TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 3

1.0 Why Study Interpersonal Communication? 3
2.0 The Nature of Interpersonal Communication 3
3.0 Elements of Interpersonal Communication 5
4.0 Principles of Interpersonal Communication 6
CHAPTER 2: CULTURE AND INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 9
1.0 Introduction 9
2.0 Cultural and Interpersonal Communication 11
3.0 Cultural Differences 11
4.0 Principles of Effective Intercultural Communication 15
5.0 Improving Intercultural Communication 16
CHAPTER 3: PERCEPTION OF THE SELF AND OTHRES IN
INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 19
1.0 The Self in Interpersonal Communication 19
1.1 Self-concept 19
1.2 Self-Awareness 20
1.3 Self-Esteem 22
2.0 Perception in Interpersonal Communication 23
3.0 Impression Formation 25
3.1 Impression Formation processes 25
3.2 Increasing Accuracy in Impression Formation 27
4.0 Impression Management 28
4.1 Goals and Strategies 28
CHAPTER 4: EMOTIONAL MESSAGES 31
1.0 Principle of Emotions and Emotional Messages 31
2.0 Obstacles to Communicating Emotion 33
3.0 Skills for Expressing Emotions 34
4.0 Skills for Responding to the Emotion of Others 35

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CHAPTER 5: LISTENING IN INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 37
1.0 The Five Functions of Listening 37
2.0 The Process of Listening 38
3.0 Styles of Effective Listening 41
4.0 Listening Barriers 42
5.0 Culture, Gender and Listening 43
CHAPTER 6: VERBAL MESSAGES 46
1.0 Principles of Verbal Messages 46
2.0 Guideline for Using Verbal Messages Effectively 51
CHAPTER 7: NONVERBAL MESSAGES 54
1.0 Principles of Nonverbal Messages 54
2.0 Channels of Nonverbal Communication 56
3.0 Nonverbal Communication Competence 64
CHAPTER 8: MANAGING CONFLICT 66
1.0 What is Interpersonal Conflict? 66
2.0 Principles of Interpersonal Conflict 67
3.0 Conflict Management Stages 69
4.0 Conflict Management Strategies 70
CHAPTER 9: INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP 72
1.0 Relationship Theories 72
2.0 Relationship Stages 74
3.0 The Dark Side of Interpersonal Relationships 75

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 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION OF INTERPERSONAL
COMMUNICATION

Chapter outline:

1.0 Why Study Interpersonal Communication?

2.0 The Nature of Interpersonal Communication
3.0 Elements of Interpersonal Communication
4.0 Principles of Interpersonal Communication

1.0 Why Study Interpersonal Communication?

1. Intellectual Benefits
i) Deeper understanding of yourself and others about relationship.
ii) Something you do every day - for example: talking to others,
giving/receiving compliments, making new friends, asking for a date,
instant messaging, applying for a job, giving direction.

2) Practical Benefits
i) Personal, social or relationship and professional benefits.

2.0 The Nature of Interpersonal Communication

 Interpersonal Communication: is the verbal and nonverbal interaction

between two (or sometimes more than two) interdependent people.
 Interpersonal Communication Involves Interdependent Individuals
i) The communication that takes place between people who in some way
“connected” and interdependent
ii) Dyadic (2 person), small intimate groups (family) etc.

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 Interpersonal Communication Is Inherently Relational
i) Take place within a relationship, it impacts and defines the
relationship.

 Interpersonal Communication Exists on a Continuum – that ranges from

relatively impersonal to highly personal
i) Role vs Personal Information:
 Impersonal – they are likely to respond to each other according
to their roles.
ii) Societal vs Personal Rules:
 Rules of society and personal established rules.
iii) Predictive vs Explanatory Data:
 Impersonal – predict some of the behaviour of others.
 Interpersonal – begin to be able to explain their behaviours.
iv) Social vs Personal Messages
 Impersonal – little self-disclosure and little emotional content.
 Interpersonal – lots of disclosure and emotion.
 Interpersonal Communication Involve Verbal and Non Verbal Messages
i) Includes facial expression, eye contact, body posture, etc.
 Interpersonal Communication Exist in Varied Forms
i) Asynchronous - does not take place in real time (eg: e-mail).
ii) Synchronous – occur at the same time (eg: phone conversation).
 Interpersonal Communication Involves Choices
i) Choice points – moment when you have to make a choice as to who
you communicate with, what you say, what you don’t say, how you
phrase what you want to say and so on.

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3.0 Elements of Interpersonal Communication

1) Source – Receiver
o Involve at least two persons.
o Source: Formulates and send message.
o Receiver: Perceive and comprehends message.
2) Encoding – Decoding
o Encoding: refers to the act of producing messages (eg: speaking
or writing).
o Decoding: reverse and refers to the act of understanding the
message (eg: listening or recording).
3) Messages
o Signals that serve as stimuli for a receiver.
o May be auditory (hearing), visual (seeing), tactile (touching),
factory (smelling) and gustatory (tasting).
o May be intentional and unintentional.
o Feedback messages: messages sent back to the speaker
concerning reaction to what is said.
o Feedforward messages: information you provide before sending
your primary messages.
4) Channel
o Medium through which messages pass.
o A bridge, always takes place over two or more channels
simultaneously.
o There are gatekeepers, that allow some messages to get from
sender to receiver.
o Obstruction – one or more channels is physiologically damaged.

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 5) Noise
o Physical noise: Interference that is external to both speaker and
listener; it impedes the physical transmission of the signal or
message.
o Physiological noise: Created by barriers within the sender or
receiver such as visual impairments, hearing loss, articulation
problems and memory loss.
o Psychological noise: Mental interference in speaker and listener.
o Semantic noise: Interference that occurs when the speaker and
listener have different meaning system.
6) Context
o Physical Dimensions: the tangible or concrete environment in
which communication takes place.
o Temporal Dimensions: time of the day and moment in history and
also particular messages fit into certain events.
o Socio-Psychological Dimension: status relationship, roles and
games.
o Cultural dimension: cultural beliefs and customs of the people
communicating.
7) Ethics
o A moral dimension, a rightness and wrongness.

4.0 Principles of Interpersonal Communication

1) Interpersonal Communication is a Transactional Process

o Interpersonal communication is a process.
o Elements are interdependent.
2) Interpersonal Communication is Purposeful
o To learn
o To relate

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 o To influence
o To play
o To help

3) Interpersonal Communication is Ambiguous

o Message that can be interpreted as having more than one
meaning.

4) Interpersonal Relationship may be Symmetrical or Complementary

o Symmetrical relationship: the two individuals mirror each
other’s behaviour.
o Complementary relationship: the two individuals engage in
different behaviours.
5) Interpersonal Communication refers to Content and Relationship
6) Interpersonal Communication is a Series of Punctuated Events.
o Communication events are continuous transactions.
o There are no clear-cut beginning and no clear-cut end.
7) Interpersonal Communication is Inevitable, Irreversible and
Unrepeatable.
o Inevitable: principle means that in many instance you are
communicating even though you might not think you are or might
not even want to be.
o Irreversibility: once it has been sent and received, the message
itself cannot be reversed.
o Unrepeatability: you can never recapture the exact same
situation.

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 Tutorial

1. Give TWO (2) reasons why we study interpersonal communication?

(4 marks)

2. Define interpersonal communication. (2 marks)

3. Explain any FIVE (5) of interpersonal communication. (10 marks)

4. List FIVE (5) purpose of interpersonal communication. (5 marks)

5. State SEVEN (7) principles of interpersonal communication. (7 marks)

6. Define:

Inevitability

Irreversibility

Unrepeatability (6 marks)

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 CHAPTER 2: CULTURE AND INTERPERSONAL
COMMUNICATION

Chapter outline:

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Culture and Interpersonal Communication
3.0 Cultural Differences
4.0 Principle for Effective Intercultural Communication
5.0 Improving Intercultural Communication

1.0 Introduction

 Culture: consist of relatively specialized lifestyle of a group that is passed

on from one generation to the next generation to the next through
communication, not through genes.
 Culture consists of values, belief artifacts, and language; ways of
behaving and ways of thinking; arts; laws religion, styles and
attitudes.
 Enculturation: the process by which you learn the culture into which you
are born (your native culture)
 Ethnic identity: a commitment to the beliefs and philosophy of your
culture that act as protective shield against discrimination.
 Can turn into ethnocentrism: looking of your culture’s practices as
the only one right ways to behave or seeing the practices of other
culture as inferior.
 Acculturation: the process by which you learn the rules and norms of a
culture different from your native culture.
 Your native culture is modified through direct contact with or
exposure to a new and different culture.

