Man is in a society with which forced to contact, share knowledge, promote - that is, communicate.
What is communication in psychology and what is its structure?
The concept of communication in psychology: briefly
Communication - This is a form of human activity, which leads to the emergence of contact, providing mutual emotional exchange between partners, as well as characterized by the interaction between them.
In psychology, there are many definitions of communication, however they all share the following qualities:
- communication can be represented as a separate type of human activity;
- it may be included in a variety of activities, as its constituent elements;
- it is one of the various forms of human interaction.
Communication is a rather complex process, involving the establishment and maintenance of contacts between people, and its multiplicity has made it necessary to structure its individual aspects.
What is its structure?
What is the psychological structure of communication? Different psychologists have identified a different structure of communication - set of elements, folding the whole process of communication.
The structure description can concern both the general elements, and separately each of them.
Universal is the structure of communication, singled out by the Soviet and Russian psychologist, professor and member of the RAO Galina Andreeva.
She offered to highlight three structural components communication process:
- communicative side - the exchange of information between people;
- interactive side - interaction between partners;
- perceptual side - mutual understanding between the participants of communication.
Together, they constitute the process of communication of various kinds - socially oriented (for example, lectures in front of a group), subject-oriented (in professional activities), and also personal communication.
Components and their characteristics
Information transfer
Despite the fairly simple definition - the exchange of information, this party has a number of nuances.
The well-known psychologist Vygotsky mentioned that thought is not identical. the meaning of words expressing it.
Therefore, the communicators should have a similar understanding and perception of the situation, which is achieved through the inclusion of communication in any common sphere of activity.
In addition, between the communication can occur communication barriers in the form of differences, for example, in religious or political terms, allowing different interpretations of the same event, differing outlook and personal qualities of partners - for example, shyness, mistrust, secrecy, isolation.
Delving into the structure of communicative communication, we can designate two types of information - incentive (eg advice or order) and stating (not suggesting a change in behavior).
The information itself has such a qualitative indicator as persuasiveness.
At the same time, the following factors contribute to increasing the confidence in the transmitted information:
- Logics. The initial message must be perceived by a person as true, and all subsequent information will flow logically from this message. Moreover, the shorter the logical chain of conclusions, the more convincing the information will be.
- Desirability. Information will not be perceived as critical, if the person likes her or the partner informs her who is sympathetic to the other person.
- Emotionality - persuasive power of information in ascending order from handwriting, messages on radio, television, public speaking, talking tete-a-tete.
- The direct participation of the interlocutor.
If the narrator was directly related to the information presented by him, it is perceived less critically.
- Associativity. Some individually convincingly sounding statements will be even more convincing if we connect them with a single logical chain.
- Indifference. If the person perceiving information is indifferent to it, the strength of its persuasiveness for him is greatly reduced.
Information of any kind is transmitted through sign systems. Roughly you can imagine dividing verbal and non-verbal.
Verbal information implies human speech:
- Meaning of words and phrases composed of them. At the same time, the accuracy of the word used is important, as well as the correctness of the phrase as a whole.
- Speech sounds - speech rate (from slow, smooth to fast), voice timbre (soft, velvet), tone (low or high), as well as diction and intonational features of the phrase.
- Expressive speech - specific sounds expressing emotions - crying, laughter, cough, pauses in conversation and others.
Non-verbal information can be represented by gestures of the following types:
- Illustrating - pointing (extended index finger), drawing certain pictures (such a height, such a width), kinetographs (movements of the whole body), gestures.
- Regulatory - gestures that express a person’s attitude to something (for example, nodding his head or negatively swaying from side to side, smiling, etc.).
- Gestures, emblems, replacing different words in communication (for example, wave your hand as a sign of farewell).
- Adaptive - gestures confirming the contact between communicating (tapping on the shoulder, stroking, touching).
Interaction
The process of communication is presented as an interaction of people suggesting any particular result.
Interpersonal interaction is a change in the behavior of one contacting person as a reaction to the actions of the second.
The interactive side of communication is a structure that considers the components of communication related to interaction of people when performing any tasks.
It is better to consider joint activities through the prism of conflicts arising in its process. The following behaviors in such situations were identified as different reactions to conflicts:
- Concession. At the same time, in the process of conflict, the inferior person sacrifices his own interests in order to maintain the relationship with his partner, who initiates the conflict.
This position is possible when the inferior partner has no chance of winning the conflict in direct confrontation, and the long-term prospects of communication are more important for him than solving this conflict in his favor.
- Avoid. This withdrawal, evasion of conflict, in which the evading partner does not express his opinion, sacrificing his own interests, since he has no opportunity to win the conflict situation.
- Wrestling. It implies an open opposition of the individual to the opposing parties to the conflict. This approach is possible when the resolution of the conflict in favor of the individual is very significant in this situation. At the same time, in order to preserve his interests, a person goes into open confrontation, uses pressure and coercion, as well as all other possibilities of influencing opponents.
- Interaction. With this style of response, both parties determine the most mutually beneficial terms of cooperation, develops such approaches in which both conflicting parties will benefit.
Such an approach is possible, the conflicting have enough time to develop different solutions, and also with the consent of both parties to choose a similar way to resolve conflicts.
- Compromise. In this case, both sides are inferior to each other so as to come to a common opinion. This style of response is acceptable when there is no way out, except to sacrifice the interests of both parties.
Perception
When communicating, particular importance is mutual understanding of partners.
This means not only the concept of the motives of another person’s actions, but also the separation of his general goals and attitudes.
At the same time, relationships arise between individuals, which often mutual - from sympathy and love to irritation and hostility.
Perceiving another person, trying to decipher his motives, we realize ourselves by identifying and reflecting ourselves through another person.
Emotional identification by a person of himself with another person, when one person puts himself in the place of another, is called empathy.
There may be difficulties with the perception of another person. in the presence of the following factors:
- Availability prejudice a person to a particular type of personality, which makes it impossible to build a format of communication based on real interaction.
- The desire as soon as possible to evaluate this or that person, to give him characteristic of the primary signs - appearance, manner of speech.
- The impression is based on some private act or character trait, which then transferred to a person as a whole.
- Projection of your own qualities and emotions on another person.
- Consistency of initial assessment human qualities, despite the change in his behavior.
The concept of the structure of communication allows not only to divide it into separate components, but also better understand the principle of building relationships with a personand, therefore, to be able to establish more effective interaction with him and significantly improve the quality of the communication itself.
Place of communication in the system of human relations and structure of communication:
