Chapter 4 : The SELF

The ‘self’ here means:
“… the discussion and context of the individual”

The ‘self’ can also be deemed as the way in which communication and interpretation of messages takes place within the individual.

As we expand the concept of ‘self’, the area of ‘self’ can be explored and widen into:

a. Self-concept
b. Self-awareness
c. Self-esteem
d. Self-disclosure

Self-concept:

It is how you feel and think about yourself – 

your perceptions and actions, your feelings and thoughts, your strength and weaknesses, 

your abilities and limitations your pros and conts etc.

It is the image of who you are.

The areas that affects self-concept:

a. Social Comparison

b. Other’s Images of you

c. self interpretations & evaluations

d. Cultural teaching

The areas that affects self-concept:

a. Social Comparison – we often compare and adjust our image and thinking with the way society acts and thinks.

For example – if society think it is cool to wear underwear on the head, chances are we might follow it! Fashion trends, popular culture, etc. 

The areas that affects self-concept:

b. Other’s Images of you – we often compare ourselves to those around us: friends, peers, etc.

For example – how well did you do in your exam compared to your friends?
Performing – music, art, sports = we often ask “How was it?” or “Did I do well?” to people close to us to seek a comparison.

c. self Interpretations & evaluations – your self-interpretation and self-evaluation are your standards that applies to your ethical and moral reasoning, beliefs and comprehension and conformity of things around you.

For example: Some may think lying is okay, but some may think lying is wrong. As a result, your ‘good’ and ‘bad’ list will be based on these things. 

d. Cultural Teachings – your culture instills in you a variety of      beliefs, values, and attitudes about such things as success.

Example: your ability to achieve what your culture defines as success, contributes to a positive self-concept.

Self-Awareness:

Self awareness is the ability to discover things are known about yourselves – 

a process of discovering your personal development and understanding.

This process is not only limited to the individual but also for others around you that will help

you to become self aware about your own ability. 

The Four Selfs – Johari Window:

The Four Selfs – Johari Window:

-By Joseph Luft and
Harry Ingham.

-The four different windows
explains different parts of our
selves that we know ourselves;
others know better than we do;
some remain hidden from
others and some totally
UNKNOWN to you or
anyone.

Open arena (Open self) – known to self and others: For example, you like the color red

because you wear red everyday and you tell others you like red.

Façade (Hidden self) – known to self but unknown to others: For example, you are afraid of

mice but you never show it because it makes you lose your ‘coolness’ – for guys. 

Blind Spot (Blind Self) – Unknown to you but known to others. For example – non-verbal

messages, body languages. Some may rub their nose or touch their face when they are

nervous.

Unknown (Unknown Self) – Unknown to you and others.

For example – a natural ability or aptitude that a person doesn't realize they possess.

Growing in self awareness:

1.Listen to others

2.Increase your open self

3.Seek information about yourself

4.Dialogue with yourself

Self-Esteem:

Self-Esteem means confidence or the level of trust or assurance to yourself. 

A big part of our ‘self’ depends on how much we are confident with our beliefs, our image, our

portrayal in public and with peers, etc. 

It is always good to have high self-esteem, but don’t have overly high self-esteem that it

becomes self-destructive beliefs, for example: having the confidence to get A+ in Human

Communication is good, but having a target to get A+ for ALL subjects is a bit too harsh and

might be bad for you. 

How to increase your self esteem?

1.Attack self-destructive belief

2.Seek out Nourishing people

3.Work on project that will result in success

4.Remind yourself of your success

5.Secure affirmation

Self-Disclosure:

Self-Disclosure is an act of telling others about things that they wouldn't know about you – telling

your hidden self. 

Self-Disclosure forms an important part of being true to our ‘self’ and making sure we are

happy with our lives. 

Factors influencing self disclosure

1.who you are

2.Your culture

3.Your gender

4.Your listeners – small groups or large groups

5.Your topic and channel.

Self-Disclosure:

Self-Disclosure’s advantages:

a. Gain confidence

b. Be more truthful about yourself

c. Make or strengthen friendships and relationships

Self-Disclosure’s disadvantages:

a. Lost of friends and trust

b. Additional pressure and burden

c. Living with regret

Chapter 3 : Listening

Listening

Listening is a specialized process, a type of perception, by which you receive auditory signals.

• the process of receiving, constructing meaning from and responding to spoken and/or non-verbal messages
• Helps you to play, help, relate, influence and to learn.

*Hearing is a basic step of receiving sound and is not the same as listening.

