37 Interaction and Human Communication
Impossibility of not Communicating
Within an interaction, neither person can stop behaving, and each adapts to the other’s behavior. Whether they are talking or remaining silent, being active or passive, they are behaving. Each person perceives the other’s behavior and attaches meaning to some of it.
Those behaviors to which meaning is assigned become messages. Since any behavior can become a message, it is impossible to keep from generating meaning within an interaction. In this sense one cannot communicate.
In an interaction, anything you do or not do is communicating some message. If you move closer to someone when talking to them, you are communicating one thing, if you stay where you are, you are communicating something else. Depending on the role each person is in, who they are, what the current situation is, different actions and words could communicate different things.
Self-disclosure and Self-image
Self-disclosure in interaction is a revealing of the “inner” or “real” person to another, or the revealing or concealing of significant information about one’s feelings or experiences. Self-disclosure relates to self-image, which is a persons image of him or herself that consists of a set of role images. In various different roles, you have an image of yourself as acting in some fashion or being yourself in some way. Self-disclosure could be an ongoing attempt to not disclose information about yourself and your feelings in an attempt to defend your self-image. If you disclosed all your personal feelings, you might perceive yourself as being vulnerable.
The self or self-image is the center from which all communication occurs. When there is a perceived threat to the self-image, communication will be characterized by defensiveness. Defensive communication involves a person’s attempt to conceal some significant meaning in order to protect his or her self-image. For example, if someone criticized someone else by calling them incompetent, the other person may start to feel stupid, and would want to hide that. People try to defend their self-images. Someone could try to hide aspects of their self-image or hide feeling and decisions they have about their lives. These feelings and decisions may or may not be understood by other people. Someone could go a long time in a relationship with someone else and be hiding certain feelings because they are being defensive or they just don’t want the other person to know.
Disclosure of Experience in the Here and Now
One aspect of disclosure is the expression of what a person is feeling, thinking, and experiencing in the “here and now”. There is a sense in which healthy communication can be achieved only if both persons involved in an interaction are openly, freely, and spontaneously expressing to each other what they are experiencing in the immediate situation. Difficulties in communication occur when a person is trying to communicate one thing while actually feeling or ex