Part VI: Opening
Large file: Patience please.
Insights through intrapersonal communication are found in various contexts of communication research. Each of these scholars is focused on something other than intrapersonal communication processing. Yet, each perceives a relationship to intrapersonal communication processing in her or his area of study. As we expand our perspectives, these articles can help provide an opening to other ideas that will help our field advance.
Television's Native Americans: A Search for Identity (Annette M. Taylor)
Faces and Voices: Comparing the Impact on Person Identification (Patricia Rockwell)
Intrapersonal Health Communication (Gary Meyer and Kim Witte)
The Pedagogical Effects of Interactive Video Instruction in Oral Communication (Michael W. Cronin)
Televisionís Native Americans: A Search for Identity
Annette M. Taylor
About the Author: Annette M. Taylor is an assistant professor of Journalism at the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio 45469-1410. She teaches writing and publication design. Before entering the academy in 1988, the Detroit native worked many years as a daily newspaper reporter and editor in Montana and Alaska. She also worked as a free-lance writer for publications based in the Pacific Northwest. Besides teaching, she is completing a dissertation in American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
Abstract: Since colonists first claimed the New Land, Native Americans have been presented in the popular culture as slowly fading into oblivion. Despite their importance as a source of dramatic tension in televisionís early Westerns, Native Americans usually were relegated to the background, portrayed in such generalized and homogenized ways that became transparent and anonymous. Later television programs, even with contemporary settings, pigeonholed Native people to fabricated tribes and cultures and in terms only relating to the land. The Native American characters on Northern Exposure offer an improved conceptualization of Native Americans, but the series still fails to escape televisionís racist past.
Perception: Watching this award-winning and highly popular series, we might consider what television critics have not:
1. Does Northern Exposureís representations express something new and better or merely cloak and redefine racism?
2. Does Northern Exposure, the one show now on television with Native Americans as regular, featured characters, challenge the stereotypes that have persisted in the popular culture for nearly five centuries?
Northern Exposure brought more than visions of Alaska to the rest of the United States when it premiered on CBS television in the summer of 1990. The series restored Native Americans characters to the little screen and became the first television program in more than 15 years to feature them in regular, prominent roles.1 Despite this phenomenon, only a handful among the scores of reviewers who critiqued the show during its summer debut and return the following spring even mentioned Native Americans. Millman (1991, April 8) in the San Francisco Examiner and Kitman (1991, April 20) in TV Guide noted only that Native Americans inhabit the showís fictional Alaskan community of Cicely. OíConnor (1990, July 12) in The New York Times specifically identified the character of Ed Chigliak half-way into his review, describing him only as an "American Indian" with an interest in films and music. A writer for Entertainment Weekly (1990, July 6) also noted Ed, calling him a "crazy Indian" who "proves" to be smarter than expected. Kasindorf (1991, May 27) in New York magazine briefly pointed to the character of Marilyn Whirlwind, describing her as "a round, beatific American Indian woman."
Geranios (1991) in the Boston Herald was one of the few commentators to allude to televisionís past treatment of Native Americans, thus intimating that Northern Exposureís characterizations might be different. Well into his review of the show, Geranios quoted Darren E. Burroughs, the actor who plays Ed Chigliak, as saying: "We try to stay away from stereotypical things, like Tonto or something. I like the way it [the character] was written, and it wasnít with a bad accent or stupid or anything like that." In the next paragraph, Geranios quoted actress Elaine Miles as saying that she was relieved that her character, Marilyn Whirlwind, was portrayed as a "normal person."
And that was that.
Maybe the lack of serious attention to the Native American characterizations on Northern Exposure by most of the media during the showís first runs was a positive sign. Maybe it suggested acceptance of the race and cultures that the United States government was still trying to annihilate less than sixty years ago. Maybe it demonstrated successful integration of Native Americans and native culture with the dominate European-American society. If Cicelyís multicultural community merely reflected real life, then critics would have little cause to expatiate upon it in their reviews. More likely, however, television critics did not notice the Native American characters or found them trifling and their cultural presentations nebulous. Critics simply failed to recognize the significance and potentialities of such characters and their placement in the show and on prime-time television.
Why should we be surprised? Ignoring Native Americans and dismissing their rich and distinct cultures have been habits in this country since the colonists first staked their claim to the New Land. At least until the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, European Americans in government and business championed policies of genocideñmurder, assault, and neglectñto make the natives disappear. Essayists, novelists, journalists, filmmakers, and television producers essentially accomplished the job by presenting Native Americans in fiction and non-fiction as perpetually fading into oblivion (Berkhoffer, 1978; Mander, 1991, November/December). For all the war whoops, tomahawk chops, and assaults on wagon trains in literature, film, and newspaper columns, Native Americans usually have been cast only as anonymous extras or secondary figures primed for defeat. For all the psychological drama in modern-day culture clashes, Native Americans still too often have been portrayed in such generalized and homogenized ways that they became illusive.
To most everyone else, Native Americans have been simply "Indians," the European misnomer for the thousands of cultural groups that once populated the Americas. From that mistaken tag was created a whole new identity enveloped in buckskin and feathers, mysticism and Mother Earth. "Indians" became monosyllabic heathens, noble but doomed leaders, drunken and pathetic fools, or trusty servants. While the popular culture periodically has presented both historical and modern-day Native Americans as complex individuals with distinct heritages, the term, "Indian," in many minds remains inextricable from the fabrications. To many people, "Indians" still are defined by what they are notñwhite European-Americans. As Berkhoffer (1978) pointed out, for "Indians" to be considered like everybody else, they must reject their culture. For "Indians" to be faithful to their heritage and traditions, they cannot, by definition, be part of the larger society dominated by European-Americans. Thus segregated, they face economic disaster and, consequently, illness and death. In any case, "Indians" face but one end: obliteration.
While Northern Exposure has revived Native Americans from virtual extinction on television (Gerson, 1980; Greenberg & Heeter, 1983), the mere presence of such characters does not necessarily alter the subtextual meanings that the media has historically associated with natives and native culture.
Popular Culture Images of
Native Americans
For many Americansñat least those of us born and reared east of the Rocky MountainsñNative Americans have existed only on television and film and usually within the confines of the nineteenth century. Education through books, schools, documentaries, and first-hand witnessing may alter the focus but rarely erases the image we were exposed to when young. Such is the power of myth (Barthes, 1972). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, television offered us as many as 28 Westerns per season, including The Lone Ranger, Cheyenne, Wagon Train, and Gunsmoke. Sunday afternoon movies on the little screen replayed such Hollywood classics as They Died with Their Boots On, Stagecoach, and Northwest Passage. At the cinema, we watched The Searchers, Cheyenne Autumn, and How the West Was Won. Memory tells us that all of those black-and-white and Technicolor Westerns detailed the lives of cowboys and Indians, albeit through fictionalized storylines.
In actuality, most Westerns focused on the cavalry, honorable gunslingers, father figures, and rich settlers (Himmelstein, 1984; Parks, 1982). Except for a battle or two with the "savages," the new Americans spent most of their time braving the elements or chasing cattle rustlers and bank robbers. The heroesí favorite steeds often got more screen time than any Native American (Brauer & Brauer, 1975; Tompkins, 1992). Hollywoodís "Indians" loomed over the horizon and provided the dramatic tension but rarely appeared as natural, sharply honed personalities with whom audiences could readily relate, let alone identify. Even as sidekicks, Native Americans were marginalized. The most famous fictional Indian of all, Tonto, always remained to the side of the Lone Ranger and rarely said anything. Daniel Booneís Indian companion, Mingo, was little more than a stooge despite his Oxford education.
Hollywoodís "Indians," when they did appear, generally fell into one of the following roles. They were bad Indians, who scalped, raped, and burned. They were good Indians who adopted white manís ways, served the white man, and helped him to clear the Plains of other Indians. They were noble but doomed Indiansñheroic, virtuous, and living according to their own cultural code of conduct. They had to be killed because there was never enough room for them and the new Americans on the same piece of property. There were saintly Indians who clung to their traditions but were too spiritual, too serene, and usually too old to pose a threat. And besides, they usually were safely confined to the reservation or a designated zone near the fort. There were defeated and pathetic Indians who needed protection. If they were to be saved, the new Americans were the only ones to do it.
When Hollywood tried sympathetic portraits and brought Native American figures to the storyís forefrontñmost notably during the social-consciousness-raising period of the late 1960s and early 1970sñit tended to merely reverse the stereotypes. It made European-Americans the bad guys, turned pro-progress tales into anti-progress tales or "anti-Westerns," and continued to distort historical evidence (Bataille and Silet, 1980a; Tuska, 1985).
Television rarely attempted any image adjustment and only a few times did it pull Native Americans from the subplot. Throughout the history of television, Native Americans have been featured as the lead characters in only about a half-dozen series, four of which confined them to the past (Brooks & Marsh, 1992; McDonald, 1987; Terrace, 1976a and 1976b). The first series, Brave Eagle, was a bold attempt to suggest the historical mistreatment of Native Americans. The underlying message, however, was doom. The program, which ran one season during 1955-56 on CBS, concerned a Cheyenne chief trying to safeguard his homeland from the oncoming settlers. Episodes related hardships of native people as perceived by the showís European-American creators and portrayed through the characters of a young chief and his foster son, Keena. Other characters included a "Sioux maiden turned Cheyenne," called Morning Star, and a "half breed" called Smokey Joe (Terrace, 1976a, p. 116).
Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans ran in syndication the following season in 1957-58 and featured characters created by James Fenimore Cooper, not necessarily the most credible source for accurate and complex representations. Set in the 1750s in New York State, the series related the escapades of Nat "Hawkeye" Cutler and his Indian blood brother, Chingachgook. These fur traders and frontier scouts helped the pioneers in settling and helped the army "in its battle against the constant Huron uprisings" (Terrace, 1976a, pp. 342-343). The showís characterizations departed not at all from the stereotypical roles of nineteenth-century literature and Hollywood films.
Cheyenne, an ABC series from 1957-63, featured actor Clint Walker as frontier scout Cheyenne Bodie, a man of Cheyenne descent and trained in the ways of both worldsñNative American and European-American. A drifter, the character might be found one week working as a scout for a wagon train or another week as part of a ranch crew. Like other Native American representations, this one was familiar to majority audiences: Cheyenne served a role, serving the new Americans. Stories had little to do with Native American culture, except for what the scriptwriters apparently believed was an "Indian" trait: Cheyenneís ability to track.
Law of the Plainsman, which ran on NBC from 1959-62, offered the most fantastic premise. A 14-year-old brave in Arizona is about to scalp a wounded army captain, but inexplicably relents and nurses the soldier back to health. The captain takes a liking to the boy and gives him the name, Sam Buckhart. Audiences apparently were supposed to believe that the boy had been nameless. Two years later, the captain dies and leaves his estate to the boy. Sam uses his newfound wealth to go to Harvard, which, amazingly for this time period, accepts him. Sam becomes a U. S. Marshal and moves to New Mexico. The weekly episodes related Samís capture of criminals and his efforts to establish peace between his native people and the new settlers (Terrace, 1976b).
