Systemic and analog communication: current advances

We live in the information and mass communication society, but paradoxically, "Communicates" less and less in today's "advanced" western civilization. If you want to respond to the communication need of society and the people of that society, we must stop understanding communication as a mere transmission of information or messages.

People are in society immersed in a continuous flow of communication, and they are necessary new models of understanding communication, if we want to achieve some prominence in that network communicative. In this study of Online Psychology we are going to offer the current advances in systemic and analog communication so that you know what the current situation is.

Index

1. Job Summary
2. New communication models
3. The mathematical model of information theory
4. The semiotic model (Peirce, 1978)
5. Gerbner's model
6. The role theory model
7. The dynamic model
8. The phenomenological model
9. The systemic model of the Palo Alto School
10. Understanding in the systemic model
11. Scoring the sequence of events
12. Dynamic balance
13. Paradoxical communication
14. 2 kinds of change in the system
15. Bateson and Palo Alto Project
16. Non-verbal communication
17. The importance of communicating
18. Characteristics of the caller
19. Jung and extraversion
20. Adapt to the interlocutor
21. The different personal spaces
22. Manipulation and deception
23. The prestige of languages
24. Psychological variables in non-verbal communication
25. Conclusions

In this work we first briefly expose some of the analysis models of the communicative process. Next, we focus on the systemic model and we make a brief exposition of the communication axioms of the Palo Alto school: the impossibility of not communicating, the different levels and codes of communication, the different ways of punctuating the continuous process of communication, the symmetrical and complementary modes of relationship.

We continue with the exposition of paradoxical communication, the double bind theory and therapeutic communication. Following the line of the Palo Alto School, we understand communication as a multidimensional reality that involves different levels: conscious-unconscious, content-relationship, verbal-non-verbal, digital-analog. From this perspective, we enter the analysis of non-verbal communication that Bateson and Mead (1942) began a long time ago.

We present some studies on the characteristics of the caller and we immerse ourselves in the study of the most important functions that the non-verbal communication, conducting a review of the research that has been done on the subject. And finally, we show the results of some research on the environment where communicators are located and on communication through the image.

The new communication models place a new context the classical concepts from the field of communication. Thus, for example, the concept of "noise" will not be interpreted as a distortion of the transmission of the message, as occurs in the mass communication model; “noise” is not something to be rejected, but something that can and should be interpreted, since it can provide us with unknown and hidden information about the issuer; Communication will not be understood as a mere transmission of messages, but as the process of creation and negotiation of meanings that occurs between people in interaction.

As Berlo (1969) would say, communication is not transmitting meanings, since these cannot be transmitted; what can be transmitted is the message, but the meaning given to the message is negotiated between people interacting in society; It is up to the caller to plan the communicative act and adapt it to his interlocutor; the participants in the communication have to adjust and adapt to each other; it is this adjustment work that is at the heart of communication.

You should not try to understand communication from the point of view of the traits, expectations, motivations and roles of communicators that are isolated, since communication is not an interaction between individuals, but a relationship between members of a group or a community.

The individual does not communicate; what he does is participate in communication and being a participant in communication (Birdwhistell, 1959). Hence, to understand the communication process, the regularities and non-arbitrariness of the relational network are more important than the intentions of individuals. In this way of understanding communication, we agree with the Palo Alto School, and specifically with the systemic vision of Watzlawick (1995), who tries to describe the regularities, restrictions and norms of the communicative process, instead of trying to explain them from the perspective of the individual.

Shannon and Weaver (1949) elaborated the mathematical theory of communication. They were pioneers, together with Wiener (1948), in the inclusion of the word "communication" within the scientific vocabulary. But Wiener's model and his disciple Shannon's were different. Wiener's circular cybernetic model accounts for the informative feedback that the receiver returns to the sender of the message; Thanks to this feedback, the sender can adapt his communication resources to the receiver of the message.

However, the communication model proposed by Shannon is known as a linear model, since it focuses on the process of transmitting information. At one end of the transmitting chain, the source of the message encodes the message through the sender and sends it through the channel; at the other extreme, the receiver decodes the message and leaves it up to the recipient. The main concern of this model is to ensure that the message suffers the least distortion possible.

In this model it is considered information as an abstract statistical quantity, that is, as a measure of the freedom of choice of a message. Before starting to receive the message, everything was uncertainty in the receiver, and as soon as he begins to receive certain fragments of the message, the probability of the appearance of other fragments is reduced, while the probability of other fragments of message. For this statistical model, semantic aspects are unimportant, since it is the statistical structure that predicts the probability of a certain word appearing. The information unit would mean the freedom of choice between two alternative messages and the amount of information would be measured by the logarithm of possible alternatives.

