Communication Model - Talent Power Partners
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•605 views
This document discusses Albert Mehrabian's communication model and how people perceive reality through filters that can delete, distort or generalize information. It notes that understanding each other's perspectives can help minimize conflict and maximize cooperation. The document suggests an activity where people write down the colors they associate with each day of the week to illustrate how personal filters can lead to different interpretations of even simple concepts.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Similar to Communication Model - Talent Power Partners
Similar to Communication Model - Talent Power Partners (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (9)
Communication Model - Talent Power Partners
- 1. Communication Model Talent Power Partners
- 2. How We See Our Reality
- 3. Filters
- 7. How Is This Helpful? Communication Relating to others Allows for success Facilitates empathy and compassion
- 8. 1. Close your eyes and imagine the days of the week 2. What colour is each day? 3. Write down the colour of each day Review and compare people's different colour associations The days of the week are a simple fixed pattern. Yet we see them in different ways. It is easy to imagine the potential for far greater differences in the way we see more complex situations - like our work, our responsibilities and our relationships, etc. Human beings will never see things in exactly the same way - this is not the aim or work or life - instead the aim should be to understand each other's views far better, so that we can minimise conflict and maximise cooperation. Activity
Editor's Notes
- This model is a way of explaining how we take information from the outside world into our neurology and how that in turn affects our behaviours. As humans, we are constantly receiving information through our senses and processing it at an average rate of about 4 million bits of information per second. Knowing about the various factors which affect human communication enables us to communicate with greater flexibility. We are able to relate to people easily and respond to them on their terms. This builds rapport and allows for successful outcomes in leadership. It also facilitates empathy and compassion in human interactions. On the personal side, knowledge about the Communication Model enables people to ‘run their own minds’. More fulfillment in life is achievable when we are less affected by external circumstances, through gaining control of our internal processes. This leads to mental freedom, empowered responses, and mindful interactions with others. The reality that we experience is largely determined by what we do inside our heads. This means that everyone experiences any given situation differently. We unconsciously manipulate pure sensory information to create our subjective perceptions, based on the “programming” that has created our current set of filters.
- Our thoughts, feelings and behaviours stem from our unique filters. Meta Programs - These are our most unconscious filter, thought by some to be our ‘blueprint’, or filters that we are born with. Which means that this filter is not based on any previous experiences or beliefs. Meta Programs underpin our personality types, which explain why people respond differently in similar situations. Values - These are the things that are most important to us. Values are our next most unconscious filter and are based upon our experiences to date. They determine what the individual considers to be right or wrong, good or bad. This filter is also how we decide about how we feel about our actions and actions of others. They are things that we are willing to fight for and things we try to live up to. Values are arranged in a hierarchy, usually with the most important one at the top and the lesser ones below. Values are also context dependent, your values about what is important to you in a relationship are probably different from your values about what is important to you in your career. Values can also be linked to and vary with changes in an emotional state. Beliefs - Beliefs are convictions that certain things are true or real and are also generalisations about the state of the world around us. They support our values. Beliefs are presuppositions that we have about certain things and can create or deny personal power for us. (i.e. we have a better chance of achieving an objective if we first truly believe we are capable of doing so. If we believe that we will fail then the likelihood of that being our outcome increases). Beliefs are what we hold to be true, about ourselves, others and the world. Whether religious or not, everyone has beliefs, and the quality of our beliefs significantly influences the quality of our life. Attitudes - Attitudes are collections of values and beliefs around a particular subject. Often we are quite conscious of our attitudes and often we share them with others i.e. 'Well that's the way I feel about.....'. Memories - Memories we build up during the course of our lives deeply affect both our perceptions and our personality. Our memories are who we are. Some psychologists believe that as we get older our reactions to present external events actually have very little to do with the present, and are in fact reactions to collections of past memories organized in a certain way around certain subjects. Decisions - These are the past decisions about who we are and what we are capable of. They affect the decisions that we are faced with in the present. Past decisions are what create our present values, beliefs and attitudes, therefore they influence how we respond to current situations. Decisions about who we are and what we are capable of, especially negative or limiting decisions, can affect our entire lives. The decisions we make may generate beliefs, values and attitudes or they may just affect our perceptions through time. Sometimes we make decisions unconsciously or at a very early age and then forget them. These decisions may not get re-evaluated in the context of new experience and as a result can affect our lives in ways which were not originally intended.
