Communication style significantly determines a person’s behavior when interacting with other people.
The specific choice of communication style is determined by many factors: a person’s personal characteristics, his worldview and position in society, the characteristics of this society, and much more. How many communication styles are there? This question is difficult to answer.
However, if we proceed from the fact that a communication style is simply a person’s greater readiness for a particular situation, then we can talk about three main styles. They can conditionally be called ritual, manipulative and humanistic.
Ritual style
This style is usually determined by the culture in which a person lives. Ritualistic, for example, may be the style of greetings and questions asked and answered during a meeting. Thus, in American culture it is customary to answer the question: “How are you?” answer: “Wonderful,” no matter how things turn out in reality. It is common for our culture to respond “to the point,” without hesitating to assign negative characteristics to one’s own existence. A person accustomed to a different ritual will be puzzled when receiving such an answer.
One should not conclude that manipulation is a negative phenomenon.
A huge number of professional tasks involve manipulative communication. In fact, any training (the subject needs to be given new knowledge about the world), persuasion, control always includes manipulative communication. That is why the effectiveness of these processes largely depends on the degree of mastery of the laws and techniques of manipulative communication.
Manipulative communication is an extremely common type of communication that occurs mainly where there is joint activity. It is important to remember one significant point - a person’s attitude towards manipulative communication and the reverse impact of the manipulative style.
Imagine that you are sitting in the office of a mid-level executive who receives frequent phone calls. The style of conversation changes all the time. If the opponent’s status is higher, one tone, if lower, another tone. This is a typical example of manipulative communication, and everyone will explain to themselves that “this is how it should be, otherwise you won’t do anything.” However, this is unpleasant for many.
And finally, there is a reverse influence of manipulative communication on the person who uses it. There is a manipulative deformation of personality in cases where, due to the frequent professional use of manipulative communication, good technology for its use and, accordingly, constant success in this field, a person begins to consider manipulative communication the only correct one. In this case, all human communication comes down to manipulation (both when it is necessary and when it is completely unjustified).
Humanistic communication. This is the most personal communication, allowing you to satisfy such human needs as the need for understanding, sympathy, and empathy. Neither ritual nor manipulative communication can fully satisfy this vital need. The goals of humanistic communication are not fixed or planned initially. Its important feature is that the expected result of communication is not the maintenance of social connections, as in ritual communication, or a change in the partner’s point of view, as in manipulative communication, but a joint change in the ideas of both partners, determined by the depth of communication.
Business communication styles: ritual, manipulative and humanistic.
Communication with people is a science and an art. Both natural abilities and education are important here. That is why anyone who wants to achieve success in interacting with other people must learn this, including the ethics and psychology of business communication, as well as using social and psychological training in communication. The key to the success of any undertaking of a business person, no matter what problem he solves, is the creation of a climate of business cooperation, trust and respect.
Communication style significantly determines a person’s behavior when interacting with other people. The specific choice of communication style is determined by many factors:
· personal characteristics of a person,
· his worldview and position in society,
· characteristics of this society and many others.
If we proceed from the fact that a communication style is simply a person’s greater readiness for a particular situation, then we can talk about three main styles. They can conditionally be called ritual, manipulative and humanistic. The ritual style is generated by intergroup situations, the manipulative style by business situations, and the humanistic style by interpersonal situations.
Ritual communication
. Here, the main task of the partners is to maintain connections with society, to reinforce the idea of themselves as a member of society. It is important that the partner in such communication is, as it were, a necessary attribute of the ritual. In real life, there are a huge number of rituals, sometimes very different situations, in which everyone participates as a kind of “mask” with predetermined properties. These rituals require only one thing from participants - knowledge of the rules of the game.
For example, a birthday. All those present have known each other for twenty years, get together 3-4 times a year, sit for several hours and talk about the same thing. And not only do the topics of conversation essentially do not change, but in addition, everyone can certainly predict the point of view of anyone on any issue.
The situation described is a typical case of ritual communication, in which the main thing is to strengthen the connection with one’s group, reinforce one’s attitudes, values, opinions, and increase self-esteem and self-esteem. In ritual communication, a partner is only a necessary attribute, and his individual characteristics are unimportant. This is true both when we know a person well and when we see him for the first time. Only one thing is important - his competence in relation to a particular case.
In ritual communication, it is important for us to follow a role - social, professional or interpersonal. In many cases we take part in ritual communication with pleasure, in even more situations we participate in it automatically, fulfilling the demands of the situation, with little or no awareness of what we are doing. But ritual communication rarely prevails in life. It is only a prologue to another communication – manipulative.
