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Chapter 3 Total Quality Communication Symbols and the Role of Perception in TQC Recall from earlier discussion that we applied a very specific definition of communication. It comprises three components that must be present for communication to occur. If any one of the components is missing, then communication does not occur. We define communication as the...
The Danger of the Common Symbol
What Is a Symbol?
Symbols may be verbal
or non verbal
Symbols
and Meaning--The Symbolic Interactionists As a foundation to understand the effect of symbols, an understanding of how symbols are used is necessary. The fundamental concept describing the role of symbols in human culture and society can be traced to the philosophical movement called "symbolic interactionists." This is a philosophy founded by Herbert Blumer based on writings of George Mead. While the paradigm of symbolic interactionists is complex, we can simplify one segment of the paradigm to illustrate its effect on human psychological characteristics. Among other things, the symbolic interactionists said that symbols originally framed to describe events or reality eventually define reality.[2]
Symbols
and Meaning--The General Semanticists Another philosophy that provides some insight into the role of symbols in communication comes from the general semanticists. General Semantics is the name applied to a specific philosophical approach to language and word symbols. It is not the same thing as semantics, which is the study of root origins of words. General Semantics traces its ancestor to a self-educated Polish count named Alfred Korzybski. Korzybski was born in Poland during the 1800s and was a student of many different areas of interest. One interest was the social implications of asylums or bedlams that were in wide spread use in Europe around the turn of the century. These are institutions where people judged to be mentally deficient were committed. Little or no therapy was incorporated, so these institutions were more of a holding tank for the mentally ill until the natural course of death relieved them of their malady. Korzybski saw the existence of these institutions as a terrible part of society and sought ways to aid the inmates. He came to the conclusion that the basic reason for mental illness was the inability of people to cope with the difference between their expectations, defined by the symbols in their lives (typically words in a language) and the reality they experienced. We would call the difference between these two "cognitive dissonance." Korzybski suggested that reducing this difference between expectations and reality would eliminate mental illness by removing the need to cope psychologically with the differences. Well, some academics and scientists exposed to Korzybski's philosophy came to a similar conclusion--Korzybski was nuts! But, they found that some of the foundations of his philosophy had some merit in understanding the role symbols take in communication. Unfortunately, Korzybski wanted an all or nothing acceptance of his ideas as a discipline, so he eventually faded into oblivion except for a number of people who actively support his beliefs. However, the legacy of Korzybski includes the ideas gleaned by academics and scientists that led to an approach called General Semantics as it is professed today.[3] Among
the ideas resulting from the General Semanticists that are significant
to us are...
The bottom line is that if you want to achieve communication, encode your messages with concrete words. Remember your goal is to convey information and understanding, not to impress people with your vocabulary. Think about this, which sentence do you believe conveys information more effectively and efficiently... Observe Ms. Jane Pauley motivating her bipedal extremities
from Or See Jane run Nonverbal cues are symbols with meaning interpretations also. In general, nonverbal symbols perform five functions in communication. Five functions of nonverbal communication
Three Basic Types of Nonverbal Communication Nonverbal symbols can be arranged among three general categories:
Paralanguage The inflection, tempo, emphasis, or insertions to add meaning to oral language. Paralanguage includes any device that can be used to modify the meaning interpretation of a verbal symbol. These devices include inflection or emphasis added to spoken symbols or highlighting, bolding, or all capital letters added to written symbols. For example, look at the following sentence and read it while emphasizing each word in sequence. I didn't say she stole the money. When emphasizing the word "I," the sentence takes on a shaded meaning from its non-emphasized state. Emphasizing the word "didn't" changes the meaning of the sentence, as does emphasizing the word "say." Depending on which word is emphasized (paralanguage), the sentence carries a different meaning interpretation. The problem of symbols is best understood when you realize that the paralanguage effect can be introduced by the encoder (purposefully or inadvertently) or by the decoder (purposefully or inadvertently). Kinesics Kinesics is the category of nonverbal symbols created by the body. Types of Kinesics are:
Gestures are among the most culture-related communication symbols. While verbal languages are specific to cultures, the word symbols typically are different between languages. In the case of gestures, similar hand gestures are found in many different cultures, but the meaning associated differs by culture. For example, making the "vee" sign with the index and middle fingers of your hand with the palm outward produces a gesture that carries meaning. In the U.S., England, and other English speaking cultures, it most likely represents the idea of "victory." On the other hand, it could mean ÒtwoÓ. Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of England for many years, was making a speech in a foreign country. She wanted to evoke the image of Winston Churchill, a World War II-era Prime Minister who made the "vee for victory" gesture famous. Only, she made it with the palm of the hand facing in instead of out. In the local culture, this gesture was considered a vile insult. Her audience was not amused. Another common gesture, which could be misinterpreted, is the common US Òcome hereÓ hand signal of palm up with the pointer finger moving.