Communication as communication. The essence of communication

The communicative side of communication

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Communication as communication is the mutual exchange of information between interlocutors, the transmission and reception of knowledge, points of view and feelings. It should be noted that information in the process of communication is not simply transferred from one person to another (the person who transmits information is called the communicator, and the receiving party is called the recipient) - an exchange is carried out. It can be implemented both at the speech (verbal) and non-speech (non-verbal) level.

Objectives of communication training

One of the objectives of the training is to destroy incorrect, ineffective communication stereotypes, acquire the ability to change positions, continue the dialogue, constantly assessing your actions and the reaction of your interlocutor. Psychologists must teach their listeners the ability to see weaknesses in a partner’s argumentation and use this, relying not only on logic, but also on personal qualities and emotionality. Another task is to improve and bring to automaticity new patterns of behavior.

This refers not only to the ability to speak, but also to non-verbal communication techniques. Ultimately, communication skills training should take you to a higher level of communication skills. You must learn new interaction skills :

psychotechnics of communication with the audience;
the ability to create a comfortable atmosphere of psychological existence in the work team and at home, to overcome conflicts;
easily enter into a conversation, quickly gain the trust of your interlocutor, understand his psychological state;
actively conduct a dialogue, highlighting the partner’s manipulations and neutralizing them;
remaining in one’s position, defending one’s interests, responding to the reactions of others, adjusting one’s motivations and arguments;
use nonverbal techniques of effective communication to persuade others;
ability to work with objections

Verbal information and its transmission

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Verbal communication (communication) involves the use of human speech as a means of transmitting information. Often in society one may come across the opinion that speech can hide the true essence of a person. On the other hand, it is she who can demonstrate it, without any principles and against the will of the speaker. It is worth noting that verbal communication (verbal communication) plays a vital role in public life. The fact is that the effectiveness of a category is usually associated with the communicative aspect.

The key goal of exchanging information is to develop one point of view between communicating people, to achieve agreement regarding certain problems and situations. In this case, a correct understanding of the information plays a crucial role. That is why the ability to competently express one’s own thoughts, as well as the ability to listen, are integral components of communication as communication.

Psychological barriers in communication are associated with the psychological incompatibility of the interlocutors and with negative attitudes that interfere with communication.

Competence barrier. Interlocutors may interpret the same message differently depending on their level of competence and prior experience, which leads to variations in the processes of encoding and decoding information. This factor is very significant; it undermines community in communication; communication has a tendency to destruction. It becomes effective only when the interlocutors are united by a common field of experience, a common space, otherwise one of the communication participants encodes the message based on his vision, and the recipient decodes it only on the basis of his experience. Consequently, you can speak the same language with your partner and still not understand it (“Listen, say it in Russian!”). In this situation, the message conflicts with the way the recipient "decodes" it, and communication becomes impossible or distorted.

Distortions arise due to different levels of competence of interlocutors, which, in turn, can create a completely different level of competence in the field of activity (for example, the status of a professor and an ordinary teacher). As a result, people develop different values, needs and attitudes, which can lead to unintentional distortion of the information received. Inconsistency between encoding and decoding is a common barrier to effective communication.

Selective hearing. In this form of selective perception, a person tends to block new information, especially if it contradicts existing judgments. Thus, in information about the dangers of smoking, its recipient (a smoking person) notices only what confirms his judgment (“Everyone smokes and nothing”). A message that contradicts pre-existing beliefs is either ignored or distorted to suit one's own beliefs. In other words, if we hear only what we want to hear, then our reality will not be disturbed.

Value judgments. In every communication situation, the interlocutor expresses value judgments. In principle, this means judging the overall value of a message before receiving the communication as a whole. For example, a close-knit group may form negative value judgments regarding all actions of the curator. Value judgments are based on the recipient's assessment of the sender based on previous experience with him or on an assessment of the expected meaning of the message.

Intragroup language. Each of us, at different times, has encountered distinctly specialized jargon, which, as it later turned out, denotes simple procedures and familiar things. For example, a researcher might ask students to “prepare an instrument as part of an experimental approach”—the student soon learns that he was only asked to complete a written questionnaire.

Labor, professional social groups often create jargon that is understandable only to members of these groups. Such specific language can perform positive functions. It creates a sense of belonging, cohesion and (in many cases) self-affirmation among group members and facilitates effective communication within the group.

Time pressure. Time pressure can also be a major communication barrier. For example, due to a lack of time, someone is not given a previously promised word, and he may react inappropriately to this situation (for example, become offended).

Communication overload. Our time is often called the “information” era or the “age of information.” People cannot respond to all messages addressed to them in a timely manner, so they "weed them out" and, consequently, some of the messages are never read.