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  Cultural Belief and Values
1) The Relevance of Culture
o There are vast demographic changes took place.
o These changes have brought different interpersonal customs
and the need to understand and adapt to new ways looking
at the communication.
2) Sensitivity to Cultural Differences
o We are more concern with staying the right thing and
ultimately with developing a society where all cultures can
coexist and enrich on another.
3) Spread of Technology
o Has made intercultural communication as easy as it is
inevitable.
4) Cultural-specific Nature of Interpersonal Communication
o Interpersonal competence is culture; what proves effective in
one culture may prove ineffective in another.
o Eg: Valentine;s day.

2.0 Cultural and Interpersonal Communication

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  The aim of a Cultural Perspective
o It is necessary to understand culture as it influence if you are to
understand how communication works and master its skills.
o It influences what you say to yourself and how you talk with friends,
lovers and family.
o It influences how you interact in a group.
o It influences the topics you talk about and the strategies you use in
communicating information or persuading.

3.0 Cultural Differences

1) Power Distances

High Power Distance Low Power Distance

In some culture, power is concentrated Power is distributed throughout the
in the hands of few, and there is a citizenry.
great difference between the power
held by the people to ordinary citizens.
Direct confrontation and assertiveness There is a general feeling of equity that
may be viewed negatively, especially if consisted with acting assertively and
directed at superior. you are expected to confront a friend,
partner or supervisor assertively.
You are taught to have great respect Less problem if you fail to use a
for authority (eg: between lecturer and respectful title.
student).
Rely more on symbols of power (eg: Less on symbols of power.
tittles Dr. or Professor.
Example countries: Mexico, Brazil, Example countries: Denmark, New
India, Philippines and South Korea. Zealand and Sweden.

2) Masculine and Feminine Cultures

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 Masculine Feminine
Men are viewed as assertive, oriented Women viewed as modest, focused on
to material success and strong. the quality of life and tender.
Emphasizes success and socialize Emphasizes the quality of life and
their people to be assertive, ambitious socialize their people to be modest and
and competitive. to emphasize close interpersonal
relationships.
More likely to confront conflicts directly Emphasize compromise and
and to competitively fight out and negotiation in resolving conflicts.
differences.
Win – lose conflict strategies. Win – win strategies.
Example countries: Japan, Austria, Example countries: Sweden, Norway,
Venezuela and Italy. Netherland and Denmark.

3) High – Ambiguity – Tolerant and Low – Ambiguity – Tolerant

High – Ambiguity – Tolerant Low – Ambiguity – Tolerant

 Don’t feel threatened by unknown  Do much to avoid uncertainty and
situations. have a great deal of anxiety about
 Uncertainty is normal part of life knowing what will happen next.
and people accept it as it comes.  They see uncertainty as threatening
and as something that must be
counteracted.
People in this culture readily tolerate
individuals who don’t follow the same
rules as the cultural majority and may
even encourage different approaches
and perspectives.

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 4) Individualist and Collectivist Orientations

Individualist Collectivist
Members are responsible for Members are responsible for the entire
themselves and perhaps their group.
immediate family.
You are responsible to your own You are responsible to the rule of
conscience and responsibility is largely social group and responsibility for an
and individual matters. accomplishment or a failure is shared
by all members.
You might compete for leadership in a Culture leadership would be shared
small group setting and there will be and rotated.
clear distinction between leaders and
members.

5) High and Low Context Cultures

High Context Culture Low Context Culture

Much of the information in Most of the information is explicitly
communication is in the context or in stated in the verbal message.
the person (eg: information that was
shared through previous
communication and shared
experience).
Collectivist culture place a great Individualist culture place less
emphasis on personal relationship and emphasis on personal information and
oral agreements. more emphasis on verbalized, explicit
explanation and on a written contract in
business transactions.
Member of high context culture spend
lots of time getting to know one another

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interpersonally and socially.
Example country: Japan. Example country: America.

6) Long and Short Team Orientation

Long Term Orientation Short Term Orientation

Existed when focused on the future. Existed when focused on the present or
past and consider them more important
than the future.
Parents and men have more authority than Promotion of equality.
young people and women.
They value long-term partnership. Good partnerships are not necessarily
equivalent to long-term relationship.

7) Indulgence and Restraint

Indulgence Restraint
 Those that emphasize the gratification  Those that foster the curbing of such
of desires. gratification and its regulation by social
 They focus on having fun and enjoying norms.
life.  This culture has more people who are
unhappy: people who see themselves as
lacking control of their own lives and
with little or no leisure time to engage
in fun activities.
Depends on two factors:
1) Life control: this is the feeling that
you may do as you please.
2) Leisure: this is the feeling that you

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 have leisure time to do what you
find fun.

4.0 Principles of Effective Intercultural Communication

1. Educate yourself – learning about other cultures by:

o Readings
o View documentary
o Magazines and websites
o Talk and chat
2. Recognize Differences – in order to communicate intercultural, these factors
need to be considered:
o Different between yourself and the culturally different
 Always assume that similarities exist.
 However, there are differences in values, attitudes, behaviours and
beliefs among cultures.
o Different within the culture, different group
 Within each culture, there are smaller cultures that differ greatly
from each other from the larger culture.
o Different in meaning
 Same word but its meanings will vary greatly.
3. Confront your stereotypes – a fixed impression of a group of people
o Stereotypes may be positive and negative.
o Stereotyping can lead to ignorance of the unique characteristics of an
individual.
4. Reduce your ethnocentrism
o Ethnocentrism is the tendency to evaluate the values, beliefs and
behaviours

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5. Adjust your communication – there is no two people share the identical
meaning system of symbols and adjustments have to be made in all
intercultural communication
o Example: parents and children, teachers and students.

5.0 Improving Intercultural Communication

1. Be aware of your own culture

o Self-awareness is the first step to effective intercultural communication.

o Think about the way that you communicate.
o Are you direct or indirect?
o Do you use nonverbal gesture frequently or rarely and in what contexts?
o Do you seek agreement from the people who are listening to you when
you make a statement?
o Think about how you developed your communication style.
o What aspects of your culture shaped the way you interact with others?

2. Be a learner

o Try to focus less on asserting your own opinion or ideas and instead, try to
find out what other people’s ideas are, how those ideas might reflect their
own culture and how various points of view could create a stronger
solution to your problem.

3. Get curious

o Curiosity is important when you are dealing with different cultures

o If you aren’t curious about other cultures, then you probably haven’t had
the chance to experience them.
o The challenge and the exciting thing about intercultural communication is
that everyone is operating on different assumptions and values.
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4. Listen and observe

o There is so much that you can gain if you are willing to listen more than
you talk and watch how others communicate.
o Example: How do your international colleagues communicate
nonverbally?

5. Experience different cultures regularly

o Join social groups for international professionals or even attend plays, art
museums or watch movies that are from another culture.
Tutorial

1. Define:
Enculturation
Ethic identity
Acculturation (6 marks)

2. Give THREE (3) differences between high power distance and low power
distance culture. (6 marks)

3. Give THREE (3) differences between famine and masculine culture.

(6 marks)

4. Give THREE (3) differences between individualist and collectivist.

(6 marks)

5. Explain FIVE (5) principles of effective intercultural communication. (10 marks)

6. Explain FIVE (5) ways to improving intercultural communication. (10 marks)

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CHAPTER 3: PERCEPTION OF THE SELF AND OTHRES IN
INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Chapter outline:
1.0 The Self in Interpersonal Communication
1.1 Self-concept
1.2 Self-awareness
1.3 Self-esteem
2.0 Perception in Interpersonal Communication
3.0 Impression Formation
3.1 Impression formation process
3.2 Increasing accuracy in impression formation
4.0 Impression Management
4.1 Goals and Strategies

1.0 The Self in Interpersonal Communication

1.1 Self-concept

 Definition: consists of your feelings and thoughts about your strength and
weaknesses, your abilities and limitations and your aspirations and
worldview.
 Self-concept develops from at least four sources:
1. Others’ Images: you look at the image of yourself that others
reveal to you through the way they treat you and react to you.
2. Social Comparisons: you develop your self-concept is by
comparing yourself with others.
3. Cultural Teachings: through your parents, teachers and the
media, your culture instils in you a variety of beliefs, values and
attitudes.

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 4. Self-Evaluations: others form images of you based on what you
do, you also react to your own behaviour, interpret and evaluate it.

1.2 Self-Awareness

 Definition: Self-awareness is the extent to which you know yourself.

