Cognitive valence theory (CVT) is a theoretical framework that describes and explains the process of intimacy exchange within a dyad relationship. Peter A. Andersen,[who?] PhD created the cognitive valence theory to answer questions regarding intimacy relationships among colleagues, close friends and intimate friends, married couples and family members.[1] Intimacy or immediacy behavior is that behavior that provides closeness or distance within a dyad relationship. Closeness projects a positive feeling in a relationship, and distance projects a negative feeling within a relationship. Intimacy or immediacy behavior can be negatively valenced or positively valenced.[2]Valence, associated with physics, is used here to describe the degree of negativity or positivity in expected information. If your partner perceives your actions as negative, then the interaction may repel your partner away from you. If your partner perceives your actions as positive, then the interaction may be accepted and may encourage closeness. Affection and intimacy promotes positive valence in a relationship. CVT uses non-verbal and verbal communications criteria to analyze behavioral situations.[3]
CVT focuses on how intimate relationships are initiated and why only a few relationships are extended past initial contact.[3] CVT employs six factors or schemata to explain verbal and non-verbal intimacy behaviors, interpersonal perceptions, physiological arousal, social cognition and relational outcomes within a specified relationship.[4][5][6][7][8][9] CVT utilizes six types of schemata that regulate interpersonal interaction: culture, personality, interpersonal valence, situation, state, and the relationship.[4][5][6][7][8][10] Each schema explores intimacy or immediacy behavior when interlaced with human emotion. CVT focuses on these six schemata in relations to moderate levels of arousal in human emotions. Moderate levels of arousal are acceptable in a dyad relationship, but high levels of arousal may cause undue excitement, panic, fear, anger and disorientation.[11][10]
Nonverbal and verbal communications
Nonverbal communication is the process of communications by sending and receiving messages without speaking. Intimate relations may be affected by the use of nonverbal communications. Nonverbal communications are transmitted through messaging that utilizes haptic communications (touching, hugs, kisses and caressing someone); body language (physical appearance, posture, gestures and eye contact); oculesics (or eye behavior, including pupil dilation); kinesics (facial expressions and receptive contact from others); and chronemics (time spent with someone else or waiting for someone).[10] All these nonverbal behaviors can affect intimacy or immediacy within a relationship.
Verbal communication or dialogue communications also plays an important part in a dyad relationship. While nonverbal communication provides a forum conducive to wordless conversation, verbal conversation can provide the monologue or dialogue to vocally express personal feelings, emotions and supplement nonverbal actions. However, research has shown that only 7% of all communications is directly related to verbal communications. Research further reports that 38% of communications are by the tone of voice and 55% of communication is determined by body language—posture, gestures and eye contact.[12]
Negative and positive valence
Negative valence behavior is nonverbal communication transmission of a behavioral feeling or emotion received in a negative manner. The receiver perceives the negative transmission and may repel your contact or interaction. As in physics, negative particles repel which may cause the receiver of the transmission or communication to avoid your contact.[3] As the example stated above, initial contact of noticing another person in the grocery store or gas station may not be returned, through an acknowledgement of the initiator's smile or gesture or the gesture of acknowledgement may purport a stare, frown or other look suggesting “leave me alone” or “not interested.” Intimacy or immediacy may be detrimental to a relationship if that immediacy is negatively accepted by the receiver.
Positive valence behavior is another non-verbal transmission of a behavioral feeling or emotion from one person to another and received in a positive manner. The receiver perceives the positive transmission and may be attracted to that person.[3] Positive behavior may affect intimacy or immediacy within the dyad relationship, but this positive behavior must be recognized and acknowledged by the receiver or partner.[13] Initial contact within an impending dyad relationship may be as simple as noticing another person in a grocery store or gas station. A first look or glance from the initiator may be returned with a smile or gesture of acknowledgement by the receiver. This gesture may then be returned to the initiator as a positive, and further contact may be encouraged.
