Principles of Effective Interpersonal Communications - Coursework Example

Dear Sophia and Peter

I heartily congratulate you for your recent wedding engagement. This a significant life achievement for you. I wish you all the best in your marriage. I have valuable information about interpersonal communications that may help you in your daily lives. With the profound insights gained from interpersonal communication class, I would like to advise you on how to maintain your personal relationships within your marriage. Having been married for over five years, I have also gained experience that marriage is an institution, which depends on partners’ ability to communicate with each other. Understanding how your partner communicates and use verbal and non-verbal cues are necessary for enhancing your relationship, as it helps to avoid misunderstandings and miscommunications. It is possible to experience difficulties that are likely to cause conflict in your relationship, therefore, knowing about conflict management or resolution will make your marriage successful and last long. I am aware that the intimacy between you and your partner is healthy and that you will work together during times of happiness and difficulties.

Interpersonal Communication

Interpersonal communication is defined as a process in which two or more persons share information, feelings, and emotions using verbal and non-verbal cues (Bevan & Sole, 2014). It involves transmission of messages and shared meaning from one from one person to another, and has significant impacts on the success of any relationship or organization (Singh & Lalropuii, 2014). Communication is a critical part of our lives and is applied on a daily basis. Therefore, in the case of marriage, partners need to prioritize on maintaining effective interpersonal communication in order to enjoy the outcomes of a long-lasting relationship. Interpersonal communications are described as irreversible, contextual, unavoidable, and symbolic (West & Turner, 2010). In other words, what we communicate cannot be reversed, we exchange information in different contexts including marriage and organizations, we cannot avoid interpersonal interactions, and we must use verbal and non-verbal cues to inform others about something.

Principles of Effective Interpersonal Communications

A person should learn about basic principles of communication so as to communicate with others effectively. Understanding and applying these principles in various contexts enables people to communicate openly in their relationship. These principles are great inspirations to marriage partners because they encourage them to work on their interpersonal bond. Besides, they are inherent to interpersonal interaction and significantly contributing to creating, maintaining, and strengthening the relationship between marriage partners (Singh & Lalropuii, 2014).

People need to know these principles and how they contribute to transparency and effectiveness in interpersonal interactions. The following are principles that can define effective interpersonal communication in a marriage: responsibility for communication behavior, recognizing personal opinion as one, shared understanding, respect, and practicing to become competent in communication (Bevan & Sole, 2014).

According to Bevan & Sole (2014), we make statements that talks more about ourselves. In this case, a communicator is always responsible for his or her communication behavior. A person should do his or her best to deliver a clear, accurate, and open communications to other people.

Effective interpersonal communication is a process take place when there is conveyance of mutual understanding. It is critical to note that each participant of communication has a role to contribute towards the accomplishment of shared meaning. In other words, for interpersonal interaction to occur effectively, there must be common understanding and interpretation (Bevan & Sole, 2014).

A communicator should respect other persons as well as himself or herself. Do your best to ensure that the results of communication benefit both of you, an indication that they must meet or exceed expectations of both or all parties (Bevan & Sole, 2014). Ineffective interpersonal communication occurs if one party benefits more than other parties from the discussion or leave other parties dissatisfied, whereas communication is effective if both sides take equal control of argument or any other kind of communication.

One needs to listen and assess his or her partner’s words prior to answering back, therefore, be cautious when deciding on verbal and non-verbal communications to use during interpersonal interaction (Bevan & Sole, 2014).

A person should recognize that his or her opinion is just one of views of other people. Strive to take other people’s perceptions and think about their ideas and determine if they seem sensible (Bevan & Sole, 2014).

Another principle is that a person must practice in order to develop as a competent communicator, making him to interact with others effectively. We have to practice to for the betterment of our communication skills. We gain knowledge, inspiration, and skills regarding interpersonal communication through learning and practice (Bevan & Sole, 2014).

Barriers to Effective Interpersonal Communications

Barriers are factors that hinder effective interpersonal communication in a relationship. In other words, they are hindrances to quality or effective transaction of mutual understanding from one person to another. Every couple should note that interpersonal interactions are necessary for that they significantly influence how their relationship and how they live together. An effective interpersonal interaction often brings joy in marriages. However, barriers impede them from sharing information, views, and feelings. A couple should know that various barriers prevent one from developing and maintaining effective interpersonal interactions. These barriers include long-distance relationship (physical barrier), misperceptions, and intergenerational relationships.

Long Distance Relationship

The primary physical barrier in a relationship is long distance, which makes it difficult for couples to interact effectively. Factors such as family issues, education, and job opportunities can make you to move far away from your spouse for short period of time. Long distance relationship inhibits effective interpersonal communication and leads to the emergence of issues such as unforeseen cost and time, inconveniences, tension and stress management issues, untimely communication, limited time to spend with your partner, limited number of interactions, as well as personal and relationship crises (Bevan & Sole, 2014). Therefore, in your first two years of marriage, you need to stay together with your spouse to stabilize your relationship. After this period, you can leave your partner for work or education. All I know is that long distance relationship can work if there is consistency, commitment, and effective interaction between the partners.

