Comm exam 2 - Exam 2 study guide PDF

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Lecture 4: Interpersonal Communication and Selfhood: What makes you, you? Objectives: Understand the various aspects that contribute to a sense of selfhood and identity. Explore how different theories of human behavior contribute to an understanding of selfhood and identity. Genetics ● Suggests that there are inherited traits that babies develop before they are socialized ● Genetics shapes you as well as culture (Nature vs Nurture) Culture ● Culture is what’s “normal” Culture is mind mind is culture ● Example-In asia it’s normal to blend in not stick out “The nail that sticks up gets hammered” ● In America you are encouraged to be “yourself” and stand out. ● “One does not learn from one’s experiences. One learns from one’s interpretations of one’s experiences. Culture decides this interpretation” Relationships ● Self is dialogical - we gain a sense of who are through our interactions with people ● Other people help shape who we are ● “The uniqueness developed between people becomes the source of uniqueness eventually identified as within the individual.” ● You are not funny without another person to laugh at your jokes; you are not competitive without a competitor ● “One is never a self by-one’s self. The self arises out of and is dependent on relations with others. It is through others that we co-construct the “who” of who we are” ● Some people bring out different aspects of who we are ● We adopt a “persona” based on who we are talking to ● Many scholars suggest we don’t have one “self” rather self is like a diamond with many faces reflecting our relationships ● Role conflict - when you are with multiple people who you talk to in different ways and you can’t figure out what self to be ● The “I” does and the “ME” evaluates the action. The sense of who we are comes from the dialogue between the two. ● “Internal stage” with the “I” performing” and the “ME” evaluating the show. The “ME” is the collective audience that evaluates Experience and Action ● Phenomenologists claim that one’s experiences define “who” one is. The experience of being human is a synthesis of language, sociality, experienced time/space. Martin Heidegger claims consciousness is almost always “thrown” from the “here and now” of our immediate bodies, to “the there” of our projects and concerns (such as encounters with other people, using equipment). Human consciousness is not an internal dialogue

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but rather a structure of concern projected into the world of human affairs. The “who” of who we are involves our concerns, what we do, who we live among, our environment, and the actions we take when faced with such concerns.

Lecture 5: Self Esteem and Social Interaction Objectives: To understand the fundamental nature of self-esteem in human life To understand the paradoxical drive of heroism and self esteem. To understand how social interaction serves as the stage of self-esteem. To appreciate the fragility and contingency of identity and selfhood. The Human Drive towards Heroism To understand the paradoxical drive of heroism and self esteem. ● In a human’s life they strive for meaning and heroism and expand own life force. ● This creates drive for heroism ● The heroic culture may take the form of of a cultural achievement like high status career, a victory in a competition with others… or an intense peak moment had through art, religion, sex, or athletics. ● Self esteem in psychology is the heroic drive toward specialness. ● A child who is loved, feels special about who she is, and feels good about the things she does. ● The human drive towards heroism is manifest in two paradoxical needs. ● One deals with the extent to which people are driven to merge with a group, community, or a purpose larger than one’s self (Agape). ● At the same time human heroism involves the need to stand out and apart from one’s cohorts (Eros) ● ● ● ● ● ●

Becker suggest people crave heroes, to find expansion in their lives. Why do we do this? Freud after conducting his experiment concluded that patients were “transferring” their own power and ability to heal to the analyst. Becker describes People afraid of death, and mortality, and also of life, and their own potential talents, powers and gifts, transfer it to their heroes.” Transferring projects our potentials on our heroes. This can cause people to stop thinking for themselves.

Eros- Human need to stand out and be apart from one’s cohorts Risk associated- If you have to much Eros you risk being alienated and not feeling gratitude. Agape- Need to merge with a group to be apart of something bigger than one’s self. Risk associated: If you have too much agape, you risk not developing your own self. ●

Human Beings need to feel that

Face-to-Face Interaction as a Heroic Arena ● Self-esteem is both precarious and precious ● With it life is meaningful and brings opportunity; without it one feels worthless in a world devoid of possibilities. ● An adult ego can’t live off the self-esteem earned as a child. We keep striving for it. ● It is the rarest individual who, to the core, does not care anybody thinks about them ● We need to be seen to validate self-esteem ● Face - self-esteem made social ● We have the opportunity to create or destroy meaning when face-to-face ● We can never give ourselves self-esteem, we need to earn it from others ● You don’t “own” face, rather face resides in the stream of events between people ● Because self-esteem is so fundamental, because we need others to establish and maintain it, and because we constantly strive for it, face to face interaction has evolved into an intricate cultural ritual designed to protect face/self-esteem. ● Negative face = autonomy = telling someone what to do, giving advice or even a compliment ● Anton claims, “I don’t have a face; other people have mind and i have theirs… The seeableness of my face exists only through other people. ● Face is how we wish to be seen, the identity we wish to project in a given interaction.

