Comm 103 Final

Your gait, or the way you walk, is one example of how your body movement can communicate various messages about you to others, such as

"I feel proud" or "I feel scared."

William Wilmot and Joyce Hocker define conflict as

"an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from the other party in achieving their goals."

1. practicing media awareness

-Know the difference between an interpersonal message—sent from one person to another—and a mass message—sent from one person to many. Some communicators blur that line intentionally, as when they send a mass mailing of letters or e-mail messages with a personal salutation ("Dear Jeffrey ..."). -Knowing where a message originated is often helpful when you're pondering the motivation behind it.

2. guard against bias

-The most important step in guarding against bias is simply being aware that it exists -Bias limits the information they receive, hampering their ability to make informed decisions about issues.

Monroe's motivated sequence has five stages you address in order:

1. Attention 2. Need 3. Satisfaction 4. Visualization 5. Action

some examples of propositions of fact are

1. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. 2. Flying is the safest mode of transportation. 3. Solar power alone is not capable of meeting the energy demand in the United States.

some examples of propositions of value are:

1. Fathers are just as important as mothers. 2. Animal cloning is immoral. 3. Our country is right to do anything it can to protect its citizens.

Research indicates that three characteristics in particular make a given stimulus more likely to be selected for attention.

1. First, being unusual or unexpected makes a stimulus stand out. You might not pay attention to people talking loudly in a restaurant, but if the same loud conversation were to take place in the library, it would grab your attention because it is unusual in that environment. 2. Second, repetition, or how frequently you are exposed to a stimulus, makes it stand out. For example, you're more likely to remember commercials you've seen repeatedly than ones you've seen only once. Similarly, you tend to notice more characteristics about the people you see frequently than about individuals you don't see often, such as their physical appearance and behavior patterns. 3. Third, the intensity of a stimulus affects how much you take notice of it. You are more aware of strong odors than weak scents, and of bright and flashy colors than dull and muted hues.

Glazing over can lead to at least three different problems.

1. First, it can cause you to miss important details in what you're hearing. If you're glazing over while listening to a lecture in your communication course, for instance, you might fail to hear a critical piece of information about the term paper assignment. 2. Second, glazing over might lead you to listen less critically than you normally would. For example, if your mind is wandering while you're listening to a salesperson describe the terms of a car loan, you might not realize that the deal isn't as good as it seems. 3. Finally, glazing over can make it appear to a speaker that you aren't listening to what he or she is saying, even though you are.

Stereotyping is a three-part process:

1. First, we identify a group to which we believe another person belongs ("you are a gay man"). 2. Second, we recall a generalization others often make about the people in that group ("gay men are emotionally sensitive"). 3. Finally, we apply that generalization to the person ("therefore, you must be emotionally sensitive").

Speakers can establish ethos with listeners by displaying these specific qualities:

1. Knowledge, experience, and wisdom with respect to the topic 2. Integrity and virtue 3. Goodwill toward the audience

Established in 1927 as the Federal Radio Commission, the FCC determines what can and cannot be broadcast. Those regulations include:

1. The equal time rule 2. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 3. Fairness Doctrine

some examples of propositions of policy are:

1. The federal government should ban the use of human stem cells in medical research. 2. Hate crimes against ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities should be capital offenses. 3. Everyone should eat only locally grown, organic foods whenever possible.

According to the Johari window,

1. The open area 2. The hidden area 3. The blind area 4. the unknown area

communication scholars Susan Messman, Dan Canary, and Kimberly Hause discovered that people avoid romance in their opposite-sex friendships for six primary reasons:

1. They aren't physically attracted to their friend. 2. Their relatives and other friends wouldn't approve of a romantic relationship with the friend. 3. They aren't ready to be in a romantic relationship. 4. They want to protect their existing friendship. 5. They fear being disappointed or hurt. 6. They are concerned about a third party, such as a sibling who is romantically interested in the friend.

According to relationship scholars Denise Previti and Paul Amato, the most common reasons people stay in relationships involuntarily are

1. They want to provide stability for their children. 2. Their religious beliefs disallow separation or divorce. 3. They are concerned about the financial implications of separating. 4. They see no positive alternatives to their current relationship.

When we try to motivate people to adopt a specific manner of thinking or doing, we usually have one of three concrete goals in mind:

1. To persuade them to believe that a claim we're making is true 2. To convince them to share our opinion on a particular issue 3. To get them to do something.

Gottman's studies have identified some differences between the conflict styles of homosexual and heterosexual couples. Specifically, gay and lesbian couples:

1. Use more humor and positive emotion during conflict conversations. 2. Are less likely to become hostile after a conflict. 3. Use fewer displays of dominance and power during a conflict episode. 4. Are less likely to take conflict personally. 5. Stay calmer emotionally and physiologically during conflict.

The most common fallacies are these:

1. ad hominem fallacy 2. slippery slope fallacy 3. either/or fallacy 4. false-cause fallacy 5. bandwagon appeal 6. hasty generalization 7. red herring fallacy 8. straw man fallacy 9. begging the question 10. appeal to false authority

It turns out that handling conflict constructively is more about what we don't do than what we do. Gottman's research found otherwise: The way couples argue, not how frequently, predicts their chances of staying together. Gottman identified four specific warning signs for separation or relational dissolution:

1. criticism 2. contempt 3. defensiveness 4. stonewalling

Researchers have identified eight different strategies to manage dialectical tensions. None of these is inherently positive or negative. Whether they work depends on our goals for the relationship and the context in which we are using them:

1. denial 2. disorientation 3. alternation 4. segmentation 5. balance 6. integration 7. recalibration 8. reaffirmation SCENARIO (for next cards): Let's suppose Moira is engaged to Albee and has been spending a lot of time with him. She is experiencing the tension between autonomy and connection. She strongly desires to retain her own individuality and autonomy but also passionately wants to be connected to Albee.

The six types of confirming messages are:

1. descriptive 2. inquiry orientation 3. spontaneity 4. empathy 5. equality 6. provisional

Communication researcher Mark Knapp has described five stages relationships go through when they end:

1. differentiating 2. circumscribing 3. stagnating 4. avoiding 5. terminating

Besides fulfilling our need to belong, social relationships matter because they bring us rewards. We'll now look at three types of rewards:

1. emotional 2. material 3. health

Self-disclosure can be good for us and for our relationships. Here we take a brief look at four key benefits of self-disclosure:

1. enhancement of relationships and trust 2. reciprocity 3. emotional release 4. assistance to others

six types of disconfirming messages create a defensive, unsupportive climate in relationships:

1. evaluative 2. control 3. strategy 4. neutrality 5. superiority 6. certainty

Researchers believe our face is made up of three different face needs

1. fellowship face 2. autonomy face 3. competence face [FAC also make up the first three letters of FACE]

Communication scholar Mark Knapp has suggested that relationship formation has five separate stages:

1. initiating 2. experimenting 3. intensifying 4. integrating 5. bonding

Several behaviors can help you to build rapport with your audience:

1. interact with listeners before your speech 2. maintain eye contact while you speak 3. open with a story 4. use humor when appropriate

Although we can generate countless attributions for a given behavior, they vary along three important dimensions:

1. locus 2. stability 3. controllability

Four distinct styles of listening:

1. people-oriented style 2. action-oriented style 3. content-oriented style 4. time-oriented style

A variety of qualities in a new acquaintance can spark interpersonal attraction, but four are especially powerful:

1. personal appearance 2. proximity 3. similarity 4. complementarity

To address a person's behavior, you will likely pay attention to three factors

1. personal experience 2. knowledge 3. closeness of your relationship

Interpersonal attraction comes in three different forms

1. physical attraction 2. social attraction 3. task attraction

According to communication researcher Peter Andersen, we use four types of schema to classify information we notice about other people:

1. physical constructs 2. role constructs 3. interaction constructs 4. psychological constructs

Communication researchers Laura Stafford and Dan Canary have found that people use five primary relational maintenance behaviors:

1. positivity 2. openness 3. assurances 4. social networks 5. sharing tasks

You have seen that media messages can have powerful effects on our personal and social lives. How, then, can you make sure you use media properly, so that it produces the effects you want? Three steps can help you in that process:

1. practicing media awareness, 2. guarding against bias, and 3. becoming a media activist

Connecting with each type of audience requires a different presentational style:

1. receptive audience 2. neutral audience 3. hostile audience

four potential risks of self-disclosure:

1. rejection 2. obligations in others 3. hurt to others 4. violation of other people's privacy

four communication issues families commonly encounter:

1. roles 2. rituals 3. stories 4.secrets

The three basic stages of perception:

1. selection 2. organization 3. interpretation

The seven types of listening responses you might use, arranged in order from the most passive to the most active strategies:

1. stonewalling 2. backchanneling 3. paraphrasing 4. empathizing 5. supporting 6. analyzing 7. advising

social psychologist and marital therapist John Gottman suggests marital couples can be classified into four groups, depending on how they handle conflict:

1. validating couples 2. volatile couples 3. conflict-avoiding couples 4. hostile couples

Communication scholar Michael Rabby has identified four specific relationship types based on the differences between face-to-face and electronic communication:

1. virtual relationship 2. Pinocchio relationship 3. cyber emigrant relationship 4. real worlders

1. ad hominem fallacy

A common but illogical way to counter arguments is to criticize the person who makes them—for instance, "I wouldn't believe anything Senator Rodgers says about fiscal responsibility; the man's an idiot."

2. stability

A second dimension of attributions is whether the cause of a behavior is stable or unstable. A stable cause is one that is permanent, semipermanent, or at least not easily changed. [Why was your boss late? Rush hour traffic would be a stable cause for lateness, because it's a permanent feature of almost everyone's morning commute. The attribution that she is rarely punctual would likewise be stable, because it identifies an enduring aspect of her behavior. In contrast, a traffic accident or an overly long morning meeting would be an unstable cause of your boss's lateness, because those events occur only from time to time and are largely unpredictable.]

2. material

A second way social relationships benefit us is by helping to meet our material needs, such as our needs for money, food, shelter, and transportation. People tend to share those types of resources with others to whom they feel close. When you need help moving, or a place to stay for the weekend, or a few extra dollars to tide you over until payday, you're more likely to have those material needs met if you have strong social relationships to draw on than if you don't. You are also more likely to offer those material rewards to your close friends than to strangers or people you don't know well.

2. maintain eye contact while you speak

According to research, most people believe a lack of eye contact indicates the speaker is being deceptive. If you don't look at your audience while you speak, you're likely to come across as untrustworthy—an undesirable effect when you're trying to persuade. Practice establishing and maintaining eye contact with each person in your audience for three to four seconds at a time.

3. Satisfaction

After you've established the problem at the need stage, you use the satisfaction stage to propose your solution. Your message at the satisfaction stage is: This is what should be done.

Despite its advantages, high self-esteem also has some drawbacks, particularly for adolescents and young adults.

Aggressive people tend to have higher self-esteem, not lower. Adolescents with higher self-esteem are also more prone to be sexually active and to engage in risky sexual behaviors than teens with lower self-esteem. Finally, when their relationships run into problems, people with high self-esteem are more likely than their low self-esteem counterparts to end those relationships and seek out new ones.

