Expectancy Violations Theory

Judee K. Burgoon
University of Arizona, USA

Expectancy violations theory (EVT; Burgoon, 1993; Burgoon & Jones, 1976) is an interpersonal
communication theory that makes the counterintuitive claim that violations of expectations are
sometimes preferable to confirmations of expectations. It also distinguishes between positive
and negative violations. Whereas most advice for communicators is to avoid violations of
expectations, EVT proposes that positive violations can produce desirable results.

EVT was initially formulated to account for the communicative effects of proxemics violations
during interpersonal and group interaction. Proxemics refers to the organization, use, and
interpretation of space and distance. Hall (1959), an anthropologist, had designated proxemics
as one of the “hidden dimensions of culture,” a sort of “silent language” that is used universally
across cultures and expresses well‐understood messages within a culture. EVT arose out of an
effort to reconcile conflicting views of proxemics in human interactions. Over the course of
almost 40 years, the theory has evolved, been extended to other nonverbal behaviors, and
applied to contexts ranging from interviews and interpersonal conversations to message
comprehension and persuasive discourse to marital interactions, conflict, and deception.

Reconciling conflicting research findings

In the 1970s, much of the research on proxemics focused on social norms for interpersonal
spacing, conversational distance, and use of territory. Studies had shown that seating
arrangements, seated distances and standing distances are influenced by several psychosocial
and demographic factors such as culture, gender, age, geographic locale, acquaintanceship,
and personality. For example, people from Mediterranean cultures interact in closer proximity
than do those from Scandinavian cultures. Men stand farther apart and with more indirect body
orientation than do women. Introverts choose more distance between themselves and others
than do extroverts. The type of relationship between people also influences proxemic choices.
People sit and stand closer to people they like, admire, and trust. They adopt greater distances
from those whose status or age is different from their own. In general, farther distances express
dominance, power, status and authority differences, dislike, repulsion, and other negatively
valenced states.

The International Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Communication, First Edition.

Edited by Charles R. Berger and Michael E. Roloff.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI:10.1002/9781118540190.wbeic0102
Proxemic norms are also associated with the purpose of the interaction and the physical setting.
Different distances are appropriate and adopted for different types of social interaction. Close
proximity is reserved for personal and private interactions and expresses such relational states
as liking, closeness, and attraction. People also adopt closer distances when they wish to show
approval or to ingratiate themselves with the target of the approach. Farther distances are
reserved for more social, impersonal, formal, and public interactions. A church or classroom
calls for different seating patterns than a bar.

However, closer is not always preferred to farther distances. A large body of literature on
personal space violations had demonstrated that people need a certain amount of spatial
insulation between themselves and others to achieve privacy and a sense of protection from
threat. Breaching another’s “personal space bubble,” that invisible sphere of space surrounding
each person, or another’s physical territory, such as a home or desk to which they hold claim, is
an expectancy violation. Violations of personal space or territory provoke a number of negative
responses. These include putting up barriers with personal objects, creating body blocks with
closed postures, leaning and looking away from the offender, fidgeting, glaring, and even fleeing
the situation. Presumably these negative reactions stem from excessive proximity creating
stress and arousal.

The various streams of research on proxemics norms and reactions to personal space and
territorial violations paint incompatible pictures of whether close proximity is desired and
produces positive outcomes or is unwelcome and produces negative consequences. Research
is equally equivocal on whether moving farther away than what is normative is a positive or a
negative. EVT was formulated to address these possible conflicts by synthesizing the research
from a communication perspective, by considering what communicators expect, what meanings
they assign to proxemics patterns, and what consequences are associated with alternative
distances and spatial arrangements.

The theory is framed in the form of propositions (Burgoon, 1978). Propositions state an
empirical relationship between two or more variables and are pitched at high enough level of
abstraction to generate multiple testable hypotheses. Scaffolding these propositions are the
assumptions that are widely accepted about human behavior and interpersonal communication.

Key concepts and predictions

The first key concept in the theory is expectations. As a communication theory, EVT is
concerned specifically with what people expect to do in interpersonal interactions. Expectations
are enduring cognitions about the behavior anticipated of others. They are a product of social
norms in a given situation and any individuating information that one actor has about the other
(Burgoon & Walther, 1990). For strangers, expectations are based on the social norms
associated with their personal characteristics like gender or culture, relationship factors like
status or trust, and context factors like the type of interaction and setting. Two young women
meeting for the first time at a friend’s dinner party will sit and stand much closer to each other
than two older businessmen attempting to handle a financial dispute. If it is normative in a given
culture to stand close enough together to be able to touch, feel each other’s body heat, and
smell each other’s breath, that is the expected distance. Who, what, where, and why will all
influence what is normative and therefore expected. If actors are acquainted, any knowledge
they have of the other’s idiosyncrasies, such as a tendency to carry on conversations at a very
close range, will allow them to “individuate” the expectations to take such unique variability into
account. The nature of expectations forms the first proposition of the theory.

