INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
HOOFDSTUK 1: INTRODUCTION
WHY YOU NEED A COURSE ON INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION?
The general relevance of this course in your life
- Personal life: relational failure is often associate with interpersonal communication
problems.
- Professional life: interpersonal communication competence is seen as one of the most
important keys to professional success.
- Academic life: communication sciences: 3 components or levels of theory and
research:
o Mass-mediated communication (MMC)
o Organizational communication (OC)
o Interpersonal communication (IPC): basis of OC & MMC
o Note: intrapersonal communication isn’t generally regarded as a
communication science topic
WHY YOU NEED A COURSE ON IPC IN A MMC -CENTERED CURRICULUM?
MMC (MASS-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION) BUILDS ON IPC PROCESSES
Human communication is the process of one person stimulating meaning in the mind of
another person (or persons) bij means of verbal and/or nonverbal messages.
- Directly via IPC
- Indirectly via MMC
IPC (= a psychological meaning transfer process)
MMC (= a psychological meaning transfer process)
1
,THE BORDERLINES BETWEEN MMC AND IPC ARE FADING IN A CONTEXT OF EMC
(=ELECTRONICALLY MEDIATED COMMUNICATION) AND ESPECI ALLY MPC (=MASS-
PERSONAL COMMUNICATION)
- Personal context: EMC of one person tot one or to many other persons via e.g.
Outlook, Facebook, X, Instagram…
- Professional context: online classes or meetings via Team, Zoom, …
- Some authors call EMC in which one sender makes his/her message available to
many receivers ‘mass-personal communication’
EFFECTS OF MMC CAN BE HIGHLY IMPACTED BY ASPECTS OF IPC
Cf. experiments on advertising:
Manipulation IPC-aspects in ads and measuring the impact
Using faces (one of the main nonverbal IPC systems) in advertising helps to attraact the
attention of the consumer
- Faces are used in advertising extremely often:
o Quantitative content analysis of 39 Flemish magazines containing 883 unique
advertisements
o Trained encoders (Cohen’s Kappa = 0,682 / p = 0,00) analysed the ads: is there
a prominent face in the ad?
o 63% of all the ads prominently contained a face
- Experiment:
o Pretest:
▪ 200 images rated on likeability (N=80)
▪ Goal: images with similar likeability
o Eye Tracking:
▪ 15 screens with 4 images: only one of the four images contains a face
▪ 3 seconds exposure to each screen
▪ Participants: 140 young adults (aged 18 – 25 ; 70 males and 70 females)
o Heatsmaps:
▪ Area with face is red because it’s the most wachted area
▪ Faces are visual magnets
o Areas Of Interest (AOI)
▪ Relative attention time is 4,45 times higher than relative size of the face
on the screen
- Faces are visual magnets because they contain lots of cues
o Species, age, sex, emotions, idenity, …
2
,Nonverbal IPC cues in advertising have a clear impact on ad-likeability (that is, on liking-the-
add more or less), one of the main predictors of the advertising effectiveness to be expected
from the ad
- Some of these IPC cues are just unintentional cues, some are truly intentional signals:
communication can therefore be both intentional and/or unintentional.
- Meaning of the IPC cues/signals (e.g. cues of high fertility like waist-to-hip ratio or cues
of good genes like symmetry) is often unconscious or unknown: communication can
therefore be both explicit (conscious) and/or implicit (unconscious).
- Many IPC cues are used as signals in deceptive ways (e.g. push-up bras, aesthetic
surgery, hair dying, etc.): communication can therefore be both informative (honest,
truthful) or manipulative (dishonest, mendacious).
- To understand why some IPC cues ‘work’ (e.g. black versus gray hair), and some
don’t ‘work’ (e.g. black versus brown hair) we will need evolutionary psychology (the
‘new science of the mind’) as a new perspective on communication processes.
