3 summary articles in 4 hrs EMERGENCY

THE LOGIC OF THE COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING: A RULES-BASED APPROACH TO THE

FBRST COURSE IN

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Vernon E. Cronen

W . Barnett Pearce

Linda AA. Harris

Scholars and teachers alike have recently been sensitized to the diversity that characterizes human communication be- havior. The results of studies of com- municative patterns in various cultures and societies have particular implication for the teacher of interpersonal com- munication: the description of or pre- scription for communication acts and skills may be of merely local utility, in- correct or dysfunctional for students who confront a variety of speech com- munities.

Studies of nonverbal communication, for example, have shown that the dis- tance appropriate for casual conversa- tion in one culture counts as an insulting violation of personal space in another.^ Barnlund has shown that topics con- sidered "public" and reciprocally self- disclosed by Americans are considered "private" and improper for disclosure by Japanese.2 The communication skills required for successful interpersonal re- lationships in encounter groups have been documented as often dysfunctional

Vernon E. Cronen and W. Barnell Pearce arc Associate Professors and Linda Harris is a Teaching Associate in the Department of Com- munication Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

1 Edward Hall, The Silent Language (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1959).

2 Dean Barnlund, "Communicative Styles in Two Cultures: Japan and the United States," Thomas William, ed. (The Hague: Mouton Co., 1975), pp. 399-428.

in other settings.^ Lengthy, complex sentences often count as indications of intelligence for standard English users, while language economy counts as an indication of intelligence among many users of "black English."* There are few —if any—communicative acts or mean- ings which are not expressed or inter- preted differently among the communi- ties of humankind.

This diversity of communicative codes has elicited two responses by researchers and teachers: cultural relativism and a search for an underlying "logic." The cultural relativism position, which as- serts that all communication patterns are specific to a given speech community, has been most clearly articulated by Rosenfield. According to Rosenfield, each culture contains a unique subset of "games," each with a cluster of rules which describe and regulate it.̂ The

s Morton Lieberman, Irvin Yalom, and Matthew Miles, Encounter Groups: First Facts (New York: Basic Books, 1973).

•I William Labov, "The Logic of Nonstandard English," James Alatis, ed.. Report of the Twentieth Anntial Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Studies (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1970).

5 Lawrence W. Rosenfield, "A Came Model for Human Communication," What Rhetoric {Comnmnication Theory) Is Appropriate for Contemporary Speech Communication?, David H. Smith, ed. (Minneapolis, Department of Speech Communication and Theater Arts, Uni- versity of Minnesota, 1969), p. 27. For the most recent expression of the relativist position see: C. Jack Orr, "Communication, Relativism, and Student Development," Communication Edu- cation, 27 (1978), 83-98.

COMMUNICATION EDUCATION, Volume 28, January 1979

pedagogical objective, given a cultural relativistic perspective, is to elucidate the rules of particular communication games. A student successfully learning these rules, however, is unequipped to communicate well if s/he moves social- ly or geographically. Philipsen's ethnog- raphies of American subcultures dem- onstrates the difference in communica- tion "game rules" in just the culture of the United States.^ Philipsen pointed- ly attacks the absurdity of employing in a Westside Chicago bar many of the predominately white, middle-class inter- personal skills lauded in most text- books.'' The implication seems to be that communication education must be both culturally situated and specific.

Cultural relativism usefully produces in students an appreciation for the rich- ness and diversity of communication be- havior, but in our view this awareness is a necessary but insufficient goal for education. The problem, as articulated by anthropologist Anthony Wallace, is that a "cultural relativistic" communi- cation teacher's content is necessarily an out-of-date approximation of locally accurate rules. Wallace says, "Anthro- pologists have only lately begun to realize that new ethnographic descrip- tion, like daily weather reporting, is an endless task. There is not a finite num- ber of cultures, which, once described, will stay fixed forever on some scala cul- turae. Culture change is constant, ubi- quitous and only moderately predict- able "8

The significance of the problem that change creates for communication edu- cators is made clear in studies of formal

6 Gerald Philipsen, "Speaking 'Like a Man' in Teamsterville," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 61 (1975), 13-22.

7 Philipsen, "Ethnographic Methods in Com- munication," unpublished lecture, University of Massachusetts, 1978.

8 Anthony Wallace, Culture and Personality (New York: Random House, 1961), p. 4.

A RULES-BASED APPROACH-23

organizations by Harris and Cronen** and O'Brienio and of families by Jack- son," Minuchin,i2 and Leik:i3 persons in our society regularly inhabit a variety of social groups and organizations, each of which has a unique self-image and rules for interacting which change through time. To teach students the rules for all of these is an impossible task.

The first critic of cultural relativism in communication education was Aris- totle, who also offered the alternative to it. Aristotle warned that students who knew only the rules for successful argu- ment in the Athenian court would be left with "nothing to say" if they moved to another city or the court changed its rules.!•* The alternative to context- specific rhetorical treatises was an ana- lysis of the logic of discourse which underlies the effective performance of an orator in epideitic and deliberative as well as forensic discourse. This logical structure was the enthymeme.

The approach to communication edu- cation developed in the rest of this paper is consistent with Aristotle's search for a pattern of formal principles which underlie diversity, but is based on a logical structure other than the enthymeme.