It took Burt Reynolds, himself of Native American descent, to bring a modern-day Native American to the small screen in a lead role. The 1966 ABC series, Hawk, featured a half-Iroquois New York City police lieutenant, who was "a prowler of the night" for the district attorneyís office (Terrace, 1976b, p. 342). The series did not deal with Native American issues or identity unless one believes that Hawkís talent to see in the dark was endemic of native people. The series lasted only three months.
Seven years later, television tried another Native American character in a lead role. Launched during the 1974-75 season on ABC and pulled after only three months, Nakia featured a modern-day Navajo working as a sheriffís deputy in a rural New Mexico county. The basis of the series was that Deputy Nakia Parker sometimes finds his loyalties divided between his beliefs and tribal customs and the modern police practices and the law he was sworn to uphold (Terrace, 1976b). Whatever cultural conflicts he had, they were relegated to subplot. The series was a traditional crime drama with murders, kidnappings, and thefts (TV Guide, 1974, September-November). Only one episode emphasized Nakiaís "Indianness." He used his knowledge of the landñapparently considered by the writers as an Indian traitñto track a kidnapped boy. Another allegedly "Indian" characteristic was Nakiaís preferred mode of transportation: a horse.
These all-too-familiar images can be traced back to the early sixteenth century when Europeans not only began dominating the aboriginal people of the Americas but also information about them that was conveyed to the rest of the world. The Europeans and, later, European-Americans shaped images that embraced a dichotomy between savagism and civilization, which ultimately served to justify dispossession and extermination of Native Americans (Pearce, 1953). Writers, most notably James Fenimore Cooper, capitalized on the tensions, establishing a new American literature that celebrated that moment of confrontation "when social order and anarchy meet" (Berkhoffer, 1978, p. 97). As important as Native Americans were to the story, however, they had to remain shadowy figures. Cawelti (1971) writes: "[I]f the Indian represented a significant way of life rather than a declining savagery, it would be far more difficult to resolve the story with a reaffirmation of the values of modern society" (p. 38). In other words, to understand the natives as distinct human beings would make it harder in real life to kill them and steal their land.
The popular media confined Native Americans to a handful of tribes and cultures and then redrafted them to suit popular conceptions and political agendas. Alfonso Ortiz (1977, April) found that all Native American imagery comes from a mere five sources: the Tupinamba of coastal Brazil, the Algonquins of the United States coast, the Iroquois, the Cherokee and five civilized tribes, and the Sioux, the most dominant and long-lasting image. The core of this image, according to Scholer (1981), is that of befeathered, breach-cloth-clad horseriders on the open plains, living in tepees, hunting buffalo. With Hollywood perpetuating and reinforcing the image, modern-day audiences got the idea that Native Americans belonged only to Plains tribes, spoke the same language, dressed in the same clothes, and practiced the same religion.
Despite the 1960s counterculture interest in Native American spirituality, philosophy, and artistry and the pro-Indian movies in the early 1970s, Native American characters remained tied to the land and bound by images born 500 years ago. They were the children of a benign nature or, most often, beasts of a the dangerous wilderness. The underlying messages, whether the setting was modern-day or turn-of-the-century, tended to remain the same: the noble savage was always doomed and the assimilated Indian always abandoned her people.
According to a survey of minority representation on television by Mauricio Gerson (1980), 23 percent of all Native American characters on television during the 1970s were involved in fatal violent actions. No other ethnic group was shown so frequently involved in violence. Compared to European-American characters, Native Americans were three times more likely to be involved in violence. When looking at TVís violent villains, Gerson found that Native Americans again led all ethnic groups. Looking at victims, Gerson found Native American characters were the least likely to be the innocent party.
Even when they were portrayed as nice, average men and women, Native Americans were nondescript. According to Gersonís survey, only 25 percent of the Native American characters on television in the 1970s had an identifiable occupation, the lowest of all ethnic groups. By comparison, occupations of whites could be identified 82 percent of the time. Of those natives with occupations, less than 3 percent were portrayed as "professional."
Such distinctions would be difficult to notice, however, since so few Native American characters appear on television. When the popularity of Westerns waned in the early 1970s, so did the Native American presence on television. By the early 1970s, they represented a mere 0.3 percent of all TV characters (Gerson, 1980). Their representation since then has hardly been noted.2 For todayís youth, who have all but escaped exposure to the Hollywood parade of Apaches and Comanches, the principle image that remains, however faded, is that of war-painted warriors attacking innocent pilgrims. Native Americans otherwise are virtually invisible.
Popular Culture Images of Alaska Natives
Conspicuous by their near absence on film and television are Alaska Natives. Alaskaís history would seem to have all the elements for a good "Western" because of its indigenous peoples, outside invaders, and the conflict over the rich resourcesñotters, fur seals, whales, fish, gold, timber, and oil. The three major gold rushes to Alaska and the neighboring Canadian Yukon in the late 1800s and early 1900s especially provide all the drama of the Wild West stories set in Dodge City or Tombstone, as Jack Londonís stories demonstrate. But the gold rushes were stories of European-Americans, not Alaska Natives.
The most likely reason that Alaska Natives escaped the Hollywood treatmentñsome would say "mistreatment"ñis that much of the history of white contact lacks combat. Except for a few battles during the Russian occupation days, Alaska Natives never warred with the invaders and never posed a major threat. The Aleuts of the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands were quickly subdued by the Russians, enslaved, and nearly exterminated. After purchasing Alaska from the Russians in 1867, the United States government continued the abuse of the Aleuts until circumstances during World War II exposed government policy and forced some changes. Yet, in one of the most egregious examples of tyranny, the government kept the Pribilof Aleuts in a state of virtual servitude until 1984.3
The Tlingits in Southeast Alaska won a few battles early on against the Russians, but eventually they were forced to share Alaskaís southern panhandle. The Tlingits nevertheless escaped Russian dominance and maintained their way of life and distinctive culture by keeping the Russians and Americans otherwise occupied: playing them against each other in the trading business. The mainland, occupied by the Inupiaat Eskimos of the north and northwest, the Yupíik Eskimos of the west, and the Athabaskan Indians of the interior and upper Cook Inlet, was simply too cold, too bleak, and too dark to appeal to many non-natives. Those who did decide to immigrate found plenty of room.
Not until 1971, after thwarting construction of the 800-mile-long trans-Alaska pipeline that the federal government and oil industry desperately wanted, did the Alaska Natives sign a treaty and land settlement claim with the United States government. Alaska Natives were awarded 40 million acres, additional title to lands of special religious and cultural significance, and $1 billion. Throughout their history of contact with outsiders, Alaska Natives have managed to retain their traditional ways well into the modern era. Today many continue a subsistence lifestyle while driving three-wheelers and snowmachines past satellite dishes on the frozen tundra.
The image many Americans have of Alaska Natives comes primarily from film documentaries, such as Nanook of the North (1922), Eskimo (1934), The Alaskan Eskimo (1953), and Disney nature films, along with a handful of feature films, such as The White Dawn (1974) and White Fang (1991). Television has had virtually no input in the popular conceptions of Alaska Natives. In the history of television, only four shows, including Northern Exposure, have been situated in Alaska.
The first Alaska-based TV series, The Alaskans, ran on ABC during the 1959-60 season and told the story of Silky Harris, Reno McKee, and saloon-hall gal, Rocky Shaw. The trio goes to Alaska in 1898 in search of a gold mine that a love-struck prospector had left to Rocky. An avalanche buries the gold, and they head to Eagle City to gently fleece others of their gold (Terrace, 1976a). The following year, NBC tried the same theme with Klondike, which related the struggles of Kathy OíHara as she tries to maintain an honest hotel in a lawless town. She gets a bit of help from prospector Mick Holliday, who also serves as the love interest. The show lasted only four months. None of the material written about these two shows in encyclopedias or TV Guide mentions Alaska Natives or native culture. Other than the weather, then, the shows probably could have been situated anywhere in the West in the contiguous states.
ABC tried a modern-day crime drama set in Alaska in 1974 with Clint Walker as Cal "Kodiak" McKay, an Alaska State Police Patrolman. Alaska Natives evidently had a presence in Kodiak in that the lead character got his nickname from them. In addition, Kodiakís assistant was Native with the Native-sounding surname of Imhook. He was Anglicized, however, with the given name of "Abraham Lincoln." According to the synopses of episodes published in TV Guide (1974, September-October), the series focused more on the sceneryñit was filmed in Alaskañthan on Alaska Natives or native issues. The show was canceled after only four episodes.
In Northern Exposure, then, American television offers its first truly successful series to prominently feature Native American characters and, like Hawk and Nakia, to position them within the modern society as normal, functioning human beings. But where Hawk tried to assimilate its Native American into the dominant culture and where Nakia stressed an irreconcilable conflict between European-American and Native-American cultures, Northern Exposure attempts to portray the native culture as complementary to the dominant European-American culture. The Native Americans on Northern Exposure are not freaks, outsiders, second-class citizens, villains, or sidekicks. And most unusual for TV land, the majority culture here is better for the influence of the native culture.
Northern Exposure and
The Western Genre
Northern Exposure is based on the premise of a young New York Jewish doctor being forced to live in Alaska to work off his medical school loans, which were financed by the state. Dr. Joel Fleischman had hoped to serve his time in Anchorage, but instead finds himself in Cicely, a village of 839 persons. Weekly episodes relate the experiences of this foreigner and the other, rooted inhabitants of the frozen backcountry. Many of Cicelyís residents are Native American, as suggested by the crowd scenes, but seven of the nine leading characters represent people of Judeo-Christian backgrounds from predominately European-American or European-Canadian communities.
Just like the classic television or film Western, Northern Exposure has civilization meeting primitivism, social structure encountering anarchy, the gentry confronting the bushmen in the frontier. Fleischman, the well-bred and educated urbane citizen of Americaís quintessential settlement, enters the nascent town of Cicely in the middle of a wilderness. If this were 1950s television, a superior Fleischman would force an inferior, indigenous population of Cicely to adapt to his ways or get out of the way. He would clearcut a pathway to progress for the grateful settlers by subjugating the natives. He would be a Marcus Welby in The Big Valley, the ultimate "Frontier Doctor," nursing the spiritually deprived to moral health.4 Fleischman would be the hero.
If Northern Exposure were a creature of early television, the characters of Maurice Minnifield, the townís richest landowner and owner of all communication systems; Holling Vincouer, owner of The Brick restaurant or bar; and Chris "In the Morning" Stevens, KBHR-radio disc jockey and ordained-by-mail minister, would form the necessary male community like the team of men on Wagon Train who always supported wagonmaster Major Seth Adams. Maurice, Holling, and Chris would help Fleischman battle the elements, outlaws, and, of course, the Indians. As the crew on Rawhide looked up to trail boss Gil Favor, they would look up to Fleischman.
