Interpersonal Communication

Principles and Misconceptions in Interpersonal Communication For you to gain a better understanding of interpersonal communication, it would help to familiarize you with the principles of interpersonal communications. A key principle of interpersonal communication is that it cannot be avoided. Communication researchers assert, â€Å"You cannot communicate† (West Turner, 2010, p. 26). You and your partner are therefore bound to communicate even when you think you are being uncommunicative. You cannot prevent the other person from deriving some meaning out of your behavior.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Interpersonal Communication specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More For example, if you chose to give someone the silent treatment, that is still communication and the person will attach meaning to your silence. The other principle of interpersonal communication is that it is irreversible and once you have said s omething, you cannot revoke it. Whenever you say something to your partner, it is out and it will have an effect on your relationship. You should therefore exhibit caution since a word said in haste or anger cannot be erased. Another principle of interpersonal communication is that it is learned. You might take your ability to communicate for granted but it is not a natural thing. Your ability to communicate is learned and as you go through life, you get to refine and cultivate your skills to communicate. Interpersonal communication is symbolic in nature meaning that communication makes use of symbols. West and Turner (2010) explain that communication is able to occur since the communicating parties mutually agree upon the symbols. Words are symbols and you and your partner understand what words like â€Å"sit†, and â€Å"car† mean. An important point to consider is that if someone does not understand the meaning of a word, it will not have meaning to him/her. Many peo ple hold some misconceptions concerning effective interpersonal communication. One significant misconception about interpersonal communication is that it is always a good thing. West and Turner (2010) note that this misconception is promoted by many communication experts who encourage people to communicate at all times. While it is true that interpersonal communication can yield positive results, it is not always a good thing. When you engage in interpersonal communication with the aim of manipulating, deceiving or abusing your partner, then communication is not a good thing. In such an instance, it would be better if interpersonal communication did not take place. A common misconception by many people is that interpersonal communication is natural and just a matter of common sense. While communication might seem like the most natural thing to do, effective communication might require skills (Kirst-Ashman, 2010).Advertising Looking for essay on communication strategies? Let's s ee if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More When you assume that interpersonal communication is a matter of common sense, you will assume that people intuitively know how to communicate. You will therefore be unwilling to consider that your partner might not be as skilled in communication as you are and this will lead to problems. Barriers to Effective Interpersonal Interactions Having identified what effective interpersonal interaction is, it would be of importance to highlight some of the barriers to these interactions. A barrier is something that prevents effective communication from taking place. The first major barrier is noise, which is defined as â€Å"any interference with the intended message while a sender is trying to get his/her message across† (Kirst-Ashman, 2010, p.209). Noise prevents the message being sent from being received correctly by the receiver. This might easily lead to a misunderstanding. Noise also creates a distracti on making it hard for a person to concentrate on the communication since he/she has multiple stimuli to focus on. Another barrier to effective interpersonal communication is the personality factors of a person. Personality factors can interfere with effective communication since differences occur due to individuals having unique personalities (Kirst-Ashman, 2010). A person who has a disagreeable personality will mitigate effective communication. A disagreeable person will be uncooperative, lacking in understanding, and have a bad nature. He/she might also have a short temper and exhibit irritability. Engaging in interpersonal communications with such a person will be very hard. The level of comfort that a person feels with relationships also acts as a barrier. Individuals who are introverted generally demonstrate withdrawal from socializing with others. They tend to isolate themselves and avoid interaction with others (Kirst-Ashman, 2010). If your partner is such a person, he/she mi ght not be comfortable with interpersonal communication. This will be a major barrier to effective communication for both of you. Another major barrier is personal perceptions, which lead to clouded opinions. Kirst-Ashman (2010), states that specific errors in perception cause us to interpret information wrongly. When this happens, we make inaccurate judgments and conclusion on issues.