Expectancy Violation And Employee Observation

1. Concept: Expectancy Violation is what happens when an assumption is made based on previous experience and social construction that someone will do something that would be considered typical, but instead they do something atypical. On an individual basis whether you see the person as “high reward” meaning someone with perceived positive character traits or someone who is “low reward” meaning they have perceived negative character traits changes how much the situation impacts the person witnessing the behavior.
2. Example: One night last spring semester I was out late one night heading to Applebee’s for dinner and was waiting outside the establishment to finish a phone call that I had started as I walked over when I heard yelling and crying.
Analysis: I did not have a particularly “high reward” associated with the woman the reward increased as I was responsible for bringing her into the restaurant and though she was drunk I assumed that in her state she would be happy to have people help her rather than wander alone. I placed a “high reward” on the staff at Applebee’s since the establishment expects my business, has the ability to help, and is run by what I assume are human beings capable of pitying a victim of domestic abuse as I was. The staff was incredibly supportive to the women once I more coherently explained what happened and this improved my opinion of them, which is why I left a larger tip for the bartender as she did much of the dealing with the women which was admirable. The woman unfortunately did not act as I expected and while I could externally attribute it to the alcohol in her system the point is that she went very quickly from being helpless to demanding. Felt awful about how she treated the people that went out of the way to help her especially since she was treated well by them because I convinced the staff to help her. I still would help someone else hysterical like her though making me feel she was ultimately “low reward” while I would have viewed Applebee’s harshly and not ever returned had they not helped making them “high