- Email: [email protected]
How shared reality is created in interpersonal communication
Accepted Manuscript Title: How Shared Reality is Created in Interpersonal Communication Author: Gerald Echterhoff Bjarne Schmalbach PII: DOI: Reference:
S2352-250X(17)30232-4 https://doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.12.005 COPSYC 598
To appear in: Received date: Accepted date:
20-12-2017 21-12-2017
Please cite this article as: G. Echterhoff, B. Schmalbach, How Shared Reality is Created in Interpersonal Communication, COPSYC (2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.12.005 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
Shared Reality in Communication
1
ip t
How Shared Reality is Created in Interpersonal Communication
Bjarne Schmalbach
cr
Gerald Echterhoff
an
us
University of Münster
Review for a Special Issue on Shared Reality
d
M
in Current Opinion in Psychology
Ac ce p
te
Word count: 2,423
Author Note. Gerald Echterhoff and Bjarne Schmalbach, Department of Psychology,
University of Münster, Germany
Page 1 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
2
Abstract Communication is a key arena and means for shared-reality creation. Most studies
ip t
explicitly devoted to shared reality have focused on the opening part of a conversation, that is, a speaker’s initial message to an audience. The aspect of communication examined by this
cr
research is the evaluative adaptation (tuning) of the messages to the audience’s attitude or
judgment. The speaker’s shared-reality creation is typically assessed by the extent to which
us
the speaker’s evaluative representation of the topic matches the audience-tuned view
an
expressed in the message. We first review research on such audience-tuning effects, with a focus on shared-reality goals and conditions facilitating the generalization of shared reality.
M
We then review studies using other paradigms that illustrate factors of shared-reality creation in communication, including mere message production, grounding, validation responses, and
d
communication about commonly known information (including stereotypes) in intragroup
te
communication. The different lines of research reveal the potency, but also boundary
Ac ce p
conditions, of communication effects on shared reality.
Keywords: shared reality, communication, audience tuning, common knowledge, group processes, grounding
Page 2 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
3
Highlights • The evaluative tuning of messages to an audience is a key pathway to shared reality. • What matters is the goal underlying audience tuning rather than audience tuning per se.
grounding, and validation responses contribute to shared reality.
ip t
• Mere message production, communication about commonly known information,
cr
• Intragroup or serial-chain communication can confirm stereotypes and reinforce shared
Ac ce p
te
d
M
an
us
realities about intergroup relations.
Page 3 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
4
Humans, who have been ascribed the anthropological epithet homo loquens (talking or conversing man [1]), devote a great deal of their activities to communication. For instance,
ip t
62% of the events recorded by participants in a diary study had already been told to others by the same evening [2]. Communication thrives on and fuels humans’ “hypersociality” [3].
cr
Among the various needs and goals that can be achieved through communication [4, 5] we focus here on humans’ fundamental motivation to create shared realities with others.
us
Shared reality has been defined as the experienced commonality of inner states with others about an object [6]. Inner states can represent perceptions of relevance of the object in
an
a given context, as well as feelings, judgments or evaluations of the object [7, 8]. The commonality fosters the perceived veracity of such inner states. Shared reality thus captures
M
an individual’s experience of interpersonal commonality that produces sufficient confidence in her or his inner states about an object and allows the individual to regulate her or his
d
responses to the object [9]. Humans are fundamentally motivated to create shared realities,
te
allowing them to fulfill various basic needs including the need for having valid and confident
Ac ce p
beliefs about the world and the need to be connected with others [10] A key arena for sharedreality creation is communication. For instance, one member of a work team may form an evaluation of a newcomer by communicating with other team members, perhaps during a conversation at the end of the newcomer’s first day at work. A team member creates a shared reality about the newcomer to the extent that, after the conversation, her or his evaluation of the newcomer matches a colleague’s perceived evaluation of the newcomer. In real-world communication, interlocutors typically take turns, alternately adopting the role of speaker or recipient. Thus, they can jointly negotiate, adjust, and confirm their understanding of the topic [11, 12] and arrive at interpretations and judgments of topicrelated information [13]. However, most empirical studies explicitly devoted to shared reality have focused on the opening part of a conversation, that is, a speaker’s initial message to an
Page 4 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
5
audience. More specifically, these studies have investigated when and how speakers create evaluations of a target that match their audience’s attitude or judgment of the topic [6, 9]. The aspect of communication examined by this research is the evaluative adaptation, or “tuning,”
ip t
of the speakers’ messages to the audience’s attitude or judgment. In most studies the speaker’s shared-reality creation is assessed by the extent to which the evaluative tone of the
cr
speaker’s memory for the initial material (in other studies, the speaker’s explicit evaluation of the target person) matches the audience-tuned view expressed in the previous message.
us
We first review research on such audience-tuning effects, with a focus on the role of
an
shared-reality goals and conditions facilitating the generalization of shared reality from an initial topic to another, novel topic. Additional findings obtained with this paradigm are
M
described by Semin [14]. We then turn to studies using different paradigms that illustrate factors and processes of shared-reality creation in communication.
d
Shared Reality: The Role of Audience-Tuned Communication
te
In the standard study procedure, dubbed the “saying-is-believing” paradigm, participants receive evaluatively ambiguous behavioral information about the target, for
Ac ce p
example, behaviors that can be characterized as either “stubborn” or “persistent” [15]. Participants who describe the target to an audience who ostensibly likes (vs. dislikes) the target describe the target more positively (vs. negatively)—evaluatively tuning the message to the audience’s attitude. Importantly, participants’ subsequent recall of the target’s behaviors is evaluatively distorted in the direction that matches the evaluative tone of their audience-tuned message, indicating the speaker’s subjective creation of a shared reality with the audience [6]. The ambiguity of the stimulus information is critical because it triggers epistemic needs for uncertainty reduction that can be achieved by shared-reality creation [16]. The audience-tuning effect is communication-driven because it typically depends on the production of an audience-congruent message [15, 16]. The importance of message
Page 5 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
6
production may stem from various factors (see [9]): increased confidence in the validity of audience-tuned information through overt articulation; assuming that the audience accepted the message, in the absence of feedback otherwise [17]; allowing for perception of the shared
ip t
reality to be reciprocal; experienced connection with the audience [18]. We note, however, that message production is not necessary for the memory effect in this paradigm because
cr
shared reality can be created without it. For instance, when the audience’s judgment is highly trustworthy (e.g., due to a consensus among several audience members) and thus provides a
us
strong epistemic input (see [9]), the audience-congruent memory bias can emerge without
an
message production [19; 20, Exp. 3].