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Interpersonal Communication specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This is a major barrier since perception errors cause interpersonal communication to be faulty. Personal perceptions will lead a person to stereotype the other person or jump into conclusions without letting the other person express their views. With a preconceived notion about a subject, one cannot keep an open mind on the subject at hand. References Carblis, P. (2008). Assessing Emotional Intelligence: A Competency Framework for the Deve lopment of Standards for Soft Skills. St Louis: Cambria Press. Denise, S., Theiss, J. (2013). Interpersonal Communication: Putting Theory into Practice. Boston: Routledge. Downs, L. J. (2008). Listening Skills Training. Washington: American Society for Training and Development. Kirst-Ashman, K. (2010). Human Behavior in the Macro Social Environment: An Empowerment Approach to Understanding Communities, Organizations, and Groups. NY: Cengage Learning. Rees, D. W. Porter, C. (2008). Skills of Management. NY: Cengage Learning. This essay on Interpersonal Communication was written and submitted by user Mr. Negative to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here. Interpersonal Communication Introduction There are no secrets that today’s workplaces are not as yesterday’s. With an increase in physical size and cultural diversity, the given assertion cannot be doubted. Passing messages between two colleagues speaking different languages can be a daunting task. In any given organization, Interpersonal communication forms a basic tool at the workplace. It assures proper coordination of activities and is based on the point of relating with others which forms a major aspect of relationships including both personal and business.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Interpersonal Communication specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More We as individuals spent most of our time exchanging ideas with other people and this shows the importance of interpersonal communication. This paper will therefore seek to define interpersonal communication and examine a number of factors that influence our interpersonal c ommunication. The focus of the paper is based on interpersonal communication at the workplace principle. Interpersonal communication is defined as the sending and receiving information between two or more people and the understanding of it through use of symbols or language. Interpersonal relationship is seen as the way a person communicates with another individual (Yoder, Hugenberg Wallace, 1996). There are several types of interpersonal communication and includes public speaking, small-group or dyadic forms of communication. Public speaking involves interacting with a mass of people while small-group involves interacting with a group of people not in large numbers. On the other hand, dyadic communication is a form of communication between two people and may be through sending and receiving letters between two people or a telephone conversation between two people. Importance of interpersonal communication In order to be competitive at the workplace, a team needs to interact freque ntly and openly. Team members must communicate with each other irrespective of the distance between themselves since there is advancement in technology and therefore this does not matter. The team at the workplace needs to communicate for it to become successful and consequently, if there is no proper communication, the result is that their goals will never be achieved (King, 2000). The manager or the leader at the workplace should not only always communicate with the members of the team but also be able to check the progress of work of each individual and the group as a whole. Frequent check up by the manager will ensure that the work is done at the proper time and deadlines are met. The leader or manager of the team should use direct communication in order to avoid misinformation at the workplace and also make sure that every member is notified if there are any changes that have occurred. Studies that have been carried out show that when there is good communication in an organizat ion, there is increase in productivity and also better progress in individual work. This sounds quite true because good communication improves relationship of the manager and the workers which will boost their morale towards work.Advertising Looking for term paper on communication strategies? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Communication is fundamental system in entire organizations found around the world. For instance, organizations rely on all forms of communication from nonverbal to verbal during their daily running of business duties. An organization may also depend on information being properly encoded or decoded so that the staff can easily understand the message that is intended to be passed out. In Enron there is an argument that â€Å"Enron executives invested an incredible amount of time and energy, and literally spent millions of dollars on accountants and lawyers, in order to make their activities so complex they were not likely to be discovered, much less understood or prosecuted against them†(Barlow, 1996). This is a perfect example to demonstrate how important interpersonal communication is because it shows how the complex behavior of the executives led to poor communication with the outside world. Communication is vital in all departments of an organization. For instance the work mates may communicate amongst themselves during the working hours. Occasionally, communication at the workplace will depend with the entire surrounding and in case it is a noisy factory the employees are compelled to use nonverbal mode of communication such as gestures, facial expression or use of signals. Employees are also expected to communicate with their bosses and the communication can be either through writing or verbal. On the