This is a mathematical model in which the probability of a signal appearing depends on the repertoire of signals existing and in which the concepts of information and entropy are interrelated. All that reduces the initial uncertainty of the receiver would be information, while entropy would mean the degree of randomness. The information would give an account of the level of organization of the system; entropy would be the indicator of the level of disorganization of the system. The information would be considered as negentropy or negative entropy. This communication model does not take into account the psychological factors of the communication participants; therefore, leave out the feedback. Consider communication as a one-way event, forgetting the negotiation and consensus aspects of the message. Even so, this mathematical model did not spread only among engineers and physicists, but also among sociologists, psychologists, and linguists.

Mucchielli's vision

Mucchielli (1998) places the mathematical theory of information among the positivist models, together with the "marketing" model and the "two-level" communication model. The "marketing" model is a very standardized model and its main concern is to solve marketing management problems. The “two-level” communication model was used in the US in the mid-19th century. XX to multiply the influence of the mass media in election campaigns; According to this model, the media do not influence people directly, but through “opinion leaders”; They will be the ones who act as intermediaries with their fellow group members; The message should be addressed to the opinion leader, since he will be the one who will be in charge of transmitting it to the rest of the group members.

It is a model that is not concerned with transmission, but interpretation and meaning. The sign has no meaning in itself: it receives a meaning according to the interpretations of the sender and the receiver. It often happens that the meaning given by the sender to the message is correct only for him; or that the meaning given by the receiver is correct only for him.

However, for there to be communication, the interpretations of one and the other must be similar, since it is the only way to share a unified meaning. We speak of denotative meaning to refer to the consensual meaning, and of connotative meaning to refer to individualized and idiosyncratic meaning.

Shannon and Weaver considered noise the effects produced by perceptions and attitudes of the communicators; for Gerbner these effects are basic elements of communication. The caller is always deciding on the part of the information that he will send, on the channel that he will use, as well as on the code that he will use. To predict the type of message that the caller is going to send, the receiver must know how to that the caller perceives the events and what he considers significant in those events.

This way of perceiving events and what he considers significant in them influence when choosing the transmission channel. In addition to the sender, the receiver also has to decide what information he is going to select and how he is going to interpret it. A message can be sent and received perfectly, and still, the sender and receiver can give it a different meaning, due to their different perceptions, attitudes and contexts interpretive.

The role is the organized pattern of behaviors derived from the position that an individual occupies in social interaction. The messages and their interpretation are highly dependent on the roles. It is necessary to know how other people perceive our role or how we perceive the role of others in order to predict the form and content of our communication.

It may happen that the role determines the type of communication; it may be the way you communicate that determines the role; the normal thing is that the roles and the ways of communicating adapt and influence each other.

Communication is the expression of an internal structure and of some dynamic processes that occur inside the subject. Superficial expressions are signs of personality, motivations, or internal needs.

We place within this model the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, Jung, Adler, Reich, Klein, Lacan... Subliminal communication is based on this model and research on subliminal perception.

Communication is not an expression of wishes or internal impulses. The objective of communication is the expression of experiences and conscious experiences of the subject. In phenomenological psychotherapy, the patient tries to relive, describe, understand and interpret her experiences in a climate of empathy. We can consider Carl rogers (1951) as the most significant representative of the phenomenological current.

Among the systemic models of communication Mucchielli (1998) includes the sociometric model of Jacob L. Moreno (1954), the transactional model of Eric Berne (1950) and the systemic model of Palo Alto to which we will give a specific treatment in this article. The sociometric model analyzes the exchange network of a group. The transactional paradigm analyzes the implicit communications that occur in interpersonal relationships; According to this model, people process verbal and non-verbal messages at three levels: rational level, affective level and level normative, and depending on the position of the sender or receiver, we find symmetrical, complementary and crossed.

According to the Palo Alto School, communication is based on relationships and interaction, and not in individuals; within the communicative system, messages receive one or another meaning depending on the context. Regarding personality disorders, they are not analyzed from an individual perspective, but as communication disorders between the individual and the environment.

Already in the nineteenth century the notion of system was discussed in the field of economics; in the mid-twentieth century it was given a new impetus by the pioneers of cybernetics, computing and robotics. In 1950 a systemic approach was made to associate radars and computers from the perspective of artificial intelligence. In 1952 Bateson began the Palo Alto communication research project, with the intention of applying Wiener's research to cultural processes.

In 1954 Lufwig von Bertalanffy unveiled the General systems theory. According to this theory, the system is understood as a set of elements that are in interaction, so that the variation of one of these elements influences all the other elements of the system. Systems theory, in addition to biological and mechanical systems, also encompassed human relationships; Hence, the interrelation between individuals began to be studied from the systemic point of view. To understand group phenomena, the entire system must be analyzed, and not just individual features. In the traditional approach, the interaction was explained based on individual traits, expectations and motivations. It was a monadic and individualistic vision.

