The Basic Interpersonal Skills

Chapter 4

Talking and Listening:

The Basic Interpersonal Skills

This chapter (see Box 4.1) is intended to help you develop proficiency in the basic interpersonal skills of talking and listening (i.e., the processes used to send and receive messages fully and accurately). In this context, the term talking is used to refer to the processes involved in sending and listening to refer to those involved in receiving messages-regardless of the means of transmission.[1]

Well-developed communication skills are needed in all phases and forms of social work practice. Indeed, they apply to all aspects of human social interaction. Inadequate skills in sending and receiving messages can impede the development of a productive professional relationship and prevent a successful outcome. The basic interpersonal skills of talking and listening facilitate social interaction. They enable you to understand accurately and express yourself clearly during exchanges with other people.

BOX 4.1

Chapter Purpose

The purpose of this chapter is to help learners develop proficiency in the basic interpersonal skills of talking and listening (i.e., sending and receiving messages).

Goals

Following completion of this chapter, learners should be able to demonstrate the following:

*Understanding of the talking, listening, and active-listening skills

*Appreciation for culturally competent communications

*Proficiency in nonverbal communications and body language

*Proficiency in the talking skills

*Proficiency in the listening skills

*Proficiency in active listening

*Ability to assess proficiency in the talking and listening skills

Culturally Competent Communications

Despite the fact that "everyone communicates," effective interpersonal communications are among the most difficult activities human beings undertake. The challenges for the worker-and-client in a professional encounter are even more challenging than those that occur inother kinds of relationships. The difficulties involve the various meanings that individuals have for the verbal and nonverbal conscious and unconscious messages they express. Cultural dimensions play a large part. Indeed, cultural competence is essential for effective communications.

Furthermore, the importance of culturally competent communications will increase with each passing decade. According to population projections of the U.S. Census Bureau, the 1999 U.S. population of approximately 280 million is expected to grow to about 480 million by the year 2075. The implications of a population that approaches one-half-billion - even ina country as resource-rich as the United States are staggering. Growth in overall size, however, reflects only part of the picture. The racial and ethnic composition will change dramatically as well.

By 2075, the Hispanic population in the U.S. is predicted to grow from 11.5 to 29.5% of the population, and the non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander population from 3.8 to 11.0%. The Native American Indian and the non-Hispanic black populations are expected to reflect modest changes, from 0.7 to 0.8 and from 12.1 to 13.2%, respectively. The largest percentage change is anticipated among the non-Hispanic, white population, which is expected to decrease from 71.9 to 45.6% of the population (U.S. Census Bureau Population Division PopulationProjections Branch, 2002). At some point during the 21st century, non-Hispanic whites are expected to represent less than half the total U.S. population.

When you addressed issues related to professionalism in Chapter 2 and ethical decision-making in Chapter 3, you began to explore the importance of cultural competence for social work practice. Such competence emerges most profoundly during exchanges with others. Each person has culturally based expectations about all sorts of things, including roles related to help seeking and receiving as well as help giving, and beginning and ending social encounters. Among the most important aspects of culture are communications. Language, for example, is an obvious aspect of culture and affects the processes and outcomes of communications. Within a few years, most social workers will need to be proficient in at least one other language besides English. Schools and departments of social work would be wise to encourage students' bilingual proficiency. The increase in the number of Hispanic persons suggests that many social workers should know Spanish - but competency in American Sign and other languages is also needed to serve diverse populations, including the large numbers of first- and second-generation immigrants and refugees that come to North America.

The understanding of the meaning of words is, of course, only one aspect of the numerous challenges associated with intercultural communication. Pedersen (1981; Pedersen & Ivey, 1993) used the phrase "multicultural three-step" to describe the stages of developing competence among counsellors: (1) awareness, (2) knowledge, and (3) skill.

Awareness refers to the recognition of your own cultural patterns, expectations, perceptions, and how they differ from and influence communication with people from different cultures. Awareness also involves realizing the limitations in your knowledge about other cultural traditions.

