Compassionate Communication in the Workplace: Exploring Processes of Noticing, Connecting, and Responding

This research contributes to the growing body of literature exploring emotion and communication in the workplace by considering the workers in a variety of jobs that require “compassionate communication.” Compassion is conceptualized as one form of emotional work and is theoretically developed through a model that highlights the subprocesses of noticing, feeling, and responding. Analyses of interviews with 23 workers in a wide range of human service jobs indicated a number of complexities in the communication of compassion in the workplace. Processes of “noticing” included both noticing the need for compassion and noticing details of clients' lives in order to communicate more successfully in compassionate ways. Processes of “connecting” included both emotional processes (empathy) and cognitive processes (perspective taking). Processes of “responding” included both nonverbal strategies, such as immediacy behaviors and environmental structuring, and verbal strategies for balancing the informational and emotional content of messages. These results are interpreted in the light of both contemporary and traditional communication theory, and practical implications are presented for human service workers and others involved in compassionate communication in the workplace.     

Compassionate Communication in the Workplace: Exploring Processes of Noticing,Connecting, and Responding

This research contributes to the growing body of literature exploring emotion and communication in the workplace by considering the workers in a variety of jobs that require “compassionate communication.” Compassion is conceptualized as one form of emotional work and is theoretically developed through a model that highlights the subprocesses of noticing, feeling, and responding. Analyses of interviews with 23 workers in a wide range of human service jobs indicated a number of complexities in the communication of compassion in the workplace. Processes of “noticing” included both noticing the need for compassion and noticing details of clients’ lives in order to communicate more successfully in compassionate ways. Processes of “connecting” included both emotional processes (empathy) and cognitive processes (perspective taking). Processes of “responding” included both nonverbal strategies, such as immediacy behaviors and environmental structuring, and verbal strategies for balancing the informational and emotional content of messages. These results are interpreted in the light of both contemporary and traditional communication theory, and practical implications are presented for human service workers and others involved in compassionate communication in the workplace.     

Picture This: Exploring Nonverbal Communication Through Self-Portraiture

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Nonverbal Communication, Basic Course, Business and Professional Speaking, Group Communication, Organizational Communication

Objectives: Students will understand the relationship between nonverbal behaviors and perception formation in the communication process. Students will synthesize communication information while working in varying contexts ranging from individual to class settings.     

Financial Feeling: An Investigation of Emotion and Communication in the Workplace

There is growing interest in the role of emotion when considering communication in the workplace. This work has most often considered workers in front-line service positions in investigations of emotional labor, and human service workers in investigations of empathy and emotional work. In this study, we consider processes of both emotional labor and emotional work in the financial planning profession. Financial planners occupy a role requiring ongoing relationships with clients, conversations about the often emotional topic of money, and a need to manage emotion in a variety of interaction contexts. Thus, from extant theory and literature regarding emotion and communication, we proposed research questions regarding the roles of emotional labor and emotional work in the financial planning profession. These questions were investigated in a web-based survey study of almost 300 professional financial planners and supporting interviews with 14 financial planners. Results indicate support for existing theory on emotional work, extensions to current research regarding emotional labor, and important implications for the role of emotion and communication in a range of professional service roles.     

Financial Feeling: An Investigation of Emotion and Communication in the Workplace

There is growing interest in the role of emotion when considering communication in the workplace. This work has most often considered workers in front-line service positions in investigations of emotional labor, and human service workers in investigations of empathy and emotional work. In this study, we consider processes of both emotional labor and emotional work in the financial planning profession. Financial planners occupy a role requiring ongoing relationships with clients, conversations about the often emotional topic of money, and a need to manage emotion in a variety of interaction contexts. Thus, from extant theory and literature regarding emotion and communication, we proposed research questions regarding the roles of emotional labor and emotional work in the financial planning profession. These questions were investigated in a web-based survey study of almost 300 professional financial planners and supporting interviews with 14 financial planners. Results indicate support for existing theory on emotional work, extensions to current research regarding emotional labor, and important implications for the role of emotion and communication in a range of professional service roles.     

Using Relevant Humor to Moderate Inappropriate Conversations: Maintaining Student Communication Satisfaction in the Classroom

This study assessed students’ (N=195) perceptions of instructors’ relevant humor and inappropriate conversations in the classroom and used expectancy violation theory (EVT) as a lens to position instructor relevant humor as a moderator between instructors’ inappropriate conversations and student communication satisfaction. Results showed a positive association between students’ perceptions of instructors’ use of relevant humor and student communication satisfaction, and in contrast, a negative relationship between perceptions of instructors’ inappropriate conversations and student communication satisfaction. Consistent with the tenets of EVT, results also indicated that instructors who use relevant humor in the classroom may overcome students’ negative perceptions of inappropriate conversations and maintain student communication satisfaction.     

