Chapter 5 Communication Flashcards
Communication begins with what?
the sender’s intentions - the message that the sender wishes to convey
senders intentions (private) –> sender’s action (public) –> effect on listener (private, only known by listener)
Interpersonal gap
the sender’s intentions differ from the effect on the receiver
nonverbal communication
everything a person does in their interaction except for their spoken word and syntax
What are the 5 functions of nonverbal behavior? (what does it tell you)
provides info about people’s moods or meaning (facial expressions)
helps regulate interaction (gives cues to when to let others talk)
helps define the relationships we share (you act different around those you like)
Interpersonal influence (Goal-oriented behavior designed to influence someone else - a touch of the arm when asking for a favor)
Impression management (Nonverbal behavior that is man-aged by a person or a couple to create or enhance a particular image. fighting and then pretending everything is okay at a party in front of people)
What are the 7 channels of nonverbal communication?
facial expressions gazing behavior body movement touch interpersonal distances smells paralanguage
Happy expressions are clearly correlated with success in life, and in some respects, a forecast of your future may be available to everyone you meet. True or false?
True
Display Rules are what?
cultural norms that dictate what emotions are appropriate in particular situations
- First, we may intensify our expressions, exaggerating them so that we appear to be experiencing stronger feelings than we really are. Ex- smiling even though we don’t like a gift
- Second, we sometimes minimize our expressions, trying to seem less emotional than we really are. Ex - a guy trying not to cry during a movie because “men don’t cry”
- neutralize our expressions, trying to withhold our true feelings altogether. Ex - playing poker
- Finally, we can mask our real feelings by replacing them with an entirely different apparent emotion. Ex - angry about not winning, but pretending to be happy for the other person
Even when we try to control our expressions, they can leak out. How?
feigned expressions usually differ from authentic expressions - Genuine smiles contract the muscles around our eyes, causing them to crinkle, but only about a quarter of us activate those muscles when we’re faking a smile
authentic flashes of real emotion, or microexpressions, can be visible during momentary lapses of control. you make look disgusted for just a second
Your eyes ___ when you see something interesting
dilate
what is gazing?
the amount and direction of a person’s looking behavior
visual dominance ratio (VDR) is what?
compares “look-speak” (the percentage of time a speaker gazes at a listener) to “look-listen.
typical ratio is 40/60 but dominance is 60/40. they say look at me when I am speaking to you, but they don’t do it themselves
men who are judged to be good dancers by women tend to be more agreeable, conscientious, and extraverted than guys who dance badly. true or false?
true
Body language of high status people
open, asymmetric postures in which the two halves of the body assume different positions.
They take up a lot of space.
Body language of low status people
use closed, symmetric postures that are relatively compact.
People with firm, full, long handshakes tend to be more _______ and _____ to experience, and less neurotic, than people with wimpy hand-shakes are
extraverted
open
Two people also tend to touch each other more when their relationship is more intimate. true or false?
true
touch can provide healing properties. true or false?
true
interpersonal distance
the physical space that separates two people
intimate zone of interpersonal distance
extends out from the front of our chests about a foot-and-a-half
this is usually when interaction is quite loving or hostile
personal zone
ranges from 1½ to 4 feet away from us.
friends interact at smaller distances and acquaintances farther
social zone
(4 to 12 feet), interactions tend to be more businesslike.
sitting at an interview
public zone
beyond 12 feet, which is used for structured interaction like that between an instructor and his or her students in a lecture class.
chemosignals
Different emotions cause people to emit different chemicals
smells carry information!
Paralanguage
includes all the variations in a person’s voice other than the actual words he or she uses, such as rhythm, pitch, loudness, and rate
Women like their men to have deep, low-pitched voices. true or false?
true
behavioral mimicry
occurs during a conversation when the participants adopt similar postures and mannerisms, display comparable expressions, and use similar paralanguage.
it puts us at ease when others mimic our language
women are both better encoders and more astute decoders than men are on average. true or false?
true
Women spend more time watching others’ eyes than men do, and that appears to be one reason why they read others’ expressions more accurately
Nonverbal insensitivity makes someone a less rewarding partner than he or she otherwise would be. true or false?
true
self-disclosure
The process of revealing personal information to someone else
Two people can-not be said to be intimate with each other if they do not share some personal, relatively confidential information with one another. True or false?
true
social penetration theory
which holds that relationships develop through systematic changes in communication
breadth vs depth
breadth: the variety of topics they discuss
depth: the personal significance of the topics they discuss.
interpersonal process model of intimacy
proposed by Harry Reis and Phillip Shaver (1988) argues that genuine intimacy is likely to develop between two people only when certain conditions have been met.
we want responsiveness from others that indicates that they understand us and care about us.
for two people to become close, three things have to happen which are what?
First, they have to engage in meaningful self-disclosure.
Then, they have to respond to each other’s personal information with interest and empathy
finally they each have to recognize that the other is being responsive.
perceived partner responsiveness
The judgment that one’s partner is understanding and caring
taboo topics
sensitive matters that, in their opinion, may threaten the quality of their relationship
the most common taboo topic is the state of the relationship itself
The more taboo topics there are in a relationship, the less satisfied the partners are unless they feel that they’re avoiding touchy topics to promote and protect their relationship
the more self-disclosure romantic couples share, the happier they tend to be. true or false?
true
____ are more likely to discuss their feelings about their close relationships and other personal aspects of their lives.
women
____ tend to stick to more impersonal matters, discussing objects and actions such as cars and sports, gossiping about celebrities and politicians instead of friends, and seeking a few laughs instead of support and counsel
men
_____ speak somewhat less forcefully, being more indirect and seeming less certain
women
In established relationships, _____ are more self-disclosing, and in keeping with their higher scores on the “Opener” scale, they elicit more self-disclosure from others, too
women
men disclose less to other men. true or false?
true
it’s really just traditional, macho men who have superficial conversations with their best friends and who need relationships with women to keep from being lonely. true or false?
true
blirtatiousness
rapid fire talking, blurt out whatever they are thinking
both men and women consider expressive skills to be more important in close relationships than instrumental skills are. true or false?
true
kitchen-sinking
in which they tend to address several topics at once (so that everything but the “kitchen sink” gets dragged into the conversation).
off-beam
wandering from topic to topic so that the conversation never stays on one problem long enough to resolve it:
mindreading
which occurs when people assume that they understand their partners’ thoughts, feelings, and opinions without asking.
yes-butting
Distressed couples also listen poorly by finding something wrong or unworkable with anything their partners say.
it communicates constant criticism of the others’ points of view: “Yeah, we could try that, but it won’t work because…”
cross-complaining
fails to acknowledge others’ concerns;
instead of expressing interest in what their partners have to say, they just respond to a complaint with one of their own
Contempt
in the form of insults, mockery, or hostile humor is often involved as well in unhappy marriages
Stonewalling
may follow as a partner “clams up” and reacts to the messy situation by withdrawing into a stony silence
belligerence
may occur with one partner aggressively rejecting the other altogether (“So what? What are you gonna do about it?”).
behavior description
to identify as plainly and concretely as pos-sible a specific behavior that annoyed us.
don’t use words such as never or always
xyz statements
When you do X in situation Y” (that’s a good behavior description), “I feel Z” (an I-statement).
“When you interrupted me just now, I felt annoyed.”
perception checking
people assess the accuracy of their inferences about a partner’s feelings by asking the partner for clarification.
Validation does not require you to agree with someone. true or false?
true
___ work harder at nonverbal communication
women
