Kianmartin’s Weblog

Female Hazards on the Road: Nonverbal Harassments

(An Analysis Using Nonverbal Communications,

Expectancy Violations Theory and Constructivism Theory)

            It was already quarter past two in the morning on the third Saturday of February. The sky was clear and the wind was chilling. I was on my way back to our apartment from an old friend’s birthday party. I was waiting for a jeepney. I’ve waited for an hour and a half standing alone out in the cold quiet street, thinking about the only great thing at the moment which is the warm comfort I could get from my bed which I have left unfixed. Until finally, my prayer for a ride home was answered, a jeepney came. Without hesitation, I waved my hand to the air to get the driver’s attention and hurriedly jumped in. Seated beside the old driver was his helper – the  kundoktor, whom I think is more or less five years older than me. But aside from me, nobody else was on the backseat.  I thought that I would be the only passenger until I reached my destination, but just a couple of blocks away from where I was standing before the passenger jeepney came,  the jeepney stopped and a fine young lady in her nursing uniform hopped in and placed herself in the middle of the long empty seat facing my direction. The wind blew harder as the vehicle accelerated, so I moved forward and stayed right behind the driver. I noticed that from the very moment the young lady entered the jeepney, the kundoktor did not stop turning his head to the backseat where the lady has seated.

            A couple of blocks more and the jeepney stopped for a drunken guy on the road, but he refused to take the ride. This time, the driver’s assistant took the chance to transfer to the backseat while trying to call out to the guy on the street. He immediately entered and seated near to the young lady, and moved closer and closer to her as he feigns to search for the other possible passengers on the street until their bodies got in contact and brushed up. Without a sound, the young lady simply moved a couple of inches away from the guy. The guy continued to poke his head at the open “window” of the vehicle and tried to call out for other passengers on the way, raising his hands out the window and constantly touching the lady’s shoulders with an ooops-I’m-sorry look. The lady pretended to be doing something in her cellular phone, moving another couple of inches from the driver’s helper. The guy really didn’t stop checking on her and even moved closer to see what the lady was doing in her phone.

            Judee Burgoon’s Expectancy Violations Theory supports the idea of personal space. As defined by Burgoon, personal space is the “invisible, variable volume of space surrounding an individual that defines an individual’s preferred distance from others” (Griffin, 84).

            Let us just imagine that each and every human being is enclosed inside a big bubble and that no other human being should go nearer than a few inches to that other person to avoid any bubble to pop and leave the other un-bubbled person to feel like he was just stripped off naked. With this situation in mind, the bubble here can be a representation of what personal space is. Just like having and protecting your so-called territory, there are no good, if not enough, reasons to just let other people especially strangers to have the privilege of trespassing your own private grounds. This goes with the saying, “ we shouldn’t cross a distance boundary uninvited” (Griffin, 85).  It would already be a violation if someone other than yourself would try to set foot to that private ground especially when there is no permission from you. It is simply because the mentioned space or boundary or what I have just referred to as private ground is what we may refer as any human being’s comfort zones. The idea of having your own private world, where only you can graze or even explore to, makes you feel comfortable with yourself. In my opinion, it is also a way of connecting to one’s self without any distractions from other people. That private world is the only world you can call your own, so there are no ways for intruders to break in. Having one’s own privacy means that you can express yourself entirely, or simply you can loosen up from being so professional and freely breath in and breath out by your own.

            According to Burgoon, the size and shape of our personal space may vary depending on our cultural norms and individual preferences that always conform to our need of affiliation and privacy.  An example for the consideration for context begins with cultural norms. Three feet is too close in England or Germany yet too far removed in Saudi Arabia where you can’t trust people who won’t let you smell their breath (Griffin, 89). Another thing that can fall under the category of context includes the setting of the conversation. A classroom environment dictates a greater speaking distance than would be appropriate for a private chat in the teacher’s office (Griffin, 89). 

Each person may have his/her own definition and boundaries of his own proxemic zones (Edward Hall) depending on his/her relationship with the other persons. For example, one can have a very different definition of boundary of his personal space for a member of the family or a very close friend as to the definition of his personal boundary for an acquaintance or for his fellow co-workers. The attitude would be completely different if a lover puts a hand on a woman’s bare shoulder compared to the boss being the one whose hand is on top of it.

As what Grifin asserts:

Expectancies exert significant influence on people’s interaction patterns, on their impressions of one another, and on the outcomes of their interactions. Violations of expectations may arouse and distract their recipients, shifting greater attention to the violator and the meaning of the violation itself (Griffin, 88).

