Abstract
Interpersonal communication refers to communication between two or more people. Therefore, since interpersonal communication involves not only passing the message verbally, the following essay will discuss eye behavior as a nonverbal form of communication. During the interaction, people navigate their interpersonal relationships, and through the conversations, people create communication climates that bring out the general feelings, moods, and emotions that people have towards each other. Therefore, with the communication climate created during communication, the essay will also discuss the emotion of happiness as a feeling created during a conversation. Also, the essay will discuss listening effectively as another concept in communication. In regards to active listening skill, the focus will be on the importance of listening effectively and the consequences of not listening effectively. The conclusions made in this essay are based on the personal finding. The conclusions answer the questions of how the concept discussed benefits me, how I will apply the concepts to my daily life experience, and how the things I have learned will change my life?
Keywords: Communication, Emotional happiness, interpersonal communication, nonverbal
Interpersonal Communications
For society to function well, people need to communicate. However, to communicate effectively, people must engage in interpersonal communication, whereby they can exchange meaningful information. Therefore, interpersonal communication not only means verbally passing information but also through a non-verbal manner where somebody sees the facial expressions, gestures, and body language. Apart from effectively passing message and information, research has concluded that interpersonal communication also has positive impacts on a person’s health and well-being (Floyd, 2017). For example, interpersonal communication personalizes learning for students, therefore, improving both their academic and professional lives. Thus, the following essay will describe and explain three of the following concepts, emotional happiness, eye behavior, and listening effectively. Also, the essay will discuss how the concepts benefit me, how I apply the ideas in my daily life experience and lastly how the things I have learned regarding communication will change my life.
The first concept to discuss will be emotional happiness. Most people describe emotions as either good or bad; however, emotion is how the body responds to any event that hinders or improves a person’s goal. For example, what makes a person happy, for most people, personal relationships, and the feeling of being connected to other people is what makes them happy. Therefore, we can say that the reward of being in a relationship is the emotional experience that brings out joy and happiness (Universal Class, 2019). With all the human emotion falling into three major categories of affectionate, sad and hostile feelings, happiness is the most recognized human emotion that symbolizes joyful or affectionate. Other joyful emotions include liking, love, and passion. Happiness being a condition that shows pleasure and contentment, many people express happiness through laughing or smiling. Therefore, when a person is happy, he/she will tend to share the joy by approaching and reconnecting with other people. Besides, when people reconnect because of happiness, it reduces personal stress, therefore, contributing to personal health and well-being. Since emotional awareness is always misunderstood in communication, I always use the concept of emotional happiness when talking to my friends and family. The benefit of using this concept is that the ability to interpret other people emotions helps me to understand them while communicating. Therefore being emotionally aware helps me to communicate better.
The second concept to discuss is eye behavior as a unique type of nonverbal communication. Eye behavior as non-verbal communication is how the eyes speak through its movement. In addition to other facial expressions, the study of the eye behavior includes that the movement of the pupil, eyeball, or the blink of the eyelid is a form of communication. Therefore, this makes eye contact to be one of the significant focuses when people communicate in a face-to-face mode of communication. People use eye contact to gain credibility, persuade others, or to signal attraction towards someone. Therefore, the way we stare, look, or a blink is a nonverbal form of communication that speaks a lot about us. For example, dilation of the pupil means an interest in a person while a contraction of the pupil means we dislike something. Therefore, to employ this concept in my daily life experience, I always maintain eye contact while speaking to anybody. Maintaining eye contact indicates that the person is listening and interested in what am saying. Therefore, this concept becomes beneficial to me during a conversation because when a person maintains eye contact with me, I always feel in control of the conversation.
The last concept to discuss is active listening skill. In communication, people must listen so that they can receive and interpret the message being delivered. However, in interpersonal communication, effective or active listening is essential to all communication because when a person does not listen effectively, he/she will end up misinterpreting or misunderstanding the message. Therefore, effective or active listening is significant because people spend most of their time listening to what other people have to say. For example, students in learning institutions such as college and universities spend more time listening than in other activities related to communication. Therefore, excellent listening skills are essential in maintaining successful personal and professional interactions (Silver, 2019). If a person fails to listen effectively, he/she is likely to experience frustration and disappointments in relationships. For example, in a conversation between two workmates, one of the workmates tells the other that there is going to be a fire drill alarm but not a real alert. However, the other workmate fails to listen effectively, therefore when he hears the fire drill alarm, he takes it as a real fire alarm, and in the process, he rushes to escape but only to injure himself. Therefore, if the workmate could have listened effectively, he could not have inflicted injury on himself. To employ this concept in my daily life, I always face the person am having a conversation with while maintaining eye contact. The other thing I do to listen effectively is trying to picture what the other person is saying. Active Listening is beneficial to me because when I effectively listen, I always get the correct message without misunderstanding anything said.
Conclusively, the three concepts of interpersonal communication have benefited me in the sense that I have learned how the expressions of emotions can help in building or destroying relationships. Through the idea of listening effectively, I have learned how to listen effectively. In addition to listening effectively, I have also learned how to improve personal communication skills. Therefore, to apply this in my daily life experience, I will employ the concept of eye behavior by maintaining eye contact while engaging in any interpersonal communication. On the other hand, the things I have learned regarding communication will change my life because from now onwards; I will be keen on eye behavior while engaging in a conversation with other people. I will also practice how to engage in effective or active listening so that I understand the message being delivered. With all the three concepts of communication, I have learned that good communication skill improves relationships and promotes personal self-esteem.
References
Floyd, K. (2017). Interpersonal communication. Retrieved from https://megatextbook.com/product/interpersonal-communication-3rd-edition-by-kory-floyd-ebook-pdf/
Silver, F. (2019). Characteristics of Good Listening Skills. Our Everyday Life. Retrieved from https://oureverydaylife.com/characteristics-good-listening-skills-5096048.html
Universal Class. (2019). The Effects of Emotions on Communications. Universal Class. Retrieved from ttps://www.universalclass.com/articles/business/communication-studies/the-effects-of-emotions-on-communications.htm