C464 Introduction to Communication

Personal distance

18 inches to 4 feet away from you. Used by most Americans for conversation with friends and acquaintances

Organization

2nd stage of perception. A communicator's efforts to group information into meaningful units to make further sense out of the information

Social distance

4 feet to 12 feet. Most often used in the workplace

Intimate distance

<18 inches from you. Reserved for the closest people.

Public distance

>12 feet away. Used in public speaking and lecturing.

Transformational leadership

A model that illustrates how some leaders inspire, energize, engage, and motivate teammates to excel

Referent power

A person's ability to motivate and influence others because he or she is well liked, respected, and admired

Intensification

A purposive period of communication intended to escalate the relationship into greater intimacy and commitment. Strategies include spending more time together, providing social and emotional support, giving gifts, etc.

Dyadic relationships

A relationship involving two people

Co-cultures

A smaller culture which fits inside an umbrella culture like Democrats, southerners, stay-at-home moms, Christians

Expert power

A team member's ability to influence thoughts or behaviors because other members perceive him or her as competent, credible, and knowledgeable in the subject area

Groupthink

A team's overwhelming motivation to agree and reach consensus

Legitimate power

Assigned to people because of their job, position, or assignment

Perception Modifiers

BIOLOGICAL (height, sense of smell, eyesight) PAST EXPERIENCES (family, education, relationships) IDENTITY (Cultural and group affiliations) CURRENT INTERNAL STATES (hungry, tired, confident, well-rested, etc)

Sender-receiver reciprocity

Both communicators simultaneously send and receive messages and adapt to one another's feedback

Two aspects of disclosure

Breadth (range of topics discussed) and Depth (the significance of the information that is disclosed)

Attribution errors

Common mistakes people make in perceiving events, messages, and people. The two primary types are the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias

Transformational leaders...

Communicate vision, challenge others, support others, model good behavior

Control needs

Concerned with the extent to which relationships help us feel competent and confident as individuals, and, by extension, influential over others

Sources of tension in relationships

Connection/autonomy (Relationship vs. independence) Predictability/novelty (too much unpredictability is scary. not enough is boring) Openness/privacy

Connotative meanings

Contextual meanings that we associate with words, meanings that often express some kind of value beyond the commonly agreed upon definition

Direct strategies

Fairly straightforward in their intent. People introduce themselves, invite others to participate in activities, or make explicit statements of attraction

Organizing Information - Distinguishing between figure and ground

Figure out what the point of emphasis for your attention is (figure) and the background of the particular stimuli that capture your focused attention (ground)

Selection

First stage of perception. We choose which stimuli to ignore and which to process

Four stages of team development

Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing

Ambiguous strategies

Indirect moves to become closer to a person

Self-talk

Internal dialogue

Rich media

Media which comes close to simulating face-to-face communication

Lean media

Media which relies mostly on text and permits little or no exchange of affect, instant feedback, or important nonverbal clues

Team Development - Performing

Members do the work necessary to accomplish the team's objectives. People know one another well and understand their roles. This is when synergy develops.

Message complexity

Messages that are too complex can cause a listener to shut down

Monochronic vs. Polychronic Time

Monochronic people tend to like doing one thing at a time, being punctual, and concentrating fully to meet their commitments. Polychronic people tend to like working on multiple things at one time. They change plans and priorities easily, and the border between work and personal time is fluid for them.

Illustrators

Movements that accompany or reinforce the meaning of a verbal code, like shaking our head to tell someone "no" or nodding our head to say "yes"

Adaptors

Movements that communicators engage in, sometimes unconsciously, to relieve stress and anxiety. For example, a nervous speaker may tap their fingers on the podium.

Affect displays

Nonverbal movements that reveal emotion. Slumped shoulders, minimal eye contact may indicate sadness.

Emblems

Nonverbal movements that substitute for words and verbalization. Hold a hand up for "stop", giving the "thumbs up" symbol to suggest that all is well

Johari Window (all four quadrants)

OPEN: Represents things you know about yourself and others know too BLIND: Represents things others know about you but you don't (you talk too loud!) HIDDEN: Represents things you know about yourself but keep hidden from others UNKNOWN: Represents things which are unknown both to you and others

Selective Attention

Once we are engaged in a particular interaction, we focus on certain information and ignore other information

Organizing Information - Proximity

Organizing information based on its proximity in relation to other information

Organizing Information - Similarity

Organizing information based on its similarity, or the degree to which something shares attributes with other stimuli

Artifacts

Ornaments and adornments a person displays. Jewelry, hairstyle and colors, makeup, clothing, watches, cars, glasses

Organizing Information - Closure

Our ability to fill in missing information to complete a perception

Selective Perception

Our inclination to see, hear, and believe what we want to see, hear, and believe

Inclusion needs

Our need to feel accepted by and involved with others

Passivity

Passively listening (AKA not listening at all)

Flippant strategies

Pick-up lines!

