Some Formal Aspects of Communication

te;:et &es:'it Ssre{at o.ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi abd b#&ffiffimwetrffi# sffimwwwffiffiffi#w Volume10 Number8 April, 1967 COMMUNICATIONIN BEHAVIOR AND BEHAVIORALSCIENCE Edited by JouN H. WrlxllNo, assisted bg JlNnr BEAVIN, M ental ResearchInstitute. Palo Alto, Calif ornia Communicationand Behavior - An Introduction John H. Weakland Some Formal Aspects of Communication Paul Watzlawick and Janet Beavin . 4 On the Structuring of Communication Albert E. Scheflen,M.D. 8 Communication as an Approach to Politics . Robert C. North 12 Unintended Consequencesof InterpersonalExpectations Robert Rosenthal 24 The Ethnography of Experiment Roy Turner 26 Cybernetic Explanation Gregory Bateson 29 NEW STUDIES SECTION . ... 13 SOMEFORMAL ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION PAULWATZLAWICK and JANETBEAVIN The study of communication, like other fields, depends paper. For the present,we will primarily identify the subject greatly on the basic prernises involved. Too often this /eve/ matter of the problem. is taken for granted, but lt is explicitly examined here by Paul Watzlawick and lanet Beavin, Research Associates at PRAGMATICSAS RECIPROCALPROCESS the Mental Research lnstitute (Palo Alto, California). Their Morris (3) proposedthat semiotic (the generaltheory of paper is based on a study of human communication sup- signsand languages)could be divided into three main areas. ported by the Robert C. Wheeler Foundation,and presented We suggestthat thesecan, analogously,describe three levelsof in greater detail in Pragmaticsof Human Communication: analysis of human communication: syntactics as the study of A Study of InteractionalPatterns, Pathologies and Para- the formal relationsof signsto one another;semantics as the doxes, by Paul Watzlawick,Janet Beavin and Don D. Jackson study of the relationsof signsto the objectsto which the signs (New York: W. W. Norton, 1967). Parts of this paper were refer, i.e. the study of meaning; aod pragmatics as the study presented by Dr. Watzlawick at a recentconf erenceon Sys- of the relation of signsto their users.The last, the pragmatics tematic Researchon Family lnteraction at the EasternPenn- of human communication,encompasses our interest, which sylvania Psychiatric /nstitute, Philadelphia. is the behavioraleffects of human interaction.However. it is necessaryto make at least one important qualificationof the I This paper will describean approachto the study of human aboveframework, which may be saidto be not so much about interaction which is basedon the assumptionthat communi- communication,as about signs, senders,and receiversand, cation is synonymouswith what is observablein such interac- thus, still primarily concernedwith individuals in isolation. tion. That is, communicationis seennot asjust the vehicle,not We would prefer to use the term pragmaticsto refer not to any just as the manifestation,but as a better conceptionof what is sender-signor sign-receiverrelation but rather to an inter- often looselygathered under the rubric "interaction." personalrelation. We would not even say "sender-receiver" We have,of course,no completeor formal theory.We will, relation, if this could be avoidedin our language,in order to rather, presentwhat appear to be very simple and obvious be able to focus on a reciprocal processin which both (or all) premiseswhich, hoWever,lollowed through to their necessary personsact and react, "receive" and "send," in such detail conclusions, seem to yield a fundamentally new and quite and complexity that these terms lose their meaning as verbs productive outlook. of individual action. As Birdwhistellhas put it: Before this, however, some generalcomments about the An individualdoes not communicate;he engagesin or becomes "obviousness"of thesepoints should be made. First of all, it part of communication.He may move,or makenoises . but is often the intimately important, especiallyin our own be- he doesnot communicate.In a parallelfashion, he may see,he havior, which is overlookedor difficult to see,precisely because may hear,smell, taste, or feel- but he doesnot communicate. it is, like breathing,Iargely out of awarenessuntil drawn to our In other words, he does not originate communication;he attention. Second, and more important, while few would participatesin it. Communicationas a system,then, is not to be understood model flatly exclude in theory the ubiquity and importance of the on a simple of actionand reaction,however complexlystated. As system, social context, a it is to be comprehendedon the actual researchand applicationtoo frequently transactionallevel. (4, p. 104) stop at lip service, so that involvement with a particular (monadic) subjectof investigationresults, in practice,in the Herein our focus will be on dyadic, in-person communica- neglectof the