            In the given situation found at the beginning of this paper, and by just observing the actions that had taken place in that jeepney ride, the young lady’s personal space was clearly invaded and violated by the kundoktor. Even the kundoktor’s act of consistent stare at her is a form of intrusion to the her privacy even though there is really no such thing as privacy in the mentioned mode of transportation, but atleast, respect to others is presumed to be a must in any given situation. It has been agreed that the eye is the greatest intruder, and so it goes with the idea that even looking/staring may conform to harassment.

            It should also be pointed out that the kundoktor’s stare to the girl is one form of oppression. The girl, being a woman, is thrown below the pits of the male gaze and had become a mere object of male desire. She was stripped off with her own private bubble through the male gaze and was transformed into an object which is perceived as weak and fragile.

            The concept of role conflict is used by sociologists to refer to incompatability among roles corresponding to two or more statuses (Macionis, 84). Obviously, there is a role conflict present in the given situation above, just like the normal situation in our everyday life. But this time, it was made very clear. The young lady is an educated girl. As shown in her ways, in her look, she’s a conservative type of lady from a decent family. On the other hand, the guy is obviously uneducated.

                        Talking about the probable size and shape of the lady’s personal space, assessing her ways will help a lot. First, she is in her crisp clean white uniform even after her duty (perhaps) so she must be a neat lady. Then, she quietly entered and seated the way a prim lady should. And lastly, she stayed in one direction – the direction of the road, without turning her head so she must be a conservative young lady. Therefore, it would be fine to conclude that this fine young lady has a large personal space that needs to be respected. But we can never be so sure about its shape since we have no idea about her preferences.

            In any given situation, a concerned citizen should establish guidelines that protect the rights, privacy, and safety for anyone involved in the certain activity. Therefore, it is always good and safe for all to observe proper ethics in everyday living (Macionis, 21).

            According to the results of the studies of an Illinois Institute of Technology anthropologist Edward Hall, there were four interpersonal distances:

1)      Intimate Distance: 0 – 18 inches

2)      Personal Distance: 18 inches – 14 feet

3)      Social Distance: 4 – 10 feet

4)      Public Distance: 10 feet – infinity  (Griffin, 85)

            Therefore, the kundoktor should have kept atleast four-foot distance from the lady since

the entire seat is too long for the two of them to occupy the entire space. And since it was a jeepney and Filipino culture, perhaps, two-foot distance would be enough to show respect to the other in the mentioned context. He absolutely violated the idea of respecting someone’s personal bubble, perhaps, simply because he was attracted to the fine young lady who traveled alone – no companion to watch her back, no boyfriend. So he thought he could just simply jump to it. Maybe he was thinking that the lady may find her cool enough and would just passively let him do his thing on her and won’t react at all. Or maybe he has been doing this to all other lady passenger if given the chances. Perhaps these victims did not complained at all out of fear of being raped or killed, so he was thinking then that doing this is no problem at all. There is this possibility that this has already been habitually done by this guy because he found out that he could easily get away with it, all the time. Due to his most probably poor education, he must have mistakenly stereotyped all the women, or the women with the whim and aura similar to the young lady mentioned in the case above, to be always submissive (Augoustinos, 234)

            Burgoon termed the value (positive or negative) we place on a certain unexpected behavior as violation valence, no matter who did it, to identify if the perceived action is pleasing or distressing, and to what extent?

            Actually, in the situation presented, it is not just a simple intrusion of someone’s personal space, but a clear intrusion of privacy and can be even referred as harassment. It was clearly sexual harassment because it’s obviously an unwanted behavior of a sexual nature.

            Most victims of sexual harassment are women. This is because, fist, most of cultures throughout the world encourages men to be sexually assertive and to perceived women in sexual terms. Second, most individuals in positions of power – including business executives, physicians, bureau chiefs, assembly line supervisors, professors, and military officers – are men who oversee the work of women (Macionis, 252-253).

            According to Jesse Delia in her Constructivism Theory, people make sense of the world with the help of systems of personal constructs. These personal constructs are the cognitive templates that people fit over ‘reality’ to bring order to our understanding. The more and the better are our personal constructs, the higher degree of cognitive complexity you have. Meaning, because of having this large set of interpersonal constructs, you have better social perception skills compared to those who have relatively small set of mental templates. This set of skills pertains to those skills including the capability to figure out others’ personality traits, where they stand in a relationship to us, what they are doing, and why are they doing it (Griffin, 193).

            Assessing both parties, the lady and the kundoktor, according to their behavior, we can say that the lady is the cognitively complex character. Perhaps, the tendency of having better or higher degree of education must be considered. She could have confronted the kundoktor because she was not oblivious of being harassed, yet she decided to keep her mouth shut.

