What five social needs does communication satisfy?
Giving and receiving affection, having fun, helping others, being helped, and giving us a sense of self-worth
What 4 needs does communication help?
Physical, identity, social, and practical
Who suggested that human needs fall into five categories? What are they?
Abraham Maslow; physical, safety, social, self-esteem, and self-actualization
According to the textbook, what is communication?
It's about using messages to generate meanings
What does a transactional communication model do?
It's a model that attempts to depict all the factors that affect human interaction
What is noise?
Anything that interferes with the transmission and reception of a message
What is external noise?
Includes those factors outside the receiver that makes it difficult to hear
What is psychological noise?
Refers to cognitive factors that makes communication less effective
What is a channel?
The medium through which messages are exchanged
What does "communication is transactional" mean?
It's refers to a dynamic process that the participants create through interaction with one another (it's something we do WITH others, not just to them)
What is the content dimension?
It's the information being explicitly discussed
What is the relational dimension?
It's how you feel about the other person
What are the four features that distinguish communication in highly interpersonal relationships from less personal ones?
Uniqueness, interdependence, self-disclosure, and intrinsic rewards
What are the four major communication misconceptions?
Not all communication seeks understanding, more communication is not always better, communication will not solve all problems, and effective communication is not a natural ability
What are the two dimensions of communication competence?
Communication competence is both effective and appropriate
Why is flexibility important in communication with people of different cultures?
Because some communication skills seem to be universal while some vary from one culture to another
What are the seven skills the book identifies as being characteristics of a competent communicator?
A large repertoire of skills, adaptability, ability to perform skillfully, involvement, empathy/perspective taking, cognitive complexity, and self-monitoring
What is adaptability?
Being able to choose the right behavior for a particular situation
What is the ability to perform skillfully?
Using the correct behavior in a effective manor
What does having a large repertoire of skills mean?
Knowing what is appropriate with a given situation so your chances of reaching your personal and relational goals is increased
What does involvement mean?
It included commitment to the other person and the relationship, concern about the message being discussed, and a desire to make the relationship clearly useful
What does empathy/perspective taking mean?
It's the ability to imagine how an issue might look from another's perspective. This includes both verbal and nonverbal responses
What is cognitive complexity?
It's the ability to construct a variety of different frameworks for viewing an issue
What is self-monitoring?
It describes a process of paying close attention to one's own behavior and using these observations to shape the way one behaves
What is communication apprehension?
They're feelings of anxiety that arise in unfamiliar or difficult communication contexts
What are the three characteristics of social media?
Leanness, asynchronicity, and permanence
What is leanness?
It describes the messages that carry less information due to the lack of nonverbal cues
What is hyper personal communication?
It's accelerating discussion of personal topics and relational development beyond what normally happens in face to face interaction
What are the three challenges leanness in social media communication presents?
They only contain words, there aren't any nonverbal cues and thus online communicators can create idealized and somewhat unrealistic images of one another, and they communicate less information about communicators' personal features
What is asynchronous communication?
It occurs when there's a time gap between when a message is sent and when it's received
What is synchronous communication?
It's a two way conversation and occurs in real time
What is the plus/downside of the permanence of online communication?
Plus: save and share pictures, emails, etc
Downside: a regrettable email, text, message is never deleted and can be forwarded in ways that only happen in your worst nightmare
What are the four rules of communicating online? What are they sometimes called?
Respect others need for undivided attention, keep your tone civil, be mindful of bystanders, and balance mediated and face time.
Netiquette
What is disinhibition?
The tendency to transmit messages without considering their consequences