Chapter 3 CA 301

Chapter 3 LectureBuilding and Testing Theory

Chapter 3 CA 301

Talk About It (Chicken or Egg?)

Do theories of human communication describe how humans actually communicate?

Or do they reflect individual theorists' perceptions and perspectives?

What do you think?!?!

Chapter 3 CA 301

VIEWS OF HUMAN NATUREand therefore interpersonal communication

Ontology are assumptions about human nature. 

The assumptions theorists make about humans can't be proved or disproved scientifically; they are matters of faith or belief.

Chapter 3 CA 301

DETERMINISM<------>FREE WILL

Determinism assumes that human behavior is governed by forces beyond individual control, usually the twin forces of biology and environment.On the other end of the ontological spectrum is the belief that humans have free will and that they make choices about how to act.For Heidegger, thrownness refers to the fact that we are thrown into a multitude of arbitrary conditions that influence our lives and opportunities.

Chapter 3 CA 301

What do you think?

Do you think we are primarily influenced by biology and environment?

OR

Do you think we are primarily influenced by our choices?

Chapter 3 CA 301

WAYS OF KNOWING

Epistemology:  the branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge, and is concerned with how we know.

 

Chapter 3 CA 301

DISCOVERING TRUTH

There is a singular truth.  Objectivism is the belief that reality is material and external to the human mind.Objectivity the quality of being uninfluenced by values, biases, personal feelings, and other subjective factors when perceiving material reality.Believers in objective truth presume that the true nature, or meaning of any act of communication can be determined.

Chapter 3 CA 301

CREATING MEANING

Those who believe that there are multiple realities would regard it as entirely reasonable that different people interpret communication in varying ways.

Standpoint Theory--the material, social, and symbolic circumstances of a social group shape what its members experience, as well as how they think, act, and feel.

Chapter 3 CA 301

What do you think?

 Is knowledge based on the existence of phenomena (the falling tree) or on human perceptions (hearing it fall).

There are different opinions about what counts as knowledge and how we come to know what we think we know.

POSITION ONE:  OBJECTIVITY

POSITION TWO:  MULTIPLE REALITIES (STANDPOINT THEORY)

Chapter 3 CA 301

PURPOSES OF THEORY

Universal LawsA law is an inviolate, unalterable fact that holds true across time and space.Universal laws may be more applicable to natural science than to human behavior, including communication.

Situated RulesThere are no laws that explain human communication across all time and circumstances.  We seek theories as the articulation of rules that describe patterns in human behavior.

Chapter 3 CA 301

What do you think?!?!

What should the focus be for theorists?

Behavior?

Meanings behind behavior?

A combination of behavior and meaning?  

Chapter 3 CA 301

Behaviorism

Behaviorism:  A form of science that focuses on observable behaviors and that assumes meanings, motives, and other subjective phenomena either don't exist or are irrelevant.  Behaviorists believe that scientists can study only concrete behaviors, such as what people do or say.Human motives, meanings, and intentions are beyond the realm of behavioristic investigation.Skinner believed that human behavior is a response to external stimuli.  He was well known for referring to the mind as a "black box," the contents of which cannot be known and which are irrelevant to science.All that can be measured is concrete, objective behavior.

Chapter 3 CA 301

Agree or Disagree?

Theories and theorists vary widely not only in what they study but also in the fundamental assumptions they make about human nature, knowledge, communication, and the goals of the theory.

   Meaning, motive, and intentions, even if they exist, aren't measurable, so they aren't within the province of science (p. 62).

Chapter 3 CA 301

MEANINGS

Many scholars aren't convinced that behaviorism is desirable.  Theorists who reject behavioral views of science believe that the crux of human activity is meaning, not behaviors themselves.  What is distinctively human is free will or the ability to make choices and the capacity to create meanings (crucial to humanists).

John Searle wrote about brute facts, which are the objective, concrete phenomena or observable behaviors that behaviorists study.  Institutional facts are what brute facts MEAN, what humanists wish to study.

Chapter 3 CA 301

brute fact--An objective, concrete phenomenon unadorned by interpretations of

meaning.

Provide one description based on only brute facts and a second description based on institutional facts.

A marriage ceremony.

A person interacting in a chat room.

Two friends engaging in a game of friendly insults and put-downs.

Chapter 3 CA 301

TESTING THEORIES

HYPOTHESES AND RESEARCH QUESTIONSHypotheses are testable predictions about relationships between communication phenomena.If you don't have a clear basis for making a prediction, generate a research question.  Use research questions in your action research.DEFINE TERMS:  Operational definitions are precise descriptions that specify the phenomena of interest.QUANTITATIVE METHODS gather information that can be quantified and then interpret eh data to make arguments about what the numbers reveal about communication behaviors and relationships among communication phenomena.DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS use numbers to describe human behavior.

Chapter 3 CA 301

Apply Research Findings

Can you think of an example or story from your personal experience that supports scholarly research findings?

  Husbands interrupt wives far more often than wives interrupt husbands.

Women are more active than men in doing what is called "conversational maintenance," which is involving others in conversations.

Chapter 3 CA 301

An experiment is a controlled study that systematically manipulates one thing (called an independent variable) to determine how that affects another thing (called a dependent variable, for what it does depends on the independent variable).

Dependent variable affects independent variable.

Chapter 3 CA 301

Apply Research Findings

Can you think of an example or story from your personal experience that supports scholarly research findings?Acitelli found that both partners found it satisfying to talk about the relationship when there was a problem.  When no conflict or difficulty existed, however, the wives in the scenarios were perceived as being more satisfied with conversation about the relationship.

Chapter 3 CA 301

QUALITATIVE METHODS

Valuable when we wish not to count or measure phenomena but to understand the character of experience, particularly how people perceive and make sense of their communication experience.

Textual analysis--also called interpretative analysis--involves describing communication texts and interpreting their meaning. 

Chapter 3 CA 301

Apply Research Findings

Can you think of an example or story from your personal experience that supports scholarly research findings?  Men often interrupt to challenge others or to assert themselves. Women's interruptions are more likely to support others or to indicate interest in what others are saying.

Chapter 3 CA 301

Ethnography attempts to discover what things mean to others by sensitive observation of human activity.   They rely on unobtrusive methods, which are means of gathering data that intrude minimally on naturally occurring interaction.

Critical analysis suggests that research should make a real difference in the lives of human beings.  Critical scholarship is one important way to change oppressive or wrong practices in the world. 

Chapter 3 CA 301

ASSESSING RESEARCH

Validity refers to the truth or accuracy of a theory in measuring what it claims to measure.External validity refers to the generalizability of a theory.  Internal validity is that the theory's design and methods do what they claim to do.Reliability is the consistency.Significance is the conceptual or pragmatic importance of a theory.

Chapter 3 CA 301

End of chapter 3

Read case studies for Wed.