Proposition 1: Distancing and personal space expectations are a function of the social
norms and the known idiosyncrasies of the interactants.

The same factors that influence norms and expectations determine another key concept:
communicator reward valence. In resolving the conflicting findings about proxemics, Burgoon
and colleagues realized that the desirability of close or far proximity depends on characteristics
of the person setting the interaction distance (hereafter, the initiator or violator) and how those
characteristics are evaluated by the recipient of the violation (hereafter, the target). EVT
assumes that in any interaction, people size each other up along a host of dimensions—
attractiveness, status, credibility, intelligence, charisma, and so forth—to arrive at a net
evaluation of how rewarding it is to interact with the other. This net evaluation forms the valence
continuum. If a celebrity moves in close, that is rewarding. If an obnoxious loudmouth does, that
is nonrewarding. Some characteristics may be positive and others negative. It is the
combination of all the assessments that a target makes of the initiator/violator that places the
initiator/ violator along the rewardingness continuum from extremely positive to extremely
negative. The rewardingness of the initiator plays a significant role in a target’s reactions when
expectations are met or unmet.

Unmet expectations are expectancy violations; met expectations are expectancy confirmations.
Expected distances are not a precise point but rather a range of distances. If the initiator of a
distance passes the invisible threshold that bounds what the target expects for conversational
distance, then a violation has occurred. Violations of the close kind cross a threat threshold: the
point at which another’s proximity instills a sense of discomfort and possible threat. The more a
violation departs from the expected pattern, the larger the effect. Whether it is a positive or
negative effect will depend on how the initiator’s reward valence is evaluated (positive or
negative) and whether the violation penetrates the invisible boundary that marks the point where
the target feels threatened. The second proposition formalizes the role of reward valence of the
violator, the direction of deviation (closer or farther away than expected, which may include
crossing the threat threshold) and the magnitude of deviation in predicting whether
consequences will be favorable or unfavorable.

Proposition 2: The communication outcomes of an interaction are a function of the

rewardingness of the initiator, the direction of deviations from expectations, and the
magnitude of deviation.

Three other relevant concepts are arousal‐distraction, the interpretation–evaluation appraisal

process, and violation valence. EVT proposes that violations are physiologically and/or
psychologically arousing, distracting attention from what is being said and drawing it toward the
violation. This assumption is grounded in other theories and research showing that humans
attend to anomalous and novel stimuli, even if they only register such atypical occurrences
unconsciously. The appraisal process describes what targets of a violation do to make sense of
it. The interpretation part refers to assigning meaning to the violation, if it is deemed to have
meaning rather than being accidental. Evaluation refers to whether the violation is judged as
desirable or undesirable. A target may judge an initiator’s (violator’s) approach as an attempt to
win the target’s approval.
If an approach from that initiator is welcome, the violation is evaluated favorably; if an approach
from that target is unwelcome, it gets a negative evaluation. Whether it is welcome or not is
influenced by the rewardingness of the violator. An approach by a shy but well‐liked friend will
be evaluated favorably and qualify as a positive violation. If the approach is from an ex‐fiancé or
ex‐fiancée, it may be evaluated negatively and qualify as a negative violation.

Conversational distance is an ambiguous nonverbal behavior that can take on multiple

meanings. Propositions 3 and 4 address alternative interpretations and evaluations that can be
attributed to it. Proposition 5 focuses expressly on the interpretation of extremely close
proximity, and how its threat potentially depends on the reward value of the violator. The
wording of these propositions has been simplified here. Subsequent revisions of the theory also
dropped the threat threshold, based on the results of field and laboratory experiments.

Proposition 3: When distancing is perceived as a statement of initiator’s regard for the

target, closer proximity is interpreted as positive regard, and farther distance is
interpreted as negative regard; when distancing is equated with threat, closer proximity
is perceived as more threatening and farther distance as less threatening.

Proposition 4: Extremely close proximity is perceived as aversive and produces

discomfort.

Proposition 5: The more rewarding the initiator, the closer the location of the threat
threshold.

The remaining propositions predict and explain how violations and confirmations produce
positive or negative communication outcomes. The theory says that both confirmations and
violations can be classified as positive or negative, that is, there are four kinds of outcomes.

