Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which held from the 1920s to 1950s that unobservable mental processes were outside the realm of empirical science. This break came as researchers in linguistics and cybernetics, as well as applied psychology, used models of mental processing to explain human behavior. Work derived from cognitive psychology was integrated into other branches of psychology and various other modern disciplines like cognitive science, linguistics, and economics. The domain of cognitive psychology overlaps with that of cognitive science, which takes a more interdisciplinary approach and includes studies of non-human subjects and artificial intelligence.
Human communication, or anthroposemiotics, is a field of study dedicated to understanding how humans communicate. Humans' ability to communicate with one another would not be possible without an understanding of what we are referencing or thinking about. Because humans are unable to fully understand one another's perspective, there needs to be a creation of commonality through a shared mindset or viewpoint. The field of communication is very diverse, as there are multiple layers of what communication is and how we use its different features as human beings.
Listening is the act of paying attention to sounds. It includes listening to the sounds of nature, listening to music, and perhaps most importantly, interpersonal listening, i.e. listening to other human beings. When listening to another person, one hears what they are saying and tries to understand what it means.
Communications management is the systematic planning, implementing, monitoring, and revision of all the channels of communication within an organization and between organizations. It also includes the organization and dissemination of new communication directives connected with an organization, network, or communications technology. Aspects of communications management include developing corporate communication strategies, designing internal and external communications directives, and managing the flow of information, including online communication. It is a process that helps an organization to be systematic as one within the bounds of communication.
The hostile media effect, originally deemed the hostile media phenomenon and sometimes called hostile media perception, is a perceptual theory of mass communication that refers to the tendency for individuals with a strong preexisting attitude on an issue to perceive media coverage as biased against their side and in favor of their antagonists' point of view. Partisans from opposite sides of an issue will tend to find the same coverage to be biased against them. The phenomenon was first proposed and studied experimentally by Robert Vallone, Lee Ross and Mark Lepper.
In any communication, in any medium or format, "subtext" is the underlying or implicit meaning that, while not explicitly stated, is understood by an audience.
Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It describes the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. In this sense, it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate, and perceive the world around them. Intercultural communication focuses on the recognition and respect of those with cultural differences. The goal is mutual adaptation between two or more distinct cultures which leads to biculturalism/multiculturalism rather than complete assimilation. It promotes the development of cultural sensitivity and allows for empathic understanding across different cultures.
Paul Watzlawick was an Austrian-American family therapist, psychologist, communication theorist, and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he commented in the fields of family therapy and general psychotherapy. Watzlawick believed that people create their own suffering in the very act of trying to fix their emotional problems. He was one of the most influential figures at the Mental Research Institute and lived and worked in Palo Alto, California.
Active listening is the practice of preparing to listen, observing what verbal and non-verbal messages are being sent, and then providing appropriate feedback for the sake of showing attentiveness to the message being presented.
Communication accommodation theory (CAT) is a theory of communication, developed by Howard Giles, concerning "(1) the behavioral changes that people make to attune their communication to their partner, (2) the extent to which people perceive their partner as appropriately attuning to them". This concept was later applied to the field of sociolinguistics, in which linguistic accommodation or simply accommodation is the process of individuals adapting their style of speaking to become more like the style of their conversational partners.
The nurse–client relationship is an interaction between a nurse and "client" (patient) aimed at enhancing the well-being of the client, who may be an individual, a family, a group, or a community.
Social perception is the study of how people form impressions of and make inferences about other people as sovereign personalities. Social perception refers to identifying and utilizing social cues to make judgments about social roles, rules, relationships, context, or the characteristics of others. This domain also includes social knowledge, which refers to one's knowledge of social roles, norms, and schemas surrounding social situations and interactions. People learn about others' feelings and emotions by picking up information they gather from physical appearance, verbal, and nonverbal communication. Facial expressions, tone of voice, hand gestures, and body position or movement are a few examples of ways people communicate without words. A real-world example of social perception is understanding that others disagree with what one said when one sees them roll their eyes. There are four main components of social perception: observation, attribution, integration, and confirmation.
