Communications: Chapter 1 - Key Concepts

Person-Centeredness

The ability to perceive people as unique and to differentiate them from social roles and generalizations based on their membership in social groups.

Dual Perspective

The ability to understand both your own words and another's perspective, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings.

Systemic

Taking place within multiple systems that influence what is communicated and what meanings are constructed; a quality of interpersonal communication. Examples of systems affecting communication include physical context, culture, personal histories, and previous interactions between people.

I-Thou Communication

Fully interpersonal communication in which people acknowledge and deal with each other as unique individuals who meet fully in dialogue.

I-It Communication

Impersonal communication in which people are treated as objects or as instrumental to our purposes.

Ethics

The branch of philosophy that deals with moral principles and codes of conduct. Because interpersonal communication affects people, sometimes profoundly, it always has ethical implications.

Content Meaning

The content of, or denotative information in, communication. Content level meanings are literal.

Relationship Meaning

What communication expresses about the relationship between communicators. The three dimensions of relationship-level meanings are liking or disliking, responsiveness, and power (control).

Transactional Model

A model of communication as a dynamic process that changes over time and in which participants assume multiple roles.

Interactive Model

A model that represents communication as a feedback process, in which listeners and speakers both simultaneously send and receive messages.

Linear Model

A model that represents communication as a one-way process that flows in once direction, from sender to receiver. Linear models do not capture the dynamism of communication or the active participation of all communicators.

Interpersonal Communication

A selective, systemic, ongoing process in which individuals interact to reflect and build personal knowledge and to create meanings.

Symbol

An abstract, arbitrary, and ambiguous representation of a phenomenon.

Process

An ongoing, continuous, dynamic flow that has no clear-cut beginning or ending and is always evolving and changing. Interpersonal communication is a process.

Noise

Anything that distorts communication such that it is harder for people to understand each other. Noise can be physical, psychological, semantic, and so forth.

Metacommunication

Communication about communication. When excessive, as in unproductive conflict interaction, metacommunication becomes self-absorbing and diverts partners from the issues causing conflict.

I-You Communication

Communication midway between impersonal and interpersonal communication, in which the other is acknowledged as a human being but not fully engaged as a unique individual.

Monitoring

Observing and regulating your own communication.

Interpersonal Communication Competence

Proficiency in communication that is interpersonally effective and appropriate. Competence includes the abilities to monitor oneself, to engage in dual perspective, to enact a range of communication skills, and to adapt communication appropriately.

Models

Representations of what something is and how it works.

Feedback

Responses to messages. Feedback is continuous, and it may be verbal, nonverbal, or both; it may be intentional or unintentional.