of the target) and direct or straightforward introductions as most appropriate, thirdparty introductions were perceived as most effective. In a field experiment (Downing 2011), sales conversion rates of telephone sales agents was the outcome variable. Two coaches from the organization and two trained judges evaluated sales agents’ communication skills (e.g., emphasizes important points with changes in pitch and volume; uses short, affirmative words

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and sounds to indicate that he/she is listening to the customer) in their abilities to cross sell or up sell. Downing found that high and low performing sales agents were differentiated on about half of the communication skills evaluated. Thus, sales agent communication competence resulted in a higher dollar amount of sales. The use of structural equation modeling (SEM) has increased significantly across all areas of communication inquiry. This statistic supports the design of a model in which communication competence can be both an endogenous (similar to a criterion variable) and exogenous (similar to a predictor variable) variable. Investigating communication competence in families, Ledbetter (2010) hypothesized that communication competence would inversely predict online self-disclosure, and positively predict online social connection. The first of these was supported. Ledbetter also predicted that conversation orientation would positively predict communication competence, whereas a conformity orientation would inversely predict communication competence. The first of these two predictions was supported. Using a research design based on structural equation modeling allowed for a more complex positioning of communication competence: as a) a predictor of online communication behavior, as well as b) an outcome of family communication patterns. Widely debated as to its predictive ability, more recent evaluations of SEM view it as a causal-inference model (Pearl 2012). Thus when researchers use theory to identify the model before data collection, SEM seems an appropriate statistical tool for determining the causal effects of communication competence. Using a similar design strategy, Bakke (2010) developed the Mobile Communication Competence Scale (MCC). Bakke hypothesized that its three cognitive constructs (asynchronous communication, comfort with technology, mobile preference) would predict competency constructs (appropriate communication, communication efficacy, communication affect), which in turn would predict mobile communication use. This design, then, demonstrates a complex relationship in that a) competence is predicted by cognitive processes, and in turn b) competence predicts use. Also relatively new to communication research is the use of time-sharing experiments, especially TESS (Time-Shared Experiments in the Social Sciences) at the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University. After application and approval, the Center provides random digit dialing to secure participants. Johnson (2007) used this method to determine the relationship between multiple face threats and perceptions of refusal competence. Interviewers asked participants to imagine themselves in a request to a friend or family member. Interviewers then described three different request scenarios and collected participants’ responses after each one. One of a series of hypotheses was: “Threat to a requester’s negative face after refusal will be negatively associated with perceived refusal effectiveness” (p. 199). Study results affirmed that effectiveness and appropriateness are distinct concepts, and these two evaluations are not always conjoined. Longitudinal designs that explored self- and other-ratings of communication competence, especially in interpersonal settings (e.g., friendships, romantic part-

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ners, living together or married couples) would be advantageous as would longitudinal designs in organizational settings (e.g., superior–subordinate, coworkers, teammates). Existing longitudinal designs have captured only self-ratings. Although competence was not directly examined, Bonito et al.’s (2011) exploration of self and other ratings in group settings provides valuable insight for developing this type of social comparison design (self and other; self and multiple others). Meta-analyses are useful designs when there enough studies with similar measures. For example, Finn and colleagues (2009) reviewed the teacher credibility literature (i.e., competence, trustworthiness, and caring) and conducted their meta-analysis on 51 studies that measured teacher credibility, teacher behaviors, and student outcomes. Their primary finding indicated that “teacher credibility has a moderate meaningful association with a host of teacher behaviors/characteristics and student outcomes” (p. 529). Across the included studies, student outcomes included “motivation, affect, cognitive learning, respect for teachers, perceived understanding, in-class and out-of-class communication, and generalized beliefs and attitudes about college” (p. 530). Meta-analysis studies provide summaries of research areas allowing researchers to accept premises to be included in more complex single- or multi-study designs. Qualitative designs and analytical methods can be used in outcomes-research. Several are reviewed here as exemplars of how qualitative methods could be used in assessing communication competence. As important, much could be learned from other fields who historically have favored quantitative research designs, but are now publishing qualitative outcomes-based research. For example, the medical field, especially nursing, has moved toward using qualitative research designs to explore outcomes (Curry, Nembhard, and Bradley 2009). Use of qualitative methods is advocated, for example, when complex phenomena are difficult to measure, when insight is needed into potential causal mechanisms, and special populations are the target. Of the few qualitative studies, most follow a research design similar to Thompson (2009) in which the project is designed to explore predictors of communication competence. The guiding question was: “What communication processes influence (or hinder) an interdisciplinary academic research team’s ability to create collective communication competence?” Because qualitative methods, especially ethnography used in this study, are rich in detail, Thompson was able to acknowledge a possible outcome of communication competence: that is, collective communication competence would lead to a team’s ability to address complex research problems and engage in collaborative problem solving, as well as help team members develop rewarding working relationships. In an interview study, Penington and Wildermuth (2005) explored intercultural competence, which includes findings about the motivation (especially their desire to communicate), knowledge, and skills (particularly listening, nonverbal sensitivity, and ability to ask questions) components associated with communication com-

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petence. With respect to outcomes, the interview method succeeded in identifying specifically a future orientation previously not addressed in communication competence research. That is, students’ comments indicated that their intercultural interactions with people in another culture at local activities during their short term travel/study program “served as a training ground for more effective intercultural communication in the future” (p. 181). Thus students studying in other cultures recognized that the process and practice of developing communication competence influences their ability to be communicatively competent in other intercultural settings. This suggests that there may be cumulative effects of competent communication. Finally, discourse analysis (Almeida, 2004) has also been used to study communication competence. This methodological approach does not clearly specify outcomes in the research design. However, discourse analysis, as well as interaction analysis, can provide a micro-level approach to exploring what outcomes emerge from communicatively competent behavior, and how.

5 Conclusion Returning to the questions posed at the beginning of the chapter, outcome based research has not dominated communication competence research. The problem is that communication competence has been used to predict outcomes, as well as be the outcome. More recent (and more sophisticated) analyses can provide guidance out of this conundrum. However, it is time to develop research designs in which findings explicitly demonstrate that being communicatively competent has outcomes that are useful and practical. With respect to the second question, the outcomes more commonly associated with communication competence research are perceptual and communicative. Developing designs that connect communication competence to non-communicative outcomes would better position the construct with non-academic audiences. To see communication competence research used in applied settings, it is important to demonstrate that communication competence accomplishes second- and third-order effects beyond the scope of other communication constructs. Similarly, and in response to the third question, communication competence research should be clearly rooted in communicative processes, but also move to include non-communicative outcomes. The fourth question asked if communication competence outcomes can be categorized or meaningfully organized. They can and should be. Using the outcomebased communication competence research design model (Figure 2) in combination with Thomas and Bookwalter’s (1982) model of context could be useful. Admittedly, this will not be easy as there is not a social (human) context in which communication is not important. Communication competence may be the construct

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around which so much research has been conducted that it could well be the starting point for such a project. The fifth question asked: How have the research designs used by scholars in the study of communication competence facilitated or inhibited learning about outcomes? Outcomes-based research models have not been sufficiently designed or used in either quantitative or qualitative research to optimal benefit. Much more is known about what creates impressions of communication competence than is known about what results from people communicating competently. That the intrinsic value of communicating competently is a good thing has been generally presumed, so inquiries have generally stopped at that point. Knowing more about the outcomes of being communicatively competent is essential. To the extent the fourth question cannot be answered, the sixth question about the role of context in outcome-based communication competence research also cannot be answered. Finally, the last question asked: What next steps should researcher designing communication competence studies take? The methods described above – and being used by communication scholars – may generate ideas for future communication competence research. In the end, we know a great deal about communication competence. Three things are essential. First, we need to harness the power of study findings by using existing or developing contextual/situational models that would allow us to make comparisons of characteristics across varying contexts. Second, we need to employ sophisticated quantitative research designs, as well as qualitative designs. Third, we need a fuller understanding of what occurs when people communicate competently, and how doing so becomes the basis of relational development and goal achievement across all contexts.

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Lynne Kelly and James A. Keaten

24 The transformation of everyday talk: The impact of communication technology on notions of communication competence Abstract: We are now situated in a world of diverse technological choices, offering more options for communication than in any other time in human history. The proliferation of mediated communication into everyday talk raises important questions regarding the foundational dimensions of competence – effectiveness and appropriateness. The chapter begins with a review of four channel characteristics relevant to communication competence: synchronicity, cue richness, format constraints, and message privacy. The section following examines the impact of communication technologies on everyday talk, consisting of superficial talk, informal talk, task talk, deep talk, and relational talk. The centrality of the relational context to competence is then explored, followed by a review of how emotional predisposition impacts channel choice. In the final section, the authors offer a reconceptualization of communication competence. More specifically, the authors reframe the construct of appropriateness as an emergent agreement between individuals who are uniquely situated in a relational context. Reframing appropriateness as situated and individualized diminishes the innate tension between appropriateness and effectiveness that is often felt by individuals who suffer from communication problems, such as reticence, shyness, and communication apprehension. Keywords: communication technology, channel choice, everyday talk, reticence, appropriateness, effectiveness, communication avoidance predisposition, mediated communication, emergent expectations

1 Introduction Most of the foundational research and theory pertaining to communication competence was published by communication scholars in the 1970s through the early 1990s. This body of work was built upon the presumption of face-to-face (FtF) communication, as other channels were very limited. Accordingly, the bulk of interpersonal communication in this era was FtF; thus, models of communication competence were developed to explain in-person interaction. A consensus emerged in theorizing, advancing effectiveness and appropriateness as the two pillars of competence (Canary and Spitzberg 1987; Rubin 1990; Wiemann 1977). Effectiveness refers to one’s ability to accomplish goals in a given communication situation (Canary and Spitzberg 1987; Wiemann 1977). Appropriateness involves both choosing

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behaviors that fit the context (Duran 1983) and maintaining the face of other interactants (Wiemann 1977). Thus, a competent individual is able to achieve the desired outcome for an interaction (i.e., is effective) and is able to adapt his or her behavior so that it is appropriate for the situation and the other interactant(s). Due to widespread and dynamic technological innovation, the range of channels for everyday communication has grown exponentially since the early models of communication competence. Not only are there many channel choices but they have been adopted broadly, in fact globally, although not uniformly. Thus, for any given communicative situation, individuals often are confronted with an array of channels, including FtF when feasible, but also making a phone call, sending a text or email, posting a message on a social networking site, tweeting, or engaging in video chat, among others. Recognizing the important implications of mediated channels for competence, Spitzberg (2006) developed a model of computer-mediated communication (CMC) competence and Bakke (2010) presented a model of mobile communication competence. Both of these models, however, focus on competent usage of mediated channels. The perspective of this chapter is broader, raising questions pertaining to the core conceptualization of communication competence. Indeed, we argue that channel choice and the incorporation of mediated communication into everyday talk has significant implications for the meaning of communication competence and its two pillars of appropriateness and effectiveness (Keaten and Kelly 2008). For instance, is it appropriate and effective to terminate a romantic relationship via a status update on Facebook or a tweet? Would solving a relational problem through a text message exchange be classified as competent? Although studies have shown that FtF communication is perceived as more appropriate than mediated channels in interpersonal contexts (O’Sullivan 2000; Westmyer, DiCioccio, and Rubin 1998), particularly when terminating a romantic relationship (Gershon 2010; Keaten et al. 2011; Kelly, Keaten, and Millette 2012a), many communication media are so new that we “have not yet developed shared expectations about how to navigate social dilemmas using the new communicative technologies” (Gershon 2010: 199). Given the array of existing channels of communication and whatever new ones lie beyond the horizon, we believe it is unlikely that widely agreed-upon prescriptive norms will take hold dictating the appropriateness of a particular medium in situations of everyday talk. Instead, as we will discuss in this chapter, expectations about communication channels will be more fluid and organic as they emerge within relational contexts, serving the functions of everyday talk. Models of communication competence, therefore, must be revised to account for the additional complexity created by the proliferation of varied communication channels. To be competent communicators in everyday interaction, individuals need to be fluent in mediated and non-mediated channels and adaptable to emerging expectations within relational contexts as we will argue later in this chapter. First, we examine characteristics of communication channels, focusing on distinc-

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tive aspects and understanding how different characteristics affect usage. Then we review literature that addresses how everyday talk is influenced by communication technologies and their characteristics, followed by an examination of how communication-related predispositions impact channel selection. Finally, we present a reconceptualization of communication competence that incorporates channel choice, predispositions, and relational context, revisiting notions of appropriateness and effectiveness in situations of everyday talk. The term “everyday talk” refers to “the mundane, everyday interaction” between two people (Goldsmith and Baxter 1996: 87).

2 Communication channel characteristics relevant to competence Scholars often refer to communication technologies as offering affordances that impact how they are used (Ling 2004). The affordances of various communication channels affect their usage; email and text messaging, for instance, afford users the ability to send messages without the other interactant having to be immediately available to respond, unlike a phone call, a video chat, or a FtF interaction. Channel choice decisions, however, are shaped by factors beyond the affordances enabled by their physical properties, such as culture and characteristics of the individual (Ling 2004). In this section we focus on characteristics that differentiate communication technologies because of their implications for communication competence. Specifically, we examine synchronicity, cue richness, format constraints, and the private vs. public nature of the medium.

2.1 Synchronous-asynchronous One fundamental characteristic of communication channels is whether they are asynchronous or synchronous, a distinction determined to be important in an early study by Rice (1993) of traditional and new organizational communication media. Most discussions of communication media include this dimension (e.g., Baym 2010; Kelly et al. 2012b; Ramirez et al. 2008), although some scholars claim that it is more accurate to consider synchronous-asynchronous as a continuum (Baron 2008; Kelly et al. 2010; Rettie 2009). Scholars and study participants alike have identified advantages and disadvantages of synchronous and asynchronous media. For instance, asynchronicity provides more time for strategic self-presentation (Baym 2010; Kelly et al. 2012b). On the other hand, time delays between messages can be awkward and can lead to misunderstandings and frustration. Participant comments about text messaging in Rettie’s (2009) study led her to conclude that “the near-synchrony” of text messages allows people to send “thinking of you”

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messages in a less obtrusive way as compared to synchronous communication. It is clear from research that the asynchronous-synchronous dimension of communication media can influence channel choice and has the potential to impact communication effectiveness and perceptions of appropriateness.

2.2 Cue richness Communication channels also vary in their cue richness or amount of nonverbal and social context cues they carry (Baym 2010; Kelly et al. 2012b; Ramirez et al. 2008; Walther and Bazarova 2008). FtF communication is generally thought to provide the most cues, providing interactants with more information for interpreting and conveying meaning and identity. Digital media vary in the cues they offer, with text-based media (e.g., instant messaging, text messaging) presenting fewer cues than media that enable visual and/or auditory cues (e.g., telephone, Skype conversations). Focus group participants in the Kelly et al. (2012b) study felt that the few cues available in the exchange of text messages produced misunderstanding and that this was a common problem. On the other hand, they also reported that fewer cues reduced awkwardness and inhibition, as has been found in other research (Kelly et al. 2004; Pierce 2009; Roberts, Smith, and Pollock 2000).

2.3 Format constraints A third characteristic of communication channels is the format of the technology with its formal and informal constraints. For instance, the character restrictions of text messages and messages on microblogs like Twitter are formal format constraints. Some media are far less restrictive in this way; one can conceivably talk endlessly on a telephone or via video chat or write very lengthy emails, for example. In contrast to formal format constraints, informal constraints emerge through usage. For example, it is typical to exchange brief messages when using IM, even chunking longer messages into several short ones (Baron 2008). The forced brevity of text messages, a formal constraint, has both positive and negative consequences. Although it can be time-saving to dispense with conversational formalities (Kelly et al. 2012b; Rettie 2009), the ability to express thoughts clearly may suffer, causing misunderstandings and with this “interpretive flexibility” of text messages, “there is limited scope to discuss nuances of interpretation and to affect [sic] repairs” (Rettie 2009: 1143). The brevity of texting, however, allows for “a slower, less committed process of relationship development” (Rettie 2009: 1142), which people seem to favor in their initiation of romantic relationships. Overall, it seems evident that individuals are aware of formal and informal format constraints of communication channels and how these can be advantageous as well as detrimental to communication.

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2.4 Message privacy Finally, communication channels vary in terms of the extent to which they offer privacy in the exchange of messages. There are two ways to think about this channel characteristic. First, channels differ in, as Baym (2010: 10) describes it, “the extent to which their messages endure. Storage, and relatedly, replicability, are highly consequential.” Messages that can be stored and replicated and, hence, distributed to others, pose a threat to privacy. Second, channels differ in the extent to which they are inherently public vs. private. For instance, a wall post on a family member’s profile on Facebook will be seen by the “friends” of that family member, but a message sent through Facebook will not be seen by others unless the family member copies and shares it through some means. Indeed, popular media are replete with stories of people, typically public figures, whose messages or photos, intended to be private, inadvertently or deliberately were made public. Each of the four characteristics of communication channels is best conceived along a continuum in terms of usage. Two individuals can be online at the same time and send a series of emails back and forth in quick succession in spite of email being generally thought of as an asynchronous medium. Similarly, media are more or less rich in terms of cues and more or less private, depending on how they are used. Users can even circumvent formal constraints such as character restrictions by sending a series of short messages, continuing a sentence started in a text message in a second text sent immediately on the heels of the first, for example. Thus, we take the position that, although these characteristics and, hence, the affordances of various channels, play a role in channel choice, they are part of a larger configuration of individual, relational, and social factors at work. Madianou and Miller’s (2012) theory of polymedia offers a similar argument. They argue that, “In conditions of polymedia the emphasis shifts from a focus on the qualities of each particular medium as a discrete technology, to an understanding of new media as an environment of affordances. As a consequence the primary concern shifts from an emphasis on the constraints imposed by each medium … to an emphasis upon the social and emotional consequences of choosing between those different media” (Madianou and Miller 2012: 170). Therefore, a model of communication competence needs to conceptualize channel choice as a complex component rather than adopting a technologically deterministic viewpoint in which technology (i.e., channel) determines behavior (Baym 2010). Instead, the relationship between technology and behavior needs to be viewed as reciprocal and complex as opposed to linear and predictable.

3 Communication technologies in everyday talk Scholars debate the extent to which technologies have altered everyday communication (Jones 2009; Ling and Donner 2009). Spitzberg (2006), for example, argued

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that FtF and mediated interactions “are more similar than they are different” (p. 652), but the truth of that statement and determination of the extent of change to everyday communication depend on the criteria being used. Communication technologies have changed important fundamentals of everyday talk, certainly in terms of how a great deal of it is carried out, how often people interact with relational partners (Baym et al. 2007; Caughlin and Sharabi 2013), and expectations about availability for interaction (Ling and Donner 2009; Turkle 2008). Mediated communication channels mean people no longer need to occupy the same physical space in order to engage in conversation, and the increasing mobility of channels due to smart phones and tablet computers allows for individuals to communicate within relationships more often and at any time. Moreover, mediated channels make it easier to initiate and maintain relationships with more people. In this section, we examine the impact of communication technologies on interpersonal communication in people’s everyday lives. The perspective adopted here is not reflective of technological determinism; people are adapting communication technologies to meet their needs too, as the social shaping approach claims (Baym 2010), and these technologies are becoming so commonplace that they have become domesticated and taken for granted (Ling 2012).

3.1 Usage of communication technologies in forms of everyday talk One approach to examining the ways in which communication technologies have influenced everyday talk is to focus on types of talk. Ledbetter, Broeckelman-Post, and Krawsczyn (2011), building upon the foundational work of Goldsmith and Baxter (1996), advanced a five category taxonomy of everyday talk: 1. superficial talk, 2. informal talk, 3. task talk, 4. deep talk, and 5. relational talk. In the paragraphs that follow, each of the five types will be examined, focusing on the usage of communication technologies within these forms of everyday talk. The literature reviewed will be illustrative rather than comprehensive; the focus of this chapter and page limitations preclude a comprehensive review, given the tremendous proliferation of published scholarship about communication technologies over the last three decades.

3.1.1 Superficial talk Superficial talk consists of two types of talk: 1. conversations about the news or current events, and 2. conversations to pass time and/or avoid being rude, labeled as small talk (Ledbetter, Broeckelman-Post, and Krawsczyn 2011). Despite the “superficial” label, both current events talk and small talk serve important functions. For example, small talk “enacts social cohesiveness, reduces inherent threat values

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of social contact, and helps to structure social interaction” (Coupland 2003: 1). Originally referred to by Malinowski in 1923 as “phatic communion” (reprinted in 1972), small talk fills in the awkward silence that may characterize initial interaction, affording participants the opportunity to enter the conversation comfortably (Laver 1975). Small talk, accordingly, serves as a communicative buffer that makes the initiation of task-talk both natural and seamless (Keaten, Kelly, and Millette 2013). There is limited research to date that focuses on how communication technologies might be influencing everyday superficial talk. The research that does exist suggests, however, that communication technology may decrease the need for small talk for some mediated channels but not others. For example, Spagnolli and Gamberini (2007) analyzed 180 SMS exchanges (i.e., text messages) and found that openings and closings were frequently dropped, asserting that openings and closure were essentially unnecessary because of the assumption of constant availability afforded by the mobility of cell phone technology. Similar results were obtained by Rettie (2009), who interviewed 32 adults in the UK and analyzed 278 text messages from these interviewees. Rettie (2009) concluded: “SMS etiquette is relaxed (as reflected in the corpus collected), without the prescribed greeting and closing rituals found in phone calls or letters. This is seen as an advantage: ‘text messages are so good, you can just get straight to the point, no beating around the bush, no pleasantries’” (p. 1136). At the same time, researchers have described the function of many text messages as phatic communication or small talk because those messages serve to simply stay connected with another rather than being substantive communication (Green and Haddon 2009; Ling 2008; Pettigrew 2009; Taylor and Harper 2003). Keaten et al. (2013) found that overall usage of text messaging does not appear to lead to avoidance of small talk with strangers in everyday social situations, in contrast to findings of previous studies that individuals use texting to avoid having to engage in conversational pleasantries (e.g., Kelly et al. 2012b; Rettie 2009). In fact, preliminary research indicates that people who viewed small talk as functionally important were also more likely to engage in texting (Keaten et al. 2013). In a review of the literature on Instant Messaging, Quan-Hasse (2009) reported that IM interactions relied on openings and closings as did FtF encounters. Boneva et al. (2006) obtained similar results, noting that openings and closings tended to be ritualized, and that 68 percent of the teens they interviewed indicated that the conversations were about nothing important, which the researchers labeled as small talk. Thus, although traditional greetings and openings often are used in Instant Messaging but not used in text messaging, the messages themselves frequently represent the superficial form of everyday talk. Communication technologies, particularly texting, enable more frequent exchange of these phatic communication messages (Bergs 2009). Even e-mail was found in one study to encourage “a frequent flurry of communication” (Rowe 2009).

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3.1.2 Informal talk The category of informal talk consists of several types of talk, such as catching up, gossiping, joking around to release tension, and recapping the events of the day (Ledbetter, Broeckelman-Post, and Krawsczyn 2011). Communication technologies are used a great deal to engage in informal talk. Research shows, for instance, that social networks have become a primary vehicle for informal talk. Donath (2007), for example, asserts that social networks provide a virtually endless stream of informal talk, which has become the modern day equivalent of social grooming, stating “perhaps the basic pleasure that social network sites provide is endless novelty in the flow of new people and new information, and the knowledge that someone is paying attention to you – social grooming for the information age” (Donath 2007: 247). Research also shows that people who text regularly report feeling more connected socially (Lam 2013), in part by engaging in joking and other forms of informal talk (Ling 2008). Romantic couples call and text multiple times throughout the day to catch up on events of the day (Lasén 2011). Several of the categories of text messages that Ling (2004) uncovered represent information talk such as “grooming” messages, personal news, and joking. Tong and Walther (2011), in a review of research on mediated communication in relational maintenance, noted that one study found that college students and their parents use email for routine interactions, such as reports from school or home. Social network sites and blogs are also used for informal talk like reporting on events of the day (Tong and Walther 2011).

3.1.3 Task talk Task talk consists of instrumental communication, such as asking for a favor, making a decision, giving or getting instructions, making plans, or persuading someone else to do something (Ledbetter, Broeckelman-Post, and Krawsczyn 2011). Research supports the conclusion that much task talk is carried out through mediated channels. Ling and Yttri (2002) found that mobile phones and messaging were important among all age groups (i.e., teens and adults) for instrumental functions, such as social coordination and safety. Social coordination (e.g., making and altering plans) is arguably one of the primary communicative tasks for which individuals use the cell phone (Ling 2004), and its usage for this purpose has fundamentally changed the way people make plans with one another (Ling and Campbell 2010). Ling’s (2004) analysis of the content of text messages found that they often focused on everyday tasks of coordinating and planning activities. Families use mediated channels, particularly cell phones, for making arrangements, coordinating family activities, and keeping tabs on each other’s whereabouts (Edley and Houston 2011). When compared to women, however, men are more likely to view texting as a business tool (Puro 2002). Looking at task talk, Dennis, Fuller, and Valacich (2008)

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asserted that the relationship between channel choice and communicative effectiveness is partially a function of synchronicity. In particular, email is more effective for decision making when information needs to be conveyed because it is less synchronous, providing more time for deliberation. On the other hand, IM (and texting) are more effective for coordination, such as when and where to meet, because the more synchronous nature of the channel allows for faster action.

3.1.4 Deep talk Deep talk also consists of several types of talk, including breaking bad news, expressing negative feelings or frustrations toward a topic but not the other person, serious conversations about personal or important topics, and talking about problems (Ledbetter, Broeckelman-Post, and Krawsczyn 2011). Research findings generally show that levels of disclosure are deeper when shared through mediated channels. Joinson and Paine (2007) found that the self-revelation of private thoughts, experiences, and emotions is exceptionally widespread on the Internet, from personal blogs and social networks to online forums and dating Websites. Because of increased anonymity and reduced cues, research has shown that people who choose CMC tend to offer more frequent and intimate disclosures (e.g., Joinson 2001; Tidwell and Walther 2002), leading to a sense of increased intimacy (Parks and Floyd 1996; Valkenburg and Peter 2007; Walther 1996). Mesch and Beker (2010) concluded from their study of norms of online disclosure that the mediated environment is generative of increased disclosure rather than simply being a venue to which individuals prone to disclosure are attracted. Their claim, therefore, suggests that computer-mediated channels have produced norms for disclosure that are distinct from FtF disclosure norms (Mesch and Beker 2010). In addition to disclosure, other forms of deep talk are routinely communicated through mediated channels. Coyne et al. (2011) found that nearly 25 percent of their sample of adults used media to have serious discussions. Tong and Walther’s (2011) review of relevant studies concluded that people seem to be comfortable using CMC for serious discussions, and bad news and hurtful messages can sometimes be communicated more easily when mediated. A small percentage of Coyne et al.’s (2011) participants reported using texting in particular when initiating confrontational interactions, and Yates and Lockley (2008) found that texting was used to engage in communication with a strong potential for face loss. Similarly, Frisby and Westerman (2010) found that almost two-thirds of their study participants used mediated channels to engage in conflict communication with their romantic partners, and some reported that they chose CMC because of technological advantages for engaging in conflict. Although studies indicate that using texting or other media for conflict and serious discussions is often perceived as inappropriate or as producing misunderstanding (Kelly et al. 2012b; Miller-Ott, Kelly, and Duran 2012),

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it is clear that everyday deep talk occurs via mediated channels and may enable such talk by making individuals feel sufficiently comfortable to engage.

3.1.5 Relational talk Expressing love, giving attention and affection, making up, and talking about the state of one’s relationship are all types of relational talk (Ledbetter, BroeckelmanPost, and Krawsczyn 2011). The clear consensus among scholars is that computermediated communication, including calling and texting on cell phones, is used primarily for relationship maintenance (Tong and Walther 2011). Although all forms of CMC are used in relational maintenance, much research has focused on social network sites, particularly Facebook, and texting, and found that both are used regularly to engage in relational talk. In fact, Levy (2008) asserted that the primary purpose of Facebook for most people is to maintain relationships, and other studies indicated that staying in touch with old friends (Lampe, Ellison and Steinfield 2006) and friends one doesn’t get to see much (Joinson 2008) are strong motivations for its use. Mansson and Myers (2011) discovered, however, that the use of social networks to maintain relationships with close friends depends on a person’s level of affection. In particular, highly affectionate individuals were more likely “to maintain their relationships with close friends through Facebook than less affectionate individuals and may therefore also be more successful in maintaining their relationships through Facebook” (Mansson and Myers 2011: 165). Texting is also a popular media choice for relational talk. One of the key functions of texting across age groups is relationship maintenance (Horstmanshof and Power 2005; Ling 2004; Yates and Lockley 2008). One potential reason for choosing texting to engage in relational talk, especially for teens, is that cell phones offer more privacy than the shared family computer (Faulkner and Culwin 2005). Studies have found that texting enables the communication of affection through brief “thinking of you” types of messages (Lasén 2011; Pettigrew 2009; Rettie 2009). Among individuals in romantic relationships, in fact, Coyne et al. (2011) reported that expressing affection was the most common reason for using texting. Similarly, Pettigrew (2009) found that romantic dyads sent text messages to “promote feelings of being emotionally and relationally connected” (p. 710). This selective review of research supports the conclusion that mediated channels of communication are used extensively for all forms of everyday talk, from superficial to relational. More importantly, by allowing more frequent and ongoing contact between relational partners than could be achieved by FtF interaction alone, communication technologies are altering the way people communicatively develop and maintain relationships (Duran, Kelly and Frisbie 2013; Lasén 2011; Ling 2008). Indeed, the number of channels of communication used within a relationship (i.e., media multiplexity) affects relational strength (Haythornthwaite

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(2005) and interdependence (Ledbetter 2009) as well as relational closeness and satisfaction (Caughlin and Sharabi 2013). More importantly, Caughlin and Sharabi (2013) found that how well partners integrated FtF and mediated channels influenced their closeness and satisfaction over and above mere frequency of interaction. Thus, communication competence involves the effective and appropriate usage of mediated and FtF channels, and the choosing of channels for everyday talk, in the specific relational context.

3.2 The centrality of the relational context to communication competence Taken as a whole, the published literature on communication technologies and everyday talk provides a strong case that the relationship between the interactants may be the central contextual variable to be taken into account when reconceptualizing communication competence in light of multiple channels of communication. The term “relational context” is being used broadly here to incorporate all aspects, such as how the relationship started, the relationship type (e.g., friendship, romantic, family, etc.), relationship stage or duration, relationship history, and the relational culture (i.e., shared values, rules, expectations etc.). In an early study of context and competence, Spitzberg and Brunner (1991) concluded that one of the most important features of context is whether or not there are discrepancies between expectations and what occurs when individuals interact, and that such discrepancies generally produce dissatisfaction. Spitzberg (2006) incorporated this notion into his later model of CMC competence. A main source of expectations is the totality of the relationship aspects included here. A number of studies have found that the relational context plays a key role in which channels of communication are used, and hence, in competent everyday communication. A study by Baym et al. (2007), for instance, revealed that relationship type (e.g., acquaintance, friend, etc.) was associated with communication channel use. Mesch (2009) found that relationship origin (i.e., having met in FtF locations vs. online), geographic proximity, relationship duration, and relationship closeness affected communication channel choices. Höflich and Linke’s (2011) study participants described differences in communication technology use depending on relationship stage. Pettigrew’s (2009) findings indicated different uses of text messaging in romantic vs. non-romantic relationships, and Hsu, Wang, and Tai (2011) found that level of closeness of friendships (from acquaintanceship to new friends to close friends) was related to users’ Facebook behaviors within those relationships. Similarly, research by Ramirez and Broneck (2009) found differences in use of IM based on relationship type as well as relationship type effects on perceived quality of communication. A study of everyday talk by Ledbetter et al. (2010) uncovered differences in everyday talk behaviors between same-sex and cross-sex friendship pairs depending on the media of communication.

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The above studies and others point to the important role of relational context in channel choice and in the experience of using various media of communication. The totality of relationship variables seems to produce a somewhat unique relational context relevant to channel choice and, hence, communication competence. Supporting this point, Hjorth (2011), in discussing one of her respondents, stated: “While voice calling was clearly the dominant mode of correspondence at 60 percent, this respondent freely shifted among various media such as e-mailing, texting, letter writing, and then postcards, depending upon the friend or family member to whom she was communicating” (p. 47). Höflich and Linke (2011) concluded: “The relationships of people do not function as merely the background of media use: they prescribe how the media are used. … Thus, communication media again work in a recursive sense in our relationships, meaning relationships influence media use between two partners just as the social shaping of mobile communication influences the configuration of the relationship” (p. 121).

3.3 Research on emotional predispositions impacting channel choice Communication technologies and relational context have profoundly impacted everyday talk. In addition, the channels people choose to engage in everyday talk are also greatly influenced by their predispositions toward communication such as reticence (Kelly and Keaten 2007) or shyness (Bardi and Brady 2010; Chan 2011). Because these predispositions have a substantial impact on channel choice and, potentially on effectiveness and appropriateness as we will argue below, it is important to understand their role when rethinking the idea of competence. In a 1995 Psychology Today article, shyness experts Carducci and Zimbardo speculated that computer-mediated communication might be “[t]he perfect medium for the shy” (p. 82). Researchers have studied shyness and its impact on choice of mediated channels (Ebling-Witte, Frank, and Lester 2007; Huang and Leung 2009; Roberts, Smith, and Pollock 2000). Other communication-related predispositions that have been the focus of research include social anxiety (High and Caplan 2009; Pierce 2009; Schouten, Valkenburg, and Peter 2007; Young and Lo 2012), introversion and neuroticism (Ehrenberg et al. 2008; Rice and Markey 2009), communication apprehension (Campbell and Neer 2001; Mazur, Burns, and EmmersSommer 2000), and reticence (e.g., Keaten and Kelly 2008; Kelly et al. 2010). This research has demonstrated that these individual communication anxiety and avoidance predispositions have an impact on perceptions of, affect toward, and use of CMC. Results of studies have generally found that communication anxiety and avoidance problems are related to CMC usage and attitudes. Birnie and Horvath’s study (2002) revealed that, although unrelated to frequency of usage, shyness was positively related to intimacy of Internet social communication. In contrast, Ebeling-

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Witte et al. (2007) found shyness was related to a preference for conversing online and increased amount of time online. Valkenburg and Peter (2007) found that socially anxious individuals communicated less often online, but the relationship between social anxiety and frequency of online communication was mediated by participants’ perceptions that online communication is superior to FtF communication for developing breadth and depth of interaction. Kelly et al.’s (2004) results revealed that reticence was associated with the perception that CMC lacked immediacy due to an absence of nonverbal cues, which reduced negative affect (e.g., nervousness, inhibition) and provided a greater sense of control. Thus, this line of research supports the conclusion that communication anxiety and avoidance predispositions are associated with more positive perceptions of CMC, which increases usage of CMC. Research has also uncovered that communication avoidance predispositions are related to affective states associated with usage of online communication. Respondents in a study by Roberts et al. (2000) reported feeling less inhibited online and indicated that using CMC had increased their confidence and skills in FtF communication. Participants in Yuen and Lavin’s (2004) study reported a similar decrease in feelings of shyness online. In reviewing studies that examined the relationship between these predispositions and specific mediated channels such as email or instant messaging (IM), findings mirror the research on CMC generally. Reticence has been found to be associated with positive affect for email (Kelly and Keaten 2007) and IM (Kelly et al. 2010) and a greater likelihood of choosing IM over FtF interaction in difficult interpersonal situations (Kelly et al. 2010). Positive affect for IM may be due in part to reduced anxiety (Kelly et al. 2010); indeed, Rice and Markey (2009) reported that introverted individuals expressed more anxiety following a FtF interaction than an IM interaction, as was the case for neurotic individuals. These findings support those of Kelly et al. (2010), who found that reduced anxiety and inhibition, feelings of increased preparation and control, and self-reported competence in using IM explained over a third of the variance in likelihood of using IM instead of FtF in a difficult interpersonal situation (e.g., asking someone out or breaking off a relationship). A few studies focused on the influence of these predispositions on choosing from among multiple channels. For example, Ehrenberg et al. (2008) compared IM, cell phone voice calls, and texting and found that extraverts reported greater use of texting, and high neurotics used both texting and instant messaging. A study by Pierce (2009) examined IM, email, social networking sites, chat rooms, cell phone voice calls, and texting and found that social anxiety had a positive relationship with feeling more comfortable using mediated channels in general and with feeling more comfortable using text messaging. Keaten et al.’s (2011) findings indicated that reticence was significantly related to greater likelihood of choosing texting over voice calling or FtF communication. In a follow-up study, Kelly et al. (2012a) found that reticence and fear of negative evaluation appeared to influence

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channel choice toward mediated communication, particularly channels with the fewest cues such as texting. If social and communication predispositions drive individuals toward mediated channels, and more specifically to channels with few cues like texting, it is likely that they restrict their communication as much as possible to the favored channels. Noticing such a trend in their data, Keaten et al. (2011) suggested, in fact, that individuals develop a channel bias, relying on one or two channels heavily, although not exclusively. Research by Kelly et al. (2012a) supported the notion of a channel usage bias and revealed that individual predispositions of reticence and fear of negative evaluation (FNE) were related to channel bias. We agree with Madianou and Miller (2012) who argue that, “Few individuals confine themselves to a single medium” (p. 180), but some individuals appear to develop preferences for channels and rely heavily on them. As a whole, research supports the conclusion that social and communication predispositions such as reticence, shyness, social anxiety, and similar constructs affect cognitive appraisals of communication channels as well as affect toward and usage of these channels. Studies indicate that those with communication anxiety and avoidance problems express a preference for mediated channels, particularly channels with the fewest cues, and they feel more comfortable and less shy when using these channels compared to FtF. This preference and these feelings likely stem from their perception that mediated channels allow for greater control and offer limited nonverbal cues. As a result, such individuals are inclined to use mediated channels and may even develop a channel bias. Given that communication apprehension and avoidance predispositions are related to channel choice, these predispositions are important to consider in a reconceptualization of communication competence that incorporates mediated channels.

4 Reconceptualizing communication competence As the previous sections of this chapter have established, we are now situated in a world of diverse technological choices, offering more options for communication than in any other time in human history. Consequently, individuals are faced with an array of channels of communication allowing for more nuanced and individualized choice-making. Research suggests that it is common for people to use multiple means of communication to maintain relationships, referred to as media multiplexity (Haythornthwaite 2005), and that communication technologies are changing everyday talk and interpersonal relations in ways that go beyond simple increased frequency (Caughlin and Sharabi 2013; Ledbetter 2009; Mesch and Beker 2010). Indeed, semi-public social networking sites like Facebook and microblogs like Twitter, both used extensively for relationship maintenance, create what Marwick and boyd (2010) refer to as “context collapse.” This collapsing of multiple audien-

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ces into one produces a situation in which groups of people are brought together who normally are not, and participants will generally all observe the same posts and photos unless private channels like Facebook messaging are used. The context collapse of social networking sites produces a fundamental change in everyday talk with relational partners. In addition, research indicates that people can and do develop their own “channel heuristics” based upon multiple factors, most importantly the relational context, but also biases toward channels, and their level of comfort with various channels. Ling and Donner (2009) identified individual addressability (i.e., contacting a person rather than a place as was done with traditional landline phones) and the ubiquity of mobile communication allowing for the “interlacing” of communication into everyday activities (e.g., one can text a friend while waiting for the train) as important changes. They argue that “our everyday actions are determined, at least in part, by our expectation that others we may interact with are always available via the mobile phone; thus, planning is different, travel is different, togetherness is different, and privacy is different” (Ling and Donner 2009: 135–136). This body of literature suggests a need for a reconceptualization of communication competence, which we offer in this final section. The reconceptualization proposed here revisits the constructs of effectiveness and appropriateness and their interconnection because of the centrality of both the relational context and the multiple channels used in everyday talk as well as the role played by communication predisposition in channel choice. In this section, as we discuss our perspective on communication competence, it is important to note that, as we have argued elsewhere (Keaten and Kelly 2008), we are proposing an individualized approach to communication competence, rather than a situational approach. Instead of asking what constitutes a competent interaction in a specific situation, we are addressing what constitutes a communicatively competent individual who is situated in a digital environment. Moreover, we view competence as a matter of degree in that individuals vary on a continuum of competence, a position that other scholars have advocated (Spitzberg 1983).

4.1 Revisiting the constructs of competence: Effectiveness and appropriateness There has been widespread agreement among scholars that the core of communication competence contains the two constructs of effectiveness and appropriateness (Canary and Spitzberg 1987; Rubin 1990; Wiemann 1977). Effectiveness refers to the ability to accomplish one’s goals for communicating and, as such, is a criterion related to outcomes (Spitzberg 1983). The meaning of appropriateness is less clear cut, but has generally been viewed as adapting one’s communication for the specific context, the other interactant, and the goals of each (Duran 1983). Predicated on face-to-face communication, these models of competence, although they have

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recognized that one can be effective without being appropriate and the reverse (McCroskey 1982), have adopted the view articulated by Spitzberg (1983: 325) who stated: “Competence is best viewed as entailing both appropriateness and effectiveness.” Implied in many competence models, is the interrelationship between effectiveness and appropriateness. Indeed, being inappropriate diminishes one’s ability to be effective and being ineffective may signal inappropriateness. The variety of communication channels for everyday talk within relationships means revisiting the criterion of appropriateness to reflect this growing complexity. When there were fewer channel options (FtF, telephone, or writing), communication frequently took place FtF. Furthermore, the norms and expectations guiding such interaction were more generally agreed upon, and thus, what was appropriate could be identified. Of course, as Spitzberg (1983) argued, there was not a precise “known set of specifiable actions that are appropriate, and that all behaviors outside this set are inappropriate” (p. 325). However, social norms pertaining to language, turn-taking, topic choice, and so forth had developed over time, serving as a guide for appropriateness in everyday talk. With the array of channels now available, one typically has multiple means for communicating in everyday life. Indeed, individuals are using this array of channels to initiate, maintain, and terminate relationships; studies have shown, in fact, that the primary use of communication technologies is to conduct relationships (Tong and Walther 2011), that individuals are using multiple channels within relationships (Haythornthwaite 2005), and that how they integrate FtF and mediated channels is important to the relationship (Caughlin and Sharabi 2013; Ledbetter 2009). Thus, an individual who wants to get together with a friend can send messages immediately and effortlessly from virtually any location (e.g., call, send a text, or post a message on a social networking site). Whether it is more or less appropriate to use one channel or another to achieve this function is not easily determined, although we share the viewpoint espoused by Gershon (2010) and Madianou and Miller (2012) that the choice of medium itself has communicative meaning. Appropriateness in the past was about behaving in ways consistent with social norms pertaining to communication; such social norms were not immutable, of course, but changed more slowly because the means of communication were limited and relatively fixed. The rapid proliferation of multiple accessible channels of communication has created a situation in which appropriateness is less about adherence to social norms and is more about the desire for immediate and constant communication, assuming that we are always available (Baron 2008). For example, teens don’t choose texting because of norms of appropriateness. Instead, they choose texting because it is immediate, widely used, private, inexpensive, and easy. However, as Ling (2012) argued, they also develop common practices within their relationships. In discussing the social production of communication practices, he stated: “To practice the correct form of interaction, we need to understand the expectations of

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our communication partners. Is it better to, for example, call, send a text message, or use Facebook chat in a given situation? To make this decision correctly, we have to imagine how our interlocutor will receive and interpret the communication … and we need to calibrate how much effort we want to invest in the communication” (Ling 2012: 175). Expectations about communicating via various channels are emerging organically, resulting in persistent usage patterns that fashion a new set of expectations and norms. A crucial component of the emergent process stems from the relational context, including the partners’ unique configuration of communication media. A study by Kelly and Miller-Ott (2014) offers some support for this notion. Their study, which examined how romantic partners manage cell phone usage when spending time together, relied on focus groups of undergraduate students. Participants’ comments suggested that the channels they use to communicate depend in large part on the other person so they adapt to one another’s preferences and, in that process, create channel usage patterns somewhat unique to the specific relationship. For instance, one remarked: “I think everybody uses their phones differently, and so when it’s a long-term thing, you kind of understand what that person’s [preference is], like one person likes Twitter, one person likes Instagram.” Another participant said, “You could just be a person that doesn’t like to use your phone, and all your friends know that,” and another remarked: “I prefer phone calls, but my friends are all texters. So if they’re calling me, it might be for like an actual reason … Because they know I won’t text them back.” A male participant, who does not respond to texts from his friends right away, explained, “Most people that I do talk with over the cell phone, they know me and they know I’m more an FTF-type person” (Kelly and Miller-Ott 2014). These examples from the Kelly and Miller-Ott (2014) study suggest that within the context of a relationship, there is an emergent sense of which channel to use for what purpose. That sense is influenced partially by individual preferences for particular channels; partially by social norms, such as those pertaining to the sorts of topics that should be discussed via phone rather than posted on a Facebook wall; partially by channel characteristics (e.g., synchronicity, privacy); and partially by predispositions toward communication. In short, we see that there is an interplay between emergent, loosely-defined expectations, existing social norms, and channel characteristics. Our argument about emergent expectations regarding appropriate channel choice and usage embedded in a relational context is consistent with Madianou and Miller’s claim that “Most relationships create a particular configuration of media that works best for their particular communicative needs” (2012: 179), although they claim that they have observed “considerable normativity” in mediated behavior in cultures outside the United States. In revisiting the competence criterion of appropriateness, we view it as contingent upon the relational context and suggest that there are micro-level channel configurations. In other words, in many situa-

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tions of everyday talk, there is more than one channel choice that could be used and, thus, multiple versions of appropriateness emerge. Furthermore, mediated channels are quite different from face-to-face communication because they offer a spectrum of opportunities (e.g., immediacy) and constraints (e.g., reduced cues) that may supersede questions of appropriateness.

