COMMUNICATION STYLE PREFERENCES AND USAGE AS EMPLOYED IN A RANGE OF SOCIAL SITUATIONS

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Social situations
Social situations are defined as a given set of circumstances whereby several individuals affect one another. Sztompka (2016) believes it to be one of the components of social relations as well as an opportunity for such a relation to occur. In contrast, according to Szewczuk (2016) social situations are such circumstances whereby an individual's disposition constitutes a kind of response to the behaviour of the others or whereby such a disposition changes depending on whether other individuals are present or not. To complement the above statements, let us turn to Znaniecki (1991) who pointed out three important components of social situations. The first component is the social object, or to put it simpler a unit or a community which a given subject affects. The second element is the anticipated result, which is an expected reaction evoked by the subject in the social object. The third element is commonly known as intended objective process, which may be the means to elicit social reaction. The process of interpersonal communication illustrates the phenomenon well, as interlocutors influence one another in order to achieve a desired effect.
Moreover, social situations are characterised by diverse context, i.e. all kinds of realities which accompany or enable communication process. These include physical, historical, psychological and cultural aspects. Physical conditions are determined by such factors as surroundings, atmosphere, temperature, light, space, time etc.; historical conditions incorporate all the referenced past events; psychological aspects are defined as the aspects in which individuals perceive each other; while cultural aspects comprise socially accepted values, symbols, beliefs and behaviour (Dobek-Ostrowska, 2004).
Another important feature is the fact that under social situations humans make decisions spontaneously or, at times, purposefully organised. Thus, actions of an individual may progress inadvertently or according to an individual's intention. Furthermore, such action might exhibit focused or dispersed mass character, as well as be of lasting and long-term or episodic nature (Borkowski, 2003).
That being said, social situations are an outcome of several factors, which seem interrelated and are capable of shaping situation dynamics. People tend to demonstrate a variety of attitudes when in contact with other individuals. Some patterns stem from inner motivation (the so called inner-directed behaviour, e.g. inspiration); others are formed by external factors (the so called other-directed behaviour). Interpersonal contacts may evoke egoistic or altruistic behaviours. Egoistic attitude entails a significant focus on the self and own needs, while simultaneously ignoring the needs of others. In contrast, altruistic (prosocial) attitude entails friendliness towards others, an interest in their needs and readiness to offer support (Wierzejska, 2016).
Also, we distinguish social behaviour defined by creative or dogmatic traits. Creative behaviour is characteristic of open-mined, tolerant and flexible individuals; whereas dogmatic attitudes are noticeable in individuals who impose strict and rigid rules whenever in contact with other individuals. Moreover, a behaviour might be categorised as active or passive. Active behaviour is here understood as individual actions performed while entering into an interaction with other participants. In contrast, passive attitude evinces lack of commitment to social relations. Additionally, individuals of passive attitude also tend to surrender to the course of interaction and await further development.
Behaviour intended to avoid interpersonal contact or relational distancing provides textbook examples of passive attitude (Borkowski, 2003).
What is more, the nature of social situations requires participants to enter a range of interactions. Such interactions could be defined as a mutual influence of two or more units (such as a community, an organisation or an institution) which acknowledge one another, i.e. they enter a given social situation. Furthermore, in the process of interaction individual or group participants engage each other both as a subject which affects other participants as well as a subject which experiences such an influence. According to Turner, interactions which occur at social planes depend on the roles performed and are based on stereotypical sets of gestures. Also, social interactions result from a participant's conscious effort to recognise the existence of desires in people who need not be directly involved (Borkowski, 2003 (Kenrick, Neuberg and Cialdini, 2002).
By narrowing down the perspective to include only the physical properties of a given situation we fail to fully understand the nature of social behaviour. The issue should be approached from a participant's standpoint and include their perspective in such a way as to enable an insight into their perception of the world. Thus, individual feelings and sensations, subjective perceptions and impressions, which arise in particular circumstances should be considered when interpreting a given phenomenon (Aronson, 1997). control their private and public self; the former remains entirely hidden in front of other people, unless we choose to be honest with ourselves; the latter constitutes our public image or our face, which we manifest to the world and other people (Goffman, 2011). A question, thus, follows whether the nature of our behaviour remains constant or changes depending on the situation. Trait theory stipulates that personality traits form the basis of cognitive mechanisms, whereas other theories indicate that the reverse is true and it is the cognitive processes that lay the foundations to processes by which personality traits emerge. Despite a rich research tradition, several questions seem to have been overlooked (Funder, 2006(Funder, , 2007Leikas et al., 2012). For example, whether or not personality exerts a stronger influence under specific circumstances or whether there is a varied time limit under similar circumstances (Cooper & Withney, 2009;Funder, 2009a). What is stressed is the necessity to observe individual behaviour in a variety of situations, although, just two situations may reveal important findings (Funder & Colvin, 1991).
In accordance with Wiggins' model (1980) social behaviour may be plotted on two perpendicular dimensions.
The vertical agentic dimension includes interests related to autonomy and control spread on a cline from dominance to submission. The horizontal communal dimension includes interests related to communion spread between quarrelsomeness and agreeableness. Interpersonal Circumplex provides content and allows to conceptualise everyday social behaviour. Moskowitz (1994) claims that the interpersonal circle may be used to conceptualise both interpersonal behaviour and situations. According to interpersonal psychologists, in response to the initial behaviour of every individual there tends to emerge a complimentary set of reactions (Kiesler, 1983;Leary, 1957)  The rules of complementarity were assumed probabilistic in character, while individuals could display ideographic pat-terns of behaviour in situations which deviate to a degree from nomothetic rules of complementarity. It follows, then, that key traits of interpersonal situations are coded and designated in terms of individual goals, convictions, expectations and competence. Every individual is unique and as such negotiates the meaning of an interpersonal situation idiosyncratically. Even though ideographic approach to interpersonal circle is expected, the behavioural responses should align into a nomothetic structure and organisation, as regards both individual behaviour and the interaction between each participant in accordance with the two dimensions of the circumplex. A few assumptions regarding the structure and behavioural stability in day-to-day social cooperation were made: A common meaning for a given interpersonal situation is established; all participants will at least to a degree comply with the rules of complementarity to preserve the nomothetic organisation of a given situation.
A specific understanding is established for a given rule; all participants will at least to a degree deviate from the rule of complementarity displaying an ideographic organisation; removal of the influence of nomothetic situation should reveal unique disposition and signature of each participant, which forms the basis of individual differences.
The interpersonal circumplex represents the organisation of interpersonal behaviour adequately. Participants' behaviour should show a two dimensional structure.
Research showed that the rules of complementarity are a human convention and result from cooperation. However, the submission factor turned out to be lower then expected in a situation where the other participants displayed both agreeableness and dominance.
Furthermore, research revealed an intra-individual and inter-individual variation in the behavioural pattern.
Behaviour in a given situation is stable and varied to a degree, which, according to the researchers, proves the trait theory approach, but does not exclude other factors .
Research by Fournier, Moskowitz & Zuroff (2008) evidenced that human behaviour follows a two dimensional structure. Dominance was significantly and inversely correspondent to submission, agreeableness was significantly and inversely correlated with quarrelsomeness. The correlation for each opposite of the same cline were at least two times greater than correlations for adjoining sectors. Mischel, 1973). A person may assume that status winning dominance is correlated with quarrelsomeness, which subdues others. Also, others may lack behavioural skills to remain in a submissive relation. Thus, agreeable behaviour, i.e. a focus on the interests and needs of others, seems correlated with submissive behaviour, which forfeits one's own interests and needs. Similarly, submission need not counter dominance, as interpersonal motivation and goals come into play, too.