other hand, verbal communication may be vital in situations such as communication between the supervisor and employee in order to find out if the assigned work has been done properly while written communication may become useful if the intended information to be passed out is in large amount. Principles and misconception in effective interpersonal communication There are four principles that try to explain the effective means of interpersonal communication. These principles look to interpersonal communication as irreversible, complicated, contextual and inescapable (King 2000). Like a chemical reaction, interpersonal communication does not offer chance for reversal of what has been uttered. Whenever an individual utters certain words, the effect caused by these utterances will not be forgotten even when the speaker makes corrections. As a proverb says, â€Å"Once a word goes out of your mouth, you can never swallow it again† (King, 2000, p. 54). Interpersonal communication is a complex affair because of the many dimensions required to ensure success. Since there are various ways to communicate, it becomes impossible to choose the proper way of co mmunication.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Interpersonal Communication specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Interpersonal communication strongly depends on the environment around which the conversation is taking place and the parties communicating. Some of the contexts that interpersonal communication relies on are psychological, situational, relational, environmental and cultural contexts. Last, interpersonal interaction is inescapable because people have to communicate and thus this fact can never be avoided. Communication does not entail only words but the use of gesture, facial expression, posture etc therefore this means that people are in constant communication with each other. The primary purpose of these principles is to ensure interpersonal communication becomes an effective means when dealing with a means of development or a given conflict. However, there are misconceptions (conflicts) resulting fro m effective interpersonal communication. These misconceptions are brought about during the application of the aforesaid principles of interpersonal interaction. Normally, interpersonal communication is inescapable therefore they can result in confusion when they are interpreted in many ways. To make matters worse, being irreversible means the misconceptions can never be modified in terms of an orderly deliverance of the topic. Misconceptions in effective interpersonal interaction can also be brought about by lack of knowledge regarding the topic or context that is being discussed. Interpersonal communication can become complicated when there is diversity of languages and the individuals involved can not understand each other. Barriers to Communication Physical barriers mark one of the main factors that inhibit communication. This may include closed doors of an office, screens that form a barrier, isolated area for people with different status, a large working area for the employees that is isolated from other areas or restricted areas that unwanted persons are not allowed. According to the research that has been carried out, proximity has been highlighted as the most important factor in bringing cohesion to the teams concerned (Borisoff Merrill, 1985). The second barrier to effective interpersonal communication is perceptual barriers. This barrier involves the fact that people see the world at different levels depending with where you come from or how and where the individual person grew up. Therefore perceptual barrier is concerned with our thoughts, assumptions that a person makes and also how a given individual perceives the information relayed to him/her. The third barrier is emotional barrier. Emotional barrier is all about mistrust, suspicion and fear among the individuals at the workplace. Interpersonal interaction is hindered by emotional barrier because there is no open and free communication between the parties concerned at the workplace leading to poor relationships.Advertising Looking for term paper on communication strategies? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The fourth barrier to effective interpersonal communication at the workplace is cultural barriers. This comes in when an individual joins a certain group at the workplace; he/she has to behave in the same particular way as the individuals that were already in that group. Consequently, the individual will adopt the behavior pattern of the group in order to be rewarded through acts of inclusion, recognition and approval. In groups which an individual conforms better, he/she will be accorded mutual interest while when an individual does not conform better in a given group; he/she will not be straight forward to other individuals hence leading to a poor communication (Mclean, 1999). The fifth barrier to effective interpersonal communication is language barriers. Language that one is not familiar with may present problems to oneself when attempting to express himself or herself. In the world of today, there are many languages that are used by the people therefore it presents a problem in choosing the official language to be used at the workplace. The sixth barrier to effective interpersonal communication is gender barriers. There are major differences in the speech pattern of a man compared to that of a woman. For example, it is believed that a woman speaks about 22,000 to 25,000 words per day while a man speaks 7,000 to 10,000 words in a day and in childhood it has been established that girls speak