Quiz 2.

Read the following phrases describing relationship challenges. Place a check mark next to each challenge that you believe you could address by improving your interpersonal communication skills. Then read the instructions below to interpret your score.

______ Feeling plagued by the sense that you’re not the kind of person you should be or that others expect you to be

______ Thinking of and treating others in a negative, stereotypical fashion

______ Dealing with unwanted anger in ways that avoid chronic hostility and aggression

______ Managing grief related to the loss of a loved one

______ Feeling extreme fear and anxiety when interacting with others

______ Creating messages in ways that avoid triggering defensiveness in others.

______ Managing people who are verbally and physically aggressive toward you

______ Reducing the likelihood of violence during interpersonal conflicts

______ Overcoming dysfunctional, intimacy-eroding beliefs about relationships

______ Managing romantic jealousy in yourself and your partners

______ Dealing with betrayal in intimate relationships

______ Responding effectively to abuse from a coworker or supervisor

Scoring: You can better manage all of these relationship challenges by improving your interpersonal

communication, as you’ll discover throughout this text.

Chapter 2. Considering Self Theory

I. Components of Self

The self is an evolving composite of three components: self-awareness, self-concept, and self-esteem.

A. Self-awareness is the ability to step outside yourself (so to speak); view yourself as a unique person distinct from your surrounding environment; and reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (George Herbert Mead).

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DISCUSSION STARTER 1: Consider people in your life whom you admire. What is it about them you hold in high regard? Are they better communicators than you? More successful at building relationships? How does socially comparing yourself against admired others affect your feelings about your self?

B. The I and The Me (Michael’s Sound Bite 2-1). Mead separated the I (the active part of the self), and the Me (the reflective part of the self, the inner mirror and your “conscience”). People have different types of relationships between The I and The Me. For most people, The I is prevalent; for a few The Me is prevalent (those people are cautious and overly attentive to feedback, sometimes paranoid). Still fewer people have equal shares for The I and The Me, to the point of becoming delusional. People need to learn to make peace with The Me (we will study those in the fourth semester).

C. Self-awareness is developed through: (a) watching and observing; (b) making social comparisons (favorable and unfavorable); (c) doing critical self-reflection.

Critical Self-Reflection Items :

• What am I thinking and feeling?

• Why am I thinking and feeling the way I am?

• How am I communicating?

• How are my inner thoughts and feelings affecting my communication

behavior?

• How can I improve my thoughts, feelings, and communication behavior?

D. Self-Concept: your overall perception of who you are. It is based on beliefs, attitudes and values that you have about yourself. Beliefs: convictions that certain things are true. Attitudes: evaluative appraisals. Values: enduring principles that guide your actions. Self-concept is shaped by gender, family, and culture. Charles Cooley: looking-glass self is the concept that shows the influence of our beliefs of how people see and evaluate us and our emotional response to these beliefs.

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DISCUSSION STARTER 2: Consider your looking-glass self. What kind of labels do your friends use to describe you? Your family? Your coworkers? How do you feel about others’ impressions of you? How do these feelings shape your interpersonal communication and relationships?

Robert Merton: Our self-concepts often lead us to make self-fulfilling prophesies, predictions about future interactions that lead us to behave in ways that ensure the interaction unfolds as we have predicted. They can be positive and negative.

E. Positive SFPs require work, negative – do not (Michael’s Sound Bite 2-2): It is easy to destroy, it always takes work to create. Saying that your child is stupid is destructive: the child does not have to do anything to let this SFP come true. Saying that your child is smart without acting on it will not help your child get smart.

F. Self-Esteem – the overall value we assign to ourselves (“Given Who I am, What is My Evaluation of My Worth?”). Your self-esteem shapes your communication, your relationship and your life outlook.

G. Self-Discrepancy Theory

Edward Tory Higgins: Describes the discrepancy between your ideal self (the “perfect you”—the embodiment of all the attributes you consider admirable (These characteristics may be mental, physical, emotional, material, and even spiritual) and the ought self (the person others wish you were, stems from expectations of your family, friends, colleagues, and romantic partners as well as cultural norms). If you perceive yourself as different from ideal and ought selves, you suffer low self-esteem.

Low Self-Esteem Cycle is the negative connection between negative beliefs and low self-esteem.

Improving Your Self-Esteem: Reduce discrepancies between your self and your ideal and ought selves.

Assess your self-concept: make a list of beliefs, attitudes and values that make up your self-concept. Include negative and positive issues.

Study your self-esteem: do the characteristics you described make you view yourself positively or negatively?

Analyze your ideal self: who do you wish you were?

Analyze your ought self: what do others want you to be?

Revisit and redefine your standards.

Create a list of actions: make your new standards your goals.

H. Make your goals SMART (Michael Sound Bite 2-3).

George T. Doran: SMART goals are: (a) described in specific terms; (b) are measurable according to some set criteria, (c) are achievable (in small incremental measurable steps); (d) realistic (you must have resources to accomplish them), and (e) timely (with definite milestones).