Deception

     The very last chapter, Chapter 12, discusses about deception and why people use deception. Deception is the knowing and intentional false belief and information given out to someone listening.

     There are three elements of deception; the sender must know the information is false, the sender must be transmitting the information on purpose, and the sender must be attempting to make the receiver believe the information. All three of these elements must be in the behavior to be considered deceptive.

     “You aren’t lying if you believe that what you’re saying is true.” If you asked me, “How many days do blood cells live?”  I tell you that blood cells live up to 200 days. This answer reflects what I honestly think is true. It’s also not true because blood cells only live up to 100-120 days. I thought the answer was 200 days, so I didn’t deceive you and I didn’t lying.

     “You aren’t lying if you don’t intend for others to believe what you’re saying.” There are statements that you may say and don’t mean to be taken literally. For example, “I’m so full, I could burst” and “I can run as fast as lightning”. These statements aren’t meant to be taken seriously, so the fact is you’re not lying to others.

     “You cannot lie to yourself.” Sometimes you may try to force yourself to believe in facts or ideas that you know aren’t true. When the realization that the attempts didn’t work, you may think that you’re deceiving yourself. However, by my books definition, it is impossible to deceive yourself. You may try to change your ideas and opinions, and sometimes you are successful, but the sender knowing the information is false must try to make the receiver believe it is true.

     This is my last blog. I hope you enjoyed my blogs, but the semester has come to an end. I may and may not add to these blogs later on, or I may do blog tutorials for photoshop on another profile. I enjoyed this. Thank you for reading!

Common Sources of Conflict

     Even though some may try to avoid conflict, it really can be beneficial to a relationship. But…you have to work through the conflict in a positive manner. This can lead to two people learning more about each other and their relationship. Managing conflict can also prevent small problems accelerating into larger ones. My boyfriend and I have had quit a few conflicts, but these conflicts have taught us valuable lessons about each other. In a way, the conflicts were something everyone needs to experience to learn and wise up in life.

     Let us discuss the most common sources of conflict. What are some of the most usual issues people fight about? Larry Erbert did a study on spouses and conflict. He asked spouses to report the common source of conflict in their marriage. Both the men and women identified personal criticisms as the leading conflict. Personal criticism is when a spouse complains and criticizes about their partner’s undesirable behavior and bad habits.

     The second common conflict Larry Erbert identified was finances, or conflicts about money. This really isn’t an uncommon conflict between spouses. Spouses disagree about how the money should be saved, invested, or spent. Money can be a scarce resource for some people. My boyfriend and I are amongst this group of fighters. We are broke college students trying to get good grades and make ends meet. It can be difficult at times, but we struggle and get through the hard times.

     The third common conflict that was found is household chores. Oh man! This is definitely the most common amongst my boyfriend and I! Spouses have to negotiate how to divide up tasks; cleaning, cooking, and maintenance. When these responsibilities are at fail, this can bring about a big conflict.  I know it’s hard at times to meet these responsibilities, so don’t go all panicky on the person who failed. Talk it over and see what happened and what can change.

Intimate Relationships Characteristics

     As I promised in my last blog that had to do with intimate relationships and their characteristics, I’m going to continue talking about dialectical tensions.

     For a review, dialectical tensions are common in intimate relationships. It is defined as the conflicts between two important but opposing needs or desires. Well, as you have guessed, there is more to this. There are three categories to dialectical tensions: autonomy versus connection, openness versus closedness, and predictability versus novelty.

Autonomy versus connection:

     Autonomy is the feeling of wanting to be your own person, which connection is the yearning to be close to others. As an example that was given to me, children grow into teenagers that seem to want to be independent from their parents, but teenagers still desire the need of security of family closeness. I know when I was a teenager, I tried to do my own things my way, but I needed guidance from my parents.

Openness versus closedness:

      Openness is the desire for disclosure and honesty, which closedness is the desire to keep certain facts, thoughts, or ideas to your self. For example, when my boyfriend and I get into an argument, I want to talk to my mother or sister about the fight to clear my mind, but at the same time I don’t want to. I don’t want them to feel anger or hate towards him, and I don’t want him to feel as if I invaded his privacy. I desire for that openness, and I also desire that closedness as well.

