The Mindsets Behind the Three Conversations

These three conversations—which correspond to practical decision-making conversations, emotional conversations, and conversations about identity—are best captured by three questions: What’s This Really About?, How Do We Feel?, and Who Are We? Each of these conversations, as we will see, draws on a different type of mindset and mental processing.

 

When we have a conversation about, say, a choice—a What’s This Really About? conversation—we’re activating different parts of our brains from when we discuss our feelings—the How Do We Feel? discussion—and if our mind doesn’t align with the brains of our conversational partners, we’ll all feel like we didn’t fully understand one another.

 

The first mindset—the decision-making mindset—is associated with the What’s This Really About conversation, and it’s active whenever we’re thinking about practical matters, such as making choices or analyzing plans. When someone says, “What are we going to do about Sam’s grades?,” our brains’ frontal control network, the command center for our thoughts and actions, becomes active. We have to make a series of decisions, often subconsciously, to evaluate the words we heard, but also to consider what motives or desires might be lurking underneath……

 

The second mindset—the emotional mindset—emerges when we discuss How Do We Feel and draws on neural structures—the nucleus accumbens, the amygdala, and the hippocampus, among others—that help shape our beliefs, emotions, and memories.

 

The third conversational mindset—the social mindset—emerges when we discuss our relationships, how we are seen by others and see ourselves, and our social identities. These are Who Are We discussions.

 

 

 

 --- Charles Duhigg, Supercommunicators:

How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. 2024.

 

 

Characteristics of Intercultural Communication

There are several realities that characterize all communication, whether intercultural or not. They are true of communication in every context. 

 

First, everything that we do “communicates”—it is impossible for us to stop communicating.

 

Second, the goal of communication is always more than just to impart information—persuasion is behind everything we do. Even a simple “hello” is an act that requests a response or an acknowledgment of your existence and relationship with the person to whom you say, “Hello”.

 

Third, the communication process is generally far more complex than most people realize. Because we have been communicating for so long, and because we do it all the time, we have the tendency to take it for granted.

 

Fourth, we always communicate our messages through more than one channel, and we always communicate more than one message. At times, these “multiple” messages may contradict one another, causing our audience to respond negatively to our primary concern. At other times, they enhance and reinforce our message, helping to elicit a more positive response from our audience.

 

Fifth, and finally, if we seek to communicate effectively across cultural barriers, the foundational consideration for all our communication should be, “What can I do to build trust on the part of the audience?”

 

  

 

--- A. Scott Moreau, Evvy Hay Campbell & Susan Greener, 

Effective Intercultural Communication: A Christian Perspective. 2014.

Defining Communication

First, communication is dynamic: it is not a static “thing” but a dynamic process that maintains stability and identity through all its fluctuations.

 

Second, communication is irreversible: the very fact that communication has occurred (or is occurring) means that the persons in communication have changed, however subtly. The fact that we have memories means that once we begin the process, there is no “reset” button; we cannot begin again as blank slates.

 

Third, communication is proactive: in communicating we are not merely passive respondents to external stimuli. When we communicate, we enter the process totally and are proactive, selecting, amplifying, and manipulating the signals that come to us.

 

Fourth, communication is interactive on two fronts: the intrapersonal, or what goes on inside each communicator; and the interpersonal, or what takes place between communicators. We must pay attention to both fronts to understand the communication process.

 

Finally, communication is contextual: it always happens in a larger context, be that the physical environment, the emotional mood of the communication event, or the purposes (which may be overt or hidden) behind the communication.

 

--- A. Scott Moreau, Evvy Hay Campbell & Susan Greener,  

Effective Intercultural Communication: A Christian Perspective. 2014.