Consensual Rules in Interpersonal Communication: A Reply to Cushman and Whiting

Cushman and Whiting's analysis of rules represents an important movement from monadic to dyadic concepts in explaining patterns of communication behavior. However, several criticisms of their article are warranted. First, implications of such an orientation for research are inadequately discussed. Second, sociolinguistics is an unmentioned discipline also studying rules. Third, Cushman and Whiting's concept of communication behavior is too limited. Drawing from semiotics and “behavior exchange,” rules regulating costs and rewards accruing to the communicators from the relationship are shown to be an important part in communication. A search for rules involving meaning will be confounded by concurrent operation of rules involving hedonic outcomes. Fourth, complex patterns of interpersonal communication require the concept of hierarchially ordered contracts, consisting of a few fundamental rules, several sets of rules governing interaction in specific situations, and switching cues used to move from one subset to another. Simply identifying rules is not adequate to describe or explain communication in contracts.