Interpersonal Communication

Communication Occurs in a Context

(1) Historical and Cultural Context: -Today, we value open and honest discussion -Historically, not always valued -Other cultures have different values too (2) Technological Context -New technologies allow for different forms of communication -Telephone, email, instant messaging (3) Relational Context -People change and are changed by relationships -May be shy in some relationships and outgoing in others

4 Dimensions of Attribution

(1) Locus: Internal or external [I failed an exam 'external' attribution: my roommate was upset and needed help] (2) Stability: stable or unstable (change over time?) [I failed an exam 'unstable' attribution: this is a one time thing] (3) Specificity: specific or global (apply in most situations?) [I failed an exam 'specific' attribution: this is specific to my roommate] (4) Responsibility: within personal control or beyond personal control [i failed an exam 'responsibility' attribution: I couldn't help it]

External Obstacles of Mindful Listening

(1) Message Overload (2) Message Complexity - Can't devote 100% effort to messages; Too overwhelming -Ex: Friend tells you a story with entirely too much detail; Too much within message (3) Physical Noise - In a noisy environment, hard to be a good listener -Ex: TV is on while talking to roommate

Internal Obstacles to Mindful Listening

(1) Preoccupation (psychological noise) -Ex: Friend is talking to you and you have something else on your mind (2) Prejudgment -- Occurs when you feel like you know person so well that you don't have to listen to what they're saying; Start to tune out (3) Reacting to emotionally loaded language -- Getting annoyed -Ex: When your parent starts off sentence with, "You should..." (4) Lack of effort -- We don't have the energy to be a good listener (5) Failure to Adapt Listening Styles - Certain interaction style that is technical vs. than being at home

Organizational Rules

(1) Proximity: Things that are physically close to one another comprise a unit [roommates] (2) Physical Similarity: Things that are physically similar to one another comprise a unit [2 blondes in a crowd are assumed to be friends] (3) Temporal: Things that occur at the same time go together [yawning during class, assume boredom] (4) Contrast: We process the differences and place them into separate categories

Forms of Nonlistening

(1) Pseudolistening: Pretending to listen -Appear attentive, but minds are elsewhere -Want to appear conscientious, but not really interested in (NEED FROM SLIDES) (2) Monopolizing -Continuously focusing on ourselves -"Conversational rerouting" -Interrupting (can be used with or without conversational rerouting) (3) Selective Listening -Screens out parts that don't interest us or make us uneasy (4) Defensive Listening -Perceiving personal attacks, criticism, or hostility in communication that is not critical -Assume others don't like, trust, or respect us -Some are always defensive, but can be situational (5) Ambushing -Listening carefully to attack a speaker -Trying to build an argument where you're going to respond

5 Stages of Perception

(1) Stimulation (2) Organization (3) Interpretation-evaluation (4) Memory (5) Recall

Scripts

-A type of schema -Organized body of information about some action, event, or procedure -Rules governing events

Self Competence

-Ability to choose and present a desired self-image -Involves knowing who you are and and conveying that to others

Interpretive Competence

-Ability to label, organize and interpret the conditions surrounding an interaction -Pick out important information and disregard the rest -Size up situations and people, from attitudes

Message Competence

-Ability to make message choices that others can comprehend -Include verbal competence: ability to use language effectively -Includes nonverbal competence: ability to use nonverbal codes effectively

Goal Competence

-Ability to set goals, anticipate consequences, and choose effective lines of action -Need to know what you want to achieve, identify obstacles, and overcome the obstacles

Role Competence

-Ability to take on social roles and to know what is appropriate for those roles

Nonverbal Communication

-All aspects of communication other than words themselves -Gestures, body language -How we utter words; Inflection, pauses, tone, volume, accent -Environmental features; clothes appearance -Accounts for 65% to 93% of the total meaning of communication

Mindfulness

-Being fully present in the moment -We tune in, try to understand other, without imposing our own ideas -A choice -Enhances others' communication effectiveness; Others will elaborate more then they sense mindfulness

Interpreting Verbal Messages: Levels of Meaning

-Denotative: level of meaning, dictionary definition of a word -Connotative: feelings associated with a word, can vary and is more personal

