SEPTEMBER 1992, VOL 56, NO 3
AORN JOURNAL
Thought and Talk THEINTRAPERSONAL COMPONENT OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION Mary J. Farley, RN
T
he average person spends more time communicating than in any other activity. We are tempted to believe that “practice makes perfect,” and years of communication make us effective communicators. Nothing is further from the truth. People probably perform no human activity less effectively than the act of communicating with one another. Research findings indicate that communication failures represent the single greatest problem in human relationships and organizational systems.‘ Much has been written about improving communication,2 and the nursing literature contains numerous recommendations for nurses. ’ Nurses are advised to use “I” statements, be open and honest, be cognizant of nonverbal behaviors, send clear messages, and listen. For the most part, these suggestions are based on a frequently cited theory or model of communication that depicts a sender transmitting a message across a channel to a receiver (Fig 1 ). This model does injustice to the complex phenomenon called communication. It ignores the fact that communication is an interactional process with the speaker and receiver influencing each other. It overlooks the intrapersonal aspect of communication and does not acknowledge the self-talk, either conscious or unconscious, of the sender before communicating a message and the self-talk of the receiver while he or she is listening to the message.
Communication takes place within people as well as between them. Self-talk is intrapersonal communication or “talking to oneself’ that happens constantly. This self-talk is a critical element in understanding the underlying reasons for communication successes or failures. Sending and receiving messages are not separate or wholly different acts. Communication is better understood as the interactive results of self-talk and speaking in combination with self-talk and responding. Researchers contend that human communication chiefly revolves around two kinds of speech: silent speech (ie, self-talk) and overt speech (ie, talking). Silent speech is the necessary preliminary to overt speech. The quality of overt speech cannot be better than the quality of the silent speech from which it springs: Carl Rogers, PhD, claims that good communication within oneself is essential for mental health and that mental illness is a breakdown in a person’s intrapersonal communication.5
Mary J . Farley, R N , PhD, is the chair and professor in the Department of Nursing, University (gSouthern Colorado, Pueblo. She earned her diploma in nursing f r o m Barnes Hospital School of Nursing, St Louis, her bachelor of science degree in nursing from Metropolitan State College, Denver, her master of science degree in nursing f r o m the University of Colorado, Denver, and her doctorate in organizational communication from the University of Denver. 481
SEFl’F,MBER 1992, VOL 56, NO 3
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Fig 1
Linear Model of Human Communication Sender _______) Message _ _ _ _ _ _ t Receiver According to Dr Rogers, a person who engages in positive, healthy self-talk is able to communicate more effectively with others. The most important conversations we have each day are those held with ourselves. We tell ourselves we are either good or bad, capable or incompetent, happy or sad. We talk to ourselves about people, experiences, feelings, and a wide variety of phenomena. These intrapersonal conversations influence our selfesteem, self-confidence, and our interpersonal communication behaviors. Unless we have thought of something fist, we cannot communicate it in our dialogues with others. The thoughts we have usually will be communicated verbally or nonverbally, sometimes at inopportune moments. It is a mistake to assume that most utterances in social interactions are the result of highly conscious thought processes. A part of everyday communication is the result of an individual’s intrapersonal communications that have occurred at low levels of awareness.
A DiSferent Model of Communication
T
he intrapersonal component of human communication should be incorporated into a model of communication so the dynamics of human communication interactions can be better understood. Such a communication model is depicted in Figure 2. Lee Thayer, a well-known communication scholar, believes that intrapersonal communication colors what people look for in information about their environment and how they interpret the information.6 Thus, if a nurse engages in negative intrapersonal communication about his or her work environment, chances are great that this negative self-talk will 482
transfer to the communicationbehaviors of critical and pessimistic conversations. For example, if a staff nurse has been unduly criticized by the nurse manager, his or her self-talk about that nurse manager will probably be negative. When the staff nurse talks about the nurse manager to a coworker, that talk probably will have derogatory connotations. The listener who hears this message also will engage in self-talk about the speaker, the nurse manager, the situation, and the message before responding. The response made by the listener acts as a stimulus for further interactive communication between the parties involved. Human communication is cyclical, with each communicator influencing and being influenced by the other. It is both proactive and reactive, causative and purposive. Words in and of themselves have no meaning. In all interpersonal communication, the true meaning of the message is found in the personal translations given to the words by the speaker and the listener rather than in the actual words themselves. It is important to recognize that there is often a difference between the meaning of a message to be found in the speaker’s words and the meaning of the same message to be discovered in the listener. The intrapersonal communication of each individual influences these meanings. As the nurse manager, I may say to myself that staff nurse X could work more efficiently and thus accomplish more within a given time frame, I may decide to confront staff nurse X and say, “You could probably get your work done more quickly if you spent less time chatting with coworkers.” The staff nurse interprets this message as, “I am being criticized for talking to Jane and Bob. What does she expect me to do-muzzle my mouth?” Thus the intention of communicating the need to work more efficiently is lost.
