Expectancy violations theory (EVT) is a theory of communication that analyzes how individuals respond to unanticipated violations of social norms and expectations.[1] The theory was proposed by Judee K. Burgoon in the late 1970s and continued through the 1980s and 1990s as "nonverbal expectancy violations theory", based on Burgoon's research studying proxemics.[2][3][4] Burgoon's work initially analyzed individuals' allowances and expectations of personal distance and how responses to personal distance violations were influenced by the level of liking and relationship to the violators.[2] The theory was later changed to its current name when other researchers began to focus on violations of social behavior expectations beyond nonverbal communication.[1][5]
This theory sees communication as an exchange of behaviors, where one individual's behavior can be used to violate the expectations of another. Participants in communication will perceive the exchange either positively or negatively, depending upon an existing personal relationship or how favorably the violation is perceived.[3][6][1][7] Violations of expectancies cause arousal and compel the recipient to initiate a series of cognitive appraisals of the violation.[8] The theory predicts that expectancies influence the outcome of the communication interaction as either positive or negative and predicts that positive violations increase the attraction of the violator and negative violations decrease the attraction of the violator.[1]
Beyond proxemics and examining how people interpret violations in many given communicative contexts, EVT also makes specific predictions about individuals' reaction to given expectation violations: individuals reciprocate or match someone's unexpected behavior, and they also compensate or counteract by doing the opposite of the communicator's behavior.[9][10]
Components
The expectancy violations theory examines three main components in interpersonal communication situations:  Expectancies, communicator reward valence, and violation valence.[9]
Expectancy
Expectancy refers to what an individual anticipates will happen in a given situation. Expectancies are primarily based upon social norms and specific characteristics and idiosyncrasies of the communicators.[3][11]
Burgoon (1978) notes that people do not view others' behaviors as random. Rather, they have various expectations of how others should think and behave. EVT proposes that observation and interaction with others leads to expectancies. The two types of expectancies noted are predictive and prescriptive.[12] Predictive expectations are "behaviors we expect to see because they are the most typical," (Houser, 2005) and vary across cultures.[12] They let people know what to expect based upon what typically occurs within the context of a particular environment and relationship.[9] For example, a husband and wife may have an evening routine in which the husband always washes the dishes. If he were to ignore the dirty dishes one night, this might be seen as a predictive discrepancy. Prescriptive expectations, on the other hand, are based upon "beliefs about what behaviors should be performed" and "what is needed and desired" (Houser, 2005).[12] If a person walks into a police department to report a crime, the person will have an expectation that the police will file a report and follow up with an investigation.
When the theory was first proposed, EVT identified three factors which influence a person's expectations:  Interactant variables, environmental variables, and variables related to the nature of the interaction.[13] Interactant variables are the traits of those persons involved in the communication, such as sex, attractiveness, race, culture, status, and age.[13][14] Environmental variables include the amount of space available and the nature of the territory surrounding the interaction.  Interaction variables include social norms, purpose of the interaction, and formality of the situation.[13]
These factors later evolved into communicator characteristics, relational characteristics, and context.[9]  Communicator characteristics include personal features such as an individual's appearance, personality and communication style.[9] It also includes factors such as age, sex and ethnic background.[9][15] Relational characteristics refer to factors such as similarity, familiarity, status and liking.[9] The type of relationship one individual shares within another (e.g. romantic, business or platonic), the previous experiences shared between the individuals, and how close they are with one another are also relational characteristics that influence expectations.[15] Context encompasses both environment and interaction characteristics.[15]  Communicator characteristics lead to distinctions between males and females in assessing the extent to which their nonverbal expressions of power and dominance effect immediacy behaviors.[16]  Immediacy cues such as conversational distance, lean, body orientation, gaze, and touch may differ between the genders as they create psychological closeness or distance between the interactants.[16]
Behavioural expectations may also shift depending on the environment one is experiencing. For example, a visit to a church will produce different expectations than a social function. The expected violations will therefore be altered. Similarly, expectations differ based on culture. In Europe, one may expect to be greeted with three kisses on alternating cheeks, but this is not the case in the United States.[17]
Communicator reward valence
The communicator reward valence is an evaluation one makes about the person who committed a violation of expectancy. Em Griffin summarizes the concept behind Communicator Reward Valence as "the sum of positive and negative attributes brought to the encounter plus the potential to reward or punish in the future".[9]  The social exchange theory explains that individuals seek to reward some and seek to avoid punishing others.[18] When one individual interacts with another, Burgoon believes he or she will assess the "positive and negative attributes that person brings to the encounter".[9]  If the person has the ability to reward or punish the receiver in the future, then the person has a positive reward valence. Rewards simply refer to the person's ability to provide a want or need. The term 'communicator reward valence' is used to describe the results of this assessment.[9]  For example, people will feel encouraged during conversation when the listener is nodding, making eye contact, and responding actively. Conversely, if the listener is avoiding eye contact, yawning, and texting, it is implied they have no interest in the interaction and the speaker may feel violated.
When examining the context, relationship, and communicator's characteristics in a given encounter, individuals will arrive at an expectation for how that person should behave. Changing even one of these expectancy variables may lead to a different expectation.[19]
Violation valence
Behavior violations arouse and distract, calling attention to the qualities of the violator and the relationship between the interactants.[20] A key component of EVT is the notion of violation valence, or the association the receiver places on the behavior violation.[21]  A violatee's response to an expectancy violation can be positive or negative, and is dependent on two conditions:  positive or negative interpretation of the behavior and the nature (rewardingness) of the violator.  Rewardingness of the violator is evaluated through many categories – attractiveness, prestige, ability to provide resources, or associated relationship.  For instance, a violation of one's personal distance might have more positive valence if committed by a wealthy, powerful, physically appealing member of the opposite sex than a filthy, poor, homeless person with foul breath. The evaluation of the violation is based upon the relationship between the particular behavior and the valence of the actor.[20]  A person's preinteractional expectancies, especially
personal attributes, may cause a perceiver to evaluate the communication behavior
of a target differently in terms of assigning positive and negative valenced expectancies.[22]
Another perspective of violation valence is that the perceived positive or negative value assigned to a breach of expectations is inconsequential of who the violator is.[9] This perspective places much greater weight on the act of the breach itself than the violator.  The difference between the negative violation and the negative confirmation do not appear significant. Dis-confirmations tend to intensify the outcomes, especially in the positive violation condition.[19]
Arousal
Expectancy violations refer to actions which are noticeably discrepant from an expectancy and are classified as outside the range of expectancy. The term 'arousal value' is used to describe the consequences of deviations from expectations. When individuals' expectations are violated, their interests or attentions are aroused.[9]
When arousal occurs, one's interest or attention to the deviation increases, resulting in less attention paid to the message and more attention to the source of the arousal.[23] There are two kinds of arousals. Cognitive arousal is an idea that people will be mentally aware of the violation. Physical occurs when people have body actions and behaviors in response to the deviations from their expectations.[18]
Threat threshold
The occurrence of arousal is aligned with threats. Burgoon introduced the term "threat threshold" to explain that people have different levels of tolerance about distant violations. The threat threshold is high when people feel good even if they keep a very close distance with the violator, whereas people with low threat threshold will be sensitive and uncomfortable about the closeness of distance with the violator.[3]
Theoretical assumptions and viewpoints
Propositions
After assessing expectancy, violation valence, and communicator reward valence of a given situation, it becomes possible to make rather specific predictions about whether the individual who perceived the violation will reciprocate or compensate the behavior in question. Guerrero (1996) and Burgoon (2000) noticed that predictable patterns develop when considering reward valence and violation valence together.[24] Specifically, if the violation valence is perceived as positive and the communicator reward valence is also perceived as positive, the theory predicts individuals will reciprocate the positive behavior. For example, your boss gives you a big smile after you have given a presentation. Guerrero and Burgoon would predict that you would smile in return. Similarly, if you perceive the violation valence as negative and perceive the communicator reward valence as negative, the theory again predicts that you reciprocate the negative behavior. Thus, if a disliked coworker is grouchy and unpleasant towards you, you will likely reciprocate and be unpleasant in return.
Conversely, if one perceives a negative violation valence but views the communicator reward valence as positive, it is likely that the person will compensate for his or her partner's negative behavior. For example, one day your boss appears sullen and throws a stack of papers in front of you. Rather than grunt back, EVT predicts that you will compensate for your boss' negativity, perhaps by asking if everything is OK (Guerrero & Burgoon, 1996). More difficult to predict, however, is the situation in which a person who is viewed unfavorably violates another with positive behavior. In this situation, the receiver may reciprocate, giving the person the "benefit of the doubt."[19]
The assumptions discussed thus far can be summarized into six major propositions posited by Expectancy Violations Theory:[25]
People develop expectations about verbal and nonverbal communication behavior from other people.
Violations of these expectations cause arousal and distraction, further leading the receiver to shift his or her attention to the other, the relationship, and the meaning of the violation.
Communicator reward valence determines the interpretation of ambiguous communication.
Communicator reward valence determines how the behavior is evaluated.
Violation valences are determined by three factors:  (1) The evaluation of the behavior; (2) whether or not the behavior is more or less favorable than the expectation; and (3) the magnitude of the violation.  A positive violation occurs when the behavior is more favorable than the expectation.  A negative violation occurs when the behavior is less favorable.
Positive violations produce more favorable outcomes than behavior that matches expectations, and negative violations produce more unfavorable outcomes than behavior that matches expectations.
Needs for personal space and affiliation
Expectancy violations theory builds upon a number of communication axioms.[19] EVT assumes that humans have two competing needs:  A need for personal space and a need for affiliation.[3][19] Specifically, humans all need a certain amount of personal space, also referred to as distance or privacy.[3] People also desire a certain amount of closeness with others, or affiliation.[19] EVT seeks to explain 'personal space', and the meanings that are formed when expectations of appropriate personal space are infringed or violated.[19]
Another feature of personal space is territoriality. Territoriality refers to behavior which "is characterized by identification with a geographic area in a way that indicates ownership" (Hall, 1966).[26] In humans, territoriality refers to an individual's sense of ownership over physical items, space, objects or ideas, and defensive behavior in response to territorial invasions.[26] Territoriality involves three territory types:  Primary territories, secondary territories and public territories.[27] Primary territories are considered exclusive to an individual.[26] Secondary territories are objects, spaces or places which "can be claimed temporarily" (Hall, 1966), but are neither central to the individual's life nor are exclusively owned.[26]  Public territories are "available to almost anyone for temporary ownership".[26] Territoriality is frequently accompanied by prevention and reaction.[28] When an individual perceives one of their needs has been compromised, EVT predicts that they will react. For instance, when an offensive violation occurs, the individual tends to react as though protecting their territory.
Proxemics
EVT offers an opportunity to study how individuals communicate through personal space. This part of the theory explains the notion of "personal space" and our reactions to others who appear to "violate" our sense of personal space.[29] What we define as personal space, however, varies from culture to culture and from person to person. The "success" or "failure" of violations are linked to perceived attraction, credibility, influence and involvement. The context and purpose of interaction are relevant, as are the communicator characteristics of gender, relationships, status, social class, ethnicity and culture.[29] When it comes to different interactions between people, what each person expects out of the interaction will influence their individual willingness to risk violation. If a person feels comfortable in a situation, they are more likely to risk violation, and in turn will be rewarded for it.
Introduced by Edward Hall in 1966, Proxemics deals with the amount of distance between people as they interact with one another.[30] Spatial distance during an interaction can be an indication of what type of relationship exists between the people involved.

