Griceian Manipulations and Manipulatures

By JLS
for the GC

WIKI HAS AN ENTRY ON 'IMT'.

Information Manipulation Theory proposes that in any given conversation there exists a set of basic, reasonable, indeed rational, assumptions about how transmission of information occurs.

This premise is based on the work of our mentor, good ole Grice.

Taken from his set of lectures at Oxford (1966, Logic and conversation, and 1967, Harvard) to writings in 1975 and 1989, Grice promotes notions regarding language usage that has come to be known as his theory of “conversational implicature” (CI).(McCornack, 1992)

Conversational implicature

Jacobs, Dawson and Brashers recount Grice stating

“communication is made possible by communicators’ mutually orienting toward general principles of cooperation and rationality.”

(Jacobs et al., 1996)

The vehicles that deliver conversational implicature are what Grice refers to as conversational maxims (CM).

Conversational maxims can be used as dimensions to determine the degree of deceptiveness.

Conversational maxims

These maxims are as follows:

Category of
Quantity — relates to expectations regarding the reasonable amount of information that should be provided in a given message

Category of
Quality — relates to expectations regarding the veracity (truthfulness) of information that is presented in a given message

Category of
Relation — relates to relevancy expectations regarding the constraints of the conversation established by earlier remarks

Category of
Manner — relates to expectations regarding the way something is said
(McCornack, 1992)

Cooperative principle

Grice posits that the resulting ‘norm’ that arises from adherence to the conversational maxims, which, as good ol' Kantian maxims ARE universalizable, is by virtue of what he calls the Cooperative Principle.

These maxims are only totally adhered to in what is called

‘a philosopher’s paradise’

(a paradise without Strawson, who kept flouting them).

but generally these maxims can be adhered to within a conversational context.

Grice calls the obvious real world violation of a conversational maxim as a “flout”;

when one conversational maxim opposes another, this is referred to as a “clash.” (Jacobs et al., 1996)

In the case of the former this violation can happen “quietly.”

It is a major tenet of Information manipulation theory that the subtle and covert nature of these violations of conversational norm assumptions is precisely what makes a message deceptive.

A message a can be identified in terms of its deceptiveness dependent on where it is measured according to the dimensions of the conversational maxims.
(McCornack, 1992)

The initial experiments regarding Information Manipulation Theory confirmed that the degree to which a message can be determined to be deceptive can be coded and measured along the dimensions of its violations of the conversational maxims.

The deception by the receiver is experienced when the Cooperative Principle understood to occur is not adhered to by the sender.

This experiment also questioned the relative social ‘competence’ of full disclosure of available information compared to social goal or consequences. (McCornack et al., 1992)

The second set of experiments measure the effect of the dimensions compared to each other. It was discovered some violations were considered “more deceptive” than others.

Another discovery was that the nature of the relationship has an effect on the relative social ‘competence’ of full disclosure.

In regard to romantic relationships, full disclosure is more ‘competent’ because relational honesty was considered paramount. (McCornack, 1992)

Another significant experiment was performed in order to see if the results of McCornack’s theory could be generalized outside of Western, indeed Oxonian, cultures.

This was examined through the lens of the individualist vs. collectivist debate.

These two cultural poles are regarded as the most overarching themes of cultural identity and perspective.

With the U.S. regarded as being representative of the Individualist perspective, Hong Kong was chosen to represent the Collectivist perspective.

The dimensions of quality and relevance were regarded as deceptive, but not the other dimensions.

This experiment concluded that what is seen as “truthful’, what violations are acceptable, the motivation for those violations and what is understood to be a conversational maxim is dependent on cultural identity. (Yeung, Levine, and Nishiyama, 1999)

Another experiment performed by L. Zhou and S. Lutterbie followed the work of the aforementioned tests of Information manipulation theory.

This experiment concluded that the best way to apply the principles of IMT across cultures is to take a multi-directional, multi-prong approach.

This subject of normative actions in conversation should be approached with a top-down and bottom-up approach. (Zhou and Lutterbie, 2005)

IMT as it is applied in cultural contexts varies.

When evaluating Western culture it was discovered that all methods of manipulation were viewed as deceptive with manipulation of quality rated as most deceptive.

Conversely, IMT participants in Hong Kong only rated statements involved with quality and/or relevance as more manipulative and deceptive. (Zhou and Lutterbie, 2005)

Both researchers agree that the Bottom-Up approach is an effective method for examining general patterns of deception across cultures while the Top-Down approach can account for situational variations to explain deceptive behavior patterns in order to create an applicable cross-cultural IMT model.

