Interpersonal Comm ch1-4

How to improve Interpersonal Perception skills

Link details to make a big picture, become aware of other's perception of you, check your perceptions directly and indirectly, and become other-oriented

Noise

anything that interferes with a message and keeps it from being understood and achieving its intended effect (can be literal or psychological - thoughts running through your head)

Impersonal Communication

Process that occurs when we treat others as objects or respond to their roles rather than to who they are as unique persons. (ex: ordering food from a waiter)

Emotional Contagion

The process whereby people mimic emotions of others after watching and hearing their emotional expressions

Co-culture

a distinct culture within a larger culture (such as African American community), also called microculture, develop own rules and norms

Communibiological Approach

approach to communication that suggests that some people inherit certain traits or characteristics that affect the way they communicate with others (there may be a genetic basis for why people communicate as they do)

Halo Effect

attributing a variety of positive qualities to those you like

Construct

bipolar quality used to classify people

Material Self

concept of self as reflected in a total of all the tangible things you own

Corrective Facework

efforts to correct what one perceives as a negative perception of oneself on the part of others

Preventative Facework

efforts to maintain and enhance one's positive self-perceptions

Value

enduring concept of good and bad, right and wrong

Decode

to interpret ideas, feelings, and thoughts that have been translated into a code

Encode

to translate ideas, feelings and thoughts into code

Facework

using communication to maintain your own positive self perception or to support, reinforce, or challenge someone else's self-perception

Metacommunication

verbal or nonverbal communication about communication

Belief

way in which you structure your understanding of reality-- what is true and what is false for you

Barriers to Interpersonal Perception

Ignoring information, stereotyping, imposing consistency, focusing on the negative, blaming others by assuming they have control, avoiding responsibility

Why is communication important to your life?

Improves relationships with family, friends, lovers, colleagues and improves physical and emotional health

What 5 things develop self-concept?

Interactions with other individuals, association with groups, roles you assume, self-labels, personality

According to systems theory, what are the key aspects of any system?

Key aspects of any system include inputs (all of the variables that go into the system), throughputs (which are all of the things that make communication a process), and outputs (what the system produces)

Communication Myths

- More words make the meaning clearer - Meanings are in words - Information equals communication - Interpersonal relationship problems are always communication problems

Stages of Interpersonal Perception

- Stage 1: Selecting, stage 2: organizing, stage 3: interpreting - We select information, make judgments, organize, and create categories to help us make sense of what we observe and interpret what we see, hear and experience

Human Communication

- process of making sense out of the world and sharing that sense with others by creating meaning through the use of verbal and nonverbal messages - learn about the world by listening, observing, tasting, touching and smelling; then share our conclusions with others - Encompasses many media

Media Richness Theory

suggests that richness of a communication channel is based on four criteria 1. amount of feedback the communicator can receive 2. number of cues the channel can convey and be interpreted by the receiver 3. variety of language that communicator uses 4. potential for expressing emotions and feelings

Social Information-Processing Theory

suggests that we can communicate relational and emotional messages via the internet, but it may take longer to express messages that are typically communicated with facial expressions and tone of voice (nonverbal cues)

Self

sum total of who a person is; a person's central inner force, common to all human beings, yet unique to each

Visualization

technique of imagining that you are performing a particular task in a certain way; if positive it can enhance self-esteem

Responsiveness

tendency to be sensitive to the needs of others , including being sympathetic to others' feelings and placing the feelings of others above one's own feelings

Assertiveness

tendency to make requests, ask for information, and pursue one's own rights and best interests

Self-serving Bias

tendency to perceive our own behavior as more positive than other's behavior

Mindfulness

the ability to consciously think about what you are doing and experiencing

Source

the originator of thought or emotion, who puts it into a code that can be understood by a receiver

Interpersonal Perception

the process by which you decide what people are like and give meaning to their actions

Communication

the process of acting on information; someone does or says something, and others think or do something in response to the action or the words as they understand them

Perception

the process of experiencing your world and then making sense out of what you experience (through your five senses)

Selective Attention

the process of focusing on a specific stimuli; we selectively lock on to some things in our environment and ignore others

Punctuation

the process of making sense out of stimuli by grouping, dividing, organizing, separating, and further categorizing information

Feedback

the response to the message (listening and responding to what someone says or does)

Primacy Effect

the tendency to attend to the first pieces of information that we observe about another person in order to form an impression

Recency Effect

the tendency to attend to the most recent information observed about another person in order to form or modify an impression

Attribution Theory

theory that explains how we ascribe specific motives and causes to the behaviors of others (how you generate explanations for people's behavior) - helps us interpret what people do

Electronically Meditated Communication (EMC)

communication that is not face to face, but rather is sent via a medium such as a cellphone or the internet

Intrapersonal Communication

communication with yourself; thinking

Social Self

concept of self as reflected in social interactions with others

Spiritual Self

concept of self based on thoughts and introspections about personal values, moral standards, and beliefs

Looking-glass Self

concept that suggests you learn who you are based on your interactions with others, who reflect your self back to you

Mindful

conscious of what you are doing, thinking, and sensing at any given moment

Communication Apprehension

fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with other people

Life Position

feelings of regard for self and others, as reflected in one's sense of worth and self-esteem

Rule

followable prescription that indicates what behavior is obligated, preferred, or prohibited in certain contexts

Worldview

general cultural perspective on such key issues as death, God, and the meaning of life that shapes how you perceive and respond to what happens to you, every one has it and it influences every aspect of your life

Selective Exposure

our tendency to put ourselves in situations that reinforce our attitudes, beliefs, values, or behaviors.

