Interpersonal chapter 10 improving communication climate

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mproving Communication
Climates
CHAPTER TOPICS

• Communication Climate and Confirming Messages
• Defensiveness: Causes and Remedies
• Saving Face

Looking Out/Looking In
Fourteenth Edition


Communication Climate and
Confirming Messages
• Communication Climate
• Refers to the emotional tone of a relationship

• Levels of Message Confirmation
• Confirming communication
• Describes messages that convey valuing

• Disconfirming Communication
• Describes messages that show a lack of regard

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Communication Climate and
Confirming Messages
• Disconfirming Messages
• Impervious Responses
• Doesn’t acknowledge the other person’s message

• Interrupting
• Beginning to speak before the other person has
finished

• Irrelevant Responses
• A comment unrelated to what the other person has
just said
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Communication Climate and
Confirming Messages
• Disconfirming Messages
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Tangential Responses
Impersonal Responses
Ambiguous Responses

Incongruous Responses
Contains two messages that deny or
contradict each other

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Communication Climate and
Confirming Messages

• Disagreeing Messages
• Aggressiveness
• Complaining
• Argumentativeness

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Communication Climate and
Confirming Messages
• Confirming Messages
• Recognition
• Acknowledgement
• Endorsement

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Communication Climate and
Confirming Messages
• How Communication Climates Develop
• When two people start to communicate, a
relational climate begins to develop
• Verbal and nonverbal communication can be
climate-shaping
• After a climate is formed, it can take on a life
of its own and become a self-perpetuating
spiral

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Communication Climate and
Confirming Messages
• Spirals
• A reciprocating communication pattern in
which each person’s message reinforces the
others
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Escalatory conflict spirals
De-escalatory conflict spirals
Rarely go on indefinitely
Most relationships pass through cycles of
progression and regression

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Defensiveness: Causes and
Remedies
• Face-Threatening Acts
• Messages that seem to challenge the image
we want to project
• Defensiveness becomes the process of
protecting our presenting self, our face

• Preventing Defensiveness in Others
• Jack Gibb isolated six types of defensearousing communication and six contrasting
behaviors
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Defensiveness: Causes and
Remedies

• The Gibb Categories of Defensive and
Supportive Behaviors
Defensive Behaviors

Supportive Behaviors

1. Evaluation

1. Description

2. Control

2. Problem Orientation

3. Strategy

3. Spontaneity

4. Neutrality

4. Empathy

5. Superiority

5. Equality

6. Certainty

6. Provisionalism
Table 10.3

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Defensiveness: Causes and
Remedies
• Gibb Categories
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Evaluation versus Description
Control versus Problem Orientation
Strategy versus Spontaneity
Neutrality versus Empathy
Superiority versus Equality
Certainty versus Provisionalism

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Saving Face
• The Assertive Message Format

• The five parts of the assertive message
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Behavior
Interpretation
Feeling
Consequence
Intention

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Saving Face
• The Assertive Message Format
• Behavior
• Describes the raw material to which you react
• Description should be objective

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Saving Face

• The Assertive Message Format
• Interpretation
• Describes the meaning you’ve attached to the
other person’s behavior
• Important to realize is that interpretations are
subjective
• Problems occur when sender fails to describe
behavior on which interpretation is based

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Saving Face
• The Assertive Message Format
• Feeling
• Adds a new dimension to a message
• Some statements seem as if they’re expressing
feeling but are actually expressing interpretations
or statements of intention

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Saving Face
• The Assertive Message Format
• Consequence

• Explains what happens as a result of the situation
you’ve described
• What happens to you, the speaker
• What happens to the person you’re addressing
• What happens to others

• Valuable
• Help you understand more clearly
• Can be sure you or your message leaves nothing
to listener’s imagination
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Saving Face
• The Assertive Message Format
• Intention
• Can communicate three kinds of messages
• Where you stand on an issue
• Requests of others
• Descriptions of how you plan to act in the future

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Saving Face
• Using the Assertive Message Format

• The elements may be delivered in mixed
order
• Word the message to suit your personal style
• When appropriate, combine two elements in a
single phrase
• Take your time delivering the message

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Saving Face
• Responding Nondefensively to Criticism
• Seek more information
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Ask for specifics
Guess about specifics
Paraphrase the speaker’s ideas
Ask what the critic wants
Ask about the consequences of your behavior
Ask what else is wrong

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Saving Face
• Responding Nondefensively to Criticism
• Agree with the critic
• Agree with the facts
• Agree with the critic's perception

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Chapter Review
• Communication Climate and Confirming
Messages
• Defensiveness: Causes and Remedies
• Saving Face

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