„‚ CONDITIONS THAT HINDER EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

abstracting process when they are awake and attributing meaning to what they see, hear,
feel, taste, and touch. Not all of these meanings can be carried from one person to
another through the verbal mode only.
VERBAL ACTIVITIES
Suggested activities for exploring the verbal mode include the following: Participants
form trios and talk for three or four minutes using as many clichés as they can
remember. Then each trio is instructed to attempt to come to some agreement on
definition of several words, such as “uptight,” “heavy,” “straight.” Members of the trios
are encouraged as a third activity to try to express verbally their here-and-now feeling
experience of one another and of themselves. A fourth activity might be to get the
members of the trios to attempt to agree on the percentage of time that they think about
when they use the word “usually.” Once the trios have reached some consensus on the
percentage of time associated with that word, these can be posted on a newsprint flip
chart to illustrate the range of experience that we connote with the word. Similar tasks
can be to ask the trios to attempt to come to some agreement on which is wetter, “damp”
or “moist.” After three or four minutes of discussion, the trios can report by voting on
which of those words connotes more wetness.
NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
Recently a number of psychologists and people in the human-potential movement
have turned attention to the nonverbal ways in which we share meaning with one
another. The science of nonverbal communication is called “kinesis.” One’s nonverbal
communication, or body language, is usually involuntary; the nonverbal signals that one
emits often are a more valid source of gleaning information than are the signals that are
expressed verbally and symbolically.
There are a number of forms of body language:
1. Ambulation. How people carry their bodies tells a great deal about who they are
and how they are experiencing the environment. We associate different meanings
to different ways in which people carry their bodies from one place to another.
2. Touching. This is perhaps the most powerful nonverbal communication form.
We can communicate anger, interest, trust, tenderness, warmth, and a variety of
other emotions very potently through touching. People differ, however, in their
willingness to touch and to be touched. Some people give out nonverbal body
signals that say they do not want to be touched, and others describe themselves
and are described by others as touchable. There are many taboos associated with
this form of communication. People can learn about their own personalities and
selfconcepts by exploring their reactions to touching and being touched. The skin
is the body’s largest organ, and through the skin we take in a variety of stimuli.
The Pfeiffer Library Volume 6, 2nd Edition. Copyright © 1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer ❚❘ 47