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Theoretical Research Paper: Crash & Expectancy Violation Theory We can somehow relate to what we see on media. For instance, how we can relate to a character on a movie or show, or even Beyonce’s music lyrics. Media speaks to us because it is created from humans and acted by humans. When it comes to the movie Crash, I think it goes beyond what I had expected. As I discuss the scenes of the movie that were impactful to me, I will also apply a theory that I have learned throughout this semester as well. In a nut shell, the movie Crash was released in 2004 and some of the cast include Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Michael Peña, and Matt Dillon. Crash takes place in Los Angeles over a thirty-six hour period. People’s lives cross each other’s paths while they must deal with race and discrimination in the city. We may all think that racism and discrimination is all in the past, that it doesn’t happen anymore because it’s 2017. But the truth is, it was here in 2004 and it is still here in 2017. One of the individuals in the movie is Officer Hanson. Throughout the thirty-six hour period, this character seems like a nice and sympathetic officer who is just trying to do his job. In the first scene, we see him and his buddy Officer Ryan pull over a well-dressed African American couple. His partner makes the first step and begins to grope the wife of the man he pulled over. While Officer Hanson knows that his partner is out of line, he decides to not do a thing about it. After, he speaks to Lieutenant Dixon about a request to change partners. Because Lieutenant Dixon is an African American man, he discusses with Hanson that if he claims Officer Ryan as a racist (who has been an officer for many years under the supervision of Dixon), it will make Lieutenant Dixon look bad and might be able to lose his job. Dixon also

mentions that it is hard for a black man to get the position he has because of the color of his skin. If Hanson doesn’t want to work along with Officer Ryan, he has to make a request to drive on his own because he has gas problems. Outside of the police department, we see Ryan exchanging words with Hanson. Ryan tells him that he doesn’t know himself as well as he thinks he does. The next scene, he is responding to a call and later finds out that the African American (Cameron) that he pulled over the previous night was involved. He tells the other cops to put their guns down and that he knew Cameron. At the same time, Hanson is trying to calm down Cameron who is still thinking about the injustice that was made towards him and his wife the night before. Cameron is finally free and Hanson believes he did justice for Cameron and his wife. After a long day, Hanson picks up an individual who is an African American named Peter. These two begin to have conversations and it seems like they are getting along. Hanson thinking that Peter is making fun of his St. Christopher Statue, and tells Peter to get out of the car. Peter reaches into his pocket to show him his. Hanson who is now nervous and believes that Peter has a gun, pulls out his and shoots Peter. Peter dies and Hanson removes him from his car. Not believing what he has done, he leaves the scene and burns his car. We can say that throughout the movie, Officer Hanson is seen as the white American who believes that he is not racist or does not discriminate in any way or form. This is something that we can all relate to. We may not be racist or try to discriminate on others but sometimes we do things unintentionally. I certainly do not believe I’m racist. I believe a person is a person and I enjoy hearing about others culture and background. But I must admit, sometimes I think things or do things without thinking about it at the moment. To then realize that I discriminated towards someone. For instance, when I drive and I’m behind someone who is super slow and I get the chance to pass them I check who it was and I say something like, “I knew it was an Asian

woman.” Yes, I just made a discriminatory comment without thinking about it. The fact is, we all do it. Whether we mean to or not. And that is what Hanson did. He made an assumption about someone of a different race than him, whether he meant to or not. Expectancy Violation Theory (EVT) is “. . . based on the idea that individuals adapt and adjust their behaviors. . .” (Orbe and Harris, 2013, p.77) A portions of this theory can be applied to Hanson and Peter, which consists of four assumptions. 1. We tend to assemble expectations about the behavior of others. 2. When an individual violates the expectations we have, it causes an increase in arousal. 3. A violation of one’s expectation can be seen as either positive or negative. And lastly 4. We all respond to violation of our expectation in different ways. This can be applied to Hanson and Peter. A violation is basically, anytime a person acts a way that is unexpected. We see Peter for a period of thirty-six hours and for the most part, he follows his friend Anthony, and his thoughts, and believes of the “white folks”. We see how Peter reacts to how Hanson offers to give him a ride. This is where the third assumption comes in. Is this a positive violation or a negative violation? Peter decides to take Hanson’s offer therefore, it was a positive violation. In Hanson’s point of view, he believes he is doing something good here and also something out of the norm. Hanson believes that Peter is laughing at his St. Christopher statue but the truth is he is laughing because he is not the only one who carries one, yet Hanson does not know that. When Hanson tells Peter to get out of his car, Peter tries to explain to him why he was laughing and tries to pull out his statue out of his pocket. For a second Hanson reacts, and makes an assumption. “This African American has a gun.” Assumption one and two apply at this moment. Assumption three and four apply as soon as Hanson decides to pull out his gun and shoots Peter. Once Hanson sees that he killed Peter and the statue in his hands, he reacts and

realizes that he did wrong. I want to believe that Ryan’s words about not knowing himself as well as he thinks he does, is ringing in his head. Is he racist? Did he really not know who he really was? Was Ryan right about him? After trying to do everything right throughout the thirtysix hours, is he really racist or are those assumptions we make without thinking because that is what the media has taught us our whole lives? Expectancy Violation Theory can help us understand how stereotypes influence the perception of a person in an in-group and out-group. EVT proposes different actions that create the base of impact of background information on the growth of out-group and in-group. An article by Lee Jussim and Lerita Coleman explain that Expectation Violation Theory suggest that stereotypes contain information about a person’s personal aspects or attributes. This type of perspective proposes “. . . that when an individual’s characteristics violate stereotype based expectations, evaluations should become more extreme in the direction of the expectancy violation.” (Lerita, Coleman & Lerch, 1987, p.537) People who have a more favorable characteristic than normal should be rated more positively than other individuals who have the same characteristics of those who we expect to be evaluated positively. Vice versa, people who have a more unfavorable characteristics than normal should also be rated or evaluated more negatively than those with similar characteristics who are expected to be evaluated or rated negatively. With that being said, the authors also discuss the mechanism of augmentation and discounting which underlie expectancy violation effect. “The augmentation principle states that the perceived role of a particular factor in producing an outcome is enhanced when factors leading to an opposite outcome are also present.” (Lerita, Coleman, & Lerch, 1987, p.537) For instance, racial discrimination can be seen as producing or building more obstacles to the success

