Argyle argued that, communication involved much the same ‘cycle’ as driving a car required.
The stages involved in this cycle are:
- Ideas occur
- Message coded
- Message sent
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Message received
- Message decoded
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Idea understood
To enable the cycle to work successfully, two or more parties must be present. Communicating involves expression of thought and interpretation of the other parties understanding.
There are six stages to the communication cycle, the first is expressing your own thoughts, and the second is watching the other person non verbal response and body language. Thirdly is interpreting the other person’s body language and trying to work out what he or she is thinking, fourth is listening to his or her response to what we have said, following this is trying to make sense of his or her response. Finally the original speaker expresses new ideas to try and clarify our ideas.
The communication cycle may look something like this:
2. Message coded
We use the communication cycle every time we interact with other people. We use this process without even thinking about it. An example of this in an everyday situation, whilst speaking to my husband:
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Idea: Hungry
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Message coded: I’m hungry, I need food
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Message sent: “I’m hungry, I fancy something to eat”.
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Message received: I can tell from his body language that he has heard
my message, he nods his head slightly
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Message decoded: He decodes the message in his head
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Message understood: He understands what I have said
After the last stage of the cycle, a response would, in this instance, automatically follow. This response would be the answer to my initial question to him; so starting off another communication cycle process.
To use the communication cycle effectively it requires active listening, this involves hearing what the other person has to say and being able to use the cycle to demonstrate that you understand what the other person has to say. Listening skills also involves thinking about what you hear while you are listening and checking your understanding as the conversation goes on.
This ‘checking’ of the understanding is sometimes called ‘reflection’, this is because we reflect or mirror the other person’s ideas.
Reflection can also involve, putting into your own words, something that has been said to you, so you can repeat it back to them to check that we have understood everything they have said. This method of refection is called ‘paraphrasing’.
