The examples our team used to illustrate and track progressions of Interpersonal Communication were based on openness. Swabbies’ example shows us openness by the way of self disclosure between Getouttakingshous and John Elder Robison. Both interlocutors were open about problems they have while communicating to others but it was Steph who unknowingly at the time “nexted” to John Elder Robison therefore inspiring him to write about how he tries to reach his communication goals dealing with Asperger’s Syndrome. Sports08 discusses how he himself used openness to add flavor and back up his points in a conversation about John Robinson’s book “Look Me In The Eye” along with Stephanie’s lecture “Continuing Conversing.” JimiGarcia used examples from “group dynamics” from a user named Summer22 who used openness as a way to react to other classmates posts and a way to express personal ideas and personal information. Bridgeofideas used examples from Jimigarcia’s weblogs showing how his openness in his posts led to other classmates using openness with their responses to his posts. The most important thing that can be learned from this class is that being open during interpersonal communication can lead to new ideas or can be used as a tool to “next” the conversation and keep it going over time.
This portion of our work we took our examples from the “Group Dynamics class.” Throughout Summer 22’s blogposts and her comments for Steph’s lecture and her own personal page there can historically be found openness as a way to raise her level of Interpersonal Communication. The first place that I looked where I found Summer 22’s openness was when I went to the classes’ project on student guided tours. Here, a list of anonymous blognames were posted with links to student reflections about the class. While scrolling down on Summer22’s page I came to a title labeled “Most Important Thing Learned in Class”. While reading what she wrote I was seeing openness being used as a tool to express her own reflections on the course. Summer22 uses her openness stating, “My most drastic change, however, has to be my understanding of leadership. In different instances I have been dubbed a leader, and I think this is because my goal has always been to give off those perceptions of myself because in our culture it is what one strives to be.” This shows her being open with others telling the readers personal information as a way to make sure her point is getting across. I realized that there must have been a reason she was talking about leadership as an important part of IPC so I went to the link she left on the bottom to Steph’s lecture. This lecture explains the importance of “roles” in a group and how a leader is the most important part of the group but is unnecessary without a task at hand. As I scrolled down to the comments I came across Summer22’s post. The first thing that Summer talks about is how great her classmate Efhant’s comment was; she thought they really encapsulated the importance of a leader. I figured I ought to read this person’s response first so I scrolled up and read what they wrote. One of the most important things I found on their comment which was reflective in Summer’s page and comment was: “You can stick a bunch of people in a room and you’ve got yourself a group, but only if one of those people takes the initiative to address the group as a whole will the group create something together.” When Summer read a comment like this it prompted her to be responsive with openness to express her agreement and new points as well. On her comment she said: “I am always in at least one group project at all times, and sometimes it is up to that one person who will step up to the bat.” She again expresses openness with response to Efhant’s comment that they left which both were in response to Steph’s lecture. I scrolled down a little further to make sure Summer didn’t write anymore and to my surprise I found a link she left with reactions to comments people left her. On this blogpost Summer expresses how happy she was with the comments and how they have helped her work on IPC during the duration of the class. One of the things she learned from comments throughout the class was being sensitive to others. She said, “I’m a pretty passionate person, so I know that I need to be cautious of not being too overpowering, my goal has always been to express my views but make sure that everyone else feels comfortable expressing their own views.” This is another instance of her being open in response to other classmate’s comments and reactions to her posts. As shown, Summer22 has used openness as a tool to further her IPC skills and also as a way of “nexting”. By expressing her own opinions and reactions to others in an open fashion she leaves ideas for people to think about which can continue the conversation. I believe that openness has been an essential tool for this particular person in an online-style course and throughout the various this is proven of why she reacts the way she does.
Throughout our Interpersonal Communication class I have learned a lot about my own modes of communication in that I tend to be very open with my interlocutors and I rarely give up an opportunity to self disclose about myself. I realized that I do this in order to better get my point across to whomever I am communicating with. I began with a posting in the Group Dynamics class where I found John Elder Robison interacting with the class openly. I came across a comment by Getouttakingshous in this posting, ”Communicating something makes it possible for your audience to feel the same feelings you feel about what you are trying to communicate. And in order to do this, it takes a lot of practice and dedication. I’ve always had a problem with mumbling. The only way I could get through it was by practicing speaking clearly. I know that when I mumble, it takes a lot of the “pep” out of my speeches, and may allow people to form an opinion of me that I am boring and dull.”