Cognitive schemata
Andersen (1993, Planap, 1985) suggests that cognitive schemata or our social knowledge help interpret various social interactions. CVT incorporates these six schemata into the regulation or guidance of interpersonal interaction.[14]
Culture
Culture is the total expression of one's behavior patterns, arts, values, goals, and practices of a population or community.[15]Geertz (1973) further argues “…this school of thought holds that culture is composed of psychological structures by means of which individuals or groups of individuals guide their behavior”.[16] Culture plays a definitive role in the formation of human behavior. In some cultures, it is permissible to hold hands; other cultures this open act of compassion is forbidden. Looking or gazing upon another is accepted; other cultures, the eyes are not directed at anyone not of your family. Public affection is acceptable in one country but to kiss, touch or hold someone's hand is blasphemous. This behavior may be deemed negatively valenced.[17]
Personality
Personality or personality traits also affect intimacy or immediacy within a dyad relationship. Just as humans differ in their size, weight and emotional attributes, human personalities differ in their degree of sociability, their likes and dislikes, the level of tolerance towards shyness and openness and their adherence to proxemics or the distance displaced from one person towards another. Essentially, this is where knowing your partner's personality is crucial to a happy relationship. This relationship promotes positive valence or misinterpreting your partner's personality may promote a negative valence.[18]
Interpersonal valence
Interpersonal Valence can be best described as a nonverbal communication typology. A touch from someone you like is received differently than an unwanted touch. Interpersonal valence has a positive affect for socially and physically attractive people and a negative valence for those not so attractive.[19] This degree of attraction may be within the initiator's point of view or may also be perceived from the receiver.
State
Andersen argues here that state is the internal, short-term condition affecting communications.[3] This form of state suggests that external behavioral situations affect one's internal behavioral, coping adaptability. Simply, disagreements at home or at the office signal a negative valence of immediacy or intimacy. An argument with your boss or a disrespectful employee may lower your internal coping adaptability, and negative valence emerges. However, one's acceptance of intimacy or immediacy is higher when positive valence is experienced. A good day at the office, congratulations on the successful completion a special project or a home cooked meal may amplify positive valence and increase immediacy or intimacy.[3]
The relationship
The relationship is the most important part of the cognitive schemata model.[20] Partnership within a dyad has numerous labels. Within relationships (interpersonal relationships), we label our dyad partners as acquaintances, friends, colleagues, professional coworkers, personal friends, family members, fellow college students and college professors and, those people whose paths cross with ours simply as convenient contacts.[3] Each dyad partner, whether initial or long-term may display a level of intimacy or immediacy based on a degree of appropriateness for the situation. Public forums are the stage in which positive or negative valence performs. As stated earlier, an unwanted look or a touch may heighten the degree of negative valence. In contrast, a look or an accepted touch may heighten the degree of positive valence and be the most desirable behavior for each of the dyad partners. Relationships are dependent upon both partners and their commitment to the dyad. Relationships therefore are fragile.[21] Cognitive Valence Theory or CVT offers one explanation for this fragility. Negative valence received from any of the cognitive schemata can result in a negative relational outcome.[22][3] Negative valence reduces the intimacy or immediacy strength within a relationship. Negative valence can also thwart healthy dyad growth by heightening the lack of love and care within the dyad. Positive valence acts in a 180 degree fashion as positive feeling promotes growth and strengthens the love and care within the dyad. With positive valence, there can still be risks, but the rewards may outweigh the costs.
