Towards a Generative Theory of Peak Communication Experiences

• In Event: Peak Communication Experiences: Building Bridges between Spiritual and Interpersonal Communication

Abstract

This paper forwards a generative theoretical account of peak communication experiences (PCEs). PCEs refer to our “greatest moments” in interpersonal communication, and are associated with the highest levels of mutual understanding, happiness, and fulfillment (Gordon, 1985). In spite of early evidence that such moments do occur and are experienced as personally and socially transformative (Gordon, 1985), the Communication discipline has been slow to document or theoretically ground these powerful communication successes. Theoretical generativity refers to “the capacity to challenge the guiding assumptions of the culture, to raise fundamental questions regarding contemporary social life, to foster reconsideration of that which is ‘taken for granted,’ and thereby to furnish new alternatives for social action” (Gergen, 1978, p. 1346). Thus, the purpose of this paper is to (1) offer a theoretical account of PCEs that is grounded in sympathetic advances in the philosophy of communication (e.g., Shepherd, 2006), social life (e.g., Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), and material existence (e.g., Allday, 2009), (2) contrast a positive communicology of growth, transcendence, and inspiration with a dominant communicology of deficiency, competence, and information, and (3) sketch a research agenda for future endeavors.

Author

• Autumn Edwards, Western Michigan University