Interpersonal Communication Essentials

By Aamir’ Bolden

Figure 1.9 Transactional Model of Communication, via Chapter 1: overview of Interpersonal Communication, by Jason S. Wrench; Narissa M. Punyanunt-Carter; and Katherine S. Thweatt 2023

Interpersonal communication (IPC) is the process of assigning meaning to messages given to relational parter. A relational partner is anyone you share a connection with regardless of complexity; they can be a friend, family member, coworker, even a neighbor. As we conduct this process it’s important one understands that there are 7 elements of IPC.

A Messages is the meaning we assign to symbols when communicating. IPC can be both verbal and nonverbal consisting of verbal and nonverbal symbols. Remember, a symbol is anything that represents a thought, person, object, feeling, or thought. Therefore, it’s important to know when we are sending messages, we often ignore what nonverbal messages are being sent or fail to realize how they are being interpreted, nonverbal communication can include your tone, hand and facial gestures, visual representations, physical environment, and many more.

Sending/receiving- When we send messages it’s our job to ensure we encode them with our intended meaning. Avoid sending mixed messages, since we often send verbal and non-verbal messages at the same time sometimes, we can confuse our relational partners. Conversely, messages have two different meanings: relational meaning and content meaning. Sometime what we say may not necessarily represent what we mean or how we feel about our partners. For instance, if someone says, “we need to talk”, the content meaning is exactly that, however; the relational meaning may hold a lot of weight to it. As the receiver it is our job to decode and interpret these meaning clearly.

Feedback is a verbal or nonverbal response to message. Note that any and all feedback is also a message, and your partner relies on your feedback to interpret the reaction to their own message. When we choose to delay, withhold, or exaggerate our responses, it is also decoded by our relational partners.

Channels are the medium we choose to deliver a message. We have many ways to communicate with one another, including face-to-face, on the phone, texting, emailing, hands, eyes, and vocal cords among many others. A lean channel provides only a small amount of sensory information to convey meaning. A rich channel provides a large amount of sensory information to convey meaning. When effectively communicating one should apply these channels strategically. For example, it can be hard to understand tone in messages or text, so you wish to deliver emotional or difficult messages face to face or on the phone, which are considered rich channels as opposed to lean channels like email.

Noise is anything, physical or not, that makes communication challenging. External noise refers to distraction that occurs outside of oneself, there may be familiar smell, a loud noise, or a beautiful picture that makes it difficult to effectively encode and decode messages. Internal noise is within mind or body; an individual may be in a horrible mood or have a significant headache. Semantic noise refers to errors in language; perhaps relational partners share different languages or dialects. If one belongs to a high-context culture (indirect) and another to a low-context (direct) culture, the two may have issues effectively communicating, the high-context culture may have issues confronting the low-context culture due to the opposite nature of the culture. Communicators can experience more than one type of noise at the same time; they may hear a baby cry while having a headache and not understand their relational partners’ words all at the same time.

Context is the environment or setting communication takes place. A conversation can have different sorts of context, to include physical, social, and phycological elements. Context can have serious implications on the conduct of the relational partners. Communicators can improve their IPC by optimizing context, you may choose to have heated debate in a public space to avoid negative outcomes, or you might postpone a conversation in order to have more reasonable discussions with a relational partner who may be angry, both are examples of optimizing context. The IPC norms, customs, roles, and culture each communicator holds also contributes to context.

Frame of reference is the perspective you bring or maintain while engaging or interacting with others. It is essentially in individuals background and how it shapes them for the interaction. If a woman on a date claims she hates all men, she may have had a previous relationship then didn’t end well and now has a predisposed mindset toward men. This is an example of an ongoing negative affect. Our emotions, knowledge, and experiences contribute to our frame of reference. Our frame of reference plays a major in what choices we make when communicating, men of different races interact with forces of authority differently, according to their perspective on the police, a black man may be much more fearful in the presence of police. This causes him to keep his hand on the steering wheel with his license and registration already presented, this is a nonverbal message of cooperation.

The five ethical Ideals

IPC conflict is struggle between relational partners, these conflicts can be overt or covert, direct or indirect. Two partners may get into shouting match and one or none may eventually win but the conflict is obvious, this would be an overt conflict. Other times it may not be so obvious, it may seem everything is fine, but your partner may not be able to look you in the eyes, begin addressing you differently, give witty remarks as feedback, or break relational norms; there may be a covert conflict present. Resolving these conflicts requires the same amount of resolve and communicators should follow these steps.

1. Identify your needs

2. Share your needs

3. Brainstorm

4. Evaluate your solution

5. Implement your solution

6. Access the solution

By following these steps and approaching IPC conflict strategically, communicators are equipped to deal with any issue. With the use of I- statements, confront any unethical communication behaviors while recognizing and encouraging ethical behaviors, owning our actions with integrity, remaining tactful, and disagreeing with civility. It is important to maintain a dual perspective by assuming some truth to everything that is said by your partner, and to remain solution based when discussing conflict.

Remember, when we communicate each of us keeps IPC goals and needs, we must understand that every action or inaction we take is an IPC behavior and ensure that they support that goal we want to achieve.

If we can properly identify these behaviors for ourselves and correctly identify the IPC goals of others, then we may be able to effectively communicate and meet the IPC needs of our relational partners.