ABCD: Politeness and Face

When you hear the word politeness, you probably think of the rules of etiquette—the rules for dining, for sending and answering invitations, for giving and receiving gifts, for proper dress for an interview or party, and so on. And these certainly are a part of politeness. In fact, Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines polite as “having or showing good manners, esp. courteous, considerate, tactful, etc.”
One of the best ways to look at politeness in communication is from the perspective of Erving Goffman (The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life) and the extension by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (Politeness: Some Universals in Language). These authors identify two types of politeness: negative politeness and positive politeness. Both of these forms of politeness are responsive to two needs that each person has: (1) the desire to be viewed positively by others, to be thought of favorably (this is referred to as maintaining positive face) and (2) the desire to be autonomous, to have the right to do as you wish (this is referred to as maintaining negative face). Politeness, then, refers to behavior that allows others to maintain both positive and negative face.
By “face” is meant the public image that you communicate to others. It’s not simply what you think of yourself (self-image or self-concept) but rather the image of yourself that you want to see validated or confirmed from your interpersonal interactions. “Face” is used here as it is in such expressions as “to save face” (to retain one’s self respect) or “to lose face” (to be embarrassed), or, even “to get in one’s face” (to be confrontational).
Although “face” is probably universal in the sense that everyone wants to maintain some degree of positive and negative face (the assumption being that all people want to be seen positively and yet be free to do as they wish), cultures differ widely in the importance of face. Generally collectivist cultures are thought to be more concerned with face than individualist cultures. And cultures also vary in the types of messages that are likely to attack face and in the responses they see as appropriate to face-threatening acts.

Positive Politeness and the Maintenance of Positive Face
To help another person maintain positive face, you speak respectfully to and about the person, you give the person your full attention, you say “excuse me” when appropriate. In short you treat the person as you would want to be treated. In this way you allow the person to maintain positive face through what is called positive politeness.
You attack the person’s positive face when you speak disrespectfully about the person, ignore the person or the person’s comments, and fail to use the appropriate expressions of politeness such as thank you and please. You also attack a person’s positive face when you criticize, contradict, disagree, or prove the person wrong. You attack a person’s positive face whenever your messages challenge the image that the person holds of himself or herself and wants to portray to others. Dissing (a message of disrespect) is a good example of positive face attack.

Negative Politeness and the Maintenance of Negative Face
To help another person maintain negative face, you respect the person’s right to be autonomous and so you request rather than demand that they do something; you say, “Would you mind opening a window” rather than “Open that window, damn it!” You might also give the person “an out” when making a request, allowing the person to reject your request if that is what the person wants. And so you say, “I know this may be a bad time and if it is please tell me, but I’m really strapped and could use a loan of $100” rather than “Loan me a $100” or “You have to lend me $100.” If you want a recommendation, you might say, “Would it be possible for you to write me a recommendation for graduate school” rather than “You have to write a recommendation for graduate school.” In this way you enable the person to maintain negative face through what is called negative politeness. Of course, we do this almost automatically.
You attack negative face when you demand a favor rather than request it. You also threaten negative face when you order someone to do something or when you give advice without the person asking (in effect, you’re saying, “you need to do XYZ.” Most negative face attacks are much more subtle, however. For example, your mother’s “Are you going to wear that?”—to use Deborah Tannen’s example (You’re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation, 2006, Random House) —attacks negative face by criticizing or challenging your autonomy. This comment also attacks positive face by questioning (criticizing) your ability to dress properly.

Face-Threatening Acts
As you might have guessed, these acts that threaten positive or negative face have been given a special name, Face-Threatening Acts or FTAs.
Your own interpersonal behavior is designed to maintain both your positive and your negative face. And so, you interact with others in ways that are consistent with the positive image you wish others to have of you (you’re friendly, empathic, and supportive; you smile, nod approval, and otherwise follow the rules for polite interaction, for example)—that is, you communicate in ways that enable you to maintain positive face.
At the same time, you want to do what you want to do (you want to sleep late and not make breakfast for your partner, for example)—that is, you want to maintain negative face (your autonomy).

As you can see from just these examples, satisfying your positive and your negative face needs (that is, maintaining both positive and negative face) is not always easy. If you stay in bed instead of making breakfast, you protect your negative face but damage your positive face. If you lend your friend money, you protect positive face but (perhaps) lose negative face (if, let’s say, you wanted to buy new CDs with the money).
Because you want to protect both positive and negative face needs, you’re likely to establish close relationships with those who enable you to maintain face. These are the people who give you space and independence (satisfying your negative face needs) and who also positively reinforce and confirm your positive face behaviors, for example, they appreciate your help, your support, your friendliness. These are the people who do not violate or threaten your positive or your negative face needs.
At the same time, you’d likely avoid those who regularly or are likely to threaten your positive or negative face. The person who is overly-critical or who makes you look bad is likely to be avoided (because this is a threat to your positive face) as is the person who is overly demanding and thus interferes with your independence and autonomy (because this is a threat to your negative face).
Of course not all FTAs are equal. Some are mild threats and some are more severe. If, for example, someone criticizes your new jacket, you may see this as relatively mild and shrug it off. But, if that same person criticizes your personality or your intelligence, you may see this as more severe and may not be able to shrug this off so easily. Naturally, the importance of the FTA will depend on the individual’s self-concept and self-image and on his or her relationship to the person making the face threatening act. So, for example, if the image you want to communicate to others is “the brilliant student” then attacks on this image will be perceived as severe and will likely cause interpersonal problems. But, if your handwriting is criticized or attacked, and this is not an important part of your face, it’s likely to be perceived as mild and quickly dismissed.
FTAs by people in authority—your boss or your instructor, for example, are likely to have greater impact than, say, those same acts from an acquaintance you really don’t care much about. Similarly, FTAs by people who are extremely important to you (parents, children, lovers, best friends, for example) are likely to be perceived as more important than those from people to whom you have no close relationship.

Dealing with Face-Threatening Acts
Problems and interpersonal conflicts often arise when one’s face needs are attacked, when, for example, you’re taken for granted or when others demand rather than request that you do something. And of course problems can arise when you intend to be polite but the other person interprets it as an FTA. This is especially likely in intercultural situations where the nature of politeness and its rules vary widely. For example, the German male entering a restaurant or club before the woman to make sure that the place is respectable and suitable for his date, can easily be interpreted as impolite, perhaps even sexist.
People regularly use communication strategies to prevent FTAs (preventive strategies). So, for example, you might preface your discussion of a newspaper article by “hedging,” where you claim that you may be incorrect but as far as you understand the issue. . . . This hedge—an example of a preventive strategy—allows you an out if you’re proven wrong.
You also try to minimize FTAs when they do occur; that is, you use corrective strategies. If someone attacks your face needs, you may use corrective strategies such as an excuse (“I didn’t mean to imply that you’re overweight”) or an apology (“I’m sorry; that didn’t come out right” or “I was just trying to be funny”). Sometimes, however, a face-threatening act by one person may lead to a face-threatening response by the other person which may then lead to another face-threatening act, and on and on. The result is often a full-blown interpersonal conflict.

Face and Direct and Indirect Language
Often these face needs are discussed in terms of direct and indirect language. Directness is usually less polite and may infringe on a person’s need to maintain negative face—Write me the recommendation, Lend me $100. Indirectness—Do you think you could write a recommendation for me? Would it be possible for you to lend me $100 until next week when I get paid?—allows the person to maintain autonomy (negative face) and provides an acceptable way for the person to refuse your request. Of course, it might be argued that all requests are by their very nature FTAs. The argument is that a request is asking you to do something you would not be doing if the request was not made—hence, all requests attack your autonomy (you negative face needs). On the other hand, you live in an interpersonal world and you likely expect that requests will be made of you from time to time. And so you come to expect requests as part of interpersonal life. It is therefore more likely that a polite request will not be seen as a FTA whereas an impolite request (or a demand) will be perceived as face threatening.
Women, research finds, are more polite in their speech and not surprisingly use more indirect statements when making requests than do men. This difference seems to have both positive and negative implications. Indirect statements, in their being more polite, are generally perceived positively and yet they may also be perceived negatively if they are seen as being weaker and less authoritative than more direct statements. Indirect statements may also be seen as manipulative or underhanded whereas direct statements may be seen as straightforward and honest.

More on Politeness and Face
If you want to learn more about face and politeness you can pick up either the Goffman or the Brown and Levinson books mentioned earlier. For a communication perspective take a look at William Cupach and Sandra Metts, Facework (Sage, 1994) and Daena Goldsmith, “Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory,” in B. B. Whaley and W. Samter (eds.), Explaining Communication: Contemporary Theories and Exemplars (Erlbaum, 2007), pp. 219-236.

