Communication and the Social World

¶ … Social World and the Communication Process

Sociological imagination is the essence of sociology. This is imagining that every life of an individual is given form, meaning and significance within the historically specific cultures as well as the ways of organizing social life. Those individuals with a sociological imagination are similar to good sociologists. Social imagination is a standard against which one can judge sociology. Social imagination is therefore a sociological vision a mode of looking at the world, which sees links between the problems of an individual that seem private and important social issues. It is the ability to see things socially and how they interact and bring an influence on one another. This is a concept of being able to think ourselves away from usual routines of one's day-to-day life to view them in a new way. For one to have sociological imagination they have to pull away from a situation and think from a different point-of-view (Crossman, 2010).

The environment that one lives in and their history have an effect on them as an individual. When looking at my own case I can say that my environment really influenced me when I was growing up. We lived and I lived in an environment where there very few people. It was a serene environment with few people we could interact with. In fact, schools were very far and for that, reason I had to be home schooled. I therefore grew up keeping to myself and with minimal interactions if any. This clearly shows that the environment we live in has an influence on how one turns out

Cultural background is another factor that has an influence on an individual's success or failure in life. Culture plays a big role in our daily lives since it influences what we say, wear, or even find humorous. Culture teaches us the basic ways of community life and brings out the sense of value and respect for other people. Our culture advocates for hard work and this is what influenced my success. This is because without these principles from my culture instilled in me then I would not be working hard and thus will not have turned out successful.

Perception is a powerful tool and it is affected by physiological influences, past experiences, cultural differences, social roles and more. Miscommunications and conflicts are very normal in our day-to-day professional lives. They are often brought about by perceiving a situation in a way that is not appropriate. I have had a situation where my perception led to a conflict between my colleague and me. We were supposed to work together with a male colleague of mine in a project. However, I felt as though he was not giving me enough room to work on the project equally. I decided to confront him on the issue and it brought about a big conflict. He claimed that he gave me the opportunity to work on the project but I on the other hand felt as though he was not giving me the chance I needed to work on that project.

Several factors led me to interpret the situation the way I did. First, I felt as if he was looking down upon me because I was a woman in a male dominated profession. I therefore felt as if he was denying me the chance to work on the project simply because I was a woman. Secondly, I interpreted the situation that way because I had previously been awarded the employee of the month and so I thought that he was feeling bad that he was not the one named. I felt it was a way of getting back to me because of that.