Week 4

My score for communication anxiety was higher than the scores from the two people who evaluated me. This one surprised me because I get very nervous talking in front of groups and leading presentations. Once I start talking I am usually able to relax, but before I always feel sick. I thought this was obvious. However one of the evaluators is a person who observes me leading presentations so I was shocked that she doesn't notice how nervous I really am. My verbal aggressiveness was very close to one evaluator and higher than another and my listening style was exactly the same as both evaluators. 

I learned through the discussion post this week how easy it is to make assumptions based on appearance. There is no way to know a person exactly just by looking at them, yet we use previous knowledge and stereotypes to form judgments. I think it is part of human nature to do this, yet we must not allow these assumptions to affect our communication. We have to be able to look beyond our first impression to learn more about people.

I also learned that we can be harder evaluators on ourselves. When I was discussing the results with a person I was surprised that they were unaware of my anxiety when talking in front of groups and she said I always appear relaxed and confident and am an excellent presenter. I thought it always showed, yet apparently not. I am not sure I will ever be able to completely relax before talking in front of people, yet it helps to know that people think I am a good presenter.   

Week 3

I definitely communicate differently with people from different groups. The way I talk to my friends is completely different than how I speak and what I talk about with my dad and my grandparents. Also the topics that I talk about vary depending on who I am talking with. My friends that have kids we talk a lot about topics regarding the stages our children are in and our conversations are more family oriented. I have a few friends from high school and college that do not have children so I do not talk to them as much about my kids. Our conversations are usually about their jobs or the parties that they have been to because that is definitely not a part of my life much anymore so I like to say I am living through them. I think it also depends on the setting because I have many friends from church and our conversations do slightly differ when we are talking at church rather than at a house where we are more comfortable and can share more. If I do not know someone I almost have to force myself to talk to them because I am so shy and I do not always know what to say. 

Even though I do not have much interaction with people from different cultures, I know I do act differently mainly because I am nervous and unsure of how to act. I once met a family from Burma and their accent was really hard to understand. I know I did act as appropriately as I should have because it was hard to understand them and I was worried about offending them by saying or doing something wrong. I know my nervousness made the situation more uncomfortable. 


I need to work on moving out of my comfort zone and build relationships with people who are from different groups with different hobbies and different cultures. In these cases I can ask questions to find some similarities, but also embrace the differences because we can learn from each other. This class is showing me how important communication is with others to grow as a person.

Watching a television show-Week 2

The book talked about the show The Big Bang Theory a few times and I have never seen it so I chose that show. I watched the first episode. 

At first I honestly could not tell what the relationship was between the two main characters, Leonard and Sheldon. When I saw they lived together I thought they might be a couple. Though when I watched their nonverbal language when they first met Penny, I started to question if they were gay because they both acted nervous. After I watched it with sound I realized they were just friends. It was interesting to see Sheldon's behavior when Penny sat on the couch when there was no sound. At first I thought he was acting so weird because she was staying and he was nervous having a girl there or scared to sit next to her. Once I watched it with sound I realized it was all because she sat in what he considered to be his spot. When Raj met Penny it was very obvious he was nervous around girls. His whole body seemed to tense and his mouth just seemed to glued shut. I could also tell that Howard was trying to hit on Penny though I thought she might be reciprocating the feelings because when they were riding in a car sitting beside each other she was smiling really big. Even after watching it with sound it was hard to tell how she was feeling because she never actually brushed him off, but I do not think she was feeling the same towards him. At one point, Penny's ex-boyfriend was in the episode, but I could not figure out who he was until I watched it with sound. He was in one scene and based off of something Leonard and Sheldon said to him, he took their pants. This part was very confusing until I watched it with sound. 

It was really hard watching the show with no sound. I did not know who the people were or really have any idea what was going on. Without the sound I did have to focus more on body language and facial expressions so I did have to watch more closely than I normally do when I watch television. I hardly ever watch tv, but when I do I am usually trying to do other things at the same time. When I watched the show the second time with sound, I found I paid attention more because I was so curious about what had actually happened in the scenes. If this had been a show I normally watched it would have been much easier because I would have known who the people were and what they were probably saying to each other. I definitely realized that we can not make judgments based on nonverbal cues alone and I have a whole new appreciation of being able to hear.

Week 1

My brother is a very effective communicator in daily life. He is always very at ease in any situation and with any person. He is able to talk to anyone he meets. His profession is a salesman so this ability helps him. I would like to model some of my own communication behaviors after him because I am a naturally shy person and I do not always feel comfortable talking to new people. It is sometimes hard when meeting new families building that relationship because I struggle to communicate and connect. I wish I had more of his confidence and ability to strike up conversations with everyone.