earlier than boys and they use vocabularies twice as much as those used by boys at the age of three years (Mclean, 1999). The seventh barrier to effective communication is interpersonal barriers. This is as a result of poor relationship among individuals at the workplace hence the parties which are in bad terms might resolve to abstain from meeting and talking to each other. There are six ways that an individual can use to distant himself from others and they include pastimes, withdrawal, rituals, playing game (seek and hide), closeness and working. Last but not least t here is noise as a barrier to effective interpersonal communication. Noise usually interferes with the concentration of a person therefore it hinders proper understanding of the message relayed. For instance, people working in a noisy factory can not use verbal communication and are compelled to use nonverbal mode of communication such as signal, gestures, facial expression, etc However there are other barriers that are recognized but are not major as the ones discussed above and they include intentional orientation, indiscrimination, allness and polarization. Development of self concept in communication For almost a decade now, self concept has been experiencing increased attention and popularity within practice and research. In the studies, it is becoming clear that perception of the self plays an integral role in life. While there are several perceptions, none holds such importance as self perception and hence much has to be done to ensure that every individual perceives the self in the highest esteem. It is this perception that we get the understanding of who we are and the role that we play as an element within the universe. Self concept therefore is important in interpersonal relationship. Self concept is different from self esteem and self report. â€Å"Self esteem is defined as feelings of a person worth and satisfaction towards oneself while self report is what a person is willing and is able to disclose† (Mclean, 1999, p. 12). Self concept can be defined as the image that someone has towards himself and it influences interpersonal communication at workplace through its sources such as cultural teaching, social comparison and your own evaluations and comparisons (Burgoon, Buller, Woodwall, 1989). Self concept is mainly developed by the way an individual communicate with another. Through socialization at the workplace, an individual gets to know much about his personal attributes. Self concept involves scrutinizing one’s ability in terms of personality, one’s career, relevant skills, physicality and life’s ability. For example, a statement like â€Å"I am slow† is an assessment of oneself that leads to self concept and in contrast, a statement like â€Å"I am sleepy† will not be a self concept since feeling to sleep is normal and it is only a temporary state. An individual self concept changes with time after identifying the possible crisis and then reassessing oneself. It is worth to note that self concept is based on the past, present and future selves. Future selves sum up every self that one can become and what an individual thinks he can make himself given time. The possible futures are a general sum up of reflections defined by fears, what one believes are his threats, what ambitions and expectations he has and the standards set for the individual. Self concept can be well cultivated in an individual during childhood period so that when an individual grows up, he becomes used to hi mself and this removes fear and threat when socializing with others. Conclusion In conclusion, interpersonal communication is fundamental in building good relationships at the workplace which in turn contribute to increase in productivity. This will lead to better salary of the workers hence improved living standards and the welfare of the workers will be catered for in an appropriate manner. Therefore the principles of interpersonal communication are inevitable. As a result, proper methods should be designed in order to overcome the misconceptions that may result from interpersonal interactions. In addition, the parties involved in interpersonal communication should design ways to overcome the barriers that hinder effective interpersonal communication. If this is managed appropriately, then conflicts will be done away with making the world a better place to live. Interpersonal communication will also be enhanced through maintaining and developing self concept therefore it becomes o f more importance to encourage positive virtues that will instill self concept in an individual. Consequently, vices should be avoided in order to encourage building of self concept. Reference List Barlow, J. (1996). A complaint is a gift: using a customer feedback as a strategic tool.  San Francisco:Berrett-Koehler Publisher Borisoff, D., Merrill, L (1995). The power to communicate: Gender difference as  barriers. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Pr. Burgoon, J.K., Buller, D.B., Woodwall, W.G (1989). Nonverbal communication: the  communication. New Jersey, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associate. King, D. (2000). Four principles of interpersonal communication. Retrieved from http://www.pstcc.edu/facstaff/dking/interpr.htm Mclean, S., (1999). The basic of interpersonal communication. unspoken dialogue. New York: Harper Row Yoder, R., C. Hugenberg K. Wallace (1996). Using verbal and nonverbal means of  communication. Western College, Arizona: Allyn Bacon This term paper on Interpersonal Communication was written and submitted by user BartRozum to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.