Types of Communication

Communication can occur via various processes and methods and depending on the channel used and the style of communication there can be various types of communication.

Types of Communication Based on Communication Channels

Based on the channels used for communicating, the process of communication can be broadly classified as verbal communication and non-verbal communication. Verbal communication includes written and oral communication whereas the non-verbal communication includes body language, facial expressions and visuals diagrams or pictures used for communication.

• Verbal Communication

  Verbal communication is further divided into written and oral communication. The oral communication refers to the spoken words in the communication process. Oral communication can either be face-to-face communication or a conversation over the phone or on the voice chat over the Internet. Spoken conversations or dialogs are influenced by voice modulation, pitch, volume and even the speed and clarity of speaking. The other type of verbal communication is written communication. Written communication can be either via snail mail, or email. The effectiveness of written communication depends on the style of writing, vocabulary used, grammar, clarity and precision of language.

• Nonverbal Communication

  Non-verbal communication includes the overall body language of the person who is speaking, which will include the body posture, the hand gestures, and overall body movements. The facial expressions also play a major role while communication since the expressions on a person’s face say a lot about his/her mood. On the other hand gestures like a handshake, a smile or a hug can independently convey emotions. Non verbal communication can also be in the form of pictorial representations, signboards, or even photographs, sketches and paintings.

Types of Communication Based on Style and Purpose

Based on the style of communication, there can be two broad categories of communication, which are formal and informal communication that have their own set of characteristic features.

• Formal Communication

  Formal communication includes all the instances where communication has to occur in a set formal format. Typically this can include all sorts of business communication or corporate communication. The style of communication in this form is very formal and official. Official conferences, meetings and written memos and corporate letters are used for communication. Formal communication can also occur between two strangers when they meet for the first time. Hence formal communication is straightforward, official and always precise and has a stringent and rigid tone to it.

• Informal Communication

  Informal communication includes instances of free unrestrained communication between people who share a casual rapport with each other. Informal communication requires two people to have a similar wavelength and hence occurs between friends and family. Informal communication does not have any rigid rules and guidelines. Informal conversations need not necessarily have boundaries of time, place or even subjects for that matter since we all know that friendly chats with our loved ones can simply go on and on.

Six Characteristics of organizational culture:

• Observed behavioral regularities: when participants within an organizational interact with one another, the language they use, terminologies relates to the respect they show towards other judgment and opinion.
• Norms: standards’ that exist within an organization which are the guidelines related to how the work should be done etc
• Dominant values: when the high level management expects the participants to share i.e. high quality work, high efficiency and low absenteeism.
• Philosophy: they are the policies that are forth set for how the employees should be treated within an organization.
• Rules: they are the strict guide line that must be followed by every individual where unethical activities should be prohibited.
• Organization culture: it is the physical layout of the organization that how participants conduct their selves with the customers and outsiders.

Belonging to a social class is not merely an objective fact, but is generally accompanied by a perception of class identity. In this sense, social class is not merely a personal attribute, but also a contextual variable that characterizes a group of people. The shared culture of a particular class influences, and is influenced by, people’s attitudes and lifestyle. Social class, therefore, influences health. Centuries of observations have linked social class to patterns of disease (see Krieger, Williams, and Moss, 1997). Accordingly, epidemiologists frequently present statistics on mortality and morbidity tabulated by social class, as shown in Figures 1 and 2. However, social class is an abstract and complex concept whose influence is blended with many others in predicting disease. Both Figures 1 and 2, for example, show how the effects of social class (here, indicated by family income and educational level) interact with racial or ethnic factors. However, classifications by age, religion, race, or sex lack the implication of hierarchy and are not normally considered under the heading of social class.

Social class may be ascribed at birth, as with royalty or nobility, or with castes in Hindu societies. More commonly, however, a person’s position at birth is modified by his or her achievements, typically through education, occupation, or income. Class cannot be measured directly. Instead, indicators of socioeconomic status, typically based on educational attainment, income, wealth, or occupation, are used. While few would consider these to be ideal indicators of social class, they nonetheless show consistent associations with health status, such that poorer or less educated people die younger and experience more illness and disability than richer or more educated people. These indicators each have strengths and shortcomings.

A simple occupational classification has been used in Britain throughout the twentieth century for analyses linking social class and health. The British Registrar General for Births and Deaths ranks occupations in six broad categories that reflect a judgment of the skill level and social prestige of each occupation. This has been followed by other, more complex classifications, such as the 100-point occupational scale of Tremain. This applies internationally and allows comparisons between developing and industrial countries. These categories have the advantage of capturing the notion of shared culture implicit in social class, but they are limited because there is no adequate way to classify people who are not in the labor force, such as retired people, housewives, or students. Furthermore, the status of occupations changes with economic development, complicating comparisons across times and across cultures. Finally, occupation shares a limitation with income, in that reverse causality may occur whereby occupational status (or income) may be influenced by the level of health.

