Human Communication & You!

LOVE: Economics or Commitment?

2010-04-11T14:10:00.000-05:00

I've had discussions with quite a few students in several of my classes who believe that Social Exchange Theory is a good way in which to evaluate romantic relationships. In brief, SET characterizes relationships from an economic perspective in terms of "investment" and "reward". In teaching this theory over the past ten years, it appears to me that people are increasingly evaluating their romantic relationships by this economic model, that is, in terms of "cost" vs. "reward". Is this a viable way to evaluate our most significant relationships. Indeed, as communicators, is it even ethical? Moreover, how does "commitment" play a part in romantic relationships today? What do you think?

(( litefeeds )) mobile RSS

2010-03-10T21:04:00.001-06:00

It works! Read feeds and post to your blog while mobile.

www.litefeeds.com

Finding Communication and Mass Media Research Articles on the Internet

2010-03-02T07:43:00.000-06:00

Good link for students and faculty doing research in communication studies. Ohio University has a wonderful Comm Blog at http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/commblog/?p=796. The site offers access to scholarly articles and other research tools, including videos, and an online librarian who can help students and faculty gain access to the databases. I immediately added this site to my End Note reference library as well as to my Fast Dial on Google Chrome.

Social Networking Can Get You in Trouble at Work!

2010-03-02T07:32:00.001-06:00

Can social networking sites such as Facebook, My Space, Buzz, and others, really put your job in jeopardy? Indeed they can! Read the case of a Pennsylvania university professor who shared her "private thoughts" on Facebook and is now suspended from her job and could be denied tenure: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/02/facebook. According to a human resources expert cited in the article, employees are an extension of their company's brand and therefore, subject to suspension and possible unemployment for the comments we post on social networking and blog sites. Although this phenomenon isn't new (we have all read similar stories before), it continues to be a striking reminder that even the most mundane comments we post to social networking sites can far-reaching effects that go well beyond our initial intention to keep in touch with those closest to us.

Peggy Noonan: The Adam Lambert Problem - WSJ.com

2009-12-19T08:37:00.000-06:00

Peggy Noonan: The Adam Lambert Problem - WSJ.com

Boundaries are a key component of family systems theory. As most of us can imagine, the family can't keep everyone and every influence from coming in and out of the unit. Because boundaries are permeable, what the family unit does to set boundaries that prevent outsiders and outside influences from coming into it is important.

In this morning's Wall Street Journal, columnist Peggy Noonan argues that boundaries are maintained by scrapping cable TV and sticking to the main prime-time networks because they offer family-oriented content that is not likely to violate the moral boundaries we wish to instill in our children.

How has this worked? Well, at least in one recent case, it hasn't. The American Music Awards is one example of external violation of family boundaries. Read her article to find out why.

Could Your Marriage Survive an Affair?

2009-12-15T09:26:00.000-06:00

Few of us want to ponder the possibility that the one to whom we swore fidelity and faithfulness is cheating. Yet it happens. Here are the stories of three couples who decided to work things out rather than run to the lawyers.

When Inlaws Become Outlaws

2009-12-15T09:01:00.000-06:00

For everyone who thinks my claim that "inlaws can become outlaws" is ridiculous or exaggerated, click on this link below and read the article. You will die laughing perhaps, but most important, you'll know what to expect this holiday season from family members and how to protect your significant relationship from THE OUTLAWS!
MSN Tagline: And you thought your in-laws were crazy! Listen to TheNest.com users' jaw-dropping stories of over-sharing in-laws, odd family traditions and strange cooking practices.

Video games take bigger role in education | Reuters

2009-12-10T14:18:00.000-06:00

Video games take bigger role in education | Reuters

Communication is Everything!

2009-12-10T10:42:00.000-06:00

Important communication principles contained in marketing as today's Front Porch guidance: Understand the other person's hopes, dreams and goals; be flexible about commitments as you adopt another person's agenda; don't make promises you cannot keep or commit to tasks that are unattainable. (paraphrased from Geoffrey A. Moore, "Crossing the Chasm")

In Business as in Life, Relationships are Everything!