ABCD: Empathy

Empathy comes from the German philosopher Robert Vischer who used the term Einfuhlung to refer to an aesthetic sensitivity. As Answers.com explains, Theodore Lipps, another philosopher, broadened the term and used it to refer to feeling another’s feelings. It was in this sense that Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) used the term in his essays on psychoanalysis. The term became more important in the 1960’s—some attributing this popularity to Ralph Greenson’s article “Empathy and its Vicissitudes” in the Interpersonal Journal of Psychoanalysis 41 (1960): 418-424. The obvious connection between empathy and effective interpersonal communication (which itself came into being as an academic area in the 1960s) ensured its key-word status in all areas concerned with human behavior.
In Star Trek, the Next Generation one of the regular crew members was counselor Deanna Troi, who, being half Betazoid, was empathic and could easily read the thoughts and especially the feelings of others, even without their saying anything. And one of the most famous episodes of Star Trek (Episode 63, Season 3) focused on empathy. In one scene of “The Empath,” the Empath touches Kirk’s wounded head and immediately his wounds are transferred to her own head. Here the Empath not only feels as the other person feels but experiences it as well. And Johnny Smith of The Dead Zone, possessing a somewhat different kind of empathy, can recreate in vivid detail past experiences of others just by touching them. Of course, ordinary humans can’t do any of these things—although many of us like to think we can. What we can do is empathize with another person’s thoughts and feelings to some degree.
Interestingly enough, the ability to empathize may not, in fact, be limited to humans. Some animal researchers claim that some animals show empathy. For example, consider the male gorilla who watched a female try in vain to get water that had collected in an automobile tire and who then secured the tire and brought it to the female. This gorilla, it may be claimed, demonstrated empathy; he felt the other gorilla’s thirst (Angier, May 9, 1995, New York Times). Similarly, the animal that cringes when another of its species gets hurt seems also to be showing empathy.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines empathy as “identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives.” The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia defines it as the “ability to imagine oneself in another’s place and understand the other’s feeling, desires, ideas, and actions.” Wikipedia gives a number of additional definitions:
• Heinz Kohut: “Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.”
• Roy Schafer: “Empathy involves the inner experience of sharing in and comprehending the momentary psychological state of another.”
• R. R. Greenson: “To empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of another person.”
• Carl Rogers: Empathy means “to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he [or she] senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he [or she] perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth.”
Communication textbooks give similar meanings:
• Verderber and Verderber (Inter-Act): “the cognitive process of identifying with or vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.”
• Adler, Rosenfeld, and Proctor (InterPlay): “the ability to recreate another person’s perspective, to experience the world from his or her point of view.”
• Jones, Remland, and Sanford (Interpersonal Communication through the Life Span): “The ability to feel what someone else is feeling.”
• Wood (Communication in Our Lives): “The ability to feel with another person or to feel what that person feels in a situation.”
One of the important aspects of empathy and which not all definitions make clear is that you never lose your own sense of self; you do not become the other person when you empathize. As Rogers makes clear, empathy occurs “without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth.”
Empathy is often confused with sympathy. If you look up these two terms in a dictionary, it will be hard to distinguish them; in many cases, you’ll see the same definitions given to both terms. Sympathy can be defined as a concern for another person. Usually the term refers to feeling sorry for someone’s disappointment or suffering, though it can certainly refer to positive feelings as well. The term may also refer to agreement as in “the two politicians are in sympathy with the new proposals.” However, there are two differences that are (in some cases) useful to make.
1. Empathy refers to the ability to feel another’s feelings (at least in part) but does not imply that you (as the empathic individual) agree with these feelings. Thus, you may empathize with the feelings of another but may think these feelings are foolish or destructive; that is, you don’t have to evaluate the feelings in the same way the other person does. Sympathy, on the other hand, does imply that you evaluate the feelings of the other in the same way. The expression “to be in sympathy with” refers to this similarity of feeling which is really a part of the definition of sympathy.
2. Empathy refers to the ability to feel what another is feeling while sympathy does not. You can sympathize with someone who is hurt and you might even want to try to reduce the hurt this person is feeling (perhaps because you love the person), but you don’t feel the hurting of the other person (as you would in empathy).
Textbooks in communication are primarily concerned with explaining the skills for achieving empathy. In The Interpersonal Communication Book and Interpersonal Messages I offer a few suggestions:
• Focus your concentration; pay close attention to the other person’s verbal and nonverbal messages.
• Avoid judgment or evaluation; these will get in the way of your understanding.
• Reflect back to the speaker the feelings you think the speaker is expressing to check your accuracy and to clarify the feelings of the speaker.
• Address mixed messages to, again, help the speaker explain what he or she is feelings and to help you get a clearer picture of these feelings.
The other part of empathy is the ability to let the other person know that you are in fact empathizing with him or her, that you do feel (to some degree at least) what he or she is feeling. Simple attentive postures and focused eye contact will tell the other person that you are trying to empathize. Saying, “I can see what you’re feeling” or “you must have been really hurting to do what you did” will further help the person see that you are empathizing and this will likely foster deeper and more meaningful communication about these feelings. Do be careful here, however. Most people who are experiencing deep feelings—take grief at the death of a loved one as an example—will resent others who imply that they know what the grief stricken is going through. To say, “I know exactly how you’re feeling” or “I can feel your pain” may be well-intended but may actually generate negative feelings. After all, you really don’t know what the person is feeling. The best advice here, it seems, is to be honest—say what you’re feeling and not what you think the other person wants to hear.
One communication expert suggests that empathy is best expressed in two distinct parts: thinking empathy and feeling empathy (Bellafiore, 2005). In thinking empathy you express an understanding of what the person means. For example, when you paraphrase someone’s comment, showing that you understand the meaning the person is trying to communicate, you’re communicating thinking empathy. The second part is feeling empathy; here you express your feeling of what the other person is feeling. You demonstrate a similarity between what you’re feeling and what the other person is feeling. Often you’ll respond with both thinking and feeling empathy in the same brief response; for example, when a friend tells you of problems at home, you may respond by saying, for example, Your problems at home do seem to be getting worse. I can imagine how you feel so angry at times.
Although empathy is usually considered as a positive quality of communication, there is some evidence to show that it has a negative side. For example, people are most empathic with those who are similar—racially and ethnically as well as in appearance and social status. The more empathy you feel toward your own group (and to people who are like you), the less empathy—possibly even the more hostility—you may feel toward other groups. The same empathy that increases your understanding of your own group may decrease your understanding of other groups. So while empathy may encourage group cohesiveness and identification, it can also create dividing lines between “us” and “them” (Angier, May 9, 1995, New York Times).

