1. Communication Climate
“The social tone of a relationship.”
“The overall feeling, or emotional mood, of a relationship.”

2. Disconfirming Confirming Disagreeing
Communication climates are constructed by the types of messages given and received:
Disconfirming
Confirming
Disagreeing

3. Confirming Messages:
Recognition – responding to others (e.g., eye-contact, returning calls/ s, etc.)
Acknowledgment – showing your interest in others/attending to them (e.g., listening, paraphrasing, etc.)
Endorsement – showing agreement (in whole or in part) with the other person (e.g., praising, nodding, stating your agreement, etc.)

4. Disagreeing Messages:
Argumentativeness – presenting/defending your position, while arguing against others’ positions
Complaining – expressing dissatisfaction with others
Aggressiveness – actively demeaning the worth of others (e.g., name-calling, insults, sarcasm, etc.)

5. Disconfirming Messages:
Impervious Response (i.e., not responding)
Interrupting Response (i.e., interrupting)
Irrelevant Response (e.g., unrelated comments)
Tangential Response (i.e., steering the conversation in a different direction)
Impersonal Response (abstract, intellectual)
Ambiguous Response (abstract & confusing)
Incongruous Response (contradicts itself)

6. Disagreeing and/or Disconfirming Messages May Lead to Defensive Responses
We tend to get defensive when we perceive ourselves as under attack.
Do we want to attack back, or could we soothe our wounds and work to create an attacking-free climate?
We can help others not respond defensively by helping them to “save face.”

7. Creating Positive Climates: Defense-Arousing & Supportive Communication

8. Description Problem-Orientation Spontaneity Empathy Equality
Confirming
Disconfirming
Supportive
Defense-arousing
Description
Problem-Orientation
Spontaneity
Empathy
Equality
Provisionalism
Evaluation
Control
Strategy
Neutrality
Superiority
Certainty

9. How to Respond When You’re Feeling Defensive…

10. Ask for more information:
Ask for specifics
Guess about specifics
Paraphrase the other person’s ideas
Ask what the critic wants
Ask about the consequences of your behavior
Ask what else is wrong

11. Agree with the criticisms:
Agree with the truth
Agree in principle
Agree with the other person’s perception