Installation barrier. The interlocutor may have a negative attitude towards the organization of which you are a representative, or towards you personally. If there is hostility on the part of the interlocutor, you should treat it as a manifestation of ignorance, weakness, lack of culture, simple ignorance. Then your partner’s unfair attitude or inappropriate behavior will not affect you, and soon it will disappear altogether, since your deeds and actions will force your partner to change his mind.

Barrier of psychological defense. The built-up psychological defense is one of the serious barriers to communication. Perhaps your indifferent, unfriendly, taciturn or aggressive, agitated, tense interlocutor needs understanding, to be listened to and understood. Having realized that the barrier in communicating with an inconvenient partner is caused by his desire to defend himself, try to change your attitude towards him, and the difficulties in communicating with such a person will disappear.

Temperament barrier. Each person has his own temperament, but well-mannered, self-controlled people know how to behave in such a way that their temperament is not a source of conflict or discomfort. Not everyone, however, wants and knows how to understand themselves and control themselves. People with pronounced temperamental characteristics are often uncomfortable interlocutors. A sanguine person is balanced, mobile, and a good mood prevails. He gets along with people quickly, is cheerful, easily switches from one thing to another, and does not like monotonous routine work. A sanguine person quickly develops feelings of joy or grief, affection or hostility, but these feelings are shallow. Phlegmatic - slow, balanced. As a rule, he always finishes what he starts. Self-possessed, calm, cool-headed, it is difficult to anger him. Sustainable interests and aspirations. Phlegmatic people have the ability to do work that requires long-term concentration and perseverance. Choleric is a person who is impetuous, impulsive, fast, active, and excitable. He has fast, loud speech, expressive facial expressions, and sudden movements. Choleric people are prone to violent emotional outbursts and sudden changes in mood. In communicating with other people, choleric people are harsh and often provoke conflict situations. Melancholic - his emotions and feelings are distinguished by great depth, strength and duration. Sensitive and vulnerable. It is difficult to experience grievances and disappointments, although outwardly this may be weakly manifested. Melancholic people avoid new people and feel awkward in new surroundings. They are characterized by depth and constancy, subtlety of perception.

Rumors, gossip. S.I. Ozhegov’s dictionary defines gossip as “a rumor about someone or something based on inaccurate or deliberately incorrect information.”

Gossip is an unkind or defamatory rumor about someone, spread on the basis of obviously false, inaccurate and fabricated information.

Rumors are special, usually unreliable information (and/or a distorting form of transmission of any information, giving it some peculiarity), transmitted exclusively orally, as if “in secret,” and functioning exclusively in audio form.

Hearing is one of the types of information dissemination.

Rumors are an inevitable process, since the information that people share with each other undergoes strong distortions during the transmission process. This happens against the will of the participants in the dialogue and is associated with the peculiarities of memory: when listening to information once, we remember 10-20% of the total volume, and lose the rest. When we retell interesting information to our interlocutor, we want to tell everything as it was, but 80% of the information is lost, and we are not aware of it. When telling the details of a story, we invent details, fantasize based on our ideas about how it could actually be. We sincerely believe in what we say. The danger of rumors is that the information contained in them is radically different from what actually happened, and relationships, friendships, and good acquaintances can collapse once and for all.

What influences understanding of information?

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The understanding of messages received by the recipient from the communicator is significantly influenced by their content and form. They primarily depend on the attitude of the speaker to the listener, his personal characteristics, as well as on the specific situation in which the process of communication takes place. For example, your conversation with your best friend will somehow be different from communication with clients or teachers. In addition, communication must take into account certain values of the interlocutor. The point is that in the process of viewing the world through your own “vision”, you should not forget that your partner sees, hears and thinks a little differently. By the way, this is where misunderstandings arise between adults and children. They attach completely different meanings to surrounding circumstances and objects.

The meaning of communication skills

Developed communication skills plus personal experience and knowledge help to cope with many problems that often arise unexpectedly and in situations unusual for us. Here, not only innate communication abilities are important, but also skills developed throughout life.

Moreover, these skills can and should be specially trained in order to expand communicative experience and use existing ones more effectively in certain situations.

Having in stock, developed options and stereotypes of communication, using them creatively in various conditions, you can feel confident and calm (you will also be interested in learning about training to increase self-confidence).