4.2 Revisiting the relationship between appropriateness and effectiveness Incorporating channel choice as a key element in reconceptualizing communication competence raises questions about the interconnection of appropriateness and effectiveness. As noted earlier, models predicated on FtF communication tend to view appropriateness as a precursor to effectiveness, which is an outcome variable of the interaction (Spitzberg 1983). With fewer socially-prescribed norms for behavior and more emergent and relational context-specific expectations brought about by the proliferation of communication channels, not only is appropriateness more ambiguous but there are potentially multiple ways to achieve one’s goals for interaction (i.e., be effective). This change has vital implications in that characteristics of mediated channels may enable some individuals to be more effective communicators than they might be in FtF situations. For example, as discussed above, consider those with communication avoidance and anxiety predispositions who generally express a preference for mediated channels (Ebeling-Witte, Frank, and Lester 2007; Pierce 2009) and who often see themselves as more competent using mediated channels (Keaten and Kelly 2008; Kelly et al. 2010; Roberts, Smith, and Pollock 2000). Textual, asynchronous channels, for instance, often increase the reticent or shy person’s comfort and sense of control, allowing for more thoughtful and carefully crafted messages. In contrast, FtF channels increase anxieties, such as fear of negative evaluation, which disrupt focused thinking and further threaten an individual’s ability to communicate effectively. In short, mediated channels enable some individuals to be more effective in achieving communicative goals than they are able to be in FtF interaction, with one study finding that almost 30 percent of participants rated themselves as more competent on email than in FtF communication (Keaten and Kelly 2008). Furthermore, their self-perceived communication competence associated with the two channels was related to their usage in interpersonal situations. With FtF communication less often the standard for appropriateness, as we would argue is the case today, individuals with communication anxiety and avoidance predispositions have more opportunities to communicate effectively using mediated and, especially, asynchronous channels, that give them needed time to construct messages thoughtfully and carefully. In conclusion, we are offering a new conceptualization of communication competence that reframes appropriateness as an emergent agreement between individuals, situated in a relational context, who co-navigate a multifaceted terrain of

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communication channels. As Ling (2012) noted, there is a give-and-take process of message exchange with one another using various media through which “we work out a common idea of what constitutes appropriate communication” (p. 174). Individuals may choose to forego traditional notions of appropriateness and adopt other priorities, such as immediacy and constancy. Our view of appropriateness also removes the innate tension between effectiveness and appropriateness that is often felt by individuals with communication problems (e.g., reticence, shyness, and communication apprehension). Indeed, an emergent view of appropriateness allows the anxious individual to select asynchronous, reduced cue channels which can “level the playing field.” In sum, we are proposing a view of competence in everyday talk that honors the diversity of individual dispositions, relational contexts, and the growing number of channel options that characterize our digital environment. Being communicatively competent means being adept in choosing mediated and FtF communication channels in order to meet the expectations arising from the particular relational context. As Caughlin and Sharabi (2013) stated: “[T]he very quality and success of contemporary relationships may be influenced by how people use various modes of communication together” (p. 890).

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Vincent R. Waldron and Stephen Yungbluth

25 Training and intervention Abstract: Communication competence is unquestionably crucial to personal and career success, so it is not surprising that its development has generated tremendous interest among training professionals. This chapter reviews efforts to enhance communication competence through training. We examine methods of training and the contexts of relational, organizational, and community life where training has been called for, attempted, and (sometimes) assessed. In general, the studies we located supported the efficacy of communication training. Across contexts and training methods significant improvements were reported, often on multiple measures of effectiveness and appropriateness. Despite recent improvements in research rigor, convincing evaluation research remains scant. Small sample sizes and illdefined training “treatments” are among the most obvious methodological limitations. As we found relatively few comparative studies, it is difficult to determine which training methods are superior. Few studies fully “teased out” the unique effects of improved communication practices on training outcomes. The effects of training must be considered in light of larger organizational or social conditions that mute or even nullify its effects. Finally, we found little interest in evaluating the degree to which training yielded more ethical communication practices. This dimension of communication competence deserves additional training and research. Keywords: training methods, training outcomes, training contexts, assessment, attentiveness, expressiveness, composure, coordination

Communication competence is unquestionably crucial to personal and career success, so it is not surprising that its development has generated tremendous interest among researchers and training professionals. This chapter reviews efforts to enhance communication competence through training. We examine both methods of training and the contexts of relational, organizational, and community life where it has been called for, attempted, and (sometimes) assessed. Comprehensive inventories of intervention programs are offered elsewhere (e.g., http://www.nrepp. samhsa.gov/Index.aspx). Here we focus on those most commonly used to develop communication competencies and favor those for which “evidence-based” recommendations, preferably grounded in empirical research, can be offered (see http:// evidencebasedprograms.org). Even within these parameters the literature remains vast and our review must be selective. Fortunately, other chapters in this volume address contexts in which training and intervention efforts are common, such as relational communication (Chapter 13), negotiation (Chapter 15), organizational communication (Chapter 16), and cross-cultural communication (Chapter 20).

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A challenge to any review of the training literature is that many of its contributors are professionally invested in the success of training methods. Consultants, corporate trainers, life coaches, therapists, and of course, many academics (including the authors), have devised and reported on methods of training, often with positive results. Of course, an inevitable conflict of interest arises when the providers of training report on its results. Accordingly, we favored data-based and methodologically-rigorous studies where they exist, while de-emphasizing anecdotal reports by the trainers themselves and promotional materials disguised as research. We invite the reader to examine claims of success (including our own) with skepticism, ever wary that training evaluation, particularly in naturalistic contexts often involves methodological trade-offs that make conclusions tentative at best. We narrowed the scope of the review in several other ways. First, as we conceive it, training is narrower than education, more focused on the development of skills for a particular context. For this reason we chose not to review the efficacy of university courses or training in classroom instruction practices (see Chapter 18 for relevant research). Instead we emphasized communication training in applied, naturalistic settings, such as a program for displaced workers or hospital-based instruction for medical professionals. Second, previous reviews have documented efforts to improve social skills within clinical populations (Segrin and Givertz 2003), such as those experiencing alcoholism, autism, or dementia. Because these populations face unique circumstances, we focused on non-therapeutic populations.

1 Organization of the chapter Our review is organized around the elements presented in Table 1. The first section documents the variety of methods used in communication training, noting that they are differentiated by such factors as the source (e.g., peer or expert), setting (face-to-face or online), intensity, and so on. We pay particular heed to methods that are commonly used, neglected, or emerging. The second (more extensive) section, examines training in context. We analyze the larger purposes (e.g., improved customer satisfaction, reduced bullying, fewer lawsuits) typical of training in such contexts as the workplace, healthcare, education, family life, and the judicial system. The unique training requirements of the context are considered and one or more representative studies are analyzed. As noted in Table 1, the exemplar(s) of each context demonstrates the variety of training methods used, the communicative skills emphasized, and the criteria used to assess training outcomes. To refine these last two criteria we draw heavily from Spitzberg (2003) who finds it “conceptually helpful to separate the motivational and knowledge factors from the skill factors” (p. 95), that is, the behaviors produced by those perceived to be competent. Determined to offer a “communicative take” on the literature we

EXEMPLAR

Labach (2010)

Sundaram and Webster (2000)

Chen, Muthitacharoen, and Frolick (2003)

Villado and Arthur (2013)

Hunt and Baruch (2003)

Sigmar, Hynes, and Hill (2012)

CONTEXT

Workplace – Customer service

Workplace – Customer service

Workplace – Technical teams

Workplace – Technical teams

Workplace – Leadership

Workplace – Emotional intelligence

Tab. 1: Summary of training characteristics.

Game Matrix Analysis Reflection Role Playing

Assessments Lecture Practice Exercise Role Playing

Reflection Simulation

Lecture Peer-Assisted Learning Role Playing

Assessments Coaching Demonstration Lecture On-the-job Reading Role Playing

Assessments Lecture On-the-job

METHOD

Individual Small Group Mass Audience

Small Group

Individual Dyad Small Group

Small Group

Individual Dyad Small Group Mass Audience

Small Group Mass Audience

SETTING

Expert Facilitator Self

Expert

Facilitator Peer Self

Peer

Expert Facilitator Peer Self

Expert Facilitator

SOURCE

Mod. Time Brief Dur.

Pro. Time Mod. Dur.

Mod. Time Brief Dur.

Short Time Mod. Dur.

Pro. Time Ext. Dur.

Mod. Time Ext. Dur.

INTENSITY1

Attentiveness Composure

Coordination Expressiveness

Coordination Expressiveness

Attentiveness Coordination

Composure Expressiveness

Attentiveness Expressiveness

FOCUS

Teamwork

Managerial performance

Problem solving

Process and content skills

Customer affect

Customer retention

OUTCOME

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Kelley et al. (2012)

Healthcare

Case Study Lecture Peer-Assisted Learning

On-the-job Role Playing

Waldron and Yungbluth (2007)

Coaching Demonstration Discussion Lecture

Nikendei et al. (2011)

Healthcare

Case Study Coaching Demonstration Lecture

Education – Higher ed. institutions

Mayer et al. (1998)

Healthcare

Game Lecture Practice Exercise Reading Reflection Role Playing Story Telling

Debate Game Discussion

Waldron and Lavitt (2000); Waldron, Lavitt, and McConnaughy (2001)

Workplace – Preparation programs

METHOD

Education Harrington et al. – Elementary & (2001) secondary schools

EXEMPLAR

CONTEXT

Tab. 1: (continued)

Dyad Small Group Mass Audience

Small Group Mass Audience

Small Group Mass Audience

Dyad Small Group

Mass Audience

Dyad Mass Audience

SETTING

Expert Facilitator Peer

Expert Facilitator Peer

Expert Peer

Expert Facilitator Peer

Expert Facilitator

Expert Facilitator

SOURCE

Mod. Time Ext. Dur.

Short Time Ext. Dur.

Mod. Time Mod. Dur.

Short Time Mod. Dur.

Mod. Time Ext. Dur.

Pro. Time Ext. Dur.

INTENSITY1

Composure Expressiveness

Composure Coordination Expressiveness

Attentiveness Coordination Expressiveness

Attentiveness Expressiveness

Attentiveness Coordination

Composure Coordination Expressiveness

FOCUS

Academic performance

Problem behaviors

Quality patient care

Patient relationship

Patient satisfaction

Job attainment

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Cegala, Chisolm, and Nwomeh (2013)

Polinsky et al. (2010)

Barton, Raines, and Hedeen (2008)

Family

Family

Judicial System

Coaching Lecture Peer-Assisted Learning Practice Exercise Role Play

Discussion Lecture

Practice Exercise Reading

Assessments Coaching Lecture Practice Exercise Reading Role Playing

Peer-Assisted Learning Practice Exercise Project Subgroups

METHOD

Dyad Small Group Mass Audience

Small Group

Individual Dyad

Individual Dyad Small Group Mass Audience

SETTING

Length of each session: Pro. = Prolonged, Mod. = Moderate, or Short Time Number of sessions: Ext. = Extended, Mod. = Moderate, or Brief Duration

Laurenceau et al. (2004)

Family

1

EXEMPLAR

CONTEXT

Tab. 1: (continued)

Expert Facilitator Peer Self

Facilitator Peer Self

Self

Expert Facilitator Peer Self

SOURCE

Pro. Time Ext. Dur.

Mod. Time Ext. Dur.

Short Time Brief Dur.

Mod. Time Mod. Dur.

INTENSITY1

Attentiveness Composure Coordination

Composure

Expressiveness

Attentiveness Composure Coordination Expressiveness

FOCUS

Conflict management

Child welfare

Information acquisition

Relational satisfaction

OUTCOME

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were particularly attentive to training designed to enhance message production skills in interpersonal encounters. Communicative skills are many, but Spitzberg’s (2007) conversational skills rating scale (CSRS) operationalizes four skill clusters that proved useful as we organized the training literature: Attentiveness (formerly labeled Altercentrism) is the skill of involving others in the interaction. Expressiveness is the communication of information and emotion primarily via facial expressions and other non-verbal behaviors. Coordination (formerly labeled Interaction management) refers to fluency, turn-taking, and related behaviors that regulate the flow of communication. Composure refers to behaviors that create the impression of ease and the absence of distractions and nervousness. The CSRS offers a “measure of interpersonal skills applicable in virtually all face-to-face conversational interaction” (Spitzberg 2007: 3), which is therefore useful to our application across many different training contexts. We adopted the convention of capitalizing these terms so the reader would know when we are referring to Spitzberg’s skill clusters. With Spitzberg (2003) we conceptualize communication competence as a situated assessment or impression of a communicative performance rather than an inherent quality of an individual or any particular behavior. For that reason, we attempted to document the criteria used to assess competence in each training study. These included the two “meta-criteria” of effectiveness (obtaining desired goals) and perceived social appropriateness (adapting to social conventions), but we also looked for more concrete standards, such as improved message clarity, increased partner satisfaction, and enhanced coordination. As most writers on communication competence note, communication can also be judged as “good” in the moral and ethical sense. Thus, we were alert for studies that applied a moral standard of competence.

2 Methods of training Researchers have previously catalogued an almost inexhaustible list of training methods (Klatt 1999). Table 1 lists the methods employed in the sample of studies we located, as well as key dimensions along which they varied, such as source of the input and size of the training group. Hedeen, Raines, and Barton (2010) point out that too often pragmatics dictate the use of training methods that are not consistent with research on learning, memory, and other relevant cognitive processes. Training often mimics university class structures where students are expected to complete all learning objectives within a given academic term. Similar restraints are often created somewhat artificially in other organizations where training and other professional development are restricted to a limited time frame. However, given a better understanding of adult learning, the need for an emphasis on promoting training methods that match the needs and style of the learner becomes apparent.

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Despite the many recommendations for employing active learning strategies when working with adult learners (Dunst, Trivette, and Hamby 2010), lecture still appears in Table 1 as the most commonly used training method. However, the length of these lectures may have been abbreviated and they were almost always accompanied by other methods of training. It is perhaps more encouraging to see the number of times that active learning strategies such as role-playing and games are reported as the methods employed in various contexts. A closer inspection of Table 1 reveals the other commonly used methods include: assessments, coaching, on-the-job training, practice exercises, and readings. Slightly less than 20 of the 46 methods catalogued by Klatt (1999) are reported in Table 1. However, many of these omissions are not particularly surprising considering that many of the methods included by Klatt are highly adapted to specific contexts. It seems particularly noteworthy that none of the studies included in the table engaged in “programmed instruction”, which directs trainees through a series of specific steps commonly with the use of a computer program. There were several studies that used simulations as a method of training, but these were typically implemented with print materials despite being particularly well-suited to implementation in immersive virtual environments. The setting of the training is an important consideration. Training can be provided in face-to-face classroom environments, group settings, dyadic encounters, or individually directed through written and video materials, as well as mediated online environments. Much of what is known about training is based on traditional face-to-face settings. We found fewer exemplars of self-directed training options where the individual can set the pace and engage the material in a convenient setting. However, many current investigations are exploring the application of different technologies to enhance individual training experiences. For example, fully automated online courses have been developed to train clients in intercultural communication skills (Wiggins 2012). Another variation is the use of video games (Deterding 2013) and other technology enabling new possibilities in social learning that encourage sharing information informally with others across time and space (Allen, Naughton, and Ellis 2011). For example, virtual worlds such as Second Life can embed instruction within digital environments where users control avatars to negotiate social encounters designed to mimic real life social interactions (Bowers et al. 2008). In some ways the construction of such virtual experiences seems to present an ideal “petri dish” approach (Williams 2010) to understanding the implication of possible responses when facing specific constraints. However, Williams (2010) clearly articulates the importance of a mapping principle for assessing the value of such immersive experiences: “Mapping is the extent to which human behaviors occur in virtual spaces in the same way they occur in real spaces” (Williams 2010: 452). Training can be delivered from a variety of sources: content experts, non-expert facilitators, or peers. Some training is designed to be self-directed. The fact

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that many of the trainings we located were conducted in face-to-face settings could speak to the important role of an expert or facilitator in leading others through an unfamiliar process. Of course, even written materials that an individual selfadministers are typically produced by an expert source. Interaction with peers yields feedback and different perspectives, which can be vital in the learning process. As suggested below in the discussion of the education context, it can make a difference who is offering the training, who is receiving the training, and the relationship between them. There may be obstacles for both expert and non-expert facilitators. For example, expert trainers are challenged to develop adequate rapport when they are brought in from outside of the training settings. Non-expert facilitators face the challenge of maintaining fidelity to the training content and design while performing difficult tasks such as managing time, sustaining motivation, and adapting materials to the local context. Self-directed training may be suitable for accomplished, independent learners; but the social benefits of peerbased methods might be more valuable for initiating new learners. Other considerations are the intensity and duration of the training. Perhaps too often training involves a one-time exposure to a module of instruction on a particular skill set (such as avoiding/resisting sexual harassment), followed by a brief assessment, such as an online quiz. However, training can involve repeated exposure, with “refresher” sessions built into the regimen. In the cases of personal coaching or therapy, the trainee returns periodically for continued skill development, support, and advice. As suggested above, different approaches are often combined or sequenced, particularly when training is long-lasting and extensive. This type of sequencing sustains trainee interest and maintains attention by exploiting the novel features of different approaches. Prolonged sessions that allow for the incorporation of multiple methods also enhance the possibility of matching the learning styles of many different participants in a variety of group configurations. Several training methods we observed seemed particularly well-suited to unique contexts of training. For example, certain technical teams must perform complicated communication tasks in “real time”. One way of improving performance is after-action review (AAR), a “debriefing” approach that has been employed by the military for decades (Villado and Arthur 2013). This involves systematic review of trainee performance after a training exercise similar to real-life conditions, such as those encountered on a battlefield. Two types of assessment are commonly used. Objective assessment is based on recordings of a trainee’s performance. In contrast, subjective assessment is based on the trainee’s recall of his or her own performance. Communication in organizational settings can be made difficult by a complicated web of tasks, relationships, and changing inputs (such as sales volume or customer feedback). Simulation-based training develops communication skills under conditions that approximate those encountered in the workplace. One recent

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example is The Strategic Micro-Firm, a game that teaches problem-solving and team Coordination skills required of supply chain managers (Barnabè et al. 2013). Performance is assessed by third-party observers using a standardized scorecard to assess such variables as customer satisfaction and responsiveness to the supply chain. Economists have established that another approach, on-the-job training, can increase a worker’s skills and result in improved productivity. Skill improvement can be attributed to peer-based instruction and modeling, practice, and perhaps increasing confidence. The research literature concerning on-the-job training in communication skills is limited. However, a novel study of the defensive performance of National Basketball Association teams may have broader implications regarding coworker Coordination and communication. Nutting (2013) found that home team defensive performance improved over the course of repeated home games. The intensity of the game schedule increased the effect, suggesting that more intense on-the-job training has more potent effects on performance. The author attributed the gains partly to improved communication – repeated on-the-job experience improved the players’ ability to stay composed in the face of crowd noise. Improved Coordination yielded better teamwork and more wins. Similar onthe-job training effects might be expected for other team-oriented communication tasks.

3 Training contexts Communication competence, often grouped with other social skills, is thought to be a critical component of success in an impressive range of social settings. Those with the resources to fund training programs often assume that improvements in these skills will yield positive outcomes for individuals, relationships, the organizations they function within, and sometimes, the larger society. In this section we examine the types of communication competence that are promoted in various contexts, and (where possible) analyze representative studies for evidence that these training investments yield the intended results.

3.1 Workplaces The workplace is a distinct context for communication training due to such factors as status inequality in some communication relationships, the existence of structured role expectations (such as those defining the expected communication practices of customers and sales clerks) and the interdependence that arises from shared tasks, goals, and rewards. These influences can make it difficult to assess the impact of applied training programs, and perhaps explains why there are not

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many empirical tests of training effectiveness on performance. Organizational climate can produce effects on both antecedent attitudes of trainees, as well as the extent that any learning gets reinforced following the training sessions (Salas and Cannon-Bowers 2001). Organizations often provide training in communication skills linked to task success. For example, Composure and Expressiveness may be crucial for telemarketers or customer service representatives who frequently converse with unhappy or confused clients. Certain highly rewarded tasks such as those performed by engineers and technicians appear on the surface to have little to do with communication. Yet, these professionals are often the target of training efforts because they increasingly work in team settings. As technicians are promoted to leadership positions, the quality of their interactions with coworkers increasingly influences success. Accordingly, training may focus on Attentiveness to the emotions and motives of team members and Coordination of member contributions during group interactions.

3.1.1 Customer service Service workers often receive training in communication skills. Although studies of training effectiveness are rare, the practitioner literature is replete with anecdotal reports and commentaries on its importance. Good communication practices are thought to result in improved relationships with customers, and ultimately improved results for the service organization. Competent employees are those who master the rules of appropriateness – understanding what customers expect from the service relationship and producing communication that is perceived as responsive and respectful. Thus, Attentiveness to the customer and Composure (especially when the customer is hostile) are highly valued dimensions of competence in the service sector. In this context, organizations view competent communication as that which makes the employee and the organization more effective, as measured by increased sales, fewer complaints, and customer retention. Labach (2010) proposes a model that positions communication practices of front-line employees as the key to customer service quality, which in turn promotes customer retention, a valued measure of organizational effectiveness. Training recommendations are offered, mostly focusing on helping employees communicate appropriately, with the intention of creating more “value-adding” interactions. To foster these interactions, the author argues that employees must be trained to be confident and helpful, courteous and attentive. Those who are prompt and perceived as knowledgeable will be more successful in retaining customers. Accordingly, trainers should teach employees to be friendly (but not too informal). In this way, communication competence is largely evaluated through the lens of social appropriateness in this context. Attentiveness skills such as active listening are emphasized. So is patience as an indicator of Composure. Trainees are to adopt a

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comfortable conversational pace, avoid an argumentative tone, and focus on what can be done (as opposed to that which cannot). Although the focus of customer service training is often on verbal tactics and strategies, non-verbal dimensions of communication are sometimes the focus of training recommendations. For example, Sundaram and Webster (2000) proposed a model in which customer emotion is presumed to be an outcome of certain nonverbal dimensions of the service provider’s communication. The authors argue for the importance of Composure, Attentiveness, and Expressiveness as enacted through appropriate kinesics, facial expressions, and paralanguage in service encounters. Socially appropriate non-verbal communication creates perceptions of trustworthiness, friendliness, and empathy. In turn, these impressions are considered instrumental in creating customer satisfaction.

3.1.2 Communication in technical teams Arguing that communication skills are among the most important predictors of success in information systems (IS) careers, researchers have analyzed the effects of role-play-based training on content and process aspects of interaction in technical teams (e.g., Chen, Muthitacharoen, and Frolick 2003). Communication skills are identified as integral to such processes as system requirements analysis, knowledge discovery, end-user support, and technical supervision. In this representative study participants were 92 working IS professionals who were also enrolled in advanced university courses. Trainees were introduced to a series of effective communication “models”, each of which introduced a scenario and the communication skills that were required for success. For example, a situation involving ambiguity about technical specifications might require effective listening and questioning skills consistent with the Attentiveness and Coordination dimensions of the CSRS. Students participated in a series of three role-play exercises and observers rated their communication skills. Results indicated improvement across the trials for process skills (defined as interpersonal competence), with the most substantive changes occurring between trials 1 and 2. Content skills (defined as effective organization and delivery of the message) improved only after trial 2. Invoking an effectiveness criterion, the authors conclude that role-playing exercises created substantive and rapid improvement in the communication skills of technical professionals. The findings of Salas, Nichols, and Driskell (2007) corroborate the importance of content and process aspects of team interaction skills. Their metaanalysis provides evidence that while cross-training was not a significant predictor of team effectiveness, guided team self-correction training, and team coordination and adaptation training both led to gains in objective productivity measures or supervisory ratings of performance. The relative effectiveness of these two variants of the method of after-action review (AAR) was the subject of a recent quasi-experimental study of communica-

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tion in 47 four-person problem-solving teams (Villado and Arthur 2013). The training tasks required participants to cooperate in maneuvering two military tanks through a simulated battlefield. Results indicated that teams exposed to AAR scored higher than controls on subsequent communication measures related to Expressiveness and Coordination. Using the competence criterion of effectiveness, the researchers also judged them to be more successful in meeting simulated battlefield objectives. No differences were found between teams receiving objective and subjective forms of AAR. The authors noted that subjective AAR, a potentially less cumbersome and more cost-effective approach, may be just as effective as objective review, which requires the collection of considerable data.

3.1.3 Leadership and supervision The communication competencies required of leaders and supervisors have been the focus of training for decades. However, the degree to which communication training leads to improved performance has been the subject of some debate. In a comprehensive review of this literature, Hunt and Baruch (2003) note that methodological problems, such as the short-term “halo effect” of training and the multidimensional and situated nature of leadership practices, complicate evidencebased recommendations. In response, they designed their own longitudinal, preand post-test assessment of an intensive five-day leadership training focused on “interpersonal skills”, including some clearly related to the Expressiveness (e.g., sharing performance feedback) and Coordination (managing team contributions) dimensions of communication competence. The training, which involved lecture, self-assessment, and supervised role-play/practice, was offered to 252 leaders from 48 different organizations. Multiple direct reports evaluated the leaders before and after training. As expected, results showed positive but moderate training effects. Some aspects of leadership (such as personal organization) proved impervious to training, perhaps due to the more important contribution made by personality traits. However, most communication measures appeared to show improvement. The authors conclude that training will be most effective when facilitators have access to a well-defined theoretical model for a given competency. A recurring training challenge is the theoretical fuzziness surrounding the interpersonal dimensions of leadership.

3.1.4 Emotional intelligence at work In the business setting, trainers sometimes equate interpersonal communication skills with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is often parsed into various components, such as emotional self-awareness, verbalizing emotion, discern-

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ing emotions in others, being empathetic, and emotional self-control. These clearly overlap with dimensions of communication competence, such as Attentiveness and Composure. Although recognizing that these kinds of competencies may best be learned on the job, Sigmar, Hynes, and Hill (2012) suggested a number of training exercises that “stimulate the neural pathways that are fundamental for interacting and relating to other people” (p. 306). These include a word matrix game which asks students to provide high (“ecstatic”) and low (“happy”) intensity descriptors for commonly encountered emotion words. Other exercises require team members to communicate only through non-verbal channels or to imagine intercultural encounters. The ecological validity and ethical implications of training in emotional intelligence have been the subject of debate since Goleman’s (1995) influential book on the topic (see Waldron 2012). As with other kinds of communication training conducted in work settings, programs of this type should be rigorously evaluated before being deployed. We find little evidence that such research has been used to evaluate training of the kind proposed by Sigmar and colleagues.

3.1.5 Workforce preparation programs A frequent site of communication training are programs that prepare persons to enter the workforce. Working with individuals or groups, trainers help employees develop the social skills needed in an evolving workplace. In some cases, the training is oriented to developing Coordination skills for work in groups; in others the objective is to help the trainee develop Composure and Expressiveness to create a good impression in job interviews or customer service work; still others socialize prospective employees to develop Attentiveness to the rules of appropriateness, such as providing adequate notice to the employer if one will miss work, or offering gratitude for a job interview. Waldron and colleagues (Waldron and Lavitt 2000; Waldron, Lavitt, and McConnaughy 2001) studied one such training program that was offered as part of a government-funded “welfare to work” initiative. Clients of the program, typically unemployed young adults with limited education and spotty employment histories were provided lecture, instruction, and role-play opportunities in interviewing techniques, impression formation, and on-the-job etiquette. Training was provided by social workers and career counselors as part of a sixweek program designed to help welfare recipients function independently as government support came to an end. Using a partially-controlled, pre-test-post-test design, Waldron and colleagues (2001) found that those clients who completed training were rated higher (by third party evaluators) on all four dimensions of the CSRS. They also exhibited an improved capacity to articulate plans for future employment interviews and were more likely to locate a job after training. The results were qualified by the stressful nature of the largely female clientele’s social context, which sometimes included

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unsupportive and even abusive romantic partners and difficulties in locating and sustaining acceptable childcare. The authors concluded that in this socio-economic context, training alone was unlikely to make clients effective workers. Training in this case should be supplemented by other forms of social assistance. This work drew our attention to the socio-economic and educational characteristics of the population, a factor that appeared to account for differences in the quality of training assessment efforts. Indeed, we found numerous instances of training oriented to well-educated professional populations, such as managers, technical personnel, or physicians. Often these programs were well-designed, the evaluations were methodologically competent, and the training appeared to be successful, at least in creating short-term improvements in communicative performance. Training of less advantaged populations was often called for by practitioners and organizational leaders – call center workers, a group characterized by relatively low levels of compensation and education, were one focus of these propositions. However, assessments of training success were harder to come by with these populations. This might be a reflection of funding disparities or differences in research competencies. University hospitals may be adept at designing evaluation research and acquiring funds to support it. In contrast, government-funded training programs may have fewer resources to allocate for evaluation. Waldron et al. (2001) argue that these programs may also be more subjected to local political forces that have an interest in program success or failure. Credible evaluation research is harder to conduct in the face of political pressure. A substantive consequence of all this is that programs serving less advantaged persons may lack data that could inform improvements in training methods. Claims of training quality may be less scrutinized and more subject to an a priori “we know what works” design bias. Of course, another consideration is that advantaged populations have benefited from extensive education, some of which might make them particularly ready for, or open to, the content of the training. For example, physicians may have learned in medical school that good communication with patients and their families facilitates positive health outcomes. Of course it is possible that prior education has the opposite effect, making professionals resistant to training. And it could be that training has the most pronounced effects on those who are least prepared or more at risk of failure (below see Polinsky et al. 2010; Waldron and Yungbluth 2007). In any case, the relative impact of communication training and the quality of its evaluation should be studied further with reference to the socio-economic and educational backgrounds of the trainees.

3.2 Healthcare Healthcare is frequently a context of communication training, with much of the effort oriented to improving the competence of care providers, and less often those of patients or their representatives (see training of parent-advocates below). In-

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creased competition in the industry has made it necessary for providers to be skilled in customer service as well as technically competent. Communication-intensive training for caregivers may yield improved patient satisfaction ratings, a reflection of enhanced communication appropriateness and better transfer of information to patients, which is one indicator of effectiveness. A representative study measured the effects of such training in a busy Level 1 trauma center (Mayer et al. 1998). Physicians and nurses participated in eight hours of lecture, case analysis, and coaching designed to help these employees reduce the use of medical jargon (Expressiveness), clarify patient expectations (Attentiveness), foster dialogue, guide conversations (Coordination), and manage complaints among other competencies. Comparison of before- and after-training measures supported … the hypothesis that clinically based, formal customer service training … can dramatically decrease patient complaints, increase patient compliments, and improve patient satisfaction, at least in a high-volume, high-acuity ED. Patient complaints dropped by over 70 percent and compliments more than doubled during the study period … (Mayer et al. 1998: 433).

The authors noted that customer service training also improved patient perceptions of the technical competency of physicians and nurses. This result is interesting because it suggests that communication and technical competencies are interconnected, rather than distinct realms of work performance in medical settings. Physician communication skills are often the focus of training efforts. For pediatricians, communication with a seriously ill patient’s parents can be challenging. Nikendei et al. (2011) designed a communication skills training program designed to improve physician interviewing skills, with a particular emphasis on understanding the parent perspective (Attentiveness), exploring problems, clarifying medical information (Expressiveness) and relationship building. Physicians were randomly assigned to training and control groups and subsequently performed interviews that were evaluated by independent coders. Training involved lectures, exposure to representative scenarios, and coaching on response options. Results showed improvement in physician–patient relationship building and the physician’s assessment of self-efficacy in encounters with parents. A meta-analysis of 24 randomized trials suggested similar results (Smith et al. 2007). Medical students coached by peers or mentors on patient communication showed substantive improvements on measures of rapport-building and data gathering in interviews with patients. A third exemplar involved a two-day training for geriatric and palliative care fellows (N = 18), which included brief lecture, case analysis, and interview practice followed by feedback from peers and experienced physicians (Kelley et al. 2012). The purpose of the training was to help physicians learn such skills as attending to the patients’ emotions (Attentiveness), conveying complicated medical information clearly (Expressiveness), and managing/directing conversations (Coordination). After the training, participants reported improved preparedness to engage in chal-

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lenging conversations, such as those about end-of-life decision-making. At two months post-training, they reported high levels of “sustained skills practice”, suggesting a lasting training effect. Although other measures of effectiveness were not reported, it appears that participants believed themselves to be more effective and appropriate in interactions with patients.

3.3 Education Research on communication training in educational settings tends to focus on elementary and high schools, higher education, and adult learning contexts. Although many children begin their education in childcare settings, we found little research examining communication training for providers of childcare. One helpful meta-analysis of quasi-experimental studies conducted between 1980 and 2005 did conclude that training does have significant effects on caregiver–child interaction (Fukkink and Lont 2007). Although the communicative skills developed through such efforts proved difficult to discern, the authors argue for more and better research on the communication competencies needed by caregivers. Here we focus on contexts where research is reasonably well-established.

3.3.1 Elementary and secondary school settings A significant number of training programs are offered in elementary and secondary school settings outside of the regular classroom curriculum. Here, the goal is often to help children develop prosocial skills that generally involve some sort of training related to communication abilities. For example, an independent evaluation of the All Stars character education program (Harrington et al. 2001) has shown that targeting mediating variables such as reinforcing positive normative beliefs and nurturing prosocial bonding can promote Expressiveness and Composure skills that help students convey confidence in resisting negative peer influences. The All Stars program also targets the two additional mediating variables of making explicit commitments, and promoting lifestyle choices that are congruent with the pursuit of ideal goals, both of which promote Coordination skills by helping students regulate their interactions with other perspectives. The study involved 1,655 students enrolled in 14 middle schools with matching demographics in two different cities and employed pre-test, post-test, and one-year follow-up surveys. Results provided evidence that the mediating variables were related to reductions in the rates of problem behaviors like substance use, premature sexual activity, and violence. This study also concluded that the relationship between the target population and the trainer mattered. Classroom teachers were presumably better positioned than external specialists to impact the vital mediating variables due to the extent of their engagement in the students’ context (McNeal et al. 2004). However, other

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evidence (Aber et al. 1998) suggests the potential for decreased effects if classroom teachers are unable to find the time to fit all of a program’s lessons into a busy classroom amid the many competing curricular requirements. Also, the use of outside experts as trainers can ensure greater fidelity to the implementation of a program, particularly when visits from such specialists are regularly scheduled and maintained.

3.3.2 Higher education Communication training is sometimes embedded in efforts to prepare new or continuing students for the challenges of college life. In some cases, the larger goals of the training are improved academic performance and retention. For example, Waldron and Yungbluth (2007) analyzed the results of a quasi-experimental study of students exposed to several different learning environments. In the “learning community” conditions, students were taught by teams of faculty and academic staff who modeled and provided instruction in (among other things) such communication competencies as seeking help from librarians, discussing grades with faculty, and sharing ideas in class. Although the training condition differed from comparison groups in a variety of ways (including more exposure to a constant set of peers) it explicitly cultivated Expressiveness (articulating ideas) and Composure (overcoming the fear of interaction with faculty). Socialization to the norms of communication in academic settings (appropriateness) was another emphasis. Two years after program completion, students enrolled in the most intensive intervention scored higher on measures of academic performance (GPA), progress (credits completed), and institutional retention. However, these effects were modest and the authors note that the intervention may have been most potent for students who were least prepared for college. In this sense, training in communication competence may be most effective when it is tailored to pre-training performance levels.

3.4 Family settings Communication skills training is often offered in family contexts. Two of the most common targets are marital communication practices and parenting skills. Programs focused on marriage are often preparatory, offered to those who are contemplating marriage. Others are offered in the spirit of a relationship “tune up”, “renewal”, or “enrichment”. The context of marital communication is unique because the partners may have developed habits of communication over years of patterned interaction. Certain life events, such as having children, a career change, or the “empty nest” may prompt a rethinking of relational communication patterns. Couples may seek assistance at those moments or when it becomes obvious that familiar practices are no longer optimally effective.

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Two of the most evaluated programs are the Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills (“PAIRS”; Turner and Gordon 1995) and Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (“PREP”; Markman, Stanley, and Blumberg 1994; see also: http://www.nrepp.samhsa.gov/ViewIntervention.aspx?id=326). A random survey of households in four states suggested that the couples who had participated in such a program reported higher levels of relationship quality and stability (Stanley et al. 2006). A meta-analysis of 16 studies assessed a similar program entitled Couples Communication (CC), finding that participants exhibited improvements in marital satisfaction and communication skills (Butler and Wampler, 1999). A more recent review confirms these effects across a wide range of marital training programs (Hawkins et al. 2008). Programs of this type tend to be comprehensive, involving as much as 120 hours of skill training (in the case of PAIRS), often including intensive weekend sessions. Lecture, self-assessment, role play, and coaching are among the methods used. These programs focus on increasing “positive” communication such as listening, expressing emotions constructively, and reducing “negative” communication such as withdrawal and destructive expressions of anger. With reference to Spitzberg’s (2007) four skill clusters reviewed at the beginning of this chapter, Attentiveness, Composure, and Expressiveness best describe these training foci. In offering a more nuanced evaluation of the success of marital training efforts we first note that marital satisfaction tends to decline across the early years of the relationship. From research reports it appears that, in general, these programs are more successful in stemming the decline than in reversing it. Although most of the research suggests that the training yields improved skills, effects of the CC program appeared to be short-term if not subjected to “booster” training after three, six, or twelve months (Butler and Wampler 1999). In contrast, early studies of the PREP program indicated that couples exposed to training report higher levels of positive communication and lower levels of negative communication, even after 4–5 years of marriage (Stanley et al. 1995). This trend was confirmed by a notable communitybased randomized trial comparing PREP-trained couples against controls, although, again, the training tended to slow declines rather than prompt improvement (Laurenceau et al. 2004). PREP training was often evaluated in the context of faith communities. Couples trained in religious settings by clergy or laypersons tended to respond more positively than those trained by university-trained facilitators. Parenting communication is sometimes the focus of training. Skill in advocating for children has been one area of concern. One representative study prepared a random sample of parents for consultations with their children’s doctors via a booklet that offered guidance on skills related to Expressiveness, including question asking, voicing concerns, and verifying information (Cegala, Chisolm, and Nwomeh 2013). The booklet included written instructions and opportunities for practice (i.e., writing out possible questions and concerns). Results indicated that, compared to a control group, the trained parents asked more questions and ap-

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peared to be more effective in obtaining and verifying information. A meta-analysis of 33 randomized trials confirms that training of this type facilitates question-asking and interview satisfaction, not just for parents, but for others preparing to interact with medical professionals (Kinnersley et al. 2008). However, the statistical effects were modest, possibly because ingrained patterns of interview behavior partially overrode training effects. Poor parenting is sometimes attributed to inadequate communication skills. Communication training is mandated by the courts when poor parenting practices come to the attention of child welfare officials. An example is the Parents Anonymous (PA) program, which has been active since 1969 and was recently subjected to a large-scale evaluation (Polinsky et al. 2010). PA’s ultimate goal is to reduce child maltreatment. The defining characteristics of the program are its emphases on peer support and the sharing of leadership by parents and trained staff. PA offers guided instruction and group discussion on a variety of factors (substance abuse, social support networks) known to be associated with poor parenting. But it also addresses communication factors such as the elimination of verbal abuse and the use of communicative rather than physical forms of discipline. The Composure dimension of competence, with an emphasis on emotional control, is evident in the training. Polinsky and colleagues (2010) assessed 188 parents (mostly female with a roughly equal number of Caucasian and African American parents) at baseline, one month, and six months after training. Results suggested widespread improvement, especially for those parents who were most at risk of abuse. Among the improvements was a reduction in tendency to use verbal abuse. In this sense the training was effective in that the goal of reducing child maltreatment appeared to be achieved.

3.5 Judicial system Court systems across the United States have been increasingly encouraging the use of mediation as an alternative to litigation. In fact, mediation is now so commonly utilized that many practitioners around the world have suggested that the “alternative” label be dropped from this method of Alternative Dispute Resolution (“Mediation is now mainstream” 2012). Mediation offers a form of conflict coaching where mediators intervene to suggest alternative communicative strategies whenever the parties in conflict present unproductive behaviors. These interventions require skills in Coordination, Composure, and Attentiveness. Mediators are particularly trained to become specialists in Coordination skills since their job is oriented around facilitating more productive communication among the disputants in a given conflict. Barton, Raines, and Hedeen (2008) conducted an evaluation of the training and preparation of mediators in the state of Florida. They took a collaborative approach to assessment including multiple meetings, observations, surveys, and interviews with various stakeholders. Their final report recommended the de-

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velopment of a basic core training focused on “fundamental mediation skills, including listening, questioning, framing skills, and ethical practice” (p. 49). There is still a great deal of work to be done in this field in order to achieve “evidencebased” practice, however. Hinshaw and Wissler (2005) observed that “the mediation field as a whole lacks systematic empirical research evaluating the effectiveness of mediation training” (p. 22). Another context of communication training is prisons, where inmates may learn to communicate more clearly, empathetically, and cooperatively. The motivation for providing such training may be based on a belief that convicted criminality could be, in part, a response to poor social adaptation. For example, an inability to negotiate conflict constructively increases the likelihood of violence (Roberto 1999). Therefore, training in skills related to Attentiveness and Composure could be particularly useful for violent offenders to employ alternative means of handling disputes. A meta-analysis has clearly demonstrated that post-secondary education programs implemented in correctional institutions generally relate to reductions in recidivism (Chappell 2004). It is concluded that the skills participants acquire from these types of programs provide them hope that they can be successful in maintaining their independence upon release. Other programs offer hope by encouraging female inmates to record their voice reading books that can be shared with their children (see Davis 2001; Faris 2007). Trainers use this as an opportunity to encourage these women to develop more Expressiveness. Related programs teach creative writing, performance, debate, and public speaking (Valentine 1998; Hartnett, Wood, and McCann 2011), which surely incorporate the development of Expressiveness and Composure skills, as well as certain elements of Coordination and Attentiveness. Communication training in this context is challenging for many reasons, as Hartnett et al. (2011) explain, “teaching in prison takes you into a kaleidoscopic world of difference and pain” (p. 336). However, prisoners may find such opportunities provide not only a mental escape from their immediate surroundings (Valentine 1998), but also empowers them “to begin addressing the harm they have caused, to learn how and why to participate in civil society, and hence to begin the long journey toward full citizenship” (Hartnett et al. 2011: 332).

4 Conclusions and critique This selective review confirms that interest in communication competency training is widespread and that it is believed to be associated with success in work, healthcare, education, family, and judicial settings. A first conclusion is that the studies we located supported the efficacy of training. Across contexts and training methods, significant improvements were reported, often on multiple measures of communication effectiveness and appropriateness. Although effect sizes were rare-

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ly addressed by the authors of the studies we reviewed, those who did (e.g., Hunt and Baruch 2003) noted that the effects were moderate at best. Driskell (2012) encourages a more positive view of training effectiveness, arguing that training can focus trainees’ attention on the task and increase motivation to produce significant differences. However, his meta-analysis of deception detection training reports effects of medium magnitude that result particularly from employing a comprehensive method of training that combines information, practice, and feedback. One of the implications is that cost-benefit analyses should be employed by those who invest in training and more economical methods should be considered, particularly when evidence of increased effectiveness is lacking. Villado and Arthur (2013) illustrated this point by showing that simple self-assessment was as effective as more elaborate “objective” measures in after-action-review (AAR). A second conclusion is that communication training is increasingly being subjected to scrutiny and evidence-based evaluation. Our quest to locate evidencebased studies of communication training was partially successful; researchers are employing increasingly stringent experimental or quasi-experimental designs to evaluate training effects (e.g., Cegala, Chisolm, and Nwomeh 2013; Laurenceau et al. 2004). Training regimes that have long been acclaimed in the practitioner literature, such as the relationship training promoted by Markman and colleagues (Markman, Stanley, and Blumberg 1994), are now receiving more rigorous evaluation. Indeed, we located government- and organization-sponsored web resources that document the evidence supporting (or not) a great variety of training programs. It appeared that randomized studies were most common in the healthcare context, perhaps because experimental evidence is traditionally considered the most credible support for claims about the effectiveness of drugs and medical interventions. Convincing evaluation research remains scant in every context we reviewed. Small sample sizes and ill-defined training “treatments” are among the most obvious methodological limitations. However, the studies we located are welcome replacements to the anecdotal claims and barely-disguised sales pitches that are so common in the training realm. Although all four CSRS skill clusters were addressed in at least some training programs, a third conclusion is that the communication skills focused on by trainers varied by context. Attentiveness and, to some degree, composure, tended to be emphasized when improved relationships with clients, customers, or patients was an overarching goal. Increased awareness and responsiveness to the cues provided by “others” seems to be an overriding theme of such training, whether they be older patients, disgruntled customers, or fellow team members. Composure, particularly managing the emotions of self and other, was another emphasis in these contexts. Although rarely articulated as a learning objective, it appears that the competence criterion of social appropriateness defined good communication in these settings. Indeed, measures of training success, such as an improvement in doctor–patient relationships, may reflect heightened sensitivity to the role expectations and norms of interaction that patients, for example, bring to encounters.

