Communication today: Were Watzlawick & Co. wrong?

This article was originally published in German on the Leadership Network Lucerne Blog of the University of Applied Sciences Lucerne. With big thanks to Heather Fiske for her support in editing the English version of the text – Communication Today: From the Sender-Receiver Model to Co-Construction. 

What do you know about communication? It is very likely that you were introduced to a sender-receiver model of communication. And you have almost certainly heard of the 5 axioms of communication formulated by Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin (now Bavelas), and Don D. Jackson [1]. Even if you cannot list them off the cuff, we are sure the ideas that “You cannot not communicate”, or that every communication has both a content and a relationship aspect, are part of your general knowledge. Both the sender-receiver model from the 1940s and some of the 5 axioms of communication based on it from 1967 are now scientifically refuted [2].  And yet they persist: Communication is often still taught very much as it was over 50 years ago. Does recent research call these outdated communication theories into question? Yes. So, were Watzlawick & Co. wrong? Yes, in terms of some content. And also no, because for Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson in 1967 the 5 axioms were provisional formulations which could not claim to be either complete or final [3]. Who would have thought that even today many would take them at face value?  

Technology Metaphors and Their Influence on Communication Models

The sender-receiver model is a classic communication model on which many communication theories that are still in use today are based. It was developed as information theory in the 1940s by the two telephone technicians and mathematicians Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver [4].

And as is so often the case, the existing technology shaped the theoretical considerations. The metaphor, which is still used today, describes communication as a transfer process in which one person sends information and another person receives and decodes it. This idea was directly derived from the telephone technology of that time.

Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson were particularly interested in the observable interactions in human relationships that result from an interpersonal sender-receiver relationship [5]. With their 5 axioms of communication, which they formulated as hypotheses in 1967, they investigated these interactions. With terms such as information, feedback, black box, redundancy, and cybernetics, they too based their ideas on the telecommunication and control technology of that time.

 

Things have changed in 50+ years

Much has changed in more than 50 years. On the one hand, we live in a technologically different world today, with potentially new metaphors. On the other hand, we also have 50 more years of experience and research in the field of communication. And who could judge this better than Janet Beavin Bavelas herself, who was co-author in 1967 and who has evaluated the hypotheses of past decades as a communication researcher? When we asked her what has changed since 1967, she gave the following answer: “It was my goal to become a research psychologist. (…) And so, I have done that for 4-5 decades of my life. And that changes things. If it didn’t, we’d really be worried. If I’ve been looking at data for that long, and I found exactly what we said was happening in “Pragmatics”, I would be cheating. (…) In fifty years a lot of things have happened. (…) Some [of the axioms] have worked pretty well, others do not. » [6]  

Communication today: Ongoing co-construction instead of sending and receiving

How can we describe communication in a contemporary way? Bavelas and her research team provide answers. With Microanalysis of Face-to-face Dialogue, they have in recent years developed a video-based conversation research method that reveals what actually happens in conversations moment by moment. What they have discovered is that communication is much faster and more mutually created than what we would expect based on a sender-receiver model. They show that conversation partners influence each other every few seconds. Thus interlocutors co-construct the conversation together [7]. Conversation partners influence each other, for example, with their statements and formulations; with their questions; with their co-speech gestures; and with their generic and specific listener responses. Any of these influences can occur not just after something has been said, but continuously while the person is speaking. Microanalysis research can show, for example, that the way we listen strongly influences what the other person says [8]. With this understanding, our idea of conversation changes from something that happens in individual turns to something that we do together on an ongoing basis.  

Co-creating together

This difference between a view of communication as an alternating sending and receiving, and a view of communication as something we do together moment by moment, may seem trivial at first glance. However, this difference has potentially world-changing implications. While the traditional view of communication focuses on sending and/or receiving, this new view raises the question of how we interact together. Imagine the differences it would make if everyone realized that they, as conversation partners, are always jointly responsible for what happens; that they influence conversations just as much as their conversation partners; and that this responsibility and influence exists even if they are “only” listening. In this view of communication, the result of a conversation can no longer be assigned to just one person but is always jointly created. Statements like “My employees only talk about problems.” or “He talked all the time.” would change to “How can we interact more usefully together?” We cannot blame one conversation partner for either the content or the course of the conversation: Both parties are always involved.  