In the systemic vision, the field of research is the interrelation between individualsIn such a way that individuals "do not communicate" but rather "participate in communication". It goes from a linear and causal logic to a dialectical and circular logic: the effects of a variable act again on the original variable. Communication is a process of creating meaning between people who are in interrelation. It is not about transmitting meanings, since they cannot be transmitted. The messages can be transmitted, but the meanings are in the people who are using those messages and not in the messages themselves.

The meaning of the message is something that is built in a predictable way; if it were not foreseeable, there could be no communication. But at the same time it is a complex process of coordination that requires planning and adjustment between the interlocutors.

For the systemic model, the understanding of any action or phenomenon is depending on the contextual framework in which it is placed; the field of observation must encompass the entire context. But when the human being perceives the environment, what he perceives are the differences, and the differences are not objective things, but relationships between things and abstractions. Watzlawick establishes a parallel between the mathematical concept of function or variable and the psychological concept of relationship. The variables have no meaning of their own, and achieve their significance in their network of relationships.

The relationships between variables lead us to the concept of function, and this is applicable to the field of psychology, since the human mind works by abstraction of relationships. When we live a network of relationships, we experience those relationships in different circumstances and arrive at an abstraction similar to the mathematical concept of function. The core of our perceptions is in the functions, and not in the objects. In the same sense, the systemic vision places more emphasis on the restrictions and non-arbitrariness of the communicative process than on the intentions of the communicator.

Watzlawick (1995) does not give much importance to intentionality when it comes to deciding whether or not there is communication. However, from the perspective of Wiener (1948), for there to be communication it is necessary to give a conscious will of the sender and a satisfactory message. When Watzlawick describes the five axioms of interpersonal communication, he begins with "the impossibility of not communicating."

The person cannot be without communicating, since when another person enters his perceptual field, any activity or lack of activity takes the value of a message. When a person behaves in a non-arbitrary way before two or more people, we are facing a communication process. From this point of view, Watzlawick (1963) understands schizophrenia as an attempt to remain without communication or to flee from the commitment that communication implies.

That is why you try to use a ambiguous, incomprehensible and equivocal language. But since even ambiguity, equivocation, silence, and immobility are modes of communication, the efforts made by the schizophrenic not to communicate are in vain.

The axiom for "Sequence of Events Scoring" was invented Benjamin Lee Whorf (1956) and was taken over by Bateson and Jackson. According to this axiom, to organize a sequence of communicative interactions it is necessary to establish a scoring system. Thus, a continuous and natural process can be divided into units separate and arbitrary. The nature of the relationship will depend on the score that each participant makes of the sequence of communications; thus, the lack of agreement on how to score the sequence of events is the source of many communicational conflicts. To overcome these conflicts, it will be necessary to get out of the cause-effect dynamic and learn to metacommunicate.

In all communication you can distinguish the informational or content aspect and relational or commitment aspect. In other words, human communication has different levels of abstraction: denotative (of content), metalinguistic, metacommunicative (of relationship). To solve communication problems, the different levels of communication must be taken into account. If the levels of abstraction are confused, Russell-type paradoxes can occur. Often attempts are made to solve at the content level problems that are relational level, and when it has been Once the content level discrepancy has been overcome, the relational discrepancy can be further exacerbated. It is necessary to learn to differentiate the two levels and to metacommunicate, since pathological relationships can be interpreted as symptoms of the inability to metacommunicate.

So that there is communication the sender and receiver must use a common code. Communication encompasses two types of codes: a code of digital characteristics (words) and a code of analog characteristics (gestures, paralanguage, postures). Digital communication refers to the content of interactions, corresponds to the logical, conscious, content level, and uses arbitrary symbols. While analog communication corresponds to relationship, it is intuitive and beyond the control of the will. The human being is able to use the two codes to communicate.

Analog messages are often ambiguous: they can have different and often incompatible digital interpretations. Digital interpretations that are incompatible with analogical propositions are a source of conflict in relationships. According to Watzlawick (1995), analog messages are propositions that are made about future relationship norms: love, hate, fight; therefore, it is the others who will give certain meanings to these propositions.

G. Bateson published in 1936 the work Naven, whose name comes from the name of a ceremony of the Iatmul tribe of New Guinea. According to Bateson, in any interactional situation a dynamic equilibrium occurs between the differentiation processes and processes contrary to differentiation. In symmetric differentiation, the behavior of one person is the reflection of the behavior of another person: you respond to attack with attack, to competition with competition.

In complementary differentiation, one of the participants adopts the superiority position, and the other the inferior complementary position. All communicative interactions are symmetrical or complementary, based on equality or difference. The symmetry and complementarity are not in themselves good or bad, normal or abnormal. They are only two categories of the communicative interrelation. The two must be present, alternating and in different fields.

It is possible, and even convenient, that two communicators are related sometimes symmetrically and sometimes complementary. The complementary schismogenesis neutralizes the symmetric one, and the symmetric one neutralizes the complementary one.

