Essay about Communication Accomodation Theory

Communication theories are important to learn and understand. Learning these theories helps us apply the theory to our own life. It helps our critical thinking skills as well as benefits one to understand the value of research that has been accomplished in this field. Understanding communication theories can help us make sense of our daily life experiences. There are three Communication theories that I have studied that have touched on my personal and professional life. These theories are Communication Privacy Management, Social Penetration Theory, and Organizational Culture Theory.

Communication isn’t just about talking. There are so many different elements to communicating in society. How a person gestures, the tone in an individual’s voice, an expression on a person’s face, how a person listens is all a part of communicating. As we all know, in order to communicate with one another we must be able to listen. I think in society people think that communication is all about speaking but in reality it is just a little piece to a bigger picture. In today’s society, listening seems to be a skill that is being neglected. Even though it is basically the first communication skill that we are exposed to, we have pushed it aside and chose speaking to dominate our lives. Researchers have discovered that fetuses can process incoming sounds during the last trimester of pregnancy, and that by 12 months children have learned sounds of and rules of their native language(Worthington, 3). This shows that children’s abilities to speak, read, write and reason are influenced highly by how well they are taught to listen. As parents we can all be teachers to our children so that they can grow up to be well-rounded communicators.

The communication cycle is a commonly used theory of communication. It was first developed by Charles Berner in 1965; it was then modified by Michael Argyle, who was a social psychologist, in 1972. The concept of a ‘communication cycle’ makes it clear that, in order to have effective communication, it must be a two way process. As well as transferring messages to others in a definite, clear way, health care professionals must be able to respond to the verbal feedback as well as the non-verbal feedback. So, effective communication has to involve effort from both participators (both the sender as well as the receiver) in the communication.

Consider a black person, or any other minority, who enters a room for an interview in hopes of earning a position within an aerospace company at an entry level position. Sitting across from him or her could be three white employees: possibly one from human resources, another was the area supervisor, and lastly the teams’ lead in the area looking to hire. Consider the applicant a black man who grew up in Southern Georgia; however, he then sat at a table in Norther California seeking employment. Understanding the difference in culture and region, the panel of interviewers diverge the conversational tone to accommodate the applicant. According to Ayoko, Härtel, and Callan (2002), “Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) examines the

Explain how people from different backgrounds may use and/or interpret communication methods in different ways

People from different backgrounds may use and/or interpret communication methods in different ways because every family has their own way of communicating together. For example: some children might hear or speak more than one language at home or they could hear others swearing. This can affect children’s communication and how they communicate as adults.

To function effectively in today’s society people must communicate with one another. Yet for some individuals communication experiences are so unrewarding that they either consciously or unconsciously avoid situations where communication is required. (McCroskey & Richmond, 1979) The term ‘communication apprehension’ was coined by James McCroskey (1976a) and is defined as “an individual’s level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons” (McCroskey, 1984). In the last two decades communication apprehension and related constructs, such as reticence and unwillingness to communicate, have received extensive research and theoretical attention by scholars in communication and

3.1 Explain how people from different backgrounds may use and/or interpret communication methods in different ways

In this essay, I intend to reflect on a situation I encountered during my first community placement I had the opportunity to develop my communication skills not just theoretically but also practically, facing a real life environment. My placement made me aware of the importance of interpersonal and communication skills which are very important in the delivery of care. Throughout my nursing career, I will be encouraged to develop reflective practice skills and become a reflective practitioner. Reflection refers to a series of steps that you may take to question and explore an experience with the aim of learning from it. I will discuss the importance of communication in order to maintain a therapeutic relationship.

The object of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of interpersonal communication. The paper will discuss how human service professionals can help by learning the standards of clients of a different culture. This paper will demonstrate some barriers that counselors may endure when assisting clients. Emotions can influence whether a client discuss circumstances to the interviewer and recognizing nonverbal and verbal cues. The authors have established the importance of counselors and their ability to communicate in their daily and professional lives. Many problems can happen when there is a lack of communication but knowing oneself is necessary to support others.

Convergence in CAT refers to the accommodativeness, the process concerned with how we both reduce and magnify communication differences between people in interaction. Talking about convergence, people tend to enhance interpersonal similarities and reduce uncertainties. The effect of converging towards or approximately to another can increase liking and enable him or her to be seen more competent and credible. It includes switching to the other’s language or dialect, or assuming the same level of the other’s interruptions, speech rate,

Throughout the years there have been different ways that humans communicate with each other whether it be from talking, body language, or sign language. But how does this communication affect us as human beings? There are many different types of communication such as Interpersonal Communications, Intrapersonal Communications, and Cross-Cultural Communications. Finding out how people communicate with each other is a key factor in our lives and we need to be able to understand how we can communicate better with ourselves and each other especially when it comes to communicating with people with cultures unlike ours.

The two processes that are involved in every interaction are assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation means gaining some knowledge and making it fit in with what you already know. This is a necessity in order to develop our cognitive structures. This is a process that everyone encounters even though they may not be aware of when it is happening. Our perceptions of things are enhanced when something of the outside world is assimilated or added into our internal world. Accommodation is the changing of one’s structure of thought. During this process, the gaining of new knowledge fails to co-exist with what we already know. Therefore, we must accommodate or adjust our

In interpersonal communication there are many theories that are similar yet different in many ways. The theories can be combined to describe people and how those people interact and communicate with each other. Many of these theories help explain how people in society form impressions of others, how they maintain these impressions, why people interact with certain people in society, and how people will use these impressions that they have formed later on in life. These theories also help people to better understand themselves, to better understand interpersonal communication, and to better understand people in general. There are two theories in interpersonal communication that, despite their differences, can go hand in hand. The first is

When communicators exhibit associative behaviors, they are utilizing verbal and nonverbal tactics that adapt to their conversational partner. Higher social status or power and commonalities between the individuals may explain why they are willing to do so. In attempt to demonstrate associative behavior, these individuals will partake in accommodation. According to the Communication Accommodation Theory, the interactants converge either upward or downward, unimodal or multimodal, or symmetrical or asymmetrical in order to adapt to the conversational setting (Zhang & Imamura, 2017). For instance, adults would speak slowly and use simple vocabulary when talking with children. In A Class Divided, the teacher would converge downward for her third-grade students to understand the concepts.