Conclusion: a course on IPC is essential in a curriculum dominated by MMC
HOOFDSTUK 2: MODELS, DEFINITIONS AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF IPC
MODELS OF IPC: FROM SENDING INFORMATION TO INTERPERSONAL TRANSACTIONS
PERSPECTIVES
The classic perspective Communication is a linear process of information delivery
from a sender to a receiver
The modern perspective Communication is an interactional/transactional process of
meaning making by communicators
CLASSIC COMPONENS OF THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
- Source: the originator of the ideas and feelings expressed. The source puts a message
into a code, a process called encoding.
- Message: the written, spoken, and unspoken elements of communication to which
people assign meaning. Messages can be verbal or nonverbal and may be sent
intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously.
- Channel: pathway through which messages are sent.
- Receiver: person who decodes a message and attempts to make sense of what the
source has encoded.
- Noise: anything external (physical/physiological) or internal (psychological) that
interferes with the accurate reception of a message.
- Feedback: the verbal or nonverbal response to the message. Feedback may be
intentional or unintentional.
- Context: the physical, physiological, psychological, social and cultural environment
for communication.
3
, LASWELL’S APPROACH: SOME PROBLEMS
- Rather unidirectional, while IPC generally is bidirectional or even multidirectional.
- Concepts like ‘channel’ or ‘medium’: rather vague.
- ‘Effect’ is more than merely feedback.
- No attention to the ‘context’ in which the
communication process is taking place.
- Focus on who (sender & receiver), what
(message), where & when
(medium/channel), but no attention is paid to
- how and why we communicate.
- Communication is seen as an information
transfer from a sender to a receiver, yet the
mind is not an information processor, but a
meaning processor (cf. infra).
THE THREE BASIC PERSPECTIVES
1. Communication-as-action model: message transfer
o Oldest sand simplest
o Message is sent and received: cf. Lasswell’s model
2. Communication-as-interaction model: message exchange
o Adds feedback and context
o Still a linear, step-by-step process
o Does not quite capture the complexity of simultaneous human
communication: in both the source and the receiver and receive messages at
the same time
4
HOOFDSTUK 1: INTRODUCTION
WHY YOU NEED A COURSE ON INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION?
The general relevance of this course in your life
- Personal life: relational failure is often associate with interpersonal communication
problems.
- Professional life: interpersonal communication competence is seen as one of the most
important keys to professional success.
- Academic life: communication sciences: 3 components or levels of theory and
research:
o Mass-mediated communication (MMC)
o Organizational communication (OC)
o Interpersonal communication (IPC): basis of OC & MMC
o Note: intrapersonal communication isn’t generally regarded as a
communication science topic
WHY YOU NEED A COURSE ON IPC IN A MMC -CENTERED CURRICULUM?
MMC (MASS-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION) BUILDS ON IPC PROCESSES
Human communication is the process of one person stimulating meaning in the mind of
another person (or persons) bij means of verbal and/or nonverbal messages.
- Directly via IPC
- Indirectly via MMC
IPC (= a psychological meaning transfer process)
MMC (= a psychological meaning transfer process)
1
,THE BORDERLINES BETWEEN MMC AND IPC ARE FADING IN A CONTEXT OF EMC
(=ELECTRONICALLY MEDIATED COMMUNICATION) AND ESPECI ALLY MPC (=MASS-
PERSONAL COMMUNICATION)
- Personal context: EMC of one person tot one or to many other persons via e.g.
Outlook, Facebook, X, Instagram…
- Professional context: online classes or meetings via Team, Zoom, …
- Some authors call EMC in which one sender makes his/her message available to
many receivers ‘mass-personal communication’
EFFECTS OF MMC CAN BE HIGHLY IMPACTED BY ASPECTS OF IPC
Cf. experiments on advertising:
Manipulation IPC-aspects in ads and measuring the impact
Using faces (one of the main nonverbal IPC systems) in advertising helps to attraact the
attention of the consumer
- Faces are used in advertising extremely often:
o Quantitative content analysis of 39 Flemish magazines containing 883 unique
advertisements
o Trained encoders (Cohen’s Kappa = 0,682 / p = 0,00) analysed the ads: is there
a prominent face in the ad?