Paradoxical communication communicates two incompatible contents at the same time. If a Cretan said that "all Cretans are liars", we would be faced with a paradoxical statement, because it can only be true if it is not true. Watzlawick (1995), after analyzing the logical-mathematical paradoxes, the paradoxical definitions and the pragmatic paradoxes, shows the consequences of paradoxes in human interaction, based on the book "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia" (1956) by Bateson, Jackson, Haley and Weakland. The way of communicating of the schizophrenic patients can be considered as the response given to the contradictory orders of the parents.

The characteristics of the relationship between the child and the parents of schizophrenic families can be included under the name of “double bind”. The necessary conditions for the “double bind” to occur are as follows: two or more people have intense complementary relationships, relationships on which their physical and / or psychological survival depends; in this context, a contradictory order is sent to the victim, and he is threatened with punishment if he does not comply with the order; the contradictory order is not something that happens isolated and incidentally, but something that happens in a habitual way; and the person who receives the contradictory order cannot metacommunicate about the message, or cannot escape the framework established by the message.

When these types of orders become common expectations in a person's childhood, what happens is not an isolated injury, but a permanent model of interaction. It is this model of communication that is schizophrenic and schizophrenogenic. Therefore, the pathogenicity of the double bond cannot be understood in terms of cause and effect. The double bind does not create schizophrenia; it is schizophrenia that responds to the pattern of a special communication.

In therapeutic communication it is taken into account that the world of communication is the world of perceptions and meanings. Therefore, to change behavior you do not have to try to change the behavior itself; what needs to be changed is the subject's perception of the behavior context. Therapeutic communication has to go beyond the usual advice, such as, "you have to be kind to each other", "be spontaneous" and so on.

Behavior change is not a matter of will. Thinking that the person who has a problem can choose between health and illness by sheer will, is nothing more than the illusion of an alternative. The symptom is not something that depends on the will of oneself, but something that arises involuntarily and autonomously. For this reason, symptomatic behavior arises spontaneously from within and escapes the will of the patient.

Bateson distinguishes two kinds of change: the change of factors internal to the system and the change of the system itself. The first kind of change ensures the continuity of the system: it makes changes so as not to change anything fundamental. In the second kind of change, the premises of the system, the context, and the framework are changed; for this type of change, systemic therapy will use paradoxical techniques such as the prescription of symptoms; the patient is asked to continue behaving as she has done up to now; Instead of asking him to get over the symptom, he is told to keep the symptomatic behavior as is.

When the therapist gives that order to the patient, he is demanding something from him that until now was spontaneous in him. By means of the paradoxical command, a behavior change is forced: the behavior symptomatic ceases to be spontaneous, places itself under the therapist's orders and leaves the framework of the game symptomatic. When prescribing the symptom, both the designated patient's symptom and the symptoms and symptomatic behaviors of the family are positively connoted, so that resistance does not arise. Negative connotation of the symptom and symptomatic behaviors would be a bet in favor of change.

But for a system homeostasis is as important as change. And if the therapist made a clear commitment to change, it would reinforce the tendency towards stability in the family. For this reason, the therapist must disguise the transformation and present it as homeostasis, making a bet in favor of continuity. When the therapist positively connotes the patient's symptom, he presents it as necessary. By saying that the patient fulfills a logical and necessary role and functions, the therapist wants to take away from the patient the control that he exercises over the relationships of his family.

Saying that his behavior is logical and voluntary, he regards it as dependent on the patient's self-determination. When the patient improves, the therapist interprets it as a worsening. Faced with the manifest improvement of the patient, the family claims the improvement, but the therapist makes a strategic disqualification of the improvement. The therapist becomes responsible for the homeostasis of the family and relieves the weight of it. While the patient and the therapist lose their central position, the family members gain their zone of autonomy, making the family disconnect from the therapist.

The foundations of the Palo Alto School are found in the "Bateson Project" and in the founding of the Mental Research Institute and the Brief Therapy Center in the 1950s and 1960s. Starting from these foundations, various streams: the constructivist perspective of Paul Watzlawick, the structural current of Salvador Minuchin, the Nathan Ackerman's psychoanalytic approach, Jay Halley's strategic approach, and Virginia Satir's experiential perspective o Carl Whitaker. The influence of the Palo Alto School reached Europe in the 1970s.

There were many European therapists who studied in Palo Alto, Philadelphia or Washington. Mony Elkaïm opened the Institute for the Study of Human Systems in Brussels and Mara Selvini Palazzoli founded the Center for the Study of the Family in Milan. The psychiatric and psychoanalytic circles showed a certain resistance to the systemic current. Some psychoanalysts tried to reinterpret systemic therapy from the Freudian point of view. Didier Anzieu, for example, gives great credit to the Palo Alto School, since he has clarified the relationships between primary and secondary processes through his therapy paradoxical. Another effort to unite the systemic and Freudian perspectives was made by Jean G. Lemaire (1989).

