Communication Theories, Processes and Theories of Motivation - Research Paper Example

Psychology: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory Part 1 MOTIVATION Motivation is the process that leads to the initiation, guidance and maintenance of goal-oriented behaviors. The internal state of an individual’s condition helps in behavior identification as well as giving it direction. Motivation is what makes individuals act, and example is to read a book to gather knowledge. What motivation involves are the biological, emotional, social and cognitive forces that help in behavior activation (No authorship indicated, 1955). There are three major components of motivation: activation, intensity and persistence. Activation as a component involves decision to initiate a person’s behavior such as enrolling in an activity. Persistence can be said to be the continued effort that directs an individual towards a goal even though the presence of obstacles may be there. This component requires a significant investment in terms of time, resources and energy. The final component, intensity, can be seen to take place in the individual’s concentration ability and vigor that drive a person to pursue a given goal. Emotion and motivation are different. With emotion, there is not goal orientation that can be associated with it. Emotions mainly occur due to the interaction that comes between environmental stimuli perception, hormonal responses to the perceptions and the subjective labelling if the feelings. In general, regarding the source of motivation, it can be categorized as intrinsic or extrinsic. Difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation The difference that exists between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is the main reason individuals do it. In the case of intrinsic motivation, this happens for an individual’s enjoyment, something that the individual enjoys doing more and finds fulfillment. With extrinsic motivation, this has to do reasons that are external that a person may be doing things, like doing well on the assigned job assignment so that the person may rise (Quoniam & Bungener, 2004). Intrinsic motivation is built on stimulus that individuals have to make achievements without the need for external incentives. In a working environment, this simply means that the worker has to do a task to gain personal pleasure rather than external factors. These individuals get psychological rewards for just completing tasks that they are using to achieve. Theymorelikelygetmotivatedinternalfactorstheseindividualsmorelikelygetmotivatedinternalfactorsincludingjobcompletionfeelingresponsibilityemployeradvancementpersonalandprofessionalfieldsandpeerrecognition Individuals who are motivated intrinsically always seek for recognition for doing job well. Extrinsic motivation is built on material gains. These individuals motivation is driven from such things as money or chances of bonuses like holidays, company cars or electrical goods. These people do their jobs not because they are motivated and enjoy working on them but because of something they are going to receive in the form of a reward after job completion. These individuals work hard to complete their task because they are targeting materialistic return from their job. Intrinsic motivation mainly engages in inner self and doings. In cases of job satisfaction by an individual, he or she will do anything within and beyond expectation because the individual is satisfied internally with his or her task. The individuals are not just working for material gains such s money but also for fun. The intrinsically motivated individuals enjoy working with other people because this is what they love to do internally, and they get fulfillment out of it. Extrinsically motivated people are those individuals who get motivated and get excited with new things and benefits they receive from the company, but they do not seek for any external knowledge. Both types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic, are trying to achieve same objectives but for different purposes. Theories of motivation Expectancy Theory This theory is about the mental process that is involved in any individual; expectancy theory tries to show how Vroom defined motivation. According to Vroom, an individual just decides to behave in a given manner because they choose a particular behavior instead of the other since there is something they are expecting out of that behavior that they have selected. For example, an individual chooses to do something and put extra effort in the task knowing that there is something in return from the work. In essence, desirability of any reward that is expected from certain task determines the selection of motivational behavior. However, cognitive process of how individual processes the different elements of motivation rests at the core of the theory. Before an individual makes the ultimate choice, he, or she must do processing. Therefore reward does form sole determining factor when individual makes decisions on how to behave and it predicts the person in advance whether or not they going receive rewarding tasks Therefore, the outcome of employee’s motivation is dictated by the rewards an individual wants. An individual’s expectation is the faith an individual has that having good efforts input it will directly lead to a good performance. Factors such as being skillful for doing a given task can help reduce the needed resources information and is regarded crucial. Equity Theories of motivation In this theory, an individual perceives himself or herself as being under-rewarded or over-rewarded and hence develop distress that leads to effort so restore equity within the relationship. Forexampleifworkerfeelsthatheorshebeingitresulttheemployeedevelopingfeelingshostilitydirectedtheorganizationandperhapstheandthisresulttheemployee Individuals become distressed when they find themselves participating in inequitable relationships. Equity