Getouttakingshous is open with his problem of mumbling during a speech therefore taking the “pep” out of his communication to others and how they in turn will receive the information. Kingshous said this because John Robison said “For me, there may not be a clear and strong connection between the stream of words I address to a person, and my overarching goal in the ongoing interaction with that person. Yes, while that response is happening, I still retain an anticipation; an overall goal for my dealing with the person. It’s just that the actual spoken words may not take me closer to the goal; indeed, they may take me farther away.”
John and Kingshous share with each other that even when speaking their goals can get farther away from them. Kings’ mumbling and John’s overall anticipation of what he wants to achieve in a conversation are similar because both aspects can obscure whatever point each is trying to make.
John wrote about trying to reach a desired outcome when communicating because Steph “nexted” in her “Why are You Writing Sideways blog entry.
Steph mused, “Robison’s tendency was to answer “with whatever I had been thinking.” This is not so different, in my mind, from people who simply say the first thing that comes to mind. Neither response involves any anticipation – there is no forward-in-time quality of considering how the thing one says might lead to a certain kind of outcome, be it as mundane as a polite social interaction or as intense as a long-term relationship. And then, even within the range of possible responses that one might choose among, hoping that they might lead to the outcome you want (or at least one that you dimly perceive or otherwise don’t outright dislike), you can still get it wrong.”
Steph did not know at the time she would be “nexting” to John Elder Robison about anticipation and reaching a goal when communicating because John was not involved in the class at the time “Why are we Writing Sideways” was posted. She in fact did end up “nexting” to spurn John to talk about how he reaches his desired outcomes in communication. The openness here is from John and Kingshous in order to better explain how they both try to achieve their communication “goals”. Kingshous being open by admitting that his mumbling during speeches can obscure his overall goal and John Elder Robison by being open about Asperger’s and the difficulties associated with trying to get closer to his “overarching goal” during communication he is having with someone else.
Sunshine775 sprouts this passage consequentially to John and Kingshous’ experiences in reaching desired outcomes when communicating. “I have had similar experiences as John-where I am giving a speech or talking in front of a class and I have a certain goal of what I want my audience to take away from what I am saying. Sometime I can ramble and what I say just falls out of my mouth. Sometimes I reach my goal and other times I may confuse my audience. This ties into “Eye Contact” when I say that everyone has different frames and ways of seeing a situation. When I start to engage in a conversation or speech I may say things that people in my audience may not understand or know how to make sense of it. I find it so much easier to sit down at my laptop and type out how I feel. I even find it easier than sitting down with my diary.”
Sunshine listened to what both John and Kingshous expressed about communication goals getting obscured by their own conversational “doings” (mumbling, anticipation) and responded by openly stating that he/she too has experienced this obscuring process through rambling during a speech. All three of these issues be it from someone who is Aspergian or not are good things to think about when one has a certain outcome in mind during any form of verbal communication. To attain a goal or desired outcome in communication is not a very easy thing to accomplish and many factors are in play both on the “exhaler’s” side as well as the “inhaler’s” side. Realizing what can obscure you attaining your desired outcome such as mumbling or rambling can better your chances of achieving said outcome. When the interlocutors are open it is much easier for each of them to understand the other more lucidly than without being open in their communication.
This portion of our work we took examples from our class. In Jimigarcia27’s blog post he is reflecting on his reading assignment by Stewart and Zediker and his classmates’ responses to “happening” and “standing you ground.” His blog reads:
….reading my teammate Swabbies responses and learning’s from their “path” I did observe someone “happening” to them. Swabbies described where they went on this path and the different people’s posts that they read. The way that they responded to what they read on the blogposts made it clear to me that someone “happened” to them. The personal experience stories that were disclosed to Swabbies made him/her really realize that this was the best way to learn in this class. They say, “Self disclosure and experiences are the most effective ways to make the words real or rather to paint a picture of what you are trying to say.” Before reading the posts and responses Swabbies was “standing their ground” by having their own views and ideas but once each person “happened” to them their ideas changed.
Jimigarcia27 and Swabbies are both express the reality of being open to letting yourself to be happened. We are all senders and receivers of information and it is our willingness to disclose information that allows us to be efficient interpersonal communication skills.
