Showing papers on "Interpersonal communication published in 1968"

Self-Disclosure and Touching: A Study of Two Modes of Interpersonal Encounter and Their Inter-Relation

Abstract: IF contemporary Western man lives alienated from his fellows, his body,and nature, it behooves psychologists to investigate alienation in any of its manifestations, including its opposite -encounter. To encounter another person means, among other things, to confirm him as a being who experiences. This means seeking to experience his experience. I can experience your experience most directly if you disclose it to me. You can, if you wish, conceal or misrepresent your self, in which case my experience of you will be autistic. I will then believe things about your being that you know are untrue. But if you wish me to know you as you know yourself, you will have disclosed your experiencing authentically to me, in dialogue, throughout the duration of our relationship. A more direct, even literal, way for us to encounter one another, is for us to touch -my hand on some part of your body, and yours on mine. In touching you, I perceive you \"haptically,\" as Gibson puts it (1966, pp. 132-133). I know that you exist in a way that hearing you or seeing you cannot confirm. I may not know much about you and your experiencing in touching you, but I surely know that you are, that you are there in the flesh, so to speak. Indeed, Professor John Macmurray (1957, pp. 107-126) has provided an astute analysis of the way in which we of the West, since Descartes' time, have come to use the visual field as a model for knowing, while neglecting the kind of knowing that comes from direct touching. Visual knowing is contact at a distance. You have to be near to touch, taste, or smell another person. It would probably be appropriate to change the old saw, \"Seeing is believing,\" into the more fundamental source of truth about existence: \"Touching is believing.\" Indeed, if it is true that modern man lives out of his body, in a state of relative \"unembodiment\" -as Laing (1960) insiststhen I can surely awaken your experience of your body by touching you. And if Being discloses itself to our consciousness via our several sensory channels, then I can inquire into the means by which you disclose your being to me. How do you let me perceive you? Via my eyes? Ears? My touch receptors? Truly, for you to let me know you by touching you, you have let me get \"closer\" to you than if you limit yourself to verbal disclosure. When you let me touch you, you are disclosing your embodied being to my consciousness, by means of my tactual sense.

Interpersonal Communication and Salesman Effectiveness

Abstract: Behavioral science offers some important new insights into the determinants of a salesman's effectiveness. These insights can lead to the development of more productive sales presentations and sale...

Interpersonal verbs and interpersonal behavior

Abstract: : The report provides a summary of the research to date on the semantics of interpersonal verbs and the applications of the information obtained to cross-cultural studies of interpersonal norms and behaviors. A theory of interpersonal perception and behavior in relation to the meanings of interpersonal verbs in the language is presented.

Children's social sensitivity and the relationship to interpersonal competence, intrapersonal comfort and intellectual level

Abstract: A method of measuring children's social sensitivity is described and the relationship between social sensitivity and certain variables hypothesized as important in its development is investigated. Using a series of four tape recordings depicting two adults in happy, angry, anxious, and sad interactions, social sensitivity was assessed in third and fifth grade children. Age, intellectual ability and interpersonal adjustment contributed most to the development of accurate social perceptions. Surprisingly, there were no significant effects on social sensitivity due to sex, ordinal position, or size of family.

The Effect of Culture On Mother-Child Tactile Communication*

Abstract: A field study of the normal tactile interpersonal behaviors of forty-five motherchild pairs in a public, recreational setting. No phase of high tactile contact between mothers and children was evident. Mothers met the children's basic needs for food, tactile comfort and safety. All mothers gave less tactile communication to their youngest children than they gave to their just-walking ones. Tactile contact declined from this peak on. Mothers were most active in the areas of Control and Nursing; much less frequent were Play, Affection, Comfort, and Anger. Most of the childinitiated contacts were of the affectionate attachment kind. Tactile communication has been a relatively neglected area of psychological interest, yet it plays a crucial role in all human relationships. It appears to be biologically essential to the human being in the first four months of life; throughout the life cycle it is physically and psychologically useful in returning the individual to normal functioning after experiencing stress; and finally, it is the main avenue through which the human need for intimacy and acceptance is satisfied. The lack of interest in this fundamental modality can be viewed as an indication of a number of American attitudes. For example, there is the American preoccupation with words and with the articulated part of our culture; there is also the lack of concern with the subject of happiness as compared with the volume of problem literature; and finally, there is the attitude of prudery and anxiety about sexual matters which carries over into the tactile area because of the relationship between touch and sex.

An Interpersonal Ethic for Communication

Abstract: A modern rhetoric has developed concerning itself with considerably more dimensions of speech than was the case with traditional rhetoric's concentration on persuasion and public address. Indeed, this modern rhetoric has expanded its domain to include the whole range of types of oral communication. But while this very basic kind of evolution has been taking place, it appears that a corresponding ethic (an interpersonal one) has not emerged. The authors make bold to try to stimulate that study. The interpersonal ethic proposed in the article can be stated as follows: A's communication is ethical to the extent that it accepts B's responses; it is unethical to the extent to which it develops hostility toward B's responses, or in some way tries to subjugate B. The ethic can be observed best, the authors believe, when A discovers that B rejects the message A is sending. Such an ethic springs from the following assumptions: (1) By virtue of the very nature of the communicative act, the two parties to a communication exercise control over each other. Both the listener and the speaker are, in part, at the other's mercy. (2) One of the highest values in a democratic culture is that conditions be created and maintained in which the potential of the individual is best realized. (3) The individual will be able to realize his potential to the extent that psychological freedom can be increased for him. An interpersonal ethic, the article suggests, may have more to do with the attitude of the speaker and listener toward each other than with elements of the message (as in the more traditional rhetoric). It may concern itself more with loyalty to the person with whom one is in communication than to rationality or cosmic truth.

Some Aspects of a Theory of Interpersonal Contracts

Abstract: In this introductory paper are examined some of the aspects or parameters of interpersonal contract formation. The Interpersonal Contract Exercise, a technique for making contracts explicit in a group setting, is introduced. Underlying the discussion of the various aspects of interpersonal contracts is the theme of the desirability of open communication of these contracts—both in their interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects. Another principle contains the idea of an implicit hierarchy of contracts in which the most powerful contract may be the least conscious or overt, as in real versus presumed contracts, primary versus secondary subself involvements or hidden simultaneous contracts with self. Conditions which favor or inhibit contract formation include mutual trust and identification, degree of social dissonance, third parties, and egalitarian versus authoritarian social systems. The Interpersonal Contract Exercise is outlined and some of its applications mentioned.

Interpersonal Effects on Underachieversl,2

Abstract: Thin study examined the effects of Interaction with “warm” teachers or “friendly” peer leaders on the scholastic achievement and conformance of underachievers. One experimental group of 28 seventh,...

On an Interpersonal Hypothesis in the Semiotic of Music

Abstract: Is music a sort of non-verbal language conveying meanings to listeners? In this article, one part of this old controversial subject is approached experimentally. Reasons are given for the hypothesis that the works of music signify interpersonal tendencies which are understood and reacted to by the listeners who in this way participate in fantasy on the interpersonal transactions of the composer. Some links are shown which connect the present problem with semiotic, general systems theory, psychology both normal and pathological, psychoanalysis and ethology.