Incorporating ‘Effort’ into Communication Models: An Exploratory Study

This paper proposes that _effort_ must be taken into account in both theorization and assessments of communication and, accordingly, offers an exploratory consideration of effort in communication encounters. As a subjective element of communication, operationalizing effort in communication encounters is very difficult. As a result, there has been very little research taking up effort as a factor in communication. The present research proposes that effort be viewed in communication as one element to be contrasted with others. In this research, effort is cast as one of four communication encounter success factors, along with topic knowledge, communication skill and comfortable communication. As a means of preliminarily testing the proposition, research participants were asked to assess these four factors—effort, knowledge, skill and cordiality—both for themselves and for the other in their communication interaction and as reflective of success in a professional communication encounter (or not) or satisfaction with a personal communication encounter (or not). The research tentatively points toward effort as a meaningful construct in interpersonal communication studies, with indication of several identifiable patterns. However, as preliminary research, the paper concludes by noting that the concepts must be more clearly delineated and the methodology and tools more robustly designed.