ABCD: General Semantics

Semantics is a branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning dimension of language—the meanings of words and sentences. General Semantics also deals with meaning but in a very different way. In fact, the name “General Semantics” has proved problematic because it’s so easily confused with linguistic “semantics.” General Semantics really goes much beyond the study of meaning and encompasses a way of looking at language and a way of thinking about language and about things.
General Semantics (often abbreviated, capitalized, and referred to simply as GS) is the study among the relationships of language, thought, and behavior. It was developed by Alfred Korzybski and presented in his Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (1933), an extremely difficult book to read. Korzybski used his knowledge of engineering and mathematics to explain this study which made his formulations difficult to understand for those without this background. Yet, a number of prominent people, some from communication and some from the sciences as well as some popular writers, quickly saw the value in this study and, fortunately, wrote simpler explanations of Korzybski’s formulations. These included Stuart Chase’s The Power of Words, Wendell Johnson’s People in Quandaries, S. I. Hayakawa’s Language in Thought and Action, Irving Lee’s Language Habits in Human Affairs, Harry Weinberg’s Levels of Knowing and Existence (with whom I had the privilege of taking courses at Temple University), and J. S. Bois’ The Art of Awareness and Explorations in Awareness. And just about every book by Albert Ellis incorporates the principles of General Semantics. If you pick up any one of these books, you’ll be amazed at the insights and new perspectives they give you. Harry Maynard, one of the great popularizers of General Semantics, once told me that General Semantics gave him an enormous intellectual advantage in his field (advertising and public relations); it taught him to look at things in different ways and to see what others didn’t. I feel the same way; if I have had any intellectual advantage it was due not only to my formal education (which was excellent) but largely to my application of General Semantics thinking to communication.
Unfortunately, there were many critics who vehemently denounced this study of language without understanding the foundations of General Semantics or its values. And, as a result, the study never had the impact in the academy that it should have had. Yet, and this is the surprisingly thing, many of its formulations—which were original to General Semantics—have been incorporated into the study of communication as well as other areas. In fact, even the critics make use of these insights without knowing, perhaps, that they came from General Semantics theory.
The Institute of General Semantics (www.generalsemantics.org) notes that General Semantics can help you integrate your four worlds: (1) the world that is out there, the world as it exists in constant process, the world as science tells us it exists; (2) the world within your skin, your nervous system and senses; (3) the world of “not words,” the world you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch; and (4) the world of words, of symbols, labels, assumptions and the like.
Here are just a few of the principles of General Semantics (for more, see the Institute’s website):
• The world in which you live is constantly changing and yet your language is relatively static. If your language, the way you talk about the world and its people, is to reflect accurately this constantly changing world, then it too must change. When your evaluations remain static even as the world changes, you’re in trouble. And so General Semanticists recommend dating your statements and your evaluations: Iraq2003 is not Iraq2007 and will not be the same as Iraq2010 (the dates are better written as subscripts). And, YOUyesterday, YOUtoday, and YOUtomorrow are different in some ways and you need to take these differences into consideration when you make evaluations, whether of yourself or of others.
• The world that you perceive is not the world that is out there; what you perceive through your senses is only a small part of what is. You never see all, nor can you ever say all about anything. What you perceive (of a thing or a person) is actually an abstraction of what is; your perception is limited to what your senses pick up. Some people are very perceptive and see a great deal; others are less perceptive and see a great deal less. But, all people see only a small portion of what is. When you assume that you know all or have said all, you’re not reflecting the world that science says exists. And so General Semanticists recommend that you add an implicit or even explicit etc. at the ends of your sentences to remind yourself that there is always more to be said, more to be learned, more perspectives and viewpoints to be considered.
In teaching General Semantics, one of the activities I used [btw, I put some of these exercises in a workbook, General Semantics: Guide and Workbook, I did years ago and that is long out of print but may be available in some libraries] was to give each student a small stone and ask them to examine it as closely as they could. After a minute or so, they would put the stone down and say they were finished; they knew all they could about the stone. But, I’d persist and urge them to continue examining the stone. I did this for at least 20 minutes—that’s a long time to examine a small piece of rock. Not surprisingly, by the end of the 20 minutes, they had come to realize that they still didn’t know all that could be learned about the stone. And people are a lot more complex. Yet—and this is the crucial part—we often make judgments about people after the first few seconds and certainly within the first four minutes. One of the many problems that this creates is that this judgment (that is made on the basis of this extremely short time) will function as a filter through which further information about this person will be perceived, given meaning, and modified. And, to make matters just a little bit worse, this judgment will prove extremely resistant to change.
Some 20 years after using that exercise, btw, I ran into a former student who became an artist and within the first two minutes of our discussion he mentioned the exercise with the stone and how it taught him a unique perspective for viewing art in general and his own art work in particular.
• Because you perceive the world through your own psychological and physiological makeup, each person sees the world differently. To assume that all people see things similarly or as you do, is simply absurd and is contradicted by everyday experience. This principle is especially important in relationship communication where, often at least, couples just don’t understand why and often resent it when the other person sees things differently. But, such differences are inevitable and the task in relationship communication is to appreciate, understand, and empathize with the (always different and always changing) perceptions of your partner or friend or family member. Without recognizing this, communication becomes virtually impossible.
• The words you use to describe the world are not the world; the map is not the territory, the word is not the thing. As Weinberg put it, “Whatever you say it is, it isn’t.” The word (what you say) is different from the thing (what science says is “out there”). At the extreme, you see this confusion of words and things in the allergic person who sneezes at the sight of paper flowers. More commonly it can be seen when people assume that what they call themselves or what others call them (slow, nerdy, passionate, disorganized) is what they are. What you are called and what you are, are two entirely different things. This doesn’t mean that the way in which something is talked about doesn’t influence perceptions; it certainly does. But, it does so through the person—as I. A. Richards’ triangle of meaning [kind of] illustrates. You are the one who gives meaning and credence to the words you use to describe yourself or to the words that others use to describe you.
• Everything is unique; there are no two things that are exactly alike—even snowflakes are different from each other. When things are covered by the same label, however, many assume that they are therefore similar or even identical. But, they aren’t. Each Iraqi, American, Baptist, Catholic, Muslim, Canadian—and we could continue indefinitely—is unique. The fact that you have general labels that can be used to refer to the group does not mean that the members of that group are the same. As you know from members of your own groups—whatever they may be—no one is identical to you. You know you’re unique but sometimes (perhaps) may forget that every other person is also unique and different from any others—even those covered by the same label. And so, General Semanticists make use of the index (which, like the date, is best written as a subscript): politician1 is not politician2, professor1is not professor2, and on and on. This tendency to ignore differences among those covered by the same label is at the heart of the process of stereotyping (an earlier ABCD word, posted 10/4/07). If you recognize the uniqueness of each person or each idea, it would be impossible to stereotype. As General Semanticists are fond of saying, “the more you discriminate among, the less you discriminate against.”
This emphasis on uniqueness does not deny that many people share many qualities and it is these qualities that we try to capture when we talk about gender and cultural differences. So, while every man is different from every other man, men seem to have certain qualities in common. Similarly, every women is different from every other woman but women also seem to have certain qualities in common. As a result, we can talk about male-female differences (and, of course, similarities). And we use this same assumption when we talk about such cultural differences as individualism and collectivism, high and low power distance cultures, and high and low tolerance for ambiguity. Members of certain cultures have gross similarities which we can capture with such terms as individualism and collectivism but within the group of individualists, for example, there are variations and differences. And the same is true for all cultural labeling. So, we need to keep in mind both similarities and differences—especially when talking about gender and culture. Overemphasizing one and ignoring the other is likely to lead to a variety of misevaluations and errors of judgment.
• Language makes it easy for you to talk in extremes: black and white, good and evil, moral and immoral. As a result, it’s easy to forget that the vast majority of people, things, and ideas are between these extremes. This tendency to polarize, as you can imagine, can create problems, pitting us against them, the good against the bad.
One of the exercises I use--and it’s in most of my books—is to ask students to identify the opposites of such words as good, birth, up, healthy, sane, and rich. Of course, bad, death, down, ill (or unhealthy), insane, and poor come quickly to mind. And there is great similarity in the students’ responses. Now, however, try to identify the middle area—the area between good and bad, birth and death, healthy and unhealthy, sane and insane, and rich and poor. This takes a lot more thought; it will actually take you a longer time to identify the middle terms than it took you to identify the opposites. And, if you do this with other people, you’ll likely see that there are more differences in the responses of middle terms than in the responses of opposites. This is just a simple demonstration to increase awareness that it’s easier to think and talk in terms of opposites than to think and talk about the middle. And yet, the vast majority of people are not at the extremes; they’re between the extremes. The implication is simple; we need to be careful when using opposites and we need to develop the ability to talk about the middle.
There’s actually a lot more to be said about General Semantics and I hope to do that in subsequent posts. For now, if you want to learn more about General Semantics pick up one of the books mentioned here, search the Internet, or (and I think this is the best first step) visit the Institute of General Semantics website (www.generalsemantics.org).

ABCD: Metacommunication

The prefix meta- can mean a variety of things but as used in communication, philosophy, and psychology it’s meaning is best translated as about. Thus, metacommunication is communication about communication, metalanguage is language about language, and metamessage is a message about a message.
Look at it this way. You can communicate about the world—about the desk you’re sitting at, the computer you’re using, or the passage you’re reading right now. We refer to this as object communication; you’re talking about objects. And the language you’re using is called an object language. But notice that you’re not limited to talking about objects; you can also talk about your talk; you can communicate about your communication. And this is referred to as metacommunication. In the same way, you can use language (i.e., metalanguage) to talk about language (i.e., object language). And you can talk about your messages with metamessages.
The distinction between object communication and metacommunication is not merely academic; it’s extremely practical and recognizing the difference between these two forms of communication is essential in untangling lots of conflicts and understanding a wide variety of interpersonal communication interactions.
Actually, you use this distinction every day, perhaps without realizing it. For example, when you send someone an e-mail with a seemingly sarcastic comment and then put a smiley at the end, the smiley communicates about your communication; it says something like “this message is not to be taken literally; I’m trying to be humorous.” The smiley is a metamessage; it’s a message about a message. When you say, in preface to some comment, “I’m not sure about this but. . .” you’re communicating a message about a message; you’re commenting on the message and asking that it be understood with the qualification that you may be wrong. When you conclude a comment with “I’m only kidding” you’re metacommunicating; you’re communicating about the communication.
In relationship communication you often talk in metalanguage and say things like, “we really need to talk about the way we communicate when we’re out with company” or “you’re too critical” or “I love when you tell me how much you love me.” In fact, it might be argued that relationship or couples therapy is largely (though not entirely) a process of exploring your communication patterns through metacommunication, through talking about the way you talk to and about each other.
And, of course, you can use nonverbal messages to metacommunicate. You can wink at someone to indicate that you’re only kidding, look longingly into another eyes when you say “I love you” to show that you really mean it, or sneer after saying “Yeah, that was great,” with the sneer contradicting the literal meaning of the verbal message.
In a similar way, meta- can prefix a large number of terms to distinguish them from their object counterparts. Thus, you can have, say, a theory about the way communication works or about first encounters or about persuasion but you can also have a metatheory, a theory about theories. For example, when you consider the qualities that a theory must have (say, it must have clearly defined terms and be capable of being disproven), these are metatheoretical statements; they are statements about theories and not about the way communication works or about first encounters or about persuasion; they are about theories as theories.
Like all your communication, your metacommunication may be used both effectively and ineffectively. Generally, it’s helpful to analyze your talking patterns and the ways in which you and your partner or management and workers, say, relate to each other. This is good; this is the effective use of metacommunication and can often lead to significant improvements in your own relationships. But, when you substitute talking about your communication for talking about a problem, you’re likely to create more problems than you had originally. For example, let’s say you’re part of a couple discussing your child’s getting into trouble with the police. As long as the conversation is focused on the child and the trouble with the police, it seems you’re addressing the problem at hand. But, there is also a tendency to substitute talk about the talk for talk about the problem. Let’s say one person says “You’re just an uncaring parent.” Then the other person focuses on being called “uncaring” and the conversation now veers off into whether “uncaring” is justified and may entail a list of all the actions that demonstrated a great deal of caring. The conversation (and soon-to-be argument) is now between the parents and their view of each other. When this type of talk becomes the sole or main topic of conversation, you’re into what is called a metacommunication spiral, with your talk focusing more and more on the ways you talk and less and less on the problem of the child.
So, the lessons to be learned from metacommunication are two fold: (1) use metacommunication to improve your interpersonal and relationship communication—to preface important messages or to analyze and ultimately improve relationship communication, for example, and (2) avoid metacommunication when it substitutes for addressing an immediate problem.

