Intercultural Communication Post

These 3 different premises were very interesting to me. I feel that each one holds true to some very different institutions. I believe in the perfectability premises because I think that we are all born in sin and are capable of becoming better human beings. If we try each day to strong and use control, we can make the right choices. I believe that the church follows this premise because the church believes that we can work each and everyday to become better human beings. I think that the rationality premise is a very straightforward premise, in that it is used and followed everyday by each of us, including our government. It is very true that we are capable of discovering truth through logical analysis, as the book states. An example of this would be our system of laws and how we use trials to find out what is the truth. The mutability premise is something that I do not totally understand. The book says that human behavior is shaped by environmental factors. Is this basically saying that humans are affected by the society and the environment around them? If this is what the mutability factor means, then yes I believe in this as well.

Discussion 1

The first situation that comes to mind where I interpreted someone’s nonverbal message the wrong way was a work a few months back. I work at a small office in Saratoga that has about 10 employees. Fortunately, we all like each other very much, except for every now and then when we hire someone that just does not fit into our “family”. One lady that works there is in her 40s with a husband and two children. She is an amazing women who works hard at work and even harder at home. Often times she comes into work very tired. Although she is tired, she almost always tries to put on a happy face. Our office is always busy with clients coming in and out, so I am not always aware of what type of mood she might be in that day. One day, I walked past her office and saw her with her head down working on a file. I really did not think anything of it, only that she was busy. After an hour or so past, I realized that I had not seen her all day. When I went into her office to see how she was doing, she was on the phone. I stood there for about 2 seconds before I turned around and started to leave. As I was turning around, she looked at me and put her hand up in the air and gave me, what I thought was an annoyed look. I figure she was in a bad mood that day and decided not to bother her anymore. Well as the morning passed she finally came into my office to ask if I wanted to get some lunch. I kind of looked at her with a puzzled face and said, “Is everything ok today?.” Unfortunately, I might have said it in a not so nice manner. She looked at me and said “Yeah. Why?” also in a not so nice manner. I assumed by her reaction to me when I walked in her office that she was in a bad mood and did not want to be bothered. Well it turned out that she was in a great mood and that the client she was speaking to could not hear her very well on the other end of the phone and she did not want me to make any noise on our end.

I think that people can increase the accuracy with which they interpret nonverbal messages by being patient, understanding, and not jumping to any conclusions. You can do this by fully evaluating the situation and then after some time has past, you can verbally discuss how you are feeling about the situation with out jumping to conclusions.

Question 2

Gender and language is such an interesting topic. I do believe that men and women use language differently. I can picture my girl friends and boy friends all having a great time at a party. As I look around the room I see how boys and girls are interacting and speaking to each other. I look at the girls and they are standing tall, using hand gestures and most of the time, complete sentences. I look over at the boys and they are looking in all directions, hands in their pockets and speaking quickly and incompletely. Men and women are on two different planets when it comes to communication. I love how the book describes different talk like, “trouble talk”, “rapport talk” and “report talk”. I can see each of these examples in my everyday life. I do believe that men like to talk to get right to the problem or subject of the matter and then its over. Women like to listen and figure out why and how we are going to fix it.

Conversations between two girls and two guys are obviously very different, but it is amazing to be in an important conversation with a guy and see how he reacts. You can automatically tell how a guy is feeling just by his first sentence. Guys do not notice this about women that quickly unless they start to cry right away. Men do not listen as well as women do, if at all. They would rather avoid a conversation at all costs. I’m generalizing here- I don’t believe all men are like this!

Table 4.5 in the book breaks down gender and communication very well. One that shot out at me was that men initiate the topic of a conversation more than a woman. We all know that is true! I was very interesting to read about the differences in gender communication.

Question 1

I do not believe that it is possible to perceive others without in some way judging them because that is human nature. I believe that in the first few minutes or even seconds of meeting someone, you are taking in how they look, how they talk, hand gestures, and so on. Therefore, you automatically come up with an idea in your head about whom this person is. I feel that the more that you talk to the person and spend time with her or she, your perception can and it is almost likely to change. I do not think that it is a bad thing that we automatically assume something about someone. I feel this way because I always give that person time to show themselves to me. I feel that people who stick to their first impressions and never change it are ignorant and stubborn. Those are the people who do not ever have or keep true friends.

We can make judgments more fair by being more open minded and giving people more time to be themselves around you. When I first meet somebody, depending on my surroundings, I am not truly myself. I hope that these new people that I meet would give me time to come out of my shell and open up because that is what I like to do for others. Like the textbook says, “We can listen much faster than we can speak. This means that as we listen, we have plenty of time to think” (55). This sums up first impressions perfectly. When you are listening to someone new, you need to use that time to keep an open mind. Not everyone you meet are going to be just like you and want to do the same things you do. This is something that you have to keep in your mind. You are not going to be friends with every new person you meet, so it is okay that you might not click with them. It doesn’t mean that you should change your perception about them.