Importantly, the production of an audience-tuned message is also not sufficient for the
M
effect because it is critical that the goal underlying the audience tuning is to create a shared reality with the audience. For instance, audience tuning motivated by monetary incentives
d
(rather than shared-reality creation) does not result in the audience-congruent memory bias
te
[20]. Also, despite communicators’ message tuning to an out-group audience, their subsequent memory is typically not evaluatively biased towards the audience’s attitude [20,
Ac ce p
21]. Apparently, message tuning to the out-group audience is driven by goals other than shared-reality creation (e.g., politeness, compliance with egalitarian norms). However, the goal of creating shared reality with an out-group audience can be stimulated by increasing the out-group audience’s epistemic authority [20, Exp. 2 & 3]. All studies reviewed so far concerned shared realities about one specific target
evaluated by speaker and audience. However, shared realities would have a fairly limited impact if they were constrained to specific, single-target evaluations. A possible factor of generalization is epistemic trust in the audience, which should be strengthened by prior experiences of shared reality with the audience. Indeed, a recent study [22, Exp. 1] found that when there was prior high (vs. low) verification of unrelated judgments (about ambiguous
Page 6 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
7
depictions of social interactions) from the person who later became the audience, then a shared reality with that audience about one ambiguous sexist was more likely to extend to another ambiguous sexist. Thus, a shared reality with an audience about a specific target is
ip t
more likely to generalize when communicators previously have experienced more (vs. less) social verification from the audience. Significantly, this generalization to a new target did not
cr
require additional communication about that new target. Another study using a longer delay
between judgments of the first and the second, novel target [22, Exp. 2] suggests that shared-
an
reality experience at the time of the second judgment.
us
reality generalization is facilitated by sufficient accessibility of memories for the shared-
Other Factors and Processes of Shared-Reality Creation in Communication
M
As we have seen, speakers can achieve a shared reality with their audience by tuning their message to the audience in the service of a shared-reality goal. But there are other
d
relevant communication processes as well such as grounding the meaning of an utterance,
te
which provides interlocutors with a shared understanding of what they are talking about [11, 23]. According to the above definition of shared reality, the underlying inner states refer to
Ac ce p
the perceived relevance of an object, or to judgments and evaluations of the object [7, 9, 18]. The experienced commonality produces sufficient confidence in the inner states as being valid and truthful. Our subsequent discussion focuses on phenomena that fulfill these criteria. To begin with, the mere production of messages about the positive and negative
behaviors of target group members can enhance the speaker’s sense that the behaviors reflect an underlying essence of the group. In studies by Kashima and colleagues [24], participants did (vs. did not) write notes about a group of individuals to three imagined recipients (Study 1; also see [25]) or, when they communicated, they received more or less elaborate grounding queries from their recipient (a confederate in Study 2). Mere message production and more elaborate grounding responses induced speakers to exhibit more extreme dispositional
Page 7 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
8
judgments of the target group and greater beliefs in the essential truth of these judgments. In a free-flowing conversation between two participants (Study 3), more elaborate grounding was associated with more extreme dispositional judgments, which indicates the attribution of
ip t
behaviors to stable, context-independent and essential characteristics. These findings suggest that a speaker’s basic acts of meaning-making in a
cr
communication setting can induce speakers to believe in the essential truth of their
evaluations. This reality is experienced as shared when utterances are grounded and accepted
us
by the partner. Extending these findings, DiFonzo and colleagues [26] found that repeated
an
rounds of communication about rumors within small social networks gradually enhance consensus and confidence in the truth of the rumor among network members. More research
M
on the essentializing effects of mere message production and grounding responses is needed to pinpoint the underlying mechanisms (e.g., biased information accessibility from increased
d
relevance [27] , schema-consistent elaboration, or social verification).
te
Another factor conducive to shared reality creation is the communication of information that is already known by the interlocutors. When groups jointly form judgments
Ac ce p
about a target person, the group members are more likely to mention information about the target that is commonly known and thus “shared” by all members [28, 29]. According to shared-reality theory, the discussion of “shared” information serves people’s relational (affiliative) needs and their epistemic needs for confident inner states, specifically, the need for closure [30]. In a typical study, participants are asked to communicate in small groups about job applicants and evaluate them based on different sections from their CVs. Some of the CV sections are made available to all group members (commonly known, or “shared”), whereas other sections are made available only to one member (uniquely known, or “unshared”). Thus, the informational basis for making an optimal decision is hidden to the group as a whole (hence, “hidden profile” paradigm). A robust finding is that members tend
Page 8 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
9
to discuss commonly known information to a greater extent than information that one member uniquely knows [29, 31]. The group’s shared reality is a common evaluation of the applicants, achieved on the basis of discussed information. The communicative bias towards
ip t
commonly known information is greater for tasks requiring subjective assessments (vs. objectively identifiable solutions) [29]. Thus, as in audience-tuning studies, ambiguity of the
cr
stimulus material is conducive to shared-reality creation.
Research has revealed several factors that can attenuate the “shared” information bias,
us
for instance, low time pressure [32]; positive mood, encouraging the discussion of unique
an
information [33]; or exogenous oxytocin [34] (see also Levine, this volume [35]). The following findings are specifically relevant to shared-reality creation in communication. First,
M
commonly known (vs. uniquely known) information mentioned in the group discussion is perceived as more accurate and relevant [36, Exp. 1], and more likely to be grounded and
d
validated by the other members, for instance, by short back-channel utterances (“Exactly”, “I
te
got that”; [37]). Subsequent research [38] suggests that these effects may be restricted to situations in which the “unshared” (uniquely held) information communicated by another
Ac ce p
group member disconfirms the emerging preference for a candidate (i.e., is preferenceinconsistent). At any rate, validation responses are probably one mechanism enhancing the judgmental impact of information in hidden-profile decision making [39], provided that group members are motivated to cooperate [40]. Future research should further identify boundary conditions of trusting communicated information in small group settings, such as interaction goals [40, 41] and motivated biases [42]. Second, a group member appears more knowledgeable and trustworthy when s/he communicates information perceived as accurate by the other members, either because it is commonly known [36] or preference-consistent [38]. Thus, the perceived validity of communicated information reflects back on the communicator’s appropriateness for shared-
Page 9 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
10
reality creation. This finding is consistent with the notion that social verification enhances epistemic trust in the source of verification and the likelihood of creating future shared realities with that source [43], see also [22]. Recent studies [44] suggest that a source’s
ip t
agreement with one’s own opinions about a target enhances the perceived epistemic trustworthiness of the source, especially when the target of agreement is oneself.
