miscommunication barriers and overcoming them

Introduction Two of the most basic principles of communication include taking responsibility as a sender and receiver of messages, and cultivating respect for others and the self. From these two principles, other aspects of effective communication can flow more freely. However, human beings are fallible and occasionally revert to emotional states that impede understanding, harmony, or respect. In this example, miscommunication occurred as a result from not taking responsibility and from not remembering to practice the principle of respect.

Analysis of the example reveals several barriers to communication including the presence of noise, and also self-concept. In the future, the barriers of noise and self-concept can be effectively removed with greater self-awareness and a compassionate frame of mind. The Situation It was nine o’clock in the evening and neither my partner nor I had eaten dinner yet. He had just returned home from work and I had been taking care of a sick child all day.

The kitchen was a mess, with unwashed dishes piled up not only in the sink but also on the counter. “What’s for dinner?” my partner asked. I responded with a raised tone of voice. “How should I know?! I haven’t even done the dishes yet. I have no idea how you can stand this. I can’t stand this! Get out of here and let me just do the dishes.” The Barriers Barrier One: Noise The first barrier is noise.

Noise is not necessarily literal noise, although it could be. For example, if I had been playing music loudly or if the child was crying, that would have constituted physical noise. In this case, the noise was both visual and semantic. Noise in miscommunication refers to “anything that interferes with, corrupts, or changes the communication signal as it travels through a channel,” (Bevan & Sole, 2014, p. 8).

The clutter in the kitchen was visual noise, which cluttered the field and prevented me from actively seeing and tuning into my partner who was standing there. More complex in this situation is the semantic noise resulting from a number of complex issues including my high-strung emotional state, concern about the child, and feeling tired, hungry, and burned out. I also felt angry that my partner did not bring dinner home, even though I had never asked for him to do so.

The noise came from my emotional state and my unrealized expectations. Barrier Two: Self-Concept According to Bevan & Sole (2014), “self-concept is a complex mix of how we see ourselves, what others have told us about ourselves, and what society says we should be,” (p. 12). Self-concept is a barrier to communication in this scenario because I was seeing myself in the role of wife and mother. The clutter in the kitchen was a visual reminder that I had not lived up to my self-concept as the perfect homemaker.

Also, my self-concept as a wife and mother meant that I would have been entrusted with the role of cooking dinner for the family even though my partner did not necessarily expect for me to cook. When he asked, “What’s for dinner?” he really meant it as an open-ended question and not to suggest that he wanted me to cook. Overcoming the Barriers Self-Awareness Self-awareness is one of the cornerstones of effective communication.

Competent communication “requires awareness of what we (and others) are doing when we communicate, and it requires effort to improve communication skills and to minimize misunderstandings,” (Bevan & Sole, 2014, p. 18). Self-awareness would have helped me to overcome the barriers of noise and self-concept. First, self-awareness would have allowed me to be aware of my emotions. Also known as emotional intelligence, awareness of our own emotions “makes it impossible for your emotions to rule you,” (“Self Awareness,” n.d., p. 1).

I allowed my emotions to gain the upper hand, blurting out and raising my voice instead of calmly responding to the situation. With self-awareness, I might have been able to recognize that my emotions were “noise” distracting me from the real meat of the conversation: which was simply about the mutual need to eat, and how we were going to work together as a team to achieve that goal.

Self-awareness also would have meant that I recognized my tendency to become tense when tired and hungry, and to see that the clutter was also contributing to my feelings of anxiety. Finally, self-awareness also would have allowed me to overcome the barrier of self-concept. I would have seen that I was overreacting because I felt incompetent in my role, and.