Question | Answer |
The process by which we use signs, symbols and behaviors to exchange information and create meaning. | Communication |
One way process | action model |
encode | to put your idea in the form of language or a gesture that someone can understand. |
message | consists of the verbal and/or nonverbal elements of communication to which people give meaning. |
a type of pathway for conveying messages | channel |
to interpret | decode |
receiver | the person who will decode the message |
noise | anything that interferes with a reciver's ability to attend to your message. |
various verbal and nonverbal responses to your message | feedback |
the environment that you're in | context |
channel-rich contexts | environments that incorporate multiple communication channels at once. |
channel-lean contexts | environments that use relatively fewer channels. |
a representation of an idea | symbol |
communication about communication | meta-communication |
explicit rules | someone has clearly articulated them |
implicit rules | rules that almost everyone in a certain social group knows and follows, even though no one has formally articulated them. |
communication you have with yourself | intrapersonalcommunication |
communication that occurs between two people in the context of their ongoing relationship. | interpersonal Communication |
small group communication | communication in groups of 3-20 people |
public communication | occurs when we speak or write to an audience that is larger than a small group |
communicating in ways that are effective and appropriate in a given situation. | communication competence |
the ability to understand other people's thoughts and feelings | empathy |
Culture | the totality of learned shared symbols, language, values and norms that distinguish one group of people from another |
Societies | groups of people who share common symbols, language, value and norms. |
In-group | groups of people with which a person identifies. |
Out-groups | groups of people with which a person does not identify |
Ethnicity | our perception of our ancestry or heritage. |
Nationality | our status as a citizen of a particular country. |
Enculturation | the process of acquiring a culture. |
Co-cultures | groups of people who share values, customs, and norms related to mutual intrests or characteristics besides their national citizenship. |
Values | the standards it uses to judge how good, desirable, or beautiful something is. |
Norms | rules or expectations that guide people’s behavior in a culture. |
Jargon | terminology that is understood only by others in the same co-culture. |
Individualistic culture | people believe that their primary responsibility is to themselves. |
Collectivistic culture | people are taught that their primary responsibility is to their families, their communities, and their employers. |
Low-context culture | people are expected to be direct, to say what they mean, and to not “beat around the bush”. |
High-context culture | taught to speak in a much less direct way than individuals in a low-context culture. |
Low-power distance culture | the belief that all men and women are created equal and that no one person or group should have excessive power. |
High-power distance culture | power is distributed less evenly; certain groups, such as the royal family or the members of the ruling political party, have great power, and the average citizen has much less. |
Masculine culture | values ambition, achievement, and the acquisition of material goods. |
Feminine culture | values nurturance, quality of life, and service to others. |
Monochromic | time as a commodity |
Polychromic | time as more holistic and fluid and less structured. |
Uncertainty avoidance | the extent to which people try to avoid situations that are unstructured, unclear, or unpredictable. |
Mindful | aware of how their behaviors and ways of thinking are likely to differ from our own. |
Similarity assumption | we presume that most people think the same way we do, without asking ourselves whether that’s true. |
Ethnocentrism | the tendency to judge other cultures’ practices as inferior to one’s own. |
Communication codes | verbal and nonverbal behaviors whose meanings are often understood only by people from the same culture |
Idiom | a phrase whose meaning is purely figurative |
Gestures | movements, usually of the hand or arm, that express ideas. |
Ambiguity | lack of certainty |
Adapt | to change your behavior to accommodate what others are doing. |
Perception | the process of making meaning from what we experience in the world around us. |
Selection | the process by which your mind and body help you isolate certain stimuli to pay attention to. |
Organization | the classification of information in some way. |
Perceptual schema | a mental framework for organizing information into categories. |
Interpretation | to figure out its meaning for you |
Stereotype | a generalization about a group or category of people that can have a powerful influence on how we perceive other people and their communication behavior. |
Primacy effect | first impressions are critical because they set the tone for all future interactions. |
Recency effect | the most recent impression we have of a person’s communication is more powerful than our earlier impressions. |
Perceptual set | a person’s predisposition to perceive only what he or she wants or expects to perceive. |
Attribution | an explanation |