Ê In China, this is the equivalent of flipping someone the bird in the US.Ê Instead, the Chinese use the hand with the palm facing down and all four fingers moving to signal Òcome hereÓ. Do you have a body movement you use when nervous or excited? It could be rubbing your ear when nervous. It could be holding your chin while thinking deeply. These movements are basically involuntary. They are habits that are acquired by each individual over time, but they are consistent and can be read by others to reveal underlying feelings. They are called gesticulations. An example would be a baseball pitcher whose fastball is consistently knocked 0ut of the stadium. He doesn't realize that the opposing teams are aware that he scratches a certain part of his anatomy every time he sets to deliver a fastball. Somebody once said that with the number of muscles in our face, we can make more than 30,000 different facial expressions. Many of those have meaning attached to them. A smile means we are happy. Many of these more commonly used expressions carry meaning shared across cultures. A smile means happiness to many different cultures. ÊHowever, in some Asian cultures, a smile could mean that the person is embarrassed.Ê Eye Contact is important in some cultures while not making eye contact is important in other cultures. In the U.S. and other Western cultures, eye contact sends a message of confidence or trustworthiness. In some Eastern and African cultures, eye contact is disrespectful and insulting, especially if the people involved have any difference in status or power within the culture. How you dress, the color and style of clothes, how you fix your hair, your body type, and your posture are among the elements of appearance that send messages. Again, these nonverbal symbols are very culture-bound, as the aesthetics associated with the culture will influence many of the appearance characteristics and their meaning interpretations.Ê Proxemics--Distance The proxemics of distance is a culture sensitive communication symbol. The distances between people reserved for categories of acquaintance will vary depending on the cultural interpretation of the distance. Studies in the United States suggest that the distances and symbol interpretations that are carried are as follows:
Intimate distance is the distance reserved for those people we want to be especially near. Family members, main-squeezin's, or others can enter this distance range and we are comfortable, in fact, their presence is psychologically pleasing to us. Personal distance is the range of distance we are comfortable with acquaintances we know well, but who are not among those we prefer to have in intimate distance. Most friends and some close fellow workers may be in this category. Social distance is the range where we feel comfortable about those whom we know or have just met. Someone from this category moving across the threshold of the nearer distances can make use psychologically uncomfortable. Public distance is the range we feel comfort for people we encounter by chance and don't know at all. These people crossing other distance thresholds make us very uncomfortable. Again, these distances are very culture specific. For some cultures these distance ranges may be compressed, for others they may be expanded. When involved in cross-cultural communication, understanding these variations of distance symbols is essential to maintaining effective communication. Proxemics-Space In the case of space proxemics, the following are examples of things that can be interpreted as having symbolic meaning:
Proxemics--Time Even time is used as a symbol and conveys a meaning, regardless of whether the meaning is intentional or not. Examples of time as a symbol include:
Attraction Domain The attraction domain includes judgments about visual symbols that are the basis of a receiver's decision whether or not to attempt to interpret the communication. For example, the form of communication carries symbolic interpretation. A letter is perceived to be more formal and, therefore, more deserving of attention than a memo might. E-mail may be considered more urgent than snail-mail (e-mailer's term for regular mail). A particular form carries a meaning interpretation about the importance, urgency, accuracy, credibility, and usefulness of communication. The visual appeal of the communication (in terms of appearance of the document in written communication or the appearance of the speaker in oral communication) leads to attraction of the receiver's interest in exposure to the communication. A communication that is not appealing visually is unlikely to attract the attention of the intended audience. Once the attention of the receiver is focused on the communication, the second domain of judgment kicks in. Detection Domain Three components of judgment occur in this domain. First, is a review of the subject to judge perceived self-interest. If the subject is not one that taps a "hot button" for the receiver, then the comprehension process stops. If the judgment is that the subject is related to self-interest, then the judgment regarding readability is made in the case of written communication while a similar judgment about oral communication is also made. Readability is the degree of ease that the words on the page or spoken can be decoded for meaning. Several factors comprise readability, including size of words, length of sentences, typeface, type size, type color, and paper color. If the receiver's judgment is that the style of type or size, or color makes the information too difficult to bother with, the comprehension process stops. If the judgment is made that the readability is sufficient for the receiver to easily detect the information, he or she probably views the presentation of information. Information presented in graphical format is easier to interpret than is information presented in a narrative format. Think about a company's balance sheet. In its graphical format, it's relatively easy for anyone to understand the financial position of a firm. However, suppose the same information were