Uncertainty Reduction Theory

Human relationships are fraught with uncertainty. From initial encounters between complete strangers to enduring close relationships, individuals experience uncertainties about their relationship partners as individuals and uncertainties about their relationships. Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) assumes that increasing levels of uncertainty makes communication between relational partners more difficult. Because people in relationships communicate to satisfy individual and relationship goals, high uncertainty levels undermine individuals' ability to attain goals, thus increasing the potential for frustration and reduced relationship satisfaction. Communicators must reduce uncertainty in order to tailor their messages to attain their goals.

URT was initially developed to explain why interacting strangers employ relatively ritualistic ways of getting to know each other. In American society, strangers meeting for the first time usually exchange factually oriented biographical information and reserve more private information, for example, attitudes and opinions on controversial issues, for later conversations. During an initial interaction, it probably would be somewhat odd for an individual to utter “I am an ex-convict” within the first minute or two of the conversation. Although people sometimes label background information such as “I grew up in Philadelphia” or “I attended Michigan State University” to be superficial, from URT's perspective, such information is they are unable to predict and sometimes explain others' attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Uncertainty is reduced when individuals can make accurate predictions about other's attitudes, beliefs, and future actions and when necessary, explain them. Communication rituals have emerged in encounters between strangers precisely because complete strangers are difficult to predict and explain. People persist in using such rituals even as they demean them as being superficial.

Acquiring seemingly superficial background information about individuals aids in the development of predictions and explanations. For example, consider the inferences a hearer would most likely make upon hearing different responses to the superficial question, “What is your occupation?”—the very kind of question typically asked during initial encounters. Suppose one stranger answers, “I am a neurosurgeon,” while another answers, “I clean beer vats in a brewery.” It would be reasonable to infer that the neurosurgeon has substantially more education than does the beer vat cleaner, although of course the beer vat cleaner could be an ex-neurosurgeon. Relatively confident inferences also could be made about their income levels. Exchanges of background information make it possible to formulate predictions about each other's attitudes, opinions, and actions that are yet to be revealed, thus enhancing the ability to create messages to reach desired goals. Inferences about such attributes as income could be based on the clothes another person is wearing, as well as on other nonverbal information. Thus, the process of [Page 1656]uncertainty reduction can begin well before words are exchanged in encounters between strangers.

It would be a mistake to conclude that high levels of uncertainty occur only in initial encounters between strangers. Uncertainty can arise in relationships when individuals say or do things that violate relationship partners' expectations. In many cases these violations are negative, for example, finding that a heretofore faithful spouse has been cheating or that a close friend has been saying negative things to others behind one's back. Such revelations dramatically increase uncertainty and, not surprisingly, are associated with increases in negative affect, as noted in 1985 by Sally Planalp and James Honeycutt. Positive expectation violations can occur, as when a normally inattentive husband showers his wife with expensive gifts. Of course, such behavior might fuel the wife's suspicions concerning the reasons for the sudden outpouring of positive attention, including the possibility that the husband might be cheating on her. In any case, even when individuals are encouraged to think of positive events that increased their uncertainties about others, they overwhelmingly recall negative events.

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