Looking Out, Looking In by Adler, Proctor (15th edition)

• Abstract language. Language that is vague and general rather than concrete and specific. See also behavioral language.
• Abstraction ladder. A range of more to less abstract terms describing an event or object.
• Accenting. Nonverbal behaviors that emphasize part of a verbal message.
• Accommodating. A lose-win conflict style in which the communicator submits to a situation rather than attempts to have his or her needs met.
• Adaptors. Unconscious bodily movements in response to the environment.
• Advising. A listening response in which the receiver offers suggestions about how the speaker should deal with a problem.
• Affinity. The degree to which persons like or appreciate one another.
• Aggressiveness. Verbal attacks that demean another's selfconcept and inflict psychological pain.
• Ambiguous response. A disconfirming response with more than one meaning, leaving the other party unsure of the responder's position.
• Ambushing. A style in which the receiver listens carefully in order to gather information to use in an attack on the speaker.
• Analyzing. A listening response in which the receiver offers an interpretation of a speaker's message.
• Androgynous. Possessing both masculine and feminine traits.
• Argumentativeness. Presenting and defending positions on issues while attacking positions taken by others.
• Assertive message format. A direct expression of the sender's needs and thoughts delivered in a way that does not attack the receiver's dignity. A complete assertive message describes behavior, interpretation, feeling, consequence, and intention.
• Asynchronous communication. Communication that occurs when there is a time gap between when the message is sent and when it is received. See also synchronous communication.
• Attending. The process of filtering out some messages and focusing on others.
• Attribution. The process of attaching meaning to behavior. See also interpretation statement.
• Avoiding (conflict style). A lose-lose conflict style in which the parties ignore the problem at hand.
• Avoiding (relational stage). A stage of relational deterioration immediately before terminating in which the parties minimize contact with one another.
• Behavioral description. An account that refers only to observable phenomena.
• Behavioral language. Language that describes observable behavior. See also abstract language.
• Benevolent lie. A lie defined by the teller as not malicious, or even helpful, to the person to whom it is told.
• Body orientation. A type of nonverbal communication characterized by the degree to which we face forward or away from someone.
• Bonding. A stage of relational development in which the parties make symbolic public gestures to show that their relationship exists.
• Breadth. A dimension of self-disclosure involving the range of subjects being discussed.
• "but" statement. A statement in which the word but cancels out the expression preceding it.
• Certainty. An attitude behind messages that dogmatically implies that the speaker's position is correct and that the other person's ideas are not worth considering. Likely to generate a defensive response. channel The medium through which a message passes from sender to receiver.
• Chronemics. The study of how humans use and structure time.
• Circumscribing. A stage of relational deterioration in which partners begin to reduce the scope of their contact and commitment to one another. clichés Ritualized, stock statements delivered in response to a social situation.
• Co-culture. A culture that exists within the larger culture of a country or society, such as subgroups defined by age, race or ethnicity, occupation, sexual orientation, physical disability, religion, avocation, and so on.
• Cognitive complexity. The ability to construct a variety of frameworks for viewing an issue.
• Cognitive conservatism. The tendency to seek and attend to information that conforms to an existing self-concept.
• Collaborating. A conflict management style that seeks win-win solutions.
• Communication climate. The emotional tone of a relationship between two or more individuals.
• Communication competence. The ability to accomplish one's personal goals in a manner that maintains a relationship on terms that are acceptable to all parties. competing A win-lose approach to conflicts that seeks to resolve them in one's own way.
• Complaining. A disagreeing message that directly or indirectly communicates dissatisfaction with another person.
• Complementary conflict style. A relational conflict style in which partners use different but mutually reinforcing behaviors.
• Complementing. Nonverbal behavior that reinforces a verbal message.
• Compromising. An approach to conflict resolution in which both parties attain at least part of what they wanted through self-sacrifice.
• Confirming communication. A message that expresses caring or respect for another person.
• Conflict. An expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from the other party in achieving their goals.
• Conflict ritual. An unacknowledged repeating pattern of interlocking behavior used by participants in a conflict.
• Conformity orientation. The degree to which a family enforces a uniformity of attitudes, values, and beliefs.
• Connection-autonomy dialectic. The tension bet ween the need for integration and the need for independence in a relationship.
• Consequence statement. An explanation of the results that follow from either the behavior of the person to whom the message is addressed or the speaker's interpretation of the addressee's behavior. Consequence statements can describe what happens to the speaker, the addressee, or others.
