Fussel, Kraut and Siegel (2000) discuss how interpersonal communication becomes far more efficient when they share more “common ground,” that is, when they are speaking the same contextual language. Last weekend, I took a trip to UMass Amherst to play a concert at a fraternity house, and this afforded me ample opportunity back on the Hill for remote communication with varying degrees of common ground.
This example is a conversation I had with two of my friends this morning. One of my friends, Matt, had joined me on my adventure. Another one, Scott, stayed at Cornell.
Scott: “The house is dirty”
Matt: “You should have seen the UMass frat castle”
Pete: “Yeah, that made our house look like a hospital”
Scott: “What are you talking about? There is food everywhere, the carpet is soaked and no one has done the dishes”
Matt: “sigh”
Matt and I shared a lot of common ground (Clark and Brennan 1991). We had experienced the UMass fraternity scene, and it made a very powerful impression (or scarring, if you want to call it that) on us. We learned the hard way just how dirty a place can get. We played in a place with writing on the walls, holes in the floor, no soap or paper towels to be found in any bathroom, and breathed in a delectable paint chips and asbestos cocktail every time we walked into the place. Scott, on the other hand, believed that a few misplaced dishes and some grime was dirty. He did not share the common ground that Matt and I had.
In fact, this lack of common ground became a serious problem. Scott began to think we were mocking him, or trying to get out of work, when Matt sighed at the end of our exchange. In fact, he was simply unaware that we were proud that we lived slightly less dirty lives than our counterparts at UMass, whereas Scott perceived us as desiring to live a more filthy lifestyle. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
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It sounds like in this conversation, common ground was a prerequisite for comprehension. It is a good example of how much people depend on shared information when they communicate. If the conversation continued, some grounding probably would have had to be done in order to cue Scott in to what you and Matt were talking about. It sounds like he misinterpreted, because of the lack of common ground. I guess it's easy to see how easily miscommunications can happen.
ReplyDeleteNice job showing how a third person can affect grounding, rather than just having two people, in a conversation. It's interesting that there is different grounding required for different people in the conversation. You and Matt shared the common ground of the experience at the other fraternity house, so there was less grounding necessary between the two of you. However, since no grounding was used, Scott misinterpreted the conversation because of his lack of common ground.
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