cr
Biases toward commonly known information can also be found in communication
about stereotypes, which typically contain valenced information about groups (e.g., football
us
players, managers, evangelicals). In many circumstances, people communicate more
an
stereotype-consistent than stereotype-inconsistent information about group members [45], presumably because it increases confidence in the validity of the communicated information
M
and the sense of being socially connected [46]. A recent study [47] illustrates the stereotypeconsistency bias in group members’ shared reality about an intergroup conflict. In Study 1,
d
students at a Dutch university communicated with one another about their relations to a
te
potentially hostile out-group (stadjers, i.e., non-student citizens of the town). Participants in a control condition listed their thoughts individually, but did not communicate. Students in the
Ac ce p
communication (vs. control) condition subsequently viewed the out-group in more stereotypical ways, indicating that intragroup communication reinforced their shared reality about the other group. Furthermore, when students in the communication condition also anticipated face-to-face contact with out-group members, they mentioned more anecdotes of intergroup hostility, and subsequently reported more negative in-group attitudes towards the out-group. These findings suggest that intragroup communication elicited a shared reality about the imminent intergroup contact as hostile and distressing. Another setting involving several individuals is serial communication from one person to another person, who then transmits information to a third person, and so on. The stereotype-consistency bias increases as information is passed on in serial communication
Page 10 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
11
chains, both in written communication [48] and in face-to-face conversations among Western [49] and Chinese participants [50]. Thus, sequential multi-person communication can ultimately reinforce shared realities about social categories [10]. However, communication
ip t
about out-group members does not necessarily boost stereotypical representations and judgments. A study by Biernat, Villicana, Sesko, and Zhao [51] suggests that the opposite
cr
effect may emerge when anti-prejudice norms are salient during a conversation, resulting in
Conclusion
us
the creation of an egalitarian shared reality.
an
The different lines of research reveal the potency, but also boundary conditions, of communication effects on shared reality. Audience-tuned communication is a key pathway to
M
shared reality, but, ultimately, shared-reality creation depends on the strength of relevant epistemic inputs in the communication situation. Audience-tuned messages provide just one
d
possible input. Another is the audience’s judgment of the topic [9]. The impact of audience-
te
tuned messages depends on the goal driving the audience tuning, and it diminishes as the epistemic input from the audience’s judgment increases. Communication about commonly
Ac ce p
known information contributes to shared reality to the extent that the interlocutors are motivated by cooperative (vs. competitive or individualistic) motives. Future research is needed to identify boundary conditions of grounding, social validation responses, and the communication of stereotypes.
Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Page 11 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
12 References
1. Herder, J. G. (1772). Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache: welche den von der Königl. Academie der Wissenschaften für das Jahr 1770 gesezten Preis erhalten hat (Vol. 2): Berlin: Christian Friedrich Voss.
ip t
2. Pasupathi, M., McLean, K. C., & Weeks, T. (2009). To tell or not to tell: Disclosure and the narrative self. Journal of Personality, 77(1), 89–124.
cr
3. Pinker, S. (2010). The cognitive niche. Coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 1007(Suppl. 2), 8993–8999. doi:
us
10.1073/pnas.0914630107
4. Adler, R., Rodman, G. R., & DuPré, A. (2016). Understanding human
an
communication: Oxford University Press.
5. McCann, C. D., & Higgins, E. T. (1988). Motivation and affect in interpersonal relations: The role of personal orientations and discrepancies. In L. Donohew,
M
H. E. Sypher, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Communication, Social Cognition, and Affect (pp. 53–79). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 6. Echterhoff, G., Higgins, E. T., & Levine, J. M. (2009). Shared reality: Experiencing
d
commonality with others' inner states about the world. Perspectives on
te
Psychological Science, 4(5), 496–521. 7. Higgins, E. T. (2016). Shared reality development in childhood. Perspectives on
Ac ce p
Psychological Science, 11, 466-495.
8. Rossignac-Milon & Higgins, this volume 9. ** Echterhoff, G., & Higgins, E. T. (2017). Creating shared reality in interpersonal and intergroup communication: the role of epistemic processes and their interplay. European Review of Social Psychology, 28(1), 175–226.
10. Higgins, E. T. (2018). Shared reality: What makes us strong and tears us apart. New York: Oxford University Press.
11. ** Kashima, Y. (2014). Meaning, grounding, and the construction of social reality. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 17(2), 81–95. 12. Kashima, Y., & Lan, Y. (2013). Communication and language use in social cognition. In D. Carlston (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Social Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 13. Kashima, Y., this volume.
Page 12 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
13
14. Semin, G., this volume. 15. Higgins, E. T., & Rholes, W. S. (1978). “Saying is believing”: Effects of message modification on memory and liking for the person described. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 14(4), 363-378.
ip t
16. Pierucci, S., Echterhoff, G., Marchal, C., & Klein, O. (2014). Creating shared reality about ambiguous sexual harassment: The role of stimulus ambiguity in
audience-tuning effects on memory. Journal of Applied Research in Memory
cr
and Cognition, 3(4), 300-306.
17. Echterhoff, G., Higgins, E. T., & Groll, S. (2005). Audience-tuning effects on
us
memory: the role of shared reality. Journal of personality and social psychology, 89(3), 257
an
18. Echterhoff, G., Kopietz, R., & Higgins, E. T. (2013). Adjusting shared reality: Communicators' memory changes as their connection with their audience
M
changes. Social Cognition, 31(2), 162-186.
19. Higgins, E. T., Echterhoff, G., Crespillo, R., & Kopietz, R. (2007). Effects of communication on social knowledge: Sharing reality with individual versus
d
group audiences. Japanese Psychological Research, 49(2), 89-99.
te
20. ** Echterhoff, G., Kopietz, R., & Higgins, E. T. (2017). Shared reality in intergroup communication: Increasing the epistemic authority of an out-group audience.
