detailed discussion of factors that determine context in interpersonal communciation, and ensure social competence.

1. Communication and Social
Competence
Context, Feelings, Intentions, Behavior; Providing and Receiving Feedback
Dr Debaleena Dutta
BSH Department, PSIT Kanpur

2. Social Competence
• The ability to adjust your
behavior and speech according
to time, place and people, is
known as social competence.
• It requires:
Understanding context
Understanding intentions
Showing feelings / Empathy
Giving apt response

3. i. Understanding context
In case of strangers, we have to keep in mind that people differ in their
mindsets depending on:
Culture
Gender
Power-gap
In case of Close contacts like friends, family and colleagues, we focus
on their:
Speech styles
Non-verbal cues

4. Context
Culture
Gender
Power-gap
Speech styles
Non-verbal Cues
Strangers Close Contacts

5. Cultural Context
Cultural differences seen in oriental and
western countries.
Oriental countries like Asia, Africa have
cultural dynamics of collective thinking.
They place priority on group than over
self, and prefer non-body contact
greetings.
Western countries like West European
and North American nations have the
cultural dynamics of individual thinking.
They place priority on self than on group,
and prefer body contact greetings.

6. Context Mismatch at a dinner:
Cultural differences between host and guest
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmtSbVNnuyQ

7. Gender
• Gender differences are
universally observed across
cultures, in communication
styles.
• Male gender shows lesser trends
in expressing emotions than
females.
• Female gender shows lesser
trends in direct, assertive
communication than males.
Difference is Responding to a situation: Togo (2019)

8. Power Gap
• Power-gap is the difference
between two people based on
economic, professional or social
order.
• Accordingly people behave more
formally to members of
hierarchy, by using formal
registers and controlled voice
dynamics.

9. Close Contacts: Speech Styles & Non verbal cues
• We are familiar with the speech
styles and non-verbal cues used by
our close contacts regularly.
• Any change to that, like, faking an
accent, changing speech register by
using slangs or flowery vocabulary,
pitch and tone of voice, low or high
usage of hand movements—all give
us a cue to guess that something
has caused that person to act
differently. This context helps us
engage with them better.
Adopting British accent to show off:
F.R.I.E.N.D.S. (S06E04)

10. Feelings, Intentions, Behavior
• Feelings indicate Emotional Intelligence.
• An emotionally intelligent person will assess the dynamics of context
and interpret another person.
• Intention indicates attitude, or, the mental stand-point of a person.
• Behavior is the action—linguistic and action-wise, that a person
adopts, in sync with his/her intentions and attitude.
• An emotionally intelligent person will always interpret the attitude
and actions of another person in a sensitive manner, keeping eye on
the context. This helps in maintaining healthy relationships.

11. Giving and Receiving Feedback
• Relationship is a two-way road.
• An emotionally intelligent person generally inspires positive response
during inter-personal interactions.
• If one is sensitive and understanding towards others’ crisis, chances
are, others respond to the former in the same way when he/she is in
distress.
• Any long term or meaningful short-term relationship is essentially
based on this mutually fulfilling feedback system.