Good Lesson

           

         I think the lesson about culture is really good. From the lesson, I learned a lot of information about different cultures. From the lesson, I know different countries can have different cultures. When we understand the different cultures we can follow the direction to help us to communicate with different cultures’ people. For example, when I communicate with Indian people, I know they are high power distance cultures. So when I communicate with them, I should be polite to them. If we do not follow their rules to communicate, we may make a bad communication.

            When I came to the college, there were a lot of international students. When I communicate with them, I need know their culture to help me to avoid an awkward situation. Through our conversation we can know more information about each other’s culture. So this lesson is really useful to my everyday life. When I speak to classmates from different countries, I know what I can say, and what I cannot say.  The lesson helps me make my everyday life more interesting.

Competitive Conflict

         

         Sometimes we may have conflicts with people. We have different reasons for having a conflict. When people get in a conflict they may always want to win the argument. According to the textbook, “The competitive conflict style involves great concern for your own needs and desires, and little for those of others” (DeVito 255). In my opinion, the competitive conflict style is when we get in a conflict; we are just thinking about our feelings. We always want to win the conflict.

            I think this conflict style make it easy for people to get hurt. For example, when I require my husband to do something, he does not always want to do it. So each time I have a conflict with him. Every time I become angry with him, and I want to argue with him to make him to do something for me. If he does not say sorry to me, I always argue or blame him. I just focus with my feelings. If I feel bad, I do not want him feel good. I want to win every time, and I do not accept any failure.

Small Talk

         Every day when we see our friends we like to say hello or some other word to say hi. We like to make small talk with our friends to relax us.  According to the textbook, “Small talk is pervasive; all of us engage in small talk. Sometimes, we use small talk as a preface to big talk” (DeVito193). In my opinion, small talk is when we talk about some relaxed topic. We can say “How are you?” or another polite sentence to somebody; then we can begin our major topic.

            Sometimes people may violate the rules of small talk. For example, one day I talked with my good friend about what kind of food has good taste. We talked a lot about different foods and how to make them. We felt good with the conversation. Suddenly another person got in our conversation. She said, “We cannot think this way. Each kind of food has a different function. we should study how to make and keep their nutrition well. She talked a lot of about nutrition problems. She made our conversation like a nutrition class. During that conversation we felt bad.

Argumentative Instead Verbally Aggressive

        Sometimes we may be verbally aggressive but wish that we had been argumentative instead. I think this is really good idea to change the communication way. Verbal aggression cannot help us much. It may hurt each other and somebody will lose something. For a good solution, we should try to find a solution for our aggressive problem. We can pick the win-win strategies. According to the textbook, “solutions in which both parties win are the most desirable. Perhaps the most important reason is that win-win solutions lead to mutual satisfaction and prevent the kind of resentment that win-lose solutions often engender” (DeVito 260).

            I think being argumentative instead a verbally aggressive is a good win-win strategy.  Through being argumentative we can decrease hurting each other. At the same time, we can also argue to express our thought to each other. Through this way both of us can win through the argument. For example, one day I got verbally aggressive with my friend about who knows more information about food. She thought she knew more; I also thought I knew more information. Finally we figured out a good solution that was we can communicate with each other to study good information. Through this way we can learn more information about food. I think this is good way for us to avoid being aggressive.

Beltlined

        Communication is a really complex and interesting thing. Everyday we communicate with people; we may get hurt from conversation. When we talk with people we should be careful with our conversation; we can not hit people’s beltlining.  According to the textbook, “one popular but destructive face-attacking strategy is beltining. Much like fighters in a ring, each of us has a “beltline”. When you hit below this emotional beltlining, you can conflict serious injury” (DeVito 263). In my opinion, people should be careful with each word. When we talk with people we can communicate with them and feel happy, but we cannot talk about something that may hit people as a painful thing.

            For example, three years ago I went to take a drivers license test. First time I went to take the test I did not pass. Finally the second time I passed the test. After I tried the first time, my friend asked me, she said, “did you pass the test?” I answered her I did not pass the test. Then she said to me, “I think the test is easy, I just try one time I passed the test.”  I know my friend just wanted to tell me what she thought about the test, but I felt bad. She thought the test was easy, I did not pass the test, I thought I was bad. Sometimes, people just say something; they may not know that they are going under other people’s beltlining. So, when we talk to people we should do not hit people’s beltlining that may hurt other people.

