Pearce and Cronens coordinated management of meaning basically tells us that we create meaning socially. Meaning, that part of our actions towards others can be stemmed or influenced by other people. We tend to go with what makes us not a target for just about anything. Have you ever been in a meeting at work and they ask if there is anything that they would like to talk about? What do you think happens? Nobody wants to talk. Even though you know some people want to say something, it's easier to just remain quiet because you don't want to be the minority in the spiral of silence. But in this case, everyone just wants to get out of the darn meeting early and the person who does want to say something is viewed as the one who ruins their chances of that.
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5 years ago
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I find it true when Mead notes that humans act toward each other on the basis of meaning they assign to people. Previous experiences and interactions highly impact the way we interact with each other. An example I can think of, although only on human is involved, is the way my brother interacts with dogs. He was bitten as a small boy and is has been terrified of dogs ever since. He in turn does not have friends that own dogs nor has he ever dated a dog owner.
In regards to Pearce and Cronens coordinated management of meaning of how we create meaning socially can also be applied to the example I used to address Mead. I know why my brother acts and reacts they way he does to dog owners and their pets. However, those that just meet him or just casual friends do not understand his actions. I can see that my brother tends to keep himself out of situations where dogs will be involved and if the subject comes up about dogs and how they are mans best friend, my brother will remain quite because he doesn’t want to be the target of disagreement.
It is funny that you mentioned the meeting scenario here. I just got out of class, and that is exactly what happened. The teacher asked if there were any questions and most of us had several, but we kept quiet in hopes of getting out early. The one student who did ask a question, opened up a can of worms and got the teacher on a rampage about something. Many of the students were looking around and rolling their eyes, some even walked out of class early. This kind of spiral of silence happens a lot at school and at work. Sometimes it is because you don't want to rock the boat, and other times you just want to go home. Similar to the comparison level (CL) presented in Social Penetration theory, the students weigh their gains and losses in a given situation. Is it really worth my time (literally) to bring up a question or comment on something? Some other questions we ask ourselves in similar situations include: What are the gains and losses in a work meeting of biting my tongue or speaking my truth? Wil anything really change, will anyone back me up, is it a lossed cause, will I be the target of something else?
You make a good point about shared interpretation--and how sometimes what people think they share they don't. One of my colleagues at the University of Tennessee did some research several years on shared organizational goals. He had organizational members indicate the degree to which members of the organization shared the same goals for the organization. Then he had them write down what those goals were. Interestingly, he found that study participants reported a high degree of perceived goal sharedness but little actual goal sharedness. In addition, perceived sharing of goals was related to several measures of satisfaction with the organization, such as communication and job satisfaction. Actually sharing specific goals was note. So it may be that in shared interpretations what's important is perceived agreement rather than actual agreement.
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