Understanding Gestalt Communication
Nadeem Yousaf

Communication is a source of interpersonal reinforcement to condition relationship among people. Like all other social settings,  we use a lot of verbal and non-verbal communication in organizations as well, which greatly affect on motivation level of employees and overall efficiency of the organization. A key thrust of the article is that communication is not just process of exchanging words but a gestalt process.

Commonly known communication is that communication is what the receiver understands, not what the sender says. During the process of interaction, human beings try to read each others' mind through verbal words and non-verbal cues of communication. Non-verbal means of communications are as important as verbal - may be more. For example, facial display of expression  is a component of an emotional response to an immediate stimulus; the smile can be classified as an insult or as a playful tactics to escape aggressive counter­action. Human beings take support of non-verbal communication because the overt accusation sometimes can be more dangerous. It is said that people exchange behaviours of aggression, domination, or antagonism, but more often, they interchange only displays or representations of dominance and submission behaviour consciously or often unconsciously).

There is another important facet of non-verbal communication is that it is a key part of our human system for interaction whether or not it displays intentional, consistent, reliable, or ambiguous message. We gather information about others through non-verbal cues, therefore, investigations shows that strangers tend to look at one another significantly more than friends; the function is to collect information about others. During conversation, people not only take into account  verbal words to decode the message but also curiously observe sitting/standing posture, tone and pitch of the voice and context of the situation.  There are ample evidence which shows that non-verbal behaviour leaks the informationtion regarding one's true intentions and feelings. For example, listener might be angry even though speaker uses very polite words if non-verbal cues are not matching with the verbal cues. Here is an example to clarify.

“Upon entering a shop, the sales girl/boy walks quickly up to you and kindly asks if you need help. Aside from the words, the speed or the way with which you are approached is clearly a type of communication. It might mean "I'd really like to help you", or perhaps " hurry up we're about to close". Setting aside other reasons, non-verbal language plays a role whether one would feel comfortable or not in the shop.

Communication is a gestalt experience.  In the context of communication, verbal communication works as a `figure' and the non-verbal communica­tion and the context work as a `ground'. And, if there is a communication gap then we fill this gap by our past experience. Let us consider the following Figure 1 and Figure 2 in order to understand gestalt communication experience.

Figure 1

 

Figure 2

If we ask someone which square is overlapping in figure 1, the respondent will be perplexed to confirm which one is overlapping. The respondent can come up with different answers but without being sure. We do encounter this kind of phenomenon in the real life when we are unsure which information is giving us more and correct information regarding other's behaviour. When we experience such situations we use three strategies:

(1) get more information;

(2) deliberate interpretation from the available information;

(3) or, remain confused.

We usually go for second option if there is no access to the first option, for we do not like to remain in confusion. The cognitive dissonance theory suggests that human beings try to maintain consistency among cognitive elements because inconsistency produces psychological discomfort.

If there is a communication gap it will be filled with inference to avoid dissonance as shown in the above figure 2. If we ask people how many squares they see in the figure2, they will readily reply "two". The square 'C' is not even a complete square but still we see two squares. The reason behind is that our perception is influenced by our previous understanding. When we interact with each other, if there is any inconsistency in message, we fulfil the gap by relying on our previous knowledge.

In Conclusion, inconsistent or double barrel communication which does not give clear information to the listener hampers intrapersonal communication, which in return negatively affects the organization. However, we should not put all blame to the sender if communication breaks down, sometimes it is the problem with receiver that he/she decoded information incorrectly. Stereotyping is one of the examples,  when a receiver interprets communication by relying on its own mental-set than analyzing information in an innovative manner. It happens quite often when two people meets from different cultures and social backgrounds.

Bibliography

1. Yousaf, M.N (1993): Psychology and Organizations; Conscious and unconscious minds of organizations (Thesis), University of Bergen, Norway

2. Davis, k. &  I.W. Newstrom (1989): Human Behaviour and Work (p.71)

3. Scheflen, A.E: Body languages and the social order by (p.23-72)

4. Sims, H.P., D.A. Gioia et al. (1986): The Thinking Organization (p.138)

5. Bull, P (1983): Body Movement & Interpersonal Communication, (p.12/124)

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