UCONN Stifanos COMM1000 Exam 1

Why study communication?

keeps you alive, impacts everything, employers value it, doing it well is a skill

Human communication

process of managing messages for the purpose of creating shared meaning

A transaction

simultaneously sending and receiving messages between at least 2 people (to and from another)

Messages

Verbal/Nonverbal

Intention/Unintentional (usually a blend)

Channels

Medium in which a message is sent

Interference

prevents message from being received or message from being understood (noise)

Technical interference

the factors that cause the receiver to perceive distortion in the intended information or stimuli

ex: bad cell reception

Semantic interference

the receiver does not attribute the same meaning to the signal that the sender does

ex: misunderstood meanings of words

Other factors that impact message being sent

listening, feedback, time

Model of Human Communication

1) Input is filtered by sender/receiver

2) Message

3) Channel

4) Feedback

5) Repeat

Intrapersonal communication

communication within a person (your mind)

Interpersonal communication

communication with another person (dyadic)

Interviewing

Focused on Q-A pattern

Small group communication

3 or more members of a group influencing one another

Public Communication

one person typically addressing a large group of people

Organization Communication

Communication that tries to find a means to an end, goal oriented communication

Health Communication

Dr v patient communication

Mass Communication

the media and how it shapes and effects the public's understanding

Elements of effective communication

understanding, pleasure, attitude influence, improved relationships, action

Humanistic Approaches of studying communication

rhetoric, interpretivists, critical scholars

Rhetoric

study of language and persuasion

examines the way people use certain language and devices to convince others

Interpretivists

look at the world and try to analyze and look at a particular event to try and understand it

Critical Scholars

sociology/anthropology, how power works and spreads through society, how groups are oppressed

Social science approaches to studying communication

qualitative and quantitative

Qualitative

Employs rigorous observational rules

Work "in the field"

Collect data that are rich in detail and description (look for data that THEY want to know about)

In-depth interviews, ethnography, participant-observation

Quantitative

Seeks to uncover patterns in communication behaviors via numbers

Employ advanced statistical techniques and rigid testing to support/reject hypotheses

What numbers/trend reveal themselves in data (typically about people)

Can work "in the field" or in the lab.

Data = hypotheses = conclusion

Scientific Method

Ask a question or state a problem

Formulate a hypothesis or research question

Think through and refine the hypothesis or research question

Design and conduct the observation, measurement, or experiment

Analyze and interpret the data

Why use the scientific method

empirical (carefully measured), objective (Removes bias), logical (data), public (many can view)

Content Analysis

Systematic analysis of the content of communication messages

Purposes of Content Analysis

Describes frequency of a behavior

Compares behavior types/rates across different contexts

Issues with Content Analysis

Requires a representative sample

Need clear, specific definitions of behaviors

Requires coding (what YOU think is a violent action, make it a rule)

Limited to studying what is already occurring

Purposes of Surveys

Examines what people do

Relies on self-reports (prone to issues, you might over-report)

Examines relationships between variables (is there a pattern between how you answer questions on Facebook/ v politics - liberals check FB more than conservatives)

Examples:

Relationship Questionnaires

Attitude surveys (men v women, minorities v majorities)

Media Habits Research

Issues with Surveys

Need representative sample (all across America)

Questions must be of high-quality (if they're not good, u don't get proper conclusions)

Limitations

No control over variables

Cannot make causal conclusions (Can only see relationship)

Self-reports (evaluating how you feel)

Purposes of Experiments

Manipulation of variables with the goal of drawing casual conclusions

Ex. One group gets "treatment" other does not

Control of other variables/setting

Measures effect/outcome of manipulation

Issues with Experiments

Hard to generalize results from lab environment

Artificial setting

Limited subject population (only some type of people typically come into experiment)

Requires strong procedure to prevent issues

Reliability

Asking questions that are similar gets consistency

Validity

Asking the right questions gets accuracy

Effective communication

when the stimulus as it was initiated and intended by the sender, or source corresponds closely to the stimulus as it is perceived and responded to by the receiver

Understanding

accurate reception of the content of the intended stimulus

Phatic communication

maintaining human contact (small talk)

Attitude influence

the process of changing and reformulating attitudes

Perception

Interpreting the sensory experience of the world

Selective attention

paying attention to only certain details

Perceptual filters

physiological limitations that are built into human beings and cannot be reversed

Psychological sets

Expectations that shape experiences

Culture, ethnicity, age can all shape how we "see" life, affect our experience, sensitive to different types of information

Active Perception

1) Select (stimuli that are particularly intense)

2) Organize (expectations that we use to build complete picture of what is happening)

3) Interpret (make sense of exactly what we saw, and take away from it- give it meaning)

Goal of Perception

attempting to simplify complex information

Biases and limitations often lead to errors

Attribution

The process of assigning meaning to others' behavior

The act of asking WHY

Each person's is different because everyone focuses on different information

Self Attribution

we act a certain way because of "the situation" vs others, who act the way they do because of "who they are"