Knowledge involves appreciating and understanding clients' cultures. Such understanding is based on knowledge gained from the professional and scientific literature, resource persons from other cultures, and findings from research studies about communications between your culture and your clients'.

Skill includes those interpersonal abilities based on awareness and knowledge that enable you to communicate effectively and provide helpful services to people from other cultures. As professionals interested in service, social workers need interpersonal competencies as well as cultural awareness and knowledge. Without skill, you might be quite educated but unable to make a difference in others' lives. Among other competencies, social workers must be able to communicate verbally and nonverbally with persons from other cultures and, when necessary, use interpreters in appropriate and effective ways.

Several scholars have published valuable works in the area of intercultural communication competence for helping professionals (Arredondo, 1998; Arredondo & Arciniega, 2001; Arredondo et al., 1996; Blount, Thyer, & Frye, 1992; Bralthwaite, 2000; Chung & Bemak, 2002; Fong, 2001; Fong & Furuto, 2001; Harrison & S. Dziegielewski, 1992a, 1992b; Hartley, 1999; Ivey & Ivey, 1996, 2003; Ivey, Simek-Morgan, D'Andrea, Ivey, & D'Andrea, 2001; Leigh, 1998; Liu & Clay, 2002; Mindess, 1999; Payne, 2001; Pedersen, 2000a, 2000b, 2002, 2003;Pedersen & Ivey, 1993; Ponterotto & Casas, 1991; Pope-Davis, Heesacker, Coleman, Liu, & Toporek, 2003; Roysircar, 2003; Sue & Arredondo, 1992; Sue et al., 1998; Sue & Sue, 1999; Wamback & Harrison, 1992; Wodarski, 1992a, 1992b, 1992c). 'The sheer quantity of scholarly work related to intercultural communication in counselling and social work reflects the growing recognition that professional helpers must be culturally competent during the 21st century.

Numerous excellent resources are available for social workers seeking to enhance their awareness and improve their knowledge of and competence in serving persons from various cultures (Acevedo & Morales, 2001; Bird, 2001; Brammer, 2004; Daly, 2001; Davis, 2001; Devore, 2001; Fong, 2003; Fong & Furuto, 2001; Furuto, San Nicolas, Kim, & Fiaui, 2001; Galan, 2001; Gilbert & Franklin, 2001; Heart, 2001; Kanuha, 2001; Leung & Cheung, 2001; Lie & Lowery, 2003; McRoy, 2003; Negroni-Rodriguez & Morales, 2001; Villa, 2001; Walters, Longres, Han, & Icard, 2003; Weaver, 2003; Westbrooks & Starks, 2001; Zuniga, 2003). Indeed, whenever possible, begin to learn about specific population groups you will serve in your field practicum or in your professional roles following graduation before you start. Try to gain some personal experience as well. Visit neighbourhoods, attend religions services, and talk with community leaders to gain understanding that cannot occur through scholarly materials alone.

Awareness and knowledge go hand-in-hand. Initial awareness of your thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and social behaviours toward and with another culture is very likely to change as you gain knowledge about the norms, values, history, religious beliefs and practices, dress, and social customs. Suppose, for example, that you experience negative judgmental thoughts about a culture that reflects a formally structured, patriarchic family structure where women and children assume lesser overt status and power. Your critical reaction might change if you learn that historically such a family structure served survival needs in a society where social deviance was commonly punished by death. You might also learn that within that culture's religious traditions, the father is viewed as the primary connecting linkage between women and children and God or heaven. Without such knowledge, you might adopt a negative view of men in the culture; with it, you might be more understanding and able to communicate with respect and empathy. Without cultural knowledge, you might, for example, begin an initial family meeting by talking first with a teenager rather than the father. As a result, you might unwittingly express disrespect for the father and the culture. Your ignorance could lead the family to withdraw from a service program and perhaps avoid additional professional help in the future. Cultural incompetence by social workers and other helping professionals might well lead members of certain cultural groups to avoid human service and mental health organizations altogether. Does it surprise you that certain population groups seek services at lower rates than do others or that the dropout rates of some groups are much higher than are those of others? Cultural incompetence may be part of the explanation.