In keeping with Brauer and Brauerís (1975) definition of classic Western series, Northern Exposureís girlsñand they would be girls rather than women, no matter what their age or occupationñwould be adoring, submissive, flighty, fidgety, or meddling. The character of bush pilot Maggie OíConnell would be the schoolmarm with just enough intelligence, independence, and sexuality to suggest Gunsmokeís Miss Kitty. Maggieís role would be to woo and win or forever pine for the showís star. The Shelly Tambo character, Hollingís wife, would be the saloon-hall entertainer with the heart of gold and unwavering loyalty to her man. Storekeeper Ruth-Anne would be the meddling female, who always has something to say.
The Alaska Natives on Northern Exposure are easy to categorize according to the James Fenimore Cooper formula. Ed Chigliak, the teenager and film buff, would be the "crazy Indian." We would expect him to be slower and less intelligent than the non-natives, just as the writer for Entertainment Weekly (1990, July 6) seemed to do. Ed would be like Gunsmokeís Festus and would lend comic relief to the busy, burdened hero. Marilyn Whirlwind, Dr. Fleischmanís office manager and receptionist, would be the lovely and loyal squaw, a female Tonto to Fleischmanís Lone Ranger. She would speak wisely, but in clipped phrases. Having adopted the white manís ways, both Ed and Marilyn would be considered "civilized" and, as such, would be tolerated by the majority European-American community. The status of the other Native Americans shopping in the stores and walking along the street would depend on how well they behaved. All those "Indians" in The Brick would have to be closely watched, however, since everyone knows that liquor and Indians are a lethal combination.
The similarities in characterizations between the old Westerns and Northern Exposure are obvious, as the May 18, 1992, episode on Cicelyís founding, "Cicely and Roslyn," revealed. Indeed, some elements of the old Western genre bleed into Northern Exposure. There is a bit of the hero in Fleischman, the boyís club mentality in the other men, the ornamental in the women, the dim-witted in Ed, and the fidelity in Marilyn. But just as the real Alaska is a place where people can and do re-invent themselves, so Northern Exposure is a show that re-invents Western-genre relationships. The most significant alteration concerns the Native American characters.
Marilyn Whirlwind is nobodyís Tonto. She scrubs the examining room, holds her tongue, and maintains tranquillity, but the audience knows she is in charge, with knowledge and power to make things happen. In every conflict of wills or ways between Fleischman and Marilyn, Marilyn wins. Even in the pilot episode, Marilyn clearly comes out ahead. She needs a job, decides she wants to be the doctorís assistant, and, despite Joelís protests, goes to work. She lets Fleischman know that he will be making house calls and gives him maps along with patientsí charts. She lets Fleischman know that he will fly into bush villages to conduct childbirth classes, and he goes. By the 27th episode, in the middle of the 1991-92 season, Fleischman admits that he depends on Marilyn, trusts her judgment, and essentially considers her a partner.
Marilynís influence extends to the other townspeople, as well. When Maurice tries to launch a multimillion-dollar ostrich farm ventureñwith Marilynís ostrichesñand take most of the profit, Marilyn negotiates the better deal. When Holling goes off on a bender, moping about his insignificant life, she is the only one in town who can get him to return home. She goes to Hollingís mountain still, pokes her head inside the cabin, and announces: "Itís time to go home." And Holling does.
Marilyn can be annoyingly stereotypical when she slips into the role of wise, saintly chief, possessing "the serene wisdom of a tribe of elders," as Kloer (1991, August 5, p. D-1) wrote in the Atlanta Constitution. When descendants of Napoleon and an Alaska Native woman show up in Cicely to claim the frozen body of the French leaderís faithful companionña body that townspeople are considering putting on displayñthe television audience knows that Marilyn is behind the repatriation. The point is driven home at the end of the episode when Marilyn stands amongst the trees, watching the short Natives in their black leather jackets paddle their canoe into the mist. It is a scene right out of Cooper. Any tendency towards stereotyping her as Earth Mother is muted, however, by the fact that Marilyn cannot exclusively claim wisdom and righteousness. Store-keeper Ruth-Anne, as well as DJ Chris Stevens, also share such gifts.
Marilynís clipped phrases also are too reminiscent of Tontoís monosyllables to escape the negative comparison. Her limited speech may have more to do with the inexperience of the actress than the intentions of the showís writers. Although the character is a woman of few words, Marilyn is not stoic like Tonto. Marilyn registers emotion, intelligence, and superiority. She was noticeably angry when Holling, during the mayoral election, implied that all native people voted alike. She was noticeably in love with the silent Flying Man, who visited Cicely when the circus bus broke down. She was obviously sad to leave him. She did not want to be "just the Flying Manís girlfriend," traveling on the bus with no life or identity of her own. "I have a career here," she told him. She has been manipulative and calculating and has outwitted both Fleischman and Maurice.
The audience has seen Marilyn as a normal and average woman, who loves her family, eats at a dinner table, goes to work, and tries to be a decent human being. Marilyn adheres to cultural traditions, just as Christians celebrate Christmas and Jews mark Hanukkah. During the annual Raven pageant in a 1991 December episode, Marilyn related the real-life Alaska Native myth about how the Raven brought light to the world. The portrayal displayed all the respect that would appear in a scene of a Christian relating the story of the birth or resurrection of Jesus.
Although he may talk like a space cadet, the character of Ed Chigliak is nobodyís fool. He tends to be a half-beat behind, but that is due more to his age and innocence than his IQ, which is a high 180 (although it seems to have declined by the 1992-93 season). Realizations "hit" Ed like a tap on the shoulder or an unexpected kiss on the cheek. The actor who plays Ed sees the character as someone who lives in the moment, "each day noticing the sun come up with a childlike innocence," as Kloer (1991, August 5, p. D-1) noted. Ed looks at the moon and sees a bunny rabbit. Ed, too, defies the stereotypes, not only because of his intelligence, but because he shares so many traits with Shelly Tambo, the ditsy yet smart blond with the child-like innocence.
Ed, an orphan, has a strong affinity for his Native American culture and philosophy. He pays attention to spirits, holds a deep respect for his elders, and abides by tradition. He also appreciates his American citizenship, takes his voting rights seriously, and studies American history in preparation for his first time to vote. A child of the later twentieth century, he is a media junkie. He knows everything and anything to do with filmmaking, studies Igmar Bergmanís camera angles, and takes advice from Woody Allenís mother. From his small rented room, he corresponds with the countryís leading filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. His all-consuming passion is the very medium that has so distorted the image of Native Americans. Ed, however, is no relic but is of a new generation with a promising future.
Northern Exposure mixes up the other traditional Western roles, as well. Mauriceñthe Ben Cartwright of the showñassumes the role of buffoon, but one who has a knack for gourmet cooking, a love of show tunes, and a sincere yearning for love. Chris assumes the role of spiritual guide, waxing eloquent Kahlil Gibran, Buddhism, Zen, and all the great philosophers and poets. But this holy man is an Alaskan Adonis, ex-con, and petty thief with an African-American, half-brother, Bernard. Holling, the old adventurer and shootist, holsters his weapons after dreaming that all the animals he had killed were gunning for him. The Euro-American women are the least removed from their Western predecessors in that they maintain a definitional connection to men, but at least they are self-reliant and assertive. Rather than the Native Americans, the "hero" is the antithesis of the classic Westernís true American: Fleischman is Jewish and of Russian descent. He claims to represent progressivism and civilization, but we soon see that his vision is narrow and his behavior rude. Fleischman is the outsider, the "other," the one who must adapt.
The West As A Multicultural Community
The settlers who came to Cicely before Fleischman seeking tolerance and acceptance, learned to practice them, as well. And so must Fleischman. According to the old Western genre, talk of a 250-year-old spirit, a dead man returning to earth as a dog, and a white man becoming a "person of color" through the power of dreams would all be treated as bizarre, cultist "Indian" things to be stamped out like the misrepresented Ghost Dancers were on an old episode of High Chapparel.5 Instead, in Northern Exposure, when Ed takes his ancestral spirit, One Who Waits, to The Brick for a hamburger, the crew at the bar accepts Ed at his word that the spirit is sitting there on a bar stool. Sure it is possible. Why not?
When Maggie proclaims that a visiting malamute is her dead boyfriend Rick returned, Shelly, Holling, and Chris note how much the dog acts like Rick. Everyone is open to the possibilities except Fleischman, who assumes only his beliefs are valid. Like any Western hero, he points out the errors of these ignorant and silly people. In Cicely, however, nobody listens, and Fleischman, with some redeeming value, spies a crack in his limited world view. He asks two local Alaska Native men about reincarnation, interrupting their conversation about Japanese exchange rates, real estate investments, and the stock market. They respond that while reincarnation in various forms is well known, documentation about people coming back as dogs is inconclusive. They find no contradiction in participating in the modern-day society and holding age-old beliefs. Fleischman ponders the possibilities but cannot quite dissolve the notion of a dichotomy between "Indians" and everyone else, between wilderness and civilization, between tradition and science.
While traditional healer Leonard Quinhagak respects modern medical techniques and seeks to learn by observing Fleischman at work, the doctor dismisses Leonardís practices as quackery. In one episode, Fleischman diagnoses Shellyís rash as an allergic reaction but cannot identify the cause. He sends Shelly home with an ointment, which fails to work. Leonard talks to Shelly about her childhood and then suggests that she is shedding her skin to be reborn. Shelly finds the explanation quite reasonable and returns to The Brick to molt. Fleischman is livid about Leonardís interference but eventually is forced to admit his own limitations. If he could not be certain of the accuracy of his diagnoses, then he cannot be certain of the error of Leonardís. The episode ends with new, pink skin for Shelly and a lesson for Fleischman.
Northern Exposure, unlike its Western-genre predecessors, takes Native Americans seriously and views native culture as a viable alternative and beneficial companion to European-based cultures in the United States and Canada. The old Westerns rarely gave such consideration to native culture because, some scholars contend (Bataille & Silet, 1980b; Brauer & Brauer, 1975; Woll & Miller, 1987), audiences would have had to confront the possibility that those assaults on the wagon trains were justifiable responses to the invasion by outsiders. To find Native Americansí way of life plausible and their actions reasonable would have provoked questions challenging the foundation of Western society beliefs about manifest destiny, progress, civilization, and morality. And so the popular culture, spurred by moneyed and political interests, dismissed Native Americans as simply too different from the rest of society to understand.
Such ignorance can foment fear, as Fleischman discovered in one episode. Raised on Hollywoodís images of Native Americans, Fleischman resists a patientís invitation to adopt him into her tribe in gratitude for easing her arthritis. He says he has his own tribe and cannot see any wedding of the two. Then, reminded of stories about torture and mutilation in initiation ceremonies, he becomes terrified. When Marilyn threatens never to speak to him again if he fails to go through the adoption, he relents. The process begins with his "purification," orchestrated by Marilyn, who ultimately teaches Fleischman the value of seeking knowledge. First, Fleischman must give away all his worldly goods. Pained by the realization of his own materialism, Fleischman nevertheless explodes in anger over each disappearing possession. Then he must fast, and he gets hungry and cranky. Then he must search for a vision, but he does not believe in visions and becomes frustrated. All the while, he fears the upcoming initiation ceremony. At each step, Fleischman moans and complains, and Marilyn says nothing. Only when he finally asks when his present trial will end does Marilyn end it and move him to the next step.
