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Uncertainty Reduction Theory and Romantic Relationship Maintenance on Facebook

Uncertainty Reduction Theory and Romantic Relationship Maintenance on Facebook

Sarah Nieuwkoop
Wayne State University
Com 3400: Communication Theory
December 21, 2015

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Uncertainty Reduction Theory and Romantic Relationship Maintenance on Facebook
Social media has created a new and progressive outlet of communication for Internet
users. Before social media, computer mediated communication with friends and family was most
often carried out through email and instant messaging. Today, we can stay connected with
hundreds of friends on several different social media platforms, the most prevalent being
Facebook. Facebook users often utilize their easily accessible audience or friends list to post
photos documenting daily activities and to share important events in their lives such as job
offerings, graduations, and even relationship developments. Not only does this website establish
a way to stay connected with those who live far away, they also serve as a means of managing
romantic relationships. Relationship updates have become a major part of using Facebook. For
example, there is an entire section in a users About Me concerning relationship status. When
updated, this status is broadcasted out to all of the users friends. Although most times the
romantic relationships displayed on Facebook are considered close distance relationships (those
where the partners live close enough to see each other on a regular basis), Facebook still plays a
large factor in the nature of the relationship. So, how exactly does Facebook influence close
distance relationships?
Communication scientists have used Uncertainty Reduction Theory to explain the effects
that Facebook has on close distance romantic relationships. Uncertainty Reduction Theory was
created by Charles Berger and Richard Calebrese in 1975, under the main assumption that during
an interaction a communicators main goal is to reduce uncertainty about the other person, in
order to explain and predict ones past and future behavior. Berger and Calebrese (1975) (as
cited in Miller, 2002) defined uncertainty as a lack of predictive power of what the other person
will do in the given communicative situation. In terms of explaining effects of social media on
close distance romantic relationships, researchers have used Uncertainty Reduction Theory

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Uncertainty Reduction Theory and Romantic Relationship Maintenance on Facebook
because it describes that if one cannot reduce uncertainty about an aspect of their relationship
with their partner, they resort to Facebook as an extractive method of reducing uncertainty.
First off, how are these extractive methods of uncertainty reduction practiced on
Facebook? In 2014, Stewart, Dainton, and Goodboy conducted research to find out how
uncertainty influenced maintenance behaviors on Facebook. Stewart et. al (2014) hypothesized
that relationship uncertainty predicts use of Facebook monitoring of the other partner. To test
this hypothesis, they surveyed 281 students about their relationship maintenance behaviors on
Facebook such as suspicion of connections with members of the opposite sex that could be
potentially romantic and adding those friends of their partners. The second factor that
participants were surveyed on was their certainty of the status of their current relationship. Their
hypothesis was supported through the collected results; stating that a high level of relationship
status uncertainty in partners increases Facebook maintenance. Notably, this aspect of
Uncertainty Reduction Theory was originally proposed by Berger and Calabrese (1975). They
posited that high uncertainty causes increases in information seeking. Partners in this study
disclosed that they use the extractive information seeking strategy, which was described as using
the Internet as an information depository, to reduce uncertainty in their romantic relationship.
Consequently, this means that partners often feel obligated to reduce their uncertainty through
the use of social media, instead of going to the source of their uncertainty (their partner) to
answer their questions.
Relationship partners also use Facebook in different ways depending on the status of the
relationship. Fox and Anderegg (2014) looked at what types of information seeking strategies
Facebook users practiced most often when they were in each stage of romantic development
(before meeting in person, after meeting in person, casual dating, and exclusive dating). There

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Uncertainty Reduction Theory and Romantic Relationship Maintenance on Facebook
are three types of information seeking strategies created by Berger and Calabrese (1975); the first
is passive which is categorized as observation of the other in social situations. The second is an
active information seeking strategy, which involves asking others about the target, and the third
is interactive - asking the target directly to reduce uncertainty. Fox and Angderegg (2014)
conducted a survey of 517 students measuring how likely they would participate in certain
information seeking strategies (passive, active, or interactive) at four stages of relationship
development on Facebook. The results demonstrated that passive strategies of uncertainty
reduction were most commonly performed during the beginning stages of a relationship because
it is the least intrusive due to the format of Facebook, which does not allow the target to tell
when another person is looking at their profile. On Facebook, passive strategies could include
looking through photos, friends, and posts on the targets profile to extract information about
who they are talking to and what they are doing. While passive strategies provide the least
amount of accurate information and take the longest to extract, it ensures a feeling of autonomy
for those seeking out information because no one knows that they have looked through their
profile. As relationships progress, active and interactive uncertainty reduction is more likely to
occur. These strategies include adding friends and family of a partner on Facebook, posting on
their profile, and becoming Facebook Official. In addition to these posts being considered
interactive because they reassure that both individuals are invested in the relationship, they also
reduce uncertainty about the status and seriousness of their relationship.
Not only can Facebook be used to reduce uncertainty, it can also be the source of the
uncertainty. Fox, Warber, and Makstaller explored this idea of becoming Facebook Official as
a source of uncertainty in a romantic relationship. Fox et al. (2013) conducted focus groups of
undergraduate students and asked them about their experiences with maintenance and formation