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Coordination skills were often the focus when improved teamwork was the goal, an indication that employees are perceived to need help in managing and integrating the contributions of multiple parties – a communication skill that is rarely taught in formal education settings (outside of formal courses in group communication). Expressiveness skills were a common focal point across training contexts; it was operationalized as clarity and completeness of information exchange. The behaviors associated with this dimension (e.g., listening, questions) may be well-understood by trainers and easily incorporated into training materials, such as the booklets provided to prospective patients by Cegala and colleagues (2013). A prevailing, if oversimplified, belief by trainers that “good communication is clear communication” may also explain the popularity of expressive communication skills. We found little reason to conclude that particular training methods were superior. However, others (Driskell 2012; Salas and Cannon-Bowers 2001) suggest that the incorporation of behavioral methods is superior to the presentation of information alone. Methods were often described in vague language and combined in ways that complicated evaluation. Few studies compare methods of communication training but such studies could be quite useful as trainers sort through the plethora of options. One obvious area for new research concerns the efficacy of online training. Growing interest among practitioners became evident in our search of the literature, but it has yet to be reflected in published reports of research. This could simply be a reflection of publication lag time. Or it may reflect trainers’ reluctance to teach human communication skills via technology-mediated methods. Some of the training techniques we observed, such as the presentation and analysis of case studies or the presentation of feedback during simulations could be easily automated. In technical fields such as aviation, training routinely incorporates such technology. Anecdotal evidence and preliminary reports of online instruction of communication in university settings convince us that mediated methods of instruction are becoming more common. Additional research is needed to measure their effectiveness in other settings, particularly to address some of the questions raised by Salas and Cannon-Bowers (2001), “Do instructors need to see trainees in order to conduct effective instruction? Do trainees need to see instructors or is it better for them to view other material? What is the best mechanism for addressing trainee questions (e.g. through chat rooms or e-mail)? Should learners have control over the pace and nature of instruction?” (p. 483). As research on the effects of communication training progresses, a number of challenges must be addressed. First, it is clear that judgments about the competence of communication are nested within, and complicated by, evaluations of complex social practices such as leadership or the formation of satisfying and effective relationships with spouses or coworkers or patients. Few of the studies we located fully “teased out” the contribution of communication practices to these evaluations. Second, it is clear that the effects of training must be considered in

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light of larger social circumstances that mute or even nullify its effects. For example, job training programs yield improvements in interviewing skills, but trainees won’t keep their jobs if they lack childcare during working hours (Waldron et al. 2001). Third, as we noted earlier, in addition to the criteria of effectiveness and social appropriateness, competent communication can be evaluated using ethical criteria. Could training in emotional intelligence (as just one example) teach employees to use emotions for manipulative purposes? Although ethical conduct is obviously desirable in the contexts we studied, we found little interest in evaluating the degree to which training yielded more ethical communication practices. Clearly, this is a dimension of communication competence that deserves additional training and research. Given these challenges we are particularly encouraged to see that many of these training efforts involve more than naive and opportunistic attempts to alleviate complicated relational and organizational challenges with a quick injection of communication skills. Instead we see promising evidence of what Waldron (2007) has previously defined as “virtuous partnerships” between trainers, researchers, and trainees. These involve long courtships in which the parties come to deeper understanding of goals, challenges, political interests, and values. We found exemplars in training efforts with prisoners (Davis 2001; Hartnett et al. 2011) and in a comprehensive study of a hospital’s trauma unit (Mayer et al. 1998). Virtuous partnerships involve reciprocal communication, mutual learning and adaptation, and a certain degree of humility. Several authors exhibited these commitments when they discovered that training might be more effectively provided by local facilitators such as classroom teachers (Harrington et al. 2001), religious leaders (Laurencau 2004), and fellow parents (Polinsky et al. 2010) rather than outside trainers or university experts. Of course, good partners can be counted upon to provide honest feedback, and we see that in cases where parties have agreed to evaluate training programs with reference to methodologically-sound measures rather than self-interest. Having reviewed this literature, we are heartened to find compelling evidence that communication training programs are having positive effects for individuals, relationships, and organizations.

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VIII. The dark side of communication competence

Loreen N. Olson

26 The dark underbelly of communication competence: How something good can be bad? Abstract: This chapter traces the histories of two concepts dark interpersonal communication and communication competence before addressing the interconnected construct, the dark side of communication competence. It is argued that incompetence and darkness are not always synonyms; nor are competence and darkness necessarily always on opposite ends of a continuum. Instead the chapter discusses how competence may align with darkness in very insidious, harmful, but purposeful ways. Dimensions of dark competence are presented that help differentiate dark competence from its kin, dark communication and communication competence, providing the concept with its own theoretical space. The dark underbelly of communication competence not only furthers the theoretical and practical understanding of interpersonal communication skills and dark side scholarship, but also better captures the full essence of what it means to be a skilled communicator. A socio-ecological framework is used as a heuristic tool to approach how dark competence may be holistically examined. The framework helps draws the chapter to a close as future research ideas are proposed. Keywords: dark side, skills deficit approach, dark competence, bright–dark dialectic, contextual embeddedness, socio-ecological framework, communication competence, dark side of communication

Communication is fundamental to a productive, successful life; it allows humans to achieve goals, connect with others, and resolve their differences. Described as the “fulcrum upon which the levers of social life are maneuvered” (Spitzberg and Cupach 2002: 564), interpersonal skills are fundamental to achieving such successes in life. A significant amount of research has shown a positive relationship between communication competence (also referred to as CC) and mental health (e.g., Segrin et al. 2007) as well as satisfying close relationships (Arroyo and Segrin 2011; Flora and Segrin 1999) and successful cross-cultural interactions (Mackenzie and Wallace 2011). From an Eastern perspective, communication competence (CC) is an equally important skill although it often takes on different forms. In Korea, for instance, harmony is considered a critical component of communication competence (Yum 2012). According to Yum, empathy, sensitivity, indirectness, being reserved, and transcendality are five characteristics of harmony and, therefore, are considered fundamental to CC in the Korean culture. In a review of the CC literature focused

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more on a Western point-of-view, Spitzberg and Cupach (2002) noted that correlates of interpersonal skills, such as constructive conflict management, positive affective behavior, and supportive behaviors, are related to relational satisfaction and duration in marriages. These same researchers highlight scholarship indicating that being a skilled communicator is associated with more positive health outcomes, educational and professional achievement, and psychological well-being. In sum, studies consistently find that skilled communication is a core part of functional, relational, and emotional success in life, and of one’s ability to have satisfying and enduring relationships (Western, individualistic view) and functioning well as a member of society (Eastern, collectivistic view) in face-to-face as well as computer mediated interactions (e.g., Spitzberg 2006; Wright et al. 2013). Incompetent communication, in contrast, is associated with a variety of negative behaviors. According to Spitzberg and Cupach (2002), “people deficient in interpersonal skills may experience a pattern of disturbed relationships that distort normal feedback processes, diminish self-esteem, and create pathways to deviant and risky behavior” (p. 570). Problematic interpersonal behaviors have been found to be associated with particular individual traits, such as introversion, shyness, loneliness, and neuroticism (for a review, see Olson et al. 2012). Moreover, because of their tendency to be highly self-focused or boastful during their interactions, narcissists are perceived as less socially attractive (Vangelisti, Knapp, and Daly 1990). Machiavellians are also considered antisocial because of their use of negative communication behaviors such as aggressiveness and competitiveness (Stewart and Stewart 2006). An incompetent communicator is also one who sometimes resorts to the use of aggression (Olson 2002; Spitzberg 1997). In fact, a skills deficit approach was the focus of Infante, Chandler, and Rudd’s (1989) Communication Skills Deficiency Model of Interpersonal Violence. In essence, being an unskilled communicator is associated with fewer satisfying relationships and more problematic encounters, including interactions involving behaviors as severe as relational violence. With that said, there is another side to communication competence – one that is different from incompetence but representative of the darker side of human life. For some, communicating competently may mean texting daily expressions of love to a partner, letting the person know he/she is loved. For others, these same acts of expressing love, which are considered positive by many, could be a way of surveilling and ultimately controlling the partner’s actions. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the dark side of competence, not the darkness than can be inherent in incompetence. Such a perspective is important to not only furthering the theoretical and practical understanding of interpersonal communication skills and dark side scholarship, but also to being better able to capture the full essence of what it means to be a skilled communicator. This envisioned reality tries to expose the positive and negative along with the altruistic and the egotistic tendencies involved in relational life. As Spitzberg and Cupach (1998a) noted,

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The intent is neither to valorize nor demonize the darker aspects of close relationships, but rather, to emphasize the importance of their day-to-day performances in relationships. Only by accepting such processes as integral to relationships can their role be fully understood. (p. x)

To accomplish this goal, it is necessary to first review the basic premises of dark communication, followed by a brief overview of communication competence. Next, the association between the two and a review of the factors associated with dark competence will be examined in more detail. The chapter will end with discussion of future research.

1 What is dark interpersonal communication? In a now foundational chapter, Duck (1994) argued that much of the research on personal relationships had focused on the more positive and optimistic side of relating. For example, much work had been done on love, intimacy, and support, and little on alienation, relational distance, or indifference. When scholars did examine the more “problematic” side of relating, Duck continued, they often did so in a way that presumed the problematic was unusual and mistakes were to be avoided. He argued that, the relational significance of the unpleasant in the real lives of everyday mortals has been seriously underrepresented in theory and research that [sic] has taken too euphoric and decontextualized a view of the ways in which relational life can be nasty, brutish, and short, certainly insofar as it is practiced. (Duck 1994, 4, emphasis in original)

At the time of Duck’s writing, the “niceness” paradigm was believed to have infiltrated the personal relationship literature. Table 1 includes a list, not meant to be exhaustive but illustrative, of exemplary statements demonstrating the benevolent ideology inherent in close relationship research. According to Duck and others (e.g., Cupach and Spitzberg 1994), a redress was needed, challenging the assumption that relationships were always nice and the Tab. 1: Descriptive statements reflecting benevolent ideology in close relationship research. 1. Openness is superior to closedness 2. Disclosure is expected. 3. Clarity, directness, and accuracy are better than equivocation, distortion, or deception. 4. Cooperation is preferred over competition. 5. Social support is important to people’s overall health. 6. Communicative, social performances are expected to be smooth, effectively managed encounters. 7. Honesty is preferred over deception.

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people within them equally so. To create such a paradigmatic shift, scholars needed to broaden the study of close relationships to include both the positive and the negative side of relating, recognizing that healthy patterns could have negative outcomes, negative relating could prompt productive results, and some interactions can be both bright and dark in their structure, function, and outcome. In other words, darkness and negativity were integral parts of relationships, not separate from them, and researchers needed to account for the totality of relating. Along with Duck, communication scholars, Spitzberg and Cupach have spent the last several decades theorizing and studying the dark side in order to shed light on the hidden, elusive, and secret side of interpersonal and close relationships. This “hopeful trend toward pessimism” (Duck 1994: 7) has been fundamental to understanding the entirety of human relationships and, specifically, the role of darkness – how it is defined and how it functions in conjunction with the brighter sides of relational life. Recognized as the ones who “labeled and legitimized the dark side of relationships” (Perlman and Carcedo 2011: 2), Spitzberg and Cupach’s published collections have addressed a wide array of dark relational communication issues. In a review of Spitzberg and Cupach’s four edited dark side books, for example, Perlman and Carcedo found that the five topics most frequently addressed were violence, conflict, jealousy, anger, and threats. Scholarship related to bullying, sexual harassment, jealousy, teasing, sexual aggression, and annoyance were topics also covered albeit less frequently (Perlman and Carcedo 2011). As noted, these collections have impacted the direction of dark side scholarship and certainly reflect contemporary theorizing and empiricism in the field. Olson and colleagues (2012) adapted much of this research to the family environment, developing assertions and characteristics of dark family communication as well as a corresponding model of the processes involved. Moreover, research on the dark side of relating has also crossed into organizational contexts (e.g., for edited volumes, see Fox and Spector 2005; Harden Fritz and Omdahl 2006), as well as the dark side of transformational leadership (Tourish 2013). In addition to the study of clearly dark relations such as intimate partner violence (Johnson 2008) or stalking (Spitzberg and Cupach 2007b, 2014), scholars have also examined the darker side of more positive states and behaviors such as emotional intelligence (Austin et al. 2007, social support (Freisthler, Holmes, and Wolf 2014, technology use (Salanova, Llorens, and Cifre 2013), affectionate communication (Floyd and Pauley 2011) and doctor–patient interactions (Hannawa 2011) to name just a few. Although dark side scholarship abounds, it has been more difficult to provide conceptual clarity to the concept. A review of this journey is next.

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1.1 The adolescent years Creating a definition of the dark side has proven to be a more challenging task than some may have anticipated. It is a rather slippery construct, encapsulating not only message characteristics, but individual motives and intentions, individual interpretation and meaning-making as well observable behaviors and individual and relational outcomes. In early writings, terms such as elusive, secret, difficult, distressing, hidden, disruptive, hurtful, deceptive, paradoxical, forbidden, deviant (Spitzberg and Cupach 1994), were used to describe the dark side of relating. Additional dark behaviors included those that were considered incompetent and overlooked or would “doom, destroy, or challenge relationships” (Duck 1994: 14, emphasis added). Darkness also referenced distressing relational outcomes (Duck 1994). In an attempt to further understanding of dark relational forms, Duck (1994) presented a 2 × 2 taxonomy based upon two dimensions of darkness: intentionality (positive or negative) and dark behavior’s relational embeddedness (inherent or emergent). Those relationships involving good intentions with some regular (inherent) but rather minor negativity involving conflicts or tensions were labeled as having “difficulty”, while those that experienced the development of more serious negative behaviors over time (emergent), such as betrayals or regrets, were identified as “spoiling”. Conversely, “negative relations”, such as bullies or enemies, were described as relationships that were inherently destructive and reflected bad intentions toward the other person. Relationship forms involving and labeled “sabotage” were ones that included bad intentions but negative behaviors that emerged over time, such as the silent treatment or revenge.

1.2 Teenage angst Later, Spitzberg and Cupach (1998b) developed a list of seven deadly sins of darkness, expanding upon the dark side metaphor and adding to the theoretical understanding of the term. While not originally presented in such a way, these sins can be organized around three major themes: cognitions, behaviors, and outcomes (see Table 2 for a complete breakdown). Sins involving dark cognitions capture those processes that occur internally and represent dark thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes. Their darkness is primarily a by-product of cognitive calculations or processing. Specifically, this category includes unpotentiated, unfulfilled needs, assessments of individuals as unwanted or distasteful, or moments that are considered mystifying or unexplainable. Dysfunction, destructive, and distressing actions that impact a person’s ability to function and those that violate social norms, such as betrayal or deviance, are included in the dark behavior category because of their shared performative nature. Finally, dark outcomes are those sins that describe the effects of people’s behavior, including the exploitation and objectification of others.

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Tab. 2: Themes of the seven deadly sins of sarkness. Dark Cognitions – the unfulfilled, unpotentiated, underestimated, and unappreciated – the recognition of unmet needs. – the internal assessment of labeling people unattractive, unwanted, distasteful, and repulsive people – the paradoxical, dialectical, dualistic, mystifying – moments unexplainable. Dark Behaviors – dysfunctional, distorted, distressing, and destructive human behavior – actions that “diminishes one’s own [or another’s] ability to function” (p. xiv). – deviance, betrayal, transgression, awkward, rude, disruptive, annoying violations-behaviors that violate social norms. Dark Outcomes – the exploitation of the innocent – deeds that harm those with little power. – objectification – people who treat others as inhuman. Note: Adapted from Spitzberg and Cupach 1998b.

1.3 Emerging adulthood In some of Spitzberg and Cupach’s more recent writings (2007a), they defined the dark side by two dimensions: appropriateness (normatively and morally appropriate/normatively and morally inappropriate) and functionality (productive or destructive). Four domains of dark relationships emerge from this 2 × 2 schemata, representing “the boundaries of the dark side” (see Figure 1). The quadrants capture the dichotomous bright (Box 1 – normatively and morally appropriate/functionally productive) and dark (Box 2 – normatively and morally inappropriate/functionally destructive) side of relating. Moreover, they also account for categories that embody a murkier perspective on the dark side – one that

Fig. 1: Boundary designations for bright and dark close relationships. Note: Adapted from Spitzberg and Cupach 2007a.

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is filled with more shades of gray. Or, as Spitzberg and Cupach (2007a) assert, this perspective captures those relational situations where dark clouds contain silver linings or where that which was once dark is now bright (Box 3 – normatively and morally inappropriate/functionally productive). Finally, box 4 represents situations where that which was once bright is now dark or, said in a slightly different way, the presence of silver clouds that have dark linings (Box 4 – normatively and morally appropriate/functionally destructive). Most recently, Olson et al. (2012) built upon the theorizing of these earlier scholars, offering numerous assertions regarding dark family communication that further enhances our general understanding of what dark is and how it functions within close relationships. These authors provided several characteristics that describe the dark side of family communication, many of which transcend the family context and are relevant to the current focus on close relationships (for a full review, see Olson et al. 2012). First, Olson and colleagues described the nature of dark communication itself. Dark communication was defined, in part, as “verbal and/or nonverbal messages that are deemed harmful, morally suspect, and or socially unacceptable” (p. 10). This description is very similar to words, such as difficult, hurtful, and inappropriate, used in the early years to describe the nature of darkness. In addition, the researchers argued that dark communication involves various versions of intentionality, which will be discussed in more detail below. In addition, Olson et al. highlight how darkness is not always obscure, but can contain shades of gray (i.e., silver linings) and, perhaps more realistically, exists on a continuum of darkness. There is also an acknowledgement that darkness is not always negative. Instead, messages and behaviors can exist on a darkness continuum, revealing the potential for a both/and perspective. This positive–negative dialectic is important to consider when examining the nature or effect of the darkness experienced. In addition to describing what constitutes dark communication, Olson et al. (2012) posit assertions related to how dark communication is interpreted and given meaning. They note that since meaning-making occurs at the time of message deconstruction, dark thoughts (involving attribution calculations) and dark behaviors can occur at that time. Moreover, dating back to the concept’s conceptual infancy (Duck 1994; Spitzberg 1994b), there appears to be consensus that darkness involves a violation of morality and a degree of social inappropriateness, both of which involve interpretation, meaning-making, and attributions. What becomes unclear in this line of theorizing is the “who” in this assertion. In other words, who is assessing the inappropriateness or immorality? Who is assigning a meaning of darkness to the message, the behavior? Who is making the attributions? Are they uninvolved onlookers, researchers, mental health professionals, cultural critics? Are they the interactants or members of the cultural group themselves? Or is it a combination of both? Because meaning-making is vitally important to the definition of darkness, it becomes imperative that the “who” doing the interpreting is integrated into theo-

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rizing (Olson et al. 2012 Spitzberg 1993). Those instances where there is agreement between Self and Other make the need to identify the arbiter of assessment less necessary. The matter becomes much more complex and stickier when there are differences between actors’ and observers’ calculations of morality and normativity. A few examples can help clarify the argument. It is possible to imagine a family environment where using a swear word like “damn” would be considered very amoral and inappropriate (Actor assessed). Yet, many other individuals in U.S. society may feel the use of this word is quite normative – and not dark. So, the Actor evaluates the use of the swear word as amoral, whereas the Observer believes it to be quite normal and certainly not amoral. If a researcher wanted to study this phenomenon, would the practice be called dark? Would the study “qualify” for inclusion in a book focusing on the dark side of communication if the behavior is normative and thereby not dark by societal standards? Another example is provided to muddy the waters more. There are a variety of normalized relational beliefs and practices within some Muslim communities which many outside of these contexts would find amoral and non-normative. For example, sex and parenthood is to happen within marriage (as opposed to premaritally) and female genital surgery (also called mutilation by outsiders) is practiced within some Muslim and non-Muslim African communities (Dhami and Sheikh 2000). Many individuals within Western cultures (Observers), such as the United States, would find these practices constraining, non-progressive, exploitative, dehumanizing, amoral, and socially inappropriate – in other words, dark. Yet, they are not seen in this light by many members of the cultural group itself (Actors). Who’s correct? Whose definition of dark do we use when attempting to classify dark behavior and understand dark relational processes? In an attempt to resolve these complexities, Olson and colleagues (2012) asserted that there was a need to account for both possibilities. More specifically, the individual interactants could be the ones assigning meaning, or it could be the uninvolved individuals who observe the [dark] behavior or confront its effect. In a theoretical essay on (in)competence, Spitzberg (1993) similarly argued that schisms could exist between an actor’s and observer’s assessment of competence, labeling them dialectics of inference. Darkness, like competence, involves an evaluation of what is moral and amoral or positive and negative, and those assessments can vary between who is enacting the behavior and who is observing it. Understanding these different possibilities are important to acknowledge because they make a profound difference in how darkness is understood, experienced, measured, and theorized. For instance, a process involving Actor labeled inappropriate behavior would need to account for how that group manages their own negative behavior in a social world (Observer) that considers their actions normative. Conversely, how relational members communicate and navigate their realities when they behave in ways normative to them (Actor labeled appropriate behavior) but non-normative in the larger social context (Observer) is expected to involve many different dynam-

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ics than the reverse. To see how such dynamics factor into dark relational processes, continued theoretical development needs to account for all of these possibilities: 1. Actor/Observer appropriate; 2. Actor/Observer inappropriate; 3. Actor inappropriate/Observer appropriate; and 4. Actor appropriate/Observer inappropriate. Power and ideology are integrally connected to these Actor/Observer dynamics as well as to the overall assessment of appropriateness, morality, and normativity involved in dark communication. It must be acknowledged that the powerful, dominant group is driving the definition of normative (Olson 2009). As such, the dominant group’s beliefs, norms, and behaviors will be the basis for what is moral, appropriate, and normal. The beliefs and behaviors of members of non-dominant groups are amoral, non-normative, and inappropriate just by their membership in the out-group alone. It is quite possible, in fact, that members of non-dominant groups may be more harshly judged for their “inappropriate” behavior (as defined by the dominant group) than dominant group members acting in the same way. This assertion begs empirical testing but it is sufficient to say that any and all assessment of darkness carries with it the ideologies of the powerful cultural group (Spitzberg 1994a). Accordingly, it is essential that scholars interested in the dark side continually monitor the often hidden ideology embedded in the work being done and challenge the assumptions associated with the privileged position. The issue regarding how a behavior is judged amoral or non-normative is also highly context dependent (Olson et al. 2012). To apprehend what is considered dark or how dark interactions are negotiated, one must do so within the appropriate cultural/contextual frame. As described above, what is dark to some may not be dark to others. Accounting for such cultural nuances can be challenging from a theoretical perspective. Olson et al. (2102) consider this the where part of their perspective – where the meaning-making is made. They advance an ecological approach for analyzing this darkness in context. Their model is very similar to Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) socio-ecological framework, which symbolically captures how behavior is shaped by an individual’s interaction with his or her social world. Although the number and labels can vary, a common version of the framework often accounts for four “levels of influence” (Ali and Naylor 2013; Richard, Gauvin, and Raine 2011) that help explain human behavior. These levels often include the individual (biological and personal factors), relationships (relations with individuals close to individual), community (context, neighborhood, and culture), and society (structures and systems in the culture). These levels are nested within each other and are highly interdependent. To understand dark behavior, analyses need to consider how societal factors, community input, and relational interactions are influencing an individual’s behaviors and also how the individual is impacting each of these interdependent levels.

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Finally, one must account for time – or when the darkness occurs. Time can be, according to Olson and colleagues (2012), synchronic (one moment in time) or diachronic (occurring over time). Darkness travels across these dimensions. Imagine, for example, a conflict between two romantic partners that becomes intense and leads to both people using physical aggression. If one were to examine this dark encounter, he or she would assume a synchronic approach to time. Alternatively, if one were to account for how this negative episode impacted the couple’s relational functioning down the road, then a diachronic perspective would be applied. Both are necessary to capture when studying darkness because, as Spitzberg and Cupach (2007a) have argued, dark clouds can contain silver linings or silver linings can turn dark. Time is inherent in each of these statements. A certain amount of time needs to have passed in order for silver linings to emerge from darkness. Moreover, shades of silver take a while to turn dark. Just as relationships change and communication evolves, so too does darkness. It can be stationary and dynamic, short-term and long; it can be intense and subtle, hidden and exposed. Because it can morph into many different shapes and forms, it is essential to account for time when attempting to understand this elusive construct known as relational darkness.

2 What is communication competence? Another “amorphous” (Cupach and Spitzberg 1983; Spitzberg 1994b) concept, known as communication competence (CC), has held the attention of scholars for more than six decades, creating a vast and diverse body of literature (Wilson and Sabee 2003). A detailed review of the varieties of and nuances associated with it are beyond the scope of this chapter. Instead, a brief overview of key components of the construct is presented to lay the necessary groundwork for discussing its relation to dark communication. There are a variety of ways that CC has been defined, but one of the earliest ones that has influenced the CC scholarship the last few decades is Wiemann’s (1993). He defined communication competence as The ability of an interactant to choose among available behaviors in order that he [sic] may successfully accomplish his [sic] own interpersonal goals during an encounter while maintaining the face and line of his [sic] fellow interactants within the constraints of the situation. (p. 394, emphasis added)

It is important to deconstruct this definition, revealing several basic assumptions about what it means to be a competent communicator. One must first possess (or have the essential cognitive aptitude) the necessary ability to choose from (inferring sufficient agency) a repertoire of skills (cognitive, behavioral, and affective) in order to accomplish (implying power and self-efficacy) an interpersonal goal

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(assuming pre-meditated awareness of goal and lack of influence from other interactants). In addition, the definition captures the relational and cultural sensitivity as well as the contextual embeddedness that are integral to being a skilled communicator. The “paradigm of niceness” discussed earlier in relation to the lack of darkness in close relationship scholarship has befallen the study of communication competence (Spitzberg and Cupach 2002). This positivity bias is evidenced in the term’s definition just presented. Its tone imbues benevolence and goodwill rather than malevolence and malice. It implies that one has the necessary power and will use it to exercise that goodwill and accomplish respectable goals. It leaves out how certain individuals may not have the requisite abilities, motives, or desires to influence others in a constructive way. In other words, it fails to capture the dark side of being a skilled communicator – how a person with an altered cognitive orientation, ill will, sufficient power, and adequate skills and resources can achieve his/ her own untoward goals, regardless of the harm that may be inflicted, and all the while appearing to maintain the face of his/her interactional partner and operating within the norms of the situation. Similar to the dark side of communication, communication competence has experienced a constant form of intellectual tinkering. Perspectives toward CC have progressed from a more objective focus on trait/state-based skills, to an awareness of subjectivity and cultural sensitivity, to an increasing examination of the ideologies embedded in definitions of competence. As a way to bring order to the expansive study of communication competence, Spitzberg (1994b) synthesized the literature around three core concepts: abstraction, location, and criteria. With regard to abstraction, scholars have examined communication competence from a variety of behavioral levels, ranging in the degree of aggregate skills needed to enact the behavior (Spitzberg 1994b). Spitzberg (1994b) labeled these microscopic (e.g., eye contact, gestures, linguistic abilities), mezzoscopic (e.g., selfdisclosure, speech acts, jokes), and macroscopic (e.g., adaptability, empathy, compatibility). A significant amount of CC research has focused on identifying what skills are considered competent. Skills, according to Spitzberg (2006), “are the repeatable, goal-oriented behavioral tactics and routines that people employ in the service of their motivation and knowledge” (p. 638). More than 100 microscopic level skills were identified by Spitzberg and Cupach (2002) and slightly modified in later work (Spitzberg and Changnon 2009; Spitzberg and Cupach 2011). Spitzberg (1994b) identified location as a second core concept describing communication competence. Location in this context considers where the competence resides – in individual abilities, in inferences made by the interpreter, or by members of the social unit. As noted above, abilities and skills have been the dominant paradigm in CC research, inferring in many cases that specific skill sets are transferable to different contexts. In stark contrast is research that notes the subjective nature of competence – that what is considered competent varies across cultures

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and contexts. Studies in this area identify the mechanisms for how and why individuals judge some behavior as competent. Criteria, or standards for judging competence, is the third key notion associated with communication competence (Spitzberg 1994b). Spitzberg and Cupach (2002, 2011) describe six common criteria for quality interactions in relationships: fidelity, satisfaction, efficiency, effectiveness, appropriateness, and ethics (also see Chapters 3 and 22 in this handbook for further review). Yet, as noted by Spitzberg and Cupach (2011), any single criterion has its flaws and is limited in its ability to assess a quality interaction. Instead, the use of two of these criteria, appropriateness and effectiveness, does provide rather solid footing for determining communication quality. Spitzberg and Cupach (2011) assert that “Communication that accomplishes preferred objectives in a manner judged legitimate by others is likely to be satisfying and ethical as well” (p. 498). These two well-established criteria are reviewed further. Effectiveness, described as being the oldest and most well-established competence criterion (Spitzberg and Cupach 2002), is defined as the accomplishment of preferred or desired outcomes (Canary and Spitzberg 1987; Spitzberg 1994; Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach 1994; Spitzberg and Cupach 2002) or the “extent to which a communicator achieves objective(s)” (Spitzberg 2000: 105). Assuming most people in relationships have positive goals, many preferred outcomes would be correspondingly positive. However, and unfortunately, this is not always the case; many individuals have destructive goals and/or use unsavory means to achieve their goals, such as the online seduction of children by adults (for discussion of dark side of computer mediated communication, see DeAndrea, Tong, and Walther 2011) or the loss of something valuable (i.e., thousands of dollars) as a result of an elaborate and effective confidence (con) game (for an analysis of confidence games carried out by con men, such as Bernard Madoff, see Lewis 2013). From an effectiveness and functionalist point of view, the predator and the con achieved their goals. Yet, most would say that the preferred goal and achieved outcome in these instances are unethical and inappropriate. With that in mind, it is hard from a societal perspective to label the “effective” behavior as competent – yet it is functionally (see discussion of dialectic of motive, Spitzberg 1993). Another concern related to effectiveness is that the concept can also be difficult to measure because of the inability to objectively assess another’s “preferred” outcome (for further discussion, see Spitzberg and Cupach 2002). As a result of the potential for effectiveness to be disconnected from a larger societal view of normativity and the challenges associated with measuring it objectively and accurately, scholars argue that this criterion alone is not a sufficient determinant of competent communication. The other criterion that is paired with effectiveness and does account for normativity is known as appropriateness. Appropriateness is defined as behavior that is contextually normative, legitimate, and follows valued and prescribed rules (Spitz-

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berg 1994b; Spitzberg and Cupach 2002). Because context and culture are driving forces for determining what is legitimate, moral, ethical, or normative, appropriateness is highly context-dependent. In fact, according to Spitzberg and Cupach (2002), it is “assumed that contexts ‘possess’ such standards of appropriateness” (p. 581). While a valuable criterion for determining communication competence, appropriateness is also not without its problems. Most notably, this criterion has been criticized for being too focused on the judgment of others (in contrast to effectiveness which is critiqued for being too connected to the individual). The troublesome positive correlation between rape myth acceptance and sexual aggression among young men (O’Donohue, Yeater, and Fanetti 2003) or the socially accepted practice of dowry deaths in India (Banerjee 2014) are two dark examples that highlight the problematic nature of relying too excessively on the judgments of “the other”. Related to the earlier darkness discussion, “the other” in assessing the communication competence criterion of appropriateness becomes problematic when there is no identified other or there are multiple competing others (Spitzberg and Cupach 2002). Each criterion by itself is clearly insufficient as a definition of communicative competence. To rectify this shortcoming, researchers have argued that communication competence is a combination of both appropriateness and effectiveness. Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach (1994) provided a heuristic device to describe the categories of behaviors resulting from the integration of the two criteria: appropriateness/ inappropriateness (A/iA) and effectiveness/ineffectiveness (E/iE) (see Figure 2). Two categories described appropriate (A) behaviors, which differed in their effectiveness (optimizing [A/E] and sufficing [A/Ie]). Clearly, the optimizing category is considered the most ideal by communication competence standards. In contrast, minimizing (iA/iE) would be classified as the least ideal, and maximizing (iA/E) perhaps the most potentially dark. Socially inappropriate types of communication, such as verbal aggression or sexual innuendos shared with children, can be very effective when a person achieves his/her goals of control, compliance, or illegal sexual interactions (e.g., Olson 2002; Olson et al. 2007). In an attempt to bring more theoretical structure to the area of study, Spitzberg and Cupach (2011) presented a taxonomy of interpersonal skills and functions.

Effective (E)

Appropiate (A)

Inppropiate (iA)

a

Optimizing Vindicating

a, b

Sufficing Agitating

a

Maximizing

b

Ineffective (iE)

a

b

Minimizing Unyielding

b

Fig. 2: Taxonomy of communication competence behaviors. Note: Information adapted from: a Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach 1994; b Olson 2002.

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Working from left to right, the taxonomy presents a framework of concepts that are organized from specific to general or micro to macro levels of abstraction. The structure also accounts for differences in forms of competent communication, which fulfill different functions of competence. The relationships between these levels can be presented as follows in text form: Form at Micro and Mezzo Levels →→ Function at Micro and Mezzo Levels

Forms of micro level behaviors include, for example, head nods, vocal confidence, expression of opinion, eye contact, and speaking rate. The variety of micro behaviors are grouped into higher order categories (mezzo level) including attentiveness, composure, coordination, and expressiveness. These higher order forms of competent behavior serve various micro level functions (e.g., empathy, ego-supporting, persuasive, and disclosure). The lower order functions comprise six mezzo levels: intimacy, predictability, closedness, autonomy, openness, and novelty. An example will demonstrate more concretely the relationships presented in the taxonomy. According to Spitzberg and Cupach (2011), behaviors such as head nods and asking questions are micro-level actions that constitute the mid-range behavior called attentiveness. In turn, attentiveness is hypothesized to serve several micro-level functions such as empathy, concern, comfort, support, and interest. These lowerorder functions like empathy are proposed to then constitute higher order functions, such as intimacy. Said in a more formulaic way, head nods (micro form) → attentiveness (mezzo form) →→ empathy (micro function) → intimacy (mezzo function)

This current taxonomy adds an important component to the skills literature that is especially relevant to the current discussion. Breaking away from the positive bias, this theoretical presentation now includes skills that could be considered grayer than others identified previously. Examples include micro level skills such as topic initiation and maintenance serving to fulfill the function of communication closedness. Recent studies have demonstrated this more positive side of closedness. For example, in their study with military families, Joseph and Afifi (2010) found that wives were less likely to disclose stressors (a form of topic initiation and maintenance) to their deployed husbands when they perceived that their husbands’ safety was at risk. This lack of disclosure was a form of protective buffer, allowing the wives to protect their partners from feelings of stress. Baxter et al. (2002) found a similar finding in their research with elderly wives whose husbands were institutionalized with dementia. The wives reported consciously choosing not to disclose stressors they were experiencing in their own life, such as financial strain, in order to protect their husbands’ from feeling guilty for not being able to care for them. In sum, the communication competence literature has evolved over time, moving from a myopic focus on the more positive side of competence to one that is

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beginning to acknowledge a grayer shade of interpersonal skills. The integration of darkness and communication competence is explicated more fully below.

3 How can communication competence be dark? The concern now becomes how and when the skills associated with being a competent communicator take on shades of darkness. In other words, what is the relationship between dark competence and communication competence? Researchers have occasionally associated incompetence with darkness (e.g., Spitzberg 1994b). Communicating in ways that are harmful, deceptive, or disruptive (aka dark) is typically construed as incompetent behavior. Dark actions could then be viewed as a form of incompetence (referencing Spitzberg and Cupach’s 2002 taxonomy). Depending upon how it is conceptualized, darkness could also be an outcome associated with incompetent communication. For example, research has shown that non-constructive conflict management (an incompetent communication skill) is associated with relational aggression (a dark outcome) (e.g., Olson and Braithwaite 2004). In contrast, incompetence can be defined by dark behaviors but also by bright behaviors that are just ineffective (i.e., unsuccessful attempts at persuasion). From these comparisons, one can see that, to date, darkness is almost always considered incompetent, and, while incompetence is often associated with darkness, it can assume non-dark forms and function in non-dark ways. Incompetence, thus, is not synonymous with darkness. Equally faulty is the belief that competence and darkness are on opposite ends of an interpersonal skills continuum. They certainly possess different conceptual space, but they also may assume similar forms and serve similar functions. The remainder of this chapter will examine this darker side of competence by considering several dimensions that help define the construct dark competence. Importantly, dark competence is grounded in the characteristics of dark communication discussed earlier as well as the perspective toward communication competence articulated herein. The dimensions which follow are deemed most salient to help differentiate dark competence from its kin, dark communication and communication competence, providing the concept with its own theoretical space. Following the review of dimensions, questions for future consideration will bring the chapter to a close.

3.1 Dimensions of dark competence 3.1.1 Intent/motive Aside from the noted exception of the development of a cognitive competence measure (Duran and Spitzberg 1995), most communication competence research

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focuses on observational, performative behavior. In contrast, since the early days (e.g., Duck 1994), research on dark processes, such as intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and dark family communication, typically integrate intent into their conceptualizations. For example, Cahn (2009) defines family violence as: Imposing one’s will (i.e., wants, needs, or desires) on another family member through the use of verbal or nonverbal acts, or both, done in a way that violates socially acceptable standards that are either (1) carried out with the intention or perceived intention of inflicting physical or psychological pain, injury, and/or suffering, or (2) in the case of incest, of sexually exploiting a relative of one’s own or of one’s significant other under 18 years of age. (p. 16, emphasis added)

Real life examples and research studies demonstrate the communicative skills of individuals who are very dark behind their competence disguise. They become very skilled at deceiving others into thinking they are truthful, honest, and have good will. These dark intents combined with strong communicative abilities can lead to horrific outcomes. Investment banker Bernie Madoff demonstrated a cunning ability to convince people to invest their life fortunes with his investment firm, which ended up being a Ponzi scheme that led to many people losing thousands of dollars (Lewis 2013). Eventual abusers begin their grooming process by showering their partner with love and attention, which is really about setting the stage for future control, isolation, and demoralization of the unknowing partner (Olson 2004). The case of Jerry Sandusky reminds us that child sexual abusers roam the halls of institutions of higher learning, big time college sports, and influential non-profits designed to help children, not harm them as Sandusky so craftily did. He was a skilled communicator who ensnared his child victims into a cycle of entrapment (Olson et al. 2007), luring them into ongoing sexual relationships that have impacted them to this day (Adamson et al. 2013). This dark side of competence is perhaps the scariest of all. It is elusive and difficult to discern, but when it is allowed to be carried out, it harms individuals deeply, shatters their trust in others, and creates a cynical outlook of the world that limits people’s ability to enjoy the beauty of life. Its ability to damage lives is all the more reason to do what is possible to assure our understanding of what is considered competent and dark is examined more fully. Doing so involves extending research on dark competence beyond that which can be observed to include that which cannot – the motives and intentions of interactants. When seeking to understand dark competence, it is vitally important to account for the individuals’ internal motivations, intents, and perceptions because of how integral these cognitions are to human behavior. Darkness is inherently connected to the human psyche. Yet, it is manifested in social interactions (Duck 1994). As such, connections must be made between the internal states, human interactions, and outcomes in order to flesh out further the idea of dark competence.

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3.1.2 Positivity-negativity dialectic This chapter has shown how perspectives on dark communication often view it primarily as involving negative intents, behaviors, or outcomes. Conversely, communication competence has been critiqued for privileging only the bright side of relational functioning and only those skills that carry a “normatively positive valence” (Spitzberg and Cupach 2002: 589). These either/or perspectives have limited application to the messiness of human relationships. As has been discussed, darkness needs to be considered alongside bright interactions. A less common argument made, but one that is equally as important, is that a bright approach to competence needs to acknowledge that darkness may occasionally be a helpful ability. There may be times, for example, when using aggression to resolve a conflict may be a useful skill (for further discussion see Spitzberg and Cupach 2002; Olson 2002), keeping secrets from a partner or other family member may serve a self- or other-protective role (Afifi, Olson, and Armstrong 2005; Baxter et al. 2002; Joseph and Afifi 2010), or inducing jealousy can produce positive relational outcomes (Fleischmann et al. 2005). Researchers have also noted that there are times when communication errors, which could be viewed as dark, can also lead to positive self-reflection, learning, and communicative change such as in the awkward incidents of social predicaments (Cupach 1994) or regretted communication (Meyer 2013). Conversely, bright, competent behaviors can assume shades of darkness. Spitzberg (1994b) described how, for instance, empathy, perspective taking, and cognitive complexity can have negative, less healthy effects. In addition, researchers have found maladaptive aspects of happiness (Gruber, Mauss, and Tamir 2011); self-forgiveness can inhibit behavioral change such as smoking cessation (Wohl and Thompson 2011); and too much self-regard may prompt violence and aggression in situations involving threatened egotism (Baumeister, Smart, and Boden 1996). Self-monitoring is another skill that can become dark. High self-monitors are individuals who are sensitive to the appropriateness of social situations and able to regulate their behavior appropriately (Snyder 1987). As such, these individuals are considered especially competent in their interactions and social settings. However, Wright, Holloway, and Roloff (2007) found that a high self-monitor’s tendency, depending upon the situation, to adjust his/her presentation of self and to mask true feelings can also be associated with less intimate communication and lower relationship quality. Similarly, social comparison is thought to be a normative, integral part of the human experience. Unfortunately, however, there can be a dark side to comparing one’s self to others. For example, White and colleagues’ (2006) study found a positive relationship between frequent social comparisons and negative emotions, such as envy, guilt, and regret, and defensive and deceptive behaviors, and others who have noted the profoundly troubling role that “proanorexia” websites and blogs play in supporting and suggesting the normality of

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an Ana way of life (Castro and Osorio 2012; DeAndrea, Tong, and Walther 2011). Not only are these websites places where individuals turn for support but also for the ability to compare one’s self to and to learn from others with similar mental disorders. As the pro-anexoria study based in Portugal reveals, the “Ana way of life” knows no geographic boundaries (Castro and Osorio 2012) and demonstrates a darker side of social support. In order to more fully capture the complexities of relational life, the both/and philosophy, which is embedded in the positive–negative dialectic needs to be integrated into the study and theorizing of dark competence. Being a skillful communicator does not mean the person always acts with good intent, grace, and humility. Instead there may be times when skill casts a gray shadow on human interaction, revealing that intent, behaviors, and outcomes may assume unpleasant forms.

3.1.3 Time Time is often necessary for darkness to be viewed as competent (synchronic) or for it to function (diachronic) as competence. With few exceptions (e.g., Spitzberg 1987), however, much of the theorizing on communication competence (CC) ignores this factor. Spitzberg and Cupach (2002) added time as a criterion of communication competence, but few empirical examinations of the relationship between time and CC exist. Instead, a snapshot often is taken, capturing and assessing CC at one moment in time. This practice becomes problematic because understanding how behaviors function involves the passage of time. For example, if the picture was taken when a wife physically assaulted her husband, her actions would be deemed incompetent and, in many states where mandatory arrests for domestic battery exist, could put her in jail. Yet, time is essential to understanding how the both bright and dark perspective works in this situation and in relation to dark competence and communication competence, more broadly. In order to see the silver linings in the dark clouds, time needs to have passed. The darkness of the aggression enacted by the wife could have been her act of retaliation for the abuse she had been suffering and very well could contain silver linings when it leads her to say, “Enough is enough. I’ve got to get out of this relationship.” This example shows how darkness can function positively – or when bad can be good.

3.1.4 Contextual embeddedness Finally, understanding how communication is interpreted and assigned meaning can play a major role in being better equipped to answer the questions and complexities of dark competence that were raised in this chapter. Knowledge of the culture and context within which the thoughts and behaviors occur is fundamental as well. As noted, context is inherent to dark communication and communication

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competence as separate constructs but also to their conjoined twin, dark competence. One example of this is a study by Olson (2002) who found that couples experiencing aggression tended to see the appropriateness and effectiveness of their aggression functioning in ways that deviated from standard custom and the taxonomy of competent behaviors identified by Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach (1994) (see italicized words on Figure 2). Several individuals viewed their use of aggression as inappropriate but effective, yet like the label maximizing suggests, evaluated it as negative. There were other instances, however, when the participants viewed their use of aggression as unyielding (not minimizing), vindicating (not optimizing), and agitating (not sufficing). The findings from this study represent one example of the context-dependent nature of dark competence.

4 What’s next? As this chapter comes to a close, it is instructive to turn the ideas addressed herein into actual areas of future inquiry. The socio-ecological framework discussed earlier will serve as an organizing heuristic. Ideas for future research at each level are offered.

4.1 The individual To begin, we must, in a way, back-up, meaning we need to step back from current practices to include the intentions and motivations of the interactants. As noted, past communication competence research has not often examined individual intent while scholarship on many dark processes (e.g., intimate partner violence, sexual assault) typically does address the motives of the perpetrator. Future research needs to examine what motives drive the communicative enactment of dark competence. More knowledge about individuals’ characteristics, personality, beliefs, and attitudes is also needed to better understand through a dark competence lens how and why messages are constructed and processed as well as why certain behaviors are performed.

4.2 Relational The next level in the socio-ecological model focuses attention on how the intentions, actions, and behaviors of the individual are influenced by his/her relationships and vice versa. For instance, what types of relational climates are particularly susceptible to the development of dark competence? How do individuals who can communicate competently in dark ways influence his/her relationships? Are those

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relationships changed by these individuals? Questions that focus on the interconnectedness of individuals and relationships are important to advancing the study of dark competence.