Later, at the community center, Fleischmanís grateful patient speaks a few minutes about why she wants the doctor as a grandson. Tribal leaders give Fleischman a plaque and shake his hand. Fleischman stands awkwardly at the podium. His fears had been his own making. He offers his thanks, and then everyone sits to eat a potluck, thanksgiving meal. Fleischman learns, as he does periodically throughout the series, that all peopleñdespite differences in rites, religions, lifestyle, and languageñneed other people.
More than anything else, the series focuses on family, home, and community. Yet, while every non-native character has an identifiable family and cultural and/or religious background, the two native characters have been stripped of their heritage. Although Northern Exposure attempts to celebrate both the similarities and differences of all peoples and cultures, it has simply identified Ed and Marilyn as anonymous "Indians." The absence of clearly defined and specified countervailing imagery has put Ed and Marilynís ancestors in buckskins and feathered war bonnets, which in real life are associated with only a few tribes in the lower 48 states and no Alaska Native group.
Although "Indian" is an accepted anthropological term for one of the three major ethno-linguistic groups of Alaska Nativesñthe others being Aleut and Eskimoñit is not a term generally used by Alaskans. Most Alaskans refer to Indians by their different subgroupsñAthabaskans, Tlingits, Haidas, Tsimshian, and Eyak. While most all Alaska Native groups are represented in Alaskaís urban areas, specific groups tend to dominate populations of small rural villages. Athabaskans historically have lived in the interior of Alaska, and the Tlingits, Haidas, Tsimshians, and Eyak call the archipelago of Southeastern Alaska and the Cordova area home (Lantis, 1970; Laughlin, 1980; Morgan, 1979; Vanstone, 1974). Eskimos have made their homes along the coastal regions of Alaskañthe Inupiat in the north and northwest, the Yupíik in the southwest, and the Koniag along the Alaska Gulf coast. As far back as 12,000 years, the Aleuts have lived on the Alaska Peninsula, the long archipelago of more than 100 islands that stretches westward into the Bering Sea, and the two Pribilof Islands to the north.
Alaska Native groups developed diverse cultures suited to the many environments and available resources in the state. The Athabaskan and Eskimo cultures are rooted in a system that promotes independence. Athabaskans, whose cousins are the Apache and Navaho, and the Eskimos in years past lived in small family groupings and relied on the family head for food and direction. Athabaskans, more so than the Eskimos, were highly mobile, with no permanent villages, because of limited resources and need to search for food. Aleuts and Southeast Alaska Natives, who had the vast resources of the oceans at their front door, were much more sedentary and socially and community conscious. The Tlingits and Haidas, in particular, developed complex social structures and elaborate ceremonies and concentrated on amassing great wealth.
The art tradition of the Aleuts continues in fine grass baskets and ivory carvings. In Eskimo communities, men and women sculpt wood, bone, and ivory and make fine fur garments and baskets. Athabaskans, until recent generations, generally lacked much interest in art because the lifestyle afforded little opportunity. Tlingits, on the other hand, are renown for their art, especially the highly refined styles of form lines of animals representing clan crests or stories. This work can be seen carved on totems, screens, bentwood boxes, and silver, and can show up in non-traditional ways in watercolors and T-shirts. Tlingits also are noted for the Chilkat blankets, which originated with the Tsimshians and are made of mountain goat wool and cedar bark (Campbell, 1993).
Despite these major distinctions among real Alaska Natives, Northern Exposure confines its Native Americans, for the most part, to a generic group of "Indians." Marilyn comes simply from "Marilynís tribe." Until the end of the 1992-1993 season when he was briefly identified as a Tlinglit, Ed came only from "Edís tribe." By contrast, the showís writers from day one have identified Fleischman as Jewish from New York. Maggie, despite her Irish name, is a rich Protestant from Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Shelly is poor Catholic from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Chris of Wheeling, West Virginia, came from a broken home, served time in a state penitentiary, and has adopted an eclectic blend of religious and mythical beliefs. Holling, of royal French ancestry, grew up on a farm in Quebec, and Maurice of Oklahoma is primarily a child of the military, having enlisted at the age of sixteen.
Yet without saying so, the program increasingly has appropriated the Tlingit culture for Cicely. The town features totems, carved ravens, and T-shirts with the black-form lines distinctive of the Southeast Alaska Native culture, even though all locator references since the series premiere have placed the village in the Alaska Interior, home to Athabaskans. To add to the confusion, Marilyn Whirlwind early in the series wore a Cayuse-Nez Perce costume during a powwow attended by six-feet-tall Crowsñnovice actors from Montana. Marilyn then performed a dance endemic to the Washington-Idaho area Native Americans. The implication to the viewing audience was that the dress and dance were Alaskan when, in fact, they were not.
Then, at the end of 1991, Marilyn suddenly and silently adopted the ways of Chilkat Tlingits. During the community Christmas pageant, she wore a Chilkat robe and danced under an archway of classic Tlingit design. She told the Raven myth, a common Alaska Native story of the creation but then missed the Tlingit distinction of a second raven. Marilyn thus has floated in a tribe of "any Indian," which puts the character at risk of slipping into old stereotypes. By the end of the 1993-94 seriesñfive years into the development of the programñMarilynís cultural heritage remained nameless.
Long without any moorings, Ed already has lapsed into the manufactured "Indian"ña sidekick in some episodes and a New Age spiritual wonder in others. More and more often, he has served as Fleischmanís or Mauriceís servant, even though his tendency to wander makes him a bit unreliable and obviously less obedient than Tonto or Mingo. His new-found cultural identity at the end the 1992-93 season held little promise, however, for a new and improved popular conceptualization of Native Americans. Edís heritage came up only in context of its "dying" language. Ed decides to try preserving the language by convincing an elder to dub an old movie in Tlingit. Once again, Hollywood scriptwriters dim the lights on Native Americans.
An "Indian" on television today without a tribe, language, religion, culture, or occupation is hardly indistinguishable from the homogenized Indians of the old TV Westerns. In TV land, Marilyn might just as well be a Cheyenne in Navajo dress practicing the rights of the Hopis. What native group will she adopt next? Almost assuredly, however, the programís writers would never so readily alter Fleischmanís cultural heritage. He would never inexplicably become a Lutheran from Minnesota.
It is possible that Northern Exposureís producers and writers believe they are rescuing the term, "Indian," from its racist trappings. Northern Exposureís "Indians" indeed counter those in the old Westerns. The effect, however, is to subsume Alaska Natives into tribes of the lower 48 states and gloss them with Hollywoodís manufactured stereotypes, which they thus far had managed to escape.
Some critics contend that the media, in general, avoid dealing with specifics about real-life Native Americans and Native American issues because of the national guilt over a past government policy of genocide and the current legacy of social and economic problems on the nationís reservations (Gitlin, 1983). Guilt makes people feel bad and "it is not considered good programming to make your audience feel bad," a network executive reportedly once said (Mander, 1991, November/December). People who feel badly do not feel like spending money. And the purpose of television, after all, is to sell products.
Certainly the popularity of recent made-for-TV movies, such as Son of Morning Star, and Hollywood films, most notably Dances with Wolves and Last of the Mohicans which strove to be authentic at least in terms of language and dress, have opened the door to more realistic portrayals of Native Americans as distinct groups and cultures. These shows found acceptance, however, because they focused on the past and, in some respects, perpetuated the noble savage image, what some critics are now calling "the new Custerism" (Sarf, 1991, November/December; Seals, 1991, May 13). Mander (1991) argues that European-Americans do not know how to relate to Native Americans other than as relics. They do not see "Indians" who cut their hair and live in the city as "real" (Mander, 1991; Teegardin, 1990, September 6). Americans want to continue to think of Native Americans in romantic terms, even when they carry a briefcase (Martz, 1986, December 7).
The image of Indian as relic, even in modern-day society, has become so fixed in the American psyche that even United States Supreme Court justices, with all of their education, cannot erase it from their own minds. Justice Blackmun, with Justices Brennan and Marshall, in a 1989 tax case accused their brethren of betraying a "stereotyped and almost patronizing view of Indians." The case involved land development and the majority of justices decided that only "pristine" land could be "spiritually significant" to a tribe. The dissenting justices argued that Native Americans were being held to a "single, perhaps quaint view" of what it means to be Indian (Brendale v. Confederated Tribes & Bands of Yakima, 1989). Native Americans again are conceptualized only in relation to the land, nature, and images born 500 years ago.
Northern Exposure brings Indians to forefront and yet avoids provoking guilt because it deals with Alaska Natives about whom most Americans know little. Viewers can watch the series without necessarily "feeling bad," as Mander might say. Because the series ignores present-day issues about jobs, environment, land use, education, and subsistence living in Alaska Native villages, viewers can easily escape into a frontier fantasy, albeit one that twists the old formulas. Northern Exposure is sheer whimsy, a trip to a Brigadoon-like land where a bear can turn into a man, Sasquatch cooks French cuisine, and people steal each others dreams. The showís creators have said that the Alaska in Northern Exposure is not a place but a state of mind.
Hollywood film director John Ford may have felt the same about some of his Westerns. He was only telling rousing, good stories, giving the audiences some innocent fun, creating a bit of fantasy. Yet Ford played a major role in shaping the "Indian" image in the American conscious, an image that for most part is distorted, demeaning, violent, and anonymous. In later years, Ford regretted those portraits. He said his movies "killed more Indians than Custer, Beecher, and Chivington put together. . . Letís face it, weíve treated them [Native Americans] badly" (Woll & Miller, 1987, p. 330).
Conclusion
Northern Exposure is not a documentary. The show is not a history lesson about Alaska Natives. Nevertheless, television entertainment programs and other media need to consider minority groups in more realistic, accurate terms. Arguments that televisionís inattention to detail and looseness with facts is endemic to fiction do not hold up. Television would never consider portraying Abraham Lincoln as a midget (Brauer & Brauer, 1975) or former President Ronald Reagan as a Rhodes scholar. Northern Exposure would never have Joel Fleischman praying in a Catholic Church or confuse the movie-making styles of Ed Chigliakís favorite directors. Yet without hesitation, television will distort and distill Native American groups to just such an extent. Dismissing Northern Exposureís treatment of Alaska Native culture as innocent poetic license is exactly what writers, artists, and film and television producers have been doing for 500 years. We know the results. Incorrect, mistaken imagesñespecially when repeatedñbecome naturalized, as African-Americans know so well. They seep into our subconscious, temper our personal attitudes and reactions and influence government policies and Supreme Court decisions.
Northern Exposure tries on the one hand to battle the old myths by bringing Native Americans into the present and proclaiming them, first of all, to still be alive. The show offers a kind and appreciative view of Native American culture that has continued to develop past the year 1900. Rather than melting the native culture into the dominant European-American culture, the show attempts to applaud its distinctions. Rather than stressing those distinctions as points of conflict and alienation, the show attempts to view them as complementary.
