Emotion Work

The area of Social Influences in Emotions and Communication is an area that I feel could use further discussion. My reasoning behind this is that I feel that so much of the way we communicate is guided by the the framing rules and feeling rules that we live by that we would all benefit from learning as much about them as possible. If anything we may gain a stronger understanding of why people are acting in ways we like or dislike. Emotion work, which Wood (2010) explains as the "effort to generate what we think are appropriate feelings in particular situations"  is something that we all do even if we may not be aware. There are times when I question how others might view me if my communication (both nonverbal and verbal) were an exact reflection of how I actually felt inside. There are times when I am working on my emotions just to correspond with what I think is appropriate for each interaction in my life. An example of this is that I have empathy for others, and sometimes so much so that when a person is telling me something sad that happened to them I feel my tears wanting to come out yet I hold them back because I feel like this is inappropriate and may come of as "fake". I have also noticed that people often refrain from speaking ill of people in situations where they think they might offend someone else. I think that people can benefit from honesty even in situations where we believe that we must engage in emotion work so that we are doing what we think is the right thing for that moment. One example is that I wouldn't want a good friend to tell me that "things will get better soon "if they honestly believe that things won't get better soon. It would feel better to hear their true feelings and then an explanation of that truth than to hear something artificial and constructed.

Question Two

My favorite things about this class were the paper assignments. Writing papers have always been my least favorite part of any class, but I realized that when the paper assignments are something interesting and can be approached from personal knowledge as well as what we are learning in the course, they can be quite enjoyable. I enjoyed writing the relationship development paper in particular because I was able to learn about myself and my relationship. It also sparked up an interesting conversation with my partner because I was able to reflect on some of the issues I had early on in our relationship with my communication. My least favorite part of the class was that I felt that some students were not responding to different classmates during each weeks discussion. I think the easiest thing to do is click on the names at the top of student blog list which made it harder for the class to gain others perspectives each discussion. Improvements for this might be that students could be encouraged to comment on someone different from the previous week.

Question One

This has been one of the most informative classes I have taken for communication studies. I have learned a significant amount of information about interpersonal communication. The concepts that stand out the most are verbal and nonverbal communication, and the importance of nonverbal communication that people tend to overlook since people are not always educated on what to look for in nonverbal communication. Similarities include both forms of communication being symbolic, rule-guided, intentional or unintentional, and reflecting of culture (Wood 2010). The differences are that these forms of communication can replace the other in specific situations, and nonverbal can help us determine when it's our turn to speak, as well as helps us express our feelings about others. For example, we can show boredom as well as happiness without using verbal communication to express these emotions. I have also learned about friendship and romantic relationships, and the growth phases they go through to evolve or in other cases end. While completing my third paper assignment I learned about my own relationship while applying key concepts we have learned in this class including the growth stages that begin with our individuality that affects how we seek out others for romantic relationships. We don't often realize this while we are single, but it makes sense to me now that I have learned how this process works. The obstacles to mindful listening including message complexity and internal and external obstacles. Selective listening which one of the forms of nonlistening that Wood explains as "focusing only on a particular parts of communication" is something that I do often and learning about it has helped me learn how to be more mindful of it when I am doing this. Overall, I have learned communication skills and concepts that I will not forget.

Question 3-Ethnicity and Parenting

In Wood (2010) I read that "parents whose ethnicity is not the dominant or priveleged one in their culture tend to invest more energy in instilling ethnic pride in children than do parents who belong to priveleged ethnic groups". I found this section to be interesting because I come from a stereotypical white family. Although my step-father who raised me is Mexican-American, he rarely spoke to us about his culture or instilled any of his cultural on us growing up. My mother is German-Irish, but she is third generation so she does not have any German or Irish traditions or cultural values that we learned about growing up. She occasionally spoke about her German grandmother who was not a very loving woman, but always baked the yummiest pies and desserts. I have always felt that because our family was raised without any value placed on our ethnic background, that I don't really have an ethnicity. When people ask me what my ethnic background is I usually become annoyed with the question, and I have realized over the years that it is because I don't feel like I have any validity in answering that comment. If I were to start listing the different countries that my biological parents have ancestory in, what is the point in doing so? I won't feel any more ethnic pride because I was never raised with any to begin with. My brothers like to get into that Irish pride stuff and I find it rather silly because neither one has been to Ireland, and they don't eat Irish food, or listen to Irish music, nor do they even know any Irish history. I think that many white people like to gravitate toward  things like Irish-pride or Italian-pride because they see that other ethnic groups have a sense of unity and pride that many people who are considered white seem to lack. As I get older I realize that there is pride in being someone who doesn't have a particular culture either. I like that I am not partial to any group of culture, and I can find interest and beauty in every last culture on Earth.

