read it and write down your ideas
Even though they have been doing it all their lives, people need to study communication simply because it is so complex. As stated in chapter 3 of the book, we all perceive things differently and "perception and communication influence each other, perception shapes our understanding of others' communication and the choices we make in our own communication" (pg. 41). For the reason that the choices we make and the ways that we view things/situations are changing everyday, communication between two individuals also changes and becomes more complex. Though we can communicate in general, how we communicate and what we communicate depends on how we perceive the world around us, making communication not as simple as it seems. As humans, we create broad categories of things (prototypes) and place people into them (Wood pg. 43). We then go on to create a more detailed assessment (a personal construct) where we measure a person or situation with a certain dimension of judgment (Wood pg. 43). We also place people and situations into stereotypes by making predictive generalizations or simply predicting what the personal/situation will be like or what will happen (Wood pg. 43). With all of these components to a basic path of communicating with others, it's hard to not see why we would study our complex underlying system of human communication. Not only do we make assumptions, but we base our thoughts/actions off of those assumptions which can then all be interpreted differently among various individuals. We study communication to try and dissect all of these interpretations and perceptions of others "to make sense of experience and to predict how we and others will act" (Wood pg. 45). Sometimes we follow a script or just simply act a specific way in a specific situation (like greeting someone and telling them your name) (Wood pg. 45). However, not everyone follows these scripts which just adds to the complexity of communication between us all.
read it and write down your ideas
Even though they have been doing it all their lives, people need to study communication simply because it is so complex. As stated in chapter 3 of the book, we all perceive things differently and "perception and communication influence each other, perception shapes our understanding of others' communication and the choices we make in our own communication" (pg. 41). For the reason that the choices we make and the ways that we view things/situations are changing everyday, communication between two individuals also changes and becomes more complex. Though we can communicate in general, how we communicate and what we communicate depends on how we perceive the world around us, making communication not as simple as it seems. As humans, we create broad categories of things (prototypes) and place people into them (Wood pg. 43). We then go on to create a more detailed assessment (a personal construct) where we measure a person or situation with a certain dimension of judgment (Wood pg. 43). We also place people and situations into stereotypes by making predictive generalizations or simply predicting what the personal/situation will be like or what will happen (Wood pg. 43). With all of these components to a basic path of communicating with others, it's hard to not see why we would study our complex underlying system of human communication. Not only do we make assumptions, but we base our thoughts/actions off of those assumptions which can then all be interpreted differently among various individuals. We study communication to try and dissect all of these interpretations and perceptions of others "to make sense of experience and to predict how we and others will act" (Wood pg. 45). Sometimes we follow a script or just simply act a specific way in a specific situation (like greeting someone and telling them your name) (Wood pg. 45). However, not everyone follows these scripts which just adds to the complexity of communication between us all.
