BARRIERS TO INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION What stands in the way of effective interpersonal communication? What interferes with us having complete understanding of what others are saying, and many times, what we, ourselves are saying? These interferences, or barriers can placed into four general categories: Emotions, Defensiveness, Filtering, and Information Overload

Breaking Down Barriers EMOTIONS Emotions are powerful and are a major factor in motivating us to do many of the things we do Life would lifeless and dull without emotions However, When emotions become highly charged or are expressed negatively, interpersonal communication flies out the window When we allow our emotions to have free reign, and they become negative in nature, the person or persons that we are communicating with become defensive, or they go on the offense Practice saying what you mean and mean what you say, but, for the best results, say it in a clam and neutral fashion

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS DEFENSIVENESS When we raise our pitch, voice or tone, in anger, frustration or impatience, we produce defensiveness in the recipient This approach almost always triggers a “flight or fight” syndrome The chance for effective interpersonal communication is often destroyed

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS FILTERING: When the communicating party manipulates information to his or her advantage or to a specific agenda, they are “filtering” the communication Filtering may work for a time, but when this device is discovered, the other party or parties, may feel used or betrayed (example President Bush and the Iraq War) Filtering is a form of manipulation and can produce disastrous results in interpersonal communication

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS INFORMATION OVERLOAD: Information is a good thing, but you have heard it said, “Sometimes, You can have too much of a good thing” This is the case with information overload The human brain can only take in so much information , when we exceed our brain’s capacity to process information, we are causing information overload The net result, the message we desire to express gets lost in confusion

CULTURAL BARRIERS . Cultural Difference- Sometimes our culture may be a huge hindrance for effective interpersonal communication. When two people with different cultures communicate, they often do not understand each other's cultures and may misunderstand the true meaning of what each other's trying to convey through such a sense. For example, Japanese people would say "はい" (pronounced as 'ha-i') and Americans may misunderstand that they are saying "hi". This makes the intentions unclear between both people.

JARGON Jargon- Not everyone understands each other's jargon words. Jargon should be avoided when talking to someone who isn't familiar with you personally or within your organization.