Question 2

In 50 years I predict that some of the current restrictions we place on marriage will be lifted such as the same-sex marriage ban. Just as people grew out of the 17th century marriage restrictions based on race in the U.S.. I believe that our current restrictions will change to accept people who don't fit into one box. In this country, marriage used to be between an older white man and a very young white girl who was considered a "virgin" bride. At that time interacial marriage was out of the question. Many people don't like to think about that now, or are unaware of that part of history. If that were to happen today most people would be alarmed.  As new generations lose their prejudices and reach voting ages, change will happen over this span of time. I think that marriage will still hold some traditional customs such as ceremony and vows, but I think that the opposite-sex only part of the equation will be changed to accept people of the LGBT community. As of now a woman can't marry a woman, but if she were to become transgendered male, she would be granted the right to marry a woman. I think that in 50 years we will look back on this and see how unfair this is that we place so much emphasis on a heterosexual norm for the appearance of marriage. I think that marriage will probably be a certificate that is much easier to obtain than it is now for many people. Some people who are not able to legally marry now would like to do so for other reasons than to have a big church ceremony. Marriage has already been evolving since it was created, so it is not unrealistic to expect some type of change over the span of 50 years. Marriage is a part of society, and as that society evolves, the defintion of marriage will too.

Question One

To me a family is two or more people who live together, and at best have love and trust for each other. Some families don't have support and love for each other, but they may still appear to be a family by the basic definition. I don't believe that families have to have certain members or maternal and paternal roles such as a mother, father, or child to be considered a family. I also don't believe that they have to be in a heterosexual relationship to be a family. If someone told me that they lived with their grandmother and had no other siblings I would still consider the two of them to be a family. Family members give and take from each other in many different ways. At times they may provide emotional support, financial support, and at worst they hurt each other physically and mentally with words and violence. Even though my mother never hit us growing up, the siblings in our family did hit each other from time to time, and we would never do that now that we are grown up. No family is perfect, and some may seem to be stronger and more loving than others, but they all have their flaws in one way or another. All of the relationships in the chapter fit my definition of family except for devitalized marriage and conflict-habituated marriage because those are just like living together as roommates, or as two people who dislike one another living under the same roof. I wouldn't consider roommates who don't care for each other to be a family, and once a person feels apathy toward their relationship, they are no longer emotionally active in that relationship. So in those cases, the family part of the equation seems to be missing.

Question 1

This question had me thinking a great deal about the hypocrisy that lies in the fact that we get so shocked by online deception, but forget that the Jerry Springer style drama does exist to a certain degree in face-to-face relationships. People have secret affairs, and some even tell people they "love" them just to get physical and/or financial benefits. Yes, some people lie online because they find it easy to do so, but people have been deceiving in face-to-face interactions and relationships long before the Internet made online deception possible. The difference lies in the fact that there are some types of deception that a person can't pull off as easily in face-to-face contact as they can in online interaction. Sex and physical appearance are both something we can identify easier in face-to-face contact for obvious reasons. Character, convictions, mental issues, etc. are all things that we can lie about in both face-to-face or online interaction. Ethically, it can be argued that it is wrong to deceive someone in any fashion, but I don't think that online deception is any worse than face-to-face deception. If anything people should be less shocked by online deception because people are hidden behind their computers and may feel more comfortable deceiving someone. There was a study done recently that showed an increase of rude behavior by those who were wearing sunglasses as opposed to not, so I don't see it as any surprise that a person behind a computer may feel more comfortable lying about themselves.

Environmental Spoiling

I found the concept of "environmental spoiling" which Wood (2010) describes as "situations in which proximity breeds ill will" to be an interesting part of the chapter. Although this concept was not a large part of the chapter, I was able to identify with it because I have experienced this with people. We have all been in proximity with people who we are not attracted to or dislike, and sometimes people never seem to "grow on us" as others say they might. My mother used to tell me that I would eventually like my sisters boyfriend once I realized that he meant well even in situations when I thought he was just being plain rude to people. Well I was never able to find any personality excuses for his rudeness, and up until the day that they broke up he had never grown on me. I found it really awkward to be in close proximity to him which created environmental spoiling in my life. The more I was around him, the more ill will I felt. When my sister broke up with him she said her main loss of attraction was his arrogance and rudeness to others. She said that he was constantly trying to prove himself as right in any argument with someone and that he never listened to other peoples point of view.

Question 2

I have been in a relationship where there was an absence of love, but there was a commitment. Wood (2010) describes commitment as "the intention to remain involved with a relationship". The commitment in my past relationship lied in the fact that we were committed to dating only each other, and we continued to meet and hang out when we said we would. Our relationship also reached an intimate level based on our physical attraction to each other, but I never felt an emotional connection. I am now able to put a name to the type of love that I thought would eventually grow out of this relationship and that is "storge", which is one of the primary styles of love that compatibility can lead to for people. However, this love never happened and is probably why we were able to end the relationship and also the reason I never felt sadness or regret over the break up. I can conclude that commitment doesn't always lead to love, and that love can be present for some people even when the other person may not be committed to the one who actually feels love. Some people may be committed to a relationship and not have felt love yet, and others may only be committed because they feel that they love the person they are with, and they find this love leads to a desire to stay committed.

