Review of Class

I liked the way the weekly assignments were designed. I can explain my reasoning for my answers to the questions whenever I had time within each week. I am also able to read other people’s comments on the same questions and see different perspective. There is also the chance that someone commented on my post and then I learn about that person’s views on my stated answers, which again lets me see a different perspective, thus expanding my own perspective. I also think that it’s great that there are many useful and active means of contacting the professor and having questions answered on a more one-to-one basis. As for improvement within the class, I do not think that there are huge problems that need to be. Everything seems satisfactory, but revisions on the instructions to make them clearer, and looking over the course schedule would help make things easier for us as students. To me, it seems that the instructions are not as clear as they could be, and the schedule appears like there are too many “weeks-off” that are too close to each other and within the later part of the course as opposed to being more spread out. Of course, there are probably reasons behind this, due to the professor’s other possible scheduling conflicts and such.

Concept that needs more discussion

I think that how the self-concept is constructed needs further construction. There was not much discussion about interpersonal communication’s self, a topic that includes the looking-glass self-concept. One constructs a view of oneself through the numerous interactions within the course of an individual’s life, and the continuously knowledge that gets built up after each new experience. If parents and others tell one specific girl that she is beautiful continuously, praising her and spoiling her, that girl may deem herself as beautiful. This then raises her self-esteem and self-confidence in herself as a beautiful person, which should normally garner attention and thus influencing her daily behavior and attitude. This may include activities such as spending more time and money on herself with the reasoning that it is worth it. She may feel inadequate about other traits other than her beauty if the dialogues of her interpersonal relationships are solely centered on beauty rather than intellect, athleticism or other traits. Thus she may solely focus on keeping that beauty or enhancing it, feeling that this beauty is the one good trait that she has. There are many ways in which the relationships that one has affects how one sees oneself and also the world and thus behave within that reality.

Most Interesting Concept

The most interesting concept that I encountered from the class is would be nonverbal communication’s chronemics. I knew before that nonverbal communication is important as well, considering the impact of first impressions and how verbal messages are interpreted differently based on nonverbal cues. However, I had not given a lot of thought about how present and future time may affect human behavior and thus used as nonverbal messages. There is the dimension of psychological time orientation, involving the way that an individual may think about time, view time as, and experience it. One may focus on the present or the future, or even feel anxious about time obligations from both time perspective categories. There is the way that bodies may influence the nonverbal behaviors that one exhibits, the biological time orientation. Finally there is the cultural time orientation where one’s culture influences the perspective of time. Time is important and how one views and spends it determine how one acts within a daily basis.