Expectancy Violations Theory

Response Paper #1

By Jason Thomas
For COMM 1050-001

Expectancy Violations Theory (EVT) helps us understand how nonverbal messages contribute to
communication, and how we anticipate and interpret the actions of others. With a proper
understanding of EVT we can use nonverbal communication to enhance the message of our
words, help people feel at ease around us, or as we will see below, even to influence peoples
behavior by strategically violating their expectations.
One evening this winter, my wife Silvia and I decided to take our daughter swimming. It was a
cold evening and though the pool was indoors the water was chilly. Within a few minutes our
toddler was shivering and a bit miserable. In the shallow childrens area we discovered warm
water flowing from an inlet on the floor of the pool. We sat close together and trapped the
incoming water between our bodies, and positioned our daughter in the small reservoir of
warmth. After a time, she was revived and eager to play.
Playing in the cold water, she was soon cold and cranky again. We made our way back to the
location of the inlet, only to find two teenaged girls camped out upon it. Evidently they had
discovered the same thing we had. Their body language told us that were staying put, at least for
the time being.
I considered approaching the girls and asking them to relinquish the warm spot, but decided that
it would be socially unacceptable and ran the risk of refusal. Instead, I decided we could
influence them to give up the ground voluntarily by making it uncomfortable to stay there. I
told Silvia, Lets sit inappropriately close and see how long it takes them to move away. We
maneuvered near them in the shallow water. Rather than passing by as they probably expected,
we sat down right next to them, just a few inches away, not overtly facing them, but not turned
completely away either.

For the first few moments the teenagers took no notice of us. I suspect they thought we had
paused momentarily, and were still expecting us to move on. However, within a very few
seconds they began to show signs of discomfort at our proximity. Their conversation ground to a
halt. Their casual movements became stilted and muted as they were careful not to bump into us.
They fidgeted and looked uncomfortable. After just a half minute or so the tension had become
unbearable for them. One quietly signaled to the other, and they moved off with a look of relief.
With a small rotation we positioned ourselves over the outlet and warmed our little girl.
EVT was developed by Judee Burgoon (West & Turner, 2010). Originally called Nonverbal
Expectancy Violations Theory, it is chiefly concerned with our reactions to nonverbal signals
from others. The three assumptions of EVT are that 1) expectancies drive human behavior, 2)
these expectancies are learned, and 3) people make predictions about how others will behave.
When our predictions are accurate we take little conscious notice, but when they are not our
attention is drawn to the incongruity. Our attention is aroused as we seek an explanation for the
behavior, and we evaluate it for threat or reward potentialin other words, we decide whether to
interpret the event as a good surprise or a bad one.
One of the most fascinating and, as we saw in the interaction given above, powerful aspects of
nonverbal communication studied through EVT is space relations, or proxemics. This is how
people use space and the distances we maintain between each other during different types of
interaction. West and Turner site the work of Edward Hall who defined four proxemics zones for
North Americans: intimate, personal, social, and public (131). When someone comes closer than
we expect given the setting and our relationship to them, this violation triggers the arousal and
evaluation noted above.

Expectancy Violations Theory is from the socio-psychological tradition, meaning that we work
from the assumption of causal relationships. Its contexts are intrapersonal and interpersonalits
useful for examining how we communicate within ourselves, and with other individuals. Its
worldview is positivistic/empirical, so we proceed from the point of view that there is an
objective and quantifiable reality to be discovered and measured/interpreted.
The swimming pool was a public territory, and in principle no individual has any claim on any
portion of it (132). However the respect for personal space leads to the carving-out of ad-hoc
private territories from public places. The area that people, and often their possessions, occupy
is treated as temporarily theirs. By establishing themselves on the spot over the inlet the girls had
taken possession of it, and by social convention that entitled them to certain rightsnamely,
that, within reason, their possession of it continued as long as they chose to remain. They had
tenure.
When we first approached the teens we were not violating their expectations. With no
established traffic flow patterns, one person or group will often pass very close to another in a
swimming pool. However, once we came to within a few inches of them and had paused there
for more than a second or two, they were aroused and began to pay a great deal of attention to us.
They had expected us to move on quickly. Instead we were settling down right next to themin
the middle of a vast, mostly empty pool! We intentionally positioned ourselves as close to them
as possible without actually rubbing up against them, in order to ensure we had penetrated their
threat threshold.
At this point the girls evaluation of us and the communicator reward valence we represented to
them must have become quite important. If it had been just Silvia and the baby, the interaction

might have had a different outcome. My daughter is charming and incredibly open with
strangers. People often stop to say hi to her. My wife, too, is friendly and gregarious. Depending
on their dispositions, the teenagers may have welcomed the excuse to coo over a beautiful
toddler. Unfortunately for them, I was there as well. I am a large man, and neither open with
strangers, nor particularly attractive (especially not when my body hair is waving in the current).
Overall, it seems we held a low reward valence for them.
Silvia and I sat calmly and observed the girls from the corners of our eyes. Their discomfort was
very apparent. Their conversation halted and their movements became stiff. Their expectations
had been violated, and when they looked to us to understand why they did not find a satisfactory
explanation. We had invaded their intimate zone, and had made no attempt to move on,
withdraw, or even to engage with them in any way. We had broken the social contract. They
experienced a few moments of indecision and growing tension, but still we did nothing. Since
they would have seen us to be in the wrong, and because they had taken temporary psychological
ownership of the warm spot, Im sure they felt some need to fend off our invasion. However, that
did not last long. After we had been there just thirty second or so the tension became too great
for the girls and they moved off. Once they were about ten feet from us you could see the relief
as their voices and movements returned to normal, and they seemed to resume their conversation
as if no interruption had occurred.
An understanding of Expectancy Violations Theory can help us achieve our communication
goals. If we can anticipate how our nonverbal signals will either soothe or arouse another person,
make them feel comfortable or make them sit up and take notice, we can fine-tune our actions to
coincide with and amplify the message of our words.

Works Cited:
West, R., & Turner, L. (2010). Chapter 8: Expectancy Violations Theory. In Introducing
communication theory: Analysis and application (4th ed., pp. 129-143). Boston: McGraw-Hill.