Manipulative communication
. This is communication in which the partner is treated as a means of achieving goals external to him. In manipulative communication, we “slipped” onto our partner a stereotype that we consider most advantageous at the moment. And even if both partners have their own goals to change the point of view of the interlocutor, the one who turns out to be a more skillful manipulator will win, that is, the one who knows the partner better, understands the goals better, and has a better command of communication techniques.
One should not conclude that manipulation is a negative phenomenon. In fact, any training, persuasion, management always includes manipulative communication. That is why the effectiveness of these processes largely depends on the degree of mastery of the laws and techniques of manipulative communication.
Such communication is extremely common and exists mainly where there is joint activity. It is important to remember one significant point - a person’s attitude towards manipulative communication and the reverse impact of the manipulative style.
Humanistic communication
. This is the most personal communication, allowing you to satisfy such human needs as the need for understanding, sympathy, and empathy. Neither ritual nor manipulative communication can fully satisfy this vital need. The goals of humanistic communication are not fixed or planned initially. Its important feature is that the expected result of communication is not the maintenance of social connections, not a change in the partner’s point of view, but a joint change in the partners’ ideas, determined by the depth of communication.
The situation of humanistic communication is known to everyone - it is intimate, confessional, psychotherapeutic communication. It is connected with the mood and goals of the partners. Humanistic communication is determined not so much from the outside (goal, conditions) as from the inside (individuality, mood). This does not mean that humanistic communication does not imply social determination. It is obvious that a person, no matter how he communicates, still remains social. However, in this communication there is a dependence on individuality. In humanistic communication, the partner is perceived holistically, without division into necessary and unnecessary functions, into qualities that are important and unimportant at the moment.
The main mechanism of influence is suggestion; complicity is the most effective of all possible mechanisms. It is important to remember that this is a mutual suggestion, since both partners trust each other, and therefore the result is not a change in the point of view of one of them, but a mutual joint change in the ideas of both partners.
Conclusion
Ethics is a system of knowledge about a certain area of human life, and in this sense it is not much different from other scientific academic disciplines. Its unusualness is revealed only in one thing: it is appropriate and useful in the education system to the extent that education itself is not just learning, expanding mental horizons, but also improvement, spiritual growth of the individual.
The art of communication, knowledge of psychological characteristics and the use of psychological methods are extremely necessary for specialists whose work involves constant “person-to-person” contacts - politicians, businessmen, managers and many others. Thus, everyone needs the ability to build relationships with people, find an approach to them, and win them over. This skill lies at the heart of life and professional success.
Communication: types, forms
Communication is extremely varied and can be done in a variety of ways.
A distinction is made between interpersonal and mass communication. Interpersonal communication is associated with direct contacts of people in groups or pairs with a constant composition of participants. Mass communication is a set of direct contacts between strangers, as well as communication mediated by various types of media.
There is also a difference between interpersonal and role-based communication. In the first case, the participants in communication are certain people with certain individual characteristics that manifest themselves in the process of communication and organization of joint actions. In role-based communication, its participants act as bearers of certain roles (buyer - seller, teacher - student, boss - subordinate).
During role-based communication, a person is deprived of a certain spontaneity of his behavior, since certain steps and actions are dictated by the role performed. In the process of such communication, a person is revealed not as an individual, but as a certain social unit that performs certain functions.
Communication can be confidential and controversial. The first differs in that during it particularly significant information is transmitted. Trust is an integral feature of all types of communication, without which it is impossible to negotiate or solve intimate problems. Conflict communication is characterized by mutual confrontation between people, expression of dissatisfaction and mistrust.
Communication can be personal and business. Personal communication is the exchange of informal information. And business communication is the process of interaction between people performing common tasks or involved in the same activity.
Finally, communication can be direct or indirect. Direct (immediate) communication is historically the first form of communication between people. On its basis, in later periods of the development of civilization, various types of indirect communication arise. Indirect communication is interaction using additional means (written, audio and video devices). Andreeva G. M. Social psychology.
In social psychology, the variety of communication can also be characterized by types.
Imperative communication is an authoritarian, directive form of interaction with a partner in order to gain control over his behavior, attitudes and thoughts and force him to perform certain actions or make certain decisions. In this case, the partner acts as a passive party. The ultimate, blatant goal of imperative communication is to coerce a partner. Commands, instructions and demands are used as a means of influence.