            This is probably the reason why the ‘harassed’ lady behaved in such manners even under such constraint. It may be simply because she understands the behavior, like of the kundoktor’s, their gap in education or even social gap/ status in the society, or she just simply knew how to handle such situations without losing her temper. But in most cases of harassment like this, the initial solution that the majority would suggest is to confront the harasser. They say that the best time to halt the harassment is as soon as it starts, that you must first calm yourself and be firm in telling your harasser that you will not tolerate such advantages on you. But on the other side, this will probably open up the possibility for the situation to get even worse. Considering the setting of the young lady’s situation, this may not be a clever plan to pursue.

            This type of person, as to Jesse Delia’s Constructivism Theory, is one of the fortunate individuals who have the interpersonal advantage of sending person-centered messages. This means that they have the advantage of communicating effectively. These individuals can anticipate the reaction/s of different individuals to their message. Therefore, they also know what message are conveyed as they communicate with others because they also consider the status of the other party.

            “COGNITIVELY COMPLEX PERSONS CAN DO IT BETTER”(Griffin, 194).

 This implies that cognitively complex person can smoothly solve a given puzzle without even complicating the situation in both parties. He/ she seems to know how to exactly address his problem.

            Because of his capability to identify the other person’s possible understanding of things, he tends to act and feel on the other person’s part and then identifies himself with the problem in order for him to realize not only the odds on his part but of the both parties. His consideration on both party’s situation helps him come up with a solution that will not further feed the fire and mess it up even more. This then leads to the solution of ‘win-win’ situation where neither of the parties is harmed, but both are actually gained benefit. This manner of addressing a certain problem is then parallel to the ideas on the Uncertainty Reduction Theory of Charles Berger. Reduction of uncertainties brought by role and status conflict reduces the possibilities of conflict and danger between strangers as well.

            This goal-plan-action sequence of addressing a problem has been displayed by the harassed lady in the jeepney. She surely has the interpersonal edge of communicating. She was stuck in a not-so-fair situation. She must have properly weighed the odds on both parties, and got out of it smoothly with no further complications. Perhaps she just realized that confronting the ‘harasser’ in that specific situation is one option for her to do. But she did not, instead, she ended it up smooth and light on the harasser’s part, and on her part as well. Because there’s also this great possibility that she had confronted her harasser, she could have made him angry and may even lead to a more serious and worse situation. But because of the way she behaved, she had shown the guy in a gentle manner that what he just did wasn’t so good at all. Therefore, all the while she was sitting quietly, she wasn’t numb and trying to act stupid to show that she’s not affected, she was actually thinking about her situation considering all factors that is important and trying to come up with a good plan to resolve the unspoken conflict.

            Due to the cognitive complexity of this young lady, the harassment has been addressed without complicating the problem. Both of them were benefited. The girl didn’t get further harassment and avoided the other possible violence while the guy didn’t get embarrassed, a clear ‘win-win’ situation.

Works Cited

Griffin, Em. A First Look at Communication Theory. 6^th ed. Singapore: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.,2006.

Augoutinos, Martha and Iain Walker. Social Cognition. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. 1995

Macionis, John. Society: The basics. United States Of America: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1996

Internet Sources:

Sexual Harassment is a Form of Discrimination

<http://www.belvoir.army.mil/eeo/POSH.htm>

Different Types of Harassment / Discrimination

            < http://www.units.muohio.edu/oeeo/types.htm>

Definition of Sexual Harassment

         < http://www.usu.edu/aaeo/sexualharass.html>

Peripheral Route

Advertisement:

Anlene

Target Audience:

Women

(middle age and older)

Motivation:

“a call to the promotion of healthy women in the society”

Strategy:

• Dina Bonevie, an actress, as the primary endorser of the product.

  People in the movie industry have many supporters, especially when he/she has a good image to the public. A well-packaged/ pleasantly packaged model/ endorser of a product plays a very important role because they tend to catch much attention.

• A number of active women to add up to the social proof that the product is supported widely by many of its target consumers.

• The use of creative choreography as performed by a group of women on the road (with the primary endorser).

• There are no further explanations but fully inviting the target consumers to join the healthy women movement.

Central Route

Advertisement:

Oral-B

Target Audience:

All Toothbrush Users

Motivation:

Their product has better performance in cleaning the teeth because of its configurations – the structural arrangement of its bristles for more effective brushing.

Strategy:

The structure of the product is displayed and said to remove 90% of plaques.

There is also an illustration of the cleaning mechanism that will going to happen as you brush your teeth using the product. The thoroughness and effectivity of the product is well-demonstrated.

      Hey there!