 The JOHARI Window

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1. The open self: this section relates to all that is known about that individual.
It is what is known by the individual themselves and what is known about
them by the group. The information that is open can relate to their
behaviour, feelings, knowledge, experience or skills etc.

2. The blind self: this area relates to what is known about the individual by
the group, but that individual does not know about them self.

3. The hidden self: This relates to what the individual knows about them self
but does not reveal to the group. This could be related to their own
feelings, fears, sensitivities, agenda or manipulations.

4. The unknown self: this section deals with all the information, feelings,
experiences such as a natural ability the individual does not know they
possess etc. These are neither known to the individual or known to the
group.

 Growing in Self-Awareness
1. Ask yourself about yourself
 “who am I”
 Your strength and weaknesses.
2. Listen to others
 You can learn a lot about yourself by seeing yourself as
others do.
3. Actively seek information about yourself.
 To reduce your blind self.
4. See your different selves.
 Each person with whom you have an interpersonal
relationship views you differently.
5. Increase your open self
 When you reveal yourself to others and increase your open
self, you also reveal yourself to yourself.

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1.3 Self-Esteem

 Definition: In psychology, the term self-esteem is used to describe a

person's overall sense of self-worth or personal value. In other words, how
much you appreciate and like yourself.
 If you have high self-esteem, you think highly of yourself, if you have low
self-esteem, you tend to view yourself negatively.
 Method to increase self-esteem:
(a) Avoid Attack Self – Destructive Beliefs
o Ideas you have about yourself that are unproductive or that
make it difficult for you to achieve your goals.
o These beliefs set unrealistically high standards and therefore
almost always end with failure.
(b) Seek Out Nourishing People
o Avoid noxious people as they like to find fault and criticize
people.
o Nourishing people are positive and optimistic, they reward us,
they strike us and they make us feel good about ourselves.
(c) Work Out Project That Will Results in Success
o Select projects that will results in success as it will build your
self-esteem.
(d) Remind Yourself of Your Successes
o Some people have a tendency to focus on and to exaggerate
their failures, their missed opportunities and their social
mistakes.
o Avoid remind yourself about your failure instead focusing on
the success things that you had done in your life.
(e) Secure Affirmation
o Refers to positive statement about yourself, a statement as
asserting that something good or positive is true of you.
o Example: “I am”, “I can” and “I will”

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2.0 Perception in Interpersonal Communication

 Definition: Perception is a thought, belief, or opinion, often held by many

people and based on appearances.
 Perception is the process by which you become aware of objects, events
and especially people through your sense sigh, smell, taste touch and
hearing.
 Your perception results both from what exist in the outside world and from
your own experiences, desires, needs, wants love and hatreds.
 Perception is a continuous series of processes that blend into one
another. There are FIVE STAGES OF PERCEPTION IN
INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION:
1. Stages One: Stimulation
o Your sense organs are stimulated, eg: you heard a new
song, see a friend, smell someone’s perfume, taste an
orange.
o Selective attention: you attend to those things that you
anticipate will fulfill your needs or will prove enjoyable.
o Selective exposure: you expose yourself to people or
messages that will confirm your existing beliefs, contribute to
your objectives or prove satisfying in some way.
2. Stage Two: Organization
o People organize their perceptions are by rules, by schemata
and by scripts.
o Organization by rules:
 One frequently used rule is that proximity or physical
closeness.
 Physically close to each other are perceived as a unit.
 Another rule is similarity: things that are physically
similar (they look alike) are perceived as belonging
together and forming a unit.

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  The rule of contrast: is the opposite of similarity, when
items (people or messages) are very different from
each other, you conclude that they don’t belong
together.
o Organization by schemata:
 A mental template that help you organize the millions
of items of information you come into contact with
every day.
 Stereotype: Fixed general image or set of
characteristics that a lot of people believe represent a
particular type of person or thing.
o Organization by scripts
 An organized body of information about some action,
event or procedure.
3. Stage Three: Interpretation – Evaluation
o Greatly influence by your experience, needs, wants and
values.
o Will be influence by your rules, schemata, scripts and even
gender.
4. Stage Four: Memory
o All the perceptions and interpretation – evaluation are put
into memory.
o May ultimately retrieve at some later time.
5. Stage Five: Recall
o Involves accessing the information you have stored in
memory.
o May recall it with a variety of inaccuracies:
 You are likely to recall information that is consistent
with your schema.
 But you may fail to recall information that is consistent
with your schema.

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  However, you may recall information that drastically
contradicts your schema.

3.0 Impression Formation

 Definition of impression: An idea, feeling or opinion about something or

someone, especially one formed without conscious thought or the basis of
little evidence. An effect produced by someone.
 Impression formation (person perception) consists of variety of processes
that you go through in forming an impression of another person.

3.1 Impression Formation Types

1. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
o Prediction that comes true because you act on it as it were true.
o Can be seen when you make predictions about yourself and fulfill
them.
o Can short – circuit critical thinking and influence other’s behaviour
(or your own) so that it conforms to your prophecies.
o There are four basic steps:
i) You make prediction or formulate a belief about a person a
situation.
ii) You act toward that person or situation as if that prediction
or belief were true.
iii) Because you act as if the belief were true, it becomes true.
iv) You observe your effect on the person or the resulting
situation and when you see strengthens your beliefs.
2. Implicit Personal Theory
o Refers to each person has a subconscious or implicit theory that
says which characteristic of an individual go with other
characteristic.

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 o The system of rules that tells you which characteristics go together
(nerd – intelligent, hacker, hardworking).
o Halo effect – if you belief that a person has some positive qualities,
you are likely to infer that he or she also possesses other positive
qualities.
o Horn effect (reverse halo) – if you know a person possesses
several negative qualities, you are more likely to infer that the
person also has other negative qualities.
3. Perceptual Accentuation
o Leads you to see what you expect or want to see.
o You magnify or accentuate what will satisfy your needs and
desires.
o Can lead you to perceive what you need or want to perceive rather
than what is really there, and to fail to perceive what you don’t want
to perceive.
4. Primacy – Recency
o If what comes first exerts the most influence, you have a primacy
effect.
o If what comes last (or most recently) exerts the most influence, you
have a recency effect.
5. Consistency
o Refers to the tendency to maintain balance among perceptions or
attitudes.
o You would expect someone you liked to possess the characteristics
you liked or admired and would expect your enemies not to
possess the characteristics you liked or admired.
o Uncritically assuming that an individual is consistent can lead you
to ignore or distort perceptions that are inconsistent with your
picture of the whole person.

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 6. Attribution of Control
o Might likely be sympathetic to not in control situation.
o You frequently ask if they were in control of the behaviour.
o Several potential errors:
 Self-serving bias: take credit for the positive and deny
responsibility for the negative.
 Over attribution: the tendency to single out or two obvious
characteristics of a person and attribute everything that
person does with one or these two characteristics.
 Fundamental attribution error: overvalue or undervalue the
contribution of internal and external values.

3.2 Increasing Accuracy in Impression Formation

1) Analyse impressions
o Recognize your own role in perception: your emotional and
physiological state will influence meaning you give to your
perceptions.
o Avoid early conclusions: formulate hypotheses to against additional
information and evidence.
2) Check perceptions – perception checking is another way to reduce
uncertainty and to make your perceptions more accurate.
o Describe what you see or hear: recognizing that descriptions are
not rally objective, but are heavily by who you are and your
emotional state.
o Seek confirmation: ask the other person to confirm whether your
description is accurate.
3) Reduce uncertainty
o Observing another person while he or she is engaged in an active
task, preferably interacting with others in an informal social
situation.

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 o You can sometimes manipulate so as to observe the person in
more specific and revealing contexts.
o Learn about a person through asking others.
o Interact with the individual.
4) Increase cultural sensitivity – recognizing and being sensitive to cultural
difference will help your accuracy in perception.

4.0 Impression Management

 Definition: the process you go through to communicate the image of

yourself that you want others to have on you.

4.1 Goals and Strategies

1. To be liked
o Immediacy Strategies:
 Smile and express your interest in the other person.
 Demonstrate your responsiveness by giving feedback.
 Express your positive view of the other person.
 Maintain appropriate eye contact.
 Focus on the other person.
o Affinity – Seeking Strategies:
 Listen to others attentively and actively.
 Present yourself as socially equal to other.
 Appear active, enthusiastic and dynamic.
 Ensure that activities with others are enjoyable and positive.
 Appear to others as honest and reliable.
o Politeness Strategies:
 Positive face: the desire to be viewed positively by others,
to be thought of favourably.

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 Negative face: the desire to be autonomous to have the
right to do as we wish.