Standpoint Theory

-Describes how a person's position in society shapes his or her view of society in general and of specific individuals -Usually applied to differences between perspectives of privileged social groups and those with less power -Also describes gender differences Bem's psychological sex types -How people see themselves Masculine Feminine Androgynous Undifferentiated -Masculine and feminine types have different views of relationships: -Masculine: more likely to think about competition, winning -Feminine: about relationships, nurturing, expressing emotions -Androgynous: about behaving in a variety of ways, combination -Undifferentiated: don't process the world according to these factors

Selective Exposure

-Expose yourself to people or messages that confirm your belief -Ex: Republican/Democrat will read more about their preferred candidate

Receiving

-Hearing, attending -What occurs when you get an earshot of noise -Automatic for most -Hearing impairments interfere at this stage -Background noise interferes

Selective Perception

-Interpret people and messages in a way that confirms your belief -Ex: Republican/Democrat watching the same newscast will interpret it differently -"All in the Family study"

Language and Culture

-Language creates or reflects culture; Names and normalizes practices valued by the culture -Words reflect what the culture sees as worth naming -"He who lives a hurried life will soon die" (Mexico) -"It is the nail that sticks out that gets hammered down" (Japan) -"The early bird gets the worm" (USA)

Language is Abstract

-Language is not concrete or tangible -Words stand for people, ideas, objects, etc. -We often rely on overgeneralizations -Can distort how we view relationships

Understanding

-Learning what speaker means -Matching the meaning with what speakers intended

Literal Listening

-Listening for content and ignoring the relationship level of meaning -Being insensitive to feelings and our connections to others

Schemas

-Mental templates or structures that help you organize new and existing information -We have schemas for people, places, things, groups, etc. -Based on own experiences -Prototypes, stereotypes are schemas

Contributors to Communication Competence

-Message competence -Interpretive Competence -Role Competence -Goal Competence -Self Competence

Nonverbal and Verbal Communication: Differences

-Nonverbal perceived as more believable -Multichanneled; Seen, heard, smelled -Continuous; Can't stop it, ongoing

Why Nonverbal Messages are Powerful

-Older, more trusted form of communication -Conveys emotion -Express universal meanings

Second Stage: Organization

-Organize the information your senses picked up -Influenced by rules, schemas and scripts

Increasing Empathy

-Perspective taking -Emotional contagion -concern for others

Influences on Perception

-Physiology -Age -Culture -Roles -Cognitive abilities -Self

Processes of Perception: Primacy-Recency

-Primacy Effect: when what comes first in time is most influential. first impressions -Recency effect: when what comes last in time in most influential. last impressions

Interpersonal Perception

-Process by which you become aware of people and interpersonal messages -Based on you and the outside world -An active process -The process by which you create meaning

Nonverbal Competence: Codes

-Proxemics: Distance you and the person talking to you and how you perceive that distance -Physical appearance -Gaze: eye contact -Facial expression -Kinesics: body movement -Vocalics: tone or pitch of your voice -Tactile communication: communicating through touch -Environment

Stages of Listening

-Receiving -Understanding -Remembering -Evaluating -Responding

Listening

-Takes up at least half of your waking time -If you don't listen effectively, then you're communicating poorly half the time -Listening is important for everyone; Doctors, lawyers -The process of receiving, constructing meaning from and responding to spoken and nonverbal messages -More complex than hearing; Physiological activity that occurs when sound waves hit our eardrums

4 Dimensions of Listening

-Tensions we feel during listening -Competing goals -- makes it difficult for us to respond appropriately (1) Empathetic-Objective (2) Nonjudgmental-Critical (3) Surface-Depth (4) Active-Inactive

Active-Inactive

-The process of sending back to the speaker what you think the speaker meant -Not just repeating -Puts the speaker's thoughts and feelings into a meaningful whole

Theory of Nonverbal Interaction: Speech Accommodation Theory

-We adjust our nonverbal behaviors to accommodate or match others -Causes of convergence -Causes of divergence

All in the Family Study

-Who will watch the show more? -How will the show be interpreted? -Survey -Measured viewing, reactions, prejudice Results: -60% admired Archie more than Mike -More thought that Mike was the object of ridicule -Most didn't see it as a satire High prejudice people: -Higher viewing -liked the show more -admired Archie -thought Archie made more sense/won arguments Low prejudice people: -thought Mike made more sense/won arguments Conclusion: -viewers interpreted the program in accordance with their own beliefs

Language is Arbitrary

-Words are not intrinsically connected to what they represent -Meanings of words can change over time -New words emerge "Google," "Tweet," etc.