Lecture 6: Communicating Human Darkness Objectives: Understand the opposite side of face and self-esteem Understand how one’s shadow is both essential and unhealthy Understand the dynamic and interpersonal nature of shadow Understand how to identify your own shadow Shadow opposite of face ● Socially “Risky pieces” that were pushed away. ● Shadow keeps people in line for shameful parts of them. (Culture) ● Ex: being too polite, can’t stand up for yourself. ● You need to excavate truthfulness consciously

1. “Because it is contrary to our chosen conscious attitude, the shadow personality is denied expression in life and developes into a relatively separate splinter personality in the unconscious, where it is isolated from exposure and discovery. ● The shadow can get triggered ● It’s a defense mechanism as a child Cultural shadow

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Because socialization is required for one to internalize one’s culture - to mind the world with it, we often internalize our culture’s shadow as well. In a masculine oriented culture such as ours the shadow is the feminine ● Society tells men not to cry because it is feminine, so boys hide away their intimate emotional side. Our shadow is the exact opposite as face ● Shadow is the side we don’t want people to see, ace is how we want to be perceived. ● When we push shadow away...We become undeveloped as human beings. Projection of shadow ● “We often project onto others what we don’t admit to in ourselves and put upon others what we deny in ourselves” ● We deal with shadow in two ways ● Consciously- Thinking and analyzing qualities in our shadow. ● Unconsciously- Projection Ex: Roomate gets you mad because you can’t relax like he does, so you call him lazy. Giving Away Our Gold ● When we put things in our shadow, we sometimes give away good qualities. ● “Men may give away their nurturing or emotionally intimate self and then look for it in the face of a girlfriend or wife. Rather than owning his own needs for intimacy or capacity to nurture, such a man looks towards his woman to nurture for him, expects ● her to create and initiate emotional intamcy. Husbands, Wives, Shadows ● Projection happens in marriage ● Maggie Scarf talks about how spouses give each other the things they do not like in themselves and then condemn those same traits. ● She thinks it is her job to promote intimacy so she gives him her unwanted needs for boundaries and distance. He will never approach her for intimacy so he relies on her to chase him. ● Instead of each taking ownership of their needs for intimacy and boundaries, one carries the boundary needs and the other carries the intimacy needs ● We have others set our limits ● Spontaneous brings excitement ● The controller limits the free spirit in the relationship Enemy Making ● Sam Keen says people project all their negative traits onto others and in doing so “make” them enemies. ● The enemy is constructed from denied parts of the self ● “We do love or hate our enemies as much as we love or hate ourselves. In the image of the enemy we find the mirror in which we may see our own face most clearly.” ● Common enemy unites people and shows our cultural shadow

Enemy Making ● Projecting all negative traits and in turn, these people become your enemy ● We fabricate our enemy and create a scapegoat to bear the burden of our own darkness Shadow and Race ● 1. “Keen argues…” (PG 108) ● Quote is saying that if you can convince people that their is an enemy that needs to be destroyed and is very dangerous, people will band together. ● “Manifest Destiny” This is the highest qualities of evil that come from freedom. Recovering Shadow and reducing Redundant Constraint” ● “Follow feelings of fear, shame, insecurity, and anger. What is driving them? Such feelings are the path to the shadow” -This is how you defeat projection and uncover Shadow

Lecture 8: Meaning and Metaphor Objectives: Explore the ways in which language constructs reality Conceptual Systems and How We Make Them ● Metaphors are what human beings use to organize their experiences meaningfully, they provide us a way of experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another ● Our metaphors are “grounded” in the experience of having human bodies ● Ex: “She will be nice to your face, but stab you in the back” The True Nature of ‘Natural’ Metaphors ● We become accustomed quite early to a natural way of talking and being talked to about the truth. ● One’s perception of what is true or real is shaped by the symbols and symbolmanipulating institutions of the tribe. ● An insensitivity to the unconscious effects of our natural metaphors condemns us to highly constricted perceptions of how things are, therefore, to highly limited alternative modes of behavior. ● Quantitative time and Qualitative time ● Quantitative keeps us from living quality moments

Lecture 9: Deconstructing the Consumer Objective Apply Johnson and Lakoff’s metaphor theory to “lived concepts”

Explore notions of consumer culture Explore the hegemony of consumer “common sense” Highlighted Meanings,or Common Sense Consumer ● is looking to be seduced. ● Today, “you don’t go to the mall because you want something, you go because you want to be seduced.” ● As consumers we are conditioned to desire things that are mass produced. Consumption ● Actually consuming the thing. Commodity ● Thing that is mass produced

Hidden Meaning or Uncommon Sense ● Sign Value vs Use Value ● Sign value can not be controlled for example, when the shirt goes out of style it is no longer valuable ● Use value says it still is valuable because it is still an article of clothing that does it’s job and is in good condition. ● We “Buy” our identity and style ● This means that today people’s identity comes from what they wear, what they drive. Identity used to mean profession and where your family was from and what they did. Conspicuous Consumption ● “In a society with leisure class a person’s reputation is boosted by their conspicuous consumption or them having “good taste” or a “Sense of style”. Commodity Sign ● A bundle of social relations that tells of a persons status or who they are. ● Ex-That shirt is liberal ● Your ripped shirt means your poor. ● What the shirt means is more important than what it actually is

BLUE BOOK Mad Skills

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Person Centered Communication Personalizing conversation to maintain positive communication We adapt our messages to take certain people’s feelings into account and keep their situation in mind. ● Two most important skills for friendship are comforting and celebrating ● First you need to validate how a person feels ● Let them know it’s normal for them to feel this way ● Help them further express their feelings ● Second, support the person. Let them know they have meaning to you. ● Third after emotions ease down, offer advice. ● Primary appraisal: Is this situation relevant to me? Will it affect me or keep me from achieving a goal? Does it make me feel bad? ● Secondary appraisal: How bad is this situation? How much damage has been done? Will it get any worse? How can I deal with this? ● This leads to emotional response and a distinct action tendency ● Emotional response- emotional response ● Action tendency- reaction to emotion ● The succession of Primary appraisal, Secondary appraisal, Emotion, and Action Tendency is know as the Causal Change. ● Cognitive Reappraisal- the act of helping those in distress by reminding them things will be ok. When Giving Advice… ● Support the person’s sense of self ● Respect their freedom and autonomy ● Being able to see the situation through their eyes helps in comforting people ● Agenda setting theory-The media tells us what to think ● Media is biased ● Accessibility model of information- Why do we know about certain things? Because these things are always being shown to us,making them relevant and important....