Communication

As a young married couple, my husband and I have often been on the receiving end of advice about good communication in a marriage relationship. Communication takes work and effort from both parties in order to be effective. We spent time talking about communication this week and the reasons why communication works and why we struggle sometimes.

Types of Communication
Overall, there are two types of communication; verbal and nonverbal. Verbal is fairly self explanatory, essentially anything that we vocalize is considered to be verbal communication. Although humans have a highly developed system for verbal communication, other animals have ways of verbally communicating as well. We all know that the lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!) that we see at the zoo have ways of communicating with one another which we may not be able to understand but they seem to be able to get their messages across to one another. Nonverbal communication on the other hand comes in many different forms and serve many different functions. Some of the different forms include the clothes you wear, facial expressions, touching, and cues we give during verbal communication such as raising eyebrows, hands on hips, etc.

Functions of Nonverbal Behavior
There are eight different functions of nonverbal behavior, no wonder people have a hard time communicating these days!
1. Complement our words
2. Contradict our words
3. Repeat the message
4. Regulate communication
5. Substitute for words
6. Accent the verbal message
7. Trigger attributions
8. Influence both the attitudes and the behavior of others

With so many ways that a message can be communicated, it becomes apparent that it's not that hard for our messages to be misunderstood when we send them, but also when others receive them. Listening is a major part in communication and there are many ways to be an effective or ineffective listener. Some of the styles of poor listening that we studied and discussed in class are listed below.


The Faker: "Fakers only pretend to be listening. They may smile while you talk to them. They may nod their heads. They may appear to be intent, but they are either thinking about something else or are so intent on appearing to be listening that they do not hear what you are saying."

The Dependent Listener: "Some people primarily want to please the speaker. They are so concerned about whether the speaker has a good impression of them that they are unable to listen and respond appropriately. Dependent listeners may agree excessively with what the speaker says, not because they really agree but because they want to maintain the goodwill of the speaker."

The Interrupter: "Interrupters never allow the other to finish. They may be afraid that they will forget something important they want to say. Or they may feel that it is necessary to respond to a point as soon as it is made. Or they may simply be more concerned with their own thoughts and feelings than with those of others. In any case, they barrage the other with words rather than offering the other an understanding ear."

The Self-Conscious Listener: "Some people are concerned primarily with their own status in the eyes of the other rather than with the ideas and feelings of the other. Trying to impress the other person, they don't listen with understanding."

The Intellectual Listener: "Intellectual listeners attend only to the words of the other. They make a rational appraisal of what the other has said verbally, but they ignore the nonverbal cues (including the feelings that are communicated nonverbally)"