“Self disclosure is important in this type of class because it makes the group more comfortable to communicate with each other. I began by clicking on the “why are you writing sideways” link where I found a blogpost by chocolatemilk. Chocolate milk wrote how love has more than one meaning and gave personal examples of how he/she felt when saying “love” in different contexts such as face to face or over the phone.”
Jimigarcia27 speaks about the level of comfort for disclosing personal information. It becomes apparent that we manage our communication depending who we are communicating with. One of the people in the class that he comments on is Sports08’s comments and his agreement with this person.“They talk about how the readings we’ve had were important and relate with the idea of recognizing a comfort level before you disclose personal emotions. “Once the level of self-disclosure has been established you must identify your feelings and interpret them according to the established comfort level in the relationship.” I agree with both ideas and think that they are going to help us in class. Sports08’s ideas about emotions being important are how I feel in the fact that we should express how strongly or weakly we fell about an idea. I also agree with Presidnet Makalele’s ideas about how through our style of class it is important to recognize a comfort level before disclosing emotions. I think it’s smart to recognize what amount the person your talking to is going to disclose before you decide yourself.”
Sports08 responds to communicating as exhaling with classmates and in life and the different level that we may need to engage others in communication depending on our relationship. …I feel as though after looking at the reading that deals with how we can put our emotions into words, and deal with our emotions through conversation will benefit us in our group efforts. Like mentioned above we have not had any conversations where we’ve shared much emotion. Although this reading is beneficial for our future conversations, I do not feel as though it pertains to our work in class. The reading that deals with how to express our emotions to strangers, and how we can share our thoughts to strangers will be beneficial. This is because we are all very much strangers, and we will have to share our thoughts when we work together as a group, and the general class-discussions. Therefore we have learned different methods of how we can share emotions and our thoughts to one another in this class, but also to strangers for the rest of our lives.
During this discussion, nexting, listening, emotions and self disclosure were evaluated and determined to be key components of effective communication.
http://aplaceinspace.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/nexting-and-being-nexted-what-we-exhale-becomes-us/#comment-1282“David Johnson uses the expression “self presentation” in “Being Open With and to Other People” when thinking about “impression management”. How open one is when communicating shapes how the receiver perceives the sender and the sender can “manage” their own impression on the receiver through self-disclosure. What you decide to be open about with someone is explained by Rosenfeld and Richman. Their article, “When, How, What to Self-Disclose” says that it depends upon the comfort and trust level between the two people communicating. Once the level of self-disclosure has been established you must identify your feelings and interpret them according to the established comfort level in the relationship.”
Interpersonal Communication has very many different concepts surrounding it. Our group feels as though the idea of being open when conversing and especially when “nexting” is very important. Through out our class Sports08 has used “openness” as a tool for interpersonal communication. The idea of being open gives a conversation a flavor, and makes for a better conversation. Typically the people involved in the conversation leave the conversation with a better feeling as opposed to having a conversation with out being open, and using openness as a form of “nexting.”
Sports08 shows different examples of being open through out his posts. For the lecture “Continuing to Converse” (July 31, 200 
Sports replies to the lecture and connects his reply to John Robinson’s book “Look Me In The Eye.” Sports is fairly open through out this whole comment, but there is one part of this comment that stands out with openness. In reply to John’s challenges with autism, and how he was able to overcome so many obstacles Sports08 writes: “I have certainly had challenges in my life with communicating, as I was in fifth grade and was diagnosed with a language processing learning disability.” Sports is openly telling the class that he has a learning disability, but more so he is telling this in a communications class, and describing that his learning disability is revolves around communicating. Sports motivation to write this seems to come from being able to add personal experience of his own to relate to John’s personal experiences that he discusses through out his book.
In this lecture Stephanie brings up a very important case, that there are people who do intend on influencing a conversation. Stephanie says “The point is that we are always and forever joining conversations in the middle, and there are a lot of people who want to influence how the conversation turns out” (Stephanie Kent). Here Sports was joining in a conversation that was revolving around Robinson’s book and Stephanie’s lecture. Sports made the decision to be open in his comment, where as he could have replied and left out all personal experience and not brought up any personal information; if this were the case his response would have been much less interesting and his point would have been less clear.