SEPTEMBER 1992, VOL 56, NO 3
AORN JOURNAL
Listening, Responding to a Message
Self-talk also interferes with listening because the brain is able to process words up to 600 words a minute while the speaker is only able to speak at about 125 to 150 words a m i n ~ t eThis .~ leaves a considerable amount of time for the listener to miss the nuances of the message. For example, when a surgeon is explaining some details of a new procedure, the nurse may be thinking about the time and his or her plans for the evening. Obviously, the details of the procedure are not going to be remembered. Listening is not instinctive; it is not the same thing as hearing. Even though human beings spend 40% of their communication interactions listening to human speech, little effort is spent in learning or developing listening skills.’O One way to become more effective listeners is to control self-talk. Otherwise, we unknowingly and unintentionally neglect a vital communication function and create unnecessary problems for ourselves and others.
L
istening and responding to a message “sent” by another person involves complex physiological, psychological, and cognitive processes. The physiological hearing of sounds, the psychological state of the sender and receiver, and the cognitive ability to interpret the words and their meanings all influence a person’s response to a message. These processes complicate communication interactions so that the occurrence of effective communication is almost a miracle. Listening is fraught with difficulties. Our selftalk interferes with our ability to listen in at least two ways. First, when we are talking to ourselves we do not do a good job of listening to the speaker. This results in a multitude of wellknown communication breakdowns, such as misunderstandings, confused instructions, loss of important information, and hurt feelings. One researcher contends that listening is an unnatural phenomenon because it takes time away from the listener’s most important focus-himself or herself.’ For example, when someone is talking, we frequently are thinking about what we want to say and are waiting eagerly for the speaker to stop taking so we can have our turn. The researcher believes that listening is the communication skill that contributes to most of the problems in our personal and organizational lives. Paul Toumier, PhD,a Swiss psychologist, concurs, stating that people speak primarily to set forth their own ideas.*He wrote, “Listen to all the conversations of the world. They are, for the most part, dialogues of the deaf.”
Self-talk, Evaluation
W
hen a person hears another person talk, the listener’s self-talk is largely evaluative.” The tendency to judge the statement of the other person is a major barrier to positive and constructive interpersonal communication. For example, suppose you attended a nursing conference and after the conference, a fellow nurse asks, “What did you think of the speaker?’ Invariably your reply will be approval or disapproval of the speaker or the speech. Your primary reaction is to evaluate the speaker or speech from
Fig 2
Dynamics of Human Communication Interactions Stimulus
-*
Stimulus that prompts interaction
Speakerb What the speaker says to himself or herself about the self, the other person, and the situation
Listener
-*
What the listener says to himself or herself about the self, the other person, and the situation
Response How the listener responds to the speaker, the situation, and himself or herself
483
SEPTEMBER 1992, VOL 56, NO 3
AORN JOURNAL
your point of view or your own frame of reference. Your self-talk influences your response. While the speaker was talking, you were talking to yourself, agreeing or disagreeing, judging or evaluating. You probably talked to yourself about the person’s appearance and speaking ability as well as the content of the message. This intrapersonal communication originated as a reflection of your language, culture, past experiences, values, and current motives. We all interpret our world as we “see” it. We talk to ourselves about it. What we see and hear must be congruent with previously held beliefs and values, or we find ways to make diverse ideas compatible. Even though the tendency to evaluate is common in almost all communication interactions, it is heightened in situations in which feelings and emotions are involved. The stronger our feelings are about a subject or topic, the less likely there will be a common element in conversation unless the other person is in agreement with our values and beliefs. The tendency to react to any statement by forming an evaluation of it from our own point of view is a problem in interpersonal communications. One way to avoid this communication barrier is to temporarily give up or set aside our own prejudices, frame of references, and the tendency to evaluate or judge and experience the speaker’s world from the inside.’* This means that we must try to see the expressed idea and attitude from the speaker’s point of view and to achieve his or her frame of reference. This may sound absurdly simple, but as we all know, it is not.