Information Features

Communication and communication technology assumes that the sent message can be changed as a result of the influence of the recipient’s personality characteristics, as well as his attitude towards the speaker, the specific situation and the content of communication. It is worth keeping in mind that any information goes through a kind of “trust-distrust” filter. That is why true information can often seem unpleasant, and false information pleasant. To a greater extent, a person trusts information received from close people, to a lesser extent - from distant acquaintances or strangers. Often, in the process of communication as communication, a person is faced with the fact that his motives and words are incorrectly perceived by the interlocutor, in other words, they “do not reach” him. Indeed, some obstacles and difficulties may arise along the way of transmitting information. In this case we are talking about communication barriers, which are classified into attitudinal barriers, misunderstanding barriers and socio-cultural difference barriers.

All of this presupposes an awareness:

a) own needs and value orientations, personal work techniques; b) one’s perceptual skills, i.e. the ability to perceive the environment without subjective distortions and “systematized blind spots” (persistent prejudices regarding certain problems); c) readiness to perceive new things in the external environment; d) their capabilities in understanding the norms and values of other social groups and cultures (real internationalism); e) their feelings and mental states in connection with the influence of environmental factors; f) the level of their economic culture (attitude to the habitat - housing, land as a source of food, native land, architecture, etc.).

One of the central factors of communication is a person’s ability to adequately reflect the personal and individual characteristics of the people around him.

Communication and Communication: Differences

Today, communication, being a fairly common concept, is perceived differently by philosophers, psychologists, creative individuals and other people who are not particularly concerned about the content of the category when they are talking on the phone or discussing a particular topic. Many people believe that communication and communication are the same category. Is it really?

Communication should be understood as a multifaceted process of mental, intellectual and speech activity, which is aimed primarily at the formation and further development of contacts. Communication is nothing more than a set of speech and non-speech operations, the result of which is the exchange of information at the level of interpersonal interaction. So, there are still differences in the concepts of “communication” and “communication”.

Definition of concepts

Communication is a complex and diverse process. It involves several types of human activity - speech, intellectual and mental capabilities. All of them are aimed at establishing contact with another person (or several people), strengthening and developing it.

Communication is a set of verbal and nonverbal operations available to a person. The result is an exchange of information. It occurs at the level of interaction between individuals.

Comparison of categories

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The most important property of communication is universality, the ability to competently connect the types of relationships between people that exist today, which serve as a tool to satisfy the need for teamwork and enable each person, through the category of mutual understanding, to consider himself as a unique individual. This primarily includes communication (the type of communication that is considered the main one), interaction between participants in the communication process and their direct perception of each other as partners developing a dialogue.

Communication structure

Any communication requires the presence of 4 mandatory elements:

message (transmitted information);
message sender (communicator);
link;
recipient of the message (recipient).

In the case of interpersonal communication, there is also a fifth element - feedback. Feedback is the recipient's reaction to a message, which the communicator takes into account. In the examples discussed above, feedback is present between the guy and the girl (they jointly decide how to spend the evening), as well as between the seller and the buyer. But in the example with advertising there is no feedback.

Communication as a type of communication

Communication, being one of the types of communication, is endowed with the most important functions. This includes a person’s speech activity, tactile and visual ability to perceive information through facial expressions, gestures, intonation and postures. This type of communication, communication, and speech are closely related. The fact is that in the process of communicative communication a person listens and speaks. In addition, he expresses his own attitude towards the interlocutor and the content of the speech. A person can smile or get angry, emphasize the importance of what was said by lightly touching the partner’s hand, or “throw” phrases in an ironic tone. He may lean back a little to demonstrate distrust of the interlocutor's words, or perform a number of other actions. Communication and means of communication complement each other, because verbal contact is now almost impossible without non-verbal information. It should be borne in mind that only in this form does it become the basis of communication.

Communication systems

Communication and all accompanying processes have a close relationship with sign systems. These include numerical symbols, symbols, alphabet, road signs, as well as sound and color signals. It is worth noting that the use of these symbols facilitates the establishment of distance communication if direct contact between the participants is considered impossible.

Communication as communication and a form of interpersonal relationships combines perceptual and interactive functions with communicative ones. If communication is associated with the exchange of information between people, then the perceptual side is responsible for their perception of each other, and the interactive side involves organizing the interaction between them in accordance with the type of business, personal or official communication.

Communication relations in the management system

The communication process in management is considered as the exchange of information between individuals in order to identify problems and find ways to solve them.

Information exchange is fundamental to any organization today. All individuals participate in the management process directly or indirectly. Therefore, management can be represented as a communicative process that occurs in the forms of interpersonal, intragroup and mass information interaction. Information interaction is woven into all types and levels of management activities. Thus, communication is a mechanism of integration, connecting and organizing the process of a variety of activities into a single whole [1].