s measured through comparison of the ratios of the individual’s contributions and the benefits that is to be gained from the relationship. In a relationship, partners do not have to get equal benefits or make contributions that are equal, as long as the benefits and contribution ratio is similar then no distress will develop in the relationship. Equity theory acknowledges that both subtle and individual factors affect an individual perception and assessment of their relationship with their partners. According to the theory, underpayment in a working situation induces anger whereas overpayment induces guilt. The may point of concern for workers is payment, whether done hourly or salary wage, it is the main cause of equity and inequity cases most of the times. In any environment, an individual would want to feel that their work and contributions in performance are being rewarded accordingly. If an individual feels under rewarded then this results in the employee developing hostile feelings towards the organization and their co-workers. If an employee develops a hostile feeling towards work, his or her performance consequently declines. The individual will develop a satisfactory feeling, feel worthwhile, and have great performance from a mere idea of being recognized for the work him or her has done. When people find themselves participating in relationships that are inequitable, they develop stress. The more inequitable the relationship is, the more the individuals in that relationship become distressed. According to the theory of equity, both the individuals who are recognized receive too much reward and those that receive too little feel distressed. Those who are rewarded more develop a feeling of guilt whereas those who receive little reward will feel angry and develop hostility. Goal setting Theories Goal setting involves setting of goals. Goal setting acts as an effective tool for progress making through ensuring that all individuals in a group having the same goal are made aware of the expectation required from them. Setting of individual’s goals is important since it helps a person work hard towards the objectives. Goals that are hard to achieve and specific increases the individual’s performance as opposed to the goals that are hard. Goal setting tends to encourage an individual to increase his or her effort towards achieving the goals. In a working environment, goals are important tools for most managers because they can have self-regulatory function mechanism that helps to give an individual a given amount of guidance. It has been noted that when goals are established by top management level in an organization, the motivation of the employees towards these goals ends up being suppressed. Therefore, to increase motivation, the employees need to get involved in goal setting process, the goals must also be challenging to the workers to make sure that they put extra effort. Employees involvement in goal setting makes the goals formulated become more acceptable and increase chances of employee’s involvement in achieving them (Lunenburg, 2011). Part 2 Communication We live in a global world that is full of different kinds of people. In any working environment, people are needed in order for an organization to achieve the stipulated goals and objectives, this would be impossible without any means of communication. Therefore, the role played by communication is vital for tying individuals together. Most of the people's wants are always tied through communication form. The better the individuals are in terms of communication, the more the outcome in dreams achievements (Monge & Contractor, 2003). Therefore, Communication is the exchange of information and flow of ideas that occur from one individual to another. Communication must involve one individual sending an idea, feeling or information (sender) to a person who receives the message (Receiver). Effective communication occurs only in situations where the receiver of the information or idea clearly understands the exact message that the sender intended to transmit. Without the sender and clear understanding portrayed by the recipient of the information, communication is said not to exist in such case. Therefore, the sender must transmit the right information so that the receiver can integrate the information well. In most cases, the problems that are seen to occur between individuals and in many organizations is because people do fail to communicate clearly with each other or the communication process that leads to confusion between the sender and the receiver making good plans to fail. Communication is vital for human existence. Without communication, either verbal or non-verbal, it would have been hard for individuals to communicate and pass information from one person to the other. Communication a part from being a tool, it is also a special feature of human existence. Human beings must communicate in their daily lives to interact with each other. Human interaction is important for the survival of the species and coordination of activities. Effective communication helps individuals to understand each other better. It helps one to understand an individual, situation, enables people to settle down differences, trust building and creating a good environment where creative ideas can be nurtured and flourish. While the process of effective communication is a skill that an individual has to learn, it is considered more effective when it comes spontaneously rather than formulaic. Communication process is important since an individual can coach, counsel, coordinate, supervise and evaluate throughout the communication process. This process involves the chain of understanding that helps in integrating the organizational individuals. Communication process Three steps are primarily involved in the communication process. That is thought, encoding and decoding of the transmitted information. During message transmission, the