One of the most discussed points is that of the relationship between the disappearance of symptoms and conflict resolution. Psychoanalysts will say that systemics try to make symptoms disappear without resolving inner conflicts. But systemic therapy does not go directly against the symptoms, but to change the interactional context in which they are inserted. Psychoanalysis considers the symptom to be a conflict between unconscious desires and defense mechanisms; the systemic perspective, however, regards it as a message from the communication system.

As to the importance to be given to the subject's history, the systemic perspective places the emphasis on current relationships; On the other hand, the psychoanalytic perspective gives special importance to childhood experiences, although it resembles to the systemic perspective when it grants them the role of dynamizers of the therapy to the transfer and the contra-transfer. In psychoanalytic therapy, change is not conceived without awareness of the reason for the symptom or insight. For the Palo Alto School awareness is neither necessary nor sufficient; the rules of functioning of the family system can be changed without being aware of the psychological meaning of the behavior.

The psychoanalytic therapy acts from the ideology of non-intervention and accuses systemic therapy of using manipulative techniques. Systemic therapy defends itself by saying that it uses suggestion to avoid defense mechanisms, and that if it suggests a behavior to the patient is not so much to carry it out but to introduce new alternatives in the repertoire of behaviors of the patient. Furthermore, in systemic therapy, the very concept of "endless play" implies an active intervention by the therapist.

As we have seen, the Palo Alto School distinguishes content level and relationship level in the communicative process. The content level is related to information processing and enables the logical-univocal interpretation of conscious communication. The level of relationship, however, is linked to analog processing and corresponds to the unconscious level that demands digital interpretations that are often incompatible with each other. The content level deals with the informational aspect of communication, while the relationship level deals with the way of giving the information. In the digital code there is no direct relationship between the code and the content of what is communicated; the union is arbitrary.

In analog communication, however, there is a direct connection between code and object of the comunication. Often the peripheral communication that the sender carries out in passing has more influence on the receiver than the communication that is carried out directly and explicitly, resulting in the most authentic non-verbal communication for the receiver, because it seems to him that it is something that has involuntarily escaped the transmitter. Digital and analog messages are sometimes mutually reinforcing and in such cases the sender's message is considered authentic.

In many other cases they send us conflicting messages; in those cases the analog messages weaken, change their meaning or cancel what the digital message said. In human relationships, to correctly receive a message and make an adequate digital interpretation of it, it is necessary to know the records of analog communications.

Interpersonal communication

Inter-personal communication is a multifunctional and multidimensional reality. Non-verbal signals are essential for encoding and decoding verbal messages, but they are also message carriers themselves. The most important functions of nonverbal communication are these: showing intimacy and adherence, giving support, showing control and power, conceal deception, manage identity and impressions, structuring the conversation and expressing emotions.

According to Ekman and Friesen (1969), non-verbal actions repeat, underline, reinforce, illustrate or contradict what is said verbally. According to Ricci Bitti and Poggi (1991) and Scherer (1980), non-verbal signals fulfill the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic functions. Syntactic function: divide, punctuate and synchronize the flow of speech (Scherer, 1980). Semantic and pragmatic function: symbolic behaviors that have a direct translation (emblems); gestures that clarify the verbal flow (illustrators); behaviors to manage the turns of the conversation (regulators); autistic behaviors such as scratching or rubbing (adapters); attitudes, gestures and contacts that show emotional states; messages that define interpersonal relationships (Burgoon and Hale, 1984; Ekman and Friesen, 1969).

Within analog communication, the kinesics, proxemics, haptics, odor communication, communication through bodily appearance and the different means we use to create impressions on others; Clothing, hairstyle, makeup, tattoos, and jewelry are noteworthy.

Watzlawick said that the human being cannot be without communicating (1995). If the receiver considers that a sender's behavior is a message, the sender's behavior will receive the meaning of a communication; From this perspective, it will be the receiver who converts the behavior into a message, and all non-verbal behavior can become communication. If the issuer's perspective is adopted, the actions that the issuer consciously does to communicate will constitute communication; but that that to be communication the behavior must be carried out intentionally is not something that all researchers accept (Ekman and Friesen, 1969; Knapp, 1984).

Leaving aside the perspectives of the receiver and the sender, we can adopt the perspective of the message (Burgoon, 1994); This posture focuses on behavior; it focuses on the non-verbal behaviors that make up the code system accepted by society; if a behavior is usually done with intention, and if the sender and receiver give it meaning, it can be considered as a message, even if it is sometimes done unconsciously; but if the sender and the receiver accept that the conduct has been carried out without intention, it will not be communication. Sender and receiver negotiate meaning in context interaction (Stamp and Knapp, 1990). In message orientation it is assumed that non-verbal communication is organized as a coded system and operates according to rules.