Equity Theory

           I think different people have different principle about how to value the equity.  According to the textbook, “Equity theory claims that you develop and maintain relationships in which your ratio of rewards to costs is approximately equal to your partner’s” (DeVito 242). In my opinion, equity theory is we want to make sure we get equal reward with I cost. When we do something for somebody we want to value the cost.

Different people with equity theory have different thinking. Some people think they should get equity reward from their work. I think I am a person who believes someone who needs more should get more. I do not care who does more or who does less. If I think somebody needs me to do something for her or him, I like to help. I do not care if I get an equity reward or not. I think different time we may get different problems. When people need more help we can just help them, and we do not need an equity reward. If we do not have problem, we do not need help. I think we should help people who need more.

Matching Hypothesis

According to the textbook, “ although there are exceptions, the principle of similarity states that you’re probably attracted to your own mirror image --- to people who are similar to you in nationality, race, ability, physical characteristics, intelligence, and so on” (DeVito 241). In my opinion, I think people like the person who come from their culture and similar to themselves. They can feel free to talk and know how to make the conversation more effective and make life more interesting.

I find the matching hypothesis is the truest. For example, in China, when I moved from Hunan to Shanghai, I always looked for the Hunan people. I liked to talk with the hometown people because we feel more close to each other and happy. I think a lot of examples can prove this concept is true. For example, in China, when people look for romantic partner, they like to look for a partner that comes from same city and have some family background. They think if they have these things in common, they will have a good relationship and fewer conflicts. This is a really interesting concept. Most of people like to follow this concept to do.

Meeting a Romantic Partner on the Internet

I think the meeting a romantic partner on the internet that has a lot of advantages.  Through the internet we can find more people, we get more choices. According to the textbook, “whereas the online encounter favored those who were verbally adept at self-presentation and did not disadvantage less attractive individuals” (DeVito 233). In my opinion, if people like this way, they will choose it to find a partner. I think this way will not affect the attractive to each other.

When people comes the internet, they all have interesting to find a good romantic partner through the internet. Some people may think we can find romantic partner through the work places or some other place, but these are limit places and time. Every day we work together with somebody, and when we work together we just focus with our jobs. So we do not have more chances to know more about our partner, and we do not have much time to talk with each other. Through the internet we can have more time to focus with the people. We are free to talk with each other. According to the textbook, “women, it seems, are more likely to form relationships on the internet than men. About 72 percent of women and 55 percent of men had formed personal relationships online” (DeVito 233). We know this is a big number, so we can use the internet to find partner.

Comparison Theory

           I think the comparison theory, or comparing ourselves with others to develop our sense of self, that are positive things. According to the textbook, “another way you develop your self-concept is by comparing yourself with others. When you want to gain insight into who you are and how effective or competent you are, you probably look to your peers” (DeVito 55). In my opinion, comparing yourself with others is a good thing. We can learn more information from other people. We can choose something we want and we care things to compare with other people.

            In my life, I like to compare myself to my father. I think my father is a really good person. He is always nice to everybody, and works hard at his job. I like to study his ways to everyday life. I think this is positive things in my life. This activity can help me learn more information from my father and from other people. Sometimes comparing yourself with other person can help you to improve your ability, and encourage you to work hard.

Self-disclosure

        what is self-disclosure, according to the textbook,” self-disclosure refers to communicating information about yourself (usually information that you normally keep hidden) to another person” (DeVito 189). In my opinion, self-disclosure is when we tell my information to other person. For a good understanding of this concept we need to know when we do a self-disclosure, we are not just ourselves, we need at least one other individual.

            I think I did too much self-disclosure in my life. Sometime for exchange information between two people, we may use self-disclosure to exchange information with the other person to build a good relationship. For example, in my life, sometimes I use self-disclosure to build relationship. One time I took a bus to my grandmother’s home. I was bored, so I talked with the person next to me. I told the person the reason why I was on the bus. I used self-disclosure because I wanted to talk with the person to make the trip interesting. At first, the person was happy to talk with me, but after a half hour he stopped talking. I think with this conversation I missed some sign about what moment I should stop self-disclosure. Sometimes people do not like to talk too much with a stranger because this may bring some safety problems.

