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McCornack, S. (2013). Reflect & relate: An introduction to interpersonal
communication (Third ed.). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Marnin's.

http://www.afirstlook.com/edition_9/theory_resources/by_theory/Expectancy_Violations_Theory

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When you are first getting to know someone, you do not instantly reveal everything there is to know about yourself. Revealing who you are to others is a process where you slowly peel back the layers of your personality (McCornack, 2013). This process is referred to as the Social Penetration Theory and can be compared to peeling back the layers of an onion. This theory suggests that there are three layers that unfold over time. These layers are the peripheral, intermediate, and central. The peripheral layer is where you reveal things about yourself such as your name, age and where you are from. The intermediate layer goes a bit deeper and shows things about yourself such as what you are interested in, religious and political beliefs as well as opinions. At the center of your onion is where things such as your self-esteem, values, and fears reside (McCornack, 2013).

Your first roommate is either a hit or miss but college would just not be complete without either a best friend or a horror story. Going into college, you most likely had expectations that you and your roommate would instantly hit it off and be the campus power duo. Whether the relationship succeeds or goes down in flames, your roommate is typically the first person you rely on for companionship during the first few experiences of college. Before either of things happens, you both use the social penetration theory and slowly reveal you who are to each other. In the video below, you can see the Social Penetration Theory unfolding between the two roommates as they reveal who they are, especially the one inquiring about the feelings of pigeons.

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Me being annoying. WATCH MORE HERE: http://bit.ly/FNDyoutube

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During your first interaction with a person you are just meeting, you will most likely be unsure of their communication patterns, tendencies, and personality. In order to reduce your uncertainty, you strive to find out as much about this person as possible. Within the Uncertainty Reduction Theory, you are able to accomplish this in a number of ways. One way of reducing uncertainty can be done by using what are known as passive strategies. For this strategy, you aim to better understand how the other person may behave when communicating with you by observing how they interact with others (McMornack, 2013). Another way of reducing uncertainty is by using active strategies. Instead of just observing as with passive strategies, using an active strategy means you directly ask someone who has already interacted with the person you are unsure about and inquiry as much information about them as you can. The most useful strategy when inquiring information about another person would be to directly ask the person that you are unsure about, this is referred to as interactive strategies (McCornack, 2013). Within this strategy, you would directly ask the person you wish to know about.

As a college student, you are constantly meeting new people
and, more times than not, these people are completely different from yourself and require a lot of uncertainty reducing. A prime example of the Uncertainty Reduction Theory in action is when you are determining which clubs and organizations you want to join on campus. This theory works for both those wishing to join and those searching for new members. In this scene from Pitch Perfect, The Barden Bella's are using interactive strategies by directly asking Fat Amy questions that are relevant to their particular club.

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Pitch Perfect | Fat Amy signs up to The Barden Bellas  | Rebel Wilson

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It's Activities Fair day and Fat Amy shows interest in The Barden Bellas. Showing off her best vocals and dance moves, the girls are left shocked but aren't left with many other options... Pitch Perfect, on PictureBox from 15.05.15 - 11.06.15.

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The expectations of the person you wish to be and the person that others want you to be tend to pull at each other. The Self-discrepancy Theory combines two different views of the self and then shows how they either contradict or work in unison with each other. Your overall self-esteem is going to be established based off of the relationship that is shared between these two views which are the ideal self and the ought self. The ideal self holds the characteristics that you wish to aquire based on your specific wants. The ought self holds the expectations that others place on you. When these two are in coherence, this is when you are most at ease with who you are (McCornack, 2013).

Once you have been in college for a couple of months, you start to realize your motivation levels and study habits. College is a time of freedom, expression, and creating an ideal image of yourself.
This video shows a classic college situation of procrastination. This type of behavior could show a characteristic that goes against your ideal self because procrastination supports stress.

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Relationships form when a general understanding of each person involved takes place and in a positive manner. In order to establish these relationships, you often times accommodate your language to gain the approval of others (McCornack, 2013). The Communication Accommodation Theory explains this process of adapting your language. This theory also explains your attempts at building relationships and striving to have others form positive opinions of you. There is research supporting that when you try to resemble another person's language from a different culture, you will be viewed as having effective communication skills (Coupland, Giles, & Wiemann, 1991; Giles et al., 1991 as cited in McCornack, 2013). When adapting to another's communication style effectively, you would be matching their behavior rather than imitating it, which would otherwise most likely be perceived as odd to the other communicator.

The memories that are made during the college years are some that you will remember forever. When looking back at the memories, the people you share them with are what make them so special. This is what makes college friends and relationships so prominent for the rest of your life. Forming these relationships, however, are half of the fun. Some of the wildest nights you go through produce the best kinds of relationships. You are constantly meeting people in your classes, clubs, and at parties. In the clip below from She's the Man, we see a constant occurrence on college campuses, flirting. In this video we see Duke using the Communication Accommodation Theory by adapting his language and mannerisms in hope of forming a relationship with Olivia. Also using the accommodation theory, Olivia is hoping to form a connection with Sebastian/Viola by making her jealous.

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She's the Man (5/8) Movie CLIP - Make Him Jealous (2006) HD

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Your communication tendencies change based on the person or group you are communicating with. The information you share about yourself with your best friend is going to be different from the information you share with your professors. These limits that you create when revealing things about yourself fall under the The Communication Privacy Management Theory. Within this theory, it shows that you are more opt to share personal information when you feel comfortable and accepted
(McCornack, 2013).

The friend group that you create in college becomes your family while away from your biological family members. Typically, once you start to become more comfortable with your friends, you become more open but still have certain things you like to keep to yourself. Overtime, your friends and family have a tendency of noticing things about you without ever disclosing it to them. We can see this in action in the video below from the movie Monsters University. Also in this video, you can see how these two college roommates, Sully and Mike, are shielding certain embarrassing things about themselves as in unison with the Communication Privacy Management Theory.

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Monsters University - "First Morning" Clip

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When faced with situations or actions by others that seem odd, humans tend to react by questioning what is going on. The Expectancy Violations Theory aims to explain the behavior that you preform when responding to unexpected situations. An example of this would be If someone enters through an exit door at the grocery store or vice versa. The expectancy that you have for situations to execute are based on the relationship you share with involved parties and the context of the situation (Burgoon, n.d.). Within the expectations of social norms, there is reward valence and arousal value. Reward valence refers to the opinion you form about the person who did the act of violating a social norm. Arousal value refers to the interest level of the observers of the violation, when expectations are not fulfilled the interest level rises.

Throughout your entire college career, you have unexpected situations you have to face everyday, college is one social norm debunked after another. It is not unusual to see your classmates sleeping in the hallway, or to wear sweatpants to dinner. In the video below, you can see an example of Expectancy Violations Theory in relation to college parties. From the movie Legally Blonde, Elle Woods shows up wearing a costume to a non-costume college party. The reactions of the party guests follow the theory with their arousal value rising at the unexpectedness.

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when I dress up as a frigid bitch, I try not to look so constipated.