Summary
T
he intrapersonal component of human communication, self-talk, influences what we say and how we respond to another in interpersonal dialogues. A model of communication that incorporates the notion of self-talk, both that of the speaker and that of the listener, is useful in assisting nurses in making more realistic appraisals of communication interactions and addressing problems in communication failures. 484
Notes 1. R D McPhee, “Vertical communication chains,” Management Communication Quarterly 1 (May 1998) 455-493; L Thayer, “Oncorporate communication: Some thoughts on how to think about what needs thinking about,” Australian Journal of Communication 17 (January 1990) 1-18; H L Walker, “Communication and the American health care problem,” Journal of Communication 23 (December 1978) 349-360. 2. S Deep, L Sussman, A Manager’s Book of Lists (Glenshaw, Pa: SDD Publishers, 1988); J Luft, Of Human Interaction (Palo Alto, Calif National Press, 1969); S Hamlin, How to Talk So People Listen: The Real Key to Job Success (New York City: Harper and Row, 1988). 3. M R Chartier, “Clarity of expression in interpersonal communication,” Journal of Nursing Administration 11 (July 1981) 42-48; P O’Sullivan, “Detecting communication problems,” Nursing Management 16 (November 1985) 27-30; SM Burns Stewart, “Professional survival tips: Communicating effectively with peers,” Perioperative Nursing Quarterly 3 (September 1987) 63-65; E Raudsepp, “7 ways to cure communication breakdowns,” Nursing90 20 (April 1990) 132-142; G A Wolf, “Communication: Key contributor to effectiveness-A nurse executive responds,” Journal of Nursing Administration 16 (September 1986) 26-28. 4. C T Brown, P W Keller, Monologue to Dialogue, second ed (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc, 1978) 59. 5. C Rogers, “Barriers and gateways to communication, Part I,” Harvard Business Review 30 (.hly/AU@t 1952) 46-50. 6. Thayer, “On corporate communication: Some thoughts on how to think about what needs thinking about,” 1-18. 7. J Brownell, “Listening: The toughest management skill,” The Cornell H.R.A. Quarterly (February 1987) 64-71. 8. P. Tournier, To Understand Each Other (Richmond, Va: John Knox Press, 1972) 8. 9. L K Steil, J Summerfield, G de Mare, Listening: It Can Change Your Life (New York City: McGraw-Hill, 1983) 45. 10. M Burley-Allen, Listening: The Forgotten Skill (New York City: John Wiley & Sons, 1982) 2. 11. Rogers, “Barriers and gateways to communication,” 46-50. 12. Ibid.
AORN JOURNAL
Thought and Talk THEINTRAPERSONAL COMPONENT OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION Mary J. Farley, RN
T
he average person spends more time communicating than in any other activity. We are tempted to believe that “practice makes perfect,” and years of communication make us effective communicators. Nothing is further from the truth. People probably perform no human activity less effectively than the act of communicating with one another. Research findings indicate that communication failures represent the single greatest problem in human relationships and organizational systems.‘ Much has been written about improving communication,2 and the nursing literature contains numerous recommendations for nurses. ’ Nurses are advised to use “I” statements, be open and honest, be cognizant of nonverbal behaviors, send clear messages, and listen. For the most part, these suggestions are based on a frequently cited theory or model of communication that depicts a sender transmitting a message across a channel to a receiver (Fig 1 ). This model does injustice to the complex phenomenon called communication. It ignores the fact that communication is an interactional process with the speaker and receiver influencing each other. It overlooks the intrapersonal aspect of communication and does not acknowledge the self-talk, either conscious or unconscious, of the sender before communicating a message and the self-talk of the receiver while he or she is listening to the message.
Communication takes place within people as well as between them. Self-talk is intrapersonal communication or “talking to oneself’ that happens constantly. This self-talk is a critical element in understanding the underlying reasons for communication successes or failures. Sending and receiving messages are not separate or wholly different acts. Communication is better understood as the interactive results of self-talk and speaking in combination with self-talk and responding. Researchers contend that human communication chiefly revolves around two kinds of speech: silent speech (ie, self-talk) and overt speech (ie, talking). Silent speech is the necessary preliminary to overt speech. The quality of overt speech cannot be better than the quality of the silent speech from which it springs: Carl Rogers, PhD, claims that good communication within oneself is essential for mental health and that mental illness is a breakdown in a person’s intrapersonal communication.5
Mary J . Farley, R N , PhD, is the chair and professor in the Department of Nursing, University (gSouthern Colorado, Pueblo. She earned her diploma in nursing f r o m Barnes Hospital School of Nursing, St Louis, her bachelor of science degree in nursing from Metropolitan State College, Denver, her master of science degree in nursing f r o m the University of Colorado, Denver, and her doctorate in organizational communication from the University of Denver. 481
SEFl’F,MBER 1992, VOL 56, NO 3
AORNJOURNAL
Fig 1
Linear Model of Human Communication Sender _______) Message _ _ _ _ _ _ t Receiver According to Dr Rogers, a person who engages in positive, healthy self-talk is able to communicate more effectively with others. The most important conversations we have each day are those held with ourselves. We tell ourselves we are either good or bad, capable or incompetent, happy or sad. We talk to ourselves about people, experiences, feelings, and a wide variety of phenomena. These intrapersonal conversations influence our selfesteem, self-confidence, and our interpersonal communication behaviors. Unless we have thought of something fist, we cannot communicate it in our dialogues with others. The thoughts we have usually will be communicated verbally or nonverbally, sometimes at inopportune moments. It is a mistake to assume that most utterances in social interactions are the result of highly conscious thought processes. A part of everyday communication is the result of an individual’s intrapersonal communications that have occurred at low levels of awareness.