Avoid Touch

According to the textbook, “Much as we touch and are touched, we also avoid touch from certain people and in certain circumstances” (DeVito 146). In my opinion, touch avoidance is when we do not like to touch another person and at the same time also do not like people to touch us. Different people have different way of communication. Even the same person at different times may have different levels of touch avoidance.

I think I am a high touch avoidant person. Sometimes high touch avoidant may bring some problems. For example, in China we do not like to touch each other at normal communication, but in the United States people like to hug each other. When friends see each other they feel happy; they may want to hug each other. This really made me feel uncomfortable because I come from a different culture. In my country, we do not like to share hugs between friends except with a boyfriend or girlfriend. Now I feel comfortable with this kind touch because I think I should adapt to the culture. With this I figured out when we come together with different cultures, we may have different levels of touch avoidance.

Relationship Turning Point

          I think relationship turning points are a really interesting concept. In different cultures with the same thing we may get different relationship turning points. Devito tells me, “movement through the various stages usually is a gradually process; you don’t jump from contact to involvement to intimacy. Rather, you progress gradually, a few degrees at a time. Yet there are often turning points” (DeVito 218). In my opinion, with turning point when we change the relationship from one level to another level, we have a turning point.

            When we build a relationship we always have the turning point. For example, in China, the girl and boy have a good romantic relationship, they want to get married. So, they will see each other’s parents, and then they will go get married. The process of meeting each other’s parents is a turning point. In China, people who want to get married should first see each other’s parents. If the parents agree with them, then they can get married. I think we can say this turning point is positive or negative. if the parents agree with them, this turn point is positive; if the parents disagree with them, this turning point will become a negative point. They romantic relationship may break. In China, people are always careful with this turning point because it may bring a big problem.

Social Clock

          According to the textbook, “social clock is as well as your more specific society, maintains a schedule for the right time to do a variety of important things” (DeVito 153). In my opinion, social clock is when I do all things I follow a schedule to do them. I make a plan for each thing I want to do. If I cannot follow the plan, I will think I did not follow the social clock.

            I think I am a person that wants to follow the social clock to do everything. For example, I do everything at the right time. In my country all people that are the same age finish their high school and bachelor at the same time. They also start dating at the same time. I think I am on track with the social clock. I finished my high school at eighteen years old, and I got my social degree at twenty- one years old. In my country people are finished at the same time. There are also some people who do not follow this schedule, I think they did not follow the social clock.

Facial Communication

           I think I used a lot of  facial communication during my everyday communication. There are three types of facial communication, of which the one, called culture and facial expressions, has been mostly used by me. According to textbook, “The wide variations in facial communication that we observe in different cultures seem to reflect which reactions are publicly permissible, rather than a difference in the way emotions are facially expressed” (DeVito 138). In my opinion, culture and facial expressions means that different cultures have different facial communications.

            For example, by following my culture and facial expressions I usually hide my smiles with my hands when I smile, because in my culture if women smile openly, people will feel they are not polite and too rough. In addition, in my country we also do not show bad emotions in front of people. For example, sometime I feel bad for somebody who talks to me like I am not a good person, but I never express my feeling in front of them. I think I can not give negative feedback to other people because in my culture this is a bad behavior. We always try to give positive feedback to other people to encourage them.

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

Now I am going to talk about the self-fulfilling prophecy. According to the textbook, “A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true because you act on it as if it were true. Put differently, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when you act on your schema as if it were true and, in doing so, make it true.” (DeVito 66).  In my opinion a self-fulfilling prophecy is when people approach somebody or do something, they will assume that person is nice or believe they can accomplish what he is planning to do in advance. They will then talk to  the person to prove they are correct or work hard to achieve his goals.