Dealing with the Demands: Strategies Healthcare Communication Professionals Use to Cope with Workplace Stress

This study examines how healthcare communication professionals (HCPs) cope with workplace stress while working in an inherently stressful industry. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 HCPs (14 females, 3 males) from seven nonprofit and for-profit hospitals in the midwestern and eastern regions of the United States. Communication positions held by participants included marketing, media/community relations, public information, public relations, corporate communication, and social media. Interviews revealed HCPs use four strategies to cope with workplace stress: prioritizing, seeking colleague support, keeping perspective, and being active. HCPs primarily relied on employee-centered coping strategies, even though all sources of stress were organizationally-based (i.e., workload, lack of resources, client confidentiality). The majority of HCPs emphasized the benefits of using problem-centered (i.e., prioritizing) and emotion-centered (i.e., seeking colleague support) coping strategies. Although mentioned less often, HCPs utilized more avoidance-centered coping strategies (i.e., keeping perspective, being active). More importantly, they highlighted the benefits of using avoidance-centered strategies to help them mentally and physically disengage from workplace stress. Hospital administration should reassess if, and how, they help HCPs effectively cope with workplace stress (i.e., outlets, programs, professional development opportunities) in order to improve the well-being of HCPs and increase the likelihood of organizational success.     

Exploring the Communication of Evangelical Families: The Association Between Evangelical Gender Role Ideology and Family Communication Patterns

This study examines the relationship between the Evangelical gender role ideologies termed Complementarianism and Egalitarianism and conversation- and conformity-orientation communication patterns stemming from the general theory of family communication. A nonrandom group (N = 124) of Evangelical parents were surveyed using a cross-sectional, self-report survey design. Specific differences were discovered in the perceptions of communication in families for individuals holding conservative Complementarian and progressive Egalitarian gender role ideologies. Evangelical parents who endorsed a more Egalitarian family gender role ideology reported greater use of conversation-oriented communication patterns in their families whereas respondents holding a more Complementarian family gender role ideology reported more use of conformity-oriented communication patterns in their families.     

Tall Poppies in the Workplace: Communication Strategies Used by Envious Others in Response to Successful Women

Controversial media representations of the female body can reflect, reproduce, and even challenge ideological systems or Discourses (Jones, 2003 Jones , A. ( 2003 ). Introduction: Conceiving the intersection of feminism and visual culture . In A. Jones (Ed.), The feminism and visual culture reader (pp. 1 – 7 ). New York , NY : Routledge . [Google Scholar]; Louw, 2001 Louw , P. E. (2001). The media and cultural production . Thousand Oaks , CA : Sage. [Google Scholar]). This article interrogates the discourse surrounding TIME Magazine's recent cover regarding attachment parenting, which featured a mother breastfeeding her toddler. The analysis of 1 online comment board shows that, although multiple meanings were present, the talk regarding the cover was overwhelmingly informed by the Discourse of (Hetero)Sexuality, which defines breastfeeding as a sexualized act only appropriate in private and for children of a certain age. This backdrop of sexuality for breastfeeding is significant not only for mothers’ choices and practices regarding nursing, but also for policymakers who seek to support breastfeeding. In addition, the findings reinforce the importance of attending to the interrelations within and between macro- and microlevels of discourse in investigating symbolic systems through which meanings are constructed.     

Exploring the Recursive Nature of Food and Family Communication

Objective: Students experience the numerous ways in which a relationship exists between the food families eat and the patterns of communication families enact; this activity illustrates how family metaphors, stories, rules, roles, rituals, and other relevant course concepts are conveyed through food

Courses: Family communication, intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, and gender communication     

AIDS and the Workplace:

No abstract available for this article.     

Polygraphs in the Workplace:

No abstract available for this article.     

Rethinking the Eurocentric Library Workplace:

There have been numerous articles, conferences and workshops about the concept of valuing diversity in the American workplace. In the library literature, this discussion has more often than not focused on recruiting librarians of color and helping "them" to adjust to the library workplace. The authors of this article suggest an additional dimension which as been promoted in the corporate sector for some time: that of re-thinking the culture of the workplace. The role that an individual's culture places in creating a workplace culture should not be underestimated. Increased awareness and assessment of various cultural issues is critical to recruitment and retention of people of color in library organizations. The growing diversityy of American society make a re-assessment of library workplace culture imperative. The irulhors of this article assert that "valuing differences" in the workplace means allowing people more opportunity to be themselves within the framework of organizational effectiveness, without fear of negative ramif~cations. The goal of library organizations should be to move beyond "visual" diversity. Managment in these organizidons must ask "How do we create, sustain and direct a workforce that is comprised of increasingly diverse staff without requiring cultural homogeneity?" This article includes a swey instrument that is helpful in analyzing the dominant culture of the workplace, a selected primary source reading list, and a bibliography on issues of workplace diversity, multiculturalism, valuing diversity, and diversity training taken primarily from business models.     