Communication in social situations
Human behaviour varies across a range of situations depending on the goals, motivation and competence, including communicative competence. Often, research participants wanted to behave in a specific manner, however, they could not, as they did not posses specialised competences; they wanted to communicate a certain message, but they lacked communicative competence to do so.
Communicative competence is also a social behaviour.
Communicative competence is defines as a usage of verbal or non verbal behaviour to achieve a preferred goal in a context-appropriate way (Morreale et al., 2012).
What is noteworthy is the fact that the higher the motivational level, knowledge and personal skills of the communicators, the more likely are they to communicate compe- While communicating with other people we make use of a context, which delineates the framework of a given interaction. According to Spitzberg & Brunner (1991)  Additionally, dominating your interlocutor is but one of the goals, with attempts at intimacy or hostility constituting other major drives (Morreale, 2012).
To sum up, as Znaniecki formulated it, communication in a social situation is a social process, while verbal symbols used in the process comprise a cultural element.
The content and meaning of each symbol are available to all interested parties. Moreover, the process of communication occurs under a set of particular circumstances.
There is a mutual relation between the process of communication and a situation. The process of communication impacts the social situation, especially its form and interlocutors' power that co-occur in the situation. In turn, communicative situations give rise to an opportunity of communication exchange and influence it by means of social, cultural, ecological, demographic, topical and other as-of communication and fellow interlocutors (Frydrychowicz, 2017).

