Saturday, August 7, 2010
"intentionality"
Intentionality. When the heck do we communicate without intention? Isn’t that the point of communication? We could easily take this path and this path only, but the truth of the matter is that communication is not always intentional. One could easily argue that most non-verbal communication is not intentional. In fact we could even go as far as to say that intentionally through people off with non-verbal communication are rather clever. The intentionality of communication is interesting in so much as it can help us to better understand the true motives behind the sender. It can also helps us, if genuinely used, help us to read the emotions of the sender. I find often that when I’m upset during a meeting that someone I know will ask me later if I was ok. It seems as though I wear my emotions on my face and in my posture. This is an example of unintentional communication.
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Good point. I thought about intentionality for a minute after reading your post and it's true. All of my verbal communication today had intention. But on the other hand my non-verbal may have been unintentional. For example, I went to Great America and wore shorts. Well it was a hot day to begin with but then got really cold. My boyfriend commented on how I tried to look cute but then I ended up being cold. My intention was not to "look cute" but to not be hot. I unintentionally sent him a nonverbal message with my clothes :)
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