Predictability versus novelty:

     Predictability is the desire and wants for consistency and stability, while novelty is the desire for new experiences. In relationships, you need new experiences to expand the relationship. It may feel comfortable to have the same routine in a relationship, like a safety net, but a relationship needs variety. My boyfriend and I like to go out with friends and take college classes together to get that variety in our relationship.

Intimate Relationships

     Well, once again it’s time to say what I have learned in my Interpersonal Communications class. In Chapter 10, my class and I learned about the nature of intimate relationships. In the being of the Chapter, it was stated that many people think of romantic relationships when the word “intimate” is spoken. I have to say, when I hear the word “intimate” spoken, I think of romance, but really, intimacy means significant emotional closeness experienced in a relationship. The common characteristics of intimate relationships are deep commitment, foster interdependence, continuous investment, and spark dialectical tensions.

Deep commitment:

     What is commitment anyways? It’s a desire to stay in a relationship. Intimate relationships require deep commitment which is the willing to put minor differences aside and to make compromised in order to preserve our intimate relationships. Intimate relationships include some sort of emotional commitment level which is a sense of responsibility of each other’s feelings and emotional happiness.

Foster Interdependence:

     Intimate relationships include high degrees of interdependence which is a state where the behavior of each person affects everyone else in the relationship. One action influences others in families and relationships.

Continuous Investment:

     Intimate relationships also have a high degree of investment. This is the resources and time that we put into a relationship. The resources include time, money, energy, and attention.

Dialectical Tensions:

     What does dialectical tension mean? Well, it is the conflicts between two important but opposing needs or desires. Dialectical tensions are common in intimate relationships. In my next blog, I’ll be talking more about dialectical tensions. So stay tuned.

     Intimate relationships are hard to hold onto, but it is worth it. I know this for sure. My boyfriend and I had a distance relationship for a year, but after the year we knew we had to try to go further. So, I moved seven hours away from my family and friends so my boyfriend and I could work our relationship out. It has been hard in the beginning, but now it’s a lot easier because we learned to accommodate each other’s feelings and emotional happiness.

Persuasive Words

     I didn’t think I would learn that much from my class, Interpersonal Communication, but you know, I have learned something once again. I knew about people being persuasive through speech, but did you know that the Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), described three forms of rhetorical proof. Rhetorical proof are ways to support a persuasive argument. Aristotle explained that persuasive messages could be supported by appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos. Let me explain these three appeals.

1)      Appealing to Ethos:

      Don’t you think that a speaker who appears to be trustworthy and respectable is more persuasive than another speaker who is not? The term, ethos, was used by Aristotle to refer to a speaker’s trustworthiness, respectability, and moral personality. This is why speakers reinforce their ethos since they know it will enhance their abilities in persuasiveness.

2)      Appealing to Pathos:

      Don’t you agree that most people run on emotions? When people are emotionally aroused, then new ideas are raised and enhanced. Pathos was referred to listeners’ emotions since emotions are a major persuasive tool.

3)      Appealing to logos:

Don’t you agree that people use their ability of reasoning? Humans have the capability to sort out what’s right, what’s wrong, and what makes sense. People are more inclined to go towards reasoning in their particular belief, behavior, and opinion level. But, logical appeals aren’t always effective when it comes down to an addiction, which influences and alters a person’s behavior. As you may have guessed, logos refers to a listener’s ability to reason. But, what does reason really mean? Reason means to think, understand, and form judgments, which in all, is a process of logic.

     I knew that persuasiveness does involve a lot of work, but it involves a lot more than I thought. Well, at least I learned the three areas that it involves in. Maybe I’ll be better at persuading others now…..well, I’ll work on that. I’m too shy to even really talk. So the shyness needs to go first, then the persuading techniques will come next. 


     If you want to learn more about Aristotle's persuasion theory, here are a few websites to check out:


          http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/ethos-pathos-logos/

          http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/

Humans Need Social Interactions

     Could you live without your family and friends? Would you feel relieved to have no one to share memories with, or would you feel lonely and depressed? I know I would feel depressed if I had no human interaction. I would probably go insane.

