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Introductory models & basic concepts
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Introductory models & basic concepts
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This section deals with the following:
Before continuing with this section, it would be useful to have some understanding of the notion of empathy and its relevance to communication. Briefly, empathy is the skill of being able to put ourselves in other people's shoes, of being able to see the world through their eyes. As sources of messages, we need to encode those messages in a manner appropriate to the receivers. Empathy enables us to estimate what encoding is appropriate.
Berlo (1960) makes the following points about empathy:
Berlo sums up by saying that, when the situation is appropriate, empathy is probably the best basis for communicative effectiveness. When the situation is not appropriate, we need other bases for our predictions.
When circumstances lead to a decrease in empathic accuracy, then a knowledge of the composition and workings of a social system is useful in making predictions about how members of that system will behave in a given communication situation.
There are numerous reasons why, in everyday situations, we find that empathy doesn't work. It requires energy and effort which we don't always have available. In such cases we back up or replace empathy with conclusions or assumptions based on knowledge of the social system.
David Berlo places great emphasis on the importance of social rôles in determining how and with whom we communicate. At a simple level, rôles are simple positions in social systems, rather like the positions in a football team. Those rôles are there independently of the players and simply require players to occupy them.
Types of rôle
Linton usefully suggests five types of social rôle:
Hayes (1993)
Rôles bring with them expectations about the way that the people in those rôles will behave.
We know that when we get on a bus, we say where we want to go, pay the appropriate amount and get taken there. There is little communication involved. Whatever communication there is is circumscribed by the rôle expectations, which allows perhaps for some comment on the weather or the traffic density. We don't expect that the bus driver will start discussing Communication theory with us; we don't expect him to suggest he should drive the bus out into the countryside for a picnic.
Some rôe expectations may well be formalised in some way.
For example, we don't expect the referee at a football match to take charge of the ball and try a shot at the goal and (I assume) the Football Association's rules explicitly prevent him from doing so. We expect people in the rôle of parent to care for their children and there are laws which prevent them from neglecting them. We expect doctors to attempt to cure their patients and the British Medical Association can be used to have them struck off if they are negligent.
Rôle performances
We need to consider the actual rôle performance of the people in those rôles since, after all, no two doctors, parents etc. behave in exactly the same way. To an extent everyone is free to interpret their rôle as they see fit, within the limits imposed on them.
Shop assistants may be made to wear a uniform, there may be limits on the kind of make-up they can wear and that may actually be quite clearly stated in the definition of their rôle. College lecturers have a good deal more freedom to determine their appearance, indeed even to determine how they use much of their time. Generally speaking, they have more freedom to give a personal interpretation of their rôle than a shop-assistant has (at least they did until the new market disciplines transformed them into glorified shop assistants).
On the other hand, customers expect as a minimum to be served and students expect to be taught. Moreover customers expect to be served in certain ways (e.g. with a certain amount of respect, politeness and helpfulness) and college students may well expect to be taught in certain ways. There are limits beyond which a lecturer cannot stray without giving students the feeling that they are not being 'taught properly'. These expectations circumscribe the personal interpretation which the individual performer can bring to the rôle.
Social Systems - Communication & rôles
Social systems affect how, why, to and from whom, and with what effects communication occurs.
For example, our social position increases the probability that we will talk to people in equal or adjacent positions and lowers the probability that we will communicate with those in different positions. People tend to stick to communicating with members of their own class, age group or job. There are working class pubs, middle class wine bars, student discos.
The system determines the frequency of communication for individuals. Some people (receptionists, salesmen, barbers etc.) are communication-prone. Some rôles inhibit communication (accountants, security police, management executives etc.).
There is a system style, a characteristic way in which members of a given system encode and decode messages.
Communication affects the social system and vice-versa. Neither can be analysed separately without distorting the nature of the process.
Knowledge of a social system can help us to make accurate predictions about people, without the necessity of empathising, without the necessity of interaction, without knowing anything about the people other than the rôles that they have in the system.
If we know what behaviours go with a rôle, we can predict that those behaviours will be performed by people who perform that rôle.
If we know what behaviours go with a given rank or position, we can make predictions about people who occupy that position.
Even if we do not know a person as an individual, we still can make fairly accurate predictions from a knowledge of his/her position in one or more social systems.
Knowledge of the systems of which our receiver is a member helps us predict
Another use of knowledge of the system is that it helps us select receivers in the first place. If we have a specific purpose, we can analyse the positions within a system and determine which members of the system are in a position to do what we want done, and which are not.
Social Systems: rôles and breakdown
There are problems in predicting behaviour from a knowledge of social systems.
In analysing rôle-behaviours, we need to use at least three approaches:
In the ideal system, prescriptions, descriptions, and expectations about a given rôle all fit together. In most groups in the real world, though, they don't. If they differ radically, communication breakdowns occur within the system. When our expectations of a rôle don't match the performance of that rôle then there will obviously be communication problems.
Obviously, we operate simultaneously in a large number of systems. An individual may have rôles in twenty-five to fifty groups. She occupies positions in each group, performs behaviours in each group.
In addition to these groups, there are groups she would like to belong to. These groups serve as reference groups. Reference groups are the social systems that serve as reference points for the individual, groups whose norms and rôle behaviours are predictors of her own behaviour and beliefs.
Key questions when we consider our receiver are: which groups is she using as reference for her behaviours; which rôle is she performing now; what norms are relevant to her; what position does she see herself as occupying?
As an individual moves from system to system she may find herself in conflict. The rôle position she occupies in one group may conflict with the one she occupies in another. That is an example of rôle conflict.
You play the rôle of child at home. You are reasonably 'well-behaved', helpful, polite, well-spoken etc. Your parents think you wear some pretty weird clothes and have an odd hairstyle, but, being unable to understand the code of teenage dress, they just think 'young people are like that'. Amongst your group of friends, you like to present yourself as the rebel. That's expressed in your clothing and hairstyle as well as in your behaviour. What happens when, for the first time, your friends come round and visit you at home? You can't play both rôles at the same time - communication breakdown may ensue as neither your parents nor your friends can make accurate predictions.
It is possible also that the expectations of a rôle may conflict with an individual's norms or beliefs. This will cause a norm conflict. Not strictly a rôle conflict, this is generally said to cause what is known as rôle strain.
A devout Catholic working for an educational programme in a Third World country is promoted to a position where they are expected to oversee the implementation of birth control programme. The constant conflict between this person's moral convictions and sense of duty to the employer means that clear directions are not given to those under him and the programme is not followed through with commitment.
When rôle, or norm, or belief conflicts occur, they cause two kinds of communication difficulties:
Basing our predictions on the rôle a person plays is helpful. It saves us time and energy and facilitates communication. Making assumptions about a person based on the rôle they occupy, unavoidable though it may be, comes close to stereotyping. Communication problems can arise as a result.
An unemployed middle-aged woman is sent by the Department of Employment to the local college to acquire some skills in Information Technology. While waiting to be interviewed by the IT lecturer, she skims through some college literature. When the lecturer arrives, she explains that she has no experience of using computers and has no qualifications above 'O' Level, but expresses an interest in following a full-time course in Computer Science. The lecturer gently persuades her that a part-time course in word-processing would be more appropriate. I guess you can see the stereotyping there!
Dimbleby and Burton : rôles in groups
Zimbardo on the power of rôles
Empathy
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