Further training on the topic Join our Microanalysis online course and get to know what really happens in dialogue:

• English: sfontour.com/microanalysis
• German: sfontour.com/mikroanalyse

[1] Watzlawick, Paul/Beavin, Janet H./Jackson, Don D. (1967). Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. [2] See e.g. Bavelas, Janet/Gerwing, Jennifer/Healing, Sara (2017). Doing mutual understanding. Calibrating with micro-sequences in face-to-face dialogue. In: Journal of  Pragmatics, 121, pp. 91-112. [3] Watzlawick, Paul/Beavin, Janet H./Jackson, Don D. (1969). Menschliche Kommunikation. Formen, Störungen, Paradoxien. Bern: Hogrefe Verlag. p. 57. [4] Shannon, Claude E., & Weaver, Warren (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana Champaign: University of Illinois Press. [5] Watzlawick, Paul/Beavin, Janet H./Jackson, Don D. (1969). Menschliche Kommunikation. Formen, Störungenk, Paradoxien. Bern: Hogrefe Verlag. p. 26. [6] Listen to the full conversation with Janet Beavin Bavelas at Czerny, Elfie J./Godat, Dominik (2018). SFP 10 – Episode 10: Seeing Interaction: Interview with Janet Beavin Bavelas. https://www.sfontour.com/project/sfp-10-seeing-interaction-interview-with-janet-beavin-bavelas/ [7] See e.g. Bavelas, Janet/Gerwing, Jennifer/Healing, Sara (2017). Doing mutual understanding. Calibrating with micro-sequences in face-to-face dialogue. In: Journal of  Pragmatics, 121, pp. 91-112. [8] Bavelas, Janet/Gerwing, Jennifer (2011). The Listener as Addressee in Face-to-Face Dialogue. In: The International Journal of Listening, 25, pp. 178-198.

The Authors

This article was written by Elfie Czerny and Dominik Godat, communication and leadership experts, Interactionalists, and promoters of solution-focused practices. They are co-editors of the magazine Persönlichkeit! and co-founders of SF on Tour. Learn more at www.sfontour.com

Statements such as “I didn’t do anything, I just listened” or “My employees only tell me about problems” show that very few managers see the connection between their listening and what the other person is saying. This critical connection is often missed despite the fact that listening and its effects have been scientifically researched.

Listening is an interactive activity

Listening is often understood as something passive, something that has no bearing on the story being told. However, research using Microanalysis of Face-to-Face Dialogue [1], which uses video analysis to investigate what happens in conversations moment by moment, shows that listening is something that we do visibly, audibly, and interactively.

As listeners, we do a lot in conversations:

• We confirm what is being said in a variety of ways: we nod; we blink our eyes; we smile; we confirm with «Mhmm»; we look the other person in the eye; we say «ok»; we reinforce with “yes, exactly” or “ah, yes”, etc.
• When something is unclear, we may frown; we widen our eyes; we keep our eyes open without blinking; we tilt our heads; we raise our fingers, etc.
• When we are amazed, we may open our mouths and keep our eyes wide open; we may reinforce our amazement with «Wow», etc.

All of the above are visible and sometimes audible signs that display our listening. In Microanalysis of Face-to-Face Dialogue, we call these signs generic and specific listener responses. Generic listener responses show the other person that we are listening. We display our listening with general behaviors that are not specifically designed for what the other person is saying at the moment, such as nodding, “Mhmm”, or smiling. Specific listener responses relate specifically to the content of what is being said. An example of a specific listener response is repeating a specific word or part of a sentence said by the other person.