Sports goes on to say later in his response “[...] I used to be rather pessimistic, therefore I would often anticipate the worst in circumstances that I should not have.” This quote was in response to Stephanie’s discussion of anticipating the worst, from the lecture “Audience: To Imagine or Ignore?” Stephanie explains to the class that “anticipation can be divided into two broad categories, which I will call “negative” and “positive.’” Sports explains that he used to be pessimistic, and would anticipate the worst in situations more so than he would anticipate in a positive way. Sports explains that he has learned since, and now he tries to be more positive: “I have since tried to always anticipate the best, even in a negative situation I try to find some positive that can come from it.” Here he tells about himself and how he has tried to improve himself. He then says “It is so much easier this way, than always anticipating the worst.”
Sports uses openness to make his response very colorful. With out the personal experiences and the way he is open this response would have been dry, and less interesting. Sports formulates his response and makes his points, by using personal experiences and referring to himself to back up these points. Openness is a skill that really makes interpersonal communication more interesting, with out it conversations can are much less personal and with out much flavor. Openness is essential in building relationships, and relationships can not be possible with out interpersonal communication.
August 18, 2008 at 3:31 am
When reading JimiGarcia’s introduction to openness in communication, I thought almost instantly about the role of disclosure in the development of self. To my delight, I found that JimiGarcia used Summer22’s participation and online blogging in the “Group Dynamics” class to illustrate just this point.
JimiGarcia summarizes some of Summer22’s contribution to group discussion, stating, “By expressing her own opinions and reactions to others in an open fashion she leaves ideas for people to think about which can continue the conversation.” I would like to add to this argument, stating that Summer22’s disclosure of her feelings helped to formulate her “self” – in the eye’s of her classmates, Summer22 was expressing her true feelings, conveying honesty and encouraging others to participate.
JaggerBunny introduces TennisFan’s contribution to the group’s presentation as, “Understanding and expressing your own emotions is a key part of being a successful communicator.” This is similar to JimiGarcia’s analysis of Summer22’s “openness” and disclosure related to development of the “self,” and both are very relevant to the Stewart, Zediker, and Witteborn article on tensionality. The authors use the terms “ascribe” and “avow” to describe the acquisition of “self” definition. “Ascribe” is used to define the definition of “self” from the expectations of others, and “avow” are roles and expectations that we place upon ourselves. This dichotomy creates tensionality. As I remarked in a previous post, “… the tension that is created by the ascribed-avowed determination of self can be resolved through open communication – by communicating openly with others it becomes possible to align ascribed and avowed expectations so that individuals can work and collaborate together to achieve a common goal.” This can be applied to JimiGarcia’s example with Summer22 – “openness” allows for resolution of tensionality.
However, it is also interesting to mention Bohm’s belief (as expressed by Beaver32) that “in order for a successful communication to take place, two people must be able to listen to each other without trying to change each other’s perceptions.” When this is compounded with the argument stated above (about openness and tensionality), it is important to distinguish between being “open” and trying to influence others. In other words, it is important that in being “open,” the person who is disclosing does not expect the same of the other person. If there is this expectation, it can create further tensionality in communication between others.
August 18, 2008 at 9:58 pm
For group 3’s project, I decided to analyze the work of JimiGarcia27 because he focused a lot on being open to others and not disclosing anything, which I believe is what Susan Scott describes as the aim for conversation. Susan Scott brings the point that in order for us to have true dialog that is meaningful and powerful, we must learn to always think for ourselves and be honest with how we feel.
What JimiGarcia27 decided to do for the project was to analyze and critique a single student’s experiences. The student that he decided on was Summer22. One thing that JimiGarcia27 picks out that she wrote is, “I’m a pretty passionate person, so I know that I need to be cautious of not being too overpowering, my goal has always been to express my views but make sure that everyone else feels comfortable expressing their own views.” I felt that this comment relates a lot to The Susan Scott article. She is explaining how she is sometimes holding back the strong views that she holds out of the fear that it will hurt others, or make others not want to discuss things further with her.
This is a common fear, and what Scott says is that this is like a coping mechanism. People aren’t always comfortable explaining how they feel on a given topic because they fear they will be ridiculed. What Scott says is that we shouldn’t fear having different opinions, because if we can have an honest and fierce debate amongst ourselves, we will all grow as people in the process.
