1008HSV Assignment PDF

Preview

Summary

A2 Assessment for 1008HSV Interpersonal Skills. Got an 83% for this - hope it helps....

Description

Name: Student Number: Course: 1008HSV Interpersonal Communication Skills Course Governor: Juana Katzer Assessment Title: A2 – Sending & Receiving Skills Refelctive Analysis Due Date: 20 April 2020 Word Count Excluding Citations and Bibliography: 2034

No matter the circumstances or formality of the conversation, the process of interpersonal skills and effective interactions are a quintessential part of everyday life. Interpersonal skills are the means through which all human relationships are initiated, negotiated, maintained, transformed, and dissolved (Spitzberg & Cubach, 2002). Through the use of vocal and nonvocal types of communication, a receiver is essentially trying to understand the situation that the sender is communicating. Interpersonal skills illustrate the importance of receiving a message without it losing its sentiment (Interpersonal Skills, 2018), however the complexities and wide array of interpersonal skills make it challenging to demonstrate all these skills naturally. The video provided for this essay discerningly showcases a conversation where interpersonal skills are demonstrated, with some of these skills being used effectively and some ineffectively from both the receiver and the listener. In particular, Polly’s (the listener in the video) communication with Sandra shall be analysed through her verbal and non-verbal responses in the 1st and 2nd person and how she has utilised several interpersonal skills that impacted the interaction with Sandra. Additionally, suggestions will be planned for improvements in the future.

Studies have been completed which showcased that the majority of the time that we interact with others, is spent by nonverbal communication rather than speech. Hence, active listening and efficient interpersonal skills require appropriate nonverbal behaviour and reactions to the body language of the person they are interacting with (Beebe & Beebe, 2017). In terms of non-verbal behaviours, Polly demonstrates the majority of the aspects SOLER (squarely, open, lean forward, eye contact, relax) identified by Egan (2018) in the beginning of the video, however as the conversation begins to escalate, Polly stops using some of the characteristics found in SOLER. At the beginning of the interaction, Polly is sitting squarely which makes the interaction a lot less confronting and makes Sandra feel much more

comfortable. She additionally has uncrossed arms and legs and maintains good eye contact, which further illustrate that she is actively involved in the conversation and is displaying a response of interest. The importance of sustaining good eye contact shows that the listener is being attentive and is interested in what the sender is saying (Buon, 2015). However, Polly does not illustrate some forms of SOLER as she looks very tense as well as having her shoulders back which comes off as threatening, which send mixed messages to Sandra. Polly not only shows some forms of SOLER, but she effectively uses minimal encouragers such as “mmm” and “right” which allows Sandra to understand that she has been heard and that Polly is following what she is saying even though it doesn’t necessarily show either agreement or disagreement. According to Goldin-Meadow & Alibali (2012), hand gestures are an essential part of human communication and can serve as a reflection of what the speaker is explaining and can additionally illustrate thoughts that the speaker themselves do not even know themselves. Polly effectively uses hand gestures to emphasise the important aspects of what she has to say and further reiterate her points. Although her use of minimal encouragers is effective at the beginning of the interaction, these quickly become more dismissive with Polly often relating back with an indifferent “yep” emphasising the fact that Sandra is not being heard. Despite her use of some of the SOLER characteristics and her use of minimal encouragers at the beginning, Polly fails to use body language in a positive way by the end of the interaction. This can be seen when she is scratching her head, raising her eyebrows, taking very large breaths and has her lips tightly sealed, these all create a sense of hostility between Sandra and herself, which fails to allow for the conversation to continue. Similarly to Polly, I usually tend to make people feel like I am engaged in the conversation by constantly using well-timed and appropriate minimal encouragers, however unlike Polly, when I am dealing with a conversation where I might be getting critiqued or I’m critiquing someone else, I usually still try to use minimal encouragers that showcase that even if I’m not

agreeing with them, that I am still listening. As well as minimal encouragers, I often find myself implicating the characteristics of SOLER; however, I often struggle with my posture and looking relaxed and this has unfortunately made the sender believe that I am not interested in what he/she is saying. In workshops, I have made a particular effort to focus on sitting squarely and being relaxed which has allows the sender to feel like I am more engaged in the conversation. I have regularly got feedback from the sender which would claim that my posture indicated that I was engaged in the conversation and hence inclined them to disclose information. In the future when I am working as an Occupational Therapist, I will continue to work on my posture and how relaxed I am, by having a small sticky note on my desk that reminds me of the acronym: SOLER.

While her body language and non-verbal communication is a critical part of the interaction and causes the increasing sense of hostility, Polly utilises several verbal behaviours to demonstrate her feelings about the situation and to further show that she is listening to Sandra, however some of these behaviours and skills are used poorly as the conversation progresses. Reflection of content is when one listens to the receiver and accurately understands the message and then using this understanding, reflects on the intrinsic value of the message through paraphrasing (Katz, 1994). Well-used reflection of content is evident when Polly asks a question “so [Mrs. Jefferson] didn’t want to take her meds and therefore she was behavioural.” Through this reflection of content, Polly illustrates to Sandra that the content within her message has been recognised, and additionally forms the response into a question by raising the tone and pitch of her voice at the end of the response (Warren, 2016). By making the reflection of content into a question, Polly is making sure that her understanding is correct. Additionally, Polly demonstrates empathy; as she actively shows that she understands what Sandra is trying to communicate, and how she feels about the