9 Linda Harris and Vernon E. Cronen, "A Rules-Based Model for the Analysis and Eval- uation of Organizational Communication," Paper presented at the International Communi- cation Association Annual Convention, Chicago, 1978.

10 Charlene O'Brien, "A Rules-Based Ap- proach to Communication within a Formed Or- ganization," Diss. University of Massachusetts, 1978.

11 Don D. Jackson, "The Study of the Family," Paul Watzlawick and John Weakland, eds.. The Interactional View (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977).

12 Salvador Minuchin, Families and Family Therapy (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1974).

13 R. K. Leik, "Instrumentality and Emo- tionality in Family Interaction," Sociometry, 26 (1963), 131-45.

14 Aristotle, Rhetoric, trans. W. Rhys Roberts (New York: 1954), 135a 13-21.

24-COMMUNICATION EDUCATION

THE LOGIC OF THE COORDINATED MANAGEMENT OF MEANING

The logical pattern underlying our course of instruction is designed to pro- vide students with principles which cut across cultural differences. Applied in a particular setting, the instructor can use these principles to assist students in de- scribing the unique ways by which mean- ings are assigned and conversations co- ordinated. The logical pattern we teach is interpersonal and very different from the enthymeme. Rejection of the enthymeme follows from two considera- tions.i^ First, the enthymeme, modeled on the syllogism, is a two-valued logic for claims about "existence" while inter- personal communication more appro- priately requires a multivalued logic of "oughtness." Aristotle's logic uses op- erators of existence ("all A's are B"; "if P then Q is true") which are un- related to action. These operators permit only the two-valued inference of valid or invalid. Von Wright has emphasized the need for the deontic operators of "oughtness" to explain social action: If A, then B is obligatory, permitted, irrelevant or prohibited.^* These deontic operators permit inferences about the way a person should act and specify degrees of force (e.g., obligation vs. legitimation) and direction of force (re- quiredness vs. restriction).

The enthymeme is rejected for a second important reason: it excludes the

15 The reader should be aware that some scholars still advocate the existence of enthyme- matic processes underlying interpersonal com- munication. See for example: Harold Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967) and Gerald Philipsen, "Enthymematic Reasoning in Conversation," Paper presented at the Speech Communication Association Annual Convention, Washington, 1977.

16 G. H. von Wright, "Deontic Logic," Mind, 60 (1951), 1-15.

modern concept of hierarchically or- ganized meanings. Aristotle specifically rejected the notion that abstract mean- ings contextualize and transform the meaning of lower level concepts.̂ 7 In Aristotelian logic, major premises are simple aggregates of particulars. In our age, Whitehead and Russell^s and Bate- soni8 have shown that the meaning of a behavior is dependent upon the higher order identification of its context. Delia^o and Peabody^i have shown em- pirically that the meaning of a per- sonality trait, for example, is a function of the wholistic image that con- textualizes it. These findings require a logic that identifies contextual levels of meaning and the dependency of mean- ing on context.

The logic of the Coordinated Manage- ment of Meaning employs deontic op- erators and stresses the hierarchical or- ganization of actors' meanings. These features make the logic "practical" in the sense that it stems from and leads to human action rather than simply truth-claims or existence postulates, and field-dependent in the sense that the reasoning holds only within a specified domain, such as a particular game in a particular community.22 Further, the logic is interpersonal because it is pro- duced when the rules for action and meaning of one person are linked

IT Aristotle, Physica, trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), 225b 14-16.

18 Alfred N. Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, Principia Mathematica, III, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910-13).

18 Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972).

20 Jesse G. Delia, "Change of Meaning Pro- cesses in Impression Formation," Communica- tion Monographs, 43 (1976), 142-57.

21D. Peabody, "Evaluative and Descriptive Aspects in Personality Perception: A Re- appraisal," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16 (1970), 639-46.

22 Stephen Toulmin, Uses of Argument (Cam- bridge, University Press, 1958).

through conjoint action with those of another.23

Hierarchies of Meanings: The Materials of Communication Logics.

The rules which guide action are com- posed of people's meanings. We suggest representing the structure of people's meanings as a hierarchical model shown in Figure 1.

life-scripts

episodes

speech acts

construction systems

constructions

(raw sensory data)

Figure 1: A HIERARCHY OF MEANINGS

Level 1. Constructions are the cogni- tive process by which individuals or- ganize and interpret the world as per-

23 Vernon E. Cronen and W. Barnett Pearce, "The Logic of the Coordinated Management of Meaning: An Open Systems Model of Inter- personal Communication," Paper presented to the International Communication Association Annual Convention, Chicago, 1978.

A RULES-BASED APPROACH-25

ceived: "the creative capacity of the living thing to represent the environ- ment and not merely respond to it."2* The existence of constructs explains why events do not account for experience; an intervening filtering, interpretive process generates the meanings of experience. In general semantics terminology, con- structs create the "maps" which are not the "territory."

