64 terms

Communications Exam 1

Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Why We Communicate
Physical Needs (can affect health), identity needs (each of us enters the world with little or no sense of identity; then gain a sense who we are from way others define us), social needs, practical needs
Communication Process
communication is about using messages to generate meanings
response to the previous message
fields of experience that help them make sense of others' behavior
anything that interferes with the transmission and reception of a message (external noise, physiological noise, psychological noise)
medium through which messages are exchanged
Communication is transactional
communication is a dynamic process that the participants create through their interaction with one another
content dimension in communication
involves the information being explicitly discussed
relational dimension in communication
express how you feel about the other person
Interpersonal Comm
uniqueness - each relationship with people is different, interdependence - other person's life/mood affects you that you are close with, self-disclosure - sharing important thoughts and feelings that we want to or feel comfortable with, intrinsic rewards of interacting - being with the other person is rewarding
Communication Misconceptions
Not all communication seeks understanding, more communication is not always better, communication will not solve all problems, effective communication is not a natural ability
communication competence
effective (getting results you want) and appropriate (doing so in a way that enhances the relationship in which it occurs) ; competence is situational and can be learned
Characteristics of Competent Communication
Large repertoire of skills, adaptability, perform skillfully, involvement, empathy/perspective taking, cognitive complexity (constructing a variety of different frameworks for viewing an issue), self-monitoring (paying attention to one's own behavior and using these observations to shape the way one behaves)
communication apprehension
feelings of anxiety that arise in unfamiliar or difficult communication contexts
social media
collectively describe all channels that make remote personal communication possible; characteristics - leanness (messages that carry less information due to lack of nonverbal cues), asynchronicity (when theres a time gap between when message sent and when received), permanence (stored indefinitely)
Ch 2
Ch 2
language, values, beliefs, traditions and customs people share and learn
in groups/out groups
groups with which we identify/ those that we view as different
social identity
part of self-concept that is based on membership in groups
perception of membership in a group that is part of an encompassing culture (age, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, activity, geographic region)
intercultural communcation
process that occurs when members of two or more cultures or co-cultures exchange messages in a manner that is influenced by their different cultural perception and symbol systems (both verbal and nonverbal)
how much weight we attach to a particular person or phenomenon
low context culture
uses language primarily to express thoughts, feelings, and ideas as directly as possible
high-context culture
relies heavily on subtle, often nonverbal cues to maintain social harmony
individualistic culture
primary responsibility as helping themselves, self reliance and competition, define themselves from what they do
collectivistic cultures
loyalties and obligations to an in-group (ones extended family, community, or even workplace, concerned with opinions of significant others, define themselves in terms of group membership
power distance
degree to which members of a society accept an unequal distribution of power
low power distance - minimizing distinctions between social classes, challenging authority is acceptable
uncertainty avoidance
degree to which members of a culture feel threatened to ambiguous situations and how much they try to avoid them
achievement culture
societies that place a high value on material success and a focus on the task at hand
nurturing culture
cultures that regard the support of relationships as a n especially important goal (helping others that are less capable)
ethnicity more commonly used because more specific; which group a person identifies with
Verbal Communication Styles
directness or indirectness, elaborate or succinct, formality or informality,
one's own culture is superior to others; leads to prejudice (unfairly biased and intolerant attitude toward others who belong to an out-group); stereotyping
Ch 3
CH 3
relatively stable set of perceptions you hold of yourself
evaluations of self-worth
Theories for Self concept
Reflected Appraisal - a mirroring of the judgments of those around a person
Social comparison - evaluating ourselves in terms of how we compare with others (reference groups - those people against whom we evaluate our own characteristics)
Characteristics of Self Concept
Subjective, flexible, resists change
self-fulfilling prophecy
person's expectations make the outcome more likely to occur than would otherwise have been true (self-imposed prophecies / or when one person's expectations govern another's actions) - if u think it, it will happen
impression management
communication strategies people use to influence how others view them ; characteristics - we strive to construct multiple identities, it is collaborative, can be deliberate or unconscious

Manage your front by 3 ways- manner (words/nonverbal actions), appearance (personal items used to shape image), setting - physical items we use to influence how others view us
perceived self
person you believe yourself to be in moments of honest self-examination
presenting self
public image - way we want to appear to others
socially approved identity, and lacework describes the verbal / nonverbal ways in which we act to maintain our own presenting image and images of others
Disclosing the Self
Honesty, depth, availability of information, context of sharing
Models of Self-Disclosure
Degrees of Self-Disclosure: The Social Penetration Model - first dimension is breadth (range of subjects being discussed), second dimension is depth (impersonal to more personal messages) [pg 90]
Awareness of Self-Disclosure: The Johari Window Model - open, blind, hidden, unknown (pg 91); sizes of window can change depending on mood etc.
Benefits of disclosure
catharsis, self-clarification, self-validation, reciprocity, impression formation, relationship enhancement/maintenance, moral obligation
Risks of Self-disclosure
rejection, negative impression, decrease in relational satisfaction, loss of influence, loss of control, hurt the other person
Alternatives to self-disclosure
Silence, lying
statements that are not literally false but cleverly avoid an unpleasant truth ; hints are more direct than equivocation
Ch 4
Ch 4
first-order realities
physically observable qualities of a thing or situation

second-order realities - attaching meaning to first order things or situations
Steps in the perception process
Selection - choosing which data we will attend to, intense and repetitious stimuli attract attention and contrast/change
Organization - arranging information in some meaningful way to make sense of the world (physical constructs, role constructs, interaction constructs, psychological constructs)
attaching meaning to sense data (relational satisfaction, expectation, personal experience, personality, assumptions about human behavior all play a part)
process by which communicators influence each other's perceptions through communication
Influences on Perception
Access to Information, the senses, age, health/fatigue, biological cycles, hunger, neurobehavioral challenges, mood, self-concept, sex/gender roles, occupational roles, relational roles, cultural influences,
describes process of attaching meaning to behavior
snap judgments problematic when
based on stereotyping - exaggerated beliefs associated with a categorizing system
Clinging to first impressions
Primacy effect - tendency to pay more attention to things that happen first in a sequence

halo effect - tendency to form an overall positive impression of a person on basis of one positive characteristic

horns effect- negative appraisal adversely influences perceptions that follow

confirmation bias - once forming an impression, we tend to seek out and organize our impressions to support that opinion
fundamental attribution error
tendency to give more weight to personal qualities than to the situation when making attributions
self-serving bias
when we perform poorly we usually blame external forces and credit ourselves rather than the situation when we behave well
we are influenced by our expectations, influenced by the obvious, and assume others are like us
perception checking
better way to review your assumptions and to share your interpretations
1. description of behavior you noticed
2. two possible interpretations of the behavior
3. a request for clarification about how to interpret the behavior
ability to recreate another persons perspective to experience the world from his or her point of view