ABCD: Phatic Communion

Phatic communion (often relabeled phatic communication or phatic speech) refers to a form of relationship communication (as opposed to content communication) which opens the channels of communication. Its purpose is to communicate openness for communication, rather than, about content, say finances, the last movie you saw, or anything external to the relationship between you and the other person. It’s a kind of preface to the main business to be discussed. It’s the small talk that precedes the big talk.
In terms of content, phatic communion is trivial—How are you? What’s new? Where you been?—but in terms of relationships, it’s extremely important; it assures us that the normal social rules for communicating are operating here and that the two individuals want to communicate with each other. It says, the channels of communication are open, let’s talk.
Most often we think of phatic communion as verbal but it may also be communicated with nonverbal gestures (a warm handshake or a wave), facial expressions (a smile or a worrisome expression), and tone of voice.
One of the many skills of interpersonal communication is to recognize the importance of phatic communion, use it appropriately, and recognize the break point between phatic communion and the next stage in the conversation process. Without phatic communion, people would just begin with the “big” talk without even saying “hello” or “good seeing you again” which would clearly communicate that something is wrong, that, for some reason, the normal rules of conversation are not being followed.
People who answer the common phatic message, “How are you?” with an extended explanation of their recent illness rather than a simple “hello” are failing to see that “How are you?” is—usually at least—a phatic message that means hello and not an invitation to talk about your health. On the other hand, if you were in the hospital and a visitor said “How are you?” this message would probably not be phatic but would more likely be a request for information about your health.
Equally important is to recognize when these preliminaries, these phatic messages, have served their purpose and that it’s now time to move on to the business a hand. You see violations of this at company meetings where members continue to exchange phatic messages even though the preliminaries are over and that the meeting proper should begin.
Harry Weinberg, in his Levels of Knowing and Existence: Studies in General Semantics (Harper & Brothers, 1959) gives a good example to illustrate the importance of recognizing when communication is phatic:

If you are fixing a flat tire on a hot day and a passerby asks, “Got a flat?” he [or she] is asking you to be friendly. If you take his [or her] words literally, you are likely to become angry and say, “Any damn fool can see I have.”

Unlike most contemporary Americans who expect phatic communion to preface more extended and purposeful communication, the “plain speech” of early Quakers eliminated much phatic talk such as greetings or expressions of politeness; their aim was to use speech only when it served a specific useful function. For more on this take a look at Richard Bauman’s “Let your words be few: Symbolism of speaking and silence among seventeenth-century Quakers,” in L. Monaghan & J. E. Goodman, eds., A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication: Essential Readings (Blackwell, 2007), pp. 63-76. Of course, your communication instructor (and I) would argue that such phatic messages do communicate a useful function and that is to open the channels of communication, to say that normal communication rules operate here, and that I want to communicate.
The term phatic communion was originally coined by cultural anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in his article, “The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages,” which was published as an appendix to the highly influential Meaning of Meaning by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (in which Richards explained his famous “triangle of meaning”) and published in 1923 (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich). The term “communion” was used to convey the meaning of sharing, participating together, and commonality but because the term is also used in a religious context, writers probably felt more comfortable saying “phatic communication” or “phatic speech” and thus avoid the ambiguity that the term “communion” might create. All terms (phatic communion, phatic communication, phatic speech) convey similar meaning; all refer to the same type of communication.

ABCD: Jargon, Argot, Slang, and Taboo

As you no doubt have already discovered, there is not one but a variety of languages. Here I’d like to distinguish just four of these; others need to follow.

Jargon
Jargon has two meanings. First and in popular usage, jargon refers to language that is overly complex or difficult for people to understand. As such it has a negative connotation; it’s language that should be avoided if your aim is clear and meaningful communication. If, on the other hand, your aim is to confuse or to intimidate jargon often serves well.
A second meaning of jargon, however, is the technical language of a profession which often is difficult or impossible for outsiders to understand. Psychologists, mathematicians, engineers, financial experts, and, of course, communication theorists and researchers have their own professional language (i.e., jargon).
So, while jargon enables members of the same profession to communicate more easily and more precisely with each other (as noted in the introduction to these ABCDs), jargon also prevents meaningful communication between those who are and those who are not members of the profession. The language of the real estate deed or the insurance policy is jargon-filled. The aim, quite often, is to put the non-professional at a disadvantage for not knowing the technical language. And unfortunately many people are reluctant to seek clarification—no one wants to appear ignorant—which, all too often, just results in jargon being added to the original jargon. It’s often helpful to remember that it’s the jargon-user’s obligation to make things clear to the non-professional and that you have the right to have the deed or policy explained in language that you can understand.
When used to increase accuracy among professionals, jargon serves a useful communication purpose; when used to confuse or confound the non-professional it is an unethical use of language and communication.

Argot
Argot (which comes from the French meaning slang) is very much like jargon except that instead of being the language of a professional class, it is (usually at least) the language of a criminal class. The specialized language of thieves, confidence hucksters, and prisoners would be considered argot. Like jargon, argot is understood only by members of the group. When terms become more widely known, the terms pass from true argot into slang. Cant is another word for argot; the word cant seems to be used more in England and argot more in the United States.

Slang
Slang is nonstandard language; it is overly casual language that would not be considered quite proper in “polite society”. “Buck” for dollar, “copper” or police officer, or “screw” for sexual intercourse are common examples. Slang is language that is widely known—people don’t have trouble understanding slang terms as they do jargon or argot—but only used in those informal situations where it doesn’t mark you as being ignorant or ill-mannered or impolite. When used in say public speaking situations, the result is often a startled reaction; the slang word or phrase will seem inappropriate and will in some way lower the level of the speech.

Taboo
Taboo denotes something forbidden and may refer to just about anything that a social group might disapprove of—wearing certain colors to a wedding or funeral, eating certain foods, engaging in certain behaviors such as incest, or engaging in normally private activities in public. Applied to language, taboo refers to words (or nonverbal behaviors) or topics that would be considered coarse or inappropriate in social discourse. Profanity—that is, words your society would consider profane—is a good example of language taboo as are obscene gestures. Similarly, topics dealing with sexual fantasies, certain bodily functions, or various diseases or death would be considered taboo in many situations.
What is or isn’t taboo depends on the specific social group communicating. A term used regularly and without any special notice on the ball field may be regarded as taboo if said in a college classroom or when talking with people in authority. Similarly, what is considered a taboo topic will vary with the situation. Discussing your sexual fantasies in your course in Human Sexuality or with a therapist might be considered perfectly acceptable. Discussing these same fantasies with, say, pre-teens or with your grandparents would likely be considered socially inappropriate (that is, taboo).
As you can imagine, violating taboos can be very easy in intercultural situations since you really don’t know what is considered taboo in a culture with which you’re not familiar. For example, if you were an American at dinner at a Mexican house, you’d probably realize that the topic of illegal aliens is not your best conversation topic. But, not many people would realize that using a finger to call someone, giving an unwrapped gift or giving any gift on a first meeting or giving a clock as a gift, or not sending flowers or candy to a host would be taboo somewhere in the world. If you want to explore this topic in more detail take a look at Roger E. Axtell’s books, especially Do’s and Taboos Around the World (Wiley, 1993) and Gestures: The Do’s and Taboos of Body Language Around the World (Wiley, 1997). Although a bit dated, the material is still valid and, most important, will demonstrate the wide variety of and variations in taboos around the world.
Generally, as the formality of a situation increases, what is considered taboo also increases; the greater the formality, the more that is taboo. For example, terms that you use regularly in conversation with friends might well be considered taboo is used in a public speaking or job interview situation.

ABCD: Impression Management and Impression Formation

Most textbooks in communication (especially those in interpersonal communication) discuss impression management and impression formation, ways in which you communicate the impression you want to communicate and the ways in which you evaluate others. But, the concepts are equally applicable to the small group context, to interviewing, to organizational communication, to computer-mediated communication, and to public speaking. These are crucial concepts for understanding the role of the self and perception in all forms of communication.

Impression Management

Impression management (some writers use the term “self-presentation” or “identity management”) refers to the processes you go through to communicate the impression you want the other person to have of you. The strategies you use to achieve this desired impression will depend on your specific goal. Here are six of the major goals people have in seeking to communicate a specific impression and the strategies they’re likely to use. As you read these, consider your own attempts to communicate the “right” impression to others and the strategies you use to achieve this unique kind of communication.

