Communication Discussion
After watching the video: Danger of a Single Story
1. Write down a "Golden Message" that you took away from the speaker's talk. This is some part of the video that really resonated with you. Take about a paragraph to describe it.
2. Using terms from Chapter 3 of the Essential Textbook, explain why that part of the message had an impact on you.
3. Finally, using the concepts of perception and perception checking from Chapter 2 of Natural Bridges textbook, talk about whether the speaker changed your thoughts or perception? If yes, how and in what way? If not, explain.
Perception Checking from Chapter 2:
A perception checking statement is a message you create to check your understanding of someone’s words or behavior.
The benefits of perception checking statements include:
a) helping us decode messages more accurately: Our goal is mutual understanding
b) reducing defensiveness & the potential for conflict: helps us avoid assuming too much.
Perception Checking has 3 parts:
• Description - provide a description of the behavior you noticed.
• Interpretation - provide two possible interpretations of the behavior.
• Clarification - request clarification from the person about the behavior & your interpretations.
Terms form Chapter 3 of the Essential Textbook:
• Culture: The language, values. Beliefs. Traditions. And customs people share and learn.
• Salience: How much weight we attach to a particular person or phenomenon.
• In-groups: Groups with which we identify.
• Out-group: Groups of people that we view as different from us.
• Coculture: The perception of membership in a group that is part of an encompassing culture.
• Race: A social construct originally created to explain biological differences among people whose ancestors originated in different regions of the world.
• Ethnicity: A social construct that refers to the degree to which a person identifies with a particular group, usually on the basis of nationality, culture, religion, or some other unifying perspective.
• Individualistic Culture: A culture in which members focus on the value and welfare of individual members. As opposed to a concern for the group as a whole.
• Collectivistic Culture: A culture in which members focus on the welfare of the group as a whole, rather than concerned mostly about personal success.
• Low-context culture: A culture in which people use language primarily to express thoughts, feelings, and ideas as directly as possible.
• High- context culture: A culture that relies heavily on subtle, often nonverbal cues to maintain social harmony.
• Uncertainty avoidance: The cultural tendency to seek stability and honor tradition instead of welcoming risk, uncertainty, and change.
• Power distance: e degree to which members of a group are willing to accept a difference in power and status.
• Ethnocentrism: The attitude that one’s own culture is superior to that of others.
• Prejudice: An unfairly biased and intolerant attitude toward others who belong to an out-group.
• Stereotyping: The perceptual process of applying exaggerated beliefs associated with a categorizing system.