Comms Midterm Exam PDF

- Next monday: listening concepts - Next friday: no class (fall break) - The 15th: midterm - 45 multiple choice, 15 true false, 2 short essays - “Ongoing, always in motion, hard to tell when it starts and stops” = communication system - One essay on identity script...

- Next monday: listening concepts - Next friday: no class (fall break) - The 15th: midterm - 45 multiple choice, 15 true false, 2 short essays - “Ongoing, always in motion, hard to tell when it starts and stops” = communication system - One essay on identity scripts - One essay on impact of digital technology on communication - Communication is: an ongoing systematic process where people interact with and through symbols and create and interpret meanings. Features: - Process is always in motion - Occurs in a system of interrelated parts - Includes all language and nonverbal behaviors - Significance is what we bestow on them Content level: literal message Relationship level: relationships between communicators affects meaning Values: 1. Personal identity and health a. Communication influences physical and emotional wellbeing; essential to effective healthcare 2. Relationship values a. Communication is the primary way we connect with people; sustains relationships, solves problems, and day-to-day comms 3. Professional values a. Linked to professional success 4. Cultural values a. We must be able to express and evaluate ideas in a democracy; effective civil participation requires good communication skills Linear model: one way process in which one person acts on another person Noise: anything that interferes with intended communication Interactive models: receivers respond to senders; senders listen to receivers; create and interpret within fields of experience Transactional model: sima\ultaneously send and receive messages; changes over time; communication is subject to potential interference; occurs within systems Public speaking = enlarged conversation - Consider others perspectives  - Adapt to your situation - Express ideas clearly - Organize what to say Public speaking process: 1. Choose and refine your topic a. Select a topic that matters b. Select an appropriate topic 2. General purpose of speaking a. Define your general and specific purposes b. To inform: increase understanding, awareness, and knowledge c. To persuade: changes attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, or motivate to action d. To entertain: interest, amuse or please listeners Specific purpose: a behavioral objective and observable response that indicates you have achieved your communication goal 3. Thesis statement Demographic audience analysis: identifies general features common to a group of listeners Used for… - Adaptation - Making connections - Guarded against stereotypes - Making inferences - Determining what and whom listeners may find credible Situational audience analysis: discover what listeners already know and believe about a topic, speaker, and occasion Primary research: interviews allow you to gather information, check accuracy, and understand others’ perspectives - Surveys: useful when there is a lack of published research, and to learn about audiences knowledge and attitude towards the topic. Secondary research: online research (search engines, and verifying sources), and library research (databases, reference works, and peer-reviewed) Using evidence: material used to support claims a speaker makes - Makes ideas more clear, compelling, and interesting - Fortifies a speaker's opinion - Heightens speaker's credibility Statistics: numbers that summarize many individual cases or demonstrate relationships between phenomena - Limit the number used - Round off numbers - Select timely statistics  - Make statistics interesting to listeners Visual aids: to reinforce ideas or present information - Charts - Physical objects - Graphs - Large and clear - Photographs - Simple and uncluttered - Slides - Safe and non distracting - Avoid visual overload Organizing speeches: how organizing oral communication differs from written communication - Requires more explicit organization - Benefits from greater redundancy - Should rely on less complex sentence structures Outline: clear, concise profile of the speech - Main headings for intro, body, and conclusion; under each main points are subpoints, references to support each subpoint Organizing body: 1. Temporal pattern — chronological relationships 2. Spatial pattern — physical relationships 3. Topical pattern — categories, classes, areas of discussion 4. Star pattern — flexible arrangements of topics 5. Comparative pattern — compares two or more objects, people, situation, events Designing the introduction: - Capture audiences attention - Present a clear thesis statement - Build credibility - Preview the body Craft the conclusion: concisely summarize content - Provide a last memorable thought Causes of communication apprehension: chronic vs. situational - Unfamiliar audience/people - Unfamiliar situation - Being in the spotlight - Being evaluated - Past failures Styles of delivery: 1. Impromptu — little preparation; organize ideas as you talk 2. Extemporaneous — delivered with outline or cards 3. Manuscript — delivered with printed speech or teleprompter 4. Memorized — committed to memory Informative speech: presentation that aims to increase listeners’ knowledge, understanding, or abilities - Informative