The verbal aspect of communication

When communication has been studied, until almost the 20th century, its verbal aspect has been emphasized above all. In the second half of that century, research on non-verbal communication gained importance. Thus, according to Birdwhistell (1955), between 60-65% of inter-personal communication goes through the non-verbal channel; According to Mehrabian and Wiener (1967), 93% of communication goes through this channel. According to a meta-analysis by Philpott (1983), collected by Burgoon (1994), 31% of communication goes through the verbal channel. Researchers soon began to qualify those initial claims.

The trust placed in verbal or non-verbal channels it could change according to some variables. Thus, adults relied more on non-verbal communication, and children, on verbal. But the fact that adults relied more on non-verbal communication occurred above all in the following situations: work conversations, leadership assessment, attitude expression, first impression judgments and therapy sessions (Burgoon, 1985; Burgoon, Buller and Woodall, 1989).

Women trusted visual information more than men (Noller, 1985; Rosenthal, Hall, DiMatteo, Rogers and Archer, 1979). Leaving aside the gender variable, different individuals have permanent biases in relation to their greater trust in one channel or another: some trust non-verbal channels; others rely on verbal expressions. Still, whatever the biases, the general tendency is to rely more on the non-verbal channel.

Either way, that tendency of adults to rely more on the non-verbal than on the verbal, it occurs especially when there is incongruity between the two channels; when there is congruence, similar confidence is placed in the two channels. Hence, inconsistencies between the verbal and the non-verbal are used for the detection of lies and deception. It should also be noted that verbal signals are more important in factual, denotative, objective communication, abstract and persuasive, while non-verbal communication takes on more importance in affective and connotative.

According to the systemic position, communication is based on interrelationships and in interactions, and personality disorders must be understood in the network of interaction of the individual with the environment. Next, however, we will do a brief review of the research on the influence that the psychological and sociocultural traits of communicators have on communicative behavior.

On the other hand, we know that communication is a dynamic process that you have to study over time; but this is a condition that has rarely been met in communication research methodologies. Furthermore, although most relationships between people occur between acquaintances, most of the research on non-verbal communication has been conducted between strangers. It may be time to do more research on communication from friends, acquaintances, or family.

Measure non-verbal communication

To measure the skills of coding and decoding non-verbal messages, it has been used, among others, the Profil of Nonverbal Sensitivity (PONS, Rosenthal et al., 1979), the Facial Affect Scoring Technique (FAST, Ekman, Friesen and Tomkins, 1971) and the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT, Archer and Costanzo, 1988). Meta-analysis of research on coding and decoding skills (Burgoon, 1994) has shown a correlation between the two types of skills.

Those skills have been shown related to personality traits: the extroverts, those with high self-esteem, those who score high in self-monitoring, the dogmatic and the expressive have shown more ability to code; the gregarious, the low-scoring Machiavellians, and the non-dogmatists have been more adept at decoding. The elderly lose the ability to detect emotions. Women, for their part, are usually more adept at detecting non-verbal messages. According to Hall (1979), the greater attention of women is explained by their lower social power.

The alternative hypothesis to explain their greater ability is related to the different expressiveness of men and women: while women externalize emotions, men internalize them (Buck, 1979).

One of the most studied characteristics of the caller has been related to extraversion. Jung and Eysenck consider extroverts to be more open to relationships with objects. According to the Giles and Street research review (Giles eta Street, 1994), extraverts look more at the interlocutor, but for a shorter time; Regarding the amount of speech, the extraverts speak more than the introverts, but they do not show their intimacy more than the introverts; they talk more about general topics and are more accurate when expressing their emotions non-verbally; they take shorter pauses than introverts and speak more quickly; they show more impulsivity and less cognitive activity.

The time spent in speaking is positively related to the communicator's trait anxiety and negatively related to his state anxiety. On the other hand, anxiety leads to slowing down the speed of speech and increasing the distance between the interlocutors. But those who speak two languages ​​(Hawaiian and English) show more reserve when speaking the standard language than when speaking their original non-standard language (Miura, 1985).

For Jung in introverts the subject rules, and in extroverts, the object. If we look at the two phases of Piaget's adaptation, assimilation and adaptation, in introverts assimilation would be predominant, that is, it would be the object that is would adapt to the characteristics of the subject, while in the extraverts the adequacy would be predominant, that is, the subject would tend to adapt to the characteristics of the object.

It is this second phase of adaptation that Mark Snyder underlines when he talks about Self-Regulation of Expressive Behavior (Snyder, 1974). People control their expressions and hide or show their affections according to the demands of society. People who score high in Self-regulation are very sensitive when it comes to detecting the demands of the environment, and they tend to change their expressions and behaviors accordingly.

Those who score low do not change their expressions and behaviors according to the demands of the environment, but according to the dictates of its interior. Those who score high in Self-Regulation have a greater capacity to show their emotional state orally and by the expression of their face (Snyder, 1974), they take shorter turns when speaking, they are more likely to speak at the same time than others (Dabbs, Evans, Hopper, & Purvis, 1980) and begin to speak more frequently (Ickes & Barnes, 1977) than those who score under.

