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  • Essay / Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication

    In today's fast-paced world with various technologically advanced modes of communication through the Internet, it can be concluded that most people still fail to understand each other. Thus, people's behavior or reactions to situations can be explained using attributions. Attribution, as Kendra Cherry (2018) explains, is the act of assuming the origin of situations and behavior. In reality, attribution consists of various acts and works that we constantly perform, usually without the perception of the elemental processes and biases that lead us to our conclusions. Why do such attribution biases surface in human minds? Fritz Heider (1958) explained in his book that people assume and infer explanations about others based on observations and analyzes of their behavior. Therefore, Mark from the article above explicitly exhibits traits of attribution bias. Mark's inference that the artist has "so much attitude" can be explained by the self-serving biases and fundamental attribution error that are displayed respectively. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essay Self-serving bias explained by Alice Boyes (2013) is the impulsiveness of people to attribute positive circumstances to their own personality and negative circumstances attributed to external factors. In other words, Mark's positive status as a brilliant artist was due to his good sense of artistic intelligence. This shows that he attributes his success as a photographer to his own personal factors. However, he further elaborated on the negative circumstances in which his parents' poverty had deprived him of the opportunity to pursue artistic studies abroad. He had also attributed his inability to be a noted artist to poverty and his parents' incapacity. The fundamental attribution error, as Joe Moran (2015) puts it, is the tendency to exaggerate the extent to which people's behavior is due to them being relaxed and downplaying the implications of external forces. Likewise, Mark had failed to analyze and decipher the cause of the artist's silence. Therefore, Mark had assumed on his own that the artist had immediately displayed a temper. This was due to his own presumption, as he thought the artist may have misunderstood him as a person with an ulterior motive. In conclusion, the way one perceives oneself and others is due to the situational factors presented above. However, these factors could have been modified in Mark's case. He could have still pursued art independently by applying to various establishments and creating his artworks. The girl was able to exhibit her work in an art gallery, which explains how she was able to overcome negative circumstances and get noticed in the art world. Likewise, his inability to hear was misunderstood by Mark and seen as a display of attitude. He could have been patient and waited until the little artist was available to speak and made eye contact with him to express her enthusiasm and admiration for his work. When all these acts of assumptions are discarded, people can communicate and maintain good relationships because understanding of each other arises. According to Amy Lucas (2017), the ability to communicate effectively verbally and non-verbally determines a person's success as an individual and as a society. Interactions with people are built using verbal and non-verbal communications. They thus contribute to thephysical and mental well-being of individuals. Amy Lucas (2017) also highlighted that verbal and non-verbal expressions are essential to developing relationships and strengthening positive forms of communication. In the video, several forms of nonverbal cues were displayed. However, four distinct nonverbal cues that will be addressed are attention, eye contact, voice, and gestures. First, the most fundamental aspect of communication is voice. The use of voice, to compose aThe message to be transmitted is the way in which millions of people communicate. However, when voice is mentioned, it does not mean what is said but rather how it is said. To go further, when one speaks, one's voice will be observed apart from simply listening to the messages transmitted. For example, Cheryl explained to her daughter Sarah in a firm voice and tone that her exams were coming up soon and she needed to study. May, his colleague, however, expressed her arguments regarding her son's soccer practices with a frustrated tone of voice. Second, the visual sense is predominant when communicating for most people. Eye contact is therefore the important form of non-verbal communication. As Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., Melinda Smith, MA, and Greg Boose (2018) explain, eye contact is a determining factor in understanding the listener's interest and response or comments, in addition to maintaining the progress of the conversation. For example, once May rejected Sarah's request to attend a family day, Sarah looked down to express her disappointment. Similarly, Cheryl's son Johnny had shown a lack of eye contact when May asked him if he liked football. This insinuates his feeling of repression at being deprived of the joy of playing football. Thus, he communicates his sadness without eye contact. When humans communicate, many forms of gestures are used to convey messages. A person may gesticulate using hand and arm movements during communication to help convey a clearer message. Therefore, in the video, Johnny was shown speaking like a young boy aspiring to play football again. This was evident as he gesticulated as he walked towards the car window to watch the children playing soccer on the field pass by. He also kept silent when asked about his liking for football. He had a desperate, suppressed facial expression that insinuated his sadness and inability to do what makes him happy. In nonverbal communication, as written in the SUSS COM101 Principles and Practice of Communication textbook, page 151, chapter 5, Johnny had displayed displays of affect. It was at this point that Johnny had hastily put away his little toy football player keychain when he noticed his mother Cheryl arriving. This explicitly showed his emotion of fear. The use of space to communicate at the end of the video when Cheryl maintains a distance despite having asked her son Johnny to speed up packing his books and writing materials was evident. This is attributed to the fact that she stood next to the table and hurriedly pulled on her schoolbag to immediately recall her bag. In conclusion, although verbal communication helps convey messages directly, non-verbal communication also plays an equally important role. This can be understood thanks to May who understood that Cheryl's frustration, tone of voice and rules affected Johnny's happiness. Her look and acts of longing made May realize that children need time.