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Chapter 3
Communication Principles for Group Members
Summary
This chapter presents basic communication principles that may be familiar to students who have
previously taken a communication class. However, the information about the effects of one’s
culture on communication behavior and listening is likely to be new to most students. The
chapter promotes the idea that effective listening is an essential function of effective groups.
Chapter Objectives
After reading this chapter, students should be able to accomplish the following objectives:
1. Define communication.
2. List and explain the five major characteristics of communication.
3. Describe the difference between listening and hearing.
4. Describe the four listening preferences, and explain their implications for small groups.
5. Describe paraphrasing as a technique for active listening.
6. Discuss the ways technologies are used in groups.
Sample Lecture Notes
Case Study: Public Relations Club’s Confusion
• There are misunderstandings in the small group.
• To function effectively as a team, members must learn to put their thoughts and feelings
into signals that other members can interpret and respond to.
I. Communication: What’s That?
• Communication is defined as the transactional process of simultaneously creating,
interpreting, and negotiating shared meaning through interaction.
• There are five major characteristics to this seemingly simple definition.
A. Communication Is Symbolic
• A symbol is anything that arbitrarily stands for something else.
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• Because symbols are arbitrary, their meaning must be interpreted.
B. Communication Is Personal
• The symbolic nature of human communication renders meaning very personal.
• Even when two people agree on the dictionary definition of a word, they may disagree
vehemently about what that word means to them.
• Class Discussion: Does the phrase “I love you” or the word “commitment” mean the
same thing to each relational partner that uses the phrase or word? What about the word
“deadline”?
C. Communication Is a Transactional Process
• Communication is multidirectional.
• Group members must work together toward mutual understanding.
• Meanings are conceived or created in context between persons.
D. Shared Meaning Is the Responsibility of All Members
• All communicators need to accept responsibility for the short- and long-term
consequences of their communication.
• Perfect understanding among group members is impossible.
E. Communication Involves Content and Relationship Dimensions
• Communication involves content and relational dimensions.
o Content dimension is defined as the ideas (or “what”) of a message.
o Relational dimension is defined as the “how” of a message expressing the
perceived relationship between communicators.
• Class Discussion: Use the “Apply Now” box on page 52 to apply the principles of
communication to the opening case study.
II. Listening: Receiving, Interpreting, and Responding to Messages from Other Group
Members
A. Listening Defined
• Listening is defined as a complex process involving perceiving, interpreting, and
responding to messages.
o Listening requires activity.
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o Effective listening requires the listener to hear what the speaker said, interpret it
accurately, and respond appropriately.
o Major factors that influence what words and actions mean to different people
include people’s culture, gender, age, sexual orientation, learning style, and
personalities.
o Listening also requires members to listen “between the lines” for information
about the message.
B. Listening Preferences
• Being an effective group member means identifying one’s own preference and those of
the other members.
o It may mean shifting one’s preference to meet the needs of the group.
• A people-oriented listener is defined as a listener who is concerned about how her or his
listening behaviors affect relationships.
• An action-oriented listener is a listener who is concerned about how her or his listening
behaviors contribute to the task at hand.
• A content-oriented listener is a listener who prefers information from perceived credible
sources and is drawn to analyzing the information she or he hears.
• A time-oriented listener is a listener who values time and is focused on efficient
discussion.
• No preference is best. See table 3.1 on page 56 for advantages and disadvantages of
each style.
• Class Discussion: Use the “Apply Now” box on page 54 to help students understand the
advantages of different listening styles of group members.
C. Listening Actively
• Active listening is defined as listening first to understand another’s message before
critically judging the message.
• A good test for active listening is to paraphrase or put what another person has stated
into one’s own words.
• Active listeners confirm their understanding before they state evaluations.
• One should listen actively all the time but paraphrase only part of the time—when a
controversial issue is being discussed, when the speaker possibly has a different
meaning, when one is confused by something that is said, and when topics have been
switched or there is a misunderstanding.
