Paralanguage quiz

The paralanguage quiz was a lot of fun. I got 8 out of 10 correct. We use paralanguage everyday whether we realize it or not. It is a big part of our daily lives. I could see how paralanguage may be misunderstood and cause a communication barrier. If someone misunderstood a friend's paralanguage, they may think the friend was being rude. Because of this, conflict may arise between them.

Gender-free Language

I thought the Gender-free Language website was intriguing. It will definately make people more aware of gender associated language. I do believe that language shapes our reality of the world. We, as a society, get so accustomed to hearing gender associated language that we begin stereotyping genders to specific tasks and roles.

Facial Expressions

I thought the emotion demonstration was fun and informative. It was cool to see how the different emotions affect the face. Every facial movement is attached to a certain emotion. This demonstration made me more aware of my facial expressions because I may be sending out the image of an emotion than what I'm actually experiencing.

Emotions

I thought the article about emotions and the brain was very interesting. I would actually like to learn more about it. The article was a little short and didn't give as much detail as I would have liked. I would have liked to see how emotions are mapped out across the brain and exactly where each emotion is located. I also would have liked the article to answer the question "Are emotions located in the same place on the brain for everyone, or is it unique to the individual?"

Perceptions

The way we perceive people may not actually be the truth. We often stereotype people by the way we perceive them. For example, if someone is wearing dirty, torn clothes, then we automatically stereotype them as being lower class. People aren't always as they seem. We must learn to look past the image and see the man/woman behind the clothes, glasses, degree, etc. Until we can stop stereotyping, we can never truely begin to relate to others.

Pygmalion

I strongly agree with the Pygmalion in the Classroom experiment. I think the majority of the population only pushes themselves as far as they are expected to. I believe the same results can be seen between parents and children. If children are expected to be "slow," they tend to not reach their full potential. These results may not be true to every individual though. Some people may take the lower expections of their teachers, parents, and peers as motivation. They may use this as an inspiration to be and do better.

Communication Test Results

I scored an 80 on the Communication Test. I believe the test is farely accurate but not totally. One person's point of view of how they communicate may be completely different from how the world views their communication skills. I also think the test could have had more in-depth questions and/or increased the quantity of questions asked. I would not fully base my communication self-image solely on a 10 question test, but I still thought it was fun.