Ac ce p
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(6), 806. 21. Echterhoff, G., Higgins, E. T., Kopietz, R., & Groll, S. (2008). How communication goals determine when audience tuning biases memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137(1), 3.
22. Bebermeier, S., Echterhoff, G., Bohner, G., & Hellmann, J. H. (2015). The generalization of shared reality: When communication about one target shapes
evaluations of other targets. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(5),
623-640.
23. Clark, H. H. (1996). Communities, commonalities, and communication. Rethinking linguistic relativity, 17, 324–355. 24. ** Kashima, Y., Kashima, E. S., Bain, P., Lyons, A., Tindale, R. S., Robins, G., Vears, C., Whelan, J. (2010). Communication and essentialism: Grounding the shared reality of a social category. Social Cognition, 28(3), 306–328.
Page 13 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
14
25. Zajonc, R. B. (1960). The process of cognitive tuning in communication. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 61, 159-167. 26. DiFonzo, N., Bourgeois, M. J., Suls, J., Homan, C., Stupak, N., Brooks, B. P., ... & Bordia, P. (2013). Rumor clustering, consensus, and polarization: Dynamic
ip t
social impact and self-organization of hearsay. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(3), 378-399.
27. Eitam, B., & Higgins, E. T. (2010). Motivation in mental accessibility: Relevance of a
cr
representation (ROAR) as a new framework. Social and Personality
Psychology Compass, 4, 951–967. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-
us
9004.2010.00309.x.
28. Stasser, G., & Titus, W. (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision
an
making: Biased information sampling during discussion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(6), 1467.
29. ** Lu, L., Yuan, Y. C., & McLeod, P. L. (2012). Twenty-five years of hidden profiles
M
in group decision making: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(1), 54-75.
d
30. Dugas & Kruglanski, this volume
31. Sohrab, S. G., Waller, M. J., & Kaplan, S. (2015). Exploring the hidden-profile
489-535.
te
paradigm: A literature review and analysis. Small Group Research, 46(5),
Ac ce p
32. Bowman, J. M., & Wittenbaum, G. M. (2012). Time pressure affects process and performance in hidden-profile groups. Small Group Research, 43(3), 295-314.
33. Emich, K. J. (2014). Who’s bringing the donuts: The role of affective patterns in group decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 124(2), 122-132.
34. De Wilde, T. R., Ten Velden, F. S., & De Dreu, C. K. (2017). The Neuropeptide Oxytocin Enhances Information Sharing and Group Decision Making Quality.
Scientific Reports, 7. 35. Levine, J. M., this volume 36. Wittenbaum, G. M., Hubbell, A. P., & Zuckerman, C. (1999). Mutual enhancement: Toward an understanding of the collective preference for shared information. Journal of personality and social psychology, 77(5), 967.
Page 14 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
15
37. Boos, M., Schauenburg, B., Strack, M., & Belz, M. (2013). Social validation of shared and nonvalidation of unshared information in group discussions. Small Group Research, 44(3), 257-271. 38. Mojzisch, A., Kerschreiter, R., Faulmüller, N., Vogelgesang, F., & Schulz-Hardt, S.
ip t
(2014). The consistency principle in interpersonal communication: Consequences of preference confirmation and disconfirmation in collective
decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(6), 961.
cr
39. Mojzisch, A., Schulz-Hardt, S., Kerschreiter, R., Brodbeck, F. C., & Frey, D. (2008). Social validation in group decision-making: Differential effects on the
us
decisional impact of preference-consistent and preference-inconsistent information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(6), 1477-1490.
an
40. Toma, C., & Butera, F. (2015). Cooperation Versus Competition Effects on Information Sharing and Use in Group Decision Making. Social and
M
Personality Psychology Compass, 9(9), 455-467.
41. Nijstad, B. A., & De Dreu, C. K. (2012). Motivated information processing in organizational teams: Progress, puzzles, and prospects. Research in
d
Organizational Behavior, 32, 87-111.
te
42. Schulz-Hardt, S., & Mojzisch, A. (2012). How to achieve synergy in group decision making: Lessons to be learned from the hidden profile paradigm. European
Ac ce p
Review of Social Psychology, 23(1), 305-343. 43. Hardin, C. D., & Higgins, E. T. (1996). Shared reality: How social verification makes the subjective objective. In R. M. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.),
Handbook of Motivation and Cognition (pp. 28–84). New York: Guilford Press.
44. Chun, J. S., Ames, D. R., Uribe, J. N., & Higgins, E. T. (2017). Who do we think of as good judges? Those who agree with us about us. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 69, 121-129.
45. Ruscher, J. B. (1998). Prejudice and stereotyping in everyday communication. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 30, 241-307. 46. Clark, A. E., & Kashima, Y. (2007). Stereotypes help people connect with others in the community: a situated functional analysis of the stereotype consistency
Page 15 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
16
bias in communication. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(6), 1028. 47. ** Greijdanus, H., Postmes, T., Gordijn, E. H., & van Zomeren, M. (2015). Steeling ourselves: Intragroup communication while anticipating intergroup contact
ip t
evokes defensive intergroup perceptions. PloS One, 10(6), e0131049. 48. Lyons, A., & Kashima, Y. (2003). How are stereotypes maintained through
Personality and Social Psychology, 85(6), 989.
cr
communication? The influence of stereotype sharedness. Journal of
us
49. Kashima, Y., Lyons, A., & Clark, A. (2013). The maintenance of cultural stereotypes in the conversational retelling of narratives. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(1), 60–70.
an
50. Zhao, Y., Zhao, Y., & Zhang, J. (2016). Transmitting stereotype-relevant information in conversation: Evidence from Chinese undergraduates. Social Behavior and
M
Personality: An International Journal, 44(7), 1069-1078. 51. Biernat, M., Villicana, A. J., Sesko, A. K., & Zhao, X. (2016). Effects of dyadic communication on race-based impressions and memory. Group Processes &
Ac ce p
te
d
Intergroup Relations, Advance Online Publication.
Highlights
• Shared-reality creation has been mostly examined in interpersonal communication. • The evaluative tuning of messages to an audience is a key pathway to shared reality. • What matters is the goal underlying audience tuning rather than audience tuning per se. • Mere message production, communication about commonly known information, grounding, and validation responses contribute to shared reality. • Intragroup or serial-chain communication can confirm stereotypes and reinforce shared realities about intergroup relations.