What we do while listening is interactional:

• Listener responses are visible and partly audible: They show the other person that we are listening and signal the extent to which we can follow what has been said. Our conversation partners see, hear, and react to these responses.
• Listener responses influence the conversation: Our listener responses have a significant impact on how our counterparts continue with what they are telling. For example, if we are telling something and the other person nods in confirmation, then we will very likely continue our story. If, on the other hand, the other person is frowning and is looking at us with wide-open eyes, then we may become irritated. We might then depart from telling our story by, for example, asking a question, justifying what we just said, or trying to convince the other person.

 

Listening carefully enhances the storytelling of others

It is not only listener responses that are given that influence the conversation. Responses that are missing or that appear in the wrong place can also be quite irritating.

All of us have experienced this. We are telling something and the other person, who may be busy on the smartphone or computer, does not react to what we say – no eye contact, no nodding, no listener response – or they react in an untimely way – e.g. with an “Mhmm, Mhmm” after we ask a question.  We will likely wonder whether the other person hears or understands us.  We might even ask.  And it is very likely that the lack of listener responses will affect the quality of the story we are telling.

Bavelas, Coates, and Johnson (2000) [2] showed this pattern of interaction in their study. They divided narrators into two groups. The narrators in one group were listened to attentively. In the other group, the listeners had to count the words used by the narrators that begin with the letter “T”. The stories told were recorded on video. The recordings were then shown to an audience who had to evaluate who were the better storytellers.

The result is not surprising: the attentive listeners showed normal listener responses that encouraged the storytellers to continue telling their stories. The distracted listeners, on the other hand, reacted less to what was said. And as a result, the narrators who were not listened to carefully were rated significantly worse as storytellers.

As listeners, we collaborate constantly with our conversation partners. The quality of their storytelling is directly related to the attentiveness of our listening. If we want to hear good stories, we need to listen attentively.

 

Deliberate listening influences conversational content

But what should we focus our attention on? We should focus on what we want to hear more of. Listening is something we learn from an early age and we do it naturally. We may think, “We can do that. We don’t have to learn that separately.» That’s true. On the other hand, we can influence the content of the conversation through our listening.

We cannot listen neutrally. Microanalysis research shows that what we listen to makes a difference. [3] We often hear from managers that their employees talk only about problems. If we then analyze their leadership conversations with them, it becomes clear that they are making a significant contribution to that problem-focused conversation through their listening. They confirm, for example with a nod or an “aha”, when problems are discussed and not when employees talk about exceptions or goals. Or, they repeat negative aspects of the conversations rather than any words or phrases suggesting a more hopeful direction. These responses encourage the employees to go further into the problem.

Focusing on what we want to hear more about is worth it! If we want to hear more about exceptions, more about what is already working, more about employees’ goals or their hopes and wishes, more about their successes, then we want to train our listening skills.

We can listen specifically for these elements. We can confirm these elements in the statements of our conversation partners with our general and specific listener responses. And we can watch how our conversations will gradually develop in these wished-for directions.

 

Further training on the topic

Join our Microanalysis online course and get to know what really happens in dialogue:

• English: sfontour.com/microanalysis
• German: sfontour.com/mikroanalyse

 

[1] Bavelas, Janet/Gerwing, Jennifer (2011). The Listener as Addressee in Face-to-Face Dialogue. In: The International Journal of Listening, 25, pp. 178–198.
[2] Bavelas, Janet/Coates, Linda/Johnson, Trudy (2000). Listeners as co-narrators. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 79(6), pp. 941-952.
[3] Jordan, Sara/Froerer, Adam/Bavelas, Janet (2013). Microanalysis of Positive and Negative Content in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Expert Sessions. Journal of Systemic Therapies, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2013, pp. 46–59.

The Authors

This article was written by Elfie Czerny and Dominik Godat, communication and leadership experts, Interactionalists, and promoters of solution-focused practices. They are co-editors of the magazine Persönlichkeit! and co-founders of SF on Tour. Learn more at www.sfontour.com