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UGC NET

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CLASS NOTES
Paper 1

Communication
Lecture – 7
Barriers to communication
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Barriers to Communication
Noise
Noise is an interruption that can creep in at any point of time in the communication process and make it
ineffective. Environment is one major cause that interferes with message reception like noises from the roadside,
constant chattering of individuals, blaring loudspeaker, faulty transmission, etc.
Noise can also occur in other forms, like poor handwriting, heavy accent or soft speech, communication in a
poorly lit room, etc. In fact, these are barriers to effective communication. For smooth and effective
communication, it is necessary to eliminate or reduce noise as far as possible.
Barriers prevent communication from being effective. Some of the barriers to effective communication are:
Organizational Barriers : These barriers are seen within an organizational structure and could be attributed to
the following factors:
1. Complex Organizational Structure : The communication gets affected if there are a greater number of
management levels in the organization. With more levels, the communication gets delayed and might
change before reaching the intended receiver.
2. Status or Hierarchical Positions in the Organization: Formal communication may often act as a
barrier to effective communication. Such as the lower level employee might be reluctant in sending a
message to his superior because of a fear in his mind of sending the faulty or wrong message.
3. Organizational Rules and Policies : Often, organizations have the rule with respect to what message,
medium, and mode of communication should be selected. And due to the stringent rules, the employees
escape themselves from sending any message.
Similarly, the organizational policy defines the relationship between the employees and the way they
shall communicate with each other maintaining their levels of position in the organization. Eg, if the
company policy is that all the communication should be done in writing, then even for a small message
the medium used should be written. This leads to delay in the transmission of the message and hence the
decision making gets delayed.
4. Organizational Facilities: The organizational facilities mean the telephone, stationery, translator, etc.,
which is being provided to employees to facilitate the communication. When these facilities are
adequately offered to the employees, then the communication is said to be timely, accurate and according
to the need. Whereas, in the absence of such facilities, the communication may get adversely affected.
2. Physical barriers: - Physical barrier is the environmental and natural condition that act as a barrier in
communication in sending message from sender to receiver.
Physical Barriers include:
a) Distance between sender and receiver
b) Poor lighting
c) Background noise
3.Physiological barriers : It is the distraction causes by hunger, fatigue, headache,medication, etc. :
4. Psychological Barriers: These are the barriers that are created inside the psyche of a person; they may be a
result of a person's thought or preconceived notions. Some important ones are: -
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1. Filtering:
Filtering means manipulating information in a way that only favourable information is sent to the receiver. In
business organisations, when messages are transmitted vertically along the chain of command, some part of
information normally gets lost on the way.
2. Assumptions:
Communication based on assumptions is bad communication. If workers presume that managers will pay them
financial rewards if they work overtime, they are wrong unless there is clear indication in this regard. Nothing
should be stated as presumed while transmitting official information.
3. Degree of Trust and Openness:
Worth of the message depends upon worth of the sender. A manager who is perceived by subordinates as
knowledgeable, trustworthy, sincere, concerned about welfare of others, fair in taking decisions and open minded,
will be rated high by them. Employees will carry out his directions sincerely. If, however, they do not trust or
have biased opinion about the sender, they will ignore or misinterpret the message.
4. Fear:
Communication in an environment of threats, fear, punishment and penalties is a barrier to effective
communication. There must be positive motivation for receivers to carry out the directions.
5. Emotions
Emotions—feeling of love, threat, compassion, anger, jealousy, embarrassment, etc. largely affect encoding and
decoding of the message. Emotions are important and communicators must understand them to avoid
communication breakdowns. For instance, when the sender is happy, his encoding of message will be different
from that when he is depressed. Receiver‟s emotions also affect understanding of the message.
6. Perception:
Perception is feeling, knowledge and understanding of the subject-matter conveyed. People with different
cultural, educational and emotional backgrounds understand the message differently. People tend to hear or see
what they want to hear or see and, therefore, perceive the message in their own way.
7. Poor Listening\ Inattentiveness :
Listening is different from hearing. We do not listen when we are preoccupied with other thoughts and
engagements. When a speaker is speaking on the subject in which we are not interested, we hear but do not pay
much attention to what he is saying. Unless we listen and not just hear, communication will not be effective.
8. Poor Retention :
Human mind cannot retain all that is communicated to him orally. He tends to forget a part of the information
because of his limited retention capacity. It is, therefore, advisable to make the receiver repeat the message and
also use more than one channel to communicate the same information. Sending reminders can also help to
overcome the problems of poor
9. Resistance to Change(Defensive attitude)\ Closeness of Mind:
Some people are not open to new ideas, persuasion and suggestions. They prefer to work along pre-defined
courses of action and are not willing to listen to others. On being offered suggestions, they may react negatively,
“I know how to do my work. Don‟t give me suggestions.” Closeness of mind may reject useful and lucrative
suggestions. It acts as a barrier to communication.
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This barrier arise when the person has a strong urge to maintain the status-quo
10. Cognitive dissonance : this occurs when the receiver purposely chose to ignore the message, due to
dissonance or conflict in his thought process and the signal he receiving. Example, statutory warning on
alcohol bottles.