Family Communication Patterns and Adolescent Experiences During Parental Military Deployment and Reintegration: The Role of Inappropriate Parental Disclosures and Perceived Family Understanding

This study examines associations between adolescent reports of family communication patterns (FCPs) and difficulties experienced during the deployment and reintegration of a military parent. Data from 106 adolescents (9–17 years) in 72 National Guard families where a parent had recently returned from overseas deployment were analyzed to examine direct and indirect links between FCPs, perceived family understanding, inappropriate parental disclosures, and adolescent difficulties. Results indicate direct effects for conformity orientation, with it being inversely associated with adolescent difficulties during both deployment and reintegration. Conversation orientation exerts mixed effects on adolescent difficulties during deployment. At a trend level, conversation orientation shares a direct, negative association with adolescent difficulties during deployment but also an indirect, positive association via family inappropriate parental disclosures. Implications of the findings for future research on FCPs as well as programs working with military families are discussed.     

Communication, Relationships, and Religious Difference in the Northern Ireland Workplace: A Study of Private and Public Sector Organizations

Four large organizations, two each from the private and public sectors of the Northern Ireland economy, were selected for this study which, first, explored the effects of religion-based workforce difference on intergroup relationships, second, investigated the contribution of organizational sector to communicative differences, and third, gauged the effects of group-based negativity on the flow and distribution of functional information within the organization. Little evidence of intergroup conflict was found although employees expressed a desire for greater quantity and quality of outgroup contact. Significant differences between the private and public bodies emerged in this respect. Contrasts were consistent with general organizational differences typifying the sectors. Findings are discussed in relation to diversity management and the characteristics of organizational sectors.     

Communication,Relationships, and Religious Difference in the Northern Ireland Workplace: A Study of Private and Public Sector Organizations

Four large organizations, two each from the private and public sectors of the Northern Ireland economy, were selected for this study which, first, explored the effects of religion-based workforce difference on intergroup relationships, second, investigated the contribution of organizational sector to communicative differences, and third, gauged the effects of group-based negativity on the flow and distribution of functional information within the organization. Little evidence of intergroup conflict was found although employees expressed a desire for greater quantity and quality of outgroup contact. Significant differences between the private and public bodies emerged in this respect. Contrasts were consistent with general organizational differences typifying the sectors. Findings are discussed in relation to diversity management and the characteristics of organizational sectors.     

学术博客知识交流与共享心理诱因研究

学术博客为科研人员实现知识交流与共享提供了新途径。以SSCI和CNKI相关文献为分析对象,采用文献调研法和文献计量分析法,归纳总结博客知识交流与共享的主要动因以及六个理论背景:社会认知理论、社会交换理论、社会资本理论、推理行动理论、技术接受模型理论和使用与满足理论。以社会资本理论、社会交换理论和公共物品困境理论为理论基础,构建学术博客知识交流与共享的心理诱因模型,旨在探索私欲、忧虑感和价值怀疑的负向作用,乐于助人、声誉和人际信任的正向作用,以及人际信任对声誉、私欲、忧虑感和价值怀疑的调节作用。     

对“传播”在文化研究发生史中地位的历史考察

"传播"一直"构连"在文化研究发生、发展的过程中。这种"构连"既体现为"传播"在文化研究生成语境中的结构性影响,也反映在文化研究不同阶段代表人物的研究主题和研究方式中。通过运用人物图片式扫描的方法,经过对"传播"与文化研究学术渊源、文化研究经典阶段以及后续发展阶段"构连"方式的详细分析,实现对"传播"在文化研究发生发展史中历史地位的考察。     

Television in the Workplace: Ford and FCN TV

Television is increasingly creeping into non-traditional spaces such as workplaces. As part of that movement, Ford Motor Company of Europe uses television as a key component of communication between top management and subordinates. The company broadcasts over its internal television system various Ford-related video and news stories to its plants in five countries—UK, France, Belgium, Spain, and Germany. As an employee in Ford of Europe's internal-communications team based in Cologne, I witnessed first-hand the inner dynamics of the deployment of television in a pan-European setting. Through television, the company is crafting a transnational corporate identity among its multi-national workforce, interpellating viewers in the various local sites within a larger “Ford family.” While television can act as a unifying force, the deployment of the technology also exacerbates tensions within the transnational entity as inflected by site-specific concerns—white collar/blue collar, international/national, management/union, labor/leisure, and public/private. Layered on top of this multitude of tensions remains the inherently propagandistic nature of developing news for a captive audience. For myself and others at the company, irony became a necessary tactic, to use DeCerteau's terms, to cope with the presence of a potentially monolithic technology in the prototypical transnational corporation.