The Impact of Preexisting Conditions

The Impact of Preexisting Conditions

• Values, attitudes, and beliefs
  • Learned ways of thinking
• Culture and religion
  • Cultural mores, norms, ideas, and customs provide the basis for our way of thinking
• Social status
  • High-status persons often convey their high-power position with gestures of hands on hips, power dressing, greater height, and more distance when communicating with individuals considered to be of lower social status.
• Gender
  • Masculine and feminine gestures influence messages conveyed in communication with others.
• Age or developmental level
  • Example: The influence of developmental level on communication is especially evident during adolescence, with words such as dude, cool, awesome, and others.
• The environment in which the transaction takes place
  • Territoriality, density, and distance are aspects of environment that communicate messages.
    • Territoriality: The innate tendency to own space
    • Density: The number of people within a given environmental space
    • Distance: The means by which various cultures use space to communicate

• There are four kinds of distance in interpersonal interactions.
  • Intimate distance: The closest distance that individuals allow between themselves and others
  • Personal distance: The distance for interactions that are personal in nature
  • Social distance: The distance for conversation with strangers or acquaintances
  • Public distance: The distance for speaking in public or yelling to someone some distance away