Factors Affecting Communication 6p2657

Factors Affecting Communication Communication is the process of interchanging information, ideas or signs between people. The process although very simple is very multi-dimensional. Due to its multi-dimensional aspect there are a wide range of factors which have the ability to affect this process. These factors can affect the process both positively and negatively. Out of the multitude of factors which may affect communication some of the important ones which we think are the major factors are listed below:

Environmental There are several environmental factors which affect the communication. Some of the environmental factors are Noise, time, physical distance, space, climate and place.

Noise distorts message and acts as a barrier to effective communication because it makes it difficult for people to talk with one another. If there is too much noise it can irritate people and they may not be able to hear each other. A person might need to shout to be heard.

Time has an important role in communication. Time lag and amount of time for a message to travel across the world is the major barrier in communication. The communication should be faster and a message should take less time to travel across the world. important environmental factor of communication is physical distance. Physical distance between the two people will affect the way that Another

they are able to communicate with one another. If two people are far apart then mistrust may occur and one might not understand what other person is trying to say. So there should be a minimum distance between two people to carry out effective communication.

Space plays an important role in oral communication. There are different conditions in which the way of communication is different. If someone is communicating with his friend then there will be a minimum (1-2 feet) space between them but if there is a public communication then the space should be (10 feet minimum) between the speaker and listener. The place or location where the communication process takes place is also important factor. Poor lighting, inconvenient space, inadequacy of space are all factors that make people irritable and annoyed and thus affect the effective communication. Suitably lighted and ventilated places promote effective communication.

Climate is also an important factor of communication. Warm weather or cold weather can cause effects on people's perceptions and their abilities to make decisions. Different climates affect people's views in different ways and can be a barrier to communication caused by environment.

Cultural Differences One of the important factor influencing communication is the difference in culture. The ideas, customs and social behavior of a particular people or society is known as culture. People in different areas have different cultures. Cultural differences, both within or outside the organization can affect the communication process. People with different cultures use different ways of communication. As it is quite clear from the picture that cultural differences also effects the communication. People in different areas have different cultures. They have different languages. For example English people can’t understand Urdu. Similarly people from different areas cannot understand different languages which affects the communication.

Lack of is the response or the reaction to what the person communicates to the other person. The basic way to know if the receiver has got the message what the person is communicating is by . enables the confirmation of understanding between the two persons or groups etc. The Lack of hinders this confirmation, or the sender can misinterpret what the is. For example if a Professor is giving a seminar on some topic and after ending the seminar there is a silence, no questions asked etc. might send the wrong message to the Professor that the students have not understood what he said. This Lack of causes miscommunication, misinterpretation between the sender and receiver. Lack of can easily be averted by giving the proper which is in context to the Sender. Not like, if someone asks you for a glass of water and you go away in silence, he won’t know if you are went to get water for him or went somewhere else.

Use of Language Use of language is an important factor in communication, how one uses the language, how he structures the sentences, use of grammar are essential in communication. Improper use of grammar, punctuation can lead misinterpretation of the message which hinders the communication. For example read these two sentences and see how a difference of comma can change the structure of the sentence and hence the meaning of it. I just ate grandma! I just ate, grandma! The first sentence is implying that I just ate my grandma, while the second one is that I just ate, whatever his grandma was telling him to eat. Moreover if a person uses his language in a very informal way, it will send a negative vibe to the receiver about the personality of the sender. So how one uses the language is important factor in communication.

Perception Do you the first time you any of your best friend? What was your initial thought about them? Did you think they looked scary, funny, smart, stupid or intimidating? Initial thoughts that ran through your mind were your perceptions of that person. Perception is basically the processing, interpreting, selecting and organizing the information. Perception greatly influence the communication process, it’s all about how the same message can be interpreted differently by different people.

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Consider there is a glass filed half with water is placed on the table, one says that the glass is half empty while the other says that it is half filled with water. Although both of them are right, but their perception is different. Maybe you thought that your future best friend would be a shy person just because of his looks. Your perception was based on the fact that he dressed conservatively wore geeky glasses. In the end it may turn that u were wrong, he may turn out to be an extrovert.