Channel

pathway through which messages are sent

Active Perception

perception that occurs because you seek out specific information through intentional observation and questioning - doesn't just happen

Passive Perception

perception that occurs simply because we are alive and our senses are operating - occurs without conscious effort, simply in response to one's surroundings

Receiver

person who decodes a message and attempts to make sense of what the source has encoded

Symbolic Interaction Theory

theory that people make sense of the world based on their interpretation of words or symbols used by others

Cues-filtered-out Theory

theory that suggests that emotional expression is severely restricted when we communicate using only text messages; non-verbal cues such as facial expression, gestures, and tone of voice are filtered out.

Context

physical and psychological environment- people present, relationships, communication goal- for communication ("everyone has to be somewhere")

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

prediction about future actions that is likely to become true because the person believes that it will come true

Social Comparison

process of comparing yourself to others who are similar to you, to measure you worth and value

Reframing

process of redefining events and experiences from a different point of view

Selective Perception

process of seeing, hearing, or making sense of the world around us based on such factors as our personality, beliefs, attitudes, hopes, fears, and cultures, as well as what we like and don't like

Small Group Communication

process that occurs when a group of from three to fifteen people meet to interact with a common purpose and mutually influence one another

Public Communication

process that occurs when a speaker addresses an audience in person

Mass Communication

process that occurs when one person issues the same message to many people at once; the creator of the message is usually not physically present, and there is virtually no opportunity for listeners to respond immediately to the speaker (ex. messages communicated via radio and TV)

Self-disclosure

purposefully providing information about yourself to others that they would not learn if you did not tell them

Systems Theory

says that a system is a set of interconnected elements in which a change in one element affects all of the other elements (ex. your body)

Indirect Perception Checking

seeking through passive perception, such as observing and listening to additional information to confirm or refute interpretations you are making

Episode

sequence of interactions between individuals, during which the message of one person influences the message of another; only the sender and receiver of those messages can determine where one episode ends and another begins

Message transfer

source→message→channel→message→receiver (with noise) (Human communication is linear, with meaning sent or transferred from source to receiver)

Message exchange

source→message→channel→message→receiver...Then feedback (context make up the physical and psychological environment for communication) (with noise)

Uncertainty Reduction Theory

suggest that one of the primary reasons we communicate at all is to reduce our uncertainty about what we see and experience

Social Learning Theory

suggest that we can learn how to adapt and adjust our behavior toward others; how we behave is not solely dependent on our genetic or biological makeup

Impression Formation Theory

we form impressions based on our perceptions of physical qualities (What people look like), behavior (what people do), what people tell us, and what others tell us about them

Symbol

word, sound, or visual image that represents something such as a thought, concept or object; it can have various meanings and interpretations (ex: language)

Message

written, spoken and unspoken elements of communication to which people assign meaning

Self-worth/Self-esteem

your evaluation of your worth or value based on your perception of such things as your skills, abilities, talents, and appearance

Relationship

A connection established with another person through communication (the people influence one another)

Interpersonal Communication

A distinctive, transactional form of human communication involving mutual influence, usually for the purpose of managing relationships.

Asynchronous Message

a message that is not read, heard, or seen exactly when it is sent; there is a time delay between the sending of the message and when someone else receives it

Face

a person's positive perception of himself or herself in interactions with others

Standpoint Theory

a person's social position, power, or cultural background influences how the person perceives the behavior of others (we each see the world differently because we're each viewing it from a different position)

Self-concept

a person's subjective description of who he or she is; filtered through own perceptions and different from the way others see you

Direct Perception Checking

asking for confirmation from the observed person of an interpretation or a perception about him or her

Horn Effect

attributing a variety of negative qualities to those you dislike

Causal Attribution Theory

identifies three potential causes for any person's action: circumstance (that you believe a person acts a certain way because the situation leaves no choice), stimulus (another person), or the person themselves

Explicit rules

interpersonal communications class rules are spelled out in your syllabus

Need for Control

interpersonal need for some degree of influence in our relationships, as well as the need to be controlled

Need for Inclusion

interpersonal need to be included and to include others in social activities

Need for Affection

interpersonal need to give and receive love, support, warmth, and intimacy

Attitude

learned predisposition to respond to a person, object or idea in a favorable or unfavorable way

Culture

learned system of knowledge, behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, values, and norms that is shared by a group of people- influences how we process information

Synchronous Message

messages that are sent and received instantly and simultaneously (ex: face-face conversations)

Implicit rules

not written or verbalized because you learned them a long time ago - raise your hand and wait to be called on, no texting

Thin Slicing

observing a small sample of someone's behavior and then making a generalization about what the person is like, based on the sample

Fundamental Attribution Error

occurs when a person blames a problem on something that is personally controllable rather than something uncontrollable (we are likely to think that a person's behavior is influenced by his or her actions and choices rather than by external causes)

Selective Recall

occurs when we remember things we want to remember and forget or repress things that are unpleasant, uncomfortable, or unimportant to us

Implicit Personality Theory

our personal set of assumptions and expectations or a pattern of associated qualities that we attribute to people, which allows us to understand them - whether we met them 10 minutes ago or 10 years ago