There are 5 stages of Listening:

1.Receiving:

Verbally and non-verbally.
Hearing Auditory Stimuli. Example:

- Focus attention on the speaker
- Avoid distractions in the environment
- Refrain from thinking about how you will respond
- Maintain your role of listener by not interrupting

2. Understanding: 

Decode the speaker’s messages. Example: 

- Relate the speaker’s information to what you already know

- See the speaker’s messages from the speaker’s point of view

- Ask questions for clarification                     
- Rephrase (paraphrase) speaker’s ideas to facilitate mutual understanding

3. Remembering:

Retaining messages received and understood for at least some period of time. Example:

- Identify speaker’s main ideas and supporting evidence

- Summarize messages in ways that are easy for you to retain

- Repeat names and key concepts to yourself (or aloud, if appropriate)

4. Evaluating: 

Judging messages you hear. Example: 

- Resist evaluation until you fully understand the speaker’s points
- Assume the speaker is a person of goodwill (ask for clarification)
- Distinguish facts from inferences and opinions 
- Identify any biases, self-interest, or prejudices that may influence the speaker’s messages

5. Responding: 

Responding occurs in two phases:

• Responses while the speaker is talking (back-channeling cues to let the speaker know you are paying attention, . Example: (“uh-huh,” “I see”)
• Responses after the speaker has stopped/while conversing. 

Example of Responding: 

- Express support for the speaker by using varied back-channeling cues.

- Express support for the speaker in your final responses.

- Take ownership of responses by using “I” messages

Listening & culture

Why Listening is Difficult?

- Different culture and experience between the speaker and the listener may lead to misunderstood. 

Diversity of Listening & Culture.

1. Language & speech

• Every speaker has their unique of language. 
• Speakers and listeners who have different native languages & who may have learned English as a second language have differences in meaning.

2. Non-Verbal Behavioral Differences

• Speaker from different cultures have different display rules. (non-verbal appropriate or inappropriate in public setting)
• Listen = verbal + nonverbal
• If verbal and nonverbal contradict with what you expect, it will become noise or interference.

3. Direct and indirect styles

• Direct style: “say what you mean and mean what you say.”
• indirect style : “they emphasize politeness and maintaining a positive public image rather than absolute truth”

4. Balance of Story versus Evidence

• In some cultures (e.g. United states) most people want evidence before making decisions rather than critical thinking.
• But for some other cultures, they may be more influenced by the word of high credibility source.

5. Credibility

• What make a speaker credible or believable will vary from one culture to another.
• Competence teacher is the most important factor for parents to send their children in preschool.
• For some other culture, morality and or goodness is most important factors.

6. Feedback

• Members of some cultures give very direct and very honest feedback
• But for some others cultures “it’s more important to be positive than to be truthful and so they may respond with positive feedback even thought they don’t feel it”

Listening effectively

1. Participatory & Passive listening

- Participation is the key of effective listening. 

- Participate can be mentally or physically.

- Passive listening is not without merit

- Listening without talking and without directing, the speaker in any non-verbal way is a powerful means for

communicating acceptance.

2. Emphatic & objective listening

- Emphatic listening is a means for both increasing understanding and for enhancing relationships.

- There are times when you need to measure the meanings and feelings against some objective reality.

- Listen more objectively.

3.Non-Judgmental and Critical Listening.

- Effective listening includes both nonjudgmental and critical responses.
- Open your mind and understanding the message and then evaluate or judge the message.

4. Surface & Depth Listening

- Distinguish the surface(literal) and depth meaning of the communication,

Example:  Do you like my new haircut ?

- This question or meaning seems direct and clear,

- But, There is another level of meaning,
 Etc: Maybe someone ask you about his/her appearance.

CHAPTER 2 : Perception

CHAPTER 2 : Perception

What is Perception ?
Perception is the impression that others give you and what you project to others.

The subtopic of Perception :

1. The perception process

          First Stage    : Sensory stimulation occurs

          - The sense organs are stimulated 

          - We will perceive something meaningful and not perceive something are not meaningful

         Second Stage : Sensory stimulation is organized 

         - Proximity principle : People or message that are physically close to one another are perceived                                                      together or as unit 

         - Closure principle    : You perceived as complete , a figure or message that is in reality                                                                     incomplete

         Third Stage     : Sensory stimulation is interpreted-evaluated 

         - Your interpretation-evaluations on the part of the people who perceive

Example :

     2. Processes influencing perception

• implicit personality theory

         - you have your own opinion about someone's characteristics that say which characteristics of an individual go with other characteristics.

