This successful textbook on the psychology of communication explains - here in English for the first time - how human communication works in a very understandable way. It begins with the explanation of central terms and the explanation of known communication models (e.g. the models according to Schulz von Thun, Watzlawick, Hargie and colleagues), then describes means of non-verbal and verbal communication and ends with a clear and structured summary of communication forms. Concrete fields of application, stumbling blocks (e.g. intercultural differences in communication), practical examples and digressions in the book round off what has been read and consolidate what has been learned. In addition, free learning materials are available on the Internet with which readers can test their knowledge acquisition.
This book will be useful to both students and professors of psychology as well as those in the field of communication studies, and anyone interested in learning more about the many faces of communication.
The essays in this book treat a variety of topics - from cybernetics and automation to physical research and the supernatural - but the diversity is largely on the surface. Underneath is a persistent concern with problems located at the intersection of scientific psychology and communication theory, concern with an attempt to formulate a psychological conception of man as an information-gathering, information-processing system. Most of these essays deal explicitly with psychological aspects of communication. Some reflect a communicative concern less directly. Memory, for example, is a communication from the past to the future, and the channel it travels from source to destination is often the human nervous system; the problem is to encode the message in such a way as to resist the ubiquitous noise that this channel introduces.
The essays in this book treat a variety of topics - from cybernetics and automation to physical research and the supernatural - but the diversity is largely on the surface.
This book is designed to capture the complexity of the vast domain of the psychology of communication by adding overlays of different logical approaches to the topic. Each chapter will focus on a different approach. Chapters 2 (behavioristic approach), 3 (humanistic approach), and 4 (interactionist approach) are presented as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. They focus respectively on input, stored, and fedback information. Chapters 5 (phylogenetic approach) and 6 (ontogenetic approach) place psychology firmly where it belongs as the study of organisms rather than of mechanisms. Development from animal to human and from child to adult is emancipation from tyranny of environment. Chapter 7 (pathological approach) explores functional disorders of person-in-environment, since the nervous system "knows" its environment. Chapter 8 (phenomenological approach) deals with the further complexity that the nervous system can be viewed from the inside (experience) as well as from the outside (behavior). Chapters 9 (simulation approach) and 10 (mediational approach) focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligence amplification (IA). Computers can be used to emulate or to extend human intelligence. Chapters 11 (biological approach) and 12 (sociological approach) deal with the complexities arising from the fact that the nervous system is embedded in a hierarchy of systems within systems. They focus on emergence from the level below psychology (biology) and reduction from the level above (sociology). Each approach will cast some light on the topic from its peculiar perspective. The cumulative effect will be to illuminate the domain in all its complexity.
This book is designed to capture the complexity of the vast domain of the psychology of communication by adding overlays of different logical approaches to the topic.
This is the first comprehensive text on social psychological approaches to communication, providing an excellent introduction to theoretical perspectives, special topics, and applied areas and practice in communication. Bringing together scholars of international reputation, this book provides a unique contribution to the field.
This is the first comprehensive text on social psychological approaches to communication, providing an excellent introduction to theoretical perspectives, special topics, and applied areas and practice in communication.