I honestly don’t think that JimiGarcia came up with the best examples of being open. None of the examples really show someone who is without restraints, atleast from what he chooses to highlight. He highlights how she agreed with another student. This may be truly how she feels, but you have neglected to point out a situation where she makes a stand on anything. Maybe she honestly didn’t make stands, but then you can’t really compliment her on her outstanding honesty and openness when there is no evidence of it. The group project as a whole was a success as it really tackled the idea of openness by looking at individual instances in class.
August 19, 2008 at 4:35 am
I think having open-minded is important in any conversations, and the process of building relationship can be affected by it. The more you open to your listeners, there are better chance for you to create close relationship with them. I also had chosen the same topic for this project: disclosure. I was excited to find someone who had been working on the same topic, Jimigarcia27. Also, it was interesting for me to read about examples by Jimigarcia27 who was taking examples from one person instead writing examples from several different people. This method actually helped me to have clear idea about being open since I got the chances to experience how a person was able to show different ways to be opened. On Jimigarcia27’s weblog, he was describing a student from “Group Dynamics class”, Summer22. In this class, Summer22 was able to show herself to the other classmates by exchanging comments with them. Jimigarcia27 said “it prompted her to be responsive with openness to express her agreement and new points as well.” By accepting the comments of the other student with open mind, Summer22 was able to make his agreement or new points. Without being open, it would have not been easy for him to agree with someone else. This also allows him to continue to keep their relationship by doing nexting from sharing comments. Like how Jimigarcia27 had pointed out, the way summer27 had described herself was a great example to show someone being open: “I’m a pretty passionate person, so I know that I need to be cautious of not being too overpowering, my goal has always been to express my views but make sure that everyone else feels comfortable expressing their own views.” This statement includes a good amount of description about herself, and her goals. It concluded by how oneself should be open to the others while showing yourself to them.
Tennisfan816 defined empathy as “When we listen to other people talk, we find ways to relate to them such as understanding their situation, thoughts and feelings. By doing this, we are being empathic.” I think a person cannot be defined as open unless they are showing their empathies. Being open-minded not only requires listening to whatever the others have to say, but one needs to reflect those stories with your own experiences or feelings. Tennisfan816 had backed up this idea with examples from what we had been doing in this class. Especially, when we had to write our first blog about what we had learned this summer, we had to leave comments to the other students. Most of people who left comments to the specific blogs had similar experience or interest with that blogs. In this way, those people had found some connection with the stories of the blog, and they were able to leave comments. The way I am now critiquing her team project can be considered as showing my empathies to her, because I am able to understand or feel the same way about how tennisfan816 think of empathy.
I thought these two topics are what Susan Scott had been talking about in her article “Fierce conversation”. She said that it is important to become authentic and honest about ourselves whenever trying to have conversation with the others. By being open and empathy, we are revealing ourselves to the others with showing emotion, thoughts, or identities. In other words, we are having fierce conversation that helps us to build strong relationship. I think there is not a specific limitation to become open about you. However, we need to be careful of being empathy. I have agreed that being empathetic is important while having an open-minded conversation. However, some of these emotions of empathetic can bring discomfort to the listeners. There are possibilities that your reaction or the way you being empathetic can be totally opposite from the way the listeners had expected and it can hurt their feelings. We can be as much as open to the others while we are careful about showing our empathy which protects us from creating any unnecessary discomfort between people.
August 19, 2008 at 4:39 am
Group 3 analyzes the use of self-disclosure and openness in interpersonal communication. Openness is a tricky thing – when do we use it, how much do we use of it, to whom, how? So on and so forth. By reading this group’s presentation it is clear that often times people withhold how open and self-disclosed they are through fear of being judged, dislike, ostracized. They explained how John Robinson experienced all of these things simply because he spoke what was on his mind, some people call this not having a filter, others call it being real.
By following Summer22’s posts in the Group Dynamics class, this group realized her level of openness actually furthered her IPC. Her posts show that she not only appreciates being open but appreciates the openness of others. When her classmates posted feedback on her she explained how this information allowed her to grow. What was interesting (that I did not think of myself) was that by her putting her thoughts on the table, she is in a way “nexting,” allowing those think about what she has said and encourage them to respond.