recipient; content and context will receive two elements. Content is the symbol, or the actuals words of the message whereas context is the way the message is transmitted to the receiver. Difference between nonverbal and verbal communication Communication composes of both verbal and non-verbal forms that are more knowledgeable by everyone. As humans, as we speak, so we develop a language, we write the language we can easily communicate with. Non-verbal communication is a conversation that takes place between two individuals without the use of words. This does not stand to mean that nonverbal communication is entailed by complete silence. The tone, pitch and loudness of an individual’s voice, are considered non-verbal despite the fact that noise is made. Non-verbal communication does entail the unspoken words that are exhibited by individuals and are more significant than the verbal communication. They include listening, eye contact, body language, hand gestures and facial expressions. The majority of the communication that individuals engage is of non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication is kind of information transmission and carries a louder impact more than actual words. Through this means of communication, non-verbal communication, an individual Advantages of non- verbal communication Individuals can communicate with each other in cases of hearing problems Communication can easily be in places where silence is needed One can communicate something which is no intended for other people to hear Communication can be even if individuals are far apart Disadvantages of non-verbal communication Conversation cannot be long Particulars of messages are hard to be Cannot be as a tool for public communication It is not good in cases where influence is needed On the other hand, verbal communication type of communication is based primarily on vocabulary- both the use and understanding of the words. Verbal communication is one of the ways people use to communicate. The key verbal communication components include sound, words, speaking and language. In verbal communication, the basis of communication is mainly the interaction that takes place between two people. The goal of the verbal type of communication is ensuring that an individual passing the information together with the recipient are both integrating the message in the same manner. When it comes to verbal communication individuals asks several questions, one is whether meanings are found in words or people. Language seems go ambiguous and abstract at some time. Words can be said to be merely sound until they are linked to action, object or individuals feeling. Words only come to have meaning through repetition through exposing the spoken language to people’s context. In verbal communication, the use of symbols plays a great role in communication. It often involves the use of symbols and signals. Symbols function through representation and are products of social conventions. Advantages of verbal communication There is no use of any technology for interaction thereby saving the use of natural resources It is the fastest means of interaction between individuals It is cheap and less expensive means of interaction Non- verbal cues can be utilized during verbal communication Disadvantages of verbal communication It is easily forgotten compared to non- verbal communication Legal evidence cannot be in case of legal issues It is hard for individuals to remember each point Misunderstanding and wrong responses can be from poor message presentation Theories of communication Shannon & Weaver's Mathematical Model (1949) Shannon was a renowned mathematician and not a sociologist. Despite his thinking being almost similar, it was a departure. This model tries to measure the accuracy of message transmission in a given system of communication. Shannon and weavers model is purely basing its argument on the analogy of a telephone. According to this model, an individual is the source of information. The encoder is the telephone transmitter; the channel being the telephone wire; the decoder is the telephone receiver, and the individual who is being called s the receiver of the information. In this case, noise can be static or cross talk on the line. The channel is being limited to sound and a narrow range of sound at that. An individual who is receiving this information may decode the message differently because in case he or she does not understand English well. This is to say that, the more information sent is being maximized over the line communications becomes better (Griffin, 2008). In his theory, Shannon did not equate the meaning with information. For him, information being sent acts as an opportunity to reduce any uncertainty an individual has. Here, information is regarded as the exact opposite of entropy. In certain situations such as convoluted ways according to Shannon, what we think to be much information can turn out to be less information since it results from uncertainty. This noise can be overcome using redundancy according to Shannon. Lasswell’s Communication Theory This one of the first models of communication to be put forth. The model is summed up using five key questions: who says the content, through which channel of conveyance, to who was it directed to, with what effect? This communication model is linear and considered to unidirectional. This means that there is no factor from outside that can come I into play, and the conversation can only take place in a one-way format. In the quest to explain his model, Laswell further defined the five questions that are represented in his model. That is; Who: the individual who is responsible for message formulation, What: the content being carried by the message, Channel: the medium through which the information being communicated will be used for transmission, Whom: the individual, who the message is intended to and the one who receives the information and Effect: the probable