2009-12-09T09:56:00.000-06:00

A good communication studies reminder for marketing students comes from Geoffrey A. Moore's book, Crossing the Chasm: "Fundamentally, marketing must refocus away from selling product and toward creating relationship....[m]arketing's first deliverable is that partnership. (xv).

Public Speaking For Effect

2009-12-07T11:05:00.001-06:00

One of my students wanted to interview me with regard to public speaking skills. The following are the interview questions and my responses gleaned over years of presentation experience. I’m passing this along to readers as some practical guidance rather than actual instruction in public speaking.

1. Before you began your career as a professor did you take a course in Public Speaking? If so, how did it help you?

A: In high school, I was a member of the Choir, Theater and Debate team. All of these areas were ways I learned how to speak and act in front of an audience. Of course, I had lots of training in public speaking throughout my undergraduate and graduate degree days, considering that I later became a minister and college teacher and had to take courses to develop the art of preparing and delivering presentations. So, I’ve had a lot of rich experiences in public speaking dating back to my teenage years that preceded my career as a college teacher.

2. What do you do to combat nervousness when speaking in front of a new audience?

A: This may sound strange, but I don’t have a particular technique for relieving stress when speaking in front of a new audience. In fact, I don’t give WHO I’m speaking to a lot of thought at all. My job as a public speaker is to offer my audience information that will help them in their lives, whether the speech is a lecture in a classroom, a consulting seminar or a sales pitch. My focus is therefore, audience-centered rather than personally centered and I’m often not aware that nerves play an important part in my delivery or demeanor on stage. Basically, I’m confident about the importance of what I offer others and about my delivery skills.

3. If you had to choose only three skills to utilize during Public Speaking, what would they be?

A: The most important skill is presentational preparation, which means taking the time to fully flesh out what you are preparing to speak about. Related to preparation is the idea of the speech topic. I rarely speak on topics with which I am unfamiliar. There is no greater disaster for a public speaker than attempting to speak on a subject with which he/she is not well-familiar or in which he/she lacks experience. So speech topic and intense preparation, including outline and keynotes are critical to performance success.

Another skill is developing rapport quickly with my audience at the beginning and end of a presentation. I do this in various ways either at the outset of the speaking engagement or before the engagement begins. I find it helpful to arrive early and greet people coming into the room where the speech will take place. During the opening of a speech, I take a few minutes to cite the reason I’m speaking to them, use a little self-effacing humor or offer a narrative or anecdote as I present credentials in order to make participants feel comfortable with me and get used to my rather booming voice. My goal in the opening moments of a speech is to get the audience’s attention, to feel that they like me enough to be attentive (but not necessarily agreeable) to what I’m telling them.

A third skill I think is important for every public speaker is to use affect display, body position and good paralinguistic skills to get an audience’s attention. I’m a positive person, so it’s natural for me to smile a lot and to be enthusiastic about what I’m doing. My affect display shows others that I love what I’m doing and most especially, I care and have a high regard for them.

If, during a presentation, I feel that my audience is not responding to me nonverbally, or if I am looking for a different type of response, I often take a few steps toward them (repositioning is one way of offering an audience a high regard) and lower my voice. This almost invariably works because an audience gets used to hearing a speaker’s voice early on in a presentation, and, as you know, mine is rather forceful. When I lower my voice and get quiet to emphasize a point, the audience’s attention is quickly drawn to me, which is where I want them.

So maintaining good affect display (smile or be enthusiastic), practicing body position, and good paralinguistic skills are essential skills for an effective public speaker.

4. Do you think it feels different speaking in front of students than in front of your peers or co-workers or on the consulting jobs?

A: The short answer to this is “no”. All audiences are essentially the same. That is, they are comprised of people. What is different is the context. Speaking to a group of students in a classroom is a slightly different skill than speaking at a consulting seminar or speaking to influence people to purchase a specific product. So the public speaking environment is dictated by the context in which a presentation is to be delivered.