Through the survey on openness in our class, group 3 uses the example of Sports. Throughout our class, Sports has used openness as a means of connecting with classmates, the teachers, and onlookers (such as Robinson). There are so many fabulous examples of how Sports has done this. Specifically, what stood out to me was his self-disclosure on his learning disability. I think it is not only brave but also admirable to be able to be open on a topic that is not only personal but can often times be controversial. As the group described, Sports’s open responses allowed for more interesting communication, without which would lack “flavor.” Openness, aside from allowing people to learn about the other is also a mean for people to identify with one another and thus build relationships together.
In Stewarts “Communication and Interpersonal Communication,” Charles explains that IPC is “more than just the information being given back and forth, it is about who starts it, what it is about and the type of response.” This concept goes hand in hand with the idea of openness. Openness and self-disclosure adds a personal element to communication that makes it unique and different from other “forms” of communication. Peter explains “interpersonal communication takes place when people connect personally.” How else do we do this without being open? It is impossible, making openness and self-disclosure key in IPC.
August 20, 2008 at 12:07 am
[...] in Uncategorized at 4:33 am by ooloveshoo comment to Jimigarcia27 I think having open-minded is important in any conversations, and the process of building [...]
August 20, 2008 at 12:55 am
Adding to a conversation is the theory that I feel best describes the responses I received about the presentation my group put on. In Stephanie’s lecture she explains what students did for this project and provides quotes from their blogs as well. She says, “With respect to laying a foundation for further dialogue, students’ respond by summarizing and reflecting on the specific example of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s case to the World Court, displaying different points-of-view, as well as critique the case…” This is similar to how students responded to my specific example of openness. The first commenter on my blogpost was Delivermesummer, they did a good job at “adding to the conversation”. Not only do they summarize my argument but they also went as far as adding their own opinions to my argument. They quote, “I would like to add to this argument, stating that Summer22’s disclosure of her feelings helped to formulate her “self” – in the eye’s of her classmates, Summer22 was expressing her true feelings, conveying honesty and encouraging others to participate.” I found this as a true representation of adding to the conversation. The second commenter is outerbodyboi who also added to the conversation by offering up some of their own points. They quote,
“People aren’t always comfortable explaining how they feel on a given topic because they fear they will be ridiculed.” Not only is this sharing their own opinion but it also reminds me a lot about openness and explains why some people aren’t as open. The third commenter is ooloveshoo who like the others offers up some good opinions with some helpful hints on conversation. They say, “I think having open-minded is important in any conversations, and the process of building relationship can be affected by it. The more you open to your listeners, there are better chance for you to create close relationship with them.” The final commenter is Commsyr09 who chose what they found most important and used that to add to the conversation. They say, “Specifically, what stood out to me was his self-disclosure on his learning disability. I think it is not only brave but also admirable to be able to be open on a topic that is not only personal but can often times be controversial.”
August 20, 2008 at 1:13 am
I feel that the of all the theories we read about in Stephanie’s lecture: “Competing Theories of Interpersonal Communication” – adding to a conversation is most prevalent in our class. Stephanie says that: “[…] displaying different points-of-view, as well as critique the case.” This is an example of ‘adding to a conversation.’ Many examples of ‘adding to a conversation’ are found especially with the examples of our work and replies through out our group presentation. Memphisburns writes : “Within the first few minutes of reading the project I had a good perspective of how much openness was used as communication enhancer with all of us.” This is an example of adding to a conversation, Memphis is critiquing our work, and fortunately for us Memphis proves that we met our goal. Memphis tells us that they could instantly witness our openness in all of our work. This was our goal as a group was to show how open each person we used in our examples was.
Saboy 82 says: “find it very fitting how all these concepts about interpersonal communication compliment each other, specifically “openness” and “fierce” conversations.” Then Saboy goes on to explain a concept that we did not spend much time touching on in our presentation: “fierce” conversations- a theory that Susan Scott explains. This is an example of adding to the conversation, as Stephanie mentions in her lecture “the range of perspectives necessary to provoke new thinking is present.” Saboy gives us a new perspective and a new theory as a way to look at our presentation.