Level 2. Construction systems are the beliefs and purposes produced by con- structs, organized into clusters which are hierarchically related to particular be- liefs. Studies of person perception have demonstrated that perceptions of a per- son as a whole are based on perception of his/her attributes, but that once the molar percept is formed, attributes are reinterpreted.25

Level 3. Speech acts are "things" one person does to another by saying some- thing (e.g., "you are beautiful" counts as the speech act "compliment"). There are many communicative events which are better understood as "performatives" rather than "declaratives" and whose meanings are acts rather than referents.^s Some theorists think that all messages in- voke meaning on both "content" and "relationship" levels with "relational" meanings comprising speech acts.2'̂

Level 4. Episodes are "communicative routines which [communicators] view as distinct wholes, separate from other types of discourse, characterized by special rules of speech and nonverbal behavior and often distinguished by clearly recognizable opening or closing sequences."28 They appear as patterned

24 George A. Kelly, A Theory of Personality. The Psychology of Personal Constructs (New York: W. W. N o r t o n , 1963).

25 See Delia a n d Peabody. 20 J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words

(Cambridge: H a r v a r d University Press, 1970). 27 p . Watzlawick, J. Beavin, a n d D. Jackson,

The Pragmatics of Human Communication (New York: N o r t o n , 1967).

28 J. J. Gumperz, " I n t r o d u c t i o n , " in Directions

26-COMMUNICATION EDUCATION

sequences of speech acts and establish the fields in which the rules governing speech acts exist.

Level 5. Life scripts are patterns of episodes, comprising the person's expec- tations for the kinds of communicative events which can and probably will oc- cur.29

Each of these levels is hierarchically related to the others in this way: the higher level meaning contextualizes and defines the lower. For example, an aspect of the "big, buzzing confusion" may be perceived either by the construction "strong-gentle" or "strong-weak," in which the meaning of "strong" is not quite the same. The construction actual- ly used depends on the person's or- ganization of construction systems, in which "strong-gentle" may be a part of one cluster and "strong-weak" a part of another. If the perception of, e.g., the departmental chairperson shifts from one construction system to another, the meaning of his/her perceived "strength" will change as a function of different con- structs. Similarly, the meaning of "you S.O.B.!" differs depending on the de- finition of the speech act as "friendly greeting" or "insult," and this deter- mination, in turn, depends on the loca- tion of the statement within an episode as "friendly chat" or "personnel evalua- tion." In each of these instances, the greater freedom to vary is at the lower level: given a particular episode, e.g., "friendly chat," there are any number of ways to perform the speech act "greet- ing"; but the interpretation of each of these statements is radically changed if the episode is redefined as "personnel evaluation."

in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Com- munication, ed., J. J. Gumperz and D. Hymes (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972), p. 17.

29 Donald Cushman and Gordon C. Whiting, "An Approach to Communication Theoi7: To- ward Consensus on Rules," The Journal of Com- munication, 22 (September, 1972), 217-38.

Communication Rules: The Organization of Meanings

Theorists in a variety of disciplines have suggested "rule" as a descriptor of the facts that (1) social action exhibits regularities even though persons can behave in capricious or disruptive ways; (2) persons critique others and are held accountable for their actions in a way in which inanimate objects are not; and (3) persons perceive an "oughtness" or "expectedness" in their social actions, sometimes so strongly that they report -^quite contrary to the facts—that they "could not" do other than they did, or that they had "no choice."^^ A rule, un- like a "norm," may but need not be socially shared.^i Difficulties may arise when one individual does not know the rules used by another. Conventionally, two types of rules are differentiated: con- stitutive and regulative.32

Constitutive Rules. Constitutive rules specify how meanings at one level of abstraction may count as meaningful at another level of abstraction. For ex- ample, "you are beautiful" counts as "compliment." The sensitive reader knows, however, that "you are beautiful" in some cases counts as sarcasm or insult rather than compliment; thus we note that constitutive rules occur at all levels of hierarchical meaning. For example, in the episode Playing the Dozens, a game played by urban black youths in America, a derogatory comment about Other's mother counts as "gamesman- ship" rather than "insult," and to inter- pret it as an insult is to "call off" the episode.

The primitive form of a constitutive rule may be algebraicized as shown in

30 Cronen and Pearce. 31 Cronen and Pearce. 32 For a treatment of the distinction between

these types o£ rules see: J o h n Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).

Figure 2.̂ ^ This pririiitive form specifies that in a certain context, if specific ante- cedent conditions are satisfied, then meaning at one level of abstraction counts as meaning at another level of abstraction. For example, constitutive Rule 1 in Figure 2 should be read: "In the context of the episode 'playing the dozens,' if it is the opponent's turn, then, an insult to my mother and an insult to my father both count as 'gamesman- ship.' " In "playing the dozens" both players must share constitutive rules 1 and 2 among others. Constitutive rules do not guide behavior. Rather, they inte- grate the hierarchy, showing how mean- ing at one level of abstraction counts as meaning at another level.̂ *

33 Cronen and Pearce. 34 Cronen a n d Pearce.

Primitive Form of a Constitutive R u l e :

A RULES-BASED A P P R O A C H - 2 7

Regulative Rules. Regulate rules guide sequential action and thus exist only in levels 3, 4, and 5 of the hierarchy of meaning shown in Figure 1. The form of a regulative rule may be algebraicized as shown in Figure 3.