Page 16 of 17
17
Ac ce p
te
d
M
an
us
cr
ip t
Shared Reality in Communication
Page 17 of 17
S2352-250X(17)30232-4 https://doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.12.005 COPSYC 598
To appear in: Received date: Accepted date:
20-12-2017 21-12-2017
Please cite this article as: G. Echterhoff, B. Schmalbach, How Shared Reality is Created in Interpersonal Communication, COPSYC (2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.12.005 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
Shared Reality in Communication
1
ip t
How Shared Reality is Created in Interpersonal Communication
Bjarne Schmalbach
cr
Gerald Echterhoff
an
us
University of Münster
Review for a Special Issue on Shared Reality
d
M
in Current Opinion in Psychology
Ac ce p
te
Word count: 2,423
Author Note. Gerald Echterhoff and Bjarne Schmalbach, Department of Psychology,
University of Münster, Germany
Page 1 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
2
Abstract Communication is a key arena and means for shared-reality creation. Most studies
ip t
explicitly devoted to shared reality have focused on the opening part of a conversation, that is, a speaker’s initial message to an audience. The aspect of communication examined by this
cr
research is the evaluative adaptation (tuning) of the messages to the audience’s attitude or
judgment. The speaker’s shared-reality creation is typically assessed by the extent to which
us
the speaker’s evaluative representation of the topic matches the audience-tuned view
an
expressed in the message. We first review research on such audience-tuning effects, with a focus on shared-reality goals and conditions facilitating the generalization of shared reality.
M
We then review studies using other paradigms that illustrate factors of shared-reality creation in communication, including mere message production, grounding, validation responses, and
d
communication about commonly known information (including stereotypes) in intragroup
te
communication. The different lines of research reveal the potency, but also boundary
Ac ce p
conditions, of communication effects on shared reality.
Keywords: shared reality, communication, audience tuning, common knowledge, group processes, grounding
Page 2 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
3
Highlights • The evaluative tuning of messages to an audience is a key pathway to shared reality. • What matters is the goal underlying audience tuning rather than audience tuning per se.
grounding, and validation responses contribute to shared reality.
ip t
• Mere message production, communication about commonly known information,
cr
• Intragroup or serial-chain communication can confirm stereotypes and reinforce shared
Ac ce p
te
d
M
an
us
realities about intergroup relations.
Page 3 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
4
Humans, who have been ascribed the anthropological epithet homo loquens (talking or conversing man [1]), devote a great deal of their activities to communication. For instance,
ip t
62% of the events recorded by participants in a diary study had already been told to others by the same evening [2]. Communication thrives on and fuels humans’ “hypersociality” [3].
cr
Among the various needs and goals that can be achieved through communication [4, 5] we focus here on humans’ fundamental motivation to create shared realities with others.
us
Shared reality has been defined as the experienced commonality of inner states with others about an object [6]. Inner states can represent perceptions of relevance of the object in
an
a given context, as well as feelings, judgments or evaluations of the object [7, 8]. The commonality fosters the perceived veracity of such inner states. Shared reality thus captures
M
an individual’s experience of interpersonal commonality that produces sufficient confidence in her or his inner states about an object and allows the individual to regulate her or his
d
responses to the object [9]. Humans are fundamentally motivated to create shared realities,
te
allowing them to fulfill various basic needs including the need for having valid and confident
Ac ce p
beliefs about the world and the need to be connected with others [10] A key arena for sharedreality creation is communication. For instance, one member of a work team may form an evaluation of a newcomer by communicating with other team members, perhaps during a conversation at the end of the newcomer’s first day at work. A team member creates a shared reality about the newcomer to the extent that, after the conversation, her or his evaluation of the newcomer matches a colleague’s perceived evaluation of the newcomer. In real-world communication, interlocutors typically take turns, alternately adopting the role of speaker or recipient. Thus, they can jointly negotiate, adjust, and confirm their understanding of the topic [11, 12] and arrive at interpretations and judgments of topicrelated information [13]. However, most empirical studies explicitly devoted to shared reality have focused on the opening part of a conversation, that is, a speaker’s initial message to an
Page 4 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
5
audience. More specifically, these studies have investigated when and how speakers create evaluations of a target that match their audience’s attitude or judgment of the topic [6, 9]. The aspect of communication examined by this research is the evaluative adaptation, or “tuning,”
ip t
of the speakers’ messages to the audience’s attitude or judgment. In most studies the speaker’s shared-reality creation is assessed by the extent to which the evaluative tone of the
cr
speaker’s memory for the initial material (in other studies, the speaker’s explicit evaluation of the target person) matches the audience-tuned view expressed in the previous message.
us
We first review research on such audience-tuning effects, with a focus on the role of
an
shared-reality goals and conditions facilitating the generalization of shared reality from an initial topic to another, novel topic. Additional findings obtained with this paradigm are
M
described by Semin [14]. We then turn to studies using different paradigms that illustrate factors and processes of shared-reality creation in communication.
d
Shared Reality: The Role of Audience-Tuned Communication
te
In the standard study procedure, dubbed the “saying-is-believing” paradigm, participants receive evaluatively ambiguous behavioral information about the target, for
Ac ce p
example, behaviors that can be characterized as either “stubborn” or “persistent” [15]. Participants who describe the target to an audience who ostensibly likes (vs. dislikes) the target describe the target more positively (vs. negatively)—evaluatively tuning the message to the audience’s attitude. Importantly, participants’ subsequent recall of the target’s behaviors is evaluatively distorted in the direction that matches the evaluative tone of their audience-tuned message, indicating the speaker’s subjective creation of a shared reality with the audience [6]. The ambiguity of the stimulus information is critical because it triggers epistemic needs for uncertainty reduction that can be achieved by shared-reality creation [16]. The audience-tuning effect is communication-driven because it typically depends on the production of an audience-congruent message [15, 16]. The importance of message
Page 5 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
6
production may stem from various factors (see [9]): increased confidence in the validity of audience-tuned information through overt articulation; assuming that the audience accepted the message, in the absence of feedback otherwise [17]; allowing for perception of the shared
ip t
reality to be reciprocal; experienced connection with the audience [18]. We note, however, that message production is not necessary for the memory effect in this paradigm because
cr
shared reality can be created without it. For instance, when the audience’s judgment is highly trustworthy (e.g., due to a consensus among several audience members) and thus provides a
us
strong epistemic input (see [9]), the audience-congruent memory bias can emerge without
an
message production [19; 20, Exp. 3].
