Everyone has experienced, at one time or another the frustration of feeling misunderstood and being unable to make ourselves understood by another person. Anything which, blocks the meaning of a communication, is a barrier to communication. Effective communication is like a house built one block at a time. First to build a house trust must be built; trust is not a group process it is created in one to one connections with each individual. Second, be bold and open, better communications are clear, direct, respect, reflective and frequent. And finally, strive to continually overcome the barriers to effective communication, challenge others to grow and educate your self. There are many barriers to effective communication, we will examine four of the main ones, stereotyping, language, showing approval or disapproval, and becoming defensive. One of the greatest barriers to communication is stereotyping. A stereotype is defined as "A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image"(www.dictonary.com). When an individual has a preconception about another individual, it makes it difficult for the individual not to view the other individual's communication with prejudice. Within stereotyping there are many facets in which one hold's bias views to another individuals message. Of these there are stereotypes for race, religion, and gender. To better understand how stereotyping can hinder effective communication each area needs to be scrutinized in greater detail.
To this day, some people are still judging others by the color of their skin. Racial stereotyping is an extremely detrimental facet of stereotyping. It can very well pave the road to out right racism. Racial stereotyping can create communication barriers on a multitude of levels. A perfect example would be an individual believing he is more intelligent than another due to race alone. That individual would discard all communication from the other
References: ht /fulltext.assp?resultSetId=R00000000&hitNum=5&booleanTerm=effective%20 communication&fuzzy/Term 10/12/2000 ht /fulltext.assp?resultSetId=R00000000&hitNum=6&booleanTerm=effective%20 communication&fuzzy/Term 10/12/2000 http://www.mediate.com/articles/foster.cfm?plain=t 10/12/2000 http://www.health.ufl.edu/nursing/fall99/nur3065c/hx/tsld014.htm 10/12/2000 www.dictonary.com