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2. To be believed
o Credibility Strategies
 To established your competence, your character and your
charisma.
 Example: your great educational background.
3. To excuse failure
o Self – Handicapping Strategies:
 You set up barriers or obstacles to make the task
impossible so that when you fail, you won’t be blamed or
though ineffective. After all, the task was impossible.
4. To secure help
o Self – Deprecating Strategies
 Confession of incompetence and inability often bring
assistance from others.
5. To hide faults
o Self – Monitoring Strategies
 You carefully monitor what you say or what you do.
6. To be followed
o Influencing Strategies
 You want to get people see you as a leader, as someone to
be followed in thought and perhaps in behaviour.
7. To confirm self – image
o Image – Confirming Strategies
 Your behaviours confirms your own self – image.
 By engaging in image confirming behaviours, you also will
let others know that this is who you are and how you want
to be seen.

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 Tutorial

1. Explain FOUR (4) sources to develop self-concept. (8 marks)

2. Explain Johari window. (8 marks)

3. Explain FIVE (5) method to increase our self-esteem. (10 marks)

4. List FIVE (5) stages of interpersonal perception. (10 marks)

5. List FIVE (5) goals of impression management. (10 marks)

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 CHAPTER 4: EMOTIONAL MESSAGES

Chapter outline:
1.0 Principles of Emotion and Emotional Messages
2.0 Obstacles to Communication Emotions
3.0 Skills for Expressing Emotions
4.0 Skills for Responding to the Emotion of Others

1.0 Principle of Emotions and Emotional Messages

1. Emotions may be primary or blended

o The primary emotions are joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness,
disgust, anger and anticipation.
o Other emotion such as love, awe, contempt and aggressiveness
are blends of primary emotions.
2. Emotions are influence by body, mind and culture
o Body: body reactions are the most obvious aspect of our
emotional experience because we can observe them easily.
o For example: the blush of embarrassment, the sweating palms that
accompany nervousness and gestures (such as playing with your
hair or touching your face.
o The Mind: the mental or cognitive part of emotional experience
involves the evaluations and interpretations you make on the basis
of what you experience.
o For example: your best friends ignore you in the college cafeteria
and the emotions you feel will depend on what you think of this
behaviour means.
o The Culture: the culture you were raised in or the culture you live
in gives you a framework for both expressing feelings and
interpreting the emotions.

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3. Emotions may be adaptive and maladaptive
o Adaptive: they can help you adjust appropriately to situations
o For example: if you feel anxious about not doing well on your
exam, it may lead you to study harder.
o Maladaptive: not adjusting adequately
o For example: you may fear losing your partner and as a result
may become suspicious and accusatory, making your relationship
even less likely to survive.
4. Emotions can be used strategically
o Emotions (for example: crying, ranting, screaming and threatening
to commit self-harm) are used for one’s personal ends.
o For example, in a conflict situation, emotions are often used to win.
o If someone cries enough and loud enough, the other person may
just give in.
5. Emotions are communicated verbally and nonverbally
o Your words, the emphasis you give them and the gestures and
facial expressions that accompany them all help to communicate
your feelings.
6. Emotional expression is governed by display rules
o Display rules: social group, informal norms about when or how to
express emotions.
o Men and women seem to have different gender display rules for
what is and what isn’t appropriate to express, much as different
cultures have different display rules.
o Women talk more about feelings and emotions and use
communication for emotional expression than men.
o Men on the other hand are more likely than women to express
anger and aggression.
7. Emotions have consequences
o Emotional expressions have consequences and impact on your
relationships in important ways.

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 o By revealing your emotions, you may create close bounds with
others
o At the same time, you may also scare people with too much too
intimate disclosure.
8. Emotions are contagious (transferrable / communicable)
o For example, if an infant and mother interacting, you can readily
see how quickly the infant mimics the emotional expression of the
mother.
o If the mother smiles, the infant smiles and if the mother frowns,
infant frowns.
2.0 Obstacles to Communicating Emotion

1. Societal and cultural customs

 Organizations have their own cultural norms for the expression of
emotions.
 For example, in many organization, employees are expected to
pretend to be cheerful even when not and generally to display
some emotions and to hide others.
 Unfortunately, differences between the emotions you feel and
emotion you express can create emotional dissonance which in
turn can lead to stress.
2. Fear
 Emotional expression exposes part of you that makes you
vulnerable to attack.
 For example, if you express your love for another person, you risk
is being rejected.
3. Inadequate interpersonal skills
 For example, some people can express anger only by blaming and
accusing others.
 Fail to communicate negatively feelings for fear of offending the
other person will make matters worse.

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  Failing to express negatively feelings will probably not help the
relationship to grow.

3.0 Skills for Expressing Emotions

1. Emotional Understanding: recognizing what your feelings are,

understanding why you feel as you do and understanding the potential
effects of your feelings. For example:
 “what am I feeling and what made me feel this way?”
 “what exactly do I want to communicate?”
 “what are my communication choices?”
2. Emotional Expression
i) Be specific
o “I feel guilty” (because I lied to my best friends).
o “I feel lonely” (because I haven’t had a date in the last two
months).
o “I feel so angry I’m thinking of quitting my job”
ii) Describe the reasons you for your feelings
o “I felt so angry when you said you wouldn’t help me”
o “I felt hurt when you didn’t invite me to the party”
iii) Address mixed feelings
o If you have mixed feelings and you really want the other
person to understand you.
o For example: “I feel anger and hatred but at the same time I
feel guilty for what I did”
iv) In expressing feelings inward or outward, try to anchor your
emotions in the present
o “I feel like a failure right now; I have erased this computer file
three times today”
o “I felt foolish when I couldn’t think of that formula”

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4.0 Skills for Responding to the Emotion of Others

1. Look at nonverbal cues to understand the individual’s feelings

 For example: overly long pause, frequently hesitation, eye contact
avoidance or excessive fidgeting may be a sign of discomfort that it
might be wise to talk about.
2. Look for cues as to what the person wants you to do
 Sometimes all the person wants are for someone to listen.
 Provide a supportive atmosphere that encourages the person to
express his or her feelings.
3. Use active listening techniques
 Paraphrase the speaker.
 Express understanding of the speaker’s feelings.
 Ask questions as appropriate.
4. Emphasize
 Don’t evaluate the other person’s feelings.
 See the situation from the point of view of the speaker.
5. Focus on the person
 Show interest by encouraging the person to explore his or her
feelings.
 Use simple encouragers like “I see” or “I understand”
6. Remember the irreversibility of communication
 Whether expressing emotion or responding to the emotions of
others, it is useful to recall the irreversibility of communication.
 Be mindful to avoid inappropriate responding.

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 Tutorial

1. Explain any FIVE (5) principles of emotions and emotional message.

(10 marks)

2. Define:
Adaptive
Maladaptive (4 marks)

3. Explain THREE (3) obstacles to communicating emotions. (6 marks)

4. List TWO (2) skills for expressing emotions. (2 marks)

5. Explain any FIVE (5) skills for responding to the emotions of others.
(10 marks)

36
CHAPTER 5: LISTENING IN INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Chapter outline:
1.0 The Five Functions of Listening
2.0 The Process of Listening
3.0 The Styles of Effective Listening
4.0 Listening Barriers
5.0 Culture, Gender and Listening

1.0 The Five Functions of Listening

1. To learn
 One purpose of listening is to learn, something you do regularly as
you listen to lectures in college.
 You also listen in order to learn about something and understand
other people and perhaps to avoid problems and make more
reasonable decisions.
2. To relate
 A healthy relationship is the ability to listen to friends, romantic
partners, family members, colleagues and just above anyone with
whom you come into contact.
3. To influence
 Listen to influence other people’s attitudes, values, beliefs, opinions
and behaviours.
4. To play
 Appreciative listening would include all those listening experiences
where your purpose is primary enjoyment.
5. To help
 Listening to help where concern and help others with their
problems.

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2.0 The Process of Listening

1. Stage one: Receiving

 Listening begins with the hearing, the process of receiving the
messages the speaker sends.
 At this stage, you note not only what is said (verbally and
nonverbally) but also what is omitted.
 To improve receiving skills:
i) Focus your attention on the speaker verbal and nonverbal
messages, on what is said and on what isn’t said.
ii) Avoid focusing your attention on what you’ll say next.
iii) Avoid distractions in the environment, if necessary shut off
the stereo or turn off the phone.
iv) Maintain your role as a listener and avoid interrupting.