outcome of transmitting the message Henceforth, according to Lasswell’s belief, the message being transmitted travels from “who” to “whom.” In addition, Lasswell added that there are different analysis used at different questions; who: deals with control analysis, what: contains content analysis, channel: analysis of media, whom: the audience analysis and effect: effect analysis. Finally, according to Lasswell, he believed that people do communicate for three main reasons: environmental surveillance, correlation of societal components and transmission of culture from one generation to the next. OSGOOD- SCHRAMM Circular MODEL OF COMMUNICATION-1955 This model acts as a presentation of a complete treatment of the fundamental principles of communication. Schramm’s model offers classic general overview explanation of the true nature of the communication process. According to Schramm, it is important to study the communication process between two people to be able to understand how communication works. When tow individual communicates with one another, sharing of ideas, information and attitude is set to take place. In the process of sharing, there is the involvement of at least three elements; the source of the information, the content which is carried in the message and the receiver which acts as the destination point of the message.’ According to Schramm, this model is seen to take place in our self or between two people communicating to each other. In interpersonal communication, each person-involved acts as both the person sending and the receiving information and the process takes place simultaneously. In this circular model, it is observed that the communication ends up where it started that is from the sender to the recipient and back to the sender. In addition, as communication goes on with time, noise gets less and this makes it helpful for communication to be effective. In this model, it is assumed that the source and encoder are an individual decoder and destination another individual and the signal is the language used. Part 3 Reflective practice It is defined as a way of studying an individual’s own experiences in order to improve an individual’s ways of working. The practice of reflection helps in highlighting the Importance of individual learning from experiences after thinking over it and trying to relate the practical approaches to the theoretical learning approaches (Finlay, 2008). In simple words, reflective practice can be defined as an overall act where an individual contemplates on the activities done or the activities that are in progress for development and coming up with new strategies and concepts to tackle the situation. The practice of reflection has become an approach that has been adopted globally by several professionals and individuals to help in evaluating their daily activities. Reflective practice is not a new idea; it has been in practice since its conception in 1930. Reflection usually initiated when an individual meets problematic aspect of activities and tries to make sense out of the situation. Reflection is considered an active process. This process takes place continuously as the individual witnesses his or her experience in order to have a closer look and a bigger picture at it, some time to direct briefly his attention to it, but often to create an exploration in a great depth and find areas of improvement. Reflection can be anytime; it can be done in the middle of an n going activity or as an activity itself. He key to a good reflection is the individual’s ability to learn how perspectives can be on personal actions and experiences. When an individual develops this ability to make exploration and to become curious about his or her experiences and actions, then he or she has opened the possibilities of learning that is purposeful. This learning is unique since it is not derived from books and experts but our daily lives and work activities. The capacity for an individual to reflect on his or her actions is as a defining moment in reflective practice. The cultivation of this capacity to make a reflection in action while doing an activity and on action, after the activity has been completed, is a key feature of much professional training today. Types of reflection There are two types of reflection; dialogic and critical reflection Dialogic reflection This is a less intensive approach involving discourse with the individuals “self” to explore a given activity or event. Dialogic reflection involves consideration of the judgments and decisions made and the reasons that led to the actions. Like any other form of reflection, dialogic reflection approach is couched in constructivism. It requires a re-evaluation of one’s personal view, actions and learning by the individual. This is considered as the first step and may lead to increase in confidence and sense of pride in an individual. It hence creates a significant improvement of the situation. Critical reflection This refers to the efforts put for the broader historic, cultural and political values in helping to frame problems that are practical so that one can arrive at solution. Transformational learning is by the use of critical reflection that happens either suddenly or gradually, and this changes the individual’s perception of things, people and the entire world that they live. Purpose of reflection The main purpose of reflection is to provide the possibility of influencing changes and learning through an individual’s experience.