Communication as a Means of Realizing Relationships Among Staff Members

This article covers communication as a means of realizing relationships among staff members. Communication is considered as a vital condition of shaping and developing a society and personality and the way of realizing social relationships. The mutual informing of communication subjects implies the adjustment of collective activity in terms of which there may be completely specific communicative barriers of social and psychological nature. The authors consider some certain forms of communication, functions and types of communication, means and styles of communication, mechanisms and forms of conveying information.

A human being is an original element of any social community. The need in communication is innate in his nature. Most of them actively look for relationships with other people. In numerous cases contacts with other people are short-term and insignificant. However, if two, three or even more persons constantly spend a lot of time together, they gradually begin to realize each other’s existence at the physiological level. Social and physiological community is created in this way. The time required from such a realization and the degree of realization depend on the situation and relationship nature of persons to a larger extent. But as a rule the result of such realization is always just the same. People’s awareness of other people’s expectations and opinions about them makes them change their behavior attesting that relationships exist [1].

Relationships are realized and manifested in the process of communication that present its motivationneed range, from one hand, and they are modified, developed, shaped depending on the peculiarities of its going [2].

Communication is such a people’s connection that is observed and visible. Attitude and relationship are communication sides. A relationship is realized in communication and through communication. Meanwhile, a relationship affects communication and serves a specific content of the latter [3].

The category «communication» is one of the central categories in psychological science along with such categories as «thinking», «behavior», «personality», «relationships».

The main meaning of the communication problem is becoming clear if we pay our attention to the following definition given to the notion of interpersonal communication: « … is the process of interaction, at least of two persons, that is aimed at the mutual cognition, establishment and development of relationships. That is the process which implies a mutual influence on the states, opinions, behavior and regulation of collective activity by the participants of this process» [4].

Communication is a multisided process of developing contacts among people that is bred by the needs of collective activity (the definition was given by A.V. Petrovsky) [5].

Communication is a specific form of the person’s interaction with other people as the members of family.   In    communication   people’s   social   relationships   are   realized   (the   definition   was   drawn     by Stolyarenko) [6].

Communication is a condition that is required to shape and develop a society and personality by means of realizing social relations. Communication being a certain type of human activity that is connected with material transformation of the environment and its cognition, comes up in its realization to the level of individual and social existence as a necessary functional mechanism. It is featured by the following:

• productiveness;
• wholeness;
• activeness;
• goal-orientation;
• subject-orientation.

Communication is the people’s collective activity that is conducted as an interaction through sign systems and is aimed at changing the attitude to the subject of communication [7].  

The organization of collective activity is the most important function of communication in the process of which the mutual exchange of information takes place, as well as planning and coordination of collective actions, stimulation and behavior control [8].

In communication there are three interconnected sides:

• perceptive side of communication implies the process of communication partners’ perceiving each other and maintaining a mutual understanding on this ground;
• communicative side of communication involves information exchange among people (while communicating, people treat a language as one of the main means of communication);
• interactive side infers organizing interaction among people, e.g., it is necessary to harmonize actions, distribute functions or to influence mood, behavior, convictions of the

Describing the communicative side of communication, it is necessary to clarify all the problematic points and find the specificity in the process of information exchange itself when it takes place in case of communication among people.

Firstly, communication cannot be considered only as sending of information by some transmission system and as its receiving by another system because unlike simple «movement of information» between devices, we deal with two individuals and each of them is an active subject: their mutual informing implies maintaining a collective activity.  It means that each participant of communicative process infers  activeness in his partner. Therefore, in communicative process we do not see only the movement of information but at least active exchange of information [9].

The main «adding» in the specifically human exchange of information lies in the fact that the signification of information plays a specific role for each participant of communication because people not only exchange information but, as A.N. Leontyev notes, they also tend to figure out the common sense. It is possible to reach if information is not only received, but it is also understood and it sinks into our minds. The essence of the process is not only mutual informing, but it is a collective understanding of a subject. Therefore, in every communicative process activity, communication and cognition are given in unity [10].

Secondly, the nature of information exchange between people, not between cyber devices, are determined by the fact that partners can influence each other by means of sign system. In other words, such an exchange of information is supposed to affect the partner’s behavior, i.e. a sign is able to change the state of the participants of communicative process. The effectiveness of communication is measured namely by the degree it was possible to influence. Hence, while exchanging information, two-direction process is being carried out — changing the type of relationship itself between communication participants, maintaining (or nonmaintaining) of trust between people, and it does not happen in purely informative process.

Thirdly, a communicative influence as a result of information exchange is possible when a person sending his information (communicator) and a person receiving it (recipient) have one and similar system of codification and decodification. In case of sound speech, participants of communication must have identical lexical and syntactic systems and common understanding of communication situation. It is possible to reach in case of including communication into some common system of activity.

Fourthly, in terms of human communication there may be completely specific communicative barriers of social and psychological character. In contemporary social psychology the issues of lie (Ehkman) and trust (Skripkina) are being worked out [11].