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2. Stage two: Understanding
 The stage which you learn what the speaker means.
 The stage at which you grasp both thoughts and the emotion
expressed.
 You can improve your listening understanding in variety of ways:
i) Avoid assuming you understand what the speaker is going to
say before he or she actually say it.
ii) See the speaker’s messages from the speaker’s point of
view.
iii) Ask questions for clarification.
iv) Paraphrase the speaker’s ideas in your own words.
3. Stage three: Remembering
 Effective listening depends on the remembering.
 You can store the memory by taking notes or by taping the
messages.
 To facilitate the passage of information from short to long term
memory, here are four suggestions:
i) Focus your attention to the central ideas.
ii) Organize what you hear, summarize the message in a more
easily retained from.
iii) Unite the new with the old, relate new information to what
you already know.
iv) Repeat names and keys concepts to yourself or if
appropriate say it aloud.
4. Stage four: Evaluating
 Consist of judging the messages in some way.
 In evaluating, consider these suggestions:
i) Resist evaluation until you fully understand the speaker’s
point of view.

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 ii) Distinguish facts from opinions and personal interpretations
by the speaker.
iii) Identify any biases, self-interests or prejudice that may lead
to speaker slant unfairly what is said.
iv) Recognized fallacious forms of reasoning.
5. Stage five: Responding
 Responding occurs in two phases:
i) Responses you make while the speaker is talking.
ii) Reponses you make after the speaker has stopped talking.
 These feedback messages send information back to the speaker
and tell the speaker how you feel and what you think about his or
her messages.
 Improving listening responding are as follows:
i) Support the speaker by using listening cues such as head
nods and minimal responses such as ‘I see” or “mm hmm”
ii) Own your responses: take responsibility for what you say.
iii) Resist responding to another’s feelings with solving the
person problems.
iv) Focus on the person: avoid multitasking when you are
listening.
v) A being a thought which completing listener who listens a
little and then finished the speaker’s thought.

40
3.0 Styles of Effective Listening

1. Empathic and Objective Listening

 Empathic listening help you enhance your relationship. Listen with
some degree of empathy: the feeling of other’s feelings.
 Objective listening is go beyond empathy and measure meanings
and feelings against some objective reality.
2. Non – judgemental and Critical Listening
 Non – judgemental listening: First listen for understanding while
suspending the judgement.
 Only after you have fully understood the relevant messages then
you should evaluate or judge.
 Critical listening: listen with open mind which help better
understanding for the speaker’s messages.
 In adjusting your non-judgemental and critical listening:
i) Keep an open mind and avoid prejudging.
ii) Avoid filtering out or oversimplifying complex messages.
iii) Recognise your own bias.
iv) Recognise the fallacies of language.
3. Surface and Depth Listening
 Surface listening: deriving literal meaning while depth is going
deeper for underlying message of the speaker which may oppose
literal meaning or totally have nothing to do with it.
 Depth listening: The listener focus on the speaker verbal and
nonverbal messages, and then the listener uses that information to
help them understand the speakers’ means very well.
4. Polite and Impolite Listening
 Politeness are often thought of as the exclusive function of the
speaker, as solely an encoding or sending function.
 Ways to show politeness in listening:
i) Avoid interrupting speaker.

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 ii) Give supportive listening cues
iii) Show empathy with the speaker.
iv) Maintain eye contact.
v) Give positive feedback.
5. Active and Inactive Listening
 Active listening helps you as listener to check your understanding
of what the speaker said.
 You let the speaker know you acknowledge and accept his or her
feelings.
 The techniques of active listening:
i) Paraphrase the speaker’s meaning.
ii) Express understanding of the speaker’s feelings.
iii) Ask questions.

4.0 Listening Barriers

1. Distraction: Physical and Mental

 Physical barriers: hearing impairment, a noisy environment, loud
music.
 Mental distractions: thinking about your upcoming Saturday night
date or becoming too emotional to think.
2. Biases and Prejudice
 Prejudices: is an unjustified or incorrect attitude (usually negative)
towards an individual based solely on the individual's membership
of a social group.
 Biases: is the inclination or prejudice for (or against) one person or
group or concept, especially in a way considered to be unfair.
 Example: a gender bias that assumes only one sex has anything
useful to say about certain topics will likely distort incoming
message that contradict this bias.

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 3. Lack of Appropriate Focus
 As a listener, try not to get detoured from main idea.
 Don’t get hung up on unimportant details.
 Try to repeat the idea to yourself and see the details in relation to
this main concept.
 Another mistake is for the listener to focus on the responses he or
she is going to make while the speaker is still speaking.
4. Premature Judgement
 Assuming you know what the speaker is going to say, so there is
no need to really listen.
 Let the speaker say what he or she is going to say before you
decide that you already know it.

5.0 Culture, Gender and Listening

 Culture and Listening

1. Language and Speech
 When the speaker and listener speak the same language,
they speak it with different meanings and different accents.
 No two speakers speak exactly the same language.
 Speaker of the same language will at least have different
meaning for the same terms because they had different
experiences.
2. Nonverbal behaviours
 Speakers from different cultures have different display rules,
cultural rules that govern what nonverbal behaviours are
appropriate or inappropriate in public setting.
3. Feedback
 Members of some cultures give very direct and very frank
feedback.

43
  Example: In United State, expecting feedback is to be
honest reflection of what their listeners are feeling.
 In Japan and South Korea, it is important to be positive than
to be truthful.
 Gender and Listening, men and women learn different styles of listening.

Men Women
 Men are seeking  Women seek to build
report talk which they rapport talk and
will play up their establish closer
Talk
expertise, emphasize it relationship and use
and use it dominating listening to achieve
the interaction. these ends.
 Men more likely to  Women are more to
listen quietly without give lots of listening
giving lots of listening cues.
Listening Cues cues as feedback.  Interjecting “Yeah” or
“Uh-huh”, nodding in
agreement and
smiling.
 Men listen less to  Women are more
women than women likely to ask
Amount and
listen to men. supportive questions
Purpose of
and perhaps offer
Listening
criticism that is more
positive than men.

44
 Tutorial

1. Explain FIVE (5) functions of listening. (10 marks)

2. Explain the process of listening. (10 marks)

3. Explain FIVE (5) styles of effective listening. (10 marks)

4. Explain FOUR (4) listening barriers. (8 marks)

5. Give THREE (3) different men and women style of listening. (6 marks)

45
 CHAPTER 6: VERBAL MESSAGES

Chapter outline:
1.0 Principles of Verbal Messages
2.0 Guidelines for Using Verbal Messages Effectively

1.0 Principles of Verbal Messages

1. Messages are packaged

 The combination of verbal and nonverbal messages.
 Both verbal and nonverbal signals occur simultaneously.
 You don’t normally express anger with your body posture while face
smiles.
 Your entire body works as whole which verbal and nonverbal
communicate for expressing your thoughts and feelings.
2. Meanings are in people
 You don’t receive meaning, but you create meaning.
 You construct meaning out of the messages you receive combined
with your own social and cultural perspective.
 To uncover meaning, you need to look into people and not merely
into words.
 Because meanings are in people and each person is unique and
different from every other person.
 No word or message will mean the same thing to two different
people.
3. Meanings are denotative and connotative
 Denotation:
 A word is its objective definition.
 Straightforward dictionary definition.
 Example: Death; to doctor this word may mean the moment
at which the heart stops beating.

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  Example: the word ‘Love’ the dictionary would have its
definition on the word
 Connotative:
 A word that is subjective or emotional meaning.
 The ideas or feelings associated with the word.
 Example: Death; to a mother whose son has just died and
recalls the son’s youth, ambition and family.
 Example: the word ‘Love’. Everyone has their personal
definition and opinion on what it is.
4. Messages vary in abstraction
 The vary form from specific and concrete to highly abstract and
general.
 The word ‘abstract’ is defined as something that is unreal,
 For example: feelings and hobbies. When a group of people is
asked about what their hobbies are, many would have similar
and/or different answers.
5. Messages vary in politeness
 There are different kinds of politeness level are directness, online
(netiquette) and gender.
 When we tend to be direct and straight in a conversation, the
language, rate, tone and volume of voice plays an important role in
maintaining the politeness within the conversation.
 Netiquette is observed in emails, instant messaging rooms as well
as online discussion forums.
 Even when a conversation is being carried on between a man and
a woman, there will also be a certain level of politeness (usually on
the man’s side) so that no feelings will be hurt and the friendship
and/or relationship will still be maintained.