of African Americans than white Americans whether it’s being a lieutenant or CEO of a company or any other job. African American who are successful like Cameron are seen as

having

excessively favorable personal attributes, excellence, or qualities such as being ambitious, intelligent, or a person who is very well motivated. Maybe even more of an admiration than those who are white Americans who are equally successful. Therefore, the existence of interference augments the anticipated role of “. . . positive personal qualities in the success of blacks.” (Lerita, Coleman, & Lerch, 1987, p.537) The discounting principle suggests that the recognized role of a certain factor in creating an outcome can be destroyed by the presence of other irregular influences. Because of it, these same obstacles can lead viewers to observe lower socio economic status African Americans as having less unfavorable personal qualities than lower socio economic status white Americans. “In general, perception of obstacles leads to the discounting of negative personal qualities as a cause of low SES among blacks.” (Lerita, Coleman, & Lerch, 1987, pg.537) There have been many studies that suggest that although white Americans assume African Americans to come from low socio economic backgrounds, they may not grasp clear apprehension when it comes to white Americans’ socio economic status. This being said, the results say that upper class African Americans positively violate white Americans expectations but lower SES white class does not negatively violate their expectations. Another article suggest that “. . . every culture has guidelines for human conduct that carry associated anticipations for how others will behave.” (Burgoon & Hubbard, 2005, pg.149) Those guidelines and anticipations grow in our everyday interactions. Communication expectancies are a permanent pattern of predictable nonverbal and verbal behavior. When distinguishing information can be opened to interpretations or is absent, one’s expectancies can be stereotypic. The expectancies vary drastically from one culture to another.

“If expectancies are a fundamental principle of social organization or social information processing, it follows that they should also exist for interactions between unfamiliar and dissimilar people.” (Burgoon & Hubbard, 2005, pg.153) The level to which a culture is independent or the culture is collectivist can affect the awareness of, and the communication or interaction with, outgroup against in-group members. An example that the article gives us are Japanese and Americans. Japanese being collectivists and Americans being individualist as ingroups and outgroups in the interpretation of emotions. The conclusion suggested that most desired emotion expressions relied on the interaction between outgroups/in-groups and individualism. When collectivists interact with outgroup members, they express more negative feelings compared to individualist who interact with outgroup members, and individualist who interact with in-group members who express negative feelings compared to collectivists. “Prior experience with a given group should also determine the extent to which communication expectancies are grounded in stereotypes or whether any well-formulated expectancies even exists.” (Burgoon & Hubbard, 2005, pg.153) With minimal knowledge, expectancies can be experimental or can be adjusted with whatever the individual in outgroup can closely resemble. With that being said, the article also explains that expectancies are related to outgroup stereotypes. Another article discusses the challenges and limitations that Expectancy Violation Theory has. The article argues that the doubt that is in psychological, communication literature, and sociological has surrounded the definition or meaning of the word “expected”. Like any other idea of standard of average, the word can imply what is the usual or what is desired. Burgoon and White (1997) and Floyd and Burgoon (1999) attempted to create a crisper distinction by reserving the term “expected” for what

communicators predict others will do “predictive expectations) and applying the term “desired” for what is considered socially appropriate (prescriptive expectations). (Burgoon, 2015) The articles gives us an example, when an individual is kissing another in public, one may see that as unexpected in the predictive sense but it can also be expected in the accepted sense from the loved one who is far and absent. The theory analyzes which type of violation it pays attention to. A limitation that the article mentions for EVT is the lack of testing in “. . . broad demographic cross-section and in nonwestern cultures” (Burgoon, 2015) There was a prediction that the content of the consequences and expectations of the offense or violation can change in cultures as well as groups but the presence of expectations, the valancing of communicators with a continuation reward, the process with both, interpret evaluation appraisal, which then creates a reaction to the violation, and the capability of positive violations can be embraced of accepted. Expectancy Violation Theory is a big part of why an individual assumes the things and expect another to act that specific way. Take for instance Hanson and Peter’s situation. Throughout the entire movie, Hanson is a nice man who only wants to do what is right but when it came to the last scene, he shoots Peter. EVT can help us understand how stereotypes influence the perception of a person in an in-group and out-group, how each culture has rules for human interaction that will correlate the expectations for how others will interact or behave, as well as the limitations and expectations of the theory.

References Burgoon, J. K. (n.d.). Cross-cultural and intercultural applications of expectancy violation theory and interaction adaptation theory . Retrieved December 10, 2017. Burgoon, J. K. (2015, June 18). Expectancy Violations Theory. Retrieved December 10, 2017, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118540190.wbeic102/full Haggis , P. (Director). (n.d.). Crash (2004) [Video file]. Retrieved December 10, 2017. Jussim, L., Coleman, L. M., & Lerch, L. (n.d.). The Nature of Stereotypes: A Comparison and Integration of Three Theories. Retrieved Nov. & dec., 2017, from http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jussim/nature%20of%20stereotypes.pdf Orbe, M. P., & Harris, T. M. (2015). Interracial communication theory into practice (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage....