No human being can ever live without communication or without communicating. Communication is considered as an everyday activity wherein 93 percent of our everyday doings involves it (Mehrabian, 1972). Every single move, facial gestures or even small sounds uttered is a way of communicating. It is been the fundamental to our everyday life. A necessity.
Communication is a process of interaction between two or more individual wherein a message is created then being interpreted onwards by the receiver. However, it is not only about usage o words, talking into a conversation, speaking in a public covers communication, thus also consider gestures, body movements and facial expressions.
There are two kinds of communication; verbal and the nonverbal communication. Verbal communication consist the usage of words and speaking it while the gestures such as waving ones hand, body movements, and facial expressions such as pouting and raising ones eyebrows is considered as nonverbal communication. Thus, communication is so vague that sometimes the message sent is being interpreted differently.
One of the acts in nonverbal communication I considered vague and confusing to understand what it really intended to say is communicating through smiling. A lot of people smile for a reasons and some just smile for no reason at all.
I had interviewed three people whether they smile or not when they see someone they are acquainted or not. What are the reasons behind those smiles?
–“Kung dili na ko kaila , dili pud ko mukatawa uy! Abi pa lang nila boang ko. Pero kung sila ang una nga mukatawa sa ako, mukatawa pud ko. Dili man pud ko manyapa ug tao” -JAKE AGCANG
( If I don’t know them, I won’t smile. They might think I’m stupid. But if they are the one who first smiled at me, I would smile too. I’m not snobbish)
–“Sa una, gipangutana ko sa akong amigo kung okey na ba ko human makipagbulag sa akong uyab, nikatawa lang ko. Dili ko gusto nga mabal-an niya nga nasakitan ko. Gusto na ko makita niya nga okey lang ko”- AILYN LABASANO
(A friend asked me before how am I after breaking up with my boyfriend, I just smiled to hide the pain I felt inside. I want to show her everything was just fine)
–“Katong nakit-an na ko akong mga amigo sa mall, nikatawa dayon ko. Siyempre, nalipay ko kay nakit-an na ko sila usab”- JUVILYN LABASANO
( I smiled when I saw my fiends at the mall because I’m just too happy to see them again)
A smile showed a lot of meanings behind the expression itself. Smile as a mean of communication functions to replace, reinforce or even contradict any verbal messages. At times, nonverbal messages are used to omit verbal responses and to indicate more our real feelings. Nonverbal messages are easy to express and to interpret. Our culture provides us with gestures and expressions that are just equivalent in verbal messages. We instead smile rather than saying “hi”, “hello” or “I’m fine”.
However, nonverbal communication such as expression through smiling varies and depicts a lot of interventions. We just don’t smile because we just want to but rather we had reasons for it.
In the first communication act, he stated that he won’t dare to smile to someone whom he doesn’t know. When two strangers accidentally meet ones eye, they would actually hesitate to smile with each other. The other might feel embarrass if he/she will do it so as the other. But, if they smile at each other, they might find each other as friendly or approachable. In social judgment theory, there are three zones to consider: the latitude of acceptance, latitude of non-commitment, and latitude of rejection. In the communication act, itself shows whether the two of them goes to the acceptance latitude or either go to rejecting one anothers action.
Symbolic Interactionism best explains the second communication act wherein she pretended what she rally felt that time. Symbolic Interactionism focus on the interactionists that base their theoretical perspective on their image of humans, rather than on their image of society.
She must be creating an image as a strong and invincible woman. If her friend knows that she’s being hurt and that she’s weak, the image she invested to her friend might change. A lot of people pretend to be something there not in order to hide something they think unacceptable. Pretentious life sometimes create gaps between two individuals. Thus, some needs to pretend in order to be accepted by their society. According to Social Penetration theory, depenetration is a process wherein an individual withdraws his/her feelings. Then, a space is being build between the relationship.
On the other hand, Uncertainty Reduction theory could throughly explain the third communication act. In the act, the more certain she was about her friends, the less hesitation she had to smile. As well as, the stronger the bonding, the less certainties she could have. The uncertainties usually lessen when an intimate relationship is created. When her friends and she met at the mall, she excitedly smiled to them.
Another responsible for the distortion of the information sent is the noise or interference. It is anything that could distort the information to the receiver or may distract him/her from receiving the message. However, noise is not just a matter of sound, it could also be due to physiological or psychological defects. Semantic interference usually distorts the meaning sent by a single smile. It is when the receiver does not attribute the same meaning to the signal that the sender does. No two people has an exactly the same interpretation that is possible in attributing different meanings. For instance:
Anne was walking so fast and she’s running late for an appointment. She was so disgusted about the traffic that made her arrived late. When suddenly, a mysterious haggard looking man smiled at her. Anne was shocked and didn’t know why the man gave her a smile. She find the man annoying. She predicted that the man was a maniac trying to seduce her or just a jerk ruining her day more.
The attitude of judging based on the appearance sometimes affect interpretations. Anne judged the man as maniac because of his haggard appearance. Then the message the guy actually wanted to send is being interpreted differently. The guy was just being friendly to her. He saw Anne so bothered so he gave her a smile thinking it would help lessen Anne’s burden. But contrary, it was not.
In this kind of situation, we had this “feeling our way” attitude wherein we watch facial expressions and gestures so that we can adapt to our own response.
Non-verbal messages such as smiling seems to have a greater impact for the belief that gestures, body movements, facial expressions, and so on, can’t be stimulated by authenticity by an average person. We convey primarily on expressing our feelings rather than our thoughts.
“Action speaks louder than Words”
A famous quote that best explained the power and the impact a non-verbal message can. A single smile might mean a lot, not only as a sign of greeting but also to replace verbal messages and even to fake real emotions. Whether you communicate verbally or not, lets be conscious of hat we really intended to say. Communication should be precise, certain and direct. Avoid confusion and wishy-washy statement. Unsuccessful communication largely affects a relationship. In surveys done, it is being proven that unclear communication between spouse and even friends result to fail relationships.
The key to abundant relationship is just a clear communication. Keep communicating!