4.3 Community The impact of the context, neighborhood, and culture are representative of the community level of the socio-ecological framework. As discussed previously, contextual embeddedness is essential to understanding what constitutes darkness. Related to the present topic, one might consider how a particular culture is influencing an individual’s dark competence, which is also interconnected to her/his relationships. As an example, how might the prevalence of neighborhood gangs influence the development of dark competence in the individual? How do individuals’ relationships reinforce those beliefs further fostering the development and enactment of dark competence?

4.4 Social All individual, relational, and community levels are also influenced by the larger social system in which they exist. Specifically, customs, laws, and policies impact the development and enactment of dark competence. These structures can reinforce the darkness or fight against it. How, for example, might the social norm which accepts violence as a way of managing conflict further perpetuate a person’s ability to convince his partner that the slap across the face was effective in bringing their argument to an end? What social structures are particularly powerful in creating and enabling individuals’ dark competence? How do relationships and communities reinforce such behavior? How did institutional and social structures and relationships, for instance, create such a high pedestal of power and prestige for a Division I college football coach like Jerry Sandusky that the reality of his abuse of children was denied and allowed to continue for years? Questions such as these draw attention to the need to widen the empirical lens when studying dark communication and competence. Darkness at its core is individual, relational, communal, and social. Dark competence could become both the vehicle for navigating through this terrain as well as the getaway car when it comes time to change directions.

5 Conclusion This chapter has taken a journey through the dark side of a world that many would prefer to believe does not exist – a world where many days are cloudy and gray,

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but yet, many nights contain bright moons. Just as night is to day, so is the bright to the dark side of relating and darkness to communication competence. Dark competence captures the potential for ill intents, hurtful messages, biased message processing, injurious behaviors and/or unhealthy individual and relational outcomes. Dark competence is meaningless without relevant context to assign it meaning, and it is unnaturally static without the dynamism of time. Yet, among this darkness is also the potential for light. Ill intents and biased processing can become constructive cognitions and hurtful messages and injurious behaviors can become beneficial actions. Malevolent encounters can become benevolent movements. Such is the world of being human and the true color of communication.

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27 Miscommunication and error Abstract: This chapter examines the unique conceptual characteristics and associations between miscommunication and human error. The two constructs are discussed in light of their most frequent roots and causes. Furthermore, important related terminology (i.e., communication, non-communication, miscommunication, understanding, non-understanding, and misunderstanding) is introduced and conceptually delineated. Following this thorough discussion, a heuristic organizing scheme is developed to facilitate an interdisciplinary integration of the existing literature on the topic. The framework demonstrates that human error can be both a contributing and resulting factor of miscommunication. Furthermore, it illustrates that mutual understanding is a high-quality standard that can only be attained through competent interaction. At the same time, this attainment is stained by inevitable human fallibility. The chapter closes with some heuristic implications that reposition communication scholarship into a different paradigmatic lens, implying that miscommunication and human fallibility need to be embraced as normative standards underlying all human interaction. Keywords: communication failure, communication breakdown, miscommunication, misunderstanding, human error, fallibility, communication skill, guidelines, mutual understanding, sense-making practice, common ground

In ancient Rome, Seneca set a philosophical milestone on the fallibility of humankind with his comment “errare humanum est, sed in errare perseverare diabolicum” (“to err is human, to persist in erring is diabolical”, Epistulae morales VI, 57, 12). Two thousand years later, this connotation still overpowers our perfectionism and spotlights an undesirable yet inevitable characteristic of our existence: We are human – therefore, we will err. Nothing will prevent that, no matter how perfect the surrounding circumstances are. This inevitable nature of erring also flaws our communication with others. In fact, “we cannot pretend to be able to understand other people completely – without flaw, error, mistake or miscalculation” (Mortensen 1997). The severity of this problem is pronounced. In health care, the annual count of patients harmed by a human error equates to fatalities that would be incurred by three jumbo jets crashing every two days (Banja 2005; Jha et al. 2013). But also in other risk-burdened industries, human error has the potential to threaten and harm life. For example, 70 percent of accidents in the airline industry are traceable to pilot errors (Jones 2003). Communication failure is the most frequently reported error category in both industries, implying that the flip side of communication competence – a cocktail

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of human error and insufficient communication skill – harms and threatens human life every day. Such appeals surface in several places throughout this handbook. For example, Backlund and Morreale (Chapter 2) treat misunderstandings in their discussion of communicating accurate meaning. Pavitt (Chapter 3) mentions speech that, following a pragmatic plan, is monitored to allow for self-correction of errors. Sanders (Chapter 5) elaborates two sources of mistakes people make in regard to achieving their goals while interacting meaningfully. Guerrero and Ramos-Salazar (Chapter 6) list mistakes individuals commonly make on the basis of vocal cues, such as confusing fear with nervousness, pride or surprise with happiness, anger with contempt, and love with sympathy. Olson (Chapter 26) mentions “dark” communication errors that can lead to the “bright” side of positive self-reflection, learning, and communicative change. This chapter conceptually clarifies and delineates the concepts of human error and miscommunication, identifies their causes and sources, integrates this discussion into a typological framework, and closes with some heuristic implications in light of communication competence theory and research.

1 Human error Human error is not only inevitable and prevalent, but also socially undesirable. It threatens our most basic human needs, such as our need for belonging (versus alienation) and our desire to maintain a positive face in front of others (rather than embarrassment, ostracization, face loss, and stigmatization). Human error also involves privacy turbulence: The information related to an error that affected another person is no longer owned by the offender, but co-owned by the harmed victim, and possibly even by involved third parties (such as, for example, professional institutions, insurers, legal entities, as well as families and loved ones). Another characteristic of human error is its opportunistic nature: While it can lead to negative physiological (e.g., stress), psychological (e.g., rumination, feelings of guilt), relational (e.g., distrust, dissatisfaction, avoidance), and even organizational or systemic (e.g., litigation) outcomes, human error – if responded to competently – can also facilitate positive processes such as forgiveness, increased relational closeness, and prevention of further harm (e.g., Hannawa 2014). All these characteristics make human error an utmost complex phenomenon that is penetrated by communication competence as an a priori (i.e., for error prevention), ad hoc (i.e., for error intervention), and a posteriori (i.e., coping and repair) mechanism.

1.1 What is human error? One of the most overarching conceptualizations of human error was proposed by Reason (1990: 9), who defines errors as a generic term that encompasses “all those

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Fig. 1: Conceptual characteristics of human error, accidents, and complications in relation to unintended outcomes.

occasions in which a planned sequence of mental or physical activities fails to achieve its intended outcome, and when these failures cannot be attributed to the intervention of some chance agency”. A key consideration in this conceptualization of human error is the notion of preventability and intention. Preventability implies that unintended outcomes are only attributed to human error if they could have been prevented – otherwise, they were caused either by accidents (if they were not predictable) or complications (if they were predictable; see Figure 1). Intentionality consists of two elements: 1. an expression of the end-state to be attained, and 2. an indication of the means by which it is to be achieved (Reason 1990). Thus, human behavior can have prior intentions and intentions in action. Actions without prior intentions entail intentional and non-intentional behaviors. Intentional behaviors without prior intentions include spontaneous (e.g., running into someone in the spur of the moment) and subsidiary (e.g., unconscious routine behaviors such as inserting the ignition key and turning on the engine) actions. Non-intentional behaviors without prior intentions (i.e., intentionless behaviors) incorporate the issue of volition. While such acts are critical to law and jurisprudence in assessing criminal liability, the term error can only be applied to intentional behaviors (actions with prior intention) because they depend critically on two types of failures: 1. the failure of actions to proceed as intended (prior intention but unintentional behavior), and 2. the failure of intended actions to achieve their desired outcomes (prior intention and intentional behavior; Reason

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1990). Unintended actions during the execution of a plan are defined as lapses and slips, whereas a mismatch between the prior intention and the intended consequences represents a mistake (Reason 1990). Mistakes are a subcategory of errors and include “deficiencies or failures in the judgmental and/or inferential processes involved in the selection of an objective or in the specification of the means to achieve it, irrespective of whether or not the actions directed by this decision-scheme run according to plan” (Reason 1990: 9). Reason (1990) argues that mistakes can further be divided into two subcategories: 1. failures of expertise (i.e., inappropriate application of a pre-established plan or problem solution), and 2. lack of expertise (i.e., when individuals are forced to work outside of their current knowledge base). Reason (1990) also distinguishes between slips and lapses. Slips are externalized unplanned actions (for example, slips of the tongue, slips of the pen, and slips of action), whereas lapses comprise more covert error forms that most often involve failures of memory that may only be apparent to the person who experiences them (Reason 1990). Based on this contention, mistakes occur at the level of intention formation, whereas slips and lapses are associated with failures at the subordinate levels of action selection, execution, and intention storage (Reason 1990).

1.2 Conceptualizing human error contextually One of the ways to conceptualize these three error types (i.e., mistakes, slips, and lapses) contextually is to place them within the cognitive stages that are involved in carrying out an action sequence (Reason 1990). This approach suggests that mistakes occur during the planning stage, lapses occur during the storage phase (after the formulation of the intended actions and the execution of the plan), and slips occur during the execution phase (the processes involved in implementing the stored plan). An alternate way to frame these three error types contextually is to conceptualize them within three levels of performance (Reason 1990). Based on Rasmussen’s (1983) skill-rule-knowledge classification of human performance, errors can either be 1. skill-based, 2. rule-based, or 3. knowledge-based. Behaviors at the skill-based performance level incorporate actions or behaviors that take place without conscious control as “smooth, automated, and highly integrated patterns of behaviours” (Rasmussen 1986: 100), and primarily reflect ways of dealing with routine activities in familiar situations. Skill-based behaviors generally precede the detection of a problem. A defining condition for rule-based and knowledge-based actions, on the other hand, is the prior awareness that a problem exists (Reason 1990). Skill- and rule-based levels of performance are characterized by a feed-forward control mechanism that emanates from stored knowledge structures (e.g., schemata, rules). Thus, errors at these levels occur while individuals are performing tasks

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under the control of automatic action and result from existing, stored knowledge structures. Skill-based errors, particularly, often occur as the result of monitoring failures (i.e., inattention or over-attention in form of omitted or mistimed attentional checks), whereas rule-based errors tend to arise from the application of a bad rule or the misapplication of a good rule to solve a problem (Reason 1990). Human performance at the knowledge-based level becomes necessary when individuals run out of applicable problem-solving routines and are forced to resort to attentional processing on uncharted territory (Reason 1990). Such knowledgebased performance falls outside of the scope of prior experience and has to be dealt with by error-prone “on-line” reasoning that primarily involves setting goals, initiating actions to achieve them, and observing the extent to which the actions are successful and modifying them to minimize the discrepancy between the present position and the desired state (Reason 1990). Errors at this level can be attributed to multiple sources that include but are not limited to an individual’s confirmation bias (i.e., seeking only evidence that confirms one’s plan and dismissing information that disconfirms it), availability heuristic (i.e., using the first information that comes to mind), overconfidence tendency (i.e., believing in the validity of the chosen course of action without significant justification), and workspace limitations (see Reason 1990). Reason (1990) argues that the simplified contention that mistakes arise from failures of higher-order cognitive processes whereas slips and lapses result from the unintended activation of automatic, procedural routines is invalid, because mistakes and slips can both be the result of a person’s attempt to keep up with past practice. Thus, conceptually dividing errors into slips and mistakes is limiting because there are cases that do not readily fit into either category. For example, errors may result from the application of inappropriate diagnostic rules of the kind “if situation X prevails, then system state Y exists” (Reason 1990: 55), yet contain elements of mistakes such as an improper appraisal of the system state as well as slip-like features. In an attempt to solve such problems, Reason (1990) proposes that it is most appropriate to conceptually differentiate between three distinct error types: 1. skill-based slips and lapses, 2. rule-based mistakes, and 3. knowledgebased mistakes. Mistakes at the knowledge-based level are similar to the mistakes of beginners, because they involve the application of actions outside of a person’s existing knowledge structures without any contingency plans or preprogrammed solutions to rely on. The important differences between novices and experts are primarily found at skill-based and rule-based performance levels, because experts have a larger collection of problem-solving rules than novices and thus are less likely to have to resort to knowledge-based performance levels (Reason 1990). Errors are relatively more likely to happen at the knowledge-based level of processing because skillbased and rule-based processing are the hallmarks of expertise, and such mistakes are more difficult to detect than skill-based slips or lapses.

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1.3 Latent and active human error Another feature that makes the conceptualization of human errors complex is the fact that they can be attributed to active and latent dimensions (Reason 1990). Active errors are associated with “front-line operators” who work at the “sharp end” of complex systems (e.g., in the medical field: physicians, surgeons, nurses). Latent errors, on the other hand, are attributed to individuals whose activities are “removed in both space and time from the direct control interface” (Reason 1990: 173). Such individuals reside in the regulatory, administrative, and organizational bodies of a system, and provide the resources and constraints that form the environment where the front-line agents work (Cook, Woods, and Miller 1998). Effects of active errors are often felt immediately. Adverse consequences of latent errors, on the other hand, may lie dormant for a long time and only become evident when they “breach the system’s defences” (Reason 1990: 173; also see Rasmussen and Pederson 1984). In fact, many of the root causes of errors are present within a system long before active errors are committed (e.g., because of poor information infrastructure, faulty maintenance, or bad management decisions). For example, a diagnostic error at the front end of medical practice may be the manifestation of a patient chart not having arrived on time. Thus, attempts to prevent errors also need to focus on the discovery and neutralization of latent failures rather than solely on the localization and minimization of active failures. Reason (1990) argues that efforts to prevent the repetition of specific active errors will only have limited impact on the safety of the entire system, because the same mixture of the causes of a particular error is unlikely to reoccur.

1.4 Reasonability criterion Banja (2005) argues that existing definitions of human error disregard the occurrence of factors that are beyond a person’s reasonable control. A valid conceptualization of errors needs to integrate the important issue whether or not there was anything a person could have reasonably done to avert the mishap, other than not to perform the action at all. Thus, Banja proposes replacing the issue of intentionality with a reasonability criterion, implying that a standard exists that “differentiates between erring from non-erring conduct of judgment” (Banja 2005: 6), and that a person can be reasonably expected to know and behave according to this standard. In the linguistics literature, the Gricean maxims manifest an exemplar of such standards. The maxims state that a person should not say what they believe to be false (quality maxim), make their communication as informative as required for the purpose of the interaction (quantity maxim), be relevant (relation maxim), and avoid ambiguity (manner maxim; see Grice 1975). Based on Banja’s contention, a person’s failure to follow such standards must be unwarranted and unintended in order to constitute a human error. Banja (2005: 7) captures these criteria in his

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conceptualization of human error as “an unwarranted failure of action or judgment to accommodate the standard”. This reasonability criterion can be easily applied to the Reason’s (1990) performance dimensions of human error. For example, on a rule-based performance level, a person ought to have known what rule was applicable, or ought to have known that the rule was inappropriate to the situation. Thus, Banja’s (2005) definition of human errors yields a less constraining conceptual framework that is more fitting with interdisciplinary standards (such as, for example, legal malpractice considerations) compared to previous conceptualizations.

2 Miscommunication Perhaps the closest link between human error and communication competence is found in the literature on miscommunication, although theorizing and research in this area do not explicitly allude to errors in understanding and communication. The literature assumes effective dialogue and mutual understanding as necessary conditions for living and working together (Weigand 1999). Based on this assumption, it postulates that successful communication requires a laborious joint effort among interlocutors, whose ability to promote mutual understanding is a great source of stability in human affairs (Mortensen 1997). In this light, similar to human errors, communication problems are often viewed as aberrant behavior that needs to be eliminated (Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles 1991), and appeals to effectiveness, efficiency, appropriateness, and satisfaction proliferate in an effort to avoid seemingly destructive incidents of miscommunication. A widespread concern with miscommunication is not only evident in this handbook. The management literature, for example, is inundated with leadership advice that aims to prevent the damaging consequences of miscommunication. Such advice typically refers to similar sources of miscommunication: “The interests of a friend and those of a manager do not always coincide” (Robbins 2000), “leaders often talk at people instead of with them”, “people who fail to understand the needs, fears and frustrations of their audience end up speaking out of context”. “information delivery requires a great deal of understanding and situation analysis” (Greene et al. 2007), and “managers often say things in their own style without taking into account an employee’s style, thereby causing misunderstanding” (Field 2005). Statistics from various industries further evidence a prevalent concern with the severe consequences of communication problems. Here the hit list ranges, as mentioned previously, from miscommunication-induced airplane crashes to inconceivable numbers of preventable patient fatalities across the world. That these incidents incite a somewhat radical predisposition against miscommunication is not surprising – after all, communication failures pose existential threats to people in

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many areas of human life. Thus, these examples would certainly support the argument that miscommunication is a risk-bearing and destructive phenomenon that it is to be avoided at all cost. However, the literature evidences that miscommunication – like human error – is inevitable, for reasons discussed in the following section.

2.1 The fundamental cause of miscommunication People often assume interpersonal similarity in their relationships (Duck 1994). However, despite a very close human genetic resemblance (see Mustajoki 2012; also Beatty and Pascual-Ferrá in this volume), individuals’ dissimilar life experiences give rise to a variety of communication problems. Different personal traits (e.g., age, sex, culture, intelligence, religion, attitudes, beliefs, likes/dislikes), differential perceptions and brain functioning (e.g., processing speed differences, faulty memory), thinking and speech differences (e.g., speed of thought, hormonal and emotional states), incompatible cultural, family, and personal rules (e.g., values, morals, opinions, power, boundaries), daily life interferences (e.g., financial concerns, children, political events) and differential word definitions (e.g., emotional abstractions, multiple meanings) make it almost impossible for humans to completely understand each other (Mahaffey 2010). Thus, miscommunication and misunderstanding are pervasive and inherent in our everyday interactions. For example, intercultural communication is inherently prone to miscommunication (Mafela 2013), literacy and knowledge barriers cause misunderstandings in doctor–patient interactions (Binder et al. 2012), and cultural differences among medical specialties commonly contribute to physician miscommunication (Kirschbaum and Fortner 2012), as do conversations between experts and laymen (due to different knowledge frames) and interactions between men and women (due to different gender roles; Weigand 1999; Henningsen 2004). Thus, communication can be seen as an ongoing interactive negotiation among interlocutors to minimize the likelihood of miscommunication toward the establishment of a “common ground”, which entails the sum of the knowledge, presuppositions, and beliefs that a person shares with another (Clark 1996). The general purpose of communication is the creation of mutual understanding (Weigand 1999) or meaning (Duck 1994) that transcends these interpersonal chasms. In this light, miscommunication is broadly characterized as communication that is not achieving its purpose (Weigand 1999: 771). In other words, miscommunication is a form of “misunderstanding or incomplete understanding that is characterized by a mismatch between the intent of the speaker and the interpretation of the recipient” (Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles 1991). Thus, miscommunication reflects an interactive phenomenon between the speaker and the hearer that is closely associated with the construct of understanding.

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However, the general purpose of “coming to an understanding” is a complex and difficult task. Our lives are full of uncertainties, paradoxes, ambiguities, and contradictions that confound our individual efforts to achieve clear and complete communication (Mortensen 1997). In addition, what we are meaning to say is often merely a sketchy plan of the loaded content we want to express (e.g., propositional content, illocutionary function, attitudes, and modality/mode). Facework and overor under-accommodation are examples that illustrate the complexity of this challenge. Furthermore, every utterance a speaker encodes is only an approximation of the concrete thought the speaker has in mind (Clark 2003; Jucker, Smith, and Lüdge 2003). Thus, it is almost impossible for interactants to fully understand the various levels of what they are talking about, and to understand the implications of the form their talk takes (Mortensen 1997).

2.2 Conceptual vagueness Miscommunication is often used as an umbrella term to encompass various types of communication failures, such as misunderstanding, non-understanding, misinterpretation, misconception, mishearing, non-hearing, non-listening, and misperception. It can occur in language performance (i.e., message encoding and decoding) and in language use (i.e., coming to an understanding; see Weigand 1999). Thus, miscommunication reflects participants’ efforts to achieve both clear and complete communication (Mortensen 1997) – clear in terms of each individual’s message encoding, and complete in respect to the dyadic sense-making. Furthermore, the term miscommunication is typically used in combination with numerous referents – individuals can miscommunicate intentions, feelings, thoughts, and meanings. This evident complexity of the term resists a simple definition, and its conceptual vagueness in combination with its close association with numerous related constructs calls for a clearer definition. Given that the main purpose of communication (excluding communication that pursues deception or strategic ambiguity) is the creation of understanding, the most critical conceptual question is: What differentiates miscommunication from non-understanding and misunderstanding? The non-oppositional nature of these terms necessitates a concrete conceptual delineation.

2.2.1 Delineating understanding, non-understanding, and misunderstanding Understanding takes place when words “excite in the hearer exactly the same idea they stand for in the mind of the speaker” (Locke 1824: 15). Thus, understanding is defined in terms of the hearer’s recognition of the particular mental states of the speaker (Grice 1989). Dascal and Berenstein (1987) particularly identified two

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modes of understanding: comprehending (i.e. rules) and grasping (i.e., determination of what the rules are). According to this definition of understanding, communication (with its general purpose of creating mutual understanding) can fail in two different ways. First, in line with the Theory of Cognitive Pragmatics, communication failure is conceptualized as an individual’s unsuccessful attempt to produce an intended effect in the hearer (Airenti, Bara, and Colombetti 1993). According to Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995), the efficacy of communication is assessed in terms of attempted versus achieved relevance. Non-understanding is not considered a form of understanding. It refers to incidents when a message was not understood, meaning that the addressee failed to obtain any interpretation of the message, either because more than one interpretations were obtained with no way of choosing among them, or because the interlocutor had difficulty understanding what was said (Skantze 2005; Weigand 1999). Thus, in the event of non-understanding, the hearer either fails to hear the utterance correctly or does not understand the meaning of the utterance (e.g., lack of knowledge of the language; Schlesinger and Hurvitz 2008), reflecting either enlightenment (i.e., wanting to understand) or concealment (i.e., strategic non-understanding; Weigand 1999). Misunderstanding is a form of understanding that is partially or completely deviant from what the speaker intended to communicate. It is exclusively related to the hearer, implying that the interlocutor who misunderstands is typically not aware of it. Misunderstanding is not a cognitive act but an (in)ability of the hearer to understand the message as intended (Weigand 1999). Language can tolerate misunderstandings, and they are normally corrected in ongoing dialogue (i.e., “Dialogic Principle”). Thus, misunderstanding actually serves the purpose of communication to “come to an understanding” (Weigand 1999). Misunderstanding is a multifaceted construct. It consists of misperceptions (i.e., interlocutors have different beliefs about the world; Zaefferer 1977) and misinterpretations (i.e., message was not directed at the receiver but falsely interpreted by the receiver; Guerrero and Floyd 2006), suggesting that misunderstanding takes place when the listener obtains an interpretation of the message that is not in line with the speaker’s intentions, meanings, thoughts, or feelings (Sillars 2002). Furthermore, misunderstanding includes the way an interlocutor pretends the message to have been understood by herself or the addressee (Schlesinger and Hurvitz 2008). Thus, misunderstanding may be the strategic means by which some desirable ends are achieved (Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles 1991), implying that misunderstanding can be both a language and a relational issue (Dun 2009). A recent empirical analysis of lay perspectives identified six types of misunderstandings that are characterized by interpersonal chasms that vary in width. The type of misunderstanding with the widest underlying chasm consists of 1. fundamental misunderstandings (e.g., irresolvable gaps due to the fact that people are

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essentially different, including dislike and lack of interest in bridge-building), followed by 2. motivated misunderstandings (e.g., disagreements, content-versus-relational problems, conflicting goals that are incompatible with understanding), 3. surprising differences (e.g., uncertainty-increasing events/transgressions), 4. illocutionary differences (e.g., intended versus unintended functions of talk, unintended negative response), 5. misplanning (e.g., difficulty coordinating future actions, competing goals), and 6. pragmatic misunderstandings (e.g., lack of shared knowledge, such as meeting at the wrong time, bringing the wrong box, bank report not sent on time, typically discovered at a later stage; Dun 2009).

2.2.2 Delineating communication, non-communication, and miscommunication Communication takes place when a message with socially shared meaning is exchanged between a sender and receiver (Guerrero and Floyd 2006). Because the speaker and receiver are different persons, different worlds meet in the communication process (Weigand 1999). Furthermore, our human complexity cannot be fully translated into language. Therefore, we need to decompose our intent, feelings, thoughts, and meaning into words and nonverbal cues in the hope for a valid inference on part of the receiver (Mortensen 1997), and we rely on inferential processes to arrive at meanings that are not explicitly expressed. Such processes rely on our assumptions, knowledge, and cognitive activities (Weigand 1999). There are numerous terms that accompany this error-prone inferential procedure that describes the core of the recipient design (see Mustajoki 2012), which maximizes the likelihood of successful communication, especially in the case of non-shared knowledge (Bazzanella and Damiano 1999). For example, the receiver may misinterpret words and behaviors that appear ambiguous or vague, mis-retrieve the implicated proposition, misappreciate the form of the message, mis-resonate the message (e.g., disagreement or emotional reaction), or mis-infer the message intent (e.g., have a diverging inference from that of the speaker; Schlesinger and Hurvitz 2008). Thus, this inferential process is a complex social phenomenon that illustrates the challenge of obtaining a common ground in respect to each other’s thoughts, feelings, meanings, and intent. Non-communication is a contested concept (e.g., see Andersen 1991; Bavelas 1990; Motley 1990, 1991) that entails unattended behavior (i.e., when behavior was encoded without intention and not decoded), attempted communication (i.e., when behavior was encoded without intention but not decoded), and misinterpretation (i.e., when behavior was encoded without intention but decoded inaccurately). The first two forms of non-communication entail no message exchange between people and thus do not meet the basic definitional message-exchange criterion of communication. Misinterpretation does entail an exchange between sender and receiver, but because the message is not directed at the receiver, it unlikely

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has consensual social meaning, or a wrong meaning may have been attached. Therefore, misinterpretation is a form of misunderstanding that has the power to affect communication outcomes, but it is not considered a form of communication in its own rights because it is perceptual rather than communicative in nature (Guerrero and Floyd 2006). There are three forms of communication, including accidental communication (i.e., when behavior is sent without intention but decoded accurately), successful communication (i.e., when behavior is encoded intentionally and decoded accurately), and miscommunication (i.e., a form of unsuccessful communication and takes place when behavior is sent with intention but decoded inaccurately; Guerrero and Floyd 2006). Considering the interpersonal chasms discussed above, miscommunication is not to be characterized as a deviation from some underspecified ideal (Coupland et al. 1991) or as a failure, but rather as an integral component of communication. Language and communication are pervasively and intrinsically flawed, partial, and problematic. Because the context envisaged by the sender of a message simply cannot be considered identical to the context envisaged by the receiver (Sperber and Wilson 1986), people have difficulty arriving at the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others (Kruger, Gordon, and Kuban 2006), and in this light, conversation failure needs to be considered the rule rather than the exception (Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles 1991; Ringle and Bruce 1982). Miscommunication entails misunderstandings, problematic talks, and unsuccessful interactions (Coupland et al 1991; Verdonik 2010). It is the result of uncorrected misunderstandings (i.e., when communication continued without awareness and subsequent rectification of a misunderstanding on both ends). In contrast to misunderstanding, miscommunication does not serve the purpose of “coming to an understanding” (Weigand 1999) – instead, it is the outcome of misunderstandings. In that light, miscommunication can be either unintended or intended – entailing either inadvertent communication failures, or strategic motivations of at least one of the interlocutors to camouflage or conceal true intentions, wants, needs, or goals (Mafela 2013).

2.3 Sources of misunderstanding and miscommunication Objectively seen, the common ground between humans is quite significant. In fact, only 0.1 % of genes are different between human beings (also see Beatty and Pascual-Ferrá in this volume). However, even identical twins have different life experiences (Mustajoki 2012). Thus, a full correspondence between two mental worlds is unthinkable, and the common assumption that the ideas we signify by our words and gestures are the same as the ideas others signify by their use of these same words and gestures is flawed (Mortensen 1997): Speakers’ and hearers’ understanding can never be identical because each holds a uniquely different point of view

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that is based on personal experiences, cognitive background, as well as their physical, social, and mental states (Verdonik 2010). These comprehensive differences comprise a set of mental, intellectual, and emotional factors that interlocutors bring with them into their conversations. Such factors include, for example, their communicative ability (e.g., repertoire of words and language structures, skill in their contextual application), cultural background (e.g., personal histories and knowledge frames), cognitive systems (e.g., patterns of thinking, rational versus experiential communication modes), relationship (e.g., connection, closeness), contextual elements (e.g., surrounding environment in which the interaction takes place, familiarity with the given context), as well as their emotional and physiological states (e.g., personal feelings such as sorrow, physiological states such as illness, tiredness, or pain; Mustajoki 2012). Such interpersonal differences naturally lead to communication difficulties and increase the likelihood of misunderstanding and subsequent miscommunication (Weigand 1999). Grice (1975) attempted to overcome these interpersonal chasms by postulating his Cooperative Principle, which implies that effective speakers make themselves understandable by simply taking into account to whom they are talking. However, even if there were no external (e.g., social, cultural, and linguistic) differences, misunderstandings would still be likely to occur due to problematic reference and problematic sequential implicature (Schlegloff 1987). People tend to be systematically biased to think that they are understood when they are not (Keysar and Henly 2002). Also, they tend to consult their own mental contents to guide inferences about the mental states of others (Todd et al. 2011). Furthermore, common interpersonal motivations such as deception (e.g., demeanor bias, Bond, Kahler, and Paolicelli 1985), intergroup integration (e.g., signal amplification bias, Vorauer 2005; Vorauer and Sakamoto 2006), politeness (e.g., use of ambiguous speech), and positive face maintenance (e.g., use of metaphors and figurative speech to appear competent; Mustajoki 2012) at times overshadow the importance of clarity and trigger misunderstandings and processes that ultimately increase the likelihood of miscommunication. Previous research has typologized the sources of misunderstanding and miscommunication into linguistic (e.g., the spoken word), perceptive (e.g., nonverbal), cognitive (e.g., understanding what is meant/explicitness in what is said), actionrelated (e.g., preferences and emotions), and referential (i.e., what has to be presupposed) categories (Weigand 1999). Within these categories, misunderstandings and miscommunication can be triggered by structural, speaker-related, interlocutor-related, and interaction-related factors. Structural triggers, for example, include disturbances along the communicative channel, troubles caused by the use of a foreign language, and structural ambiguities. Speaker-related triggers involve local (e.g., slips of the tongue, misconceptions, use of ambiguous forms) and global factors (i.e., structuring of information on pragmatic and syntactic levels, such as

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politeness or indeterminacy). Interlocutor-related triggers encompass knowledge problems (e.g., lexical incompetence, false beliefs, gaps in encyclopedic knowledge) and cognitive processes (e.g., cognitive load effects on production, wrong inferences). Finally, interaction triggers include issues such as non-shared knowledge, topic organization, and focusing problems (Bazzanella and Damiano 1999). A calibration of these previous categorizations yields a more encompassing framework that organizes the sources of misunderstanding and miscommunication into nine categories. These categories encompass interpersonal differences in 1. traits, 2. perceptions, 3. cognition, 4. emotional and physiological states, 5. rules and boundaries, 6. social processes, 7. goals, 8. contextual factors, and 9. linguistics, all of which interlocutors bring into their interactions. The following section elaborates each of these sources in further detail.

2.3.1 Traits Individual trait (e.g., age, sex) differences constitute a core source of potential misunderstandings (Mahaffey 2010). For example, communicative differences and literacy barriers between the young and the old can lead to severe miscommunication. Such miscommunication has been associated with stereotyping on part of the younger people and control issues on part of the older people (e.g., Sparks and Balazs 1997). Along the same vein, men and women in the United States grow up in different sociolinguistic subcultures. While girls’ communication is geared toward mutual commitment and harmony, the communication of boys centers on dominance (Maltz and Borker 1982). Furthermore, females tend to learn that questions are used to keep a conversation going while males learn that questions are used to elicit information and control conversations (Mulac et al. 1998). As a result, their genderlects (Tannen 1991) constitute different communication styles that often lead to misunderstandings, which in turn can cause confusion, frustration, and tension. Even sexual coercion and other forms of sexual abuse can result from cross-gender miscommunication, for example because men falsely believe that a woman wants sex, and because women engage in token resistance (i.e., saying no but meaning yes) or are unable to communicate their disinterest clearly and effectively (Frith and Kitzinger 1997). These are just a few examples that illustrate how individual traits constitute fundamental interpersonal differences that result in severe misunderstandings and, if they are not corrected, in miscommunication.

2.3.2 Perception Peoples’ perceptions of themselves and others are influenced by a variety of factors, such as their experiences, ideologies, preferences, motivational states, emotions, and psychological predispositions (e.g., narcissism, egocentrism, etc.; Cham-

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bers and De Dreu 2014; Mustajoki 2012; Verdonik 2010). Such factors contribute to pronounced perceptual biases. For example, people often see only what they want to see (i.e., selective exposure) or commit self-inflation errors by tending to consider themselves to be above average (see Mortensen 1997). Such perceptive inaccuracy of oneself and the other induces a great communicative challenge that often leads to miscalculation (Mortensen 1997), resulting in misunderstandings and miscommunication. For example, physicians’ biased self-perceptions and differential face concerns among medical specialties can induce miscommunication-based safety challenges in the operating room (Kirschbaum 2012). Perceptual problems are also prevalent in the airline industry, where false assumptions about pilots’ commands of English, for example, have led to numerous fatal crashes (Jones 2003). Perception also involves the skill of accurately decoding speech and nonverbal cues in interpersonal interactions (see also Chapters 5 and 6 in this volume). For example, the mis-monitoring of discourse (particularly the failure to perceive nonverbal signals) often leads to misunderstandings in interactions (Schlesinger and Hurvitz 2008), as do predispositional perceptions to perceive honesty over dishonesty (or vice versa) in people (Bond, Kahler, and Paolicelli 1985).

2.3.3 Cognition Differences in people’s abilities related to information processing, such as thought, intelligence, knowledge, literacy, and (avoidance of) cognitive effort, also constitute a pronounced barrier to successful communication. For example, people host a variety of cognitive biases (e.g., heuristics, wishful thinking, etc.) and vary in respect to their attention spans, working memory recall, speed of thought, patterns of thought, reasoning (e.g., experiential versus rational modes), information-processing, as well as in their comprehension (i.e., repertoire) and production (e.g., speaking rates) of languages (e.g., Mahaffey 2010; Mustajoki 2012; Weigand 1999). People may also experience external-internal chaos induced by conflict and paradox (Mortensen 1997). These cognitive characteristics influence people’s understanding of what is said, and also impact the explicitness of their own communication. For example, expert–laymen communication is often grounded in differential knowledge frames contributing to divergent understandings (Weigand 1999). Thus, interpersonal differences in cognitive composition, ability, and processes can inevitably lead to misunderstanding and subsequent miscommunication.

2.3.4 Emotions and physiology Our emotional and physiological states inevitably influence our communication, including our encoding, decoding, and contextualization of verbal and nonverbal messages and the meaning we attribute to them (e.g., Weigand 1999). Emotional

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states complicate the nonverbal encoding and decoding of messages (e.g., complexity of emotions, leakage, disfluency in eye contact, etc.). In fact, emotions even often cause us to do the opposite of what we should be doing from the perspective of our communicative goals. Particularly emotional overdrive can lead us to not being understood (Mustajoki 2012). Thus, people vary in their ability to recognize experienced emotions both in themselves and in their conversational partners. As a result, emotional language can be fuzzy or highly charged, and it can be used in ambiguous ways (Mortensen 1997). Physiological states manifest themselves in more tangible communication processes, such as speech disfluencies (e.g., swallowing of phrases or words, mumbling, slips of the tongue, contamination of syntactic structures; see Mustajoki 2012). Also physiological illness or tiredness compromise our communicative skillfulness (Mustajoki 2012). Thus, the valid recognition of emotional and physiological states is a prerequisite communicative skill for successful communication. In this light, both emotional and physiological states are error-prone communication resources that often contribute to misunderstandings and miscommunication.

2.3.5 Rules and boundaries Miscommunication can also result when interpersonal or intergroup rules and boundaries are not met or maintained. When boundaries are held too tightly, miscommunication may result because the interlocutors are not receptive of each other’s definitions of an event. When boundaries are too permeable, the difficulty to discern and express independent points of view may lead to miscommunication (Petronio et al. 1998). Such boundary-induced miscommunication can occur in intimate, family, professional, societal, and cultural interactions. For example, the literature has reported miscommunication as a result of boundary challenges and rule transgressions in cross-gender communication (e.g., token resistance, genderlect-scripts; Frith and Kitzinger 1997), intergenerational communication (e.g., over-/under-accommodation and patronizing speech; Sparks and Balazs 1997), intercultural communication (e.g., ethnocentric bias, stereotyping, cultural scripts, rules regarding talk and silence; Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles 1991; Mortensen 1997), and intergroup communication (e.g., signal amplification bias in intergroup overtures; Vorauer 2005; Vorauer and Sakamoto 2006).

2.3.6 Social processes Given that miscommunication is an interactive phenomenon, its sources also lie in social structures and processes. For example, the closeness, chemistry, and connection between the interlocutors influence the ease with which they accumulate

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mutual understanding (Mustajoki 2012). At the same time, research evidences that people generally have difficulty casting aside their own perspective when attempting to take the perspective of others (Chambers and De Dreu 2014). These perspective-taking errors inherently contribute to misunderstandings and miscommunication. The risk persists even when interlocutors are similar. In fact, the more similar they are, the more likely they fall into the common ground fallacy (i.e., false consensus effect), where people are systematically biased to think that they are understood when in fact they are not (Keysar and Henly 2002). Thus, common ground is not really a “common” feature of interpersonal communication (Verdonik 2010), but it requires great interpersonal effort and skill.

2.3.7 Goals Communication is goal-driven, and the attainment of one’s goals often relies on other parties. Sometimes, the contexts of such goal-driven interactions involve vulnerable situations. For example, handing over patient information between shifts, establishing roles in multi-professional teams, and dividing tasks in multi-professional rounds constitute sensible goal-driven tasks (Rabøl et al. 2012). It is particularly in these important contexts when the goals of communication episodes may appear more important to speakers than the clarity of their speech. For example, providers from different professional backgrounds have different agendas regarding patient care (Rabøl et al. 2012). In such interactions, people may regard their need to be polite, to protect their own or another’s face, or to appear intelligent as more important than the need to communicate clearly and unambiguously. However, while the use of figurative talk and metaphors may increase perceptions of intelligence as intended, it also makes speech less comprehensible and cause misunderstandings (Mustajoki 2012). The intended goals may not be transparent and difficult to decode by the receiving end. Victims of teasing, for example, tend to perceive transgressions as more serious than do perpetrators, and they also tend to perceive more negative intentions behind them (Kruger, Gordon, and Kuban 2006). Along the same vein, the intent of deception is not always transparent as there are several socially acceptable forms of deception, such as protecting the feelings of others, avoiding selfdestructive forms of behavior, and defending national security interests (Mortensen 1997). Thus, the intended goals or motivations of speakers can increase the likelihood of misunderstandings and miscommunication.

2.3.8 Context The context in which communication takes place influences the understanding individuals generate from messages. Such contextual characteristics include the

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physical environment in which the interaction takes place, such as what the interlocutors hear and see, what they have just experienced, as well as the type of discourse they are involved in (e.g., Mustajoki 2012). Communication among hospital teams, for example, takes place under conditions of high workload, multitasking, and time pressure (Rabøl et al. 2012). The external context also involves the social relations between the interlocutors, such as their relational history, power (im)balance, and psychological closeness. External noise factors also include disturbances along the communicative channel, such as a loud environment that makes it difficult to hear messages or decipher behaviors (Bazzanella and Damiano 1999). Contextual disturbances also contain internal factors. Internal disturbances include episodic psychological preoccupation with daily life interferences such as, for example, natural disaster, political events, concerns regarding children, financial worries, the death of a loved one, the threat of relationship dissolution, or diagnosis of a serious illness (Mortensen 1997). Internal disturbances can also be physiological in nature, including episodic experiences of pain or tiredness. The understanding that will be derived from communication episodes under such internal and external contextual circumstances can be quite different than the understanding that would be derived from the same communication episode in a different contextual frame.

2.3.9 Linguistics A final fundamental source of misunderstandings and miscommunication lies directly in the spoken word and the expressed message, apart from surrounding external factors (Weigand 1999). For example, people may have incompatible communication styles (e.g., Bazzanella and Damiano 1999; Kruger, Gordon, and Kuban 2006) or may not be literate in a foreign language (e.g., Binder et al. 2012). Thus, misunderstandings and miscommunication in these cases are caused directly in the processes of speech production (e.g., disturbances affecting the clarity of speech) and speech decoding (e.g., mishearing, misinterpretation; Mustajoki 2012). As discussed previously, only small parts of our ideas and emotions can be translated into human language, making communication a highly inferential process that involves the sender’s decomposition of intent, thoughts, feelings, and meaning into words and nonverbal expressions (i.e., speech encoding) and the reversal of this process on the part of the hearer (Mortensen 1997). The complexity of language, abstractness of emotions, and communicative ability of the interlocutors further complicate this challenging task. For example, there are several ways in which we can express the same thing (e.g., there are 64 identified definitions that describe the word “love”; Mahaffey 2010). Furthermore, people may use different standard forms of English, leading to flaws and unsystematic grouping of

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phrases (Jones 2003). In addition, the discourse competence (e.g., repertoire of words and structures of language, skills needed to use them in various settings, knowledge of the thoughts and feelings they evoke in the hearer; Mustajoki 2012) and interlocutors’ (lack of) speech directness and clarity (e.g., speech disfluencies, stylistic confusion, syntactic ambiguity, conceptual vagueness, slips of the tongue, mumbling, swallowing of word endings; Bazzanella and Damiano 1999; Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles 1991; Mortensen 1997; Mustajoki 2012; Schlesinger and Hurvitz 2008) contribute to mispronunciation, mishearing, misinference, and misinterpretation, which in turn increase the likelihood of miscommunication.

3 Toward a typology of human error and miscommunication The preceding sections have demonstrated that human error and miscommunication are closely related concepts with similar characteristics. For example, both are inevitable, undesirable, constitute negative transgressions of expected standards, and can facilitate negative outcomes. Therefore, a categorization scheme that links the two constructs can illuminate their interactivity for conceptual clarification and advance future investigations on this topic. The following paragraphs introduce such a potential categorization scheme (see Table 1). The assumption underlying the proposed scheme is the presence of an unwarranted and unintended deviation from a broadly accepted standard. In this light, human error can be both the source and the outcome of miscommunication, yielding the following causal sequences: 1. Human error (e.g., a person’s unwarranted and unintended failure to communicate in reasonable adherence with generally accepted standards) causes close-call interactions (e.g., misunderstandings), which (if uncorrected) result in miscommunication. 2. Human error can be both a predictor and a result of miscommunication. The proposed categorization scheme yields four cells, three of which classify imperfect communication situations (see Table 1): 1. Close-call interactions (CCI; i.e., human error occurred, but no miscommunication resulted), 2. non-preventable miscommunication (NPMC; i.e., miscommunication occurred as a function of a complication or an accident, but not from a human error), and 3. preventable miscommunication (PMC; i.e., a human error resulted in miscommunication) or latent human error (LHE; i.e., a human error occurred as the result of miscommunication). Communication errors within these three cells of the proposed categorization scheme include errors of commission (e.g., unintentional communication of false information), omission (e.g., failure to communicate), misuse (e.g., ambiguous use of language), overuse (e.g., over-accommodation), and underuse (e.g., under-ac-

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Tab. 1: Typology of communication failures due to miscommunication and human error. Human Error Non-malign, preventable, unreasonable deviation from current standards1 in at least one of five areas: 1. knowledge, 2. motivation; 3. skills, 4. context, and 5. expectancies.

Miscommunication Differential interpretations of meaning, intent, thoughts and/or feelings between sender and receiver, resulting from interpersonal chasms in at least one of nine categories: 1. traits, 2. perceptions, 3. cognition, 4. emotion and physiology, 5. rules and boundaries, 6. social processes, 7. goals, 8. context, 9. linguistics.

No

Yes

No

Successful communication Perceived by both parties as fit-to-context and goalachieving, (i.e., successfully co-created meaning and appropriately achieved intended effects).

Close-Call Interaction (CCI) Near miss (if the error did not affect the interaction; e.g., self-correction) or harmless hit (if the error affected the interaction but not the outcomes; e.g., corrected misunderstanding that lead to successful communication).

Yes

Non-preventable Miscommunication (NPMC) Complication (if predictable; e.g., inevitable contextual disadvantages) or accident (if non-predictable; e.g., dropped phone call) that caused differential interpretations.

Preventable Miscommunication (PMC) (e.g., non-corrected unwarranted and unintended deviation from competence standards that caused miscommunication). Latent human error (LHE) Intra- or interpersonal human error that was caused by either NPMC or PMC.

commodation). Moreover, they can be locutionary (i.e., related to the linguistic 1function of an utterance), illocutionary (i.e., related to the intended meaning of the speaker’s utterance, such as an assertion, demand, or promise), or perlocutionary (i.e., related to the actual effects of the utterance on the hearer; see Searle 1969; Austin 1962). Locutionary communication errors include misutterances such as linguistic confusions, misnomers, illogicalities, syntactic ambiguity, lexical homonymy, and polysemy (e.g., see Jones 2003; Schlesinger and Hurvitz 2008). Illocutionary communication errors refer to mispresentations or misrepresentations of the intended meaning of a message (e.g., see Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles 1991).

