Relationship Communication Problems: Perceptions

Video Transcript

"Okay the next thing that can be a barrier to communication is perception. And when I'm talking about perception, I'm talking about how you perceive things around you. How do the things around you present themselves in your mind? And this is mostly in relationship to people. For example, if someone is talking way too fast, or if they are not fluent in your native language. What you tend to do is dismiss them, well I don't know what he's talking about anyway. Or I can't understand him anyway. And that creates a barrier of communication because this person is trying to communicate. And you have already written them off because you can't understand them. A lot of times also, a preconceived attitude about a particular person or a particular culture can be a barrier to communication. I see this a lot with students on the university level when they have a professor that is of a different nationality. And their automatic reaction is negative because they think because this professor's from another culture, or has another native language that they won't be able to pass their course. That it'll be too hard, that it will be too hard to understand them. And that is not necessarily the case, but we tend to have preconceived attitudes about that in relation to culture. The next thing that we tend to alter our perception about is status. And what I mean by status, is someone who has a high status or is rather affluent or distinguished, or well known has a strong position or role in the community. We tend to cut them a lot of slack with regards to communication and barriers. Where if someone has a lower status, we tend to be very, very unforgiving about their status and we disregard them. We blow them off, which creates another barrier. So again what do we have to do? It's very similar to walking in another person's shoes. We have to get rid of preconceived ideas and perceptions, and we have to treat everyone equally. I like to talk about the philosophy of everybody's on an even playing field with me, until they do something to change that. But I never walk into a class or anywhere, and have preconceived ideas about a particular person. Because that creates barriers, and barriers it's very difficult to develop relationships with barriers."