Page 386 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

374 | Model Question Papers

‘‘Should’ means Indicates a moral duty.
‘You should intimate the office if you are going on leave.’
‘Ought to’ means Indicates an ethical obligation.
‘You ought to treat your teachers with respect’.
‘May’ means i. indicates giving and asking for permission in a formal way.
‘You may leave now. May I come in? ’
ii. a possibility
‘The Principal may attend the important meeting tomorrow.’

c. Cognitive disposition means the communication style and characteristics of an individual,
one such can be called cognitive complexity. Cognitive complexity may be defined as
the number of different constructs an individual has to describe others (differentiation),
the degree to which these constructs cohere (integration), and the level of abstraction
of the constructs (abstractness) Individuals who are cognitively more complex, offer
more person-centred responses whether in terms of comforting, persuading or the use
of regulative messages. The reason for this appears to be that, cognitively complex indi-
viduals are better able to perform a variety of tasks related to communication, such as
recognizing affect, decoding nonverbal behaviours, integrating information etc.
4. a. Much of our behaviour can be explained by our needs. William Schutz has identified
three basic interpersonal needs which underline most of our behaviour around other
people. These needs can be best represented as dimensions or continuum along which
most people fall. Schutz calls these interpersonal needs the ‘need for inclusion’, the
‘need for control’, and the ‘need for affection’.
According to Schutz, ‘the need for inclusion’ is the need to be recognized as an
individual distinct from others. Such a person likes to be in the spot light, to be singled
out, to be noticed. They feel to be punished is better to be ignored. On the other hand, a
person with a low inclusion tendency, prefers not to stand out, would rather not receive
too much attention, does not like to be prominent in the public eye.
The need for inclusion has some influence on the process of interpersonal com-
munication. In a situation in which two or more individuals are equally high on
the need for attention, get together to plan something. Much of the energy they are
going to spend in that interpersonal context will be spent establishing in the group
a position from which they will get the recognition they need. However, if all mem-
bers are recognition seekers, chances are that, they will have a difficult time securing
attention from one another. A group composed of a reasonable balance of people high
and low on inclusion will probably function in a smoother fashion and have effective
communication.

b. Soft skills come naturally for some people, or they can be taught, and then applied in
practice. Let us examine the process of skill acquisition. Guthrie (1952) defines a skill
as the ability to bring about some end result with maximum certainty and minimum

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