Good Forms Of Communication Essay Example

People posses the unique skill, which separates them from other species. It is called verbal communication. It helps people to transmit their thought from one person to another as well as to share their experience, to teach and to learn. The science would have never been on such a level without verbal communication. Yet even the largest vocabulary cannot guarantee the full interpersonal understanding. There are many other factors, which influence the communication. They are for example body adornment, influence of touch and so on.
The communication starts with understanding of its needs. Abraham Maslow developed a whole hierarchy of needs. It is a theory first described in his paper A Theory of Human Motivation in 1943. In this work a psychologist tries to understand human motivation. According to the theory, every person has a different set of needs at a different point of time. These needs could be arranged in a hierarchy and every person is expected to move higher through the hierarchy from one level to another by fulfilling it. The scheme itself consists of five levels. First is the level of physiological needs: food, shelter, sex and sleep. The second level includes safety and security issues. This level fulfills mostly psychological needs of people. Once a person manages a certain physical comfort he or she seeks for stability and consistency in the chaotic world. Then a person tries to satisfy his or her social needs. These are needs for love and belongingness. Every person wants to feel a part of the group and in various relations. Actually, everyone wants to be accepted otherwise he or she feels loneliness and depression. The other level deals with issues of esteem. It is a need for esteem, self-esteem, needs for achievement and recognition. People do not want to be accepted only, they want to be recognized and respected. This level requires more social interrelation that the need for acceptance therefore it can achieved only after acceptance is gained. The last level is self-actualization. This level requires all the features and advantages a person has, because on this level a person should be the best he or she can be. This level requires constant development and self-development. This achievement of this level is the best platform to show creativity and solve the problems. Maslow also introduced the notion of prepotent need. It is the lowest unmet need. Without satisfying of this need person can hardly move forward. Communication accompanies every level mentioned in the hierarchy because a person cannot simply get food and shelter without committing social rituals and communication is one of them. The more complicated the achievement of the level is, the more person is in need of communication and speaking because after fulfilling the basic physiological needs person needs the acceptance by other persons, he or she needs love and understanding, needs to develop and these processes are impossible without communication.
It was stated, that there is a need for communication. Yet, not every communication becomes successful and leads to interpersonal understanding. Sometimes, it can be harmful and can lead to conflicts and other complicated situations. The failure in communication is sometimes caused by the lack of responsibility of one person or even group of people. Responsibility is an important factor in achieving the success in communication and responsibility for communication includes what should be told, how it should be told, whom it should be told and what media should be used in case the direct communication is impossible at that period of time. First of all, a person, who bears responsibility for the successful communication should make a clear statement and choose the right vocabulary and timing to address the message for the audience. Without responsibility most people just lose the meaning of message and communication would be great failure. In other case a failure can occur when a person is not aware of any non-verbal factors of communication and his or her gestures or body adornment can harm the audience. Responsibility for communication means first of all a thorough preparation for the communication itself.
There are many other factors that influence the communication. They are mostly non-verbal. One of them is body adornment. This term covers tattooing, piercing branding, scarification and other changes on human bodies done to make a person different from another. Most of these processes are usually associated with primitive cultures but it is not true. Tattoos, for example, are often used in criminal world. With the help of tattoo a person can describe his or her life because symbols of the tattoo can show facts about the family, crimes a person committed, time of sentence, his or her role in the jail, belonging to a criminal “family” and so on. Tattoos are form of communication because representative of criminal world can recognize each other with the help of tattoos without any IDs and long conversations. The same thing is with piercing. Besides, motivation behind piercing or scarification could be religious. It is considered that the pain gained during these procedures can help people to feel pain of Christ and to become better. As to say, body adornment contains important information about its owner and can help to achieve interpersonal understanding.
Another important example of non-verbal communication is touch. Importance of touch can hardly be overestimated. Touch is culturally determined. Of course, touch is accepted differently by every nation or culture but it is still very important. Basic meaning of touch is affect or control. Touch can be a sign of protection, support, approve or disapprove. If the person lets another person to touch him or her it is a sign of respect and trust. Furthermore, touch is very important communication skill for disabled persons because their language includes touching.