Psychological Barriers

Physical Barriers 1. Filtering

1. Workplace building 2. Selective perception (frame of
reference)
2. Distance
3. Excessive Information
3. Time 4. Emotional Disconnect
4. Environment 5. Source credibility
6. Semantics
5. Technical Disturbance
7. Gender Difference
6. Noise 8. Poor listening/understanding
7. Distortion 9. Lack of experience
10. Cognitive dissonance
11. Expression
12. Change in culture, custom or
traditions
 Workplace building
A poorly designed workplace can create a physical
barrier. Employees find it difficult to communicate
with their seniors if they sit far away or on different
floors. Cabins and guarded work areas prevent teams
from operating smoothly. Communication in such
places relies on emails and calls and that creates noise
and distortions. Accessibility becomes a concern and
communication suffers. Uncomfortable chairs, glaring
screens and dim lighting are all characteristics of a
poor workplace and contribute to physical barriers.
 Distance Time
Geographical distance is a major Limited time or different time zones can
cause of physical barriers. It both create a physical barrier between
prevents personal two people. The sender must construct
communication, which is a concise message for the receiver if
substituted by phone calls, time is limited. This ensures
conveying the crucial information in
video conferences, messages the absence of a detailed conversation.
or emails. Network issues are Executives need to ensure their
common and long-distance messages carry the relevant
communication can experience information to prevent delays. People
obstacles of poor reception or or organizations located in different
time zones need to coordinate to have
slow internet. Sending hard conversations. A video conference
copies of documents takes between teams from England and
time and delays the process of India has to take place at a time that
communication. suits both parties since they’re
separated by over five hours.
 Environment
Environmental conditions can affect
the flow of information. Thunder Technical Disturbance
can create noise that interferes A major cause for physical barriers
with hearing. Lightning and are disturbance in mediums or
heavy rain can cause faults in technical issues. Technology is a
mainframes and disturbances in great tool to break time and
signals. Heat can cause fires that distance barriers to establish
can damage wiring or lead to communication but technical
fires. Cold temperatures can also disturbances can happen at any
disrupt communication by time. A faulty phone will create
freezing lines and open systems. noise or suppress volume, a
broken fax machine can prevent a
message from coming through, a
defective printer can prevent
storage of hard copies of data and
a crash in the system will delete
all the unsaved information.
 Noise
A loud, unpleasant sound or a
disturbance in an audio signal can be
termed as noise. Noise is one of the
most common physical barriers to
listening. It interrupts
communication by acting as a
disturbance in the environment or the
medium of communication. Noise
restricts the flow of messages, makes
them inaccurate or unclear and
causes misinterpretations. Noise can
be environmental, technological or
written. Environmental noise relates
to loudness in the background of the
speaker or receiver.
 Distortion

A distorted message is one that is misrepresented or

misinterpreted. It happens when the meaning of a message
is lost in translation, in transition or during decoding.
Human perception also plays a part in distorting messages.
 Filtering
Filtering is the distortion or withholding of
information to manage a person’s reactions. Some
examples of filtering include a manager who keeps
her division’s poor sales figures from her boss, the
vice president, fearing that the bad news will make
him angry. The old saying, “Don’t shoot the
messenger!” illustrates the tendency of Receivers (in
this case, the vice president) to vent their negative
response to unwanted Messages on the Sender.
 Selective perception Excessive information

Selective perception refers to Communication can suffer if the

filtering what we see and hear volume of information is too
high for a person to store or
to suit our own needs. This
process. The sender may have
process is often unconscious.
lots of material to share but
Small things can command not the means to process them.
our attention when we’re The receiver will face the
visiting a new place—a new same problem if they’re not
city or a new company. Over equipped to handle excess
time, however, we begin to information. Not being able to
make assumptions about the send or receive huge volumes
way things are on the basis of of printed data is as much
our past experience. Often, a physical barrier as low
much of this process is storage capacity and
unconscious.  backdated systems are.
 Emotional disconnect
Emotional disconnects happen when the Sender or the Receiver is upset, whether
about the subject at hand or about some unrelated incident that may have
happened earlier. An effective communication requires a Sender and a Receiver
who are open to speaking and listening to one another, despite possible
differences in opinion or personality. One or both parties may have to put their
emotions aside to achieve the goal of communicating clearly. A Receiver who
is emotionally upset tends to ignore or distort what the Sender is saying. A
Sender who is emotionally upset may be unable to present ideas or feelings
effectively.
 Source Credibility
Semantics
Lack of source familiarity or
credibility can derail communications,
Semantics is the study of meaning
especially when humor is involved.
Have you ever told a joke that fell in communication. Words can
flat? You and the Receiver lacked the mean different things to
common context that could have made different people, or they might
it funny. (Or yes, it could have just not mean anything to another
been a lousy joke.) Sarcasm and irony person. They are the tongue
are subtle, and potentially hurtful, twisting words. For example,
commodities in business. It’s best to companies often have their own
keep these types of communications
acronyms and buzzwords
out of the workplace as their benefits
are limited, and their potential dangers (called business jargon) that are
are great. Lack of familiarity with the clear to them but impenetrable
Sender can lead to misinterpreting to outsiders. For example, DS
humor, especially in less-rich rule, SWOT analyze
information channels like e-mail.
 Gender difference
Gender differences in
communication have been
documented by a number of experts,
including linguistics. Another
difference that has been noticed is
that men often speak in sports
metaphors, while many women use
their home as a starting place for
analogies. Women who believe men
are “only talking about the game”
may be missing out on a chance to
participate in a division’s strategy
and opportunities for teamwork and
“rallying the troops” for success 
Poor listening/understanding
Lack of experience
Research shows that listening
This psychological hurdle occurs
skills are related to promotions.
when the field of experience is not
A Sender may strive to deliver common to both i.e. communicator
a Message clearly. But the and receiver, the communication
Receiver’s ability to listen would not take place. For example.
effectively is equally vital to if a scientist wants to communicate
effective communication. The the Newton law to the uneducated
average worker spends 55% of people. definitely, there won't be
any communication. But if the
her workdays listening. same message is delivered to the
Managers listen up to 70% science students, the message will
each day. But listening doesn’t be an effective one. Thus field of
lead to understanding in every experience becomes one of the
case. Listening takes practice, great hurdles if it is not common to
skill, and concentration. both source and destination.
 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is also one of
the hurdles in the process of
communication. By cognitive
dissonance, we mean that when
a communicator wants to deliver
a message to the audience that
smoking is injurious to health.
The audience does not accept
this proposal, giving arguments
that they are smoking since very
young age and despite they are
quite healthy. This is called
cognitive dissonance.
 Expression Change in culture/tradition

Sometimes the expression of If the communicator wants to

the communicator becomes talk about some change in
a hurdle in the process of custom and tradition,
communication if it is not in definitely his communication
accordance with the will be a failure For example
situation. :- If a communicator wants
to introduce Buddhism in the
Pakistani society, his ideas
may not be accepted by
everybody because Pakistan
is predominantly a Muslim
country.