• Class Discussion: Use table 3.2 on page 57 to gets students discussing instances in
which they have been guilty of poor listening habits. This works really well when
students identify poor listening habits in others, but eventually they will start to think of
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examples of when they have been poor listeners.
III. Communication Principles and Technology
• Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) is any interaction between group members via
computer technology.
A. How Groups Use Technology
• Wiki Software allows multiple users to access and work on a single document from
their individual computers.
Learning Activities
1. Ask students to bring to class: (a) words that are no longer used; (b) slang used within their
own peer groups that are probably not known to outsiders; and (c) a list of words referring
to the same referent (for example, someone’s friend may be referred to in many different
ways, such as pal, buddy, companion, soul mate, partner). Use student examples to talk
about the arbitrary nature of symbols and to discuss why perfect understanding is not
possible.
2. In the text, we offer a visual model of the communication (see Figure 3.1, page 50).
Explain to students that there are several ways to depict the notion of a transactional
process. To demonstrate this, divide the class into groups of four to six members, and
assign them the task of creating their own process model of communication. Tell the
groups that these models can take a variety of forms: acted out, drawn, verbalized, and so
forth.
3. Place students in groups of five to seven members each, and give them a controversial
topic to discuss. Give each group a “talking stick.” The person with the stick can state their
opinion on the topic, and the person to their right must adequately paraphrase what he or
she thinks the other person said before the talking stick can be passed to them.
4. Group Support Systems
If you are fortunate enough to have access to a “decision room” or computer facility that
uses group support systems software, you are in a position to be able to demonstrate
exactly how support systems software can help a group stay on track. For example, if you
give students a problem in advance and ask them to come to the computer facility prepared
with three suggestions for solving the problem, they will be able to enter their suggestions
immediately, have the software order the various suggestions by rank and rate them, and
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perform several of the other operations available through group decision support software.
You will, of course, need someone who is experienced to “chauffeur” the software, and
you can help by serving as the group facilitator. In our experience, it is either proprietary
businesses or colleges of business administration that have such facilities/software
available. At our university, the business college has faculty who are trained and willing to
demonstrate the equipment and software.
5. If possible, arrange to create a network of five or six telephones on campus so that groups
of students can be assigned to participate in a net conference to discuss a particular
problem. Afterward, ask the groups to answer the following questions:
a. What difficulties did net conferencing present that are not part of face-to-face
meetings?
b. Were there any advantages to net conferencing over meeting face-to-face? What
were the advantages? Why do you think this is so?
c. What tentative guidelines can you formulate for future net conferences in which you
might be involved?
As an alternative (or in addition to) this exercise, arrange to conduct the previous exercise
via a computer network if your campus has the necessary equipment and infrastructure.
The same questions would apply, with an additional one regarding the feelings students
have about using unfamiliar technology.
Media-Learning Activity
1. Have the class listen to a tape-recorded group discussion or watch a movie such as Twelve
Angry Men. Ask the students to focus on the suggestions for using language presented in
the text (and listed below) as they look for specific instances of violations or for examples
where the suggestions were followed well. For the violations, ask students to restate each
remark to make it more effective. (This can be used in conjunction with Chapter 4.)
a. Follow the rules of the language.
b. Take into account the symbolic nature of language.
c. Use emotive words cautiously.
d. Organize remarks.
e. Make sure the discussion question is clear and appropriate.
Media Resources
1. Power of Listening (revised) (DVD, CRM Learning, 11400 SE 8th Street, Suite 210,
Bellevue, WA 98004-0520, 800-408-5657; 1-800-421-0833)
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior
written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
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Human communication is:
1. Symbolic
2. Personal
3. Transactional
4. Shared meaning is the responsibility of all members
5. Involves content and relational dimensions
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Listening Preferences
People-Oriented Listeners
Action-Oriented Listeners
Content-Oriented Listeners
Time-Oriented Listeners
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Poor Listening Habits
Pseudolistening
Silent Arguing
Assuming Meaning
Focusing on Irrelevancies
Sidetracking
Defensive Responding