47
6. Message can be deceiving
 People communicate and interact with each other for various
reasons and the messages that they convey have different motives
and reasons, therefore it can be lies.
 Lies refers to the act sending messages with the intention of giving
another person information you believe to be false.
 Lying involves sending some kind of verbal and nonverbal
message.
 Types of lies:
 To achieve some good
 To make yourself look good
 To protect yourself
 To harm someone
 Behaviours of Liars:
 Liars hold back: they speak more slowly, take longer to
respond to questions.
 Liars make less sense: liar’s messages contain more
inconsistencies.
 Liars give more negative impression: liars are seen as less
willing to be cooperative, smile less than truth tellers and
more defensive.
 Liars are tense: the tension may be revealed by their higher
pitched voices and excessive body movements.
7. Message can criticize and praise
 In expressing praise, keep the following in mind:
 Use I messages: instead of saying “that report was good”,
say “I thought that report was good”, or “I like your report”.
 Make sure your affect is positive: facial expression of
feelings.

48
  Name the behaviour you are praising: instead of saying
“that was good”, say “you really made them feel
comfortable”.
 Take culture into consideration: for example, many Asians
feel uncomfortable when praised because they may interpret
praise as a sign of veiled criticism.
 When criticizing:
 Own your thoughts and feelings: instead of saying “your
report was unintelligible”, say “I had difficulty following your
ideas”.
 Be clear: if you critics someone, provide them the reasons
for the criticism.
 Avoid ordering or directing: avoid the other person to
change instead try to identified possible alternatives.
 Consider the context of the criticism: it is best to express
criticism in situations where you can interact with the person
and express your attitudes in dialogue rather than
monologue.
8. Messages vary in assertiveness
 In any conversation, there are bound to be some disagreements
and arguments, therefore some harsh words might be said.
 however, respectfulness is still maintained by both parties in a
conversation.
 Effective pattern to follow in communicating assertively:
 Describe the problem.
 State how this problem affects you.
 Propose solutions that are workable.
 Confirm understanding.
9. Message can be confirming and disconfirming
 Disconfirmation: is a communication pattern in which you ignore a
person’s presence as well as that person’s communications.

49
  Confirmation: you not only acknowledge the presence of the other
person but also indicate your acceptance of this person.

Characteristics of Disconfirmation Characteristics of Confirmation

 Ignores the presence or  Acknowledges the presence and
contributions of the other the contributions of the other
person. person by either supporting or
 Expresses indifference to what taking issue with what he or she
the other person says. say.
 Makes no nonverbal contact  Makes nonverbal contact by
such as avoids direct eye maintaining direct eye contact and
contact, avoid touching and when appropriate, touching,
general nonverbal closeness. hugging, kissing or otherwise
demonstrating acknowledgement
of the other.
 Monologues which engages in  Dialogues which engage in
communication in which one communication in which both
person speaks and one more persons are speaker and listeners.
person listens.  Both are concerned with each
 There is no real interactions. other and have respect for each
other.
 Jumps into interpretation or  Demonstrates understanding of
evaluation rather than working what the other person says and
at understanding what the means and reflects your
person means. understanding in what you say.
 When doubt, ask the questions for
better understanding.
 Discourages which interrupts  Encourages the other person to
or otherwise makes it difficult express his or her thoughts and
for the other person to express feelings by showing interest and

50
 himself or herself. asking question.
 Avoid responding or responds  Respond directly and exclusively
tangentially by acknowledging to what the other person says.
the other person’s comment but
shift the focus of the message
in another direction.

10. Messages vary in cultural sensitivity

 Examine the preferred cultural identifiers to use in talking to and
about members of different groups.
 Example: Quran for Muslim and Bible for Christian.

2.0 Guideline for Using Verbal Messages Effectively

1. Extensionalize: Avoid Intensional Orientation

 To extensionalize: look at person as an individual before looking at
the label or group they belong to.
 Intensional orientation: refers to a tendency to view people, objects
and event in term of how they are talked about or labelled rather
than in terms of how they actually exist.
2. See the individual: Avoid Allness
 Our tendency to describe the world in extreme terms that imply we
know all or are saying that there is nothing to say.
 To combat allness, remind yourself that you can never know all or
say all about anything.
3. Distinguish between facts and inferences: Avoid Fact, Inference and
Conclusion.
 Inferences: basis of observation or conclusion.
 Facts: evidence.
Inferential Statements Factual Statements
May be made at any time May be made only after observation

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Go beyond what has been observed Are limited to what has been observed
May be made by anyone May be made only by the observer
May be about any time (past, present May be about only the past or the
or future) present
Involve varying degrees of probability Approach certainly
Are subject to verifiable and scientific
Are not subject to variable standards
standards

4. Discriminate among: Avoid Indiscrimination

 The tendency to group unique individuals or items because they
are covered by the same term or label.
 To combat indiscrimination, recognize the uniqueness and
mentally index each individual in a group.
5. Talk about the middle: Avoid Polarization
 Polarization often referred to as the fallacy of “either/or” is the
tendency to look at the world and to describe it in terms of extremes
(good or bad, positive or negative, healthy or sick, brilliant or stupid
and rich or poor).
 To combat polarization use middle terms and qualifiers.
 Polarized statement come in “may” forms:
i) Well, are you for us or against us?
ii) After listening to the evidence, I am still not clear who the
good guys are and who the bad guys are.
iii) College had better get me a job. Otherwise, this has been
big waste of time.
6. Update messages: Avoid Static Evaluation
 Avoid static evaluation.
 The tendency to describe the world in static terms, denying
constant change.
 To combat static evaluation, recognize the inevitability of change.
 For example: Gerry Smith 2016 is not Gerry Smith 2013.

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 Tutorial

1. Explain any FIVE (5) of principles of verbal messages. (10 marks)

2. Give FOUR (4) differences between disconfirmation and confirmation.

(8 marks)

3. List any FIVE (5) of guideline for using verbal messages effectively.
(5 marks)

4. Give FIVE (5) differences between inferential statements and factual

statements. (10 marks)

53
 CHAPTER 7: NONVERBAL MESSAGES

Chapter outline:
1.0 Principles of Nonverbal Messages
2.0 Channels of Nonverbal Communication
3.0 Nonverbal Communication Competence

1.0 Principles of Nonverbal Messages

1. Nonverbal messages interact with verbal messages

 Verbal and nonverbal messages interact with each other in six
major ways:
i) Accent
 Nonverbal communication is often used to accent or
emphasize some part of the verbal message.
 For example: bang fist on the desk to stress your
commitment or look longingly into someone’s eye
when saying “I Love You”.
ii) Complement
 Nonverbal communication may be used to
complement, to add nuances of meaning not
communicated by your verbal message.
 For example: you might smile when telling a story or
frown and shake your head when recounting
someone’s deceit.
iii) Contradict
 You may deliberately contradict your verbal
messages with nonverbal movements.
 For example: winking to indicate that you are lying.

54
 iv) Control
 To indicate your desire to control, the flow of verbal
messages.
 For example: make hand movements to indicate that
you want to speak.
v) Repeat
 You can repeat or restate the verbal message
nonverbally.
 For example: you can motion with your head or
hand to repeat verbal “let’s go”.
vi) Substitute
 You may also use nonverbal communication to
substitute for verbal messages.
 For example: sign “OK” with a hand gesture.
2. Nonverbal messages that lead to manage impressions
 To be liked: you might smile, pat on another on the back and shake
hands warmly.
 To be believed: you might use focused eye contact, a firm stance
and open gestures.
 To excuse failure: you might look sad, cover your face with your
hands and you shake your head.
 To secure help: by indicating helplessness, you might use open
hand gestures, a puzzled look and inept movements.
 To hide faults: you might avoid self-adaptors.
 To be followed: you might dress the part of a leader or display your
diploma or awards where others can see them.
 To confirm self – image and to communicate it to others: you might
dress in certain ways or decorate your apartment with things that
reflect your personality.

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 3. Nonverbal messages help form relationships
 You communicate affection, support and love in part at least,
nonverbally.
 At the same time, you also communicate displeasure, anger and
animosity through nonverbal signals.
4. Nonverbal messages structure conversation
 You give and receive cues from the signals that you are ready to
speak, to listen, to comment on what the speaker just said.
5. Nonverbal messages can influence and deceived
 You can influence others not only through what you say but also
through your nonverbal signals.
 For example: a focused glance that says you are committed.
6. Nonverbal messages are crucial for expressing emotion
 You reveal your level of happiness or sadness or confusion largely
through facial expressions.

2.0 Channels of Nonverbal Communication

1. Body gestures
 Kinesics: the study of communication through body movement.
 Five types of kinesics:
i) Emblems: directly translate words or phrase.
 Example: “OK” sign, “Come here” wave.
ii) Illustrators: accompany and literally “illustrate” verbal
message.
 Example: circular hand movements when talking
of a circle, hands far apart when talking of
something large.
iii) Affect displays: communicate emotional meaning.