2. reciprocity

As noted above, many of us follow a norm of reciprocity when it comes to self-disclosure: when others disclose to us, we tend to disclose back to them. Thus, one way to get to know other people is to tell them about ourselves, so they feel more comfortable doing the same in return.

3. assurances

Assurances are verbal and nonverbal behaviors that people use to stress their faithfulness and commitment to others. A statement such as "Of course I'll help you; you're my best friend" sends the message that someone is committed to the relationship, and it reassures the friend or partner that the relationship has a future.

4. Visualization

At the visualization stage, you ask your audience to imagine how much better their situation will be if they do what you're proposing. Your message at this stage is: Consider the benefits

3. open with a story

Because everyone loves a good story, an excellent way to build rapport with your audience is to open with one. Stories are especially effective when they include information to which your audience can relate. If you live in a cold climate but are speaking in a hot one, for instance, you could describe your experience of dealing with the heat, because your listeners will be able to relate to it themselves.

3. Nonverbal communication helps us form impressions

By observing how another person looks, sounds, dresses, and carries himself or herself, we can form impressions about that individual's personality, education level, cultural and ethnic background, economic status, political affiliation, and sexual orientation. Our impressions may not always be accurate, but we rely heavily on nonverbal cues when we form them

7. advising

Communicating advice to the speaker about what he or she should think, feel, or do.

George Gerbner

Communication professor was a leading researcher on media violence. He estimated that by the age of 18, the average U.S. viewer had witnessed 32,000 murders and 40,000 attempted murders on television

3. conflicting-avoiding couples

Conflict-avoiding couples tend to avoid open discussion of issues about which they disagree. To avoid the discomfort of engaging in conflict directly, they try to defuse negative emotion and focus on their similarities, believing that most problems will resolve themselves. They often "agree to disagree," a position that can side-step conflict but can also leave their points of disagreement unresolved.

It's sometimes easy to confuse expertise with experience. Having experience with something may give a person credibility in that area, but it doesn't necessarily make the individual an expert.

Consider Hannah, the mother of six children. In the course of raising her kids, Hannah has become a very experienced parent, so she has sufficient credibility to give advice to other moms insofar as she can draw on her many experiences. Yet Hannah isn't an expert on parenting, because her only source of credibility is her individual experience. For example, she isn't a recognized authority on parenting issues, nor does she have a degree in child development.

4. empathizing

Conveying to the speaker that you understand and share his or her feelings on the topic being discussed.

3. Goodwill toward the audience

Does the speaker care about the welfare of listeners, or is he or she only trying to use them? The speaker asking for donations could establish goodwill by acknowledging his audience's concerns about giving money and addressing them to his listeners' satisfaction.

1. Knowledge, experience, and wisdom with respect to the topic

Does the speaker have adequate expertise with the issue to be persuasive? The individual appealing for your donations to Nepal could establish knowledge, experience, and wisdom by describing his extensive experience working in Nepal and his many professional connections in Kathmandu, its capital.

3. intensifying

During the intensifying stage, people move from being acquaintances to being close friends. They spend more time together and might begin to meet each other's friends. They start to share more intimate information with each other, such as their fears, future goals, and secrets about the past. They also increase their commitment to the relationship and may express it verbally through statements such as "You're really important to me."

5. supporting

Expressing your agreement with the speaker's opinion or point of view.

5. filler words

Filler words are nonword sounds such as "umm" and "er" that people often use to fill the silence during pauses. If we have to pause while speaking—say, to remember the word we want to use—we can use filler words to indicate that we intend to continue speaking.

5. Action

Finally, at the action stage, you tell your listeners what you want them to do

3. Emotion

Finally, facial behavior is our primary means of communicating emotion. Our facial muscles give us the ability to make hundreds of different expressions. We use those expressions to convey a host of emotions—from happiness, surprise, and determination to anger, fear, sadness, and contempt.

4. real worlders

Finally, real worlders started their relationship face-to-face and continue to maintain it primarily in that manner.

3. closeness of your relationship

Finally, the closeness of your relationship influences how you interpret a person's behavior. When your best friend does you an unexpected favor, you probably interpret it as a sincere sign of friendship. In contrast, when a coworker does you a favor, you may be more likely to wonder whether the person has an ulterior motive.

The lines of reasoning described above are fallacies because they each represent an illogical way of supporting an argument. Two important caveats are worth noting, however.

First, arguments supported by logical fallacies may still be true. Although Ellen DeGeneres is not a medical authority, that fact does not mean, by itself, that she's inaccurate in saying a vegan diet is healthful. Second, even though they are illogical, fallacies may still be persuasive.

For an act of communication to qualify as self-disclosure, it must meet two conditions:

First, we must deliberately share the information about ourselves. Second, we must believe the information is true.

1. personal experience

First, your personal experience helps you to assign meaning to behavior. If some coworkers have been nice to you in the past just to get favors from you later, then you might be suspicious of this person's behavior.

Our comparison level should reflect realistic expectations, based on our experiences with other social relationships and on cultural norms for such relationships.

For example, perhaps you think neighbors should be friendly and should offer help when you need it but should otherwise mind their own business. Those ideas—based on your experience with your neighbors growing up and on the norms of your neighborhood—form part of your comparison level for your own neighborly relationships.

The WikiLeaks website as well as the coverage of Assange in newspapers and magazines and on radio and television are all examples of communication transmitted through a specific channel, or medium.

For websites, the medium is the Internet. For newspapers and magazines, it's print. Communication on television and radio occurs through the medium of broadcasting. A collection of various channels of communication is called media

1. emotional

Friends provide at least two types of emotional rewards. One is emotional support, or encouragement during times of emotional turmoil. Whether you're going through a serious crisis or just having a bad day, friends can provide comfort and empathy to help you make it through. The second emotional reward of having friends is happiness. We enjoy interacting with friends because it's fun and relaxing and because our friends entertain us.

For same-sex friends, one of the most consistent findings in research is that women and men value different aspects of their friendships.

Friendships between women often emphasize conversational and emotional expressiveness more than do friendships between men. [talking] Men's friendships tend to place a heavier emphasis on shared activities and common interests [doing]

4. hostile couples

Hostile couples have frequent and intense conflict. They use negative emotion displays, such as harsh tones of voice and facial expressions of anger or frustration. They also engage in personal attacks, insults, sarcasm, name calling, blaming, and other forms of criticism with each other.

The scientific study of spatial use, known as proxemics, tells us that we each have a preferred amount of personal space that we carry like an invisible bubble around us.

How much personal space we prefer depends on our temperament, the situation we are in, and our level of familiarity with those around us.

Although perception occurs in stages, the process is far from linear. Instead, the three stages of perception—selecting, organizing, and interpreting information—all overlap.

How we interpret a communication behavior depends on what we notice about it, for example, but what we notice can also depend on the way we interpret it

3. stagnating

If circumscribing progresses to the point where the partners are barely speaking to each other, the relationship enters the stagnating stage, in which it stops growing and the partners feel as if they are just "going through the motions." Partners avoid communicating about anything important because they fear it will only lead to conflict. Many relationships stay stagnant for long periods of time.

Perhaps the most effective way to determine whether you have understood a speaker's message is to paraphrase it.

If you paraphrase a statement in a way that accurately reflects its meaning, the speaker will usually confirm your understanding.

Empathic listening is different from sympathetic listening, which involves feeling sorry for another person.

If your neighbors lost their young grandson to leukemia, for instance, you might be able to sympathize with them even if you can't truly understand their grief. With empathic listening, however, the goal is to understand a situation from the speaker's perspective and to feel what he or she is feeling. You might be listening to a friend who didn't get into her first-choice graduate school and trying to convey that you feel and share her disappointment. Listening empathically can be a challenge, because our own perceptions can cause us to focus on how we would be feeling in the same situation, when our goal is to understand the speaker's feelings.

Of all the channels of nonverbal behavior, the hardest one to associate with human communication is smell. It turns out that your sense of smell, which we call olfactics, operates subtly but powerfully to influence your reactions to other people.

In fact, two phenomena central to the human experience and to communication—memory and sexual attraction—are profoundly affected and regulated by smell.

4. violation of other people's privacy

Inappropriate disclosures can even hurt people who aren't participating in the conversation. People in many relationships—including families, friendships, and workplace relationships—disclose private information that is not meant to be shared, sometimes unintentionally by forwarding an e-mail or text without permission. When we do so, we risk hurting our loved ones and damaging their trust in us.

2. Integrity and virtue

Is the speaker honest and trustworthy, or do you have reason to doubt his or her integrity? The fundraiser for Nepal could establish integrity and virtue by mentioning his moral standards and his intolerance for individuals who cheat or steal.

4. use humor when appropriate

It's difficult not to like people who make us laugh. Therefore, a particularly effective way to establish rapport is to use humor in your presentation. Humor can consist of short jokes or one-liners and can also be reflected in the stories you tell.

3. hurt to others

It's possible to hurt others with disclosures that are too critical or too personal. Despite the idea that honesty is the best policy, uncensored candor can lead to wounded feelings and resentment. Especially when sharing highly sensitive disclosures, consider how receivers will react to the information.

A second major theory about why we form relationships focuses not on attraction but on the uncertainty we feel when we don't know others very well.

Let's say you meet someone and want to get to know the person better. What does it mean to get to know that individual? According to communication scholars Charles Berger and Richard Calabrese, it means you're reducing your level of uncertainty about the person.

Although we constantly form perceptions of others and of their communication behaviors, we are hardly experts at it. In fact, perceptual mistakes are easy to make.

Let's say, for example, that on your overseas trip, you perceive that two adults you see in a restaurant are having a heated argument. As it turns out, you discover that they are not arguing but engaging in behaviors that, in their culture, communicate interest and involvement.

1. locus

Locus refers to where the cause of a behavior is "located," whether within or outside ourselves. Some of our behaviors have internal loci (the plural of locus); they're caused by a particular characteristic of ourselves. Other behaviors have external loci, meaning they Page 70are caused by something outside ourselves. [If your boss is late for your 9 A.M. performance review, an internal attribution you might make about her is that she has lost track of time or she's making you wait on purpose. An external attribution you might form about her is that the traffic is heavy that morning or an earlier meeting she is attending has run long.]

Being a low self-monitor also has advantages, however.

Low self-monitors spend less time and energy thinking about their appearance and behavior, so they are probably more relaxed than high self-monitors in many situations. In addition, because they are less aware of, or concerned with, the impressions they make, they are often more straightforward communicators. They may even be seen as more genuine and trustworthy than high self-monitors.

4. secrets

Many families have secrets they intentionally keep hidden from others. Keeping family secrets doesn't just protect private family information; it also reinforces the family's identity and exclusivity, because only family members are allowed to know the secrets.

3. become a media activist

Many people like to blame the media for contributing to problems such as gender discrimination and violence. But media are simply channels of communication. They do not send messages of their own; rather, people send messages through media. If you are unhappy with the content of those messages, you have the ability to convey your dissatisfaction to the people who produce them. Part of being media-literate is recognizing that you aren't just a passive recipient of media messages. You can be an active agent.