A DiSferent Model of Communication
T
he intrapersonal component of human communication should be incorporated into a model of communication so the dynamics of human communication interactions can be better understood. Such a communication model is depicted in Figure 2. Lee Thayer, a well-known communication scholar, believes that intrapersonal communication colors what people look for in information about their environment and how they interpret the information.6 Thus, if a nurse engages in negative intrapersonal communication about his or her work environment, chances are great that this negative self-talk will 482
transfer to the communicationbehaviors of critical and pessimistic conversations. For example, if a staff nurse has been unduly criticized by the nurse manager, his or her self-talk about that nurse manager will probably be negative. When the staff nurse talks about the nurse manager to a coworker, that talk probably will have derogatory connotations. The listener who hears this message also will engage in self-talk about the speaker, the nurse manager, the situation, and the message before responding. The response made by the listener acts as a stimulus for further interactive communication between the parties involved. Human communication is cyclical, with each communicator influencing and being influenced by the other. It is both proactive and reactive, causative and purposive. Words in and of themselves have no meaning. In all interpersonal communication, the true meaning of the message is found in the personal translations given to the words by the speaker and the listener rather than in the actual words themselves. It is important to recognize that there is often a difference between the meaning of a message to be found in the speaker’s words and the meaning of the same message to be discovered in the listener. The intrapersonal communication of each individual influences these meanings. As the nurse manager, I may say to myself that staff nurse X could work more efficiently and thus accomplish more within a given time frame, I may decide to confront staff nurse X and say, “You could probably get your work done more quickly if you spent less time chatting with coworkers.” The staff nurse interprets this message as, “I am being criticized for talking to Jane and Bob. What does she expect me to do-muzzle my mouth?” Thus the intention of communicating the need to work more efficiently is lost.
SEPTEMBER 1992, VOL 56, NO 3
AORN JOURNAL
Listening, Responding to a Message
Self-talk also interferes with listening because the brain is able to process words up to 600 words a minute while the speaker is only able to speak at about 125 to 150 words a m i n ~ t eThis .~ leaves a considerable amount of time for the listener to miss the nuances of the message. For example, when a surgeon is explaining some details of a new procedure, the nurse may be thinking about the time and his or her plans for the evening. Obviously, the details of the procedure are not going to be remembered. Listening is not instinctive; it is not the same thing as hearing. Even though human beings spend 40% of their communication interactions listening to human speech, little effort is spent in learning or developing listening skills.’O One way to become more effective listeners is to control self-talk. Otherwise, we unknowingly and unintentionally neglect a vital communication function and create unnecessary problems for ourselves and others.
L
istening and responding to a message “sent” by another person involves complex physiological, psychological, and cognitive processes. The physiological hearing of sounds, the psychological state of the sender and receiver, and the cognitive ability to interpret the words and their meanings all influence a person’s response to a message. These processes complicate communication interactions so that the occurrence of effective communication is almost a miracle. Listening is fraught with difficulties. Our selftalk interferes with our ability to listen in at least two ways. First, when we are talking to ourselves we do not do a good job of listening to the speaker. This results in a multitude of wellknown communication breakdowns, such as misunderstandings, confused instructions, loss of important information, and hurt feelings. One researcher contends that listening is an unnatural phenomenon because it takes time away from the listener’s most important focus-himself or herself.’ For example, when someone is talking, we frequently are thinking about what we want to say and are waiting eagerly for the speaker to stop taking so we can have our turn. The researcher believes that listening is the communication skill that contributes to most of the problems in our personal and organizational lives. Paul Toumier, PhD,a Swiss psychologist, concurs, stating that people speak primarily to set forth their own ideas.*He wrote, “Listen to all the conversations of the world. They are, for the most part, dialogues of the deaf.”