With regard to its native characters, the show avoids the villainy, shuns the helpless victim act, and gingerly skirts the morally superior and noble savage portrayals. The characters here are more complex, with good and bad traitsñalthough Ed has committed only one sin. The actors really are Native American (most of them from tribes of the lower 48 states) instead of Euro-Americans in heavy makeup. The Native American characters speak normally and lead average lives. The show is a gigantic step forward in treating a minority group as a part of the world rather than separate from it or in constant conflict with it.
For all the cultural displays and signals of multicultural acceptance, however, Northern Exposure fails to escape its racist antecedents. The Native Americans here are as displaced as the non-native characters who move into Cicely from Canada and the United States. At least the non-natives have previous claims. The Alaska Natives meanwhile are dispossessed of their land, even though in reality they would likely be the largest private landowners in Cicely. Even more damaging, they also are stripped of their cultural identity. While the show intentionally battles fear of the "other," it adds little new, accurate information that would serve to eradicate and replace the old concepts. Until we confront our ignorance about culture diversity, Native Americans will never completely escape the old Custerism or even the new Custerism, which, although kinder and gentler, is no less a stereotype.
Notes
1An examination of encyclopedias of television programming uncovered no series with leading native American characters in more than a decade. A few shows in very recent years, notably Twin Peaks, have had Native American characters, but none was integral to the series or featured consistently week to week. Walker, Texas Ranger, which features a lead character of Native American ancestry, did not premiere until April 1993.
2Seggar, Hafen, & Hannonen-Gladden (1981) studied minoritiesí representation on television between 1971-1980, but did not create distinct listings for Native Americans. They instead grouped them with other minorities, excluding African-Americans.
3For a history of the US government policy toward Pribilof Aleuts, see Jones (1980).
4A series by the name Frontier Doctor ran in syndication in 1958-59.
5In the episode, Ghost Dancers were presented as renegade, murderous Occultists. See Braver & Braver, pp. 177-178.
References
Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies. New York: The Noonday.
Bataille, G. & Silet, C. (1980a). The Entertaining Anachronism: Indians in American Film. In R. M. Miller (Ed.), The Kaleidoscopic Lens: How Hollywood Views Ethnic Groups (pp. 36-53). Englewood, N J: Ozer.
Bataille, G. & Silet, C. (1980b). The Pretend Indians: Images of Native Americans in the Movies. Ames, IA: Iowa State University.
Berkhoffer Jr., R. F. (1978). The White Manís Indian. New York: Vintage.
Brauer, R. & Brauer, D. (1975). The Horse, The Gun and The Piece of Property. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular.
Brendale v. Confederated Tribes & Bands of Yakima, 109 S. Ct. 2994 (1989).
Brooks, T. & Marsh, E. (1992). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows: 1946 to Present. New York: Ballantine.
Campbell, L. J. (Ed.). (1993). Southeast Alaska. Anchorage, Alaska: The Alaskan Geographic Society.
Cawelti, J. G. (1971). The Six-Gun Mystique. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular.
"Episodes synopses." Under listings. (1974, September). TV Guide.
Geranios, N. (1991, May 13). Exposure Hits Own Peaks. Boston Herald.
Gerson, M. (1980). Minority Representation Network TV. Drama, 1970-76. Mass Communication Review, 7(Fall), 10-12.
Gitlin, T. (1983) Inside Prime Time. New York: Pantheon.
Greenberg, B., & Heeter, C. (1983). Television and Social Stereotypes. In J. Sprafkin, C. Swift, & R. Hess (Eds.) Rx Television: Enhancing the Preventative Impact of TV (pp. 37-52). New York: The Haworth.
Himmelstein, H. (1984). Television Myth and the American Mind. New York: Praeger.
Jones, D. K. (1980). A century of servitude: Pribilof Aleuts under US rule. Landham, MD: University.
Kasindorf, J. (1991, May 27). New Frontier: How Northern Exposure Became the Springís Hottest TV Show. New York, p. 46.
Kitman, M. (1991, April 20). Northern Exposure Warms His Bones. TV Guide, p. 24.
Kloer, P. (1991, August 5). Actress Reaping a Whirlwind of Exposure with Sleeper Hit. Atlanta Constitution, p. D-1.
Lantis, M. (Ed.). (1970). Ethnohistory in Southwestern Alaska and the Southern Yukon. Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky.
Laughlin, W. (1980). Aleuts: Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Mander, J. (1991, November/December). What You Donít Know About Indians. Utne Reader, pp. 67-74.
Martz, R. (1986, December 7). Stereotypes of Indians Ingrained in America. Atlanta Journal and Constitution, p. A-1, A-16.
McDonald, A. (1987). Shooting Stars: Heroes and Heroines of Western Film. Indianapolis: Indiana University.
Millman, J. (1991, April 8). Two Returning TV Dramas Reinvent the Real. San Francisco Examiner.
Morgan, L. (Ed.). (1979). Alaska Native People. Anchorage, Alaska: The Alaskan Geographic Society.
OíConnor, J. (1990, July 12). New Doctor Adrift in Alaska. The New York Times, p. C-22.
Ortiz, A. (1977, April). The Dark Side of the MoonñImages of the Indian and the American Dream. In Charles Charropin Memorial Lecture. Meeting at Rockhurst College, Kansas City, MO.
Parks, R. (1982). The Western Hero in Film and Television: Mass Media Mythology. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research.
Pearce, R. H. (1953). Savagism and Civilization. Baltimore: John Hopkins
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Scholer, B. (1981) Images and Counter-Images: Ohiyesa, Standing Bear and American Literature. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 5(2), 37-62.
Seals, D. (1991, May 13). The New Custerism. The Nation, p. 634-639.
Seggar, J., Hafen, J., & Hannonen-Gladden, H. (1981). Televisionís Portrayals of Minorities and Women in Drama and Comedy Drama 1971-1980. Journal of Broadcasting, 25(3), 277-288.
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Response from Leonard J. Shedletsky
Taylorís analysis of Northern Exposure, and more generally, mass mediated images of Native Americans, reminds us again that intrapersonal communication is hardly limited to the boundaries of our skin or any particular level of communication--that it operates as we assign meaning. The power of the image both as fashioned by stimuli and the nature of categorization are central here. This reader wonders about stereotypes: given our tendency to form categories, just how do we distinguish between good and bad categories? How do we keep our categories free of prejudice? This chapter would suggest to begin with information rich not poor representations.
Intrapersonal Processing in the Congregation: Recommendations for Enhanced Laity Involvement
Deloris McGee Wanguri
About the Author: Deloris McGee Wanguri received a Ph.D. in organizational communication from the University of Texas at Austin (1984). She is currently an associate professor of Speech Communication, University of Houston-Downtown. Research interests include: confidential information disclosure in organizational settings, organizational socialization, performance appraisals, ethical issues in organizational communication. Her most recent publication is in Communicating in Organizations: A Casebook. An extended, earlier version of this essay was presented at the 43rd annual conference of the International Communication Association, Washington, DC, 1993.
Abstract: In the local congregation, communication occurs on all levels. This article examines the role that appropriate intraorganizational communication can play in facilitating the assimilation process for congregational laity, in deepening their levels of commitment, and in improving their levels of involvement. Specific suggestions include appealing to the motives of the laity, encouraging development of two-way channels for supportive feedback, and encouraging development of and participation in meaningful learning activities inside the congregation.
Perspective:
1. To what extent do certain communication levels dominate interactions within various mosques, synagogues, temples, fellowship halls, and churches in the United States? In spite of doctrinal differences that may exist among these congregations, do their members share similar communication characteristics as they conduct routine business and participate in worship services and activities within the boundaries of the organization?
2. In addition to the three recommendations offered within this article for instilling a deeper sense of commitment and enhancing laity involvement within the local congregation, are there other recommendations you would suggest to a congregational leader? If so, do your recommendations require the use of normative, coercive, or remunerative power?
Within the local congregation in the United States, communication occurs on all levels, and it serves numerous functions. Such communication is intrapersonal, interpersonal, small group, public, and mass in form. It serves religious, social, cathartic, persuasive, and administrative functions, to name a few. In this context, the term congregation refers to any assembly of persons meeting for worship and for religious instruction. Like other organizations, local congregations must continually work to strengthen member commitment and to increase member involvement. Without such maintenance, the congregation atrophies and cannot survive. Given the importance of highly committed laity in this setting, this essay examines member commitment and makes recommendations for improved laity involvement.
Organizational commitment, according to Mowday, Steers, & Porter (1979), refers to "the relative strength of an individualís identification with and involvement in a particular organization" (p. 226). It may be reflected attitudinally by: (a) a strong belief in and acceptance of the organizationís goals and values; (b) a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization; and (c) a strong desire to maintain membership in the organization. When one is specifically measuring commitment within the local congregation, however, a fourth variable to examine and to consider is a willingness to contribute financially to the program of the congregation (Wanguri, 1990). According to Wuthnow (1990):
Some traditions levy standard fees on their members in the form of pew rent or temple membership, others enter into moral contracts with their members by asking them for annual pledges, and still others operate entirely from spontaneous donations and specialized solicitations. Expectations also vary greatly concerning overall levels of giving and the degree to which giving should be focused on the local congregation or fellowship. Although the tithe is still presented as an explicit guideline in many traditions, some groups present it as a minimum contribution, others as an archaic practice that needs to be revised downward radically; in most organizations the individual adherent is given wide latitude in deciding whether donations should be calculated on gross earnings or after-tax income and whether donations of time should or should not be regarded as substitutes for monetary giving. (p. 8)
Commitment, then, is the process that deepens oneís involvement in an organization.
Most literature that addresses the nonprofit sector assumes that the average "volunteer" is, to some extent, actively involved in the organization. Such an assumption is, however, inappropriate when examining the participation of laity within the local congregation, for there are actually variations of membership within this body. More specifically, an individual can be a part of a local congregation, and hence, a member or "volunteer" within that organization, while being very passive. This may be an individual who simply attends worship services once a week and who participates in no other activities. At the other end of the continuum are those "volunteers" who not only participate in religious services and religious educational experiences several times a week, but who also share in a multitude of other programs that are sponsored by or through the congregation. Such programs are numerous, and they include nonprofit retirement communities, nursing homes, meals-on-wheels programs, pregnancy clinics, foster home programs, shelters for battered women, counseling centers, alcoholism and substance abuse support groups, gender awareness groups, gay fellowships, training programs for the jobless, soup kitchens, and shelters for the homeless.
In view of these variations in the fiber of congregational voluntarism, the strengthening of laity involvement within this entity takes on increased importance. Whether they are teaching, singing, ushering, or greeting, volunteers within the religious community are actively solicited, continually monitored, and generally affirmed within the context of that congregation. Their services are valued by the employed staff, and for this reason, effective communication with these volunteers is essential.
For any member of an organization, regardless of whether that individual is a newcomer or an insider, communicative openness is extremely important during the socialization process. This process is ongoing, beginning in some cases before an individual actually enters or joins the organization and continuing throughout that personís affiliation with the group. To the extent that a person has access to information regarding the institutional "culture"ñits goals, norms, values, policies, practices, procedures, activities, stories, rites of passage, status symbolsñthat individualís assimilation into the mainstream of the organization, is likely to be facilitated. To the extent that a good "fit" exists between a member and an organization, feelings of alienation are likely to be minimized (Hess, 1993). Regardless of the organizational type, these principles are likely to apply.
