Who am I as a Communicator?

There were small differences in score of myself and score of adult daughter and coworker. My verbal aggressiveness score was 61 and that placed me at the moderate level that contends that I maintain a good balance between respect and consideration for others’ viewpoints, and the ability to argue fairly by attacking the facts of a position rather than the person holding that position. I feel this is an accurate description of me. The other scores in this area were 53 and 57. My listening profile group was one and listening style is people-oriented.

  Insights about communication gain this week were the amount of uneasiness and anxiety that I have for public speaking situations with a mild level score that also stated that communication does not seem to be something that I worry about. I’m not sure if that is a good position to be in or not. Although I do it, I get very nervous at the prospect of speaking in front of a large group of people and avoid it whenever possible. There was nothing in this assessment results that really surprised me and I see a need to look at my perception, self-concept and self-efficacy (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012).

Stratergies for Effective Communication

•Do you find yourself communicating differently with people from different groups and cultures?

In communication with diversity within my family occurs with my precious bi-racial niece and nephew whose mother is Caucasian. Over time I have learned to understand, respect our differences as I have learned to adapt my behavior and we communicate well each other. We have developed interpersonal relationships.  However, there remain issues within some family members in communication effectively particularly, when dialogue becomes heated and communication shuts down between her family and mine when is the subject of prejudice comes up.  The children are left with much confusion.

Strategies to help me communicate more effectively with the Caucasian people in my family:  

1.       Develop motivation to learn and improve our acceptance of others who are different from us (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2011).

2.       Develop knowledge to break barriers of having different communication codes to improve our and communication with the Caucasian member of our family to become (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2011).

3.       Develop skills to adjust to others to overcome cultural barriers and individual differences to become other oriented in order to communicate effectively (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2011).

Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (2011). Interpersonal communication: Relating to others (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

 

 

 

 

Nonverbal Communication

The title of the show chosen was “Martin” and watching it with the sound off forced me to focus solely on the body movements and facial expressions of the characters. Based on the body language that consisted of eye contact and movements, facial expressions, smile, hugs, and touches I believe that the man and woman was a couple. They seemed to display feelings of affection and intimacy with each other by the way they hugged, leaned in close and glanced at each other across the room. The man and woman sat on the sofa next to each other, and the man put his arms around the woman’s shoulder and she laid her head on his chest and watched television. Throughout the show the same two men used key came into the house, got food, watched television, etc. I assumed they were relatives that lived there. The woman in the room walked to the door and opened it, threw both hands up and rolled her eyes at the man who was standing at the door. Based on her facial expression and hand gestures, I assumed that she was not happy to see the man.  

With the sound on the assumptions about the characters’ communication was fairly accurate. The man and woman was a couple and with the sound on they talked about daily events of their lives, work, dinner, etc. and how they loved each other. My assumption concerning the two men was incorrect because they were not relatives nor did they live there. I gained no insight of the plot by watching nonverbal behaviors.

My assumptions likely would have been more correct if I had watched the show because the plot and character would be familiar and I would have certain knowledge and expectations.

Insight gained from this experience is that nonverbal communication is convincing and tells a lot about what people are really saying through their verbal communication. I am realizing how influential nonverbal communication is as reinforcement to verbal communication (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012), which would be beneficial to understanding as I engage in forms of communication with my colleagues.

 

Competent Communication

My paternal Grandmother demonstrated competent communication within the framework of our extended family. In the midst of everything that went on amongst my four siblings, cousins, granddaddy, uncle, my parents and me; Grandmother communicated through a variety of ways of outside of verbal. Behaviors she exhibited that made her effective were her calm soft spoken voice, and loving direct demeanor that left no doubt of the message being conveyed. Her communication was representative of something and the majority of the time I was able to receive and interpret what was meant whether verbal or non-verbal communication was taking place. For example, by reading the message from her eyes when she gave certain looks or a hand gesture, I knew precisely what it meant and in return she knew what I meant through my responses. My grandmother seemed to be in sync with me when she communicated and I would like to model that behavior through my personal and professional communication. In my opinion, she matched the definition of the “competent communication model” which takes in account those sending and receiving the messages, the nature of communication and role of communicators and context in which they operate (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012).