Interpersonal Communication Notes

Interpersonal Communication Overview

  • Interpersonal communication involves sharing experiences and exchanging information.
  • It can be informal or formal, often face-to-face, unplanned, spontaneous, and ungrammatical.
  • Essential for personal and professional goal achievement.

Purposes of Interpersonal Communication

  • Communication fulfills physical, personal, and social needs; linked to happiness.
  • Effective communication helps achieve dreams and practical needs in professions.
  • Couples with effective communication report more happiness.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

  • Humans have physiological needs (breathing, food, water, etc.) that must be met first.
  • Safety needs: security of body, employment, resources, morality, health, and property.
  • Love and belonging: friendship, family, sexual intimacy.
  • Esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of/by others.
  • Self-actualization: morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem-solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts.
  • Lower needs must be met to achieve psychological health and self-actualization.
  • Critics argue the hierarchy isn't absolute and may be Western-centric.
  • Understanding different needs is important in communication.

Learning About Self and Others

  • Communication impacts self-concept and self-esteem.
  • Self-concept: perceptions about oneself, including preferences, talents, emotional states, pet peeves, and beliefs.
  • Self-esteem: judgments of self-worth, varying from high to low.

Building and Maintaining Relationships

  • Self-concept develops over time through communication with others.
  • Sharing information builds intimacy and connection.
  • Experiences shape self-concept and self-esteem.
  • Social comparison influences self-esteem.
  • Relationships are built with those of similar self-concepts.

Uncertainty Reduction Theory

  • Humans attempt to reduce uncertainty in initial relationship stages.
  • Strategies: passive (observation), active (asking others), and interactive (direct contact).
  • Self-disclosure reduces uncertainty and anxiety.
  • First meetings involve assessing reward/punishment ability, social expectations, and reencounter likelihood.
  • Snap decisions are made based on previous beliefs, difficult to overcome.
  • Online reviews and CMC impact uncertainty reduction; similarities create credibility.

Elements of Interpersonal Communication

  • Communication includes sender, receiver, message, channel, feedback, and noise.

Sender

  • The encoder or source of the message; decides to communicate with intent.

Receiver

  • Decodes the message based on attitudes, beliefs, opinions, values, history, and prejudices.

Message

  • Includes textual, verbal, and nonverbal aspects; meanings differ among people.

Channel

  • The medium in which the message is communicated; impacts message reception.

Feedback

  • Response to the message; indicates comprehension.

Environment

  • Context or situation where communication occurs; affects the experience.
  • Related to fields of experience or personal background.

Noise

  • Interferes with the message; can be physical, psychological, semantic, or physiological.

Perception Process

  • Perception is acquiring, interpreting, and organizing information through the five senses.

Stages of Perception

  • Attending: selecting information to pay attention to based on look, feel, smell, touch, and taste.
  • Selective perception: focusing on a particular thing and ignoring other elements.
  • Organization: making sense of the information in the brain.
  • Schemes organize perceptions: physical, role, interaction, and psychological constructs.
  • Interpreting: attaching meaning to understand the data.

Factors Influencing Interpretation

  • Personal experience, involvement, expectations, assumptions, and relational satisfaction.

Models of Interpersonal Communication

Action Models

  • One-directional transmission of information from sender to receiver.
  • Shannon-Weaver Model: Linear model with sender encoding a message through a channel to a receiver who decodes it.
  • Early Schramm Model: Communication as a process between encoder and decoder, accounting for interpretation and feedback.
  • Berlo’s SMCR Model: Sender, message, channel, receiver; emphasizes communication skills, attitudes, knowledge, social systems, and culture.

Interaction Models

  • Sender and receiver are responsible for communication effectiveness, with heightened focus on feedback.
  • Osgood and Schramm Model: Circular model indicating messages can go in two directions with continuous encoding and decoding.
  • Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson Model: Communication is continuous; every message has content and relationship dimensions.
    • Five axioms: one cannot not communicate; every message has content and relationship dimension; stimulus, response, and reinforcement in communication event; communication can be analog or digital; communication can be symmetrical or complementary.

Transaction Models

  • Individuals act as both sender and receiver simultaneously.
  • Barnlund’s Transactional Model: Includes multi-layered feedback system; oral feedback, nonverbal communication, and importance of public, private, and behavioral cues.
    Contexts:
    *Social Context: Rules and norms governing communication.
    *Cultural Context: Cultural and co-cultural identities.
    *Relational Context: Nature of bond between communicators.
    Noise:
    *Physical Context: Physical space where interaction occurs.
    *Physiological Context: Body’s responses (internal/external).
    *Psychological Context: Mind’s response (emotional state, thoughts).
    *Semantic Context: Understanding and interpretation of messages.

Transaction Principles

  • Communication is complex, continuous, and dynamic.

Model of Mindful Communication

  • Combines transactional model with attention, intention, and attitude.
  • Involves being conscious of interactions and focusing on presence.
  • Mindful communication behaviors: Listening without distraction, holding conversations without emotion, being non-judgmental, accepting perspectives, and validating.

Interpersonal Communication Skills

  • Listening skills, people skills, emotional intelligence, appropriate skill selection, and ethical communication.

Listening Skills

  • Mindful listening involves careful and thoughtful attention to messages.

People Skills

  • Characteristics that help interact well with others, including understanding people.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

  • Ability to recognize own emotions and emotions of others.

Appropriate Skill Selection

  • Using appropriate skills in certain contexts.

Communicating Ethically

  • Considering ethics behind words and being mindful of what is said.
  • NCA Credo for Ethical Communication includes truthfulness, freedom of expression, understanding, access to resources, caring climates, condemning degradation, courageous expression, sharing information, and accepting responsibility.