Concept
Newcomb’s ABX model
Theodore Newcomb’s 1953 model: two persons (A, B) orient simultaneously toward an object (X) and toward each other; when their views diverge, a strain toward symmetry arises.
Newcomb’s 1953 article builds communication as a system with three corners: A and B are two persons, and X is an object or event both orient toward. As Westley and MacLean report it, a mature person, when an A is present, orients simultaneously toward both A and X; the view of X depends not only on the satisfactions X can offer but also on the relation between A and X. So the full meaning of an opinion cannot be understood apart from who expresses it.
The model’s prediction is this: other things being equal, when A tells B something about X and B likes A (or at least does not dislike A), B’s perception of X becomes more similar to A’s after the communication. According to the memoir of the National Academy of Sciences, Newcomb frames this as a “strain toward symmetry” and draws on Heider’s ideas of balance; in 1971 Schramm counts A–B–X as an early example of consistency theories. According to Westley and MacLean, A and B are only persons in Newcomb; they themselves extend the model to groups and mass communication.
Example
A friend you like praising a documentary, and your view of the documentary moving toward theirs. (Hypothetical example.)