vs persuasive — controversial, response sought, evidence needed, credibility needed - Provide listener with clear thesis - Connect with listeners values - Motivate listeners to want information - Build credibility with listeners Perception: the active process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting people, objects, events, situations, and activities Influences on selection: external qualities that draw attention - Acuity of our senses - Change or variation - Our motives needs, expectations Self-fulfilling prophecy: people act in ways consistent with how they have learned to perceive themselves Organization: we organize and interpret experience by applying four cognitive structures called schemata - Prototypes - Personal constructs - Stereotypes - Scripts Prototypes: knowledge structures that define the best or most representative example of some category Personal constructs: bipolar mental yardsticks that allow us to position people and situations and dimensions of judgements Stereotypes: predictive generalizations about people and situations Scripts: behaviors, actions, that are expected in a particular situation or environment Interpretation: the subjective process of explaining perceptions to assign meanings to them Attributions: explanations of why things happen and why people act the way they do - Locus — attributes what a person does to either internal or external factors - Stability — explains actions as resulting from either stable factors that wont change or temporary, unstable factors - Scope — defines behavior as part of a global pattern or a specific instance - Responsibility — attributes behaviors to factors people can control or to factors people can't control Self-serving bias: tendency to construct attributions that serve our personal interests - Internal, stable, global attributions for failures - External, unstable, specific attributions for failures Influences on perception:  1. Physiology — people differ in sensory abilities and physiologies 2. Cultures — beliefs, values, understandings, practices, and ways of interpreting experience 3. Social and professional roles — some messages tell us what roles we are expected to fulfill as well as the actual demands of those roles 4. Cognitive abilities — how elaborately we think about situations and people Enhancing competence: - Recognize that all perceptions are subjective - Avoid mind reading - Check perception with others - Distinguish between facts and inferences - Monitor self-serving bias The self: process of internalizing and acting from social perspectives that we learn in the process of communication 1. Physical self — size, shape, skin, hair, and eye colors 2. Cognitive self — intelligence, aptitudes, education 3. Emotional self — optimistic or pessimistic 4. Social self — extroverted or more reserved 5. Moral self — ethical, spiritual principles we believe in and try to follow Family communication: direct definition is communication that explicitly labels us and our behaviors - Identity scripts: rules for how we are supposed live and who we are supposed to be Styles of attachment: patterns of parenting that teach us who we and others are and how to relate to others 1. Secure — outgoing, affectionate, and able to handle the normal challenges and disappointments Peer communication: social comparison - Comparing ourselves with others to judge our own talent, abilities, skills, etc. - To decide whether or not we are alike or different - Use social comparison to measure ourselves against others Societal communication: as we participate in society, we learn how society regards sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, ability, size, age, and socioeconomic class - Media communicates social perspectives with messages about which careers carry status, etc - Institutions further communicate social perspectives Reflected appraisal: process of seeing ourselves through others’ eyes Generalized other: collection of rules, roles, values, attitudes endorsed by culture Four dimensions of personal identity emphasized in Western culture: 1. Race 2. Gender binary 3. Sexual orientation 4. Socioeconomic class Hearing: passive physiological activity that occurs when sound waves hit our eardrums Listening: active complex process 1. Be mindful 2. Physically receiving messages 3. Select and organize information 4. Interpreting communication 5. Responding 6. Remembering Obstacles in effective listening: - External obstacles (message overload, message complexity) - Internal obstacles (preoccupations, prejudgements) Forms of nonlistening: 1. Pseudolistening — pretending to listen 2. Monopolizing — continually focusing communication on ourselves 3. Selective listening — focusing on only particular parts of messages 4. Defensive listening — perceiving personal attacks when no offense is intended 5. Ambushing — listening for the purpose of attacking 6. Literal listening — listening only to content level of messaging Guidelines for effective listening: - Informational listening (gaining and understanding information) - Critical listening (to form opinions and evaluate others) - Relational listening (counseling a worker, talking about health concerns) Informational listening: be mindful, control obstacles, ask questions, organize info, use aids Relational listening: be mindful, suspend judgment, understand others perspectives, express support