The primitive form specifies that in the context of certain forms of social action, if given antecedent conditions obtain, then some degree of force exists for or against the performance of sub- sequent actions. The primitive form further indicates that within a context of social action, if an antecedent condi- tion is followed by specific action(s), then some consequences will follow. For example, regulative rule 1 in Figure 3 should be read: "In the episode of 'playing the dozens,' if the opponent in- sults my parent, then it is obligatory to

cR

cR where: A

—>

M C j

Examples of Constitutive Rules:

c-n̂ — episode: Playing the Dozens

= A MC ,] z= constitutive rule =: anteccdciU conditions = meaningful conslrual at abstraction level ",' = meaningful construal at abstraction level ")" = meaningful construal at abstraction level '\" := read "count as" =: read in the context of . . . = read "if . . . then"

opponent's turn

insult to my mother '

insult to my father

gamesmanship

cR, —•2 := episode: Playing the Dozens

opponent insulting my parent

Ctop lastinsult obligatory Figure 2: CONSTITUTIVE RULES

28-COMMUNICATION EDUCATION

top his/her last insult in order to avoid shows how a regulative rule is built of the consequence of losing the game." two constitutive rules. Regulative rules are cognitive reorganiza- tions of constitutive rules.^s Figure 3 35 cronen and Pearce.

Primitive Form of Regulative Rules: ACTNj

rR = [ A P (DO (ACTN,) ) , . „ ] 3 C I

where rR = regulative rule A = aiiteccdeiit condition

DO =; deontic operator (obligatory; legitimate; irrelevant; prohibited) O := read "if . . . then"

ACTN, = read as action": a class term for specific speech act(s) or ex- tended episode(s)

ACTNj — meaningful construction of social action at a level of abstraction ("j") higher than that of the ACTN component " 1 "

C = consequent conditions ii> = this notation specifies that there may be one or more acts that

can be performed to attain the consetjuent as shown in 'Rj below

Examples of Regulative Rules:

episode of Playing the Dozens

["opponent insults

(obligatory (topi last insult))

[jny parent

life script of being a brother

younger Other initiates playing the dozens

(legitimate (engage in' episode of playing the dozens)) (legitimate (scoff at that "kids game"))

avoid losing

maintain status in the group

Derivation of Regulative Rule From Constitutive Rules:

CR3 = formal dining episode

at 2 I slobbering table Isoup

prohibitioru

:= formal dining episode

at fslobbering table Isoup

ii:rRj ^ formal dining episode

-|- prohibition

fat [table

unintelligent| low class rude J

(prohibited (slobbering soup) )1 avoid being 1 O construed asas un-

intelligent, rude, and low class

Figure 3: REGULATIVE RULES

The regulative rule model allows for the expression of three types of struc- tural variation. First, regulative rules vary in the range of legitimate courses of action that bridge the antecedent con- sequent gap.38 Harris and Cronen have shown that the rules regulating action in one domain of activity may have a much narrower latitude for action than those operating in another domain.^' A person following rR^ below has a much greater latitude of action than a person follow- ing rR,:

••I'l = In the context of an episode of receiving an assignment, if in your superior's office you are assigned a task, then it is legitimate to accept and leave, legitimate to request clarification, and legitimate to dis- cuss the need for the task, any of which actions will result in your being perceived as competent.

'Kn = In the context of an episode of re- ceiving an assignment, if in your superior's office you are assigned a task, then it is obligatory to accept and leave without comment in order to be perceived as competent.

Second, regulative rules may also vary in the complexity with which antecedent and consequent conditions are con- structed. Some persons base their actions on constructions of the antecedent condi- tion that do not include crucial informa- tion about the relationship that exists between Self and Other, leading to the selection of ineffective communicative acts.''8 Similarly, Watzlawick and others have stressed the differences individuals exhibit in their sensitivity to the rela- tional consequences of their acts.̂ o Con-

so Cronen and Pearce. 3" Harris and Cronen. 38 Jesse G. Delia and Ruth Anne Clark, "Cog-

nitive Complexity, Social Perception and the Development of Listener-Adapted Communica- tion in Six-, Eight-, Ten-, and Twelve-Year Old Boys," Communication Monographs, 4 (Novem- ber, 1977), 326-45.

3!) Paul Watzlawick, Janet Bevin and Don

A RULES-BASED APPROACH-29

sider the likely progress of a conversation in which self disattends to the relational aspects of meaning and employs this regulative rule:

••I'e = In the context of a business meet- ing, if asked a question by a peer, then it is obligatory to give a full lecture on the point in order to con- vey all information Other wants.

Other employs this constitutive rule:

'^^a = In the context of a business meet- ing, if the message addressed to you is from a peer, then being lectured to counts as a putdown.

Third and finally, regulative rules vary in the time period covered by the contextualizing action.*" In chess, for example, the novice player thinks only in terms of small units such as threats to a piece or opportunities for capture, while the expert has a whole game punctuated into episodes of opening moves, middle game, and closing moves which contextualize and give meaning to individual moves.

Logics: The Intermeshing of Rules

The logic of a communication system is produced by the joining of the rules of both (or all) of the communicators. The logic works in this way: A message pro- duced by one person is interpreted by the other's constitutive rules. These con- strued meanings then function as ante- cedent conditions of the interpreter's regulative rules, bringing various amounts of "logical" and "practical" force to bear on particular actions. The act selected is expressed in a message ac- cording to the constitutive rules and, when interpreted, becomes the ante- cedent condition of the other person's

Jackson, The Pragmatics of Human Communica- tion (New York: Norton, 1967).