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Uncertainty Reduction Theory and Romantic Relationship Maintenance on Facebook
of romantic relationships in relation to Facebook. They were looking to see if Facebook posed as
a source of uncertainty when it came to relational development. When asked about becoming
Facebook Official (or FBO) most students said that until they are FBO with their partner
they still have skepticism and uncertainty about their relationship. According to this study,
becoming Facebook Official means that the couple is agreeing that they are exclusive and
serious by posting it to a public platform. To reduce this uncertainty of not being FBO, they
must discuss the act of becoming FBO with their partner, and then agree to both manually
change their About Me settings to In a Relationship. The results of this focus group study
are a strong example of what Berger and Calabrese (1975) (as cited by Miller, 2002) called
global uncertainty - uncertainty about where the relationship is going. In order to reduce this
feeling of global uncertainty of not being Facebook Official partners must agree to declare the
severity of their relationship through social media.
Another way in which Facebook is a source of uncertainty is through the content present
on a partners profile. Fox, Osborn, and Warber (2014) conducted several focus groups and
asked Facebook users about their experiences with the social network being a source of struggle
and uncertainty in their past or current relationships. The participants explained that actions such
as their partner being tagged in a photo, adding new friends of the opposite sex, and talking with
people they did not know created a great deal of uncertainty. Upon viewing this activity, partners
said they often feel jealous and anxious because they do not know everything about said events
besides what is shown online. With this feeling of uncertainty, partners feel less intimate with
their loved one because they are not aware of everything going on in their partners life, yet it is
out on the Internet for anyone else to see. Berger and Calabrese (1975) (as cited in Miller, 2002)

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Uncertainty Reduction Theory and Romantic Relationship Maintenance on Facebook
explained this phenomenon in their original publication; as uncertainty increases, intimacy level
decreases.
Finally, partners can use Facebook to purposefully make the other feel uncertain about
the relationship. This type of relational maintenance could be used to create jealously in the other
partner or to make the partner contemplate the dynamic of their relationship as a whole. Planalp
and Honeycutt (1985) sought to figure out events that most often increase uncertainty in personal
relationships. To conduct research, they had participants complete a questionnaire about their
experiences with events in romantic relationships that created relational uncertainty. From this
questionnaire, Planalp and Honeycutt (1985) were able to place all of their feedback into six
types of events that produced uncertainty. Among these six were Competing Relationships,
Unexplained Loss of Contact or Closeness, and Deception. While this study was conducted in
1985 and social media was not a part of relational maintenance, these types of uncertainty
inducing behavior are applied on Facebook today. Fox, Osborn, and Warber (2014) more
specifically asked their participants about relational uncertainty as a result from Facebook use.
Partners admitted to intentionally manipulating their posts on Facebook to make the other partner
jealous. These acts could include posting pictures with members of the opposite sex (Competing
Relationships), not responding to messages or posts from their partner (Unexplained Loss of
Contact or Closeness), and telling their partner they are going somewhere, and then posting on
Facebook they are somewhere else (Deception).These acts create what Berger and Calabrese
(1975) (as cited in Miller, 2002) called episodic uncertainty - uncertainty that arises from a
specific event and this was posited to influence global uncertainty. In some cases, certain acts
of purposeful uncertainty inducing behaviors can lead partners to contemplate the relationship as
a whole.

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Uncertainty Reduction Theory and Romantic Relationship Maintenance on Facebook
Relational maintenance has been revolutionized due to Facebook. Research supports that
Facebook is used to reduce uncertainty, sometimes in different ways at ranging levels of a
relationship. It can also be utilized to induce uncertainty, whether it is purposeful or a result of
the format of the social media site. One extension of this research that could be explored is
maintenance of romantic relationships on Twitter or Instagram, which are both newer social
media sites that have a lot of potential for in-depth communicative research. These sites have
unique elements that could be specifically investigated to explain uncertainty reduction at play in
a relationship. Concerning Facebook, the research uncovered concludes that social media makes
it much easier to monitor romantic partners but does not always mean that this solves all
problems of uncertainty. Uncertainty will always be a factor of romantic relationships because
there will never be a way to entirely know the motives and cognitions of a partner.

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Uncertainty Reduction Theory and Romantic Relationship Maintenance on Facebook
Resources
Fox, J., & Anderegg, C. (2014). Romantic Relationship Stages and Social Networking Sites:
Uncertainty Reduction Strategies and Perceived Relational Norms on Facebook.
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17(11), 685-691.
doi:10.1089/cyber.2014.0232
Fox, J., Osborn, J., & Warber, K. (2014). Relational dialectics and social networking sites: The
role of Facebook in romantic relationship escalation, maintenance, conflict, and
dissolution. Computers in Human Behavior, 35, 527-534.
doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.02.031
Fox, J., Warber, K., & Makstaller, D. (2013). The role of Facebook in romantic relationship
development: An exploration of Knapp's relational stage model. Journal of Social and
Personal Relationships, 30(6), 771-794. doi:10.1177/0265407512468370
Honeycutt, J. (1985). Events That Increase Uncertainty In Personal Relationships Sally Planalp.
Human Communication Research Human Comm Res, 11(4), 593-604.
doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1985.tb00062.x
Miller, K. (2005). Theories of Communication in Developing Relationships. In Communication
theories: Perspectives, processes, and contexts (2nd ed., pp. 167-185). New York City,
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Stewart, M., Dainton, M., & Goodboy, A. (2014). Maintaining Relationships on Facebook:
Associations with Uncertainty, Jealousy, and Satisfaction. Communication Reports,
27(1), 13-26. doi:10.1080/08934215.2013.845675

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