Page 49 - Essentials of Human Communication

28 CHapTer 2 Perception of Self and Others

● The open self represents all the information, behaviors, attitudes, and feelings about
yourself that you, and also others, know. This could include your name, skin color, sex,
age, religion, and political beliefs. The size of the open self varies according to your per-
sonality and the people to whom you’re relating. For example, you may have a large open
self about your romantic life with your friends (you tell them everything) but a very small
open self about the same issues with, say, your parents.
● The blind self represents knowledge about you that others have but you don’t. This might
include your habit of finishing other people’s sentences or your way of rubbing your nose
when you become anxious. A large blind self indicates low self-awareness and interferes
with accurate communication. To reduce your blind self, you can follow the suggestions
offered below, in “Growing in Self-Awareness.”
● The unknown self represents those parts of yourself that neither you nor others know.
This is information buried in your subconscious. You may, for example, learn of your ob-
session with money, your fear of criticism, or the kind of lover you are through hypnosis,
dreams, psychological tests, or psychotherapy.
● The hidden self represents all the knowledge you have of yourself but keep secret from
others. This windowpane includes all your successfully kept secrets, such as your fanta-
sies, embarrassing experiences, and any attitudes or beliefs you want to keep private.
Explore the Exercise
“Disclosing Your Hidden Self” Each person’s Johari window will be different, and each individual’s window will vary
at MyCommunicationLab from one time to another and from one communication situation to another. You probably
have a very different configuration of window panes depending on whether you’re talking
face to face with a parent or on Facebook with a close friend. Figure 2.2(b) illustrates two pos-
sible configurations.

growing in Self-Awareness Because self-awareness is so important in communica-
tion, try to increase awareness of your own needs, desires, habits, beliefs, and attitudes. You
can do this in various ways.
● Listen to others. Conveniently, others are constantly giving you the very feedback you
need to increase self-awareness. In every interaction, people comment on you in some
way—on what you do, what you say, how you look. Sometimes these comments are
explicit: “Loosen up” or “Don’t take things so hard.” Often they’re “hidden” in the way
others look at you or in what they talk about. Pay close attention to this kind of
information.
● Increase your open self. Revealing yourself to others will help increase your self-awareness.
As you talk about yourself, you may see connections that you had previously missed.
With feedback from others, you may gain still more insight. Also, by increasing your
open self, you increase the chances that others will reveal what they know about you.
● Seek information about yourself. Encourage people to reveal what they know about you.
Use situations that arise every day to gain self-information: “Do you think I came down
too hard on the kids today?” “Do you think I was assertive enough when asking for the
raise?” But seek this self-awareness in moderation. If you do it too often, your friends
may soon perceive you as insecure or self-centered and look for someone else with
Communication whom to talk.
Choice point ● Dialogue with yourself. No one knows you better than you know yourself. Ask
Increasing yourself self-awareness questions: What motivates me to act as I do? What are my
Self-Awareness short- and long-term goals? How do I plan to achieve them? What are my
You’ve asked several different strengths and weaknesses?
people at school for a date, but so far all
you’ve received are rejections. Something’s
wrong; you’re not that bad. What are some Self-eSteeM
things you can do to increase your self-aware- Self-esteem is a measure of how valuable you think you are. People with high self-
ness of your dating techniques? To whom esteem think very highly of themselves, whereas people with low self-esteem view
would you be most likely to speak? What
would you say? themselves negatively. Before reading further about this topic, consider your own
self-esteem by taking the accompanying self-test, How’s Your Self-Esteem?