Question 1

The main areas in the Advice Forum are Friendship Advice with the subcategories of Problems, Making and Keeping Friends, Friend needing support, and and discussion ideas. There is also a More than Friends advice section that includes the areas of More than Friends? which offers Sexuality advice and Relationship advice. I think that these areas reflect the challenges to friendships well. There seems to be a common knowledge that is shown in the chapter and in the advice forum that friendship can encounter problems just as romantic relationships or any relationship with another person. Sometimes friendships are looking to cross over into a romantic relationships which can also cause problems. Challenges to friendship such as distance as a physical barrier that can cause problems for those who can't make the time to talk on the phone, email, etc. Friendships that might have been strong while two people lived in the same area code, may become weak when one person moves away due to the challenge of staying connected. In the advice forum many people are disclosing their experiences with these challenges, and there is a particular focus on those who have romantic feelings for their friend. One interesting part about this that I noticed is that it seems that some romantic feelings that evolved out of friendship seem to have even stronger emotional connections to the person because of the level of intimacy they have with that person. Examples are knowing someones deepest darkest secrets from the trust and acceptance that we have in our friendship with them. I was sad to see  thread titles such as the one "I have no friends". That might be something the person felt comfortable disclosing on a web page, but it might be harder to do so in real life. We don't usually walk up to people in a coffee shop or at work and say "Hello, I'm Jane and I have no friends. Would you like to be my friend?". Many people on the site are also looking for a pen pal which shows that they are challenging the idea that you have to live close to maintain a friendship with someone.

An Interesting Concept

I found the concept of socioeconomic class and friendship to be an interesting part of the chapter. When I applied this to my personal life I realized that the friendships that I relate to the most are with those that are of the same class as me. This makes sense because we are usually able to directly relate to the others experience. An example of this is a friend of mine who is as broke as I am these days. When we talk we don't judge each other based on our wealth status, but she once disclosed to me that one of her coworkers who is well off financially asked her out of the blue if she was "One of those people who likes being poor?". I thought this was a really rude question, but it goes to show that some people do judge others by their financial status. Whether or not this should be of importance in a friendship, I was able to make a connection based on what we read about how these factors do exist. Social categories such as class, gender and race do have a role in friendships and relationships with others. In my personal experience the people I know tend to form more friendships with the same gender (I am aware that many people form cross-sex friendships). And there are those that form stronger connections when they are able to relate directly with another person based on culture, class or race.

Question 2

My relationship with my best friend Elizabeth who I call "Beast" immediately came to mind for answering this question. In Wood (2010) we read that investments are "what we put into relationships....and investments cannot be recovered." With this friendship also comes a solid commitment, trust and acceptance, and closeness of which all make up the dimensions of our friendship. The commitment lies in the fact that we talk to each other at least once a day even though we live in different cites. These investments we have made into our friendship have lead to a trust that we are both investing equally so we don't have a fear that we will ever lose these investments. Having such a fear would only cause stress for the friendship because our trust would be questioned each time we did something nice for the other. We trust each other which creates the "psychological safeness" that is described in the book. We share a closeness in dialogue by our desire to chat with each other about everything that is going on in our lives. I place a lot of value on being able to talk to her each day about my life, and I usually feel much healthier mentally on the days where we can talk longer. The acceptance is crucial in our friendship because we do expect one another to accept each other as a whole rather than just particular parts of ourselves. Some friendships are based on only partial acceptance because of the fear of self-disclosure that relationships without trust suffer from. If I were to tell Elizabeth about something I see as a flaw of myself, she would accept me just the same, and she usually finds comforting words to make me feel better. All of these aspects of our friendship are what make it able to survive and grow through the years.

Investments-An interesting concept

Wood (2010) describes investments as "what we put into relationships that we could not retrieve if the relationships were to end". I found this to be an interesting part of the chapter because I had never thought about this aspect of a relationship before reading this. I have been in a relationship for five years now and I can admit that it does require the time, money, and thoughts and feelings that were discussed in this part of the chapter. If my relationship ended tomorrow there would be no way to recover these aspects of the relationship. A friend of mine recently went through a break up with someone who she had invested all her emotional and physical energy into. She moved in with him because she thought that they were going to be together for a long time. Before she moved in with him she sold all her belongings because she thought that his stuff was much nicer than hers. After living together for 6 months, he told her that he had lost his feelings for her, and she felt blindsided by this. A few days before he had told her he loved her and went with her to her nephews birthday party. She put all her energy in to making the relationship work, but all it took was one person having a change of heart for it to end. This concept made me think about how my friends investments into that relationship will never be recovered, and she is now resentful toward her ex because of this. She had to start all over by purchasing new belongings for a new apartment she is renting, and she said that she now has trust issues that may leak into her next relationship.

Question 2

Sometimes when a person says something that I disagree with my initial reaction is to become defensive which can also lead to me choosing not to acknowledge them. When we disagree with others, disconfirmation comes easily because our responses tend to ignore the feelings of others because we are letting our selfishness rule the situation. The example I have is a particular argument I had with my brother last time I was visiting my family. There were two of Gibb's defensiveness-producing communication behaviors that I can now identify during that situation. I felt disconfirmed and defensive by something I had said to him, and looking back on the situation I can see that I was using evaluation by saying things like "I can't believe you did that, that was dumb, you shouldn't have done that". I was also using strategy because my brother asked me a question that sounded like he was trying to manipulate me. He asked me "Hey sis, now I know you love me and we don't see each other often so do you want to do me a huge favor?". I immediately became defensive and said no to him.