Self-serving bias | relates primarily to how we explain our own behaviors, refers to our tendency to attribute our successes to stable, internal causes while attributing our failures to unstable, external causes. |
Fundamental attribution error | we attribute other people’s behaviors to internal rather than external causes. |
Self-concept | composed of those stable ideas about who you are |
Identity | you understanding of who you are. |
Self-fulfilling prophecy | a situation in which an expectation prompts you to act and communicate in ways that make that expectation come true. |
Facework | the behaviors we use to project that image to others |
Face | our desired public image |
Face needs | important components of our desired public image |
Language | a structured system of symbols used for communicating meaning. |
Denotative meaning | the literal meaning |
Connotative meaning | the ideas or concepts that the word suggests in addition to its literal meaning |
Norm of reciprocity | when someone gives you some type of gift or resource, you are expected to return the favor. |
Social validation principle | people will comply with requests if they believe that others are also complying. |
Euphemism | a vague, mild expression that symbolizes and substitutes for something that is blunter or harsher. |
Nonverbal communication | behaviors and characteristics that convey meaning without the use of words. |
Nonverbal channels | the various behavioral forms that nonverbal communication takes |
Oculesics | the study of eye behavior, as a separate nonverbal channel |
Kinesics | the study of movement |
Gesticulation | the use of arm and hand movements to communicate |
Emblems | any gesture that have a direct verbal translation |
Illustrators | gestures that go along with a verbal message to clarify it. |
Affect display | gestures that communicate emotion |
Regulators | gestures that control the flow of conversation |
Adaptors | gestures you use to satisfy some personal need |
Haptics | the study of how we use touch to communicate |
Vocalics | speaking with a particular tone of voice to suggest that you are irritated, amused or bored |
Olfactics | study of the sense of smell |
Proxemics | the study of the use of space |
Intimate distance | the zone of space willingly occupied only with intimate friends, family members, and romantic partners. |
Personal distance | the zone of space occupied with close friends and relatives. |
Social distance | the zone of space occupied with casual acquaintances |
Public distance | the zone of space maintained during a public presentation. |
Halo effect a predisposition to attribute positive qualities to physically attractive people. | |
Chronemics | the use of time |
Artifacts | objects and visual features that reflect a person’s identity and preferences |
Listening | the active process of making meaning out of another person’s spoken message. |
Hearing | the sensory process of receiving and perceiving sounds |
Attending | paying attention to someone’s words well enough to understand what that person is trying to communicate. |
HURIER model | a model describing the stages of effective listening as hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating, and responding. |
Informational listening | listening to learn |
Critical listening | listening to evaluate or to analyze |
Empathetic listening | listening to experience what the speaker thinks or feels. |
Pseudolistening | pretending to listen. |
Selective attention | listening only to what one wants to hear and ignoring the rest |
Information overload | the state of being overwhelmed by the enormous amount of information encountered each day. |
Glazing over | daydreaming or allowing the mind to wander while another person is speaking. |
Rebuttal tendency | the propensity to debate a speaker’s point and formulate a reply while that person is still speaking |
Closed-mindedness | the tendency not to listen to anything with which one disagrees. |
Competitive interrupting | the practice of using interruptions to take control of the conversation |
Confirmation bias | the tendency to pay attention only to information that supports one’s values and beliefs, while discounting or ignoring information that does not. |
Vividness effect | the tendency of dramatic, shocking events to distort one’s perceptions of reality. |
Skepticism | an attitude that involves raising questions or having doubts. |
Need to belong theory | a psychological theory proposing a fundamental human inclination to bond with others |
Attraction theory | a theory that explains why individuals are drawn to others. |
Interpersonal attraction | the force that draws people together. |
Physical attraction | attraction to someone’s appearance |
Social attraction | attraction to someone’s personality |
Task attraction | attraction to someone’s abilities or dependability. |
Proximity | closeness, as in how closely together people live or work. |
Complementarity | the beneficial provision by another person of a quality that one lacks |
Uncertainty reduction theory | theory suggesting that people find uncertainty to be unpleasant, so they are motivated to reduce their uncertainty by getting to know others. |
Social exchange theory | theory suggesting that people seek to maintain relationships in which their benefits outweigh their cost. |
Self-disclosure | act of intentionally giving others information about oneself that believes is true but thinks others don’t already have |