Many people find it difficult to listen to—let alone to be persuaded by—someone toward whom they feel hostility. If a portion of an audience already is disapproving of a speaker, his or her ideas, or the occasion on which the person is speaking, it is challenging to convey the message effectively.

Many speakers are so uncomfortable with such situations that they ignore the hostility, hoping their message will be enough to persuade their listeners. Skilled persuasive speakers, however, acknowledge the listeners' negative feelings and then identify points on which they and their listeners agree.

People who are concerned about media content may make their voices heard in the form of media activism.

Media activists stage rallies, meet with lawmakers, and organize public information campaigns to draw attention to their concerns about, for example, depictions of violence, nudity, profanity, or sexual behavior. Such activists may work to limit the inclusion of such content in movies and television shows and to restrict access to that content by minors.

3. spontaneity

Messages that are unplanned and free of hidden motives: "I'm planning a birthday party for Derrick; want to come?"

2. control

Messages that attempt to impose ideas on others and coerce others to agree, such as "You can't use the laptop right now; I'm using it."

1. descriptive

Messages that communicate support clearly and specifically, without judgmental words, such as "There are a few opportunities for improvement in the yardwork you've done."

1. evaluative

Messages that convey judgments of what's right and wrong, good and bad: "That was the worst job of cutting the lawn you've ever done."

6. provisional

Messages that convey points of view but invite alternative views: "What leads you to the opinion that Proposition 40 is unfair to families like ours? Is it possible that the source of your information is wrong?"

5. certainty

Messages that convey that the speaker's ideas are absolutely true and no other viewpoints are valid: "You're wrong."

4. empathy

Messages that express understanding of, and interest in, another's thoughts and feelings, such as "I'm sorry you didn't get the promotion you wanted at work; you must be so disappointed."

4. superiority

Messages that imply the speaker is superior to his or her listeners, such as "I can't imagine why you organized our family vacation this way; you don't know what you're doing."

2. inquiry orientation

Messages that invite others to work cooperatively to solve problems or understand issues, such as "Why don't we see if there's a way we can both go to Stephanie's soccer match?"

5. equality

Messages that seek others' viewpoints and express value for others' ideas: "You have a very nice way of responding to solicitors who come to our door; I've never thought of taking the approach you do."

3. strategy

Messages that suggest the speaker is trying to direct other people's behaviors, such as "Are you busy tomorrow?"

Friendships at work can be a dual-edged sword.

On the one hand, having friends at work can make the workday fun and pleasant and provide us with help and support when we need it. On the other hand, friendship roles and work roles sometimes conflict. For instance, your friends may want to visit with you at work, but if you have tasks to complete by a deadline, you may not have time to socialize.

2. Need

Once you've aroused your listeners' attention, your next priority is to identify the need or problem that requires their action. Your message at the need stage is: Something must be done.

1. enhancement of relationships and trust

One benefit of self-disclosure is that it often helps us maintain high-quality relationships. We tend to disclose the most to people we like—and we also tend to like people who disclose to us. Sharing appropriate self-disclosure in close relationships helps us to maintain those relationships and to reinforce the trust we share with those individuals.

Several qualities make a speaker more or less credible.

One is expertise. It makes more sense for us to trust medical advice we receive from a physician than from a professional athlete, for instance, because the doctor is a medical expert and the athlete is not. At the same time, it doesn't make sense to trust a physician for legal or financial advice, because he or she isn't an expert in those realms.

Perhaps the most likely opportunity for forming friendships at work arises with respect to our immediate coworkers.

One reason is that coworkers are usually peers rather than superiors or subordinates, so they tend to have levels of power and responsibility similar to ours.88 Another reason is that by virtue of being coworkers, they share some common experiences with us, such as working in the same organizational culture and perhaps for the same department and supervisor. On top of that, we typically spend a great deal of time with our coworkers, perhaps even more than we spend with friends outside work. Thus, there is a ready-made basis for friendship with coworkers.

Despite being common, social relationships formed online differ from face-to-face relationships in some important ways.

One study found that friendships started on the Internet were less interdependent and less committed, and they resulted in less understanding than friendships formed offline.12 Over time, however, the differences in those relationship qualities decreased, meaning that online and face-to-face friendships became more similar. A separate study confirmed that ties to online friendships are weaker, at first, than ties to offline friends, but the strength of the relationship depended on certain factors. For example, women reported weaker ties to their online friends than did men, and frequent Internet users reported stronger ties than did occasional users.

2. openness

Openness describes a person's willingness to discuss his or her relationship with a friend or other relational partner. People who use this relational maintenance strategy are likely to disclose their thoughts and feelings, to ask how their friend feels about the relationship, and to confide in their friend. Although it's certainly possible to have too much openness in a relationship, an optimal amount will help maintain the relationship and keep it strong.

What about opposite-sex friendships, then? Research suggests that both men and women value them as a chance to see things from each other's perspective.

Opposite-sex friendships can provide opportunities for men to be emotionally expressive and for women to enjoy shared activities that their same-sex friendships may not.

1. interact with listeners before your speech

Particularly when you're speaking to people you don't know well, spend time talking to them—and listening to them—before your speech. Not only will you get information about who your listeners are and what they're thinking; you will also signal to your audience that you care about them.

1. differentiating

Partners in any romantic relationship are similar to each other in some ways and different in other ways. In happy, stable relationships, partners see their differences as complementary. However, when partners begin to view their differences as undesirable or annoying, they are entering the differentiating stage, which is often the first stage in relationship dissolution.

3. cyber emigrant relationship

People in a cyber emigrant relationship initially meet each other face-to-face but have since begun to maintain their relationship primarily or exclusively online.

1. virtual relationship

People in a virtual relationship have never met each other face-to-face. Their relationship starts online and stays online.

3. good health

Positive social relationships also promote good health. A study by psychologist Sheldon Cohen and his colleagues found, for instance, that the more social relationships people had, the better able they were to fight off the common cold. Another study reported that people with a strong social network were twice as likely as others to survive a heart attack. In fact, after reviewing more than 60 published studies on the topic, sociologist James House and his colleagues determined that the lack of strong, positive social relationships is as big a risk factor for premature mortality as cigarette smoking, obesity, and elevated blood pressure. Research suggests that close relationships help people to manage the negative effects of stress and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

1. positivity

Positivity includes behaviors such as acting friendly and cheerful, being courteous to others, and refraining from criticism. Individuals who engage in positivity behaviors smile a lot, express affection and appreciation for others, and don't complain—in other words, they're pleasant and fun to be around. Those types of behaviors tend to make people well liked.

6. analyzing

Providing your own perspective on what the speaker has said, such as by explaining your opinion or describing your experience.

For a prophecy to be self-fulfilling, it's not enough that you expect something to happen and then it does.

Rather, it has to be the case that your expectation causes it to happen. To illustrate that point, let's say that yesterday morning you expected it to rain, and later it did rain. That isn't a self-fulfilling prophecy, because your expectation didn't cause the rain: it would have rained regardless of whether you thought it would. In other words, your expectation was fulfilled, but it was not self-fulfilled. A self-fulfilling prophecy is one in which the expectation itself causes the behaviors that make it come true.

1. stonewalling

Responding with silence and a lack of expression on your face. Stonewalling often signals a lack of interest in what the speaker is saying.

3. paraphrasing

Restating in your own words what the speaker has said, to show that you understand.

1. search engines

Search engines are websites that identify and rank other websites according to key terms.

2. Attractiveness

Second, the face plays a large role in attractiveness. Two properties that appear to be especially important are symmetry and proportionality. Symmetry is the similarity between the left and right sides of your face. Proportionality refers to the relative size of your facial features. It may seem odd to identify symmetry and proportionality as primary contributors to facial attractiveness, because we so often think of attractiveness as a highly individual assessment. However, we're much more similar than dissimilar when it comes to judging a person's attractiveness.

2. knowledge

Second, your knowledge of the person helps you interpret her actions. If you know she's friendly and nice to everyone, you might interpret her behavior differently than if you notice she's being nice only to you.

Media messages influence the economy by affecting consumer behavior. Perhaps the most direct way is through advertising.

Sellers of products and services live by the adage that "A terrible thing happens when you don't advertise: Nothing." Companies advertise to generate awareness of what they have to offer and to persuade consumers to choose their products or services over those of competitors. The importance of advertising has made it a 600-billion-dollar global industry.

5. sharing tasks

Sharing tasks means performing your fair share of the work in a friendship. If your friend gives you a ride to the airport whenever you need it, for example, then it's only fair that you help her paint her apartment when she asks. As we've seen, being in a social relationship requires investments of energy and effort—so, one way of maintaining a relationship is to make sure you're both contributing equally.

In some relationships, our comparison level for a particular relationship strongly influences how satisfied we are in that relationship.

Significantly, though, our comparison level for alternatives more strongly influences whether that relationship will last. Even satisfying friendships can end if the alternatives are more appealing. However, sometimes unsatisfying friendships endure.

People increasingly use social media to organize political activities. In late 2014, several thousand demonstrators marched in Ferguson, Missouri, to protest the death of teenager Michael Brown, who was shot and killed by a police officer. Protest leaders used Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr to organize marches, send announcements, and collect donations and supplies. The Twitter hashtag #Ferguson came to represent the struggle of a community fighting police misconduct and racial inequality.

Social media technologies provide an unprecedented ability to communicate with large numbers of individuals in real time. Taking advantage of that ability allowed the Ferguson protesters to exercise their influence in an organized, efficient way, bringing international attention to the community's distress.

4. social networks

Social networks include all the friendships and family relationships you have, whether those relationships are maintained online or face-to-face. An important relational maintenance behavior is to share your social networks with another. You and a close friend, for instance, are likely to know each other's family, coworkers, and other friends. When you do, we say that your and your friend's social networks have converged. Convergence is an important way to keep relationships stable and strong.

3. emotional release

Sometimes the best part of self-disclosing is the feeling of getting something "off your chest." Perhaps you've had the experience of holding on to a secret of yours that you felt you just had to talk to someone about. Appropriate self-disclosures can often bring emotional release. Also, as several studies have shown, self-disclosures can reduce the stress of holding on to a secret. That stress reduction is an important benefit because it can improve our mental and physical health.

Corporations, advertisers, government officials, nonprofit organizations, and political campaign strategists all want to know if you watch Family Guy, listen to Drake, read The Onion, or log onto Facebook more than once a day. With that information, they can target their media messages to the relevant audiences, making their communication more efficient and effective.

That is why, for instance, you see more television commercials for beer during a football game—when the viewing audience is largely male—than during a cooking show.

The quality of people's friendships with their coworkers affects their job satisfaction.

That is, the closer we are to our coworkers, the happier we are at work. Yet as beneficial as they are, friendships with coworkers can be challenging. They have both Page 192a social or personal dimension and a task or professional dimension, and those can come into conflict.

1. Attention

The attention stage arouses people's interest and sparks their desire to listen, often by making the topic personally relevant to them. Your message at the attention stage is: Please listen!

