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Thought Problem/Solution Paper #2

Agustin Portillo

Psychology, SDSU

PSY-319: Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Kathleen Lang

May 11, 2023

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When trying to convey and/or express some type of message or feeling to another person

there exist other ways than just verbal communication so the message can have a stronger

meaning and be more trustful. In order for this to happen it is important for the sender, or in other

terms, the person who starts the communication to have good nonverbal communication.

According to Riggio R. (2017), these other than verbal or even written messages are facial

expressions, appearance, eye contact, touch, voice tone, environment, space, territory, and

kinesics. Some people might say or think that they find it difficult to be able to express these

types of nonverbal messages because they don’t notice, they don’t pay attention, or they might

say that they just cannot control, convey, or express some of these such as facial expressions, eye

contact, or voice tone, but according to a study only 7% percent of all communication are only

words, 38% are vocal elements, and 55% are nonverbal elements (GoodTherapy, 2016).

Nonverbal communication codes are very important since they cover over half of the

human communication elements. Each of the nine codes oversees a specific factor. Appearance

covers everything that is linked to the way a person looks such as their clothing, jewelry, hats,

the perfume they might use, or if they don’t use at all, makeup, and tattoos, among many other

elements related to all these. Kinesics would be all types of body movements and postures of the

person. This is important so the receiver or person who is trying to decode what the sender is

trying to say or express such as if they are interested or not, and their attitudes. This could also be

seen as body language. Eye contact helps the sender to express honesty, safety, and trust so the

receiver can believe what they are hearing through their verbal communication and what they are

seeing through their nonverbal codes. When it comes to facial expressions, these express certain

emotions such as if the sender is angry, mad, sad, and happy, among many others. Touch is to

convey that there exists either some type of affection or rejection towards the receiver. Voice
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helps to communicate and express too certain emotions and if the message has a specific

meaning. Some factors influence the meaning such as pitch, volume, if the sender stutter, or if

they are secure in what they are saying, and rate. Environment would give either a better and

correct or wrong meaning to the message. Then there is space and territory. These two are similar

since when it comes to space it helps the sender to express and convey some type of status. On

the other hand, territory helps to provide the occupancy of space (Riggio R., 2017).

Personally, when it comes to my daily experience with nonverbal communication as a

sender, I think that a few years ago they weren’t as expressive as they are now that I am older.

And when I am the receiver, I also think that I can identify them with more ease. When I am the

sender, I say that now that I have grown up more it is easier for me to express my nonverbal

communication codes, especially on my facial expressions because for many years many friends

and family members told me that I wasn’t so expressive and that I didn’t have any type of facial

expressions regardless of the situation unless I was very happy, very sad, or very angry. I felt

somehow sad because of those comments because I thought that I was doing too many facial

expressions. When I started to grow up more and when I started majoring in psychology and

learning that it is very important to share and express emotions in many ways possible, it was

then that I could finally start being more expressive and now people could notice and understand

better the message I was trying to convey. And when I am the receiver, I also think that now that

I have grown up more as mentioned, I can identify more nonverbal communication codes such as

facial expressions easily because have in mind that as a psychologist I must identify certain

aspects of behavior therefore, I pay more attention now to what people are trying to convey and I

can identify those nonverbal expressions more. Personally, think that everyone needs to be able

to express themselves with all of these codes/factors because most of the time the receivers
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cannot properly understand the message that the sender is trying to explain and or convey

therefore, there could be many problems with that message. Such as when it comes to a romantic

relationship. If those two people are in a situation where they might need to have a serious talk

for them to talk to clarify some things, they both are going to need to have a great ability to be

the sender and the receiver. This is so both persons can express their own emotions and thoughts

properly as well as so they both can hear and pay attention to the sender so they can properly

have a similar sight of the problem (Keiling H., 2023), understand the message, and solve the

problem without any type of issue or fight between them.

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References

GoodTherapy. (2016). Nonverbal Communication.

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/nonverbal-

communication#:~:text=Nonverbal%20communication%20plays%20a%20significant,de

velop%20stronger%20relationships%20with%20others.

Keiling H. (2023). 9 Types of nonverbal communication and how to understand them. Indeed.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/nonverbal-communication-

skills#:~:text=Nonverbal%20communication%20is%20important%20because,person%2

0or%20group%20of%20people.

Riggio R. (2017). Introduction to industrial/organizational psychology. Routledge. 7th Edition.

ISBN 9781138655324 (hardback: alk. paper) ISBN 9781315620589 (ebook)