    As for your roommate, you can’t blame him/her because he/she will surely find your situation a very strange one. I mean, feeling like a stranger in your own family is really strange. I must also say that you can’t point the finger on your family as well. I agree. It is really very strange between persons who gained maturity in different environments (I mean totally different places having different types of crowd, of different culture, perhaps) and once again got together and act as if everything’s the same, that they’re still familiar with each other.

    Perhaps, you’ve just grown of your family’s mechanism/ ways of interaction because you’re no longer living with them. It may also be possible that they’ve already developed a new steady state communication pattern that you’re not familiar with. Or maybe your parents still haven’t outgrown their treatment to you when you were still in your younger years.

    Maybe you just misinterpreted your parents ways of keeping you from any trouble. I think your father simply tells you to quit smoking. It’s just that he can’t directly say it, but I think he simply care about your health. And about his side on your education, I think you simply need to spend more time with him in order for you to understand each other, talk to each other.

    Simply overprotective, is all I can say about your mother. She’s simply worried about you because she’s no longer aware on how you socialize with other people or what kind of influences you’ve got from your new environment.

    I think your sister no longer looks you up as an example nor a friend, but a competition.

    All these are the outcome of very unhealthy communication as a family. It’s like you are already strangers to one another. I really think that you have to initiate a healthy pattern of communication within your family, since you are the one who had observed this strange interactions. By this, I think you are the one who have the control to emphasize the belongingness, affection, trust and intimacy as a family. Always remember that each member of your family is an important variable that affects all the others.

Until then,

Tristan 08

Jim,

You must understand what the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” means. Ofcourse, it may take different connotations and applications depending on the situation. But in your case, it simply means that everything’s got its time and place. Or if it won’t really happen, perhaps it’s because of a better purpose.

You’re growing relationship with Shelley is having a good start, I suppose. But just like all the other relationships, a lot of uncertainties are always present because nothing is permanent—it is a continuous passage of changes. To keep a relationship alive, you must be able to sustain it despite the possible threats to the relationship that you may encounter along the way. You should bear in mind that the closer individuals become to one another, the more conflict will arise to pull them apart.

Perhaps you have realized that in a relationship like what you have with Shelley, partners feel the pressure to be transparent and reveal himself/herself to the other. But as a natural individual, your counterpart will desire for privacy. This struggle simply demonstrates that intimate relationships do not smoothly run in a straight course just like what we usually observe in fairy tales.

In every interpersonal relationships, every individual involved simply respond to the pulls and tugs that surround them. This simply tells you that Shelley’s attitude with regard to her diary at this point in time is ‘natural’. Therefore, I must say that you should not get offended by it nor make generalizations out of the given stage of your ‘getting-to-know’ status. There will come a time that the maturity of your transparency to each other will come to its full bloom, then she can be fully comfortable to reveal herself to you, perhaps including her secrets—her diary. So better not worry, just do good on your part.

Until then,

Tristan 08

Topic:

             The Eye Avoidance of Students from their Instructors during Class Lectures   

Significance:

             The eye contact serves several important functions when communicating (face-to-face) with others. In a face-to-face communication, it helps maintain interest and attention. It also helps monitor feedback. The eye contact may also signal the nature of communicators’ relationship with one another. It also serves to inform the other person that it is already his turn to speak, conversational turns. Eye contact may also be used to signal dominance in a given conversation. Therefore, observing proper eye contact is very important in conversations.           

          Lack of eye contact from the audience or listeners or avoidance of eye contact may result to loss of interest and attention and even misunderstanding, or may be a sign of lack of interest either in the speaker, the topic, or due to some visual stimulus.           

          This form of inattention can be an obstruction to communication especially in class lectures and other similar topic discussions. This inattention may result to the difficulties of the instructors (speaker) to detect and encourage feedback from the listeners. In class lectures, the teacher may find difficulty in identifying the topics which need more emphasis due to the absence of feedback through eye contact because of eye avoidance of the students, especially when being asked to recite.           

         It is important to identify some major reasons why students avoid eye contact with their teachers during class lectures. This may help the speakers/lecturers to find ways or strategies on how to lessen or totally eliminate the eye avoidance of students (from their teachers) during class discussions. This, though indirectly, may help promote better student attentiveness and participation in class discussions.                

Sources:

(Books)

Devito, Joseph. The Interpersonal Communication Book. 7^th ed. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1995.

Jensen, A. and S. Trenholm. 4e Interpersonal Communication. California, USA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2000

(Internet)

http://www.stuttering-specialist.com/documents/eyecontact.html

http://www.bremercommunications.com/Eye_Contact.htm

http://www.womans-work.com/NewsInd/career_advice_eyecontact.htm

 Research Planner 

1. During the 9^th-21^st meeting of COMA101 class, the class interaction, especially the eye avoidance of the students (from the teacher) will be observed. (Especially when the teacher calls out to the students to explain or give examples).

