Intra-personal Communication Theories
© Brian Brown, 1998-1999. All rights reserved.
Last Modified: January 28, 2000.

| Intrapersonal | Interpersonal | Group | Organization | Mass/Cultural |

This is a summary of the information in
Littlejohn, Stephen. (1992). Theories of Human Communication (5th Ed.). California: Wadsworth Publishing.
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Section 2.1

Trait theories focus on the relationship between particular personality types and certain sorts of messages. They predict that certain personality traits make you communicate in a certain way.

COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION (TRAIT THEORY)
James McCroskey (pg. 106)

• Trait or State
• Trait-Like CA, afraid in all situations
• Generalized-Context CA, afraid only in some (state), eg. Public speaking
• Person-Group CA (state), such as homeless or HIV
• Most people suffer state apprehension
• Best explanation is cognitive
• When ones expectations are accurate, resulting confidence reduces apprehension
• When ones expectations turn out bad, confidence is lost, more apprehension
• Systematic desensitization

Debby Blatzer. (1997). Communication Apprehension. [Online]. Available http://www.ecnet.net/users/glisten/commapre.htm
Holbrook, Hilary Taylor. Communication Apprehension: The Quiet Student in Your Classroom. http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed284315.html

RHETORICAL SENSITIVITY (TRAIT THEORY)
Roderick Hart (pg. 107)

• Effective communication arises from sensitivity and care in adjusting what you say to the listener
• Noble Selves stick to their personal beliefs without adapting to others
• Rhetorical reflectors mold themselves to others wishes
• Rhetorically sensitive people moderate these extremes
• Embodies concern for others, concern for self, and a situational attitude
• Leads to more effective understanding and acceptance of ideas
• Adjust what they say to the level, mood and beliefs of the other person
• People have varying degrees of the three types, it alters with age and situations

COMMUNICATOR STYLE (TRAIT THEORY)
Robert Norton [1983] (pg. 108)

• Individuals have a predominant manner or style in which they communicate
• We communicate on two levels, what we say, and how it is to be interpreted and responded to
• Norton calls them style messages, delivered before, during or after the primary message, such as talking in an authoritative voice
• Experience helps us identify the style messages
• Styles are not totally individual, cultures affect how people behave and how they perceive others
  • Open Style
  • Dramatic Style
  • Attentitive Style
• Each style is a combination of variables such as dominance, dramatic behavior, contentiousness, animation, impression leaving, relaxation, attentiveness, openness and friendliness.
• Some go together, such as dramatic behavior and animation, attentiveness and friendliness

Process Theories attempt to explain how we produce messages

ACTION ASSEMBLY (PROCESS THEORY)
John Greene (pg. 114)

• Explains structures and processes involved in communicative action
• Individuals have content knowledge and procedural knowledge
• Content knowledge: They know about things and how to do things
• Procedural knowledge: An awareness of the consequences of various actions in different situations
• You have formal and informal methods of introducing yourself
• You assemble actions from a list in your procedural memory which matches that of a previous one used in a similar situation
• The resulting plan of procedures is the output representation
• Unitized Assemblies: preorganized sets of behavior ready for use, an example is greeting rituals
• No single action stands by itself, every action implicates other actions in some way
• High order goals consist of low level routines (hierarchy of action)
• Deciding on one action limits the choice of further actions
• Action assembly takes time and effort, pause, stutter, confusion, difficulty in formulating an action

Theories of message reception and processing, how we come to understand, organize and use the information contained in messages.

ATTRIBUTION THEORY (MESSAGE INTERPRETATION)
Fritz Heider (pg. 135)

• Centers on perceived cause of behaviour by ordinary people in everyday life
• People attempt to determine the causes of behavior
• People assign causes systematically
• The attributed cause has an impact on the perceiver's own feelings and behavior
• Some perceived causes of behavior include situational causes, personal effects, ability, effort, desire, sentiment, belonging, obligation and permission
• Every behaviour occurs in a situation, you use this to help determine the cause
• You infer causes according to your experience, meanings, situational factors and your own perceptual style
• Attributions are often biased
• Attribution error is the tendency to blame other people for what happens to them, but blame the situation for what happens to you

As naive psychologists, we constantly make causal inferences from the perceived behavior of others. The process involves (1) perception of action, (2) judgement of action, and (3) attribution of disposition. We systematically err by holding people more responsible for their actions than the situation warrants. Griffin. pg. 477

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY (MESSAGE INTERPRETATION)
Leon Festinger (pg. 141)

