A First Look At COMMUNICATION THEORY Fifth Edition

1. Slide 1 A First Look AtCOMMUNICATION THEORYFifth Edition Em Griffin Wheaton College Special Consultant: Glen McClish San Diego State University

2. Chapter Summary Slide 2 Slide 2 Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory of William Gudykunst CHAPTER 30 • Enter The Stranger • Effective Communication: The Result of Mindfulness • Anxiety and Uncertainty: Twin Offspring of Cultural Variability • Managing Anxiety and Uncertainty When Cultures Clash • Critique: Overwhelmed by Intergroup Variables

3. Slide 3 Enter the Stranger • Bill Gudykunst’s anxiety/uncertainty management (AUM) theory focuses on encounters between cultural in-groups and strangers. • He intends his theory to apply in any situation where differences between people spawn doubts and fears. • Gudykunst assumes that at least one person in an intercultural encounter is a stranger. • Through a series of initial crises, strangers experience both anxiety and uncertainty.

4. Slide 4 Effective Communication: The Result of Mindfulness • Gudykunst uses the term effective communication to refer to the process of minimizing misunderstandings. • William Howell suggests four levels of communication competence: • Unconscious incompetence • Conscious incompetence • Conscious competence • Unconscious competence

5. Slide 5 Effective Communication: The Result of Mindfulness Figure 30.1: A Schematic Illustration of the Basic AUM Theory

6. Slide 6 Anxiety and Uncertainty: Twin Offspring of Cultural Variability • Gudykunst believes that anxiety and uncertainty are the basic causes of communication failure in intergroup situations. • These two causes of misinterpretation are closely related, yet Gudykunst sees them as different in that uncertainty is cognitive and anxiety is affective—an emotion.

7. Slide 7 Anxiety and Uncertainty: Twin Offspring of Cultural Variability • Uncertainty includes the doubts we have about our ability to predict the outcome of our encounters with strangers. • Uncertainty also includes doubts we have about the past. • Uncertainty is a thought; anxiety is a feeling. • Anxiety and uncertainty will motivate us to communicate better. • But once they climb above a threshold of useful stimulation, anxiety and uncertainty are the causes of failed communication.

8. Slide 8 Managing Anxiety and Uncertainty When Cultures Clash • Gudykunst lays out 37 separate axioms that he clusters into six categories. • Each axiom specifies a variable that affects the level of anxiety and uncertainty.

9. Selected Axioms Slide 9 Managing Anxiety and Uncertainty When Cultures Clash • Self and Self-Concept • Motivation to Interact with Strangers • Reactions to Strangers • Social Categorization of Strangers • Situational Processes • Connections with Strangers

10. Slide 10 Critique: Overwhelmed by Intergroup Variables • There is a danger that the student of communication could easily be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity and detail of Gudykunst’s theoretical predictions. • Gudykunst latest version of AUM sets forth 47 axioms, and he holds out the possibility of generating more. • It is difficult to assimilate. • Even his core axiom is conditional. Gudykunst says that “anxiety and uncertainty below our minimum thresholds will not produce increases in our effectiveness; anxiety and uncertainty above our maximum threshold will produce decreases in effectiveness.

11. Slide 11 Critique: Overwhelmed by Intergroup Variables • Stella Ting-Toomey, Gudykunst’s colleague, questions whether the whole uncertainty reduction approach doesn’t reflect a western bias.