Office Clip for Interpersonal Communications

Communicate with Confidence

The Office - Conflict Clip

Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

Hi Everyone

Today on Oprah the show featured the winners of the Dove campaign promoting their latest hair and body products called 'pro age'. The campaign features 5 American women all above their 50s all mature women posing in their natural state. The women embraced their age, their skin their bodies and loved doing the campaign to celebrate all of those things. The Dove campaign Pro Age challenges the traditional stereotype that only the young can be beautiful by creating attitudinal change about ageing. Instead of negative and fear driven perceptions, the Dove campaign want women to feel positive and hope driven (sourced from the links below). The Dove campaign celebrates pro age and not anti age. Only this week the winner of the Australian Dove campaign was announced and 'Carolyn Oates' who is 63 years old was the winner (see image above). Carolyn will feature on the next issue of the Womens Weekly magazine. After watching the Dove 'you tube clip' on Beck P's blog (powell psychology) I thought I would share this great story about real women with real faces and bodies. Here are the links to view the commercial in America and the story on Carolyn.

American Dove Campaign commerical

campaignforrealbeauty.com

Thank you for your feedback to 'How well do you communicate & listen effectively

Hi Everyone

Thank you to those who responded to my discussion posting on 'How well do you communicate and listen effectively'. I really appreciate your candid responses and value the time you took to complete the quiz and share your feedback. Some interesting points were raised, for example we wear many different hats in life undertaking many roles and how one communicates and listens may vary according to the particular role you are currently undertaking. For instance at work do you actively listen and communicate effectively because you have to, does your role require professionalism at all times and hence your skills are exercised constantly. In comparison to the home environment when one might feel more relaxed and as a result may not pay immediate attention to listening or communicating effectively? Secondly, social variables were raised as factors that may impact ones communication and listening skills. For example, the environment i.e. a tutorial or the audience (captive listeners and fellow students) may contribute to a persons low self esteem in terms of impeding ones ability to articulate their thoughts on a subject matter. These variables may compound the situation and make it extremely difficult for one to actively convey their real thoughts and ideas on a subject. Next, anticipating what someone is going to say or interupting their conversation by finishing off their sentence can be perceived as not respecting the individual by not affording them the opportunity to finish what they're saying. It is so easy to fall into this trap, I use to to do this when my brother in law spoke to me because he spoke quite slowly and I always wanted to hurry the sentence up. However, it took me a while to think I wouldn't like someone to do that to me so I would nod accordingly and smile to indicate that I knew where he was going with the conversation and sometimes this was enough for him to wrap things up. This leads me to non verbal cues, one of the comments highlighted that this area is something they would like to improve in. I think we could all improve in this area. I would like to discuss the gender and cultural differences of communicating and listening effectively in my essay. We all need to be cognisant of the nuances and non verbal cues that are demonstrated by those around us. By doing so we can begin to actively engage in a conversation and navigate around conflict by employing effective listening skills, displaying empathy, recognising non verbal cues respecting cultural or social norms and being cognisant of these factors. It sounds exhaustive however, if we pay attention to the way we currently communicate with others we can begin to notice the way we communicate. That is, do we go about explaining things in a roundabout way, are we to the point and do we explain ourselves in a clear manner. Does the recipient respond in a way that answers the question posed or do they fail to listen effectively to your question. An interesting exercise to undertake to look at our own skills (because we all think we communicate well) until someone pulls us up for something. The news reader technique always pulls me up when I think I'm digressing on a conversation i.e. (tell me what you're going to tell me, then tell me, then tell me what you just told me)..pretty much like an essay (intro, body, conclusion). These three points often steer me back on track. What are your thoughts on the topic?

____________________________________________________________________

Discussion Posting 21/9/07
I have chosen to do the topic of 'Communication Skills' looking at
'Interpersonal Conflict'. I would be really interested to get your
thoughts on the quizzes I have downloaded on my blog
http://michelle-socialpsychology.blogspot.com/

If you have a minute to complete these I'd be interested to hear your
thoughts on the topic. I did a unit last year on Alternative Dispute
Resolution and just like Social Psychology I learnt so much about my
self in the process. So I'm looking forward to undertaking this task
and if you have any info you wish to share please post a comment.
_____________________________________________________________________

Thank you
Michelle

How well do you communicate and listen effectively?

Hi Everyone

Thanks to beck at http://beckpsychblog.blogspot.com/ for her suggestion to include the following quiz http://www.wittcom.com
/communication_skills_quiz.htm

I found this quiz quick to complete and interesting to analyse the results. Here are some of my thoughts on the topic.

When communicating with other individuals one may use many skills to engage and communicate effectively. Aside from verbal cues, many non-verbal cues also play a role when communicating with others. In addition to this, some people may communicate well however not listen effectively and this may contribute significantly particularly where interpersonal conflict is concerned.

Therefore, I have included a short quiz on listening skills to check how effective your listening skills are when communicating.

http://www.wittcom.com/listening_quiz.htm

Please let me know your thoughts on this topic, you don't need to share your results only your thoughts on the subject would be great.

Thanks Michelle

Blog 2 - Communication Skills

Hi Everyone, my topic for Blog 2

Communication Skills.

Provide a user-friendly, downloadable one-page handout summarising recommended steps or strategies for effective interpersonal communication. This handout should target Australian adults and be designed, for example, for distribution to patients in doctor's waiting rooms. Also provide more detailed commentary and background to the handout in your blog post.

I'm looking forward to undertaking this assignment as I work in Health and therefore like the idea of the example provided. I also enjoy communicating and engaging with people so identifying strategies for effective interpersonal communication will be interesting. If anyone wants to share any thoughts or ideas on this topic, I would welcome your feedback and if I can provide you with any assistance I'd be happy to.

Thanks
Michelle

My Essay is at the bottom of this page

For some reason I can't post the essay to the top.