Valence violations
As mentioned above, valence is the degree of positivity or negativity in expected information. Relational outcomes will become negatively valenced when violations occur within the six schemata. Negative valence here can be associated with the amount of relationships we initially form and the amount of relationships that become long lasting.[3] Andersen's cognitive valence theory points out (under relational outcome) how violations of any of the six schemata will affect a dyad relationship. Negative violations can result in (1) negative cognitive and affective appraisals of your partner; (2) compensation/reduction intimacy behaviors, and (3) reductions in relational closeness or disengagement.[22][23] The theory further describes the degree of positivity associated with positive relational outcomes within a dyad relationship. Andersen's cognitive valence theory also points that (under relational outcome) how positive valenced intimacy can show (1) positive cognitive and affective appraisals of one's partner; (2) reciprocity or an increase in intimacy behaviors, and (3) increase in relational growth and closeness.[24]
Related theories
Expectancy violations theory (EVT) focuses on people's reactions to unexpected human behavior. Expectancies are primarily based upon social norms and specific characteristics of the communicators.[25] EVT requires determining whether one interactant's behavior change qualifies as a positive or negative violation. Within the realm of involvement and immediacy changes, it predicts that (a) unexpected positive behavior by a positively valenced interactant will produce reciprocal behavior, (b) unexpected negative behavior by a positively valenced interactant will produce compensatory behavior, (c) unexpected negative behavior by a negatively valenced interactant will produce reciprocal negative behavior, and (d) unexpected positive behavior by a negatively valenced interactant may produce either reciprocal or compensatory behavior, depending on which is more salient – the valence of the behavior or the valence of the interactant.[11] The Arousal-Labeling theory (ALT) likewise posits that both compensation and reciprocity may occur, but the focus of this model is on how the undifferentiated arousal engendered by a partner's behavior change is effectively labeled – positive labels producing reciprocity and negative labels producing compensation.[11] Discrepancy-Arousal theory (DAT) combines arousal and affect with expectancies, predicting that discrepancies from expected behavior patterns produce arousal change, that moderate arousal change is effectively positive and elicits approach (typically reciprocity), and that high arousal change is effectively negative and elicits avoidance (typically compensation).[11]
Cognitive valence theory seeks to describe and explain the process of intimacy exchange within a dyad relationship. CVT accomplishes this process through the employment of six schemata: culture, personality, interpersonal valence, situation, state, and the relationship. Intimacy behaviors provide the strength and positivity to generate close, personal friendships. These friendships may be found in the home family, an impending personal relationship and/or marriage.[26] Additionally, if you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it.[27]
Rapport is a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned are "in sync" with each other, understand each other's feelings or ideas, and communicate smoothly.
Haptic communication is a branch of nonverbal communication that refers to the ways in which people and animals communicate and interact via the sense of touch. Touch is the most sophisticated and intimate of the five senses. Touch or haptics, from the ancient Greek word haptikos is extremely important for communication; it is vital for survival.
An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy. Although an intimate relationship is commonly a sexual relationship, it may also be a non-sexual relationship.
Expectancy violations theory (EVT) is a theory of communication that analyzes how individuals respond to unanticipated violations of social norms and expectations. The theory was proposed by Judee K. Burgoon in the late 1970s and continued through the 1980s and 1990s as "nonverbal expectancy violations theory", based on Burgoon's research studying proxemics. Burgoon's work initially analyzed individuals' allowances and expectations of personal distance and how responses to personal distance violations were influenced by the level of liking and relationship to the violators. The theory was later changed to its current name when other researchers began to focus on violations of social behavior expectations beyond nonverbal communication.
The uncertainty reduction theory, also known as initial interaction theory, developed in 1975 by Charles Berger and Richard Calabrese, is a communication theory from the post-positivist tradition. It is one of the only communication theories that specifically looks into the initial interaction between people prior to the actual communication process. The theory asserts the notion that, when interacting, people need information about the other party in order to reduce their uncertainty. In gaining this information people are able to predict the other's behavior and resulting actions, all of which according to the theory is crucial in the development of any relationship.
Surprise is a brief mental and physiological state, a startle response experienced by animals and humans as the result of an unexpected event. Surprise can have any valence; that is, it can be neutral/moderate, pleasant, unpleasant, positive, or negative. Surprise can occur in varying levels of intensity ranging from very-surprised, which may induce the fight-or-flight response, or little-surprise that elicits a less intense response to the stimuli.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to interpersonal relationships.