Misperceptions

Couples may encounter misperceptions daily when there is no understanding between them. For example, if it is hard to share information effectively due to presence of noise that causes misperceptions; a receiver may wrongly interpret the message, causing misunderstanding with the communicator (Bevan & Sole, 2014). With the experience of marriage, I have discovered that such misperceptions are prevalent in relationships, as my wife and I face such issues many times. This happens when my wife ignores my calls or texts while at work, making me think that she is hanging out with another man. Such situations of insecurity or jealousy form a barrier that blocks a couple from having effective interpersonal interaction. To overcome this barrier, you do not need to dwell on negative perceptions about your wife, as it could trigger conflicts or ineffective interpersonal communication. Remember that positive thinking is always a solution to this problem and will enhance your interpersonal bond with time.

Intergenerational Relationships

Intergeneration relationship is another factor that comes with problems that are caused by age-related stereotypes, economic fluctuations, and different styles of communication. An increase in intergeneration relationship has negative impacts on interpersonal interaction. Though there is no connection between this barrier and your relationship, it is more likely to occur in the future due to economic downturns or changes in communication styles. Additionally, learning about this obstacle and how to overcome it can make you gain more knowledge about social environment (Bevan & Sole, 2014). Strive to meet the needs or interests of each other in order to live happily. Recently, my wife and I were experiencing financial problems, but I dealt with it by using the available resources to satisfy her needs. It is evident that these barriers have adverse effects on communication, but understanding them will enable you and your wife to avoid and overcome them.

How Communication Creates and Maintains one’s Self-Concept, Self-Image, and Self-Esteem

Self-Concept

Self-concept refers to “how a person describes or represent himself or herself, "based on an organized collection of beliefs and feelings about person’s own self” (Bevan & Sole, 2014). It includes all the qualities that exist in a person. The concept of self can be described as knowledge that can be formed, maintained and changed through interpersonal interaction. A person can develop his/her self-concept through interpreting personal experiences and reactions and responses of other individuals in the society (Verderber, Verderber, & Sellnow, 2015). In other words, what other people think and say about you and what you hold about yourself defines your self-concept.

Self-concept has effects on self-identity, self-perceptions, interpersonal bonds and one’s communication within those bonds. A positive self-concept produces a relationship with high level of satisfaction and dedication while negative self-concept leads to poor interpersonal relationships (Lewandowski, Nardone, & Raines, 2010). Including what others say about you increases self-concept clarity. If what other people respond or react to you and your partner is negative, then allowing such opinions to affect you could create bad things in your relationship. On the other hand, if someone says wrong things about you, then you need to prove that his or her points are invalid. For example, if your spouse says that you are cheating on her, then you should be brave enough to express yourself and prove that the story is untrue. My advice is that you should strive to use communication to develop and maintain each other’s self-concept, as this could positively or negatively influence your interpersonal bond.

Self-Image

Self-image is defined as one’s notions towards his or her own self or mental picture of oneself, including feelings, personalities, capabilities, desires, experiences and physical appearance. Just like self-concept, self-image can be used to define your relationship quality as the way you see that mental picture is present during interpersonal communication. Altering your self-image involves changing externally and internally, that is, you have to go through physical changes, behavioral changes, mental changes, and emotional changes (Bevan & Sole, 2014). Having a positive self-image will increase your self-acceptance and self-love as well as let your spouse accept you and love you more.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem refers to person’s evaluation of his or her competence and values (Verderber et al., 2015). It has positive and negative impacts on romantic and work relationships. In other words, the level of self-esteem affect relationships that we develop and the individuals that are associated with them. For, example, if you have high self-esteem and your partners has good perceptions towards you, then the level of commitment is likely to be high. On the other hand, if you have low self-esteem and your spouse has negative perceptions towards you, then the level of commitment is likely to be low. My advice is to try to build high self-esteem and strength your spouse’s view about you in order to increase the level of commitment in your relationship (Verderber et al., 2015). Accept your partner self-concept and self-image as this will make her feel her feel satisfied and relaxed, increasing her self-esteem and ambitions and making your relationship more stable (Bevan & Sole, 2014).

Appropriate Levels of Self-Disclosure and Emotional Intelligence in Various Relationships

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence refers to individual's capacity to reason with emotions in perceiving emotions, integrate it into thought, understand and manage it (Dwyer, 2012). Emotional intelligence enables you to know your feelings and to utilize them to make choices in life. A person who possesses emotional intelligence has the ability to understand different social contexts and competencies to participate in effective interactions in various relationships. For instance, in friendship, work relationship, and romantic relationship, emotional intelligence enables us to share information, develop a long-lasting relationship, and make good choices.

