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.