5. bonding

The final stage in Knapp's model of relationship development is the bonding stage, in which the partners make a public announcement of their commitment to each other. [That might include moving in together, getting engaged, or having a commitment ceremony. Beyond serving as a public expression of a couple's commitment, bonding also allows individuals to gain the support and approval of people in their social networks.]

The mass media have a long history of involvement with shaping politics and people's views of politics. Prior to the 1930s, U.S. voters got their political news primarily from newspapers.

The information was usually second-hand—political figures were rarely quoted directly in newspaper articles—and often reported with extreme political bias. Newspapers were accessible only to those who could afford them and who had enough education to read them. Getting information by newspaper was also slow, as many newspapers published only once a week and had to be transported by train for distribution. In the nineteenth century, in fact, many had to wait days or even weeks to get information on important political issues, such as the results of a presidential election. - When radios became common in U.S. households in the 1930s, savvy politicians were suddenly able to bypass the inefficiency and bias of traditional newspaper communication, and Page 464speak directly to the nation via radio broadcast. The first president to make regular use of the medium was Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose used his weekly fireside chats(1933-1944) to address the nation during the depths of the Great Depression and Second World War.

1. initiating

The initiating stage occurs when people meet and interact for the first time. [For instance, you might make eye contact with someone on the first day of class and decide to introduce yourself, or you might find yourself sitting next to someone on an airplane and strike up a conversation. "What's your name?" and "Where are you from?" are common questions people ask at this initial stage.]

4. integrating

The integrating stage occurs when a deep commitment has formed, and the partners share a strong sense that the relationship has its own identity. [At that stage, the partners' lives become integrated, and they also begin to think of themselves as a pair—not just "you" and "I" but "we." Others start expecting to see the two individuals together and begin referring to them as a couple.]

5. terminating

The last stage in Knapp's model of relationship dissolution is the terminating stage, at which point the relationship is officially judged to be over. In nonmarital relationships, that usually means one or both partners' moving out if the couple shared a residence. It also includes dividing property, announcing to friends and family that the relationship has ended, and negotiating the rules of any future contact between the partners. For legally married partners, relational termination means getting a divorce, which is the legal discontinuation of the marriage.

Our minds usually select, organize, and interpret information so quickly and so subconsciously that we think our perceptions are objective, factual reflections of the world.

The perception you form depends on which pieces of information you attend to and which ones you ignore.

1. pitch

The pitch of your voice is an index of how high or deep your voice sounds. On average, women's voices have a higher pitch than men's voices, and adults have deeper voices than children.

2. obligations in others

The reciprocity of self-disclosure can be a very good thing if we are trying to get to know someone better. However, it can make the other person feel put on the spot and uncomfortable about disclosing something back. Even worse, it could encourage the person to avoid us in the future.

But does reducing your uncertainty about a person guarantee that you'll like him or her?

Theories developed since uncertainty reduction theory say no.

When we perceive social behavior, especially behavior we find surprising, our nearly automatic reaction is to try to make sense of it. We need to understand what is happening to know how to react to it.

Think about it: if you perceive that someone is communicating out of anger or jealousy, you will likely react to that behavior differently than if you perceive it is motivated by humor or sarcasm. The ability to explain social behavior—including our own behavior—is therefore an important aspect of how we perceive our social world.

However, friendships and other social relationships carry costs as well as rewards.

Think about what it "costs" you to be friends with someone. A friendship takes time that you might spend doing something rewarding by yourself. It requires an emotional investment, particularly when your friend is in need of your support. There can be material costs associated with doing things together, such as the expenses you incur in taking road trips and going out to dinner. Friendships often require physical investments as well—you may not want to help your friend move into her new apartment, but you do it anyway because she's your friend.

1. people-oriented style

This style emphasizes concern for other people's emotions and interests. As the name suggests, someone with a people-oriented style tries to find common interests with others. For instance, when Palik listens to his middle school students, he tries to understand what they are thinking and feeling so that he can relate to them effectively.

4. time-oriented style

This style emphasizes efficiency. Someone with a time-oriented style prefers conversations that are quick and to-the-point. As an emergency room physician, for example, Ben relies on short and fast reports of a patient's condition from paramedics and nurses, and he gets impatient when they take more of his time than is necessary.

3. content-oriented style

This style emphasizes intellectual challenges. Someone with a content-oriented style likes to attend to details and think things through. Emma really enjoys listening to political commentators, for instance, because they make her think about her own social and political views.

2. action-oriented style

This style emphasizes organization and precision. An action-oriented listener likes neat, concise, error-free presentations. For example, Monica approves when her interns fill her in on the week's activities in a clear, straightforward way and gets frustrated when she can't understand them.

Although most of us probably try to generate accurate attributions for other people's behaviors, we are still vulnerable to making attribution mistakes.

Those errors can create communication problems because, as noted above, our responses to other people's behaviors are often based on the attributions we make for those behaviors.

When we talk about different types of listening, we're referring to the different goals we have when we listen to other people. Sometimes we listen to learn, sometimes to evaluate, and sometimes to empathize.

Those goals aren't necessarily exclusive; sometimes we listen with more than one goal in mind. When we distinguish among types of listening, we are considering what our primary listening goal is at a given time.

2. Pinocchio relationship

Those in a Pinocchio relationship also met each other online but have since met in the "real world." They tend to use a combination of online and face-to-face communication to maintain their relationship.

Thomas Edison

U.S. inventor who greatly influenced the lives of people worldwide in the 1800s with his inventions of the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, and a motion picture camera, among many other patents that he had (refers 2. sound media)

2. backchanneling

Using facial expressions, nods, vocalizations such as "uh-huh," and verbal statements such as "I understand" and "that's very interesting" to let the speaker know you're paying attention.

1. validating couples

Validating couples talk about their disagreements openly and cooperatively and communicate respect for each other's opinions even when they disagree with them. They stay calm when discussing hotly contested topics. They also use humor and expressions of positive emotion to defuse the tension that conflict can create.

4. rate

Vocal rate refers to how fast or slowly you speak. The average adult speaks at a rate of approximately 150 words per minute, but we might speak faster when we're excited or slower when we're unsure of ourselves.

2. volatile couples

Volatile couples also talk about their disagreements openly, but in a way that is competitive rather than cooperative. Each spouse tries to persuade the other to adopt his or her point of view, and their conflicts tend to be marked with expressions of negative rather than positive emotion. Those conflicts, however, are often followed by intense periods of affection and "making up."

3. volume

Volume is an index of how loud or quiet your voice is. Most of us alter our vocal volume as the social context demands, such as by speaking quietly in a library and more loudly at a crowded reception.

4. assistance to others

We can also self-disclose in ways that help other people, such as when we are consoling individuals who are going through hard times. If your friend is in distress due to the challenges she is facing in her life, you might disclose how you managed traumatic situations in your own life. That disclosure can provide comfort and signal to your friend that she's not alone.

1. Nonverbal communication helps us manage conversations

We can use nonverbal signals—such as raising a hand in class—to indicate that we wish to speak. We can also use eye contact to convey that we understand what a speaker is saying.

One of the defining characteristics of friendship is that it is voluntary

We choose our friends and they choose us; we don't have to be friends with anyone. Part of what makes a friendship so special is that both friends are in the relationship by choice.

2. caregiving touch

We often receive touch from others while receiving some form of care or service. When you get your hair cut, have your teeth cleaned, or work with a personal trainer, for instance, you are touched in ways that correspond to those activities. Caregiving touch is distinguished from affectionate touch because although it can reflect positive emotion for the person being touched, it does not necessarily do so.

2. Nonverbal communication helps us maintain relationships

We reinforce many of our important relationships through the use of immediacy behaviors, nonverbal signals of affection and affiliation. In many relationships, such behaviors include smiling, engaging in affectionate touch, using warm vocal tones, and standing or sitting close to each other.

When many people think about eye behavior, eye contact first comes to mind, for good reason. Eye contact plays a role in several important types of relational interaction.

We use eye contact to signal attraction to someone and to infer that someone is attracted to us. We use it to gain credibility and to come across as sincere or trust-worthy. We use it to persuade others, as well as to signal that we are paying attention and understanding what others are saying. We can even use eye contact when we want to intimidate someone or take a dominant or an authoritative position in a conversation or a group discussion.

1. rejection

What if the people to whom we're disclosing don't like what we tell them? Let's say your coworker decides to confide to you that he's gay. His disclosure might bring you closer together. If his sexuality is a problem for you, however, his disclosure could lead you to reject him. Often, the way a person reacts to a disclosure will determine whether its outcome is positive or negative.

Effective empathic listening requires two separate skills. The first, perspective taking, is the ability to understand a situation from another's point of view. The second skill, empathic concern, is the ability to identify how someone else is feeling and to experience those feelings yourself.

When listening to a co-worker describing his recent diabetes diagnosis, for instance, you can practice perspective taking by trying to think about the situation as he would think about it. You can practice empathic concern by imagining how he must feel and by sharing in those emotions.

4. avoiding

When partners decide they are no longer willing to live in a stagnant relationship, they enter the avoiding stage, during which they create physical and emotional distance from each other. Some partners take a direct route to creating distance, such as by moving out of the house or saying "I can't be around you right now." Others create distance indirectly, for example by making up excuses for being apart ("I have company in town all next week, so I won't be able to see you") and curtailing their availability by screening phone calls or not responding to texts or messages.

7. red herring fallacy

When people are unable to respond legitimately to an argument, they sometimes introduce an irrelevant detail—thus committing what is known as the red herring fallacy—to divert attention from the point of the argument. Suppose you hear someone say "We shouldn't prosecute people for prostitution when there are so many more dangerous crimes going on." Prostitution is still illegal even if other crimes are more dangerous, so the danger of other crimes is irrelevant to the claim that prostitutes and their customers shouldn't be prosecuted.

2. circumscribing

When romantic partners enter the circumscribing stage, they begin to decrease the quality and quantity of their communication with each other. Their purpose in doing so is to avoid dealing with conflicts. They start spending more time apart, and when they're together, they usually don't talk about problems, disagreements, or sensitive issues in their relationship. Instead they focus on "safe" topics and issues about which they agree.

Informational listening is one of the most important ways we learn. It is also a relatively passive process.

When we engage in informational listening, we're simply taking in information. That is, although we may be listening effectively and even taking notes, we are listening primarily to learn something new rather than to critique what we're hearing or to support the person saying it.

2. inflection

When we talk about the inflection in your voice, we are referring to your variation in pitch. Voices that have a lot of inflection are usually described as very expressive; those with little inflection are said to be monotone.

2. experimenting stage

When you meet someone in whom you're initially interested, you might move to the experimenting stage, during which you have conversations to learn more about that person. [Individuals in the experimenting stage might ask questions such as "What movies do you like?" and "What do you do for fun?" to gain basic information about a potential partner. This stage helps individuals decide whether they have enough in common to move the relationship forward.]

Glazing over is different from pseudolistening, which, as you'll recall, means only pretending to listen.

When you're glazing over, you actually are listening to the speaker. It's just that you're allowing your mind to drift while doing so.