Competent communication requires continuous
adjustments to the changing situation in a way that does not inhibit achieving the set goals in an appropriate manner.
Thus, utterances formulated during such communication have to allow maximum effectiveness and propriety.
Research was aimed at establishing whether situations differentiate the use of utterance styles. Two speaker oriented situations were posited. The first was termed Speaker-Threatening Situation (STS); the second included a Situation where Speaker Assertiveness was Needed (SAN). Similarly, two addressee oriented situations were also posited: Addressee-Threatening Situation (ATS) and a Situation where Addressee Assertiveness was Needed (AAN).
An additional aim was to verify whether there existed a difference between an actually formulated type of utterance and the need to formulate in a given utterance style.
The additional aim was based on an assumption that communication participants may not possess the competences required to formulate a given type of an utterance.
The following hypothesis were postulated: Hypotheses 1: There are differences in the utterance styles as actually formulated in speaker-threatening situations and addressee-threatening situations.
Hypotheses 2: There are differences in the utterance styles as actually formulated in a situation where speaker assertiveness and where addressee assertiveness is needed.
Hypotheses 3: There are differences in the need to formulate an utterance in a given style in speakerthreatening situation and addressee-threatening situation.
Hypotheses 4: There are differences in the need to formulate an utterance in a given style in a situation where speaker assertiveness and where addressee assertiveness is needed.
Considering that utterances formed in a particular style may carry such associations unintentionally, we often feel like reacting otherwise in a specific situation. Thus, a few additional hypothesis were postulated assuming that there are differences between the need to formulate an utterance in a given style and its actual formulation dependant on the type of situation as differentiated above.
Hypotheses 5: There are differences in the utterance styles as actually formulated and the need to formulate them in speaker-threatening situations.
Hypotheses 6: There are differences in the utterance styles as actually formulated and the need to formulate them in addressee-threatening situations.
Hypotheses 7: There are differences in the utterance styles as actually formulated and the need to formulate them in a situation where speaker assertiveness is needed.
Hypotheses 8: There are differences in the utterance styles as actually formulated and the need to formulate them in a situation where addressee assertiveness is needed.

Research Method
Research participants were presented with a sheet, which contained four stories. For the purpose of Story 1, each participant was asked to empathise with the main character, who failed at a task. There were four possible responses given: assertive (self-enhancing), aggressive, affiliative and self-defeating 1 . The participants were to order the responses starting with the response most corresponding to their own behaviour and ending with the least characteristic one. Next, the participants were asked to re-read and reorder the responses starting with the most desirable or appropriate response, i.e. one they would prefer to formulate in a given situation, and finishing with the least desirable or appropriate (see Appendix 1).
Story 2 told of a different character, who also failed at a task. Participants were tasked with ordering res-ponses addressed to the main character in accordance with the aforementioned rules.
For the purpose of Story 3 each participant was asked to empathise with an employee, who has received a pay rise, however the increase was lower than previously awarded to other employees. The employee attempts to resolve the situation with a superior, but is refused. Participants were asked to respond and order responses in accordance with the aforementioned rules (see Appendix 1).
Last, while reading Story 4 participants were asked to empathise with a superior, whose employee requested a higher pay rise than the one received, and to order responses from the most to the least characteristic of their own behaviour. Next, the participants were asked to arrange the responses starting with the most desirable response and finishing with the least desirable one (see Appendix 1).
The procedure was meant to allow a comparison of utterance styles for each participant under two different situations: speaker-threatening and addressee-threatening context, as well as a situation where speaker assertiveness was needed and a situation where addressee assertiveness was needed. Furthermore, their need to formulate a particular utterance depending on the situation was explored.

