Maureen E.

Perez
Efren C. Gimoto Jr.
Behavioral and Social Change Communication
September 18, 2022

THE ESSENTIALS OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION

Better communication comes with practice. In a close relationship, neither person

should need to express needs and wants; the other should know. Conflict is a symptom that
a relationship or organization is in trouble. Good leaders are born, not made. Fear of public
speaking must be eradicated.

Principles of Communication
1. Process of Adjustment
• Communication only works if both parties use the same signals.
• Does a shared language share nonverbal communication systems?
• Do everyone utilize the same signals?
• Intercultural communication

2. Communication Accommodation
• Speakers adapt to their listeners' speaking styles to acquire social acceptability and
communication efficiency.
• People with similar speaking rates are more attracted to each other.
• A speaker with equivalent language intensity to his or her audience is more
credible.
• Do you and your friend/s share communication skills?

3. Ambiguous
• Message can be interpreted in multiple ways.
• Created with words that can be understood differently.
4. Involves Content and Relationship Dimensions
• Messages have many purposes. Knowing how to use and respond to these
messages requires distinction.

5. Has Power Dimension

 • Influencing or controlling others' behavior. Communication influences power, and
power influences communication.

Six Types of Power:

• Legitimate Power. When others believe you have a right—by virtue of your
position—to influence or control their behaviors.
• Referent Power. When others wish to be like you. Referent power holders often
are attractive, have considerable prestige, and are well liked and well respected.
• Reward Power. When you control the rewards that others want.
Rewards may be material (money, promotion, properties, jewelry) or
social (love, friendship, respect). For example, teachers have reward
power over students because they control grades and social approval.
• Coercive Power. When you have the ability to administer punishments to or
remove rewards from others if they do not do as you wish. For example, teachers
may give poor grades or withhold recommendations.
• Expert Power. When others see you as having expertise or special knowledge.
Your expert power increases when you’re seen as being unbiased and as having
nothing personally to gain from exerting this power.

6. Punctuated
• Communication events are continuous transactions that have
no clear-cut beginning or ending.
7. Purposeful
• You communicate because you're motivated.
Five goals:
• To relate: to develop relationships with others, to interact with others as
individuals
• Help: listen, offer solutions
• To play: to enjoy the present
8. Inevitable, Irreversible, and Unrepeatable
In interactional situations, communication always occurs, even if a person doesn't
plan or want to.
• Communication's irreversibility is crucial.
Once you say anything or press "send" on an e-mail or SMS, you can't
uncommunicate it. What about in public speaking? Unlike face-to-face
conversation, signals fade quickly.
• Unrepeatable communication. Communication is unique. Everyone and everything
changes continually. You can't recover a previous communication act's
environment, frame of mind, or connection dynamics. Communication Competence
 relates to communication knowledge and skill. Vocabulary helps you express
yourself.

THE SELF IN HUMAN COMMUNICATION

1. SELF-CONCEPT

Your self-concept is your image of who you are. It’s how you perceive yourself: your
feelings and thoughts about your strengths and weaknesses, your abilities and limitations.
Self-concept develops from the images that others have of you, comparisons between
yourself and others, your cultural experiences, and your evaluation of your own thoughts
and behaviors
  
1. Others’ Images of You
If you want to see how your hair looks, you probably look in a mirror. But you wanted to
see how friendly or how assertive you are? You’d look at the image of yourself that others
reveal to you through the way they communicate The self is perhaps the most important
element in any form of communication of who you are.
 
2. Comparisons with Others
Another way you develop self-concept is by comparing yourself with others, most often
with your peers
For example, after an exam, you probably want to know how you performed relative to the
other students in your class. This gives you a clearer idea of how effectively you
performed.

3. Cultural Teachings

In Our culture instills in us a variety of beliefs, values, and attitudes about such things as
success religion, race, or nationality; and the ethical principles you should follow in your
personal life. These teachings provide yardsticks against which you can measure yourself.
 

