Improving Communication Climates

I feel that it is vital to maintain a healthy communication climate. Every relationship has a communication
climate. However, positive climates, characterized by confirming messages, can be particularly hard to
maintain, as negative climates are disconfirming and convey hostility. As with everyone, I can think of
specific examples in my life in which I have been in a positive or negative climate as well as examples of
the people in my life and the climates they experience. For example, in my home life, I have had a very
positive climate with confirming messages, trust, and openness. However, both of my parents, as children,
experienced the more negative end of the spectrum in their households. It is quite interesting seeing how
communication has been impacted through what has happened there. Communication climates develop in
the earlier stages of a relationship and are created through the use of both verbal and nonverbal messages.
After these climates are created, “reciprocal messages create either positive or negative spirals in which
the frequency and intensity of either positive or negative messages are likely to grow.” I find it quite
interesting how, such in the phrase “the writing was on the wall,” how people can see signs of these
climates from the earliest stages and how we can use this knowledge in order to make our personal
communication climates more positive and more welcoming. Defensiveness hinders effective
communication. Most of this occurs when people attempt to protect the key components of their
self-image when they feel that they are, quite literally, under attack. I feel that it is vital to share our
thoughts and feelings with others in “face-saving ways by using the assertive message format.” A clear
and complete message fully describes the behavior in question, at least one interpretation made, the
consequences the situation, and the speaker's feelings and intentions in making the particular statement. I
feel that it is much more effective to use the assertive message format in order to minimize
misunderstanding, and to diffuse (if not prevent) any situation before it spirals out of control.

What is a communication climate?

A communication climate is “the emotional tone of a relationship. A climate doesn’t involve specific
activities as much as the way people feel about and treat each other as they carry out those activities.
Consider two interpersonal communication classes, for example. Both meet for the same length of time
and follow the same syllabus. It’s easy to imagine how one of these classes might be a friendly,
comfortable place to learn, whereas the other could be cold and tense- even hostile.”

What form of attack is used when attack is suggested in defensiveness?

As with the subject of communication, there, if any at all, will be attacks using a physical threat. So if
you’re not threatened by physical injury, then what are you guarding against? Each individual experiences
a variety of communication climates, and, with that, they range on different levels on the spectrum of the
positivity and negativity experienced in such relationship. However, a relationship is fluid and
ever-changing, and any good relationship has to go through a few rough patches along the way. This can
range from verbal harm, to, in the worst relationships, verbal, physical, and emotional abuse. This is why
it is key to reduce defensiveness in others before it gets to that point and to notice the “writing on the
wall” of whomever the other communicator is before worst comes to worst.
What are the Gibb categories?

1. Evaluation
2. Control
3. Strategy
4. Neutrality
5. Superiority
6. Certainty
7. Description
8. Problem-orientation
9. Spontaneity
10. Empathy
11. Equality
12. Provisionalism