To Be Liked
If you want to be liked—say you’re new at school or on the job and you want to be well liked, included in the activities of other students or work associates, and be thought of highly by these other people—you’d likely use what are now called affinity-seeking strategies; for example, you might display altruism and be of help to others, or show respect for the other person and help the person feel positive about himself or herself, or you might present yourself as socially equal to the other person.

To Be Believed
Let’s say you’re a politician and you want people to vote for you or to support a particular proposal you’re advancing. In this case you’d probably use credibility strategies, a concept that goes back some 2300 years and supported by contemporary research, and seek to establish your competence, your character, and your charisma. For example, to establish your competence, you might mention your great educational background or the courses you took that qualify you as an expert. To establish that you’re of good character, you might mention how fair and honest you are, your concern for enduring values, or your concern for others. And to establish your charisma—your take-charge, positive personality—you might demonstrate enthusiasm, be emphatic, or focus on the positive while minimizing the negative.

To Excuse Failure
If you were about to tackle a difficult task and were concerned that you might fail, you might use what are called self-handicapping strategies. In the more extreme form of this strategy, you actually set up barriers or obstacles to make the task impossible and so when you fail, you won’t be blamed or thought ineffective—after all, the task was impossible given the circumstances. Let’s say you aren’t prepared for your interpersonal communication exam and you feel you’re going to fail. Well, with this self-handicapping strategy, you might go out and party the night before so that when you do poorly in the exam, you can blame it on the all-night party rather than on your intelligence or knowledge. In the less extreme form, you manufacture excuses for failure and have them ready if you do fail. “The exam was unfair” is one such popular excuse but you might blame a long period without a date on your being too intelligent or too shy or too poor.

To Secure Help
If you want to be taken care of and protected or simply want someone to come to your aid, you might use self-deprecating strategies. Confessions of incompetence and inability often bring assistance from others. And so you might say, “I just can’t fix that drain and it drives me crazy; I just don’t know anything about plumbing” with the hope that the other person will offer help.

To Hide Faults
Much impression management is devoted not merely to presenting a positive image, but to suppressing the negative, to self-monitoring strategies. Here you carefully monitor (self-censor) what you say or do. You avoid your normal slang so as to make your colleagues think more highly of you; you avoid chewing gum so you don’t look juvenile or unprofessional. While you readily disclose favorable parts of your experience, you actively and strategically hide the unfavorable parts.

To Be Followed
In many instances you’ll want to get people to see you as a leader, as one to be followed in thought and perhaps in behavior. Here you can use a variety of influencing strategies. One set of such strategies are those normally grouped under power. And so, for example, you’d stress your knowledge (information power), your expertise (expert power), your right to lead by virtue of your position as, say, a doctor or judge or accountant (legitimate power). Another set of strategies are those of leadership where you might stress your prior experience, your broad knowledge, or your previous successes.

Impression Formation

Impression formation (sometimes referred to as person perception), on the other hand, refers to the processes you go through in forming an impression of another person. Here you would make use of a variety of perception processes, each of which has pitfalls and potential dangers. Here are a few:

Implicit Personality Theory
You might have a subconscious or implicit theory that tells you that certain qualities go with certain other qualities. And so if someone is energetic and eager, you may also infer that this person is intelligent because in this theory, energy, eagerness, and intelligence seem to go together. And so, in forming an impression of someone you might fill in qualities that you don’t observe but nevertheless have confidence that they exist in this person. If you believe a person has a variety of positive qualities, you’re likely to conclude that this person also has other positive qualities that even though you haven’t observed them, you’re pretty sure are present. This is often referred to as the “halo effect.” Similarly, if you believe a person has various negative qualities, you’re likely to conclude that this person also has other negative qualities, a situation referred to as the “reverse halo effect” or the “horns effect.”

Perceptual Accentuation
You may see what you expect or want to see. You see people you like as better looking and smarter than those you don’t like. You magnify or accentuate what will satisfy your needs and desires. This process, called perceptual accentuation, 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, even though it is clearly present. For example, you may not perceive signs of impending problems because you’re focusing on what you want to perceive. You may not see signs of relationship deterioration or of your partner’s dissatisfaction because you’re so in love and you want to think that everything is fine.

Primacy–Recency
In some instances you may be overly influenced by what comes first (called a primacy effect) or what comes last (called a recency effect). Research seems to agree that often your initial perceptions will influence your later perceptions. So, if on first meeting you don’t like someone, you’re more likely to find fault with this person or see negative qualities in this person on subsequent meetings. If your first impression is that this person is stupid, you may not see the clever insights that this person has. Not only are initial perceptions influential, they are also very resistant to change. This tendency to give greater importance to initial perceptions and to interpret later information in light of these first impressions can easily lead you to formulate a total picture of an individual on the basis of initial impressions that may not be typical or accurate. For example, if you judge a teacher as hesitant and ill-informed on the first day of class, you may be ignoring the influence of the context (for example, that’s it’s the teacher’s first job and she or he is really nervous). The teacher may be great on subsequent days but your perception may still be influenced by your initial impression. In some instances, of course, you might be more influenced by primacy, by the most recent things, as when you evaluate a singer or movie star by their last performance rather than by earlier efforts.

Stereotyping
Often we maintain stereotypes of different ethnic groups or nationalities or affectional orientations. And, in many instances, we may see people through these stereotypes, these generalized pictures that we hold for a group and then apply them to a specific individual. Most often stereotypes are negative and are intended to distance ourselves from those who are unlike us in any of a variety of ways.
You can appreciate the impact that stereotyping has when you realize that it is often coupled with primacy. The process would go like this: (1) you have a stereotype (All Martians are stupid), (2) you apply the stereotype to a person you’re just meeting because you notice the person is of a particular ethnic origin (Martin is a Martian and therefore must be stupid like all other Martians), (3) your initial perception acts as a filter through which your subsequent interactions are seen (That last remark showed no insight; it was pretty stupid), and (4) you continue to see the person through the stereotype (Yep, Martin is just like all the others).

Consistency
We all have a tendency to maintain balance among our perceptions or attitudes; we want consistency. You expect certain things to go together and other things not to go together. For example, you expect a person you like to like you in return. And, you probably also expect your friend to dislike your enemy and your enemy to dislike your friend. As you can see, this tendency to strive for consistency may lead you astray and to fail to see that your friend actually likes your enemy.

Attribution
You also try to analyze the reasons or motivations for someone’s actions (or your own actions, for that matter). For example, if someone stands you up for a date, you probably want to figure out the reasons for this. Let’s say the person met some friends and preferred staying with them. If this is the case then you’d likely consider the person responsible for standing you up and you’d likely be disturbed by the behavior. But, let’s say the person was in a car accident on the way to meet you. In this case, you’d not consider the person responsible and you’d likely not be disturbed by being stood up. Generally, if you see the person as being in control of positive behavior, your perception is likely to be favorable. If you see the person as being in control of negative behavior, your perception is likely to be unfavorable. Of course, the down side to this analysis and the reason why so many attributions are incorrect is that you seldom can be certain of whether or not someone was or was not in control of his or her behavior. And when it comes to our own self-perceptions, you may come to excuse your failures by claiming that you weren’t responsible (if you do poorly at an interview you may blame it on the interviewer, for example). One of the dangers of this is that if you do make such excuses, you may not come to grips with the problem and its potential solution; after all, if it’s the interviewer’s fault why bother improving your own interviewing techniques.

Both impression management and impression formation are largely the result of the messages communicated; you manage the impression you give to other people by what you say (your verbal messages) and how you act and dress as well as how you decorate your office or apartment (your nonverbal messages). And you form impressions of others largely on the basis of how they communication, verbally and nonverbally.
Communication messages, however, are not the only means for impression management and impression formation. For example, you also communicate your self image and judge others by the people you and they associate with; if you associate with A-list people, then surely you must be A-list yourself. Similarly, you might form an impression of someone on the basis of that person’s age or gender. Or you might rely on what others have said about the person and form impressions that are consistent with these comments. And of course, they might well do the same in forming impressions of you.
Part of the art and skill of communication is to understand and be able to manage the processes by which others form impressions of you—to master the art of impression management, to present yourself as you want others to see you. Equally important is the ability to understand and be able to recognize how you form impressions of others. Are your impressions logical? Are they based on prejudices? Are they in need of updating? Are they the result of jealousy or compassion?