Importantly, the production of an audience-tuned message is also not sufficient for the
M
effect because it is critical that the goal underlying the audience tuning is to create a shared reality with the audience. For instance, audience tuning motivated by monetary incentives
d
(rather than shared-reality creation) does not result in the audience-congruent memory bias
te
[20]. Also, despite communicators’ message tuning to an out-group audience, their subsequent memory is typically not evaluatively biased towards the audience’s attitude [20,
Ac ce p
21]. Apparently, message tuning to the out-group audience is driven by goals other than shared-reality creation (e.g., politeness, compliance with egalitarian norms). However, the goal of creating shared reality with an out-group audience can be stimulated by increasing the out-group audience’s epistemic authority [20, Exp. 2 & 3]. All studies reviewed so far concerned shared realities about one specific target
evaluated by speaker and audience. However, shared realities would have a fairly limited impact if they were constrained to specific, single-target evaluations. A possible factor of generalization is epistemic trust in the audience, which should be strengthened by prior experiences of shared reality with the audience. Indeed, a recent study [22, Exp. 1] found that when there was prior high (vs. low) verification of unrelated judgments (about ambiguous
Page 6 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
7
depictions of social interactions) from the person who later became the audience, then a shared reality with that audience about one ambiguous sexist was more likely to extend to another ambiguous sexist. Thus, a shared reality with an audience about a specific target is
ip t
more likely to generalize when communicators previously have experienced more (vs. less) social verification from the audience. Significantly, this generalization to a new target did not
cr
require additional communication about that new target. Another study using a longer delay
between judgments of the first and the second, novel target [22, Exp. 2] suggests that shared-
an
reality experience at the time of the second judgment.
us
reality generalization is facilitated by sufficient accessibility of memories for the shared-
Other Factors and Processes of Shared-Reality Creation in Communication
M
As we have seen, speakers can achieve a shared reality with their audience by tuning their message to the audience in the service of a shared-reality goal. But there are other
d
relevant communication processes as well such as grounding the meaning of an utterance,
te
which provides interlocutors with a shared understanding of what they are talking about [11, 23]. According to the above definition of shared reality, the underlying inner states refer to
Ac ce p
the perceived relevance of an object, or to judgments and evaluations of the object [7, 9, 18]. The experienced commonality produces sufficient confidence in the inner states as being valid and truthful. Our subsequent discussion focuses on phenomena that fulfill these criteria. To begin with, the mere production of messages about the positive and negative
behaviors of target group members can enhance the speaker’s sense that the behaviors reflect an underlying essence of the group. In studies by Kashima and colleagues [24], participants did (vs. did not) write notes about a group of individuals to three imagined recipients (Study 1; also see [25]) or, when they communicated, they received more or less elaborate grounding queries from their recipient (a confederate in Study 2). Mere message production and more elaborate grounding responses induced speakers to exhibit more extreme dispositional
Page 7 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
8
judgments of the target group and greater beliefs in the essential truth of these judgments. In a free-flowing conversation between two participants (Study 3), more elaborate grounding was associated with more extreme dispositional judgments, which indicates the attribution of
ip t
behaviors to stable, context-independent and essential characteristics. These findings suggest that a speaker’s basic acts of meaning-making in a
cr
communication setting can induce speakers to believe in the essential truth of their
evaluations. This reality is experienced as shared when utterances are grounded and accepted
us
by the partner. Extending these findings, DiFonzo and colleagues [26] found that repeated
an
rounds of communication about rumors within small social networks gradually enhance consensus and confidence in the truth of the rumor among network members. More research
M
on the essentializing effects of mere message production and grounding responses is needed to pinpoint the underlying mechanisms (e.g., biased information accessibility from increased
d
relevance [27] , schema-consistent elaboration, or social verification).
te
Another factor conducive to shared reality creation is the communication of information that is already known by the interlocutors. When groups jointly form judgments
Ac ce p
about a target person, the group members are more likely to mention information about the target that is commonly known and thus “shared” by all members [28, 29]. According to shared-reality theory, the discussion of “shared” information serves people’s relational (affiliative) needs and their epistemic needs for confident inner states, specifically, the need for closure [30]. In a typical study, participants are asked to communicate in small groups about job applicants and evaluate them based on different sections from their CVs. Some of the CV sections are made available to all group members (commonly known, or “shared”), whereas other sections are made available only to one member (uniquely known, or “unshared”). Thus, the informational basis for making an optimal decision is hidden to the group as a whole (hence, “hidden profile” paradigm). A robust finding is that members tend
Page 8 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
9
to discuss commonly known information to a greater extent than information that one member uniquely knows [29, 31]. The group’s shared reality is a common evaluation of the applicants, achieved on the basis of discussed information. The communicative bias towards
ip t
commonly known information is greater for tasks requiring subjective assessments (vs. objectively identifiable solutions) [29]. Thus, as in audience-tuning studies, ambiguity of the
cr
stimulus material is conducive to shared-reality creation.
Research has revealed several factors that can attenuate the “shared” information bias,
us
for instance, low time pressure [32]; positive mood, encouraging the discussion of unique
an
information [33]; or exogenous oxytocin [34] (see also Levine, this volume [35]). The following findings are specifically relevant to shared-reality creation in communication. First,
M
commonly known (vs. uniquely known) information mentioned in the group discussion is perceived as more accurate and relevant [36, Exp. 1], and more likely to be grounded and
d
validated by the other members, for instance, by short back-channel utterances (“Exactly”, “I
te
got that”; [37]). Subsequent research [38] suggests that these effects may be restricted to situations in which the “unshared” (uniquely held) information communicated by another
Ac ce p
group member disconfirms the emerging preference for a candidate (i.e., is preferenceinconsistent). At any rate, validation responses are probably one mechanism enhancing the judgmental impact of information in hidden-profile decision making [39], provided that group members are motivated to cooperate [40]. Future research should further identify boundary conditions of trusting communicated information in small group settings, such as interaction goals [40, 41] and motivated biases [42]. Second, a group member appears more knowledgeable and trustworthy when s/he communicates information perceived as accurate by the other members, either because it is commonly known [36] or preference-consistent [38]. Thus, the perceived validity of communicated information reflects back on the communicator’s appropriateness for shared-
Page 9 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
10
reality creation. This finding is consistent with the notion that social verification enhances epistemic trust in the source of verification and the likelihood of creating future shared realities with that source [43], see also [22]. Recent studies [44] suggest that a source’s
ip t
agreement with one’s own opinions about a target enhances the perceived epistemic trustworthiness of the source, especially when the target of agreement is oneself.