Question 1

I have found it difficult to confirm others when I disagree with them. As we learned in our text the second level of confirmation is "acknowledgment of what another feels, thinks, or says" (pg. 205, Wood).  This chapter helped me understand that each level of confirmation is important separately and together. The first level of recognition involves making others feel like they exist while acknowledgment makes others feel like what they have to say matters. The level of endorsing requires acceptance. The differences with confirming others as people, and endorsing particular ideas are that confirmation of others as people is always possible, whereas endorsement may go against someones personal convictions, opinions, etc. When someone walks into a room that we do not know we can acknowledge their existence by saying hello, but if the person starts making rude comments about something we don't agree with we may not endorse their thoughts and feelings.

An Interesting Concept-Emotion Work

I found the concept of emotion work to be an interesting part of the chapter. I like that I can finally put a name to this type of communication as opposed to just calling it being "fake". Emotion work is how we condition ourselves to feel a certain way because we believe we should feel that way. In Wood (2010) there is an example given that  we "might think it is wrong to feel gleeful when someone you dislike is hurt". This is because we are taught that it is wrong to have that type of negative attitude toward someone. For the most part in our culture, including sports where people are extremely competitive, it is expected that you congratulate others for their win even if their win meant your loss. Although someone may want to express other emotion toward someone in certain situations, they will likely use emotion work to show someone what they think is the appropriate behavior for that situation. I feel that I use emotion work for people when they express to me that they are pregnant because I don't have the same attitudes as many people I know about pregnancy. I was adopted at birth, and I plan to adopt two children, and I don't have that biological maternal instinct that many women claim they have. I think that many people assume all women want to be pregnant. When women tell me they are pregnant I have caught myself wanting to just say "Oh that's great" and then I use emotion work and  respond with something that I think they will like more such as "That's wonderful, do you know if you are having a girl or boy?" Then if they say "girl" I say something to relate which is that "I plan to adopt a baby girl in the near future". By asking them this question I am telling the truth, and I am using a socially acceptable response that they probably hear twenty times a day and would never be offended by.

Question 1-Interactive View

I found the interactive viewpoint which assumes that we have more control over over our feelings then the physiological influences on emotions, which assumes that we have less control. I have always related more to the idea that emotions are the trigger for physiological responses, and that if we learn to control these thoughts and emotion we will experience less stress and anxiety. An example is that when you start thinking about something that makes you anxious you may start to feel uneasiness or nausea. The idea that this works the other way around is interesting to me as well. In Wood (2010) we learned about the James-Lange view which supports the idea that the physiological responses come first, which then trigger the emotional responses we experience. An example of this is seeing someone else give there speech before us may result in our nerves acting up and causing sweaty palms, and a nervous stomach, then in result we begin feeling nervous and emotional toward this response. I agree that our perceptions of our experiences may have great influence on our emotions, but I also believe that your own thoughts, and self-talk can also trigger stress and other physiological responses. From my personal experience I have had both physiological trigger emotional, as well as thought and emotion trigger physiological. The James-Lange philosophical viewpoint does seem helpful in explaining situations where someone sees another person become ill, and then they start feeling ill, or when we see someone yawn, many of us yawn in response. This might be because we are experiencing a perception of tiredness or illness, which then causes us to feel more tired or question our health. I experience the interactive viewpoint more often in life. Having awareness of the interactive viewpoint helps me control my thoughts and remind myself that worrying and thinking about negativity will only lead to other problems including physical responses.

Question 2

While reading through the fallacies section I thought this question was going to be difficult to answer because none of them stood out to me until I got to "Fear of catastrophic failure", which summed up my fallacy in intrapersonal communication well. I have struggled with this side of myself and I was glad to see that it is recognized as a fallacy in self-talk. The fact that I am constantly playing these scenarios in my head of negative things that could happen has had an affect on my life in many different ways. One example of this was that I was procrastinating meeting with an advisor for school simply because I thought that she was going to be upset with me once she realized that I had taken a senior class that was meant for the last semester. I had played out this scenario many times where she was telling me I had to re-take the course, and this would cause me to avoid meeting with her. I realized that I had to go and meet with her in order to graduate, and by doing this I found out wonderful news that I am graduating this Spring. I am very happy about this, but I feel that if I had met with her sooner I would have probably graduated even earlier. As our text explained, we should find ways to counteract these fallacies, and the way that I am slowly learning to change this is by realizing that I have more to lose by avoiding situations based on fantasy and scenario than I do by actually gathering courage to do them. I have changed my self-talk to point out that positive scenarios that may also happen by challenging these fears. While this may still be fantasizing to a certain degree, it is a positive type of fantasy that can keep me focused on the good things I have going on in my life.

My 3 Responses to Others

Unfortunately this is the message I have been getting when trying to leave comments on other posts. In fear that I will miss the deadline I am posting them here. I know some may not get a chance to read these responses on their blogs, but maybe some will. :/

Here is the message I get every time I try to post:

We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.