There are 4 different personal zones defined by Hall. These zones include:
Intimate Distance: (0-18 inches) - This distance is for close, intimate encounters. Normally core family, close friends, lovers, or pets. People will normally share a unique level of comfort with one another.[31]
Personal Distance: (18 inches – 4 feet) - Reserved for conversations with friends, extended family, associates, and group discussions. The personal distance will give each person more space compared with the intimate distance, but is still close enough to involve touching one another.[31]
Social Distance: (4–10 feet) - This distance is reserved for newly formed groups, and new acquaintances and colleagues you may have just met. People generally do not engage physically with one another within this section.[31]
Public Distance: (10 feet to infinity) - Reserved for a public setting with large audiences, strangers, speeches, and theaters.
[30]
Many different cultures are influenced by Proxemics in different ways and respond differently to the same situation. In some cultures, those who have not formed close relationships may greet each other with kisses on the cheek, engaging one another well within the intimate range of proxemics.  In other cultures, a custom greeting is a handshake which maintains a physical separation but is well within personal distance.[32] Across the Proxemic Zones, actions can be interpreted differently among different cultures. For example, Japanese people do not address others by their first names unless they have been given permission. Calling someone by their first name in Japan without permission is considered an insult. In the Japanese culture, they address people using their last name and 'san', which is equivalent to 'Mr.','Mrs.' and 'Ms.' in the English language. The way Japanese people address each other is an example of a verbal Proxemic zone. A Japanese person allowing another to call them by their first name is an example of intimate distance, because this is a privilege extended only someone very close to them.[33]
Applications
Interpersonal communication
It is important to note that EVT can apply to both non-relational interaction and close relationships.  In 1998, more than twenty years after the theory was first published, several studies were conducted to catalog the types of expectancy violations commonly found in close relationships.[20] Expectations with friends formulate over time and are usually brought together by a series of observations of behavior and predictions on how that friend will act in the future. When these expectations are violated, it often can be damaging and dangerous for a close friendship. It can cause an end to the friendship and bring a strong negative experience in that person's life. After time and experiences with that friend we might suspect them to act consistently around me in the way they have always acted, that is until a violation to this expectation takes place. For example, when they begin “breaking promises or even acting in an inauthentic manner to impress others, can have aversive consequences for close relationships” (Cohen 2010).  The fact is, we expect our friends to act in a social manner where they are adhere to all of our personal rules we set in our minds. That includes being nice, kind, considerate, and refraining from any comment that puts another down. This is a part of the personal rules we set within ourselves with a personal friendship, that is until we are in a different setting with that individual and they are around different people and the rules are broken. While this might be an offense in one’s eyes, it may not be offensive in the others. Each negative experience can deteriorate the relationship and allow more experiences where expectations are continually violated until the relationship is dissolved.   Cohen said “the more that a friendship is voluntary, easily replaceable, and disconnected from external pressures to continue, the more vulnerable it is to expectancy violation damage” (Cohen, 2010). Someone will always look for the better option if a negative experience has taken place. The more you are invested in a friendship with someone the stronger the effect will have on the individual when expectations are violated. There is also an interesting perspective of expectation violation when you throw gender into the picture. A friend that shares the same sex as you usually has a completely different feel to the relationship than a friendship with members of the opposite sex. Women are generally less tolerant with members of the opposite sex when violations have taken place. Relationships over time, whether it be with the same sex or not, tend to fail when the other will fall away from the behaviors and norms that the other is used to. This can be shown with hostile attitudes, sharp comments, distancing away from the other, etc. Both parties are also capable of violating each other's expectations at the same time. It is not just one person in the relationship that perceives behavior as unusual. One can respond to a violation with another social violation, leaving the friendship in confusion of direction it is going.
Participants in friendships and romantic relationships were asked to think about the last time their friend or partner did or said something unexpected. It was emphasized that the unexpected event could be either positive or negative. Participants reported events that had occurred, on average, five days earlier, suggesting that unexpected behaviors happen often in relationships. Some of the behaviors reported were relatively mundane, and others were quite serious. The outcome of the list was a list of nine general categories of expectation violations that commonly occur in relationships.[34]
Support or confirmation is an act that provides social support in a particular time of need, such as sitting with a friend who is sick.
Criticism or accusation is critical of the receiver and accuse the individual of an offense.  These are violations because they are accusations not expected.  An example is a ball player telling a teammate he should have caught the ball rather than supportively giving him or her a slap on the back and offering words of encouragement.
Relationship intensification or escalation intensifies the commitment of the communicator.  For instance, saying "I love you" signifies a deepening of a romantic relationship.
Relationship de-escalation signifies a decrease in commitment of the communicator.  An example might be spending more time apart.
Relational transgressions are violations of the perceived rules of the relationship.  Examples include having an affair, deception, or being disloyal.
Acts of devotion are unexpected overtures that imply specialness in the relationship.  Buying flowers for no particular occasion falls into this category.
Acts of disregard show that the partner is unimportant.  This could be as simple as excluding a partner or a friend from a collective activity.
Gestures of inclusion are actions that show an unexpected interest in having the other included in special activities or life.  Examples include invitations to spend a special holiday with someone, disclosure of personal information, or inviting the partner to meet one's family.
Uncharacteristic relational behavior is unexpected action that is not consistent with the partner's perception of the relationship.  A common example is one member of an opposite-sex friendship demanding a romantic relationship of the other.
In later review of the studies, the support or confirmation category was inserted into acts of devotion and included another category, uncharacteristic social behavior.  These are acts that aren't relational but are unexpected, such as a quiet person raising his or her voice.[35]
In terms of the response to expectancy violations, the sensitivity of expectancy violations varies from genders. Research found that women are less tolerant than men when their expectation are violated by negative behaviors, regardless of the types of violations such as dishonesty and immorality.[36]
Romantic relationships