Again, it would be inappropriate for us to compare group dynamics of public speaking with interpersonal communication skills. These are two different modes of communication that require similar but different skills. We talk to groups of people in very different ways than we would talk to another person (such as one’s peers) one-on-one.

5. If someone had poor public speaking skills but still wanted to teach, what would you suggest?

A: The most important aspect of teaching is love for the profession and an energizing, driving desire to want to educate students. The real question with reference to teaching is: “If there were any other profession I would want to do other than teaching, what would be that profession?” If the answer is “teaching”, you are probably headed for a career as an educator. If the answer is some other profession, you should probably pursue that instead, because teaching is a very demanding, self-giving and is a relatively low paying career. The intrinsic rewards are enormous but without the drive and desire to give yourself away to students, you will probably not be a very effective teacher. Having said that, some advice I would give to new teachers with poor public speaking skills would be as follows:

First, until a teacher is familiar with the material he/she is presenting, they should make extensive use of instructor resources including prepared lectures, classroom discussion, power-point presentations, audio-visual aids and classroom exercise material. This takes the pressure off the teacher by giving them a track to run on and therefore, increases his/her credibility and self-confidence.

Second, teachers should strive to develop rapport with a classroom of students and treat the entire class as one person with unique educational requirements and learning outcomes. The more relaxed the students are with the teacher, the more self-confident the teacher will become and the easier it will be to present difficult pedagogical material.

Third, with the pressure removed by using instructional materials and solid rapport development, the teacher can slowly begin to discover what verbal and nonverbal styles work for them in a classroom environment. There has to be some awareness of what styles are effective and which are not in order for the teacher to become a confident presenter.

Having said all this, I have met teachers, ministers, company CEOs and others who are, in some cases, deplorable public speakers but who are otherwise very effective in their careers. So public speaking is not a panacea. Other things such as attitude and the ability to develop good classroom and interpersonal communication skills should also be considered when entering a teaching career. But many of the skills associated with good public speaking are learned through experience over time.

What we can learn from our body type

2009-07-12T18:28:00.001-05:00

Since W. H. Sheldon’s landmark study in 1954 (Atlas of man: A guide for somatyping the adult male at all ages. New York: Harper.) we know that our body type affects our perception of ourselves which, in turn, affects our communication behaviors. To what extent this happens is the subject of this post.

Sheldon identified three body types: endomorph, ectomorph and mesomorph. Scholars in communication studies, such as Joseph DeVito (Nonverbal Communication Workbook. Prospect Heights: Waveland, 1989.) and Dale Leathers and Michael Eaves (Successful nonverbal communication: principles and applications. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2008) define Sheldon’s body types similarly: an endomorph is, roughly speaking, short and fat; an ectomorph is tall and thin, and a mesomorph is athletic.

Each of us perceives ourselves as having one of these body types and we develop a body image (how we feel about our image) based on how we think we look to others.

Since Sheldon’s findings in 1954, researchers and communication scholars have come up with ways for us to identify our body type and body image. To discover which body type best describes you, you would need to complete an exercise similar to the one DeVito offers in his Nonverbal Communication Workbook, based on the work of J.B. Cortes and F.M. Gatti (1965) titled Body Type Questionnaire (47). It contains six questions. For example, the first question is:

“I feel most the time __________, __________, and __________.”

Then you would choose three words from a list of twelve possible responses that best describe your personality to answer the question. For example, the above question has the following twelve selections.

“calm, anxious, cheerful, contented, relaxed, confident, tense, impetuous, complacent, reticent, energetic, self-conscious.”

After completing the questions, you would then underline the words you selected in the questionnaire in a separate list containing personality characteristics attributed to each body type. The results should reflect what you perceive to be your body type.