• Content dimension. The part of a message that communicates information about the subject being discussed. See also relational dimension.
• Contradicting. Nonverbal behavior that is inconsistent with a verbal message.
• Control. The social need to influence others.
• Controlling communication. Messages in which the sender tries to impose some sort of outcome on the receiver, usually resulting in a defensive reaction.
• Convergence. The process of adapting one's speech style to match that of others with whom the communicator wants to identify. See also divergence.
• Conversation orientation. The degree of openness a family has in discussing a range of topics.
• Counterfeit questions. Questions that disguise the speaker's true motives, which do not include a genuine desire to understand the other person. See also sincere questions.
• Crazymaking. An indirect expression of aggression delivered in a way that allows the sender to maintain a façade of kindness. Also called passive aggression.
• Cyberbullying. The aggressive harassment of others online.
• Cyberstalking. Obsessive surveillance and pursuit of others online.
• Debilitative emotions. Emotions that prevent a person from functioning effectively.
• Decode. The process in which a receiver attaches meaning to a message.
• De-escalatory conflict spiral. A communication pattern in which the parties slowly lessen their dependence on one another, withdraw, and become less invested in the relationship. See also spiral.
• Defensive listening. A response style in which the receiver perceives a speaker's comments as an attack.
• Defensiveness. The attempt to protect a presenting image that a person believes is being attacked.
• Depth. A dimension of self-disclosure involving a shift from relatively nonrevealing messages to more personal ones.
• Description. Gibb's term for language that describes a complaint in behavioral terms rather than being judgmental, thereby creating a supportive communication climate. See also evaluation, "I" language.
• Dialectical tensions. Inherent conflicts that arise when two opposing or incompatible forces exist simultaneously.
• Differentiating. A relational stage in which the parties reestablish their individual identities after having bonded together.
• Direct aggression. A criticism or demand that threatens the face of the person at whom it is directed.
• Disagreeing messages. Messages that communicate to the other person, "You are wrong." Includes aggressiveness, complaining, and argumentativeness.
• Disconfirming communication. A message that expresses a lack of caring or respect for another person.
• Disinhibition. The tendency to transmit messages without considering their consequences; occurs more frequently in mediated communication. divergence Language mannerisms that emphasize a communicator's differences from others. See also convergence.
• Dyad. Two individuals communicating. The interaction may or may not be interpersonal in nature.
• Emblems. Deliberate nonverbal behaviors with precise meanings that are known to virtually all members of a cultural group.
• Emotion labor. Managing and even suppressing emotions when doing so is both appropriate and necessary.
• Emotional contagion. The process by which emotions are transferred from one person to another.
• Emotional intelligence. The ability to understand and manage one's own emotions and be sensitive to others' feelings.
• Emotive language. Language that conveys the sender's attitude rather than simply offers an objective description.
• Empathy. The ability to project oneself into another person's point of view so as to experience the other's thoughts and feelings. See also sympathy.
• Encode. The process of putting thoughts into symbols, most commonly words.
• Environment. The field of experiences that leads a person to make sense of another's behavior. Environments consist of physical characteristics, personal experiences, relational history, and cultural background.
• Equality. A type of supportive communication described by Gibb that suggests that the sender regards the receiver as worthy of respect.
• Equivocal language. Ambiguous language that has two or more equally plausible meanings.
• Escalatory conflict spiral. A communication pattern in which one attack leads to another until the initial skirmish escalates into a full-fledged battle. See also spiral.
• Ethnocentrism. The attitude that one's own culture is superior to others.
• Evaluation. Gibb's term for judgmental assessments of another person's behavior, thereby increasing the odds of creating a defensive communication climate. See also description, "I" language.
• Experimenting. An early stage in relational development consisting of a search for common ground. If the experimentation is successful, then the relationship will progress to intensifying. If not, it may go no further.
• Face. The socially approved identity that a communicator tries to present. See also identity management.
• Face-threatening act. Behavior by another that is perceived as attacking an individual's presenting image, or face.
• Facilitative emotions. Emotions that contribute to effective functioning.
• Fallacy of approval. The irrational belief that it is vital to win the approval of virtually every person a communicator deals with.
• Fallacy of catastrophic expectations. The irrational belief that the worst possible outcome will probably occur.
• Fallacy of causation. The irrational belief that emotions are caused by others and not by the person who has them.
• Fallacy of helplessness. The irrational belief that satisfaction in life is determined by forces beyond one's control.
