Facial Management...

Facial management is the ability to communicate feelings to achieve the desired effect. It can be used to intensify, neutralize, or to mask ones feelings.Upon meeting new people most of us use facial management to hide what we're actually feeling to prevent letting the stranger in. When we get to know people better we lessen the amount of facial management we use if not get rid of it completely. We use facial management techniques to convince people that we are feeling a certain emotion, even if we're not. Facial management is often used in business because of the information facial expressions can convey to other people in the workplace.

Picture: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/f/funny_face.asp

Relationship stages...

There are six relationship stages. Most relationships stay in the third stage, intimacy. however, some stages do enter the forth stage, deterioration. From this stage people either move to repair or dissolution. In the repair stage the relationship is trying to be salvaged. The people in the relationship try to figure out what they can do to save the relationship. They then ask the other person in the relationship what they think should be done and what they are willing to do. This stage of relationships is greatly dependent on communication, if there is no communication the relationship will crumble. If the pair chooses to end the relationship they enter the dissolution stage. In this stage the bonds between the people in the relationship are cut.

Picture: http://www.thecollegetownlife.com/2011/the-relationship-timeline-the-6-basic-stages/

Nonverbal communication...

Most of the communication we use is nonverbal, therefore it is very important that you understand how to use it and how to interpret it. Nonverbal communication has ten channels; body, face, eye, space, artifactual, touch, paralanguage, silence, time, and smell. We all use nonverbal communication every day when we make impressions and when expressing emotions. You can use nonverbal communication like hand gestures to better explain what your trying to say. In this scene of Mr. Bean, he shows nonverbal communication with his facial expressions. He shows that he doesn't know any of the answers on the exam. When his class mate sees him trying to cheat off of him Mr. Bean pretends like he knows what he's doing.

Picture: http://lisamarierobinson.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/non-verbal-communication-examples.jpg

Conversation...

Conversation is the essence of interpersoanl communication. Their are five different steps to conversation; opening, feedforward, business, feedback, and closing. Many people forget one or even a few of these steps and have poor conversations. There are also four principles of conversation; turn-taking, dialogue, immediacy, and flexibility. Without following these principles you will have poor conversations and insult the person you are trying to talk to.



Picture: http://englishinteractive.net/speaking.html

Listening Barriers...

Often in communication when you are trying to lsten to someone there are many barriers preventing you from doing so. The four main barriers are distractions, biases/prejudices, lack of appropriate focus, and premature judgement. To be a good istener you have to avoid these barriers the best you can. For example, in the movie Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth is prejudice against Mr. Darcy because she thinks he is proud and vain because of his wealth. When Elizabeth overcomes this prejudice she realizes that she loves him.

Perception...

Perception is the ability to become aware of something through the five senses. Recently in class we learned about the five stages of perception: stimulation, organization, interpretation, memory, and recall. To better understand your perception of reality you must understand the five stages. There are different kinds of perception, how you view yourself and how others view you are the two kinds that we talked about most. How you view yourself and how others view you can be very different. To better understand this we did a small exercise called a Johari Window. The Johari Window shows what you and others know about you, what others know about you but you don't, things that you know about yourself and others don't, and things that neither you or others know about you. We each completed a Johari Window about ourselves and then added to others' Johari Windows. It was interesting to see what others thought about you that you didn't.


Picture: http://nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/ASSChtml/ASSC.html

Self-Disclosure...

It's hard to talk about yourself and your personal feelings, even with people that you feel comfortable with. For some it's harder than it is for others. Self-disclosure is a type of communication in which you reveal information about yourself that you normally keep hidden. There are five influences on self-disclosure: who you are, your culture, your gender, your listeners, and your topic.It's important to understand when self-disclosure is appropriate, if you start telling someone you've just met all your secrets you might scare them off, that's why it's important for everyone to find someone that they feel comfortable with enough to share those kind of things with and someone that feels comfortable hearing that information. I find it hard to disclose information about myself to others even those that I'm closest withbut I'm hoping that with more information on self-disclosure it will get easier.

Picture: http://emotionaldetective.typepad.com/emotional-detective/2012/02/self-disclosure-2.html

Cultural Distinctions...

Many people have trouble identifying and attempting to communicate with other cultures. People tend to over look what they can do to improve their communication skills with those from different cultures. Ways you can help with communication are prepare yourself, learning their lingo and other background info, reduce ethnocentrism, don't compare what the other person is doing to what your culture thinks is right, increase mindfulness, think about if things are logical or not before you do them, and lastly recognize differences, understand the different signals of another culture and help that person understand the signals of your culture.

Picture: http://www.hrc-international.com/Candidates/AboutHRC/CoreValues.aspx

Gender Roles...

Gender refers to what we think is appropriate for men and women. Unfortunately when people think of gender roles they go into a stereotype that men work and women stay home and take care of the children. This isn't always the case, lately more and more women have been getting jobs and helping provide for their family, especially in the economy that we have now most families need the extra income. With most marriages ending in divorce one of the parents is often left with the children to take care. whoever is left with the kids has to work and take care of the household whether it be the man or the women.

Picture: http://blog.liu.se/mohammadjabbar/files/2012/07/man_women.jpg

Noise...

When people think of noise they usually think of physical noise, things that you can hear. If you talked to me about noise a week ago i would have thought about the physical type, but I recently learned about the other types, psychological, physiological, and sematic. I fined that the noise that most gets in the way of my communication is psychological noise, like when Im in class and I can't concentrate on what the teacher is saying because my mind is wandering on different topics. This makes it very difficult to pay attention in class and remember all the information my teachers are saying. Now that I know of all the other types of noise I'll be more aware of them and able to prevent some of them from happening so that I can concentrate on what other people may be trying to communicate to me.