Positive confirmations occur when the proxemic pattern is expected and initiated by a favorably
regarded interactant. A parent sitting next to a child on a sofa would be an example. Negative
confirmations occur when the proxemic pattern is expected but committed by someone who is
negatively regarded. A nosy, talkative aunt sitting down near her nephew on a sofa might qualify.
Positive violations occur when a favorably regarded initiator adopts a distance that is closer than
expected, such as  when a romantic partner snuggles up close to his date on the sofa. Negative
violations occur when a nonrewarding initiator chooses a distance that deviates substantially
from the expected distance. A disliked “touchy‐feely” uncle sitting right next to his niece on a
sofa would be an example. Violations need not be a case of coming too close. A loved one who
moves farther away than usual would be a negative violation. The valence of the violation is
therefore not due solely to the rewardingness of the violator but to the combination of the
meaning ascribed to the distance and the evaluation associated with both the act and the actor.
Consider a well‐respected supervisor who approaches a supervisee to chat. If she stands two
feet away, and the supervisee interprets close proximity as a message of liking, and the
supervisee views liking from the supervisor as desirable, the distance will constitute a positive
violation. If the same well‐respected supervisor instead adopts a farther‐than‐usual distance,
and the employee interprets a far distance as disinterest and views such a message as
undesirable, the act will be a negative violation. However, because distancing is ambiguous and
can be ascribed a variety of meanings, the employee may instead interpret the detached
distance as a sign of the supervisor’s preoccupation with work and a further sign of how
important the supervisor is. In this way, a potentially negative interpretation can be neutralized.
The theory culminates in predictions about how confirmations and violations affect
communication outcomes such as attraction, liking, credibility persuasion, and learning. This is
where EVT departs from traditional views of all violations as negative. It predicts that positive
violations produce better outcomes than positive confirmations, and negative violations produce
worse outcomes than negative confirmations. Translated into advice on effective
communication, and contrary to the usual advice to learn what is expected and match that, EVT
predicts that it is better to commit a violation than to do what is expected, as long as it is a
positive violation. Communicators who have high reward value have the best (though not the
only) possibility of committing a positive violation because their reward value improves the
chances of their actions being interpreted and evaluated favorably. Communicators with low
reward value are better off conforming to expectations because there is a chance that
deviations either closer or farther away may be interpreted or evaluated negatively.

The remaining propositions spell out these predictions. They have been recast and abbreviated
here because after initial field and laboratory tests, not only was the concept of the threat
threshold dropped but the theory was also expanded to apply to a wide variety of other
nonverbal behaviors. The propositions reflect more generic wording that applies to nonverbal
behaviors generally and is now often referred to as nonverbal expectancy violations theory.

Proposition 6: Violations are more tolerated and preferred by rewarding communicators

than nonrewarding ones.

Proposition 7: The valence of a nonverbal act and its violation status interact such that:
a. Positive expectancy violations achieve better communication outcomes than positive
confirmations.
b. Negative expectancy violations achieve worse communication outcomes than
negative confirmations.
c. Positive expectancy violations and confirmations achieve better communication
outcomes than negative expectancy confirmations and violations.

Research findings

From these propositions, many hypotheses have been generated and tested in laboratory
experiments and field experiments. As the theory evolved, it was applied to other individual
behaviors such as eye contact, touch, and body lean, and to larger constellations of nonverbal
behaviors that express involvement and immediacy (psychological closeness) (see, for
example, Burgoon, Newton, Walther, & Baesler, 1989).

The assumption that nonverbal behaviors constitute messages was put to test in a new stream
of research on relational communication. The investigations showed that some behaviors have
multiple meanings and incur a range of evaluations, depending on the rewardingness of the
actor, whereas other behaviors or combinations of behaviors have a narrow range of meanings
and reactions. For example, increased eye contact is ambiguous and can be interpreted as
anything from liking, approval, and attentiveness to dominance and aggression. However,
decreased involvement (avoiding eye contact, leaning away, and adopting an indirect body
orientation) expresses disinterest or disrespect (in Western cultures, at least) and therefore is
evaluated negatively. Predicting when a violation can have a positive or negative effect
therefore required more understanding of the meanings that nonverbal behaviors convey.

Research also probed whether violations elevate arousal and, if so, what kind. Of interest was
whether there are physiological as well as cognitive effects and whether both close and distant
violations provoke changes. Some of the key conclusions that have been supported are:

• Expectancies do guide behavior and have persistent effects on interaction.

• Communicator reward valence affects communication patterns and outcomes by itself and in
combination with violation characteristics.
• Nonverbal violations heighten attention and create orientation responses.
• When violations are ambiguous or have multiple meanings, their interpretation is affected by
the violator’s reward valence; when they have fairly consensual social meanings, reward
valence does not matter.
• Nonverbal violations often (though not always) alter responses relative to confirmations.

