THEODORE M.NEWCOMB

He was the pioneer in field of social psychology.


Important milestones:
1929, he started his professional career in the department of psychology at University of Michigan
1931, he moved to Cleveland College, University of Western Reserve from University of Michigan
1934, he got a great offer from New Bennington College in Vermont


Important works:
1943 - Personality and Social Change
1950 - Social Psychology
1953 - An Approach to the Study of Communicative Acts
1961 - The Acquaintance Process


In 1953 Newcomb introduced his new model of communication. In this model he emphasize role of communication in social relationships. He claims that this role is based on maintaining equilibrium in the social system. When we take a look at the model, we can see three main parts:

A - message sender
B - message receiver
X - part of their social environment (third persons, issue, topic or policy)


They are creating the system. It implies dependency in relations of elements:
if A changes, B and X will change as well
if A changes her or his relationship to X, B will have to change his or herrelationship either with X or with A


For explanation we can introduce thes examples:
A and B are friends and A likes X, but B don't like it. It implies that they are under  pressure in communication. This pressure can be removed if they get similar attitudes to X. Then they can reach equilibrium.