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  Example: expressions of happiness, surprise,
fear, anger, sadness and disgust.
iv) Regulators: monitor, maintain or control the speaking of
another.
 Example: facial expressions and hand gestures
indicating “keep going”, “slow down”, or “what
else happened”.
v) Adaptors: satisfy some need
 Self-adaptors: usually satisfy a physical need,
generally serving to make you more comfortable.
 Example: scratching your head to relieve an itch,
moistening your lips because they feel dry,
pushing your hair out of your eyes.
 Alter-adaptors: are the body movements you
make in response to your current interactions.
 Example: crossing your arms over your chest
when someone unpleasant approaches or
moving closer to you.
 Object-adaptors: are movements that involves
your manipulation of some object.
 Example: punching holes in or drawing on a
Styrofoam coffee cup, clicking a ballpoint pen or
chewing a pencil.
2. Body appearances
 The body communicate without movement.
 For example: from your height and weight, from your skin, eye and
hair colour, assessments of your power, attractiveness and
suitability as friends or romantic partner are often made on the
basis of your body appearance.

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3. Facial communication
 Throughout your interpersonal interactions, your face
communicates, especially signalling your emotions.
 Facial movements alone seem to communicate the degree of
pleasantness, agreement and sympathy a person feels.
 For example: happiness, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, disgust,
contempt and interest.
 Facial management: techniques that enable you to communicate
your feelings to achieve the effect you want.
 For example: to hide certain emotions and to emphasize others.
 Five techniques of facial management:
i) Intensify: as when you exaggerate surprise when friends
throw you a party to make your friends feel better.
ii) Deintensify: as when you cover up your own joy in the
presence of a friend who didn’t receive such good news.
iii) Neutralize: as when you cover up your sadness to keep
from depressing others.
iv) Mask: as when you express happiness in order to cover up
your disappointment at not receiving the gift you expected.
v) Simulate: as when you express an emotion you don’t feel.
4. Eye communication
 You use your eye contact to severe important functions such as:
i) To monitor feedback
 When you talk with others, you look at them and try to
understand their reactions to what you are saying.
ii) To secure attention
 When you speak with two or three other people, you
maintain eye contact to secure the attention and
interest of your listens.

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 iii) To regulate the conversation
 Eye contact helps you regulate, manage and control
the conversation.
 With eye movements you can inform the other person
that he or she should speak.
iv) To signal the nature of the relationship
 Eye contact may communicate your romantic interest
in another person or eye avoidance may indicate
respect.
v) To signal status
 Eye contact is often used to signal status and
aggression.
vi) To compensate for physical distance
 By making eye contact, you overcome psychologically
the physical distance between yourself and another
person.
5. Touch communication
 Five major meanings communicated by touch:
i) Positive emotions
 Touch often communicates positive emotions, mainly
between inmates or others who have a relatively
close relationship.
ii) Playfulness
 Touch often communicates a desire to play, either
affectionately or aggressively.
iii) Control
 Touch also may seek to control the behaviours,
attitudes or feelings of the other person.
iv) Ritual

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  Much touching centers on performing rituals
 For example: in greetings and departures, shaking
hands to say hello or goodbye is perhaps the clearest
example of ritualistic touching, but we might also hug,
kiss or put an arm around another’s shoulder.
v) Task – related
 Touching is often associated with performance of a
function, such as removing a speck of dust from
another person’s face, helping someone out of a car
or checking someone’s forehead for fever.
6. Paralanguage
 Paralanguage is the vocal but nonverbal dimension of speech.
 Vocal characteristic as rate and volume.
 Paralanguage also include the vocalizations we make when
laughing, yelling, whining and segregates with the sound
combinations that aren’t words such as “uh” “ah” and “shh”.
7. Silence
 The functions of silence:
i) To provide time to think.
ii) To hurt.
iii) To respond to personal anxiety.
iv) To prevent communication.
v) To communicate emotions.
vi) To achieve specific effects.
vii) To say nothing.
8. Spatial messages and territoriality
 Proxemics distance: distance we maintain between each other in
our interactions, correspond closely to the major types of
relationships.

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 Four types of proxemics distance:
i) Intimate distance
 Raging from the close phase of actual touching.
 Experience the sound, smell and feel of other’s
breath.
 The close phase is used for lovemaking and
wrestling, for comforting and protecting.
 The muscles and skin communicate.
ii) Personal distance
 You carry a protective bubble defining your personal
distance, which allows you to stay protected and
untouched by others.
 In the close phase, people can still hold or grasp each
other, but only by extending their arms.
 The limits of your physical control over others.
iii) Social distance
 The close phase is the distance at which you conduct
impersonal business or interact at a social gathering.
 At this distance, business transactions have more
formal tone than they do when conducted in the close
phase.
 Social distance makes eye contact essential.
 This distance enables you to avoid constant
interaction with those with whom you work without
seeming rude.
iv) Public distance
 At this distance, you are able to take defensive action
should you feel threatened.
 For example, you might keep at least the distance
from a drunk person.

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 Territorially: the possessive reaction to an area or to particular
objects.
 Three types of territories:
i) Primary territories or home territories
 Areas that you might call your own.
 These areas are your exclusive preserve and might
include your room, your desk or your office.
ii) Secondary territories
 Areas that don’t belong to you, but you have occupied
that areas.
 Example: the table in cafeteria that you regularly eat
at, your classroom seat or your neighbourhood turf.
iii) Public territories
 Areas that are open to all people.
 They may be owned by some person or organization,
but they are used by everyone.
 Example: cinema, a restaurant or shopping mall.
 Some people can’t own territories, they used markers to indicate
pseudo of ownership or appropriation of someone else’s space or
public territory.
 Three types of territories markers:
i) Central markers:
 items you place in a territory to reserve it for you.
 Example: a coffee cup on the table, books on your
desk or sweater over a library chair.
ii) Boundary markers
 Set boundaries that divide your territory from that
areas from others.

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  Example: supermarket checkout line, the bar that is
placed between your groceries and those of the
person behind you or armrest separating chairs in a
movie theater.
iii) Ear markers
 Term taken from the practice of branding animals or
their ears.
 Example: trademarks, nameplates and monograms.

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3.0 Nonverbal Communication Competence

1. Decoding Nonverbal Messages

 When making judgments, mindfully seek alternative judgments.
Consider the vast array of choices for, say, interpreting or
describing a person’s behaviour.
 Be tentative. Develop hypotheses about what is going on and test
the validity of your hypotheses on the basis of the evidence.
 Notice that messages come from lots of different channels and take
reasonably accurate judgements can only be made when multiple
channels are taken into considerations.
 Consider the possibility that you are incorrect. This is especially
true when you make a judgement that another person is lying
based on, say, eye avoidance or long pause.
2. Encoding Nonverbal Messages
 Consider your choices for your nonverbal communication just as
you do for your verbal messages.
 Keep your nonverbal messages consistent with your verbal
messages.
 Monitor your own nonverbal messages with the same care that you
monitor your verbal messages.
 Avoid extremes and monotony.
 Take the situations into considerations.
 Maintain eye contact with the speaker.
 Avoid using certain adaptors in public.
 Avoid strong cologne or perfume.
 Be careful with touching it.

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 Tutorial

1. Explain SIX (6) ways how verbal and nonverbal messages interact.
(12 marks)

2. List any FIVE (5) how nonverbal messages help manage impressions.
(5 marks)

3. State FIVE (5) types of kinesics. (5 marks)

4. Explain SIX (6) functions of eye communication. (12 marks)

5. Explain FIVE (5) major meanings of touch communication. (10 marks)

6. Explain THREE (3) types of territoriality. (6 marks)

7. Explain TWO (2) nonverbal communication competence. (4 marks)

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 CHAPTER 8: MANAGING CONFLICT

Chapter outline:
1.0 What is Interpersonal Conflict?
2.0 Principles of Interpersonal Conflict
3.0 Conflict Management Stages
4.0 Conflict Management Strategies

1.0 What is Interpersonal Conflict?

 Interpersonal conflict is a disagreement between or among connected

individuals who perceive their goals as incompatible.
 Occurs when a person or group of people frustrates or interferes with
another person’s effects at achieving a goal.
 Example: A draftsman is almost finished with blueprints of a new road that
is to be constructed. Two of his supervisors come in and tell him to put
that aside and start work on another project of their choosing. This
interferes with his goal and is very frustrating for him.
 A female athlete is performing extraordinarily well on her high school
basketball team. Just as she is about to break an all-time record in
tournament play, her coaches take her out of the game. This interfered
with her achieving her goal.
 Conflict occurs when people:
i) Are interdependent (they are connected in some significant way).
What one person does have an impact or an effect on the other
person.
ii) Are mutually aware that their goals are incompatible. If one
person’s goal is achieved, then the other person’s goal cannot be
achieved.