1 The reasonability of a deviation is evaluated based on a comparison to the standard conduct that would have been enacted by similar persons under similar circumstances. In communicative terms, such standards would be based on most up-to-date evidence-based knowledge or frameworks (e.g., the recipient design optimizes the likelihood of creating shared meaning).

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Perlocutionary communication errors contribute to failures in achieving an intended communicative effect in the receiver, such as, for example, speakers’ failures to convey empathy (see Fetters 2001) or failures to establish open dialogue (see Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles 1991). Any active or latent, intra- or interpersonal human error (i.e., unwarranted and unintended deviation from a recognized standard that directs proper conduct) that either the speaker or the hearer commit under these three communicative dimensions can lead to close call interactions (CCI) or preventable miscommunication (PMC). Non-preventable miscommunication (NPMC) that was produced by unpredicted accidents or predictable complications, rather than by human error, could end up leading to latent human errors in the end (LHE; error as an outcome of failed communication). The diagnostic principle of the communication competence model (Spitzberg 2009) can be applied to each communicative dimension (i.e., locutionary, illocutionary, perlocutionary) to trace the root causes of a communication error (see Hannawa and Roter 2013). According to the diagnostic principle, unintended outcomes are a function of the motivation, knowledge, skills, expectancies, or context of one or more of the communicators (Spitzberg 2009). Along the same vein, human errors underlying CCIs and PMCs would be caused by either a lack of motivation, knowledge, skills, consideration of context, and/or incongruent expectancies between the speaker and the hearer. For example, a speaker may unreasonably deviate from the Gricean quality maxim by unknowingly communicating untrue information (e.g., illocutionary knowledge-based mistake), or unintentionally engage in disfluent communication due to cognitive or physiological states (e.g., boredom, tiredness), deviating from the Gricean manner maxim (e.g., locutionary motivationbased lapse); or a speaker may deviate from the competence model’s appropriateness norm by unintentionally touching the receiver inappropriately while attempting to generate persuasive effects in the hearer (e.g., perlocutionary skill-based slip), or by inadvertently slipping out a funny joke at a funeral (e.g., illocutionary context-based slip). Finally, a speaker may breach the Gricean quantity maxim by conveying an abundance of information in an attempt to achieve an intended effect in the hearer, failing to recognize the receiver’s limited time allocation for the particular communication episode (e.g., perlocutionary expectancies-based slip). These examples illustrate how the communication competence model (Spitzberg 2009) can be applied to the proposed categorization scheme to clarify the interactivity of human error and miscommunication within the three communicative dimensions of locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.

4 Implications and concluding remarks This chapter discussed interpersonal communication competence in light of two crucial limitations of human existence. First, humans will always make mistakes,

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no matter how perfect the surrounding circumstances are. The second limitation arises from the fact that all humans differ from each other in fundamental ways (i.e., see discussion above on interpersonal chasms and common ground). As a result, “there are no perfect translations, or flawless interpreters, of the human code” (Mortensen 1997: 4). These two inevitable predispositions accumulate into a dangerous cocktail that compromises the quality of human interactions in ways that can pose severe threats to well-being in various areas of life. For example, flawed communication is one of the main factors that contribute to fatalities in the health care and airline industries, but also – more generally – one of the main causal factors humans attribute with dissatisfying and unhealthy relationships. The goal of this chapter was to shed light onto this prevalent and complex phenomenon, and to clarify the conceptual characteristics and associations between human error and miscommunication in an interdisciplinary light. The discussion yielded a heuristic typology that integrated the two predispositions of human kind into a coherent conceptual scheme, suggesting that human error can be both a contributing and resulting factor of miscommunication (see Table 1). There are five implications that emerge from this integration: First, the human predispositions to commit errors and generate miscommunication are two prevalent features that penetrate daily interactions. They need to be curbed in order to increase the likelihood of successful communication, which in turn is necessary for the reduction of abovementioned harms and relational dissatisfaction. Second, there is one critical conceptual feature that differentiates human error from miscommunication: Human error is measurable both in presence and in absence of unintended outcomes. For example, an error may lead to a near miss that does not end up causing an undesired outcome. Miscommunication, on the other hand, is in itself an unintended outcome that results from either non-preventable (e.g., contextual disadvantages) or preventable (i.e., insufficient skills) factors during an interaction. Thus, human error may be one of the causes of miscommunication, or it may be an outcome of miscommunication that was not necessarily induced by a human error in the first place (e.g., a false diagnosis resulting from a non-preventable miscommunication between a provider and a patient). Third, not all failures of communication are genuine mistakes or errors (Schlesinger and Hurvitz 2008). Individuals may also deliberately choose to behave in a nonstandard way. This category of human behavior falls within miscommunication, but outside of the realm of human error, given that human error by definition assumes an unintended (and unwarranted) deviation from normal standards. The underlying intentionality that pursues this particular type of adversity is captured conceptually by the term violation and includes, for example, deceptive communication, which typically strives to produce false impressions and erroneous assumptions (Mortensen 1997). Such violations, although they also require a great deal of skill, are not the focus of this chapter but are treated in the dark side chapters of this volume.

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Fourth, whereas both human error and miscommunication cannot be completely avoided, their incidence and deleterious effects can be minimized. Communication competence is directly associated with interlocutors’ capacity and willingness to produce mutual understanding. Likewise, their inability or unwillingness to make well-reasoned sense together constitutes a severe liability (Mortensen 1997). Therefore, communication competence functions as the mechanism through which the interpersonal chasms underlying miscommunication can be reduced and common ground can be expanded. It also constitutes the means through which human errors in communication (e.g., encoding, decoding, mutual sense-making) can be prevented and reduced. Fifth, the reasonability criterion (Banja 2005) postulates that human error constitutes the unreasonable deviation from broadly accepted standards of conduct. In communication science, there is no general conceptualization of what constitutes a “golden standard” against which deviations could be measured. Although general guidelines emerge from the literature such as the recipient design (Mustajoki 2012) or conversational maxims (Grice 1975), to date there is no one universal golden measure of successful interactions. Is successful communication measured based on the degree of shared meaning that was established between interlocutors, or should it measure a speaker’s success in producing a desired effect in the hearer? Even when agreement on these questions has been established, the definition of human error as an unreasonable deviation from a socially accepted standard makes communication error intrinsically difficult to operationalize (e.g., see Spitzberg 1993, 1994). Where is the line that differentiates a reasonable deviation from an unreasonable deviation from that established standard? These questions imply that communication error needs to be quite tightly contextualized. The communication competence framework (Spitzberg 2009) aids such a task in setting as a standard what would be considered as appropriate and effective by the majority of similar actors (e.g., primary care physicians) in a particular context (e.g., emergency care situation with a multi-morbid patient). The implications discussed above can be summarized into five key dilemmas that necessitate further reflection in future communication competence scholarship: 1. We can never achieve perfect mutual understanding. 2. There are no universal standards for “good” communication. 3. Standardization is needed for a reasonability assessment of human error in communication. 4. Humans are fallible. Thus, once we identify communication standards, we will breach them. 5. Substandard communication can compromise the health and well-being of all parties involved (e.g., Jones 2003; Pagnamenta et al. 2012). These dilemmas call for a radical reframing of current communication competence research and practice: Miscommunication and human fallibility need to be em-

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braced as normative standards underlying all human interaction. This paradigmatic reframing implies that communication competence is the sine qua non of social functioning. Furthermore, it stipulates an antithesis to existing scholarship that researches communication competence based on a presumption of mutual understanding: Mutual understanding is a high quality standard that is attained through competent interaction, in those contexts in which clarity and accuracy of understanding are particularly valued. At the same time, its attainment is stained by inevitable human fallibility. This insight suggests that optimal interpersonal communication requires great skill and focused interpretive labor. If interlocutors do not “pay” this cost for attaining mutual understanding, miscommunication will continue to penetrate and compromise everyday social interactions with the potential of causing harm in high-value contexts. Therefore, human error and miscommunication need to be rescued from their exile as deviant instances and placed into the center of communication competence research to explore their rich explanatory potential across diverse contexts, and to identify what communication theory can offer to prevent and correct human errors in communication and understanding. In today’s hectic world, individuals have limited time and skill to invest the efforts that are needed to pick out other people’s implications. Therefore, in order to implement this new paradigmatic perspective in everyday interactions, individuals need to acquire the skill to see things from another’s point of view and more deeply from their own (Mortensen 1997). Furthermore, they need to learn to see themselves and others as fallible human beings, and find a deeper sense of common ground to explore with their peers. When communication difficulties are kept to a minimum, it becomes progressively easier for individuals to express themselves clearly and to interpret others accurately. Thus, both researchers and lay persons need to arrive at a radical acceptance of the distinct reality that distinguishes themselves from other living beings, and to embrace human fallibility as an inevitable predisposition that flaws their abilities and human existence. This transformative shift yields the opportunity for a genuine form of competent sensemaking practice, where error management and interpersonal skill eventually contribute to greater understanding and decreased miscommunication.

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Ringle, Martin and Bertram Bruce. 1982. Conversation failure. In: Wendy Lehnert and Martin Ringle (eds.), Strategies for Natural Language Processing, 203–222. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Robbins, Steve. 2000. Communication breakdown. Harvard Management Communication Letter 3(9). 1–3. Schlegloff, Emanuel. 1987. Some sources of misunderstanding in talk-in-interaction. Linguistics 25. 201–218. Schlesinger, Izschak and Sharon Hurvitz. 2008. The structure of misunderstandings. Pragmatics and Cognition 16(3). 568–585. Searle, John. 1969. Speech Acts. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Sillars, Alan. 2002. For better or for worse: Rethinking the role of communication and “misperception” in family conflict. Paper presented at the 16th annual B. Aubrey Fisher Memorial Lecture, University of Utah. Skantze, Gabriel. 2005. Exploring human error recovery strategies: Implications for spoken dialogue systems. Speech Communication 45. 325–341. Sparks, Lisa B. and Anne L. Balazs. 1997. Improving intergenerational health care communication. Journal of Health Communication 2. 129–137. Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson. 1986/1995. Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell. Spitzberg, Brian H. 1993. The dialectics of (in)competence. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 10. 137–158. Spitzberg, Brian H. 1994. The dark side of (in)competence. In: William R. Cupach and Brian H. Spitzberg (eds.), The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication, 25–49. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Spitzberg, Brian H. 2009. Axioms for a theory of intercultural communication competence. Annual Review of English Learning and Teaching 14. 17–29. Tannen, Deborah. 1991. You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. London: Virago. Todd, Andrew, Karlene Hanko, Adam Galinsky and Thomas Mussweiler. 2011. When focusing on differences leads to similar perspectives. Psychological Science 22(1). 134–141. Verdonik, Darinka. 2010. Between understanding and misunderstanding. Journal of Pragmatics 42. 1464–1379. Vorauer, Jacquie. 2005. Miscommunications surrounding efforts to reach out across group boundaries. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31. 1653–1664. Vorauer, Jacquie and Yumiko Sakamoto. 2006. I thought we could be friends, but …: Systematic miscommunication and defensive distancing as obstacles to cross-group friendship formation. Psychological Science 17(4). 326–331. Weigand, Edda. 1999. The standard case. Journal of Pragmatics 31. 763–785. Zaefferer, Dietmar. 1977. Understanding misunderstanding: A proposal for an explanation of reading choices. Journal of Pragmatics 1. 329–346.

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28 Verbal and physical aggression Abstract: This chapter provides a review and critique of the literature connecting aggression to communicative competence. First, links in the literature between of aggression and conflict are reviewed, acknowledging the constructive potential of conflict. There is a presumption among aggression scholars that aggression is destructive; however, constructive forms of aggression have long been conceptualized. The literature on communication predispositions to aggression defines aggression as the application of force, distinguishes symbolic from physical aggression, and explicates its constructive and destructive forms (argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness). The relationship of aggression to communication competence is discussed, linking communication predispositions of aggression to communicator skill. Related theoretical models are reviewed, including the theory of independent-mindedness, argumentative skill deficiency, and a model of aggression competence. Related research on aggression and competence is then reviewed, including positive and negative presumptions about violence. The difficulty of applying a competence framework to intentionally harmful behavior is addressed. Special attention is given to verbal aggression, anger, children’s aggression, and intimate partners. The chapter concludes that some aggressive communication may indeed be considered competent, and that the links between harmful communicative aggression and competence are unclear. The dichotomous consideration of nonaggression as good and aggression as bad does not reflect extant research. While individual skills are important, the key to understanding argument, verbal aggression, physical aggression, and the relative communication competencies associated with them lie at the relational, family, or other grouplevel systems level. Keywords: aggression, verbal aggressiveness, argumentativeness, intimate partner violence, appropriateness, effectiveness, independent mindedness, argumentative skill deficiency, aggression competence, physical aggression

1 Introduction Behavioral scholars have a long history of theorizing and investigating aggression, in a variety of forms and contexts. For purposes of scope and focus, this chapter will concentrate on interpersonal aggression. In general, treatments of interpersonal aggression presume the presence of conflict, though conflict itself is rarely theorized in studies of aggression. In conflict studies across disciplines, there is a general emphasis on the constructive potential of conflict to enhance critical thinking,

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build consensus on issues, and strengthen relationships, among other positive effects. Conflict itself, it is often said, is inevitable, and so it is not conflict by nature that is unpleasant or destructive, but rather our conflict management behavior that determines our assessment of the process and/or outcome as good or bad. However, aggression scholars hold an implicit assumption that aggression is negative and destructive, hence its appearance as a “dark side” issue in this volume. Certainly, the links between aggression and intimate partner or family violence are not to be taken lightly, but our concern over damaging forms of aggression overshadows the recognition of constructive forms. There is but one tradition in communication studies that explicitly conceptualizes constructive forms of aggression: Communication predispositions to aggression.

2 Communication predispositions to aggression This body of theory and research has been reviewed in two relatively recent volumes (Avtgis and Rancer 2010; Rancer and Avtgis 2006), although related works exist that parallel this line of theory (e.g., Dailey, Lee, and Spitzberg 2007; Kinney 1994). The basic model conceptualizing communication predispositions to aggression has its roots in personality theory. In particular, it is based on Andersen’s (1987) taxonomy of individual differences or traits that influence communication behavior, specifying “communication predispositions” as a type of individual difference variable. Communication predispositions are an “attempt to understand, measure, or predict stability in an individual’s attitude regarding communication behavior” (p. 50). In a thorough conceptualization taxonomizing aggression, Infante (1987a) begins by defining aggression as any kind of attack – more specifically, the applying of force onto one person by another. He relies heavily on Buss (1961), who defines aggression as a behavioral response delivering pain to another person. After reviewing several traditional treatments of aggression, Infante comes to a working definition: An interpersonal behavior may be considered aggressive if it applies force physically and/or symbolically in order, minimally, to dominate and perhaps damage or, maximally, to defeat and perhaps destroy the locus of attack. The locus of attack in interpersonal communication can be a person’s body, material possessions, self-concept, position on topics of communication, or behavior. (p. 158)

Infante (1987a) proceeds to develop a detailed typology of aggression that neatly categorizes argumentativeness, a subset of assertiveness, as symbolic constructive aggression, and verbal aggressiveness, a subset of hostility, as destructive symbolic aggression. In so doing, he also distinguishes these symbolic forms of aggression from constructive and destructive physical forms of aggression. The typology is consistent with much of the research distinguishing assertive, aggressive, and pas-

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Fig. 1: Infante’s (1987a) typology of aggression.

sive forms of communication (Spitzberg 1994; Spitzberg, Canary, and Cupach 1994). Figure 1 provides a graphic depiction of Infante’s typology of aggression. There are several other established typologies of intimate partner violence (see: Holtzworth-Munroe and Meehan 2004; e.g., instrumental vs. expressive: Hamel, Desmarais, and Nicholls 2007; McEllistrem 2004; Tweed and Button 1998; familyonly vs. dysphoric/borderline vs. generally violent/antisocial: Delsol, Margolin, and John 2003; Dixon and Browne 2003; Holtzworth-Munroe et al. 2000; situational couple violence vs. intimate terrorism; Johnson 1995, 2006, 2011), but these are not derived from a communication perspective. Infante concedes, and it is apparent from the figure, that human behavior in situ is not so tidily categorized. For example, what he classifies as constructive physical task aggression can be used symbolically to humiliate a co-worker, thus functioning as what the model categorizes as hostility (destructive symbolic aggression). Fundamentally, the model limits the meaning of “symbolic” to “verbal”, although Infante points out the complication of potential multiple meanings (i.e., physical acts may be used symbolically). This model is, however, a useful organizer for our current task, which is to explore the communication competence implications in the literature on verbal and physical aggression. Argumentativeness is defined as a stable trait that predisposes an individual to defend a position on an issue and verbally attack the positions of others (Infante and Rancer 1982). Moreover, “argumentativeness may be considered a subset of assertiveness, in that all arguing is assertive, but not all assertiveness involves

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arguing” (Infante 1987a: 164). A person with high argumentativeness enjoys arguing and will eagerly engage in verbal debate; “the individual perceives this activity as an exciting intellectual challenge, a competitive situation which entails defending a position and ‘winning points’” (Infante and Rancer 1982: 72). Conversely, a person low in argumentativeness feels uncomfortable about arguing before, during, and after the event that calls for argument (Infante and Rancer 1982). Verbal aggressiveness is defined as “the tendency to attack the self-concepts of individuals instead of, or in addition to, their positions on topics of communication” (Infante 1987a: 164). One potential complication of this definition is the lack of thorough conceptualization of self-concept. Given that some perspectives view self-confirmation or consistency of messages with self-concept as important as the valence of such messages, it is possible that negative messages that are consistent with a person’s self-concept could be interpreted as less disruptive than inconsistent positive messages (Dailey, Lee, and Spitzberg 2007). The most common forms of verbal aggressiveness are competence attacks, teasing, and nonverbal emblems (such as hand gestures). Other less common forms include character attacks, background attacks, physical appearance attacks, maledictions, teasing, swearing, ridicule, and threats (Wigley 1998). “Verbally aggressive messages do not contain the dimensions of respect and trust” (Myers and Johnson 2003: 93), and are more common in exchanges where the topic is of great importance and the consequences are very meaningful to those involved. Infante and colleagues (1984) identified four primary reasons individuals are verbally aggressive, including psychopathology (repressed hostility), disdain for the other person, social learning of aggression, and argumentative skill deficiency (not knowing how to argue constructively). Trait verbal aggressiveness may also have biological origins (see Beatty and PascualFerra, this volume), having been associated with asymmetry in the prefrontal cortex (Heisel 2010) and with prenatal androgen exposure (Shaw et al. 2012). It is widely acknowledged that argumentative communication that is not verbally aggressive is competent (e.g., reviews in Avtgis and Rancer 2010; Rancer and Avtgis 2006; Infante and Rancer 1996; Rancer and Nicotera 2006).

2.1 Links to communication competence As fully explicated in the opening chapters of this volume, communication competence is generally defined as the ability to interact successfully (Spitzberg and Cupach 1984), emphasizing a dyadic perspective (Goffmann 1969; Wiemann 1977), goal achievement (Bochner and Kelly 1974), and context (Bochner and Kelly 1974; Hymes 1979; Wiemann 1977). Across traditions in communication competence, the common meaning is clear: “the ability of an interactant to choose among available communicative behaviors in order that he [sic] may successfully accomplish his own interpersonal goals during an encounter while maintaining the face and line of his fellow interactants within the constraints of the situation” (Wiemann 1977:

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198). Communication competence is thus an outcome (McFall 1982; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984; Spitzberg and Hurt 1987) that can be self- or other-assessed (Parks 1994; Spitzberg 2003; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984). Spitzberg’s (1983, 1988) central criteria, appropriateness and effectiveness, are implicitly or explicitly echoed in most treatments of communication competence. Appropriateness is defined by social sanctions (Bellack and Hersen 1978; Trenholm and Rose 1981), but avoiding negative sanctions is insufficient without goal achievement, which reflects effectiveness (Canary and Spitzberg 1987; Parks 1977, 1985). Aggressive communication has long been linked to communicator skill. It must be noted at the outset that both argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness, while conceptualized as predispositions, have been measured and observed as both self-reports of typical behavior and as other-reports of actual or hypothetical behavior. Argumentativeness is linked to competent communication (Onyekwere, Rubin, and Infante 1991), while verbal aggressiveness is seen as less competent, less desirable, and may even be triggered by situational variables to escalate to violence (Sabourin, Infante, and Rudd 1993; Infante, Chandler, and Rudd 1989). The locus of attack in argumentative communication is the opinion or position on a topic; whereas, the locus of attack in verbally aggressive communication is the other’s self-concept. From a pragmatic perspective, argumentativeness can be seen as existing in the content domain, its focus being the issue; whereas verbal aggressiveness exists in the relational domain, its focus being the person. The general conclusion from this program of research is that argumentative communication tends to promote positive outcomes, whereas verbally aggressive communication tends to promote negative outcomes (Rancer et al. 1997). Early work in the area quickly established the relational outcomes associated with these predispositions. Martin, Anderson, and Horvath (1996) demonstrated no impact of argumentativeness on friendship quality, but noted the hurtful effects of verbal aggressiveness, which were more pronounced as relational closeness increased. Further, Semic and Canary (1997) concluded that verbal aggressiveness interferes with constructive argument production between friends. In dating couples, verbal aggressiveness is likewise shown to be incompetent (Veneble and Martin 1997). In families, the pattern may be slightly different. While they found no effect for levels of verbal aggressiveness, Rancer, Baukus, and Amato (1986) illustrate that asymmetry in argumentativeness (one partner high, the other low) did predict marital satisfaction. Between parents and their children, the impact of verbal aggressiveness is far more damaging. Verbally aggressive parents undermine self-esteem and social competence in their children (Roberts et al. 2009). Parents who are high in verbal aggressiveness are more likely to escalate from frustration to anger than those low in verbal aggressiveness, providing further evidence of the contention that verbal aggressiveness is triggered or moderated by situational factors (Rudd et al. 1998). More disturbingly, children with highly verbally aggressive mothers are impeded as adults in their ability to achieve the emotional support

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and interpersonal solidarity necessary for fulfilling adult relationships (Weber and Patterson 1997). The impact between fathers and sons is equally concerning. The higher fathers’ verbal aggressiveness, the less socially appropriate both fathers and sons rate their fathers’ interaction plans (Beatty et al. 1996; Rudd et al. 1997). Further, fathers high in verbal aggressiveness are significantly more likely to view corporal punishment, such as slapping, as appropriate (Rudd et al. 1997). Finally, among siblings, verbal aggressiveness predicts low trust, low relational satisfaction, and more destructive teasing (Martin et al. 1997). Other studies that link argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness to communicator skill abound (e.g., see reviews by Infante and Rancer 1996 and Rancer and Nicotera 2006). Assertiveness generally is associated with communication competence (Zakahi 1985). Those high in argumentativeness and low in verbal aggressiveness are more likely to engage in collaborative decision-making (Anderson, Martin, and Infante 1998). Related theoretical models, reviewed below, were developed from such links to communicator skill. For example, the theory of independent-mindedness (Infante and Gorden 1987) is based in organizational communication research linking subordinates’ levels of satisfaction with aggressive communication. Infante et al. (1993) found that satisfaction increased as superiors were seen as higher in argumentativeness, lower in verbal aggressiveness, and were more affirming (relaxed, friendly, attentive) in communicator style. Additionally, research concluding that verbal aggressiveness predicts interspousal violence (Sabourin, Infante, and Rudd 1993), and the acquisition of argumentative skill reduces intrafamily violence (Infante, Chandler, and Rudd 1989) yielded the argumentative skill deficiency model. The model essentially proposes that one of the causes of aggression is the lack of more competent, argumentative skills needed to resolve interpersonal conflicts or transgressions. More recently, Edwards and Myers (2007) demonstrated that students perceive instructors who display high argumentativeness and low verbal aggressiveness as more competent, caring, and credible. Using McCroskey and Richmond’s (1996) competence dimensions assertiveness and responsiveness, Martin and Anderson (1996) found that assertive communicators are more argumentative and that responsive communicators are less verbally aggressive. Similarly, in other research, high argumentatives feel more communicatively competent (Rancer, Kosberg, and Silvestri 1992) and are rated as both more effective and appropriate (Onyekwere, Rubin, and Infante 1991) than low argumentatives. Martin, Anderson, and Thweatt (1998) found that cognitive flexibility and communication flexibility were both positively related to argumentativeness and negatively related to verbal aggressiveness. Frymier, Wanzer and Wojtaszczyk (2008) found that student perception of teacher verbal aggressiveness was positively correlated with the teacher’s propensity to use inappropriate humor (disparaging to others, unrelated to course content, or offensive in other ways). Further, perception of teacher verbal aggressiveness was also negatively correlated with teacher nonverbal immediacy and conver-

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sational appropriateness. Student self-report verbal aggressiveness was negatively correlated with student communication competence and predicted their perception that their teachers use other-disparaging humor. Olson’s (2002) participants felt appropriate when unaggressive and inappropriate when aggressive. They felt effective when achieving calm respectful discussion but identified instances where aggression was appropriate and effective. Although the research rests on an implicit presumption of aggression as destructive, several instances of overt verbally aggressive communication were seen as appropriate and/or effective because they got the partner’s attention, served as a method of self-defense, or were situationally justified. Because Olson neither addresses argument nor differentiates constructive from destructive aggression, her study is not a direct application of the Infante tradition. However, the results do highlight the complexities of aggression in relational conflict. A tidy conceptualization of argumentative communication as effective and verbally aggressive communication as inappropriate translates poorly across situations, warranting caution in our presumptions. Indeed, studies by Myers and Johnson (2003) and Nicotera et al. (2012) evidenced that high argumentativeness may be considered competent only in particular contexts. Both these studies suggested that high argumentativeness is competent when conflict and advocacy are salient to the situation. In non-confrontational situations, especially those requiring socioemotional support, low argumentative people are preferred to high argumentative people (Waggenspack and Hensley 1989). Additionally, Martin, Dunleavy and Kennedy-Lightsey (2010) reviewed research that concluded that verbally aggressive communication may be strategically used for mutually beneficial instrumental outcomes. The association between communication predispositions, aggression, and conflict styles is conceptually simple, and also illustrates the positive outcomes associated with high argumentativeness and low verbal aggressiveness. Most models of conflict style utilize conceptual dimensions concern for issue (or self) and concern for other. The literature conflates concern for issue with concern for self (see Nicotera and Dorsey (2006), for a review.) Issue/self-concern is conceptually related to argumentativeness; other-concern is conceptually (inversely) related to verbal aggressiveness. Achievement of one’s own goals predicts moderate communication competence, but sensitivity to the partner’s goals predicts both appropriateness and effectiveness (Lakey and Canary 2002). Linking conflict style to Duran’s (1983) measure of communication competence, McKinney, Kelly, and Duran (1997) found self-orientation was less competent than concern for issue (related to argumentative communication) and concern for other (inversely related to verbally aggressive communication). Gross, Guerrero, and Alberts (2004) found solution-oriented conflict style (high concern for both issue and other) was more effective and appropriate according to both self- and other-ratings. Nonconfrontive style (low on both concerns) was lower on both effec-

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tiveness and appropriateness dimensions in both self- and other-ratings. In contrast, the controlling style (high on concern for issue, low on concern for other) was effective in self-ratings, but neither effective nor appropriate in other-ratings. It must be emphasized that the conflict styles operationalization does not differentiate well between self- and issue-concern, so the distinction between types of aggression is muddied. However, it is clear that different patterns of aggressive behavior in conflict yield similar patterns in competence ratings: argument tends to be seen as effective, and hostility as inappropriate.

2.2 Related theoretical models A number of theoretical models have been derived from the communication predispositions to aggression tradition – three that relate most directly to communication competence. The theory of independent-mindedness (Infante and Gorden 1987) applies the presumed competence of highly argumentative and low verbally aggressive communication to organizational management and organizational culture. The argumentative deficiency model (Sabourin, Infante, and Rudd 1993) has been applied to abusive marital relationships and to adolescent communication. Finally, a general model of argumentative competence has been posited (Nicotera et al. 2012).

2.2.1 Theory of independent-mindedness: The constructive combination The theory of independent mindedness (TIM) is grounded in the presumption that organizational theory and practice should be based in the assumptions of the larger society. Hence, TIM is a prescriptive theory of U.S. management practice (see Rancer and Avtgis 2006 for a thorough overview.) Infante (1987b) observed that participatory models of management that were popular at the time were as antithetical to American culture as the top-down authoritarian practices they were intended to replace. The prevalent corporatist model (Derber and Schwartz 1983) endorsed participatory management practices seeking to promote collectivist models of decision-making that minimized power and status differentials. However, Infante (1987b) pointed out that while American culture promotes self-determination, autonomy, and individual rights, most notably the right to free expression, the culture also promotes power and high-status positioning as a sign of individual achievement. TIM, therefore, promotes a supervisor/subordinate dialectic that emphasizes power and status differences at the same time that it promotes respect and affirmation of the employees’ value and, especially, employee voice. Employee voice refers to the assertion of arguments, grounded in good reasons, for organizational change and job modifications and is grounded in employee commitment to organizational goals and corporate commitment to product and

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work life quality (Gorden, Infante, and Graham 1988; Gorden, Infante, and Izzo 1988). TIM predicts that when both supervisors and subordinates are high in argumentativeness, low in verbal aggressiveness, and communicate in affirming styles that are relaxed, friendly, and attentive, then subordinates will be more highly committed to the organization, more satisfied, rated more highly on their performance by their supervisors, and more effective in their upward communication than any other combination of communication traits (Infante and Gorden 1987, 1991). The most competent combination of aggressive communication is, once again, high argumentativeness and low verbal aggressiveness. While TIM, as a theoretic construction, is not widely cited, current management practices reflect its claims, and other work continues to support its predictions. For example, Kassing and Avtgis (1999) examine the influence of verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness on organizational dissent. Articulated dissent is open, clear, and aimed at internal audiences who can influence policy. Articulated dissent is the very essence of employee voice as it is encouraged by TIM. Latent dissent is frustrated ineffectual expression lacking sufficient avenue. Displaced dissent is expression to external personal (rather than media or political) audiences. Articulated dissent might be seen as both effective and appropriate, latent and displaced dissent as ineffective. Low verbal aggressiveness and high argumentativeness predict articulated dissent, and high verbal aggressiveness predicts latent dissent. There is also some evidence that TIM is applicable to family communication. Research suggests that parental communication high in argumentativeness and low in verbal aggressiveness is less likely to be associated with corporal punishment (Kassing, Pearce and Infante 2000; Kassing et al. 1999) and more likely to be associated with open communication characterized by free and more satisfying communication (Booth-Butterfield and Sidelinger 1997). Moreover, [f]amilies labeled as “pluralistic” are characterized by high levels of conversation and low levels of conformity. This combination creates an open and unrestrained family environment which all family members feel free discussing a broad range of topics. Such an unrestricted communication climate fostered the communication competence of all family members, especially children. (Swanson and Cahn 2009: 143–144)

These findings continue to support the conclusion that highly argumentative communication that is low in verbal aggressiveness is most competent.

2.2.2 Argumentative skill deficiency model: The destructive combination The argumentative skill deficiency model predicts that verbal aggressiveness is most likely to escalate to physical aggression in the absence of effective argumentative skills (Infante, Chandler, and Rudd 1989; Infante et al. 1990; Sabourin, Infante,

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and Rudd 1993). In brief, if a person has the skills to resolve conflicts through discursive use of argumentation, there is little need for more coercive means, such as verbal aggression. Previous research supports this contention, physical aggression being commonly employed during compliance-gaining episodes (Deturck 1987). Marital quality is associated with low verbal aggressiveness and high argumentativeness (Payne and Sabourin 1990). Verbal aggressiveness appears to be a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for violence. Other factors, such as financial stress, drug/alcohol use, and self-esteem, trigger latent hostility that then escalates to physical violence. Indeed, interspousal violence is associated with high levels of verbal aggressiveness (Infante et al. 1990), especially in patterns of negative reciprocity (Sabourin 1995). As compared to distressed but nonviolent couples and to nondistressed couples, violent couples exhibited significantly higher levels of verbally aggressive messages and reciprocal cycles of verbally aggressive behavior (Sabourin, Infante, and Rudd 1993). These studies confirm the supposition that violent and abusive couples lack argumentative skills. However, the question of whether training in argument skill might then reduce violence has not been directly tested from within this tradition. Although interventions that build argument and conflict skills are a therapeutic standard and are often found to be effective (Markman et al. 1993; Rappleyea, Harris, and Dersch 2009; Tutty, Babins-Wagner, and Rothery 2006), some scholars question whether the training of individual skills is sufficient to alter relational patterns as deeply rooted as intimate partner violence (Whitchurch and Pace 1993). The argumentative skill-deficiency model has also been applied to adolescents (Rancer et al. 1997), under the assumption that verbal and physical aggression might be reduced by argumentative skills training. However, although Rancer et al.’s (1997) training program for 7th grade students did indeed increase argumentative skill, increasing the students’ effectiveness in situations requiring argument, and making them feel more effective, both the immediate and longitudinal (8th grade) measures (Rancer et al. 2000) revealed no concomitant decrease in their verbal aggressiveness. Further calling into question the direct applicability of the argumentative skills deficiency model to adolescents, Roberto (1999) found that among 7th grade boys, those who had been suspended for fighting the previous year were significantly higher in verbal aggressiveness than those who were not, but argumentativeness did not predict fighting. Further, O’Neill, Clark, and Jones (2011) did find that conflict resolution training reduced levels of aggression in fourth-grade students. It must be noted, however, that trait argumentativeness and skills for producing argumentative messages are not precisely the same thing, so these results merely call our presumptions into question, warranting further research on the argumentative skills deficiency model, particularly in light of the clinical literature on communication training programs for the reduction and prevention of intimate partner violence.

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Later research rooted in this tradition (e.g., Sabourin and Stamp 1995; Stamp and Sabourin 1995) turned to qualitative methods and expanded beyond couples to families (see Cahn (2009) for a number of reviews that document and extend the impact of the argumentative skills deficiency model on the field’s research of intimate partner and family violence). Research (reviewed below) has also expanded from an individual skills deficit presumption to approaches at the family system level that examine communication patterns associated with verbal and physical abuse.

2.3 Aggression competence model Given the evidence that argumentativeness is considered competent on the effectiveness dimension and verbal aggressiveness is considered incompetent on the appropriateness dimension, Nicotera et al. (2012) sought to cross-validate the conceptualization of the two forms of aggression (the Infante tradition) with the conceptualization of effectiveness and appropriateness dimensions of competence (the Spitzberg tradition). An aggression competence model was posited for testing, wherein the four combinations of high and low argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness were aligned with Spitzberg’s (2000) four quadrants of communication competence (high and low on effectiveness and appropriateness). The most competent communication, both effective and appropriate, is optimizing, hypothesized as argumentative communication that is not verbally aggressive. The least competent communication, neither effective nor appropriate, is minimizing, hypothesized as verbally aggressive communication that is non-argumentative. The other two combinations match with Spitzberg’s typology as follows: communication that is argumentative and verbally aggressive is aligned with Spitzberg’s maximizing, effective but inappropriate; communication that is neither argumentative nor verbally aggressive alliance with Spitzberg’s sufficing, appropriate but ineffective. Nicotera et al. (2012) operationalized levels of aggression dichotomously with manipulation-checked hypothetical scenarios of an interaction, consisting of an individual who needs to address a complaint about a roommate’s messiness. The communication competence dimensions (i.e., appropriateness and effectiveness) were measured with Canary and Spitzberg’s (1987) rating scales. The hypothetical scenario was contextualized as the individual feeling frustrated with the roommate’s lack of cleanliness and desiring to confront that issue when the two sat down to study together. Hence, the actor’s goal of confronting a controversial issue was constant in all variations of hypothetical conversations. Results supported the hypothesis that argumentative communication that is not verbally aggressive is the most effective and appropriate of all combinations. However, results also showed that in ratings of non-competent combinations, argumentative and verbally aggressive communication interact differently in their effects on effectiveness and appropriateness. Specifically, the least effective combination was non-

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Fig. 2: Nicotera et al.’s (2012) Revised Aggression Competence Model. Reprinted with permission.

argumentative communication that was not verbally aggressive; whereas, the least appropriate behavior was nonargumentative but verbally aggressive communication. By holding the hypothetical scenarios constant to a situation requiring argument, the appropriateness of argument behavior was predetermined and was thus reflected in participants’ ratings. One component of appropriateness ratings is the suitability of utterances to the situation. For the explicit goal of confronting an issue of disagreement, argument is generally more appropriate than non-argument. Nicotera et al. (2012) proposed an alternative aggression competence model for situations requiring argument that splits non-competence in the way suggested by the data (see Figure 2.) In this study verbally aggressive communication that was not argumentative was more effective than communication that was neither aggressive nor argumentative. It seems, therefore, that in situations requiring argument, some degree of aggression may be better than none. In hindsight, this is a logical flaw in the hypothesized aggression competence model. The contention argumentative communication that is not verbally aggressive is most competent presumes a situation in which argument is called for. Therefore, we still have no explanation of the competence required to know when argu-

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ment is called for. We might think of this as competence in assessing situational requirements. In other words, the enactment of communicatively competent behavior relies upon the assessment of what behavior would be effective and appropriate in any given situation. This logical flaw in the research underscores the importance of context in determining communication competence. Obviously, hostility is inappropriate in any interpersonal exchange. However, the appropriateness of argument varies according to the situation. A full conceptualization of aggression competence, then, would explicate it as communication of a nonhostile nature that applies argument effectively in situations where argument is called for, and refrains from argument in situations where it is inappropriate. By way of fully understanding verbal aggression and violence, it is important to explicate the related construct of argumentative skill. Hample (2003) offers a review of arguing skill that provides a partial answer to the question of explaining competence in assessing situational requirements. The concept of argumentative competence from this tradition (Hample 2005; Hample and Dallinger 1987; Hample, Sells, and Inclán Velázquez 2009; Hample, Warner, and Norton 2006; Trapp, Yingling, and Wanner 1987; Wenzel 1980) is conceptually grounded in O’Keefe’s (1977) distinction between argument1 and argument2. Argument1 refers to a logical construction giving reason with evidence, as in, “I offered good arguments to my mother as to why she should let me borrow her car.” Argument2 refers to an interactional exchange, as in, “I argued (had an argument) with my mother about borrowing her car.” In this sense, Hample’s argumentative competence, which adds argument0, the cognitive process of argument (Hample 1985), is not grounded in the conceptualization of argument as a form of aggression. Argument, in this alternative tradition, is defined as reason-giving with any references to aggression presuming aggression-as-hostility. Hample (2003) offers an answer to the question of the competence required to assess situational requirements for argument. He identifies three possible intersecting frames that ordinary actors have for the activity of interpersonal arguing, with the presumption that competence is dependent on goal-direction. To assess competence, therefore, we must know what the actor is trying to accomplish. The first frame is primary goal – the substantive reason for engaging in argument2. There are four possible goals: to resolve an issue (utility frame), to establish dominance, self-presentation (of skill or ability), and recreation. So, a person can argue with his or her mother to borrow her car, argue with a son to show him who is boss, argue with a boss to illustrate command of the situation, or argue with a sibling about politics for the sheer fun of it. These goal types, of course, might not be exclusive. For example, the issue in need of resolution may be who is in charge (dominance), and to resolve that issue command (or not) of the situation at hand needs to be established. Each of these four possible goals carries with it different standards for what constitutes success, and therefore competence. For all four primary goal frames, hostility (verbal aggressiveness) would be considered non-com-

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petent, and considerations of social appropriateness will vary by relationship type and power dynamic. The dominance goal, however, is identified as the one most at risk to engender reciprocal destructive aggression. According to Hample (2003) to be argumentatively competent, the actor must be clear about their reasons for arguing and must be able to perceive the other person’s reason for arguing and respond accordingly. Any of the four types of goals may be legitimate, but each places different restrictions on what constitutes competent argument. Hample and Cionea (2010) present data that reveals all of these frames to be significantly correlated with both verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness. Specifically, a utility frame is weakly associated with verbal aggressiveness (r = .15) and strongly associated with argumentativeness (r = .40); a dominance frame has the opposite pattern, strongly associated with verbal aggressiveness (r = .43) and only weakly associated with argumentativeness (r = .15). Both identity and play frames are moderately associated with verbal aggressiveness (in both cases, r = .24) and strongly associated with argumentativeness (identity r = .44, recreation r = .66). The second frame is connecting with another’s goals, coordinating one’s own objectives with those of others, with three types of connection. First, those who do not make much effort to connect their goals with those of others will likely never argue competently, unless it is by accident. The two fundamental ways of connecting to others is competitively or cooperatively, which is a common distinction in many theoretic traditions on conflict and argument. Hample (2003) points out that each leads to a different form of argument as defined in the Aristotelian tradition. Eristic (competitive) arguing is fighting, seeking to win through the other’s loss – which may be well-mannered or hostile. Formal traditions of arbitration, for example, are eristic without being socially inappropriate. In interpersonal relations, however, eristic arguing takes the form of meeting one’s goals by defeating the other’s, which is generally bad for a relationship. Relationally, attempting to get what I want by squashing my spouse’s aspirations would not generally be considered competent argument. Coalescent (cooperative) arguing, on the other hand, is more constructive in acknowledging the goals of the other, with an attempt to maximize mutual gain. Only coalescent argument might be considered interpersonally competent. Hample and Cionea’s (2010) data do not match Hample’s (2003) schema perfectly, but they do report that blurting – verbalizing without regard to others – is moderately related with verbal aggressiveness (r = .34), but the correlation with argumentativeness is nonsignificant (Hample and Cionea 2010). Further, a cooperative frame is strongly negatively correlated with verbal aggressiveness (r = −.44) and weakly negatively correlated with argumentativeness (r = −.17); wheras, a civil frame is negatively correlated with verbal aggressiveness (r = −.21) and positively correlated with argumentativeness (r = .25). The third frame ordinary actors apply to interpersonal argument is reflecting on the experience of arguing. Hample (2003) cites copious research illustrating that

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ordinary actors see eristic argument (fighting) as arguing; whereas coalescent argument is seen as discussion. This fundamental observation was, in fact, the basis for some of my own research, investigating the social desirability of terminology in the argumentativeness scale (Nicotera 1996). Hample (2003) also reviews research revealing that people closely associate “argument” with violence, counter to scholarly understandings of argument as rational, evidence-based reason-giving. Hample and Cionea (2010) report that a measure of professional contrast (indicating the extent which the respondent’s naïve theory of argument is similar to that of argumentation scholars) is moderately negatively correlated with verbal aggressiveness (r = −.21) and moderately associated with argumentativeness (r = .20). In the end, Hample (2003) concludes that argument is not an individual activity, but is interactive. Competent interpersonal argument, therefore, is relationally defined and relationally contextualized. Competent argument, furthermore, is embedded in competent conversation with all that this entails. While the argumentative competence tradition (as represented here by Hample) implicitly presumes aggression to be equivalent with hostility, this is more terminological than conceptual. If we conceptually define argument as a constructive form of aggressive behavior, the claims made in the argumentative competence tradition still hold. It is clear from research in the Hample tradition that both hostility and conflict avoidance are noncompetent and that competent argumentation is framed in particular ways by actors. It is clear from the research in the Infante tradition that hostility is destructive, that argumentativeness is constructive, and that high argumentatives have positive beliefs about argument, value argument and reason in the face of controversial issues, will seek to engage in such activity, and will enjoy it. It is not clear, however, what set of competencies comprise the ability to know when it is appropriate to argue. We do not know what distinguishes those who are able to identify situations that require argument from those who cannot. From the Hample tradition, we know that such distinction is a crucial component of argumentative competence. For aggression competence, then, one should not only argue well with no verbal aggressiveness (hostility), but should know when to engage in argument and when to refrain.

3 Related research on aggression and competence When it comes to aggression, it is tempting to define competent communication by what it is not. The communication competence literature would suggest that competent communication achieves goals and is neither feeble nor hostile, neither supporting nor affiliating with physical violence. However, citing numerous research studies, Spitzberg (2010, 2011) points out that violence can be seen as competent when it is justifiable. In addition, “there are conditions in which violence is viewed as ‘having its place’” (Spitzberg 2011: 343). Although people generally

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disapprove of violence in general, it is viewed as appropriate in such situations as “self-defense, in defense of a child, in response to being hit, and in response to a partner’s sexual infidelity … in being playful or seeking revenge … and as an indicator of the perpetrator’s love” (p. 343). In short, with copious research to substantiate the claim, Spitzberg (2010, 2011) concludes that the role and value of violence in relationships is negotiated, rather than fixed. We might conclude, then, that a competent communicator gets things done – socially appropriately to context – and maintains relationships without being a doormat, but that “social appropriateness” is not necessarily nonviolent. It is context that determines whether verbal or physical aggression is competent communication. The determination of what to include in a review on communication competence and aggression is difficult, as there is, unfortunately, a large set of sizeable literatures on all manner of unmannered behavior among people. Workplace bullying, for example, does not resemble competent communication: “repeated, healthharming mistreatment that takes one or more of the following forms: verbal abuse; offensive conduct and behaviors (including nonverbal) that are threatening, humiliating, or intimidating; or work interference and sabotage that prevent work from getting done” (Lutgen-Sandvik, Namie, and Namie 2009: 27). When the interactive goal is to hurt another, such an actor cannot be assessed as communicatively competent, regardless of how good she is at using communication to harm others, but she also cannot fully be defined as noncompetent if she is skillful at meeting her goal of doing harm. Similarly, when aggression is physical, such as in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV), the acts of violence may meet the goal of dominating or harming another and may even be considered competent by the recipient and/or observers, depending on context (Spitzberg 2010, 2011). Without knowing the actor’s goals and the negotiation of meaning in the context, or in cases when harm may be a proximal or instrumental goal in the service of a more terminal or distal goal, broad conclusions become more difficult. Even in severe acts of IPV that injure the victim, a tidy definition of such behavior as noncompetent is conceptually problematic if the actor is skillful at doing harmful things intentionally while maintaining the relationship. For instance, male IPV perpetrators’ interpersonal skills to convey caring and accomplish positive acts actually mediate the impact of abuse on their partners’ relational satisfaction (Marshall, Weston and Honeycutt 2000). In fact, many victims of IPV are relationally satisfied (Spitzberg 2010). One problem is that assessments of competence rely on an implicit presumption of fundamental ethics (Spitzberg and Cupach 2011) and of normal mental health. Communication is competent to the extent that it meets both the actor’s goals and the standards of social appropriateness, but what is implicit is that we assume these goals to be ethical communication goals grounded in a value for the ethical treatment of others – which are conceptually captured by effectiveness and appropriateness – and we culturally define ethical treatment as non-harming.

