Early Saturday morning, I am sitting at a Dunckin Doughnuts to do a study on nonverbal communication. The first thing I notice are the vibrant pink and orange colors used to decorate the coffee shop. This makes me feel like this is a family friendly environment and all is welcome. I can only assume by looking around, I am not the only one that feels this way, the place is filled of families with small children, and people young and old. The next thing I notice are the uniforms the employees are wearing. Everyone is wearing a white shirt and black pants. However the supervisor is wearing a button up shirt while the employees have a brown apron over theirs. Although the uniform for employee versus supervisor are different, I do not notice a difference in the work being done. The supervisor is working alongside the employees. For me, this says a lot about the supervisor and how she leads …show more content…
The older lady pointing to the menu item on the board above the cashiers head, while saying she would like a number three. The small girl pointing with excitement as she screams she wants the chocolate doughnut with sprinkles. Even the older gentleman, wearing his veteran’s hat with pride, using his hands to show he wants a large coffee. As well as the young lady behind the register pointing to her left as she says the bathrooms are around the corner. It is amazing to see how much nonverbal communication plays such a large role in simple day to day activities. We do most without being conscious of it, as it is second nature to us. We share our thoughts and feelings with face expressions, and often feel the need to support our words with gestures to further convey our point we are trying to make. Doing this study, also made me aware of the nonverbal cues I am sending out as well. I am thankful now that I am aware of these things, I am able to have more control of the message I want to send
Nonverbal behavior is channeled by norms and most of us abide by them without being aware of them. Physical appearance, gesture and body movement, face and eye behavior, vocal behavior, personal space, touch, scent/smell, and time are all forms of nonverbal communication behavior. Norms differ amongst various cultures, ethnic, and geographic groups. There are endless ways and forms to violate nonverbal norms, and by doing so can lead to a barrier in communication, which are problematic to distinguish.
In every society nonverbal communication is one of the most powerful tools that a person can use to interpret the message that is being delivered. Even though verbal communication is fairly straightforward, nonverbal communication allows others to sense the true emotions of the person that is expressing them. For example even though a person may say that they are not irritated, their usage of voice may display otherwise. Nonverbal communication not only reveals hidden messages, but it also complements, substitutes, and exaggerates verbal communication.
The presence of nonverbal messages in our communication is very important. Following the text, researchers have estimated it is up to “65 percent of social meaning we convey in face-to-face interactions is a result of nonverbal behavior” (131). The movie “Mrs. Doubtfire” is a typical example about the interactions among characters, also with audience. Several scenes in this movie show us the effects of nonverbal messages in communication, especially through the character Daniel, who disguises himself as a middle-aged British nanny in order to be near his children.
The setting for my observation is at a town hall community theater rehearsal in rural Maine, less than a week before the musical Annie opens. The cast and crew is multigenerational and community focused, and the company is like a big family that has been rehearsing together for months. It will be interesting to see how the kids react to this rehearsal, especially since the show is nowhere near ready for the public eye. It is tech week, the week when everything in the show has to be rehearsed until perfected, and cast and crew must all on the same page, working perfectly in sync. In the theater world, tech week is often referred to as “hell week”, because it can be stressful and demanding. I observed an adolescent during this hell
When we think about communication, we think about interactions. So what is your body language communicating to me? This are the words that Amy Cuddy a social physiologist, uses when she start up her talk about body language. Cuddy’s talk “how body language shapes who you are” explains how body language can identify how much power one is feeling just by observing someone’s body language. Amy Cuddy states that when one expands one is feeling power, and when the opposite is done which is shrinking one is feeling powerless.
In its most basic form, communicating involves a sender who takes his or her thoughts and encodes them into verbal and non-verbal messages that are sent to a receiver. The receiver than decodes the messages and attempts to understand what the sender meant to communication. The communication is completed when the receiver transmits verbal and nonverbal feed back to indicate his or her reception and understanding of the message. This process takes place within a context; also know as rhetorical situation, which includes all that affects the communication process such as the sender-receiver’s culture, the sender-receiver‘s relationship, the circumstances surrounding the sender-receiver’s interaction, and the physical environment of the interaction.