A person with higher level of emotional intelligence has a stronger likelihood of improving the relationship with his or her partner. This portrays such an individual as smarter in understanding his or her feelings and judging them to decide what is right or wrong about his or her relationship. Being more emotionally intelligent will make someone remain optimistic and motivated during hard times, meaning they will continue to be strong so that they will be able to convert their dreams of having better relationship into reality. Similarly, it provides someone with a good opportunity to lead a partner in coming up with suitable approaches to conflict resolution, promoting mutual understanding in interpersonal bonds, emotion management, and enhancing relationship stability and continuity (Dwyer, 2012).

Self-Disclosure

Self-disclosure occurred when you choose to communicate and reveal information about personal or private lives, which your partner or other person does not know. A person discloses information when the bond is described as being strong and having shared understanding. Remember that self-disclosure increases the degree of closeness in various relationships including work, friendship and romantic relationships (West & Turner, 2010). For example, in a romantic relationship, self-disclosure strengthens the bond between you and your spouse and heightens the effectiveness of your interpersonal interactions. It is build trust in your relationship in such a way that your partner can disclose information connecting to your personal lives. For example, you may expose some of your secrets to your spouse, which will motivate her to disclose her secrets too. Therefore, I would recommend you and your partner to adopt such style of revealing secrets voluntarily so that you can have a deep understanding of the feelings or qualities and the past of your spouse.

One does not disclose information about feelings, past, perceptions at any time. In this case, you have to considers which secrets to keep or reveal that a certain duration of time in order to avoid some challenges. In my opinion, this is where you will be required to apply emotional intelligence to decide on which data to expose to your partner or keep until the necessary time comes. This perspective provides clear connection how emotional intelligence will determine the information to disclose so that you will not worsen your current situation or your partner will not get hurt. For example, in your first year of marriage, you do not need to reveal all your secrets at once; just know there is a right time for disclose of a certain information You need to ask yourself about the reasons for disclosing some information at the onset of your marriage. If some secrets cannot help at that time, then you need to keep on concealing them and expose them at the right time (West & Turner, 2010). Along with being honest and consistent when revealing your secrets, this will not only make your interpersonal relationship more intimate, but will also help to avoid stressing your partner.

Conflict Management and Resolution

There are several strategies on how you can use communication techniques to resolve and managing interpersonal conflicts. You need to know about conflict management strategies because conflicts will frequently occur in your relationship, therefore, by employing various communication techniques, you will be able to resolve your differences. The methods of managing or resolving conflicts will influence the success of your couple, in this case, I advise you to adopt most effective communication techniques to address such challenges. In most cases, you will be taking part in conflict management, for example, you will try as much as you can to avoid saying negative things about your marriage, specifically those that happens regularly. These strategies of managing conflict will reduce cases of serial arguments within your family (Bevan & Sole, 2014).

Because this will not resolve the conflict completely, you will be required to come up appropriate approaches to the resolution of such differences. From my experience of marriage, I have realized that there are some issues which keep on occurring repeatedly; my partner utilized communication to resolve them. According to Bevan & Sole (2014), the conflicting parties should meet and decide to put their conflict to an end, ensure that results of resolution create a sense of win-win situations for each of them, and agree that the particular conflict will never happen again. In sum, conflict resolution is better than conflict management, since it results in higher degree of satisfaction, shared understanding, and peace among parties in question.

Effects of Gender and Culture on Interpersonal Communication

Gender and cultural differences are likely to have significant impacts on interpersonal communication. Differences in sex and culture influence views of oneself including self-esteem, self-image, and self-concept. Cultural values, beliefs, and norms determine the how females or males see themselves, for example, in the United States, the level of income, social status, and life achievements determined the level of self-esteem in a man as opposed to women, which was based on physical appearance and social interaction skills (Verderber et al., 2015).

There is a big gap in between women and men in sensing interpersonal meaning, as women are more sensitive to shared meaning, especially when communicating with their spouse. The society anticipates a woman to control herself from getting intimate with other people. Unlike women, the society expects men to pay more attention to status. As a result, be aware that your spouse will require you to mutually depend on each other and work together to build your interpersonal bonds. “Men anticipates bonds to be built on the basis of interdependence and competition” (Torppa, 2010). For that reason, you are likely to focus more on what differentiates you from other men, and your personal desires will significantly influence the way you will be making choices in life.

In conclusion, effective interpersonal communication is what can build long-lasting relationships. I hope that you Peter and Sophia will apply the ideas and pieces of advice provided in this paper to make your marriage work. You should know that exchanging information about your feelings, emotions, problems, dreams, and expectations continuously will reinforce your relationship and form strong bonds. You will always be happy and satisfied with your partner for implementing the knowledge correctly. Well done for achieving such a milestone of life. Good luck!

Sincerely,

Student’s name