3 posts tagged “effective communication.”
Due to the harsh realities of the world and the undeniable necessity to have a mentally stable “human” pass genes on from generation to generation, the evolution of a mind that can ward off negative emotion is one of the end results...
There are four major factors that are working constantly to assure that our concept of self and our sense of reality stays in check and there is a fifth mechanism that helps to facilitate their usage during communication. Let’s discuss these first and then we can get into the practical mechanisms we can use to work within the confines of this system.
1. The Psychological Immune System. Due to the unpredictable nature of our own response to negative emotions, we have developed what has been termed in the psychological community as a “Psychological Immune System”. Our psychological immune system is in place to help us cope with potential or actual negative life events and these could be anything from death to rejection to loss in competition, etc… Simply put, people’s psychological immune systems help them to cope with horrible life events (Fiske, Susan T. 2004)
Our psychological immune system includes among other things defense mechanisms, affective forecasting, durability biases, ego defense, rationalization, dissonance reduction, motivated reasoning, self-serving attribution, etc… This is the culprit of our powerful drive to be “right” in our discourses rather than to be “effective”.
This immune system is “running” in the background of our mind constantly… monitoring for possible offenders of its predetermined rules and ready to enact any one of the necessary mechanisms to defend your concept of self.
2. Cognitive biases. These are deviations from what would be considered statistically correct or rational judgments. If we were able to erase all emotion from our own decision process, these types of biases would not exist. However, since erasing emotion can’t be done these are inherent in most decision making processes. The biases have a powerful filtering and directionalizing effect on our information processing both from an input and output standpoint.
3. Attentional processing. This is the governing of what type of information our mind will sort for at any given time. Depending on what core drives our mind “sees” any conversation potentially fulfilling, it will drive the conversation toward that end. This causes us to sort for, filter and re-present information that will help bring the conversation toward achieving the goal of helping to ultimately fulfill that drive. Evolved interests such as propagation, safety, socialization, status, etc… are underlying determinants in our Attentional processing.
4. Limited brain capacity. Our brain, as powerful as it is, can only handle and process a limited amount of information at any given time. Only 5, plus or minus 2 “subjects” can be dealt with dynamically at any given moment. This places our brain in a situation where it needs to make instant and definite decisions as to what information it will hold and process and these filters are mostly based on, among other things, the three factors above.
5. Working memory. Working memory is a temporary store for recently activated items of information that are currently considered important to the task at hand. This information can be taken in, processed and moved out of short term memory via this system. The main components are the central executive, the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop.
Both the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop act as “buffer stores” where newly acquired information (such as verbiage, speech tonality, body language etc…) is taken in, processed and either dealt with or discarded depending on its “usefulness” in the task at hand. These processes happen automatically while your mind is “thinking” in the background as to what you are going to say next in the conversation.
We talk at a rate of between 200 – 400 words per minute. The actual rate of linguistic thought is debatable, but suffice it to say that it is exponentially faster than verbalized speech. Due to this our mind is free to do a whole lot of processing in the back ground while it is being communicated to.
So what does all of this mean? Almost conclusively, while you are talking to someone their mind is:
- Determining how this conversation fits into the overall framework of satisfying evolved drive/s.
- Constructing “communication” that will help it achieve the goal of being “right”(rather than effective) which will bring it closer to its goal/s of fulfilling core drives.
- Watch out for any information that may “harm it” by either showing that its concept of reality is incorrect or that as a human you are not as fast, strong, good looking, smart or powerful as it “knows” you are.
- If it hears negative information, it discards it. If it hears positive information, it processes it and uses it to further its own goals.
- If it is forced to deal with negative information, it will selectively find/and/or create information to debunk it.
All of this is happening in their mind, while your speech and body language is bouncing around in their working memory being filtered as their mind is constructing their “answer” to your communication.
Now this doesn’t mean that we are basically screwed when it
comes to completely conveying our own side of the story in our communication.
It does take skill and it takes patience, but it can be done.Now that you understand what governs, or should I say steals
away someone’s attention while you are communicating with them, we can get into
some specific methods for monitoring someone during conversation.