Our perception are based on the fact that we filter out certain information, align it with our thoughts and then perceive something. Sometimes what we see is not the truth.

Factors Affecting Perception Some of the factors that may affect perception include:    

Past experiences. Feelings. Cultural Background. Community.

Emotions and Taboos Emotions Emotions are feelings that arises due to a person’s mood, circumstances or relationship with others. Emotions are one of the key factors that determine how we communicate with others.

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Fear: If we look at our society we may find a lot of people that find it hard to communicate with their elders especially their parents, even if their parents are doing something wrong they can’t stop them. What’s the reason? They are scared of them. There is a pretty large communication gap between children’s and parents, the reason is children’s fear their parent and can’t communicate openly with them. Self Esteem: a patient who have low self-esteem, might be shy or not feel good about the way in which they look, this would make them not communicate all their health problems to their doctor and lead to them not getting the best treatment that they are in need of. A patient with a

high self-esteem would however, be much more confident, this would mean that they will be able to communicate all their health problems to the doctor and receive the right treatment that they are in need of.

Taboos Taboos are those things that are banned in society. Taboos are established because people believe that such inappropriateness will bring harmful consequences to them because this non-verbal or verbal behavior violates the moral code of the society.

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To many Chinese people, a fan is a forbidden present because it has the identical sound as the Chinese word for "separation." If a person gives a fan to his or her friend, their friendship will stop or diminish from that time. Therefore, it has become a taboo to give friends a fan in Chinese society. Westerners wear black for a funeral and white for a wedding. But in the ancient Chinese weddings, a white dress was not allowed to be worn because white was for a funeral. Therefore, all individuals involved had to wear black formal dress.

Status/Role The status one has in society and the role one fulfills in an organization can greatly affect the effectiveness of communication. A difference in roles within an organization leads to certain barrier between employees of the organization both physically and psychosocially, physically those having more important roles like Programs Head, Marketing Manager, etc. will have separate offices as compared to those who work under them in the organizational structure or hierarchy while psychosocially the ones who work under them will always feel afraid or hesitant in communicating with their employer as there is mental thought in the back of their minds that the employer possess power them, this may induce ineffective communication within the organization. For example, there is a new employee who has just been assigned to the marketing team, the team has prepared an ment for the project prior to him g on, the new employee finds the ment as under par in of ingenuity, instead of raising his opinion in the finalizing meeting in front of the Marketing Manager he chooses to stay quite as he is relatively new and does not want to leave a bad impression on his employer. So a difference in role lead to ineffective communication. “Status” in society is like “role” in an organization. Having a higher social status makes people envious of you. People perceive you as above others and treat you differently which although being wrong is basis of the social class structure. This difference in status makes communication between a poor person and a wealthy person difficult. As an example let us consider a poor 17 year old teenager in the street who sees a well off man stepping out of his car, he finds the man very nicely dressed, innately he wants to tell that man that he looks good but in his mind he has this social class barrier due to which he will not do

so. Occupying similar roles and being on the same social status may enhance the effective communication as the people would feel comfortable and would be more likely to open up and talk without hesitating or being afraid. “Status” and “role” in the context at hand can be considered synonymous.

Jargons Jargon is "the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group" or in rather understandable words it is a type of language that is used in a particular context and may not be well understood outside of it. So a jargon is limited to a group of people and people who do not belong that group cannot understand what the word or phrase means or implies, as a result jargons lead to ineffective communication e.g. A person who has never done online gaming is talking to a professional online e-gamer. The gamer tells the person that he annihilated his opponent in his previous match and he calls the opponent a “noob” which in online gaming terminology is a jargon for “a person who is new to a game” but the person will not understand what or who a “noob” is. On the other hand jargons can promote effective communication e.g. A person on a train heard a man saying “gg” on the phone which in online gaming is a jargon for “good game”, the person himself is also an online gamer and he then approaches the man and starts a conversation, the jargon in this particular case served as a kind of conversation starter and lead to effective communication. These are some of the more important factors which influence communication, other factors include:     

Length of communication Fear Technological Disabilities Halo Effect