thursday, week 3

In discussing the notion of secrets in interpersonal relationships, Sabrina had positive things to say about the text, which I appreciated. Choosing a text can prove difficult. There are many interpersonal communication texts for lower division courses, but not many for upper division. This book strikes a good balance between theory/research and the practice of interpersonal communication. As Sabrina observes, the authors break down concepts into their parts or elements and give examples to make the concepts more concrete.

Boyd013 gave several good examples of excuses. You use them in an attempt to manage impressions others have of you. Generally you don't want to appear incompetent, stupid, uncaring, or any number of negative qualities, so you use accounts to try to spin your actions in a more positive way. That relates to Carmen's comments on embarassment in that you can also use accounts to avoid embarassment, and help others by smoothing over embarassing situations. Gian also blogged about embarassment and gave some suggestions for dealing with such situations.

In discussing self-presentation strategies, forrent36 focused on self-glorification. Although the dominant U.S. culture expects some self-glorification or self-promotion, too much reflects poorly on the self. For example, when interviewed on TV, professional sports players in team sports rarely take all the credit for themselves, even if they had a great game. They usually say something like, "I couldn't have done it without my teammates" or "It was really a team effort."

Chapters 6-8 provide key insights into how the self is constructed in and through communication with others. How you define yourself is grounded and reflected in your communication with others.

--Professor Cyborg