• These observed students will be listed and will be asked with some questions regarding the corresponding behavior.

Between these period of time (schooldays only –Tuesday-Friday), ambush interviews will be conducted among random students from different classes will be conducted. The data gathered will be recorded and will be sorted.

2. Between the period of the 22^nd and the 24^th meeting of COMA101 class, the first draft of the project shall be completed and shall be ready for review and correction.

3. Before the final examination in COMA101, the research shall be finalized and shall be submitted.

Interpersonal Communication (Dyadic Communication)

Dyadic communication is generally described as an interactional process between two people (a dyad). It can either be face-to-face or through mediated forms. This form of communication may occur between two people in different specific contexts (dependeing on the occasion).

Below is a very specific example of dyadic communication where important factors affecting the communication process are clearly displayed, as well as uncertainties.

__________________________ 

It was past eight in the evening, 29^th of December 2007. This could have been a very happy break from school and office stuffs but two people were very unlucky to meet each other in an accident. They were both on separate single motorcycles, approaching the city. Both are young men, driving without license, rushing to their personal appointments that very evening. One of them was heading to a batch reunion. The other one was rushing for his uncle’s favor.

They met on an intersection and stayed on different sides of the road. The one attending to his uncle’s favor stayed on the left side (the fast/overtaking lane) of the road. The other guy took the right, behind a tricycle running fairly slow.

As the guy on the left lane puts on some gas to gain speed and overtake both the other single motorcycle and the tricycle on the other lane, the guy on the other motorcycle also accelerated his bike expecting that he could just swiftly pass between the tricycle and the overtaking motorcycle…

…CRASH! Both of them were thrown away from their machines and stumble on the road.

These young lads had no helmet nor any protective gear. Luckily, both of them survived the crash and went on with bruises. But the unlucky thing is…I was one of these two guys.

_____________________________

Uncertainty Reduction Theory

Initial interactions between strangers are characterized by information seeking in order to reduce uncertainty. Uncertainty is reduced as levels of self-disclosure, nonverbal warmth, and similarity increase. (Source: http://www.uky.edu/~drlane/capstone/interpersonal/)

There is a very high level of uncertainty in the act/ situation above. This could have been reduced and further complications (e.g. the accident) could have been avoided. The verbal and the non-verbal communication could have been used to reduce the uncertainty on the road. These young motoristas could have possibly communicated while driving like using signal lights, hand signals, and they could even blow their horns or shout—just to communicate with each other.

In this case, there could have been a very high level of information seeking, as well as receprosity due to a high uncertainty level. Similarities between these two guys could have been of much help to avoid the accident. They are both young males, without license to drive, and both have important appointments to attent to. But due to the pace of the event, these uncertainties (on the road) went out of their hands.

-listening to others>>>5%(Usual.)
-talking with yourself about ideas, plans, and options>>>50%(Usual.)
-communicating with friends and/or romantic partners>>>15%(Not usual. It depends on who’s around and available to chat with.)
-communicating in a group or public context>>>NA
-communicating with other people (aside from the above)>>>NA
-communicating with people from cultures different from yours>>>NA
-communication through print, radio, TV, and film technology>>>10% (Usual.)
-communication using new technologies (mobile phones, Internet, etc.)>>>20% (Not usual. This time i really have to call my younger sister to ask her a favor to negotiate for my allowance increase for this week.)

*I prefer to use the langauge to communicate, specifically the oral/vocal communication. This form of communication has many advantages compared to the non-verbal form of communication. Aside from it is more convenient to use, this also provides smaller probability of misunderstanding and gives greater grounds for correction of ideas.

*Most of the time, I communicate with my very self. I enjoy thinking things over and sorting different ideas. Perhaps because engaging in this conext of communication keeps me from committing mistakes such as hurting other peolple’s feelings or conveying the wrong informations to others.
But I also enjoy interpersonal communication. This gives way for exchanging/sharing of ideas. Thus, it provides a healthy ground for improvement of your thoughts and a very good exercise for the mind as well.
I also engage in organizational communication as a responsibility, being part of the group.
I seldomly, or I shall say hardly, engage in mass/public communication.

*I think the only activity I had in the last 12 hours that did not involve some form of communication is ‘taking a nap’. Among the activities I engaged in the last 12 hours, this is the only acvtivity which i think that I did not communicate, not even with myself, not unless I have been lucid dreaming that time.