The information itself springing from the communicator may be of two types: imperative and stative. Imperative information may be found in orders, advice, requests. It aims at stimulating some action. Stimulation in its turn may be different as well. First of all, it can be a kind of activization, i.e. encouragement to act in a set direction. Then, it is an interdiction, i.e. encouragement that does not allow vice-versa definite actions, prohibition of adverse types of activity. Next, goes destabilization — disharmonization or breach of some autonomous forms of behavior or activity. Stative information is given in the form of message. It occurs in different educational systems and does not imply any direct changes in behavior, although it contributes to that in an indirect way [9].

There are verbal and non-verbal types of communication that use different sign systems. Verbal communication uses human speech as a sign system.

We refer the following to the means of communication:

1. Language is a system of words, expressions and rules of their joining in thought statements used for communication.
2. Intonation, emotional expressiveness that is able to give a different meaning to the same
3. Facial expressions, posture, an interlocutor’s look can strengthen, add or reject the meaning of a phrase.
4. Gestures as means of communication may be both commonly accepted, i.e. they may have their own meanings, and expressive, i.e. they may convey a bigger expressiveness of
5. Space that conversation partners use depends on cultural, national traditions, the degree of The following sciences investigate non-verbal means of communication:
6. kinestics (gestures, facial expressions, posture);
7. paralinguistics and extralinguistics (intonation, volume, tone, pauses, sigh, laughter, cry, i.e. intonation characteristics of voice);
8. skin reactions (reddening, appearance of sweat);
9. proxemics (orientation, distance, i.e. space organization of communication);
10. tactile and kinesthesical means (physical influence — leading a blind person holding his hand, contact dance, ; takesika — shaking hands, patting on the shoulder) and olfactorius ones (pleasant and unpleasant smells of the environment, natural and artificial smells of people) [12]. Non-verbal communication is valuable as it appears as a rule in a spontaneous and automatic way. It is stipulated by the impulses of our sub-consciousness, i.e. the absence of the possibility to imitate such impulses allows us to trust this language more than the verbal canal of communication;
11. visual communication (system of eye contact) [4].

In social psychology the issue of communication structure takes a special place. One can consider this issue from different angles. It is possible to see it by means of pointing out analysis levels of this phenomenon and also by calling out its main functions.  There are usually three levels of analysis (B.F. Lomov) [13]:

1. Macro level: the individual’s communication with other people is considered as the most important side of his lifestyle. At this level the process of communication is studied at the intervals of time that correspond to the durality of human life and focus on the analysis of the individual’s psychic development. In this case communication is presented as a complicated developing net of the individual’s interactions with other people and social
2. Mesa level (average level): communication is considered as a changing range of target-oriented logically completing contacts or situations of interaction where people find themselves in the process of current life activity at the certain time intervals of their When investigating this level of communication, the content components of communication situations are of great interest — «Why» and «What is the purpose». Within this nucleus of the theme, a subject of communication, the communication dynamics is revealed, applied means are analyzed (verbal and non-verbal means). Also the same is done with phases, stages of communication in the course of which the exchange of ideas and feeling is happening.
3. Micro level: the analysis of elementary units of communication as adjacent acts or transactions is of great importance. It is crucial to underline that the elementary unit of communication is not a change of interleaved behavioral acts of its participants but it is their interaction. It involves not only the action of one of the partners but the coaction connected with him or counteraction of another partner (e.g. «question — answer», «encouragement to action – action», «giving information — attitude to it» etc.) [4].

From the point of interactive side of communication there are three main styles of action: ritual, manipulative and humanistic.

The ritual style is usually featured by some culture. Its purpose is not to change another partner in communication but to confirm his presence in this culture, this situation, to state his competence in it, e.g. the style of greetings, questions asked during meetings, nature of answers expected.

As to the usage of manipulative style of interaction, the purpose of its usage is to manage, educate, to influence, to impose his/her opinion. To manipulate, one may apply a wide range of means such as distraction, grasp of initiative, «exploitation» of manipulation object’s personal qualities. Everybody knows the phenomenon «a foot at the door» when the influence on the partner is given in portions: first of all he is offered to give up in some unimportant matters, then he is imposed somebody’s opinion without realizing it [14].

Humanistic style is seen when the purpose of interaction is not to change another person but to change both partners’ ideas about the object of interaction. In this respect support is a purpose too. Humanistic style implies a proper understanding and even experiencing a situation of interaction [9].

The main mechanisms of mutual understanding in the course of communication are identification, empathy and reflexion. Moreover, we refer causative attribution to this process too. The term «identification» has several meanings in social psychology. In the problematic field of communication identification is the thinking process of somebody’s modeling to the partner of communication with the purpose of understanding his thoughts and ideas. Empathy is seen as the thinking process of somebody’s modeling to another person but with the purpose of «understanding» another person’s feelings and worries. The word «understanding» here is used in a metaphoric sense – empathy is «affective understanding».

