Journal Reflection Chapter 5 - The Importance of Understanding Culture

Culture plays an important role in interpersonal communication. "Culture is an established, coherent set of beliefs, attitudes, values, and practices shared by a large group of people" (McCornack & Morrison, 2019, p.123). "Scholars suggest that seven dimensions underline cultural differences in our interpersonal communication: individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, high and low context, emotion displays, masculinity versus femininity, and views of the time" (McCornack & Morrison, 2019, p.131). Considering the ever-increasing cultural diversity in America it is imperative to understand the seven dimensions in order to achieve interpersonal communication competence.

I feel like experiencing my boyfriend's culture has improved my ability to communicate with others who do not share the same culture as myself. My boyfriend's family is from El Salvador and his parents frequent their home country regularly. Prior to meeting him and his family, I don't believe I had ever experienced/been a part of Spanish culture. It was a learning experience for me. I loved and still love trying new foods and learning how to cook authentic Spanish dishes. Food plays such an important role in culture. Over the years I have also adopted other aspects of his culture such as beliefs, attitudes, values, and more. After experiencing his culture I have shared with my family aspects of his culture that I have adopted, furthering their interpersonal communication competence. Different cultures are fascinating and I hope to learn and experience more throughout my life.

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Journal Reflection Chapter 10 - Managing Conflict and Power

According to the textbook, "conflict is the process that occurs when people perceive that they have incompatible goals or that someone is interfering in their ability to achieve their objectives" (McCornack&Morrison, 2019, p.260). Most conflicts can be characterized by four features: begin with perception, involve clashes in goals or behaviors, is a process, and it is dynamic (McCornack&Morrison, 2019, p.260). Conflict is inevitable however, understanding these four features can help to recognize conflict thus allowing you to handle conflict more appropriately. It is also important to understand you deal with conflict. Understanding your conflict style allows you to analyze how you deal with conflict. For example, after taking the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument assessment my highest scores were in compromising (sharing) and avoiding withdrawal. This means, I either compromise with others in a conflict or I avoid conflict altogether. After learning this I fee...

Journal Reflection Chapter 12 - Relationships with Family Members

A family is a network of people who share their lives over long periods of time, are bound by blood, marriage, or commitment, consider themselves family, and share a significant history and anticipated future (McCornack and Morrison 327) . Families often possess a strong sense of family identity and share intense complex emotional bonds. There are several different types of families and family dynamics. How families communicate is dependent upon the family communication pattern. The family communication pattern is influenced by two dimensions: conversation orientation and conformity orientation. Conversation orientation is the "degree to which family members are encouraged to discuss a variety of topics" (McCornack and Morrison 334). Conformity orientation is the "degree to which families believe communication should emphasize similarity or diversity" (McCornack and Morrison 334). Dependent on where your family stands on these two dimensions will decide your famil...

Journal Reflection Chapter 3 - Perception

Perception plays an important role in interpersonal communication. The way we perceive someone will directly influence communication with said individual. According to the textbook, several processes occur when perceiving someone: selection, organization, response, and interpretation (McCornack & Morrison, 2019, p.64 ) . These processes occur naturally but it improves interpersonal communication competence when you understand the processes and how they influence your communication with others. Personally, I think it is valuable to understand how you interpret information. The process of interpretation is how you make sense of the communication event. This can be broken down into internal attribution and external attribution. For example, if you are someone like me who typically uses external attributions in explanation for others' comments or behaviors then you are likely to presume that the reason why a friend is late for your lunch date is because of traffic. Whereas s...

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