Communication Competence

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Recommended: Barriers to effective communication and their solution

Have you ever thought about the importance of communication in relationships? Communication is important in relationships whether it be with a colleague, lover, family member or friend. Using effective communication allows you to share things such as values, ideas and interests. These things can help to support one another in the relationship, organize, make decisions and ultimately builds a stronger bond between the two individuals. Positive communication is about the way we express ourselves by talking, listening and by our non-verbal cues such as body language. Most of us can learn how to effectively communicate, the question is do you want to learn? One barrier to effective communication that I deem important is stereotyping, it sure is one of the most difficult problems I have yet to overcome.
Stereotypes are generalizations, or assumptions that individuals make about another group of people based off your own or other people’s opinions and encounters. Stereotyping is my biggest problem when it comes to communicating effectively with other people. In regard to my lack of competent communication, I tend to overgeneralize, attend to the first pieces of information I observe and form negative or positive impressions of people in which I believe is why I experience this problem. The problem with categorizing and making assumptions about people is hindering me from effectively communicating and being empathetic towards other people. An example for instance, I am at the mall and I see this tall, blonde female dressed in designer clothes walking with her friend who apparently doesn’t share the same taste in fashion. The first assumptions that cross my mind about the tall blonde female is that she is high maintenance, a prude, and ...

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...ng my perceptions, and being mindful of others I believe I can achieve my goal of overcoming stereotyping.
What does communication mean to you? Am I leaving you to ponder about the importance of communication in relationships after reading this paper? People of today’s society have a variety of barriers that affect them from communicating effectively. A problem I have that hinders me from communicating effectively as stated throughout this paper is stereotyping. Everyone has their own form of barrier that bars them from communicating effectively but in my opinion stereotyping is one of the most important issues that can prevent you from that, especially since it is noticed among most individuals of today’s world. By spotting and resolving this issue early you can be sure to build better or new relationships with people and strengthen your communication with others.

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