Communication and Perception Flashcards
What is the interpersonal gap?
Gap between what the sender intends to communicate and what the listener perceives.
(senders intentions differ from the effect on the receiver)
When is the interpersonal gap common?
In close relationships- we tend to assume that a partner understands us (don’t expect misunderstandings), and may not work as hard to check that we’re on the same page
Interpersonal gap:
Sender
Sender’s intentions: what the sender wishes to convey
Private to sender → encode into verbal and non-verbal actions that are public and observable
Possibly interfered by: sender’s mood, social skills, distractions in environment
Interpersonal gap:
Receiver
Decode speaker’s actions
Ultimate effect on receiver is again private, only known to him/her
Possibly interfered by: sender’s mood, social skills, distractions in environment
Power of Non-Verbal Communication
- what is communication?
- what does non-verbal behaviour do?
- what is it typically?
- when verbal and non-verbal discrepant…
- Communication is multimodal: people can say only one word at a time, yet they can send numerous cues (simultaneously).
- Non-verbal behaviour for example helps to provide more information that helps interpreting someone message/actions. Helps regulate interactions, e.g., show engagement or disengagement.
- Typically less controlled.
- So when verbal and non-verbal discrepant: the truth behind one’s words usually lies in their non-verbal communication
Power of Non-Verbal Communication
What + examples
Numerous different channels through which information can be transmitted
- Eyes & gazing (eye contact)
- Body movements (e.g., hand gestures, posture)
- Paralanguage (e.g., pitch, volume)
- Interpersonal distance= how physically close we are (e.g., intimate zone = 0” to 18”, friends in personal zone = 1.5 to 4 feet)
Facial expressions
1- what do they convey?
2- what can they be? (4 things)
3- but…
1- Convey mood & emotion
2- Can be controlled:
- Intensify (amplify): we appear to be experiencing stronger feelings than we really are.
- minimise (suppress)
- neutralise: hide/withhold from showing true emotions all together
- mask: show different emotion
3- But: hard to control, truth often leaks out (if only just for a half a second): microexpressions (authentic flashes of our real emotions) (Yan et al., 2013)
Verbal communication
- what is it?
- vital part of?
- involved in?
Verbal communication – what we say with our words
- Vital part of communication
- Extensively involved in developing closeness
Verbal communication: Self-disclosure
Aron et al. (1997)
A lab experiment to generate closeness:
- Participants randomly paired up
- Answer fixed set of questions
- Questions started like this “Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you want as a dinner guest?” but slowly they got more personal such as “If you could go back in your life and change any one experience, what would it be and why?”
The experiment lasts 45 minutes, so you know a lot of personal details about each other. What would happen? Would you like the other person more than you would have if the two of you had just shared small talk for the same amount of time? YES
Verbal communication: Self-disclosure
Findings
Revealing personal information to someone else generates closeness (Aron et al., 1997)
We tend to like people who disclose personal information to us
And we also like people more after we have disclosed
(Slatcher, 2010)
Verbal communication: Self-disclosure
Sprecher, 2021
Study and results
Procedure:
Aron’s 36 questions to generate closeness (also called “fast-friends procedure”) used and replicated
Randomly pairing pp’s up and answering these 36 questions to each other and she compared the closeness that participants felt toward their partner afterwards with two other conditions in which pairs engaged in small talk, answering more superficial, less deep questions, and also a condition in which the pairs’ conversation was unstructured.
Results:
- Participants in closeness generation task felt closer than those engaging in small-talk or unstructured getting-acquainted task
- Mode of communication (face-to-face vs. video-chat) didn’t matter
What can be risky, what is suggested?
Saying too much too soon can be risky, as it can violate others’ expectations and can even burden others. Rather, partners tend to be better off being somewhat patient and taking turns in disclosing (not one holding a long monologue) so they can patiently discover the level of disclosure each prefers, and perhaps the generation of closeness that comes with it.
What is closeness developing based on?
- Meaningful disclosure
- Other responds with interest and empathy
- Other perceived as responsive
(Reis & Shaver, 1988)
Responsiveness
1) _______ of one _______ by another
2) perceive_____
3) basis of _____
1- Attentive and supportive recognition of one person’s needs and interests by another
2- Perceived partner responsiveness
- Feeling understood
- Feeling valued, respected, and validated
- Feeling cared for
3- Basis of secure, well-functioning, and highly satisfying relationships
Interpersonal Gap
How accurate are we typically in “reading” other people’s experiences, intentions, behaviours?
Nater & Zell have reviewed many different research findings and concluded that people can be “moderately” accurate in perceiving each other, with on average a correlation of .32 between what one person reports and what another observes (but this can vary greatly). So this still leaves a lot of room for interpretation:
But there will inevitably be room for interpretation, that can be biased and shape how we perceive others and behave towards them.
For example, when someone makes an effort to behave responsively towards us, do we perceive their behaviour as such?
Perceptions & Related Social Cognitive Processes
3 main things
- The attributions we make
- Positive illusions – seeing through rose-coloured glasses
- Individual differences in relationship beliefs
Definition of attributions
Explanations we use to understand each other’s behaviour
(the reasons we attribute to why our partner does something)