My favorite quote from all of the responses to our presentation comes from Gym411: “Being open to the openness of others deals with a person’s ability to ‘open up themselves as well as being able to being open to opposing ways of thinking.’” The reason I enjoy this comment so much is because I feel that this is the best way to add to a conversation is to keep the conversation ‘open’ by having an ‘open-mind’ to different ways of thinking. Gym says that we were able to be open to opposing ways of thinking, this is a great compliment to get in an interpersonal communication course. To keep a conversation openness is essential, hence why we as a group found openness to be such a good topic. Adding to a conversation is a skill, one that is necessary for a successful conversation. In order to keep a conversation ‘flowing’ both people involved should have an understanding of different ways of adding their part to a conversation.
August 20, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Coordinated Management of Meaning is the communication theory that I found to best explain how you commented on our presentation because you stayed within the realm of discussing the presentation. There was already a “social reality” created here and within it you have provided what is considered normal communication within the episode of the presentation at hand. Each comment was very well managed to be sure to apply to the assignment without getting away from the subject of openness discussed in the presentation. Delivermesummer, outerbodyboi and saboy used Jimigarcia’s example regarding summer22 being open to better convey to the class how she felt in order to better establish identity within the class. All of you picked out the same example so it must have been a good one! The example showed the self disclosure of summer22 and how they really felt which lead to summer displaying a definition of self to the rest of the class through openness. Masr27 commented about how openness needs to be authentic because fake openness can be sensed by a lot of people. All of the comments are within the grasp of the “normal communication” expected in this particular setting. They describe how openness and self disclosure can establish meaning at the level that is needed to determine which regulatory rules we will follow to stay within that “normal communication” bubble that was established.
August 20, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Masr27,
I agree openness is a skill. We use openness at times to let people know who we are, “authentic” as you state it. Some of us are not as open in some instances to protect ourselves in one way or another.
After reading the competing theories of interpersonal communication I was drawn to the theory of discourse. Discourse allows us to have and create conversations, arguments, and speeches. During these conversations, arguments, and speeches our openness gives us the opportunity to develop relationships. “I think having open-minded is important in any conversations, and the process of building relationship can be affected by it. The more you open to your listeners, there are better chance for you to create close relationship with them,” stated Ooloveshoo.
In developing our identity it is helpful to be honest in disclosing information, but in human nature we tend to protect ourselves from certain situations. “Openness is a tricky thing – when do we use it, how much do we use of it, to whom, how? So on and so forth. By reading this group’s presentation it is clear that often times people withhold how open and self-disclosed they are through fear of being judged, dislike, ostracized. They explained how John Robinson experienced all of these things simply because he spoke what was on his mind, some people call this not having a filter, others call it being real, stated commsyr09 ( http://jimigarcia27.wordpress.com/).
In most instance I feel self disclosure can be a benefit to building relationships and our personal identity. It stirs conversations and sometimes arguments that can help us learn about others and ourselves. “Being open with and to other people” “explains how the self-disclosure can be used to enhance the relationships between the people”. The way openness is being described here shows us how it can create an opportunity to have a real “fierce” conversation. After all when you are open when you self disclose you are being authentic, hence the “fierce” conversation. Both team two and team four have illustrated how being open with other people, while at the same time helping explain why self disclosure could be helpful when communicating with others. These teams have also helped portray alternate ways to create an opportunity for an authentic conversation.
http://ohnothecakeisalie.wordpress.com/2008/08/
August 23, 2008 at 3:08 am
Wow – it seems sweet to me that you selected the phrase, “adding to a conversation,” and so did Sports, posting right after you! That phrase is not exactly a theory, in and of itself, but it refers to the principle of nexting and in combination with it there are indeed the beginnings of a theory!
I’m fascinated with how the choices have been made. A few of your classmates chose “the relevance of good research” as a theory. Well . . . that was just my subheading to articulate criteria, but no doubt there are theoretical bases for the phrase! What I”m reflecting on, and trying to figure out how to write clearly and succinctly, is a distinction between a “theory” in a social scientific sense, and a “theory” in everyday common sense terms. The latter refers basically to any idea one thinks might apply (more technically, an hypothesis!), the former refers to something already well-established by some kind of testing of hypotheses over time and circumstances. Labeling these phrases as “theory” is a step in the direction of reification. (Which I wrote about as a comment on someone’s blog a few days ago; it is unfortunate I did not take notes so I could track it down and link to it
My bad!)