Due to the definitions we may note that identification and empathy are close to each other in their content, and in psychological literature the term «empathy» often has an extended interpretation — it implies the process of understanding as well as thoughts and feelings of a communication partner. Besides, speaking about the process of empathy we should take into account unconditionally positive attitude to the personality. It means the following points:

• acceptance of human personality in wholeness;
• own emotional neutrality, absence of evaluative judgments about perceived

Reflexion in the problem of understanding each other is realizing by the individual how he is seen and understood by the communication partner. In the course of mutual reflecting communication partners, reflexion is a kind of feedback which contributes to shaping and behavior strategy of communication subjects, correction of their understanding peculiarities of each other’s inner world.

Causative attribution means the process of adding another person some reasons of his behavior in the case when the information about these reasons is not available. The need to accept the reasons of the partner’s behavior in interaction arises as one has a desire to interpret his deeds.

Interpersonal attraction is another mechanism of understanding in communication. Attraction is the process of shaping a person’s attractiveness for a recipient, its result is shaping interpersonal relationships. Nowadays the extended interpretation is being drawn for the process of attraction as a formation of emotional and evaluative ideas about each other and about their interpersonal relationships (both positive and negative ones) as a kind of social setting with domination of emotional and evaluative component [15].

The culture of behavior in any respect cannot exist without following rules of verbal etiquette that is linked with forms and manners of speech, command of words, i.e. with the whole style of speech adopted in human communication.

Giving information may have a different form. It can be a talk, conversation, argument, and even a lecture. Therefore, types of verbal communication are rather different. The choice of this or that means depends on the aims of an utterance, number of participants.

Communicating with each other, we interact, do a collective activity. Activity is a factor of personality development, the active form of the subject’s attitude towards the object. If the object of situation is another subject, this situation is called communication and its form of its design is behavior. Types of activity (cognitive, labour, art types, etc.) except communication always result in a product: learnt poems, cleaned floor etc. Hence, these types of activity are adopted to call as subject activity. Communication is not accompanied by the subject result. The value of communication in communication itself, in that complete satisfaction which gives a mutual transmission «I» of two subjects: to exchange smiles, to share your opinion, to listen to another person’s impression.

Communication takes place where there are minimum two «I» and where a free mutual transmission of these different «I» is present. Yet, there is no communication where there is just  one «I» that suppresses another «I», gives his opinion and feelings, states his will doing harm to the another subject’s personality. Communication is a special type of activity, it accompanies all its types, it covers activity in a direct and indirect way (when reading a book, we communicate with its author). In psychology the idea of unity between communication and activity is accepted. Such a conclusion logically springs from understanding communication as a reality of human relations suggesting that any forms of communication are included into specific forms of collective activity: people do not simply communicate in the process of fulfilling various functions by them but they always communicate in some activity, «because of» it. Therefore, it is the activity person who always communicates: his activity is inextricably connected with the activity of other persons [16].

But it is the intersection of activities that creates some certain relations of activity person towards not only the subject of his activity but also towards other people. Communication may be interpreted as a special type of activity. According to this point of view there are two varieties: the first variety implies the communication that is understood as communicative activity or activity of communication which is independent at the definite stage of ontogenesis. Another one means communication in general that is seen as one of the types of activity (we mean here speech activity) and relatively all the elements cannot be found that are peculiar to the activity in general: actions, motives, etc. [17]. It is necessary to note that in most of psychological interpretations given to activity, relationships «subject – object» is a ground of its definitions  and category-notion apparatus. Such relationships cover only one side of human social existence. With this respect there is a need to work out a communication category that reveals another one that is significant too in terms of human social existence, namely the relationships «subject – subject(s)» [4].

Here we can give Znakov’s opinion that reflects existing ideas about the category of communication in the contemporary domestic psychology: «I’m going to call communication such a form of subjects interaction that is originally motivated by their desire to single out psychic qualities of each other, and in the course of which interpersonal relationships between them are shaped…». Collective activity involves the situations in which interpersonal communication of people is obedient to the common aim — to solve a concrete problem [18].

It infers a feature of subject-orientation of collective activity. That fact lets us single out interconnected spheres of group activity inside, that differ in their object of its final enclosing. The former includes those various forms of relationships, the object of which is members of this group. The continuum of such relationships forms the sphere of interpersonal or subject-subject activity in a team. The intention and effect in the near future of subject-subject activity is the transformation of interpersonal relations in the field of communication. The latter sphere of group activity inside is formed by means of range of operational, communicative and other acts that are oriented at the target of collective activity. Such forms of activity aim at the transformation of subject characteristics of activity even though they are realized to a larger extent by means of interindividual relations. In general they may be called the sphere of subject activity in staff. The acts of subject activity, that are genetically primary for a labor team, form a definite «basis» of its life activity, and in the end they define the state of developing interpersonal relationships in a team [19].

When taking a part in communication, each of us interacts with other people and is not able to live without it.

Hence, the analysis of the notion «communication» as a complicated, multisided process shows us that its certain forms may be quite different. We have considered the notion «communication», functions and types of communication, means and style of communication, mechanisms and forms of conveying information. 

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