So the next time you feel questioned, go back to the original statement and think about the four facets. In order to engage in healthy communication, we need to be aware of the four facets. Think about it: which one is your best developed “ear”? For instance, do you tend to hear an appeal in every sentence? Or do you often feel questioned (hence you are listening with your relationship “ear”)? It is important to understand that what we hear may not be what the other person was trying to get across. The underlying emphasis of both the sender and the receiver on the four facets can create a barrier to healthy communication. So if the husband has a well-trained relationship ear, he may decode the sentence to be something like “you are unreliable since you have forgotten to refill the sugar jar,” and he might retort with something like, “Well you are not very reliable, you still haven’t fixed the light in the kitchen!”ĭo you recognize this type of conversation? Things unravel quickly when we are not hearing each other. To make it even more complex, as a receiver we tend to have one of the four “ears” particularly well trained (factual ear, relationship ear, self-revelation ear or appeal ear). For instance, a wife saying “the sugar jar is empty” may be less about the fact that there is no sugar left in the jar and more a prompt for her husband to go and fill the jar. There is never the same emphasis put on each of the four facets, and the emphasis can be meant and understood differently.
Appeal: What I want to make you do (an attempt to influence the receiver).Relationship: What I think about you (information about how we get along).Self-revealing: What I reveal about myself (information about the sender).Fact: What I inform about (data, facts, statements).In his Four-Sides model of communication, Friedemann Schulz von Thun (1981) points out that every message has four facets to it: “We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. What makes the process of communication even more complex is the fact that the message of the sender is hardly ever just factual information. We all have our own filters and explanatory styles which create the picture of the world as we see it. The way we decode a message is never the objective reality. Although this seems simple in theory, as you can imagine a lot happens in between and no message is ever decoded without bias. The receiver interprets what they receive as the message-both verbal and nonverbal parts. It also includes feedback, the response of the receiver to the message, as well as noise, which is anything that can disrupt communication.Įncoding refers to the sender transforming thoughts into communicable messages. But what does that signify?Ī communication model usually involves a sender, a receiver, and a (verbal or nonverbal) message which is encoded by the sender and decoded by the receiver. A vital element of positive social interaction, however, is good communication. Interactions with people can be verbal or nonverbal-we can even connect with each other through a smile. Nursing social relationships enhance happiness because spending time with friends or colleagues builds positive emotions-a key component of happiness (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002). “It is the encounters with people that make life worth living.” This is why positive social interactions increase our subjective wellbeing and provide greater life satisfaction (Lyubomirsky, 2008).
We all have a strong need for connectivity and belonging.
7 key elements of communication how to#
How to Better Communicate in Personal Relationships.What to Do If There’s No Communication in a Relationship.
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