Expectancy violations happen frequently in romantic relationships. In relationships there is an unspoken expectation when interacting and that is the significant other will give their full undivided attention when in the presence of their significant other. As the new generation evolves we can see the face to face contact has changed. Unfortunately, with the access use of phones and social media the attention of individuals has shifted to their devices and continues to become worse. With the access to many mobile devices there has been an increase of lack of communication face to face. This has made it difficult for some relationships to grow and or has created conflict because the expectation of attention has been shifted. "Individuals expect conversational partners to be moderately involved in an interaction (Burgoon, Newton, Walther, & Baesler, 1989). Within existing relationships, partners rely on one another to show interest and immediacy in interactions (White, 2008). However, the presence of cell phones and the expectation to be constantly available (Ling, 2012) impacts partners' abilities to give full attention to one another" (Miller-Ott, A., & Kelly, L. 2015).
When romantic partners spend time together, both prefer gaining attention, intimacy, and feeling a close connection with each other. However, the usage of cell phones acts as a distractive behavior that drives romantic partner's attention to absent elements. Although romantic partners are more likely to be viewed as high reward communicators, their cell phone usage behaviors will be evaluated as negative in certain conditions and contexts.[37]
Regardless of where the romantic relationship takes place, people are likely to have negative valence about cell phone usage if their demand of attention and intimacy are violated.[37] The negative behaviors include texting, viewing news and playing games. In addition, large quantity of annoying cell phone usage during the date has great impact on romantic partner's negative valence towards the violated behaviors.[37] However, Miller-Ott and Kelly found that small amount of cell phone usage during date is acceptable, such as responding to a text message and quickly bringing attentiveness back to the date partner.[38] The same behavior in different occasions and contexts is viewed differently in terms of the degree of valence. Research found that same behavior is viewed as more negative in a restaurant than at home.[37] Since people are more likely to have higher expectations for undivided attention during formal contexts, using cell phone in formal dates will more negatively violate partner's expectations. Divided attention is acceptable in casual contexts – therefore, the degree of expectancy violations is low under a hanging out context.[38]
Cell phone usage
Cell phone usage behaviors that do not contradict intimate moment are viewed as positive violations, including sharing interesting messages and playing online games together. People have less negative valence on cell phone usage if they gain more reward from the behaviors.[37]
Research also found the most common response to the violated cell phone usage is to do nothing.[37] However, people have different reactions to the violations under different stages of romantic relationships. In the early stage of dating, people are more likely to respond by indirect messages and silence. While there are direct verbal responses when expectations are violated in established relationships.[38]
Sexual resistance
Sexual resistance is viewed as a typical expectancy violation in romantic relationships. In 2003, Bevan used EVT to evaluate the impact of sexual resistance on close relationships. The research focused on two considerations: relational contexts and directness of the messages.[39]
The research concluded that people who are resisted in a romantic relationship perceived the violation of sexual resistance as more negative and unexpected than those resisted in a regular cross-sex friendship. The reason might because romantic partners believe that they have clearer and deeper understanding of each other's expectations and degree of acceptance and tolerance. When it comes to message directness of sexual resistance, although the study did not find any significant difference of levels of violation valence and expectedness between direct and indirect messages, direct sexual resistance messages in close relationships proved to be more relationally important than indirect messages. Therefore, direct sexual resistance messages will be a harmful factor that affects the continuity of a romantic relationship.[39]
Computer-mediated communication and social media
As has previously been addressed, EVT has evolved tremendously over the years, expanding beyond its original induction when it focused on FtF communication and proxemics. The advancement of information and communications technology has provided tools for expressing oneself and conveying messages beyond just typing in text.  As already discussed, arousal can divert one's attention or interest from a message
to the source of the arousal.[9][23]  Virtual realities
created online through computer-mediated communication, especially those which evoke
strong visual presence through media, can increase arousal levels, such as those
with high violent or sexual content.[40]  Just
as people may use television viewing to increase or decrease arousal levels, people
may use media in online communication to increase or decrease arousal levels.[41]  People may interact with others online by assuming
the identities of avatars which may take on completely different, alternate personalities.
The differences in perceived intimateness, co-presence, and emotionally-based trust can very significantly between avatar communication and other communication modalities such as text chat, audio, and audio-visual.[42]  The media options available to users when communicating
with others online present a host of potential expectancy violations unique to CMC.
The introduction of social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as dating social networks such as Match.com and eHarmony, has greatly contributed to the increased use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) which now offers a context for studying communication devoid of nonverbal information. Though these media are relatively new, they have been in existence long enough for users to have developed norms and expectations about appropriate behaviors in the online world.[43]  However, there has been a lag by researchers to study and understand these new established norms, which makes CMC rich with heuristic possibilities from a communications theory perspective.[43]
Ramirez and Wang studied the occurrence and timing of modality switching,[44] or shifts from online communication to FtF interaction, from the perspective of EVT.[45]  Their research documented inconsistent findings which revealed in some instances relationships were enhanced and in others they were dampened, indicating the expectations, evaluations, and outcomes associated with initial modality switches varied amongst individuals.[45]  Additionally, studies have found that when individuals who meet online meet face-to-face for the first time, the length of time spent communicating online can determine whether individuals will rate physical characteristics of each other positively or negatively.[45]  Unlike FtF communication, CMC allows people to pretend to be connected with a person who violates their expectancy by ignoring violations or filtering news feed. Meanwhile, people can also cut the connection completely with someone who is not important by deleting friendship status when a serious violation occurs. A confrontation is much more likely for close friends than for acquaintances, and compensation is much more likely for acquaintances, a finding which contrasts typical EVT predictions.[46]  Furthermore, EVT on the Internet environment is strongly related to online privacy issues.
Facebook

In social media such as Facebook, people are connected online with friends and sometimes strangers. Norm violations on Facebook may include too many status updates, overly emotional status updates or Wall posts, heated interactions, name calling through Facebook's public features, and tags on posts or pictures that might reflect negatively on an individual.[46]  Research has also shown that the act of unfriending on Facebook is perceived as a highly negative expectancy violation, with the duration of the Facebook friendship and personal ties to the unfriending party dictating how negatively the act is perceived. Moreover, the importance of the violation was also found to dictate whether the unfriending person informed the other individual of their actions.[47]
In a study conducted by Fife, Nelson, and Bayles of focus groups from a Southeastern liberal arts university, five themes were ascertained regarding Facebook use and expectancy violations:[43]
""Don't stalk' – and when you do, don't talk about it"
Though an understanding exists among Facebook participants that users will use the site to keep track of the behavior of others in a number of ways, excessive monitoring is likely to be perceived as an expectancy violation.
"Don't embarrass me with bad pictures"
Users may have the ability to control which pictures they post on their own Facebook page, but they do not have the ability to control what others post.  Posting and "tagging" unflattering pictures of others may create expectancy violations.
"Don't mess up my profile"
Several participants expressed annoyance of others who alter their profiles knowing that their alterations could be perceived negatively, though they did not mention changing their passwords or protecting themselves in other ways.
"Choose an appropriate forum for messages"
Messages can be sent between Facebook participants through 'Facebook messages', which are not public, or 'wall postings', which can be viewed by anyone specified in the user's privacy controls.  Posting messages which may be perceived as private, embarrassing, or inappropriate to a wall posting can create expectancy violations.
"Don't compete over number of friends"
Facebook users maintain a running total of 'friends' on their profile which is viewable to others.  Engaging in comparisons with others over this statistic can create expectancy violations.
In 2010, Stutzman and Kramer-Duffield examined college undergraduates' motivations to have friends-only profiles on Facebook. Having a friends-only profile is a practical method to enhance privacy management on Facebook. The two authors made distinctions between intended audience, to whom one hopes to disclose the Facebook profile, and expected audience, a group of people by whom one thinks the Facebook profile has been viewed.[48] The study indicated that "expectancy violations were identified as instances where an expected audience was not jointly identified as an intended audience".[48] Facebook networks were categorized into different levels: strong ties of family and intimate friends, weak ties comprising "casual friends and campus acquaintances", and outsiders such as "faculty or administrators". According to the study, expectancy violations by weak ties showed greater relevance to the establishment of a friends-only profile among college undergraduates, compared to other Facebook network ties.[48]
Electronic mail
Email has become one of the most widely used methods of communication within organizations and workplaces.  When discussing expectancy violations
with electronic e-mail, just as with other modes of communication, a distinction
must be made between inadvertent violations of norms and purposeful violations,
referred to as 'flaming'.[49]  Flaming
is defined as hostile and aggressive interactions via text-based CMC.[49]
One form of expectancy violation in email is the length of time between the sending of the initial email and the receiver's reply. Communicator reward valence plays a large part in how expectancy violations are handled in email communications. In computer-mediated communication, people have expectations to others’ online behaviors based on individual identity. In online contexts, violations are not simply assessed as positive or negative. Some violations are ambiguous such as e-mail response latency. In 2017, Nicholls and Rice stated that “when deviation is ambiguous, the communicator’s reward value will mediate the perceptions of the deviation.”[50]
Chronemic studies on email have shown that in organizations, responder status played a large part in how individuals reacted to various lapses in response to the previously sent email.[51] Long pauses between responses for high-status responders produced positive expectancy violation valence and long pauses from low-status responders produced a negative expectancy violation valence.[51][52] However, in the case of job interviews, long pauses between email for high-status candidates reflected negatively on their reviews. Expectations for email recipients to respond within a normative time limit illustrate the medium's capacity for expectancy violations to occur.[52]
Academic environment
Teacher anger