Chronemics is the role of time in communication. It is one of several subcategories to emerge from the study of nonverbal communication. According to the Encyclopedia of Special Education “Chronemics includes time orientation, understanding and organization; use of and reaction to time pressures; our innate and learned awareness of time; wearing or not wearing a watch; arriving, starting, and ending late or on time.” The way someone values and perceives time plays a considerable role on his or her communication process. The use of time can affect lifestyles, personal relationships, and work life. Across cultures, people usually have different time perceptions, and this can result in conflicts between individuals. Time perceptions include punctuality, interactions, and willingness to wait. Three main types of time are used in chronemics: interactive, conceptual, and social.
Interpersonal deception theory (IDT) attempts to explain how individuals handle actual deception at the conscious or subconscious level while engaged in face-to-face communication. The theory was put forth by Burgoon and Buller (1996) to explore this idea that deception is an engaging process between receiver and deceiver. IDT assumes that communication is not static; it is influenced by personal goals and the meaning of the interaction as it unfolds. The sender's overt communications are affected by the overt and covert communications of the receiver, and vice versa. Intentional deception requires greater cognitive exertion than truthful communication, regardless of whether the sender attempts falsification (lying), concealment or equivocation. IDT explores the interrelation between the sender's communicative meaning and the receiver's thoughts and behavior in deceptive exchanges. Previous research into deception was more focused on the strategies and effects of lying, leading Burgoon and Buller's research to pave the way in which researchers would look at deception as an interactive communication process in the decades to come.
The hyperpersonal model is a model of interpersonal communication that suggests computer-mediated communication (CMC) can become hyperpersonal because it "exceeds [face-to-face] interaction", thus affording message senders a host of communicative advantages over traditional face-to-face (FtF) interaction. The hyperpersonal model demonstrates how individuals communicate uniquely, while representing themselves to others, how others interpret them, and how the interactions create a reciprocal spiral of FtF communication. Compared to ordinary FtF situations, a hyperpersonal message sender has a greater ability to strategically develop and edit self-presentation, enabling a selective and optimized presentation of one's self to others.
Social Presence Theory was developed by social psychologists John Short, Ederyn Williams, and Bruce Christie, co-authors of the 1976 book The Social Psychology of Telecommunications, where they defined Social Presence Theory as the ability communication media have to transmit social cues. The theory arose from noticing the differences in apparent physical proximity inherent in using various communications media.
Judee K. Burgoon is a professor of Communication, Family Studies and Human Development at the University of Arizona, where she serves as Director of Research for the Center for the Management of Information and Site Director for the NSF-sponsored Center for Identification Technology Research. She is also involved with different aspects of Interpersonal and Nonverbal Communication, deception, and new communication technologies. She is also Director of Human Communication Research for the Center for the Management of Information and Site Director for Center for Identification Technology Research at the university, and recently held an appointment as Distinguished Visiting Professor with the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma, and the Center for Applied Social Research at the University of Oklahoma. Burgoon has authored or edited 13 books and monographs and has published nearly 300 articles, chapters and reviews related to nonverbal and verbal communication, deception, and computer-mediated communication. Her research has garnered over $13 million in extramural funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Counterintelligence Field Activity, and the National Institutes of Mental Health. Among the communication theories with which she is most notably linked are: interpersonal adaptation theory, expectancy violations theory, and interpersonal deception theory. A recent survey identified her as the most prolific female scholar in communication in the 20th century.
Interpersonal (Interaction) adaptation theory (IAT) is often referred to as a theory of theories. Several theories have been developed to provide frameworks as explanations of social interactions. After reviewing and examining various communication theories and previous empirical evidence pertaining to interpersonal communication, a need to address ways in which individuals adapt to one another in interactions became apparent. The importance of observing both sides of a dyadic interaction lead to the development of the interpersonal adaptation theory. The theory states, individuals enter interactions with expectations, requirements, and desires, which combined establish an interaction position. Once the interaction begins, the difference between interaction position and the other party's actual behavior determines whether the individual will adapt and continue the communication positively or not.