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Spitzberg and Cupach (2011) also point out that some behavior may present itself as inappropriate but that often such means are necessary and even desirable in the end. In addition, there are unexplored but fundamental distinctions between Machiavellian unethical communication (harmful to others yet very skilled) and unskilled communication that harms others through ineptitude or anger. Although both kinds of behavior have harmful effects, they have different origins. The distinction is both of intent and affect. Intentional harm to others because of anger seems to be explainable as an incompetent form of communication. Intentional harm in the absence of anger, however, seems outside the presumptions of communication competence theory (although, see: Canary, Spitzberg, and Semic 1998). When people consciously and dispassionately harm others because they want to or because it is a means to an end for themselves, this kind of aggression seems outside the scope of communication competence theory. There is an implicit assumption among communication competence scholars that people behave badly because they do not know any better or because anger is out of control. There is a long-held assumption among psychologists studying human aggression that conflict engenders aggression in the presence of anger (Buss 1961; Geen 1998). However, this set of presumptions does not explain dispassionate acts of aggression that harm others for personal gain. A second class of behavior that seems unexplainable with a communication competence approach is that caused by mental illness or psychiatric disorder, such as intermittent explosive disorder, where verbal and physical aggression are out of the actor’s control (e.g., McCloskey et al. 2008). Those with sociopathic and psychopathic disorders harm others because they either do not have the capacity to care or are actually seeking to do harm. Such behavior is also beyond the scope of a communication competence explanation. Communication competence is simply not a good explanation for intentionally harmful behavior, or for behavior with conscious and/or organic disregard for others (although, see Felson 1984; Gergen 1984; Mummendey, Linneweber, and Loschper 1984; Olson 2002; Spitzberg 2011). Such conditions work contrary to the basic concept of appropriateness in most normal circumstances. If an actor harms another, is aware of that harm, and has no regret or negative self-judgment because of it, then the communication competence model is simply not a good explanation. In fact, it is communication competence that actually assists some abusers in maintaining their relationships despite their harm to the partner (Marshall, Weston, and Honeycutt 2000). Communication competence seems a more appropriate approach to explain the behavior of those actors who harm others, and even themselves, because they are unskilled. These people may be unaware of the harm, surprised by it, regretful of it, or confused by it, but when faced with the knowledge that they have harmed, they will justify, excuse, minimize, or deny it (Stamp and Sabourin 1995), perhaps from a fundamental principle that harming others is not ethical.

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For example, Bingham and Burleson (1996) found that college males with a proclivity for sexual harassment were more apprehensive about and suspicious of dating, less satisfied with their dating experiences, more anxious about communication, and found communication less rewarding. All of these communication difficulties associated with sexual harassment proclivity are related to communication competence. Some people may be prone to sexual harassment because they are bent on harming their targets; others are simply bumbling without the skill to interact appropriately (who might not even acknowledge their own wrongdoing). It is this latter type of aggression that is of interest here because it is linked to incompetence. The remainder of this chapter will examine literature on verbal and physical aggression conducted outside the Infante tradition that is relevant to such incompetent communication – linked to a lack of communication skill, rather than to intentional harm or disregard due to some pathology or fundamentally evil nature of the actor. Aggression scholars from other disciplines tend not to ascribe to the Infante tradition that recognizes argument as a constructive form of aggression. Assertiveness and aggressiveness tend to be examined as distinct phenomena. Hence the term aggression is used with an inherently negative connotation, and the term verbal aggressiveness is common but does not subscribe to the theoretic or operational structures in the Infante tradition, even though the phenomenon itself is similar. To avoid confusion, in the discussion of this literature the term verbal aggression will be used. The role of verbal aggression in various relational contexts reveals the roles it plays in these contexts.

3.1 Verbal aggression While there is a general presumption that verbal aggression represents a non-competent form of communication, there is a great deal of variation in opinion about its sources and solutions. Researchers taking a biological approach to communication traits have examined the links between verbal aggression and brain activity, in particular the level of symmetry in the prefrontal cortex (Harmon-Jones and Allen 1998; Harmon-Jones and Siegelman 2001; Heisel 2010). Yet, Pence et al. (2011) failed to predict verbal aggression in a meta-analysis across a large corpus of such published studies. Understanding verbal aggression as situational or dispositional, or some combination of both, is crucial to developing interventions to mitigate its expression and prevent its escalation into physical violence.

3.1.1 Anger Psychologists studying human aggression conclude that communication frustrations and transgressions often provoke conflict and anger (Cahn 1996; Whitchurch

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and Pace 1993), and that anger escalates to verbal aggression, which, in turn, escalates to physical aggression (Winstok 2006), although neither of these latter escalations is inevitable (Winstok, Eisikovits, and Karnieli-Miller 2004). Guerrero (1994) identified four modes of anger expression in personal relationships. Integrativeassertion is direct and nonthreatening, focuses on honesty, is empathic, and conveys special concern for the partner’s feelings, needs, and viewpoint. This mode of anger expression focuses on mutual goals. As the only mode identified to be constructive and prosocial, integrative assertion represents communicative competence and has a positive impact on relational satisfaction. This mode of anger expression prevents escalation of anger into aggression. Distributive aggression is both direct and threatening, displays a lack of respect for the partner, and may be abusive, intimidating, or physical. Passive aggression is indirect and threatening to the relationship and is often nonverbal (e.g., dirty looks, cold shoulder, withholding affection, etc.). Finally, nonassertive-denial is indirect and nonthreatening. Although this kind of anger expression is nonaggressive, it is also nonassertive and thus represents incompetent communication that damages relational satisfaction. As previously discussed, (see Figure 1) Guerrero (1994) also points out that our understanding of aggression and anger in relationships is incomplete without assessment of non-assertive, noncompetent communication.

3.1.2 Children’s aggression Given the devastating effects that escalating cycles of aggression can have on individuals, relationships, and families, studies of children’s aggression represent an important body of research. Many scholars believe that childhood aggression impedes the development of effective communication skills and escalates into adulthood, making early identification and intervention imperative (O’Neill, Clark, and Jones 2011). Dumas, Blechman, and Prinz (1994) link low levels of communication effectiveness to social and affective problems associated with aggressive children. They found that aggressive children had less effective communication skills and more disruptive communication, and were more likely to be rejected by their peers and to experience depressive symptoms than their nonaggressive peers, even after differences in peer status and affective functioning were controlled.

3.1.3 Intimate partners Research on adult interpersonal aggression has examined discrepancies in the ways in which intimate partners perceive their conflicts. In an Israeli population of intimate partners, for example, Winstok (2006) investigated how divergent perceptions of conflict motive and conflict subject, and length of cohabitation, impact

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expressions of verbal aggression. The unit of analysis was the couple, and hypotheses were tested using couples who had reciprocal aggression with no gender effects. Couples’ divergent perceptions of conflict subject and motive (“What are we fighting about and why?”) are associated with one another and both amplify mutual aggression. Perception of conflict motive has a stronger effect on verbal aggression than does perception of conflict topic. Duration of cohabitation has a moderating effect on divergent perceptions of conflict subject and on mutual verbal aggression. This study illustrates that aggression between intimate partners is relational rather than individual in origin. The communication implications of this study lie in the inability to achieve a shared meaning and understanding of couples whose conflicts escalate to mutual aggression. Presumably, couples who accomplish a shared understanding of the subject of the conflict and of their own and each other’s motives for pursuing it will avoid the anger that escalates into verbal aggression and potentially into physical aggression.

3.2 Physical aggression Because it is considered more severe than verbal aggression, most research focuses on the more pressing and damaging problem of physical aggression, particularly among intimate partners and family members. However, verbal aggression has been shown in numerous studies to be more damaging, with more far-reaching impact than physical aggression (Spitzberg 2010). For this reason, research that focuses solely on verbal aggression has been reviewed separately. However, most research on physical aggression also includes a consideration of verbal aggression.

3.2.1 Children Demonstrating the fundamental roots of communication competence in skillful use of language, in an Australian sample of incarcerated youth, Snow and Powell (2011) found that interpersonal violence was linked to poor competence in oral language. Spitzberg (2010) reviews copious research documenting that abused children grow up to become abusers, and Shadik, Perkins, and Kovacs (2013) demonstrate that this abusive behavior likely begins in childhood among siblings of abusive and neglectful parents, whose poor communication skills provide a model resulting in sibling violence. Winstok, Eisikovits, and Karnieli-Miller (2004) revealed that children’s images of family members and themselves are disrupted by their fathers’ aggression toward their mother. In conditions of mild aggression, children identify with the aggressor; however, with severe aggression, they identify with the victim. These disruptions in images of family and self motivate children’s own aggression and violence. Further, this study suggests that family violence is motivated by a combination of positive self-image and negative other-image. It is gener-

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ally demonstrated in the literature that poor communication competence is both a cause and effect of parents’ verbal and physical abuse of children, and that such cause/consequence self-reflexive cycles are inter-generational (Roberts et al. 2009; Swanson and Cahn 2009) and not always unidirectional (Brule 2009).

3.2.2 Intimate partners Spitzberg (2010, 2011), in a thorough review of research, firmly established that the stereotype of male partners abusing female partners is a myth; female abuse of males and abuse between same-sex partners are equally prevalent. Even so, the majority of literature focuses on males abusing females, particularly in marriages. The competence implications in all of this literature are fairly obvious. Couples in abusive relationships have poor communication and poor problem-solving skills. However, the relationship between competence and violence is nonlinear. Poor communication competence is both a cause and a result of relational violence (Spitzberg 2009; Weaver and Clum 1995; Winstok 2007). Further, there is evidence that communication training, particularly that which focuses on systemic relational patterns of communication rather than individual skills, is effective in reducing relational violence (Dailey, Lee, and Spitzberg 2013; Spitzberg 2013; Winstok 2007). Sabourin (1995), in a qualitative study, establishes that IPV is most likely when the couple has a mutually domineering pattern with neither partner relinquishing control to the other, so that their interaction is a series of one-up moves, each against the other. This pattern of escalating competitive symmetry represents a lack of communication competence. She also links this pattern to argumentative skill deficiency, enriching the understanding of argumentative skill deficiency by elevating it to the relational system level, rather than presuming that skill deficiency lies within the individual. When examined at the dyadic level, the differences in communication competence between abusive and nonabusive couples are striking (Sabourin and Stamp 1995). Abusive couples are more vague and less precise in their language, more oppositional and less collaborative in their conflicts, and more ineffective in attempts to achieve goals. Abusive couples are more likely to engage in talk that is relational rather than content-focused. Their emotional tone contains more despair, as opposed to the optimism of nonabusive couples. Abusive couples accomplish their interdependence by interfering with one another as complaints, rather than facilitating one another’s complaints as nonabusive couples do (Sabourin and Stamp 1995). IPV is more likely under conditions of relational threat. Hannawa et al. (2006) found that relational proprietariness and entitlement, which have been theoretically related to IPV in a number of studies, predicted both instrumental and expressive aggression and were related to self-esteem and attachment. The theoretic

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explanation is that face threat reactivity stimulates proprietary relational orientation and sexual entitlement, which increases the risk of IPV. They also point out that communicative aggression is far more complex than simple verbal aggression. In addition to verbal hostility, yelling, name-calling, and profanity, abusers also restrict freedom, engage in behaviors that put the other at risk, assert dominance in degrading ways, threaten the victim’s valued resources, isolate the victim, humiliate the victim, make the victim feel insecure about the relationship, withdraw, withhold affection, and generally dominate and control. Smith (2011) examined the perceptions of abusers who had voluntarily completed an abuser schema theory (AST) intervention. AST teaches abusers to identify the triggers for their abuse, become more aware of these triggers, recognize their physiological arousal and resultant cognitive and behavioral responses, and alter those responses. After completing the therapy, abusers reported a reduction in their anger, an increase in the communication and assertiveness skills, an increase in their propensity to think before they act, and a greater sense of personal power. Spitzberg (2010) proposed an interactional model for IPV, based on the assumptions that conflict threatens face, face threat evokes defensive tactics that escalate intensity and create mutual face threat, and that these escalating emotions become hazardous and result in rage and violence. First, intimate violence evolves from intimate conflicts. Second, intimate conflicts are about transgressions. Third, transgressions evoke negative emotions. Fourth, negative emotions escalate conflict severity. Fifth, the course of conflict depends on the interactants’ competence. Sixth, communicative aggression increases the risk of IPV. Regarding competence, the most damaging skill deficiencies are attributional divergences, where the partners cross-blame; incompetent account-giving, which increases the severity of conflict escalation; incompetent demand-withdrawal patterns, where withdrawal is a power move that increases frustration and sets the stage for explosive conflicts. Spitzberg (2011) expands these claims to theorize IPV as a process of personal affect and identity negotiation (PAIN). The PAIN model presupposes that perceived transgressions cause face threat, which caused negative arousal, which cause conflict. Conflict escalation, then, is moderated by defensive attributions and competence perceptions, and finally conflict escalation increases the likelihood of IPV. First there is a perceived affront, resulting from infidelity, estrangement, or other perceived transgressions. This results in negative arousal, most commonly anger, shame, and jealousy. This negative arousal is further impacted by damaging intentional attributions and account (in)competence. Both negative arousal and account (in)competence result in verbal conflict and attributional divergence, which in turn both impact further difficulties in account competence, communicative aggression, and rage which combine to escalate IPV. Spitzberg and colleagues (Dailey, Lee, and Spitzberg 2007, 2013; Spitzberg 2009, 2010, 2013) discuss the interactional processes in which IPV is embedded, conceptualizing that IPV is a form of communication that is part of the overall relational pattern. IPV occurs in a relational context.

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The broader interaction patterns within which IPV occurs comprise communicative aggression and psychological abuse. Thus, communicative aggression and IPV are reciprocal with one another, although IPV is likely to be more episodic and chronic, and most IPV is relatively mild. As previously discussed, IPV may even be considered competent. This conceptualization of IPV as a form of communication embedded in relational patterns provides a compelling argument that relational aggression and IPV are highly complex and self-reflexive. Babcock and colleagues (1993) find that a husband’s physical violence is more likely when the couple is caught up in a demand-withdrawal cycle with the husband in the demand position. This common marital unwanted and repetitive negative cycle commonly casts the woman in the demand position, and was initially labeled the nag-withdrawal cycle. However, this pattern is seen in intimate relationships of all gender compositions, and desire for change rather than gender predicts which partner occupies which position (Holley, Sturm, and Levinson 2010). Gender stereotypes and stereotypes of marital power positions commonly hold that the woman will be in the demand position. Hence, Babcock et al.’s (1993) observation that male violence is most likely in a marriage with a husband-demand/wife-withdraw pattern suggests that there may perhaps be a dual perception of non-competence. First, getting caught up in the cycle is frustrating; second, being cast against gender-role may make it doubly so. Given what we know from other research about the escalation of frustration to anger to aggression to violence, this may be a competence-based explanation for this pattern. Male violence is associated with unilateral verbal aggression, mutual verbal aggression, a demand-withdrawal pattern with the male in the demanding position, a low proportion of constructive to destructive communication, a lack of mutual problem-solving, poor problem resolution, and more emotional distance after arguments (Feldman and Ridley 2000). Further, Lloyd and Emery (2000) substantiated the claim that violent couples lack relational maintenance skills and that violence is, indeed, predicted by argumentative skill deficiency (Lloyd 1999). Lloyd and Emery (2000) also found that intimate violence is sustained by a dominance-control pattern, especially when cultural frames support relational aggression. Winstok (2007) provided a thorough theoretic structure that embeds IPV in interactive, relational, and societal context, conceptually establishing that IPV is neither an individual nor a behavioral problem. His integrative structural model of violence proposes that society and culture frame the nature of relationship between attacked and attacker, which in turn frames the event that frames the violent behavior. Violent behavior is defined by motives, action, and consequence which are, in turn, driven by purpose, means, and intent. The model is at once intricately complex and elegantly simple. IPV is highly complicated set of issues grounded in personal histories, relational patterns, societal frames, and situational motives and consequences. What is clear is that the relationship between aggression and competence is neither linear nor bivariate. IPV is multilayered, contextual, and is reciprocally and causally related to non-competence in both the aggressor and victim.

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4 Conclusions Is aggressive communication noncompetent? Not entirely. Argumentative communication can be considered a form of aggression and, in the context of situations requiring argument, should be considered a category of communication competence. While it is clear what constitutes good argumentative skill, it is unclear what constitutes the competence to evaluate which situations require argument and which do not. The links between harmful communicative aggression and communication competence are likewise unclear. In numerous publications, Spitzberg has argued that a dichotomous consideration of nonaggression as good and aggression as bad is, at the very least, shortsighted. Given that the determination of competence must be judged by an observer embedded in the situation, the fact that ordinary people have reported numerous situations in which aggressive communication, and even violence, are justifiable and competent should give us great pause as scholars. Our simple presumption that doing injury (physical or otherwise) to a relational partner is bad simply does not resonate with the reports of ordinary people. In addition, communication competence models are unsatisfactory for understanding communication that is motivated by conscious intent to do harm. Competence explanations either need to be expanded or supplemented by alternative explanations for such behavior. Communication competence seems a more appropriate approach to explain the behavior of those actors who harm others, and even themselves, because they are unskilled. When communication skill is used to purposely harm, communication competence explanations fall short definitionally. What we do know is that the explanations for both aggression and competence are at the interaction and the system levels. While individual skills are important, the key to understanding argument, verbal aggression, physical aggression and the relative communication competencies associated with them lie at the relational, family, or other group-level systems level. Future research and theory should endeavor to focus on patterns that predict relational aggression and violence, patterns of interaction that ensue, and patterns of outcomes that indicate competence. Consequently, intervention programs should focus on both individual skills and relational patterns, with an eye to educating perpetrators and victims of relational aggression and violence about the ways in which their individual behaviors enmesh with their relational patterns in the context of cultural frames.

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IX. Epilogue

Brian H. Spitzberg

29 Problems, paradoxes, and prospects in the study of communication competence Since the time of the ancient Greek philosophers, pondering the nature of the art and science of rhetoric, the nature of the “good person speaking well” has been considered a central issue of a civilized polity. More recently, the quality with which we interact and negotiate our everyday encounters with one another has been linked not only to our subjective quality of life, but to our risks of morbidity and mortality. One of the ironies is that we know that competent communication is important, but there is precious little agreement about what we know of the nature of the process itself. This irony of insight in the face of ignorance is not merely definitional. It turns out that competent communication is a particularly mercurial concept, and an even more elusive empirical construct. In this brief and speculative epilogue, an attempt is made to raise a few of the more enduring problems, paradoxes, and prospects in the study of communication competence. The survey of problems and paradoxes is necessarily selective, and will reflect issues that have been raised before. The preview of prospects is also selective, and will reflect a concern for greater interdisciplinary recognition of what is being done well across the many scholastic silos of the broader academy. Furthermore, much of this epilogue presupposes a reading of the other chapters, where much of the evidentiary bases of these problems have been established (see also: Cupach and Spitzberg 1983; Spitzberg 1983, 1987, 1989, 1993, 1994a, 1994b, 2000, 2003, 2009, 2013; Spitzberg and Brunner 1989, 1991; Spitzberg and Changnon 2009; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984, 1989, 2002, 2011).

1 We are prisoners of our own skins Although obvious, it bears repeating that we are physical, biological organisms. As such, we are prisoners of our own skin – of our own sensory apparatuses. We see and hear people differently than they see us. We internalize our own standards of subjective evaluation, which are collectively and normatively somewhat common (e.g., appropriateness, effectiveness, clarity), yet are applied in given situations with a substantial degree of idiosyncrasy both within and across perceivers. The degree to which a given communicative performance is evaluated as competent depends significantly upon who is asked, when they are asked, and the criteria they are applying to the task of evaluation. For example, there are self-serving biases in which we tend to evaluate our own competence more highly than others

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perceive it to be. On the other hand, lonely and depressed persons, for example, tend to underestimate their own competence relative to observers. Those who are incompetent by social or objective standards tend to overestimate their competence (Fay et al. 2008), whereas extremely high performing communicators are likely to slightly underestimate their competence. Thus, the incompetent become all the more incompetent because they are incapable of recognizing their own incompetence, whereas the extremely competent tend to maintain their competence through a modesty effect of being open to the room for improvement (Ehrlinger et al. 2008). The perceived competence of a behavior or episode of interaction changes not only by culture, situation, and perceiver, but by a host of other variables that have only barely been incorporated into most competence models and assessments. For example, judging a communication episode proximal to its occurrence can produce different recollected evaluations from judgments chronologically distant from the episode. We recall a conversation that happened a year ago, a week ago, and a minute ago, differently. Perceptions and evaluations of communicators can vary based upon how molecular the judgments are parsed. We are in general surprisingly good at drawing complex judgments from ‘thin slices of behavior,’ but also capable of subjectively packaging such judgments in broad-based molar evaluations (Pretsch et al. 2014). It is even barely acknowledged that a substantial portion of competence judgments may be determined less by the performance than by internal standards and cognitive processing biases. Just this simple but fundamental question – how much of a competence judgment is based on the perceiver’s own cognitive model of a competent communicator, and how much is based on the objective performance features of the communicator’s behavior itself – is still largely an unknown quantity (Pavitt and Haight 1986). The implication of such questions leads some to want to retreat to the safety of defining competence as an objective set of skills or abilities, but it is more useful to retain the dichotomy between the subjective (impression) and the objective (behaviors). Only by preserving the separation is it possible to explore their relations. It is only through such a separation that research has demonstrated the many biases and discrepancies within and between perceivers. From a pedagogical and training perspective, it seems more realistic, more like the real world, to suggest that science can identify the skills and abilities that are likely to be seen as competent, while recognizing that there is no guarantee. The principles of equifinality and multifinality guarantee that no skill is ever going to always achieve the preferred outcome. Complex social systems cannot operate as simple machines – there is an indeterminacy entailed, and as such, examining the relationship between abilities/ skills and the competence judgments attached to those behaviors as probabilistic becomes fundamental to the process.

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2 Subjectivity or skill? There is often little territory to be gained by engaging definitional debates in the social sciences because definitions cannot be determined to be true or false; only more or less useful. Nevertheless, there is a gaping gulf of misunderstanding across competence literatures about a fundamental definitional issue. Mere agreement that the gulf exists could go a long way toward at least clarifying and situating different paradigmatic concerns. Competence is often understood as a synonym for “ability”. At the same time, it is widely acknowledged that the very term “competence” necessarily entails some continuum of subjective “quality”. This issue has been raised extensively, but still represents a significantly underappreciated concern. Consistent with prior discussions (e.g., Spitzberg 1983, 1989, 2000, 2009, 2013; Spitzberg and Cupach 1984), an ability is a capacity or power to effect an intentional and specified change or outcome in a type of situation in some consistent manner. A skill is the capacity to engage this ability with some degree of proficiency, such as greater accuracy, speed, efficiency of effort, or despite contextual constraint. Competence is a judgment of the quality of the performance of such abilities or skills. This judgment is probably most usefully understood as a combination of appropriateness and effectiveness criteria (Spitzberg 1993, 1994a, 1994b), but in any particular context, other criteria could be justified and articulated (e.g., efficiency, understanding, fluency, etc.). The value of separating abilities, skills, and competence is that it permits a conceptual and empirical separation of independent from dependent variables. It permits the question: “What skills or abilities are normatively perceived as competent in this context with these perceivers?” Given (as established in #1 above) that the subjective evaluation of any communicative performance changes from context to context, and perceiver to perceiver, it becomes a probabilistic problem of playing the odds – in this situation, with these observers, what skilled performances are most likely to result in a judgment of competence? A common objective to this bifurcation of behavior from inference is that there are skills that need to be defined purely as a set of objective actions and motions. A cardiac surgeon or jet pilot needs to be evaluated not by subjective judgments but by their ability to perform objectively defined sequences of actions in defined situations with defined parameters. Perhaps there are such tasks, but to the extent that they become communicative, they also become intrinsically co-owned, and subjectively co-constructed. Once this is recognized, competence becomes a question of which kinds of communicative actions pilots or surgeons engage in to promote both the objective performance of their non-communicative tasks (e.g., flying or surgery), especially with those upon whom they rely on as collaborators (e.g., co-pilots, flight attendants, etc.; nurses, anesthesiologists, etc.), but also the subjective quality (i.e., appropriateness and effectiveness) of their interaction in that

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functional, relational, situational, and cultural context (e.g., the esprit de corps of the crew or staff). This is especially indicated, for example, in medical error events, in which communication is widely recognized as one of the prime causal factors in the etiology of the error. One of the implications of this line of reasoning is that it will increasingly become less important to teach any particular communicative tool, and instead to teach both a communicative toolbox, and a set of heuristics for diagnosing the nature of communicative contexts themselves. Empathy is an important skill, but it is important for certain contexts far more than others, and may even be detrimental in some contexts. We like to list the communicative skills that comprise competence, and to list among such abilities things like flexibility and adaptability, but there is precious little attention to the exact nature of what flexibility and adaptability are, and how they can be measured and taught. Furthermore, the paradoxes of adaptability have received relatively little attention. If adaptability is the ability of adjusting abilities to a context, then it becomes a meta-ability. As a meta-ability, it needs to have a governing or constraining counter-skill, or else communicators would become like jousting chameleons in paisley rooms – chaotically disabled by an inability to distinguish what does, and what does not, need to be adapted, and how. We know far more about skills that scholars believe are competent than we know about the meta-abilities or heuristics that guide the adaptation of those skills competently to context.

3 On being conscious of consciousness One of the mysterious presumptions of Western approaches to competence and skills is that knowledge and awareness equate to conscious capacity to change. If competence is a skill, then that skill can be learned like any other skill. The standard approach of texts or instruction are to describe the micro-components of the actions, train clients or students to those specifications, assess the degree to which the performed behaviors approach closer and closer to those specifications, use feedback as an awareness check on the degree to which behaviors need to be modified to better approximate those specifications, and repeat recursively and iteratively until either minimal or optimal criteria have been demonstrated to a level of acceptable consistency. It is difficult to think of any ordinary communicative action that is learned in anything like this set of steps, perhaps with the exception of communicative disorders training. The social fabric of interaction and communication is a co-constructed, co-owned, and complexly woven process. There are few opportunities for replicating communicative performances, with feedback, outside of contexts such as acting, public speeches, and ritualistic enactments (e.g., greeting rituals). Even in these contexts, the non-repeatability of communication (Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson 1967) means that no river of interaction can be stepped

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in twice – it is always an evolving context of its own history as well as its current context. One of the implications of these complexities is that over time, most communicators overlearn their communicative routines and performances. This overlearning allows complex subroutines of behavior to be encapsulated into cognitive programs so that an entire sequence of actions can be initiated by a single higher order choice, so that the lower order choices no longer need to extract cognitive resources. One of the implications of this overlearning, however, is that during the process of attempting to unlearn existing skills and abilities, such as through training or education, a communicator experiences disruption of relatively efficient routines. Thus, when attempting to learn or refine a skill, its performance is likely to degrade substantially in the interim, as cognitive programs are unraveled and reconstructed. Even assuming relatively ideal circumstances, the process of incorporating new skills, in new sequences, raises the specter of greater negative reinforcement from a social environment, during the very time that the new skills need positive reinforcement. The extinction of prior routines may be slowed, the process of learning the new skills may become delayed, and the legitimacy of the process may itself be called into question.

4 Nonsummativity: The importance of small things Nonsummativity is the assumption that a system is always different from the mere addition of its individual parts. If social systems are nonsummative, then it bears consideration what this implies for the conceptualization and assessment of competence. One of the implications is that in any given communicative encounter, the judgment of competence may be substantially determined by a small thing, rather than a collection of expected things. Most communicators have experienced encounters in which just that one particular slip of the tongue, that nonfluent stumble, that off-color remark, that momentary lapse of reason, that peculiar facial expression, or that unanticipated incoherent phrase, overwhelms an otherwise smooth performance. Communicative performances may, in general, be guided by basic maxims of quantity and quality (Grice 1975), but the proportion is difficult to anticipate beforehand. That is, 99 percent of a conversation may go very smoothly, and yet that 1 percent may be disproportionately influential in determining the affect and quality judgments others in that situation attribute to a given communicator. An otherwise highly qualified job interviewee may perform admirably throughout an interview and then engage in one minute action that jeopardizes the entire encounter. This nonsummative assumption is connected to an argument that has commonly been noted by scholars of competence, but it has seldom been fully accommodated in operationalizations of competence (Spitzberg 1983, 2000, 2013). To

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some degree, the nonsummative assumption grows naturally from the other assumption that competence consists of both molecular and molar levels of abstraction, which also parallels the definitional argument above (#1) that competence consists of abilities/skills and subjective judgments. Specific molecular or microlevel behaviors (e.g., eye contact, gesture, question asking, etc.) map to some degree or another onto molar or macro-level judgments (e.g., smooth, satisfying, coherent, etc.). Along the way of moving from the micro to the macro, and back again, judgments sometimes are vastly influenced by some particular behaviors in disproportionate ways relative to other behaviors. Aside from the various anecdotal prevalence of such embarrassing moments, or even their opposites (as when a poor quality encounter is raised to a high level of proficiency by a slight but significant gesture of authentic caring or attentiveness), this nonsummativity has significant yet largely unaddressed implications for conceptualizing and assessing competence. Most assessments of communication competence involve relatively summative and linear proportional assumptions – unitize a set of behaviors, rate the performance of these behaviors, and add up the results. But in a measure with ten items (i.e., skills) that are assessed, nine of these might be performed very well, which would mathematically compensate for the one that was not, and yet that one skill item, if performed noticeably enough, would in some circumstances radically alter that evaluator’s overall judgment. Most measures of competence cannot accommodate such occurrences, in part because so few developers of measures have considered the nonlinear, nonsummative nature of social encounters. At the level of assessment, such assumptions might be accommodated by simple weighting procedures, but the conceptual understanding of how some behaviors take on such disproportionate importance has received relatively little attention outside of certain tributaries of theory and research (e.g., embarrassment, transgressions).

5 Neither here nor there: Functional ambivalence in competence evaluation There are several criteria that can be yoked to the concept of competence. Common criteria include attractiveness, coherence, accuracy, mutual understanding, clarity, satisfaction, resolution of difference, effectiveness, appropriateness, and efficiency. Some approaches to competence select one of these criteria, which then privileges communication according to some, often unrecognized, ideological presumption. For example, efficiency seems relatively objective as a criterion: output relative to resource investment (e.g., time + effort). Yet, efficiency, when applied to social interaction, brings with it assumptions of bureaucratic implicature – “a penny saved is a penny earned” becomes “a second saved is a minute earned”. Small talk, bonding, attachment, humor, song, poetry, and so forth become inefficient,

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and with them, much of what is valued in communication. Furthermore, there are ruthless efficiencies that can turn humans into automatons or objects for mere “utilization” and “consumption” rather than fully articulated creative beings. The solution is not to merely select a more normatively palatable criterion. Favoring other-orientation or dialogic interaction as the presumptive value of judgment leads to ideological movements in the other direction. For example, in a dialogic society, assertiveness, instrumentality, bold leadership, and industrious productivity could be derided as secondary to the relationship. The former ideology could be considered overly masculinized, whereas the latter could be considered too feminized. The ideological implications of criteria of quality need to be considered rhetorically and critically, as well as empirically. The most common solution to this ideological monotheism is to select multiple criteria. The most common of these dualisms is appropriateness and effectiveness. The advantage of these dual criteria is that they establish a defensible ethical system in which to defend the objectives of competent communication. Communication is most competent to the degree that it is used in a manner that achieves relatively rewarding outcomes that simultaneously preserve the collective sense of legitimacy of the context and relationship. The problem is that little is known about how to conceptualize all the variants of these two criteria when working up and down the full continuum of these poles. Specifically, communication can be inappropriate but effective, it can be ineffective but appropriate, and more problematically, it can be somewhat inappropriate and very effective, or somewhat ineffective but very appropriate, and so on. In theory, theory should assist in identifying which of these criteria is more important in which contexts and with which communicators, working toward which interactional functions. Theory has not evolved to the point of identifying such parameters, however, and consequently, most competence research resorts back to some single criterion, or some simple summation (see #4 above) of multiple judgment criteria. Even these compromises may in principle be quite defensible and useful, but it becomes incumbent upon researchers to articulate such assumptions, and the degree to which they provide the foundation for competence conceptualization and assessment.

6 Racing to the middle, or stumbling to the finish In many educational and professional contexts, the difference between minimal and optimal competence is well-recognized. Far less common, however, is the recognition of the full gravity that this difference has in the ways in which competence is conceptualized and measured. Perhaps in places such as the military and extremely high-value contexts this difference is appreciated most. Even in these contexts, there tend to be degrees of challenge that differentiate the merely “acceptable” from the “best”. To take a simple analogy, consider the standard process of

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certifying a person as competent to drive a vehicle. One approach, the minimal approach, is to establish some basic level of proficiency that is considered acceptable. In this approach, some written knowledge of traffic rules and regulations may require some percentage of correct recognition of driving policy and procedures. Whether a proficiency of 70 or 80 percent is required seems to be an acceptance that such a person has the “minimum” ability to drive with the rest of the community, presumably with the hope that other drivers will be able to compensate for the 20 to 30 percent of error possessed by the nascent driver. In contrast, an optimal model would not only require 100 percent response to the knowledge, it would require something like a 95 percent lack of accident in a driving simulator program in which dozens of complex and demanding traffic scenarios are simulated. Only after repeated ability to achieve these levels would a driving license be granted to indicate competence. This analogy reveals one of the widely unrecognized considerations of competence theory and research. There are differences in competence between “normative”, “minimal”, “challenging”, and “ideal” or “optimizing” contexts. Normative contexts might be considered the most common likely encounters or levels of performance an average person can be expected to enact. A minimal context might be considered the threshold in normal interaction beyond which a person can fulfill the functional objectives required for subsistence or survival in that context. A challenging context assumes that the best gauge of a person’s competence is not when the encounter is easy, but when it is difficult, problematic, or complex. Only under duress can the communicator’s full capacity for competence be addressed. An ideal or optimizing context asks not only what a person can do under duress, but how far beyond the normal that person can achieve, even under conditions of stress or constraint. One implication of these distinctions is that it becomes important to specify whether the competencies being discussed are normative, minimal, challenged, or optimal. These types of distinctions should be transparently articulated, and assessment should thereby be developed and validated accordingly. Similarly, training and intervention efforts need to determine whether the context at hand has the necessary normative and criterion-validated empirical information upon which curricula, assignments, tests, and assessments can be scaffolded. It is one thing to establish such criteria for traffic encounters, but considering social contexts, which is more demanding – a get-acquainted conversation or a job interview? The answer might seem obvious, but one permits considerably greater individual control over self-preparation and interaction management, and the other can involve potentially more important outcomes. Alternatively, which of these contexts involves the better use of a minimal versus an optimal approach? Here it may again be tempting to apply the minimal approach to the get-acquainted conversation and the optimal approach to the interview conversation. Yet, considering the relationship between the competence of marital interaction to quality of

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life outcomes, and the relatively modest correlation between income and quality of life outcomes, at least beyond a certain point, it seems less obvious which context is more important. Regardless, such assignments of approach should be conducted with some degree of forethought and deliberation, rather than simply presumed.

7 Prospects and prognostications The quality of life is inextricably bound up in the quality of our relationships, and the quality of our relationships is inextricably tied to the quality of our communication. Although widely recognized intuitively, these connections still have not informed much of societal investment in the understanding and technologies of enhancing communication in any systematic manner. Too often, communication is by default left to the informal, error-prone, and widely varying vicissitudes of parenting and peers. Within various professional (e.g., medical schools, public relations), academic (e.g., communication, theatre), and technical (e.g., air traffic control, military command) fields, it receives considerable attention. Furthermore, survey after survey shows that people identify better “communication” as one of the most important factors in the functioning of businesses, marriages, and politics. Yet, these recognitions seem to emerge from another recognition – communication in these domains is not nearly as good as it should be. So everyone (else) needs to improve their communication, but we do not seem to think this needs to involve seeking formal training in communication for ourselves, or for societal institutions in general (if such training exists). The technologies and methods of communication training, intervention, education, and assessment are not yet where they need to be. One of the major reasons for this is that the theory and conceptualization of communication competence are also not as developed as they should be at this time in the history of scholarly inquiry. This handbook has, in part, been developed to reinvigorate the interest in communication competence as a foundational and orienting perspective toward many of the needs and problems that society, writ large, could benefit from employing. We know well enough to move forward, even if it has to be on several fronts at once. We suggest that forward progress will depend on several relatively simple first steps. First, define what competence is, specifically, and articulate the degree to which it is an ability, skill, or impression. Second, articulate where upon the continua of abstraction (e.g., micro to macro) and difficulty (e.g., minimal to optimal) the perspective on competence lands. Third, it is impossible to know what needs to be done until it is known what has been done. Too often the literature on competence reveals severe disciplinary myopia, as if search engines were not capable of locating the literatures from other disciplines, articulated by slightly different

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terminologies. Fourth, it is worthwhile returning to hypothesis-testing and legitimate meta-theoretical analysis of competence. Listing skills and classifying them into conceptual chunks is a start at a typology, but it is far from theoretical (Turner 1990), and still further from conducting science (Popper 1962). Theory and conjecture in building better theoretical models of competent communication must begin by taking bigger risks. Finally, whatever the approaches and assumptions that undergird approaches to competence, it is essential that assessments be built in accordance with these approaches and assumptions. Blueprints should precede the building of the house. Too often it seems that assessment takes the path of least resistance in assemblage of available contents and procedures, rather than designing theoretically-grounded blueprints, and then building the assessment to the blueprints. To the extent that competent communication is one of the keys to a better quality of life, this agenda awaits a renewed interest of scholars and practitioners alike.

References Cupach, William R. and Brian H. Spitzberg. 1983. Trait versus state: A comparison of dispositional and situational measures of interpersonal communication competence. Western Speech Communication Journal 47. 364–379. Ehrlinger, Joyce, Kerri Johnson, Matthew Banner, David Dunning and Justin Kruger. 2008. Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of (absent) self-insight among the incompetent. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 105. 98–121. Fay, Nicolas, Andrew C. Page, Crystal Serfaty, Vivien Tai and Christopher Winkler. 2008. Speaker overestimation of communication effectiveness and fear of negative evaluation: Being realistic is unrealistic. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 15. 1160–1165. Grice, Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In: Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3, Speech Acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press. Pavitt, Charles and Larry Haight. 1986. Implicit theories of communicative competence: Situational and competence level differences in judgments of prototype and target. Communication Monographs 53. 221–235. Popper, Karl R. 1962. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York, NY: Basic Books. Pretsch, Johanna, Nina Heckmann, Barbara Flunger and Manfred Schmitt. 2014. Agree or disagree? Influences on consensus in personality judgments. European Journal of Psychological Assessment 30. 31–39. Spitzberg, Brian H. 1983. Communication competence as knowledge, skill, and impression. Communication Education 32. 323–329. Spitzberg, Brian H. 1987. Issues in the study of communicative competence. In: Brenda Dervin and Melvin J. Voight (eds.), Progress in Communication Sciences, vol. 8. 1–46. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Spitzberg, Brian H. 1989. Issues in the development of a theory of interpersonal competence in the intercultural context. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 13. 241–268. Spitzberg, Brian H. 1993. The dialectics of (in)competence. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 10. 137–158.

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Spitzberg, Brian H. 1994a. Ideological issues in competence assessment. In: Sherwyn Morreale, Megan Brooks, Roy Berko and Carolyn Cooke (eds.), Assessing College Student Competency in Speech Communication (1994 SCA Summer Conference Proceedings), 129–148. Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association. Spitzberg, Brian H. 1994b. The dark side of (in)competence. In: William R. Cupach and Brian H. Spitzberg (eds.), The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication, 25–49. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Spitzberg, Brian H. 2000. What is good communication? Journal of the Association for Communication Administration 29. 103–119. Spitzberg, Brian H. 2003. Methods of skill assessment. In: John O. Greene and Brant R. Burleson (eds.), Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction Skills, 93–134. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Spitzberg, Brian H. 2009. Axioms for a theory of intercultural communication competence [invited article, Japanese Association of Communication and English Teachers]. Annual Review of English Learning and Teaching 14. 69–81. Spitzberg, Brian H. 2013. (Re)Introducing communication competence to the health professions (Special issue: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Medical Error). Journal of Public Health Research 2. 126–135. Spitzberg, Brian H. and Claire C. Brunner. 1989. Sex, instrumentality, expressiveness and interpersonal communication competence. In: Cynthia M. Lont and Sheryl A. Friedley (eds.), Beyond Boundaries: Sex and Gender Diversity in Communication, 121–138. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Press. Spitzberg, Brian H. and Claire C. Brunner. 1991. Toward a theoretical integration of context and competence inference research. Western Journal of Speech Communication 56. 28–46. Spitzberg, Brian H. and Gabrielle Changnon. 2009. Conceptualizing intercultural communication competence. In: Darla K. Deardorff (ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Competence, 2–52. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Spitzberg, Brian H. and William R. Cupach. 1984. Interpersonal Communication Competence. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Spitzberg, Brian H. and William R. Cupach. 1989. Handbook of Interpersonal Competence Research. New York: Springer‑Verlag. Spitzberg, Brian H. and William R. Cupach. 2002. Interpersonal skills. In: Mark L. Knapp and John A. Daly (eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal Communication (3rd ed.), 564–611. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Spitzberg, Brian H. and William R. Cupach. 2011. Interpersonal skills. In: Mark L. Knapp and John A. Daly (eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal Communication (4th ed.), 481–524. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Turner, Jonathan H. 1990. The misuse and use of metatheory. Sociological Forum 5. 37–53. Watzlawick, Paul, Janet Helmick Beavin and Don D. Jackson. 1967. Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Biographical sketches Tamara Afifi (Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1999) is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on communication patterns that foster risk and resiliency in families and other interpersonal relationships, with particular emphasis on: 1. information regulation (privacy, secrets, disclosures, avoidance, stress contagion), and 2. how people communicate when they are stressed and how these communication patterns harm and/or help personal and relational health. Philip M. Backlund (Ph.D., University of Denver, 1977) is a Professor of Communication Studies at Central Washington University, where he joined the faculty in 1979. He teaches courses such as public speaking, communication behavior analysis, intercultural communication, gender communication, relationship development, and persuasion. He and his wife travel extensively and he has taught in Hong Kong, Macau, Pakistan, and South Sudan. His research interests are in culture, gender, education, and assessment. He is the co-author or co-editor of seven books, along with numerous articles and convention papers on the topics of educational assessment, gender communication, goals of communication education, and accreditation. As a member of the National Communication Association, he has served as chair of the Instructional Development Division, chair of the Communication Assessment Division (3 times), chair of the Task Force on Program Review Guidelines, and chair of the Educational Policies Board. Michael J. Beatty (Ph.D., Ohio State University, 1976) is Professor of Communication at the University of Miami. He has served as editor of Communication Monographs and studies verbal aggressiveness, communication apprehension, and the biological underpinnings of human communication Ulla Bunz (married name, Sypher; Ph.D., University of Kansas, 2002) is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Florida State University. Her research interests include technological aptitude, cybergeography, and the use of GIS as a tool for communication research. Samantha I. Coveleski (M.A., The Ohio State University, 2012) is a doctoral student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her primary areas of study are interpersonal and intergroup communication in the contexts of pain management, health concerns, and relationships. Satoris S. Culbertson (Ph.D., Texas A&M University, 2005) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management in the College of Business Administration at Kansas State University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in organizational behavior and human resource management. Prior to her arrival at K-State, Dr. Culbertson worked as a consultant in one of the world’s premier global leadership solutions firms. Her main research interests include the employ-

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ment interview, performance appraisal and feedback, work-family issues, and judgment and decision making, areas in which she has authored and co-authored numerous journal articles and chapters in edited volumes. William R. Cupach (Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1981) is Professor Emeritus at Illinois State University. His research pertains to problematic interactions in interpersonal relationships, including such contexts as embarrassing predicaments, relational transgressions, conflict and criticism, social and relational aggression, and obsessive relationships and stalking. Among his 14 co-authored or co-edited books, two are about interpersonal conflict and two concern interpersonal competence. He is a past President of the International Association for Relationship Research. Marleah Dean (Ph.D., Texas A&M University, 2014) is an Assistant Professor in Health Communication at the University of South Florida. She studies clinician– patient communication within the context of cancer. Her current research examines previvors’ – individuals who are highly predisposed to breast and ovarian cancer due to the genetic mutation BRCA1/2 – health experiences. More specifically, she is interested in how patient-centered communication functions can serve as pathways to improving patients’ health and well-being. Tenzin Dorjee (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2009) is Assistant Professor of Human Communication Studies at California State University, Fullerton, USA. His primary teaching and research interests are in intergroup/intercultural communication, peace building, and conflict resolution. He has translated for His Holiness the Dalai Lama on many occasions. John O. Greene (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1983) is a Professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University. His interests are in communication theory, nonverbal communication, interpersonal communication, and social interaction skills. He is a former Editor of Human Communication Research (2001–2003), and is currently the Director of the Publications Board of the National Communication Association. Laura K. Guerrero (Ph.D., University of Arizona, 1994) is a Professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University where she specializes in relational, nonverbal, and emotional communication. Her research focuses on both the “dark” (jealousy, conflict, hurtful events) and “bright” sides (maintenance, intimacy, forgiveness) of relationships. In addition to publishing numerous articles on these topics, Dr. Guerrero has authored or co-authored several books, including Close Encounters: Communicating in Relationships, Nonverbal Communication in Close Relationships, and The Nonverbal Communication Reader. Annegret F. Hannawa (Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2009) is Assistant Professor of Interpersonal Communication and Empirical Research Methods at the University of Lugano (Switzerland). Her research focuses on the intersections between inter-

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personal communication competence and patient safety in light of human fallibility. Her most recent work considers the effects of communication in the context of human errors on health, well-being, and relationship outcomes. She is past editor of the journal Studies in Communication Sciences and founding president of the International Society for Communication Science and Medicine (ISCOME). Allen I. Huffcutt (Ph.D., Texas A&M University, 1992) is a Caterpillar Professor of Psychology at Bradley University in Peoria Illinois. He has conducted extensive research on the employment interview, including issues such as reliability, association with job performance, construct assessment, group differences, and interpersonal dynamics. James A. Keaten (Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, 1991) is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Northern Colorado. He maintains three research tracks: 1. reticence – the study of individuals who are chronically silent, 2. the challenges and opportunities of pluralistic interfaith dialogue, and 3. the relationship between communicative disposition and use of computer-mediated communication. Lynne Kelly (Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, 1982) is Professor of Communication at the University of Hartford, West Hartford, Connecticut. She teaches courses in interpersonal communication, computer-mediated communication, small group communication, and research methods. Her research interests include communication technologies in interpersonal relationships and the nature and treatment of communication reticence. Joann Keyton (Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 1987) is Professor of Communication at North Carolina State University. Her current research examines the collaborative processes and relational aspects of interdisciplinary teams, participants’ use of language in team meetings, and the multiplicity of cultures in organizations. She is editor of Small Group Research. Yu Lu is a Ph.D. candidate in Communication at Pennsylvania State University. Her research areas include intercultural communication, health communication, and research methods. Jenna D. McNallie (M.A., University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 2011) is a doctoral candidate at Purdue University’s Brian Lamb School of Communication. She studies how media messages interact with personal experiences to inform expectations for interpersonal interactions and relationships. Her research has been published in journals such as Communication Research Reports and Qualitative Research Reports in Communication. David Montez is a doctoral student in the School of Communication at Florida State University. His research interests include political communication and social media research.