3. controllability

You make a controllable attribution for someone's behavior when you believe the cause of the behavior was under that person's control. In contrast, an uncontrollable attribution identifies a cause that was beyond the person's control. [If you perceive that your boss is late for your appointment because she has spent too much time socializing with other coworkers beforehand, that is a controllable attribution because socializing is under her control. Alternatively, if you perceive she's late owing to a car accident on the way to work, that is an uncontrollable attribution because she couldn't help but be late if she wrecked her car.]

action

a behavior someone undertakes

complementarity

a beneficial supplement by another person of something we lack in ourselves

6. hasty generalization

a broad claim based on insufficient evidence, usually one or two isolated examples. Suppose you were to claim in your speech that it is unsafe to travel in Turkey. To support your claim, you tell of having had your passport stolen from your hotel room during your study-abroad experience in Turkey last year. Your argument is a hasty generalization because your evidence is limited to one incident in one hotel.

proposition of fact

a claim that a particular argument is supported by the best available evidence and should therefore be taken as factual

microblogging

a combination of blogging and texting supported by the website Twitter.

V-chip

a device allowing television owners to block access to certain types of programs, such as those featuring excessive violence or adult themes

2. Telecommunications Act of 1996

a federal law requiring (among other things) that all television sets 13 inches or larger manufactured after January 1, 2000, include a V-chip. With the V-chip, parents can limit their children's exposure to media messages they consider harmful, at least in their own homes.

inductive reasoning

a form of reasoning in which one considers evidence and then draws general conclusions from it

deductive reasoning

a form of reasoning in which one starts with a general conclusion and then uses it to explain specific individual cases

stereotype

a generalization about a group or category of people that can have a powerful influence on how we perceive others and their communication behavior

3. fairness doctrine

a law that required broadcasters to air all sides of a public issue. Enacted in 1949, the fairness doctrine obliged any station that raised a controversial issue of public importance to cover all angles of the issue fairly. The FCC abolished the fairness doctrine in 1987 but remains committed to ensuring that the public is exposed to a diversity of viewpoints on issues of the day

logical fallacy

a line of reasoning that, even if it makes sense, does not genuinely support a speaker's point

motions picture rating system

a means of evaluating a film's suitability for various audiences

perceptual schema

a mental framework for organizing information

skepticism

a method of questioning that involves evaluating evidence for a stated claim

HURIER model

a model describing the six stages of effective listening, which are hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating, and responding

peer

a person similar to us in power or status

face

a person's desired image; term coined by sociologist Erving Goffman

perceptual set

a person's predisposition to perceive only what he or she wants or expects to perceive

halo effect

a predisposition to attribute positive qualities to physically attractive people

need to belong theory

a psychological theory proposing a fundamental human inclination to bond with others; presented by psychologist Roy Baumeister;

comparison level

a realistic expectation of what one wants and thinks one deserves from a relationship; an important concept in social exchange theory

defense mechanism

a response that minimizes the effects of a face-threatening act

emotional commitment

a sense of responsibility for each other's feelings and emotional well-being

A final component of credibility is charisma, which is

a speaker's enthusiasm. As you know, it's much easier to listen to—and be persuaded by—someone who speaks dynamically and energetically than by someone who seems bored by his or her own words.

ethos

a speaker's respectability, trustworthiness, and moral character

over-benefitted

a state in which one's relational benefits outweigh one's costs

under-benefitted

a state in which one's relational costs outweigh one's benefits

enthymeme

a syllogism in which one of the premises is already so widely known and accepted that it isn't mentioned [Ex: Major premise: Anyone who thinks must exist. Minor premise: I think. Conclusion: Therefore, I exist.]

TV parental guidelines

a system for rating the content of television shows

When two friends are a supervisor and an employee, the power difference between them introduces

a task dimension that friendships between coworkers usually don't have.

communication privacy management (CPM) theory

a theory explaining how people in relationships negotiate the tension between disclosing information and keeping it private

attraction theory

a theory that explains why individuals are drawn to others

syllogism

a three-line argument consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion [EX: Major premise: All fruits contain seeds. Minor premise: Tomatoes are fruits. Conclusion: Therefore, tomatoes contain seeds.]

Johari window

a visual representation of components of the self that are known or unknown to the self and to others

a typical friendship is

a voluntary relationship between peers that is governed by rules and differs by sex. Although a particular friendship might be an exception to any of those characteristics, most friendships reflect them all.

Monroe's motivated sequence

a way of organizing a persuasive speech consisting of appeals to attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, and then action

refutational approach

a way of organizing a persuasive speech in which the speaker begins by presenting the main arguments against his or her position and then immediately refutes those arguments.

problem-solving pattern

a way of organizing a persuasive speech in which the speaker establishes the existence of a problem and then proposes a solution to it

comparative advantage method

a way of organizing a persuasive speech in which the speaker explains why his or her point of view is superior to others on the same topic

life story

a way of presenting ourselves to others that is based on our self-concept but is also influenced by other people

Family therapist Virginia Satir has suggested that four roles are especially common during conflict episodes:

a. blamer b. placater c. computer d. distracter

An important strategy for good empathic listening is to

acknowledge a speaker's feelings and allow him or her to continue expressing them.

3. stories

amily stories, they explain, give families a sense of their history, express what family members expect of one another, and reinforce connections across different generations.

product placement

an advertising strategy involving featuring particular brands in the storyline of a movie, television show, book, or even comic strip

comparison level for alternatives

an assessment of how much better or worse one's current relationship is than one's other options

media literacy

an assessment of your competence in evaluating media messages and their effects.

persuasion

an attempt to motivate others, through communication, to adopt or to maintain a specific manner of thinking or doing

self-monitoring

an awareness of how you look and sound and how your behavior is affecting those around you. [The tendency toward self-monitoring ranges along a continuum from high to low. People on the high end of the scale pay attention to how others are reacting to their own behaviors, and they have the ability to adjust their communication as needed. People on the low end express whatever they are thinking or feeling without paying attention to the impression they're creating.]

A second way we can reason deductively is with

an enthymeme

self-fulfilling prophecy

an expectation that gives rise to behaviors that cause the expectation to come true [How do self-fulfilling prophecies affect how we communicate? Sometimes our expectations influence our communication behavior, as when we're talking to Page 76someone we think is shy so we treat her as if she were shy.]

attribution

an explanation for an observed behavior

In reality, listening is a learned skill, not

an innate ability. We have to acquire our listening abilities. Just as we are taught to speak, we have to be taught to listen—and to listen effectively.

After noticing and classifying a stimulus, you have to assign it

an interpretation to figure out its meaning for you

face-threatening act

any behavior that threatens one or more face needs [rejection of an application you submitted to an honor society, for example]

4. false-cause fallacy

asserts that if an event occurs before some outcome, the event therefore caused that outcome. Consider the claim "I started taking ginseng and fish oil supplements three years ago, and I haven't gotten sick once during that time." That claim implies that because the speaker's streak of wellness followed her use of supplements, it was therefore caused by her use of supplements. Her reasoning is a fallacy, however, because she has no way of knowing whether she would have been free of illness even if she hadn't taken the supplements. The fact that one occurrence preceded the other doesn't mean it caused the other.

evaluation

assessing the value of information we have received

Our beliefs and opinions are what we think, but our actions are what we do, and many persuasive messages

attempt to influence them.

3. task attraction

attraction to someone's abilities or dependability

1. physical attraction

attraction to someone's appearance

2. social attraction

attraction to someone's personality

A common tension in intimate relations is between

autonomy and connection

role

based on the social and emotional functions our behavior serves within the family. [One person might be the problem solver; another might act as the jokester or the peacemaker. One sibling may be the troublemaker, whereas another is the caregiver or the helpless victim.]

If others accept the image you portray, they will tend to

behave in ways that encourage that image

nonverbal channels

behavioral forms of expression

disconfirming messages

behaviors that imply a lack of respect or value for others

confirming messages

behaviors that indicate how much we value another person

According to social penetration theory, peeling away the layers to get to know someone requires sharing disclosures that vary along two dimensions:

breadth and depth

co-parenting families

children divide their time between two parents who are no longer romantic partners but who share custody and financial obligations for the children

propositions of policy

claims about what should be done

propositions of value

claims that evaluate the worth of a person, an object, or an idea

instrumental communication

communication about day-to-day topics and tasks [ex: who's making dinner and who's taking the children to soccer practice]

Self-concept influences

communication behavior and relates to self-esteem

Communication scientist Sandra Petronio believes we all experience tensions between disclosing certain information and keeping it private. She developed

communication privacy management (CPM) theory to explain how individuals and couples manage those tensions

According to Gottman, the first warning sign occurs when partners engage in criticism which are

complaints that focus on the other person's personality or character rather than his or her problematic behaviors

1. receptive audience

composed of people who already accept and agree with all or most of what you plan to say. We sometimes use the phrase "preaching to the choir" to describe speaking to a receptive audience. When you have such an audience, your persuasive task is relatively easy because your listeners are likely to respond favorably to whatever you say.

4. the unknown area

comprises aspects of our self-concept that are not known either to us or to others. For example, no one—including you—knows what kind of parent you will be until you actually become one.

dialectical tensions

conflicts between two important but opposing needs or desires; common in intimate relationships

dialectical tensions

conflicts between two opposing needs

1. the open area

consists of characteristics that are known both to the self and to others. Those probably include your name, sex, hobbies, academic major, and other aspects of your self-concept that you are aware of and freely share with others.

2. the hidden area

consists of characteristics that you know about yourself but choose not to reveal to others, such as emotional insecurities or traumas from your past that you elect to keep hidden.

media activism

coordinated efforts to express displeasure with media messages and to force changes in their content

health campaigns

coordinated media messages that encourage the audience to take specific steps to increase or protect physical and mental health

Critical listening doesn't necessarily mean criticizing what you're hearing. Instead, it means analyzing and evaluating the merits of a speaker's words. Compared to informational listening,

critical listening is therefore a more active, engaging process. It requires not only taking in information but also evaluating and judging it.

glazing over

daydreaming or allowing the mind to wander while another person is speaking

social penetration theory

developed by researchers Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor, the theory suggests that the depth and breadth of self-disclosure help us learn about a person we're getting to know

mnemonics

devices that can aid our short-term and long-term memory

Motion Picture Production Code AKA Hays Code

distinguished acceptable and unacceptable content for movies in the United States

2. neutral audience

doesn't have strong feelings for or against the topic of your speech. Perhaps such listeners don't know enough about your topic to have formed a strong opinion on it, or maybe they don't care enough about your topic—or see enough of a personal connection to themselves—to bother forming a strong opinion. When speaking to a neutral audience, you should thus inform listeners about what your topic is and why it should matter to them. Once you make it relevant to them, you'll find it easier to persuade them to adopt your viewpoint on the topic.

Listening effectively to others can be challenging. Fortunately,

effective listening is a skill rather than an innate ability, so it is possible to become a better listener through education and practice.