• the self-fulfilling prophecy

        - occurs when you make a prediction or formulate a belief  that comes true because you made the prediction and acted on it as if it was true

        - also known as Pygmalion effect 

• perceptual accentuation 

        - lead you to see what you expect to see and what you want to see

• primacy- recency

        - use early information to provide yourself with a general idea of what a person is like. Then use later information to make this general idea more specific

        - the first impression you make is likely to be the most important, through this first impression other filter additional information to formulate a picture of whom they perceive you to be

• consistency

        - people have a strong tendency to maintain balance or consistency among perceptions

        - you expect certain things to go together and other things not to go together

• stereotyping 

        - a fixed impression of a group of people

        - everyone has attitudinal stereotypes of national, religious group, racial groups etc 

• attribution

        - the process through which you try discover why people do what they do and even why you what you do

Chapter 1 : Foundation of Human Communication

Human Communication is the field of study that focus on understanding how people communicate in various ways.

There are 5 subtopics covered in Human Communication :

1. Purpose of Human communication are:

• To help : Therapist or psychologist use communication to help others 
• To discover : Learning something new/discover a new thing.
• To relate : Maintain a relationship with others
• To persuade : To promote something to others
• To play : Create a exciting and playful environment.

2. Communication refer to the act by one or more persons of sending and receiving messages. We need communication skill in our life. For example, we have to communicate to order foods, asking for directions and etc. 

3.Areas of Communication divided into 5 categories : 

• Intrapersonal communication : Talking to yourself to know yourself better. Eg : Taking to a mirror to judge your own personality. 

• Interpersonal communication : Talking with others whom you have a relationship with to know about them and yourself. Eg : Talking with your parents and friends to know more about them. At the same time, you can ask their opinions about your personality.

• Small group & organizational communication : You share ideas and solve problems together. Eg : In a group discussion consists of 7 people, you and your friends are discussing on how to solve a Maths question.

• Public communication : Inform & persuade. Eg : Giving a talk on public stage about the importance of taking a safety precaution when going out alone. 

• Mass communication : Entertained or informed by media. Eg : We get to know about what is happening around the world by watching television or surfing the online news on Internet.

4.  Culture and Human Communication

   · Aim of a Cultural Perspective: To understand how communication influences a person, to distinguish what is universal (true for all people) and what is relative (true for people in one culture and not true for people in other culture) and communicate effectively in a wide variety of intercultural situations.

      5.  The Components of Human Communication is divided into two categories:

-          Communication context

·    Social Psychological Context: The relationships among participants, the roles that people play. Eg: In a meeting room at your office, you and your partnership most likely to talk and discuss about business.

·    Physical Context:  The concrete environment in which communication takes place. Eg: Lecturer hall versus tutorial class.

·    Cultural Context: Beliefs, values and ways of behaving that are shared. Eg: The Chinese believe that sweeping the floor on the first day of Chinese New Year will not bring any good luck.

·    Temporal Context: Time of day which the communication takes place. Eg: Morning is the ideal time to communication with others as their alertness is at the peak compare to night.

-        
  Components

·    Source-receiver: Two way role that interchanges actively in a conversation.

Source (Encoder): Encode messages like speaks, write and giving gesture.

Receiver (Decoder): Decode message like listen, read and respond.

·    Messages: Words, text or body language.

·    Feedback & feed forward: Response and preparation.

Feedback: From listener to speaker.

Feed forward: a pretext to the context like a trailer from a movie.

·    4 Channels: Vocal, Visual, Olfactory and Tactile Channel.

Vocal Channel: Spoken words.

Visual Channel: Hand gestures, body language can be see with eyes.

Olfactory Channel: Smells.

Tactile Channel: Touch.

·    4 types of Noises: Physical, Physiological, Psychological and Semantic Noise.

Physical Noise: Noise from transports.

Physiological Noise: Hearing loss or memory loss.

Psychological Noise: Impressions on people.

Semantic Noise: Jargons, a word we couldn't understand like APA style where some people don’t understand what APA style stands for.

·    Effects: Intellectual, affective and psycho-motor.

Intellectual/Cognitive: Changes in your thinking and mind

Affective: Behavioral change according to surrounding.
Psycho-motor: Physical behavioral change as you learn something new.

Class Learning ! 

In the first and second classes of Human Communication, our lecturer Mr. Anwari Ariffin asked us to answer few questions regarding ourselves so that he could understand his students well. We were also asked to write down in a piece of paper what does Communication means to us in our life.
We also did a small activity regarding the channels we had learnt such as vocal channel and visual channel. He divided us into 2 groups where on the right side will be the Blind people and the left side will be the Deaf people. We had to figure out how to communicate with each another. It is quite difficult when a disable person trying to communicate with another disable person.