Page 135 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

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Psychology and Communication | 123

unit of analysis, whereas impression management focuses on the
individual sender.
4. Relational communication focuses on meaning attached to non
verbal-behaviour, as opposed to common cause-effect approach to
identify an impression management.
The traditional approach to relational communication has identified only
two or three dimensions (e.g., dominance, affection, inclusion, or involve-
ment) along which messages may be exchanged. Such perspectives can
underestimate the variety and richness of message themes that are present in
interpersonal task versus social orientation.

SElECTIVE pERCEpTION ANd ATTENTION IN COMMUNICATION

People selectively expose themselves to information with which they basically
agree. The term ‘selective attention’ refers to the fact that people see what they
want to see and expect to see. In the same way, people interpret information
on the basis of part experiences. Selective perception is governed by family
background, physical and personality characteristics, cultural differences,
organizational affiliation and position, professional experience, and other
such factors.
The term selective perception and retention refers to the phenomenon
whereby people forget much of what they perceive. A large amount of the
information that is perceived by an average person is dumped into the sub-
conscious. People maintain their equilibrium by filtering out dissonant or
uncomfortable information. Factors that have been found to mediate people’s
responses to dissonant information are the extent to which people are well
informed on the issues to the extent to which they have affiliation to the
strength of their convictions, and their educational level.

pERSONAlITY ANd COMMUNICATION

Since the emergence of Psychology as a science, the concept of person-
ality was contained in and intrinsic to it. However, this concept has been
interpreted in different ways by different psychologists, yet most of them
are unanimous in affirming that personality is something integral; it is not
simply a cluster of mental or physical qualities, properties, or tokens, but
rather the unique and unrepeatable combination of characteristics of each
individual. Psychologists also agree that, in that last analysis it is precisely
personality, which determines the concrete behaviour of a given person, his
or her discrete thoughts and deeds.

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