Intimate relationships usually include some level of

emotional commitment

1. physical constructs

emphasize people's appearance, causing us to notice objective characteristics such as height, age, ethnicity, and body shape, as well as subjective characteristics such as physical attractiveness

3. interaction constructs

emphasize people's behavior, so we notice that a person is outgoing, aggressive, shy, or considerate

2. role constructs

emphasize people's social or professional position, so we notice that a person is a teacher, an accountant, a father, and so on

4. psychological constructs

emphasize people's thoughts and feelings, causing us to notice that a person is angry, self-assured, insecure, or carefree

A second important characteristic of friendship is that it is usually a relationship between

equals

In one of his major writings, Treatise on Rhetoric, the Greek Philosopher described three forms of rhetorical proof:

ethos, logos, pathos

opinion

evaluation about what is good and bad. Opinions reflect what we think should be, not necessarily what is. When people use persuasion to influence our opinions, they want us to evaluate something in the same way they do.

2. rituals

family rituals are repetitive activities that have special meaning for a family [A family ritual such as an annual road trip isn't just about the trip; it's also about spending time together, creating memories, and emphasizing the importance of family relationships.]

legal and financial commitments

formal expressions of people's obligations to each other

Individuals with higher self-esteem are

generally more outgoing and more willing to communicate and build relationships with others. They are more comfortable initiating relationships, and they are more likely to believe that their partners' expressions of love and support are genuine.

In contrast, to be probable, a statement has to

have greater than a 50 percent chance of being true.

infidelity

having romantic or sexual interaction with someone outside the romantic relationship, is often an emotionally traumatic experience for the partner who is wronged

Helping someone "save face" means

helping that person to avoid embarrassment and preserve dignity in a situation where that dignity is threatened

A person's character is

his or her degree of honesty. People who appear honest are more credible than those who appear dishonest because we can have greater confidence that what honest individuals say is accurate and true.

3. either/or fallacy

identifies two alternatives and falsely suggests that if we reject one, we must accept the other. Take the statement, "Either we make condoms available in public schools or we prepare for an epidemic of sexually transmitted infections among our teenagers." That statement argues for providing condoms by identifying an epidemic of infections as the only possible alternative. The reasoning is invalid—a fallacy—because it ignores the possibility that there may be other ways to keep sexually active adolescents infection-free.

face needs

important components of one's desired public image

verbal "leakage"

information unintentionally shared with others

Social exchange theory and equity theory both explain why we choose to maintain relationships. In contrast, relational maintenance behaviors theory,

is a theory specifying the primary behaviors people use to maintain their relationships

to build rapport

is to create the perception that your listeners and you see things similarly. It establishes trust and encourages audience members to listen even if they disagree with you.

although sharing a genetic tie makes two people biological relatives

it does not necessarily mean they share a social or an emotional relationship.

Listening isn't just about hearing, it's about creating meaning from what you hear. It is about attending, or paying attention well enough to understand what that person is trying to communicate. Second, listening is an active process. That means

it isn't automatic; you have to make yourself listen to someone

Finally, a statement is certain only if

its likelihood of being true is 100 percent and nothing less.

Some intimate relationships are bound by

legal and financial commitments

logos

listeners' ability to reason

pathos

listeners' emotions

selective attention

listening only to what you want to hear and ignoring the rest

critical listening

listening to evaluate or analyze [You listen carefully to a television commercial to see whether you want to buy the product being advertised. You listen to a sales presentation or a political speech and evaluate the merits of what you're hearing. You listen critically to your mother's description of her recent medical appointment to determine how worried she is about the results of her blood test.]

empathetic listening

listening to experience what the speaker thinks or feels [This occurs when you are trying to identify with the speaker by understanding and experiencing what he or she is thinking or feeling. When talking to a friend who has just lost a beloved pet, you can use empathic listening to give comfort and support.]

informational listening

listening to learn [Whenever you watch the news or listen to driving directions or pay attention to a professor's lecture, you're engaged in informational listening.]

Social and legal acceptance of same-sex romantic relationships varies dramatically among different cultures. In sharp contrast,

many other nations prohibit people of the same sex from being romantically or sexually involved at all. In some countries—such as Guyana, Uganda, Pakistan, and Tanzania—people convicted of engaging in same-sex relations face life in prison. Other nations—including Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Mauritania, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia—impose the death penalty on those who violate laws banning same-sex relations.

9. begging the question

means supporting an argument using the argument itself as evidence. Suppose a speaker says "The use of cell phones while driving should be banned because people shouldn't talk on the phone while driving." That statement presents a claim—cell phone use while driving should be banned—but then supports that claim simply by restating it in another way. No evidence is offered in support of the claim beyond the claim itself.

alternative media

media channels that give voice to a wider range of viewpoints

3. hostile audience

members are predisposed to disagree with you. Their hostile disposition may reflect that they already have a viewpoint on the issue that conflicts with yours, or it may be that they dislike you personally. Whatever the reason, hostile audiences are challenging because they are against you even before you start speaking. Good persuasive speakers can neutralize hostility, however.

As the evidence changes or as new evidence becomes available, we

modify our conclusions accordingly.

nuclear family

most traditional profile; it is a married woman and man and their biological children

social commitment

motivates us to spend time together, to compromise, to be generous with praise, and to avoid petty conflict

Many aspects of our self-concept are subjective rather than

objective

single-parent family

one adult raises one or more children. As in blended families, the children may be the parent's biological offspring or they may be adopted or stepchildren.

c. computer

one who attempts to use logic and reason—rather than emotion—to defuse the situation

d. distracter

one who changes the subject by making random, irrelevant comments so the rest of the family will forget about the conflict

a. blamer

one who holds others responsible for whatever goes wrong but accepts no responsibility for his or her own behaviors

b. placater

one who is the peacemaker who will go to any lengths to reduce conflict. That person may simply agree with whatever anyone says to keep others from getting angry.

self-esteem

one's subjective evaluation of one's value and worth as a person

Another way to improve communication in intimate relationships is to make sure that EVERYONE in those relationships has realistic expectations for them. When expectations are unrealistic, relationships are likely to fail, causing the individuals to feel disappointed, hurt, or betrayed. Only through

open communication can everyone's expectations come to light and the partners reach agreement on how realistic they are.

A second dialectical tension in intimate relationships is the conflict between

openness and closedness

Each of us perceives our self through

our own self-concept

Culture influences so many of the ways we interact with others that it shouldn't be a surprise to learn it influences

our perceptions of attractiveness as well

attending

paying attention well enough to understand what that person is trying to communicate

A third way to persuade people is to appeal to their sense of reason. If a particular belief, opinion, or behavior makes good sense, then

people will be inclined to adopt it if they have the capacity to do so.

According to desensitization theory,

people's acceptance of real-life violence grows as they see more violence reflected in the media. Thus, high-violence watchers may be more likely than others to justify violent behavior, objectify the targets of violence, or have little empathy for victims. In line with that idea, scientific research has found that exposure to media-depicted violence predicts lower reactivity in the brain and body to both simulated violence and real-life violence. Research suggests that the desensitization effect is stronger for violence depicted in video games than in other media, perhaps because video-game players are engaged in generating the violent acts that are depicted.

We form our impressions and evaluations of others by engaging in

perception

beliefs

perceptions about what is true or false, accurate or inaccurate

Finally, many intimate relationships experience conflict between

predictability and novelty

hen we are able to engage in conflict without criticizing, showing contempt, becoming defensive, and stonewalling, we stand a much better chance of

preserving the quality of our relationship even as we work with our partner to resolve our differences.

pseudolistening

pretending to listen

image management

process of behavioral adjustment to project a desired public image

persuasive speaking

public speech that aims to influence listeners' beliefs, attitudes, and actions

3. the blind area

refers to aspects of ourselves that others see in us, but of which we are unaware. For instance, others might see us as impatient or moody even if we don't recognize these traits in ourselves.

1. equal time rule

requires stations to offer competing political parties equal access to the airwaves. A station that carries the president's State of the Union address, for instance, is required to broadcast a response from the opposing political party immediately after the speech. Stations that sell advertising time to one political candidate must offer advertising to all candidates at the same price.

social capital

researchers use this term to refer to the resources we have as a result of our social relationships

A third danger sign is that partners become defensive during their conflict. Defensiveness means

seeing yourself as a victim and denying responsibility for your behaviors

Part of being a competent, skilled communicator is being aware of your self-concept and managing its influences on your communication with others. Two pathways by which self-concept can shape communicative behavior are

self-monitoring and self-fulfilling prophecy

one of the most common attribution errors has to do with the way we explain our own behaviors:

self-serving bias

A second warning sign occurs when partners show contempt for each other, which means

showing a lack of respect for the other person

intimacy

significant emotional closeness that we experience in a relationship, whether romantic or not

Intimate relationships usually include

social commitment

5. bandwagon appeal

suggests that a listener should accept an argument because many other people have. Think about the assertion "Over 15 million people buy Vetris motor oil each month, and you should too—15 million satisfied customers can't be wrong!" The implication is that if an argument (such as to use a particular brand) is popular, it therefore has merit.

Deductive claims often make use of

syllogism

According to cultivation theory,

television encourages—or cultivates—a distorted view of the world among heavy viewers.

emoticons

textual representations of facial expressions often used in e-mail messages

In his predicted outcome value theory, Michael Sunnafrank explained

that we consider the merits of what we learn about other people when forming opinions of them. In contrast to uncertainty reduction theory, Sunnafrank's theory suggests that when we dislike the information we learn about others, that information can cause us to like them less, not more.

proposition

that which a persuasive speech attempts to convince the audience to accept; the thesis statement

self-disclosure

the act of intentionally giving others information about ourselves that we believe is true but that we think they don't already have [From intimate conversations about our hopes and dreams to mundane chats about our favorite restaurants, self-disclosure reveals a part of us to someone else through communication.]

listening

the active process of making meaning from another person's spoken message

facework

the behaviors people use to establish and maintain their desired public image with others; term coined by sociologist Erving Goffman

investment

the commitment of one's energy or resources to a relationship

depth

the degree of intimacy of our self-disclosures [Let's say Ramona and her romantic partner are having problems. Ramona might describe her difficulties in detail with her mother, not only because she values her mother's opinion but also because she trusts her to keep the information private. Because she doesn't feel the need to guard the information from her mother, Ramona can engage in disclosure that has great depth. With her assistant, however, Ramona discloses that she is having difficulty, but she doesn't go into detail because she doesn't feel comfortable entrusting her assistant with the specifics. In that instance, Ramona engages in self-disclosure of less depth.]

predictability

the desire for consistency and stability

openness

the desire for disclosure and honesty

novelty

the desire for fresh new experiences

connection

the desire to be close to others

autonomy

the desire to be your own person

closedness

the desire to keep facts, thoughts, or ideas to yourself

commitment

the desire to stay in a relationship no matter what happens

credibility

the extent to which others perceive us to be competent and trustworthy

family of origin

the family in which one grows up, usually consisting of parents and siblings

family of procreation

the family one starts as an adult, usually consisting of a spouse or romantic partner and children

interpersonal attraction

the force that draws people together

2. autonomy face

the need to avoid being imposed on by others [It's our autonomy face that motivates us to be in control of our time and resources and to avoid having other people make decisions for us]

1. fellowship face

the need to be liked and accepted by others [That is the part of our identity that motivates us to make friends, join clubs and social groups, and communicate pleasantly with others.]

