Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Attempts at defining interpersonal communication date

back to the Golden Age of Greece. Plato and Aristotle

discussed communication in terms of rhetoric. However,

several millennia later there is still no generally agreed

upon scientific definition of communication. According

to Webster’s New World Dictionary (1966), “to

communicate” is defined as “to impart, pass along,

transmit,” and “communication” is defined as “giving

and receiving of information, signals or messages by

talk, gestures, writing, etc.” These definitions are helpful

as orientations to this area of study, but lack sufficient

detail or specificity for scientific purposes.

The notion of transmission of information has been

applied to genetic materials as well as nonorganismic

events. An individual might transfer information from

one cognitive context to another in a form of

intraindividual communication. Furthermore, categories

representing intergroup, interorganizational,

international, and (in science fiction) intergalactic

communication could be developed. Interpersonal

communication refers to the transfer of information by a

source to a specific target. These communications

typically occur in face-to-face interactions, although

they may also occur by mail, telephone, television, the

Internet, or other electronic means. Lasswell (1948)

captured in one sentence much of the subject matter of

human communication: “Who says what in what channel

to whom with what effect?”

Electrical engineering principles were applied by

Shannon and Weaver in 1949 to human communication.

Figure 1 shows their model of the communication

process. The mind of the communicator may be

considered the source of the communication.

Presumably, messages originate in the brain and are

encoded for transmission to other people. The source

must have a means of transmitting information, such as

speech, gestures, or writing. The message is encoded and

sent as a signal to a receiver, who must decode the

message. Thus, the destination of a message is the mind

of a target or receiver person.

This information model is helpful in examining some of

the more important questions regarding interpersonal

communication. It should be noted that the source may

unintentionally communicate to others, as when

nonverbal cues betray a liar. Of course, the source may

not even be aware of a communication. For example, a

person may communicate liking for another by

maintaining a rather close physical proximity, but may

be unaware of doing so.

Intentional communication may be examined in terms of

the degree to which the interpretations of the source are

accurately received by the target. For some

communication theorists it is the sharing of

interpretations and not just the exchange of information

that lies at the heart of the communication process. Any

interference with accurate transfer of information is

referred to as noise in the system. Noise may be due to

ambiguous encoding, problems with channels through

which signals are transmitted, or faulty decoding by the

target. If, for example, the source transmitted a message

in German and the target understood only English, noise

would be attributable to the target’s inability to decode

the communication. If two persons were talking over the

telephone but could not hear each other because of static

over the lines, noise would be located in the channels

being used. One should not construe disagreement

between two persons as necessarily caused by noise. A

target may be able to take the viewpoint of the source

and fully understand the interpretation communicated,

but nevertheless disagree with it. Often persons believe

they have not been understood, when in reality the target

persons disagree with them.

There has often been confusion even among scientists in

distinguishing between language and communication.

To make the distinction, one must understand the

differences between signs, signals, and symbols. Signs

are environmental stimuli which the organism has

associated with other events. For example, a hunter may

associate certain prints in the dirt as a sign that a deer

has recently passed nearby. Signs are inflexibly and

directly related to their associated events.

Figure 1. A schematic of a communications system

(after Shannon & Weaver, 1949).

Signals are signs produced by living organisms. Most

animals can use signals in their interaction with other

animals. Thus, birds may emit love calls, insects may

transmit odors, and monkeys may manifest threat

gestures. Research by Gardner and Gardner (1969) has

shown that chimpanzees can be taught to use complex

signals often taught to deaf and/or mute humans.

However, even the most intense training results in fewer

than 400 signals learned by these higher primates.

Nevertheless, the ability of these animals to

communicate is clearly greater than previously thought

possible.

A symbol, like a signal, has a referent. However,

symbols do not necessarily refer to physical reality and

may not have space–time relationships as their referents.

Symbols derive their meaning from a community of

users and not from a connection with a referent. The use

of symbols allows the development of various abstract

areas of knowledge such as history, literature, religion,

art, and science. Furthermore, it provides the basis for

the individual’s construction of social reality, including

a self. The available evidence (Gardner & Gardner,

1969) indicates that only humans use symbols.

Chimpanzees appear to be confined to the existential

moment and cannot escape their time–space coordinates.

Although they can remember and signal what they did

an hour ago, they cannot report what they did yesterday

or reveal plans about the future. Thus, it appears that the

symbol represents an important discontinuity in

phylogenetic development between humans and all other

forms of life.

Language is a means of information processing and is

used to store, manipulate, create, and transmit

information. No analysis of interpersonal

communication among humans would be complete

without a consideration of the symbolic aspects of

language. Two important properties of symbols are that

they may refer to classes of things, and they may have

multiple meanings. Thus, errors in communication are

both frequent and inevitable; that is, noise tends to be an

inevitable feature of interpersonal communication.

Situations and relationships with others provide contexts

within which persons can share interpretations of

communication and hence reduce noise. The individual’s

definition of the social situation typically involves

certain expectations about the behavior of others, the

rules that define and regulate interactions, and guides to

conduct. These expectations provide a frame of

reference within which the person encodes and decodes

information. For example, “Did you buy the pot?”

means something different when communicated on a

street corner between teenagers than when transmitted

from a mother to a daughter.

Communication has a number of functions. It allows the

coordination of behaviors of individuals in a group.

Large corporations and government bureaucracies

require a great deal of communication among employees

at all levels in order to function at all. Interpersonal

communication also allows for instruction, in which one

individual helps another to learn skills or develop new

frames of reference. Perhaps most important of all,

communication functions as a means to influence others.

Messages used for purposes of power and influence may

be considered actions with as much impact as skeletal

behaviors. Thus, communicative actions are sometimes

referred to as speech acts.