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 iii) Perceive each other as interfering with the attainment of their
own goals. For example, you may want to study but your
roommate may want to party. The attainment of either goal would
interfere with the attainment of the other goal.

2.0 Principles of Interpersonal Conflict

1. Conflict is inevitable
 Conflict is a part of every interpersonal relationship, whether
between parents and children, brothers and sisters, friends, lover or
co-workers.
 The fact that people are different, have had different histories and
have different goals will invariably produce differences.
2. Conflict can have negative and positive effects
 Negative effects:
i) Conflict often leads to increased negative feelings.
ii) Many conflicts involve unfair fighting methods and focus
largely on hunting other person.
iii) You hide your feelings from your partner, prevent meaningful
communication and interaction.
 Positive effects:
i) Forces you to examine a problem and work toward a
potential solution.
ii) If you use productive conflict strategies, your relationship is
likely to become stronger, healthier and more satisfying.
3. Conflict can focus on content and relationship issues
 Content conflict:
i) Centers on objects, events and persons in the world that are
usually external to the people involved in the conflict.
ii) Example: issues that you fight everyday.

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  Relationship conflict
i) Equally numerous and are concerned with the relationships
between the individuals.
ii) Example: issues who are in charge, the equality or lack of in
the relationship and who has the right to establish rules of
behaviour.
4. Conflict styles have consequences
 The way in which you engage in conflict has consequences for the
resolution of the conflict and for the relationship between conflicting
parties.
 There are five types of conflict styles:
i) Competing – I win, you lose: the competing style
represents great concern for your own needs and desires
and little for those of others.
ii) Avoiding – I lose, you lose: using the avoiding style
suggest that you are relatively unconcerned with your own or
with the other’s need or desires.
iii) Accommodating – I lose you win: you sacrifice your own
needs for the sake of the needs of the other person.
iv) Collaborating – I win you win: your concern is with both
your own and the other person’s needs.
v) Compromising – I win and lose, you win and lose: this
style is in the middle where there’s some concern for your
own needs and some concern for the other’s needs.
5. Conflict is influenced by culture
 Topics: culture influences the topics people fight about as well as
what are considered appropriate an d inappropriate ways of dealing
with the conflict.
 Nature of conflict: cultures also differs in how they define what
constitutes a conflict.

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  Conflict strategies: each culture seems to teach its members
different views conflict strategies.

3.0 Conflict Management Stages

1. Before the conflict

 Try to fight in private.
 Fight when you are ready.
 Know what you are fighting about.
 Fight about problems that can be solved.
2. Define the conflict
 Define the content and relationship issues in specific terms.
 Avoiding gunny sacking and mind reading.
 Try to empathize with other person.
3. Examine the possible solutions
 Try to identify as many solutions as possible.
 Look for win – win solutions.
 Carefully weight cost and rewards of each solution.
4. Test the solution
 Test the solution mentally and in practice to see if the solution
works for the problem.
5. Evaluate the tested solution
 Did the solution resolve the conflict?
 Is the solution providing positive effect than before the solution was
applied?
 Share your feelings and evaluations of the solution.
6. Accept or reject the solution
 If the solution is accepted, you are ready to put into more
permanent operation.
 Define the problem differently or look in other directions for possible
solutions.

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 7. After the conflict
 Learn something from the conflict.
 Keep the conflict in perspective.
 Attack your negative feelings.
 Increase the exchange of rewards.

4.0 Conflict Management Strategies

1. Seek out win – win strategies

 Win – win solutions make the next conflict less unpleasant: it
becomes easier to see the conflict as “solving a problem” rather
than as a “fight”.
2. Become an active participant in the conflict
 Don’t avoid the issues or the argument of the other person.
3. Force and talk strategies
 Use talk to discuss the issues rather than trying to force the other
person to accept your position.
4. Politeness conflict
 Try to enhance the face, the self – esteem of the person you are
arguing with. Avoid strategies that may cause the other person to
lose face.
5. Verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness strategies
 Argue the issues, focusing as objectively as possible on the points
of disagreement. Avoid being verbally aggressive or attacking the
other person.

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 Tutorial

1. Define interpersonal conflict. (2 marks)

2. Explain FIVE (5) principles of interpersonal conflict. (10 marks)

3. Explain SEVEN (7) stages of conflict management. (14 marks)

4. Explain FIVE (5) strategies of conflict management. (10 marks)

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CHAPTER 9: INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

Chapter outline:
1.0 Relationship Theories
2.0 Relationship Stages
3.0 The Dark Side of Interpersonal Relationship

1.0 Relationship Theories

1. Attraction theory
 Holds that people forms relationship on the basis of attraction.
 Similarity: it is likely that your mate would look, act and think very
much like you.
 Proximity: if you look around at people you find attractive, you will
probably find that they are the people who live or work close to you.
 Reinforcement: attracted to people who give rewards or
reinforcements which can range from a simple compliment to an
expensive cruise.
 Physical attractiveness and personality: people like physical
attractive people more than they like physically unattractive people.
 Socioeconomic and educational status: sexually attracted to the
opposite sex (women more attracted to higher socioeconomic
status, men more attracted to women’s physical attributes).
2. Relationship rule theory
 Holds that people maintain relationships with those who follow the
rule the individuals have defined as essential to their relationship
and dissolve relationship with those who don’t follow the rules.
3. Relationship dialectics theory
 Someone who engages in relationship experiences internal
tensions between the pairs of motives or desires that pull him or her
in opposite directions.
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4. Social penetration theory
 Describes the relationship in terms of number of the topics that
people talk about and the degree of “personalness” of the topic.
 The breadth of a relationship has to do with how many topics you
and your partner talk about.
 The depth of a relationship involves the degree to which you
penetrate the inner personality.
5. Social exchange theory
 You develop relationships that will enable you to maximize your
profits.
 Reward: anything that you incur costs to obtain.
 Cost: anything that you normally try to avoid.
 Profit: results when the costs are subtracted from the rewards.
6. Equity theory
 Use the ideas of social exchange, but goes a step further and
claims that you develop and maintain relationships in which the
ratio of your rewards relative to your costs is approximately equal to
your partner.
 This theory claims that you will develop, maintain and be satisfied
with the relationships that equitable.
7. Politeness theory
 Holds that you develop and maintain relationships with those who
support your positive and negative face needs.

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2.0 Relationship Stages

1. Stage one: contact

 You see, hear, read a message from, view a photo or video or
perhaps smell the person.
2. Stage two: involvement
 A sense of mutuality of being connected and developed.
 Try to learn more about the other person.
3. Stage three: intimacy
 You commit yourself still further to the other person and establish a
relationship in which this individual becomes your best or closest
friend.
 Example: you might increase contact with your partner, give your
partner tokens of affection such as gifts, cards or flowers.
4. Stage four: deterioration
 Characterized by weakening of the bonds between the friends or
lovers.
 First phase: intrapersonal dissatisfaction; you begin to
experience personal dissatisfaction with everyday interactions and
begin to view the future with your partner more negatively.
 Second phase: interpersonal deterioration; you withdraw and
grow farther and farther apart, share less free time, less physical
contact and lack of psychological closeness.
5. Stage five: repair
 First phase: intrapersonal repair; you may analyse what went
wrong and consider ways of solving your relational difficulties and
might consider changing behaviour or perhaps changing your
expectations of your partner.

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  Second phase: interpersonal repair; you might talk about the
problems in the relationship, the changes you wanted to see, and
perhaps what you be willing to do and what you want your partner
to do.
6. Six stage: dissolution
 The bonds between the individuals are broken.
 Interpersonal separation; in which you may move into separate
apartments and begin to lead lives apart from each other.
 Social or public separation: avoidance of each other and return to
being “single” are among the primary characteristics of dissolution.

3.0 The Dark Side of Interpersonal Relationships

 Ways that interpersonal communication can lead to negative

outcomes. These range from bad moods to actual harm
(psychological and physical).
 Example includes:
i) The communication of completing and criticism
ii) Bullying
iii) Teasing
iv) The communication of threats
v) Domestic abuse

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 Tutorial

1. Explain FIVE (5) types attraction. (10 marks)

2. Explain social penetration theory. (3 marks)

3. Explain social exchange theory. (4 marks)

4. Explain SIX (6) relationship stages. (12 marks)

5. State FIVE (5) examples of the dark side of interpersonal relationships.

(5 marks)

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