interaction. As Sandra explains that the staff are completely “run off their feet,” Polly demonstrates empathy through her listening and then responds with a reflection of content by saying “I really get what you’re saying about us being under the pump.” Through this response, Polly demonstrates her ability to display empathy and inadvertently shows that she recognises how Sandra is feeling at the moment. Another key component of good verbal communication and appropriate use of interpersonal skills is the way we interact with one another in an assertive way. Assertiveness allows us to act upon our own best interest, to stand up for ourselves without shutting down others and to express our emotions in an honest way where we find ourselves comfortable (Hargie, 2017). Throughout the interaction, Polly is confronting Sandra, yet she isn’t aggressive, and shows a gentle demeanour, without being so gentle as to come off as submissive. Polly’s assertive behaviour is shown to help the conversation and allows Sandra to feel as if she can express her emotions and additionally provides room for additional communication to take place. Despite her well-utilised reflection of content and assertiveness at the beginning of the interaction, Polly shows some poor choices in her attempt to be a good listener through some of her verbal responses, especially in the latter half of the conversation. As Sandra begins to explain her motives and actions, Polly begins to become defensive, and rather than allowing the interaction to continue, her defensiveness makes Sandra frustrated and she eventually incorporates a slightly sarcastic tone. This response of Sandra’s shows that Polly is no longer being a good listener and instead is now criticising Sandra in a way that doesn’t help her in any way rather than raising awareness. Polly’s line of questioning is very confronting and direct, which is likely the reason why Sandra becomes slightly aggressive in her responses and adopts a sarcastic tone. This penultimately leads to the ending of the interaction as the frustration from both parties makes the conversation futile. As well as Polly’s defensive behaviour and poor utilisation of controlling her emotions to remain in an assertive conversation, Polly poorly

uses escalatory skills, as she begins to become more aggressive and makes the conversation more critical of Sandra herself. At first, Polly says she needs to talk to Sandra fairly urgently, yet then begins to ask how she has been. Almost instantly after, Polly showcases a listening block as she completely ignores what Sandra has to say, and instead unnaturally derails the conversation topic and instantly discloses the fact that her case files are incomplete. This poor use of escalatory skills instantly makes Sandra take a defensive stance and makes her feel like she isn’t being listened to. Workshops have made me significantly improve my reflection of content and feelings, as I’ve never tried to do so before taking this class. Since taking this course, whenever I’m in a listening role, I try to integrate a more subtle way of reflection of content and feeling. This has allowed friends and family to disclose information more easily with me. I recently had an experience with a friend who I was getting frustrated with as he would never listen to us, yet he would constantly talk about himself. He displayed many listening blocks but especially identifying, where he would constantly relate something back to him after we used a certain phrase of word. By continuing to not listen to us, my friends and I began to feel as if he wasn’t showing any interest in being our friend, which was frustrating, considering our close friendship. I eventually decided I wanted to talk to him about this. I started the conversation with a very assertive role, where I would be looking out for my friend and making sure he didn’t feel upset and begin to become defensive. At one point, my friend became frustrated and I had to reflect that I was listening to him, and constantly used a calm voice and remained relaxed to stop the risk of the conversation escalating into a fight. However, at times during the conversation instead of using an assertive role, due to his frustration I would take more of a submissive role, which is something I need to work on, as I have a tendency to get nervous when someone is confronting me. After a while he eventually understood and claimed he would make an effort

to do better, which although was not an enjoyable conversation to have, I believe it was beneficial to our friendship, and improved my confrontational skills.

From the analysis, we can see that by no means is the interaction perfect, and Polly has several flawed interpersonal skills. For Polly to improve her communication skills for future instances, she needs strategies to be put in place. Through her verbal and non-verbal responses to Sandra, it is apparent that Sandra was actively listening to Sandra and understanding her point of view, additionally it is apparent she was taking an empathetic role, where she only seemed to understand her point of view rather than a sympathetic understanding (Finnbogason, 2019). Finnbogason (2019) claims that if an improvement sympathetic understanding is to be made, then the listener should be; facing towards the speaker, silent, ignoring cognitive blocks, reflect on the sender’s feelings and content, summarise the sender’s feelings, and then finally responding accordingly. If Polly had related more in the 2nd person and considered the position that Sandra was in, the encounter would have likely had a more effective result, and therefore Sandra would have been displaying sympathetic understanding rather than adopting an empathetic role. Had Polly reconsidered her responses to Sandra and adopted a sympathetic understanding approach, Sandra would be unlikely to become aggressive and sarcastic, which would have made the conversation less hostile.

From the analysis, it is apparent that the skills that Polly demonstrated were only somewhat demonstrated well, although improvement can be made to better the relationship between Sandra and Polly. It is essential that we constantly improve our interpersonal skills in order to make relationships between a sender and a receiver more efficient, whether that be in a personal or work-related environment.

Bibliography: Beebe, S., & Beebe, S. (2017). Interpersonal Communication: A guide for health professionals 1008hsv (custom edition ebook). Pearson Australia. Buon, T. (2015). Communication Genius: 40 insights into the science of communication. Hachette Book Group. Egan, G. (2018). The Skilled Helper: A Problem-Management and Opportunity-Development Approach to Helping (Vol. 11). BROOKS COLE PUB CO. Finnbogason, G. (2019). Sympathetic Understanding. The University of Iceland Press. Goldin-Meadow, S., & Alibali, M. W. (2012, July 25). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3642279/ Hargie, O. (2017). Skilled Interpersonal Communication : Research, Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Katz, N., & McNulty, K. (1984). Reflective Listening. Warren, P. (2015). Uptalk: The Phenomenon of Rising Intonation. Cambridge University Press....