Chapter 2 - Overview of Interpersonal Communication Flashcards
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Self-actualization Esteem Love and belonging Safety Physiological
the basic level, humans must have physiological needs met, such as
breathing, food, water, sex, homeostasis, sleep, and excretion
safety needs
which include the safety of the body, family, resources, morality, health, and employment.
love and belonging needs
which encompasses friendship, sexual intimacy, and family
esteem needs
which includes self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, and respect by others.
Self-actualization
Self-actualization leads to creativity, morality,
spontaneity, problem-solving, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts
What purposes does interpersonal communication achieve?
- Meet Personal Needs
* Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
What purposes does interpersonal communication achieve?
- Meet personal needs
- Communicating and meeting personal needs
- Learning about self and others
- Self-concept
- Self-esteem
- Building and maintaining relationships
- Reducing uncertainty about others
How do we get to know new people?
- Uncertainty Reduction Theory
- People want to know what other people will say and do
- Cognitive uncertainty
- Behavioral uncertainty •Charles Berger and Richard Calabrese posit that we try to eliminate unknowns when we first meet a new person
- Reduce uncertainty
- Reduce anxiety
types of strategies to learn more about someone and reduce uncertainty
- Passive strategies
- Active strategies
- Interactive strategies
What makes interpersonal communication happen?
- Sender or source
- Receiver
- Message
- Channel
- Feedback
- Environment
- Noise
Sender or source
- Initiates communication
- Creates the message or content (encoding)
- Selecting the transmission channel
- Individual characteristics shape message construction
Receiver
- Decodes the message
- Using five senses
- Message reception and understanding is shaped by:
- The environment in which the message is transmitted
- Receiver’s attitudes, beliefs, opinions, values, history, prejudices, etc.
- If the receiver fails to understand the message, then communication did not occur
- Communication partners simultaneously serve as senders and receivers
How do we communicate? Channel:
- The pathway or medium in which messages are conveyed
- Impacts the communication message, its reception, and receiver feedback
- Traditional channels
- New media channels
How do we know communication is successful (feedback)?
- Information shared back to the sender, which keeps communication going
- Provided internally or externally
- Positive, negative, neutral, or ambiguous
How do we know communication is successful (environment)?
- The context or situation in which communication occurs
- Affects communication with others
- Can be related to fields of experience or a person’s past experiences or background
- Environments may overlap or remain independent of each other
How does the context impact communication? NOISE?
- Anything that hinders or distorts the message being sent or received
- No noise = the message is received and understood
- Noise = negatively impacts the message in some way
- Types of noise
- Physical noise
- Psychological noise
- Semantic noise
- Physiological noise
Perceptions
The process of acquiring, interpreting, and organizing information via one’s five sense
Stages of perception
- Attending
- Organizing
- Interpreting
Attending perception
- Attending is the act of focusing on specific objects or stimuli in the world around you
- Selective perception: Attending to a specific thing while ignoring other things
- How do we decide what to attend to?•Things that are extreme, intense, exceptional, or extraordinary
- Things that are different, unusual, or contradictory
- Things that are repetitive
- Things that are personally motivating or important
- One’s emotional state
Schemes used to classify perceptions
- Physical constructs
- Role constructs
- Social behaviors
- Psychological constructs
How do we evaluate information?
Interpreting:
The act of assigning meaning to a stimulus in order to evaluate and understand its worth: •Personal experience •Relational involvement •Expectations •Assumptions •Relational satisfaction
How can we conceptually organize the communication process?
Model:
- Model:
- A simplified representation of a system
- Often a graphic
- Highlighting crucial components and important connections
- Models help people understand how real-world communication interactions occur
- Eliminates unnecessary components to increase clarity
- Aid in decision making
- Explain, control, and predict events based on past observations
What kind of models pertain to interpersonal communication?
Action models
interaction models
transaction models
Anything that interferes with a message is known as
Noise
Which model illustrates that people send and receive messages simultaneously?