3. competence face

the need to be respected and viewed as competent and intelligent [That need drives us to seek careers and hobbies in which we can excel and to avoid situations that will embarrass us.]

competitive interrupting

the practice of using interruptions to take control of the conversation

interpretation

the process of assigning meaning to information that has been selected for attention and organized

organization

the process of categorizing information that has been selected for attention

perception

the process of making meaning from what we experience in the world around us

selection

the process of paying attention to a certain stimulus

rebuttal tendency

the propensity to debate a speaker's point and formulate a reply while that person is still speaking

breadth

the range of topics we self-disclose to various people [With some people, our self-disclosure has little breadth, because we disclose about only a limited range of topics. With close friends and coworkers, however, we probably talk about several different aspects of our life, such as our work and school experiences, financial concerns, professional ambitions, health, spiritual or religious beliefs, political opinions, and desires for the future, giving our disclosure in those relationships greater breadth.]

hearing

the sensory process of receiving and perceiving sounds

self-concept/identity

the set of stable perceptions a person has about who her she is

norm of reciprocity

the social expectation that favors should be reciprocated

interdependence

the state in which what happens to one person affects everyone else in the relationship

monogamy

the state of being in only one romantic relationship at a time and avoiding romantic or sexual involvement with others outside that relationship

information overload

the state of being overwhelmed by the huge amount of information encountered every day

polygamy

the state of having two or more spouses at once

closed-mindedness

the tendency not to listen to anything with which we disagree

vividness effect

the tendency of dramatic, shocking events to distort our perceptions of reality

fundamental attribution error

the tendency to attribute others' behaviors to internal rather than external causes

self-serving bias

the tendency to attribute our successes to stable, internal causes while attributing our failures to unstable, external causes

primacy effect

the tendency to emphasize the first impression over later impressions when forming a perception

recency effect

the tendency to emphasize the most recent impression over earlier impressions when forming a perception

confirmation bias

the tendency to pay attention only to information that supports our values and beliefs, while discounting or ignoring information that doesn't

equity theory

the theory suggesting that a good relationship is one in which our ratio of costs and benefits is equal to our partner's

image

the way one wishes to be seen or perceived by others

Berger and Calabrese's uncertainty reduction theory

theory suggesting that people find uncertainty to be unpleasant, so they are motivated to reduce their uncertainty by getting to know others

social exchange theory

theory suggesting that people seek to maintain relationships in which their benefits outweigh their costs

An event or fact is possible if

there's even the slightest chance, however small, that it might be true.

People have competence when

they have the required skills, knowledge, and organization to perform a task well.

Competent speakers avoid logical fallacies because

they offer invalid or incomplete evidence for claims. Instead, good speakers focus on providing valid logical arguments and evidence to support their points.

When we appeal to logos, we provide our listeners with certain evidence, hoping

they will arrive at the same conclusion we have reached. People can engage in the reasoning process in two ways: inductively and deductively.

mainstream media

those media channels that reach the broadest audiences; reflect only mainstream messages while silencing alternative opinions.

To reason

to make judgments about the world based on evidence rather than emotion or intuition

According to equity theory, inequality of over-benefited and under-benefited will lead to

trouble

blended family

two adult partners (who may be married or cohabiting and of the same or opposite sex) raising children who are not the biological offspring of both partners.The children might be adopted, or they might be the biological offspring of one of the parents and the stepchildren of the other.

10. appeal to false authority

uses as evidence the testimony of someone who is not an expert on a given topic. In a persuasive speech about the benefits of a vegan diet, for instance, a student might say "According to an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, a vegan diet is the healthiest way to eat." The problem is that although DeGeneres is a vegan, she is not a physician, nutritionist, or medical scientist. Therefore, despite her high public profile, she is unqualified to comment with authority on the health benefits of veganism or any other diet.

forms of rhetorical proof

ways to support a persuasive argument, including ethos, pathos, logos.

Roy Baumeister's need to belong theory says each of us is born with a drive to seek, form, maintain, and protect strong social relationships. To fulfill that drive,

we use communication to form social bonds with others at work, at school, in our neighborhoods, in community and religious organizations, on sports teams, in online communities, and in other social contexts. According to the theory, each of those relationships helps us feel we aren't alone because we belong to a social community.

As social beings, we are constantly engaged in interpersonal perception. We form impressions and evaluations of others—accurate or not—on the basis of the information available to us. Although our perceptions may seem to take shape instantaneously,

we will find that they actually form in stages, though quickly. We will also see that several factors can influence the accuracy of our perceptions, including culture, stereotypes, primacy and recency effects, and perceptual sets.

8. straw man fallacy

when he or she refutes a claim that was never made. Let's say the governor of your state proposes to reduce the drinking age in your state to 19 for beer and wine. A legislator responds in a televised interview by saying "Our governor thinks kids should be able to sit in bars drinking martinis! I doubt most parents in this state want to see children getting hammered with hard liquor after school." In that instance, the legislator is trying to refute an argument that the governor hasn't made. After all, the governor's proposal is about 19-year-olds, not children, and about beer and wine, not hard liquor.

Many compelling persuasive appeals are memorable and effective because they stir people's emotions. Although it's helpful for a speaker to convince listeners of his or her integrity, it's often much more powerful if the speaker can generate a strong emotional reaction from the audience. The reason is that

when people are emotionally aroused, their receptivity to new ideas is enhanced. Aristotle came up with pathos because he understood that emotion can be a significant persuasive tool.

According to that idea, family members are expected to enact roles,

which are patterns of behavior that define a person's function in a group

6. integration

which entails developing behaviors that will satisfy both sides of a tension simultaneously. [Moira feels connected to Albee when they spend their evenings together, but she also likes to choose how she spends her time. To integrate those needs, she reads or does crossword puzzles while Albee watches television in the same room, an option that allows her to feel autonomous and connected at the same time. Unlike the balance strategy, which focuses on compromising each desire, integration finds ways to satisfy both without compromising either.]

1. denial

which entails responding to only one side of the tension and ignoring the other [Were Moira to adopt this strategy, she might deny her desire for autonomy and focus all her attention on being connected with Albee.]

4. segmentation

which means dealing with one side of a tension in some aspects of a relationship and with the other side of the tension in other aspects of that relationships. [Moira might emphasize her connection to Albee by sharing intimate disclosures, but she might stress her autonomy by keeping her finances separate from his. Rather than going back and forth between the two sides of the tension, as in alternation, she addresses one side of the tension in some ways and the other side in other ways.]

2. disorientation

which means ending the relationship in which the tension exists. [Moira may feel so disoriented by the tension between her desires for autonomy and connection that she calls off her engagement to avoid it.]

3. alternation

which means going back and forth between the two sides of the tension. [On some days, Moira might act in ways that enhance her autonomy and individuality. On other days, she might act in ways that strengthen her connection to Albee.]

7. recalibration

which means reframing a tension so the contradiction between opposing needs disappears. [By communicating about their needs and expectations for their relationship, Moira and Albee might realize that autonomy and connection are both desirable. As a result, they may come to see autonomy and connection as complementary rather than opposing needs.]

8. reaffirmation

which means simply embracing dialectical tensions as a normal part of life. [Moira may come to realize that she will always feel torn between being autonomous and being connected. Instead of fighting the tension or struggling to resolve it, she accepts it as a normal feature of her relationship. Whereas recalibration means eliminating the tension by seeing the opposing needs as complementary, reaffirmation means accepting the tension as normal.]

5. balance

which means trying to compromise, or find a middle ground, between the two opposing forces of a tension. [For instance, Moira may disclose most but not all of her feelings to Albee. She may not feel as autonomous as she wants or as connected as she wants, but she may feel she is satisfying each desire to some degree.]

The last of Gottman's "Four Horsemen" is stonewalling, which means

withdrawing from a conversation

Suppose your coworker Fahid has come up with a business opportunity, tells you about his plan, and asks you to consider investing in it. Poor critical listeners might make their decision based on how they feel about Fahid or how excited they are at the prospect of making money. If you're a good critical listener, though,

you'll set aside your feelings and focus on the merits of Fahid's idea. Does he have a sound business plan? Is there a genuine market for his product? Has he budgeted for advertising? Did he explain how he would use your investment? Being a critical listener doesn't mean criticizing his plans—it means evaluating them to see whether they make sense.

2. slipper slope fallacy

—also called a reduction to the absurd—unfairly tries to shoot down an argument by taking it to such an extreme that it appears ludicrous. An activist advocating a ban on same-sex marriage might state: "If we allow gay marriage, pretty soon we'll be allowing people to marry animals." Such a method tries to persuade people not to adopt an argument by extending it to a ridiculous and undesirable extreme.

deception

the act of leading someone to believe something one knows to be untrue

media convergence

the increasing interconnection of media content and communication technology

media effects

the influences media have on people's everyday life

artifacts

the objects and visual features within an environment that reflect who we are and what we like

media

the plural form of medium

immediacy behaviors

nonverbal signals of affection and affiliation

Anthropologist Edward T. Hall discovered that in Western cultures, people use four different spatial zones, or levels of personal distance, when interacting with one another

1. intimate distance 2. personal distance 3. social distance 4. public distance

Beyond its role in emotional expression, nonverbal communication serves several additional functions that help us interact effectively with others. Let's take a quick look at some of them.

1. Nonverbal communication helps us manage conversations 2. Nonverbal communication helps us maintain relationships 3. Nonverbal communication helps us form impressions 4. Nonverbal communication helps us influence other people 5. Nonverbal communication helps us conceal information

Some people are surprised to learn that the voice is a channel of nonverbal communication. After all, we speak with our voices, and spoken communication is verbal, right? That statement is true, but the only verbal aspect of spoken communication is what we say—the words themselves. Everything else about our voices, including the following characteristics, is nonverbal:

1. pitch 2. inflection 3. volume 4. rate 5. filler words 6. pronunciation 7. articulation 8. accent 9. silence

Communication scholars divide gestures into several forms, including

1. emblems, 2. illustrators, 3. affect displays, 4. regulators, and 5. adaptors

It's difficult to overstate the importance of facial displays, or facial expressions, in nonverbal communication. Indeed, according to the principle of facial primacy, the face communicates more information than any other channel of nonverbal behavior. That communication power is especially evident in three important functions of facial displays:

1. revealing identity, 2. signaling attractiveness, and 3. expressing emotion.

Although originally constructed as a means to connect military computer systems, the Internet has transformed the landscape of communication media by greatly expanding our options for interacting with others. We can distinguish at least three forms of media that rely on Internet technology:

1. search engines 2. social media 3. instant messaging

8. accent

An accent is a pattern of pronouncing vowel and consonant sounds that is representative of a particular language or geographic area. Everyone speaks with an accent—even you—although we typically notice only accents that are different from ours.

7. articulation

Articulation, also known as enunciation, describes how clearly you speak. People who mumble their words or speak with their mouth full demonstrate poor articulation. In contrast, individuals whose words are clear and easily understandable are good articulators.