And one of the most important management tools is the information at the manager’s disposal. Of particular importance is the information role of the manager, within which he acts as an information processing center [2,3]. The manager receives information coming from external sources, from colleagues, experts, transmits it to subordinates and external organizations, and, finally, he himself acts as a source of information.

American management theorist Peter Drucker, analyzing the transition from an industrial economy to a post-capitalist society, especially emphasizes the change in the role of the manager: today it is not just “a person responsible for the efficiency and results of the team,” but “a person responsible for the application and effectiveness of knowledge” [4 ].

The process of management activity involves two systems of communicative relations. In the first one, information as a set of information and data is used by the subject of management to actively influence the managed system in order to optimize it. This management model uses communication methods such as orders, directives, instructions. Communication in this case is a subject-object relationship, where the object acts as a passive recipient of information, which must accept it and act accordingly. Communication is a unidirectional, linear-circular process. The usefulness and effectiveness of information is assessed by the degree of its influence on the behavior of the object. Communication is built not only on the fact of transmitting information, but also on personal assessments of it. That is, each individual has his own level of intellectual development, his own interests, needs, value system and knowledge. Employees can also independently collect, process, systematize information, exchange knowledge and suggestions, and develop innovative ideas. From these positions, management is a dialectical interaction between subjects, consisting of direct and feedback connections, and communication is a process of information exchange between equal management subjects, where both parties play an active role [5].

The manager should remember that a person is the main subject of social activity. And knowledge and information act as a goal, means, resource and result of this activity. The development of an employee’s intellectual potential, his knowledge, skills, and education contribute to the development of the intellectual innovative potential of the organization and the entire society [6].

Thus, the task and role of a modern manager is to create conditions for employees to obtain new knowledge, education, realize their abilities, involve them in the management process, and use their intellectual potential as a factor in the development of the organization. In this case, positive feedback, mutual understanding and cooperation are possible.

Nonverbal communication. Optical-kinetic sign system

As it turned out, the exchange of information is carried out not only through speech, but also through other sign systems, which together form the means of non-verbal communication. First, let's consider the optical-kinetic system, which involves the use of pantomime, gestures and facial expressions. It is worth noting that in classical literature you can find more than 20,000 characteristics of facial expression. For example, L.N. Tolstoy in the famous novel “War and Peace” displayed 93 different descriptions of a smile.

When trying to create an internal classification of the optical-kinetic sign system, it turned out that it was relevant to use a principle similar to the general one. Thus, the face is divided into three parts using horizontal lines: forehead and eyes, nose and nasal area, chin and mouth. The following are 6 key emotions that are most often used through facial expressions: surprise, fear, sadness, anger, joy and disgust. You should know that setting an emotion in accordance with the “zone” allows you to record facial movements more or less definitely.

Gestures and postures that a person uses when communicating have a fairly serious impact on the interlocutor. For example, defensive gestures (arms crossed on the chest; clenched fists; palms covering the face) suggest an increased sense of closedness in the interlocutor, and accordingly, worsen contact. On the contrary, a smiling face and open palms unconsciously relieve the feeling of tension even in a person with whom you are in a very strained relationship.

Facilities

Communication tools in psychology are divided into two main groups:

Verbal. The sign system through which information is transmitted is speech. This is a universal means of communication. During verbal communication, the meaning of information transmitted from subject to object is best learned. With the help of speech, the communicator (speaker) encodes information, and the recipient (listener) decodes it.
Nonverbal . Often the meaning of words spoken by a speaker varies depending on his non-verbal signals (gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, gaze, posture, pauses, etc.). That is, it is not what a person says that matters, but also how he says it.

Proxemics and eye contact

Proxemics is nothing more than the organization of time and space in the process of communication. Consider, for example, the norms for a person’s approach to an interlocutor, characteristic of American culture (in centimeters):

From 0 to 45 – intimate distance.
From 45 to 120 – personal distance.
From 120 to 400 – social distance.
From 400 to 750 is the public distance.

Team members should be to the right of the leader.

In addition, each person has his own “personal space zone”, which can be realized intuitively. As a rule, it varies from 40 to 50 centimeters. If this zone is crossed by an unsympathetic or unfamiliar person, spontaneous irritation appears. However, when dealing with attractive people, you should expect the opposite reaction. By changing the physical distance, you can even control the state of your interlocutor. You should know that for women this distance is to some extent greater than for the male part of the population. That is why ladies react more painfully to its reduction.

Visual contact should be understood as the duration of glances, the frequency of their exchange, a change in the dynamics and tactics of glances, or their avoidance. For example, researchers have shown that a woman's pupils dilate when she looks at her loved one. Undoubtedly, this makes her face more attractive compared to her face in a situation where she looks at an unpleasant or unfamiliar person.