The Transactional Model
The Transactional Model
demonstrates that communication participants act as senders AND receivers simultaneously, creating reality through their interactions.
The goal of creating models is three-fold:
- to facilitate understanding by eliminating unnecessary components,
- to aid in decision making by simulating “what if” scenarios, and
- to explain, control, and predict events on the basis of past observations.
Action Models
communication models that view communication as a one-directional transmission of information from a source or sender to some destination or receiver.
Shannon-Weaver Model
Were both engineers for the Bell Telephone Labs. Their job was to make sure that
all the telephone cables and radio waves were operating at full capacity.
which is also known as the linear communication model
that communication occurred in a linear fashion, where a sender encodes a message through a channel to a receiver, who will decode the message. Feedback isn’t immediate.
Examples of linear communication were newspapers, radio, and television
List the three strategies used to reduce uncertainty, according to the Uncertainty Reduction Theory.
passive, active, and interactive
Uncertainty Reduction Theory
This theory addressed cognitive uncertainty (uncertainty associated with the
beliefs and attitudes of another) and behavioral uncertainty (uncertainty regarding how another person
might behave).
Passive strategies for uncertainty reduction theory
Passive strategies avoid disrupting the other individual and can be accomplished through
observation.
Active strategies for uncertainty reduction theory
Active strategies involve asking a friend for information or observing social networking such
as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Interactive strategies for uncertainty reduction theory
interactive strategies involve direct contact with the other individual
The transactional model of communication teaches that one person is a sender, the other is a receiver, and only one of these two roles can be assumed at a time.
TRUE
Consider the following scenario: Sarah is attending a funeral. She knows that laughing might not be appropriate for this setting. Which of the following interpersonal communication skill is she demonstrating?
Appropriate Skill Selection
What are some interpersonal communicator skills?
listening skills People skills Emotional intelligence Appropriate skill selection Communicating ethically
Listening skills
If you are not a good listener, then you will not be a good communicator. One must engage in mindful listening. Mindful listening is when you give careful and thoughtful attention to the messages that you receive.
People skills
These skills are most important in group situations and where cooperation is needed. These skills can also relate to how you handle social situations. They can make a positive impact on career advancement but also in relationship development.33 One of the most essential people skills to have is the ability to understand people. Being able to feel empathy or sympathy to another person’s situation can go a long way. By putting yourself in other people’s shoes and understanding their hardships or differences, you can put things into perspective. It can help you build a stronger and better interpersonal relationship.
Emotional Intelligence
is the ability to recognize your own emotions and the emotions of others.34 Emotionally intelligent people can label their feelings appropriately and use this information to guide their behavior. is highly associated with the ability to empathize with others.
Appropriate skills selection
The best interpersonal communicators are the ones who can use the appropriate skill in certain contexts. For instance, if it is a somber event, then they might not laugh. Or if it is a joyful occasion, they might not
cry hysterically, unless they are tears of joy. However, humor can also be inappropriate for certain people. It is essential to know what skill is appropriate to use and when it is necessary to use it.
Communicating Ethically
We have seen several people in the business
world that have gotten in trouble for not communicating ethically. It is important to be mindful of what you say to others. You do not want people to think you are deceptive or that you are lying to them. Trust is a hard thing to build. Yet, trust can be taken away from you very quickly. It is essential that every time you communicate, you should consider the ethics behind your words.
What are the nine statements created by the national communication association to help guide conversations related to communication ethics?
We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.
• We endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision making fundamental to a civil society.
• We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.
• We promote access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfill human potential and contribute to the well‐being of individuals, families, communities, and society.
• We promote communication climates of caring and mutual understanding that respect the unique needs and characteristics of individual communicators.
• We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.
• We are committed to the courageous expression of personal convictions in pursuit of fairness and justice.
• We advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings when facing significant choices while also respecting privacy and confidentiality.
• We accept responsibility for the short‐ and long‐term consequences for our own communication and expect the same of others.
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