Abstract words

Refer to intangibles - honor, love, moral

Concrete words

Refer to tangible objects - car, rock, boat

Locus of Causation

Refers to whether a communicator's behavior was motivated by an internal state such as intelligence, compassion, or honesty, or instead motivated by an external factor such as resources, luck, favoritism, or the situation,

Informational power

Reflected in an individual's ability to acquire and share valuable information

Stages of Perception

Selection, Organization, Interpretation

Four Steps for Effective Self-Presentation

Set a goal, create a strategy, execute the strategy and evaluate the results, modify negative perceptions

Reward power

Team members believe an individual member has the potential for either providing a positive reward or removing something negative

Team Development - Storming

Team members may openly disagree about roles, goals, and processes. They compete to assume the roles and to obtain the resources they want.

Coercive power

Team members' belief that a particular member has the ability to punish them for not cooperating or complying as participants with his or her requests

Interpretation

The 3rd stage of perception. We assign meaning to stimuli

Social attraction

The attraction friends feel toward one another based on shared enjoyment of activities and interests

Power

The authority or ability to influence other people to do things they may lack motivation to do on their own without influence.

Relationship audition

The beginning phase of a relationship in which we decide if we'd like to pursue it or not

Team Development - Norming

The conflicts are resolved and the team members begin to assume their roles in functional, appropriate ways.

Self-esteem

The degree to which you approve of, value, and like the concept that you have of yourself

Impression Management

The deliberate use of verbal and nonverbal messages to create a particular impression among others.

Task attraction

The desire to work together or form professional connections based on a perception that the individual is competent or skilled

Initiating or Orientation

The earliest period of a new relationship. Communication is fairly nonintimate and impersonal. Conversations are restricted to safe and positive topics.

Fundamental Attribution errors

The mistake of attributing other people's positive characteristics to external, situation favors, and their negative characteristics and failures to aspects of who they are

Affection needs

The need to feel attached, devoted, or loved

Self-presentation

The strategic development and use of verbal and nonverbal messages that result in others making conclusions about the kind of individual you are. We can influence how others perceive us by selecting the impressions we want to make and communication in ways that will help us accomplish that.

Kinesics

The study of body movements, including posture, gestures, and facial expressions

Team Development - Forming

The team explores and identifies its primary objective(s)

Denotative meanings

The universal or dictionary definitions of words that groups agree on

Haptics

The use of touch in communication

Self-concept

The way you define yourself. Groups we're a part of, roles we play, relationships and experiences we have

Proxemics

The ways in which humans use and manage the space around them as a way of shaping meanings

Information overload

Too much information (text, imagery, audio, video) can cause a listener to shut down

Physical noise

Too much noise can cause a listener to shut down

Paralanguage

Uses of the voice other than to express words and phrases such as pitch, rate, tone, enunciation

Verbal immediacy

Verbally immediate people are viewed by others as warm, friendly, accepting, approachable, and understanding

Self-serving Bias

We attribute our failures to external factors and our successes to internal positive qualities.

Selective Recall

We remember things we agree with rather than things that are contrary to our beliefs

Selective Exposure

We will attend to information which confirms our existing beliefs and is not at odds with our viewpoints

Social Loafing

When one or more members exert little or no effort to the team's work

Preoccupation

When you are so focused on a single task, thought, or message that we don't listen effectively to anything else

High power distance vs low power distance

Whether a culture values power and rank (high power distance) or depends more on equality (low power distance)

Individualism vs. Collectivism

Whether a society values strong individuals or values their membership in their particular in-group

High context vs low-context communication

Whether communication relies heavily on environmental cues (high-context) vs explicit or clear verbal messages (low-context)

Devil terms

Words that trigger negativity and may incite angry action

God terms

Words that trigger positive and desirable feelings

Culture

a seat of learned or shared behaviors, values, or practices associated with a community of people

Bias-free language

language which is sensitive to others' sex, race, age, physical condition, and other characteristics

Dialectical tension

tension that exists between two competing and contradictory, but related, forces

Role-taking

the skill that allows communicators to figuratively stand in one another's shoes and assume one another's social roles and perspective.