Areas where imperative communication is used very effectively are: superior-subordinate relationships, relationships under military regulations, work in extreme conditions, under emergency circumstances. We can also identify those interpersonal relationships in which the use of the imperative is inappropriate. These are intimate-personal and marital relationships, child-parent contacts, as well as the entire system of educational relations.
Manipulative communication is a form of interpersonal interaction in which hidden influence is exerted on a partner to achieve one’s own intentions. At the same time, manipulation presupposes an objective perception of the communication partner; the hidden desire is to gain control over the behavior and thoughts of another person. In manipulative communication, the partner is perceived not as a holistic and unique person, but as a bearer of certain characteristics and qualities that the manipulator “needs.” However, a person who chooses this type of relationship with others as his main goal often becomes a victim of his own manipulation. He also begins to perceive himself in fragments, adopting stereotypical patterns of behavior, being guided by false motives and goals, and losing the essence of his own life.
Manipulation is used by dishonest people in business and other business relationships, as well as in the media. At the same time, mastering and using means of manipulative influence on others in business usually leads to the transfer of these skills to other areas of relationships. Relationships built on the principles of decency, love, friendship and mutual affection suffer most from manipulation.
Approaches to classifying communication styles
Based on the criterion of adequacy of methods and means of communication, flexible, transitional and rigid styles of interaction are distinguished.
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Definition 2
A flexible style is characterized by a high degree of orientation in a communicative situation, an adequate assessment of one’s own communicative behavior and the communicative behavior of others, an understanding of the emotional state of the interlocutor, and the subtext of communication.
Definition 3
Rigid is characterized by a lack of analysis of communication strategies, inadequate assessment of communicative behavior, lack of ability to exert an emotional influence on others, and lack of understanding of the subtext of the message.
Definition 4
Transitional synthesizes the individual characteristics of both styles.
Psychological features of interpersonal communication
When we talk about communication, we usually mean interaction between people, carried out through verbal and non-verbal influence. This interaction is aimed at achieving and changing the cognitive, motivational-emotional and behavioral spheres of communication participants. As is known, communication is understood as a psychological phenomenon, the essence of which is the formation of a person’s psychological education, accumulating the results of the perception of a certain object of reality (in communication this is another person or a community of people), the integration of all emotional reactions to this object, as well as behavioral reactions to it (V.N. Myasishchev).
When a person communicates with another person, both perceive the features of the other’s appearance, “read” experienced states, perceive behavior and interpret it in one way or another, somehow decipher the goals and motives of this behavior. Appearance, condition, behavior, as well as goals and motives attributed to a person, always evoke a certain attitude in the person communicating with them, and this attitude may vary in character and strength depending on which side in the other person caused it. For example, the appearance of another may evoke feelings of admiration, horror or confusion in the person communicating with him, and the ascribed goals and motives may cause protest.
In terms of their sign, attitudes can differ markedly, as can be seen from the example above, but they can also coincide and manifest themselves as a general positive, negative, indifferent or contradictory attitude towards a person. In some cases, the above attitudes turn out to be equally strong, in others they differ greatly in this indicator. There are psychological situations in which one side of the relationship is more or less clearly dominant over the others. For example, someone may like another person's appearance, demeanor, or fearless optimism, but at the same time dislike the political views of the person with whom they associate.
In some cases, this dominant aspect can reach such a high level of intensity that it neutralizes or suppresses all other aspects of the relationship, which usually manifests itself when communicating with a specific person.
One of the reasons for this relationship is the following: each person has his own value system; some of them are always subjectively more significant for him, others less. At the same time, these values are most closely related to his material and spiritual needs, which, as a rule, actualize each other according to the degree of their expression. Therefore, if the appearance, words, and actions of another person correspond to the person’s values and satisfy his needs, a general positive attitude towards this person is formed. But it may be otherwise: one of these values and the need behind it is of paramount importance for a person. When another person performs an action consistent with this value, a positive attitude towards him is formed, which extends to all aspects of his external and internal appearance and neutralizes any negative attitude towards certain qualities that may have existed previously. Likewise, if another person allows himself to commit an act that is contrary to his core value and contrary to his basic need, this will cause a sharply negative attitude towards him, which (at best) will neutralize previous positive reactions to the manifestation of other aspects of this person's character. A special problem in studying the relationship between communication and attitude is establishing a correspondence between the character and expression of the attitude.
