My Own Experiences with Interpersonal Relationships and the Knowledge - Essay Example

Sur Interpersonal Communication Report Interpersonal communication is one of the most important aspects in the society today since it ensures that people relate to one another and allows people to function as a unit properly. One needs communication in all aspects of life and without it people would not be able to function in our own society. In this paper I’d like to reflect on my own experiences with interpersonal relationships and the knowledge I have gained from them. I’d like to talk about 8 key core learning outcomes that I have personally used in everyday life and have become extremely important to me now that I have been in this course for five weeks. First I will discuss how self-concept impacts communication with others, second will be regarding how someone’s perception of another person can affect communication, third will be on how I feel language has created problems in one of my interpersonal relations ships, fourth I will discuss the strategies I use to maintain healthy relationships in my life and fifth I will incorporate into my paper how non-verbal cues can create communication problems. For the last three main points/key core learning outcomes I will discuss how demonstrating effective listening habits has improved my relationships with my family, which methods of conflict resolution I find to be the most useful in my life and lastly how I have developed a supportive communication climate in my relationships. In my opinion, the most important part of communication comes from having a good sense of self-worth and how your self-concept can either enable or disable you in a conversation. I became extremely aware of how much my self-concept really effects how I communicate with people I am in a relationship with when I had my first serious boyfriend. I realized that when I had a bad self-image it was hard for me to really be outgoing, I felt so self-conscious that I didn’t like to go out and have fun with him and his friends, I felt like I would just be judged for being weird or how I looked and this really drove a bit of a wedge between us. I also noticed that when it came to being in school and participating in class discussions I remained very quiet and timid, afraid that since I wasn’t very popular any idea I had would just be scorned. When I built up my self-image and began to have a positive outlook on myself I was able to go out and have a lot more fun and could really express what I was thinking or how I felt to my peers as well as my boyfriend and his friends because I was no longer afraid of how they’d receive it. Getting over that initial fear of how people saw me and really looking into improving how I saw myself helped me improve my communication with others and to help them perceive me how I wanted to be seen. I feel that when someone perceives us as something we are not it can really hinder our communication process. I had a situation where I was with my best friend, she had told me a lot about a girl she did not like just because she received the position of cheerleading captain and my friend did not. She spent a lot of time bad mouthing this girl and I started to perceive her as this catty cheerleader who stole the position of team captain out from under my friend just because she was friends with the coach. I was then put into a class with her the following semester and did not make much of an effort to get to know who this girl really was. I just thought I was being loyal to my friend but when we started working on a project together and had to spend a lot of time together I realized how much my perception of this girl based on a friends testimony really hindered our communication, our grade even suffered because I didn’t make any real effort to coordinate our parts of the project together. I realize now that if I had gotten to know the girl or opened that door up for real communication I could have even become friends with her. I really got to thinking about this particular situation when I completed a journal in week 1. It asked for a time when we made assumptions about someone we did not know of a particular cultural group. I related these two situations because even though the cheerleader was not of a different ethnic group I made and assumption and perceived her as something she was not before I actually took the time to know her. Language is the foundation of communication, without language we could not communicate effectively, whether it is a non-verbal language, like sign language, or a verbal language, if we did not have this in our lives we would be hindered greatly. For example, I have a Muslim friend and in their culture they are very family orientated. Spending time with my friend meant spending a lot of time with her family as well. I really had no problem with this but I often felt very left out because I did not speak their languages fluently. This still happens on occasion but it really makes me think about how in major corporations or national disputes, language is a very big deal. If we did not have people that spoke more than one language other than our own we would not be able to cooperate and join together with other peoples and countries around the world. Just like how nations from all over the world put in extra effort to learn new languages and communicate with each other we have to keep our relationships with our peers and significant others alive and healthy. We need to put in some work, a relationship needs to be tended to just like anything else you want to keep healthy. In my relationships I try to always be the one who goes the extra mile. Like for instance I have a very good friend that moved when I was 14, we were really good friends and usually long distance can severely hinder a friendship but I refused to let that happen. I called her at least once a week to catch up, I visit at least once a year and when we talk I really like to let her know that even though I’m four states away I’m still there for her. In conversations we have on the phone I like to assure her that she is still an important part of my life and that her friendship means a lot to me. I also stay positive about our situation, yes it is sad that we don’t get to hang out every day like we used to but I still get to come visit her and let her show me all the sights to her new city. This particular relationship reminded me of the homework assignment assigned in week one. We were asked to really break down and analyze on of our interpersonal relationships and I chose one between my friend Paige and while doing this assignment I analyzed this long distance relationship with my friend and really saw how much verbal communication was used over the phone as well as the non-verbal communication we used when I was visiting her. It was interesting to see how after all these years I could still be around her and relax into our old patterns and habits. So in conclusion I have learned a lot of things from this course and I really am glad that I signed up for it. Even though it was an online course I participated in a lot of discussions that really opened my eyes up to how other people perceive and learn from each chapter. I have learned quite a lot from my peers in this course especially in the team discussion activity. We talk about one topic but have very many different views on how it should be addressed and dealt with. I think more classes should incorporate the online team discussions because it allows us to connect with our peers, share ideas, and communicate without the overwhelming feeling of having to address an entire classroom. I honestly feel I have learned a great deal from this class and think that anyone who took it and learned about all 12 learning outcomes would grow as a person and as a communicator for taking it. Works Cited DeVito, Joseph A. Interpersonal Communication Book, The 12th Edition. Allyn and Bacon. 2009. Text. Oct. 9, 2008. Dunn, Laurel J. Nonverbal Communication: Information Conveyed Through The Use of Body Language.Missouri Western Department of Psychology. 2009. Web. Dec 4, 2011. http://clearinghouse.missouriwestern.edu/manuscripts/70.php Gavin, Christen. CA104, Homework Week 1. Oct. 30, 2011. Gavin, Christen. CA104, Journal 2, Week 1. Oct. 23, 2011. Read More