The following errors were found:
Input error: Cookie value is null for FormRestoration
If this happens next week I may have to use a work or school computer for leaving comments to others.


Response to Listening is a 10 part skill

Hi Elek,

I think that not working hard enough at listening is one of the
easiest mistakes to make. I often wonder how much more information I
would have processed if I had effectively listened through the types
of lectures you were discussing. I can think back to my Anthropology
class of which I was so excited to learn about, and I remember
specific lectures where I was zoning out because the information
became a lot to process. It is almost as though your brain says "Hey
I'm tired, I'm checking out for awhile". Then I would find myself
alert and listening better when tests and project due dates were
mentioned(hence the reason they mention selective listening as a
problem too). Being tired is one thing that can effect listening and
this leads me to believe that being well rested is crucial for anyone
who has to listen to anyone else for something such as school, work,
or mentoring such as you mentioned in an older post. Listening can be
work. I enjoyed reading your post. 



Response to Week 5, Post 1. Nonlistening

Hi EatingTurtle,

I was also able to relate a specific style of listening such as
monopolizing listening to a personal experience with a friend. I
thought that it was interesting that you mentioned that this is
something you have accepted in her because I consider my friend who
does this to be a great friend. It's almost as though I am used to it
at this point because it is not surprising when she starts directing
any conversation back to herself. Your post had me thinking a lot
about how it might be better for people to tell one another how they
feel in these situations. This may be easier said then done, but
there are many people who may not be aware that they are not
listening as effectively possible. I think that some people might be
surprised to find out what someone else thinks about their listening
skills, and I am willing to listen to someone else tell me what they
thought about mine.


Response to Nonlistening I need to improve on

Hey Nessa,

I liked the honesty of your post. I have selective listened before as
well, and I think that most people do to some degree. It can
sometimes be hard to block out other things you are thinking of when
someone is talking to you. This happened to me this week with someone
at work who was asking me a question and I did not hear all of what
they had been talking to me about so it made for an awkward
experience when I had to answer them. It's one thing if someone had
just asked you a question because you could just ask them to repeat
it, but it's another thing to have to ask someone to repeat different
parts of a conversation they already thought they were having.
Learning about these types of listening has really been beneficial in
how I plan to change my own communication style for the better.

Question 1

Pseudolistening is something that we are all guilty of (at least I would bet on that) to some degree. We know at this point that effective listening is a skill that involves mindfulness, and this type of listening involves those situations where others think we are listening to them because we may be making eye contact and appearing to listen, but we are tuning them out while they are speaking. I have done this before in class when I have anxiety over something else such as a speech I have to give, etc. and everything the Professor says up until that point is "in one ear out the other" because I am not actually listening even though my eyes are on them. Monopolizing is something a friend of mine is great at. This is when the listener always finds a way to turn the subject of the conversation back to their own experience as the focus. Selective Listening is when we are hearing what we want to hear out of communication. Someone might be talking about 6 different things that they believe are important, and the listener may only hear one or two of these things that they find important. Defensive Listening is when people take offense to others communication because of our own defense issues. My mom would do this when she would make dinner growing up by asking us if we liked something, and if we said something like "Yeah this is good, Jessica's mom makes this too" and my mom would hear that as we like the other one better, so she would often respond with something like "You don't really like it do you?"  It turns out that she has always been insecure about her cooking because my grandma has always told her she is not a great cook. I always loved my mom's food. Ambushing is the kind of listening where people have motives of listening well. They are waiting for the opportunity to speak back with an attack on the speaker. They often listen to hear something they are already anticipating to be a reason to get upset with the speaker. Literal Listening when people are listening to someone without having a connection beyond the content. Similar to the example in our text, my employers used literal listening recently when I asked them for an ergonomic assessment for our work station. I have been in a lot of pain, and I have developed carpal tunnel syndrome from the job. When I was explaining to my supervisor that I had been experiencing this pain, and that I was wondering if they could buy some wrist pads for support on the computer, she just replied with "Wow, I am not sure what we would be able to do about that." She didn't say anything in regard to the pain that I have been experiencing or make any comments that made me feel as though she cared about what I was saying. In my communication I am guilty of Pseudolistening in some interactions, and also of selective listening. I plan to fix this buy being mindful of the negative consequences that can happen from both of these types of listening. When I catch myself pseudolistening I will have to focus my attention on the speaker. For selective listening I will have to concentrate on the fact that I am missing out on great conversations that I may have more to relate to simply because I am selecting what I want to hear from them. 

