Homework Here
The following is homework, bless me! an essay for my Effective Communications subject. I'm putting it here so I can easily get at it for editing before submitting it.
You can read it if you want, of course, but there's nothing much interesting in it apart from the bits where I seem to be speaking in psychiatrist language...
And it's supposed to be 300 words long or so. I somehow turned it into a 600-word monster...
---Homework begins---
It is now three weeks since classes began, and three lectures (including the first one) of Effective Communication. I suppose I may say that what I have learned in these lectures has shed some new light on my views of communication.
To me, the most intriguing point so far is the idea of prototypes: that is, that everybody has an ideal model for any particular concept; rather like a very picky director, they wish a certain sort of actor to fill a certain sort of role in the movie of their life. Unfortunately such wishes do not often come true.
I am reminded of when I lived with one of my uncles and his family, including three children aged 12 and below. Looking back on it now, I believe that their prototype of a cousin would have been one who would obey them completely and pamper them, as well as being unfailingly cheery and extremely tolerant of physical abuse. My prototype of a younger cousin was one who would leave me (and my belongings) alone and speak respectfully, as well as disappear on command.
To call our communication ineffective would have been to win the Most Amazing Understatement Award of the year—both parties had decidedly unrealistic prototypes, and neither of us reacted well to the fact that we were the complete opposite of each other’s prototype cousin.
The lecture on prototypes revealed how our ideal models (and the subsequent disappointment) negatively affected the communication between us. Henceforth I have decided to be more realistic in my prototypes, as well as to be more accepting of those who do not fit into my prototype. Hopefully this will enable more effective communication in the future when I encounter others who are dissimilar to my prototypes.
The other aspect of communication that has been most important to me is the idea of attribution (which the textbook links to mind-reading): the attempt to understand others’ motives by their actions. This is, regrettably, a very imprecise exercise at best.
When I was around 11 years old, one of my classmates (let us call him X) happened to have forgotten some item of homework or other, and was summoned, with other such offenders, to the teacher’s desk in front of the classroom for punishment—a couple of strikes on the hand from a thin rattan stick. The teacher being engrossed in meting out punishment at the time, the rest of the class was chitchatting, and one of X’s friends (let us call him Y) happened to smile at him.
X and Y had an argument soon after X returned to his seat, because X thought Y had been laughing at him, and Y had merely meant to encourage X in the face of imminent pain. As arguments go, it was quite minor, but several days passed before X and Y were talking again—and all due to a misjudgment of motives.
I only recently realized that this incident highlights the differences in people’s schemata, leading them to view others’ actions in different lights. As a result, I have decided to attempt to understand the schemata of the people around me by finding out their perceptions of various issues, in order to avoid reading nonexistent meanings into their actions; and to be prepared to explain myself if misunderstands of my actions occur.
And thus I hope to promote effective communication in my own life.
---Homework ends---
You can read it if you want, of course, but there's nothing much interesting in it apart from the bits where I seem to be speaking in psychiatrist language...
And it's supposed to be 300 words long or so. I somehow turned it into a 600-word monster...
---Homework begins---
It is now three weeks since classes began, and three lectures (including the first one) of Effective Communication. I suppose I may say that what I have learned in these lectures has shed some new light on my views of communication.
To me, the most intriguing point so far is the idea of prototypes: that is, that everybody has an ideal model for any particular concept; rather like a very picky director, they wish a certain sort of actor to fill a certain sort of role in the movie of their life. Unfortunately such wishes do not often come true.
I am reminded of when I lived with one of my uncles and his family, including three children aged 12 and below. Looking back on it now, I believe that their prototype of a cousin would have been one who would obey them completely and pamper them, as well as being unfailingly cheery and extremely tolerant of physical abuse. My prototype of a younger cousin was one who would leave me (and my belongings) alone and speak respectfully, as well as disappear on command.
To call our communication ineffective would have been to win the Most Amazing Understatement Award of the year—both parties had decidedly unrealistic prototypes, and neither of us reacted well to the fact that we were the complete opposite of each other’s prototype cousin.
The lecture on prototypes revealed how our ideal models (and the subsequent disappointment) negatively affected the communication between us. Henceforth I have decided to be more realistic in my prototypes, as well as to be more accepting of those who do not fit into my prototype. Hopefully this will enable more effective communication in the future when I encounter others who are dissimilar to my prototypes.
The other aspect of communication that has been most important to me is the idea of attribution (which the textbook links to mind-reading): the attempt to understand others’ motives by their actions. This is, regrettably, a very imprecise exercise at best.
When I was around 11 years old, one of my classmates (let us call him X) happened to have forgotten some item of homework or other, and was summoned, with other such offenders, to the teacher’s desk in front of the classroom for punishment—a couple of strikes on the hand from a thin rattan stick. The teacher being engrossed in meting out punishment at the time, the rest of the class was chitchatting, and one of X’s friends (let us call him Y) happened to smile at him.
X and Y had an argument soon after X returned to his seat, because X thought Y had been laughing at him, and Y had merely meant to encourage X in the face of imminent pain. As arguments go, it was quite minor, but several days passed before X and Y were talking again—and all due to a misjudgment of motives.
I only recently realized that this incident highlights the differences in people’s schemata, leading them to view others’ actions in different lights. As a result, I have decided to attempt to understand the schemata of the people around me by finding out their perceptions of various issues, in order to avoid reading nonexistent meanings into their actions; and to be prepared to explain myself if misunderstands of my actions occur.
And thus I hope to promote effective communication in my own life.
---Homework ends---
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