It All Depends on Your Point of View: Three Perspectives

A perspective is a coherent set of assumptions about the way a process operates. The first three models we will look at are built on different sets of assumptions. The first model takes what is known as a psychological perspective. It focuses on what happens “inside the heads” of communicators as they transmit and receive messages. The second model takes a social constructionist per­spective. It sees communication as a process whereby people, using the tools provided by their culture, create collective representations of reality. It empha­sizes the relationship between communication and culture. The third model takes what is called a pragmatic perspective. According to this view, commu­nication consists of a system of interlocking, interdependent “moves,” which become patterned over time. This perspective focuses on the games people play when they communicate.

Communication as Message Transmission

Most models and definitions of communication are based on the psychological perspective. They locate communication in the human mind and see the individual as both the source of and the destination for messages. Figure 2.1 illustrates an example of a psychological model.

In a psychological model, messages are filtered through an individual’s store of beliefs, attitudes, values, and emotions.

Figure 2.1 – The Psychological Model of Communication

Elements of a Psychological Model

The model in Figure 2.1 depicts communication as a psychological process whereby two (or more) individuals exchange meanings through the transmission and reception of communication stimuli. According to this model, an individual is a sender/re­ceiver who encodes and decodes meanings. John has an idea he wishes to communicate to Clare. John encodes this idea by translating it into a message that he believes Clare can understand. The encoded message travels along a channel, its medium of transmission, until it reaches its destination. Upon re­ceiving the message, Betty decodes it and decides how she will reply. In sending the reply, she gives Adam feedback about his message. Adam uses this informa­tion to decide whether or not his communication was successful.

During encoding and decoding, John and Clare filter messages through their mental sets. A mental set consists of a person’s beliefs, values, attitudes, feelings, and so on. Because each message is composed and interpreted in light of an individual’s past experience, each encoded or de­coded message has its own unique meaning. Of course, partners’ mental sets can sometimes lead to misunder­standings. The meanings John and Clare assign to a message may vary in important ways. If this occurs, they may miscommunicate. Communication can also go awry if noise enters the channel. Noise is any distraction that interferes with or changes a message during transmission. Communication is most successful when individuals are “of the same mind” – when the meanings they assign to messages are similar or identical.

Let’s look at how this process works in a familiar setting, the college lecture. Professor Brown wants to inform his students about the history of rhetoric. Alone in his study, he gazes at his plaster-of-Paris bust of Aristotle and thinks about how he will encode his understanding and enthusiasm in words. To encode suc­cessfully, he must guess about what’s going on in the students’ minds. Although it’s hard for him to imagine that anyone could be bored by the history of rhetoric, he knows students need to hear a “human element” in his lecture. He therefore decides to include examples and anecdotes to spice up his message.

Brown delivers his lecture in a large, drafty lecture room. The microphone he uses unfortunately emits shrill whines and whistles at inopportune times. That he also forgets to talk into the mike only compounds the noise problem. Other sources of distraction are his appearance and nonverbal behavior. When Brown enters the room, his mismatched polyester suit and hand-painted tie are fairly presentable, but as he gets more and more excited, his clothes take on a life of their own. His shirt untucks itself, his jacket collects chalk dust, and his tie juts out at a very strange angle. In terms of our model, Smith’s clothes are too noisy for the classroom.

Despite his lack of attention to material matters and his tendency toward dry speeches, Brown knows his rhetoric, and highly motivated students have no trouble decoding the lecture. Less-prepared students have more difficulty, however. Brown’s words go “over their heads.” As the lecture progresses, the stu­dents’ smiles and nods, their frowns of puzzlement, and their whispered com­ments to one another act as feedback for Smith to consider.

Brown’s communication is partially successful and partially unsuccessful. He reaches the students who can follow his classical references but bypasses the willing but unprepared students who can’t decode his messages. And he completely loses the seniors in the back row who are taking the course pass/fail and have set their sights on a D minus. Like most of us, some of the time Brown suc­ceeds, and some of the time he fails.