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CHAPTER 10
IMPROVING COMMUNICATION CLIMATES
Objectives
After studying the material in Chapter Nine of Looking Out/Looking In, you should understand:
2. Types of confirming and disconfirming messages.
4. The relationship between a communicator’s self-concept and his or her defensive reaction to a
message.
6. Gibb’s defensive and supportive behaviors.
8. Skills for responding nondefensively to criticism.
Specifically, you should be able to:
2. Describe how the messages you identified in the previous objective either threaten or honor the
self (face) of the communicators involved.
4. Create appropriate nondefensive responses to real or hypothetical criticisms.
Notes on Class and Student Activities
A. Evaluating Communication Climates (Pause and Reflect, text, p. 319)
Objective
To identify the communication climate in important relationships and to describe the confirming and
disconfirming behaviors that help define this climate.
B. Defensiveness Feedback (Pause and Reflect, text, p. 325)
Objective
To provide the student with more information about the patterns of his or her defensive behaviors.
C. Behaviors and Interpretations (Skill Builder, text, p. 328)
Objectives
To help students practice separating behaviors from the interpretations they give to them.
Discussion Questions
1. How difficult is it to separate your observation of behavior from your interpretation of it? Is it
D. Name the Feeling (Skill Builder, text, p. 328)
Objectives
To encourage students to recognize the feelings they may have in the listed circumstances.
To evaluate the effect on the message based on expressing the feeling or not expressing the feeling.
Discussion Questions
1. How difficult was it to come up with words to label the feelings you might experience in these
situations?
E. Putting Your Message Together (Skill Builder, text, p. 331) and Writing Assertive
Messages (10.3 in Student Activities Manual)
Objectives
To enable the student to practice expressing effective assertive messages.
Discussion Questions
1. What were some of the characteristics of effective messages?
1. In groups, have students create lists of words and behaviors that trigger their defensiveness.
2. Lead them through a discussion about recognizing those triggers/buttons. Relate this back to
G. “Yes, but . . .”
Objective
To identify common excuse-making that contributes to a defensive climate.
Instructions
2. Describe the ways that we give excuses, and illustrate how this contributes to defensiveness (for
3. Have students discuss alternate ways of simply admitting what is true without giving excuses.
This is also a good prelude to learning to cope with criticism.
H. Coping with Criticism (Skill Builder, text, p. 337)
Objective
To practice responding nondefensively to criticism.
1. How easy or difficult was it to respond nondefensively?
2. Which types of responses are most difficult? Which types are most useful? Explain.
1. How does the communication climate in the workplace affect the amount of communication that
transpires?
J. Confirming and Disconfirming Mediated Communication
Objective
To identify common mediated communication behaviors that confirm or disconfirm others.
Instructions
Discussion Questions
1. What are some ways our mediated communication behaviors might be misunderstood?
