UWEC Communications Exam: 1

Lesson 1: Universal Axioms

Interpersonal communication vs Interpersonal Relationships

When does communication become relationship?

Developmental Approach: Every communication in a relationship

Dyadic Approach: Two connected individuals Ex: tine, conversation

Interpersonal Communication: occurs when two people talk (includes nonverbal)

Interpersonal Relationship: occurs when you have effective interpersonal communication between people

Components of Interpersonal Communication

  1. Source / Receiver
  2. Encoding / Decoding (Comprehension)
  • Miscode: misunderstand
  1. Message
    • Channel : method of sending (text)
    • Code: symbols (language + acronyms)
    • Meaning: message (intent)
  2. Feedback : non-verbal messages
  3. Noise: anything that interferes or impedes the communication process
    • Physical: music, people, loud AC
    • Psychological: your thoughts /intrapersonal
    • Physiological: anything the body does that leads to phycological noise Ex: sickness
    • Semantics (trigger words: word choice
    • Trigger words: an emotional response to a word that keeps you from communicating
  4. Context of the situation

Added Components of Interpersonal Communication for Relationships

1.) Communication Competence

  • Consider cultural norms

2.) Field Expression

  • Personal attributes/history /others
  1. Ramifications
  • Irreversible
  • Inevitable
  • Unrepeatable
  1. Ethical
  2. Both symmetrical & Complementary

6.) Feedforward (meta-communication): communication about communication Ex: don’t be mad but,

Intrapersonal = self

Interpersonal: 2 people

Small Group: 3-25

Public Speaking: Audience present

Mass Communication: Audience isn’t present

Mass - Personal: Cross between mass & interpersonal communication

Lesson 2: Social Media and Interpersonal Communication

Social Media: all of the communication channels that require community based input, interaction, content-sharing & collaboration

Characteristics Social Media

1.) Leanness vs Richness

  • Leanness: messages that carry less info due to lack of non-verbal cues
  • Richness: Abundance of non-verbal cues that add clarity to verbal messages
  • Face to face is richer than online

2.) Permanence of Message: Is there a recording of a message

  • Face to face is the least permanent option- fleeting & difficult to remember
  • Digital messages can be stored and downloaded
  • Snapchat used to sidestep permanence but now there’s 24 hour saving options

3.) Asynchronous vs Synchronous

  • Asynchronous: occurs when there is a time gap between when a message is sent and when the message is received
  • Synchronous: occurs in real time and is two way

Competent Social Media Communication

1.) Be Careful what you post

  • “Harmless” messages can harm others

2.) Be considerate (phubbing)

  • Phubbing: Disrespecting other’s need for undivided attention
  • Flaming: not keeping your tone civil
  • Be mindful of bystanders
  • Balance mediated and face to face communication

3.) Embrace Modality

Lesson 3: Culture

Culture: learned system of thought & behavior that belongs to & typifies a relatively large group of people.

Culture is a matter of perception and definition

  • Recognize yourself and others and sharing characteristics
  • See others who don’t possess these characteristics

Social Identity theory

  • In-Groups: Groups we identify with
  • Out-Groups: Groups we view as different

Intercultural Communication: Communication between people from different cultures who have different worldviews

Communication & Cultural Variations

  • High/Low Context

    Low context: Direct language

    High context: tone, non-verbal communication & implied information

  • Collectivistic vs individualistic

    Collectivist: group comes first

    Individualistic: Individual comes first

  • Comfort with uncertainty

  • Masculine vs feminine orientation

  • Approaches to power distance

    Power Distance: How close you are to power

  • Time orientation

    Is time limited?

  • Value of emotional expression

    The need to express one’s self

Co-Culture: Membership in a group that is apart of an encompassing culture

Types of Co-Cultures

  • Generation
  • Gender
  • Career
  • Ethnicity
  • Sexual Orientation
  • Socioeconomic Status
  • Religion
  • Race
  • Politics
  • Interests
  • Geography

Intercultural Communication Challenges

  • Anxiety: Concern about a new encounter
  • Ethnocentrism: A belief in a superiority of your culture or group and a tendency to view other cultures through the lens of your own.
  • Discrimination: Behavior towards a person or group based solely on membership in a particular group, class or category.

Intercultural Communication Skills

  • Listen Effectively
  • Think before you speak
  • Feel & be empathetic
  • Do the right thing
  • Help others without a voice

Lesson 4: Ethics Effectiveness & Competence

Unethical Communication: When you impede someone’s freedom of choice

  • you do force someone to do something that they normally wouldn’t do
  • You keep someone from doing something they normally would do
  • Assumes the capability of making choices
  • You can choose to be unethical in your communication but it won’t help foster your relationship with that person.