In order to to be accepted in society and to keep communication channels open, sometimes it is the same subject who has to adapt to the characteristics of the interlocutor (self-regulation), but other times the subject tries to alter the way the interlocutor sees him, managing the impressions that he produces in he. When we see a person we immediately form a first impression of him, and from that first impression we know quite accurately some characteristics of him. the person (age, sex, appearance, profession ...) and less exactly other characteristics (attitudes, values, personality traits ...) (Kenny, Horner, Kashy eta Chu, 1992).

When the first impression is formed in a non-interactional context, static factors are more influential; while the more dynamic factors such as speaking style, laughter or gaze are more important in interaction situations (Burgoon, 1994). In forming first impressions of people, mention should be made of the following sources of bias: giving priority to what is visual and extending to other fields the attractiveness that a person has in a certain field (effect halo).

This effect decreases when the relationship is between people who are known or when there are other sources of information about the person. Among the non-verbal strategies for better self-presentation, the dramaturgical analyzes of Goffman (1959), the impression management theories of Schlenker (1980) and Tedeschi (1981), Jones' theory of grace (1964, 1973), Jones and Pittman's theory of strategic self-presentation (1982), and Burgoon and Hale's expectation breaking theory (1988).

Personal space is not the same in all people. Introverts place themselves at a greater distance than extroverts, especially in intimate situations. Those of high status occupy more space than those of low status and have more freedom of movement in that space. Teachers and men occupy more space than students and women, with their bodies and objects. People of different races relate more distantly than people of the same race. Middle-class people relate at a greater distance than lower-class people.

In an investigation by Patterson (1968), the subjects had to evaluate the affection, aggressiveness, dominance, extraversion and intelligence of the people according to the relational distance. According to the results, the worst evaluations were received by the people who were related the most distance; meanwhile, the people who were closer to each other were evaluated as warmer, more sympathetic and understanding. According to Gilmour and Walkey (1981), the personal space of combative prisoners is greater than that of others, especially the space that surrounds the body from the rear.

According to Boorament, Flowers, Bodner and Satterfielden (1977), personal space is expanding as one goes from minor offenders to criminals with crimes of blood. Having to live in spaces that are too small can give rise to pathological characteristics (Chombart de Lauwe, 1959: According to Aiello, DeRisi, Epstein and Karlin (1977), the subjects placed in situations of spatial saturation performed the exercises worse cognitive Entering the field of pathology, we see that autistic children avoid social contacts and withdraw from others, even the therapist.

Schizophrenics occupy a small space and hysterics exceed the limits of their space. Hyperactive and anxious children have less capacity to be in saturated spaces; they increase their activity and create more problems.

According to Giles and Street's (1994) review of the dependency-independence relationship field and communication, field independent workers are more capable of learning a second language. On the other hand, in women field independence appears positively related to the amount of speech and negatively related to the number of words in each sentence. Regarding intrafamily relationships, field independence is positively related to the use of the word "I", and field dependence, with the use of the word "U.S".

The subject of manipulation and deception is a subject that has been permanently studied in the field of communication. Therefore, that theme it has been studied from different aspects (Giles and Street, 1994). Thus, for example, those who score high in Machiavellianism manipulate others more in order to achieve their ends, and are more likely to look at others in social relationships.

In court, for example, defendants who score high on Machiavellianism look more at the accuser, in order to appear more innocent. Even when they go to lie, those who score high in Machiavellianism seem more reliable than those who score low (Geis eta Moon, 1981). But not all research goes in the same direction. Thus, according to O'Hair, Cody and McLaughlin (1981), there are no differences between those with high and low Machiavellianism with respect to the leakage of non-verbal signals during deception.

In the review of the research on the sociodemographic variables of the communicators, Giles and Street (1994) have given a privileged place to those carried out on the variable sex. Even if women talk more in same-sex couples, in mixed couples men talk more. Even so, when women in couples are feminists, they speak louder than men; in couples in which the woman is not a feminist, men talk more.

In groups, men talk more, and in mixed relationships, men interrupt the conversation of the interlocutor more than women (Zimmerman and West, 1975; Eakins and Eakins, 1976); but Marche and Peterson (1993) found no such differences. Besides, women tend to use more standard language and exact than men. Regarding the topics of conversation, men talk more about work, and women, more about socio-emotional topics; Of course, in the groups in which men and women are mixed, there is less talk about socio-emotional issues.

Non-verbal communication

When it comes to non-verbal communication, men show dominant behavior, and women a dependent attitude (Henley, 1977). Men show more visual dominance, since they look more when they speak than when they listen (Dovidio eta Ellyson, 1985). Women are more expressive than men, they listen more to the interlocutor, ask more questions and show more doubts when speaking and the interlocutor interrupts them more frequently.