Communication noise refers to influences on effective communication that influence the interpretation of conversations. While often looked over, communication noise can have a profound impact both on our perception of interactions with others and our analysis of our own communication proficiency.
Source credibility is "a term commonly used to imply a communicator's positive characteristics that affect the receiver's acceptance of a message." Academic studies of this topic began in the 20th century and were given a special emphasis during World War II, when the US government sought to use propaganda to influence public opinion in support of the war effort. Psychologist Carl Hovland and his colleagues worked at the War Department upon this during the 1940s and then continued experimental studies at Yale University. They built upon the work of researchers in the first half of the 20th century who had developed a Source-Message-Channel-Receiver model of communication and, with Muzafer Sherif, developed this as part of their theories of persuasion and social judgement.
Civil discourse is the practice of deliberating about matters of public concern in a way that seeks to expand knowledge and promote understanding. The word "civil" relates directly to civic in the sense of being oriented toward public life, and less directly to civility, in the sense of mere politeness. Discourse is defined as the use of written or spoken communications, similar to having a conversation. Civil discourse includes the practice of deliberating about things that are of concern to society in a way that seeks to help all participants understand each other. It is an essential part of democratic citizenship and is thus a fundamental aspect of freedom of speech, characterized by dialogue that supports the societal good." For civil discourse to truly be effective as a democratic tool, all people need to be heard and share their viewpoints. Civil discourse involves more than just politeness; it involves disagreement without disrespect, seeking common ground, listening beyond preconceptions, and remaining present in dialogues despite deep disagreements. This can help develop better public policies that benefit all people of a society. Members of the U.S. Supreme Court session in 2011 aptly described civil discourse as "robust, honest, frank and constructive dialogue and deliberation that seeks to advance the public interest." Viewpoints are grounded in reason and evidence, adhering to strict guidelines for the appropriate behavior to be practiced. In contrast, uncivil discourse contains direct insults, unwarranted attributions of motive, and open contempt." Civil discourse has its foundation on several key values:
Interpersonal communication is an exchange of information between two or more people. It is also an area of research that seeks to understand how humans use verbal and nonverbal cues to accomplish several personal and relational goals. Communication includes utilizing communication skills within one's surroundings, including physical and psychological spaces. It is essential to see the visual/nonverbal and verbal cues regarding the physical spaces. In the psychological spaces, self-awareness and awareness of the emotions, cultures, and things that are not seen are also significant when communicating.
Text and conversation is a theory in the field of organizational communication illustrating how communication makes up an organization. In the theory's simplest explanation, an organization is created and defined by communication. Communication "is" the organization and the organization exists because communication takes place. The theory is built on the notion, an organization is not seen as a physical unit holding communication. Text and conversation theory puts communication processes at the heart of organizational communication and postulates, an organization doesn't contain communication as a "causal influence", but is formed by the communication within. This theory is not intended for direct application, but rather to explain how communication exists. The theory provides a framework for better understanding organizational communication.
Social cues are verbal or non-verbal signals expressed through the face, body, voice, motion and guide conversations as well as other social interactions by influencing our impressions of and responses to others. These percepts are important communicative tools as they convey important social and contextual information and therefore facilitate social understanding.
In linguistics, a backchanneling during a conversation occurs when one participant is speaking and another participant interjects responses to the speaker. A backchannel response can be verbal, non-verbal, or both. Backchannel responses are often phatic expressions, primarily serving a social or meta-conversational purpose, such as signifying the listener's attention, understanding, sympathy, or agreement, rather than conveying significant information. Examples of backchanneling in English include such expressions as "yeah", "OK", "uh-huh", "hmm", "right", and "I see".
Pseudo-listening is a type of non-listening that consists of appearing attentive in conversation while actually ignoring or only partially listening to the other speaker. Pseudolistening is often used as a coping mechanism to manage personal needs while appearing attentive to others. The word pseudo-listening is a compound word composed of the prefix pseudo-, and listening. An example of pseudo-listening is trying to multitask by talking on the phone while watching television or completing work. Pseudo-listening is the most ineffective way to communicate because after the conversation one will not have retained much of the information that was said.
