"The Dark Side" of Cognitive Complexity



Cognitive complexity is often looked at from a positive light, the more complex an individual, the better they are at effectively communicating their message. It makes sense then to rephrase this statement as “More cognitive complexity is equivalent to an advantage over others who have less mental structures and therefore less cognitive complexity.” Think about how this advanced complexity could be used negatively. While researching this topic I came across a research article that studied “The Dark Side of Cognitive Complexity”:

[See below post for definition of Cognitive Complexity]

“The current study provides tentative evidence that in situations where the communicative objective is to hurt one's romantic partner, cognitively complex individuals generate messages that are evaluated by nave actors as being more hurtful and more sophisticated than those generated by relatively less complex persons.”

http://www.udel.edu/communication/web/thesisfiles/bacue.pdf

I thought it was very interesting to think of how cognitive complexity can be beneficial to someone through both positive and negative messages. Either way, more cognitive complexity gives you the upper hand in conveying messages and effectively communicating.

I'm the oddball in my family; both my mother and brother are hot heads with a raging temper that often seems to cloud their judgment and fuel their anger. I'm the exact opposite, when something provokes me I sit and quietly contemplate my revenge and plan my comeback to any of the responses I think I might get during the confrontation. I can talk circles around my family when we get upset at one another. I use my cognitive complexity to win the argument.

Cognitive Complexity

Cognitive Complexity, as it relates to the Communication Theory of Constructivism can be defined as: the level of one’s ability to distinguish (and mentally organize) the subtle personality and behavioral differences among people. It’s one's ability to “read” people and the situations in which they are communicating in.

These mental organizations are called constructs which is basically just a fancy word for how one organizes people and their personalities. People studying communication measure cognitive complexity by the number of constructs that are said to be in one’s head.

Take the test!

(Shortened version of actual test done by scientists studying this topic) Think of someone you like, one of your favorite people, and use as many words as you can to describe their personality – exclude physical characteristics.

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It is stated that if you can name a lot of advanced traits about person- beyond words such as nice and funny – your cognitive complexity is higher than someone who was less able to come up with as many or as complex words. (The actual scoring rubric for this test is more intricate, but generally speaking, anything >25 would represent a high level of cognitive complexity).

Why is cognitive complexity relevant to communication?

The more constructs you possess à the more cognitive complexity you have à the better you are a creating person-centered messages à the better ability you have to communicate skillfully and successfully with others (or “communication competence”)

Person-centered messages are messages that a cognitively complex person has the ability to craft and tailor to a specific individual and context as to effectively convey their message. It is also the communicator’s ability to anticipate the response of the individual to which they are communicating with and constantly adjust their message accordingly to be effective throughout a conversation.

A simple example of this is the saying that, “You wouldn’t talk to your grandma the way you talk to your friends”. You would craft your message for the person, your grandma, differently than you would if you were trying to convey it to a friend.

Even at a young age we start to develop these constructs to categorize personalities and context in which we are communicating in in order to send the appropriate message.

The level of schooling and interaction we got as children can potentially affect our individual level of cognitive complexity. This goes hand in hand with the variety of interactions that we have with the people that surround us growing up along with the environments in which we communicated in. All these factors play a role in the potential that an individual has to increase their cognitive complexity.

How to increase your cognitive complexity:

Even just hearing,reading about, and understanding  this term helps you to be more cognitively complex because you can focus on and start to improve your ability to better mentally categorize people by their behavioral and personality traits.

You can become more cognitively complex by increasing your exposure and interaction with varying types of people in all different kinds of situations. The more you understand and practice communication the better you will be able to effectively communicate.

Expectancy Violation Theory

Short definition of Expectancy Violation Theory (EVT): When what people predict will happen in an interaction is unexpectedly different than the "norm" for that interaction, resulting in a positive or negative value being placed on that unexpected interaction.

What a relevant topic to start out with in our Communication Theories class!

In the stock market expectancy violation is a constant, yet unwelcome, occurrence-
the experts calculate that the economy will continue to grow and hardly know how to react when we hit an economic down turn!
Beanie Babies were all the craze in the 90s and everyone knew they would someday be valuable collectibles... but they have violated collectors expectancies by now being close to worthless.

http://laist.com/2013/07/26/bankrupt_by_beanies_chris_robinson.php

Here is what Expectancy Violation Theory means in regards to communication theory--

Expectancy Violation Theory explains how and why unexpected behavior violates and upsets others. People have a certain idea of how others will react in daily life and the circumstances that arise. When people that they interact with act outside of their predictions, their expectancy is violated.

It's also important to remember that communication is easy for people when they know the situation and everyone is operating in the social "norm". When someone violates this norm, communication becomes difficult because you have to reevaluate what you were previously going to say and come up with a new reaction to an event that is outside of your comfort zone.

It can take a long time to decide the valence of the violation that you are experiencing. Violation valence is defined as "the positive or negative value we place on an unexpected event". Some times you can have a positive reaction, maybe you think the violation is humorous or it is a good surprise that makes you happy. But it can also cause a negative reaction like in this video:

Introduction

Q: What is worth more; a dollar today or a dollar tomorrow?

This is a simple question whose answer defines multiple underlying principles of the financial world that I am constantly surrounded by.

My name is Sara. I am a senior at Oregon State University and I love it here.

As you may have gathered, I am Finance Major (part of the College of Business) but I am also Minoring in Communication. I am interested in this field for many reasons. I want to better prepare myself for future interactions with my clients as my career choice is to be a Financial Consultant. Even though I will be doing a lot of number crunching I will still be interacting with many types of people, from co-workers to management to clients. I am very interested in how others interpret language, gestures, and the signals that make up our society.

Currently, I am the Oregon State Finance Club president. I feel that studying Communication has also impacted my work with the club, helping me to understand how to present and inform the students in an effective manner.

If you would like more information on how to invest your money, hiring someone to help you do it, or just want to know more about finance in general, here is a god website to start you off: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/

Outside of school, I love to run. I am always looking for the next 5k, 10k, or half marathon to support a great cause. I enjoy reading, anything besides textbooks, and my favorites include: The Great Gatsby, Game of Thrones, and Jurassic Park. I love spending my free time with best friends, boyfriend, and family. I am from McMinnville (about 45 minutes up 99W) and go home to visit my mom and brother whenever I get the chance. We consider ourselves a “football family” and love to watch NFL games and my brother’s high school football games. Go Chargers and Grizzlies!

A: A dollar is worth more today than it is tomorrow because you can invest that dollar today and it will start to earn money!

This is me with my niece and nephews, the definition of how I love to spend my time!