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Sherwyn P. Morreale (Ph.D., University of Denver, 1989) is Director of Graduate Studies in Communication at University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Her main research and teaching interests include communication education, instructional communication, public speaking, communication competence and its assessment, and organizational trust. Her research appears in leading journals and she is the lead author of three communication textbooks, including a 2013 book on public speaking and technology. She also has authored numerous articles and chapters for collected volumes and encyclopedias in the communication discipline. From 1997 to 2005, Morreale served as the Associate Director of National Communication Association. Anne M. Nicotera (Ph.D., Ohio University, 1990) is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at George Mason University. She studies organizational and interpersonal communication. Her research is grounded in a constitutive perspective and focuses on culture and conflict, diversity, race and gender, and aggressive communication, with a particular interest in healthcare organizations. Loreen N. Olson (Ph.D., University of Nebraska, 2000) is an Associate Professor in Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She studies communication issues related to gender, family, intimate partner violence, the dark side of close relationships, the communication of deviance, and the luring communication of child sexual predators. Currently, she and her colleagues are examining the psycho-socio-educational well-being of immigrant Congolese women who have experienced gender-based violence in their home countries or refugee camps. Another project is looking at the relationship between intimate partner violence and traumatic brain injury. Paola Pascual-Ferrá (Ph.D., University of Miami, 2013) is Assistant Professor of communication at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, United States. She is the 2014 Vice-Chair elect of the Communication Apprehension and Communication Competence division of the National Communication Association. Among her research interests are communication traits and measures, emerging media and communication technologies, health communication, and intercultural communication. She has a Master’s degree in public communication from American University and a Bachelor’s degree in political science from Princeton University. Charles Pavitt (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1983) is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Delaware. He enjoys teaching, researching, and writing about interpersonal and small group communication and communication theory. He also enjoys his work compiling and writing about statistical academic research into the workings of baseball. Samantha R. Powers (M.A./J.D., University of Florida, 2005) is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include organizational socialization/assimilation, vocational

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anticipatory socialization, mentoring, negotiation, gender, and the legal profession. Narissra Maria Punyanunt-Carter (Ph.D., Kent State University, 2002) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Texas Tech University. Narissra teaches interpersonal communication, gender, nonverbal, and romantic relationships. She is a protégée of Drs. Rebecca Rubin and Alan Rubin, who are considered two of the most prolific and notable researchers in interpersonal and mass communication respectively. Dr. Punyanunt-Carter’s research interests include romantic relationships, computer-mediated communication, father–daughter communication, and mass media portrayals of romance. She is the recipient of many teaching and research awards. She is a consultant for several book publishers, such as Bedford St. Martin’s, Rowan & Littlefield, Oxford, McGraw-Hill, and Wadsworth. She has published many articles, which have been featured in Southern Communication Journal, Communication Research Reports, and Communication Quarterly. Linda L. Putnam (Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1977) is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her current research interests include negotiation, organizational conflict, and organizational discourse analysis. She is the co-editor of ten books, including The Sage Handbook of Organizational Communication (2014), author/co-author of over 150 articles and book chapters, and is a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association and a Fellow of the International Communication Association. Leslie Ramos-Salazar (Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2013) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at California State University, Fresno. She studies the following areas within the realm of interpersonal communication: compassion, emotional intelligence, cyberbullying, and STD prevention. Virginia Peck Richmond (Ph.D., University of Nebraska, 1977) is one of the most distinguished researchers and professors in the field of human communication. She has written 15 books on topics including public speaking, organizational, nonverbal, instructional, and apprehension communication. Dr. Richmond has also authored or co-authored 25 book chapters and published more than 25 research articles where she was the senior author. She has been recognized as one of the ten most prolific scholars in the National Communication Association. Dr. Richmond has won numerous awards for her outstanding teaching and research, including an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University System of West Virginia Board of Trustees and West Virginia University Institute of Technology, and the Donald H. Ecroyd and Caroline Drummond-Ecroyd Teaching Excellence Award from the Eastern Communication Association. She was instrumental in founding and coordinating WVU’s nationally recognized extended learning and educational outreach programs. She has also received distinguished service awards from the World Communication Association and the Eastern Communication Association.

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Biographical sketches

Sarah E. Riforgiate (Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2011) is an Assistant Professor at Kansas State University, Manhattan. Her academic endeavors concentrate on organizational and interpersonal communication to improve the understanding of the intersections of paid work and private life, while exploring practical solutions to reduce conflict. Her research includes projects focusing on work/life boundaries, organizational policy communication, and positive organizational communication, among others. Robert E. Sanders (Ph.D., University of Iowa, 1971) is Professor Emeritus of Communication, University at Albany, SUNY, and editor of Research on Language and Social Interaction from 1988 to 1998. He has focused his theoretical and empirical work on the cognitions and practices that enable speakers to compose and sequence their turns in interactions to achieve understandings that influence and constrain what comes next and what the end result of the interaction will be. Chris R. Sawyer (Ph.D., University of North Texas, 1992) is a Professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX. He studies affective responses during communication, particularly public speaking. He is currently working on a dynamic set point theory of speaker anxiety. Pam Shockley-Zalabak (Ph.D., University of Colorado, 1980) is Chancellor and Professor of Communication at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Dr. Shockley-Zalabak teaches and conducts research in building high-trust organizations and the communication competencies important for organizational communication. Brian H. Spitzberg (Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1981) is Senate Distinguished Professor in the School of Communication at San Diego State University. His areas of research include interpersonal communication competence, communication assessment, communication theory, conflict, jealousy, infidelity, intimate violence, sexual coercion, and stalking. He is author or co-author of three scholarly books, co-editor of three scholarly books, and author or coauthor of over 100 scholarly articles and chapters, including the award-winning book written with William Cupach on The Dark Side of Relationship Pursuit: From Attraction to Obsession and Stalking. He also an active member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals. Laura Stafford (Ph.D. University of Texas, 1985) is a Professor and Director of the School of Media and Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. She studies long-distance relationships and relational maintenance. Recent work has considered the role of religion in marriage. She is a past editor of the Journal of Applied Communication and a past chair of the Interpersonal Communication Divisions of NCA and ICA. Richard L. Street, Jr. (Ph.D., University of Texas, 1980) is Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University and Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medi-

Biographical sketches

763

cine. His research focuses on clinician–patient communication, pathways linking communication to improved health outcomes, and strategies for increasing patient involvement in care. He has published over 130 articles and book chapters, as well as a number of books, monographs, and special issues of journals. In 2012, he was given the George L. Engel award by the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare for career contributions to the research practice, and teaching of effective healthcare communication skills. Stella Ting-Toomey (Ph.D., University of Washington, 1981) is a Professor of Human Communication Studies at California State University-Fullerton, USA. Her research interests have focused on testing the conflict face-negotiation theory and the identity negotiation theory. Her most recent co-authored book is Understanding Intercultural Communication, Second Edition (Oxford University Press). Vince Waldron (Ph.D., Ohio State University, 1989) is Professor of Communication at Arizona State University. He studies the communication practices that make work and personal relationships effective, satisfying, and good (in the moral sense of that word). Jason S. Wrench (Ed.D., West Virginia University, 2002) is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at SUNY New Paltz. He studies Organizational and Instructional communication with an emphasis in quantitative research methods and measurement. Stephen C. Yungbluth (Ph.D., University of Kentucky, 2003) is Associate Professor at Northern Kentucky University. His primary areas of study include Interpersonal, Organizational, and Small Group Communication with a special emphasis on the production of respectful dialogue. He is also a mediator and frequently presents workshops on conflict management for various community groups.

Subject index Ability 240–245, 560 Abstraction 227, 243 Action assembly theory 41–43 Affection 317–318, 323–325, 329, 332 Affective communication skills 488, 492–493 Aggression 330–333, 354, 377, 413, 546, 574, 658, 666, 669, 671, 673–675, 711–716 Aggression competence 721–722, 725 Aggression, physical 719, 726–727, 729–730, 734 Applied research 589 Appropriateness 22–24, 26, 29, 69, 213, 241, 349, 351–354, 374–375, 435, 440, 450, 470, 507, 562, 606, 619–624, 668, 715, 748 Argumentative skill deficiency 711, 719, 731– 733 Argumentativeness 44, 712–717, 720–721, 724–725 Arousal 52–53, 55, 195–196, 199, 457–458, 525–526 Assessments of group communication competence 406, 408 Assessments of organizational communication competence 405 Balancing negotiation dilemmas 376 Bargaining skills 371 Behavioral assessment grid 73, 77, 86 Behavioral communication skills 485, 492, 494 Behavioral genetics 273, 278 Bright & dark communication (bright-dark dialectic) 662, 673 Channel choice 606–607, 616–618, 622 Classroom communication 294, 452, 462, 473 Co-construction 105,117, 367, 383–384 Codes 110, 289, 291–294, 299, 307 Communication apprehension 75, 161–162, 201–203, 246, 452 Communication avoidance predisposition 605, 617 Communication competence 11–12, 14–24, 26–33, 63–65, 67–73, 75, 78–82, 84–88, 91, 153–154, 156, 173, 193–194, 197–198, 201–203, 206, 214, 238, 246, 251, 253–

254, 273–276, 278, 282–284, 289–293, 295–297, 298–299, 300, 302, 307, 317– 320, 325–326, 332–333, 342, 352, 355– 356, 372, 375, 377, 379, 381–384, 386, 388–389, 397–400, 402–409, 411, 416– 417, 419–424, 433, 435, 440, 443–444, 449–451, 453, 463, 464, 466–467, 470– 471, 473, 482–483, 491, 494–495, 503– 510, 511, 513–514, 518–521, 527–531, 559– 560, 568, 570, 575, 577, 585–601, 606– 607, 616, 619, 629, 634, 637, 640–641, 651, 657–659, 666–671, 674–675, 677, 683–684, 703, 705–706, 713–715, 717, 720, 723, 725, 727, 730–731, 734, 745– 746, 753 Communication competence, instructional 449–453, 456–457, 459– 460, 463–465, 467, 470, 473 Communication competence, intercultural 420 Communication competence, intergroup 504– 506, 508–510, 513–514, 518–519, 528, 530–531 Communication competence, interpersonal 21, 64, 399, 404–406, 423, 508, 530, 703 Communication education 15, 449, 452, 466 Communication effectiveness 11, 17–18, 194, 206, 213, 400, 407, 508, 531, 593, 648 Communication error 673, 701–703, 705 Communication failure 114, 683, 689, 691– 692, 694, 702 Communication models 40, 49–50 Communication pedagogy 451, 466 Communication skill 29, 72, 84, 88, 142, 146, 229, 237, 239–240, 248–250, 252–256, 317–318, 323, 325, 331, 333, 374, 386, 388–389, 399, 401, 406, 414, 416–417, 449, 465, 477, 484–485, 488–495, 508– 509, 511, 532, 541, 547, 561, 567–569, 595, 597–598, 635–639, 643, 645–647, 649–651, 658, 671, 684, 728–730, 734 Communication skill, cognitive 488 Communication skills, group 529 Communication skills, individual 529 Communication skill, training 213, 477, 493, 495

766

Subject index

Communication technology 605, 611, 615 Communication theory 43, 48, 57, 68, 503, 706 Competence antecedents 11 Competence as outcome 585 Competence as predictor 585, 596 Competence criteria 503, 505–506, 508, 523 Competence, pragmatic 539, 543, 545 Competence, relational 22, 317–320, 325– 327, 330, 333, 349, 403 Communication motivation 488 Computer anxiety 153, 156, 160, 164–165 Computer-mediated communication competence 153–156, 160, 163–164, 167, 173, 175–177 Conflict 137, 142, 144, 225, 238, 249, 324, 329–330, 341–342, 345–346, 358–360, 377, 384, 440, 507, 513–514, 522–523, 527–528, 593, 613, 647–648, 666, 676, 697, 711–712, 728–732 Conflict behavior 137, 225, 329–330, 341– 342, 346–348, 352, 354–356, 358–360 Conflict, competence model of 341–342, 349, 351–352, 359 Conflict management 30, 224–225, 318, 329– 330, 345, 357, 359, 372, 409–411, 539, 543–544, 546, 550, 553, 568, 574, 593, 658, 671, 712 Conflict strategies 225, 347 Conflict styles 347, 350, 405, 513, 718 Constraints 21, 56, 105, 122, 123, 125, 408, 442, 566, 587, 596, 608–609, 622, 635, 688, 714 Context 5–7, 12–14, 17, 20, 22–23, 26–27, 30, 45, 55, 57–58, 64–65, 68–70, 78–79, 85, 87, 90, 107, 112–114, 116, 118–119, 132, 138, 143, 153–155, 157–158, 162, 166–174, 177–178, 213–214, 218, 224, 237, 239, 241–242, 244–245, 248, 250, 253–254, 256, 273–274, 276, 289–294, 296, 301, 307, 320, 326, 329, 330–331, 342, 349– 350, 353, 357, 367, 370, 378, 381, 384, 388–389, 397–400, 402, 405–408, 414, 416, 419–423, 435, 440, 442, 450, 455, 459, 470–472, 477–479, 495, 504, 506, 508–514, 518, 520, 522, 526–528, 543, 552, 561–573, 575–577, 585–587, 590, 593–597, 600–601, 605–608, 615–616, 618–619, 621–623, 629–630, 636–638, 641–642, 644–645, 648, 660, 663, 665, 667–669, 674–677, 686, 689, 694–697,

699–700, 702–706, 711, 714, 725–726, 728, 733–734, 747–749, 751–752, Contexts for organizational and group communication competence 419 Control theory 203–204 Criteria 40, 45, 176, 318, 351, 367, 403, 412, 505–506, 508, 528, 562, 573, 585, 588, 610, 630, 634, 668, 747–748, 750–751 Culture 105, 122, 169, 193, 238, 289–298, 301–307, 378, 399, 404–405, 418–420, 432, 452, 455, 507, 511–519, 523, 542– 543, 552, 575–576, 600, 664, 674–676, 718 Curvilinearity 559, 575–77 Dark & bright communication (bright-dark dialectic) 662, 673 Dark competence 657, 671–672, 676–677 Dark interpersonal communication 659 Dark side 4, 6, 206–207, 241, 657–658, 660– 664, 704, 712 Decoding ability 145 Definitions of group communication competence 408–412 Dialectic, bright-dark 662, 673 Dialectic, positive-negative 674 Dimensions 24–25, 47, 56, 64, 69, 72–73, 77, 79, 223, 225, 245, 250, 252, 254, 277, 279, 290, 347–348, 354, 371–372, 388, 401, 403–404, 411, 414, 511–512, 525, 559, 561, 563, 566, 570, 575–576, 596, 634, 639, 641, 657, 661, 666, 671, 688– 689, 714, 716–718, 721 Disagreement 44, 48, 118, 123, 242, 330, 341, 345–346, 353, 358, 368, 375, 693, 722 Effective communication 4, 23–24, 29, 119, 136, 201, 289, 293, 398, 419, 504, 507, 521, 529, 729 Effectiveness 17–18, 23–24, 26–27, 29, 43, 45, 58, 68–69, 107, 113–115, 117–118, 122–126, 154–155, 162, 193–194, 196, 200–202, 206, 213–215, 226, 240–241, 244, 254, 276, 284, 290, 318, 320, 324, 349–354, 356–357, 371–372, 375, 381, 388, 398, 403, 407, 416, 421, 431, 435, 440, 443–444, 450, 453–455, 459, 470– 472, 493, 503, 507–509, 526, 528–529, 531, 561, 562 Elderly 540–542, 548, 550–552

Subject index

Emergent expectations 621 Emotion 13, 27, 44, 131–136, 138–146, 199, 206, 221, 251, 253–254, 282–283, 319, 327–328, 330, 332, 344, 375–377, 414, 481, 489, 492, 511, 522–526, 543–544, 545–546, 549, 639–640, 698, 700, 732 Emotional intelligence 5, 131–132, 135–137, 219, 640, 651, 660 Emotional interpretation and expression 543 Emotional support 543 Employment interviews 6, 431, 433, 435, 438–440, 444, 641 Encoding ability 142 Epistemological approaches 63 Error 6, 46, 82, 204, 243, 279, 673, 683– 690, 693, 697–699, 701, 703–705 Error, human 6, 683–685, 688–689, 701–706 Ethnic glossing 290–291 Ethnicity 31, 53–54, 163, 293, 299, 300–301, 305, 452–453, 455, 516 Ethnocentrism 513, 515–516, 518 Ethnorelativism 515–516, 518 Everyday talk 6, 605–607, 610–611, 614–616, 618–620, 622–623 Experience 3–4, 15, 45, 49, 124, 131–132, 138–139, 141–144, 155, 157–158, 160, 166–167, 171–172, 200, 205, 214, 222, 275, 279–280, 296–298, 386, 439, 480, 517–518, 524 Expressiveness 27, 45, 69, 153, 156, 246, 248, 251, 294, 403, 412, 631–633, 638– 641, 643–646, 650, 670 Face

21, 43–44, 117, 222–223, 321, 343–346, 348, 357–358, 374, 511–512, 527–528, 667, 732 Face concerns 511, 522, 697 Facework 293, 296, 358, 512, 528, 691 Fallibility 683, 705–706 Family settings 645 Foundations 64, 65, 132 Functions 17, 110, 113, 121, 196, 244, 255– 256, 273, 289, 291–293, 376, 402, 484, 494, 569, 610, 612, 669, 670, 693, 751 Gender 30, 53, 71, 87, 163, 165, 167, 172, 200, 291, 294, 300, 304, 328, 418, 432, 452–453, 455, 472, 509, 512, 516, 575– 576, 690, 696, 698, 730, 733 Genetics 75, 201, 273, 276, 280, 485, 540

767

Goals 14–16, 21–23, 41, 43, 57, 106–107, 111, 116–118, 123–124, 194, 196, 222, 226, 242, 292, 320–323, 342–345, 347, 350– 352, 372–373, 435–437 Goals, relational 136, 196, 198, 343–344, 353, 357, 431, 437, 482–483, 509 Goals, self-presentational 343, 345, 437, 440 Guidelines 88, 683, 705 Health disparities 290, 298–300, 307 Healthcare 299, 304–306, 485, 630, 642, 649 Heritability 200, 278–280 Higher education 15, 19, 449, 455, 462, 465, 467, 471–473, 644 Human error 6, 683–685, 688–689, 701–706 Hurtful messages 327–328, 333, 613, 677 Impression management 143, 438–439 Incompatibility 330, 342, 351 Incompetence 12, 69, 202–203, 247, 300, 327, 330–332, 422, 521, 526, 530, 541, 569, 574, 596, 658, 671, 696 Independent mindedness 711, 718 Individual differences 40, 108, 111–112, 124– 125, 132, 193, 195, 205–206, 215, 219, 244, 275–276, 278–279, 282–285, 542, 712 Instructional communication competence 449–453, 456–457, 459– 460, 463–465, 467, 470, 473 Instructional communication components 449–450 Instructional communication history 450–453 Instructional communication research 452– 454, 459 Instructional communication theory 457, 459 Instrumental goals 343, 431, 436 Intentionality 24, 704 Interaction 3, 5, 12, 42, 45–46, 49–58, 64– 66, 69–70, 86–87, 106–107, 115–123, 162, 275–276, 368–369, 438, 508–510 Interactive media competencies 539, 542–543 Intercultural competence 420 Intergroup attitudes 517–519 Intergroup communication competence 504– 506, 508–510, 513–514, 518–519, 528, 530–531 Intergroup competence 528 Internet skill 153, 159, 161, 163, 175 Interpersonal communication competence 21, 64, 399, 404–406, 423, 508, 530, 703

768

Subject index

Intervention 6, 203–206, 243, 252, 255, 289– 290, 298, 302–307, 461, 541, 589–591, 629, 645, 647, 684–685, 720, 728–729, 734, 752–753 Intimate partner violence 660, 713, 720, 726 Issue development 382 Job applicant 431 Judicial system 633, 647 Knowledge 16, 20–24, 31–32, 41–45, 47, 49, 111, 122, 136, 160, 175–176, 197, 206, 213–216, 218–230, 245, 278, 283, 290, 292, 295, 368, 371, 381, 399, 401, 415– 417, 440, 450, 483, 503–509, 511, 513, 515, 519 knowledge, identity-sensitive 505, 508, 511, 513–514, 523, 526, 528, 531 Liberal education 11 Lifespan 206, 280, 323–324, 539 Literacy 3, 155, 157, 160–161, 167–168, 172– 174, 177, 301, 547, 690, 697 Meaningfulness 106, 115–116, 119, 125 Measurement 65, 70–74, 80–84, 86–87, 155– 155, 167, 175–177, 206, 247, 275, 346, 407–408, 422, 460, 559, 563–565, 569– 572, 576–578 Mediated communication 4, 27–28, 79, 84, 137, 544, 547, 606, 612, 668 Mediation 142, 595, 647–648 Memory 5, 42, 49, 82–83, 201, 213–215, 222, 226–227, 278, 283, 548, 634, 686 Message production 40–41, 43–45, 47, 58, 216, 218, 220, 228, 274, 320–321, 401, 595 Message reception 39–40, 44, 46–49, 58, 229, 253 Middle childhood 542, 544–546 Mindfulness 505, 523–526, 529 Miscommunication 6, 296, 683–684, 689– 691, 693–701, 703–706 Misunderstanding 14, 54, 296, 303, 342, 462, 607–608, 613, 683, 689–702 Motivation 23–24, 40–41, 44–46, 48–50, 53– 55, 69, 77, 105, 114, 156, 166, 169, 171, 194–199, 201–206, 290, 404, 421, 433, 440, 450, 455, 457, 460–461, 465, 483, 514, 551, 588, 592–593, 599, 667, 695, 699, 703

Negotiation framing 367 Negotiation interaction 369 Negotiation skills, collaborative 522 Negotiation, transforming 367 Negotiation, win-win outcomes 519 Nonverbal communication 439, 442–444, 470, 480, 493, 512, 528 Outcomes related to group communication competence 421–422 Outcomes related to organizational communication competence 421–422 Packaging issues 375 Parenting 253, 540–541, 645–647 Performance feedback 199, 203, 640 Personal goals 21, 23, 196, 206, 539 Physical aggression 719, 726–727, 729–730, 734 Positive-negative dialectic 674 Practices 106, 111–114, 220, 289, 291–293, 295, 299, 304, 307, 420, 440, 516–519 Pragmatic competencies 539, 543, 545 Principles 108–115, 119–121, 123, 125, 132, 174, 204, 206, 522 Psychological factors 110, 160, 165, 171 Quality 4, 45, 71, 118, 138, 200, 204, 220, 237–241, 244–246, 249, 318, 343, 349, 354, 356, 359 Race 31, 71, 87, 293, 299–301, 514 Relational competence 22, 317–320, 325–327, 330, 333, 349, 403 Reliability 78–80, 167, 254, 432, 441, 574 Research design 406, 423, 461, 590, 592, 593, 597–600 Research methods 5, 68, 459, 591 Reticence 136, 616–617 Rhetoric 13–14, 66, 560 Rules 3, 20, 28, 55, 57, 69, 105, 108–115, 119–120, 123, 125, 141, 143, 169, 206, 220, 224, 238, 290–294, 372, 381, 434, 545–546, 549, 551, 562, 575, 615, 638, 641, 668, 687, 690, 692, 698, 752 Schema 223, 253, 507, 509, 569, 724, 732 Self-regulation 193 Self-concept 221, 353, 511, 714–715 Self-efficacy 22, 166, 199, 221, 254, 540–541, 550, 552, 643

Subject index

Self-presentation goals 343, 345, 437, 440 Sense-making practice 683 Social context 166, 168, 378, 508–510, 513, 593, 608, 664 Social judgment 11, 22, 30, 47 Social skills 63, 75, 131, 136, 145, 238, 244, 247, 249, 251, 253, 256, 318, 440, 539, 547, 551–552, 564–565, 568, 577, 630, 637, 641, 644 Social support 136, 139, 318, 324–325, 489– 490, 492, 539, 543–544, 549, 553, 595, 647, 674 Standardization 106, 431, 437, 441, 705 Student communication competence 84, 717 Tacit knowledge 216 Teacher communication competence 449 Temperament 194, 540 Theoretical foundations 63–4 Theoretical perspectives for group communication competence 402–404

769

Theoretical perspectives for organizational communication competence 399–402 Theory building 153 Training 629–630, 634–651 Twins studies 278–280, 284 Uncertainty management 6, 29, 477, 480, 482–485, 488–495 Uncertainty reduction 39, 50, 53–54, 435–436 Understanding, mutual 683, 689, 699, 706 Validity 70–72, 79, 81, 167, 175, 248–249, 274, 407, 432, 441, 481, 530, 567, 573, 577, 641, 687 Verbal aggressiveness 198, 330–331, 354, 379, 711–712, 714–721, 723–725 Win-win negotiation outcomes 519 Workplace 11, 29–30, 138, 166, 249, 341, 359, 412, 421, 512, 564, 631–632, 637, 726

Author index Aber, J. Lawrence 645 Academy of Management 464 Achenbach, Thomas M. 70, 247, 569 Achinstein, Peter 56 Adair, Wendi L. 370, 378, 381, 385 Adams, Elie Maynard 136 Adamson, Nicole A. 672 Adeola, Francis O. 298 Afifi, Tamara D. 5, 322, 325–327, 329, 331, 673 Afifi, Walid A. 54, 324 Aguado, David 239 Aguinis, Herman 244 Ahn, Annie J. 294 Airenti, Gabriella 692 Ajzen, Icek 222 Akerjordet, Kristin 136 Alberts, Jess K. 346, 348 Albrecht, Terrance L. 324 Aldeis, M. Desiree 326 Algren, Margaret 30 Ali, Parveen 665 Alicke, Mark D. 319 Allen, Matt 635 Allen, Mike 373 Allen, R. R. 16, 17, 25 Allport, Gordon W. 221 Allred, Keith G. 377 Almeida, Eugenia P. 600 Aloia, Lindsey Susan 198 Alper, Meryl 547 Alshamsan, Riyadh 299 Amato, Paul R. 329 American Psychological Association 464 Aminov, N. A. 195 Andersen, Janis F. 455 Andersen, Peter A. 53, 223, 458, 693, 712 Anderson, Carolyn M. 716 Anderson, Kristin L. 332 Anderson, Wendy G. 489 Appel, Markus 160, 168, 170, 175 Apple, William 140 Applebaum, Steven H. 203 Arasaratnam, Lily A. 32, 76, 87, 508 Arborelius, Elizabeth 489 Argyle, Michael 50, 51, 57, 242, 341, 571 Argyris, Chris 20, 64, 65

Aristotle 13, 560 Arneson, Pat 27 Arora, Neeraj K. 488 Arpan, Laura 222 Arroyo, Analisa 203, 595, 657 Arthur, Jr., Winfred 249, 255 Aspegren, Knut 493 Atkins, Paul W. B. 240 Aune, Krystyna Strzyzewski 143 Austin, Elizabeth J. 660 Austin, John L. 702 Avtgis, Theodore A. 712, 714 Ax, Albert F. 195 Axén, Iben 83 Aymerich-Franch, Laura 85 Babcock, Julia C. 733 Babin, Elizabeth A. 595 Babrow, Austin S. 477–479, 482, 492 Bachiochi, Peter D. 239, 415 Bachmann, Cadja 484, 569 Backlund, Philip M. 4, 18, 21, 88, 89, 560, 586, 684, 757 Baer, Ruth 524, 525 Baig, Lubna 84 Bailey Jr., Donald E. 477 Bailey, Benjamin 293, 294, 296 Baker, David W. 302 Bakke, Emil 76, 82, 87, 166, 170, 173, 254, 598, 606 Bakx, Anouke W. E. A. 254 Balaji, K. A. 254 Baldwin, John R. 291 Bales, Robert F. 56, 57 Ballance, Collin T. 171 Baloğlu, Mustafa 162, 164, 165 Baltes, Paul 543, 548 Bandura, Albert 112, 195, 214, 221, 242, 472 Banerjee, Pirya R. 669 Banja, John 683, 688, 689, 705 Banse, Rainer 140 Barbeite, Francisco G. 164, 165 Barchard, Kimberley A. 254 Bardi, C. Albert 616 Barge, J. Kevin 45, 368, 381, 382, 384, 386, 403, 412–414, 522 Barker, Valerie 541

Author index

Barnabè, Federico 637 Baron, Naomi 607, 608, 620 Baron, Reuben M. 467 Barrick, Murray R. 432, 437, 438, 442 Barry, Bruce 53 Bartholomew, David J. 81 Barton, Ansley 633, 647 Bassett, Ronald E. 3, 18 Bauman, Richard 67, 91 Baumeister, Roy F. 4, 7, 197, 221, 673 Bavelas, Janet 693 Baxter, Leslie A. 57, 326, 345, 433, 443, 670, 673 Baym, Nancy 607–610, 615 Bazzanella, Carla 693, 696, 700, 701 Beach, Mary Catherine 571 Bearison, David J. 17 Beas, Maria Isabel 165, 166 Beatty, Michael J. 5, 25, 75, 194, 202, 242, 274, 275, 277–282, 284, 540, 690, 694, 714, 716, 757 Becher, Tony 239 Beck, James W. 244 Beebe, Steven A. 402, 406, 412, 413, 454, 459, 463, 470 Beelmann, Andreas 513 Behnke, Ralph R. 196, 200 Beisecker, Thomas 369 Bellack, Alan S. 715 Benet-Martinez, Veronica 527 Benjamin, Lorna S. 253 Bennett, Janet 516 Bennett, Sue 163 Beranuy, Marta 137 Berchicci, Luca 417 Berger, Charles R. 42, 53, 86, 197, 278, 320, 321, 434–436 Bergs, Alex 611 Bergstrom, Mark. J. 550 Bergus, George R. 84 Berkhof, Marianne H. 493 Berman, Stuart J. 30 Bernardin, H. John 87 Berry, Christopher M. 432 Berscheid, Ellen 55, 131 Berzon, Richard A. 590 Betancourt, Joseph R. 299, 301, 303 Bevan, Jennifer L. 345 Binder, Pauline 690, 700 Bingham, Shereen G. 728

771

Biocca, Frank 84 Birnie, Sarah 616 Bittman, Michael 547 Blake, Robert R. 347 Blanchard, Victoria L. 70, 247, 255, 569 Blanch-Hartigan, Danielle 255, 571 Blascovich, Jim 85 Bloom, Benjamin S. 77, 193 Blume, Brian D. 256 Blut, Markus 111, 114, 119 Bochner, Arthur P. 17, 64, 714 Bodenheimer, Thomas 490 Bodie, Graham D. 196, 319 Bolls, Paul 526 Bonanno, George A. 549 Bond, Charles F. 695, 697 Boneva, Bonka 611 Bonito, Joseph. A. 599 Bonnano, George A. 139 Book, Cassandra L. 219 Boon, Heather 84, 571 Boone, Patreece R. 461, 462 Boone, Thomas R. 138, 139, 376 Booth-Butterfield, Melanie 719 Bordone, Robert C. 389 Borsboom, D. 81 Bostrom, Robert N. 369 Boucsein, Wolfram 195 Bowers, Clint 635 Bowlby, John 323 Bowman, Nicholas David 173 Brach, Cindy 299, 302, 303 Brackett, Marc A. 136 Bradac, James J. 48 Bradlow, Eric T. 159, 167, 168, 175 Braiker, Harriet B. 342, 358 Braithwaite, Dawn O. 433 Brashers, Dale E. 477–482, 489, 492, 495 Breen, Paul 560 Brehaut, Jamie C. 480 Brett, Jeanne M. 385 Brew, Frances P. 372 Brewer, Marilyn 506 Brinkman, Gert 409, 410, 417 Broady, Tim 161, 162, 166, 168 Bronfenbrenner, Urie 506 Broome, Benjamin 522 Brown, Kenneth Lee 17 Brown, Kirk 524, 525 Brown, Penelope 43, 117, 125, 223, 322, 328, 343, 344, 561

772

Author index

Brown, Richard F. 493 Brown, Roger 113 Brown, Susan D. 307 Brown, Timothy A. 81 Bruce, Christine Susan 161, 168 Bruch, Monroe A. 203 Brule, Nancy J. 731 Brummans, Boris H. J. M. 384 Bruner, Jerome 113, 121 Bubas, Goran 72, 155, 156, 166, 168 Buck, Ross W. 44, 75, 132, 133, 135, 138, 142, 144, 145, 199 Bucks, Romala S. 549 Buhrmester, Duane 72, 76, 87, 341, 546 Bullen, Mark 163 Bunz, Ulla 5, 154–157, 159, 160, 163, 165, 166, 168, 170, 171, 175, 757 Burchum, Jacqueline L. 295 Burgin, Chris J. 139 Burgoon, Judee K. 51, 52, 138, 140, 141, 145, 218, 223, 443, 524 Burke, C. Shawn (2006) 239, 415 Burke, Tricia J. (2013) 242 Burleson, Brant R. 43, 48, 91, 222, 319, 324, 400, 409, 410, 421, 546 Burnside-Lawry, Judy 409, 410, 414 Burroughs, Nancy F. 296 Buss, Arnold H. 712, 727 Butler Ellis, Jennifer 87 Butler, Emily A. 138, 144 Butler, Mark H. 646 Buzzanell, Patrice M. 442 Bylund, Carma L. 29, 480 Byram, Michael 560 Cahn, Dudley D. 672, 721, 728 Calvani, Antonio 162, 173 Camara, Sakile 504 Camerer, Colin 485 Cameron, Jessica J. 346 Campbell, Donald T. 274 Campbell, Scott 616 Campinha-Bacote, Joseph 295, 300 Campion, Michael A. 441 Canary, Daniel J. 225, 243, 319, 329, 345, 347–349, 351, 352, 354–356, 372, 436, 437, 440, 455, 508, 524, 527, 593, 594, 605, 619, 668, 715, 721, 727 Cappella, Joseph N. 52 Carbaugh, Donal 293

Carducci, Bernardo 616 Carl, Dale 512 Caroll, Tina 164 Carpenter, Tara D. 250, 568 Carrell, Lori J. 70, 247, 465, 569 Carver, Charles S. 203, 204, 221 Casale, Silvia 162 Casner-Lotto, Jill 239 Cassidy, Simon 165, 168 Castro, Teresa S. 674 Castronova, Edward 84 Caughlin, John P. 322, 326, 329, 348, 349, 610, 615, 618, 620, 623 Cegala, Donald J. 29, 76, 87, 633, 646, 649, 650 Celik, Vehbi 164 Ceyhan, Esra 164–166, 168 Chambers, John 699 Chan, Michael 616 Chang, Chiung-Sui 161, 168 Chapman, Derek S. 437, 441, 442 Chappell, Cathryn A. 648 Charlton, John P. 164, 165 Charness, Neil H. 199, 550 Chen, Lei-D. 631, 639 Cheney, George 419 Cheng, Tina T. 160 Chesebro, James W. 297 Chi, Nai-Wen 201 Chomsky, Noam 20, 21, 64, 66, 91, 106, 109, 110, 113, 114, 278, 567 Choon Mooi, Chua 76, 87 Choudhury, Tanzeem 253 Christ, William G. 560 Christensen, Andrew 329, 348 Christman, Norma J. 478, 481 Christophel, Diane M. 460, 468 Chronbach, L. J. 77 Ciarrochi, Joseph V. 136, 544 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 13, 66 Clark, Eve 691 Clark, Herbert H. 45, 46, 690 Clark, Lee Anna 81 Clark, Ruth A. 14, 343, 436, 437, 546 Clement, Richard 517 Clifton, Andrew 547 Clore, Gerald L. 132 Clouder, Lynn 203 Cloven, Denise H. 331, 357 Cobb, Sara 389

Author index

Cody, Michael J. 345 Colley, Ann M. 163, 165, 166, 171 Collie, Phillippa 507 Collier, Mary J. 293, 294, 452 Collins, Karen S. 296, 301 Collins, Lynn G. 84 Collins, Nancy L. 323 Comadena, Mark, E. 468, 469 Comstock, Jamie 86, 468 Cone, John D. 63, 73, 74, 76–80, 82–86, 563 Conrad, Charles 347 Conrad, David 11, 239, 250 Conway, James M. 441, 569 Cook, David A. 256 Cook, Richard 688 Cooley, Ralph 399 Cooper, Catherine R. 297 Cooper, Lisa A. 302 Cooper, Pamela J. 452 Cooper-Patrick, Lisa 305 Coovert, Michael David 166 Cornejo, Raymundo 550, 551 Corrallo, Sal 18 Correa, Teresa 158, 159, 162, 163, 165, 166, 169, 171 Corston, Rod 163, 164, 166, 171 Cortez, Derek 454 Costa, Paul T., Jr. 214 Coupland, Justine 611 Coupland, Nikolas 689, 690, 692, 694, 698, 701, 702 Coyne, James C. 324 Coyne, Sarah 613, 614 Cross, Terry L. 292 Crowne, Kerry Anne 254 Cummings, E. Mark 70 Cummings, Jordan A. 247, 569 Cupach, William R. 3, 6, 20, 23, 25, 30, 39, 67, 68–70, 72–73, 75, 77, 85–87, 107, 116–117, 153, 193–194, 196, 198, 214, 225, 239, 241, 245, 248, 254, 290, 301–302, 318–320, 329, 341–342, 344–347, 349– 352, 354–358, 372, 399, 407, 436, 440, 443, 482, 483, 507–508, 560, 563, 567, 569, 577, 585–588, 590, 596–597, 657– 663, 666–671, 673–675, 713–715, 726– 727, 745, 747 Curhan, Jared R. 251, 567 Curry, Leslie. A. 591, 599

773

Curtin, Pat J. 439 Custrini, Robert J. 140 D’Andrade, Roy G. 253 Dailey, René M. 330, 712, 714, 731, 732 Daly, John A. 560 Dance, Francis E. X. 15 Dannels, Deanna P. 204, 465 Darling, Ann L. 465 Darling, Nancy 540 Dascal, Marcelo 691 Davidson, Richard J. 282, 283 Davis, Fred D. 165, 168 Davis, H. Clint 648, 651 Davis, Mark H. 320 Davison, Sara N. 480 De Leon Siantz, Mary Lou 303 de Vaus, David A. 590 de Vet, Henrica C. W. 80 Dean, Marleah 6, 477, 488, 492, 495, 758 DeAndrea, David C. 668, 674 Deardorff, Darla K. 31, 520 Decety, Jean 140 Decker, Carol L. 477 DeGroot, Timothy 439 Delia, Jesse G. 319, 400, 458 Delsol, Catherine 713 Dennis, Alan 612 DePanfilis, Diane 330 DePaulo, Bella M. 222 Derber, Charles 718 Derlega, Valerian J. 327 DeRue, D. Scott 376 DeSanctis, Gerardine 58 Deterding, Sebastian 635 Deturck, Mark A. 720 Deutsch, Morton 342, 357, 369 Devine, Patricia 526 DeWine, Sue 407 DeYoung, Colin G. 163, 164, 166 Dhami, Sangeeta 664 Di Paula, Adam 343 Diaz-Cuellar 306 Dickerson, Andy 159 Diez, Mary E. 376 Dillard, James P. 223, 251, 320, 321, 343, 345 Dirksen, Shannon R. 482 Dishion, Thomas J. 544 DiTommaso, Enrico 136 Dixon, Louise 713

774

Author index

Dolhun, Eduardo P. 304 Doll, Edgar A. 63, 245, 560 Dollar, Natalie 406 Donath, Judith 612 Dong, John Q. 163–165, 172 Donohue, William A. 369–371, 373, 376, 385 Donovan, Leslie A. 75 Donovan-Kicken, Erin 322 Dorjee, Tenzin 6, 506, 513, 522, 531, 758 Douglas, Jacinta M. 77, 87 Downing, Joe R. 31, 254, 421, 597, 598 Dressler, William W. 293 Drew, Paul 121 Driskell, James E. 649, 650 Drolet, Aimee L. 375 Druckman, Daniel 385 Drury, John 4 Dubin, Robert 32 Duck, Steve 4, 659–661, 663, 672, 690 Duffy, F. Daniel 571 Dulewicz Victor 136 Dumas, Jean E. 729 Dun, Tim 692, 693 Dunbar, Norah E. 224 Duncan, Greg J. 238 Duncan, Starkey, Jr. 56 Dunn, Ardys M. 292 Dunning, David 240, 247, 569 Dunst, Carl J. 635 Duran, Robert L. 76, 87, 606, 614, 619, 671, 717 Durkin, Kevin 161, 162 Durlak, Joseph A. 238 Durndell, Alan 163, 165 Dworkin, Robert H. 281 Dyck, Jennifer L. 162, 164, 171 Eadie, William F. 77, 87 Eagle, Nathan 251, 567 Eagly, Alice H. 222 Earley, P. Christopher 524 Eastin, Matthew S. 163, 165, 171, 172 Ebeling-Witte, Susan 622 Edley, Paige 612 Edwards, Chad 456, 716 Egan, Gerard 489 Egland, Kori L. 254 Ehrenberg, Alexandra 616, 617 Ehrlinger, Joyce 240, 247, 746 Eichinger, Robert W. 240

Eid, Mahmoud 409, 420 Eide, Hilde 489 Einhorn, L. J. 434, 437 Eisenberg, Nancy 139 Eisenberg, Norman 282 Ekman, Paul 44, 133, 143, 214, 221, 545 Elfenbein, Hillary A. 145, 252 Elias, Steven M. 162, 168 Ellington, Lee 477 Elliot, Andrew J. 193, 194 Ellis, Aleksander P. J. 432, 438 Ellis, Donald G. 518 Ellsworth, Randy 160, 166 Emmers-Sommer, Tara M. 346 Engler-Parish, Patricia G. 439 English, Donald 409, 410, 415 Epstein, Ronald M. 477, 480, 481, 484, 488– 495 Erdogan, Yavuz 164 Ericsson, K. Anders 199 Eriksen, Erik Oddvar 31 Eshet-Alkalai, Yoram 159, 161, 173 Evans, Gary W. 324 Eysenck, Hans J. 202, 206, 283, 284 Facer, Keri 158, 159, 163, 169, 170 Fagerlin, Angela 489 Falconer, Douglas S. 279 Fanbin, Zeng 76, 87 Farina, Francisca, R. 164, 171 Faris, Jeralyn 648 Farmer, Stephen 29 Farrell, Albert D. 87 Fassaert, Thijs 571 Fassett, Deanna L. 468 Fatter, Daphne M. 490 Faulkner, Xristine 614 Fay, Nicolas 240, 746 Fayers, Peter M. 80 Fearon, James D. 289 Feeney, Judith A. 138, 143, 324, 328 Feingold, Paul C. 25, 69 Feinstein, Alvan R. 80 Feldman, Clyde M. 733 Feldman, Robert S. 219 Felson, Richard B. 727 Felstead, Alan 168 Felstiner, William L. F. 383 Fernandez-Ballesteros, Rocio 138 Ferris, Gerald R. 254, 440

