The Pollbearer

In the article Communication Apprehension and Employment Interviews by Joe Ayres and Patricia A. Edwards, the relation between communication apprehension and interviews was assessed by studying three differences between high CA’s and low CA’s: cognitions of the interview, preparation for the interview, and behavior during the interview. In studying cognitions, focus groups were used because it involved interaction and participation. Six focus groups (three high CA’s and three low CA’s) of volunteers, from a public speaking class, were formed. They had to answer and discuss 7 questions about their thoughts referring to interviews. A lot of reports showed that high CA’s had negative thoughts cloud their mind prior to and after interviews. The …show more content…

When the phone was ringing you could see the notes he had written on a piece of paper of what to say in different situations that could arise during the conversation. He was breathing really hard and a lot of times he choked up temporarily thinking or overthinking on what to say next. Though it was just the task of communicating his body treated it like something much more serious. His body was trembling and all he had to do was speak to her and figure out the details for the “date”. Some context levels that affected this conversation were environmental, relational, and psychological. Tom lives with his mother who seems to be very overbearing like when he was on the phone and his mother picked up. This put him into a state of frenzy. This environment was probably not ideal for him to be talking on the phone to somebody he wants to pursue an intimate relationship with. Relationally speaking, he was not very close with the girl he wanted to go on a date with, but he wanted to be intimate with her. This is a big jump in type of relationship, so he felt a lot of pressure to say everything perfect, being that this could be his future girlfriend if he played his cards right. The psychological aspect was that his mind was not in the ideal place before calling Julie. This greatly affected his conversation and communication apprehension in speaking to her. The notes before the phone call showed that he was very nervous. If he would’ve went into the conversation cool, calm, and collected, it would’ve been easier for him to communicate with this