40 Cronen and Pearce.

3 0 - C O M M U N I C A T I O N EDUCATION

actions. Depending on the nature of the rules, the sequence of actions produced by the communicators may appear "forced" and consist of repetitive pat- terns (such as greeting rituals or all- too-familiar conflict patterns between spouses) or may feel open-ended and full of opportunities for choice (such as the liberating freedom and novel be- havior of a vacation trip).

Figure 4 presents an analysis of a con- versation showing how the logic works. Note that each of the meaningful ele- ments in each regulative rule is the result of constitutive rules which are not shown. Note also that the regulative rules are all at the hierarchical level 3: speech acts.

The logical structure that underlies a particular set of reciprocal speech acts will vary as a function of both the con- tent and structure of actors' regulative rules. Because a person's ability to or- ganize and differentiate the meanings from which rules are composed varies from one domain of experience to another,*! the logic of conversation has a field-dependent character.''^

A CASE STUDY

The complexities of the logics of co- ordinated management of meaning is revealed by a case study of a normally functioning family (i.e., one which has not sought therapy or reported distress).

41 Walter Crockett, "Cognitive Complexity and Impression Formation," D. Maher, ed.. Pro- gress in Experimental Personality Research, Vol. 2 (New York: 1965).

42 T h e reader should be aware that other scholars have continued the search for field invariant logics. Most notable of the field in- variant efEorts are Chomsky's linguistic model and Grician logic. Cogent criticisms of these field invariant logics may be found in Robin Lakoff. " W h a t You Can Do with Words: Polite- nesS; Pragmatics and Performatives," C. Filmore, G. Lakoff, and R. Lakoft, eds., Berkely Studies in Syntax and Semantics, I (1974), 1-55; and E. d . Kcenan, " T h e Universality of Conversa- tional Postulates," Language and Society, 5 (1976), 67-80.

The Flynn family (a pseudonym) is well educated and has been influenced by college courses and social norms endors- ing open communication, individualistic priorities, personal growth, and rebellion against traditional middle class mores. This family was selected for study be- cause they demonstrated exceptional communication skills in a screening in- terview.

Mr. and Mrs. Flynn agree that the life-script of their relationship consists of cyclical patterns of conflict followed by confrontation/resolution. They both maintain the contradictory beliefs that their personal characteristics which pro- duce conflict are (1) inherent and un- changable and (2) produced as a re- sponse to the other's behavior. The paradox produced by these beliefs is handled by dissociation: the "inherent" premise is affirmed during confrontation and leads to acceptance, while the "re- sponse" is affirmed during conflict and leads to tension.

Two episodes are reciprocally de- scribed by the Flynns. The "conflict" episode is the classic "withdrawal-nag" mispunctuation described by Watzla- wick, Beavin and Jackson, in which Mr. Flynn attributes his lack of physical demonstrativeness to Mrs. Flynn's nag- ging, while Mrs. Flynn cites his with- drawal as the cause of her behavior. The "confrontation" episode features self- disclosure, validation, and acceptance. The energy expended during these episodes is interpreted by the Flynns as an indication of the strength of their relationship.

The episode and life-script rules as perceived by the Flynns are illustrated in Figure 5. The contradiction between the simultaneous interpretation of behavior as "inherent" and as "responsive to other," coupled with a dissimilar sensi- tivity to "tension" on the life-script level, however, has produced a complication

A RULES-BASED APPROACH-31

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32-COMMUNICATION EDUCATION

Life-Script:

Episodes:

tension 3 ((obligatory)

((permissable)

conflict

(reduce tension))

(reaffirm value of relationship))

confrontation

Speech Acts: nag/withdraw self-disclosure, validation

Figure 5: The logic of the coordinated management of meaning as perceived by the Flynns.

resulting in an unnoticed "negotiation" episode which institutionalizes the dis- liked "conflict" episode. The Flynns have different constitutive rules for the "ten- sion" sufficient to invoke the life-script regulative rule which mandates tbat ten- sion must be reduced by the confronta- tion episode. Specifically, Mrs. Flynn's constitutive rules have a lower threshold of what counts as intolerable tension than Mr. Flynn's. Consequently, she finds it impossible to follow tbe rule:

rR "—if intolerable tension, then it is obligatory to enact 'confrontation' so that tension can be reduced;"

because Mr. Flynn will not coordinate "confrontation" with her. Thus she acts as if she were following these rules:

rR "—if intolerable tension, then it is permissable to nag so that con- frontation will occur";

rR "-if I nag and confrontation does not occur, then it is obligatory to increase nagging";

cR "—if I nag and he withdraws, it is obligatory to construe withdrawal as increased tension";

cR "—getting emotional counts as the ultimate in nagging."

These behaviors intermesh with Mr. Flynn's rules so as to force the cycle of

increasing tension-conflict-confrontation. His rules are:

rR "—if she nags, it is permissable for me to withdraw so that I can avoid tension";

rR "—if she gets emotional, then we must have confrontation to reduce tension."