4. Self-Interpretations and Self-Evaluations

You believe that lying is wrong. If you then lie and you view it as a lie you will probably
evaluate this behavior in terms of your internalized beliefs about lying (lying is On the
other hand, let’s say that you pull someone out of a burning building at great personal risk.
You will probably evaluate this behavior positively; you’ll feel good about this behavior
and, as a result, about yourself.
 
2.    SELF-AWARENESS
Self-awareness—your knowledge of who you are; of your behaviors, your strengths and
limitations, your emotions and behaviors, your individuality—is basic to all
communication. One tool that is commonly used for this examination of self-awareness is
called the Johari window. 

Johari Window: A diagram called the Johari Window (above) provides a useful way to
graphically visualize the process of self-disclosure. The four quadrants of panes represent
the different ways information can be seen and observed, both by oneself and by others.
The open pane includes what everyone can see: your physical looks, occupation, economic
and social situation, as well as what you say and write. The hidden pane includes
information about yourself that you have not revealed to others: secrets, hopes, fantasies.
The blind pane is what others see in you that you cannot see: shortcoming, talents, and
faults. Finally, the unknown pane includes information that nobody yet knows: untapped
potential, undiscovered interests. 

Four Selves
The Johari window shows different aspects or versions of the self. The four aspects are the
open self, blind self, hidden self, and unknown self.

Open self. This self represents all the information, behaviors, attitudes, and feelings about
yourself that you know and that others also know. Such knowledge could include
everything from your name, skin color, sex, and age to your religion and political beliefs.
 
Blind self.
 This self represents knowledge about you that others have but you don’t.  Blind self might
include your habit of finishing other people’s sentences or your way of rubbing your nose
when
you become anxious. A large blind self indicates low self-awareness.
 
Unknown self.
The unknown self represents those parts of yourself that neither you nor others know. This
is information that is buried in your subconscious. for example, learn of your obsession
with money, your fear of criticism
.
Hidden self. This self represents all the knowledge
you have of yourself but keep secret from
others.
for example, your fantasies, embarrassing experiences, and any attitudes
or beliefs of which you may be ashamed.
 
Growing in Self-Awareness
 
SELF-AWARENESS is so important in communication, try to increase awareness of your
own needs, desires, habits, beliefs, and attitudes. We can do this in various ways.
Listen to others. Others are constantly giving you the very feedback you need to increase
self-awareness.  
Increase your open self. Revealing yourself to others will help increase your self-
awareness.
Seek information about yourself. Encourage people to reveal what they know about you.
Dialogue with yourself. No one knows you better than you know yourself. Ask yourself
self-awareness questions: What are my short-term and long-term goals? What are my
strengths and weaknesses?
 
3. SELF-ESTEEM
Self-esteem is a measure of how valuable you think you are; people with high self-esteem
think very highly of themselves, whereas people with low self-esteem view themselves
negatively.  Here are five suggestions for increasing self-esteem.

1. Attack Self-Destructive Beliefs: Challenge beliefs you have about yourself that are
unproductive or that make it more difficult for you to achieve your goals.
2. Self-destructive beliefs set unrealistically high standards and therefore almost always
lead to failure.
3. Seek Out Nourishing People: Most important, nourishing people reward us, they stroke
us, they make us feel good about ourselves.
4. Work on Projects That Will Result in Success: Select projects that will result in
success. Each success will help build self-esteem.
5. Remind Yourself of Your Successes: Some people have a tendency to focus,
sometimes too much, on their failures, their missed opportunities, their social mistakes.
Recall these successes both intellectually and emotionally
6. Secure Affirmation: The word affirmation is used to refer to positive statements about
you, statements asserting that something good or positive is true of you.
 
4. SELF-DISCLOSURE
 Self-disclosure is a type of communication in which you take information from your
hidden self and move it to the open self.

Factors Influencing Self-Disclosure

 Among the most important factors are who you are, your culture,
your gender, your listeners, and your topic and channel. Self-Disclosure Dangers

Among the dangers of self-disclosure are:

Personal risks.
Relationship risks.
Professional risks.