Question 2

First off I learned some statistical information about how the average person only has a 25 per cent listening rate efficiency, of which I thought was very low considering we are only listening 1/4 of what we could be listening to. This suggests that people could learn and understand more if they even increased their listening efficiency by 25-50%. The first step I learned about is that when listening we need to find an area of interest rather than tuning the speaker out simply because we have made up our minds that the conversation is boring to us. Second, involves judging content rather than delivery and I can relate to this because I am guilty of tuning someone out because of the way they are delivering the message. The third concept I learned was about the overstimulation we can be guilty of when we immediately feel the desire to argue based on our convictions. We should refrain from doing this because we are being selfish rather than truly hearing the other persons point of view. Fourth is about listening for ideas rather than just for facts. When we concentrate on particular facts we may end up losing a lot of information in the process.The fifth step involves flexibility on what we are listening to, and the ability to make meaningful notes. The sixth concept I learned is listening is something we have to work on in order to improve communication for all parties involved. When we listen better, people speak better, and both aspects improve the communication process. Seventh, we must avoid distractions no matter how tempting they may be. Cell phones are a communication medium that people use in positive and negative ways during communication. When someone is talking to another person yet they are also flipping through their text messages or Facebook mobile edition, how much of that the conversation are they really listening to? The eighth concept is keeping your mind up to date with what you are listening rather than assuming it is too difficult to interpret and then giving up on it. To follow that the ninth concept involves keeping an open mind in regard to conversation, including the specific area of hearing certain words that may cause a change in listening due to the listener thinking too much into it. Lastly we must make the most out of the fact that our listening speed surpasses the rate of words per minute of a speaker. We should make the most of this by listening better rather than getting distracted or tuning speakers out because they are too slow for our listening process.

An Interesting Concept

One interesting concept that stood out to me in our reading of Chapter Six was an area on Selecting and Organizing Material-About how louder, out of the ordinary communication styles have an effect on the way people listen. Our text gave an example of an Asian American student who said that Caucasians "often ignore what she says because speaks softly and unassertively" (Wood, pg.149). I can see where the concept of mindfulness would work well for situations like these, because if the first step of listening involves being mindful, then a person should be able to look past soft spoken and unassertive mannerisms. I come from a family where everyone competes to be heard, and in order for others to listen we tend to speak loud or talk over one another. My girlfriend comes from a family of soft-spoken speakers such as the example in our book, and this has caused some issues before during family functions. I think that I should be more mindful of the possibility that I am not listening as effectively to others who don't have a similar communication style as myself. One thing the text doesn't mention is an example of how it can also go the other way around too because sometimes people who are more soft-spoken seem to be annoyed and agitated by speakers with louder mannerisms. My girlfriend has accused me before of talking too loud in an angry tone of voice when I was actually just trying to make an opinion about something. When this happens it makes me feel as though she is not listening to my words because she is annoyed, so I think that mindfulness can help everyone in that aspect.

Question 1

I propose the rainbow and family quilt metaphor because a rainbow is one bow of many colors that all shine together in a beautiful way. When we look up and see a rainbow we see it for what it is, the whole rainbow. A family quilt is a soft blanket of which every portion of the quilt contributes equally to create one large comfortable blanket. Although I doubt the person who first used the "melting pot" meant any harm by creating it, I do think that it creates a visual that we are all blending together to become one, and in this process our differences are no longer noticeable. Our differences are what creates this diversity in the first place, and by trying to make us all the same I think we would lose the beauty in all of the differences we have from each other. When asked this question in the past I thought that a salad metaphor was appropriate because so many different things go into making the salad taste good, whereas each part on it's own may be good, but becomes even better when mixed together with other ingredients. The only problem with using that one is that I can see where some people may imply that the lettuce or dressing is more important than the tomatoes or croutons, etc. These are the reasons I like the rainbow and family quilt metaphor because each part of the whole equation is equal and necessary for the sum. In the case of American society I believe that our differences are what makes us America. 

Question 3

An interesting concept in this reading was the specific area discussing particular terms that have been coined out of specific situations. Some examples of this in the text were date rape, marital rape, domestic partnership, and trans being short for transgender. I always looked at the term date rape, and marital rape in a negative way because I felt that the word rape should be used alone in any situation involving rape. In our text there was an important part that stood out to me where Wood was discussing the terms sexual harassment and marital rape as "activities previously perceived as acceptable". This is where I realized that terms such as date rape are the evolution of the words that we use to communicate relay meaning. Marital rape, and date rape may be used when trying to explain it to someone who may assume that a person can't be raped who is married or on a date with someone. The term domestic partnership was also mentioned in our text, and this applies to me personally. I have been with my girlfriend for five years now, and I rarely use the term "marriage" when referring to our life because I know that I can't actually marry her legally the way I would like to. Wood explains that language is a "tool that social movements use to change cultural life and meanings". We see this around as new terms evolve out of previous terms, and one becomes less appropriate or in the case of young people less cool. If our language and culture do reflect each other as read, then new terms will continue to arise out of change to society.

Question Two

Hate speech is defined as being "principally racist and anti-Semitic speech" by the Free Speech Museum page. I have also read other definitions that are broader, of which include speech that degrades people based on gender, sexual orientation, appearance, etc. From this page I learned that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment which means that unless there is another legal area that the speech falls into, the hate speech can't be prohibited by law. I think that hate speech is a touchy subject because so many of us have been on the giving and/or receiving end of hate speech. Words can be psychologically painful to people, but because these words do not harm us physically there is no law to support action against hate speech. There have been efforts against both censorship and  hate speech which has caused a debate between the opposing sides. I'm against censorship because I feel that hate speech is a reflection of our society, and by censoring it we are pushing it under a rug as if it is no longer there in society. If people are against hatred than let hate speech be a reflection of how far we still have to go to get to a place where people don't have so much hatred against others. I can understand how banning hate speech would help eliminate it based on the fact that it wouldn't be around us so much. But I would like to see less and less of hate speech because people are becoming more tolerant rather than the reason being that they are not allowed to express those feelings. I believe it does go against our constitutional right to freedom of speech by censoring hate speech. If people really want to decrease hate speech they have to get to the root of the speech, which is the negative views the person is carrying in the first place. Often enough people reach a point where they let their hatred consume them to the point where they will express it verbally in public places, and arresting someone for this is not going to change the fact that people feel this way in the first place. I think that more teachers and parents teaching tolerance is one great way to reduce hate speech.