Conflict thus becomes a necessary strategem in producing confrontation which is interpreted as a solution for inherent,, unavoidable conflict. Further, they are unable to enact the mutually desired "confrontation" episode without first engaging in the "conflict" episode which they both identify as their primary relational problem. The Flynns perceive this pattern as an adaptive cycle rather than a vicious circle because they main- tain dissociated affirmation of the contra- dictory beliefs "our behavior is inherent in our personalities" and "our behavior is in response to each other."

The Flynn's communication skills function to perpetuate this logic of co- ordinated management of meaning. Their metacommunication has allowed them to construe conflict, including simple punctuation problems, as inevita- ble given their personalities and as a sign of the health and vitality of their relationship. Ignoring the ethical ques-

tions about intervention, it seems ob- vious to us that change in this relation- ship would not likely be induced by skills-training but would be effected if either or both acted in ways inconsistent with the rules of the relationship; for example, if Mr. Flynn violated the rule that Mrs. Flynn's emotionalism obligates confrontation. Specifically, the logic would be altered if Mr. Flynn periodical- ly initiated "confrontation" without the presence of intolerable tension.

The function performed by the skill of "validating" Other's self-image is worth special note. Having internalized the rule that it is obligatory to validate the essential nature of the other's per- sonality, Mr. Flynn responds to his wife's claim that nagging is part of her true personality with a validating comment, and Mrs. Flynn feels obliged to validate her husband's "innate" undemonstrative behavior. Thus, validation functions to perpetuate a less than fully satisfactory relationship although most textbooks seem to imply that validating the other is a universally desirable action.

In all class exercises and assignments it is important to emphasize that the desirability of a specific communicative act is a product of its function in a logic of conversation and cannot be assessed as an isolated skill.

TEACHING PRINCIPLES

Identifying the logics of coordinated management of meaning as the substance of communication education requires a reconceptualization of the content of courses. The following principles are suggested for a beginning course in inter- personal communication at the collegiate level.

The fundamental principle is the em- phasis on logics of communication rather than the logic of communicating in any particular context. Al through the primi-

A RULES-BASED APPROACH-33

tive forms of rules are common across situations, particular skills, meanings, and behavior are field-dependent. This principle allows us to formulate theory consistent with the observation that there is no communicative act, regard- less of its veneration in some contexts, which is not in other contexts villainous in intent, awkward in execution, or disastrous in consequence. This principle may be taught by contrastive analysis: using the algebraicized structure of the logic of coordinated management of meaning as a model, the specific content of rules in a variety of situations within and between cultures may be compared. Contrastive analysis of this sort is useful at the very beginning of the course tp establish frames of reference and again at the end of the course, after the stu- dents have learned the hierarchy of meanings and structure of rules, to per,- mit them to perform their own analysis of particular communication logics. The specific suggestions contained in this section reflect four semesters' experience teaching interpersonal communication from the perspective we have outlined above.

The Hierarchy of Meanings

The principle of hierarchy itself should be introduced early, since the relation- ships among levels of meanings are crucial. The point to be stressed is that higher level meanings are not a part of lower level meanings but con- textualize and potentially redefine them; No amount of explication of lower level meanings explains more abstract mean- ings. A useful way to make this point is with a simplified in-class replication of Delia's*3 study of person perception. In- structions for creating the control and experimental conditions are clearly de- scribed by Delia. The exercise illustrates

43 Delia, "Change of Meaning. . . . "

34-COMMUNICATION EDUCATION

the way the valence of a personality characteristic is altered by placing it in a larger context. A short reading assign- ment that introduces contextualizing and hierarchy is Gregory Bateson's "A Theory of Play and Fantasy."*''

Three principles are relevant to level 1 of the hierarchy: (1) meanings are created by human actors, not simply found in nature; (2) meanings may be culturally shared by social processes of learning: and (3) meanings may be ideo- syncratic to individual experience, creat- ing obstacles to communication. Kelly's Role Repertory Test^s may be used in the classroom to demonstrate the exis- tence of constructs and to describe the distribution of common and unique con- structs. By demonstrating that some persons use the construct "delicate-large" while others use "delicate-clumsy," some difficulties in communicating about nondelicate objects can be easily ex- plained.

Bannister and Mair provide an ex- cellent treatment of how to employ the Role Repertory Test and other methods of generating personal constructs.*® For a related reading assignment, Swanson and Delia provide an excellent non- technical introduction to constructivism for the beginning student.*^

Construction systems, level 2 of the hierarchy, call for three principles: (1) Individuals differ in the complexity with which they represent or perceive various domains of experience. Complexity here denotes both the number of constructs used and the extent to which they are

44 Gregory Bateson, "A Theory o£ Play a n d Fantasy," Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972).

45 Kelly. 46 D. Bannister and J. M. M. Mair, The Eval-

uation of Personal Constructs (New York: Academic Press, 1968).