Dispositional Other Bias

Overuse of personality reasons (dispositions) with others

ex: Joe failed the exam because he's lazy and foolish

Self-Serving Bias

Overuse of situational attributions with self

ex: I failed because those questions were ridiculous and unfair

Impression

personal judgments

Impression Formation

how we organize information and how we rank different qualities

Self Concept

how you view yourself, generally coming from others

Looking Glass Self

We tend to see ourselves as others see us

Self Esteem

feelings of self worth based on feedback from others

Self fulfilling prophecy

if you think you're going to succeed, you're probably going to do things that make you succeed and vise versa

First Impressions

Private Theory of Personality

Halo v Horns effect

The primacy effect

Stereotyping

Private Theory of Personality

how we select and organize information about other people on the basis of what behaviors we think go together

Halo v Horns effect

the tendency to extend a favorable/unfavorable impression based off of a particular trait

Ex: You think Kate is honest and polite, just because you consider her intelligent

Ex: You believe that John is dumb and rude because he doesn't pay attention in class and talks instead

The Primacy effect

the first impression we receive about a person is the most decisive in forming our opinion of them, however, when people are warned against making snap judgments, the this was reversed or eliminated completely

Stereotyping

A generalization about a class of people, objects, or events that is widely held by a given culture.

Can be real negative (relates with predjudice and unfair social behaviors) - creates in group and out group

Physical Attractiveness

Physically attractive people are considered by others to be more sociable, more popular, more sexual, more successful, and more persuasive. They are thought to be happier and to have more appealing personalities and has also linked to power and status

Beauty backlash only applies to women

Expressiveness

a dimension of nonverbal communication that influences our first impressions, has been linked with animation, dynamism , expansiveness, and intensity of both nonverbal and verbal behaviors

we tend to view expressive people as more trustworthy

Charisma

personal magnetism that enables an individual to attract and influence people

Social Roles

Work

Student (teacher v student)

Gender-Linked (acting masculine v. feminine)

Marital (roles of spouses)

3 Generalizations made about our perceptions

1. Some people are easier to judge than others

2. certain traits are easier to judge than others

3. people are better at judging those who resemble themselves

Dispositional intelligence

the ability to connect personality to behavior

Flexible Expectations

keeping an open mind

Interpersonal Sensitivity

success in decoding nonverbal communication or the accurate recall of another person's nonverbal behavior

women are proven better at this than men

Perceiver Self-Confidence

the confidence one has in the perceptions they make

Researchers have found no correlation between confidence in our perceptions of others and the accuracy of those perceptions

symbol

something used for or regarded as representing something else

referent

the object for which a symbol stands

verbal communication

A system of symbols and codes used to construct and convey messages

denotative meaning

The literal or dictionary meaning of a word or phrase

connotative meaning

secondary associations a word has

semantic differential

how a researcher can test a person's reactions to any concept or term and compare them with the reactions of other people

private meaning

only the speaker knows the meaning

ex: inside jokes with yourself

shared meaning

only a few people understand the meaning

ex: inside jokes with your friends

codes

different styles of speaking

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

reality is already embedded in the structure of our language, and that this structure determines how we perceive our world

strong determinism

our thoughts are outright controlled by our language

weak determinism

our thoughts are influenced by our language

abstract language

vagueness of words

the more abstract the term, the greater likelihood of misunderstanding

inferences

a conclusion or judgment derived from evidence or assumptions

dichotomies

If it's not one it's the other (winner, loser) (Black,white)

Euphemisms

substituting mild, vague, or less emotionally charged terms for more blunt ones

this allows for the intent to be conveyed, but not to the degree to which the intent is felt

ex: shell shock & PTSD

Equivocal Language

has two or more possible interpretations (ie same word with different meanings)

cultural frames of reference

similar to elements of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, its the idea that linguistic traditions can shape one culture, while for another it can be a barrier

ex: tonal languages create an obstacle for people who grow up in non-tonal languages to learn? -- check with TA

sexist language

comes from the fact that the group in power (men) typically does the naming or labeling in a culture

metacommunication

communication about the process of communication itself

listening

a process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages

components of listening

hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating, and responding

barriers to listening

physical (walls)

physiological (You have an ear/hearing problem)

psychological (bored, don't want to listen)

conflicting objectives (do you wanna listen or not? If its not gonna be on the exam, why listen to the prof?)

poor listening habits (don't look you in the eye, don't respond, etc)

hearing

the automatic physiological process of receiving aural stimuli

threshold

the minimum level of stimulus intensity that makes us pay attention

understanding/auditing

the process where we assign a meaning to the words we hear that closely corresponds to the meaning intended by the person sending the message

issues with understanding

our natural tendency to judge, evaluate, approve or disapprove, the statement of the person or group

aerobic listening

used to combat issues with understanding by while listening, you accept another person's point of view without the obstruction of your own need to judge, moralize, advise, or appear to know it all

remembering

storing the information for later retrieval