Pragmatic Perspective Week 3 Post #3

When it comes to the pragmatic perspective I would have to disagree mostly that communication is a patterned reaction. In fact I think that the pragmatic way of thinking is kind of dangerous. If communication follows to much of a pattern then people start to predict the outcome of a conversation before it even happens. One example of this is in high school I had this theory that it was easier to ask for forgiveness then for permission. I had so many conversations with my mom if I could go and do things like drive highway 17 to the beach. Because I heard "no" so many times at the end of my questions I stopped asking. My mom's conversation with me followed a distinct pattern and I would get so sick of the end result, so I would avoid the conversation all together. This is why I think the pragmatic perspective can be dangerous. 

Communication is somewhat like a game because it does require for two people to be involved and to take turns making moves. People will also repeat actions or words that result in a good pay off. For example, when my fiance whispers in my ear that I look beautiful I smile at him and give him a kiss. This payoff is something he enjoys and he knows that if he says the same thing then he will get the same payoff.

Communication is also different from a game because the human mind can't always be predictable. In games we have strategies, in life you could have as many strategies as you want but that doesn't mean you are going to win the conversation.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Week 3 Post #2

I could apply the psychological model of communication to my own life. The part I found really interesting was that a persons mental state has a lot to do with the way they decode a message.  "A mental state consists of a person's beliefs, values, attitudes, feelings, and mental sets" (pg 26). 

My fiance and I often have miscommunication which are sometimes caused by distractions such as noise, which is anything that interferes or changes a message during the transmission process (pg 27). The main reason we have misunderstandings  has more to do with our mental states. For example, when I have had a really hard day and I am tired I tend to be a little more on edge. I was talking about this with a girlfriend that sometimes he can say something to me on Monday and it is completely fine. However, he can say the same exact thing to me on Friday and I maybe I have had a bad day so the comment he says hits me in the wrong way. 

I think sometimes we hear what we want to hear, so when we are upset then we want to get defensive. We choose to assume that everyone is out to get us just because we are having a bad day; and this isn't true.  I know we here this all the time but it is so true, it is not what you say but how you say it. That is why there are so many communication errors in emails and text messages because you aren't physically having the conversation, this makes it difficult to know what the person really means by what they are saying.

 Decoding the message is up to the receiver and the sender. If the sender is saying one thing but their body is saying something else then the message will not be clear. I am sure everyone has been guilty of this at some point or another.

The social constructionist perspective

I found the social constructionist perspective to be fascinating. It basically said that we don't ever really get to experience the world fist hand, rather we experience parts of the world. (pg 30) These are the parts that our society finds significant. Reading about world building and looking at the diagram really got the wheels in my head rolling. I asked myself do I experience the world for what it really is? Or do I experience what society tells me too? I don't know about you, but I want to experience life to the fullest, like Tim McGraw says "Live like you were dying." Is it even possible to live my life to the fullest if my actions are determined by culture norms and what is socially acceptable. 

I think our society definitely builds worlds through communication. However, I must stress the word worlds, because I don't believe the United states is building just one world anymore. Take the election for example. Each presidential candidate is painting a picture of a new world and the two worlds each of them are painting is very different from the other. We now live in a time where are world is constantly changing and fast. 

A lot of the communication we build is through media. I live in the technology world.  So much of our communication is no longer done face to face. We communicate through other means such as: phones, texting, instant messaging, email, facebook, myspace and so on. We don't even have to leave our computer to meet new people we simply sign online. I really do believe that because the worlds we have built now don't depend on human interaction that we aren't as happy as we were in the past.

We no longer have a sense of community, for example I have lived in the same house for eight years and I don't know my next door neighbors. Well yes, I know their names but we aren't friends. If this were the 1950s we would be having barbeque's with our neighbors. I think it is very sad that we no longer take the time to get to know people. We have too much going on to worry about people.