• Expectancies do guide behavior and have persistent effects on interaction. For the theory to
be viable, it was important to demonstrate that expectancies are relevant and do have lasting
effects. Otherwise, if they exert little influence on how people actually interact, then violations
of those expectancies would also be meaningless. Experiments showed that the effects of
expectancies persist during the interaction and affect outcomes even in face of contradictory
actual communication, although the actual communication is more potent (Burgoon & Le
Poire, 1993).

• Communicator reward valence affects communication patterns and outcomes by itself and in
combination with violation characteristics. Highly regarded communicators, such as those with
high status, reputed expertise, purchasing power, physical attractiveness, similarity to partner,
or who give positive feedback, have more favorable meanings ascribed to their nonverbal
behavior than those with lower reward valence regardless of their actions. They elicit more
involved and pleasant communication from interaction partners than those who are poorly
regarded. Moreover, they are evaluated more positively on judgments such as credibility,
attractiveness, and persuasiveness. Other effects differ depending on how rewarding the
violator is and what kind of violation has been committed.

• Nonverbal violations heighten attention and create orientation responses. An experiment

showed that changes in conversational distance closer or farther away than the usual distance
elevated physiological arousal and created an orientation reflex (a change in heart rate
associated with attending to a novel stimulus) (Le Poire & Burgoon, 1989).

• When violations are ambiguous or have multiple meanings, their interpretation is affected by
the violator’s reward valence; when they have fairly consensual social meanings, reward
valence does not matter. For example, deviant conversational distances and touches can be
interpreted a lot of ways. If the violator is a rewarding person to interact with, socially desirable
interpretations may be selected, such as close proximity and an arm around the shoulder
being viewed as affection. If the violator is nonrewarding, the same action may be interpreted
as intimidation or condescension. A highly intimate cross‐sex caress, however, has fairly clear
meanings regardless of who commits it. Then reward valence only may affect the evaluation
of the act: desirable from a rewarding violator, repugnant from a nonrewarding one. In the
former case, the act may be a positive violation but in the latter case, a negative violation.
• Nonverbal violations often (though not always) alter responses relative to confirmations.
Positive violations typically produce more desirable communication patterns and outcomes
than positive confirmations. The picture is less clear for negative violations. Negative
violations produce less desirable outcomes than positive confirmations and outcomes but
sometimes negative confirmations are actually the worst. One possible explanation comes
from Afifi and Burgoon (2000), who discovered that an initial negative violation created
uncertainty and could be discounted, rationalized, or ignored. But a second violation reduced
the uncertainty, making a negative confirmation more definitive and therefore more odious.
Thus, the negativity of a violation may be tempered by whether it is seen as an isolated and
anomalous act or part of a pattern of negative behavior. The conditions under which negative
confirmations are worse than negative violations awaits further study.

In recent years, research has investigated how well EVT applies to computer‐mediated
communication and human–computer interaction. Results to date suggest that different
mediated modalities have expectations associated with them that can be violated for good or ill
effect, and that humanlike embodied conversational agents evoke the same kinds of responses
when committing violations as do humans.

Challenges and limitations

An ambiguity throughout the sociological, psychological, and communication literature

surrounds the meaning of “expected.” Like the concept of norms, it can connote what is typical
or what is preferred. Burgoon and White (1997) and Floyd and Burgoon (1999) attempted to
create a crisper distinction by reserving the term “expected” for what communicators predict
others will do (predictive expectations) and applying the term “desired” for what is considered
socially appropriate (prescriptive expectations). Kissing in public may be unexpected in the
predictive sense but expected in the prescriptive sense if from a long‐absent loved one. EVT
must distinguish which type of expectancy violation it addresses.

A potential limitation of the theory is the lack of testing among a broad demographic cross‐
section and in non-Western cultures. Burgoon (1992, 1995) hypothesizes that the content of the
expectations and the consequences of violations may vary across groups and cultures but that
the existence of expectations, the valencing of interactants along a reward continuum, the dual
interpretation–evaluation appraisal process, the reaction to violations, and the potential for
positive violations should be universal. Empirical tests are needed to validate how widely
applicable these principles are. Another challenge for the theory is to explain why different types
of nonverbal violations produce inconsistent patterns of results. The degree of ambiguity
associated with the type of violation may be a significant factor. A violation that is unequivocally
a negative message of rejection and exclusion or makes the target extremely uncomfortable is
bound to be different from one that is equivocal enough to be open to a more benign, face‐
saving interpretation. Outcomes of different types may also warrant some more tailored
predictions. For example, social judgments like credibility and attraction may follow a different
trajectory than outcomes like persuasion and comprehension. Absent an explanatory
mechanism that accounts for different patterns, the scope of the theory may need to be
narrowed.

SEE ALSO: Gestures and Kinesics; Paralanguage; Proxemics