Expectancy Violation Theory

To begin, the expectancy violation theory was developed to predict and explain the impact of unexpected communication behaviors (Burgoon & Walther, 1990). The founder of the expectancy violation theory, Judee Burgoon (1993) states “expectancy violations exert significance on people’s interaction patterns, on their impressions of one another, and on the outcomes of their interactions” (p. 40). In other words, Burgoon concluded from various experiments that people judge or evaluate communication with others in a negative or positive manner, based on their individual expectation of the interaction and their judgement of the communicator. When people do not act in accordance with their expectations, one turns to evaluating their communication behavior, for it can be verbal or nonverbal as well as how this behavior makes them feel.

The theory was developed from the nonverbal expectancy violation model by Burgoon which described the personal space possessed by a person and how people responded to its violation. The theory has subsequently been expanded to cover other forms of nonverbal and verbal communication violations. The core concepts of the expectancy violations theory can be broken into two different parts.
The first core concept of the expectancy violation theory is expectation, which is experiencing cognitions about the anticipated verbal and nonverbal communication through two components, the social and the idiosyncratic.

According to Littlejohn & Foss (2015), “at the social level, they encompass the roles, rules, norms, and practices that typify a given culture, community, or context. At the idiosyncratic level, they encompass person-specific knowledge related to another’s typical communication practices” (p. 368). In other words, both the social and idiosyncratic level contribute factors that lead to an expectation in behavior. Furthermore, the factors derive from three classes of variables: actor variables, relationship variables, and context variables (Littlejohn & Foss, 2015). The variable, actor refers to characteristics associated to the individuals, for example, their gender, age, or race. The variable, relationship refers to characteristics associated with two or more individuals, for example in regards to their status, ancestral or romantic connection. The variable, context refers to frame of reference the interaction takes

place.
Violation valence is the second core concept of the expectancy violation theory. Griffin, Ledbetter, & Sparks (2015) states “the term violation valence refers to the positive or negative value we place on a specific unexpected behavior, regardless of who does it” (p. 87). In other words, the term relates to the evaluation of the unexpected behavior, in regards to positivity or negativity. Guerrero (1996) found that if the violation valence is noted as positive and the communicator reward valence is noted as positive, the theory predicts individuals will reciprocate the positive behavior. In contrast, Guerrero (1996) found that if the violation valence is noted as negative and the communicator reward valence is noted as negative, the theory again predicts that you reciprocate the negative behavior. Furthermore, the theory suggests whether the violation valence and communicator reward valence is noted as either, positive or negative it still significantly impacts the communication behavior between the individuals.