ABCD: Communication Apprehension and Related Terms

Communication apprehension is a fear of speaking (see, for example, Richmond & McCroskey, Communication: Apprehension, avoidance, and effectiveness, 5th ed. (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1998). Communication apprehension comes in two different forms: (1) trait apprehension influences all communication situations (you’ll fear and try to avoid all forms of communication interaction) and (2) state apprehension influences only certain situations. So, if you have state apprehension you may fear public speaking but have no fear or very little when speaking in groups or interpersonally. Or, you may fear speaking with new people. According to one survey between 10 and 20 percent of college students suffer “severe, debilitating communication apprehension” and another 20 percent suffer from apprehension to the degree that it interferes with their normal functioning (McCroskey & Wheeless, 1976).
Shyness refers to a general reluctance to interact with others. The term generally refers to a disposition, a general personality trait that influences all interactions. Yet, shy people are often more shy in some situations than in others. For example, people may be more shy in interacting with those in superior positions and much less shy when interacting with peers or family members. According to the Encyclopedia of Mental Health, in an article by Lynne Henderson and Philip Zimbardo, shyness may be defined as “discomfort and/or inhibition in interpersonal situations that interferes with pursuing one’s interpersonal or professional goals.” Notice that Henderson and Zimbardo define shyness as dysfunctional—it interferes with your pursuing your own interpersonal or professional goals. Among the behavioral symptoms of shyness are: gaze aversion, dry mouth, low speaking voice, little body movement, dysfluencies in speech, sweating, and even dizziness. Affectively, shy people are more likely to feel shame, have low self-esteem, and feel lonely, depressed, and anxious.
Social phobia (more often referred to as social anxiety) is defined in the DSM-IV-TR as “an anxiety disorder characterized by a strong and persistent fear of social or performance situations in which the patient might feel embarrassment or humiliation.” As with communication apprehension, social phobia can be general—in which case you fear all or most social interactions and performances—or situational in which case only certain social situations (such as perhaps public speaking) generate fear. Notice especially that social phobia is described as a “disorder.” One researcher distinguishes it from shyness this way: “Shyness is a common human trait. Social anxiety is an emotional and behavioral illness causing immense suffering and severe impairment of functioning (Fishman, New York Times, 9/27/07, p. A32).
Reticence, developed by Gerald Philips (see Help for Shy People, Spectrum, 1981) refers to the reluctance to engage in communication and to avoid social and public interactions. Reticence is viewed as a problem of inadequate communication skills and the “treatment” is, logically enough, the acquisition of communication skills.
Unwillingness to communicate is a type of communication apprehension and refers to a person’s reluctance to communicate with others. See, for example, Judee K. Burgoon, “The Unwillingness to Communicate Scale: Development and Validation,” Communication Monographs 43 (1976):60-69.
As you can see, all of these terms refer to essentially the same phenomena—a fear of communication, a reluctance to interact with others. This fear can be mild—in which case it may even motivate you to do an especially thorough job in preparing your speech, for example—or severe (as in social anxiety)—in which case it may severely hinder your achieving your goals—to meet people, to have friends, to interview for a job, to attend company meetings, to give public presentations. Some of the definitions—mainly the ones from psychologists—view this behavior (social phobia, shyness) as dysfunctional, as a disorder. The other definitions—mainly those from communication theorists—view this behavior (communication apprehension, reticence, and unwillingness to communicate), as potentially dysfunctional but not necessarily so. These latter definitions view the behavior as one that can be changed largely through the acquisition of skills and appropriate experience.
Because of the importance of such effects most textbooks, especially in public speaking, discuss ways to reduce such communication apprehension. For example, I include the suggestion that you try to reverse the several factors known to cause apprehension. It’s helpful, for example, to gain experience with different kinds of speaking situations so that you can reduce the apprehension that newness and inexperience often bring. Additional suggestions include practicing performance visualization, systematically desensitizing yourself, and learning to think differently about yourself and your communication abilities (a kind of cognitive restructuring).
Two of the leading researchers in this general area maintain extremely useful websites; each deserves a visit. James McCroskey’s website may be found at www.jamescmccroskey.com and contains a wide variety of measuring instruments on fear of speaking along with papers and articles on the topic. Philip Zimbardo’s website may be found at www.zimbardo.com and contains a section on the shyness clinic in addition to papers and articles on a variety of topics.

ABCD: Stereotype

The term stereotype comes into the behavioral sciences such as psychology, communication, and sociology from the world of printing. A stereotype in printing was the mold or plate that was used to print the same image or piece of text over and over again. In his Public Opinion (1921) journalist Walter Lippmann used the term to refer to the “pictures in our heads.” These pictures or ingrained images in our head lead us to interpret what we see or hear in terms of these images. And so instead of seeing a particular migrant worker as an individual, you perceive this person filtered through the image you have in your head of “migrant workers.” Stereotypes are thinking-shortcuts; instead of concerning yourself with the specific individual, it’s a lot easier to simply apply the stereotype (the fixed image).
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy defines stereotype as “a generalization, usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “a conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image. The Media Awareness Network (www.media-awareness.ca) defines stereotype as “A fixed, commonly held notion or image of a person or group, based on an oversimplification of some observed or imagined trait of behavior or appearance.”
Although we often think of stereotypes as racial (and many are), stereotypes may actually refer to any group covered by the same label. If you can name the group to which an individual belongs, it’s possible to entertain a stereotype about that group and hence that individual.
Here’s a quick way to begin examining your own stereotypes. Consider the images that come to mind when you hear such group names as the elderly, lesbians, Republicans, grandparents, college students, or athletes. If the images that come to mind are vivid and clear cut, it’s likely that you have strong stereotypes. If no images or a varied group of very different images come to mind, then it’s likely that you don’t have strong stereotypes. Recognize too that stereotypes are, especially within the college environment, negatively perceived and so people are likely to minimize their own stereotypes at least when talking with others. Yet, stereotypes exert considerable influence on most people, even those who deny they have stereotypes.
Stereotypes—as the definitions cited make clear—are usually offensive; they have negative connotations. The elderly as absent minded, the athlete as dumb, or the mother-in-law as trouble maker—and you can easily fill in many others that are a lot more offensive—are examples that come readily to mind and that are negative. But, there are many stereotypes that are positive; the grandparent as all-loving and all-caring, the Asian student as dedicated and bright, and the African American as strong and athletic are good examples.
Three main problems that can result from stereotyping should be mentioned here.
First, stereotypes influence what you think about specific people who are members of a group. Because stereotypes are overly general, they frequently distort your perceptions of others, especially your initial perceptions. If you see a person through a stereotype, you’ll apply characteristics that go with the stereotype (illegal, loyal to family, dirty, hard working, and so on) but these characteristics may not apply to this particular individual. In this way you fail to perceive the individual accurately.
Second, you may fail to see the uniqueness in an individual if you only see him or her through your stereotype. And after all, meeting and interacting with other people are enjoyable largely because of the individual’s uniqueness. If you fail to see this, you’ll fail to enjoy and perhaps profit from this individual’s uniqueness.
Third, stereotypes—because they assume all members covered by the same label have the same characteristics—can often form the basis of (and often a misguided justification for) discrimination. If you can say that all members of X group are Y (and if Y is something negative), then discrimination in hiring, promoting, respecting, or learning from can easily follow. If all Martians are stupid or lazy or uneducated, then there’s little sense in hiring or promoting them and you certainly wouldn’t respect them or feel you could learn anything from them. General Semanticists, in their emphasis on recognizing uniqueness in everything and everyone, put it this way: “The more you discriminate among, the less you can discriminate against.” The more you distinguish among Martians, for example, the less you can discriminate against the group. The reason is simple: If you distinguish among members of a group, any stereotype will surely break down and be shown to be inadequately descriptive because you will see the enormous diversity within any group of people.
Stereotypes are relevant to all forms of communication but perhaps especially to intercultural communication. When you communicate with people who are different from you in terms of religion, nationality, ethnic background, affectional orientation, age, or gender, for example, you run the risk of interpreting them and their messages in terms of stereotypes.
With increased exposure to a wide variety of the members of any one group, your stereotypes are likely to breakdown. The reason for this is that through such exposure you’ll see the variations between and among individuals rather than the sameness that defined your stereotype. Once you see that gay men, for example, are as varied in their attitudes and values as are heterosexual men, you’ll have trouble retaining generalizations or stereotypes; you’ll see that there are just too many differences among gay men for any stereotype (despite Will and Grace) to seem reasonable.
Perhaps the best kind of exposure is through actual communication interaction. Reading about different groups or watching movies portraying group members will also help. And that, to my way of thinking, is one of the great advantages of a college education. It ensures that you’ll get this kind of exposure—to a wide variety of types of people (teachers and students) and to a wide variety of ideas about people, through lectures and readings.

