❚❘ BASIC COMMUNICATION MODEL According to Adler and Towne (1978), all that ever has been accomplished by humans and all that ever will be accomplished involves communication with others. Many social and organizational problems derive from unsatisfactory relationships brought about by inadequate communication between people. Success on and off the job often stems from one’s ability to transfer information and express ideas to others. Effective communication frequently results in friendships that are more meaningful, smoother and more rewarding relationships with people on and off the job, and increased ability to meet personal needs. Psychologist Abraham Maslow (1970) suggests that the capability to satisfy personal needs arises mainly from the ability to communicate. THE PROCESS OF COMMUNICATION Adler and Towne describe communication as a process between at least two people that begins when one person wants to communicate with another. Communication originates as mental images within a person who desires to convey those images to another. Mental images can include ideas, thoughts, pictures, and emotions. The person who wants to communicate is called the sender (see figure). To transfer an image to another person, the sender first must transpose or translate the images into symbols that receivers can understand. Symbols often are words but can be pictures, sounds, or sense information (e.g., touch or smell). Only through symbols can the mental images of a sender have meaning for others. The process of translating images into symbols is called encoding. The Communication Model Once a message has been encoded, the next level in the communication process is to transmit or communicate the message to a receiver. This can be done in many ways: during face-to-face verbal interaction, over the telephone, through printed materials (letters, newspapers, etc.), or through visual media (television, photographs). Verbal, written, and visual media are three examples of possible communication channels used to transmit messages between senders and receivers. Other transmission channels include touch, gestures, clothing, and physical distances between sender and receiver (proxemics). The Pfeiffer Library Volume 25, 2nd Edition. Copyright © 1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer ❚❘ 1 When a message is received by another person, a decoding process occurs. Just as a sender must encode messages in preparation for transmission through communication channels, receivers must sense and interpret the symbols and then decode the information back into images, emotions, and thoughts that make sense to them. When messages are decoded exactly as the sender has intended, the images of the sender and the images of the receiver match, and effective communication occurs. HOW COMMUNICATION BREAKS DOWN If everyone were to have the same experiences, all messages would be encoded, transmitted, and decoded alike. Symbols would have the same meanings for everyone, and all communication would be received as the senders intended. However, people differ in their personal histories, ways in which they experience things, and emotional responses, leading to differences in the ways in which communications are encoded, transmitted, received, and understood. Different people attach different meanings to the words, pictures, sounds, and gestures used during communication. Difficulty with the encoding and decoding of images is not the only factor that affects the effectiveness of communication between people. Adler and Towne use the concept of noise to describe physical and psychological forces that can disrupt communication. Physical noise refers to conspicuous distractions in the environment that make it difficult to hear or pay attention. For example, when the environment is excessively hot or excessively cold, or when one is in a noisy nightclub, one may tend to focus more concern on the situation than on the message. Physical noise can inhibit communication at any point in the process—in the sender, in the message, in the channel, or in the receiver. Psychological noise alludes to mechanisms within individuals that restrict a sender’s or receiver’s ability to express and/or understand messages clearly. For example, senders with limited vocabularies may have difficulty translating images into symbols that can be understood easily by receivers. Receivers with inflated self- concepts may filter messages that disagree with their self-perceptions and put energy into defending themselves rather than into understanding the messages. Psychological noise most often results in defensiveness that blocks the flow of communication between sender and receiver. With the many ways in which communications can be encoded, channeled, and decoded, there is little wonder why so many difficulties exist when people attempt to communicate with one another. Yet communication processes become more complex. Discussing communication in terms of sender-receiver implies one-way communication. However, human communication often is a two-way process in which each party shares sending and receiving responsibilities. As the quantity of people taking part in a communication increases, the potential for errors in encoding and decoding increases, along with the potential for physical and psychological noise. 2 ❘❚ The Pfeiffer Library Volume 25, 2nd Edition. Copyright © 1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer REFERENCES Adler, R., & Towne, N. (1978). Looking out/looking in (2nd ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Maslow, A. (1970). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper & Row. The Pfeiffer Library Volume 25, 2nd Edition. Copyright © 1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer ❚❘ 3 The Communication Model ❚❘ CONVERGENCE STRATEGIES Walt Boshear and Karl Albrecht developed the convergence-strategies model to deal with the concept of motion in relationships between people. It leads to deliberate strategies for establishing, maintaining, and improving relationships. STABLE, CONVERGING, OR DIVERGING RELATIONSHIPS The model categorizes all relationships as stable, converging, or diverging. In a stable relationship, two persons have reached a conscious or unconscious agreement regarding the ways in which they will relate to each other. They avoid any behavior that will change the relationship. On the other hand, relationships that are in a state of change can be either converging or diverging. A converging relationship is changing in ways that enhance the benefits of the relationship to the participants. A diverging relationship is changing in ways that tend to destroy the relationship or detract from its benefits to the participants. Personal Versus Impersonal Relationships Any of the three types of relationships can be predominantly personal or predominantly impersonal. At the personal extreme, the ego-involvement of the participants—their attitudes, beliefs, and feelings—are an integral part of the relationship. On the other hand, emotional and personal issues are not considered in the impersonal relationship and generally will be disruptive to it if they arise. A premise of the model is that forces, such as the consequences of growing up and the mores of Western culture, push individuals in the direction of impersonal, stable relationships. From birth through adolescence, individuals are cast in roles of dependency and inadequacy. They are surrounded by people who, by virtue of their age and experience, are better able to cope with their environment and who have been placed in positions of authority by cultural tradition. In Western culture, individuals are taught to control their emotions and follow the traditions of society. They are strongly encouraged to refrain from making any emotional attachments except those that are approved by society, such as courtship, marriage, and a few close friendships. In addition to the forces of culture that guide the individual in establishing and maintaining relationships with people, there are the forces of time and exposure. The human intellectual and emotional system is highly adaptive and it tends toward stability. Experiences that initially may provoke a strong intellectual or emotional response will, when sustained or repeated, tend to elicit a lesser response. The figure diagrams the structure of the model and the relationships between its elements. The internal arrows indicate the natural course of relationships under the The Pfeiffer Library Volume 25, 2nd Edition. Copyright © 1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer ❚❘ 5 influence of time, exposure, and cultural forces. A relationship that originates with or presently has the characteristics described in any of the squares in the diagram tends to progress in the direction shown by the arrows. However, this progress is contingent on the absence of deliberate strategies by the participants or disruptive events outside the relationship. DIVERGING STABLE CONVERGING Sharing Caring Combat and and Cooperation Interdependence Competition Repetition Creativity or and and Withdrawal Coexistence Innovation IMPERSONAL PERSONAL The Impact of Cultural Forces on Relationships Stable relationships tend to remain stable, but will, through time, incline toward repetitive behaviors and coexistence of the participants. Probably the most typical example is the course of many courtships and marriages. Initially a man and woman develop a highly personal, caring relationship. As they spend more time together, the relationship converges, and the personal stake that each feels in the relationship increases. At the point of marriage and during the early honeymoon phase, they are