The advantages of education as an indicator of social status include simplicity and universality: educational level can be recorded for all adults, whether working or not, and it is less likely than occupation or income to be influenced by health. But education is generally finished in early adulthood, and may no longer reflect a person’s status in later years. Care must also be taken when drawing comparisons of educational levels across generations, since educational attainment changes from generation to generation.

Income or wealth are also frequently used as indicators of social class, and hold the advantage of sensitivity to variations in a person’s status over time. Wealth is not simple to record, however; data on income must be supplemented by information on the number of people supported by the income, and on other assets such as savings and property. Because of shortcomings in each of these indicators, several authors have used indicators that combine education, occupation, and income.

While socioeconomic status is generally considered a characteristic of individuals, contextual measures of social class may also be relevant in explaining patterns of health. Thus, for a population we may record not only the average level of income or wealth, but also the extent of income disparities, or class divergence, in the society. Such indicators can indicate social class characteristics of the society, rather than summarizing patterns in the society.

Contemporary epidemiologic analyses assume that it is not so much social class per se that influences health, but characteristics associated with class. There are several channels through which class or socioeconomic position may influence health:

• Certain health hazards may be directly associated with social position, such as exposure to hazardous substances or processes in the workplace.
• Alternatively, social class may influence health via behaviors that follow social patterns, such as diet, cigarette smoking, or leisure-time physical activity.
• Wealth can influence health directly, by providing access to safe and healthy housing, adequate food, and medical care and supplies when needed. Wealth also enhances educational attainment in a person’s children, and so influences their subsequent earning capacity; in this manner the association between poverty and health tends to perpetuate itself across generations.
• Education also facilitates access to information that can benefit health. More educated people are better able to communicate with their physicians and interact with the health care system, and make informed choices among treatment options.
• Higher social status is associated with attitudes, such as positive self-esteem or a sense of being in control of one’s life, that are positively associated with a range of indicators of health (especially mental health). Such feelings are difficult to maintain when a person is unemployed.

Contemporary analyses of social class in health research have evolved from using it as a simple classification toward using class as a starting point for a more complete analysis of possible channels of influence. The next stage, perhaps, will be to incorporate an understanding of social class dynamics into designing approaches to prevention and health promotion.

Various terms built upon the basic concept of relationship are used in different fields.

Gender refers to an individual’s “psychological type”, it is acquired through experience. An individual can be viewed as either masculine or feminine.

Gender role refers to the attitudes and behaviors that class a person’s stereotypical identity, e.g. women cook and clean, men fix cars.

Culture is a living thing, consisting of elements inherited from the past, outside influences, which have been embraced and new elements invented locally. Culture has an important role to play in society.

Culture first of all provides self-esteem

Self-esteem, whether it be personal or collective, is an essential precondition if culture is to flourish. Without a minimum consciousness of his or her values or abilities, without a quiet confidence in his or her own resources and means, the individual remains static and muted, both metaphorical, and occasionally in the literal sense. Paolo Freire has analysed this culture of silence, which is a characteristic of societies, which have grown dependent and inarticulate. This silence, this apathy, is a specific result of the loss of a sense of society’s self-esteem. If it is told incessantly that it is backward, ignorant, incapable, uncompetitive, lazy, marginal, underdeveloped and outdated, the population finally internalises this message and behaves in conformity with this negative image. Affirming its value and potential opens a society to creativity and action.

Culture is a selective mechanism for all kinds of external influences

The ability to select outside influences, to make a choice, is extremely important. Every community must be able to make a free choice between what it considers to be useful and beneficial and what it considers to be superfluous and harmful. This is equally true of the cultural elements inherited from the past. The past heritage is ambiguous; it may be harmful. It is for this reason that the inhabitants of isolated villages often have only one concern – to jettison a culture, which they associate with a past filled with isolation, discomfort, deprivation and humiliation. They aspire to greater material welfare. Who can blame them for this?

The ability to stand up to cultural imperialism or the harmful elements of the past, the ability to select, is determined by culture. It is culture, which contains these values and determines the priorities; it is also culture, which directs the choices in accordance with these priorities.

Culture inspires strategies for resistance by creating a counterweight

Resistance to everything, which is imposed from outside and which is considered to be damaging and unacceptable, is an essential element for harmonious development of every community. After selecting everything, which can be usefully adopted and earmarking the harmful elements for rejection, a strategy of resistance has to be organised. If this is not done, power politics mean that a society will rapidly be overrun by unwanted elements, and finally will passively or unconsciously accept them.