• Any two cognitive elements (attributes, perceptions, knowledge and behavior) will have one of three kinds of relationships
• 1: Null or Irrelevant:
• 2: Consistent
• 3: Dissonance: Occurs when one element would not be expected to follow from another
• Varies from person to person, what one finds dissonant another may not
• Dissonance produces stress which pressures the person to change in order to reduce the dissonance
• When dissonance is present, the person will not only try to reduce it, but also avoid situations in which additional dissonance might be produced
• Your beliefs affect the level of dissonance you experience
• You can reduce dissonance by
  • changing your beliefs or attitudes
  • new elements might be added, or replaced
  • you change your view, thinking its not as important
  • you seek evidence of support
  • you distort or misinterpret the information
• The amount of dissonance depends upon
  • the importance of the decision
  • the attractiveness of the chosen alternative
  • the perceived attractiveness of the chosen alternative
  • the degree of similarity or overlap between the alternatives
• The more difficult one's initiation into a group, the greater committment one will develop
• The greater effort one puts into a task, the more one rationalizes the value of that task

Cognitive dissonance is an aversive drive which causes people to (1) avoid opposing viewpoints, (2) seek reassurance after a tough decision, and (3) change private beliefs to match public behavior when there is minimal justification for the action. Griffin pg. 478

ATTITUDES, BELIEFS AND VALUES (MESSAGE INTERPRETATION)
Milton Rokeach (pg. 143)

• Based on beliefs, attitudes and values
  • Primitive beliefs - full consensus vs zero consensus
  • Authority beliefs
  • Derived beliefs
  • Inconsequential beliefs
• Each person has a highly organized system of beliefs, attitudes and values which guide their behavior
• The more central a belief is, the more resistant it is to change and the more impact such change will have on the overall system
• Attitudes are groups of beliefs organized around a focal object and predispose you to behave in a certain way towards that object
• You have attitudes toward an object and attitudes towards a situation. How you behave in any given situation is a combination of both
• Values are the most important, they are central and act as life guides
• Instrumental Values: Such as hard work and loyalty for living upon which we base day to day behaviour
• Terminal Values: Wealth and happiness, are aims of life which we strive for
• Self concept (one's belief about self) is the guiding goal or purpose
• People are guided by the need for consistency and inconsistency creates pressure to change
• The most important inconsistencies are those involving cognitions about the self

Judgement processes deal with the ways individuals make judgements in communication, judgements of arguments, nonverbal behavior, belief claims and attitudes

ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD THEORY (JUDGEMENT PROCESS)
Richard Petty and John Cacioppo (pg. 145)

• A person can process persuasive messages in different ways
• Sometimes we use critical thinking, other times simpler thinking
• Elaboration occurs in the central route, non-elaboration in the peripheral route
• The central route carefully considers arguments, if change results, it is apt to be relatively enduring
• The peripheral route does less consideration, if change results, it is likely to be non permanent
• Whether you elaborate depends upon motivation and ability
• Motivation consists of involvement (or relevance), diversity of argument, enjoyment of critical thinking
• Low ability results in peripheral processing, higher ability makes central processing possible
• Whether you accept the argument depends upon
  • how it matches your previous attitude
  • the credibility of the source
  • whether you like the person
  • the number of arguments for it
• http://www.psy.ohio-state.edu/petty/

Message elaboration is the central route of persuasion which produces major positive change. This occurs when the arguments are strong and people have the desire and ability to work through the ideas. By contrast, weak influence through irrelevant factors on the peripheral path is much more common. Griffin. pg. 478

SOCIAL JUDGEMENT THEORY (JUDGEMENT PROCESS)
Muzafer Sherif (pg. 152)

• Deals with the way people make judgements about statements
• People make judgements on the basis of anchors or reference points
• In social perception anchors are internal and based on past experience
• Latitude of acceptance - statements you agree with
• Latitude of rejection - statements you disagree with
• Latitude of noncommittment - statements you are neutral about
• Your latitude of acceptance or rejection are influenced by ego involvement (degree of personal relevance)
• People can distort the statement by contrast (judging it to be further away from their own point of view than it actually is) or assimilation (judging it to be closer to their point of view than it really is)
• Messages falling within the latitude of acceptance facilitate attitude change
• Attitude change is reduced or nonexistent when messages fall within the latitude of rejection
• Within the latitude of acceptance and noncommittment, the more discrepant the message from the persons point of view, the greater the expected attitude change
• The greater ones ego involvement, the larger the latitude of rejection, the smaller the latitude of noncommittment, and thus the less the expected attitude change

The larger the discrepancy between a speakers position and the listeners point of view, the greater the change in attitude - as long as the message is within the hearers latitude of acceptance. High ego-involvement usually indicates a wide latitude of rejection. Messages which fall there may have a boomerang effect. Griffin. pg 478

Griffin. (1994). A first look at communication theory. (2nd Ed.). McGraw Hill.