Suspicious Receivers’ Goals and Behaviors 10
Due to its insufficient legitimacy to accuse one’s partner for unsure suspicion, it is expected that
the appropriateness of the suspicion display strategy would be extensively scrutinized on a
suspicious receiver’s mind. Given the a priori expectations, following research question is
proposed:
RQ2. What are the interaction goals of a suspicious receiver?
A Suspicious Receiver’s Strategic Behavior
Berger and Calabrese (1975) reason that uncertainty reduction is a fundamental
motivation of individuals. However, whether an individual’s effort to reduce uncertainty in
relationship would be beneficial or detrimental depends on the individual’s communicative
choices and the person’s sensitivity to relationship circumstances. This is where the suspicious
receiver’s strategic behavioral choice comes into importance. Three previous studies (Buller et
al., 1991; Burgoon et al., 1995; 1996) indicated a strategic nature of a suspicious receiver’s
behavior by finding that a suspicious receiver strategically controls his or her suspicion to keep
the interaction flow smooth. Nevertheless, the scope of the previous suspicion studies is limited
to the context of experimental environments and, thus, researchers know little about a suspicious
receiver’s potential behavioral alternatives as well as the cognitive mechanisms behind the
behavioral choice.
Although our lack of knowledge makes the specific predictions difficult, the present
study speculates that a suspicious receiver’s strategic behaviors would be categorized into three
general uncertainty reduction categories that were previously identified (Berger & Kellermann,
1994). According to Berger and Kellermann (1994), individuals engage in passive, active, and
interactive strategies to reduce uncertainty in relationship. Passive strategies refer to observing
the person unobtrusively, while active strategies consist of asking the third party about the person
or arranging a naïve experiment by manipulating the environment. Interactive strategies refer to
Convention