• Fallacy of overgeneralization. Irrational beliefs in which (1) conclusions (usually negative) are based on limited evidence, or (2) communicators exaggerate their shortcomings.
• Fallacy of perfection. The irrational belief that a worthwhile communicator should be able to handle every situation with complete confidence and skill.
• Fallacy of shoulds. The irrational belief that people should behave in the most desirable way.
• Family communication pattern. A mode of family interaction that involves a blending of conversation and conformity orientations. These include consensual, pluralistic, protective, and laissez-faire patterns.
• Family system. A group of interdependent individuals who interact and adapt together as a whole.
• Feeling statement. An expression of the sender's emotions that results from interpretation of sense data.
• Friends with benefits (FWB). A popular term for nonromantic heterosexual friendships that include sexual activity.
• Gender role. Socially approved ways that men and women are expected to behave.
• Gestures. Motions of the body, usually hands or arms, that have communicative value.
• Gibb categories. Six sets of contrasting styles of verbal and nonverbal behavior. Each set describes a communication style that is likely to arouse defensiveness and a contrasting style that is likely to prevent or reduce it. Developed by Jack Gibb.
• Halo effect. The power of a first impression to influence subsequent perceptions.
• Haptics. The study of touching.
• Hearing. The physiological dimension of listening.
• High-context cultures. Cultures that avoid direct use of language, relying instead on the context of a message to convey meaning.
• Hyperpersonal communication. An accelerated discussion of personal topics and relational development beyond what normally happens in face-to-face interactions.
• "I" language. A statement that clearly identifies the speaker as the source of a message. See also "you" language, description.
• Illustrators. Nonverbal behaviors that accompany and support verbal messages.
• Immediacy. The degree of interest and attention that we feel toward and communicate to others.
• Impersonal communication. Behavior that treats others as objects rather than individuals. See also interpersonal communication.
• Impersonal response. A disconfirming response that is superficial or trite.
• Impervious response. A disconfirming response that ignores another person's attempt to communicate.
• Impression management. The communication strategies people use to influence how others view them. See also face.
• Incongruous response. A disconfirming response in which two messages, one of which is usually nonverbal, contradict each other.
• Initiating. The first stage in relational development in which the parties express interest in one another.
• Insensitive listening. Failure to recognize the thoughts or feelings that are not directly expressed by a speaker.
• Instrumental goals. Goals aimed at getting others to behave in desired ways.
• Insulated listening. A style in which the receiver ignores undesirable information.
• Integrating. A stage of relational development in which the parties begin to take on a single identity.
• Intensifying. A stage of relational development that precedes integrating in which the parties move toward integration by increasing the amount of contact and the breadth and depth of self-disclosure.
• Intention statement. A description of where the speaker stands on an issue, what he or she wants, or how he or she plans to act in the future.
• Interpersonal communication. A continuous, transactional process involving participants who occupy different but overlapping environments and create meaning and relationships through the exchange of messages, many of which are affected by external, physiological, and psychological noise.
• Interpretation. The process of attaching meaning to sense data.
• Interpretation statement. A statement that describes the speaker's interpretation of the meaning of another person's behavior. See also attribution.
• Interrupting response. A disconfirming response in which one communicator interrupts another.
• Intimacy. A state of closeness arising from physical, intellectual, or emotional contact or sometimes from shared activities.
• Intimate distance. One of Hall's four distance zones, ranging from skin contact to 18 inches.
• Irrelevant response. A disconfirming response in which one communicator's comments bear no relationship to the previous speaker's ideas.
• "It" statements. Statements that replace the personal pronoun "I" with the less immediate word "it," often reducing the speaker's acceptance of responsibility for the statement.
• Johari Window. A model that describes the relationship between self-disclosure and self-awareness.
• Judging. A listening response in which the receiver evaluates the sender's message either favorably or unfavorably.
• Kinesics. The study of body position and motion.
• Leakage. Nonverbal behaviors that reveal information a communicator does not disclose verbally.
• Leanness. Messages (usually electronic) that are stark from a lack of nonverbal information; opposite of richness.
• Linear communication model. A characterization of communication as a one-way event in which a message flows from sender to receiver.
• Linguistic relativism. The notion that the worldview of a culture is shaped and reflected by the language its members speak. See also Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
• Listening. Process that consists of hearing, attending, understanding, responding, and remembering others' messages.
• Listening fidelity. The degree of congruence between what a listener understands and what the message sender was attempting to communicate.
