Communication and Behavior

First Entry

Communication is very vital in a relationship. Most relationships suffer communication problems because not all partners portray competence when communicating. Communication helps partners understand each other. It is the responsibility of both partners to know how they respond to a certain thing when speaking. Relationships may also fail because of misunderstanding, which is brought about by communication.

 In this case, I will focus on myself and my relationship partner, and I will consider myself either to be a competent communicator or not and the partner’s communication competency. I will consider myself a competent communicator. Firstly, I was adaptable; this helped me assess what was happening to be effective and appropriate in a particular context and then modify their behavior accordingly.

 Secondly, cognitive complexity enhanced how I consider a variety of explanations and know about a given situation in multiple ways. I also portraited empathy which helped me understand the feelings and thoughts of my partner in such as way see myself in the situation of my partner. Ethics also enabled me to be a competent communicator because I could judge something right or wrong.

I will consider my partner not to be a competent communicator. Firstly, she did not apply ethics. It entails judging right or wrong morally when communicating. Secondly, she was not empathetic. She was quick to react before putting herself in the situation in place. She also did not take the time to understand a given position in various ways.

In some instances, I was not competent when communicating. I did not portray self-awareness because I was unaware of my behavior and how it affected others. In some cases, I was quick to speak before even understanding the situation in place ended up missing what was needed of me. Most of the time, I was accused of not listening to my partner’s view; instead, I stuck in my point of view. In some situations, I did not judge right or wrong morally.

Second Entry

At one point, my partner was reticent, and she also adapted the behavior of sleeping during the day. Also, she spent most of the time locked in the room. I was not too fond of the behavior since I thought the reason was me, and the silent treatment was a sign that she was going to leave.

Every time I came home, I confronted her because it was getting weird, we were in a relationship, and we were not talking. After a while, I decided that we should speak with her. When I noticed that I made an error in attributing and interpreting my partner’s behavior, she explained that she had been undergoing some bullying at work because of her race.

I think I made this error because I was too quick to attribute my partner’s behavior to something personal about her rather than the situation. Also, I did not have time to understand the problem before interpreting and concluding. I made this attribution error in two ways. First, I made a more robust attribution about the behavior that she was engaging in. second, I made personal attribution about her that I do myself.

My partner reacted to this attribution by crying. Ever since I started confronting her because of becoming too silent, she called. It later came to my understanding that I made an error attribution. I interpreted her behavior pretty fast and judged her without getting deep into the matter and asking her what the problem was. I tend to overestimate the role of personal attributes, and I overlook the situation’s impact.

The situation was resolved after my partner, and I sat down and discussed why she was silent. The talking made me know I made an error in attributing and interpreting my partner’s behavior. She was suffering from office bullying, yet I thought the problem was that she wanted to leave me.