This can help you to understand where someone is, mentally, during your communication so that you may enact other strategies, methods and content to more effectively further your efforts. One of the most important things that we can do to ensure this is employ the usage of sensory acuity. Tomorrow, we will get into the specifics of sensory acuity so that you can begin enacting this right…
As always, please visit my site The Communication Expert to learn more about sensory acuity and other methods of effective communication
You’re standing there looking out over the ledge… The sun is really bright and all of your friends are there. It is a pretty long ways down; it has to be more than ten feet! The water looks deep and it sure is murky, actually it is mesmerizing in an undulating kind of way. You lost the bet with some new comer to your group and here you are... You almost decide not to do it and as you turn away from the water your betting “buddy” yells out “go ahead, people do it all of the time…” Ok… you jump!
As the pain rips through your leg like a chainsaw you instantly regret your decision. Why the hell would you decide to do this? Well there are a number of psychological mechanisms that brought you to the edge of the water… social recognition, loyalty, need for achievement, etc… But what tipped you over that edge of indecision? The final nail in the coffin is what is known as a Lack of Referential Index statement.
In referencing yesterday’s blog, another little flaw in our mental filing system will at times put us in a lurch unless we keep an eye on it. A Lack of Referential Index statement is one in which the actual subject of the statement has been removed altogether or has been replaced with a general label. In the instance above the statement “people do it all of the time” lacks an actual reference. People can be any number of “persons” with an infinitely varying degree of credibility and authority.
Some examples of Lack of Referential statements are:
“They said it was ok to do.”
“People are never going to go for that.”
“A person could really get into trouble doing that.”
“A husband really needs to take out the trash.”
“We have to get out of here…”
Our minds, in their constant search for cause/effect, predictability and pattern are automatically set up in a way where we instantly register such statements as fulfilling our own threshold for credibility and authority. Let’s reference the example above… Your friend said “people do it all of the time” and “people” is his head represents Larry the town drunk who jumped in last summer and broke his arm before being pulled out of the water and the local skateboard crew who have been at it for years. “People” in your head represents the group of friends behind you that you have known and trusted for years.
In following Grice’s 4 Maxims you non-consciously expected your “buddy” to adhere to your inherent threshold for credibility (Maxim of Relevance). Larry the town drunk and the skateboard crew are not credible enough for the jumper, but are quite credible for the viewer. Unfortunately his threshold for credibility didn’t match yours and had you recognized this up front you may have been able to avoid your broken leg…
So how do you handle this? How do you prevent yourself from becoming a victim of the Lack of Referential index statements? Please visit my website to learn more…
David J. Parnell | Communication Expert
Our minds, among other things, have an unparalleled filing system... We are
able to take massive amounts of information and store it away for a rainy day.
The mechanism that our mind uses primarily to do so is language. Language is an
amazing thing... With language we are able to take something completely
abstract, such as a picture or a view or a sensation and re-represent this
inside of someone else's mind. On top of all of that, we do it with amazing
efficiency... We are able to take something as abstract and dynamic as a sunset
and re-present this to someone else simply by saying "sunrise"... How
cool is that?
Now, for all of the incredible benefits of this, it still has it's short comings. The almost frightening reality of the matter is that whenever we hear the word "sunrise", inside of every one of use is a completely unique concept of what a sunrise means. For one person it may be a peachy orange glow cresting over the top of a treeless mountain capped with snow. For another it may simply be the light hearted feeling of anticipation that they felt while watching a sunrise with a fated lover... More often than not, it is sufficient to use the term "sunrise" during your communication. It is only when it's accurate representation is necessary to convey a message that we may run into problems.
The term "sunrise" is an illustration of our second categories of deletions and is called a Nominalization. When a process becomes Nominalize it is basically turned into a noun, or a thing. In other words, you are taking an action or a process and turning it into a "thing". Some examples of Nominalizations are relationship, love and emotion along with the term sunrise. The classic test in neuro-semantics is to ask yourself the question of whether or not it (your process term) can be put in a wheelbarrow. If it can, then chances are that it is simply a noun and as a result if considerably more concrete in it's own representation. If it cannot, then you likely have a Nominalization.
Nominalizations notoriously leave out a ton of information when they are use in communication and as a result can cause havoc. Let's reference an example... A familiar Nominalization that causes a ton of problems is "relationship". Couples and spouses alike are in a "relationship". Both participants realize this, but major issues can and usually do come into play when individual definitions of a "relationship" clash or miss each other all together. For person A being in a relationship might mean that they will simply no longer sleep with someone else. For person B it may mean that they will give up their entire life to make the other person happy. I think you can see where we might run into issues in the future… Unless the specific underlying beliefs and expectations about what “relationship” means to each person, they are headed for disaster…
To learn more about Nominalizations and other components of communication, please visit my website.