     It is proven that humans need social interaction to survive. Have you heard of the German Emperor, Frederick II (1194 – 1250)? He was known for doing experiments on humans. One of his experiments was with infants. He took infants from their mothers and raised them without human interaction. His objective was to find out what language the infants would speak once they were old enough to speak, but instead all of the infants died because there was no human interaction.

     Why does social relationships matter? We form relationships because we need that human interaction. We need-to-belong. Need-to-belong is a hypothesis that says each of us is born with a fundamental drive to seek, form, maintain, and protect strong social relationships. With these relationships, it brings us rewards three rewards.

      1)      Emotionally:

         Friends provide us with emotional support and encouragement during times of emotional turmoil. Friends also bring us happiness.  

      2)      Materially:

         Relationships help us meet our material needs like food, shelter, money, and transportation. Humans love to share with others that they feel close with.

      3)      Medically:

         Relationships bring happiness and relaxation, which helps to deal with negative effects of stress, and helps us to deal with illnesses. Stress as we all know has many negative effects on the body such as sleep deprivation, unhealthy weight gain, and decrease in white cell counts.

     I for one do need human interaction and relationships. I know without my family, friends, and my loving boyfriend I would be depressed and lonely. During my first year of college, I didn’t have any friends, and my family was a few hours away. So I had no one, which caused me to have depression and loneliness. I became unhealthy; was getting sick quite a bit, and felt sluggish. When I moved back home, I became healthier, and full of energy because of that human interaction. Family and friends took the stress off of my back with laughter. Did you know that laughter gives you dopamine and endorphins? Health benefit right there!

     Here’s a good link to read about “touch” and human interactions:

          http://www.chisuk.org.uk/articles/result.php?key=63

Body Language

     Communication can come in two forms from what I have found out in my Interpersonal Communication class. There is verbal communication as in language, and then there is nonverbal communication as in gestures, facial expressions, and body language.

     

     Body language is a major form of communication. Humans use body language in there daily lives to communicate with others even when we don’t mean to. You can see if someone is bored with your conversation, sad, angry, confused, or even lying. Did you know that body language is studied by politicians? They use body language to communicate with voters. Voters look for someone energetic, which makes the voters energetic as well. I know, I don’t want to vote for a politician that is slouching, and unenthusiastic in their gestures. I want someone who passionate about what they are trying to say.

     Body language has been around for….well…ever, but it hasn’t really been studied to the full extent until Dr. Paul Ekman came around. He began his research on body language in 1945. As Dr. Ekman researched facial expressions of emotion, he found that facial expressions are not culturally determined, but is universal across human cultures. What this means is that facial expression are biological. The expressions he found that are universal are anger, disgust, shame, joy, sadness, and surprise. As of today, Dr. Ekman is still researching body language, and developing techniques to distinguish and measure facial muscular movements.

     To learn more about Dr. Ekman and his research, here are a few great links to check out:

          https://face.paulekman.com/face/default.aspx?override=1

          http://www.paulekman.com/research/currentprojects/

     Body language can be read even by you! Here are a few easy steps to get you started in reading body language.

      1)      Hands and fingers:

         Hands can have many expressions. If the palms are open, that means they are relaxed and not on defense. A pointing finger can mean a person is pointing to an object or a place, or it can indicate anger. Drumming or tapping fingers can indicate frustration and tension.   

      2)      Eyes and eyebrows:

         People who look to the sides a lot are nervous, distracted or lying. If someone is looking down at the floor a lot, they shy or timid. Dilated pupils mean that the person is interested. If their eyes seem far away, that usually indicates that a person is either not listening or just in deep thought. 

      3)      Arms:

         People with crossed arms are displaying defense, authority, or discomfort. If someone has their arms behind their neck or head, they are open to what is being discussed and comfortable.

     I'm not very good at reading body language. I think it has to do with the fact that I'm a very shy person. I shall try harder now since I know the basics in reading body language. You should try it as well. If you are interested in more ways to identify what body language means, here are a few educational links:

          http://www.wikihow.com/Read-Body-Language

          http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Read-Body-Language---Top-10-Tips&id=991635