International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

When people first meet, →  Interaction is likely to be guided by issues associated with uncertainty and →  self-presentation . Both mutual uncertainty reduction and effective presentational management are seen to be necessary but not sufficient conditions for relational growth. Significantly, these goals may become mutually exclusive when, for example, social actors seek to hide negative or intimate aspects of the self from another, thereby remaining opaque. Because uncertainty is seen to undermine relationship development, persons are posited as using a variety of strategies to reduce their uncertainty about each other and so increase the predictability and fluency of the interaction (→  Uncertainty Reduction Theory ). Outside of face-to-face meetings, persons may observe others and/or ask third parties about future interaction partners. However, during conversation, interlocutors are seen to rely upon two primary strategies: question-asking and disclosure. The rate of question-asking is highest at the very outset of interaction and decays rapidly as the interaction progresses. Preliminary question-asking generally focuses on non-personal issues, such as name, place of work, knowledge of others in the situation (e.g., at a party), and so on, so that information exchange is both symmetrical (i.e., partners seek and provide the same information) and synchronous (i.e., partners ... log in or subscribe to read full text