written in a narrative form. Understanding the relationship among the numbers would be nearly impossible. Motivation Domain If all variables are acceptable, the receiver reaches a point to decide whether or not to attempt to comprehend the communication based on two fundamental symbolic interpretations--the credibility of the information source and the perceived self-interest in the information. This is different from the subject judgment earlier. In this case, the receiver takes a subject that he or she perceived to be of potential interest and now judges the degree of self-interest in the subject. For example, you may now be interested in knowing what goes on in Sri Lanka's civil war, but your self-interest is not sufficient for you to write your congressman. One note of importance--the perception of self-interest is the most powerful variable in determining whether or not someone comprehends your information. If you get them this far, a perception of self-interest will activate them to try to comprehend your information regardless of the negatives of all other variables. For example, the want ads for jobs violate all suggestions for comprehension success. Its type is small, its visual appeal is terrible, its readability is marginal, and its visual appeal is rotten. However, if we're out of work, we read the ads with a fine-toothed comb to glean information and understanding from them. We do this because our self-interest is so high that it overcomes all the deficiencies. In business, we rarely have the luxury of a potential self-interest that high in what we are trying to communicate to people. Therefore, we have to make our communication as easy as possible for the receiver to comprehend. Outcomes Domain When a receiver has progressed through the comprehension process, he or she reaches the domain of outcome for the process. Now, there are three possibilities based on the receiver's comprehension: to internalize the information for future use; to make some behavioral change now; or to reject the information outright. One conclusion arising from the discussion of symbols is that they are susceptible to individual meaning interpretation. The ultimate meaning interpreted resides in the receiver, not in the sender. This suggests that most communication is dependent on the way the receiver perceives the symbols encountered and the meanings he or she ascribes to the symbols. Perception Defines Reality Two types of perception are operative:
Sensory perception is the process of your receiving stimuli from your environment through one or more of your biological senses. Normative perception provides meaning to the stimuli you sense through your senses. Your brain uses several types of tools to help it make sense of what you sense.
The brain tries to place the experience into context in terms of previous experiences or with known expectations. For example, when we see something such as an unknown light in the sky, our brain looks for a context in which to interpret a meaning. In some cases, we might have an expectation such as "lights in the sky mean UFOs." Then, regardless of what the lights may actually be, we are convinced we saw a UFO. A rash of "documentary" television shows about UFOs have hit the airwaves during the past few years since the 50th anniversary of the Roswell Crash. These TV shows include displays of photos taken all over the world of reported UFOs. For someone ready to see the objects in the photos in this context as UFOs, they are remarkable evidence of their existence. However, for someone who walks past the TV just as they are showing one of these photos, the new viewer asks why they are showing pictures of light fixtures double exposed on landscapes of the countryside. The tool of selective sets is probably a specialized case of the context process. In this case, however, the brain interprets something that doesn't exist because the brain knows what is supposed to be there. For example, when you get a paper back from the professor graded with red ink all over it for misspelling words, you believe he or she must have changed the spellings to get you. You are sure you didn't turn in a paper with so many errors. What happened was that during the writing process, your brain knew what was supposed to be in any particular sentence. So, when you read what you wrote, your brain saw the correct words in the sentences, even if the words were misspelled. It's only when your brain has disengaged from the situation that the selective nature of the interpretation is reduced and you can see spelling errors that were, in fact, always there. Lastly, perceptual sets are psychological sets influencing meaning interpretation. These work similarly to context or selective sets. As an example, let's look at how these perceptual sets can serve as barriers to communication. The psychological sets that can be barriers to communication can be characterized into several basic categories. These sets can occur in the sender or in the receiver in the communication process. The sender has the ability to recognize these barrier categories when they occur and to transform communication to overcome them. However, the receiver is a different story. If the receiver is interested in communication, he or she can recognize when these barriers arise and can consciously overcome them. On the other hand, when a receiver is passive in the communication process, he or she does not recognize the barriers and the sender can do little to overcome the blockage. Fact Inference Confusion The Fact-Inference confusion has three basic components:
