week 9 #3

When intense communication occurs between peers or family member’s people tend to not be able to receive feedback well. Clearly then, problems or situations do not get resolved and then people are mad at each other. Of course this could be avoided if people would actively listen to a person when they are speaking and not get caught up in the phrases but the overall solution. For example, when in a group, members tend to throughout ideas other members then critique. However, some ideas and suggestions could be taking negatively and a person can feel offended. This tends to lead to arguments and members having negative tense towards members throughout the project. Nevertheless, members should make sure they have clarity and well explain themselves to make sure other members don’t misinterpret them. For example, when I was in a group, a member throughout an idea on the project and the other member said his idea was insufficient. In other words, he was trying to say that his ideas were not all the way thought out. However, the member didn’t take as that, he thought his idea wasn’t good enough for the group so he got offensive and upset. Nevertheless, the member had to explain it better for the person to defuse the conflict. Therefore, members should make sure that their worlds have clarity to where all members of the group can understand and no confusion and conflict occurs.

Week 9 #2

Selective Attentive is choosing one message over another. (p.131) Following this forward I can think of many examples where I felt selective attention has played an effect in my life. On example that selective attention happens is when I’m watch television and someone is talking to me. Although, I was listening to my partner telling me something I just couldn’t keep what he was saying in my mind because the television episode was more interesting to me. In my sense Selective Attention states “some things are more important than others” which is the reason why I felt my partner conversation wasn’t interesting because I was tune into something else. On the other hand, one way I overcame my obstacle of selective attention was when I knew someone wanted to communicate with me I would mute the television so I won’t get caught up in what the television is saying. In doing this I realized that I could finish my conversation with complete clarity of the topic and still had time to finish my episodes on the television.

Week 9 #1

Memory: Retaining and Responding to the Message talks about to terms of memory which is “Short Term memory and Long Term memory. In hearing this makes me think of the times my parents would tell me strategies or give me suggestion that will help me in the future. However, while my parents were trying to tell me these things as a child I didn’t see them as an importance because I was doing things because I wanted to be a kid and get into some trouble. Nevertheless, although some of the knowledge I didn’t keep in my short term memory at the time, however, came in handy in the long run when a situation occurred and I remember what my parents told me while I was younger to help me out. Although, my parents did teach me concepts and reason for things, it didn’t take me until I was older to realize what they said was helpful and beneficial. I felt this was difficult because we tend to think our parents just nag us and what they say is irrelevant because we do not want to hear their suggestions, but as our parents keep saying the message and instilling it in our head we tend to thank them when it helps out in the long run. Overall I try to hear everybody suggestion and comments out just to instill different ways to handle different situations in my life.

week 6 #2 Proxemics/ Chronemics

Proxemics identified the study of the structuring of person space- the invisible boundary individuals draw around themselves. (p.117) Proxemics tells us what is to close for interaction when communicating. When a person is communicating with an individual they know a certain distant that must be kept before people begin to think of personal space. We all heard the term “can you please get out of my personal space”; proxemics proves this law that there are boundaries when interacting with people unless they boundaries change. For example, when we are interacting with their love ones of that nature, we tend to be closer and talk within peoples space rather interacting with people we do not know we keep an equal distance so the person can hear us. However, when we are to close we tend to break our boundaries that people can feel the warmness of our breath. By then we tend to try to back off without causing problems or a scene, but when the person doesn’t pick up the hint we tend to get aggravated and will tell the person off. On the contrary, proxemics plays a role in different cultures because of their culture environment. For instance, in certain cultures people are greeted with a kiss on the cheek and due to their nature if people are not used to that we will feel that their in our personal space in will react negative if we don’t know the culture habitat. With this we can see that time difference plays a role in how the culture views other societies.

Chronemics is the study of the use of time. (p119) What this means is that different cultures have concepts and ways of thinking of time. In this situation when people talk about time it’s either about money or being on time to things. Additionally this goes with promptness; the manipulation of time is an important dynamic in small group interactions. (p.119) For example, when we are in a professional meeting we must be on time to get things that on the agenda down in a certain time period. Clearly, then we begin to discuss marketing strategies and the person who is charge of this will have more time to talk rather than person that is not on the committee. On the other hand, cultures have different ways of dealing with time for instance when a person of superior is speaking for another country he or she gets most of the time before anybody else says anything, more or less they can use all the time and nobody will be aware because they have the right. Therefore, we set ourselves with boundaries when communicating, and we base our action the given time we are acquired.

Week 6 # 1

Nonverbal communication forms the context in which we discuss them. (p.113) Meaning that our actions speak louder than our words. Additionally, we tend to speak on something, but if we do not act upon our promise then we said nothing. The second nonverbal communication states “when what we do and what we say are inconsistent, nonverbal communication is more likely to be believed” (p.114). What this applies to is our actions that we verbal state are not really worth anything unless we follow up with the nonverbal actions. For example, in a group activity when a person is assign to do work in the group and they agree to it, however, when it’s time for the results they have nothing to read. Thus this leaves a bad thought in your group members mind because you’re not responsible to handle due dates or task. Our actions speak louder than our words and we must make sure we hold ourselves accountable for our actions. Nevertheless, in groups we tend to have favorite people we talk to or even work with within the group team.

The first principle of the nonverbal communication states “the quality of the relationships among group members is established and perpetuated through nonverbal behavior” (p.114) Mean that people tend to work with or even talk to the group members they’re friends with and work less to the people they don’t know or don’t like. For example, in one of my communication classes I was working a group project that I only talked to one member of my group, not because it was my choice but the other group members had locked me and the other person out because they felt they didn’t need any assistance. Nevertheless, we ended up losing points because she didn’t include us in the presentation and we feel short because we didn’t know the information she wanted us to present.

Nonverbal communication says a lot about a person; so the next time a person gives a dirty look just look at them and show them the “YOU DON’T CARE LOOK”.

Week 6 #3 Powerless Stereotypes

In today’s society, generally speaking people base their actions and natures due to their gender roles. Males tend to feel they are dominate of the species, however women feel they are dominate and each gender play different action roles. Following this forward, men tend to act different in situation than women due. For example, males tend to ignore conflict that isn’t of physical nature. On the other hand, women will tend to react and speak off of the nonverbal communication. “Numerous studies have shown that women throughout the world are more accurate, sensitive receivers of nonverbal communication than men (Anderson, 1999, p. 122).Sex-role stereotyping continues in many groups and organizations, fostering expectations that men will act like leaders and women will act like subordinates (Remland,2000). What we mean by this is typically in a leadership position people tend to feel a man should be a leader because they are bigger and stronger, however, that’s not always the case because women now today are more intelligent and just as smart and strong as a typical man. Studies incdicate that women are more effective than men as managers and leaders in the areas of motivating others, fostering communication, producing high-quality work, and listening to others (Sharpe, 2000) Nevertheless, we can conclude that women can have the same opportunity as men and are capable of holding a leadership positions. These stereotypes have played a role in society for years, by what jobs women and men feel they can apply for. Whether in a group people tend to work with people that have the similar views to us. Homophily, which is our tendency to want to be in groups with people who are similar to us, however, can deny us important viewpoints from multicultural world (p. 121). Instead we need to create group situation conducive to being inclusive in order to enhance the group process and limited the powerless of stereotypes.