Every communication process includes a sender, a transmitting device, signals, a receiver and feedback. The sender attempts to convey a message, idea, or information through the appropriate use of symbols or signals directed to another specific person or group. That the message is sent does not guarantee that it will be received at all, let alone by the person for whom it is intended.
Many factors influence how the message is sent and whether, how, and by whom it will be received: the needs and condition of both the sender and the receiver, emotionally, physically, and intellectually; the occasion or setting; and the sender`s knowledge about and relationship with the receiver. Other factors include the content of the message, or the vocabulary to be decoded; the mood or attitude present in the situation; and the communication experience already in operation.
The receiver in turn perceives, interprets, and responds to the message. Through some process, he gives feedback to the sender, confirming that the message has been sent. The receiver at that point becomes the sender of a message. If the original message sent does not result in a response or feedback, there is no official interchange.
Communication involves feedback, affects the next message sent and its feedback. The process is circular; communication from A affects B and B in turn affects A.
Communication and related behavior can be studied only in context. Studying only the information, the command , the question-the words-is not enough. Behavior and the way of communicating are not static; they vary with the specific situation. In certain situations, seemingly inappropriate responses may be highly appropriate behavior. For example, the apparently senseless talk of an emotionally ill person may be the only feasible reaction in an absurd or untenable family communicational context-his only way of achieving family equilibrium. Or a child`s aggressive behavior may be his only way of maintaining initiative and self when his mother communicates overprotection or “smothering” nonverbally. Communication is influenced by the family and social systems in which the person lives.
In the strictest sense, all behavior in the presence of others is communication, and all communication affects behavior. How you gesture, posture, dress, move, speak, behave, or fail to carry out certain behaviors will provide an understandable signal for someone. For example, two persons sitting side-by-side on a plane may neither speak nor look at one another. Yet there is a communication process present, for each by his behavior conveys to the other that he does not wish to engage in an interchange of words, for whatever reason. Contrast this with two persons sitting side-by-side who do not speak but occasionally look at one another and smile. Then a few words are exchanged. The initial nonverbal expressions encourage the eventual verbal exchange. Thus anything perceptibly present or absent can serve as a signal of communication that need only be decoded to be meaningful.
References :
Murray, RB and Zentner JP., Nursing Concepts for Health Promotion, Second Edtion, Prentice-Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, N.J, 1979.
Watzlawich, P., J. Beavin, and D. Jackson, Pragmatics of Human Communication. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1967.
