I chose to
bring attention to Relational Information. According to Albert Mehrabian, there
are three kinds of relational messages: liking, status, and responsiveness.
Liking- indicated through facial expression, eye contact, proximity and the
like. Status - is often conveyed through posture, gesture, touch, proximity and
objects that we display. Responsiveness – the degree to which we are
psychologically involved in interaction. These three concepts stood out to me,
because I found this to be exactly related to our everyday situations, when
we verbally communicate with others. In this section we read that just by paying
attention to these three sections of relational information we can get an idea
of where the person stands and how the person feels about you. A real life
experience would be me trying to start a conversation with one of my friends,
and I noticed that she was looking somewhere else, and she answered me in a
monotone. Later after that strange conversation I discovered that the person I
was talking with did not consider me to be a friend, and therefore did not care
to speak to me. So I discovered that her responsiveness pointed out to her not
respecting me enough to even respond to me with respect. I am glad I am learning
these concepts, because I am starting to use this information in my
communication, and I am noticing that this knowledge made it easier to define
real friendships.
Those are some great observations. Similar situations have happened to me. I’ve also been in the reverse where despite what someone was saying, their nonverbal gestures and facial expressions were saying the opposite. Later on I found that the person really did want to talk to me, but that I had interrupted an uncomfortable situation. I always try to be aware of more than just the words being spoken, but also the body language that is involved. People can sound enthusiastic in what they’re saying, but if they are frowning, or slouching, or looking around, they may be just faking it. What’s really funny is when people only pick up on verbal communication and not nonverbal. They could be agreeing vocally, in a certain manner, and agreeing nonverbally in a completely opposite manner.
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