How Do We Understand Messages From Others?

In this week's class, one thing that I found very interesting was the way that we understand messages from other individuals. As we were discussing this in class, I came to the conclusion that we don't always decode and understand messages from others by the words that are spoken, but instead we decode and understand these messages more from the tone of voice that is used and the nonverbal cues given, such as body language. In class we were given the percentage that each of these three components plays a part in decoding messages from others:

• Words = 14%
• Tone of Voice = 35%
• Nonverbal Cues = 51%

I thought that this was very interesting, and as I looked at my own examples of conversations that I have had with various individuals that it is true; we typically don't understand the message being delivered by another simply by the words that are spoken, but instead we also take into account the tone of voice and the nonverbal cues that are given in the conversation. And when the words that are spoken don't line up with the tone of voice or the body language, we tend to interpret the message from the tone of voice and body language rather than from the words that are spoken. One example that I have came from last night; I got home from work and was kind of tired, and one of my roommates asked me if I wanted to watch a movie with her. I paused and I kind of scrunched up my face as if to say "I don't know", but I told her that I would. But instead of her understanding my message from my words, she read my body language and facial expressions and said "You don't have to if you don't want to." I immediately realized that she was decoding my message through the nonverbal cues that I was giving rather than the actual words that I had said. This showed me that people really do decode our messages through our tone of voice and nonverbal cues rather than just by the words that we speak.

Another example comes from an episode of the TV show FRIENDS that I watched. Joey and Chandler are discussing the new roommate that Joey has, who happens to be a girl. Chandler thinks that the apartment is becoming too girly, and he then proceeds to tell Joey that he is becoming a woman. Joey then says, "Why would you say that, that's just mean!" Chandler replies and asks if he's upset Joey, and what it was that he said that upset him. Joey responds and says, "It's not what you said, it's how you said it." I thought that this was a good example of how people decode messages through an individual's tone of voice. The character Joey felt that it was more of how Chandler said the words rather than the words themselves that were mean and hurtful. 

As we discussed this topic during class, I was able to gain a lot of insight into how we as individuals decode and understand messages from other individuals. Not only do we take into account the actual words that are spoken, but we also take into account the tone of voice and nonverbal cues that are given as well. This in turn has really helped me to understand how we decode and understand messages from others.