Who would have thought as a physician there’s so many ways to communicate with your patients and their families? After having so many years in medical school most people would like to think that it’s common sense when speaking to a patient, patient’s family, coworkers and even supervisors. Sadly, many fail to realize that being in medical school doesn’t mean you also obtain the correct social skills when telling a patient’s family that he or she is dead. Communicating with patients are key to solving unexplainable causes when the data cannot prove it. Talking to the patient, learning where they have been, what’s been going in their body, and how they feel are important for patient care and can even help diagnose that patient. In the medical
Harper, R, 1978. Nonverbal communication: The State of the Art. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Nonverbal communication is rich in meaning. Everyone communicates through nonverbal gestures and motions. I realized that you can decipher a lot from an individual or individuals by just paying close attention to what they do, and that words are not really necessary. Watching two people interacting, I figured that they are really close by their space communication, eye language, and body movements.
When we communicate, we can say a lot without speaking. Our body, our posture, tone of voice and the expression on our face all display a message. If our feelings don’t fit with our words, it is often the body language that gets heard and believed. Nonverbal communication is a rapidly flowing interactive process. Self-awareness and an understanding of the cues you may be sending are paired with the cues others send and pick up from you. To do this effectively, it is necessary to clear your mind of all distractions. Try planning, creating, talking to yourself, thinking about the other person or what to say, then you won't be paying attention to the moment-to-moment experience, have the presence of mind to pick up on nonverbal cues, or fully understand what's really going on in the conversation.
“When we think of nonverbals we think of how we judge others, how they judge us, and what the outcomes are… we are also influenced by our nonverbals, our thoughts, and our feelings, and our physiology” (paragraph 6). Amy Cuddy is a respected women, known for her compassion and care to inspire other to better their lives. In the beginning of her speech Your body language shapes who you are published in 2012 on Tedglobal, she offers her “life hack” to the audience, assuring them if they improve their non verbals and body language it will improve their life in many ways. Cuddy begins building her trustworthiness and credibility with the audience by quoting respectable sources, giving convincing facts and statistics, and successfully employing
Good communication is an essentialvalue for successful relationships, whether personal or professional. Many researchers have stated that most of our communication is non-verbal. Non-verbal communication includes body language, facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, posture, and the tone of our voice. The ability to understand and use non-verbal communication is great skills that will help individualsconnect with others, when trying express feelings, handlingdifficultsituations and creating relationships with other in various places.Non-verbal communication is the body way of sending messages between people. These messages can be sent through emotions, gestures, engagement, voice tone, posture, and clothing.
Nonverbal communication does not rely on the use of words to convey its meaning. “Nonverbal communication is usually understood as the process of communication through sending and receiving wordless messages. These nonverbal messages can be transmitted by bodily gestures, posture, facial expressions, and eye contact” (Subramani 2010). Nonverbal communication is simply that, communication without words. Nonverbal communication is present everday in our society. It goes hand in hand with verbal communication. It complements and enhances spoken words. According to David McNeill, gestures have two core features: they carry meaning, and are synchronous with speech. He goes on to say, “gesture and speech express the same underlying idea unit but express it in their own ways.”
Nonverbal communication surrounds us all the time. “Nonverbal communication is all aspects of communication other than words” (Wood, 2016, p. 135). It is not communication with words, but we use nonverbal communication when we talk. We use nonverbal communication without even realizing it in every facet of our lives. This type of communication can be challenging depending on someone’s culture. Something that means one thing in America, can mean something totally different in another country. It is important to know this so that you don’t offend someone from another culture (Wood, 2016, p. 149).
I learned a lot about Human Communication in this class when I read the chapter about Nonverbal Communication. Nonverbal Communication is the process of using messages that are not words to generate meaning. I learned that it happens every day. I also learned that is very hard to read or understand depending on the person you are speaking to or with. Verbal and Nonverbal codes work in conjunction with each other. The words we speak or say are used in conjunction six different ways: to repeat, to emphasize, to complement, to contradict, to substitute, and to regulate. I never knew until reading this chapter that we do these things all most every time we communicate. These are things I took for granted until now. I now know that I will pay