SOME OTHER BARRIERS

a) Halo effect is a type of cognitive bias in which our overall impression of a person influences how we feel
and think about his or her character.
The horn effect, closely related to the halo effect, is a form of cognitive bias that causes one's perception of
another to be unduly influenced by a single negative trait.
b) Ideological Barriers The members of the organization do not share the same ideological perspectives and
orientation. This affects the effective communication.
4. Language Barriers :
Language barriers relate to use of words, jargons and different interpretation by senders and receivers. The same
statement may carry different meaning for different people. This deters the process of effective communication
Some of the common language barriers are as follows
1. Semantics:
Semantics is the study of words and their meanings. Problems arising on account of transmission of meanings are
semantic problems. Different words mean different things to different people. Around 500 words in English
language have about 25 definitions each. It is natural, therefore, that they are interpreted differently. If the word
means the same to the sender and the receiver, communication is complete and effective, otherwise,
communication breakdown is likely to occur.
There are two types of semantic barriers that exist in communication: denotative barriers and connotative
barriers.
Connotation is the hidden meaning that gives word more emotional impact
connotation refers to a meaning that is implied by word.
Whereas the denotative meaning is literal and exact meaning of the word that is the dictionary definition of the
word.
2. Poor Messages:
Clear ideas but wrongly chosen words and sentences are as bad as poor ideas. Wrong words and sentences can
lead to misinterpretation of messages. Poorly explained or misunderstood messages can result in confusion.
Words, sentences and paragraphs should be well connected and coherent to convey the might meaning.
3. Inconsistency in Verbal and Non-verbal Communication:
Though verbal communication is a powerful medium of communication, non-verbal or gestural communication is
equally effective in conveying the right message. Not only should our language be clear, our facial expressions,
gestures, body movements and appearance must also correspond to the language. A manager who says „good
morning‟ to subordinates without even looking at them will not be very popular amongst them.
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4. Individual Linguistic Ability:

Use of difficult or inappropriate words in communication can prevent people from understanding the message.
The sender may use difficult words in his message which receivers cannot understand.
Linguistic barrier also can be because of culture difference of the sender and Reciever
5. Cultural Barrier:
Cultural barriers is when people of different cultures are unable to understand each other's customs, resulting in
inconveniences and difficulties.
1- ETHNOCENTRISM
2- STEREOTYPING
3- CONFLICTING VALUES
4- LANGUAGE BARRIERS
5- High Context and Low context cultures

6. Mechanical Barriers: The various causes of the mechanical obstacles could be technical barriers, disturbances
in the communication channel, illegible hand-writing, or noisy telephonic lines. The mechanical walls can create
difficulty in the reception of either some parts of the messages or the entire message.

According to Robbins et al, sequence of Communication barriers is

1. Filtering is the distortion or withholding of information to manage a person's reactions. Some examples of
filtering include a manager who keeps her division's poor sales figures from her boss, the vice president,
fearing that the bad news will make him angry.
2. Selective perception refers to filtering what we see and hear to suit our own needs.
3. Information overload can be defined as "occurring when the information processing demands on an
individual's time to perform interactions and internal calculations exceed the supply or capacity of time
available for such processing
4. Emotional disconnects happen when the Sender or the Receiver is upset, whether about the subject at hand or
about some unrelated incident that may have happened earlier.
5. Language- Communicated message must be understandable to the receiver. Words mean different things to
different people. Language reflects not only the personality of the individual but also the culture of society in
which the individual is living.