The Essentials of Human Communication Chapter 1

What does communication mean to you?

What do you expect to get out of this class?

How is the study of communication important to your life and career?

What experiences do you have with communication?

Skills of Human Communication Self-Presentation Skills: presenting yourself to others as confident, credible, likeable and approachable. Relationship Skills: knowing how to initiate, maintain, repair, or dissolve relationships.

Interviewing Skills: being able to gather and share information in a variety of situations. Group Interaction and Leadership Skills: participating as an effective group member in relationship and task groups.

Presentation Skills: speaking to small and large audiences to inform or persuade. Media Literacy Skills: being a critical user of mass media encountered on a daily basis.

What are some popularly held myths about human communication?

The more you communicate, the better your communication will be. Research finds that if you practice poor communication habits, you grow less effective as a communicator.

When two people are in a close relationship, neither person should have to explicitly communicate needs and wants. People are not mind readers. To assume otherwise inhibits open and honest communication.

Interpersonal or group conflict is a reliable sign that the relationship or group is in trouble. Research suggests that interpersonal or group conflict is inevitable and can be beneficial to the relationship or group.

Fear of public speaking is detrimental and must be avoided. Most speakers are nervous; learning to manage anxiety effectively can enhance your public speaking skills.

Like good communicators, leaders are born, not made. Communication is a skill, not a talent. Anyone can learn to be an effective communicator.

Levels of Communication

Intrapersonal Communication Talking with oneself to better learn and judge yourself. When do you engage in intrapersonal communication?

Interpersonal Communication Interactions between two or more people. Maintain, build, repair, or terminate relationships.

Interviewing Communication that proceeds by question and answer. Method of self-learning, gaining counsel, and achieving goals.

Group Communication In small groups (5-10), you work with others to solve problems, develop new ideas, and share knowledge and experiences.

Public Communication Speaking to large or small groups, public speakers inform or persuade others to act, buy, or think. What are some public speaking situations you have been in, or may be in in the future?

Mediated Communication Messages sent by electronic means (asynchronous and synchronous). Examples? What are the similarities and differences between F2F and CMC?

Mass Communication One source (sender) delivers the same message to a large, unseen audience (receivers).

Communication Models and Concepts

Linear View: the speaker speaks and the listener listens. Interactional View: speaker and listener exchange turns at speaking and listening. Transactional View: each person serves simultaneously as speaker and listener.

Seven Elements of Human Communication Speaker: Credibility, knowledge of subject, preparation, manner of speaking, sensitivity to audience and setting. Speakers encode meaning into their messages.

Message: Signal or combination of signals sent to a receiver (listener). Goal is for the intended message to be the one that is actually communicated.

Channel: The means of communicating a message. Face to face, email, commercial, telephone, etc. Vocal channel, visual channel, tactile channel.

Listener: Receiver of message. Message is filtered through their frame of reference. What does this mean for you as a sender/speaker? Listener must decode message.

Feedback: Tells speaker what effect they are having on listeners. What are some examples of positive or negative feedback you may receive? How can you adjust your communication based on feedback received?

Noise: Anything that interferes with a message being received or communicated. Physical noise, physiological noise, psychological noise, semantic noise.

Situation: Time and place when communication occurs. How can this effect the communication experience?

Source-Receivers Each person involved in communication is both a source (speaker) and receiver (listener). Speaker - encodes messages Listener - decodes messages

Communication Contexts All communication exists in a context - what does this mean? Physical Cultural Social-psychological Temporal (time)

Messages Messages: conveyed with words and nonverbal elements Feedback messages Feedforward messages Metamessages Message Overload

Competent Communicating Knowledge of how communication works and the ability to use communication effectively. think critically and mindfully Be culturally sensitive Be ethical Be an effective listener

Principles of Communication Communication is a process of adjustment. Communication accommodation Communication is ambiguous Communication involves content and relationship dimensions. Content: literal meaning of message Relationship: how interactants feel about the message or each other

Content vs. Relationship Messages What is the content and relational messages of each statement? You’re wearing that? He’s calling you? Did you say you’re applying to medical school? You’re in love? You paid $100 for that? And that’s all you did?

Communication has a power dimension. Communication is punctuated. Communication is purposeful. (learn, relate, help, influence, play) Communication is inevitable, irreversible, unrepeatable)

Culture and Communication What is the importance of cultural understanding in communication? What is ethnocentrism, and how does it influence communication?

Dimensions of Culture Uncertainty avoidance (risk-taking vs. predictability) Masculinity/Femininity (traditional gender roles) Power distance (difference between those in authority and common people) Individualism/Collectivism (emphasis on individual or group) High and low context (extent to which explanation of information is needed)