Theoretical Approaches

Social Penetration Theory
It is the researchers’ notion that the senior officers have little understanding of the public affairs mission which may be related to low attitude and confidence in the competence of public affairs practitioners. Altman and Taylor’s (1973) social penetration theory investigates why some relationships develop quickly, some slowly, and some not at all, and why some people will develop close relationships and some do not.

The process of relational development consists of four stages. The earliest stage is orientation. In this stage, the individuals are cautious and attentive, and are ruled by laws of small talk and social conformity. The second stage is the exploratory affective exchange. Individuals begin sharing insignificant personal information, becoming more relaxed and friendly.

The third stage, the affective exchange, most barriers have been broken down and the individuals are very comfortable with each other and are exchanging extremely personal information. The last stage, the stable exchange, is characterized by prolonged openness and intimacy. According to social penetration theory, relationships develop as communication increases, leading to greater understanding and knowledge.

Uncertainty Reduction Theory
The researchers argue that instilling a familiarity with public affairs and its practitioners early in senior officers’ careers will lead to positive attitudes and greater confidence in the competence of public affairs and its practitioners. Berger & Calabrese’s (1975) uncertainty reduction theory narrows the scope of social penetration and examines the early stages of a relationship. The theory states that during initial meetings, strangers desire to reduce uncertainty about each other. This uncertainty can be both behavioral and cognitive in nature. Behavioral uncertainty means that people are unsure of how strangers will act, and cognitive means that people are unsure of other peoples’ beliefs and attitudes.

Berger & Calabrese (1975) state that there are three strategies to reduce uncertainty in the early stages of a relationship. First is the passive strategy. This strategy involves observation of the other in various situations. Second are active strategies in which an individual might ask questions about the target. Last is the interactive strategy during which the individual will interact directly with the target.

Uncertainty reduction study has evolved beyond the initial stages of a relationship. Planalp & Honeycutt (1985) investigated the relational events that increase uncertainty in established relationship, and Afifi & Burgoon (1998) investigated relationships in which uncertainty is tolerated because the expected information is seen as undesirable. Kramer (1993) argues that uncertainty reduction has implications for exploring communication to resolve incompatibilities between cognitive structures, experiences and behaviors.

Four elements of source credibility were measured for this capstone project: trust, competence, attitude, and respect. Based on McCroskey’s (1966) research, a person is viewed as credible when these components are present. Extensive literature is available on these constructs, but a broad sampling is reviewed here.

Trust
Since ancient Greece, people have tried to capture the essence of the elusive yet desirable concept of trust. Scholars strive to understand why certain people are trusted and others are not, and executives struggle to understand how first to earn trust, and then how to maintain it. Beginning with the philosophies of Aristotle and continuing through the centuries to modern day research, trust has been examined for everything from its relationship with power, love, and business, to its relationship with teamwork, public speaking, and commerce.

Lewis and Weigert (1985) posited that there are three bases of sociological trust: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. Cognitive means people choose whom to trust by being familiar with the object of trust, but that this is only the first “leap” in trust. Furthermore, people only trust someone or something because others in the social world do. The emotional base builds upon the cognitive, and trust creates a social interaction that breeds intense emotional investments. Behaviorally, when people see others acting in ways that imply trust, they tend to reciprocate and trust back. Similarly, the same actions are in place when people display distrusting behavior.

Butler and Cantrell (1984) manipulated trust conditions in a decision-modeling experiment in order to rank the importance of five trust conditions identified. They placed college students in the roles of managers and subordinates, and sought to measure the importance of each element from both perspectives. They found that the degree of importance placed in the variables did not differ between the managers and subordinates. For both perspectives, the elements of trust ranked in the following order of importance: competence, integrity, consistency, loyalty, and openness.

Butler (1991) set out to develop a content theory consisting of a multidimensional set of conditions that activate and sustain trust in a specific person. Butler interviewed 84 middle managers employed by diverse firms in the eastern United States. To begin, the interviewees identified personal characteristics of someone they trusted and characteristics of someone they distrusted. Next, the interviewees identified critical incidents that led to the building of trust, and critical incidents that led to the destruction of trust. Butler identified 10 conditions of trust similar to Gabarro’s (1978) after completing a content analysis of the results. These 10 conditions were availability, competence, consistency, discreetness, fairness, integrity, loyalty, openness, promise fulfillment, and receptivity.

McAllister (1995) built theoretical foundations from existing sociological literature on trust by, among others, Barber (1983), and Lewis & Weigert (1985). McAllister’s research aimed at understanding the differences between cognition-based and affect-based trust in interpersonal relationships in organizations; understanding how each form of trust develops; and examining the implications of each form of trust on various types of interpersonal relations and behaviors within organizations. After conducting a study of 194 middle and upper level managers in lateral relationships, McAllister’s research revealed that, in general, levels of cognition-based trust were higher than levels of affect-based trust. Furthermore, each form of trust was unique in its functionality and had a distinct pattern in its antecedents and variables. In conclusion, McAllister suggested that affect-based trust be studied in detail, because informal relations were found to be essential to the real work of organizations.