\ Reflective practice allows people to learn independently Reflection allows individuals to evaluate their ways of thinking so that they can be able to determine all the strategies that would work best for them. Reflection is an important element for reinforcing long-term memory Features of reflective writing Reflective writing is a writing style that is personal. It is when an individual reflects or thinks critically about ideas and actions that that relate to his or her personal life. The main purpose of reflective writing is to help an individual review his or her personal life. Features An individual can write in first person during reflection Third person should be In case an individual refers to the theory or any other writer The actions used in reflection should be those of thinking and feeling When an individual is reflecting, when his or her opinion is weak, he or she can modify by sue of such words as May, perhaps or might Kolb’s theory of learning This learning model is based directly on Kolb’s experiential learning cycle where an active experimentation can lead to learning transfer from the current cycle to a very new cycle. The theory is by the use of four different stages of learning the cycle in which the learner touches all bases. Concrete experience This is when an individual encounters a new experience of a situation Reflective observation These are new experiences an individual meets and are of importance and may be inconsistencies that occurs between understanding and experiences Conceptualization of abstracts This comes after an individual goes through reflection, and a new idea has been generated or the already existing concept or idea has been modified. Active experimentation After reflection and learning f new ideas and modification of the already existing concepts the individual then applies the learned concepts to the real world around. When a person progresses through a cycle composed of the four stages then, effective learning will be seen to take place. Kolb sees learning as a complex, integrated process that has four stages with each of the four stages being mutually supportive of and feeding into the next stage. This continuity of the four stages makes it easier for any individual to enter into the cycle at any given stage and follow it through its logical sequence without any issue arising. However, according to Kolb, effective learning can be said to be taking place when an individual can execute all the four stages of the model. Therefore, each stage is dependent on one another making it clear that there is no single stage of the cycle that can stand on its own. According to Kolb, different individuals may prefer a same learning style. Whatever influences the choice of an individual’s learning style, the style of learning is said to be a product of pairs of variables or two choices we make that are separate. Kolb presents this preferences as lines of axis each having modes that are conflicting at either end of the line. Kolb held the belief that two different variables cannot be performed on a single line of axis at same time because our daily life actives are the products of the two-choice decisions we make. From this model, it can be noted that an individual’s style of learning enables him or her to be oriented to the environment according to the method of learning that he, or she prefers. It can be said that every individual requires stimulus and shows response to all styles of learning from one extent to the other. It is regarded to be a matter of using one strategy or emphasis that fits with the situation facing the person and an individual’s preferences of styles of learning. How reflective writing fits this theory Individuals can use the model for learning purposes and critically evaluating their daily life activities and to develop learning styles and opportunities that would be more appropriate. Individuals should always ensure that all these activities that are designed and carried out in certain ways that will enable them have chances of engaging full ways that help them learn the new experiences more effectively (Thompson & Pascal, 2012). This model is also important in helping individuals to identify new styles of learning than are more preferred and strengthens them through the application of the experiential cycle of learning. Ideally, when an individual reflects on his or her activities he might come along a new learning style that he or she might prefer to use as a new style. It is important to note that individuals go through a lot during their life cycle. It is, therefore, important for individuals to cope with these stressful factors through adaptation and finding out of new ways to live. Reflective practice is a vital tool for individuals to use in order to identify new ideas and concepts in their lives making it easy for them to face life-challenging situations with new strategies. Reflective practice is good, it helps an individual to come up with new techniques as well as makes a modification on the already existing strategies making it easy for individuals to survive and face situations. Using Kolb’s model, the person will find it easy to identify new strategies to employ in the situation at hand. The material that are being used by the individual in identifying new style of learning are supposed to undergo development in ways that can draw on individuals abilities from one stage to the other of the experiential cycle of learning and the individual is take through the entire process sequentially. References Finlay, B. L. (2008). Reflecting on “ Reflective practice .” PBPL Paper 52, 1–27. Griffin, E. (2008). A first look at communication theory. McGraw-Hill (p. 137). Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). Goal-setting theory of motivation. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS, AND ADMINISTRATION, 15, 1–6. Monge, P. R., & Contractor, N. S. (2003). Theories of Communication Networks. Computer (Vol. 91, p. 406). doi:10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2006.04.030 No authorship indicated. (1955). Motivation and personality. Journal of Consulting Psychology. doi:10.1037/h0039764 Quoniam, N., & Bungener, C. (2004). Psychological theories of motivation. Psychologie & Neuropsychiatrie Du Vieillissement, 2, 7–18. Thompson, N., & Pascal, J. (2012). Developing critically reflective practice. Reflective Practice. doi:10.1080/14623943.2012.657795  Read More