Self-talk, Evaluation
W
hen a person hears another person talk, the listener’s self-talk is largely evaluative.” The tendency to judge the statement of the other person is a major barrier to positive and constructive interpersonal communication. For example, suppose you attended a nursing conference and after the conference, a fellow nurse asks, “What did you think of the speaker?’ Invariably your reply will be approval or disapproval of the speaker or the speech. Your primary reaction is to evaluate the speaker or speech from
Fig 2
Dynamics of Human Communication Interactions Stimulus
-*
Stimulus that prompts interaction
Speakerb What the speaker says to himself or herself about the self, the other person, and the situation
Listener
-*
What the listener says to himself or herself about the self, the other person, and the situation
Response How the listener responds to the speaker, the situation, and himself or herself
483
SEPTEMBER 1992, VOL 56, NO 3
AORN JOURNAL
your point of view or your own frame of reference. Your self-talk influences your response. While the speaker was talking, you were talking to yourself, agreeing or disagreeing, judging or evaluating. You probably talked to yourself about the person’s appearance and speaking ability as well as the content of the message. This intrapersonal communication originated as a reflection of your language, culture, past experiences, values, and current motives. We all interpret our world as we “see” it. We talk to ourselves about it. What we see and hear must be congruent with previously held beliefs and values, or we find ways to make diverse ideas compatible. Even though the tendency to evaluate is common in almost all communication interactions, it is heightened in situations in which feelings and emotions are involved. The stronger our feelings are about a subject or topic, the less likely there will be a common element in conversation unless the other person is in agreement with our values and beliefs. The tendency to react to any statement by forming an evaluation of it from our own point of view is a problem in interpersonal communications. One way to avoid this communication barrier is to temporarily give up or set aside our own prejudices, frame of references, and the tendency to evaluate or judge and experience the speaker’s world from the inside.’* This means that we must try to see the expressed idea and attitude from the speaker’s point of view and to achieve his or her frame of reference. This may sound absurdly simple, but as we all know, it is not.
Summary
T
he intrapersonal component of human communication, self-talk, influences what we say and how we respond to another in interpersonal dialogues. A model of communication that incorporates the notion of self-talk, both that of the speaker and that of the listener, is useful in assisting nurses in making more realistic appraisals of communication interactions and addressing problems in communication failures. 484
Notes 1. R D McPhee, “Vertical communication chains,” Management Communication Quarterly 1 (May 1998) 455-493; L Thayer, “Oncorporate communication: Some thoughts on how to think about what needs thinking about,” Australian Journal of Communication 17 (January 1990) 1-18; H L Walker, “Communication and the American health care problem,” Journal of Communication 23 (December 1978) 349-360. 2. S Deep, L Sussman, A Manager’s Book of Lists (Glenshaw, Pa: SDD Publishers, 1988); J Luft, Of Human Interaction (Palo Alto, Calif National Press, 1969); S Hamlin, How to Talk So People Listen: The Real Key to Job Success (New York City: Harper and Row, 1988). 3. M R Chartier, “Clarity of expression in interpersonal communication,” Journal of Nursing Administration 11 (July 1981) 42-48; P O’Sullivan, “Detecting communication problems,” Nursing Management 16 (November 1985) 27-30; SM Burns Stewart, “Professional survival tips: Communicating effectively with peers,” Perioperative Nursing Quarterly 3 (September 1987) 63-65; E Raudsepp, “7 ways to cure communication breakdowns,” Nursing90 20 (April 1990) 132-142; G A Wolf, “Communication: Key contributor to effectiveness-A nurse executive responds,” Journal of Nursing Administration 16 (September 1986) 26-28. 4. C T Brown, P W Keller, Monologue to Dialogue, second ed (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc, 1978) 59. 5. C Rogers, “Barriers and gateways to communication, Part I,” Harvard Business Review 30 (.hly/AU@t 1952) 46-50. 6. Thayer, “On corporate communication: Some thoughts on how to think about what needs thinking about,” 1-18. 7. J Brownell, “Listening: The toughest management skill,” The Cornell H.R.A. Quarterly (February 1987) 64-71. 8. P. Tournier, To Understand Each Other (Richmond, Va: John Knox Press, 1972) 8. 9. L K Steil, J Summerfield, G de Mare, Listening: It Can Change Your Life (New York City: McGraw-Hill, 1983) 45. 10. M Burley-Allen, Listening: The Forgotten Skill (New York City: John Wiley & Sons, 1982) 2. 11. Rogers, “Barriers and gateways to communication,” 46-50. 12. Ibid.
