Openness Opens The Doors To IPC

Team Two-Midterm

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, 2008) 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.