So resistance is to be advised. It should not condemn a region to remaining a fruitlessly isolated community or an outdated backwater – a dream for the city-dweller, but unacceptable to the rural population. Once more, only a strong, confident culture can assess the advantages and the disadvantages, can weigh up the benefits of an immediate financial profit against long-term consistency and a lifestyle open to the outside world. This is a difficult choice; in the final analysis, no magic formula or expert opinion can act as substitute for the judgement of those involved; but if they want to be capable of judging and acting according to this value judgement, they must have a living cultural identity. Culture is primarily a force, which provides direction.

Development must have a direction

Making sense of what one does is of primary importance. Development must have a direction. In every process of social change, economic shift and general development, we must be able to keep to the same course if we do not want to be swept away be different events and pressures. In several European languages, the word sense means both deep significance and direction.

Culture is, after all, the vitality, which provides sense

This is exactly what this means; on the one hand attaching appropriate importance to the values which make us do what is sensible – that is, full of good sense, and on the other hand, orientation towards the future, progress in a given direction. The faculty of providing direction for what one undertakes is unique to man. This faculty presupposes some kind of self-esteem and the capacity for selection and resistance as mentioned above, but it is far more than this. It is closely allied to life and the joy of living. Culture is, after all, the vitality, which provides sense. In this regard its symbolic dimension (values, spirituality, etc) plays a crucial role. This search for sense is not only an individual activity. It is also collective and encroaches on the political: co-existing , social relationships, which in this time of fragmentation and change are often of a new kind, or need to be re-established.

        Positive socialization is the type of social learning that is based on pleasurable and exciting experiences. We tend to like the people who fill our social learning processes with positive motivation, loving care, and rewarding opportunities. Negative socialization occurs when others use punishment, harsh criticisms or anger to try to “teach us a lesson;” and often we come to dislike both negative socialization and the people who impose it on us.

          There are all types of mixes of positive and negative socialization; and the more positive social learning experiences we have, the happier we tend to be — especially if we learn useful information that helps us cope well with the challenges of life. A high ratio of negative to positive socialization can make a person unhappy, defeated or pessimistic about life. One of the goals of Soc 142 is to show people how to increase the ratio of positive to negative in the socialization they receive from others — and that they give to others. [Some people will defend negative socialization, since painful training can prepare people to be ready to fight and die in battle, put themselves at great risk in order to save others, endure torture and hardship. This is true; but many people receive far more negative socialization than they need, and hopefully fewer and fewer people will need to be trained for battle, torture and hardship.]

          Soc 142 shows that positive socialization, coupled with valuable information about life and the skills needed to live well, can be a powerful tool for promoting human development. We all have an enormous human potential, and we all could develop a large portion of it if we had the encouragement that comes from positive socialization and the wisdom that comes from valuable information about living. Information about both natural and planned socialization can be especially useful.

          Our prior socialization helps explain a gigantic chunk of who we are at present — what we think and feel, where we plan to go in life. But we are not limited by the things given to us by our prior social learning experiences; we can take all our remaining days and steer our future social learning in directions that we value. The more that we know about the socialization process, the more effective we can be in directing our future learning in the ways that will help us most.

          Because we were not able to select our parents, we were not able to control much of the first 10 or 20 years of our socialization. However, most people learn to influence their own socialization as they gain experience in life. It takes special skills to steer and direct our own socialization, and many of us pick up some of those skills naturally as we go through life. Having a course on socialization can help us understand which skills are most effective in guiding our socialization toward the goals we most value.

          It is important to know that we all come into life with a variety of psychology systems that foster self-actualization and favor the development of our human potential. These are the biosocial mechanisms that underlie natural socialization. We can see and study natural socialization by examining the socialization of primates and other mammals. Once we under the natural biosocial processes, we can try to build strategies of self-actualization that are compatible with the natural biosocial mechanisms we are born with to make self-development as easy and rewarding as possible.

          Soc 142 shows how the natural self-actualization systems operate in everyday life so we can create as many good social experiences as possible. The study of behavior principles in everyday life is crucial to this, and that is why John and Janice Baldwin wrote a book with that name. If we understand the ways to create positive socialization experiences, we can take our human potential and develop the happy and creative sides of that potential. If we had too much negative socialization in the past and have learned to be too sad or inhibited, knowledge about positive socialization can help minimize some of the pain and allow us to build toward a more positive and creative future.
 

          The goal of Soc 142 is to help you learn how to be most effective in directing your own socialization and self-actualization processes toward the goals that you value most. Special attention will be paid to exploration, play, creativity, wisdom, and positive reinforcement — five centrally important aspects of positive socialization.