• Love languages. Modes of communicating affection in romantic relationships. These include words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.
• Low-context cultures. Cultures that use language primarily to express thoughts, feelings, and ideas as directly as possible.
• Manipulators. A type of nonverbal adaptors involving selftouching behaviors.
• Mediated communication. Communication between individuals that is conducted via electronic channels.
• Message. Information sent from a sender to a receiver.
• Metacommunication. Messages (usually relational) that refer to other messages; communication about communication.
• Microexpression. A brief facial expression.
• Mindful listening. Giving careful and thoughtful attention and responses to the messages we receive.
• Mindless listening. Reacting to others' messages automatically and routinely without much mental investment.
• Mixed message. Situation in which a person's words are incongruent with his or her nonverbal behavior.
• Monochronic. Behavior emphasizing punctuality, schedules, and completing one task at a time.
• Narrative. The stories used to describe one's personal world.
• Negotiation. The sense making that occurs between and among people as they influence one another's perceptions and try to achieve a shared perspective. Fourth stage in the perception process.
• Neutrality. A defense-arousing behavior described by Gibb in which the sender expresses indifference toward a receiver.
• Noise. External, physiological, and psychological distractions that interfere with the accurate transmission and reception of a message.
• Nonverbal communication. Messages expressed by other than linguistic means.
• Online surveillance. Monitoring the activities of unknowing targets through social media.
• Openness-privacy dialectic. The tension between the need for disclosure and the need for secrecy in a relationship.
• Organization. The second stage in the perception process in which selected information is arranged in some meaningful way.
• Paralanguage. Nonlinguistic means of vocal expression: rate, pitch, tone, and so on.
• Parallel conflict style. A relational conflict style in which the approach of the partners varies from one situation to another.
• Paraphrasing. Restating a speaker's thoughts or feelings in the listener's own words.
• Passive aggression. An indirect expression of aggression delivered in a way that allows the sender to maintain a façade of kindness. Also called crazymaking.
• Perceived self. The person we believe ourselves to be in moments of candor. It may be identical to or different from the presenting and ideal self.
• Perception checking. A three-part method for verifying the accuracy of interpretations, including a description of the sense data, two possible interpretations, and a request for confirmation of the interpretations.
• Personal distance. One of Hall's four distance zones, ranging from 18 inches to 4 feet.
• Personality. A relatively consistent set of traits exhibited by a person across a variety of situations.
• Pillow method. A method for understanding an issue from several perspectives rather than with an egocentric "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude.
• Politeness. Communicating in ways that save face for both senders and receivers.
• Polychronic. An approach to the use of time that emphasizes flexibility and pursuing multiple tasks.
• Posture. The way in which individuals carry themselves— erect, slumping, and so on.
• Powerless speech mannerisms. Ways of speaking that may reduce perceptions of a communicator's power.
• Pragmatic rules. Linguistic rules that help communicators understand how messages may be used and interpreted in a given context.
• Predictability-novelty dialectic. The tension between the need for stability and the need for change in a relationship.
• Presenting self. The image a person presents to others. It may be identical to or different from the perceived and ideal self.
• Privacy management. The choices people make to reveal or conceal information about themselves.
• Problem orientation. A supportive style of communication described by Gibb in which the communicators focus on working together to solve their problems instead of trying to impose their own solutions on one another.
• Prompting. Using silences and brief statements of encouragement to draw out a speaker.
• Provisionalism. A supportive style of communication described by Gibb in which the sender expresses a willingness to consider the other person's position.
• Proxemics. The study of how people use interpersonal space and distance.
• Pseudolistening. An imitation of true listening in which the receiver's mind is elsewhere.
• Public distance. One of Hall's four distance zones, extending outward from 12 feet.
• Punctuation. The process of determining the causal order of events.
• Questioning. A listening response in which the receiver seeks additional information from the sender.
• Reappraisal. Rethinking the meaning of emotionally charged events in ways that alter their emotional impact.
• Receiver. One who notices and attends to a message.
• Reference groups. Groups against which we compare ourselves, thereby influencing our self-concept and self-esteem.
• Reflected appraisal. The theory that a person's self-concept mirrors the way the person believes others regard him or her.
• Regulating. One function of nonverbal communication in which nonverbal cues control the flow of verbal communication among individuals.
• Relational commitment. A promise—sometimes implied and sometimes explicit—to remain in a relationship and to make that relationship successful.
• Relational conflict style. A pattern of managing disagreements that repeats itself over time in a relationship.
