Interpersonal Communication essays

1
of
2


Xxxxxx XxXxxxxxx

Communication 205 C

February 24, 2010

Self-Analysis Assignment

One of the first things this course taught was that the meaning of a message is determined

by the receiver of that message. That makes sense if we think about it. However, many of us

probably do not think about it unless it is brought to our attention. It can come to our attention in

painful ways, such as damaged or lost relationships. Usually, we do not want to injure our

relationships, so now is the time to learn better ways of communicating. Improving our

communication skills is the thrust of this course. To that end, self-analysis compared to other-

analysis is probably a good place to start, not only to improve communication skills, but

interpersonal relationships as well.

The three people I asked for help were my sister, my brother, and a good friend. I chose

these three because they are all good friends and in similar life situations to mine; caring for

elderly parents. This similarity may have biased their opinions to some extent. However it would

be interesting, since we are in similar situations, to see just how much agreement there was

among the four of us, not that much.

We all agreed in only two cases, and all disagreed in only two cases. In between there

were 11 times where three of us agreed and 27 times where only two of us agreed. Yet, it is

interesting to note that when three of us agreed, seven times to four the dissenter’s evaluation

was close. When only two agreed, the marks were all over the grid. So, how did that shake out in

practical terms?

We all agreed that I am rarely jealous and easy to get to know. We all disagreed on

patience and persuasiveness. My friend rated me more patient and more persuasive than my

2
of
2


siblings. My brother said I was generally patient and my sister said half the time. That is better

than I rated myself, but obviously I need to be more patience with my siblings. It is wrong to

take advantage of familial love.

The seven areas where the three of us agreed and the other one was close were

aggressive, cooperative, easy to know, irritable, predictable, prejudiced, and trusting of others.

Two areas showed need for improvement. One was cooperative, where my friend found me less

cooperative than I did. The other was irritable, where they all found me irritable more often than

I did. Ouch! Triple ouch!!!

Most of the responses were not surprising knowing these people as long as I have. I

expected any surprises to come from my brother because he is a man. However, it was my sister

and my friend, women like me, who surprised me. My sister said I was generally imaginative

whereas the rest of us said only sometimes. That was surprising because my sister has a most

wonderful imagination. When I am with her, I often find myself caught up in her out-of-the-box

thinking because it is so much fun. My friend surprised me in that she thought I was rarely

moody, and almost always well-adjusted, the rest of us thinking half the time for both cases.

What was surprising about this is that she is the one who lives across the street, the one who sees

me most often. I need to clarify if I’m rarely moody around her or moody so often that it seems

normal, oh dear. As for well-adjusted, maybe we are similarly adjusted and she sees herself as

well-adjusted. I can only hope she is the one who has made the accurate assessment.

While these three did not view me as poorly as I view myself in most cases, there were

several areas that need an up-grade. I could not disagree with any of them in any case. That is

both because I already knew these areas needed improvement, and because the meaning of a

message is determined by the receiver of that message. It is time to get to work.