Human communication entails making sense in the world and sharing the information through both verbal and non verbal communication. Arguably, interpersonal communications are very vital skill that people must use in daily life including in career development and achieving their goals.
As a matter of fact, interpersonal communication involves sending and receiving messages with both negative and positive results and is affected by different factors.
Interpersonal communication is very crucial in developing relationships in society because relationships are all about how people communicate with one another. Words that are used in communication need to be understood for any meaningful effect to take place.
It is important to note that interpersonal communication is helpful in enhancing the understanding of the words that people use within conversations thus avoiding misunderstanding and misjudgments.
However, it is interpersonal perception present in every person that shapes interpersonal communication. Research shows that interpersonal perception often leads to the formation of prejudices on what people are like.
As a result, different meanings are given to people’s action while at the same time impressions about people’s personalities are formed.
People who are aware and skilled in communication stand a better chance when it comes to understanding and perceiving others with objectivity. Skills of communication enable one to avoid forming impressions about people with certain characteristics which might lead to subjectivity in judgment.
Consequently, these people usually have fair inferences about people’s motives, personalities, and other human qualities. Therefore, the study of interpersonal communication enhances the skills of people regarding how they conduct their relationships.
It is important to note that communication is highly volatile and is influenced by several different factors including culture, gender, and ethnicity. Culture has been defined as a collection of values, traits, norms, and attitudes that define the expected code of conduct in a community.
Culture is not universal and varies from one community to another.
It is quite normal for people to evaluate others according to life experiences they have with the person’s cultural group. Consequently, culture highly influences how we process and interpret information depending on the cultural background of our communication partner.
Moreover, culture and sometimes gender determines the meaning that is given to different words.
Communication is not only about speaking or rather sending the message only, but also includes that act of receiving and acting on the message. Therefore, listening is very crucial in the interpersonal communication process.
Firstly, listening takes the largest portion of any communication, when people are either processing the information being received or just giving others time to pass their message. It has been noted that listening style of people defines their preferred way of making sense of unspoken words.
Having stated how important interpersonal communication is and outlined some of the factors that affect it, it is important to note that communication has negative effects too.
Words are known to affect emotions and even inflict pain depending on how they are used and the context in which they are used. It is not peculiar for people to use one lie or another in their conversations.
The behavior makes people excessively concerned with other people’s affairs to the extent that they intrude into their private lives. Relationship violence also results when interpersonal relationships fail to work on society’s expectation.
The violence varies from just minor emotional stresses to physical violence leading to serious injuries. Marriages are good examples of how interpersonal relationships can lead to violence. It should be noted that relationships fail because of faults, unwilling to compromise and the feeling of being constrained.
However, the failure of interpersonal communication plays a very crucial role in determining the cohesiveness of relationships. Therefore, failure in interpersonal communication often leads to failure of interpersonal relationships.