As one would expect, these premises are particularly true of the local congregation. Although communication does occur at all levels of the congregational hierarchy, the communicative role that the congregational leader can play in facilitating this assimilation process for the laity, in deepening their levels of commitment, and in increasing their levels of involvement, is undeniable. What follows then is a list of recommendations for the leader who wants to utilize her or his communicative skills in order to instill a deeper sense of commitment and to enhance laity involvement through the use of normative power, as opposed to coercive or remunerative power.
Appeal to the Motives of the Laity. Analyze the congregation, and based upon this assessment, develop or reinforce appropriate programs and call for involvement in these programs. For example, for members who are motivated by a desire to interact with the larger community, development of and/or involvement in a voluntary literacy center, might be appropriate. Other motivations include cause-oriented members who are deeply concerned by a particular social issue, self-expressive members who join groups primarily for the sake of enjoyment or personal expression, occupational self-interest members who are motivated by a desire to enhance their careers and by opportunities for personal development, and philanthropic members who concentrate on donating money or raising funds for groups rather than providing direct service (Ilsley, 1990). These motivations can manifest themselves in a number of ways, including participating in voter registration drives, theater groups, and on a more informal level, networking opportunities.
Encourage Development of Two-Way Channels for Supportive Feedback, Involving the Congregational Leader and Members of the Laity. Understandably, there is a tendency to reward largely those members who participate actively in congregational activities, by providing them with positive "strokes" in return for their involvement. Even though this positive feedback is understandable, it frequently ignores those "volunteers" who share in religious activities minimally. Congregational leaders should personally cultivate as well as encourage their constituents to develop consistent networks of communication with all congregational members. These networks may take the form of support groups, for example, which allow members to discuss ideas, opinions, and feelings; to facilitate friendship and emotional support; and to provide input to the larger congregation. Formal and informal channels of communication should acknowledge and reward all members for their participation, regardless of the involvement level. Although the membersí specific responses will be influenced by a number of other variables, such as perceptions of the intentions of the congregational leader and the kinds of alternatives that are available to the member (Shaw, 1981), the leadership should not fail to provide these channels. Recognition of even minimal participation will frequently lead to a heightened sense of belonging, more commitment, and deeper involvement.
Encourage Development of and Participation in Meaningful Learning Activities Inside the Congregation. According to Ilsley (1990), "Programs and organizations that [offer] a wide variety of learning experiences. . .[are] the most likely not only to attract volunteers but to retain their services for long periods of time" (p. 61). Hence, the creation of a learning climate is directly linked to a memberís duration of service. More specifically, the duration of membership in the local congregation, according to organizational literature, is linked to the amount, kind, and quality of learning that members experience within that particular entity. Congregational leaders would do well then, to develop and to encourage involvement in programs that are goal-oriented (providing learning in order to gain a position), activity-oriented (providing learning for the joy of participation), and learning-oriented (providing learning for its own sake) in order to increase involvement. These three purposes, according to Houle (1961), characterize healthy learning climates in organizations.
References
Hess, J. A. (1993). Assimilating newcomers into an organization: A cultural perspective. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 21(2), 189-210.
Houle, C. (1961). The inquiring mind: A study of the adult who continues to learn. Madison: University of Wisconsin.
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Shaw, M. E. (1981). Group dynamics: The psychology of small group behavior (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wanguri, D. M. (1990). The local church as an organization: A pilot study of member socialization as related to commitment. Paper presented at the meeting of the Speech Communication Association, Chicago, IL.
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Response from Leonard J. Shedletsky
Professor McGee Wanguri helps to remind us that aspects of intrapersonal communication cut across levels of communication and are just as important to the working of organizations as to individuals. Motivation and learning are two such issues.
Intentionality Attributions for Naturally-Occurring Nonverbal Behaviors in Intimate Relationships
Valerie Manusov
About the Author: Valerie Manusov (Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1989) is an assistant professor at the University of Washingtonís Department of Speech Communication, DL-15, Seattle, WA 98195. Portions of this article were presented to the Speech Communication Association, Chicago, 1992 and to the International Network on Personal Relationships, Milwaukee, 1993.
Abstract: The attributions partners offer for anotherís behaviors are an important part of how people make sense of nonverbal cues. In this study, participants kept logs recording their meaning and their partnersí nonverbal behavior. Each log entry was rated for valence and intent by the participant. Satisfaction was inversely related to the tendency to provide entries for partnersí behaviors that were seen as negative, and it correlated positively with the likelihood of attributing greater intentionality to facial expressions. Space and touch were most likely to be judged as intentional, and eye behavior and facial expressions were attributed as least intentional. Highly positive behaviors were viewed as most intentional, whereas very negative behaviors were seen as least intended.
Perspective:
1. When you notice your partner using certain nonverbal behaviors (e.g., facial expressions, gaze, vocal cues), how do you know what the behaviors mean? Could the meanings be different from what you think they are?
2. What nonverbal behaviors are most likely to catch your attention? Why?
3. People can choose various meanings for othersí nonverbal behaviors. What are some of the things that are likely to affect this choice? What does this say about the nature of meaning?
4. Much of the time, we do not pay conscious attention to othersí nonverbal cues. Under what conditions are people likely to think more overtly about othersí behaviors? Why?
One of the primary ways in which members of romantic dyads try to access their partnersí feelings, beliefs, intentions, and motivations is through interpreting the nonverbal indicators used by the other. That is, when couple members see a facial expression, hear a vocal tone, or note the posture of their partner, they may infer that the nonverbal behavior signified a certain mood, feeling, or attitude or that it was sent intentionally to convey a particular message. Although most of this meaning-making occurs quickly and with little consciousness, other times the meaning of nonverbal behaviors is ambiguous and requires more thoughtful interpretation (Sillars & Scott, 1983).
Social behaviors that are not easily understood are subject to attribution-making as people try to assess the cause, and ultimately the meaning, of the observed actions (Heider, 1958). The ambiguity of certain behaviors allows people to decide whether the cause of the action was internal or external to the other, whether it reflected a stable characteristic of the person or the situation, whether it was a specific or global cause, and whether the other acted intentionally (Weiner, 1986). Each of these choices helps determine what meaning can be taken from the otherís behavior because each leads to different interpretations and evaluations of the action.
Although people can provide rational heuristics for determining the cause of a behavior, interpreters usually have perceptual and motivational biases that influence the accuracy of their decoding (Floyd & Markman, 1983; Jacobson & Moore, 1981). One of these, relational satisfaction, has been found to be a strong determinant of the ways people assign causes to their partnersí actions. Although the interplay between satisfaction and behavior has been applied to other cues, little research has investigated the role of satisfaction as a bias in interpreting nonverbal behaviors. Because nonverbal cues provide an important source of meaning within intimate relationships, the present investigation seeks to add to the growing body of information regarding the interpretation of nonverbal behaviors in intimate relationships. In particular, it investigates the ways in which couples attribute intentionality for the everyday occurrence of nonverbal cues.
Nonverbal Communication in Romantic Dyads
According to Noller (1984) three communicative functions that are particularly important in intimate relationships include 1) conveying interpersonal attitudes, 2) expressing emotion, and 3) handling ongoing interaction. These functions are most often associated with nonverbal messages (see Burgoon, 1985; Patterson, 1987), and the nonverbal means of communicating these goals have been investigated in depth (e.g., Bull, 1987; Buller, 1991; Duncan & Fiske, 1977; Ekman, 1982; Mehrabian, 1981). When studied within the context of ongoing relationships, the focus of nonverbal communication studies has been on determining differences in the use and perception of nonverbal cues between satisfied (nondistressed) and dissatisfied (distressed) couples. Overall, the use of nonverbal cues, especially the expression and interpretation of negative affect, has been found to be a strong discriminator between satisfied and dissatisfied couples (Gottman, Markman, & Notarius, 1977; Levenson & Gottman, 1983; Sillars, Pike, Jones, & Redmond, 1983).
Kahn (1970) was one of the first to study the link between nonverbal cues and marital satisfaction. Using the Marital Communication Scale, couples read a passage (e.g., husbands would ask, "Didnít we have chicken a few nights ago?") with various vocal inflections designed to express different intentions (e.g., that the encoder is irritated at having the same meal, that the speaker was curious if his memory was correct, or that the husband was very happy because the chicken dish was his favorite). Kahn found that satisfied couples were more accurate in reading their partnerís intention from the vocal cues than were dissatisfied couples.
The disparity that Kahn found between distressed and nondistressed couples may have involved an inability to decode nonverbal intentions correctly as implied by the study, a limitation in the ability to encode the intentions clearly, or some interaction of the two processes. In more recent extensions of Kahnís work, Noller (1980) and Gottman and Porterfield (1981) found that, not only are both encoding and decoding processes involved in the perceptual differences based on satisfaction level, but gender differences confound the process further, with dissatisfied husbandsí lack of decoding skill accounting for much of the variance in accuracy (for extensive discussions of gender differences see Noller, 1984; 1987).
Other researchers have looked at the occurrence of affect displays in satisfied and dissatisfied couplesí behavior. Although there is some discrepancy in this area (see Barnett & Nietzel, 1979), it appears that negative nonverbal displays are generally more common in the interactions of distressed couples than in nondistressed dyads (Bradbury & Fincham, 1987; Gottman, 1979, 1980), and this mirrors research on other interaction behaviors (Billings, 1979; Jacobson, Waldron, & Moore, 1980; Wills, Weiss, & Patterson, 1974). The conclusion is less clear regarding positive nonverbal affect, although some researchers suggest that satisfied couples may use more positive cues (Gottman, 1980; Margolin & Wampold, 1981) and/or that they are more efficient in sending positive affect through nonverbal means than are dissatisfied couples (Noller, 1987).
Interestingly, however, differences in frequency do not appear to be the most important characteristic of behavior distinguishing couples. Especially for negative cues, the ways that the behaviors are noticed, interpreted, and the impact they have on the partner are more likely to reflect a coupleís satisfaction level than the actual occurrence of the behavior (Gottman et al., 1977). In fact, in their study of a variety of interaction behaviors, Jacobson, Follette, and McDonald (1982) found that only 13 percent of reported events were negative for dissatisfied couples (versus 6 percent for satisfied dyads). However, distressed couples were likely to be underrepresented by 50 percent the number of positive behaviors that actually occurred (Robinson & Price, 1980). This indicates that the proportion of negative behaviors may be even less than couples believe. Yet, when they do occur, dissatisfied couples are more reactive to and will be more likely to reciprocate negative behaviors than will satisfied couples (Jacobson et al., 1980; Schachter & OíLeary, 1985).
