1-5 Human Communication Exam Study Terms

Human Communication

A transactional process in which people generate meaning through the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages in specific contexts, influenced by individual and social forces, and embedded in culture.

Messages

The building blocks of communication.

Settings

The physical surroundings of a communication event.

Participants

The people interacting during communication.

Channel

The means through which a message is transmitted.

Noise

Any stimulus that can interfere with or degrade the quality of a message.

Feedback

The response to a message.

Syngenetic Method

A transactional model that emphasizes how individual and societal forces, contexts, and culture interact to affect the communication process.

Field of Experience

The education and experiences that a communicator possesses.

Culture

Learned patterns of perceptions, values, and behaviors shared by a group of people.

Communication Ethics

The standard of rights and wrongs that one applies to messages that are sent and received.

Absolutism

The belief there is a single correct moral standard that holds for everyone, everywhere, every time.

Relativism

The belief that moral behavior varies among individuals, groups and cultures and across situations.

Communication Competence

The ability to adapt one's communication to achieve one's goals.

Appropriateness

Following the rules, norms and expectations for specific situations or relationships.

Effectiveness

Achieving one's goals successfully.

Identity

Who a person is; composed of individual and social categories a person identifies with as well as the categories that others identify with that person.

Reflected appraisals

The idea that people's self-image arises primarily from the way others view them and from the many messages they have received from others about who they are.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

When an individual expects something to occur, the expectation increases the likelihood that it will, as the expectation influences behavior.

Self concept

The understanding of one's unique characteristics as well as the similarities to and differences from others.

Self-esteem

Part of one's self-concept; arises out of how one perceives and interprets reflected appraisals and social comparisons.

Self respect

Treating others and expecting to be treated with respect and dignity.

Symbolic Interactionism

Individuals' meaning for the objects, actions, and people around them arise out of social, or symbolic, interaction with others.

Looking-glass self

The idea that self-image results from the images others reflect back to an individual.

Particular-others

The important people in an individual's life whose opinions and behavior influence the various aspects of identity.

Generalized-others

The collection of roles, rules, norms, beliefs and attitudes endorsed by the community in which a person lives.

Stereotype-threat

Process in which reminding individuals of stereotypical expectations regarding important identities can impact their performance.

Performance of identity

The process or means by which we show the world who we think we are.

Self presentation

Influencing others' impressions of creating an image that is consistent with one's personal identity.

Role Expectations

The expectation that one will perform in a particular way because of the social role occupied.

Enacting Identities

Performing scripts deemed proper for particular identities.

Mutable

Subject to change.

Racial

Identification with a particular racial group

Multiracial

One who self-identifies as having more than one racial identity

National

A person's citizenship

Ethnic

Identification with a particular group with which one shares some or all of these characteristics: national or tribal affiliation, religious beliefs, language, and/or cultural and traditional origins and background

Gender

How and to what extent one identifies with the social construction of masculinity and femininity

Sexual

Which of the various categories of sexuality one identifies with

Age identity

A combination of self-perception of age along with what others understand that age to mean

Gender fluid

Someone whose gender identity is not fixed but is dynamic and changes in different contexts at different times

Cisgender

Someone whose gender identity matches their biological sex

Transgender

Someone whose gender identity does not match their biological identity

Enby

Someone who does not identify as male or female, or non-binary

Perception

(A sense-making process in which we attempt to understand our environment so we can respond to it appropriately)

Selection

(The procedure of choosing which sensory information to focus on)

Organization

The procedure by which one recognizes what sensory input represents

Interpretation

The act of assigning meaning to sensory information

Selective Attention

Consciously or unconsciously attending to just a narrow range of the full array of sensory information available

Primacy Effect

The tendency to form a judgment or opinion based on the first information received

Recency Effect

The tendency to form a judgment or opinion on the most recent information received

Cognitive Representation

The ability to form a mental model of the world

Schemas

Cognitive maps that help us organize information

Prototype

A representative or idealized version of a concept

Script

A relatively fixed sequence of events that functions as a guide or template for communication or behavior

Frame

Assumptions and attitudes that we use to filter perceptions to create meaning

Attribution Theory

Explanation of the processes we use to judge our own and others behaviors

Attributional Bias

A cognitive bias that refers to the systematic errors made when people evaluate or try to find reasons for their own and others behaviors

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency to give oneself more credit than is due when good things happen and to accept too little responsibility for those things that go wrong

Fundamental attribution error

The tendency to attribute others' negative behavior to internal causes and their positive behavior to external causes

Overattribution

Selecting an individual's most obvious characteristics and using it to explain almost anything that person does

Constructs

Categories people develop to help them organize information

Cognitive complexity

The degree to which a person's constructs are detailed, involved, and numerous

Ethnocentrism

The tendency to view one's own group as the standard against which all other groups are judged

Prejudice

Experiencing aversive or negative feelings toward a group as a whole or toward an individual because they belong to a particular group

Ego-defensive Function

The role prejudice plays in protecting individuals' sense of self

Expression function

The role played by prejudice in allowing people to view their own values, norms, and cultural practices as appropriate and correct.

Cohort effect

The process by which historical events influence the perception of people who grew up in a given generation and time period.

Social Role

The specific position or positions one hold in a society.

Instrumental

Use of language to obtain what you need or desire.

Regulatory

Use of language to control or regulate the behaviors of others.

Informative

Use of language to communicate information or report facts.

Heuristic

Use of language to acquire knowledge and understanding.

Interactional

Use of language to establish and define social relationships.

Personal language

Use of language to express individuality and personality.

Imaginative

Use of language to express oneself artistically or creatively.

Grammar

The structural rules that govern the generation of meaning in a language.

Phonology

The study of the sounds that compose individual languages and how those sounds communicate meaning.

Syntax

The rules that govern word order.

Semantics

The study of meaning.

Denotative meaning

The dictionary, the literal meaning of a word.

Connotative meaning

The effective or interpretive meanings attached to a word.

Pragmatics

Field of study that emphasizes how language is used in specific situations to accomplish goals.

Speech act theory

Branch of pragmatics that suggests that when people communicate, they do not just say things; they also do things with their words.

Dialect

A variation of a language distinguished by its vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

Lexical choice

Vocabulary.

African American Vernacular English

A version of English that has its roots in West African, Caribbean and US slave languages.

Code switching

The practice of changing language or dialect to accommodate the communication situation.

Jargon

The specialized terms that develop in many professions.

Nominalists

Those who argue that any idea can be expressed in any language and that the structure and vocabulary of the language do not influence the speaker's perception of the world.

Relativists

Those who argue that language serves not only as a way for us to voice our ideas but is itself that shaper of ideas, the guide for the individual's mental activity.

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Idea that the language people speak determines the way they see the world.

Cocultural theory

Explores the role of power in daily interactions.

Androcentrism

The use of male experience as normative for humanity and female experience as emphasizing gender difference.

Hate speech

Use of verbal communication to attack others based upon some social category.

Disconfirming communication

Comments that reject or invalidate a positive or negative self-image of our conversational partners.

Confirming communication

Comments that validate the positive self-image of others.

Nonverbal

All the nonverbal actions people perform.

Nonverbal communication

The sending and receiving of information through appearance, objects, the environment, and behavior.

Nonverbal Codes

Distinct, organized means of expression that consists of symbols and rules for their use.

Kinesics

Nonverbal communication sent by the body, including gestures and posture.