Results
IBM SPSS Statistic 25 statistic package software was used. First, the basic frequency of actual and desirable responses was established. Analysis was carried out using dependant sample Student's t-test.
The analysis suggests that there exist differences in the styles of utterances actually formulated depending on the situation. A preference for self-defeating utterances was noticeable more often under speaker-threatening situation than under non-threatening context. Statistically significant differences also occurred for affiliative utterances formulated. These were formulated more often when speaker assertiveness was required (SAN). No differences were observed as regards self-enhancing and aggressive styles with respect to each situation (cf. Statistical analysis showed no differences in styles of utterance formulation with regard to addresseethreatening situation (ATS) and a situation where addressee assertiveness was needed (AAN), cf. Table 4. Affiliative and self-enhancing styles were used for both addressee-  threatening situation and where addressee assertiveness was required. Self-defeating and aggressive styles were used to a lesser degree (cf. Table 3). The latter style was least used when formulating an utterance, which disproves Hypotheses 2.
Analysis showed that there occur differences in the need to formulate an utterance in a given style depending on the situation. Where assertiveness was require on the part of the sender participants would have preferred to formulate more self-enhancing utterances than under speaker-threatening situations. This partially confirms Hypotheses

3.
There were no differences observed for a desirable utterance style as far as the remaining styles were concerned in situation-dependant usage. Either self-enhancing or affiliative utterances, as well as self-defeating styles were marked as preferable where speaker assertiveness was needed. However, aggressive style was rarely marked as desirable (cf. Table 6).
Also, no statistically significant differences were    Hypotheses 5 seems partly corroborated. Noticeably, participants tended to mark self-enhancing style as preferable under addressee-threatening situation more in comparison to those contexts where addressee assertiveness was required. No difference in terms of usage was observed between the utterance actually formulated in a given style and the need (or lack of thereof) to formulate an utterance in a particular style (cf . Table 9).
Analysis suggests that under addressee-threatening situations the participants would rather have used self-defeating style than they actually did (cf . Table 10).
Where speaker assertiveness was needed participants would rather have used the self-defeating style more, and less rely on the affiliative style then they actually did     Table 12).

Discussion and conclusion
Social situations require the means to react and adjust communication styles adequately. This research shows that there are situation-dependant differences in utterance styles employed by interlocutors. Message senders tend to differentiate their communication style to suit social situations. When under speaker-threatening situation, they prefer to formulate utterances in self-defeating style more so than when situation requires speaker assertiveness. This supports the claim that aggression prompts submission, which could be attributed to a perceived asymmetry in social standing between the speaker and addressee in social situations.
When addressee is of superior standing in terms of dominance/submission dimension, utterances which follow on the part of an addressee tend to strengthen the relation by means of accommodative behaviour. Speakers also less willingly resort to affiliative style under speaker-threatening situation than when situation is of less confrontational a character or requires assertiveness on their part.
In such situations, research participants appear to have assumed affiliative styles to be more effective and their interlocutor was classified as opponent rather than enemy.
Moreover, self-enhancing and affiliative styles dominate in either situation, whereas self-defeating and aggressive styles tend to be used less. Analyses suggests that the so called adaptive styles prevail, as they secure the self, damaging nobody's self (self-enhancing style) or they secure the relation without endangering the self (affiliative style).
What is interesting is the divergence between the need to formulate self-enhancing utterances across the two situations. A higher number of such utterances was expected where addressee assertiveness was required. The participants found self-enhancing style preferable and would have liked to use it more often in situations where opponents expressed their needs, yet were not treated as enemies or rule breakers about to be punished. This preference might suggest that refusal appeared problematic and employed strategies failed to maintain the speaker's own standpoint.
Interestingly, the need to utilise a self-enhancing style by the speaker in a situation of conflict is lower than the actually declared usage, which might imply that this utterance style is perceived as cooling and, especially where the participants felt subordinate, might have been considered less effective. The fact that self-enhancing style was applied more readily in addressee-threatening situation  An employee has promised to prepare a report on activities of his team. You have clearly stated the deadline. However, your employee understood the deadline was not firmly set, as such reports are merely a means of checking progress. The employee had other pressing responsibilities, which could entail company loss unless delivered. Having prioritised, the employee decided to postpone the report and provide an explanation later on. Once the deadline arrived you asked the employee to hand in the report only to receive an explanation why the report hadn't been prepared.

