The Essentials of Human

Communication

Efren C. Gimoto Jr., Ph.D.

Professor
 What are your thoughts?
• The more you communicate, the better your communication
will be.
• When two people are in a close relationship, neither person
should have to explicitly communicate needs and wants; the
other person should know what these are.
• Interpersonal or group conflict is a reliable sign that the
relationship or group is in trouble.
• Like good communicators, leaders are born, not made.
• Fear of speaking in public is detrimental and must be
eliminated.

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Principles of Communication
1. Process of Adjustment
• Communication can take place only to the extent
that the communicators use the same system of
signals.
• Does the use of a common language often have the
same nonverbal communication systems?
• In reality, do people use identical signal systems?
• Intercultural communication

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Principles of Communication
2. Communication Accommodation
• Holds that speakers adjust to, or accommodate to, the speaking
style of their listeners in order to gain, for example, social
approval and greater communication efficiency.
• People with similar speech rate seem to be attracted more to
each other than those with dissimilar rates.
• The speaker who uses language intensity similar to that of his
or her listeners is judged to have greater credibility than the
speaker who uses different intensity.
• What about you and your friend/s, do you have similar
communication attitudes or competence?

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Principles of Communication
3. Ambiguous
• Message can be interpreted in more than one way.
• Created by words that can be interpreted differently.
Try to paraphrase or rephrase in your own words the following statements:
• Flying planes can be dangerous.
• They are frying chickens.
• I love you.
• The system needs to be improved.
You’ve dated someone three times and would like to invite your date to
meet your parents, you are not sure how your date will perceive this
invitation. What do you say? In what context?

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Principles of Communication
4. Involves Content and Relationship Dimensions
• Messages serve different communication functions. Being able
to distinguish between these messages is a prerequisite for using
and responding to them effectively.
Example: Your professor asks you to meet with him/her after
class. How would you relate the content aspect of this request to
what he/she wants you to do? The relationship aspect, however,
has something to do with professor-student relationship. How this
should be dealt?

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Principles of Communication
5. Has Power Dimension
• The ability to influence or control the behaviors of other
people. Power influences the way you communicate, and the
way you communicate influences the power you wield.
Six Types of Power:
• Legitimate Power. When others believe you have a right—by
virtue of your position—to influence or control their behaviors.
• Referent Power. When others wish to be like you. Referent
power holders often are attractive, have considerable prestige,
and are well liked and well respected.

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Principles of Communication
5. Has Power Dimension
Six Types of Power:
• Reward Power. When you control the rewards that others want.
Rewards may be material (money, promotion, properties, jewelry) or
social (love, friendship, respect). For example, teachers have reward
power over students because they control grades and social approval.
• Coercive Power. When you have the ability to administer punishments
to or remove rewards from others if they do not do as you wish. For
example, teachers may give poor grades or withhold recommendations.
• Expert Power. When others see you as having expertise or special
knowledge. Your expert power increases when you’re seen as being
unbiased and as having nothing personally to gain from exerting this
power.

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Principles of Communication
6. Punctuated
• Communication events are continuous transactions that have
no clear-cut beginning or ending.
For example: Your professor lacks interest in you, seldom teaching
and offering learning materials for your improvement. Students
are apathetic and morale is low.
• Punctuation does not reflect what exists in reality. Rather, it
reflects the unique, subjective, and fallible perception of each
individual.

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Principles of Communication
7. Purposeful
• You communicate with a purpose; some motivation leads you to
communicate.
Five General Purposes:
• To learn: to acquire knowledge of others, the world, and yourself
• To relate: to form relationships with others, to interact with others as
individuals
• To help: to assist others by listening, offering solutions
• To influence: to strengthen or change the attitudes or behaviors of
others
• To play: to enjoy the experience of the moment

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Principles of Communication
8. Inevitable, Irreversible, and Unrepeatable
• Communication is inevitable; that is, in interactional situations it is always
taking place, even when a person may not intend or want to communicate.
• Another all-important attribute of communication is its irreversibility.
Once you say something or click “send” on your e-mail or SMS, you cannot
uncommunicated the message, although you may reduce its effects. What
about in public speaking? Unlike in face-to-face communication, the signals
are evanescent; they fade almost as they are uttered.
• Communication is unrepeatable. A communication act can never be
duplicated. The reason is simple: everyone and everything is constantly
changing. As a result, you can never recapture the exact same situation,
frame of mind, or relationship dynamics that defined a previous
communication act.

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Communication Competence
Communication Competence refers to your knowledge of how communication
works and your ability to use communication effectively. It’s like learning
vocabulary. The more vocabulary you know, the more ways you have for
expressing yourself.
Types:

• Competence and Culture. Communication competence is culture-specific;

that is, the principles of effective communication vary from one culture to
another, and what proves effective in one culture may prove ineffective in
another. Hence, the competent communicator is culturally sensitive.

• Competence and Critical Thinking. Without critical thinking there can be

no competent exchange of ideas. Critical thinking is logical thinking; it’s
thinking that is well-reasoned, unbiased, and clear. It involves thinking
intelligently, carefully, and with as much clarity as possible

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Communication Competence
Types (cont.):

• Competence and Ethics. Human communication also involves questions

of ethics, the study of good and bad, of right and wrong, of moral and
immoral. Ethics is concerned with actions, with behaviors; it’s concerned
with distinguishing between behaviors that are moral (ethical, good, right)
and those that are immoral (unethical, bad, wrong).
• Competence and Power. All communication transactions involve power, or
the ability to control the behavior of others. Communication is power. Those
who have mastered its effective use can change their own experience of the
world and the world’s experience of them.

• Competence and Listening. Often we tend to think of competence in

communication as “speaking effectiveness,” paying little attention to listening.
But listening is an integral part of communication; you cannot be a
competent communicator if you’re a poor listener.

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Culture and Human Communication

Is culture transmitted through genes?

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Culture and Human Communication
• Culture consists of the beliefs, ways of behaving, and artifacts of a
group. By definition, culture is transmitted through communication
and learning rather than through genes.
The Importance of Culture:
• Demographic Changes. A citizen of the world.
• Sensitivity to Cultural Differences. All cultures can coexist and
enrich one another.
• Economic Interdependence. Our economic lives depend on our
ability to communicate effectively across cultures.
• Communication Technology. Technology has made intercultural
communication easy, practical, and inevitable.

The Essentials of Human Communication

 Culture and Human Communication
Dimensions of Culture

• Uncertainty Avoidance. The degree to which a culture values predictability.

• Masculinity-femininity. The extent to which cultures embrace traditionally
masculine characteristics such as ambition and assertiveness or embrace
traditionally feminine characteristics such as caring and nurturing others.
• Power Distance. The way power is distributed throughout the society.
• Individualism-collectivism. Individualist cultures value such qualities as
self-reliance, independence, and individual achievement; collectivist cultures
emphasize social bonds, the primacy of the group, and conformity to the
larger social group.

• High and Low Context. The extent to which information is seen as

embedded in the context or tacitly known among others.

The Essentials of Human Communication