As you proceed on the never-ending path toward competence, first learn about various facets of culture that directly relate to the nature of the services you expect to provide and the professional roles you hope to fulfil. For example, if you served as a social worker in public child welfare, you might well seek to develop the following:

(1) knowledge of the other groups religious/spiritual orientations and views of metaphysical harmony,

(2) cultural views of children,

(3) cultural style of communication - whether information is transmitted primarily through spoken words or through the context of the situation, the relationship, and physical cries,

(4) culturally prescribed and proscribed behaviours in formal and informal relationships,

(5) family structures and roles; child-rearing practices including nurturing, meeting physical and psychosocial needs, methods of discipline (including use of corporal punishment),

(6) norms of interdependency, mutuality, and obligation within families and kinship networks,

(7) health and healing practices, and

(8) views of change and intervention. (Samantrai, 2004, p. 34)

Of course, many other aspects of culture may pertain to communication with persons from other cultures. For example, the concept of time as measured by "the clock" may be highly valued in a culture. Being "on time" may be associated with responsibility, reliability, courtesy, commitment, and perhaps wealth. In such a culture, the phrase "time is money" may be used. In another culture, clock time may hold much less value. The natural rhythms of the movement of the sun and moon, the changing of the seasons, and the ebbs and flows in human relationships may assume greater importance. The concept "when the time is right" may be evident in social relations and interpersonal communications.

Other culturally relevant dimensions of communication include preferences about proximity or the degree of space between people, the expression of emotion, the nature and extent of eye-contact, the degree of hand or other physical movements, and the ease with which intimate or personal topics are discussed.

History is often a remarkably significant aspect of culture and could be overlooked in your efforts to deal with current issues. For instance, suppose one cultural group experienced severe oppression by another for several generations. Their ancestors may have been enslaved or perhaps subject to ethnic cleansing. What might happen if your name or appearance reminds a client of peoples who committed atrocities? In such circumstances, the cultural history may well become a powerful part of the immediate present.

Indeed, powerfulness and powerlessness tend to remain significant phenomena for individuals and groups that have experienced either or both. Being a "somebody" or a "nobody" (Fuller, 2002) profoundly affects people and the way they communicate with others. Fuller used the term rankism to refer to the uses and abuses of power by those of higher rank toward those of lower rank. The feelings of shame, humiliation, indignity, or inferiority felt by a "nobody" when abused, oppressed, enslaved, imprisoned, or exploited or even when addressed with superiority, arrogance, or condescendence by a "somebody" are pretty much the same whether it appears as racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, lookism, heterosexism, or other insidious "isms." When a professor demeans a student, a colonel ridicules a private, an employer humiliates an employee, a Senator ignores a citizen, a social worker belittles a client, or the people of one culture deny the humanity of another, the resulting dehumanization frequently has long-lasting effects.

Social workers' expression of cultural competence involves awareness and management of rankism in all its myriad manifestations. The role of social worker involves a position of status and rank relative to clients. The difference in rank is not, in itself, a negative. Indeed, as you in learned Chapter 2, the prestige and competence implicit in professional status are significant factors contributing to effective service outcomes. However, when helping professionals begin to view themselves as "somebodies" and others as "nobodies," the beneficial aspects of the differential status can easily turn into the deleterious effects of rankism.

In communications with and about others, a prominent sign of rankism is judgmental reference to "us" and "them" or sometimes to "you" and "them." In their efforts to understand and support clients, social workers may unwittingly adopt moral metaphors that actually hinder their professional efforts.

Perhaps the most well known depiction of a common moral metaphor is the "dramatic triangle." Apparent in the Greek tragedies and many novels, plays, movies, TV soap operas, and in common gossip, the triangle reflects tension or conflict among three parties, forces, themes, or perspectives. A typical form includes a hero or heroine who confronts a villain or an obstacle to rescue a worthy or desirable victim.