Speech acts that refer to rewards and punishments take

the form of threats or promises which may be contingent

or noncontingent in form. A contingent threat specifies

that a target must comply with some demand of the

source or else suffer some cost to be inflicted by the

threatener. A noncontingent threat announces the

source’s intention to impose some cost on the target

without any demand for compliance being made. A

contingent promise offers a reward, if the target

complies with a request by the source. A noncontingent

promise simply announces the source’s intention to

reward the target. Promises, unlike threats, carry a moral

obligation of fulfillment by the source.

There are several speech acts that may be classified as

means of information control. Persuasion represents a

source’s attempt to influence a target’s decisions.

Among the types of persuasive communication are

warnings, mendations, and activation of commitments.

Warnings convey expectations of future negative events

not controlled by the source, while mendations are

predictions of positive events not controlled by the

source. Activation of commitments consists of

exhortations appealing to the normative values of the

target in order to induce some related behavior by the

target.

Another classification of speech acts refers to their

function as self-presentational. Actors project certain

identities to others and engage in various tactics to foster

desired identities in the eyes of others. Among the more

prominent speech acts devoted to impression

management are accounts, entitlements, and

enhancements. When a person does something that

seems strange, untoward, or abnormal to others, an

explanation is usually offered or demanded. The lack of

an explanation leaves an unfavorable impression and

may lead observers to blame and perhaps punish the

actor. Accounts are explanations for untoward behaviour

and consist of excuses and justifications. Excuses are

explanations that deny responsibility for negative effects

of behavior. Excuses may deny intention to produce the

effects, or may deny that the source had volitional

control over the actions in question. Denials of intention

refer to lack of foreknowledge, mistake, inadvertence,

and accident. Denials of volition may refer to drugs,

alcohol, physical disability, or mental illness (insanity).

Justifications are explanations of actions that admit

responsibility but offer legitimate reasons for them. For

example, a person may justify spanking children as a

way to teach them not to run out into the street.

Justifications may appeal to authority, ideology, norms

of justice, self-defense, or self-actualization.

Entitlements are speech acts in which the source

attempts to take responsibility for positive events.

Enhancements are attempts to embellish the value of the

positive consequences. People want credit for positive

consequences because they gain approbation and

rewards for such actions. The more positive the

consequences, the greater the credit; hence, actors are

motivated to use enhancement tactics.

Gestures, visual contact, body orientation, and the use of

interpersonal space may substitute for verbal

communication or may serve as a context within which

to interpret verbal communication. In many instances,

nonverbal responses act as signals and do not convey

symbolic forms of information. For example, eye contact

may communicate hostility or love, or indicate that the

source is acting deceitfully.

REFERENCES

Gardner, R. A., & Gardner, B. T. (1969). Teaching sign

language to a chimpanzee. Science, 165, 664–672.

Lasswell, H. D. (1946). Describing the contents of

communications. In B. L. Smith, H. D. Lasswell, & R.

D. Casey (Eds.), Propaganda, communication, and

public opinion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press.

Shannon, C., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical

theory of communication. Urbana: University of Illinois

Press.

JAMES T. TEDESCHI

State University of New York, Albany

See also: Communication Skills Training; Interpersonal

Perception

The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology

Symbol

Associated with the notion of representation, symbols

are at the heart of cultural systems and relate above all to

the constitution and reproduction of meaning. The

classical sociological understanding of the nature of a

symbol is connected with a static, conservative view of

cultural reproduction, such that our ways of representing

reality to ourselves and others are presumed to have

quite rigid boundaries. Contemporary discussions of

symbolic structures have, however, focused more on the

dynamic, shifting terrain of symbolism, in which there is

emphasis on the excess or surplus of meaning within

cultural systems more generally.

In The Conflict of Interpretations (1969 [trans. 1974]),

Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) argued that symbols draw

upon a “surplus of meaning” inherent in systems of

signification. Symbolism on this view connects the

multiplicity of meaning to a primordial ambivalence at

the core of the human condition. For Ricoeur, the

potency of symbols lies in the fact that signification

always outstrips itself: the meaning of everything we

think is another thought, of everything we say the

implication that things might be symbolized otherwise.

Symbolism, then, as a surplus of meaning, interweaves

both metaphor and metonymy within cultural

reproduction, such that symbolic associations are

intimately tied to the stimulation of new meanings. This

necessarily implies that the analysis of symbols requires

sociological study of how symbolic orders are

interwoven with forms of legitimation and domination.

The modern emphasis on symbolic orders as tied to

processes of both social reproduction and cultural

change has received considerable analytical fine-tuning,

particularly in various versions of psychoanalytic

sociology, in which a particular debt to the doctrines of

Jacques Lacan is evident. In linking the insights of

Sigmund Freud and of Ferdinand de Saussure, Lacanian-

inspired sociological thought has sought to unearth the

functioning of the linguistic field in the symbolic

determination of the subject. This has been developed

through examination of the intricate connections

between Oedipal identifications and projections on the

one hand, and the productivities of the signifier on the

other. In general, such an approach has sought to

underscore the structured but unstable nature of

processes of symbolism and signification in the

cognitive and emotional lives of human subjects. This

has been especially evident in the influential writings of

Louis Althusser and Fredric Jameson, where a revised

Lacanian conceptualization of symbolic systems is tied

to the production of ideology. For Althusser, symbolism

of the ideological field serves to “hail” or “interpellate”

the individual as a subject of political and social

structures. A similar stress on the ideological role of

symbolism is underlined by Jameson, but unlike

Althusser he accords a greater centrality to the

polyvalence of symbolic processes. Indeed, in conditions

of postmodernity, the symbolic field of culture and the

social is at once under- and overdetermined, which for

Jameson produces a radical dispersal of desire and

fragmentation of subjecthood.

ANTHONY ELLIOTT