ABCD: Noise

My apologies if you arrived here seeking an audio summary of the chapters in The Interpersonal Communication Book, 13^th edition. The QR code used by the publisher was incorrect and will, I’m told, be corrected in the next printing. In the meantime, you can go to www.mycommunicationlab.com to hear the summaries. Again, I apologize for this error.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the English word noise comes from the French nois which came from the Latin nausea, meaning “a feeling of sickness.” It seems that the word’s meaning generalized from a feeling of sickness (originally it referred to sea sickness particularly) to a general feeling of discomfort and then narrowed to the discomfort or disturbance brought about by excessive or unwanted sound.
In popular usage noise can refer to a wide variety of sounds, almost all of them unpleasant. You might, for example, describe annoying music, not as music but as noise. Sometimes noise is used to refer to messages that are unimportant or that can be disregarded as in “Don’t mind him; he’s just making noise.” And sometimes, it’s used to refer to a means of attracting attention as in “If you want their attention, you better make some noise.” It can also be used to allude to tentative intentions, as in “She’s making noises about finding another position.” At times, the word can even have a positive connotation as in “He was comforted by the noise from the rustle of the leaves.”
In communication, noise is generally defined as the interference that distorts the message a speaker sends to a listener. It’s a measure of the difference between the signal the speaker sends and the signal that the listener receives.
Generally when we think of noise we think of audible interference, for example, the roar of traffic, the neighbors’ blasting television, or the dog barking. We can consider these examples as noise because they can all interfere with the ability of a listener to hear what the speaker is saying. However, let’s say your dog was lost and you heard it barking. In this case, the barking would no longer be noise; it would not be the sounds that interfere with your receiving a message—it would be the very message you want to hear so you’d be able to locate your lost dog.
Because sounds can be both noise and not noise, it’s useful to distinguish between signal and noise. Signal refers to the messages you want to hear; noise refers to the messages you don’t want to hear, the messages that interfere with the messages you want to hear (i.e., the signals). For example, when you search the web for information, your search engine is likely to pull up a variety of websites that you’re not interested in along with those in which you are interested. The websites you’re not interested in may be considered noise; the websites you want may be viewed as signal.
From this distinction between signal and noise comes the signal-to-noise ratio, a measure of the amount of noise relative to the amount of signal. A web search that produces lots of desirable material (i.e., lots of signal) and little undesirable material (i.e., little noise) would be high in S/N ratio. A web search that produces more noise than signal would be low in S/N ratio. Looked at in this way, effective communication would be high in signal and low in noise; ineffective communication would be low in signal and high in noise.
Most often we think of noise as auditory; it refers to the airborne sounds that interfere with the airborne signal you want to hear. But the term—especially in communication—also refers to interference in writing. Misspellings, creases in the paper, pop-ups on your computer screen, spam, and just about any visual interference with the messages you want to receive would also be considered noise. Imperfections in digital images (red specks where there should be yellow, say) may also be considered noise.
In the Interpersonal Communication Book and Interpersonal Messages, I identify four kinds of noise. These four are probably not the only kinds of noise that could be identified and other classifications are certainly possible. But, for a broad understanding of this important concept, these four seem to work well.
1. Physical noise is the interference that occurs in the environment—the hum of a light fixture, passers-by talking on the phone, or birds chirping.
2. Physiological noise refers to barriers existing within the people communicating; for example, a hearing loss, impaired vision, or a cleft palate may all distort the auditory and/or visual signals.
3. Psychological noise refers to cognitive or mental interference such as a deep-seated prejudice that prevents the signals from being received as clearly as they might be. For example, the deeply prejudiced person might be rehearsing counter arguments and not fully hear or read the messages being sent.
4. Semantic noise occurs when the communicators don’t share the same meaning for the words used. Overly complex terms or dialectical variations in meaning can easily produce semantic noise.
One important additional point needs to be made here and that is that noise can never be eliminated entirely. There will always be some degree of noise in any and all forms of communication. You can’t eliminate it. But you can strive to reduce it. You can reduce physical noise by structuring the environment, closing the windows to block out noisy traffic or shutting off the television to reduce the competing messages. You can compensate for physiological noise by repeating your message, speaking at a higher volume, or avoiding covering your mouth when you talk so your lips can be read. You can reduce psychological noise by becoming aware of and combating your own biases and prejudices. And you can reduce semantic noise by asking questions when meanings are not clear or defining terms that you think your listener won’t understand. As you’ll see these suggestions are covered throughout your texts.
You can also view advances in communication technology as ways to lessen noise. Today’s search engines, for example, are much more efficient than were those popular 10 or 15 years ago; that is, they contain more signal and less noise. Fiber optic cables, to take another example, contain less noise than metal cables and therefore make communication easier and more pleasant. Technological advances in digital imaging enable artists to remove noise from graphic images. On the other hand, other technological advances have enabled advertisers to add noise to our systems in terms of pop-ups, spam, and animated advertisements on many web pages. In the same way, television shows regularly run ribbons at the bottom of the screen to provide a variety of messages and frequently use pop-ups to announce new shows. If you're interested in the current show, these pop-ups are noise; if you're interested in what's on next, then the pop-ups are signal.

ABCD: Feedback

As an engineering term, feedback refers to that part of the output of a system that is returned to the source. Applied to human speech, feedback would refer to that part of your own utterances that are returned to you; these are the sounds you hear when you speak or the marks on paper or a computer screen that you see if you’re writing. This is what we call self-feedback, the part of the message that is returned to the self or sender of the message. On the basis of this feedback you may alter your message output. For example, if you hear yourself making a mistake in grammar or pronunciation, you might repeat the phrase correctly. If you hear yourself saying something that may be too harsh or may be taken in the wrong way, you might offer some kind of qualification—“I don’t mean to imply that you would ever pad your expense account but . . .”
There is, however, another kind of feedback and that is the feedback that you get from the other people involved in the communication act. The verbal comments (I don’t understand. You’re crazy; that never happened. You’re absolutely right about that.) as well as nonverbal comments (a frown, a smile, a wink, a turning away, a defensive posture, applause) that you get from others are all examples of feedback (for consistency, let’s call this other-feedback). On the basis of this feedback—just like on the basis of self-feedback—you adjust your messages, explaining further if the feedback tells you there’s a lack of understanding or offering further evidence (or another excuse) if the feedback tells you the person is not convinced or doesn’t believe you.
As you can appreciate, the ability to respond appropriately and effectively to feedback will make an enormous difference in communication effectiveness—often the difference between success and failure. The college instructor who is responsive to student feedback will be a much better teacher than the one who ignores it. The manager who is responsive to employee feedback will be a much better manager. And both teacher and manager will be more effective communicators for reading this feedback; they’ll be better able to adjust their messages, policies, and procedures to better fit their specific students and employees.
The ability to respond to feedback is especially important in interpersonal conflict situations. If you’re open and attentive to it, feedback will tell you, for example, when your words are being hurtful, when the conflict is about to get out of hand, and the strength of the other person’s feelings. On the basis of this feedback you’ll be better able to manage conflict so that it strengthens rather than destroys your relationship.
People who are in intimate relationships or who know each other for a long time are probably better able to read the other person’s feedback and come to know, on the basis of relatively few cues, how the person is feeling, when the person is worried, or what the person is thinking.
Of course, it’s not always easy to read feedback. Some cues are subtle and may not reveal clearly what the other person is thinking or feeling. In intercultural communication situations, the people may give very different meanings to their feedback cues. A Japanese businessperson may smile and say “yes” to your proposal, to communicate that he or she respects you and understands what you are proposing. But you, if you’re American, may read this as agreement with your proposal.
So, when possible, it’s helpful to check on the accuracy of your reading of the feedback. Depending on the feedback and your initial interpretation of it, you might say “Was that clear?” or “Don’t you agree?” or “You think that was a mistake?” Very likely the more you know the person, the more accurate your readings of his or her feedback will be. However, and this is a big however, it’s also likely that in intimate relationships, misreading feedback cues will have more serious consequences. If you misread your partner’s feedback, he or she may become resentful, feel you “just don’t understand,” or worse, feel that you don’t care enough.
Trial lawyers need to be expert at reading feedback, from the witnesses they are questioning to the jurors who must be convinced. The lawyer needs to know when a witness is hiding something or has more to say and needs to know when the jurors are not convinced or when they feel a line of questioning is boring. On the basis of this feedback, the effective lawyer will adjust future messages.
A performance appraisal in which a senior member of an organization interviews new employees after set periods of time (every three months, every year) is a good example of feedback. From this appraisal interview, the new worker will get feedback on his or her performance, ideally to improve. At the same time, the interviewer/manager will get valuable feedback on the way the company is perceived by a new employee or the problems new employees face, ideally to improve.

Types of Feedback

Most textbooks distinguish between positive and negative feedback. Positive feedback tells the speaker that what he or she is saying is acceptable; the implied meaning of that is “continue”. For example, periodic applause during a political speech supports what the speaker is saying and in a sense asks for more. When a lover smiles and looks longingly into your eyes he or she is saying “tell me more.”
Negative feedback, on the other hand, tells the speaker that something is wrong and that some adjustment in the message is needed, perhaps to add clarification, offer another explanation, or simply repeat the message. When students look puzzled, the effective instructor recognizes this and provides further explanation or perhaps restates the idea in different terms.
In addition to the distinction between positive and negative, I also find it useful to distinguish feedback on the basis of being person-focused or message-focused, immediate or delayed, low-monitored or high-monitored, and supportive or critical. Of course, these are extremes and are best visualized as continua.
• Person-Focused–Message-Focused. Feedback may center on the person (“You’re sweet,” “You’ve got a great smile”) or on the message (“Can you repeat that phone number?” “Your argument is a good one”).
• Immediate–Delayed. In interpersonal situations feedback is most often conveyed immediately after the message is received. In other communication situations, however, the feedback may be delayed; for example, feedback from an interview may come weeks after the interview took place. In media situations some feedback comes immediately—for example, through Nielsen ratings; other feedback comes much later, through consumers’ viewing and buying patterns.
• Low-Monitored–High-Monitored. Feedback varies from a spontaneous and totally honest reaction (low-monitored feedback) to a carefully constructed response designed to serve a specific purpose (high-monitored feedback). In most interpersonal situations you probably give feedback spontaneously; you allow your responses to show without any monitoring. At other times, however, you may be more guarded, as when your boss asks you how you like your job or when your grandmother asks what you think of her holiday fruitcake.
• Supportive–Critical. Supportive feedback confirms the worth of the person and what that person says; it occurs when, for example, you console another or when you encourage the other to talk; it often involves affirmation of the person’s self-definition. Critical feedback, on the other hand, is evaluative. When you give critical feedback you judge another’s performance—as in, for example, evaluating a speech or coaching someone learning a new skill.
I suspect that interpersonal relationships may be characterized by the types of feedback each person gives the other—a kind of “feedback theory of relationships.” Satisfying relationships seem to be those in which the feedback may be characterized as positive, person focused, immediate, low monitoring, and supportive. Unsatisfying relationships seem characterized by feedback that is negative, self-focused, nonimmediate, high monitoring, and critical.
Each feedback opportunity, then, presents you with choices along at least these five dimensions. To use feedback effectively you need to make educated choices along these dimensions. Of course, these categories are not exclusive. Feedback does not have to be either critical or supportive; it can be both. Thus, in teaching someone how to become a more effective interviewer, you might critically evaluate a specific interview but you might also express support for the effort. Similarly, you might respond to a friend’s question immediately and then after a day or two elaborate on your response.