cr
Biases toward commonly known information can also be found in communication
about stereotypes, which typically contain valenced information about groups (e.g., football
us
players, managers, evangelicals). In many circumstances, people communicate more
an
stereotype-consistent than stereotype-inconsistent information about group members [45], presumably because it increases confidence in the validity of the communicated information
M
and the sense of being socially connected [46]. A recent study [47] illustrates the stereotypeconsistency bias in group members’ shared reality about an intergroup conflict. In Study 1,
d
students at a Dutch university communicated with one another about their relations to a
te
potentially hostile out-group (stadjers, i.e., non-student citizens of the town). Participants in a control condition listed their thoughts individually, but did not communicate. Students in the
Ac ce p
communication (vs. control) condition subsequently viewed the out-group in more stereotypical ways, indicating that intragroup communication reinforced their shared reality about the other group. Furthermore, when students in the communication condition also anticipated face-to-face contact with out-group members, they mentioned more anecdotes of intergroup hostility, and subsequently reported more negative in-group attitudes towards the out-group. These findings suggest that intragroup communication elicited a shared reality about the imminent intergroup contact as hostile and distressing. Another setting involving several individuals is serial communication from one person to another person, who then transmits information to a third person, and so on. The stereotype-consistency bias increases as information is passed on in serial communication
Page 10 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
11
chains, both in written communication [48] and in face-to-face conversations among Western [49] and Chinese participants [50]. Thus, sequential multi-person communication can ultimately reinforce shared realities about social categories [10]. However, communication
ip t
about out-group members does not necessarily boost stereotypical representations and judgments. A study by Biernat, Villicana, Sesko, and Zhao [51] suggests that the opposite
cr
effect may emerge when anti-prejudice norms are salient during a conversation, resulting in
Conclusion
us
the creation of an egalitarian shared reality.
an
The different lines of research reveal the potency, but also boundary conditions, of communication effects on shared reality. Audience-tuned communication is a key pathway to
M
shared reality, but, ultimately, shared-reality creation depends on the strength of relevant epistemic inputs in the communication situation. Audience-tuned messages provide just one
d
possible input. Another is the audience’s judgment of the topic [9]. The impact of audience-
te
tuned messages depends on the goal driving the audience tuning, and it diminishes as the epistemic input from the audience’s judgment increases. Communication about commonly
Ac ce p
known information contributes to shared reality to the extent that the interlocutors are motivated by cooperative (vs. competitive or individualistic) motives. Future research is needed to identify boundary conditions of grounding, social validation responses, and the communication of stereotypes.
Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Page 11 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
12 References
1. Herder, J. G. (1772). Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache: welche den von der Königl. Academie der Wissenschaften für das Jahr 1770 gesezten Preis erhalten hat (Vol. 2): Berlin: Christian Friedrich Voss.
ip t
2. Pasupathi, M., McLean, K. C., & Weeks, T. (2009). To tell or not to tell: Disclosure and the narrative self. Journal of Personality, 77(1), 89–124.
cr
3. Pinker, S. (2010). The cognitive niche. Coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 1007(Suppl. 2), 8993–8999. doi:
us
10.1073/pnas.0914630107
4. Adler, R., Rodman, G. R., & DuPré, A. (2016). Understanding human
an
communication: Oxford University Press.
5. McCann, C. D., & Higgins, E. T. (1988). Motivation and affect in interpersonal relations: The role of personal orientations and discrepancies. In L. Donohew,
M
H. E. Sypher, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Communication, Social Cognition, and Affect (pp. 53–79). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 6. Echterhoff, G., Higgins, E. T., & Levine, J. M. (2009). Shared reality: Experiencing
d
commonality with others' inner states about the world. Perspectives on
te
Psychological Science, 4(5), 496–521. 7. Higgins, E. T. (2016). Shared reality development in childhood. Perspectives on
Ac ce p
Psychological Science, 11, 466-495.
8. Rossignac-Milon & Higgins, this volume 9. ** Echterhoff, G., & Higgins, E. T. (2017). Creating shared reality in interpersonal and intergroup communication: the role of epistemic processes and their interplay. European Review of Social Psychology, 28(1), 175–226.
10. Higgins, E. T. (2018). Shared reality: What makes us strong and tears us apart. New York: Oxford University Press.
11. ** Kashima, Y. (2014). Meaning, grounding, and the construction of social reality. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 17(2), 81–95. 12. Kashima, Y., & Lan, Y. (2013). Communication and language use in social cognition. In D. Carlston (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Social Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 13. Kashima, Y., this volume.
Page 12 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
13
14. Semin, G., this volume. 15. Higgins, E. T., & Rholes, W. S. (1978). “Saying is believing”: Effects of message modification on memory and liking for the person described. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 14(4), 363-378.
ip t
16. Pierucci, S., Echterhoff, G., Marchal, C., & Klein, O. (2014). Creating shared reality about ambiguous sexual harassment: The role of stimulus ambiguity in
audience-tuning effects on memory. Journal of Applied Research in Memory
cr
and Cognition, 3(4), 300-306.
17. Echterhoff, G., Higgins, E. T., & Groll, S. (2005). Audience-tuning effects on
us
memory: the role of shared reality. Journal of personality and social psychology, 89(3), 257
an
18. Echterhoff, G., Kopietz, R., & Higgins, E. T. (2013). Adjusting shared reality: Communicators' memory changes as their connection with their audience
M
changes. Social Cognition, 31(2), 162-186.
19. Higgins, E. T., Echterhoff, G., Crespillo, R., & Kopietz, R. (2007). Effects of communication on social knowledge: Sharing reality with individual versus
d
group audiences. Japanese Psychological Research, 49(2), 89-99.
te
20. ** Echterhoff, G., Kopietz, R., & Higgins, E. T. (2017). Shared reality in intergroup communication: Increasing the epistemic authority of an out-group audience.
Ac ce p
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(6), 806. 21. Echterhoff, G., Higgins, E. T., Kopietz, R., & Groll, S. (2008). How communication goals determine when audience tuning biases memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137(1), 3.