For example, when I took math, I made a prediction at the beginning, i.e., if I worked hard I could get a good grade in this class. As such, I worked really hard on math class since the beginning of the semester. After I finished my first test, I succeeded in getting good grade. Since then, I studied even harder. As such, finally I achieved my goals and got A. I think this example is a good example to explain the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Assertive and Non-assertive Communication

I think that assertive and non-assertive communication give us a totally different feeling.  According the textbook, “assertive messages express your real thoughts --- even if they involve disagreeing or arguing with others --- but are nevertheless respectful of the other person” (DeVito 111). In my opinion, assertive communication is when we communicate with other people and tell them our thoughts without worrying about what that person thinks of us. According to the textbook, “people who are non-assertive fail to stand up for their rights” (DeVito 112). In my opinion, non-assertiveness is not expressing ones thoughts; we just follow other people’s thinking.

            For example, last year I had a discussion with my friend about how to teach children. My friend said that for good education, we should train children every day and teach them how to do everything. I had an idea about education, but I did not tell them. My friend is too self-confident, and I did not want to break down her thought. I just said, “This is ok, we can follow this way.” I did not ask questions and also did not give any concern about if this way is good for us or not.

Involvement

           When we have friends or other relationships with people, we may want to know more information about those people. We do something to help us know more about our friends. According to the textbook, “at the involvement stage, a sense of mutuality, of being connected, develops. During this stage you experiment and try to learn more about the other person” (DeVito 211). In my opinion, involvement is when we try to know more about the other person; the same time, we also begin to know about ourselves and share our feelings or other information with the person.

            Involvement is useful to help us to know more about the relationship. For example, when we have a romantic relationship with somebody, with the involvement stage we try to date our boyfriends or girlfriends. Through this process we share more about our feelings and emotions. For example, when I studied with my classmate for one month, we formed a friendship and exchanged cell-phone numbers. Sometime we discuss questions together. Finally, we share interesting information about each other’s life. I think this is an involvement process.

Surface and Depth Listening

        When we just focus on surface talking, we may miss some important information. First I want to explain what surface and depth listening are. According to the textbook, “surface listening is obvious literal meaning” (DeVito 91). In my opinion, surface listening is we just listen to the surface things, and when we listen we do not focus on the whole means. According to the textbook, “depth listening is subtext” (DeVito 91). In my opinion, depth listening is when we focus on the speaker. We focus on their verbal and nonverbal messages, and then we use that information to help us understand the speakers’ means very well.

            For example, I think I did a surface listening, when my friend asked me my opinion about her new dress? I did not think a lot, I just said, “this is a good dress, but maybe you can buy another dress from mall that is better.” She is my friend, and I want tell her all true information, but sometimes this kind information may hurt somebody. After three days, I went outside to have a walk, and I saw a friend. My friend approach me and then she said: “do you know Lili spent a lot of money to buy a dress, but finally she did not like the dress.”  I suddenly realized I made a mistake. I did not realize Lili’s speaking has more means. She was not just asking whether the dress is good or bad. She wanted me to give her some information about the dress to help her prove that she made a good decision.

Listening stages of remembering

     Today I am going to talk about listening stages of remembering. According to the textbook, “Messages that you receive and understand need to be remembered for at least some period of time. What you remember is not what was actually said but what you think (or recall) was said. Memory for speech is reconstructive, not reproductive” (DeVito 83). In my opinion remembering is when we remember the main idea and when we repeat it, we just need to repeat the main concepts of the information. We do not need to copy the exact information.

     For example, yesterday my friend told me something, she said, “do you know your friend Yingqin had a baby girl yesterday. The baby weighs 8.52lb. The baby is cute.”  I recognize the information and identify central idea. When I went back home, I told my husband, I said “Do you know Yingqin had an 8.52lb girl. The girl is cute.”  With this process, I do not repeat all my friend’s words, I just repeat key concepts. I think in our everyday life, we can find a lot of these kinds of examples. 

High and Low power distance culture

     Now I am going to talk about High and Low power distance culture. In some cultures power is concentrated in the hands of a few, and there’s a great difference between the power held by these people and the power of the ordinary citizen. These are called high power distance cultures; in low power distance cultures, power is more evenly distributed throughout the citizenry. In my own words, I think the high power distance culture is when a student does something he always follows the direction. In low power distance culture, when people talk with somebody they always make their speech sound like talking with a good friend.