Author index

Fetters, Michael 703 Fiedler, Fred E. 40 Field, Anne 689 Fields, Sylvia K. 571 Fincham, Frank D. 358, 359 Fink, Elian 254 Finkel, Eli J. 220 Finn, Amber N. 196, 201, 599 Fisher, Roger 117, 124, 344 Fisher, Walter R. 14 Fisher-Yoshida, Beth 507 Fiske, Susan T. 221 Fitch, Kristine L. 116 Fitness, Julie 346, 358 Fitzpatrick, Mary Anne 355 Flauto, Frank J. 30 Fleischmann, Amy A. 673 Fletcher, Garth J. O. 569 Fletcher, Lyndsay 71 Flora, Jeanne 131, 657 Flores, Glenn 298, 301, 302 Floyd, Kory 74, 197, 283, 325, 443, 660 Folger, Joseph P. 342 Foote, Nelson N. 17, 25, 241 Ford, Dee W. 82 Ford, Leigh A. 482 Forehand, Rex 298 Forgas, Joseph P. 200, 201, 571 Forness, Steven R. 238 Forsythe, Sandra M. 438 Fox, Nathan A. 283 Fox, Suzy 660 Frank, Mark G. 219 Freedman, Des 170 Freeman, Terri 201 Freiermuth, Mark R. 84 Freisthler, Bridget 660 French, John R. P. 457 Freund, Phillip A. 70, 569 Frey, Lawrence 406 Fridlund, Alan J. 135, 143 Friedman, Howard S. 138 Friedman, Ray A. 370, 377 Friedrich, Gustav W. 68 Frijda, Nico H. 132 Frisby, Brandi 613 Frith, Hannah 696, 698 Frumkin, Howard 298 Frymier, Ann B. 716 Fukkink, Ruben G. 256, 644

775

Gaelick, Lisa 142 Gallagher, Timothy J. 571 Gallois, Cindy 53, 295, 513, 518, 520, 529 Galton, Francis 284 Gangestad, Steven W. 214 Gardner, Rod 122 Garland, Kate J. 159, 166 Garner, Johny T. 247, 594 Gaudron, Jean-Philippe 164 Gayle, Barbara M. 456 Geen, Russell G. 727 Gentile, Brittany 230 George, Jennifer M. 201 Gerbner, George 458 Gerdes, Karen E. 565 Gergen, Kenneth J. 727 Gershon, Ilana 606, 620 Gertner, Bethany L. 543 Gervain, Judit 218 Giddens, Anthony 444 Gilbert, Thomas F. 240 Giles, Howard 443, 504, 508, 509, 513–515, 517, 518, 520, 529 Gillespie, James J. 378 Gilliam, Harold V. B. 293 Gilliland, A. R. 560 Gimenez, Julio 173 Glenn, E. S. 294 Glenn, Phillip 370 Glenwright, Melanie 162 Goffman, Erving 22, 67, 223, 343, 344, 358, 714 Goicoechea-Balbona, AnaMaria 305 Goldsmith, Daena J. 328, 329, 607, 610 Goldsmith, H. Hill 281 Goleman, Daniel 641 Gollwitzer, Peter M. 221 Goodall, H. Loyd 412, 413 Goodall, Jane 275 Gorden, William I. 409, 411, 412, 719 Gordon, Michael 160, 162–164 Gorham, Joan 457 Górska, Magdalena 254 Gottman, John M. 74, 107, 138, 142, 225, 329, 330, 346, 348, 349 Graham, Steven M. 131, 139 Grant, Adam M. 576 Grant, Charles H. 29 Grant, Rachel A. 297 Gray, Barbara 377

776

Author index

Gray, F. Elizabeth 250, 254 Gray, Jeffrey A. 195, 198, 199, 201 Green, Nicola 611 Greene, Cloreth 689 Greene, John O. 5, 41, 42, 45, 216, 218, 220, 226–228, 241, 253, 256, 483, 758 Greenhalgh, Leonard 376 Gregory, Anne 409, 418 Grice, H. Paul 45, 66, 201, 217, 218, 688, 691, 695, 705, 749 Griffin, Kenneth W. 298 Gross, James J. 137, 142, 144 Gross, Michael A. 349, 353, 717 Grover, Rachel L. 254, 341 Gruber, June 673 Gudykunst, William B. 31, 54, 503, 506, 529 Guerrero, Laura K. 5, 76, 77, 87, 132, 141, 143, 323, 349, 595, 684, 692–694, 729, 758 Gui, Marco 159–161, 163, 168 Gyatso, Tenzin 522 Gysels, Marjolein 493, 494 Habermas, Jürgen 66, 91 Hackman, Michael 401, 410, 415, 418 Hajek, Christopher S. 552 Hale, Claudia L. 319 Halford, Graeme S. 214 Halim, Aziza H. 239 Hall, Joan Kelley 118 Hall, Judith A. 140, 224 Hamel, John 713 Hammock, Georgina S. 347 Hample, Dale 226, 723–725 Han, Paul K. J. 477, 481, 485, 488 Hancock, Jeffrey T. 162 Hannawa, Annegret F. 660, 684, 731, 759 Hansell, James H. 195 Hansson, Robert O. 318, 333 Harboom, Lotta 522 Harden Fritz, Janie M. 660 Hargie, Owen D. W. 213, 253, 560 Hargittai, Eszter 157, 159, 161–165, 168, 170, 171, 175, 176 Harker, LeeAnne 138 Harmon-Jones, Eddie 282, 728 Harper, Vernon B. 154, 155, 175 Harrington, Nancy G. 632, 644, 651 Harris, Linda 368, 382 Harris, Michael M. 71, 247, 569 Hart, Craig H. 540

Hart, Roderick P. 25 Harter, Susan 33, 199 Hartmann, William E. 305 Hartnett, Stephen John 648, 651 Harwood, Jake 509, 513, 548 Hasan, Bassam 166 Hasler, Béatrice S. 84 Haslett, Beth B. 545 Hass, John W. 30 Hatcher, Robert L. 254 Hatem, Wadhah Amer 162 Hatfield, Elaine 139 Hawkins, Alan J. 255, 646 Haythornthwaite, Caroline 158, 159, 614, 618, 620 Hazelton, Vincent 194 Heavey, Christopher L. 349 Hecht, Heidemarie 239 Hecht, Michael L. 5, 292–294, 299, 300, 306, 514, 527 Hedeen, Timothy 634 Heggestad, Eric D. 254 Heider, Fritz 457 Heine, Steven J. 71, 569 Heinssen, Robert K. 165 Heise, David R. 54, 571 Heisel, Alan D. 283, 714, 728 Heldner, Mattias 241, 242 Helitzer, Deborah 571 Helm, Francesca 87 Helsper, Ellen Johanna 163 Hemby, K. Virginia 159, 160, 163, 166, 171 Henningsen, David D. 690 Heritage, John 122, 126 Hess, Ursula 140 Hessler, Danielle M. 545 Hewes, Dean E. 229 Hickey, Patricia 416 Higgins, E. Tory 203–206 High, Andrew 616 Hill, Clara E. 87, 255 Hill, Sarah 299 Hines, Stephen C. 479 Hinshaw, Art 648 Hirokawa, Randy Y. 229 Hirst, William 82 Hjorth, Larissa 616 Hobbs, Jerry R. 218 Hobgood, Cherri D. 571 Hoff, Lena 488

Author index

Hoffman, Mark 159, 160 Höflich, Joachim R. 615, 616 Hofmann, Karen 254 Hofstede, Geert 511, 512 Hogarth, Robin M. 438 Hojat, Mohammadreza 348, 571 Hojjat, Mahzad 348 Holley, Sarah R. 733 Hollin, Clive 253 Holloway, Sarah 162, 168, 170, 175 Holmes, Michael E. 370 Holmes, Prue 294, 297 Holt, John 16 Holt-Lunstad, Julianne 33, 238 Holtzworth-Munroe, Amy 713 Holzbach, Robert L. 87 Honeycutt, James M. 223 Hong, Ying Y. 527 Hooper, Celia R. 543 Horstmanshof, Louise 614 Hortaçsu, Nuran 140 Hoskins, Bryony 254 Hoskins, Marie L. 524 Hotta, Jean 507 House, Robert 511, 512 Hoyt, William T. 87 Hsu, Chiung-Wen 615 Huang, Hanyun 616 Huffcutt, Allen I. 6, 238, 431, 441, 759 Hughes, Amanda 241 Hughes, Claire 278, 281 Hughes, Susan 196 Huguet, Angel 297 Hull, Clark L. 195 Hullman, Gwen A. 82, 593 Hulsman, Robert L. 484, 485 Hummert, Mary L. 509, 514, 521, 541 Hunt, John W. 631, 640, 649 Hunt, Thelma 560 Huntley, Christopher D. 82, 84 Hurt, J. Thomas 451 Huston, Ted L. 329 Hwang, Yoosun 4, 254, 547 Hyder, Elaine B. 374 Hymes, Dell 20, 21, 91, 107, 110, 114, 116, 714 Iarocci, Grace Ickes, William Igbaria, Magid Ilott, Irene 3,

75, 237, 242 57 160, 161, 164, 166, 168, 171 239

777

Infante, Dominic A. 44, 658, 712–716, 718– 720 Inglés, Cándido. J. 239, 254 Ivanova, Masha Y. 239 Ivanova, V. S. 195 Jablin, Fredric M. 254, 372, 389, 400, 432 Jacko, Julie 163, 171 Jackson, Sally 122 Jacobs, Scott 122 Jang, Su Ahn 323 Janssen, Joris H. 85 Janz, Tom 441 Jaramillo, Fernando 240 Javidi, Manocher N. 197 Jawahar, I. M. 71, 569 Jayagopi, Dineshbabu 251, 252 Jefford, Michael 590 Jeffries, Fiona W. 565 Jenkins-Guarnieri, Michel A. 254 Jha, Ashish 683 Jiramaneerat, Cherdsak 84 John, Oliver. P. 71 Johnson, Clifford G. 482 Johnson, Danette I. 598 Johnson, David W. 369 Johnson, John 399 Johnson, Mark 219 Johnson, Michael P. 331, 660, 713 Johnson, Rachel L. 299–301 Johnson, Scott D. 466, 468, 469 Joinson, Adam 613, 614 Jonas, Kai J. 27 Jones, Chris 163, 168 Jones, Christopher 410, 417 Jones, Edward E. 357 Jones, Elizabeth A. 18 Jones, Kent 683, 697, 701, 702, 705 Jones, Rodney 609 Jones, Warren H. 346 Jordan, Jerry Monroe 370 Jordan, Peter J. 136 Joseph, Andrea L. 324, 670, 673 Joseph, Dana L. 254 Jucker, Andreas 691 Judge, Sharon 169 Kabat-Zinn, Jon 523 Kahn, Sarah 82 Kahneman, Daniel 321

778

Author index

Kalbfleisch, Pamela J. 293 Kalpidou, Maria 230 Kam, Jennifer A. 0297 Kaniasty, Krzysztof 324 Kanki, Barbara G. 125 Kaplan, Steven N. 239, 421 Kappas, Arvid 199 Karau, Steven J. 56 Karliner, Leah S. 302 Karras, Chester L. 378 Kasper, Jürgen 488 Kassing, Jeffrey W. 719 Katriel, Tamar 116, 123 Kavanagh, Kathryn 300, 303 Kay, Robin H. 157–160, 162, 165, 166, 168 Keaten, James 6, 136, 606, 611, 616–619, 622, 759 Keenan, Elinor 123 Keller, John M. 457 Kellermann, Kathy 219, 224, 320 Kelley, Amy S. 632, 643 Kelley, Harold H. 47, 376 Kelly, Adrian B. 225 Kelly, Anita 327 Kelly, Lynne 4, 6, 28, 82, 606–608, 611, 613, 616–618, 621, 622, 759 Keltner, Dacher 200 Kemper, Susan 214, 549 Kenny, David A. 71, 247, 569, 595 Kerr, Norbert L. 200 Kerssen-Griep, Jeff 204 Keysar, Boaz 240, 695, 699 Keyton, Joann 6, 250, 400, 409, 410, 412, 415, 759 Kher, Neelan 453, 469 Kiessling, Claudia 569 Kilmann, Richard H. 347 Kim, Junghyun 230, 547 Kim, Taemie 251, 252 Kim, Young Y. 48, 49, 506, 518 Kimsey, William D. 347 King, John 160, 162, 164, 165 King, Paul E. 204 Kinnersley, Paul 647 Kinney, Terry A. 712 Kinser, Amber E. 432, 434, 442 Kirmayer, Laurence J. 305 Kirschbaum, Kristin 690, 697 Klakovich, Marilyn D. 571 Klatt, Bruce 634, 635

Klein, Cameron R. 249, 568 Klein, Peter 65 Klemp Jr., George O. 240 Kline, Susan L. 546 Kluger, Avraham N. 204, 205, 256 Knafo, Ariel 75 Knapp, Mark L. 76, 220 Knobel, Michele 170 Knuf, Joachim 220 Koch, Alex S. 201 Koerber, Amy 477 Koerner, Ascan F. 142 Koesten, Joy 540 Koestner, Richard 33 Kok, Gerjo 305 Kolb, Deborah M. 385 Koltay, Tibor 254 Korsgaard, M. Audrey 240 Kotowski, Michael R. 246 Koutamanis, Maria 170 Kowaslski, Robin 139 Kreps, Gary L. 28, 591 Kreuter, Matthew W. 306 Kring, Ann M. 138 Kruger, Justin 240, 247, 569, 694, 699, 700 Krumholz, Harlan M. 589, 590 Kubiatko, Milan 162, 166, 170, 171 Kumagai, Arno K. 303 Kumar, R. 377 Kurdek, Larry A. 346 L’Abate, Luciano 219, 254 Labach, Elaine J. 631, 638 Ladd, Paula D. 294, 297 Laffey-Ardley, Sioban 75 Lai, Cecilia S. L. 284 Lakey, Sandra G. 345, 351, 438, 717 Lam, Chris 612 Lampe, Cliff 614 Landry, Elaine M. 389 Lane, Carol 138 Lane, Claire 493 Langer, Ellen 524 Langer, Nieli 301 Lanier, Kenneth 157, 159, 168–170 Lanning, Sharon K. 71, 247, 569 Large, Rudolf O. 72, 82 Larson, Carl E. 17, 20, 23, 560 Lasén, Amparo 612, 614 Latham, Gary P. 343, 441

Author index

Laurenceau, Jean-Philippe 633, 646, 649 Laursen, Brett 552 Laver, John 611 Lavizzo-Mourey, Risa 304 Lazarus, Richard S. 132 Le Poire, Beth A. 196, 324 Leach, Liana S. 241 Leary, Mark R. 327, 328, 344 Leary, Timothy 253 Leclerc, Denis 418 Ledbetter, Andrew M. 4, 598, 610, 612–615, 618, 620 LeDoux, Joseph 199 Lee, C. 4 Lee, Jo Ann 166, 171 Lee, Kwon M. 84 Lee, Sandra L. 440 Lee, SookJung 168, 169 Lee, Yi-Hsuan 165, 168, 170 Leersnyder, Jozefien D. 293, 296 Légaré, France 482 Lehtinen, Mari 75 Lehtonen, Miikka 30 Leising, Daniel 138, 247, 569 Leist, Anja K. 550 Lemay Jr., Edward P. 82 Leng, Ng Wee 166, 169, 170 Leonard, M. 125 LePine, Jefferey A. 239, 403, 422, 568 LePoire, Beth A. 324 Leu, Donald 173, 174, 177 Leung, Angela K-Y. 517 Leung, Louis 158, 159, 161–163, 165, 168, 170 Levashina, Julia 432, 438 Levelt, Willem J. M. 46, 49 Levenson, Robert W. 565 Levin, Robet A. 438 Levine, Sara P. 138, 439 Levine, Timothy R. 246 Levinson, Edward M. 159, 160, 162 Levinson, Stephen C. 116, 122 Levy, Steven 614 Lewicki, Roy J. 368, 370, 374, 376, 389 Lewis, Lionel S. 672 Liaw, Shu-Sheng 166, 170 Libert, Yves 493, 494 Lie, Désirée A. 306 Lievens, Filip 239, 439 Lijiang, Sheri 198 Lillvist, Anne 245

779

Lim, Tae-Seop 343 Lin, Herbert 159, 160 Lindsey, Eric W. 77, 87 Lindskold, Svenn 375 Ling, Rich 607, 609–612, 614, 619–621, 623 Litt, Erin 156, 159, 167, 175, 176 Littlejohn, Stephen 72, 399, 401, 411 Liu, Meina 370 Livingstone, Sonia 158, 159, 161–163, 166, 173 Lloyd, Sally A. 733 Lobchuk, Michelle M. 29 Locke, John 691 Loftus, Elizabeth F. 82 Logan, Robert K. 550 London, Manuel 203 Losh, Susan Carol 163 Losoya, Sandra H. 281 Lowther, Deborah L. 160, 168, 171 Lu, Yuhwa Eva 5, 84, 296, 303, 304, 759 Luong, Gloria 544, 548, 550 Lustig, Myron W. 161–163, 165, 575 Lutgen-Sandvik, Pamela 726 Lvina, Elena 254 Lykken, David T. 279, 280 Mabe, Paul A., III. 247, 569 MacGeorge, Erina L. 223 MacIntyre, Peter D. 296 Mackenzie, Lauren 223, 657 Maddux, William W. 376, 517 Madianou, Mirca 609, 618, 620, 621 Madlock, Paul E. 596 Mafela, Munzhedzu J. 690, 694 Magnus, Keith B. 298 Magsamen-Conrad, K. 542 Mahaffey, Barbara 690, 696, 697, 700 Maier, Steven F. 457 Makoul, Gregory 569, 571 Malinowski, Branislaw 611 Malle, Bertram F. 47 Maltz, Daniel 696 Mandler, George 55 Mann, Leon 291 Mansson, Daniel 614 Mantonakis, Antonia 438 Marcoulides, George A. 165, 169, 171 Mares, Marie-Louise 548 Markman, Howard J. 646, 649, 720 Markus, Hazel 221

780

Author index

Marques, Joan F. 241, 254 Marquie, Jean Claude 160, 165 Marsh, Abigail A. 140 Marsh, Herbert W. 87 Marshall, Linda L. 726, 727 Martin, Laura 204 Martin, Matthew M. 715–717 Martinovsky, Bilyana 370 Marwick, Alice 618 Maslow, Abraham H. 21 Massoud, Samia L. 160, 166 Matheny, Adam P. 281 Mathews, Karen A. 281 Matsudaira, Tomami 254 Matsumoto, David 219, 241 Matsuoka, Rieko 296 Matthias, Marianne Sassi 477 Mattias, Kliegel 549 May, Gary L. 87 Mayer, Thom A. 632, 643, 651 Maynard, Douglas W. 370 Mazer. Joseph, P. 468 Mazur, Michelle 616 McAllister, Shelece 255 McCarthy, Julie M. 432 McClelland, James L. 49 McCloskey, Michael S. 727 McCormack, Lauren A. 485, 488, 489, 571 McCrae, Robert R. 82 McCroskey, James C. 18, 64, 68, 72, 75, 76, 81, 87, 91, 109, 193, 202, 203, 450–453, 460, 473, 620, 716 McEllistrem, Joseph E. 713 McFall, Richard M. 245, 715 McGee, Deborah Socha 29 McGinn, Kathleen L. 370, 381, 385 McGlone, Edward L. 453, 469 McGuire, Shirley 281 McIntosh, Peggy 515, 518 McKenna, Katelyn 137 McKinney, Bruce C. 30, 717 McLaren, Rachel M. 328 McLaughlin, Margaret L. 220, 451 McLean, Chikako Akamatsu 453, 455, 469 McLeod, John 590, 591 McManus, Tara G. 595 McNeal, Ralph B. 644 McNelly, Teri 84 McNulty, James K. 241 McRae, Mary 409, 418

Mead, D. Eugene 346 Mednick, Sarnoff 284 Meelissen, Martina R. M. 162, 166, 168 Mehrabian, Albert 195, 458 Melcrum Ltd. 410, 415, 418 Meng, Juan 407 Merckaert, Isabelle 493 Merrell, Kenneth W. 546 Merrill, Anne 318 Mesch, Gustavo 613, 615, 618 Mesmer-Magnus, Jessica 239, 422 Mesquita, Batja 294 Messman, Susan J. 348, 359 Metts, Sandra 222, 345, 346, 358 Meyer, Janet R. 43, 45, 226, 673 Mezirow, Jack 517 Middleton, Ashley V. 477 Miles, Edward W. 374 Miles, Eleanor 513 Miller Burke, Jude 239 Miller, Joanne L. 218 Miller, Katherine 420 Miller, Laura A. 158, 159 Miller, Laura E. 477, 489 Miller-Ott, Aimee 613 Millett, Gregorio A. 299 Miner, Andrew G. 200 Minskoff, Esther H. 141 Mishel, Merle H. 477–479, 481, 482, 488– 493 Mitra, Ananda 163–165 Miyake, Akira 215 Mograin, Myriam 142 Mohrmann, Gerald P. 13 Molden, Daniel C. 204 Molinsky, Andrew 508 Monge, Peter R. 30, 72, 77, 87, 405, 409–411, 596 Moore, Michael 23 Moran, Robert 420 Moreno-Manso, Juan Manuel 297 Morgan, Melanie 229 Moritsugu, John 292 Morreale, Sherwyn P. 11, 18, 23, 26, 154, 159– 161, 166, 169, 170, 419, 450, 453, 454, 465, 467, 560, 760 Morris, J. Morgan 162, 165, 168 Morris, Michael W. 378 Morse, Ben 409, 410 Mortensen, C. David 683, 689, 691, 694, 697, 698, 700, 701, 704–706

Author index

Mortenson, Steven T. 136 Moser, Paul. K. 65 Moskowitz, D. S. 440 Motley, Michael T. 141, 693 Mottet, Timothy, P. 468, 469 Mulac, Anthony 696 Müller, Ralf 239 Mummendey, Amélie 727 Muralidharan, Anjana 238 Mustajoki, Arto 690, 693–695, 697–701, 705 Myers, Scott A. 403, 412, 413, 453, 596, 714, 717 Nabi, Robin 525 Nagata, Adair 524, 529 Nangle, Douglas W. 560 National Assessment of Educational Progress 159, 170, 171 National Association of Biology Teachers 464 National Association of Colleges and Employers 29 National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China 289 National Center for Education Statistics 3 National Communication Association 18, 452, 464 National Household Survey 289 Ndiaye, Khadidiatou 298 Neal, Margaret 370 Nelson, Christian K. 277 Nemeth, Christopher P. 114 Netto, Gina 305 Nevile, Maurice 242, 244 Neville, Kathleen 481 Nguyen, Angela M. 527 Nicholson III, James L. 20 Nicotera, Anne M. 6, 44, 247, 330, 353, 354, 717, 718, 721, 722, 725, 760 Nikendei, Christoph 632, 643 Noller, Patricia 142, 329 North, Max M. 85 Nowicki Jr., Stephen 140, 141, 545 Nückles, Matthias 160, 170, 171 Nuovo, Jim 83, 84, 571 Nussbaum, Jon F. 549 Nutting, Andrew W. 637 O’Boyle Jr., Ernest 244 O’Donohue, William 669 O’Keefe, Barbara J. 114, 124, 224, 321, 322

781

O’Keefe, Daniel J. 723 O’Malley, Ann S. 299 O’Neill, James M. 720, 729 O’Sullivan, Patrick 606 Odendaal, Willem 162, 168, 170 Oetzel, John 506, 528 Office for National Statistics 289 Ogata, Keiji 173 Okebukola, Peter Akinsola 163–165, 171 Olekalns, Mara 370, 385 Olguín, Daniel 251 Oliha, Hannah 504 Olson, Loreen N. 6, 332, 658, 663–666, 669, 671–673, 675, 684, 717, 727, 760 Onyekwere, Evelyn O. 716 Orasanu, Judith 125 Orbe, Mark 504, 517 Ordoñana, Juan R. 237, 242 Orlandi, Mario A. 292 Ortiz de Guinea, Ana 239 Ostroff, Cheri 71, 569 Overall, Nickola C. 348 Owen, William F. 72 Padela, Aasim I. 303 Paese, Paul W. 376 Paez, Kathryn A. 305 Page, Kelly 167 Pagnamenta, Alberto 705 Palaigeorgiou, G. 166, 168 Pallotti, Gabrielle 118 Palmer, Mark T. 223 Papa, Michael J. 349 Papadopoulos, Irena 295 Paradiso, Joseph A. 251 Parasuraman, A. 165, 166 Parchman, Michael L. 29, 301 Park, Hee Sun 80, 81 Parker-Raley, Jessica 407 Parks, Malcolm R. 12, 19, 21, 22, 24, 116, 117, 351, 372, 375, 379, 482, 613, 715 Parrott, Roxanne 477 Pask, Judith M. 160, 161 Patterson, Brian 345 Patterson, Miles L. 53, 221, 223 Pau, Allan 136 Paulston, Christina B. 112 Pavitt, Charles 5, 39, 40, 47, 243, 684, 746, 760 Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich 195

782

Author index

Payne, Holly J. 30, 194, 201, 254, 421 Payne, Michael J. 720 Pearce, W. Barnett 55, 381, 382, 384 Pearl, Judea 598 Pecchioni, Loretta L. 541, 543 Pence, Michelle E. 76, 282, 283, 728 Peng, Tai-Quan 165 Penington, Barbara 599 Pennebaker, James W. 138, 327 Pentland, Alex 251, 252, 422, 567 Pérez-Mateo, María 254 Perlman, Daniel 660 Perlman, Michal 330 Perrin, Daniel 254, 415, 419 Peters, Ellen 482 Peterson, Donald L. 346 Peterson, Marshalita S. 238 Petrie, Keith J. 327 Petronio, Sandra 56, 322, 325, 326, 508, 698 Pettigrew, Jonathan 611, 614, 615 Pettigrew, Thomas F. 513 Philipsen, Gerry 116, 291, 293 Phillips, Gerald M. 213 Piaget, Jean 458 Pianta, Robert C. 298 Pickering, Alan D. 197 Pierce, Tamyra 608, 616, 617, 622 Pilotte, Mary 173 Pinker, Steven 276 Planalp, Sally 141 Plomin, Robert 279 Pokorski, Mieczyslaw 136 Polinsky, Margaret L. 633, 642, 647, 651 Politi, Mary C. 477, 480–482, 485, 488, 489, 495 Pomerantz, Anita M. 121, 124 Poole, Marshall Scott 402, 406 Pope-Davis, Donald B. 162–165, 171 Pope-Ruark, Rebecca 30, 443 Popper, Karl R. 67, 754 Potosky, Denise 160, 171 Potter, Jonathan 116 Powell, Anne L. 165 Powers, William G. 86, 196 Pratt, Stephen 123 Pretsch, Johanna 746 Priem, Jennifer S. 328 Proulx, Christine M. 238 Pruitt, Dean G. 347, 371, 373 Puccinelli, Nancy M. 254, 409

Purhonen, Pipsa 400, 416 Puro, Jukka-Pekka 612 Pusch, Margaret D. 517 Putnam, Linda L. 6, 342, 347, 368–370, 378, 382–386, 761 Pyke, Karen 294 Qin, Desiree B. 298 Quan-Hasse, Anabel 611 Query Jr., Jim L. 28, 29 Quianthy, Richard L. 18 Quill, Timothy E. 488 Quinn, Jill R. 305 Quintilian 13 Rabøl, Louise I. 417, 699, 700 Rackham, Neal 371, 373–375 Rahim, M. Afzalur 347 Rainey, Kenneth 409, 410, 420 Rains, Stephen A. 173 Rajendran, Gnanathusharan 161, 162 Rakos, Richard F. 224, 225 Rama, Paul S. 162, 168, 170 Ramalingam, Vennila 160, 166, 171 Ramirez, Artemio 607, 608, 615 Rancer, Andrew S. 353, 712, 714–716, 720 Rao, Jaya K. 484, 493 Rappleyea, Damon L. 720 Rasmussen, James 686 Rasmussen, Keith G. 439 Ratliff, Dan A. 124 Raush, Harold L. 326, 355 Rawlins, William K. 549, 551 Ray, Charles M. 163, 166, 168 Raymond, Mark R. 83 Razavi, Darius 488 Ready, Rebecca E. 569 Reason, James 684–689 Reed, Stephen J. 48 Reed, Vicki A. 238 Renk, Kimberly 247, 569 Rentz, Joseph O. 254 Rettie, Ruth 607, 608, 611, 614 Riasati, Mohammad Javad 202 Rice, Lindsay 616, 617 Rice, Ronald E. 155, 607 Richard, Lucie 665 Richards, Ivor Armstrong 14 Richmond, Virginia P. 5, 202, 761 Richter, Tobias 160, 164–166, 168, 171

Author index

Rickheit, Gert 11, 107, 253, 399 Riddick, Sherry 305 Rider, Elizabeth A. 410, 417, 493 Riek, Blake M. 513 Riggio, Ronald E. 72, 131, 132, 137, 138, 140, 142, 219 Rimmele, Ulrike 82 Ringle, Martin 694 Riordan, Monica A. 162, 170 Roach, K. David 466, 468 Robbins, Steve 689 Roberto, Anthony J. 648, 720 Roberts, Felicia 715, 731 Roberts, James B. 195 Roberts, Lynne 608, 616, 617, 622 Roberts, Robert E. 239 Robertson, Margaret 294, 297 Robles, Theodore F. 33, 238 Rogan, Randall G. 370 Rogers, Carl 21 Roloff, Michael E. 225, 326, 329, 331, 346, 367, 369, 371, 378 Rook, Karen S. 4 Rose, Amanda J. 327 Rose-Krasnor, Linda 245 Rosen, Karen 332 Rosen, Larry D. 162, 163, 169, 171, 172 Rosenberg, Ellen 300, 303 Rosenthal, Robert 132, 219 Roskos-Ewoldsen, David R. 219 Ross, John A. 165 Roux, Pieter 84 Rowe, Charley 611 Ruben, Brent D. 25 Rubin, Donald L. 173, 560 Rubin, Jeffrey Z. 369 Rubin, K. H. 539 Rubin, Rebecca B. 18, 23, 68, 71, 72, 76, 86, 87, 213, 239, 400, 409, 410, 453, 560, 586, 605, 619 Rudd, Jill E. 715, 716 Rusbult, Caryl E. 348, 355, 438 Rushton, J. Philippe 279, 281 Russ, Travis L. 453, 469 Ryan, Allison M. 239 Ryan, E. B. 552 Ryoko, Niikura 293, 296 Saarni, Carolyn 133, 143 Sabatelli, Ronald M. 137, 138

783

Sabbagh, Mark A. 282 Sabourin, Teresa C. 331, 715, 718–721, 731 Sacks, Harvey 56 Safir, Marilyn P. 85 Sagie, Abrham 249 Saha, Somnath 304 Sahin, Mehmet 162 Salanova, Marisa 660 Salas, Eduardo 239, 638, 639, 650 Salgado, Jesus F. 239, 440 Salmon, Peter 483 Salovey, Peter 135, 219 Salthouse, Timothy A. 214 Samter, Wendy 346, 543–545, 549 Samuel, Arthur G. 218 Sanders, Robert E. 5, 116, 119, 122–124, 220, 762 Sanders, W. Scott 254 Sandstrom, Gillian M. 241 Santos, António 254 Sarwar, Shakeel 466 Sass, Carina P. 67 Sassenberg, Kai 162 Saunders, Harold H. 522 Sawaki, Yasuyo 254 Sawyer, Chris R. 5, 198, 762 Saxbe, Darbe 330 Schank, Roger C. 278 Schank, Roger G. 46 Schegloff, Emanuel A. 116, 119, 121 Scheibe, Susanne 544 Schirmer, Julie M. 84, 118, 119, 571 Schlegel, Katja 254 Schlegloff, Emanuel 695 Schlenker, Barry R. 45, 222 Schlesinger, Izschak 692, 693, 697, 701, 702 Schlösser, Thomas 240, 569 Schmidt, R. C. 241 Schneider, Barry H. 298 Schoenberg, Nancy E. 291 Schottenbauer, Michele A. 163, 164, 166 Schouten, Alexander 616 Schreiber, Lisa M. 254 Schrodt, Paul 253, 349 Schroth, Holly A. 377 Schulenberg, Stefan E. 158, 164, 165 Schuler, Heinz 440 Schurr, Paul H. 376 Schutte, Nicola S. 131, 136, 137 Scott, Allison M. 323

784

Author index

Scott, Craig R. 162, 164, 165, 168 Scott, Marvin B. 223 Scott, Michael D. 451, 456, 458, 459, 470 Searle, John 49, 702 Segovia, Kathryn Y. 85 Segrin, Chris 131, 136, 213, 539, 541, 630, 657 Seibold, David 408 Seligman, Martin E. P. 193 Sellers, Daniel E. 283 Semadar, Assaf 239 Semic, Beth A. 715 Semin, Gun R. 223 Shadik, Jennifer A. 730 Shah, Dhavan V. 254 Shaha, Maya 481 Shailor, Jonathan G. 124 Shakespeare, W. 237, 559 Sharbrough, William 421 Shashaani, Lily 163, 171, 172 Shaw, Allison Z. 714 Shaw, Ian 590 Sherblom, John C. 156, 164 Sheridan, Susan M. 245 Sheridan, Thomas 13 Shih, Hung-Pin 159, 160, 166, 171, 172 Shimanoff, Susan B. 69, 224 Shin, Hyon B. 296 Shockley-Zalabak, Pamela 6, 347, 398, 399, 401, 405, 409, 410, 412, 415, 420, 762 Shor, Eran 238 Shulman, Lee S. 219 Shulman, Shmuel 254 Sidnell, Jack 106, 112 Siegel, Daniel J. 524 Sigmar, Lucia Stretcher 631, 641 Sigtsma, K. 72 Silberman, Charles E. 16 Sillars, Alan L. 345, 347, 348, 550, 692 Simon, Bernd 223 Simonds, Cheri J. 449, 459 Simpson, Jeffrey A. 138, 324 Simpson, Jennifer L. 294 Singh, Prakash 254 Skantze, Gabriel 692 Skuse, D. H. 75 Slater, Mel 85 Slep, Amy M. S. 332 Smångs, Mattias 238 Smarkola, Claudia 166, 169, 172

Smedley, Brian D. 298 Smith, Brooke 171, 172 Smith, Camille D. 204 Smith, David H. 369 Smith, Lyle R. 451, 469 Smith, Lynne 137 Smith, Margaret E. 732 Smith, Mary John 43 Smith, Sherilyn 643 Smith, T. W. 542 Snow, Pamela C. 730 Snyder, Mark 673 Soliz, Jordan 518 Sonnby-Borgstrom, Marianne 241 Sosa, Ernest 65 Southard, Sherry 254 Spagnolli, Anna 611 Spano, Shawn 30, 440 Sparks, Lisa B. 479, 696, 698 Sperber, Dan 694 Spitzberg, Brian H. 3, 4, 5, 6, 20, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 39, 41, 64, 68–77, 79, 85– 87, 107, 116, 117, 153–156, 159, 166, 168– 171, 173, 175, 177, 193, 194, 198, 206, 213, 219, 239, 241, 242, 245–249, 253, 254, 290, 295, 301, 302, 317–320, 332, 342, 349–351, 354, 357, 372, 399, 406, 407, 419, 450, 470, 482, 483, 507, 508, 514, 527, 529, 544, 547, 560, 561, 563, 566– 572, 575–577, 586–588, 590, 592, 593, 595–597, 606, 609, 615, 619, 620, 622, 630, 634, 646, 657, 658, 660–671, 673– 675, 703, 705, 713–715, 721, 725–727, 730–732, 745, 747, 749, 762 Sprague, Jo J. 462 Sprinkle, Rose 468 Sriussadaporn-Charoenngam, Nongluck 30 St Clair, Anita 303 Stafford, Laura 6, 70, 253, 540–545, 551, 763 Stafford, Lorenzo D. 201 Staley, Constance 410, 411 Stamp, Glen 721, 727 Stanat, Petra 297 Stanley, Laura D. 160, 163, 165, 166, 169 Stanley, Scott M. 646 Statistics New Zealand 289 Staton-Spicer, Ann Q. 456, 458, 459, 470 Stein, Nancy L. 546 Steinel, Wolfgang 377 Steinfatt, Thomas M. 369

Author index

Stephan, Walter G. 515 Stephenson, Michael T. 196 Sternberg, Robert J. 347, 348 Sternberg, Robert L. 347 Sterponi, Laura 113 Stewart, Alan E. 658 Stewart, Greg L. 438 Stewart, Janet L. 481 Steyn, Elanie 415, 418 Stiles, William B. 327 Stivers, Tanya 119 Stokoe, Elizabeth 256 Storti, Craig 420 Street Jr., Richard L. 6, 302, 482–485, 488, 489, 491, 495, 569, 763 Streiner, David L. 80, 574 Strelau, Jan 195, 283 Stritzke, Werner G. K. 139, 547 Struthers, C. Ward 432 Suarez-Orozco, Carola 297 Suh, Eunyoung E. 295 Sullivan, Harry Stack 21 Sundaram, D. S. 631, 639 Sunnafrank, Michael 54, 435 Suppiah, Waitchalla R. R. V. 349 Susskind, Alex M. 161, 164, 165, 170 Sutcliffe, A. G. 173 Sutton, Robbie M. 203 Svensson, Martin G. A. 162, 173 Swaab, Roderick I. 376 Swami, Viren 569 Swanson, Angela B. 719, 731 Swider, Brian W. 438 Sypher, Beverly Davenport 399, 409, 410, 411 Szajna, Bernadette 165, 171 Szpekman, Andy 409, 410, 416 Tajfel, Henri 504, 506 Tan, Chuan-Hoo 162, 170 Tan, Wee-Kek 162, 170 Tannen, Deborah 696 Tardy, Charles H. 222 Taylor, Alex 611 Taylor, Donald 529 Taylor, Paul J. 256, 370 Tellegen, Auke 279 Teven, Jason J. 75, 202, 594 Tezci, Erdogan 169–171 The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Thich, Nhat Hanh 523

306

785

Thomas, Ayanna K. 82 Thomas, David C. 512, 524, 525 Thomas, Kenneth W. 347 Thomas, Laura A. 545 Thomas, M. 596, 600 Thompson, Jessica L. 417, 599 Thompson, Leigh 378 Thorndike, Edward 560 Thorpe, Karen 75 Tidwell, Lisa 613 Tillfors, Maria 75 Ting-Toomey, Stella 6, 293, 296, 344, 348, 504, 506–508, 511–513, 515, 519, 520, 523, 524, 527–529, 531, 763 Todd, Andrew 695 Todman, John 164, 166, 171 Toma, Catalina L. 241 Tompkins, James A. 171 Tondeur, J. 168, 169, 172 Tong, Stephanie 612–614, 620 Toomey, Adrian 527 Torkzadeh, Gholamreza 160, 161, 165, 166, 171 Torok, Sarah E. 469 Torres, Lucas 254 Tourish, Dennis 660 Tracey, Terence J. 87 Tracy, Karen 120, 123, 346 Trapp, Robert 723 Trees, April R. 223 Trenholm, Sarah 715 Trethewey, Angela 442 Triandis, Harry 507 Trimble, Joseph E. 291 Tripp, Lisa M. 162–164, 166, 168, 169, 175 Troester, Rod 410, 418, 419 Troth, Ashlea C. 254 Trower, Peter 219 Truog, Robert D. 480 Truxillo, Donald M. 432 Tsai, Wei-Chi 432 Tsong-Khapa 522 Tullar, William L. 440 Tulving, Endel 215 Turkheimer, Eric 201 Turkle, Sherry 610 Turner, Jonathan H. 754 Turner, Lynn 646 Turner, Samuel M. 87 Tutty, Leslie M. 720

786

Author index

Tutzauer, Frank 369, 374 Tweed, Roger 713 U. S. Census 290, 296 Uhls, Y. T. 230 Ullrich, Philip M. 490 Underwood, Kate 543, 548 Unger, Jennifer B. 298 United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) 292 Unlusoy, Asli 160, 162–164, 167 Unz, Dagmar C. 219 Utley, Allison 490 Utley, Mary E. 347 Valentine, Kristin Bervig 648 Valkenburg, Patti 613, 617 Vallacher, Robin R. 47, 242, 243 van Beek, Yolanda 545 van de Vliert, Evert 348 van den Eertwegh, Valerie 484 van der Zee, Karen 254 Van Deursen, Alexander 158, 159, 161, 163, 168 Van Dijk, Dina 205 van Dijk, Teun A. 218 Van Dyne, Linn 525 Van Kleef, Gerben A. 377 Van Ryn, Michelle 300 Vangelisti, Anita L. 239, 325, 327, 328, 329, 658 Vekiri, Ioanna 163, 166, 168, 172 Veneble, Karen V. 715 Venkatesh, Viswanath 164, 165 Verdonik, Darinka 694, 695, 697, 699 Verhaeghen, Paul 549 Vicario, Carmelo M. 276 Villado, Anton J. 631, 636, 640, 649 Villagran, Melinda M. 417, 509 Vingerhoets, Ad. J. J. M. 139 Viswesvaran, Chockalingam 71, 569 Vogelzang, Leo N. 375 Volckaert-Legrier, Olga 162 von Fragstein, Martin 569 Vorauer, Jacquie 695, 698 Vosburg, Suzanne K. 200 Waggenspack, Beth M. 717 Wahba, Jodi Sauders 198 Waldeck, Jennifer H. 402, 457–459, 470

Waldron, Vincent R. 6, 632, 641, 642, 645, 651, 763 Wallace, Karl R. 15 Wallach, Helene S. 85 Walsh, Mireille 84 Walther, Joseph B. 84, 162, 608, 613 Walton, Richard E. 369 Wang, Q. 355 Waring, Rebecca 242 Wasserman, Ilene 383 Watzlawick, Paul 245, 386, 562, 748 Weaver, Terri L. 731 Weber, Keith 597, 716 Weech-Maldonado, Robert 298 Weick, Karl E. 444 Weider-Hatfield, Deborah 347 Weigand, Edda 689–695, 697, 700 Weil, Michelle M. 166 Weiner, Bernard 195 Weingart, Laurie R. 378, 385 Weinstein, Eugene A. 17 Weisbuch, Max 139 Weiss, Brent 438 Wenzel, Joseph W. 91, 723 Westmyer, Stephanie 606 Wheeless, Virginia E. 82, 87 Whisman, Mark A. 238 Whitchurch, Gail G. 720, 728 White, Burton L. 25 White, Judith B. 673 White, Robert W. 63, 64, 65, 109, 112, 199 White-Means, Shelley 300 Wiemann, John M. 22, 25, 27, 47, 64, 67, 69, 70, 72, 77, 79, 87, 107, 115, 117, 213, 220, 320, 350, 482, 571, 586, 595, 605, 606, 619, 666, 714 Wiesner, Willi H. 441 Wiggins, Bradley E. 635 Wigley, Charles J. II. 714 Wiklund, Mari 75 Wild, Martyn 165, 169 Wilfong, Jeffrey D. 164, 166, 172 Williams, Angie 549 Williams, Dmitiri 84, 635 Williams, Gerald. R. 370, 373 Williams, Sue Winkle 163, 171 Wilmot, William W. 342 Wilson, Keithia L. 224 Wilson, Margaret 242 Wilson, Steven R. 39–41, 51, 213, 226, 320– 322, 343, 345, 347, 666

Author index

Wine, Jeri Dawn 21 Winke, Paula 87 Winstok, Zeev 729–731, 733 Wisecarver, Michelle M. 250, 568 Wiseman, Richard 520 Wish, Myron 253 Witteman, Hal 346 Wohl, Michael J. A. 673 Wohn, Donghee Yvette 170, 171 Wolters, Nina 545 Wolvin, Andrew 409, 410, 414 Womack, Deanna F. 347 Wong, Carol A. 478, 482 Wood, Barbara Sudene 18 Wood, Julia T. 344 Wood, Lawrence 169 Woodin, Erica M. 348 Woodrow, Janice E. J. 159, 160, 163 Woods, Judy Shelton 137 Worley, Debra 450 Wouda, Jan 417 Wrench, Jason S. 5, 27, 79, 560, 597, 763 Wright, Courtney N. 673 Wright, Kevin B. 29, 440, 595, 658 Wu, Ying-Tien 162, 165, 166, 170, 171

Yan, Changmin 198 Yang, Ya-Ting Carolyn 160, 162 Yanovitzky, Itzhak 224 Yates, Simeon 613, 614 Yee, Nick 85 Yerkes, Robert M. 196 Ying-Chun, Wang 254 Yoon, Eunju 307 Yoshimura, Stephen 357 Young, Charmian 616 Young, Kimberly S. 137 Yousefi, Farideh 136 Yu, Miao 466 Yuen, C. Nathalie 617 Yum, June O. 254, 657 Zaefferer, Dietmar 692 Zakahi, Walter R. 75, 716 Zaremba, Alan 409–411 Zelenski, John M. 3 Zerfass, Ansgar 418 Zhang, L. 294 Zigler, Edward 21 Zimic, Sheila 159, 163 Zuckerman, Marvin 277, 280

787