First Stage: Stimulation

-Your sense organs encounter a stimulus -Novel, loud, large stimuli attract attention -Change attracts attention -What we notice depends on our motives, needs, culture

Responding

-answering, giving feedback -occurs during conversation and afterwards

Evaluating

-judging, criticizing messages -often occurs without our awareness -we often evaluate motives

Fifth Stage: Recall

-often flawed -we usually recall information that is consistent with our schemas

Influences on Perception

-physiology -age -culture -roles -cognitive abilities -self

Remembering

-recalling and retaining information -memory is reconstructive -we recall less than half of a message immediately after hearing it -at 8 hours, we recall only 35%

Fourth Stage: Memory

-stores interpretation and evaluation -not always accurate -information is added, some is discarded

Processes of Perception: Implicit Personality Theory

-tells us what characteristics go together -Halo effect

Processes of Perception: Attribution

-the process by which we try to explain motivations -we question our and others' control over behaviors -Self-serving bias: we take credit for the positive and deny responsibility for the negative -Fundamental Attribution Error -Over-attribution

Processes of Perception: Consistency

-the tendency to maintain balance in our perceptions and attitudes -cognitive dissonance

Third Stage: Interpretation-Evaluation

-your evaluation of people, events as good, bad, inappropriate, justified, etc. -subjective -based on experiences, values, desires, expectations, gender -based on rules, schemanta, scripts

Processes of Perception: Self-fulfilling Prophecy/Pygmalion Effect

Self-fulfilling Prophecy: Any positive or negative expectation about circumstances, events, or people that may affect a person's behavior toward them in a manner that causes those expectations to be fulfilled -Pygmalion Effect: higher expectations lead to an increase in performance -teachers' positive information about students improved students' performance

Empathetic-Objective

Empathetic side: •Sharing the speaker's feelings •Putting yourself in speaker's position Objective side: •Provide objective reality to speaker •Listening with more detachment

Functions of nonverbal Communication

Express meaning Modify verbal meaning -Complement -Accent -Repeat -Contradict Regulate flow of interaction

Forms of Nonverbal Communication

Spontaneous Symbolic

Perceiving other More Accurately

Perception checking - monitoring your perceptions, other viewpoints also Avoid mind-reading, defense-raising questions: "Why are you mad at me?" "What's the matter with you?" -Check your perceptions by: Describing the behavior you notices -Offer 2 possible interpretations of the behavior -Ask for clarification for how to interpret the behavior

Surface-Depth

Surface side: •The literal meaning Depth side: •Hidden, underlying meanings

Nonverbal and Verbal Communication: Similarities

Symbolic -Nonverbal communication represent other things -Shrug shoulders, roll eyes Rule guided -Handshake, style of dress Intentional and unintentional Reflects culture

Negotiation

•Define: Process by which communicators influence each other's perceptions via communication •Interpersonal communication is like an exchange of stories, or narratives •Every situation can be explained by more than one narrative •Shared narrative lead to more satisfaction, happiness with relational partners; Couple doesn't see themselves as arguing a lot. They don't perceive what you see as a true argument -Creating these narratives in an interactive process; Happens through conversation and interaction The Gab: Video -TV show where 4 girls talk about mutual friend, Janelle. -They're creative this shared narrative, the one other is not really buying into it

The Semantic Triangle

Describes the relationship between: -Symbol (word) [represent something else and thoughts towards it] -Referent (thing) [subject] -Reference (thoughts) [reflection]

Language is Ambiguous

Meanings of words are not clear-cut and fixed -Friend, helpful, affordable

Nonjudgmental-Critical

Nonjudgmental side: •Having an open mind •Desire to understand other Critical side: •Wanting to make a judgment •Logical, dispassionate thinking

Communicating Competently

Performance competence -The communication that is actually seen Process Competently -The cognitive activity necessary to generate adequate performance Not always a strong relationship between process and performative competence What hinders performance? -Fatigue -Anxiety -Poor motivation -Lack of practice -Stubbornness Assign meaning to the world around you Set goals strategically Take on social roles appropriately Present a valued image of self to the world Generate intelligible messages

Gender and Listening

Women: -Women engage in listening cues (yeah, uh-huh, nodding) -Use more eye contact when listening -De-emphasize their expertise - don't want to come off as the expert -Want to be liked Men: -More frequent interrupting behaviors -Change topics -Emphasize their expertise -Want to be respected