McPherson, Kearney, and Plax examined teacher anger in college classrooms through the lens of norm violations.[53][54]  Naturally, teachers will become frustrated and angry with students in classrooms from time to time.  How teachers express themselves and convey those
emotions will determine how students respond and interpret those emotional demonstrations.
The students judged the appropriateness of teachers' anger in classrooms in the modal expressions of distributive aggression, passive aggression, integrative assertion, and nonassertive denial.[54] Students rated the aggressive expressions as
highly intense, destructive, and inappropriate (or non-normative), including such behaviors as sarcasm or putdowns (most
frequently cited), verbal abuse, rude and condescending behaviors toward students, and acts intended to demoralize students.[54][55][56][57]  The students described assertive displays as appropriate and less intense.[54]  Although anger is often considered to be a negative emotion, teacher anger is not necessarily a violation of classroom norms.[54]  Based on the study, intense and aggressive displays of teacher anger are considered socially inappropriate by students.[54]  These perceived norm violations result in negative evaluations of the teacher and the course.[54]  Because only integrative-assertive expressions of teacher anger were positively related to students' perceptions of appropriateness, the study concluded that teachers should avoid intense, aggressive anger displays and should rather assertively and directly discuss the problem with students.[54]
Teacher dress
Clothing is considered a form of nonverbal communication. Dress communicates status, hierarchy, credibility, and attractiveness. Specific social codes dictate what forms of dress are appropriate in various cross-cultural contexts.[58][59] When individuals wear clothing that is deemed inappropriate for a given situation, or when an individual's clothing does not seem to match their perceived status or attractiveness, this can constitute an expectancy violation.[58] Studies on clothing and teacher perceptions have shown that when teachers wear formal attire, students rate their credibility higher. However, for high-reward teachers, clothing formality did not raise perceptions of attractiveness.[58][59][60][61] Students seem to retain information best when teachers are dressed moderately, and teacher value appears to derive from what grade students predict they will get from a teacher more so than clothing.[58][59]
Instructor credibility in college classroom
Generally, students have expectations to their instructors in college classroom. According to Sidelinger and Bolen, students might be dissatisfied about instructors who talk a lot during class.[62] After they did the research about the compulsive communication and communication satisfaction, they concluded that if an instructor is evaluated as credible by the students, his credibility decreases students’ dissatisfaction despite of his talkativeness. Particularly, instructor’s goodwill such as politeness and care for students is the most effective characteristic to alleviate students’ negative feelings towards a talkative instructor.[62]
Course ratings
Most American colleges and universities employ course rating surveys as a method to gauge teacher effectiveness and the degree to which students are satisfied with the pedagogy of their professors. Expectancy violation and violation valence play a part in course ratings because a wide range of expectancies exist for students while taking a course.[63] Common expectancies for students include stimulation and interest, instructor behavior, relevance of the course, and the student's expected and actual success in the course. A higher education study on EVT and course ratings analyzed 228 students in seven introductory sociology classes at a university of 25,000 students.[63] Since the courses were required for most students, were open to all students, used the same textbook, and met for the same length of time during the semester, expectancy violations in the classroom could be reported more accurately.[63] Some factors used to report the data included instructor personality, interestingness and informativeness of textbook materials, difficulty of lectures, lecturer speaking ability, and the ability to answer questions. At the end of the study, the only factor that affected course ratings was relevance.[63] Expectancies had virtually no effect otherwise on course evaluations. This reason could be attributed to the fact that students who found a course highly relevant were already interested in the subject area and were more motivated to do well.[63]
Nontraditional college students
EVT has been used to study the experiences of non-traditional college and university students who begin an undergraduate education over the age of 25.  The study focused on the students' expectations of their professors and how they should behave in the classroom. Since nontraditional students often feel that they are different from their academic peers, and since the traditional university setting focuses on the 18-23-year-old demographic, studying nontraditional student classroom experiences can help higher education institutions instruct teachers on how to behave in the classroom.[64][65] Traditional and non-traditional students have been shown to expect teachers to make use of examples, provide feedback, and adequately prepare them for exams.[64] Both traditional and non-traditional students have been found to have their expectations for instructor clarity negatively violated.[64] Surprisingly, non-traditional students differed from traditional students by responding negatively to affinity-seeking behaviors and believed that instructors should be less concerned with making class more fun and enjoyable.
Student disclosures in college classroom
In 2013, Frisby and Sidelinger conducted a research about student disclosures in college classroom, which discussed about what kinds of student disclosures would violate peers’ expectations and their perceptions about the disclosers.[66] According to the study, those who make inappropriate disclosures violate others’ expectations most in a classroom environment. Inappropriate disclosures are described as high frequent, negative, offensive and irrelevant topics. Disclosers of inappropriate information are more likely to be described as incompetent students, and they are less likeable than students who disclose appropriate information that are related to course materials.[66]
College admissions
A 2008 study of the top 500 US colleges by Kaplan found that 10% of admissions offices checked applicants' social networking site (SNS) profiles, and 38% of those saw information that reduced the applicants' prospects for admission.[46]  In 2011, a college student was cited for underage drinking after campus police found pictures on Facebook of
the student holding a beer.[46]

Profanity use
Swearing and cursing are some of the most readily observable instances of verbal expectancy violations. Examples of swearing expectancy violations include U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney telling Patrick Leahy, Senator of Vermont, to "go fuck yourself",[67][68] actor Christian Bale's lashing out toward a bystander who walked in front of the camera while he was filming,[68] and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's remarks during a live broadcast of his speech congratulating U.S. President Barack Obama on passage of the health care reform bill, commenting that it was a "big fucking deal".[68][69] Expletives also vary among different cultures, so valence of expectancy violations involving swearing may differ when used in different contexts.[68]
In workplaces
Swearing is common among many workplaces. Swearing has been identified functionally as one of several ways to express emotion in response to workplace stress, to convey verbal aggression, or to engage in deviant workplace behavior (Johnson, 2012). In formal work settings, people have much stronger feelings that their expectations are violated by swearing than in casual occasions. Expletives are more prevalent in unstructured conversations than in more structured, task-oriented ones (Johnson, 2012). The use of profanity has been shown to influence the perceptions of speakers. It may also have emotional impact on the user and the audience.[68][70][71] Research has shown that profanity users appear less trustworthy, less sociable, and less educated.[68][70][72]  The more swearing messages one expresses that violate respondent's expectations in workplaces, the more negative evaluations the respondent will generate about the speaker's incompetency.[73] These traits are likely to appear as fixed among profanity users.[68] Moreover, the content of the swearing messages also poses great impact on the extent of expectancy violations in formal work settings. The verbal messages include words related to sex, excretion and profaneness. Research found that respondents experience highest level of surprise about the swearing with sexual expressions. Thus their expectations are more likely to be violated by sexual swearing than excretory and profane words. A more productive approach than focusing on whether a specific word is offensive may be to make sure that those engaging in workplace swearing are aware of how they and their messages might be perceived in multiple ways (Johnson, 2012).[73]
Evaluation of media figures
Expectancy violations are tightly related to the changes of people's evaluation on their relationships with media figures. In 2010, Cohen made comparisons between relationships with friends and media figures in order to find similarities and differences of people's reactions when their expectations are violated in these two relationships. Violations were generally divided in three categories: social violations such as making offensive comments, trust violations such as making up stories about their life experience, and moral violations such as cheating in a marital relationship or drunk driving.[36]
Research indicated that in both friendships and relationships with media figures, social and trust violations are more offensive than moral violations. Specifically, people are more intolerable about moral violations from media figures than from their friends. According to the study, the reason for the intolerance is because relationships with media figures are relatively weak that people invest less on the relationships with media figures than on friendships.[36]
The type of media figures is also an important factor to determine the changes of closeness with media figures. People have different expectations to various types of media figures. Research discussed that moral violations negatively influence relationships with athletes, damaging their positive and energetic appearance expected by the public. Social violations reduce closeness with TV hosts, whom people expect as amiable public figures.[36]
Health and self-improvement
Expectancy violation theory has even been applied to encouraging healthy habits and changing bad ones. In a study by Karolien van den Akker,  Myrr van den Broek, Remco C. Havermans, and Anita Jansen, expectancy violation theory was tested to see if it was successful in changing ingrained cravings for chocolate. Although researchers did not find that expectancy violation mediated responses to chocolate cravings, they believe more research is needed to determine whether this theory is profitable for this kind of application to human behavior.[74]
Metatheoretical assumptions
Ontological assumptions
EVT assumes that humans have a certain degree of free will.  This theory assumes that humans can assess and interpret the relationship and liking between themselves and their conversational partner, and then make a decision whether or not to violate the expectations of the other person. The theory holds that this decision depends on what outcome they would like to achieve.[75]  This assumption is based on the interaction position. The interaction position is based on a person's initial stance toward an interaction as determined by a blend of personal Requirements, Expectations, and Desires (RED). These RED factors meld into our interaction position of what's needed, anticipated, and preferred.[75]
Epistemological assumptions
EVT assumes that there are norms for all communication activities and if these norms are violated, there will be specific, predictable outcomes.[24] EVT does not fully account for the overwhelming prevalence of reciprocity that has been found in interpersonal interactions. Secondly, it is silent on whether communicator valence supersedes behavior valence or vice versa when the two are incongruent, such as when a disliked partner engages in a positive violation.[24]
Axiological assumptions
This theory seeks to be value-neutral as supporting studies have been conducted empirically and sought to objectively describe how humans react when their expectations are violated.[3]
Critique
Predictability and testability
Expectancy violations theory has undergone scrutiny for its attempt to provide a covering law for certain aspects of interpersonal communication. Some critics of EVT believe most interactions between individuals are extremely complex and there are many contingencies to consider within the theory. This makes the prediction of behavioral outcomes of a particular situation virtually impossible to consistently predict.[76]
Another critique of the theory is the assumption that expectancy violations are mostly highly consequential acts, negative in nature, and cause uncertainty to increase between communicators.  In actuality, research shows expectancy violations vary in frequency, seriousness, and valence.  While it is true that many expectancy violations carry a negative valence, numerous are positive and actually reduce uncertainty because they provide additional information within the parameters of the particular relationship, context, and communicators.[77]
A First Look at Communication
Emory Griffin, the author of A First Look at Communication Theory, analyzed unpredictability in expectancy violations theory.[9] His test consisted in analyzing his interaction with four students who made various requests from him. The students were given the pseudonyms Andre, Belinda, Charlie and Dawn. They start with the letters A, B, C and D to represent the increasing distance between them and Griffin when making their requests.