You might not immediately think of time usage as nonverbal behavior, but the way we give (or refuse to give) our time to others can send them important messages about how we feel about them.

Because most of us spend our time on the people and activities that matter to us, for instance, the way we use time communicates messages about what we value. When we give our time to others, we imply that we value those people. On the contrary, when we spend our time looking at our smartphones instead of talking to the people we are with, we imply that our phones are more important than our friends.

4. aggressive touch

Behaviors done to inflict physical harm—such as punching, pushing, kicking, slapping, and stabbing—are all forms of aggressive touch. Using touch behaviors to inflict physical harm on others almost always constitutes a criminal act. Despite the legal constraints on such behaviors, incidents of violence and abuse using aggressive touch are unfortunately still common in North America and many societies around the world.

1. affectionate touch

Behaviors such as hugging, kissing, and handholding communicate love, intimacy, commitment, and safety, and are commonplace in many romantic relationships, parent-child relationships, and friendships. One reason affectionate touch is so important is that it contributes to our physical and mental well-being. Infants who are regularly cuddled, for instance, experience faster physical development than those who are not.

1. Identity

First, the face is the most important visual clue that humans use to identify one another. After all, most of us don't display photos of our loved ones' hands, legs, or feet—we display pictures of their faces, because the appearance of the face is our most reliable clue to identity.

In the sections ahead, we boil mediated communication down into its four most basic forms: 1. print, 2, sound, 3. image, and 4. electronic. It is important to bear in mind, however, that these categories often overlap. Specifically, many media products are available in more than one form.

For instance, you could go to a movie theater to watch a feature film, turn on your car radio to listen to music, or pick up your favorite magazine at a bookstore—but you may also find access to all of these media online.

Johannes Gutenberg

German publisher who invented the printing press in the 1440s (refers to 1. print media)

The mass media also provide a platform for political advertising, which consists of media messages designed to influence people's political decisions. Political advertisements are commonly seen during the months preceding an election.

Many such ads promote candidates for political office by touting their ideas, qualifications, and morals. Others, called attack ads, criticize political candidates by exposing their personal and professional failures or raising doubts about their suitability for office. Many voters claim to disapprove of attack ads, but research has shown that negative messages about a candidate have a greater effect on voting behavior than do positive messages.

6. pronunciation

Pronunciation reflects how correctly you combine vowel and consonant sounds to say a word. For example, how would you pronounce the word victuals? Although it looks as though it should be pronounced "VIK-tules," its correct pronunciation is "VIT-tles."

Cultivation theory suggests a distinction, that is, between the "real world" and the "television world." Several studies over the past few decades have documented how heavy TV viewing can blur that distinction in people's minds. Consider the reality of employment, for example.

Research by communication scholar Nancy Signorielli has found that teenagers who are heavy television viewers are more likely than peers to expect their careers to be high-status and highly lucrative, but also easy and flexible, with long vacations. And she attributes that expectation to the many examples of such lives—such as the Kardashians—teens encounter on television. However, the reality is considerably different: The average starting-salary offer for four-year college graduates in 2016 is projected to be $48,734, hardly enough to support a Kardashian lifestyle.

5. Nonverbal communication helps us conceal information.

Several nonverbal behaviors coincide with our attempts to deceive other people. When we try to conceal the truth, we often speak in a higher voice than normal, and our smile looks more fake or forced. We also use fewer gestures and adopt a more rigid posture, probably because we're trying to control signs of nervousness.

9. silence

Silence is the absence of sound. We frequently use silence to convey meaning in conversations. For instance, we often become silent when we are unsure how to respond to a question or when we have said as much as we wish to about a topic.

5. ritualistic touch

Some touches are ritualistic, meaning that we do them as part of a custom or tradition. In North America, shaking hands is one such example; when we shake hands with people as part of a greeting ritual, we understand that the handshake does not convey any particular meaning about the relationship (the way that, say, holding hands would).

3. power and control touch

Still other touches are used to exert power over people's behavior. We sometimes touch people merely to suggest a certain course of behavior, as when the host of a party puts his hand on a guest's back to guide her in a certain direction. In other cases, we touch people to control their behavior against their wishes, such as when police officers hold a suspect on the ground while applying handcuffs.

4. Nonverbal communication helps us influence other people

When we attempt to cause others to think or act in a certain way, we can manipulate some visual cues, such as our clothing, to appear more authoritative. We can also use nonverbal immediacy behaviors to enhance our affiliation with others; in this way, we might lead them to be more open to our suggestions than they otherwise may be.

3. instant messaging

a form of text communication that occurs instantaneously between two or more connected users. Through Skype, Facebook Messenger, or similar applications, for instance, you can type an instant message to another user that will be visible to him or her immediately, assuming that user is online at the same time. He or she can then type a response that is instantly available to you, and the two of you can "talk"—via the words you are typing—nearly in real time.

health scare (a form of health campaign)

a media campaign to frighten people about a particular threat so they will avoid the behaviors that cause it. Health scares in the past decade have focused on such topics as trans fats, anthrax, and lead paint on toys made in China.

When we feel strongly about an issue, it's much more gratifying to listen to others who share our point of view than to people who disagree. That preference leads many of us to engage in selective exposure

a process whereby we seek media messages that match our values rather than those that do not.

blogs

a term that is short for web logs, are websites providing news, commentary, or personal diary entries from the user—the blogger—often along with comments from visitors. Some blogs, such as huffingtonpost.com, attract millions of viewers every month; most have much smaller followings.

Gerald Levin

a young executive at Time magazine who developed the idea for a cable television network in the 1970s

emoji

cartoon depictions of faces and other objects that first became popular on Japanese cell phone services

vocalics

characteristics of the voice that communicate meaning. Perhaps you have a high, breathy voice or a deep, booming voice. Maybe you usually talk very fast or quite loudly. Perhaps you have an accent that indicates to others where you grew up. And there are times when you speak with a particular tone in your voice, to suggest that you are irritated, amused, or bored.

advertising

communication intended to promote the purchase of a product or service

Nonverbal communication engages nearly all our senses, so it's probably no surprise that we experience it in so many different forms, or channels. Those channels are

facial displays, eye behaviors, movement and gestures, touch behaviors, vocal behaviors, the use of smell, the use of space, physical appearance, the use of time, and the use of artifacts.

facial displays

facial expressions

blockbusters

films that are highly successful financially

3. affect displays

gestures that communicate emotion (affect). You probably know people who wring their hands when they are nervous or cover their mouth with their hands when they are surprised. Those are both affect displays because they coincide with particular emotions.

4. regulators

gestures that control the flow of conversation. One regulator with which you're probably very familiar is raising your hand when you're in a group and wish to speak. Gestures such as that help regulate who is speaking, and when, so communication can flow smoothly.

2. illustrators

gestures that go along with a verbal message to clarify it. If you hold up your hands a certain distance apart when you say the fish you caught was "this big," your gesture serves as an illustrator to clarify what you mean by "this big."

1. emblems

gestures that have a direct verbal translation. Whenever you see an emblematic gesture, you should be able to translate it into words. Examples include the wave for "hello" or "goodbye" and the upright extended palm for "stop."

5. adaptors

gestures you use to satisfy some personal need, such as scratching an itch or picking lint off your shirt. When we do those behaviors to ourselves, we call them self-adaptors. When adaptors are directed at others (say, picking lint off someone else's shirt), they're called other-adaptors.

a similar form of real-time communication is texting

instant messaging with cell phones, or apps such as WhatsApp, rather than computers

Although we all need validation to some degree, that isn't the only need we look to media to fulfill. Another theory, uses and gratifications

leads researchers to explore other needs media messages fulfill for people. That question is important to media producers, who are anxious to know what movies, books, television shows, and music will most appeal to audiences.

political advertising

media messages designed to influence people's political decisions

According to agenda-setting theory

media tell people what to think about by determining what they watch, read, and hear.27 By giving attention to a topic, that is, the media put that topic on the public's "agenda," making it relevant to public discussion. One implication of that idea is that media coverage can increase awareness—and even distort perceptions—of an issue.

Many media messages have an influence, whether positive or negative, on people's health and well-being. Because mass media can reach so many people efficiently,

organizations such as the American Red Cross, the American Heart Association, and county departments of public health have used them to communicate health information to large audiences. Such media messages can have both intentional and less-intentional effects on public wellness.

Proportionality

refers to the relative size of your facial features

Symmetry

the similarity between the left and right sides of a person's face or body

Because the eyes are part of the face, it may strike you as odd that researchers study eye behavior separately from facial behavior. Just as facial behavior communicates more than any other nonverbal channel, however, the eyes communicate more than any other part of the face—thus, we treat oculesics,

the study of eye behavior, as a separate nonverbal channel.

haptics

the study of how we use touch to communicate. In terms of human communication, there are five major areas in which touch plays a critical role in conveying meaning: 1. affection, 2. caregiving, 3. power and control, 4. aggression, and 5. ritual.

kinesics

the study of movement, including the movement of walking

olfactics

the study of the sense of smell

proxemics

the study of the use of space

olfactic association

the tendency of odors to bring up specific memories

chronemics

the way we use time

When we interact socially, we constantly negotiate our use of space. That negotiating process becomes particularly apparent when our personal space is limited;

think of being in a crowded elevator or on a full airplane. Many of us find such situations uncomfortable, but why?

nonverbal communication

those behaviors and characteristics that convey meaning without the use of words.

4. public distance

typically applies when someone is giving a speech or performing in front of a large audience. The purpose is to keep the presenter far enough away from the group that he or she is safe and visible to everyone. Public distances are usually 12 to 25 feet or greater, depending on the circumstance.

gesticulation

use of arm and hand movements to communicate

2. social media

user-generated websites offering content that individual users construct for delivery to mass audiences. We refer to these media as social because they allow people to build and maintain social connections. Several of the most popular types of online sites belong to this category: blogs, social network sites, media sites, microblogging

paralanguage

vocalic behaviors that communicate meaning along with verbal behavior

media sites

websites on which people can share audio-visual messages. For example, both Flickr and YouTube allow users to make pictures and videos available to anyone who wishes to see them. Videos that quickly attract millions of viewers are said to have gone viral.

social network sites

websites that allow users to meet, communicate, and share information online. The most popular by far—with more than 1.1 billion users—is Facebook.

We place extraordinary importance on physical appearance. Whether we intend to or not, we make all sorts of judgments about people based on their looks. In particular, we have a strong predisposition to attribute positive qualities to physically attractive people, a tendency that researchers refer to as the halo effect. In other words,

when a person looks good, most of us subconsciously assume he or she is good. Indeed, research has shown that we think attractive people are friendlier, more competent, and more socially skilled than less attractive people.

2. personal distance

which Hall defined as extending from 1½ to about 4 feet, is the distance we typically maintain with other friends and relatives.

1. intimate distance

which ranges from 0 to approximately 1½ feet, is the zone we willingly occupy with only our closest and most intimate friends, family members, and romantic partners.

3. social distance

which ranges from about 4 to 12 feet, is used with customers, casual acquaintances, and others whom we don't know very well to convey more formal, impersonal interaction.