o 63% of all the ads prominently contained a face
- Experiment:
o Pretest:
▪ 200 images rated on likeability (N=80)
▪ Goal: images with similar likeability
o Eye Tracking:
▪ 15 screens with 4 images: only one of the four images contains a face
▪ 3 seconds exposure to each screen
▪ Participants: 140 young adults (aged 18 – 25 ; 70 males and 70 females)
o Heatsmaps:
▪ Area with face is red because it’s the most wachted area
▪ Faces are visual magnets
o Areas Of Interest (AOI)
▪ Relative attention time is 4,45 times higher than relative size of the face
on the screen
- Faces are visual magnets because they contain lots of cues
o Species, age, sex, emotions, idenity, …
2
,Nonverbal IPC cues in advertising have a clear impact on ad-likeability (that is, on liking-the-
add more or less), one of the main predictors of the advertising effectiveness to be expected
from the ad
- Some of these IPC cues are just unintentional cues, some are truly intentional signals:
communication can therefore be both intentional and/or unintentional.
- Meaning of the IPC cues/signals (e.g. cues of high fertility like waist-to-hip ratio or cues
of good genes like symmetry) is often unconscious or unknown: communication can
therefore be both explicit (conscious) and/or implicit (unconscious).
- Many IPC cues are used as signals in deceptive ways (e.g. push-up bras, aesthetic
surgery, hair dying, etc.): communication can therefore be both informative (honest,
truthful) or manipulative (dishonest, mendacious).
- To understand why some IPC cues ‘work’ (e.g. black versus gray hair), and some
don’t ‘work’ (e.g. black versus brown hair) we will need evolutionary psychology (the
‘new science of the mind’) as a new perspective on communication processes.
Conclusion: a course on IPC is essential in a curriculum dominated by MMC
HOOFDSTUK 2: MODELS, DEFINITIONS AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF IPC
MODELS OF IPC: FROM SENDING INFORMATION TO INTERPERSONAL TRANSACTIONS
PERSPECTIVES
The classic perspective Communication is a linear process of information delivery
from a sender to a receiver
The modern perspective Communication is an interactional/transactional process of
meaning making by communicators
CLASSIC COMPONENS OF THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
- Source: the originator of the ideas and feelings expressed. The source puts a message
into a code, a process called encoding.
- Message: the written, spoken, and unspoken elements of communication to which
people assign meaning. Messages can be verbal or nonverbal and may be sent
intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously.
- Channel: pathway through which messages are sent.
- Receiver: person who decodes a message and attempts to make sense of what the
source has encoded.
- Noise: anything external (physical/physiological) or internal (psychological) that
interferes with the accurate reception of a message.
- Feedback: the verbal or nonverbal response to the message. Feedback may be
intentional or unintentional.
- Context: the physical, physiological, psychological, social and cultural environment
for communication.
3
, LASWELL’S APPROACH: SOME PROBLEMS
- Rather unidirectional, while IPC generally is bidirectional or even multidirectional.
- Concepts like ‘channel’ or ‘medium’: rather vague.
- ‘Effect’ is more than merely feedback.
- No attention to the ‘context’ in which the
communication process is taking place.
- Focus on who (sender & receiver), what
(message), where & when
(medium/channel), but no attention is paid to
- how and why we communicate.
- Communication is seen as an information
transfer from a sender to a receiver, yet the
mind is not an information processor, but a
meaning processor (cf. infra).
THE THREE BASIC PERSPECTIVES
1. Communication-as-action model: message transfer
o Oldest sand simplest
o Message is sent and received: cf. Lasswell’s model
2. Communication-as-interaction model: message exchange
o Adds feedback and context
o Still a linear, step-by-step process
o Does not quite capture the complexity of simultaneous human
communication: in both the source and the receiver and receive messages at
the same time
4