     For example, China has a high power distance culture. When people talk with each other they always use polite and totally respectful language. I am a Chinese person. When I took class in China, I always followed my teacher’s direction step by step. I never thought about if the direction was correct or incorrect, and I also never thought about how to make some change or improve the questions. This is an example of high power distance culture. In American, when I take classes, teachers and students always discuss together to improve teachers’ teaching and students’ study ability. This is an example of low power distance.

Cultural differences of individual and collectivist cultures

     Now I am going to talk about cultural differences of individual and collectivist cultures. In an individualist culture you are responsible for yourself and perhaps your immediate family; in a collectivist culture you are responsible for the entire group. In my own words, I think the individual is a hero of the movie or a person. They just work for themselves. The collectivist culture people are responsible for themselves and entire group, they are not one person. They are two or more people work together or do something together.


     For example, when I took English 101 last year, we have five groups to study English together, each group has five students. Using my own words to say and explain this problem, I would say these groups are collectivist cultures, and the whole class is another collectivist. When my partner and I do a project, we always work together and are responsible for each other. For the individual cultures, it gets opposite position with collectivist cultures. For example, when I studied speech 120 last semester, each class I need do a speech. Each speech, I do by myself. After I finish my speech, the teacher always gives me a grade and the same time she also tells me how to improve my next speech. So I think this is an example of individual culture. I work by myself, when I finish my speech, teachers just give me a grade, and she will not give other classmates grade.

interpersonal communication elements of feedback messages

     Today I will talk about the interpersonal communication elements of messages. For interpersonal communication to exist, messages that express your thoughts and feelings must be sent and received. Interpersonal communication may be verbal or nonverbal, but it is usually a combination of both. Messages have three types. Now I just talk about the feedback messages.


     Feedback is a special type of message. When you send a spoken or written message to another person, you get feedback from your own message: you hear what you say, you feel the way you move, and you see what you write. We can get feedback messages from everywhere. For example, you talk with your friends, you send messages to your friends, and at the same time you will get feedback from them. They will send you messages that indicate how they receive and respond to your messages. For example, if your friends understand and agree with you, they may nod and smile. You can use the information to improve your speaking or writing. We can have different feedback, some feedback will come later, and some feedback will come fast. For example, with face-to-face communication you can monitor the feedback of the other person as you are speaking. This kind of feedback will come fast.

Element of interpersonal communication called Source-Receiver

     Today I am going to talk about one element of interpersonal communication called Source-Receiver. It involves at least two people. It includes a source, a receiver, a code, an encoder, and a decoder. In this blog I will explain this process.


     I want make a model to explain the definition. For example, I will talk about the process of calling a friend. When we make a call, we send messages to our friends. The person making the call is the source, and the receiver of the phone call is also the receiver of the message. The source talks into the phone which does the encoding. The code is sent to the receiver’s phone which does the decoding. Then the receiver hears the original message from the source.

     For interpersonal communication to occur, meanings must be both encoded and decoded. The source is the sender of the message, the receiver gets the message, the code is a set of symbols, encoding makes the message into code, and decoding un-codes, understands, and interprets the message.

High and low ambiguity tolerant cultures

     I want talk about high and low ambiguity tolerant cultures. When we look the words, we can understand some of information of the definition. Members of high-ambiguity-tolerant cultures don’t feel threatened by unknown situations; uncertainty is a normal part of life, and people accept it as it comes. Members of low-ambiguity-tolerant cultures do much to avoid uncertainty and have a great deal of anxiety about not knowing what will happen next; they see uncertainty as threatening and as something that must be counteracted.


     With my own words to explain this definition, I would say when members with the high-ambiguity-tolerant cultures, they will not avoid unclear or unknown questions; they will accept and feel comfortable with ambiguity. For example, I have a good friend, she comes from China, her English is not very good, but she is never afraid to use English to talk with American people. She likes to talk with somebody and the same time she can study English. I am totally different from her. I think I am a member of low-ambiguity-tolerant cultures. I always avoid talking with American people because I always worry. Before I need to talk with American people, I always think I may make a mistake. There are a lot of question in my head, I always adjust my words and grammar. Since I speak little English with American people and my English is not improving quickly.