Communication Competence
There has been concern over making people more competent communicators for thousands of years (McCroskey, 1984). According to McCroskey (1984), the oldest essay discovered was written about 3000 B.C. and consisted of advice on how to speak effectively. In the fifth century B. C., communication was part of the curriculum in schools established in Greece. During Aristotle’s time, rhetoric was the field concerned with communication competence. Classical scholars, like scholars of today, were concerned with both the definition of competence and its operationalization (McCroskey, 1982).

Wiemann (1977) defines the competent communicator as: Other-oriented as to the extent that he is open (available) to receive messages from others, does not provoke anxiety in others by exhibiting anxiety himself, is empathic, and has a large enough behavioral repertoire to allow him to meet the demands of changing situations. Finally, he is supportive of the faces and lines his fellow interactants present (p. 197). Furthermore, the communicator is able to successfully complete his own communication goals and make his point.

Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) contend that communication competence is significant in our daily lives as it is a means for measuring the quality of our interpersonal relationships. Interpersonal communication competency allows one communicator to achieve their communication goals without causing the other party to lose dignity. According to Spitzberg and Cupach (1984), the component model describes interpersonal communication competency and includes three components: 1) knowledge 2) skill and 3) motivation. Knowledge is knowing what behavior is appropriate for a situation. Having the ability to apply that behavior is skill, and the desire to communicate in a competent manner is motivation.

Sociability (Likeability)
Likeability has been used as a variable in a wide variety of ways among researchers. While the literature reveals a wide breadth of topics studying likeability, four broad areas emerged as central focal points; likeability and self appraisal, likeability and education, likeability and persuasion, and likeability and sales.

In the mid 1960’s Norman Anderson constructed a list of 555 personality-trait words. These words were rated and rank ordered based on the degree to which they were associated with liking or disliking another person. Several researchers strengthened this list of words by using and reefing the list in additional studies of likeability. Since the development of Anderson’s (1968) list of personality-trait words, researchers have looked at likeability from many angles and in many interesting ways.

Deberry (1989) attempted to measure the effects of competitiveness on interpersonal and intrapersonal likeability. It was hypothesized that individuals involved in a non-competitive task would demonstrate greater liking for the other person and for themselves than individuals involved in a competitive task. A scale of the top thirty words from Anderson’s Likeableness Ratting Personality-Trait Word List (1968) was used to rate likeability.

Anderson (1968) then had one-hundred students from an introductory psychology class rate the 555 words on a 7-point scale. The students were instructed to think of each word as describing a person and then rate the word according to how much they would like the person.
The researchers stressed that each student should make judgments based on his or her own personal opinion.
The words were rank ordered from words highly associated with like to words least associated with like. The top ten words receiving the highest rating for like, included; sincere, honest, understanding, loyal, truthful, trustworthy, intelligent, dependable, open-minded and thoughtful. One limitation of this list is that college students rated these words in a laboratory environment. Different contexts and a different population may provide different values for the words.

Undergraduate college students were paired in groups of two and asked to fill out a likeability scale about themselves and the other person in their group. The students were then asked to complete one of two conditions involving block design. The experimental group was told not to talk or help the other person during the task and that the one who completed the most designs in the allotted time would receive an award. The control group was told they could talk and cooperate with each other during the task. When each group completed the block designs, they completed a posttest likeability scale for themselves and the other person in their group.

The results of the study were mixed. Female participants in the non-competitive group liked their partners significantly more than females in the competitive group, this effect was not found for males. All participants in the non-competitive group liked themselves more than their partners in the non-competitive group. It may be that competing has more of an impact on self-liking within males. The significance of this study is that it adds to the empirical knowledge that competition may be bad for self-image.

Brady (1994) examined the variables involved with student’s ratings of college professors. Forty students were asked to evaluate the likeability and effectiveness of four professors who were described as positive or negative and as easy or demanding to their students. It was hypothesized that professors who are reported as being demanding and more positive would be liked more and considered more effective than professors who were reported to be easy on their students.

Students read one of four two-paragraph scenarios about a professor and then rated the professor on likeability and effectiveness. The results showed that students rated positive demanding professors as more likeable and effective. Results also indicate that the higher the demands by the professor, the more effective the professor is. This study showed that demanding professors are seen as more effective than easy professors and demanding professors may be more liked than easy professors.

