interpersonal communication

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION (IPC)

WEEK 1 ;Introduction + non verbal communication

Lecture 1:
The significance of IPC and non-verbal communication

Significance of interpersonal communication

- IPC - Embedded in all aspects of life – it is FUNDAMENTAL
Eg; Making contact with other people

Still face experiment: mom ignoring baby by just looking at it

- Baby uses all possible abilities to get mothers attention (movement, smiling..) to make
contact.
- Communication starts really early - fundamental need of humans Interaction
Immediate reaction of infant
- Stress responses when it’s impossible - negative effects
- Understanding processes helps improve communication Higher satisfaction of relationships

IPC PROCESS DETERMINES;

 Mutual understanding – agreement vs disagreement, mutual relationship, achievement
of goals

PEOPLE WITH GOOD INTERPERSONAL SKILLS HAVE;

 Less stress, higher self-efficacy (can achieve more of their goals)
 More satisfaction in intimate relationships
 More friends, less depression/loneliness/ anxiety

INTERVENTIONS AND ADVICE;

 Communications with companies (internal communication)
 Communication companies with costumers (web care)
 Healthcare; eg; doctor patient communication, e-health

OWN EFFICACY

Fundamental aspects of IPC

 A model of IPC
 Interpretations and miss interpretations
 How do we understand each other

,Source-Receiver Model (linear) –
(related to bowling analogy – 1
person has a message using a certain
channel by which he sends a message
encodes it and then its decoded by
recipient)

sending message to recipient

responses immediately influence us
Ex: breaking up with boyfriend
Outside influences influence on
delivery (not wanting to hurt
someone)

Missing; non-verbal behaviour +
Response of reipient/ interactivity + Interpretation of message (and
misinterpretation)


transactional model (circular) –

Circle is an ongoing process = immediate response +
creating mutual meaning

Transacactive process what one person does changes
things in the other person

Collaboration  adapting messages to other (between 2 or
more people)

Noise phycological

Conversation;

 Transactive
 Joint action
 Interdependence, reciprocity (what one person dose affects the other)
 Interpretations about meanings and intentions on both sides
 Much is left unsaid (due to multiple perspectives)
 Theory of coordinated management of meaning Interdependent on
eachother (communication partners)


Language is ambiguous; (Derek Bentley – murder “let him have it” – shoot him or
give him the gun) – sentence can be 2 things
Multiple meanings - positive or negative, sarcastic (litterally positive, meaning negative)
Eg;you probably had a fantastic time with klass today ? – sarcastic/ ironic

interpretations also play a role on conversation + relationship level

,Misinterpretations

Sexual over perception bias – tendency to believe others are more sexually interested in you then
they actually are

(Unintentional) touch/ eye contact ( non - verbal behaviour)

- mainly happens with men Overthinking someone’s intentions

HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER?

 It is a common misperception that language use has primarily to do with words and what
they mean (it dose not). It has primarily to do with people and what they mean = essentially
about speakers intentions.

-How we come to understand; (important IPC topics)
>common ground/ grounding
>perspective taking (own vs others)
>egocentrism vs the third story
>self disclosure – ( do we disclose or keep to self)
>questioning, reflecting, listening

how do we understand each other’s intentions;

o influence of context
o influence of behaviour of conversation partners
o influence of the medium

Context & mutual understanding
the situation we find ourselves in when having a interaction (lecture room, at night, day..)
Eg; touching bum example – is it appropriate + 11am coffee vs 1am club
Understand the situation

- context dimensions;
1. Set induction How you open an interaction sets the tone for the rest of it - determined at
the start of it Physical environment
2.phisical environment
3.temporal factors - Timing of message (2 am vs 2pm)
4.social phycological factors
 interpersonal relationship (roles, status, history)
 communication history (common ground)
5.Culture – touching eachother
6.Type of situation and expectancies
 Scripts - event schemas
Eg; first date script (describing first date script / expectations)

Behaviour and mutual understanding;

Behavior of conversation partners determines the course of conversations Interdependence!

Important topics in IPC:

 Nonverbal behavior: haptics, kinesics, posture, gaze etc.

,  (Non) verbal dominance: turn taking (interrupting, silences)
 Questioning (open vs closed, leading, probing)
 Reflecting(on what other person says), reinforcement
 Listening
 Response styles: assertiveness vs. aggression

the medium and mutual understanding;

Medium determines which (interactive) behaviour is possible, which signals go back and forth.

Important topics in IPC:

 Constraints and affordances of different media.
 Media richness
 Social presence



non verbal communication
Negotiations in relationships

- Non verbal mimicry vs complimantary
- Hiarchy/ status position

purposes of non-verbal communication;
Replacing, complementen and modifying verbal communication

- Regulating conversations
- Expressing emotions and interpersonal attitudes
- Negotiating relationships (idea of transactive model(we constantly influence each
other in interactions)
- Conveying personal and social identity
- Contextualizing interaction


negotiating relationships;
-non conscious influence;
 Facial mimicry: imitation of facial expression (Dimberg, 1982; Meltzoff &
Moore, 1979, 1983; O’Toole & Dubin, 1968; Provine, 1986; Vaughan &
Lanzetta, 1980; Zajonc et al., 1982, 1987)
 Speech: linguistic style matching (Bock, 1986, 1989; Levelt &
Kelter, 1982; Prinz, 1990; Ireland et al., 2010)
 Emotion/mood contagion (Bavelas et al., 1986, 1987; Hatfield et al.,
1994; Neumann & Strack, 2000; Zajonc et al., 1987)
 Behavior matching (the Chameleon effect): (Bernieri, 1988; Bernieri et al.,
1988; Chartrand & Bargh, 1999; LaFrance, 1979; LaFrance & Broadbent,
1976; LaFrance & Ickes, 1981; Lakin et al. 2003)

Participants work together on a task with 2 confederates, in 2 consecutive
interactions