Communication is an important part of our every day lives. To be successful, it is often important that we understand how to properly communicate. With this paper, I will discuss to specific theories of communication, Symbolic Interactionism and Social Penetration Theory.
Symbolic Interactionism is a theory of communication by George Mead. The basic premise is that words and the meaning placed on words by us, and by our peers in social interactions, form who we are and how we behave. Griffin, Ledbetter and Sparks write “The Mead—Cooley hypothesis claims that “individuals’ self conceptions result from assimilating the judgments of significant others” (Griffin, Ledbetter, & Sparks, 1994, p. 58). Our sense of worth and who we are comes from our …show more content…
The theory indicates that as a relationship progresses our communication becomes deeper and more personal. Our reading assignment this week compares this theory to a wedge penetrating an onion. The outer layers being superficial and shallow, as the wedge penetrates deeper, it reaches more personal and intimate areas. It indicates “peel the outer skin from an onion and you’ll find another beneath it. Remove that layer and you’ll expose a third and so on” (Griffin, Ledbetter, & Sparks, 1994, p. 97). The further we penetrate into the different layers, the easier it will be to return to that later. In my own life I have seen this happen with several friends, in both extremes. One example would be my friend Cory. We met almost a decade ago on a football discussion forum. At first our friendship consisted of discussing football and playing video games over the Internet. As time went on, we slowly went from discussing these things to discussing our wives and kids. As our friendship progressed we got to a point where we talked about anything from the hardships that we were facing. Cory and I live on opposite ends of the country and have only met in person one time, but we are very close with each other. On the flip side, I have many people at my church and work who I see on a daily basis who never get beyond casual conversation and because of this, we have never developed close relationships. To gain a closer relationship with those individuals, I would need to go beyond casual conversation and slowly begin to share deeper parts of myself. What I have learned in my life is that I sometimes go too deep, too fast. To effectively grow in my relationships with others, the desire to share must be reciprocated. A lot of what was discussed this week, I had slowly already been figuring out over the last several years. This weeks reading helped to reinforce things I had already begun to
Symbolic Interactionism is a theory of communication by George Mead. The basic premise is that words and the meaning placed on words by us, and by our peers in social interactions, form who we are and how we behave. Griffin, Ledbetter and Sparks write “The Mead—Cooley hypothesis claims that “individuals’ self conceptions result from assimilating the judgments of significant others” (Griffin, Ledbetter, & Sparks, 1994, p. 58). Our sense of worth and who we are comes from our …show more content…
The theory indicates that as a relationship progresses our communication becomes deeper and more personal. Our reading assignment this week compares this theory to a wedge penetrating an onion. The outer layers being superficial and shallow, as the wedge penetrates deeper, it reaches more personal and intimate areas. It indicates “peel the outer skin from an onion and you’ll find another beneath it. Remove that layer and you’ll expose a third and so on” (Griffin, Ledbetter, & Sparks, 1994, p. 97). The further we penetrate into the different layers, the easier it will be to return to that later. In my own life I have seen this happen with several friends, in both extremes. One example would be my friend Cory. We met almost a decade ago on a football discussion forum. At first our friendship consisted of discussing football and playing video games over the Internet. As time went on, we slowly went from discussing these things to discussing our wives and kids. As our friendship progressed we got to a point where we talked about anything from the hardships that we were facing. Cory and I live on opposite ends of the country and have only met in person one time, but we are very close with each other. On the flip side, I have many people at my church and work who I see on a daily basis who never get beyond casual conversation and because of this, we have never developed close relationships. To gain a closer relationship with those individuals, I would need to go beyond casual conversation and slowly begin to share deeper parts of myself. What I have learned in my life is that I sometimes go too deep, too fast. To effectively grow in my relationships with others, the desire to share must be reciprocated. A lot of what was discussed this week, I had slowly already been figuring out over the last several years. This weeks reading helped to reinforce things I had already begun to