Question 1

I chose to speak with my co-worker at work Doug, who is 51 years old. He said that when he was twenty years old men were expected to be actively working toward something such as a college, military, and family. He said that some of their behavior was similar to today's in the aspect of wanting to have a good time, meet girls, and party. When I spoke to my mother who is 57 years old she said that she felt that women had strong expectations to get married to a good man who her parents would respect. Although college was available for women, my mom said she did not feel as though her high school focused on how important it was for everyone. She said that womens' behavior was expected to be polite and caring, and that men were expected to be strong and supportive. Although they had expectations from their parents many of them still behaved like our youth today, which included the hipsters, party types, and those who were often disrespectful in a social aspect such as to elders, teachers, etc. My best friend's 80 year old grandmother, Rose, told me that when she was twenty years old most women including herself were already expected to be married to a gentleman who could support them. Women were expected to act "lady-like" and wear dresses or skirts, and always have their hair done. They were not expected to go to college, discuss political debates or the latest science breakthroughs, etc. My grandfather Tom, who is 82 years old, said that when he was twenty years old most of the men were expected to serve in military as well as work to support their families that were sometimes already established by this age. When most people talk about college aged kids they don't always get a "ladies and gentlemen" visual. One thing seems certain, and that is that today's twenty year old is not expected to have a family by that age, and they are also not expected to be that polite. Men are still expected to act "manly" and are often criticized when they do not. Women also have experiences with others criticizing their behavior for being too something or not enough of the other. Examples include how our society will trash talk a drunken college girl as being promiscuous or not classy, yet a drunken college guy is often just seen as displaying normal fraternity-like behavior.

Question 3

I found the section on 'particular others' to be interesting. Wood describes this term as the other people who are significant to us, which pretty much covers everyone except strangers in our lives. I agree that all of these people come into play regarding how we begin to see ourselves. I can't help but wonder now how I might see myself if I had not know how many other people see me. My whole life I was told by others that I was either reserved, or that I was intimidating based on physical characteristics, and a strong personality. I never understood why people felt this way because inside I always felt insecure and lacked the courage to do so many things I wanted. Maybe if other people had told me they saw me as an insecure person, I would have tried harder to go against that image, but I guess I'll never know. Another interesting part about particular others was when our text discussed how Latino and African American families are often more extended than Caucasion families. I agree with this because my mother is German-Irish, while my father is Mexican-American, and both of them have different perceptions of family members. My father will refer to second, and even third cousins as cousins, whereas my mother has no idea who her second cousins are. I also have a best friend who is Mexican-American and she refers to second aunts as aunts, and even to some of her moms cousins as her aunts. It can get very confusing sometimes and now when she is talking to me about her family I have to constantly ask, "Okay so this aunt you are talking about it your mom's cousin right?" because her mom doesn't have any sisters so from my experience my friend wouldn't have an aunt. In these cases people end up with more particular others in their lives who shape who they are. I think it's a good thing for kids to grow up meeting particular others with different life experiences, and this may even help them grow more comfortably in their own skin.

Question 2

Before reading this chapter I was unaware of the "one drop rule" involving race in early America. I have taken several history courses, but this was knew knowledge to me. This really puts the concept of race into perspective and has me asking myself even more, what is race? I guess my first attempt to explain it would be that it's a way that people try to classify each other based on certain characteristics. As we learned, these characteristics are not always physical and are sometimes based on knowledge of, or presumed ancestry. To be honest, I would have to say race is complicated. It's one of those concepts that can have my mind going for quite awhile and it can sometimes bring frustration when we are faced with having to disclose our race for different reasons.There is a movie called The Human Stain starring Anthony Hopkins that highlightes a particular man's experience with race, and how what others thought they saw was not really the case. Society saw him as a white man so he was able to classify himself as white, and as the movie goes on we discover that he has kept a secret all of his career about his race; he is a black man. These are the very reasons that race can be complicated. I don't think race is always helpful because it creates barriers to the very things that people complain about (with good reason) and want to change in our society. If we agree that we want each other to stop discriminating based on characteristics we can't change, then why should we go around wearing labels all the time? I know it sounds much easier than it probably is, and there are benefits to people knowing about their ancestry, but in regard to our pursuit of educations, career, etc, maybe we should allow people to check the boxes that they honestly feel apply to them. I feel that the worst part about the boxes is that people feel forced to check things that don't apply to them. The worst box of all is "other" because it makes it seem as though a person who is multiracial is not a part of our society, and causes some people to pick one of their races over the other simply to avoid this box. I found an article where some people share their personal experiences with race and the Census in case anyone is interested. USA Today Article/Race

