Communication Skills Week 4

This week’s quizzes on verbal aggressiveness, communication anxiety, and listening skills showed many similarities and few differences when I took the quiz vs. my family and friends taking the quiz.

 I had a friend who I have known for about four months take the quiz for me she had the same results that I had in all areas except for verbal aggressiveness. I scored a 64 and she scored a 69, but this put our results in different brackets. The 64 that I scored stated I was moderately verbally aggressive the 69 stated that I was significantly verbally aggressive. I believe the difference in these scores was due to the group of people my friend observes me communicating with. When I am with my friends I am more relaxed and we joke around a lot. When I completed the test I was thinking of myself as a whole; how I communicate with friends, family, and colleagues. I believe I am more verbally aggressive when I am around my friends in a light hearted joking manner.

The family member I chose to take the quiz was my mother. She rated the same as I had on all quizzes except for communication anxiety. She scored me at a 49 whereas I scored myself at a 43. This again put us in different brackets. She scored me at the moderate level where I may have higher communication anxiety. I thought this was an interesting outcome, because I believed she scored me more accurately than I scored myself. I believe this can be due to the fact she can observe this through my non-verbal and verbal communication cues and how long she has known me for.

My friend and I scored the same for communication anxiety and listening skills. My Mom and I scored the same on verbal aggressiveness and listening skills. From these results it was helpful to see how others perceive me similarly as I perceive myself.

After taking these quizzes and reading the course text this week I developed a stronger sense of self-concept and self-efficacy. Self-concept is developed by thinking about your strengths and weaknesses, observing your behavior in a wide variety of situations, and witnessing your reactions and how others react to you (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012). I found myself learning about the influence the results my Mom and friend had on myself. When they did not match what I had for a result I became concerned and then thought about why the results were different. The results were mainly different, because they were not viewing the quiz on all aspects of communication that I encounter. They were evaluating me based on the social contexts they observe me in. Self-efficacy is the ability to predict actual success from self-concept and self-esteem. By taking the quizzes this week I learned that I avoid situations where I feel my self-efficacy is low. I saw this in my choice of who I asked to take the quizzes for me. I purposely did not ask for colleagues to take the quiz for me because I was nervous to find out the results. I am sure they would have been fine, but I avoided the situation because I was fearing the unknown. Learning about self-efficacy and self-concept has made me more aware of myself and my choice of communication strategies. I will now be more apt to realize the situations I avoid and my self-concept and apply changes where necessary in both my professional and personal life.

References

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedfor/ St. Martin's.