Until the third component occurs, the inference for fact does not really become a barrier to communication. When we act on the inference as if it were a fact is when this barrier becomes a major stumbling block to communication. For example, let's say you work in a department of nine people that have been together for a long while. You're best "buds." On many days, the group doesn't return from morning break until late. During the years, lunch hour has stretched to the point that some of you don't get back to your desks until 1:30 p.m. In all, it's a pretty good place to work. One Monday morning, when you arrive, a woman is at a previously empty desk. She introduces herself as a new employee. You and the group ask her to join you for morning break. She thanks you and says that she has something she must do so she cannot join you. When you return from break, five minutes late, she is already at her desk working. As you prepare for lunch, she similarly declines to join your group. When you return from lunch at 1:20 p.m., she is already working hard at her desk. This pattern repeats itself until Friday. On Friday at 3:00, the woman gets up from her desk and goes to the supervisor's office. She goes in and closes the door. She is in the office for about twenty minutes. She comes out and assumes her position without saying anything to anyone. About 4:30, the supervisor comes out of her office and says to the group, "Everybody gather around for a little meeting. We have to have some changes around here. We have been a little lax in the time we take for breaks and lunches. From now on, get back from breaks and lunch on time. Anybody not getting back on time will be reprimanded and the incident entered in your personnel folder." Most people would make an inference for fact. The new woman complained that she was working while everyone else in the department was goofing off! At this point, the barrier to communication has not occurred. Only when we act on the inference as if it were fact does the blockage occur. If the group sanctions the new woman by giving her "the silent treatment." or allowing the inference to influence how they react to the woman, then the barrier occurs. When you get a hold of yourself, you approach the woman to ask her about her part in this event. She tells you that her visit to the supervisor had nothing to do with the afternoon announcement. In fact, she had gone to the supervisor to tell her that the job was exactly what she had been looking for and that she was able to get to the company's on-site day care facility to breast-feed her six-month old son during breaks and at lunch. The bottom line to this barrier is to make a "reality check" to ensure that you do not allow an inference to drive your actions. Static Viewpoint
Blocked Mind The blocked mind is probably best exemplified by Archie Bunker; of All In The Family TV show fame, or a stereotype of the typical teenager's father. In this case, the person's mind is closed to reality assuming that he or she knows everything there is to know about a subject. In effect, the person refuses to acknowledge that any facts about the situation exist other than what he or she knows about the situation. More importantly, when confronted with new facts, the blocked mind refuses to accept the new facts as relevant, and these facts may even be met with hostility. No strong solution to this barrier exists if you encounter it in others. In order overcome it, the blocked mind must be made to realize the nature of the closure. In essence, the blocked mind must be made to see that it is its best self-interest to recognize that unknown facts may be out there and to recognize that any of the unknown facts may serve to alter the situation. The primary purpose of this tactic is to ensure that when unknown facts make themselves known, the person is prepared to accept them as potential influences to the situation and to evaluate them on the basis of their effect on the situation. General Statement The general statement category of blockage is, unfortunately, a category where the name does not do a good job of relating to the barrier. The barrier occurs because we react to a label rather than the reality it describes. You may recall from our discussion about the Symbolic Interactionists that people tend to create symbols to describe things they encounter in life. However, after time using these symbols, they begin to define reality for us. In the case of the general statement, we allow ourselves to be influenced by the interpretation of a symbol rather than the reality the symbol was created to describe. For example, if your professor came into the room smiling and opened the lecture with the statement, "I feel gay today!" Most students would react to the symbol "gay " as it has become applied to a homosexual lifestyle rather than to the reality the word is trying to describe based on its original meaning interpretation, that the professor feels happy and light hearted. The result at the least is a titter (another general statement candidate) that runs through the class and, at the worst, an interpretation by the students of the professor's preferred lifestyle. Semantics Semantics is the natural weakness of language to convey meaning. As we discussed earlier in the General Semanticist section, word symbols can be thought of at different levels of abstraction from the reality they are trying to describe. Although you now understand that the higher the abstraction, the less communicative is the symbol in conveying exact meaning, you must also recognize that even the most concrete and descriptive word symbol is inefficient in carrying complete meaning to describe the reality. This is a problem inherent in the symbol process. The only defense is to recognize that the word symbols are inefficient, and to select symbols with the highest level of effectiveness in representing the reality and to combine these symbols in such ways as to more completely represent the idea to be transmitted. Two-Valued Thinking Two-valued thinking, sometimes called polarization, occurs when contraries are treated as contradictories. A contrary is an idea represented by a continuum anchored by descriptive adjectives. For example, the adjectives "tall" and "short" are anchors on a reality continuum with an infinite number of possibilities in between. No matter how you define "tall" in absolute terms nor how you define "short," an infinite number of possibilities of "tallness" or "shortness" exist between the anchor points. A contradictory is a true dichotomous situation. Something is one way or another with no possible situation in between. For example, "On" and "Off" are contradictories. Two-valued thinking as a barrier occurs when we begin to stereotype the situation using contrary adjectives as contradictories. In such a case, we refuse to recognize differences among people and situations and, instead, allow narrow interpretation of the situation as one way or the other. For example, you may encounter a person identified as a "high school student" who is dressed in a pair of jeans with holes in the knees, a Grateful Dead T-shirt, with a gold stud in his nose, and blue hair that stands on end. Your reaction to the person may be the result of your two-valued thinking about high school students with this appearance--they're drug-selling, acid-popping, deviant freaks. Much to your amazement, when you control your two-valued thinking, you discover the high school student is a straight-A, National Merit Scholarship Finalist who happens to have individualistic tastes in dress. Bypassing Bypassing exists in two forms
