Who Am I as a Communicator?

There wasn’t much that surprised me about the results of the evaluation reported by my friend of 25 years and my co-worker of 5 years. The categories that my evaluators placed me in were the same as those that I placed myself.  However, although the categories were the same the number report in one of the categories surprised me. My friend of 25 years scored me with a 68 in the area of verbal aggressiveness. This was 1 point away from being viewed as a person with little provocation I might cross the line, become verbally aggressive and personally attack the listener and cause hurt. Not only was I surprised, I was concerned that after 25 years my friend only saw a small amount of growth. I guess I never saw myself that way, but I respect her judgment and I will work on this area. I also learned this week that my listening style was reported as people-oriented. Although I strive to be people oriented, I thought I would be reported as action –oriented. The other thing I learned is that I was viewed as confident in communication situations by my friends. This was surprising because I always have anxiety when communicating in most situations. Great to know that my friends and colleagues don’t see this anxiety.

Communication and Culture

   Yes, I find myself communicating differently with those of a different sexual orientation. It is not because I have a prejudice against those who are of a different sexual orientation than mine. I usually find myself communicating differently because I do not wish to offend them.

    I think this is because of my sparse knowledge of the culture. I find that I am careful with my words, gestures and facial expressions because of this. I find that I am walking on eggshells because of this. However, this course has shown me that the way to overcome this is to become knowledgeable. I also must avoid embracing stereotypes and assumptions that certain communication will be offensive. This is a must because of the diverse world that I now live, work and teach in.

Nonverbal Communication

               

            The television show I chose to watch is Happy Endings on ABC. Happy Endings is about six best friends living in Chicago, it is a comedy.  I have never watched this show because I assumed it was just a bad rip off of one of my favorite TV shows Friends. Therefore, I began watching the show with undue influence.

                The behavior of the six people, they spent a lot of time together at a restaurant, the show opened with all of them being at a friend’s apartment watching TV. This told me that they had a very close relationship and a long history. The cast used a lot of facial expressions to as illustrators to reinforce the verbal messages that they were giving and receiving.

                This particular episode was about pranking a friend. The friend was very upset about the prank and vowed revenge on the 5 other friends. Therefore there was a lot of adaptors used because of the 5 friend’s fear of retaliation. There was twisting of hair, rubbing of hands and fidgeting to show the 5 friends fear. The actors in this particular episode used the nonverbal communication codes of gestures and body movements, facial expressions, eye behavior and voice tone to convey this episode title “The Marry Prankster.”

                Most of my assumptions prior to the episodes were true. The actors conveyed the relationships of the characters very well. However, there were some assumptions I made that were incorrect. I assumed none of the characters were married to each other and the core couple was married. I knew they were pranking a friend, but I did not know why. My assumptions would have been more accurate had I watched the show previously.

                The greatest thing I learned from this experience is that nonverbal and verbal communication supports each one another. The use of both fosters clearer communication. I also learned that undue influence really does affect or communication.