Andre needed the author's endorsement for a graduate scholarship, and spoke to him from an intimate eyeball-to-eyeball distance. According to Burgoon's early model, Andre made a mistake when he crossed Griffin's threat threshold; the physical and psychological discomfort the lecturer might feel could have hurt his cause. However, later that day Griffin wrote the letter of recommendation.
Belinda needed help with a term paper for a class with another professor, and asked for it from a 2-foot distance. Just as Burgoon predicted, the narrow gap between Belinda and Griffin determined him to focus his attention on their rocky relationship, and her request was declined.
Charlie invited his lecturer to play water polo with other students, and he made the invitation from the right distance of 7 feet, just outside the range of interaction Griffin anticipated. However, his invitation was declined.
Dawn launched an invitation to Griffin to eat lunch together the next day, and she did this from across the room. According to the nonverbal expectancy violations model, launching an invitation from across the room would guarantee a poor response, but this time, the invitation was successful.
Griffin's attempt to apply Burgoon's original model to conversational distance between him and his students didn't meet with much success. The theoretical scoreboard read:
Nonverbal expectancy violations model: 1
Unpredicted random behavior: 3
However, when Grifffin applied the revised EVT standards on his responses to "the proxemic violations of Andre, Belinda, Charlie, and Dawn," the scorecard "shows four hits and no misses."[78]
Related theories
Because EVT is sociopsychological in nature and focuses on social codes in both intrapersonal and interpersonal communication, it is closely related to communication theories such as cognitive dissonance and uncertainty reduction theory. Recently, this theory has undergone some reconstitution by Burgoon and her colleagues and has resulted in a newly proposed theory known as interaction adaptation theory,[79] which is a more comprehensive explanation of adaptation in interpersonal interaction.[76]
As mentioned above, EVT has strong roots in uncertainty reduction theory.  The relationship between violation behavior and the level of uncertainty is under study.  Research indicates that violations differ in their impact on uncertainty. To be more specific, incongruent negative violations heightened uncertainty, whereas congruent violations (both positive and negative) caused declines in uncertainty.[80] The theory also borrows from social exchange theory in that people seek reward out of interaction with others.
Two other theories share similar outlooks to EVT – Discrepancy-Arousal Theory and Patterson's social facilitation model (SFM).  Like EVT, DAT explains that a receiver becomes aroused when a communicative behavior does not match the receiver's expectations.  In DAT, these differences are called discrepancies instead of expectancy violations. Cognitive dissonance and EVT both try to explain why and how people react to unexpected information and adjust themselves during communication process.
The social facilitation model has a similar outlook and labels these differences as unstable changes.  A key difference between the theories lies in the receiver's arousal level.  Both DAT and SFM maintain that the receiver experiences a physiological response whereas EVT focuses on the attention shift of the receiver.  EVT posits that expectancy violations occur frequently and are not always as serious as perceived through the lenses of other theories.
Anxiety/uncertainty management theory is the uncertainty and Anxiety people have towards each other, relating to EVT this anxiety and uncertainty can differ between cultures. Causing a violation for example violating someones personal distance or communicating ineffectively can cause uncertainty and anxiety.[9]
The popularity of computer-mediated communication (CMC) as means of conducting task-oriented and socially oriented interactions is a part of the social information processing (SIP) theory. Coined by Joseph Walther, the theory explores CMC's ability to fulfill many of the same functions as the more traditional forms of interaction, especially face-to-face (FtF) interaction.[81][82]  SIP can be used in conjunction with EVT to examine interpersonal and hyperpersonal relationships established through CMC.
Further use and development of the theory
The concept of social norms marketing follows expectancy violation in that it is based upon the notion that messages containing facts that vary from perception of the norm will create a positive expectancy violation.  Advertising, strategic communications, and public relations base social norms campaigns on this position.[83]
Interaction adaptation theory further explores expectancy violations.  Developed by Burgoon to take a more comprehensive look at social interaction, IAT posits that people enter into interactions with requirements, expectations, and desires.  These factors influence both the initial behavior as well as the response behavior.  When faced with behavior that meets an individual's needs, expectations, or desires, the response behavior will be positive.  When faced with behavior that does not meet an individual's needs, expectations, or desires, he or she can respond either positively or negatively depending on the degree of violation and positive or negative valence of the relationship.[84][85]
Expectancies exert significant influence on people's interaction patterns, on their impressions of one another, and on the outcomes of their interactions. People who can assume that they are well regarded by their audience are safer engaging in violations and more likely to profit from doing so than are those who are poorly regarded.[86]  When the violation act is one that is likely to be ambiguous in its meaning or to carry multiple interpretations that are not uniformly positive or negative, then the reward valence of the communicator can be especially significant in moderating interpretations, evaluations, and subsequent outcomes.
EVT also applies to international experience in the workplace. “A foreign newcomer who has the necessary education, work experience, and international experience will be perceived as having the ability to make valuable contribution to the group’s task. Consequently, education, work experience and international experience will influence a foreign newcomer’s initial task-based group acceptance (Joardar, 2011). It can be argued that a person with significant international experience will be perceived as having had the opportunity to learn how to build valuable relationships in a cross-cultural setting. Hence, international experience will have effects on initial relationship-based group acceptance as well. Meaning, this will make for a more positive expectancy violation, in the workplace especially.
EVT is also used as a framework to analyze the negative impact of mind reading expectations on romantic relationships. In 2015, Wright and Roloff explained the idea of mind reading expectations (MRE) that romantic partners should clearly know about each other's feelings even though they are not being informed. When relational partners have done something wrong without self-consciousness, people's expectations are violated. Particularly those who hold high value of MRE are more likely to become distressful once their relational partners are unaware of their violations to expectations. The study asserted that such kinds of violations related to MRE result in responses such as combative attitude and silent treatment, which is harmful to long-term romantic relationships.[87]
See also
Language expectancy theory
Social exchange theory
Transactional analysis

How accurate is expectancy violations theory?