Although the concept of dramatic triangles is commonly applied in literary criticism, they are also readily apparent in most cultural mythologies (Campbell, 1972; Campbell & Moyers, 1988), religions (Campbell, 1986), and political philosophies (Morone, 2003). Wartime tends to emphasize moral metaphors and dramatic triangles where one country, tribe, people, or coalition is viewed as "good," another as "bad," and a third as "victimized." The European theatre of World War II provides a clear example of the morally based triangle: Great Britain, the United States, and their allies tend to represent the "good" coalition whereas Hitler and the Nazis represent the "bad" and the innocent victims included Poland, Belgium, France, and other countries invaded by Hitler's forces. Much later in the war, disturbingly so, Jews, Gypsies, gay and lesbian persons, and other cultural groups imprisoned and murdered during the Holocaust were finally formally identified and recognized as victims.

U.S. President George W Bush's reference to an "axis of evil" represents another illustration of the use of triangular moral metaphors. The governments of certain countries are categorized as "evil," their oppressed citizens as "innocent," and the United States and its allies as "beneficent protectors." As is common in such triangles, however, the roles often shift-sometimes quite rapidly. A victim’s view of a rescuer can quickly change from hero to persecutor or oppressor. Indeed, a victim can sometimes feel quite victimized by a rescuer soon after the purported rescue.

Communications within family systems often reflect triangular patterns, and they appear regularly within the context of social worker and client relationships as well. A typical form - at least from the point of view of the social worker - involves the assumption of the role of hero or heroine, the client as innocent victim, and selected other people or forces as villainous. A common variation occurs when the client is viewed as villainous or sinful (e.g., a substance abusing person or an offender of some sort), other persons as victims of the sinner, and the social worker as minister who hopes to help the sinner by changing his evil ways. Views derived from morally based triangles have enormous psychosocial, religious, political, and even advertising power. However, when unwittingly adopted by social workers, they can interfere with their professionalism and their helpfulness to clients.

Karpman referred to a common "drama triangle" in families, groups, and organizations that includes the roles or positions of Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer (Karpman, 1968, 1971). Of course, these terms convey potentially negative connotations and simultaneously reflect rankism. The persecutor demeans and subordinates the victim; the rescuer - sometimes from a position of moral superiority - attempts to obtain the freedom and secure the safety of the vulnerable person or group. Occasionally, the rescue may occur without the implicit or explicit consent of the rescued and, of course, the rescuer may need to combat, defeat, control, or subordinate the persecutor in the process.

Learning about other peoples and their cultures, becoming aware of the many forms of rankism, and considering the nature and implications of various metaphors and conceptualizations are usually extraordinarily enriching endeavours - both personally and professionally. However, be aware of the dangers of stereotyping and over generalizing. The power of mass media, public education, and mainstream culture is such that other cultures tend to become quickly assimilated or acculturated. The often-dramatic differences between the first and third generations of immigrant families typify the speed with which cultures adapt to new social environments. Similarly, the amount of wealth, extent of formal education, age, degree of isolation from other groups, all influence the rate and extent to which adaptation occurs. Members of cultural groups vary greatly from one another. Indeed, individual differences within a culture may sometimes exceed group differences between cultures. Neither "we" nor “they” are "all the same."

Balance your growing knowledge of cultural groups with a consistent reminder that "diversity exists within diverse cultural groups." Consider this example: It is fairly common practice to assign a racial or ethnic category to people based on their physical characteristics. Some human service professionals may "check" a racial or ethnic category on an intake form) because "he looks Hispanic." Such practices are extremely unwise. The person so labelled may think of himself as "Puerto Rican" rather than Hispanic. A woman classified as Asian might view herself as Thai, or that "white boy" might proudly consider himself part Cherokee. Be aware of the strong psychosocial tendencies toward stereotyping, overgeneralization, rankism, and that extremely tempting process of "making assumptions." The most respectful approach is to ask the person about whom a categorization is to be made: "What is your racial or ethnic group?" If the answer does not fit the list of categories, add a new one!