Question

Communication is the act of sending and receiving messages. Sometimes messages are communicated verbally, with words, or nonverbaly, with body language. When communication is effective, the intended message is received. When communication is ineffective, messages are unclear. Describe a time when you had difficulty communicating a message. Why was the intended message not received properly?

Answer 1

A person’s interpersonal life is dependent on that person’s facility for making his or her thoughts, feelings, and needs known to others and on that person’s receptiveness to the attempts of others to share similar data with him or her. Communication, a multifaceted phenomenon, is the result of efforts by individuals toward this end. Communication can be considered in simplistic terms as the sending and receiving of messages, as both elements must be present for communication to take place. However, the fundamental transaction of message sent and received does not presuppose that communication has occurred. Often, it has only partially occurred or has been aborted entirely as a result of the circumstances surrounding the occasion when the communication attempt was made. These circumstances may be environmental, emotional, verbal-skill oriented, phenomenological, or resulting from a host of conditions present within the individuals who are attempting to relate.

Answer 2

Once, I asked my brother to buy a specific medicine that I needed to use. I told him the name of the medicine, but he bought the wrong medicine. I thought I had been clear enough about what medicine I needed, but I had not specifically spoken the message. This confusion happened because there are two types of this medicine, but with different color packaging and I did not tell my brother which packaging he should buy.