The Arabian peninsula, simplified Arabia[1] (/əˈreɪbiə/; Arabic: شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة shibhu l-jazīrati l-ʿarabiyyah, 'Arabian island' or جَزِيرَةُ الْعَرَب jazīratu l-ʿarab, 'Island of the Arabs'),[2] is a peninsula of Western Asia situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian plate. From a geographical perspective, it is considered a subcontinent of Asia.[3][4]
It is the largest peninsula in the world, at 3,237,500km2 (1,250,000sqmi).[5][6][7][8][9] The peninsula consists of the countries Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.[10] The peninsula formed as a result of the rifting of the Red Sea between 56 and 23 million years ago, and is bordered by the Red Sea to the west and southwest, the Persian Gulf to the northeast, the Levant to the north and the Indian Ocean to the southeast. The peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Middle East and the Arab world due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas.
Before the modern era, it was divided into four distinct regions: Hejaz (Tihamah), Najd (Al-Yamama), Southern Arabia (Hadhramaut) and Eastern Arabia. Hejaz and Najd make up most of Saudi Arabia. Southern Arabia consists of Yemen and some parts of Saudi Arabia (Najran, Jizan, Asir) and Oman (Dhofar). Eastern Arabia consists of the entire coastal strip of the Persian Gulf.
Geography

The Arabian Peninsula is located in the continent of Asia and bounded by (clockwise) the Persian Gulf on the northeast, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman on the east, the Arabian Sea on the southeast and south, the Gulf of Aden on the south, the Bab-el-Mandeb strait on the southwest and the Red Sea, which is located on the southwest and west.[11] The northern portion of the peninsula merges with the Syrian Desert with no clear border line, although the northern boundary of the peninsula is generally considered to be the northern borders of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.[11]
The most prominent feature of the peninsula is desert, but in the southwest there are mountain ranges, which receive greater rainfall than the rest of the peninsula. Harrat ash Shaam is a large volcanic field that extends from the northwestern Arabia into Jordan and southern Syria.[12]
Political boundaries

The peninsula's constituent countries are (clockwise north to south) Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the east, Oman on the southeast, Yemen on the south and Saudi Arabia at the center.[11] The island nation of Bahrain lies off the east coast of the peninsula.
Six countries (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman) form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).[13]

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the greater part of the peninsula. The majority of the population of the peninsula live in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen. The peninsula contains the world's largest reserves of oil. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are economically the wealthiest in the region. Qatar, a small peninsula in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home of the Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera and its English-language subsidiary Al Jazeera English. Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, is an important country strategically, forming one of the main staging grounds for coalition forces mounting the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Population
Historical populationYearPop.±%1950 9,481,713—1960 11,788,232+24.3%1970 15,319,678+30.0%1980 23,286,256+52.0%1990 35,167,708+51.0%2000 47,466,523+35.0%2010 63,364,000+33.5%2014 77,584,000+22.4%Political Definition: Gulf Cooperation Council and Yemen
Sources:1950–2000[14] 2000–2014[15]
Historical populationYearPop.±%1950 356,235—1970 1,329,168+273.1%1990 4,896,491+268.4%2010 11,457,000+134.0%2014 17,086,000+49.1%4 smallest states (area) of Gulf Cooperation Council with entire coastline in Persian Gulf: UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait
Sources:1950–2000[16] 2000–2014[15]
Though historically lightly populated, political Arabia is noted for a high population growth rate – as the result of both very strong inflows of migrant labor as well as sustained high birth rates. The population tends to be relatively young and heavily skewed gender ratio dominated by males. In many states, the number of South Asians exceeds that of the local citizenry. The four smallest states (by area), which have their entire coastlines on the Persian Gulf, exhibit the world's most extreme population growth, roughly tripling every 20 years. In 2014, the estimated population of the Arabian Peninsula was 77,983,936 (including expatriates).[17] The Arabian Peninsula  is known for having one of the most uneven adult sex ratios in the world with females in some regions (especially the east) constituting only a quarter of vicenarians and tricenarians.[18]
21-chromosome

Listed here are the human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups in Arabia (Yemen,[19] Oman,[20] Qatar,[21] Kuwait,[22] Saudi Arabia[23] and the United Arab Emirates) [24][25][26]
Haplogroup J is the most abundant component in the Arabian peninsula, embracing more than 50% of its Y-chromosomes. Its two main subclades (J1-M267 and J2-M172), show opposite latitudinal gradients in the Middle East. J1-M267 is more abundant in the southern areas, reaching a frequency around 73% in Yemen, whereas J2-M172 is more common in the Levant.
J (L222.2) Accounts for the majority of (L147.1) in Saudi Arabia. It seems to be an exclusively Adnani marker.[23][27][28] Haplogroup J 54.8% Haplogroup E 17.5% R 11.6% Haplogroup T-M184 5.1%
Landscape

Geologically, this region is perhaps more appropriately called the Arabian subcontinent because it lies on a tectonic plate of its own, the Arabian Plate, which has been moving incrementally away from the rest of Africa (forming the Red Sea) and north, toward Asia, into the Eurasian Plate (forming the Zagros Mountains). The rocks exposed vary systematically across Arabia, with the oldest rocks exposed in the Arabian-Nubian Shield near the Red Sea, overlain by earlier sediments that become younger towards the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the best-preserved ophiolite on Earth, the Semail Ophiolite, lies exposed in the mountains of the UAE and northern Oman.
The peninsula consists of:
A central plateau, the Najd, with fertile valleys and pastures used for the grazing of sheep and other livestock
A range of deserts: the Nefud in the north,[29] which is stony; the Rub' al Khali or Great Arabian Desert in the south, with sand estimated to extend 600ft (180m) below the surface; between them, the Dahna
Mountains[30][31][32]
Stretches of dry or marshy coastland with coral reefs on the Red Sea side (Tihamah)
Oases and marshy coast-land in Eastern Arabia on the Persian Gulf side, the most important of which are those of Al Ain (in the UAE, on the border with Oman) and Al-Hasa (in Saudi Arabia), according to one author[32]
Arabia has few lakes or permanent rivers. Most areas are drained by ephemeral watercourses called wadis, which are dry except during the rainy season. Plentiful ancient aquifers exist beneath much of the peninsula, however, and where this water surfaces, oases form (e.g. Al-Hasa and Qatif, two of the world's largest oases) and permit agriculture, especially palm trees, which allowed the peninsula to produce more dates than any other region in the world. In general, the climate is extremely hot and arid, although there are exceptions. Higher elevations are made temperate by their altitude, and the Arabian Sea coastline can receive surprisingly cool, humid breezes in summer due to cold upwelling offshore. The peninsula has no thick forests. Desert-adapted wildlife is present throughout the region.
According to NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite data (2003–2013) analysed in a University of California, Irvine (UCI)-led study published in Water Resources Research on 16 June 2015, the most over-stressed aquifer system in the world is the Arabian Aquifer System, upon which more than 60 million people depend for water.[33] Twenty-one of the thirty seven largest aquifers "have exceeded sustainability tipping points and are being depleted" and thirteen of them are "considered significantly distressed."[33]
A plateau more than 2,500 feet (760m) high extends across much of the Arabian Peninsula. The plateau slopes eastwards from the massive, rifted escarpment along the coast of the Red Sea, to the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf. The interior is characterised by cuestas and valleys, drained by a system of wadis. A crescent of sand and gravel deserts lies to the east.
Mountains

The peninsula has mountains present in its eastern, southern and northwestern borders. Broadly, the ranges can be grouped as follows:
Northeast: The Hajar range, shared by the UAE and northern Oman[32]
Southeast: The Dhofar Mountains of southern Oman,[32] contiguous with the eastern Yemeni Hadhramaut[35][36]
West: Bordering the eastern coast of the Red Sea are the Sarawat,[30] which can be seen to include the Haraz Mountains of eastern Yemen,[31] and the 'Asir[37] and Hijaz Mountains of western Saudi Arabia,[38][39] the latter including the Midian in northwestern Saudi Arabia[35]
Northwest: Aside from the Sarawat, the northern portion of Saudi Arabia hosts the Shammar Mountains, which include the Aja and Salma subranges[32]
Central: The Najd hosts the Tuwaiq Escarpment[35] or Tuwair range[32]
From the Hejaz southwards, the mountains show a steady increase in altitude westward as they get nearer to Yemen, and the highest peaks and ranges are all located in Yemen. The highest, Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb of the Haraz subrange of the Sarawat range, is about 3,666m (2.278mi) high.[30][31] By comparison, the Tuwayr, Shammar and Dhofar generally do not exceed 1,000m (0.62mi) in height.[32]
It should be noted that not all mountains in the peninsula are visibly within ranges. Jebel Hafeet in particular, on the border of the UAE and Oman, measuring between 1,100 and 1,300m (3,600 and 4,300ft),[34][40] is not within the Hajar range, sensu stricto, but may be considered an outlier of that range.

