I. Introduction:
Have you watched the Big Bang Theory? Have you noticed how awesome they are? There are multiple shows that could have been chosen to cover this theory. But I feel the Big bang theory has some pretty good examples. They have some pretty interesting interactions with each other. They talk in scientific terms and sometime have to dumb it down for Penny. But today let’s talk about a scene between Sheldon and Penny, and how it relates to the Interaction Adaptation Theory. Throughout the paper, I will give a summary of theory, a quick synopsis, and implications of the scene.
II. Summary of Interaction Adaptation Theory:
The book definition is it’s a theory that suggests individuals simultaneously adapt their communication behaviors to the communication behavior of others. This means when one person says something the other person tries to understand the message by adapting to their communication style. It is probably the most common thing in interactions between humans. . “Broadly construed as the modification of one’s behaviorto adjust to one’s communication partner(s), interpersonal adaptation has beendescribed as accommodation (Gallois, Ogay, & Giles, 2005; Giles, Coupland, & Coupland, 1991), mimicry (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999; Scheflen, 1964), reciprocity(Burgoon, Stern, & Dillman, 1995; Burgoon & White, 1997), synchrony (Bernieri,Reznick, & Rosenthal, 1988; Condon & Ogston, 1966), or style matching (Niederhoffer & Pennebaker, 2002; Scissors, Gill, Geraghty, & Gergle, 2009).”(C.L Toma Pg.156) This theory is used to understand the process of adaption. This theory can be used to predict if the listener understands the speaker. The IAT says everyone enters an interaction with requirements, expectations, and desires. The requirements mean the needs during the interaction like speaking louder or closer to the speaker. The expectations mean what to expect based on past experience or general communication, etc. And desires are the preferences and goals of the interaction. These things combine to form a speaker’s interaction position. “This determines the receiver’s behavior will be reciprocated or compensated.” (C.L. Toma 161)
III. Synopsis:
Characters in the Scene - Sheldon and Penny
Idea – Penny is adapting Sheldon’s problem with her personal experience
The clip comes from the hit TV Show, The Big Bang Theory. In this scene Sheldon and Penny are having a conversation. Sheldon is sad over the string theory and Penny is listening. Penny then tells him to move and then she compares it to her own personal experience. I will be focusing on the adaptation theory.
Beebe, Steven A., Susan J. Beebe, and Mark V. Redmond. "Understanding Self and Others." Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others. Boston: Allyn and Bacon/Pearson, 2009. 43. Print.
From an interactionist perspective it is not the structure or system of society that creates and shapes our thoughts, actions and behaviour rather we create society through our constant action and interaction with each other. This is why it is a social action, rather than a social system approach. This is why it is a bottom-up rather than a top-down theory.
The most basic concept in social psychology is conformity. Conformity is the idea that behaviour or a belief is changed in order to follow, or conform, to what is considered the “norm.” One of the oldest experiments to support this notion was conducted in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif (Song, Ma, Wu, Li, 2012 p. 1366). There are two different types of
Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor developed social penetration theory; the theory helps people understand human communication by closeness and self-discloser. The book describes social penetration theory by using the onion metaphor, known as the human personality, which is a multilayered onion. The outer layer of the onion is known as the public self, people’s personalities are rhetorically exchanged easily with people who met someone else immediately for the first time. For example, a persons gender, the way they dress, and occupation. The layer beneath the surfer of the onion is the known as the personal self and attitude. A person may only share information to someone who is closest to him or her such as family and friends. For example,
This theory has been subject to many articles and studies in the communication and social departments. Indeed, studying this theory can help us understanding human relations in interpersonal communication. Each of us has been one day confronted to uncertainty, whereas in initial encounters, or moving to a new a new place, or beginning a new work.
2. Conformity, as studied by Solomon Asch, refers to one’s insecurities of themselves which leads to the final result of agreeing with others, even though they did not agree initially, as well as behaving similarly. Asch experimented with college students, and he had the students compare lines to the general, standard line. When answering alone, the answers given proved correct, but when other people answered aloud before the students, they quickly began to doubt themselves and more often than not, they changed their answers.
Cultivation theory is a societal theory which studies the long quantity personal effects of Media Television. Cultivation theory states that the more time masses spends time in the television or Media world, the more likely they are to believe elite realism pictured on television. Cultivation leaves people with a misperception of what is admittedly in world.
Higher social status or power and commonalities between the individuals may explain why they are willing to do so. In attempt to demonstrate associative behavior, these individuals will partake in accommodation. According to the Communication Accommodation Theory, the interactants converge either upward or downward, unimodal or multimodal, or symmetrical or asymmetrical in order to adapt to the conversational setting (Zhang & Imamura, 2017). For instances, adults would speak slowly and use simple vocabulary when talking with children. In A Class Divided, the teacher would converge downward for her third-grade students to understand the
“Beyond Biocentrism is a joyride through the history of science and cutting-edge physics, all with a very serious purpose: to find the long-overlooked connection between the conscious self and the universe around us.”
The Communication Accommodation Theory states when people interact they alter their speech to fit in or accommodate for other. CAT describes the psychological, social, and linguistic behaviors that people exhibit when communicating with each other (Coupland, Coupland, Giles, Henwood, 1988). Each individual has his or her own personality and motivation when involved in a conversation, this attribute are reflected in how the individual speaks, listens and then responds to the other person involved in the conversation. According to this theory, communication between two people can at any time be adjusted by either party in response to actual, perceived, or stereotyped expectations of the other person (Coupland, et al., 1988). This means that either party can change their communication style based on what they feel or pick up on during the conversation. The CAT theory can help understand how humans interact with one another while communicating.
Steve A. Beebe, S. J. (2008). Interpersonal Communication. In A. a. Pearson, Interpersonal Communication, Relating To Others- Fifth Edition. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Education, Inc.
Interaction adaptation theory defined by Beebe, Beebe, and Redmond (2005) is a “Theory suggesting that people interact with others by adapting to what others are doing” (p. 190). A way of looking at this theory is by thinking about a mirror. “Sometimes we relate by mirroring the posture or behavior of others” (p. 190). This theory believes that people will share the same kind of communication patterns when they are communicating together. People will interact in the same way as the other person. There has been a conclusion based on this theory that “nonverbal cues play a key role in how people adapt to others” (p. 190). If a person is communicating with their friend, who has their arms crossed, than this person might find that they are crossing their arms as well. These types of actions are all conclusions to this theory. People, based on their interactions with others, usually tend to develop similar communication patterns and find themselves mirroring the patterns of the other.
"The Big Bang - NASA Science." The Big Bang - NASA Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr.
LaRocco, Chris, and Blair Rothstein. "THE BIG BANG." University of Michigan. University of Michigan. Web. 13 Nov. 2011. .
The opportunity for universal application of the Communication Accommodation Theory gives the field of Communication Studies a method of objectively analyzing conversational strategies and motivations both of which are considered to be overwhelmingly subjective. The ways in which communicators of different cultures perceive one and other [as individuals or members of a group] varies greatly even in a two-person interaction. The number of cultural identifications one certain individual might possess may be numerous, and already makes structured analysis of their communication choices in an interaction difficult. By guiding the process of conducting research with CAT, researchers are able to analyze the communication behaviors of any set of cultural communicat...