Question 3

An interesting part of the chapter was the part about our safety needs in regard to communication. The chapter gives the scenarios of having a sober friend drive, or speaking with law enforcement if you think you may need protection. This is an area that we often take for granted because we don't think about how important our communication skills are in these types of situations. If something bad were to happen to someone, they would need to have a certain level of communication skill just to explain the situation or to even ask for help. I liked the fact that this part of the chapter was easy to relate to some personal experiences in my life. I remember there was a time when someone was knocking on my door at a random hour during the night. I was not expecting visitors so I chose not to open the door. I called our apartment security and explained to them why this was a concern for me. I think that if I had approached it from a different angle the security might have just thought that it was a friend or someone coming to visit me. They were able to understand why I found this strange because I explained that I was not expecting any visitors nor did I order a pizza, etc. As paranoid as that may sound to some people, the time of day and the fact that the person was a stranger to me was a red flag not to open the door. My girlfriend had peered through the door and was able to recognize the person as someone we had seen before walking his dog around our complex. However just because we are neighbors doesn't change the fact that he was a stranger to us. We had never spoken before this night so I found it weird that for the first time he chose to talk to us was at such a late hour. Through communicating with security and the office staff we were able to sort everything out and also find out that the reason he was knocking was to ask me if I was planning to sell an older car that I rarely drove. Although he chose a bad time and place to ask me the question, the communication between everyone ended up giving me the peace of mind that I needed.

Question 2

A relationship that comes to mind for this question is one with my co-worker at my current job. When she was first hired our relationship was an I-It because I viewed her as an employee who would be working in the office, and not really as someone I cared to know. The reason for this is because I am a busy person who works a lot and outside of work school keeps me very busy. As much as I value a good friendship, when my co-worker first started I was not looking to make friends simply because I had a busy schedule so I felt unavailable in a social aspect. When I did have any downtime I liked to spend it with my girlfriend who also has a busy schedule as a teacher. Although I would see her once a week at work, I never felt close to her and we rarely talked about anything that was not work-related. After a month or so of working with her casual talk had progressed into us both disclosing personal information about our families and life in general. This was the transition from the I-It to the I-You period. We started relating a lot on different aspects of our lives, and this lead to us deciding to get together outside of work. Getting to know her better made me want to invite her along to some social gatherings with some of my other friends. We went out dancing to San Francisco quite a few weekends which ended up being a lot of fun. I felt that the I-You changed to the I-Thou after we became comfortable with each other outside of work. She started to tell me about some of the hard times she went through in her life, including a period of depression that her family couldn't pull her out of for quite some time. I also became comfortable telling her about my life, and we eventually added each other on Facebook. We Facebook and text message often about work, politics, personal life stuff, and I do consider her a friend now rather than a co-worker. I feel a genuine trust with her as well and that's very special to me because I know she understands all of the negative aspects of our current job. Our employers have shown us a lack of respect on several occasions and I always feel comfortable talking to her about this because she is always on the same page as a friend who happens to work for the same company. In the beginning it was harder to talk to her about these issues because I was unsure if I could trust her, and now I wouldn't think twice about venting to her on issues pertaining to our job.

Question 1

I understood the linear model to break down communication as being the way that a message is sent from one person to another in basic form without accounting for many other factors. For example, your boss telling you what she/he expects of you and you as the employee reacting based on your job performance, but not necessarily responding the original message. Other examples include a parent telling their child to do their homework and the child hearing the message then beginning their homework. An example of my personal experience with this type of communication  is that I have a supervisor who sends out emails, and in most cases the emails do not appear open for suggestion. The emails rarely include anything in regard to the possibility that the employees will have questions about them such as "please ask or call if you have any questions, concerns, etc". There have been cases where the emails are vague and when I ask her anything about this she seems irritated that I have any questions. From my understanding the interactive model of communication would allow for more possibilities during supervisor/employee communication such as my example. This would include a scenario where my supervisor sent out an email asking an employee for suggestions on a particular work-related issue. The message being sent out would be received from someone else who would "decode, receive, encode" then send feedback of which would be "encoded, source decoded" such as we learned in the first chapter.

Hello All

Hi everyone,

My name is Catherine and I am a communication studies major here at SJSU. I am hoping to graduate next Spring, but I am not putting too much pressure on myself since I know classes have been hard to get into. I am originally from Sacramento, but I moved to San Jose with my girlfriend (who I have been with for five years now) back in 2008. She is a teacher here in San Jose. I currently work for a medical office in the Winchester area part-time while I am finishing up with school. During my free time I love watching movies, going to the ocean, and seeing my favorite bands play when they come to the bay. The only television show I am really into is Dexter (can't get enough), but other than that it's school and work these days. I look forward to working with everyone and to learning in this course. Happy weekend! :)

COMM 10

Hello everyone. I look forward to working with you this semester. Oh and Professor Perez conducts wonderful online courses so no worries on that aspect. :)