When I asked students to do this in class, some were surprised (others somewhat offended!) to learn that the results of their choices are a reflection of how they perceive themselves. Moreover, a few students expressed some surprise that they judge the personality characteristics of others based on their self-perception. Yet, that seems to hold true.

The way we perceive our body type affects our body image, a necessary part of self-esteem, and, in turn, the way we communicate with others. Admittedly, the whole issue of cultural stereotypes plays into how we determine our body type. Yet, there is truth in the idea that our perception of our body type affects our body image and shapes our behavior as we interact with others, for better or worse.

As Leathers and Eaves point out, if we are satisfied with our body type, we are likely to have higher self-esteem – termed body cathexis. Conversely, if we are unhappy or disappointed with our body type, we are likely to have lower self-esteem (145).

But there are two caveats to this assumption. First, we are our own worst critics and often inaccurately judge our body type. Not many of us stand in front of a mirror every day and determine that we are ectomorphic, endomorphic or mesomorphic.

Secondly, it is encouraging to know, if even viscerally, that others may not agree with our self-assessment. For example, if I perceive myself as an endomorph (short, fat), others may well view me as being a mesomorph (muscular and athletic). As Leathers and Eaves suggest, we have little trouble judging attractiveness in other people but have more difficulty in judging how attractive we are to other people.

For example, has anyone ever told you that you are attractive only to express surprise that he/she actually thinks that about you? This should suggest that body image (how we feel about our body) is related to what we perceive to be ideal as we compare our body type to others.

That being said, it is fascinating to note the body of literature that explains how body type and body image play into and affect our choices for dating and marriage. Perhaps you know a couple who seem to look a lot alike? That’s no mistake! The matching hypothesis suggests that we look for similarities in body types in our dating and marriage choices (148). Citing Archer (1980), Leathers and Eaves conclude that

“[t]here is considerable empirical evidence to support the validity of the matching hypothesis…(and) can safely conclude that individuals are likely to be attracted to other individuals who are similar to them in body build or type, dress, facial and bodily features, and overall physical attractiveness.” (148).

What does the body of research indicate? What can we learn from it? While there may be many things, three things stand out in my mind:

First, I think it means that while body type is important to body image, the more aware we are of our body image, the more we come to appreciate and accept our body type as something that is unique and belongs to us. If our body type causes us to have a poor body image (self-esteem), we can make changes in our lifestyle to correct that image.

Second, we are usually more critical of our body type than others. While we may think of ourselves as having a particular body type, others may disagree with our self-assessment. Although the literature indicates that we accurately judge attractiveness in others, we are rarely accurate in judging what others think about our body type.

Third, body type plays an important role in interpersonal attraction. The more similar we are, the more we like each other.

Non-Verbal Communication Students

2009-06-17T16:40:00.000-05:00

Can we tell if someone is lying to us? Are we good lie detectors? Read this article in Communication Currents and be prepared to discuss this question.

Great Teacher Blog for Communication

2009-06-11T08:52:00.000-05:00

Must see presentation for teachers on communication skills titled Communication Skills for Teachers. Thanks to Alan Sharland and his heads-up "tweet" on this feature.

Pew Internet Research Finds Young People More Concerned than Adults about Privacy Online

2009-06-06T09:32:00.000-05:00

Interesting study by Pew Internet Research comparing the communications behaviors of young people with adults on social networking sites. One of the startling findings is that young people seem to value privacy more than adults. Watch the video presentation at Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Great Line on Mediocrity

2009-06-06T08:50:00.001-05:00

I like this line picked up from a news article:
The trouble with normal is that it always gets worse.

Social Networking -- The Future

2009-06-06T08:49:00.001-05:00

Social networking on the increase: "Facebook recorded more than 13.8 billion minutes of usage time in April" (CISION.net)

Twitter Trends

2009-06-06T08:30:00.000-05:00

Harvard Business Academics examine Twitter. Interesting article on the importance of social networking and trends in the Twitter tradition. Twitter IS awesome! See the article at IT Canada website Twitter Trends.