47 David L. Swanson and Jesse G. Delia, " T h e N a t u r e o£ H u m a n Communication," R. Appl- b a u m and R. H a r t , eds., MODCOM (Palo Alto, Calif.: Science Research Associates, 1976).

interrelated. Cognitively simple persons interpret their world with few dimen- sions of judgment and with a lesser ability to see interrelationships among judgments. (2) Individuals differ in definition of what attributes are clustered together. Classroom exercises can be developed to illustrate the or- ganization of constructs from clinical procedures such as Hinkle's "laddering" technique and implication grid tech- nique.** Both illustrate the way one judgment implies another and how judgments are hierarchically organized. (3) Complexity is related to role-taking ability. Individuals with lower levels of complexity are less able to interpret the ways others organize experience and are thus less capable of adapting discourse to the other person.*"

The primary pedagogical principle of level 3, speech acts, is that messages have a relational as well as concent meaning, that is, each speaker overtly or tacitly pre- sents a definition of himself, of the other, and of the relationship between them. Further, the purpose of, or response to, a message may be as much a function of the relational act performed as of the content. Austin^" and Searle^i de- scribe an array of messages for which "true or false" is an irrelevant criterion since their purpose is to inflict an act on another person. The simultaneous presence of content and relational mean- ings in all messages is stressed by Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson.^s x h e types of relational meanings which per- sons use have been studied by Wish, Deutsch, and Kaplan,53 among others.

48 Bannister and Mair. 49 Bannister and Mair. 50 J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with

Words (Cambridge: H a r v a r d University Press, 1970).

51 Searle. 52 Watzlawick, Bevin, a n d Jackson. 53 M. Wish, M. Deutsch, and S. Kaplan, "Per-

ceived Dimensions of Interpersonal Relations,"

and integrated into a theory of inter- personal interaction by Carson.̂ * Class- room activities may stress how the con- tent meaning of sentences is contextu- alized and redefined by the interpreta- tion of their speech-act meanings. For example, the sentence "go to hell" may be an insult in one context, a command in another more sacerdotal one, and a friendly greeting in a third.

Episodes, at level 4, provide the con- texts for speech acts. The teaching principle is that speech acts assume meaning in patterned sequences and that their ordinal position is important. Derived from this principle are these postulates: (1) Various cultures and speech communities have developed different episodes, some of which are functionally synonomous and some of which are not. Ethnographies provide ample illustrations of culturally sanc- tioned sequences of actions which ex- plain the difficulty of intercultural com- muncation."5 (2) The proper sequence of actions in particular episodes differ among speech communities. For ex- ample, the ordinal position of kissing in the episode of courtship was different for English women and American servicemen during World War II, lead- ing to recurrent and expectable (al- though unexpected) misinterpretations of each other's motives and morals.^s 3̂) Persons differ in the temporal extension of the episodes they perceive. Some jjeople, like poor chess players, can see only one move at a time while experts in chess and life divide the game into sections, select the appropriate strategy for each, and contextualize each move as the middle one of a string extending

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33 (1976), 409-20.

64 R. C. Carson, Interaction Concepts of Per- sonality (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1969).

55 G u m p e r z a n d Hymes. 56 p . W a u l a w i c k , How Real Is Real? (New

York: R a n d o m House, 1976).

A RULES-BASED A P P R O A C H - 3 5

from the past and into the future. Class- room activities exploring episode per- ception may include cross-cultural com- parison of the ways of acting in par- ticular contexts, drawing from ethnog- raphies. The structure and sequences in episodes may be described by providing students with a series of cartoon panels, asking them to organize them in se- quences which make sense, or asking them to explain why a particular person did what was portrayed in one of the panels. In the latter exercise, the direc- tion of explanation indicates whether the student perceives the act as caused by other events with little freedom (look- ing back in time for explanation) or as purposeful or intentional (looking for- ward in time). Further, the extent of time or number of intervening acts be- tween the event explained and the ex- planation gives an indication of the stu- dent's temporal extension.

Life scripts, at level 5, should intro- duce students to the principle that the combination of culture and circumstance provides a life-plot which can be modi- fied to some extent. Information about the relationship between culture and personality may well be introduced here as well as information about the pro- cesses of social and personal change. For example, consciousness-raising groups such as the National Organization for Women may be viewed as deliberately changing the life-script offered women by contemporary American society; re- ligious or therapeutic movements such as Hare Krishna, Transcendental Medita- tion, Transactional Analysis, and the Christian "Charismatic Movement" may be seen as deliberately offering individ- uals a new life-script through a revolu- tionary experience; and social "labeling" processes may be seen as enforcing an undesirable life-script on those with the stigmata of "impoverished," "deviant," "foreign," or "inferior." Classroom

36-COMMUNICATION EDUCATION

activities in this section may well focus on contrasting life-scripts from various groups, including studies of the adult developmental cyclê '̂ and the preach- ings of various groups such as TA.̂ ^

Rules and Logics

The form of the logics of coordinated management of meaning comes from constitutive and regulative rules. Three principles should be taught: (1) Rules are humanly constructed. Although usually produced by a society and im- posed on individuals, they are neither immutable in an individual's experience nor common across groups. (2) The logic of coordinated management of meaning is produced by the interlocking of various persons, rules. No matter how well one knows the rules of communica- tor A, one cannot predict the logic of his/her communication with B without also knowing B's rules and how they will mesh. The responsibility for good and bad communication is thus transactive with neither A nor B alone deserving praise or blame. (3) Rules differ in struc- ture. They exhibit different degrees of sensitivity to content and relational meaning, different latitudes for actions, and different amounts of temporal con- texting.