Women show more attitudes and gestures of dependence (lowering the head, tilting it to one side, clapping open ...), they get closer than men when talking and adapt more to the interaction style of the interlocutor

There are some languages, some dialects and some accents that have more prestige than others; part of that prestige seems to be transferred to those who use those languages, dialects or accents to communicate. Thus, according to Bradac (1990), Giles, Hewstone, Ryan and Johnson (1987), the use of accents and languages ​​of prestige and power increases the capacity attributed to the communicator.

The reason for the non-use of a minority and less prestigious language by a communicator should not be sought in the greater or lesser level of knowledge of that language, but in the impression management strategies of the caller. The salesperson who thinks that in a certain environment the use of a prestigious language will create a better impression of him on clients, he will tend to use that language instead of another less prestigious and more minority. But to show more prestige and power, one does not always tend to use a more prestigious language (Giles eta Street, 1994). Various strategies can be used in any language.

Thus, the elevation of the intensity of the voice positively correlates with extraversion, dominance, sociability and emotional stability. On the other hand, speaking fast increases the perceived capacity of the communicator and speaking slowly decreases it; From this point of view there is an inverse relationship between the positive evaluation of the speaker and the extent of pauses in speech; it is the short pauses that lead to attributing greater ability to the speaker. Still, speaking slowly on difficult topics, intimate topics, or in formal contexts has a positive influence, because knowing how to adapt to the rhythm of the listener.

Paralinguistic features

When mentioning the communicator's traits, specifically the paralinguistic traits (Giles and Street, 1994), we must not forget the characteristic relating to the pleasantness of the voice. Communicators with a pleasant voice are valued best, but that effect is even greater when voice appeal and physical attractiveness are combined. In the investigations carried out to study the relationship between the different somatotypes and the types of voice, the aim was to identify the somatotype of the interlocutor based on his voice; According to the results, it was more easily correct for endomorphs and ectomorphs than for mesomorphs.

According to other research, the approximate age of the interlocutor can be known quite accurately, based on his voice. Likewise, listeners are very adept at knowing a person's social class based on their voice; quickly identify a person's status through voice. Along the same lines, it is easier to know the way of being of a person by the intonation of his voice than by his explicit statements.

To end, language intensity increases persuasiveness from a source that enjoys a lot of credibility, but the persuasive capacity of the issuer that has little credibility diminishes.

From the perspective of nonverbal communication research, no decisive discoveries have been made about the characteristics of the communicator. The psychological variables that have been studied do not sufficiently explain the communicator's behavior. Many of those variables interact with sociodemographic variables (sex, age). Even when significant effects have been found, these effects would dissolve if powerful sociodemographic variables and situational variables were introduced into the design.

These investigations have not adequately studied the way communicators construct their identity and the dimensions of the environment; they treat communicators as if they were abstract social categories. On the other hand, they have evaluated the characteristics of the communicator without relating them to each other, in isolation. Perhaps the most interesting discoveries have been those concerning the evaluation of speech and of linguistic attitudes: accent, speed, pauses, intensity, diversity of vocabulary and fluency verbal. But it would also be necessary to examine the cultural context, the type of listener, the objectives of the interaction and the stage of the relationship.

The research on communication psychology that we have mentioned here is concerned with the events, control, causes and prediction of the events. They analyze events without giving importance to their meaning and meaning. But in interpersonal communication meanings and values ​​are as important as events, since the person tries to give meaning and meaning to events. Giving priority to events over meanings and values ​​can respond to a practical decision of search for explanations, but predicting events is not worth much, if then we don't know Act.

So, Research should not be limited to predicting and controlling. One of the fundamental concerns of the science of communication should be to expand the sense of community of the person and to give meaning to the events of life. Communication researchers often look at interpersonal communication from an objective, external, and neutral perspective. But it must be taken into account that the meaning of the communication results from a negotiation between the source of the communication and the recipient, between the researcher and the subject.

The researcher constructs, changes and interprets what he observes, and gives it meaning and value. The cause-seeking science of communication often wants to explain events through control, abstraction, stability, and order. But the purpose of interpersonal communication is not only to understand the world, but also to give meaning to coexistence and life. And if the human experience is to be made sense, in addition to the abstraction and control of science, it is necessary to take into account the narratives of the adventures, the changes and the ambiguities of the relationships (Bochner, 1994).

Thanks to these stories, life takes on a new form.to. The narrator creates the new world where he has to live. From this point of view, there is currently a tendency to base the human sciences on narration (Bruner, 1986). For the one who stands in the narrator's perspective, there is a unifying link between the investigator's narrative and the narration of the reporting subject: the life of the researcher influences his descriptions and interpretations; To understand the other you have to base yourself on her experience. The same experimenter is also part of the data and autobiographical data is admitted.

On the other hand, the symbols of their culture shape the experience of the researcher. In a word, the human sciences they should not be limited to an objective, neutral and cold analysis; they have to get to participate in the communication.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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