22. Bebermeier, S., Echterhoff, G., Bohner, G., & Hellmann, J. H. (2015). The generalization of shared reality: When communication about one target shapes
evaluations of other targets. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(5),
623-640.
23. Clark, H. H. (1996). Communities, commonalities, and communication. Rethinking linguistic relativity, 17, 324–355. 24. ** Kashima, Y., Kashima, E. S., Bain, P., Lyons, A., Tindale, R. S., Robins, G., Vears, C., Whelan, J. (2010). Communication and essentialism: Grounding the shared reality of a social category. Social Cognition, 28(3), 306–328.
Page 13 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
14
25. Zajonc, R. B. (1960). The process of cognitive tuning in communication. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 61, 159-167. 26. DiFonzo, N., Bourgeois, M. J., Suls, J., Homan, C., Stupak, N., Brooks, B. P., ... & Bordia, P. (2013). Rumor clustering, consensus, and polarization: Dynamic
ip t
social impact and self-organization of hearsay. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(3), 378-399.
27. Eitam, B., & Higgins, E. T. (2010). Motivation in mental accessibility: Relevance of a
cr
representation (ROAR) as a new framework. Social and Personality
Psychology Compass, 4, 951–967. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-
us
9004.2010.00309.x.
28. Stasser, G., & Titus, W. (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision
an
making: Biased information sampling during discussion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(6), 1467.
29. ** Lu, L., Yuan, Y. C., & McLeod, P. L. (2012). Twenty-five years of hidden profiles
M
in group decision making: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(1), 54-75.
d
30. Dugas & Kruglanski, this volume
31. Sohrab, S. G., Waller, M. J., & Kaplan, S. (2015). Exploring the hidden-profile
489-535.
te
paradigm: A literature review and analysis. Small Group Research, 46(5),
Ac ce p
32. Bowman, J. M., & Wittenbaum, G. M. (2012). Time pressure affects process and performance in hidden-profile groups. Small Group Research, 43(3), 295-314.
33. Emich, K. J. (2014). Who’s bringing the donuts: The role of affective patterns in group decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 124(2), 122-132.
34. De Wilde, T. R., Ten Velden, F. S., & De Dreu, C. K. (2017). The Neuropeptide Oxytocin Enhances Information Sharing and Group Decision Making Quality.
Scientific Reports, 7. 35. Levine, J. M., this volume 36. Wittenbaum, G. M., Hubbell, A. P., & Zuckerman, C. (1999). Mutual enhancement: Toward an understanding of the collective preference for shared information. Journal of personality and social psychology, 77(5), 967.
Page 14 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
15
37. Boos, M., Schauenburg, B., Strack, M., & Belz, M. (2013). Social validation of shared and nonvalidation of unshared information in group discussions. Small Group Research, 44(3), 257-271. 38. Mojzisch, A., Kerschreiter, R., Faulmüller, N., Vogelgesang, F., & Schulz-Hardt, S.
ip t
(2014). The consistency principle in interpersonal communication: Consequences of preference confirmation and disconfirmation in collective
decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(6), 961.
cr
39. Mojzisch, A., Schulz-Hardt, S., Kerschreiter, R., Brodbeck, F. C., & Frey, D. (2008). Social validation in group decision-making: Differential effects on the
us
decisional impact of preference-consistent and preference-inconsistent information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(6), 1477-1490.
an
40. Toma, C., & Butera, F. (2015). Cooperation Versus Competition Effects on Information Sharing and Use in Group Decision Making. Social and
M
Personality Psychology Compass, 9(9), 455-467.
41. Nijstad, B. A., & De Dreu, C. K. (2012). Motivated information processing in organizational teams: Progress, puzzles, and prospects. Research in
d
Organizational Behavior, 32, 87-111.
te
42. Schulz-Hardt, S., & Mojzisch, A. (2012). How to achieve synergy in group decision making: Lessons to be learned from the hidden profile paradigm. European
Ac ce p
Review of Social Psychology, 23(1), 305-343. 43. Hardin, C. D., & Higgins, E. T. (1996). Shared reality: How social verification makes the subjective objective. In R. M. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.),
Handbook of Motivation and Cognition (pp. 28–84). New York: Guilford Press.
44. Chun, J. S., Ames, D. R., Uribe, J. N., & Higgins, E. T. (2017). Who do we think of as good judges? Those who agree with us about us. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 69, 121-129.
45. Ruscher, J. B. (1998). Prejudice and stereotyping in everyday communication. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 30, 241-307. 46. Clark, A. E., & Kashima, Y. (2007). Stereotypes help people connect with others in the community: a situated functional analysis of the stereotype consistency
Page 15 of 17
Shared Reality in Communication
16
bias in communication. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(6), 1028. 47. ** Greijdanus, H., Postmes, T., Gordijn, E. H., & van Zomeren, M. (2015). Steeling ourselves: Intragroup communication while anticipating intergroup contact
ip t
evokes defensive intergroup perceptions. PloS One, 10(6), e0131049. 48. Lyons, A., & Kashima, Y. (2003). How are stereotypes maintained through
Personality and Social Psychology, 85(6), 989.
cr
communication? The influence of stereotype sharedness. Journal of
us
49. Kashima, Y., Lyons, A., & Clark, A. (2013). The maintenance of cultural stereotypes in the conversational retelling of narratives. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(1), 60–70.
an
50. Zhao, Y., Zhao, Y., & Zhang, J. (2016). Transmitting stereotype-relevant information in conversation: Evidence from Chinese undergraduates. Social Behavior and
M
Personality: An International Journal, 44(7), 1069-1078. 51. Biernat, M., Villicana, A. J., Sesko, A. K., & Zhao, X. (2016). Effects of dyadic communication on race-based impressions and memory. Group Processes &
Ac ce p
te
d
Intergroup Relations, Advance Online Publication.
Highlights
• Shared-reality creation has been mostly examined in interpersonal communication. • The evaluative tuning of messages to an audience is a key pathway to shared reality. • What matters is the goal underlying audience tuning rather than audience tuning per se. • Mere message production, communication about commonly known information, grounding, and validation responses contribute to shared reality. • Intragroup or serial-chain communication can confirm stereotypes and reinforce shared realities about intergroup relations.
Page 16 of 17
17
Ac ce p
te
d
M
an
us
cr
ip t
Shared Reality in Communication
Page 17 of 17