Page 133 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

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Psychology and Communication | 121

a decoder perspective, examining how receivers use the same signals to
form judgments of communicators. Impression management returns to an
encoder perspective, examining the ways in which communicators strategi-
cally craft their nonverbal performances to create desired images projecting
‘who they want to be’.
The flip side of impression formation is impression management. How
can communicators use nonverbal cues to foster desired impressions?
Impression management is often, but not always, strategic—strategies which
a communicator can use to project desired images along dimensions of believ-
ability, expertise, attraction, status, etc. Impression management is strategic
self-presentation which centres on those features of behaviour affected by
power augmentation motives designed to elicit or shape others’ attributions
of the actor’s dispositions. Simply put, it is also described as communicative
behaviours that people use to regulate their social identity.
An individual’s attempt at impression management may not always be
successful. According to violations theory of Burgoons (1993), the impres-
sion can be negative if the individual violates expectations. Central to the
theory are two premises: (a) nonverbal behaviours engender strong expec-
tations that govern interaction patterns and outcomes, and (b) nonverbal
behaviours have message value. When meanings are unequivocal and/or
congruent, a social meaning model prevails such that interpretations and
evaluations associated with the behaviours are predicted to influence out-
comes directly.
When meanings are ambiguous or conflicting, communicator reward
valence is posited to moderate the cognitive-affective assessment process.
Communicator reward valence is a summary term for all the combined
communicator characteristics that, on balance, cause the communicator
to be regarded positively; characteristics that, on balance, cause the com-
municator to be regarded positively or negatively. The interpretation and
evaluation process results in a net valence for the nonverbal act. Positively
valenced act produces positive outcomes, and negatively valenced act
results in negative outcomes. Violations of expectations are hypothesized
to intensify this process by causing an intentional shift to the source of the
violations and the behaviours themselves, thus, making communicator
characteristics more salient.
In conclusion, we can summarize the ‘expectancy violation theory’ in
terms of impression management strategy in the following ways:

1. Proximics violations and non-intimate touch promote favourable
impressions of positively valanced communicators but undermine
impressions of negatively valenced communicators.
2. Increases beyond normative levels in conversational involvement
and immediacy behaviours such as gaze are positive violations that

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