An example of Type I Bypassing would be situations that typically arise because of different symbol meaning associated with similar realities. Perhaps the best illustration is between the United States and Great Britain. We share a common language, but many realities encountered have been assigned different symbols for use. Conflicting Type I combinations are such things as gasoline/petrol, truck/lorry, elevator/lift, conservative/liberal, liberal/conservative and the like. Vingette
Type II Bypassing results from our using a word from our frame of reference that has a different meaning in the frame of reference of the person targeted for communication. For example, a new convenience store was opening in a small town near our university called Edcouch. The owners of the convenience store wanted to open as soon as they could even if they couldn't offer all the products and services they intended to. Therefore, as soon as the building was complete, they opened to sell convenience goods plus bar-b-cue. They had to wait on selling gasoline until their pump installation was complete. Since all passing motorists could see the pumps, the owners believed they needed a temporary sign in front to apprise passers by of the situation. The sign read: "Buy Bar-B-Cue Today and Get Gas in Two Weeks." Or, maybe they had a better understanding of their product than most roadside sellers of bar-b-cue. Pointing or Associating When words are selected to clarify or obscure meaning, pointing or associating occurs. In this case, the barrier is likely an intentional one where the "communicator" carefully selects words to guide a meaning interpretation of the target audience in a direction other than one that reflects reality. In recent days as we have been preparing this manuscript, the press has been full of statements made by President Bill Clinton that are carefully crafted statements to guide interpretation of the American public. Advertisers use the technique to influence the interpretation of potential buyers. A classic example quoted in many marketing texts is a merchandising experiment credited with any number of different department stores (depending and the text you read). The story goes that the management wanted to test merchandising so they divided a shipment of handkerchiefs (some stories divide socks, shirts, or ties) and placed two stacks on a counter. One stack was labeled "Fine Irish Linen-$5.00 each," while the other was labeled "Nose Rags-3 for $1.00." Supposedly, the stack labeled Fine Irish Linen sold out first, presumably because of the pointing or associating creating an image in the consumers' minds of a better, higher quality product. Blindering Of all the barriers listed here, blindering is the one that probably most often affects students. It is the placing unspecified boundaries on interpretation. The best example is from our own experience. About thirty years ago, Southwestern Bell Telephone created as a part of its sales training seminars for customers a test that was given at the beginning of a training cycle (actually they may have commandeered the test from some other source). The test had a cover sheet that listed instructions including, "You have four minutes to complete this test
of twenty items. Item one said, "Write your name in the upper left-hand corner of this page." Item two said, "Stand at your desk and crow like a chicken." Question three said, "go to the blackboard, make a circle with chalk, place your nose in it and sing America." The remaining items were similar until item twenty that said, "Do only item one and turn your paper in." The room was filled with people standing and crowing like chickens, singing, and dancing. The reason this occurs is blindering. When reading the instructions students placed an unspecified boundary on themselves by thinking that if they only had four minutes to complete the test and they had to read all twenty items before beginning, they wouldn't have time to complete the entire test. Therefore, since they had to read every item as they worked through the test, they could meet the essence of the instruction by reading as they worked. The result was a lot of embarrassed people, wasted time, and useless effort. When trying to analyze barriers to communication, you may find that a specific situation might be classified in two or more categories. This is not unusual. These categories are not finite laws. Rather they provide a method to help us identify why barriers to communication occur. If a situation is easier to see as one type of barrier as opposed to another, that's OK as long as we recognize it as a barrier that must be overcome. Practice Exam When you have completed reading this chapter, you may elect to take a practice exam on-line. You may take the practice exam as many times as you wish. Each time, the test will be compared to the answer key. You then have the option to review the results or not. You may wish to try the exam again before seeing the results of the comparison. ©1997 2000 David L. Sturges and Michael Minor These pages were created on November 1, 1999, and last modified on August 29, 2001, on a PowerBook G3-266 using Dreamweaver 3.0. Questions or comments should be directed to the WebJŽfe. |
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A
symbol can be anything that carries an agreed upon meaning among two
or more people. Anything! We usually think of communication symbols
in terms of language. But other symbols carry meaning and understanding
as well.