- Next level of filtering As humans we do at least one of three things with incoming sensory information that has been filtered. We delete, distort, or generalize all sensory input. Deletion - An attempt to actively pay attention to everything entering through our sensory input channels would not be useful. With the extreme amount of information entering and being processed by our nervous systems, we are forced to omit certain aspects of our current experience by selectively paying attention to other aspects of it. In other words, we focus on what is most important at a specific moment in time and the rest is deleted from our conscious awareness. We focus on what seems most important at any one particular moment in time and allow the rest to pass us by. Distortion - We misrepresent our reality through distorting our experience of pure sensory information. Being intimidated by certain people, frightened of a harmless situation, procrastinating, or misinterpreting what someone says, are ways people distort reality. The process of planning, imagining or visualizing something also uses distortion as a way of constructing goals and compelling futures. Distortion is a key component of imagination and a useful tool in motivating ourselves toward our goals. When we plan we use distortion to construct appealing imaginary futures. Example: We rely on distortion to allow us to identify a particular thing or person over a wide range of variance. Ask yourself, would you recognize your best friend if they changed their clothes or styled their hair in a different way? Without the ability to distort reality the answer would be no. Every time your friend changed a single aspect of their appearance, hair length, hair colour, clothing type, clothing colour etc., you would have to learn that entire configuration and add it to the 'map' which you label 'my best friend'. Each time you saw your friend the only way you could be sure it was them would be to mentally examine every 'version' of them until you found one that matched the person standing in front of you. Add in the fact that they look different depending on their facial expression, physical posture, state of health etc., etc. and the number of combinations you would have to learn just to recognize your friend would be huge. Generalization - is the process by which we draw global conclusions based on one, two or more experiences or learning and drawing conclusions so that information can be applied for the achievement of any task. Example: a toddler who learns how to open a door for the first time, quickly generalizes their new ability so that all types of doors can be opened from then on. Similarly, a negative experience may generalize through a person’s life and result in issues later on, i.e. being bitten once by a dog can result in a phobia of dogs. Filtering is not a passive activity. We actively scan for evidence to confirm our existing world-views, which create the self fulfilling prophecies that form the illusion of an objective experience of reality.
- How we react to a certain event depends on our internal representation. What sensory perceptions we connect to that event ie; feelings, tastes, and smells. Our internal representations trigger corresponding states, which motivate all of our behaviours. We have an internal representation/thoughts of an external event. That internal representation and our evaluation of it is linked to our emotional state, our physiology (body position, skin colour and temperature, muscle tone etc.) and to our behaviour (our actions). Example: “Queueing for the latest big-thrill super-looping gut wrenching roller-coaster ride at our favourite theme park we see the train flash past, hear riders screaming, feel the vibrations resonate through the structure under the G-force. We may feel excited, feel the effects of adrenaline on our body and whoop with excitement as we push to the front of the queue. On the other hand we may feel sick with dread, attempt to make ourselves as small as possible and then run in the opposite direction as fast as our now wobbly legs can carry us.” It’s our internal representations that determine how we view the world and everything we experience.
- Albert Mehrabian and his colleagues were seeking to understand the impact of facial expressions and spoken words. It's not just words: a lot is communication comes through non-verbal communication. Without seeing and hearing non-verbals, it is easier to misunderstand the words. When we are unsure about what the words mean, we pay more attention to the non-verbals. 7% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in the words that are spoken. (Words) 38% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said). (Tone of voice) 55% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in facial expression. (Nonverbal behavior) How can it be explained that a person actually listens to only 7% of the substantive message? This is to do with natural instinct. Non-verbal communication is deeply rooted in the brain and we still use this primarily every day. The non-verbal elements are particularly important for communicating feelings and attitude, especially when they are inconsistent i.e. if words disagree with the tone of voice and nonverbal behaviour, people tend to believe the tonality and nonverbal behavior.
- Knowing about the various factors which affect human communication enables us to communicate with greater flexibility, while understanding other points of view better. Therefore we’re able to relate to people easily and respond to them on their terms. This builds rapport and allows for successful outcomes in leadership, mediation and negotiation. It also facilitates empathy and compassion in human interactions.
- The activity may be used as an icebreaker or larger discussion exercise, for groups of any size and age/seniority, subject to appropriate facilitation for your situation. Example explanation and instruction to a group: Emotions and feelings within each of us are 'triggered' in different ways. We think differently and therefore see things differently. We often do not imagine that other people may see something quite differently to how we see the 'same' thing. Management and relationships, in work and outside of work too, depend heavily on our being able to understand the other person's view, and what causes it to be different to our own. To illustrate this, and to explore how mental associations can 'colour' (US-English 'color') our worlds differently: Close your eyes and imagine the days of the week What colour is each day? Write down the colour of each day Review and compare people's different colour associations, and - where people consciously know and are willing to share their reasons/associations - review these differences too. Note: If anyone sees all the days as the same color, or sees no colour association at all, or perhaps sees or senses a more powerful alternative association, then this is another equally worthy personal viewpoint and difference. The days of the week are a simple fixed pattern. Yet we see them in different ways. It is easy to imagine the potential for far greater differences in the way we see more complex situations - like our work, our responsibilities and our relationships, etc. Human beings will never see things in exactly the same way - this is not the aim or work or life - instead the aim should be to understand each other's views far better, so that we can minimise conflict and maximise cooperation.