4 Types of Unethical Communication

  • Lying

    White Lies convince others that your honest

  • Fear and Emotional Appeals

  • Censoring Messages: Half Truths

  • Gossiping

    1.) Information was confidential

    2.) You know the information is false and you pass it on

    3.) The information invades their privacy

4 Skills of Effective Communication

  • Mindfulness
  • Flexibility
  • Metacommunication
  • Cultural Sensitivity

Communication Competence

  • Rhetorical Sensitivity: Think before you speak
  • Self-Monitoring: Behavior

Lesson 5: Perception

Perception’s 5 Step Process

1.) Stimulation: When you take in all of the visual & auditory stimuli

  • We sometimes only pick up half the stimuli

- Stimulated by:

  • Familiar things
  • Intense things (colors, loud sounds)
  • Novel/new things

2.) Organization

  • Proximity
  • Similarity
  • Closure

3.) Interpretation: Attach meaning to stimuli

4.) Memory: putting our interpretation into our short term memory so that we can recall it later for perspective

5.) Recall: adding all of the memories together to pit this incident into the big picture

  • Its easier to perceive objects than people

Attribution Theory: the explanation foe our and other’s behavior

  • Why we do what we do
  • How we predict how others, and ourselves, will behave

Misattribution: When we misperceive

Common types of Misattribution

1.) Self Serving Bias: Taking Credit for the good and blaming others for the bad in life

  • used as a way to preserve identity

2.) Halo Effect: Belief that the person is only good and that they can do no wrong.

2b.) Reverse halo effect: when you can’t see any good in a person

3.) Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: a belief about yourself that eventually becomes true

  • if you believe enough you’ll act on it
  • Visualization is key to this

3b.) Pygmalion Effect: A belief about others that changes who they are because of the way that you treat them

4.) Stereotypes

5.) Perception Accentuation: Seeing what you want to see

  • You’re not ready to see the truth

Making Realities Match

  • Misattribution is when your reality doesn’t match
  • What happens when your realities don’t match others?

Attribute Accurately

  • Reduce uncertainty by asking questions

  • Check perception (with yourself and others)

  • Analyze perception

    Evaluate your perception with your big picture

    Does it make logical sense?

Realities

  • First order reality: Physically observable qualities of a thing or situation
  • Second order reality: attaching meaning to first order things or situations
  • Life runs more smoothly when we share second order realities
  • Many communication problems arise when we mistake second order realities

Shared Second Order Realities

  • First order reality: a job interviewer asks if you are married
  • Shared second order reality: this is a reasonable question for the situation

Conflicting Second Order Realities

  • Your second order reality: the question has nothing to do with the interview and is therefore inappropriate
  • The interviewer’s second order reality: I’m trying to make conversation and look personable

Lesson 6: Self Concept

Self-concept: the image of who you are

How you see yourself-How you communicate-How others see you

Self Awareness: How much you know about yourself

Self Disclosure: Communicating information about the self, includes non-verbal

Self Realization: New information about yourself that leads to greater self awareness

Self-Effacing Humor (Self Deprecating Humor): The ability to make fun of one’s self

  • Can mean high or low self esteem

3 Components of Self Concept

1.) Other’s image of you

2.) Social Comparison

3.)Your own interpretation and evaluations

Factors that Influence Self Disclosure

1.) Disclosure of Others

  • Dyadic Effect: Self disclosure is reciprocal

2.) Audience Size

3.) Topic

4.) Gender

  • Women to Men
  • Women to Women
  • Men to Men Men to Women

5.) Relationship

  • Social Penetration Theory: all of the information about some one is like an onion. You take layers off as you share.

Rewards of Self Disclosure

1.) Knowledge of Self

2.) Ability to Cope

3.) Communication Effectiveness

4.) Meaningfulness of Relationships

5.) Physiological Health

Guidelines for Self-Disclosure

1.) __C__lear

2.) __R__eciprocal

3.) __A__ppropriate

4.) __M__otivated

Lesson 6: Listening

What’s the difference between listening and hearing?

You can hear without listening

You can’t listen without hearing

You can communicate without listening

Listening: is a psychological process

  • its what happens in your mind

Hearing: is a physical process

  • what happens with your body

Listening is a 5 step Process

1.) Receiving: getting the message

2.) Understanding: Attaching meaning

3.) Remembering

4.) Evaluating

5.) Responding

  • Back-Channeling Cues: When you respond while someone is speaking

  • Feedback: When you respond is after someone speaks

    • This is different than the communication process because feedback is giving during communication
    • Four Qualities of Effective Feedback

    1.) Clarity

    2.) Honest

    3.) Immediate

    4.) Appropriate

Passive vs. Active Listening

You can either actively or passively listen

Passive Listening (no verbal response)

  • Appreciative Listening: You listen because you like the sound of it
  • Discriminatory Listening: To distinguish between sounds
  • Silent Listening: Listening for information

Active Listening (with verbal response)

  • Informative Listening: Asking for clarification
  • Evaluative Listening: Listen in order to give your opinion
  • Therapeutic/Empathic Listening: Listening as a sounding board
  • Supportive Listening: You listen to help the other person

Men report talk: Men listen more evaluative

Women repour talk: Women listen more therapeutically

Non-Listening Behavior (seems like were listening but were really just hearing)

  • Pseudo-Listening: You pretend that you’re listening
  • Stage-Hogging: You’re only listening so you can talk
  • Selective Listening: Listening to the parts that pertain to you
  • Defensive Listening: You take innocent comments as personal attacks
  • Ambushing: Listening to use it against that person
  • Insensitive Listening: When you listen to the content but not to the emotion
    • Men listen insensitively
    • Women listen by ambushing

How to Listen More Accurately

  • Paraphrase
  • Express Understanding of Feelings
  • Ask Questions