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So that's why some get their cake and eat it too ...
And it begins with how we assess people. Constructivism’s Jessie Delia says that the more complicated our personal constructs the more we’ll be able to communicate well. So he uses Walter Crockett’s Role Category Questionnaire (RCQ) for a test drive, with us in the driver’s seat. Here’s how it works. We assess two people — better if they include someone we like and another we hate — by listing down their “personality, habits, beliefs, and the way they treat others” and “[s]kip physical characteristics, but [also listing] all of the attributes, mannerisms, and reactions to others that identify who he or she is” (Griffin 190-91). Then we tally the descriptions, counting only those that are distinctly separate and counting only as one descriptions that are similar though differently-worded. These separate descriptions are what Delia and company call personal constructs. These are “the cognitive templates, or stencils, we fit over ‘reality’ to bring order to our perceptions” (Griffin 191). Constructs are like “sets of opposing terms (warm-cool, good-bad, fast-slow)” that function as a scale which we use “to classify other people” (Griffin 191). 
The more sets we have, and the more expanded these scales are (for example: belligerent-articulate-social-conservatives), the more cognitively complex are our social perception skills.
Our social perception skills will matter in how we are able to create person-centered messages — meaning, “messages which reflect an awareness of and adaptation to subjective, affective, and relational aspects of the communication contexts” (as quoted in Griffin 193). Cognitively complex individuals may be able to create more person-centered messages and, thus, are more convincing and effective as communicators. (Take note of that italicized “may,” because the quality of cognitive complexity does not automatically mean the individual will be making such person-centered messages.) However, cognitive complexity will help an individual produce effective messages. Combine this concept with Chuck Berger’s Plan-Based Theory of Strategic Communication (see Uncertainty Reduction Theory), and you’ll see how cognitive complexity will work. With more personal constructs on hand, an individual may pursue multiple goals, formulate more “if-when-then” (procedural records) plans, and have more elbow room manuevering around the communication act. Communication scholars note the beneficial effects to cognitively-complex individuals who produce person-centered messages. However, some researchers note that in relationship maintenance, person-centered messages may work only in a similar skills model (where both parties have the more or less similar cognitive complexity levels). Other studies, though, show that cognitive-complexity and person-centered messages will usually yield more beneficial results in an organizational context. So who are these cognitively-complex individuals? More important, can one develop cognitive complexity? To the second question, the answer is: Why not? But to the first query, it would seem that those who grew up with parents with “complex social thinking” (more often than not those who come from a socioeconomically-advantaged background — take note of this, those of you who advocate for socialized education) will already possess such cognitive qualities. Paging the DepEd. 
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Topics
Orientation Theory in Communication
 Constructivism by Nino Soria de Veyra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Philippines License.  |
