Attributional Confidence and Uncertainty in Initial Interaction
by Brian Gittinger
INTRODUCTION
This article by Glen W. Clatterback looked at Berger's Uncertainty Reduction Theory as his term Attributional Confidence. Throughout the article Clatterback talks about the terms retroactive attribution and proactive attribution. By analyzing how well individuals know eachother Clatterback reviews his terms and gives us a reason for why interactions happen as they do.SUMMARY
The goal of this study is to offer a means of operationalizing uncertainty in initial interaction through measures of attributional confindence. The term attributional confidence runs hand in hand with Berger's term uncertainty reduction. Through out the article Clatterback talks of two terms. Retroactive and Proactive attribution. These terms are equals to the terms explanation and prediction. These two terms are labeled as interactive terms. They explain how well you know a person and how well you can predict what they do.The article mentions how actions in interactions are based on what came before, and those actions then become the basis for predicting future responses. When viewing an interaction of two individuals you watch how they respond to certain stimuli and then have an image of how that person will respond to the same stimuli in future encounters. Clatterback then goes on to say that expectations(proactive) affect not only the formations of behaviors but also the interpretation of responses. A person who has expectations of events already has a cognitive base of what might happen in the future. This all depends on how well you know the person which follows with how well you can predict their actions.In Berger's theory, URT, the information passed is used in clarifying the uncertainty one has about another. Clatterback discusses the affect of information on the interaction. The flow of communication and reduction of uncertainty depends on how easy the information is to work with. Just because there is a lot of information it doesn't mean there is any less uncertainty. The amount of information doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of the information. A quote by Rubin(1997) "states differences in context can lead to differences in amount and type of information sought". If people of in a situation of comfort then the information might flow easily and be a very good use. But if the two people conflict in their interaction the information might not be a good prediction of whom they really are.Clatterback states that relationships have to be unidimensional. Unidimensionalality is how relationships are percieved as a whole and that each bit of information affects each other bit of information. So a statement by one person, negative or positive, will affect how the listener will see that person's next comment. Attributional processes are unidimensional, reguardless of the subject of the attribution, because there is only one relevant dimension for an individual to use in judging any perception: is it accurate of not? To answer this question you have to look at both retroactive and proactive components. Retroactive confidence is measured by asking, How certain are you of the accuracy of what yo know about the other person? Proactive confidence is measured by asking How certain are you of your predictions about the other person?4 HYPOTHESES DERIVED FROM BERGER AND CALBRESE
H1:Measures of retroactive anf proactive attributional confidence will correlate positively.
H2:Attributional confidence will correlate positively with interpersonal attraction.
H3:Attributional confidence will correlate positively with the time two individuals have known eachother.
H4:Attributional confidence will correlate positively with similarity between the two individuals.
To test these hypotheses and others based on Clatterback's thoughts 17 studies were conducted. The study consisted of mostly male and female college students along with a moderate amount of high school and adult population. The studies used what is called the CLUES instruments. A very popular tool is (CL7). This consists of seven questions to test Attributional Confidence. These questions hit on the topics of how well can you predict his/her actions; how well do you know their attitudes,values and emotions, and how well do you really know them. This seems to be a very valuable test that is easy to access to many situations.
ANALYSIS
I found this article to be very helpful in understanding Uncertainty reduction and it helped me to reduce my own uncertainty about this theory. Although the article didn't use the exact terms Berger used it was still very indepth and clear. My understanding in unceratainty reduction now helps me when viewing interactions among others. This theory can be applied to the movie when Harry met Sally. The two meet for this first time and imediately start reducing uncertainty by the terms Berger uses in his theory. Clatterback is a supporter of Berger's work and does of good job of his own describing uncertainty reduction.SOURCE
Glen W. Clatterback,"Attributional Confidence and Uncertainty in Initial Interaction," Human Communication Research, Vol.5,1979,pp.147-157,(1/28/00)
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This research report on Anxiety/Uncertainty Management theory relates to Uncertainty Reduction theory in that it develops axioms on Uncertainty Reduction and Anxiety management. The article is titled "Diplomacy: A Special Case of Intergroup Communication" by William B. Gudykunst and it develops uncertainty reduction in diplomacy, to check this out click here.