Psychology of Communication

Communication is a manner in which we transmit and receive information. While we are not always doing it in a conscious manner, sometimes we are not even aware that we communicate a message to the external world. The communication process occurs between a sender and a receiver. It is a process that is shared by everybody and occurs on a constant basis; we communicate messages and concepts constantly, and this process operates in many directions and dimensions. The effectiveness of the communication process is heavily dependent on the level of understanding between the sender and the receiver. There are three most frequently recognized modes of communications: (1) the interpersonal communication, (2) intrapersonal communication, and (3) person-group communication. Person-to-person communication occurs between at least two individuals, and the level of its effectiveness is highly dependent on interpersonal communication skills. Intrapersonal communication occurs within the person, when we “talk to ourselves or with ourselves.” This type of phenomenon occurs primarily when we attempt to solve problems. Person-to-group communication is staged when a person addresses a group of other individuals, such as in public engagement speaking, while giving a court testimony, or while preaching in a house of prayer.

Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental process and behavior, including the phenomena of perception, cognition, and interpersonal relations.

The psychology of communication, or the mental dimensions of the sender-receiver interaction, constitutes the various elements of the communication process, which are highly interdependent with the individuals' frame of mind and their metal capacities. The psychology of communication explores the perception and cognition in interpersonal relations based on the [Page 416]quality of the communication process. As the process of communication begins with a source or an idea that the sender wants to transmit to the receivers, the message needs to be encoded into a symbol in order to be trans mitted to the receivers, who on their end need to decode the message into a meaning. The way the receiver decodes the message is directly related to the receiver's perception and cognitive abilities. The feedback to the sender will also depend on the interpersonal relation ships the receiver has with the sender. A distortion of the communication process can occur at any stage, depending on the interaction between the sender and the receiver. There are three interpersonal modes of communication, verbal, nonverbal, and symbolic, and the decoding of all the modes depends heavily on the context of the overall situation, which sometimes overrides or interferes with a person's cognitive and perceptional processes. For more information, see Hunter, Mayhall, and Barker (2000) and Weaver (1972).