interactionalperspective. That is, communication, in which the cues exchangedemanate directly from the tional factors are often regarded as random, or potentially voice, the body, or the immediate context. Such communica- excludable,sources of variance.This problem arisesboth in tion is clearly amenableto analysis in terms of the principles the definitionof what is to be studiedand - sincethe behavioral to be outlined below. However, only further study will prove sciencesare ultimately self-reflexiveand all researchby humans whether theseprinciples might not be fruitfully applied to the on other humans is social - to the strategyand analysisof how study of, for instance,the massmedia, international communi- the data are studied; that is, to methodologyas well as to cation, the psychoanalyticconcept of communication with content.In either case,even when the interactionalcontext is one's introjects,or animal communication,though we would thus, in effect, ignored, it does not go away; there always expect that this is so. remains a valid communicational interpretation of the data. The latter is, unfortunately, often in conflict, or at leastdifficult IN THE PRESENCEOF ANOTHER, to integrate with the investigator'sintended, more monadic AtL BEHAVIORIS COMMUNICATIVE interpretation(e.g. 1, 2). Third, and perhapsmost important, Our casefor the generality of such phenomenaas will be these basic notions may be obvious, yet they still are neither describedrests primarily on an assumptionof the inevitability systematizedinto an adequatetheory of communication, nor of communication in social situations (which certainly include consistently utilized in research. more than thosedefined by mere physical presence- tbe above But such considerations take us beyond the aims of this premise states a minimum whose upper limit is yet to be THE AtuenlceN Br,nevronAt- ScrENTrsr ) defined). It is first of all necessary to remember that the scope tionship level (discussed immediately below) ls conveyed to of "communication" is by no means limited to verbal produc- the receiver; this point has been especially well taken in regard tions. Communications are exchanged through many channels to schizophrenic behavior, e.g. Haley (7), which may be seen and combinations of these channels, and certainly also through positively, as occurring and meaningful, rather than as gib- the context in which an interaction takes place. Indeed, it can berish outside the pale of human communication. be summarily stated that allbehavior, not only the use of words, is communication (which is not the same as saying that be- THERE ARE MANY LEVETS OF INFORMATION IN havior is only communication), and since there is no such EVERY COMMUNICATION, AND ONE ALWAYS thing as non-behavior, it is impossible nor to communicate. PERTAINS TO THE RELATIONSHIPIN WHICH THE Recent animal studies show, for instance, that certaiD monkeys COMMUNICATION OCCURS. will seat themselvesduring their rest periods in a forest clearing A prisoner is held by two guards in a room with,lwo doors. so that no animal looks at any other while staring straight He knows that one door is locked, the other unlocked, but does ahead into the forest. This is not only in order to keep watch not know which. He also knows one of the guards always tells but also for the purpose of resting.They seem to find it neces- the truth, the other always lies, but again the prisoner does not know which. Finally, he has told that way to sary to avoid even the communication inherent in a glance, been the only regain his freedom is to identify the unlocked door by asking very much as a man in a waiting room may stare at the floor one questionof one of the guards.For a long time the prisoner if he wants to be left alone by other personspresent. But this pondersthis seeminglyunsolvable problem, but eventuallyasks behavior itself amounts to the message"Leave me alone" and the correct question: he points to one of the doors and asksone is normally understood by the others as such. of the guards (it does not matter which door or which guard), All behavior is communication: this is true but not trivial. "If I askedyour comradewhether this door is open, what would All behavior has an effect as communication, an often very he say?" If the answeris yes,then that door is locked, and, vice powerful effect which may be one of the most proven assertions versa,if no, then it is open. of social science - though not always deliberately proven. That The charm of this unlikely story lies not only in the fact is, it is quite common that experiments with a variety of inde- that a problem with two unknowns (the doors and the guards) pendent variables, including pharmacological agents, show is elegantly solved through the discovery of a simple decision significant changes

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