Predicted outcome value theory introduced in 1996 by Michael Sunnafrank, posits that people seek information in initial interactions and relationships to determine the benefits of interpersonal relationships by predicting the value of future outcomes whether negative or positive. If a person predicts a positive outcome in the relationship this can lead to increased attraction, however if a person predicts a negative outcome then he or she would pursue limited interaction or possibly relationship termination. The processes of predicted outcome value directly link to continued relationship development and communication as well as stronger attraction and intimacy within the relationship.
Relational transgressions occur when people violate implicit or explicit relational rules. These transgressions include a wide variety of behaviors. The boundaries of relational transgressions are permeable. Betrayal for example, is often used as a synonym for a relational transgression. In some instances, betrayal can be defined as a rule violation that is traumatic to a relationship, and in other instances as destructive conflict or reference to infidelity.
Interpersonal communication is an exchange of information between two or more people. It is also an area of research that seeks to understand how humans use verbal and nonverbal cues to accomplish a number of personal and relational goals.
Affiliative conflict theory (ACT) is a social psychological approach that encompasses interpersonal communication and has a background in nonverbal communication. This theory postulates that "people have competing needs or desires for intimacy and autonomy". In any relationship, people will negotiate and try to rationalize why they are acting the way they are in order to maintain a comfortable level of intimacy.
Nonverbal influence is the act of affecting or inspiring change in others' behaviors and attitudes by way of tone of voice or body language and other cues like facial expression. This act of getting others to embrace or resist new attitudes can be achieved with or without the use of spoken language. It is a subtopic of nonverbal communication. Many individuals instinctively associate persuasion with verbal messages. Nonverbal influence emphasizes the persuasive power and influence of nonverbal communication. Nonverbal influence includes appeals to attraction, similarity and intimacy.
Relationship maintenance refers to a variety of behaviors exhibited by relational partners in an effort to maintain that relationship. Relational maintenance is defined by scholars in four different ways:
to keep a relationship in existence
to keep a relationship in a specified state or condition
to keep a relationship in a satisfactory condition and
to keep a relationships in repair.
Hurtful communication occurs when the receiver perceives a specific social interaction as upsetting or harmful emotionally. In the course of human interaction, one party will say or do something that results in unpleasant emotional feelings for another. Negative social interactions can be intentional, when one or both parties are involved in interpersonal conflict, or unintentional, such as when misunderstandings occur. Actions such as failure to recognize accomplishments or significant dates can cause hurtful outcomes within relationships.
References
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Andersen, P.A. (1989). A cognitive valence theory of intimate communication. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the International Network on Personal Relationships, Iowa City: IA (np).
Andersen, P.A. (1998). The cognitive valence theory of intimate communication. In M.T. Palmer & G.A. Barnett (Eds.), Progress in communication sciences, Vol. 14: Mutual influence in interpersonal communication theory and research in cognition, affect, and behavior (pp.39–72). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Andersen, P.A. (1999). Nonverbal communication: Forms and functions (pp.228–237). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing.
Burgoon, J. K., Stern L. A., & Dillman, L. (1995). Interpersonal adaptation.(Chapter 5, pp.251–279). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Covey, S.R. (2004). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Powerful lessons in personal change (p.43). New York: Free Press.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures (p.11). New York: Basic Books.
Guerrero, L.K., & Hecht, M.L. (2008). The nonverbal communication reader: Classic and Contemporary Readings (3rd ed.) (pp.511–520). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Guerrero, L.K., Andersen, P.A., & Afifi, W.A. (2007). Close encounters: Communication in relationships (2nd ed.) (pp.181–185). Los Angeles: Sage.
McPherson, M. B., & Yuhua, J. L. (2007). Students’ Reactions to Teachers’ Management of Compulsive Communicators. "Communication Education, 56," 18–33.
Mehrabian, A., & Ferris, S.R. (1967). Inference of Attitude from Nonverbal Communication in Two Channels. In: The Journal of Counseling Psychology, 31, 248–252.
Planap, S. (1985). Relational schemata: A test of alternative forms of relational knowledge as guides to communication. Human Communication Research, 12, 3–29.
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