The northeastern Hajar Mountains, shared by Oman and the UAE, as seen from the desert of Sharjah
The Dhofar mountainous region in southeastern Oman, where the city of Salalah is located, is a tourist destination known for its annual khareef season
The Hadhramaut Mountains of eastern Yemen, contiguous with the Omani Dhofar range, as seen from the city of Al-Mukalla
Terraced fields in the Haraz subrange of the Sarawat Mountains in western Yemen
Jabal Sawdah of the 'Asir range in southwestern Saudi Arabia, near the border with Yemen
The Hijaz Mountains of western Saudi Arabia, as seen from the Hejazi city of Makkah
The Midian Mountains of Tabuk Province, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, near the border with Jordan
The Aja subrange of the Shammar Mountains in the region of Ha'il, northern Saudi Arabia
The Tuwaiq Escarpment or Tuwayr mountainous region in the Najd, southwest of the Saudi capital city of Riyadh

Land and sea

Most of the Arabian Peninsula is unsuited to agriculture, making irrigation and land reclamation projects essential. The narrow coastal plain and isolated oases, amounting to less than 1% of the land area, are used to cultivate grains, coffee and tropical fruits. Goat, sheep, and camel husbandry is widespread elsewhere throughout the rest of the Peninsula. Some areas have a summer humid tropical monsoon climate, in particular the Dhofar and Al Mahrah areas of Oman and Yemen. These areas allow for large scale coconut plantations. Much of Yemen has a tropical monsoon rain influenced mountain climate. The plains usually have either a tropical or subtropical arid desert climate or arid steppe climate. The sea surrounding the Arabian Peninsula is generally tropical sea with a very rich tropical sea life and some of the world's largest, undestroyed and most pristine coral reefs. In addition, the organisms living in symbiosis with the Red Sea coral, the protozoa and zooxanthellae, have a unique hot weather adaptation to sudden rise (and fall) in sea water temperature. Hence, these coral reefs are not affected by coral bleaching caused by rise in temperature as elsewhere in the indopacific coral sea. The reefs are also unaffected by mass tourism and diving or other large scale human interference. However, some reefs were destroyed in the Persian Gulf, mostly caused by phosphate water pollution and resultant increase in algae growth as well as oil pollution from ships and pipeline leakage.
The fertile soils of Yemen have encouraged settlement of almost all of the land from sea level up to the mountains at 10,000 feet (3,000m). In the higher reaches, elaborate terraces have been constructed to facilitate grain, fruit, coffee, ginger and khat cultivation. The Arabian peninsula is known for its rich oil, i.e. petroleum production due to its geographical location.
Etymology

During the Hellenistic period, the area was known as Arabia or Aravia (Greek: Αραβία). The Romans named three regions with the prefix "Arabia", encompassing a larger area than the current term "Arabian Peninsula":
Arabia Petraea: for the area that is today southern modern Syria, Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and northwestern Saudi Arabia. It was the only one that became a province, with Petra as its capital.
Arabia Deserta ("Desert Arabia"): signified the desert interior of the Arabian peninsula. As a name for the region, it remained popular into the 19th and 20th centuries, and was used in Charles M. Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888).
Arabia Felix ("Fortunate Arabia"): was used by geographers to describe what is now Yemen, which enjoys more rainfall, is much greener than the rest of the peninsula and has long enjoyed much more productive fields.
The Arab inhabitants used a north-south division of Arabia: Al Sham-Al Yaman, or Arabia Deserta-Arabia Felix. Arabia Felix had originally been used for the whole peninsula, and at other times only for the southern region. Because its use became limited to the south, the whole peninsula was simply called Arabia. Arabia Deserta was the entire desert region extending north from Arabia Felix to Palmyra and the Euphrates, including all the area between Pelusium on the Nile and Babylon. This area was also called Arabia and not sharply distinguished from the peninsula.[41]
The Arabs and the Ottoman Empire considered the west of the Arabian Peninsula region where the Arabs lived 'the land of the Arabs' – Bilad al-Arab (Arabia), and its major divisions were the bilad al-Sham (Syria), bilad al-Yaman (the Land of the southern Peninsula), and Bilad al-Iraq and modern-day Kuwait (the Land of the River Banks).[42] The Ottomans used the term Arabistan in a broad sense for the subcontinent itself starting from Cilicia, where the Euphrates river makes its descent into Syria, through Palestine, and on through the remainder of the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas.[43]
The provinces of Arabia were: Al Tih, the Sinai peninsula, Hedjaz, Asir, Yemen, Hadramaut, Mahra and Shilu, Oman, Hasa, Bahrain, Dahna, Nufud, the Hammad, which included the deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia.[44][45]
History

The history of the Arabian Peninsula goes back to the beginnings of human habitation in Arabia up to 130,000 years ago. Although, a homo sapien fossilized finger bone was found at Al Wusta in the Nefud Desert, which indicates that the first human migration out of Africa to Arabia might date back to approximately 90,000 years ago.[46] Nevertheless, the stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic age along with fossils of other animals discovered at Ti's al Ghadah, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, might imply that hominids migrated through a "Green Arabia" between 300,000 and 500,000 years ago.[47] Acheulean tools found in Saffaqah, Riyadh Region reveals that hominins lived in the Arabian Peninsula as recently as 188,000 years ago.[48]
Pre-Islamic Arabia

There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 106,000 to 130,000 years ago.[49] However, the harsh climate historically prevented much settlement in pre-Islamic Arabian peninsula, apart from a small number of urban trading settlements, such as Mecca and Medina, located in the Hejaz in the west of the peninsula.[50]
However, archaeology has revealed the existence of many civilizations in pre-Islamic Arabia (such as Thamud), especially in South Arabia.[51][52] South Arabian civilizations include Sheba, Himyarite Kingdom, Kingdom of Awsan, Kingdom of Ma'īn and Sabaean Kingdom. Central Arabia was the location of Kingdom of Kindah in the 4th, 5th and early 6th centuries AD. Eastern Arabia was home to the Dilmun civilization. The earliest known events in Arabian history are migrations from the Peninsula into neighbouring areas.[53]
The Arabian peninsula has long been accepted as the original Urheimat of the Semitic languages by a majority of scholars.[54][55][56][57]
"Shamir of Dhu-Raydan and Himyar had called in the help of the clans of Habashat for against the kings of Saba; but Ilmuqah granted... the submission of Shamir of Dhu-Raydan and the clans of Habashat."[58]
Rise of Islam

The seventh century saw the rise of Islam as the peninsula's dominant religion. The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in about 570 and first began preaching in the city in 610, but migrated to Medina in 622. From there he and his companions united the tribes of Arabia under the banner of Islam and created a single Arab Muslim religious polity in the Arabian peninsula.
Muhammad established a new unified polity in the Arabian peninsula which under the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates saw a century of rapid expansion of Arab power well beyond the Arabian peninsula in the form of a vast Muslim Arab Empire with an area of influence that stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula, to the Pyrenees.
Muhammad began preaching Islam at Mecca before migrating to Medina, from where he united the tribes of Arabia into a singular Arab Muslim religious polity. With Muhammad's death in 632 AD, disagreement broke out over who would succeed him as leader of the Muslim community. Umar ibn al-Khattab, a prominent companion of Muhammad, nominated Abu Bakr, who was Muhammad's intimate friend and collaborator. Others added their support and Abu Bakr was made the first caliph. This choice was disputed by some of Muhammad's companions, who held that Ali ibn Abi Talib, his cousin and son-in-law, had been designated his successor. Abu Bakr's immediate task was to avenge a recent defeat by Byzantine (or Eastern Roman Empire) forces, although he first had to put down a rebellion by Arab tribes in an episode known as the Ridda wars, or "Wars of Apostasy".[59]
Following Muhammad's death in 632, Abu Bakr became leader of the Muslims as the first Caliph. After putting down a rebellion by the Arab tribes (known as the Ridda wars, or "Wars of Apostasy"), Abu Bakr attacked the Byzantine Empire. On his death in 634, he was succeeded by Umar as caliph, followed by Uthman ibn al-Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib. The period of these first four caliphs is known as al-khulafā' ar-rāshidūn: the Rashidun or "rightly guided" Caliphate. Under the Rashidun Caliphs, and, from 661, their Umayyad successors, the Arabs rapidly expanded the territory under Muslim control outside of Arabia. In a matter of decades Muslim armies decisively defeated the Byzantine army and destroyed the Persian Empire, conquering huge swathes of territory from the Iberian peninsula to India. The political focus of the Muslim world then shifted to the newly conquered territories.[60][61]
Nevertheless, Mecca and Medina remained the spiritually most important places in the Muslim world. The Qur'an requires every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it, as one of the five pillars of Islam, to make a pilgrimage, or Hajj, to Mecca during the Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah at least once in his or her lifetime.[62] The Masjid al-Haram (the Grand Mosque) in Mecca is the location of the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site, and the Masjid al-Nabawi (the Prophet's Mosque) in Medina is the location of Muhammad tomb; as a result, from the 7th century, Mecca and Medina became the pilgrimage destinations for large numbers of Muslims from across the Islamic world.[63]
Middle Ages
Despite its spiritual importance, in political terms Arabia soon became a peripheral region of the Islamic world, in which the most important medieval Islamic states were based at various times in such far away cities as Damascus, Baghdad, and Cairo.
However, from the 10th century (and, in fact, until the 20th century) the Hashemite Sharifs of Mecca maintained a state in the most developed part of the region, the Hejaz. Their domain originally comprised only the holy cities of Mecca and Medina but in the 13th century it was extended to include the rest of the Hejaz. Although, the Sharifs exercised at most times independent authority in the Hejaz, they were usually subject to the suzerainty of one of the major Islamic empires of the time. In the Middle Ages, these included the Abbasids of Baghdad, and the Fatimids, Ayyubids and Mamluks of Egypt.[64]
Modern history

