This was quite interesting for me. I chose to watch the
latest episode of Community and was confused from the very beginning. There was
a mismatch group of people and I could tell that they were friends because they
were around a table with food. Other than that, there wasn’t much I could read
into. The facial expressions showed me emotions, but I could not really grasp
how the people knew each other or what was going on.
What I realized from this experience is that it is easier to
judge nonverbal cues from people that you know! I put this to the test by
watching a show that I am familiar with and found that I could pick up on more
cues than I did in the show I was unfamiliar with. I also found this to be true
when interacting with people. During my observations this week, I noticed it
was easier to tell what people were expressing if I knew them personally.
I think that the main thing we all need to consider when communicating with others is that our instincts about something may not always be right. We really need to pay attention to what is being said and to the nonverbal cues that goes along with it. I think that if we really pay attention to both, we can pick up on what is going on or what is trying to be conveyed to us.
Harmon, D. (Producer). (2012, May 10). Curriculum unavailable
[Television series episode]. [With Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Yvette
Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Jim Rash, Ken Jeong, & Chevy
Chase]. In Community. United States:
National Broadcasting Company.
I also watched an episode of Community, and I was so wrong about what I thought was happening in the episode. It was very difficult to tell what the relationships were between the characters, 1) because I didn't have any backgrounds on the characters, and 2) I can be very difficult to get full stories with just nonverbal communication. Just like we read this week in our textbook, about channel discrepancy. It is "the situation when one set of behaviors says one thing and another set says something different" (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2009, pg. 104). Sometimes verbal and nonverbal communication can collide, causing confusion. That can be very present when we only see one of those forms of communication and not the other.
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O’Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2009). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteWatching the shows with the sound off was quite interesting to me as well. I must admit that it somewhat became boring trying to figure out what exactly was going on. The interactions of the cast definitely revealed emotions of happiness or sadness, but without hearing what is being said there is no way to know exactly.
I too find that communication can be misleading. Creating assumptions about a person or situation based on what we think it happening or being said can have so many inaccuracies. I liked how to you said that we need to consider both verbal and nonverbal cues in communication in order to achieve in accurate perception of our environment and of others.
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