interpersonal communication

Perception Checking

Don't jump to conclusions give the person chance to expalin

An Empathetic Listener

Focuses on understanding the persons feelings Listens to the persons feelings, looks for both verbal and non-verbal cue's (e.g tone of voice) Suspending your own emotional agenda (aka blocks to listening) Listens non-judgmentally Effective and non-judgemental listening will help you to understand the other person or people. When someone listens to you, both your own sense of worth and the worth of the listener increases. Judging another person almost always creates distance and defensiveness.

Assumption Statement- Perception Checking statement-

It's pretty obvious you don't like me. You never respond to my emails" "You said you would get back to me but then I never heard from you (behaviour) . I thought maybe you didn't like me (first interpretation) or perhaps you just forgot?(second interpretation). What happened? (request for clarification)"

Mind Reading

doesn't pay attention to what people say in fact he often distrusts it. he's trying to figure out what the other person is REALLY feeling and thinking

Techniques to Active Listening

1. Paraphrase: restate, in your own words, what you think the other person just said. "In other words..." "What I am hearing you say is...." 2. Reflect feelings: Similar to paraphrasing, however, in this skill you restate what you think the speaker is feeling. "You sound really frustrated" 3. Express Understanding- Let the speaker know you understand "I understand" "I see how you would feel" 4- Ask clarifying questions - Ask questions to clarify if what you thought you heard was correct. This also encourages the speaker to keep talking. "So, you are worried that he isn't forming friendships with the other children?" "Let me be sure I understand, are you saying..."

Stereotypes are:

A fixed impression of a group of people May be influenced by nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic that defines a group Distort accurate perceptions Prevent seeing someone as an individual

Perception is influenced by

Experiences Motivations Desires Needs and wants Loves and hates Sense of Self- Self concept, self esteem, and self awareness...these things affect our perception and frame of reference.

Implicit Personality Theory

Guesses we make about someone's personality based on our perceptions Some characteristics match with others in our mind e.g. glasses=smart

Sparring

Has you arguing and debating with people The other person feels heard because you're so quick to disagree.

Attribution

If we feel people ARE in control of negative behaviours, we will come to blame them and/or dislike them. (Elizabeth was wild and having a good time) If we feel people ARE NOT in control of negative behaviours, we will feel sorry for them, not blame them. (Elizabeth needed to support herself and her sick mother) Some of you may have changed your mind due to attribution. The process by which we try to explain the motivation for a person's behaviour Think of it as an "explanation" to a "why" Question We ask whether that person is in control of the behaviour (internal factor) or not in control (external factor)? Eg. Perhaps you feel Elizabeth had little control in her choice of career (because she had to help her mother) you feel for her and now would choose her as a roommate.

Being Right

Means you will go to any lengths (twisits the facts, start shouting make excuses) to avoid being wrong. You can't listen to criticism and you can't be corrected and you can't take suggestions to change.

Judging

Negative labels have enormous power. if you have prejudge someone as stupid or nuts or unqualified, you don't pay pay attention to what they say.

Perception

Our interpretations- how we assign meaning to our world It is unique to all of us. Each of us sees the world differently.

Interpersonal Perception Checking

Perception-checking is a tool for helping to better understand others, instead of assuming our first interpretations are accurate. A better way to handle your interpretations. The following 3 strategies are a good way to prepare to discuss your perceptions with another person. Try to describe the behaviour you noticed Come up with at least two possible interpretations of the behaviour If possible ask for clarification about how to interpret the behaviour

Placating

Right....Right.... Absolutely i know of course you are incredible yes really? You want a nice pleasant, supportive. You want people to like you, so you agree with everything.

How can we improving our listening skills?

Stop Become conscious of being distracted; remain focused Look Establish eye contact; avoid fidgeting or performing other tasks when someone is speaking to you. Listen with your eyes. Listen Mentally summarize details Ask Questions Clarify words, events, feelings by questioning the speaker. Paraphrase Briefly state the essence of what the speaker has said to ensure the accuracy of your understanding.

Perception helps us make judgments

What are the benefits? We gain experience which allows us to: Organize information Simplify and Remember information Draw from previously acquired knowledge What are some drawbacks? Could be misleading - strict schema, generalizations, stereotypes Memory can be unreliable

Advising

You are the great problem solver ready with help and suggestions. You don't have to hear more than a few sentences before you begin to search for the right advice.

Derailing

You derail the train of conversation when you get bored or uncomfortable with a topic.

Rehearsing

You don't have a time to listen when your rehearsing what to say. some people rehearse whole chains i'll say then he'll say, then i'll say and so on

Filtering

You listen to some things but not to others. you only pay enough attention to see if anybody's angry or unhappy or if your're in emotional danger Another way people filter is to avoid hearing certain things you let your mind wander.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

You make a prediction about a person You act as if the prediction is true Your behaviour causes the prediction to come true What you see then strengthens your belief e.g. child labelled in school as the "behavioural" child

Identifying

You take everything a person tells you and refer it back to your own experience. They want to tell you about a toothache but that reminds you of the time you had oral surgery for receding gums.

Dreaming

Your're half listening and something the person says suddenly triggers a chain of private associations.

HALO EFFECT

attributing a variety of positive qualities to attributes we like EG, "good looking children are....."

REVERSE HALO (HORN) EFFECT

attributing negative qualities to attributes we don't like EG, "homeless people are ......."

Comparing

makes it hard to listen because you're always trying to assess who is smarter, more competent more emotionally healthy you or the other person. some people focus on who has suffered more who's a bigger victim