Relational Uncertainty and Interpersonal Communication

Abstract

Uncertainty is a pervasive part of human interaction (Berger & Gudykunst, 1991; Brashers, 2001; Kramer, 2004). It echoes through the hallways of hospitals, corporate headquarters, and shopping malls. It softens the claims of meteorologists who forecast the weather on the television news. It surrounds expectant mothers and fathers who assemble to learn about the birthing process. It envelops the trading frenzy on the floor of the stock exchange. It permeates the faces of teachers and students on the first day of school. It blankets airport travelers in their quest to clear security checkpoints, board flights, and retrieve luggage. It pervades negotiations between foreign diplomats. It fills casinos and racetracks with excitement. It qualifies the predictions of pollsters on Election Day. It even penetrates dayto-day interactions between friends, siblings, and spouses. Perhaps because uncertainty is such a fundamental part of relating to others, it occupies a central place in the study of interpersonal communication. Uncertainty has received systematic attention for its role in shaping communication between acquaintances (Sunnafrank, 1990; Tidwell & Walther, 2002), doctors and patients (Brashers, 2001; Gordon, Joos, & Byrne, 2000; Mishel, 1999), employers and employees (Kramer, 2004), and strangers hailing from different cultural backgrounds (Berger & Gudykunst, 1991). Work on close relationships has investigated uncertainty between parents and children

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 57 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.