Self-Concept of Communication

The self-concept has incredible power to shape your communication with others. It can shape what you think of other people because your perception of others is related to how you view yourself. When you interact with other people, you get impressions from them that reveal how they evaluate you as a person and as a communicator. (O'Hair & Wiemann 2012, p.47).

When evaluating myself as a communicator, one thing that surprised me the most was the fact that I and the other two participant’s results were quite the same in communication anxiety, listening styles, and verbal aggressiveness. Being that I perceived myself so accurately as others also perceived me was surprising because people always tell me that I don’t ever give myself enough credit when it comes to many things with effective communication being one of them. Two interesting things that I have learned about communication is the self-fulfilling prophecy and self-efficacy.

Self-fulfilling prophecy, a prediction that causes an individual to alter his or her behavior in a way that makes a prediction more likely to occur is very effective in both my professional and personal life when positive. (O'Hair & Wiemann 2012, p.51). For example, professionally being that I am a teacher who looks at all her students as having the potential to succeed in whatever they do, despite their different learning styles, causes them to be more confident and not to shy away from a challenge.

Lastly, self-efficacy guides your ultimate choice of communication situations, making you much more likely to avoid situations where you believe your self-efficacy to be low.(O'Hair & Wiemann 2012, p.50). For example, in my personal life I am more detailed and honest when it comes to writing versus face to face communication. I tend to express my thoughts in a more detailed way when writing especially in situations whereas I know my nervousness and nonverbal cues will give a message that will be misinterpreted.