In a similar study, Delucchi and Pelowski (2000) investigated relationships among instructor likeability, ratings of teaching effectiveness, and student perceptions of learning. Specifically, the study looked at the impact of likeability on perceptions of learning and the effects of likeability and perceptions of learning on students ratings of instructors overall teaching ability. The researchers analyzed 1,145 student evaluations of professors which represented 57 courses.

The findings supported and challenged the validity of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness. Instructors who made interesting and informative presentations, clearly explained concepts, and summarized course content, increased students’ perceptions of learning and were evaluated as effective. In addition, students who said they work harder in class tended to give greater overall ratings to the instructor. Students who rated instructors high in likeability tended to rate instructors high in overall teaching ability while high likeability ratings were not associated with an increase of perceived learning. The authors point out that this fact is not necessarily bad, students hard work and instructor effectiveness should predict perceived learning, not likeability of instructor.

Questions concerning source factors have been raised in research literature regarding whether source variables influence persuasion (Roskos-Ewoldsen, & Fazio, 1992). Source factors were found to play a more significant role in persuasion when the source cue is enhanced and when the recipient lacks the motivation to process message arguments carefully. Roskos-Ewoldsen and Fazio (1992) investigated accessibility of a source’s likeability from memory as it pertains to a greater change in attitude resulting from a message attributed to that source.

Results showed that subjects expressed more agreement with a message attributed to a source that they had more accessible liking than with the same message attributed to a source that they had less accessible liking. The researchers suggest that source accessibility can be considered an attitude, with liking linked to an object, and that the accessibility of the source’s likeability in memory can vary. In short, as long as a source factor influences a message recipient, the identification of the source should vary as a function of memory likeability of the source.

Respect
A study of respect does not produce the same clear cut answers that a mathematical equation might. Its study is relatively new and there remains much to be explored and explained. For example, researchers are still grappling with placement of respect – is it cognitive, something instinctive within us at the time of birth; behavioral, something we learn by watching and emulating the habits of others; or emotive, a feeling comparable to faith, hope, and love and laying somewhere between cognition and behavior? And where does respect begin? Some researchers say that, over time, we develop a respect for ourselves through observation and we develop and enhance that image by surrounding ourselves with people who support that image. Categories of respect must be considered to understand the term. Physical, emotional, behavioral, academic, and social are broad areas which help define specific types of respect such as respect for property, respect for authority, respect for values, beliefs, and attitudes, etc.
The following section focuses on: how respect has defined over time; parameters on what beings should be afforded respect; conditions on when respect should be afforded; positive and negative components of respect; arguments on whether respect should be classified as cognitive, behavioral, or emotive; the relationship between self respect and social respect; and categorical areas of respect. Some of the areas of examination include discussion of respect’s development in the history of rhetoric; a Biblical definition of respect; categories of respect; professional respect as in the privileged doctor-patient relationship.

Pope’s (1999) respect model describes four types of respect: positive appraisal respect means to have respect for one’s accomplishments, hard work, talent, and so forth; moral esteem respect is an appreciation for one’s moral excellence. This is a sort of partial respect for someone. A priest, for example, might be respected because he’s virtuous and not necessarily because he’s liked overall by the congregation; civil respect is given to people in virtue of acting decently as fellow members of a community or society at large. This is defined as simple acknowledgment of another person’s existence, as in a basic greeting, or respecting another’s need for personal space; and basic respect, which honors the dignity of every person as human beings regardless of their status or station in life (pp. 54-63).

In the mid to late 1700s, Kant’s (1963) research limited the definition of respect to cognitive creatures, such as humans, who are capable of rational thought. Because of this distinction, humans have dignity and deserve respect. Respect, then, applies to rationality, not life. Animals, he explained, are a means to an end and that end is man. He said people must be an end and never a means to an end because it’s never permissible to use others no matter the outcome. Kant (1997a) further defined respect as an obscure feeling rather than a concept of reason because, like most other emotions, it cannot be reduced to inclination or fear or brought on by the actions of others. Furthermore, Kant believes respect is made up of positive and negative components – positive because it’s a form of self-imposed law and one can focus it toward self improvement. But, because he considers respect an emotion, it can be a source of intrapersonal conflict because a representation of worth directed outward can interfere or conflict with one’s love for self.

Massey (1983) and Statman (2000) complicate the aforementioned definitions of respect somewhat. Unlike Kant (1963), they do not believe respect is restricted to the emotive side of behavior. Instead, they debate its placement as either a psychological or moral concept. The disagreement on placement presents a problem. If respect is psychologically based, then the assumption is each person self determines what is worthy behavior, acts accordingly to this condition, makes judgments, engages in behaviors that embrace or repel the object of respect, and believes he is in constant control his behavior. In this case, if a person depends on himself to define respect, he may be respectful of someone or something for morally or logically incorrect reasons. If respect is morally based, however, then self-respect amounts to more than just valuing oneself but valuing oneself properly, which is also subjective.