Violating your Expectations

Who recognizes this group of "gentlemen"?

The men you see in the picture above you all belong to "Jackass". If you haven't already seen a sketch or stunt by them, then let me catch you up. These men have made a living by doing outrageous pranks, eating weird food, dressing up and doing just about anything for the sake of a laugh. Their humor can be quite crude but it's often hard to turn your head away.

(I'm going to let you in on a secret... I personally love them. Seriously, its my guilty pleasure.)

That said, what does this have to do with anything in Communication?

Well, I will tell you just that. Jackass is a prime example of Expectancy Violations Theory.

Take this for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSS0iNxp9K0

If you watch this clip, you can tell how people start to make a scene because they don't think what the grandpa is doing is correct.

That's because people predict what will happen in an interaction, they expect it to be a certain way and when interactions don't match their predictions, their expectations are violated. In this particular example, people expect the grandpa to be responsible for the child and not talk to him in that manner. They also expect the child of maybe 12 years, to not be smoking or drinking and even if he did, to not be having that happen in public.

What we expect from a situation is often dictated by communication norms, what we have been taught to react like. Let's take a small example, people are expected to say "how are you?" when they first greet you and you are supposed to say it back. At least for most people, don't ya think?

Well, what if someone were to say to you "My parents are getting a divorce, I just got in a car accident, I got evicted from my house and my dog ran away" you could feel pretty awkward. What you expected was a "good, thanks".

You may ask yourself, "why the heck is this person telling me all this information?!" It's because norms have taught us that this communication interaction, is supposed to be short and simple.

I think you now have the base of this theory, when people act differently then what you think they would, they violate your expectations and we are forced to re-evaluate how we interact ourselves.

Jackass can be seen as maybe a negative violation. Or in more communication terms, it can have negative violation valence. Because they are creating a situation that can make people uncomfortable and force them to act in ways they wish they hadn't.

But all violations are not negative!

Take Jerome Jarre for example. He is a hit on "Vine" and often uses improv to surprise people. Here is just one of his hundreds of videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlYb6dSGLOA

This man had a positive valence for this situation. I'm sure he didn't expect people to come up in the park and do such an act, but it was all in good humor so it became a positive violation.

Jerome's videos in all their fun are becoming so popular that he was just on Ellen.


(Side note: He said that he has had very few bad experiences with people when he makes these.)



This shows us, that it's not always bad to have your expectations sent for a spin.

Maybe you can think of a time when this happened to you?

I CAN!

My boss pranked me at work... Seriously, she did.

I came back from a trip and my stapler was in the middle of jello, everything was saran wrapped and post-it notes covered everything.

She violated my expectations BIG TIME. And I had a choice in how I was going to react. Thats because as part of this theory we have been talking about, there is Communicator Reward Valence. Sounds complicated, right? It's not! It just means that when the person that "violates" us, we consider their ability to reward or punish us.

So, I could have reacted by throwing a fit and demanding she takes it all down. But that would probably get me a nice unemployment notice. In this situation, I considered her position in how I would react.

You ask how I reacted.... I laughed it off! It was a harmless prank and it was fun to come back to. It felt like a warm welcome from people who I respect. It solidified my place in the team. I reacted in regards to what the violation was and who it was coming from and the relationship I have with that person.

So I ask you, take a chance when people violate your expectations. When people give out free hugs in the quad, go ahead and give them a big squeeze! Yes, it may violate your expectations but we have seen that this could be good!

I hoped you all enjoyed the ride I took you on to learn this theory and place it in context of pop culture!

thanks for reading :)