The provincial Ottoman Army for Arabia (Arabistan Ordusu) was headquartered in Syria, which included Palestine, the Transjordan region in addition to Lebanon (Mount Lebanon was, however, a semi-autonomous mutasarrifate). It was put in charge of Syria, Cilicia, Iraq, and the remainder of the Arabian Peninsula.[65][66] The Ottomans never had any control over central Arabia, also known as the Najd region.
The Damascus Protocol of 1914 provides an illustration of the regional relationships. Arabs living in one of the existing districts of the Arabian peninsula, the Emirate of Hejaz, asked for a British guarantee of independence. Their proposal included all Arab lands south of a line roughly corresponding to the northern frontiers of present-day Syria and Iraq. They envisioned a new Arab state, or confederation of states, adjoining the southern Arabian Peninsula. It would have comprised Cilicia – İskenderun and Mersin, Iraq with Kuwait, Syria, Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Jordan, and Palestine.[67]
In the modern era, the term bilad al-Yaman came to refer specifically to the southwestern parts of the peninsula. Arab geographers started to refer to the whole peninsula as 'jazirat al-Arab', or the peninsula of the Arabs.[68]
Late Ottoman rule and the Hejaz Railway

In the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottomans embarked on an ambitious project: the construction of a railway connecting Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and the seat of the Islamic Caliphate, and Hejaz with its holiest shrines of Islam which are the yearly pilgrimage destination of the Hajj. Another important goal was to improve the economic and political integration of the distant Arabian provinces into the Ottoman state, and to facilitate the transportation of military troops in case of need.
The Hejaz Railway was a narrow gauge railway (1,050km (650mi)) that ran from Damascus to Medina, through the Hejaz region of Arabia. It was originally planned to reach the holy city of Mecca, but due to the interruption of the construction works caused by the outbreak of World War I, it eventually only reached Medina. It was a part of the Ottoman railway network and was built in order to extend the previously existing line between Istanbul and Damascus (which began from the Haydarpaşa Terminal).
The railway was started in 1900 at the behest of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II and was built largely by the Turks, with German advice and support. A public subscription was opened throughout the Islamic world to fund the construction. The railway was to be a waqf, an inalienable religious endowment or charitable trust.[69]
The Arab Revolt and the foundation of Saudi Arabia
The major developments of the early 20th century were the Arab Revolt during World War I and the subsequent collapse and partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The Arab Revolt (1916–1918) was initiated by the Sherif Hussein ibn Ali with the aim of securing independence from the ruling Ottoman Empire and creating a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen. During World War I, the Sharif Hussein entered into an alliance with the United Kingdom and France against the Ottomans in June 1916.
These events were followed by the foundation of Saudi Arabia under King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud. In 1902, Ibn Saud had captured Riyadh. Continuing his conquests, Abdulaziz subdued Al-Hasa, Jabal Shammar, Hejaz between 1913 and 1926 founded the modern state of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis absorbed the Emirate of Asir, with their expansion only ending in 1934 after a war with Yemen. Two Saudi states were formed and controlled much of Arabia before Ibn Saud was even born. Ibn Saud, however, established the third Saudi state.
Oil reserves
The second major development has been the discovery of vast reserves of oil in the 1930s. Its production brought great wealth to all countries of the region, with the exception of Yemen.
Civil war in Yemen
The North Yemen Civil War was fought in North Yemen between royalists of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen and factions of the Yemen Arab Republic from 1962 to 1970. The war began with a coup d'état carried out by the republican leader, Abdullah as-Sallal, which dethroned the newly crowned Muhammad al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic under his presidency. The Imam escaped to the Saudi Arabian border and rallied popular support.
The royalist side received support from Saudi Arabia, while the republicans were supported by Egypt and the Soviet Union. Both foreign irregular and conventional forces were also involved. The Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, supported the republicans with as many as 70,000 troops. Despite several military moves and peace conferences, the war sank into a stalemate. Egypt's commitment to the war is considered to have been detrimental to its performance in the Six-Day War of June 1967, after which Nasser found it increasingly difficult to maintain his army's involvement and began to pull his forces out of Yemen.
By 1970, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia recognized the republic and a truce was signed. Egyptian military historians refer to the war in Yemen as their Vietnam.[70]
Gulf War
In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait.[71] The invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi forces led to the 1990–91 Gulf War. Egypt, Qatar, Syria and Saudi Arabia joined a multinational coalition that opposed Iraq. Displays of support for Iraq by Jordan and Palestine resulted in strained relations between many of the Arab states. After the war, a so-called "Damascus Declaration" formalized an alliance for future joint Arab defensive actions between Egypt, Syria, and the GCC member states.[72]
Transport and industry
The extraction and refining of oil and gas are the major industrial activities in the Arabian Peninsula. The region also has an active construction sector, with many cities reflecting the wealth generated by the oil industry. The service sector is dominated by financial and technical institutions, which, like the construction sector, mainly serve the oil industry. Traditional handicrafts such as carpet-weaving are found in rural areas of Arabia.
Gallery

The old city of Sana'a, Yemen. Peninsular Arabs trace their lineage to Qahtan, who was reportedly based in Yemen.[31]
A map of the peninsula made in 1720 by the German publisher Christoph Weigel
This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 29 on board the ISS on a pass from Western Europe to the peninsula

See also
Ancient history of Yemen
Arab League
Araby
European exploration of Arabia
Iram of the Pillars
Kingdom of Aksum
List of Arabian cities by population
Mashriq
Musandam Peninsula

, 1892

 from the World Digital Library, depicts a map from 1707.

Which modern countries make up the Indian subcontinent?


Degenerative disease is the result of a continuous process based on degenerative cell changes, affecting tissues or organs, which will increasingly deteriorate over time.[1]
In neurodegenerative diseases cells of the central nervous system stop working or die via neurodegeneration. An example of this is Alzheimer's disease.[2] The other two common groups of degenerative diseases are those that affect circulatory system (e.g. coronary artery disease) and neoplastic diseases (e.g. cancers).[1]
Many degenerative diseases exist and some are related to aging. Normal bodily wear or lifestyle choices (such as exercise or eating habits) may worsen degenerative diseases, but this depends on the disease.[1] Sometimes the main or partial cause behind such diseases is genetic.[3] Thus some are clearly hereditary like Huntington's disease.[4] Sometimes the cause is viruses, poisons or other chemicals. The cause may also be unknown.[3]
Some degenerative diseases can be cured, but not always. It might still be possible to alleviate the symptoms.[1]
Examples

Alzheimer's disease (AD)[5]
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis[5] (ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease)
Cancers[1]
Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease (CMT)[6]
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy[7]
Cystic fibrosis[8]
Some cytochrome c oxidase deficiencies (often the cause of degenerative Leigh syndrome)[9]
Ehlers–Danlos syndrome[10]
Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva
Friedreich's ataxia[11]
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD)[12]
Some cardiovascular diseases (e.g. atherosclerotic ones like coronary artery disease, aortic stenosis etc.)[13]
Huntington's disease[4]
Infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy[14]
Keratoconus (KC)[15]
Keratoglobus[16]
Leukodystrophies[17]
Macular degeneration (AMD)[18]
Marfan's syndrome (MFS)[19]
Some mitochondrial myopathies[20]
Mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome[21]
Multiple sclerosis (MS)[22]
Multiple system atrophy[23]
Muscular dystrophies (MD)[24]
Neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis[25]
Niemann–Pick diseases[26]
Osteoarthritis[27]
Osteoporosis[27]
Parkinson's disease[5]
Pulmonary arterial hypertension[28]
All prion diseases (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, fatal familial insomnia etc.)[5]
Progressive supranuclear palsy[29]
Retinitis pigmentosa (RP)[30]
Rheumatoid arthritis[31]
Sandhoff Disease[32]
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA, motor neuron disease)[33]
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis[34]
Tay–Sachs disease[32]
Vascular dementia (might not itself be neurodegenerative, but appears often alongside with other forms of degenerative dementia)[35]

See also
Life extension
Senescence
Progressive disease
List of genetic disorders

What is the most deadly circulatory disease in the world?