Moral judgment

Research suggests young children's view of how information is perceived as deceptive varies as children grow older.

This variation in moral judgment suggests that moral development is critical in perceptions of right or wrong.

As individuals experience a series of (moral) developmental stages such as avoiding punishment, gaining rewards, identifying individual duty role in society to meet expectations of others, (Zhou and Lutterbie, 2005), different behavior modeling criteria is established through communication situations that cognitively stimulates and challenges moral judgment.

These stages, frequency and types of development models are theorized to be more or less universal across cultures.

However, moral judgment in IMT should be reserved for other communication theory that more distinctly addresses broad, generic cultural criteria patterns and specific requirements of societies to establish what does or does not covertly violate global conversational maxims.

Consequence resulting from the deceptive message

IMT supports the idea that deception may or may not be detectable.

When participants are asked to rate message features like how much information was false, omitted, equivocal and/or irrelevant, researchers can reasonably measure and describe such multidimensional deceptive messages.

However, the measurability results and conceptual meaning of degrees of deception and its impact is unclear. (Levine, Asada and Lindsey, 2003) Information that is manipulated on a continuum from trivial deception to important deception can range from socially acceptable to morally reprehensible.

The more severe lies are rated, the more deceptive the lies than inconsequential ones.

Deceiving others about important information is more likely to result in adverse moral judgment and/or moral condemnation.

The most significant criticism of Information Manipulation Theory has come in the form of the following two arguments:

IMT does not correctly interpret the writings of Grice's notion of Conversational Implicature, Conversational Maxims or Cooperation Principle.

This issue was addressed in a critical rejoinder by McCornack, Levine, Morrison, and Lapinski (McCornack et al., 2005).

IMT provides an explanation for the multiple ways in which deception can occur but it does not predict what conversational maxims a person may violate.

Only that the violation will occur within the certain realm of possibilities or scenarios provided.

IMT predicts and analyzes the methods of deception a person uses by determining what information will be eliminated.

IMT testing predictions can be made more accurate by use of a different set of information dimensions.

This issue was also addressed in a critical rejoinder by McCornack, Levine, Morrison, and Lapinski (McCornack et al., 2005).

IMT is a value conscious communication theory.

The researcher must judge and develop criteria for what may be considered deceptiveness.

While violations of the maxim of quality and quantity are more or less objectively derived, violations of relation and manner are largely subjectively assessed.

For this reason the researcher must be aware of his/her own bias, value and belief systems and incorporate these predispositions when making these judgments.

Researchers must also construct sound, qualitative/quantitative evaluative criteria to optimize and legitimize the integrity and credibility of their work.

REFERENCES

Buller, D., Burgoon, J. (1992).
Another look at information management: A rejoinder to McCornack, Levine, Morrison and Lapinski. Communication Monographs, Volume 59. pp. 92–98.

Buller, D.B., Burgoon, J.K.,
Emotional Expression in the Deception Process, In P.A. Andersen, L. Guerrero Eds.), Handbook of Communication and Emotion: Research, theory, applications, and contexts. San Diego: Academic Press. Pages 381-402.

Grice, H. P. 1938. Privation and negation.
-- 1989. Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.

Jacobs, S., Dawson, J., Brashers, D., (1996). Communication Monographs, Volume 63, March 1996, pages 71–82.

Levine, T., Asada, K., Lindsey, L.
The Relative Impact of Violation Type and Lie Severity on Judgments of Message Deceitfulness, Communication Research Reports, Volume 20, Number 3, pages 208-218.

Levine, T., Lapinski, M., Banas, J., Wong, N., Hu, A., Endo, K., Baum, K., Anders, L., (2002).

Self-Construal, Self and Other Benefit, and the Generation of Deceptive Messages, Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, Volume 31, Number , pages 29–45.

McCornack, S.A. (1992).
Information Manipulation Theory, Communication Monographs, Volume 59, March. pp. 1–16.

McCornack, S.A, Levine, T.R., Torres, H.I, Campbell, D.M. (1992).
When the alteration of information is viewed as deception: An empirical test of information manipulation theory. Communication Monographs, Volume 59, March. pp. 17–29.

Zhou, L., Lutterbie, S., (2005).
Deception Across Cultures: Bottom-Up and Top-Down Approaches, P.Kamor et al. (Eds.): ISI 2005, LNCS, pages 465-470.

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