Suggestions for Effective Feedback

Generally—and there are always exceptions that we need to keep in mind—here are some suggestions for making feedback more effective in both giving and receiving.

Giving Feedback
Consider these more in the nature of questions to think about rather than as specific rules that you should follow always and everywhere.
• Be specific; overly general or abstract thoughts are usually not helpful and just cause confusion. In criticizing a speech, it’s more effective to say “I wasn’t convinced by your example of the ants” than “your examples didn’t work.”
• Be positive; especially when your comments need to include negative evaluations, try to find something positive and perhaps lead with that.
• Be clear. You might also check to see if the other person understands you. Ask: Am I being clear? Does this make sense? If your feedback is worth giving, assume that it’s worth it for the other person to understand it as you mean it.
• Be honest; don’t give feedback that you don’t feel. It will make your subsequent feedback count for little once people see that you’re not honest with your reactions. This, of course, is not a license to be cruel but just a suggestion not to use feedback to deceive (much as you’d be advised not to use public speaking, say, to deceive).
• Be behavior focused. Generally, when making evaluations focus on the behavior rather than imply any motivation on the part of the other person. When criticizing a speech, for example, it’s more effective to say “I would prefer if you looked at your audience more directly” rather than implying motivation and saying, for example, “You weren’t interested enough in your audience; you never looked at us.” You really don’t know the motivation; it may have been fear rather than a lack of interest that lead to the lack of eye contact.

Responding to Feedback
The other half of this feedback skill is responding to it effectively. As you review these suggestions, consider the types of situations you might be in where you’d be receiving feedback. On the job at an appraisal interview or in a public speaking class, say, the feedback is likely to be fairly direct. So, you may wish to visualize one of these situations as you read the suggestions below. Here are a few suggestions, again, more in the nature of questions to consider:
• Avoid blocking out feedback that may appear negative. Listen openly. Feedback is probably the easiest way to learn more effective patterns of communication.
• See the feedback from the other person’s point of view. Don’t make excuses or think of reasons why the feedback-giver’s comments are irrelevant. Ask yourself why this person sees what he or she sees in your communications.
• Welcome the feedback, even the negative. Thank the person. Encourage the person to continue by being attentive, maintaining eye contact and a direct posture, and, in general, looking interested. If you don’t, you’ll only lose out on the useful information that feedback gives you.
• Seek clarification. If the feedback is not clear to you, ask for clarification while being especially careful not to appear defensive. If you do appear defensive, the feedback-giver may be less honest or less complete and you’ll again lose out on useful information.
• Evaluate the feedback. Only after you’ve fully understood the feedback should you attempt to evaluate it. So, think about the feedback fairly before accepting or rejecting it. If you decide that the feedback is useful, consider ways in which you can incorporate the suggestions into your own communication.

ABCD: Ethics

Ethics, also referred to as moral philosophy, is the study of morality, the study of good and bad, of right and wrong. It’s concerned with actions, with behaviors; it’s concerned with classifying and distinguishing between behaviors that are moral (ethical, good, right) and those that are immoral (unethical, bad, and wrong).
Before reading further about ethics, consider some of the popular beliefs about ethics, perhaps one or more of which you hold personally.
For each of the following statements place a T (for True) if you feel the statement accurately explains what ethical behavior is and an F (for False) if you feel the statement does not accurately explain what ethical behavior is.
_____ 1. My behavior is ethical when I feel (in my heart) that I’m doing the right thing.
_____ 2. My behavior is ethical when it is consistent with my religious beliefs.
_____ 3. My behavior is ethical when it is legal.
_____ 4. My behavior is ethical when the majority of reasonable people would consider it ethical.
_____ 5. My behavior is ethical when the effect of the behavior is more beneficial than harmful.
All five of these statements are (generally) False; none of them state a useful explanation of what is and what is not ethical.
(1) Statement 1 is False simply because people often do unethical things they feel are morally justified. Jack the Ripper killing prostitutes is a good historical example but there are many current ones such as stalking (I’m so in love I need to be with this person) or insurance scams (My family needs the money more than the insurance company). Even though Jack, the stalker, and the scam artist may feel justified in their own minds, it doesn’t make the behavior moral or ethical.
(2) Statement 2 must be False when you realize that different religions advocate very different kinds of behavior, often behaviors that contradict one another. Examples abound in almost every issue of a daily newspaper.
(3) Statement 3 must be false when you realize so much discrimination against certain people is perfectly legal in many parts of the world, and, in many countries, war (even preemptive war) is legal.
(4) Statement 4 is False because the thinking of the majority changes with the times and has often proven to be extremely immoral. The burning of people supposed to be witches or of those who spoke out against majority opinion (as in the Inquisition) are good examples.
(5) Statement 5 comes the closest to being possibly and sometimes true; but it’s more generally false. The reason it’s more false than true is that the burning of witches, for example, was in the interest of the majority as was slavery and discrimination against gay men and lesbians. But, despite this majority interest, we’d readily recognize these actions as immoral. On the other hand, in deciding whether to do one thing or another, it may prove useful to weigh the good against the bad that would result from each action.
BTW, I got the idea for this self-test after reading “What Is Ethics?” (www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/whatisethics.html) and think these 5 statements would make for great discussion in small groups or with the class as a whole.

Three Areas of Ethics

According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(www.iep.utm.edu/e/ethics.htm) the field of ethics consists of three areas:
• Metaethics concerns itself with the origin and meaning of ethical principles—where they come from (God? Social conventions? Cultural norms?) and the meanings of various ethical concepts (What is responsibility? What is right? What is wrong?).
• Normative ethics concerns itself with articulating the standards of right and wrong; this is the area that proposes specific ethical principles (for example, don’t lie, don’t willfully hurt another person). It is from normative ethics that we learn the principles governing what is ethical and what is unethical.
• Applied ethics concerns itself with the ethical implications of controversial issues (Is capital punishment ethical? Is preventing marriage to same sex couples ethical? Is it ethical to engage in war?).
These three areas often intersect. For example, the ethics of capital punishment is clearly applied ethics since it focuses on a controversial issue but it also draws on the insights of metaethics (Where do the rights to kill another person come from? Who has the right to kill another human being?) and on normative ethics (By what standard does one person claim the right to kill another person? Under what conditions might it be justifiable to kill another person?)

Two Approaches to Ethics

So, when is behavior ethical and when is it unethical? Lots of people have come up with lots of theories.
If you take an objective view, you’d claim that the ethical nature of an act—any act—depends on standards that apply to all people in all situations at all times. If lying, advertising falsely, using illegally obtained evidence, and revealing secrets, for example, are considered unethical, then they’d be considered unethical regardless of the circumstances surrounding them or of the values and beliefs of the culture in which they occur.
If you take a subjective view, you’d claim that the morality of an act depends on a specific culture’s values and beliefs as well as on the particular circumstances. Thus, from a subjective position you would claim that the end might justify the means—a good result can justify the use of unethical means to achieve that result. You would further argue that lying is wrong to win votes or to sell cigarettes, but that lying can be ethical if the end result is positive (such as trying to make someone who is unattractive feel better by telling them they look great, or telling a critically ill person that they’ll feel better soon.)
Each field of study defines what is and what is not ethical to its concerns (in the normative ethical sense). Here are just a few to highlight some communication-oriented codes as well as a few to indicate the range of associations that developed and, in some cases, enforce such codes:
• The National Communication Association Ethical Credo (www.natcom.org)
• Bloggers’ Ethics (www.cyberjouranlist.net/news/000215.php)
• Online Journalism (www.ojr.org/ojr/wiki/Ethics/print.htm)
• Radio-Television News Directors Association and Foundation Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (www.rtndf.org./ethics/coe.html)
• National Education Association Code of Ethics for the Education Profession (www.nea.org/aboutnea/code/html)
• American Medial Association Principles of Medical Ethics (www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category)
• Merrill Lynch’s Code of Ethics for Financial Professionals (www.ml.com/cms/templates/so)
Try looking up the code of ethics for the profession you’re in or planning on entering.