What appears to be the greater discriminator between satisfied and dissatisfied couples is not the frequency of behaviors but rather the cognitive processes that result from the behaviors (Epstein, Pretzer, & Fleming, 1987; Jacobson, 1984). Arias and Beach (1987) contended that "an individual does not respond to the environment per se but rather, the individual responds to her or his perceptions and interpretations of the environment" (p. 109). In particular, partnersí sentiment about one another appear to affect cognitive reactions more than will the nature of the behavior (Floyd, 1988).
Cognitions in Romantic Relationships
If an overall schema or sentiment about oneís partner is unfavorable, the impact of an observed behavior is also likely to be negative. Gottman (1979, 1980) helped confirm this by noting that dissatisfied couples rate their partnerís intent much more negatively than the spouses rate their own action. Likewise, a positive sentiment may bias satisfied couplesí evaluations such that people are likely to rate their partnersí behavior as more positive than the partners judged themselves (Arias & OíLeary, 1981 cited in Beach & Arias, 1983). The tendency for the affective nature of the schema partners hold about one another to influence the interpretations they make led Jacobson and Moore (1981) to note that "spouses are not passive and objective observers of their partnersí behavior; rather they are participants with biases, and these biases need to be understood" (p. 276).
Attribution Theories
Although there has been a significant amount of research looking at the use of nonverbal behaviors in intimate dyads, less focus has been offered to understand the ways in which couples interpret non-language cues within the context of their relationship. Other actions that occur within relationships (e.g., conflict, sexual overtures, household tasks) have been investigated from the perspective of attribution theories, however, and consistent results have been found.
Most commonly, there is a tendency for dissatisfied couples to make "distress-maintaining" attributions and for nondistressed partners to offer "relationship-enhancing" interpretations for one anotherís behaviors (Fincham & Bradbury, 1987; Holtzworth-Munroe & Jacobson, 1985). That is, in looking for the causes of their partnersí behaviors, people who are dissatisfied tend to see negative behaviors as caused by internal, stable, and global factors of their partner, whereas positive behaviors are interpreted as having been caused by external, unstable, and specific circumstances; the opposite is more likely to occur with satisfied couples. The conclusion that dissatisfied couples are likely to attribute causes to their partnersí behavior in ways that perpetuate the negative tone of the relationship and that satisfied couples tend to make their attributions in ways that support a more positive climate, has received strong support (Camper, Jacobson, Holtzworth-Munroe, & Schmaling, 1988; Fincham & Beach, 1988; Jacobson, McDonald, Follette, & Berley, 1985).
One investigation applied this thesis to nonverbal cues. Following other researchersí contentions that people make attributions for their own and othersí nonverbal behaviors (McMahan, 1976; Seibold & Spitzberg, 1981; Sillars, 1982), Manusov (1990) had couples interact in a laboratory where one (a confederate) altered her or his behaviors to act particularly positive or negative. Similar to other studies (e.g., Pszyszynski & Greenberg, 1981; Wong & Weiner, 1981), the results of this investigation showed that negative behaviors were more likely to generate attributions, and that, in general, satisfaction level correlated with the types of attributions made for the nonverbal behaviors.
Prior to the empirical test, Manusov (1990) offered a suggestion for why nonverbal behaviors had not been studied previously within an attribution framework. She noted that the tenets of initial attribution theories included the proposition that, in making causal choices, people must believe that another may have had the intent and the ability to enact the behavior being interpreted (e.g., Jones & Davis, 1965; Schneider, Hastorf, & Ellsworth, 1979). If the other could not control the behavior, the cause automatically becomes one of circumstance, and the choice about the source of the behavior is limited to non-social, or at least non-active, causes. Thus, behaviors must be perceived as potentially intentional and controllable to be subject to causal attribution as it is generally conceived.
It may be for this reason that nonverbal behaviors are usually not studied as legitimate sources of attribution-making. Because researchers have often looked at nonverbal behaviors as spontaneous "leaks" of internal states rather than potentially controllable and intentional behaviors, the cues may not have been seen to fit into the attribution paradigm. Manusov and Rodriguez (1989), however, provided support for their argument that people do see nonverbal behaviors as intentional in certain instances, and therefore the cues are subject to inference-making in much the same way as other social behaviors. Further, the traditional attribution paradigm overlooks another source of action that can account for the meaning attached to communicative behaviors: spontaneous reflections of a personís traits or states. As mentioned previously, the choice of attributional "path" determines to some extent the ultimate choice of what a behavior or set of behaviors may mean to an interpreter (Manusov, 1990).
Intentionality and Controllability of Nonverbal Behaviors
A number of researchers have already investigated differences in actual or perceived control and intentionality across different types of nonverbal cues. Friedman, Riggio, and Segall (1980) and Motley and Camden (1988), for example, documented the ability to pose (and therefore control and intend) facial expressions. Murphy-Berman and Berman (1978) looked at proximity as a potentially intended symbol of friendliness. Touch has also been investigated as a controllable and intentional cue with strong social meanings (e.g., Andersen & Sull, 1985; Jones & Yarbrough, 1985). Looking across behaviors, Rosenthal and DePaulo (1979; DePaulo & Rosenthal, 1979) concluded that nonverbal channels can be seen as falling into a hierarchy of controllability, with the face as the most controllable, followed by the body, the voice, and microexpressions. Although this contention was based on encoding ability, people also make judgments of intentionality behind anotherís nonverbal behavior as part of the decoding process (Manusov & Rodriguez, 1989; Strube & Werner, 1982).
Little of this research has focused specifically on intentionality attributions within ongoing relationships. Manusov (1990), however, did find that intentionality correlated negatively with relational satisfaction for those behaviors encoded with negative valence. Many of the attributions that were offered by the participants were to variables related to the experimental setting, however (e.g., the camera, being at the study). The awareness of the laboratory thus affected the outcome of the experiment and implied a threat to the validity of the results, a concern arising in other attribution studies as well. To counter this, Holtzworth-Munroe and Jacobson (1985) suggested looking at spontaneous attributions that are made in ongoing, naturally-occurring interactions. One such method is the use of diaries or logs to capture the thoughts people have about one anotherís behaviors soon after they happen.
The present study is an extension of the investigation into attribution-making for nonverbal behaviors as they occur in everyday interactions, focusing particularly on intentionality assessments, because of their importance for determining the meaning of nonverbal actions. To reiterate, past research suggests that satisfaction level influences the likelihood of noting certain types of behaviors, with dissatisfied couples taking note of more negative behaviors and satisfied dyads more likely to see positively-valenced cues (Bradbury & Fincham, 1987; Gottman, 1979, 1980). Satisfied couples are also more likely to view behaviors neutrally (Manusov, 1990). Thus, the present investigation hypothesizes that within naturally occurring encounters,
Hypothesis 1a: There is a positive correlation between relational satisfaction and the proportion of attributions made for behaviors seen as positive.
Hypothesis 1b: There is a positive correlation between relational satisfaction and the proportion of attributions made for behaviors seen as neutral.
Hypothesis 1c: There is a negative correlation between relational satisfaction and the proportion of attributions made for behaviors seen as negative.
Second, following the general trend in attributions for dissatisfied couples to make "distress-maintaining" causal explanations and for satisfied couples to offer more "relationship-enhancing" attributions (Fincham & Beach, 1988; Holtzworth-Munroe & Jacobson, 1985; Jacobson, McDonald, Follette, & Berley, 1985), and the argument that intentionality attributions are a key dimension of this attribution-making (Manusov & Rodriguez, 1989), it is hypothesized that,
Hypothesis 2a: As relationship satisfaction increases, the tendency to see oneís partnerís positive behaviors as intentional also increases.
Hypothesis 2b: As relationship satisfaction increases, the tendency to see oneís partnerís negative behaviors as intentional decreases.
Finally, it has been suggested that diverse nonverbal cues are viewed with different levels of intent or control (McClintock & Hunt, 1975; Rosenthal & DePaulo, 1979). Most of this research has been based on researchersí views of encoding discrepancies, however. To further an understanding of the perceived differences in the nature of nonverbal messages and how these are tied into the ways in which relational satisfaction affects this perception, three research questions are posed.
Research Question 1: What nonverbal behaviors do couples notice in their everyday interactions?
Research Question 2: Is there a difference in perceived intent for these behaviors?
Research Question 3: To what extent does relational satisfaction predict different perceptions of intentionality for nonverbal cues?
Method
Participants
Participants (N = 46) were recruited from local newspaper advertisements asking for married or living together couples to become involved in a study on nonverbal behavior. Each couple was paid $35 for their three week involvement. The mean age for the participants in the study was 28.09 (with a range from 20-68). Thirty five percent were married. The average length of time since the couple had been together was 79.63 months (approximately 6 1/2 years) with a range from 8 to 429 months (35 1/2 years). One couple was homosexual, and the others were heterosexual. One couple was Indian, one was African-American, one member was Hispanic, one member was Asian, and the remaining participants were White.
Procedure
The couples were asked to meet with the researcher in small groups to explain the process of log-keeping used for the study. After a brief introduction, each member of the couple was placed apart from one another in the room in order to complete a series of scales, including an assessment of relational satisfaction. They were given both written and oral assurance that their answers would be kept confidential and that their partner would not see their answers. Following this, the couples were told that the researcher was interested in finding out what nonverbal behaviors people notice in their daily interactions. They were given examples of "nonverbal behaviors," including facial expressions, eye behaviors, vocalics (including silence), physical appearance and artifacts, body movements, touch, and the use of time to communicate. A range of behaviors was mentioned, because noting only certain cues would likely bias what the participants recorded.
The members of the couples were asked to keep a log of the times they found themselves thinking about why they or their partner may have used a behavior or set of behaviors. They were asked to record the day and time of the occurrence, the behavior(s) they noticed, and what meaning they attributed to the behavior(s). They were also asked to rate the behaviors on two scales. First, they made an assessment from 0 to 100 as to how positive or negative they perceived the behavior(s) to be. A 0 represented a very negative attribution, and a 100 meant very positive. A score of 50 indicated a neutral response. Second, they were asked to indicate the degree to which they thought the behavior(s) was or were enacted intentionally. In this case, 0 meant that they believed the behaviors occurred spontaneously, without any intent. A score of 100 indicated that they saw the behavior(s) as highly intentional. A 50 meant a moderate degree of intentionality.
Each couple continued this diary for two weeks, after having been instructed not to talk with one another about the logs. Following the two weeks, the couples came in one at a time, and demographic information was collected. They were allowed to ask any questions about the study, offer their observations, and were thanked for their participation in the study.
Variables
Relational Satisfaction. Satisfaction in this study was measured by Nortonís (1983) Quality Marriage Index (QMI). The mean satisfaction level for the sample was 118 with a range from 73 to 141. In this study, the QMI had an alpha reliability of .89.
Coding of Behaviors and Attributions. Two undergraduate research assistants were trained to determine what entries were acceptable for the current study. The investigator went through two complete logs with each coder separately, and then they took home copies of two other logs in order to test their inter-coder reliability. The coders had 94 percent agreement on what counted as acceptable entries (see below). One husband did not provide any ratings for his entries, and two husbands and two wives did not provide intentionality scores. The former was left out of all analyses, and the latter were excluded from those analyses measuring intent.