What's your response?
Please choose the response which best suits your style. Mark answers a)-d) with a number 1-4 corresponding to your actual preference, not what you would deem most appropriate, where 1 refers to your most frequently used response and 4 denotes a response you would never use. Use Roman numbers (I, II, III, IV) to mark those responses which you believe to be the most appropriate reaction in a given situation.

Siuation 2
You have promised to prepare a report on your teams activities. You supervisor has clearly stated the deadline. You knew, though, that the deadline is not a firmly set date as such reports are merely a means of checking progress. You had a lot of other pressing responsibilities and if you failed to deliver those it would have entailed losses. Having prioritised you decided to postpone the deadline on the report and explain that to your superior later on. Once the deadline arrived your superior asked you to deliver the report. You tried to explain why you had failed at carrying out the task. To which your superior responded: "What on earth were you thinking?! Since when is decision making a part of your job, this is irresponsible of you and you have even come up with a silly excuse. If everyone did that and missed all deadlines, we could never guarantee that task are completed".

What's your response?
Please choose the response which best suits your style. Mark answers a)-d) with a number 1-4 corresponding to your actual preference, not what you would deem most appropriate, where 1 refers to your most frequently used response and 4 denotes Which response is most characteristic of your actual behaviour? (1-4) Which response would you like to use or which you believe most appropriate?
(I-IV) D What on earth were you thinking?! Since when is decision making a part of your job, this is irresponsible of you and you have even come up with a silly excuse. If everyone did that and missed all deadlines, we could never guarantee that task are completed.
E I asked you to complete a task and I expect it to be carried out. I haven't considered the fact that this is not your only responsibility. Thank you for bringing that up, I cannot see how I missed that.
F I understand you explanation and you are indeed right that carrying out the pressing company task was more important. However, if everyone did that and missed all deadlines, we could never guarantee that task are completed.
G I understand you explanation and you are indeed right that carrying out the pressing company task was more important. However, I would appreciate it if you consulted such decisions with me in the future. I am always happy to listen to you.

Situation 3
You have just learnt that your employee has exceeded the set target and made up for all the backlogs at work, which improved you company's financial standing. You have decided to reward that employee with a pay rise, however you realise you cannot afford too large a sum. You employee has learnt about it and felt offended and unfairly treated. The employee has asked for a word with you.

What's your response?
Please choose the response which best suits your style. Mark answers a)-d) with a number 1-4 corresponding to your actual preference, not what you would deem most appropriate, where 1 refers to your most frequently used response and 4 denotes a response you would never use. Use Roman numbers (I, II, III, IV) to mark those responses which you believe to be the most appropriate reaction in a given situation.

Situation 4
You have promised to make up for all missing reports and missed deadlines and task within a month. Afterwards it turned out that the company has started an Employee of the Month programme, and your superior to show appreciation for your work performance and input has awarded you the title of Employee of the Month. You were given a pay rise. You have also learnt that the pay rise so far had been higher than yours. You decided to confront your superior on this. To which he responded: "You are right, however, at the moment the company is experiencing some financial turbulence, which is why I Which response is most characteristic of your actual behaviour?
( D I realise what you might feel now, so I will try to resolve this situation in a way that will make you feel appreciated. a response you would never use. Use Roman numbers (I, II, III, IV) to mark those responses which you believe to be the most appropriate reaction in a given situation.
Which response is most characteristic of your actual behaviour? (