A very useful term paper assignment is to require students to explain the logic of a particular episode. In making this assignment, it is important to discoumge students from writing manuals with "How To" rules (such as "Rules for How to Hitchhike") and to encourage them to develop logics that depict inter- action. The instructor should first ana- lyze a case in class, examining the con-

5" Douglas C. Kimmel, Adulthood and Aging (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

58 T. A. Harris, I'm OK, You're OK: A Prac- tical Guide to Transactional Analysis (New York: Harper and Row, 1969); E. Berne, What Do You Say after You Say Hello? The Psychology of Human Destiny (New York: Bantam, 1973).

tent as well as the structure of regulative and constitutive rules. On the content level, students should be helped to ob- serve the different ways constitutive rules assign meaning to behaviors for the various individuals participating in the episode. Comparison of rules con- tent can also be a good starting place for the discussion of role-taking ability. Discussion of the structural properties of rules begins with the question of whether or not actors take account of both con- tent and relational meanings in con- structing the antecedents and conse- quents of action. The discussion of struc- ture continues with consideration of the latitudes for action permitted in the regulative rules. Notice that in the case of the Flynn's several crucial rules obligate one specific response to a situa- tion. Finally, discussion of the time- frames that contextualize rules can lead to analysis of how the ability to con- struct long-range episode contexts relates to conversational control and the ability to coordinate with others.

Students may be asked to develop logics for conversation in real social situations utilizing participant observa- tion techniques and interviews, or as a substitute, students may be given ma- terials that describe unique cultural settings and assigned to describe the logic that would be generated when rep- resentatives of different cultures inter- act. Students might be given Philipsen's materials on communication behavior in "Teamsterville" and on the skills of humanistic communication from any of several texts.̂ * The assignment could re- quire an account of the logic that would be produced if a humanistic communica-

B9 Examples include: John Stewart, Bridges Not Walls (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Co., 1972); David W. Johnson, Reaching Out (Engle- wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972); and Richard L. Weaver, II, Understanding Inter- personal Communication (Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1978).

tor attempted to strike up a conversation in a Teamsterville bar. A similar assign- ment we have used is based upon the "Upmanship" series by Stephen Potter.^o The students are assigned to discover how Potter's "ploys" and "gambits" work by elucidating the logic of conversation that underlies them. For example. Potter's recommendation for chess is that the novice should not really attempt to win but rather should make three very conventional moves, pondering each longer than the preceeding one. On the fourth move the novice should ponder for one hour and say something like "of course, I have to concede—unless on the thirty-second move you choose to ex- change knights. Oh, but that's a mistake you wouldn't make. Good game!" The success of this ploy depends upon the gameman's ability to assume that the opponent is guided by various constitu- tive and regulative rules including these:

<=K|, = In the context of a chess game, if one player has completed a move, then a long elapsed time before the other player moves counts as careful contemplation.

^^7 = In the context of a chess game, if opponent gives outward signs of ex- pertise but no real proof of skill, then it is prohibited to question his/her expertise and obligatory to treat him/her as an expert for the time being in order to avoid the possibility of serious social embar- rassment should the opponent really be an expert.

The logic proposed in this paper is particularly useful in class for analyzing conversations that evolve into conflicts when the participants do not intend to argue. In one of our assignments, stu- dents are told to assume that there are three parties to a problem-solving con-

60 Stephen Potter, One-Upmanship (Middle- sex: Penguin Books, 1962).

A RULES-BASED APPROACH-37

ference, the boss and two engineers, all of whom hold these rules:

"•Rs = In the context of task activity, if the boss asks for presentation of a proposal, then it is obligatory to present your ideas in order to avoid insubordination and to affirm boss status.

'•K8 = In the context of task activity, if a peer presents a proposal, then it is obligatory to be critical and make criticisms stick in order to show that you are a "hard-nosed" critic, a cap- ability the company requires of engineers.

^^10 = In the context of task activity, if a peer criticizes your proposal, then it is obligatory to defend your pro- posal in order to show you are not in error—engineers who commit errors are not retained.

In the preceding rules the instructor should emphasize structural features that produce a logic of problem solving necessitating conflict. For example, in rules 2 and 3 the consequents of acts do not take into account the relational im- pact of criticism or defense on Other. The narrow range of actions available under the rules also functions to "lock in" the conflict. Students should also discuss the importance of the par- ticipants' ability to construe the conflict episode as a unique one so that par- ticipants in the conflict can transcend their condition and examine the rules that logically require conflict.

SUMMARY

The approach to communication edu- cation presented here cuts beneath cul- tural diversity and provides students ways of analyzing communication in any given situation. This has three meri- torious consequences. First, it enables communication education to avoid the recurrent problem of adapting so well

38-COMMtJNICATION EDUCATION

to the skills required or prized by specific cultures that it becomes faddish, ethno- centric, or monocultural in scope. Per- sons educated in this way should never find themselves in the predictment Aristotle described of having nothing to say. Second, it makes communication education relevant to the most crucial

communication problems of this cen- tury: the contact of dissimilar cultures which have demythologized their heri- tage. Finally, it includes in introductory communication courses consideration of the basic ideas such as rule, hierarchy, logic, and constructs which can be de- veloped at length in advanced courses.