Social penetration theory | indicates that the depth and breadth of self-disclosure helps us learn about a person we’re getting to know. |
Breadth | the range of topics one discusses with various people |
Interdependence | the state in which what happens tone person affects everyone else in the relationship |
Dialectical tensions | conflicts between two important but opposing relational needs or desires. |
Polygamy | the state of having two or more romantic partners at once |
Monogamy | the state of being in only one romantic relationship at a time and avoiding romantic or sexual involvement with others outside that relationship |
Initiating stage | the stage of relationship development at which people meet and interact for the first time |
Experimenting stage | the stage of relationship development at which people converse to learn more about each other. |
Intensifying stage | the stage of relationship development at which people move from being acquaintance to being close friends. |
Integrating stage | the stage of relationship development at which a deep commitment has formed and the partners share a strong sense that the relationship has its own identity |
Bonding stage | the stage of relationship development at which partners make a public announcement of their commitment to each other. |
Communication privacy management theory | a theory explaining how people in relationships negotiate the tension between disclosing information and keeping it private |
Differentiating stage | the stage of relationship dissolution at which partners begin to view their differences as undesirable or annoying. |
Circumscribing stage | partners begin to decrease the quality and quantity of their communication with each other |
Stagnating stage | the relationship stops growing and the partners feel as if they are just “going through the motions.” |
Avoiding stage | partners create physical and emotional distance from each other. |
Terminating stage | the relationship is officially deemed to be over |
Family of origin | the family in which one grows up, usually consisting of parents and siblings. |
Family of procreation | the family one starts as an adult, usually consisting of a spouse or romantic partner and children. |
Family rituals | repetitive activities that have special meaning to the family. |
Confirming messages | behaviors that convey how much another person is valued |
Disconfirming messages | behaviors that imply a lack of respect or value of others. |
Stonewalling | withdrawing from a conversation |
Cohesion | the force by which the members of a group work together in the service of a common goal. |
Resources | entitles that enable a group to be productive. |
Synergy | a collaboration that produces more than the sum of its parts. |
Social loafing | the tendency of some members of a group to contribute less to the group than the average member does, particularly as the group grows in size. |
Brainstorming | an idea-generating process in which group members offer whatever ideas they wish before any are debated. |
Nominal group technique | an idea-generating process in which group members generate their initial ideas silently and independently and then combine tem and consider them as a group. |
Ideawritng | each member adds three or four ideas to a pile and then offers comments on others’ ideas. Afterward, members respond to comments made about their ideas and generate a master list of ideas worth of consideration. |
Unanimous consensus | uncontested support for a decision sometimes the only option in a group’s decision-making process. |
Stalemate | an outcome where members’ opinions are so sharply divided that consensus is impossible to achieve. |
False consensus | an outcome where some members of a group say they support the unanimous decision even though they do not. |
Majority rule | a decision- making process that follows the will of the majority. |
Minority rule | a small number of members makes a decision on behalf of the group. |
Expert opinion | recommendations of individuals who have expertise in a particular area that are sometimes the basis of a group’s decision-making process. |
Authority rule | the leader of the group makes the decisions. |
Traits | defining characteristics of a person that are often relatively enduring and not easily changeable. |
Extroversion | people who are friendly, assertive, and outgoing with others. |
Introversion | people who are shy, reserved, and aloof |
Communication apprehension | anxiety or fear about communicating with others |
Democratic style | every member of a group has the right to participate in decision making. |
Autocratic style | leader see themselves as having both the authority and responsibility to take action on the group’s behalf |
Reward power | based on the leader’s ability to reward another for doing what the leaders says |
Laissez-faire style | leaders offer minimal supervision |
Coercive power | a form of power that comes from the ability to punish |
Referent power | a form of power that derives from attraction to the leader |
Legitimate power | a form of power in which leaders’ status or position gives them the right to make requests with which others must comply |
Expert power | a form of power that stems from having expertise in particular area. |
Informational power | a form of power that stems from the ability to control access to information. |
Groupthink | a situation in which group members seek unanimous agreement despite their individual doubts. |
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