Conversation Infographic

Here's an interesting infographic: 9 Simple Conversation Hacks: How to Turn Any Interaction in Your Favor, sent to me by Sarah Johnson. Thank you, Sarah. It's sure to spark some interesting class discussion on the uses of communication skills or with the section on conversation or persuasion.

Communication and Ethics

Here is an interesting case that would work well in any communication class dealing with ethics. 

In Sunday's New York Times, Chuck Klosterman, the Ethicist, was asked if it was ethical for a beer company to bottle the exact same beer but package it in two different type bottles with different labels, one “regular” and one “premium.” The answer from the ethicist was that this was not unethical since the brewer didn’t say these beers were different; it was left it up to the customer to make the inference.  “It only becomes unethical,” says Klosterman, “if the brewer claimed the premium beverage was literally different.” This is nonsense, IMHO. The brewer did say, claim, communicate that the beers were different by the different bottles and the different labels. The label “premium” means that the product is different from one that is not labeled “premium.”  To limit communication to words seems a bit naïve and leaves us with a conclusion that is intuitively incorrect and unacceptable. This was clearly an act of deception—the intention of the brewer was to fool the buyer—but this goes unrecognized and unidentified because the way in which communication works is misunderstood.  

Communication Infographic

Here's a wonderful Infographic on communication sent to me by Michael Yunat, coordinator/GetVolP. It should make a good discussion starter in interpersonal or fundamentals of communication courses.

Deception Detection at Airports

Here is a New York Times article on deception detection at airports or, rather, the lack of it. And after a $1 billion plus investment! There is also a great interactive link within the article that will prove interesting in a class discussion.

Lie Detection

Here is a report on a study which provides some interesting evidence that although we are only able to detect lying at about 50 percent accuracy (consciously), we may do better relying on our unconscious mind. Briefly, the researchers found that subjects took longer to attach "truthful" labels such as truthful, honest, and valid to visuals of people (shown at speeds below the level of consciousness) who were identified as liars. They also took longer to attach "lie" labels such as dishonest, deceitful, and invalid to visuals of those identified as truth tellers. Conversely, truth labels were more quickly attached to truth-tellers and deception labels were more quickly attached to liars.