Page 134 - Essentials of Human Communication

Some Nonverbal Communication Skills 113

According to some intercultural researchers, many Asian cultures (e.g., Japanese and Chi-
nese) place great value on the past; Latinos and Native Americans place more emphasis on
the present; and European Americans emphasize the future (Lustig & Koester, 2013).
Attitudes toward the importance of time vary from one culture to another. For example,
one study measured the accuracy of clocks in six cultures—Japan, Indonesia, Italy, England,
Taiwan, and the United States. Japan had the most accurate and Indonesia the least accurate
clocks. The researchers also measured the speed at which people in these six cultures walked; Another type of time is Interpersonal
results showed that the Japanese walked the fastest, the Indonesians the slowest (LeVine & Time explained at tcbdevito
Bartlett, 1984). .blogspot.com. What’s your
experience with any of these
Monochronism and polychronism Another important cultural distinction exists between dimensions of interpersonal time?
monochromic time orientation and polychronic time orientation (Hall, 1959, 1976; Hall &
Hall, 1987). Monochronic peoples or cultures, such as those of the United States, Germany,
Scandinavia, and Switzerland, schedule one thing at a time. These cultures compartmentalize
time and set sequential times for different activities. Polychronic peoples or cultures, such as
those of Latin America, the Mediterranean, and the Arab world, on the other hand, schedule
multiple things at the same time. Eating, conducting business with several different people,
and taking care of family matters may all go on at once. No culture is entirely monochronic
or polychronic; rather, these are general or preponderant tendencies. Some cultures combine
both time orientations; in Japan and in parts of American culture, for example, both orienta-
tions can be found.

social clocks Your culture maintains a social clock—a time schedule for the right time to
do various important things, such as starting to date, finishing college, buying your own
home, or having a child. The social clock tells you whether you’re keeping pace with your
peers, are ahead of them, or are falling behind (Neugarten, 1979; Greene, 2003). On the basis
of this social clock, which you learned as you grew up, you evaluate your own social and pro-
fessional development. If you’re keeping pace with the rest of your peers (e.g., you started
dating at the “appropriate” age or you’re finishing college at the “appropriate” age), you’ll feel
well adjusted, competent, and a part of the group. If you’re late, you’ll probably experience
feelings of dissatisfaction. Although today the social clock is becoming more flexible and
more tolerant of deviations from the acceptable time table, it still exerts pressure on each of
us to keep pace with our peers (Peterson, 1996).

Objectives self-check
● Can you describe and give examples of the channels through which you send and receive
nonverbal messages (body communication, facial communication, eye communication, spatial
communication, artifactual communication, touch communication, paralanguage, silence, and
time communication)?

Some Nonverbal Communication Skills

Throughout the discussion of nonverbal communication, you’ve probably deduced a number
of suggestions for improving your own nonverbal communication. Here, we bring together
some suggestions for both receiving and sending nonverbal messages.
Perhaps the most general skill that applies to both receiving and sending is to become
mindful of nonverbal messages—those of others as well as your own. Observe those whose
nonverbal behavior you find particularly effective and those you find ineffective and try to
identify exactly what makes one effective and one ineffective. Consider this chapter a brief
introduction to a lifelong study.
In addition to mindfulness, general suggestions can be offered under two headings:
decoding (or interpreting) nonverbal messages and encoding (or sending) nonverbal
messages.