Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Business Communication
Read the introduction to this chapter, which discusses understanding ourselves, how we plan, and how we remember. After you read, try the exercises at the end of the section.
Intrapersonal Communication
Learning Objective
- Discuss intrapersonal communication.
When
you answer the question, "What are you doing?" what do you write?
Eating at your favorite restaurant? Working on a slow evening? Reading
your favorite book on a Kindle? Preferring the feel of paper to
keyboard? Reading by candlelight? In each case you are communicating
what you are doing, but you may not be communicating why, or what it
means to you. That communication may be internal, but is it only an
internal communication process?
Intrapersonal
communication can be defined as communication with one's self, and that
may include self-talk, acts of imagination and visualization, and even
recall and memory. You read on your cell
phone screen that your friends are going to have dinner at your favorite
restaurant. What comes to mind? Sights, sounds, and scents? Something
special that happened the last time you were there? Do you contemplate
joining them? Do you start to work out a plan of getting from your
present location to the restaurant? Do you send your friends a text
asking if they want company? Until the moment when you hit the "send"
button, you are communicating with yourself.
Communications
expert Leonard Shedletsky examines intrapersonal communication through
the eight basic components of the communication process (i.e., source,
receiver, message, channel, feedback, environment, context, and
interference) as transactional, but all the interaction occurs within
the individual. Perhaps, as you
consider whether to leave your present location and join your friends
at the restaurant, you are aware of all the work that sits in front of
you. You may hear the voice of your boss, or perhaps of one of your
parents, admonishing you about personal responsibility and duty. On the
other hand, you may imagine the friends at the restaurant saying
something to the effect of "you deserve some time off!"
At
the same time as you argue with yourself, Judy Pearson and Paul Nelson
would be quick to add that intrapersonal communication is not only your
internal monologue but also involves your efforts to plan how to get to
the restaurant. From planning to problem solving, internal conflict
resolution, and evaluations and judgments of self and others, we
communicate with ourselves through intrapersonal communication.
All
this interaction takes place in the mind without externalization, and
all of it relies on previous interaction with the external world. If you
had been born in a different country, to different parents, what
language would you speak? What language would you think in? What would
you value, what would be important to you, and what would not? Even as
you argue to yourself whether the prospect of joining your friends at
the restaurant overcomes your need to complete your work, you use
language and symbols that were communicated to you. Your language and
culture have given you the means to rationalize, act, and answer the
question, "What are you doing?" but you are still bound by the
expectations of yourself and the others who make up your community.
Key Takeaway
In intrapersonal communication, we communicate with ourselves.
Exercises
-
Describe what you are doing, pretending you are another person
observing yourself. Write your observations down or record them with a
voice or video recorder. Discuss the exercise with your classmates.
- Think of a time when you have used self-talk - for example, giving
yourself "I can do this!" messages when you are striving to meet a
challenge, or "what's the use?" messages when you are discouraged. Did
you purposely choose to use self-talk, or did it just happen? Discuss
your thoughts with classmates.
- Take a few minutes and visualize what you would like your life to be
like a year from now, or five years from now. Do you think this
visualization exercise will influence your actions and decisions in the
future? Compare your thoughts with those of your classmates.