Efficacy Violation Theory Of Expectations In Interpersonal Communication
In this article Burgoon et al. use Expectancy Violation Theory to examine how different forms of interfaces that confirm or violate user expectations affect the communication process, social judgments, ability to influence, and accuracy to recall associated with HtEAC (communication with a computer generated person). Burgoon et al. explain that EVT begins by identifying the pervasiveness and potency of expectations during interpersonal communication. Expectations come from characteristics of actors, their relationship to one another, and the context in which their communication takes place. Moreover, in EVT, the valence construct is attached to both the violator and the violator's communication. Violations cause a shift in attention by intensifying
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B. and Floyd, K. Additionally, major principles and findings of EVT in HtHAC are that (1) people have expectations, (2) people assign positive and negative valence to a violation of expectation, (3) violating expectations that are positively valenced increases positive communication results more than confirming expectations, (4) expectancy violations that are negatively valenced decreases communication results, and (5) the effects of expectation and valence (EVT conditions) on social judgment, communication quality, and task performance have been validated. After conducting their study, Burgoon et al. found that their results suggest that when the EA deviates from expectations, effects on the HtEAC process and related outcomes can be more pronounced. EAs evaluated as positive violations had more favorable effects on task attractiveness than other human or EA interaction partners. As predicted by EVT, EA interactions that were positively evaluated elicited more perceived connectedness, feelings of being understood/receptivity, and dependability than those EA interactions evaluated negatively. However, negative violations did not produce worse outcomes than negative confirmations. EVT offers a useful lens for examining the communication effects of HtEAC and points to benefits of creating EAs that evoke positive violations of expectancy. Despite their exceptional results, they admit that a limitation or possible downside to their study is that they had a small population size, therefore, more experiments similar to this should be conducted to either confirm or deny their
B. and Floyd, K. Additionally, major principles and findings of EVT in HtHAC are that (1) people have expectations, (2) people assign positive and negative valence to a violation of expectation, (3) violating expectations that are positively valenced increases positive communication results more than confirming expectations, (4) expectancy violations that are negatively valenced decreases communication results, and (5) the effects of expectation and valence (EVT conditions) on social judgment, communication quality, and task performance have been validated. After conducting their study, Burgoon et al. found that their results suggest that when the EA deviates from expectations, effects on the HtEAC process and related outcomes can be more pronounced. EAs evaluated as positive violations had more favorable effects on task attractiveness than other human or EA interaction partners. As predicted by EVT, EA interactions that were positively evaluated elicited more perceived connectedness, feelings of being understood/receptivity, and dependability than those EA interactions evaluated negatively. However, negative violations did not produce worse outcomes than negative confirmations. EVT offers a useful lens for examining the communication effects of HtEAC and points to benefits of creating EAs that evoke positive violations of expectancy. Despite their exceptional results, they admit that a limitation or possible downside to their study is that they had a small population size, therefore, more experiments similar to this should be conducted to either confirm or deny their