Page 128 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

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This reaction or response evoked in an individual can become a stimu-
lus for another chain of responses. Psychologists have suggested that com-
munication is directly related to how we instinctively perceive the external
information based on our own experiences. So interpretation of stimuli is
an important feature of communication according to psychoanalysis. Thus
according to behavioural psychology, we identify an object and react to it
via communication. It sounds strange that the importance of mind and
consciousness in communication has only been recently acknowledged in
psychology as a sign.
Communication is almost motivated or intentional as we obviously anticipate
a response from people we communicate with. In fact all communication is
based on expectation of response from others. Thus communication has a
direction or purpose. However the communication gap can generate problems
in the process and the purpose of communication may remain unfulfilled
when communicated ideas are indistinct or indirect. The ambiguity increases
when channels of communication between two or more individuals are
remote rather than proximal.
As a physiological process, a person’s perception follows some basic
principles—we shall now see what these principles are:

Principle 1: Your reactions to others are determined by your percep-
tion of them, and not by who or what they really are. For example,
you may be reluctant to choose a fellow student to work with you in
the project, who has got an unfriendly expression. Based on this fact,
you feel that he may not be a co-operative worker. Your behaviour
towards him is based on your perception and not on facts. It is based
on your subjective perception of him.
Principle 2: Your goal in a particular situation determines the
amount and kind of information you collect about others. Your goal
in this situation is clear—you need to select some student who will
work with you in the project. Hence, you focus your attention on the
characteristics of fellow students that seem to be relevant to your goal,
thus, ignoring other details.
Principle 3: In every situation, you evaluate people partly in terms
of how they are expected to act in that situation. Whether you are
in a restaurant, public gathering, or classroom, your behaviour is
governed by social norms—the ‘rules’ or expectations for appropriate
behaviour in that social situation. Your objective here is to choose ten
co-workers who will assist you in your project. The rules and reg-
ulations of this ‘working together’ are not written down anywhere.
So, you decide your own norms in that particular situation to meet

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