Communication barriers - classification, methods and examples of overcoming

Concept

Communication barriers , causal factors that prevent successful communication in which both parties absorb and exchange information.

Communication achieves success as a result of the reduction or absence of barriers when the sender's data is adequately perceived by the recipient.

The general classification of communication barriers divides them based on scale:

1. Macrobarriers are global; they interfere with communication in general. For example, a geographical barrier, when one of the communication participants, being in a different time zone, cannot continue the conversation and goes to bed.
2. Microbarriers are point-specific and relate to a specific area of ​​interest.
   For example, in everyday life a person is sociable, but he is taciturn with colleagues because he does not find communication with them interesting. In this case, there are personal and psychological barriers.

Causes

Lack of mutual understanding between interlocutors can arise for many reasons. These include:

• level of intelligence;
• unequal knowledge of the topic or subject of conversation;
• differences in the lexicon and thesaurus (a set of concepts corresponding to any field of knowledge);
• lack of understanding by partners of the communication situation;
• different worldviews based on differences of social, cultural, political, religious, professional, national character.

Barriers between interlocutors often manifest themselves as individual characteristics of a psychological nature. Examples of communication barriers of this kind:

• excessive frankness of one person and isolation of another;
• resentment, mistrust, suspicion and other negative feelings directed at the partner;
• intelligence versus assertiveness;
• intuitive rejection of someone else's personality.

These filters can act in such a way that true information is perceived as erroneous, and false information becomes acceptable.

Communication problems, what does this mean?

To identify problems with communication skills, it is worth separating them from simple sociability . These concepts, similar at first glance, are different in essence.

Sociability, the ability to carry on a conversation, chat about nothing, the ability to get involved in already developed communication.

While communication skills are most often considered in the context of business communication .

This includes the ability to negotiate, maintain business connections, find a compromise, and conduct a constructive dialogue with the interlocutor.

Therefore, a person who is not particularly sociable can still be sociable. Problems arise for several reasons :

1. There is no willingness to listen to the interlocutor, accept his point of view, or compromise.
2. Lack of motivation to establish contact.
3. Prejudicial personal attitude towards a specific person.
4. Objective barriers (will be discussed below).
5. Poorly developed empathy.
6. Insufficient vocabulary, broken speech, use of filler words, etc.

Correcting the situation depends on the specific reasons .

Being able to negotiate is a common skill that is easy to train. Exactly the same as the ability to remove communication barriers from communication.

Features of communication

Communication during verbal interaction is addressed to the interlocutor, consists of an exchange of opinions and experiences, expression of desires, or is intended to cause changes in the dialogue partner’s ideas about any subject. In other words, communication always involves the process of exchanging information. At the same time, the voiced information is not only transmitted, but also formed, clarified, and developed.

Communications differ in some features:

• Diversity. From a discussion of a new computer game by schoolchildren to a scientific conversation between specialists at a symposium.
• Effectiveness of communication. Depends on the form of communication (oral, written).
• Significance. The exchange of information occurs for specific purposes and serves to satisfy people's need to obtain the necessary information.
• Influence. Successful communication influence can change the interlocutor's understanding of the subject of conversation.

Nevertheless, there are often situations in life when communication is difficult for people to understand each other. Communication barriers in psychology are barriers of various origins that can arise between dialogue partners during the exchange of adequate information.

They manifest themselves as psychological resistance on the part of the person who, as it were, defends himself from the active presentation of information and prevents this exchange of information between the interlocutors who have entered into a dialogue. When receiving information from the external environment, communication barriers (CBs) may appear associated with the multitude of information that every person receives every day.

In the process of external communication, information overload and a feeling of disorientation when choosing a source (press, television, Internet) may occur, which leads to the devaluation of the information received. On the other hand, the ability to correctly use information, for example, exclusive or known to a limited circle of people, allows you to influence other people and expand your influence.

Communication barriers: real-life examples

Let's look at several types of communication barriers using real life examples :

1. When communicating online via Skype, friends were unable to understand each other’s words ; it turned out that one of them had headphones not working and there was no other option to output sound (organizational).
2. The employee came to the meeting in an irritated state and was unable to concentrate on the boss’s speech (personal).
3. The student did not understand the content of the mathematics lesson because he was far from the board and, due to vision problems, was unable to read the material (individual).
4. The freelance artist did not have time to agree on work with the customer , since he had already gone to bed, the matter was due to the difference in time zones (geographical).
5. The lovers who were calling each other had a break in communication , the girl ran out of money in her account, since calling to another country is expensive.
   The young man is on a business trip in the States, and the girl is at work in Russia (economic).
6. Friends chatting on a social network were separated , one lost Wi-Fi (technical).
7. The girl explains his bad deed to a guy she knows, but he demonstratively does not accept her words , because he considers her stupider than himself (psychological).
8. The boss tells the novice designer about his credentials, forgetting to explain the professional jargon (informative) that is unfamiliar to the young man .

Ways to overcome

1. You should learn to understand yourself (feel at what exact moment a barrier begins to build) and others (see their behavior and recognize other people’s barriers).
2. Try to create a comfortable atmosphere during communication. If you notice that a particular topic causes a clash of characters and opinions, it is better to switch to something more optimistic, light and relaxed.
3. Active use of a sense of humor always helps to relax and promotes fun dialogue.
4. Overly impulsive individuals should exercise some control over their loud speech and active gestures.
5. Attending social and psychological trainings.

Species and types

What are the causes of communication disorders? Communication barriers are obstacles to the transfer of information from the communicator (the one who speaks) to the recipient (the one who listens).

Psychologists identify seven main types of barriers:

1. Organizational .
   A large layer of obstacles related to work (business) issues. This includes misunderstandings in the area of ​​distribution of powers (the system of superior-subordinate relations), as well as problems in misunderstanding of requirements, specialization, and insufficient qualifications.
2. Interpersonal . Associated with the current mood and emotional state of a person. Also taken into account are inconsistencies in values, views on the situation and worldview in general among communicating people.
3. Individual . A wide range of characteristics, both intellectual and psychological, as well as physical. The meaning comes from the name, the reasons for the barrier are different due to the individual structure of a person. For example, one person is prevented from correctly perceiving information by poor hearing, another by poor vision. These types of barriers prevent you from sending and receiving information messages. This also includes special mental illnesses (for example, Tourette's syndrome).
4. Economic, geographical and temporal . Objective obstacles associated with the location of those communicating.
5. Barrier of channels and means of data transmission .
   Consists of equipment malfunctions (internet or telephone connection failure, computer or telephone breakdown), as well as too many choices among the alternatives provided. For example, when a person is torn between the options of sending a message on a social network, in a messenger or via SMS.
6. Psychological . It consists of a personal (biased) attitude towards the interlocutor. If a person is attractive and has a good attitude towards him, communication will be successful. If he seems boring, boring, uninteresting or dangerous, this barrier arises. Its harm lies in the fact that the impression of a person is made up of various factors, and not always objective ones. It is important to perceive information without attaching personal opinion to its source.
7. Contentful . They are linguistic. They are divided into four subtypes: phonetic (slurred speech, fillers, filler words), semantic (jargon, professional slang, use of words in a meaning unusual for the interlocutor), stylistic (difference between the speaker’s style and the transmitted data), logical (violation of the rules of usual logic) .

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