Online Teachers Take Note

2009-06-06T07:55:00.000-05:00

Interesting article on the importance of faculty making connections with students in an online environment. This is such an important issue if you are teaching in an online environment. See the article at Faculty Focus.

Can we love unconditionally?

2009-05-17T09:31:00.000-05:00

Last week, I was reading “The Shack” by Wm. Paul Young. It’s an engaging spiritual journey of a man who experienced terrible tragedy, then had a chance to find God in the midst of his pain and suffering. The book talks a great deal about God’s unconditional love for humankind. Well and good. God is, after all, divine, right?

But on a human level, the issue of unconditional love seems rather elusive, even for people of faith. Can we really accept even the significant people in our lives without qualification in a culture that insists that we should derive an “economic” benefit from every relationship?

Loving another person unconditionally requires a great deal of vulnerability and transparency. It involves opening ourselves to another person knowing full well that we could be hurt. The risks are high even for people in romantic relationships and therefore, few of us are willing to engage in this type of deep commitment to another person.

Perhaps the closest we can come to unconditional love and acceptance is to realize that, as we change and grow together, the expectations and outcomes we have for each other must also change. It's the building together and growing together and being together that cause two people to come as close as possible to accepting each other without qualification. And, we are likely never to do that perfectly on this side of eternity.

Amazon's Kindle Replacing Textbooks and Newspapers?

2009-05-12T08:41:00.000-05:00

Here's a sign of the times from the Associated Press: A Larger Kindle Could Upend Textbooks, Periodicals, by The Associated Press

Social Networking and Children

2009-05-12T08:14:00.000-05:00

In its blog, "The Lede", the NY Times asks an interesting question: "Is Social Networking Killing You?" Educators and scientists are divided about how healthy it is for children to spend time social networking in front of a computer screen. Read the blog and decide for yourself. It's an interesting discussion on computer mediated communication.

Using Social Networks to Brand Products

2009-05-12T07:59:00.001-05:00

In his book, "The Tipping Point", Malcolm Gladwell discusses how brands catch on and spread like wildfire to roaring popularity. Social networking is fast becoming a popular way for product brands to sell themselves on the internet, using the opinions and ideas of consumers to develop their products. Take a look at this video from "The Read Write Web" and be convinced of the power of social networking!

Worried About Your Kids Hanging Out Online? Don't!

2008-11-25T07:07:00.000-06:00

A researcher at University of California at Berkeley suggests that hanging out online is a valuable form of socialization for teens. If kids become geeks, that's all the better. Apparently, "geekiness" is fast become a status and authority symbol? Interesting article, and the sign that the internet may be replacing many valuable face-to-face social networks. Visit Steve Parkins' "The Agenda" for more. Good stuff! http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/.

Taking a "Check-up from the Neck Up" before presenting

2008-11-22T07:27:00.000-06:00

Someone once said that "attitude determines altitude". That is quite true in every area of life but no place is it more true than when you are about to present your ideas in a public venue. The single most helpful reminder in preparing to present is to follow the motivational speaker Zig Ziglar's advice and take a "check-up from the neck up" before your presentation.

First, value your skills as a presenter. In a corporate presentation, you are the medium through which vital information is conveyed. If you don't feel good about yourself as a speaker, your verbal and non-verbal communication style will reflect your attitude and your audience will likely not feel good about you either.

Second, value the message you are about to deliver. Every time you present, you are presenting something of value for participants in sharing ideas and delivering information they need for success. Therefore, you must believe in the message in order to deliver it with enthusiasm. I have seen speakers who are so bored with the information they were presenting that the presentation had no effect whatever on the audience. If you are not convinced that the information is worthwhile for a corporate or public presentation, try conveying the information through a channel other than public speaking.

Want to be a good corporate or public speaker? Follow Ziglar's advice. Before hitting the stage, hit the mirror and take a "check-up from the neck up". Believe in yourself and your message. Then go, break a leg!