• Relational dimension. The part of a message that expresses the social relationship between two or more individuals. See also content dimension.
• Relational maintenance. Communication aimed at keeping relationships operating smoothly and satisfactorily.
• Relational transgression. One partner's violation of the explicit or implicit terms of the relationship, letting the other one down in some important way.
• Relational turning point. Transformative event that alters a relationship in a fundamental way.
• Relative words. Words that gain their meaning by comparison.
• Remembering. Ability to recall information.
• Repeating. Nonverbal behaviors that duplicate the content of a verbal message.
• Respect. The social need to be held in esteem by others. responding Giving observable feedback to the speaker.
• Richness. An abundance of nonverbal cues that add clarity to a verbal message; opposite of leanness.
• Role. A set of expectations about how to communicate.
• Rumination. Dwelling persistently on negative thoughts that, in turn, intensifies negative feelings.
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Theory of linguistic relativity in which language shapes a culture's perceived reality. See also linguistic relativism.
• Selection. The first stage in the perception process in which some data are chosen to attend to and others to ignore.
• Selective listening. A listening style in which the receiver responds only to messages that interest him or her.
• Self-concept. The relatively stable set of perceptions each individual holds of himself or herself.
• Self-disclosure. The process of deliberately revealing information about oneself that is significant and that would not normally be known by others.
• Self-esteem. The part of the self-concept that involves an individual's evaluations of his or her self-worth.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy. An expectation of an event, followed by behaviors based on that expectation, that makes the outcome more likely to occur than would have been the case otherwise.
• Self-monitoring. The process of attending to one's behavior and using these observations to shape the way one behaves.
• Self-serving bias. The tendency to interpret and explain information in a way that casts the perceiver in the most favorable manner.
• Self-talk. The nonvocal process of thinking; sometimes referred to as intrapersonal communication.
• Semantic rules. Rules that govern the meaning of language as opposed to its structure. See also syntactic rules.
• Sender. The creator of a message.
• Significant others. People whose opinion is important enough to affect one's self-concept strongly.
• Sincere questions. Attempts to elicit information that enable the asker to understand the other person. See also counterfeit questions.
• Social comparison. Evaluation of oneself in terms of or by comparison to others.
• Social distance. One of Hall's distance zones, ranging from 4 to 12 feet.
• Social media. Forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities.
• Social penetration. A model that describes relationships in terms of their breadth and depth.
• Social support. Assistance for others provided through emotional, informational, or instrumental resources.
• Spiral. A reciprocal communication pattern in which each person's message reinforces the other's. See also de-escalatory conflict spiral, escalatory conflict spiral.
• Spontaneity. A supportive communication behavior described by Gibb in which the sender expresses a message without any attempt to manipulate the receiver.
• Stage-hogging. A listening style in which the receiver is more concerned with making his or her own point than in understanding the speaker.
• Stagnating. A stage of relational deterioration characterized by declining enthusiasm and by standardized forms of behavior.
• Static evaluation. The tendency to view people or relationships as unchanging.
• Stereotyping. Categorizing individuals according to a set of characteristics assumed to belong to all members of a group.
• Strategy. A defense-arousing style of communication described by Gibb in which the sender tries to manipulate or deceive a receiver.
• Substituting. Nonverbal behavior that takes the place of a verbal message.
• Superiority. A defense-arousing style of communication described by Gibb in which the sender states or implies that the receiver is not worthy of respect.
• Supporting. A listening response that demonstrates solidarity with a speaker's situation.
• Symmetrical conflict style. A relational conflict style in which both partners use the same tactics.
• Sympathy. Compassion for another's situation. See also empathy.
• Synchronous communication. Communication that occurs in real time. See also asynchronous communication.
• Syntactic rules. Rules that govern the ways symbols can be arranged, as opposed to the meanings of those symbols. See also semantic rules.
• Tangential response. A disconfirming response that uses the speaker's remark as a starting point for a shift to a new topic.
• Terminating. The concluding stage of relational deterioration, characterized by the acknowledgment of one or both parties that the relationship is over.
• Territory. A stationary area claimed by an individual.
• Transactional communication model. A characterization of communication as the simultaneous sending and receiving of messages in an ongoing, irreversible process. understanding Occurs when sense is made of a message.
• "We" language. Statement that implies that the issue is the concern and responsibility of both the speaker and receiver of a message. See also "I" language, "you" language.
• "You" language. A statement that expresses or implies a judgment of the other person. See also "I" language.