Introduction
It is evident that non-verbal means of communication are essential though still not as much as verbal are, though yet both are integrative and interrelated by nature. Communication plays a very important role in contemporary life. Modern society has been able to develop various types of communication and examine possible troubles and pitfalls waiting for the communicators.
Interpersonal Communication
As such, in order to answer the question why we communicate there are four essential reasons for that: physical, identity, social needs, and practical goals (Adler, p. 3). As per the latter, a person needs to communicate just because he/she feels necessary to convey he thought, opinion, and knowledge, which can be important in an argumentative discussion. This way an issue of a transactional view comes up – this is what our communication is, not a linear one, since the communication is an interaction of two communicators, whose messages are distorted, unfortunately. The messages can be intentional or unintentional. The competent communicators are those who can choose the appropriate and fitted behavior according to situation in order to make communication the most effective. The latter is exercised during intellectual communication; it comprises patience for ambiguity and correct motivation.
What Influences Communication
It is essential to understand that there are multiple factors that impact the way we percept the messages, select info, organize and interpret it. Deservedly, psychological factors, our age, health, and senses play a great role. As such, it is important to step in others’ shoes and develop a feeling of empathy.
Culture and Language
Communication is a tricky mean of people’s self-expression. Because people hold the meaning in their heads, not in words many interpersonal problems occur. Moreover, the way men and women speak is different. Not surprising, that the origin of a person impact the conversation as well. The country’s culture matters a lot.
Listening
Being the most underestimated feature of communication, listening plays a great role in mutual understanding. Listening and hearing are two different things. Listening carefully s what our society lacks nowadays, there are several kinds of listening responses: prompting, questioning, paraphrasing, supporting, analyzing, advising, and judging – this is how people evaluate the level of attention they get from their opponents.
Relational Communication. Intimacy
Within the theme of relational communication, there is a virally important notion of intimacy in relations, which can be achieved through acquiring physical, intellectual, emotional, and mutually interesting activities. Here, self-disclosure is important, whereas many people prefer to veil or substitute it with lying, equivocating, hinting, or simply not saying anything.
Communication Climate
An extremely interesting fact is that communication depends on the way communication climate develops. In its turn the communication climate depends upon the confirmation. It is necessary to understand that defensiveness is sometimes a drawback when talking about the effective communication. Of course, many people of nowadays seek to express their critique, however, let’s consider it to be inadequate provided that there is another opinion. As such, many interrelation problems would be vanished, the problems of communication would disappear in the workplace if people learned how to respond nondefensively to criticism.
Conflicting
Conflicts are what surrender people all over the world disregarding their gender, race, or age. In order to solve it, defining the conflict is crucial. Conflicting styles can be avoiding, competing, compromising, etc. One needs to know that negotiating the solution is already a step forward to compromise, whereas following the solution may appear harder.
References
Adler, R. B. , & Proctor II, R. R. N. (2011). Looking out/ Looking in (13th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.