The coders discarded specific entries from each log where the behaviors discussed were not nonverbal cues. These included such things as participating in an event (e.g., a party, sports), verbal behavior, or actions such as making dinner or studying. In other cases, the participants occasionally noted a mood or state ("She copped an attitude" or "He was tired") without specifying the accompanying behaviors. From the remaining entries, the coders counted the total number of entries and the proportion of these that were positive (greater than 50), negative (less than 50), and neutral (50) according to the ratings provided by the participants. These scores were used to test hypothesis 1.
In order to measure hypothesis 2 , two intentionality means were created. One mean, for negative behavior, was created from the intentionality ratings for all of the valence entries that were less than 50. A second mean, for positive cues, was assessed from those scores with valence ratings greater than 50.
To test the research questions, behavioral categories were created that best represented the nonverbal behaviors mentioned by the participants. For each of these categories, the average intentionality score was computed. Because not all respondents mentioned all of the coded behaviors, only those that were reported by most of the participants were used to answer research questions two and three. Because of the nature of the analysis, mean substitutions were used if any of the behaviors were not included in a personís log.
Results
Tests of Relationships
According to Kenny and Kashy (1991), data that involve information from both members of a dyad should first be analyzed for correlations between the scores of the two dyad members. Scores that are significantly related violate the independence assumptions of parametric tests, and the dyad rather than the individual should be used as the basis of analysis. Using two-tailed Pearson correlations, all of the above predictor variables were analyzed. However, none of the variables were significantly correlated across the partners. Thus, individual scores were used in the following analyses.
Tests of Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1a. Hypothesis 1a predicted that as satisfaction increases the proportion of cues judged to be positive also increases. A one-tailed Pearson correlation, testing the relationship between satisfaction scores and the proportion scores for positive cues, was run. It found no support for the hypothesis , r = .05, p > .05.
Hypothesis 1b. Hypothesis 1b predicted that as satisfaction increases the proportion of cues judged to be neutral also increases. A one-tailed Pearson correlation, testing the relationship between satisfaction scores and the proportion scores for neutral cues, was run. It found no support for the hypothesis , r = .16, p > .05.
Hypothesis 1c. Hypothesis 1c predicted that as satisfaction increases the proportion of cues judged to be negative decreases. A Pearson correlation, testing the relationship of satisfaction scores with the proportion scores for negative cues, was run. It offered support for the hypothesis , r = -.42, p < .01.
Hypothesis 2a. Hypothesis 2a stated that as relational satisfaction increases the tendency to view positive behaviors as intentional also increases. A Pearson correlation was run between relational satisfaction and the mean intentionality score for cues seen to be positive. It found no support for the hypothesis , r = -.09, p > .05.
Hypothesis 2b. Hypothesis 2a stated that as relational satisfaction increases the tendency to view negative behaviors as intentional decreases. A Pearson correlation was run between relational satisfaction and the mean intentionality score for cues seen to be negative. Although a trend emerged, the hypothesis was not confirmed, r = -.21, p > .05.
Research Questions
Behaviors. In answer to research question one, the most commonly cited behaviors overall were facial expressions or looks (150), eye behavior (126), kinesics or body movements (117), touch (113), vocalics or paralanguage (88), silence (54), proxemics, or use of space, (37), kisses (33), chronemics, or use of time, (12), and artifacts (11). Most of these entries involved only one nonverbal cue, but composite behaviors were also mentioned. The most common behaviors to be co-listed with other cues were eye behavior (with vocalics, kinesics, and facial expressions), facial expressions (with kisses and kinesics), and touch, or haptics, (with proxemics and vocalics).
Differences In Intentionality Across Behaviors. A within-subjects ANOVA was run looking for differences in the means across proxemics, silence, eye behavior, kinesics, vocalics, facial expressions, and haptics. Most of the participants did not mention chronemics, kissing, or artifacts, so these were not included in the analyses. The ANOVA was significant, F (6, 35) = 9.41, p < .05. Post hoc comparisons showed that all of the means differed significantly from each other. Proxemic behaviors were seen as most intentional (M = 79.93), followed by haptics (M = 77.95), vocalics (M = 73.17), and kinesics (M = 70.22). Facial expressions were given judgments of the least intentionality (M = 56.51) with eye behavior (M = 60.68) and silence (M = 62.54) also receiving lower intentionality scores.
Satisfaction and Intentionality Attributions. Because this last question was exploratory, a stepwise Multiple Regression was run with satisfaction regressed on proxemics, silence, eye behavior, kinesics, vocalics, facial expressions, and haptics. Only one cue entered the equation. It was found that viewing facial expressions as more intentional predicted greater relational satisfaction, F (1, 38) = 4.23, p < .05, b = .20, R2 = .10.
Discussion
This study was designed to look at the ways people think about the meaning and intentionality of their romantic partnersí nonverbal behavior in everyday interactions as well as how they make attributions of intent for specific nonverbal cues. Consistent with past research, the tendency to pick out what are perceived to be negative behaviors was inversely related to relational satisfaction. However, there was no relationship between satisfaction and the proportion of recorded cues that were rated as positive or neutral. As has been found previously, the occurrence of negative behaviors, or in this case those cues seen by the attributor as negative, were found to be the most important discriminator between couples.
Interestingly, negative actions accounted for almost half of all entries across participants, with positive cues making up 33 percent of the entries, and neutral behaviors accounting for 19 percent. Indeed, in the debriefing following the log-keeping, the largely satisfied sample commented consistently on how much more likely they were to pay attention to negative cues. However, the greater proportion of negatively-labeled behaviors noted by partners in dissatisfied dyads points to the argument that they may be overly oriented to the untoward behaviors used by their partners. This may confound an already spiraling behavioral cycle.
Against predictions, however, satisfaction was not significantly related to the attributions of intent made for nonverbal behaviors. In post hoc explorations it was found that, across couples, people were most likely to assume a high degree of intent behind cues seen as very positive (M = 93.08), less with behaviors viewed as somewhat positive (M = 79.70) and somewhat negative (M = 74.27), and they assumed the least intent behind behaviors they interpreted to be very negative (M = 60.66). These numbers indicate that all of the participants in this study were acting in meaning-making that was more "relationship enhancing." However, there was a trend to see behaviors rated as negative as more intentional when satisfaction decreased. Due to the limitations in finding significance in this relatively small sample, this important tendency should not be overlooked.
Because of the general consistency of past research regarding the role of satisfaction, the present lack of a significant relationship between satisfaction and attributions is surprising. The current results may be due in part to the relatively high level of satisfaction in these couples. Most other research on attributions uses "clinic" couples; that is, couples involved in marriage counseling. However, there was adequate range in the QMI scores in this study to have picked up differences that may exist, despite a negative skew.
Another possibility for the inconsistency with past research may be due to methodology. Past research such as Gottmanís (1980) and Manusovís (1990), had participants interpret one anotherís cues in observed settings. There may be something in the "public performance" of a laboratory that highlights the disparity between satisfied and dissatisfied dyads. The present study suggests that private interpretations may be less clear-cut. When looked at across a period of time and a number of different behaviors and messages, the disparity between levels of satisfaction may be less obvious. This suggestion is very important for relational attribution researchers because it implies, as other researchers have suggested, that attribution-making is somewhat unstable and influenced by the situation in which it occurs. The role of an "audience" may prove to be an important contextual feature.
The above findings also suggest that in everyday interactions, couples may use relatively automatic processing of the meaning for nonverbal cues rather than more complex attributional processing. Following a social meaning model (Burgoon, Coker, & Coker, 1986; Burgoon, Manusov, Mineo, & Hale, 1985), couples in this study appeared to have relatively consistent views of the relationship between valence and intent. Similar to Manusov and Rodriguez (1989) who looked at stranger interactions, there was a strong tendency in these data to see positive behaviors as intended and negative behaviors as unintended, and this was exaggerated by the extremity of the valence rankings.
The belief that people may share largely stable social meanings for nonverbal behavior is given further support by the intentionality ratings provided for particular behaviors. Although satisfied couples were more likely to see facial expressions as intentional, there was no relationship between satisfaction and the other nonverbal cues mentioned by the participants. There was, however, agreement about the degree of intentionality behind any given nonverbal cue across the sample. Indeed, proxemics and haptics were seen as most intentional, whereas facial expressions and eye behavior were given the lowest intentionality scores.
The fact that certain types of behavior were seen as more intended than other cues suggests that there may also be something inherent in the style of the behaviors used. Consistent with past research on encoding (e.g., Motley & Camden, 1988), it may be the exaggerated nature of the behavior that cues people to see the behavior as intended. While this assumption differs from some past research (e.g., Manusov, 1991), it is worth further exploration. Unfortunately, the design of this study did not allow the opportunity to see the actual behaviors on which the participantsí judgments were based.
What is also interesting about this result is that it somewhat contradicts research investigating actual encoding potential of nonverbal cues. Although researchers have argued that proxemics and touch behavior are potentially intentional and controllable (e.g., Andersen & Sull, 1985; Jones & Yarbrough, 1985; Murphy-Berman & Berman, 1978), Rosenthal and DePaulo (1979) have made a good argument that facial expressions are the most controllable. Yet in these data, the participants were likely to view their partnersí facial expressions as the least intended of the cues they recorded. Despite the encoding potential of facial expressions, the participants interpreted the face as the most spontaneous of the nonverbal cues. This suggests an important distinction between encoding ability and decoding tendencies.
The use of logs in this study helped to assess some of the thinking that occurs for nonverbal behaviors in peopleís everyday interactions with their intimate partners. It allowed for a variety of behaviors, meanings, and moods to be investigated. In this way, it helped to show that, across all couples, there is a range in the behaviors people use in their everyday meaning-making. Indeed, couples were likely to note facial expressions or looks, silence, kisses, vocal tone, smiles, and eye behavior, and a number also mentioned artifacts, silence, and the use of time.
Log-keeping can be a problematic source of data, however. The participants varied on the time that they gave to the logs, with a range of entries from 2 to 41, and a mean of 16. This may have reflected differences in the actual number of times that the person thought about the meaning behind certain nonverbal behaviors. It may, however, be indicative of how much energy the participants wished to give to the project. Therefore, it is uncertain whether the entries coded here reflect the majority of the thought processes that actually occurred.
Despite these limitations, the present study is useful in its ability to support some of the findings of past research, although it raises issue with the argument that meaning-making is vastly different based on satisfaction level. This assertion suggests that diverse methodologies employed by cognition researchers may tap into different types of sense-making and may help broaden our view of how attributions occur. In addition to the results regarding the proportion of messages viewed as negative, it also highlights the contention that intentionality attributions are an important part of meaning-making for nonverbal cues, even though they did not differentiate significantly between satisfaction levels.
Across all entries, people were more likely to rank the behaviors used as intentionally encoded. This may reflect a tendency to pick up intentional messages more easily; however, it also helps show that people can and do see their own and one anotherís nonverbal behaviors as potentially intended as communicative messages. This contradicts early theorizing on the use of nonverbal cues as a communication source, and helps show more about the complexity of the attribution system.
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