COMMUNICATION BARRIERS | COMMUNICATION SKILLS

“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”

Winston Churchill

PHYSIOLOGICAL BARRIERS

Physiological barriers is a type of communication barriers that may result from individuals’ personal discomfort, caused, for example, due to sick health, poor eyesight, or listening difficulties.

These may additionally have an effect on one’s persona in lot of different and mostly negative ways.

This can exceptionally be handled by trying to develop a positive perception because some physiological features contributing to barriers may not be curable.

PHYSICAL BARRIERS

This includes:

• Any door in the office, barrier screens, separate regions for people of different status.
• Any large working areas that is separate from others or working in a separate unit.
• Distance.

CULTURAL BARRIERS

Culture prescribes behavior. Humans can adapt to various cultures as soon as we admit it and admire that cultures are different so that we can be recognized from others and that no specific connotations need to be attached to one culture or the other.

LANGUAGE BARRIERS

Language is a gift for us as it describes what we want to say but it is a barrier to others who don’t know our expressions, buzzwords, and jargon. When we talk in our language, it’s like we are excluding others from our life. If we want to make others happy anywhere in the world we have to talk in their language.

INTERPERSONAL BARRIERS

Withdrawal is an absence of interpersonal contact. It is both refusals to be in touch with others. Some of the reasons are as follow:

• Lack of trust.
• Lack of knowledge of non-verbal communication.
• Wish to seize authority.
• Fear of losing control.
• Lack of inspiration.
• Lack of co-operation, fear of penalty and negative relationship.

Also read: VERBAL AND NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION | COMMUNICATION SKILLS

PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIERS

Psychological state of the communicators influences the effective communication between sender and receiver. This is called psychological barrier,one of the most effective communication barriers.

If mental condition of the communicators is disturbed by mental disturbance, then communication will not be successful. Like if they are not emotionally stable, they would not be able to communicate properly.

EMOTIONAL BARRIERS

One of the other mental obstacles to open and free conversation is the emotional barrier. It is particularly consisting of worry, mistrust, and suspicion. As explained earlier the roots of our emotional distrust of others lie in our childhood and infancy when we were taught to be cautious what we said to others.

STEREOTYPES

Stereotypes are widely circulated ideas or assumptions about groups. Stereotypes are commonly poor attitudes which people use to justify discrimination of conflict against others. According to Pennington (1986) ” there are two characteristics of stereotypes:

• People are categorized based on very visible characteristics e.g. race, nationality, sex, dress and physical appearance;
•  All participants of a group are considered to have the same characteristics; and
• Stereotypes distort truth by over estimating between groups and under estimating within groups have no relation to the truth.
• Stereotyping acts as a communication barriers because people make preconceived judgment about people which are not true but related to their appearance.

HOW TO BE A GOOD COMMUNICATOR

To overcome these communication barriers and to be a good communicator, one needs to:

•  Express own reflections and ideas.
• Develop relationships.
• Give answers and reactions.
•  Be open to accept others answer without prejudice, references etc.
• Respect attitudes and reviews of others.
• Be tolerant to different customs and cultures.
• Give full attention to people while they are talking to you.
• Encourage other people to talk and ask appropriate questions.
• Present your ideas so that others are receptive to your point of view.
• Treat people fairly and let others know how you want to be treated.
•  Value teamwork and know how to build cooperation and commitment.
• Strive to understand other people and to be empathetic.
•  Be able to easily win people’s trust and respect.
• Check to make sure you have understood what other people are trying to communicate.