The Handbook of Communication Skills

Owen Hargie, Owen Hargie

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315436111
• Edizione: 4
• Argomento: Psicología
• Categoria: Historia y teoría en psicología

The Handbook of Communication Skills is recognised as one of the core texts in the field of communication, offering a state-of-the-art overview of this rapidly evolving field of study. This comprehensively revised and updated fourth edition arrives at a time when the realm of interpersonal communication has attracted immense attention. Recent research showing the potency of communication skills for success in many walks of life has stimulated considerable interest in this area, both from academic researchers, and from practitioners whose day-to-day work is so dependent on effective social skills.

Covering topics such as non-verbal behaviour, listening, negotiation and persuasion, the book situates communication in a range of different contexts, from interacting in groups to the counselling interview. Based on the core tenet that interpersonal communication can be conceptualised as a form of skilled activity, and including new chapters on cognitive behavioural therapy and coaching and mentoring, this new edition also places communication in context with advances in digital technology.

The Handbook of Communication Skills represents the most significant single contribution to the literature in this domain. Providing a rich mine of information for the neophyte and practising professional, it is perfect for use in a variety of contexts, from theoretical mainstream communication modules on degree programmes to vocational courses in health, business and education. With contributions from an internationally renowned range of scholars, this is the definitive text for students, researchers and professionals alike.

Part I

Communication skill in theory and practice

Chapter 1

Skill in theory: Communication as skilled performance

Owen Hargie

Introduction

Any analysis of interpersonal communication is inevitably fraught with difficulties. The interpersonal process is complex, ever-changing, and directly affected by a large number of intermeshing factors. This means that in order to make sense of, and systematically investigate, social encounters, some form of interpretive framework is usually employed. In fact, numerous alternative frameworks have been developed for this purpose. For example, interpersonal encounters have been conceptualised, inter alia, as:

• a form of joint economic activity or social exchange in which both sides seek rewards and try to minimise costs, which may be in the form of money, services, goods, status, esteem, or affection (­Mitchell, Cropanzano, & Quisenberry, 2012);

• transactional episodes during which interlocutors play roles akin to acting as either parent, adult, or child, and respond at one of these three levels (Bright, 2015);

• a type of dramatic performance composed of major scenes, in which everyone has a role to play and lines to deliver, some have more prominent roles than others, the actors behave differently front-stage as opposed to back-stage, there are props in the form of furniture and fittings, there is an underlying storyline, and all of this changes from one production to the next (Edgley, 2013).

These are just three of the approaches that have been developed as templates for the interpretation of interpersonal communication. In this chapter and in Chapter 2 another such approach will be presented, namely the perspective that social behaviour can be conceptualised as skilled performance, and that it is meaningful to compare socially skilled behaviour (such as interviewing or negotiating) with motor skill behaviour (such as playing tennis or operating a machine). Further pursuing this analogy, it is argued that the models and methods successfully employed in the study of motor skill can usefully be applied to interpersonal skill. The validity of this comparison, and the accompanying implications for the study of social behaviour, will be investigated.

In order to evaluate this perspective, it is necessary to relate the history of the study of interpersonal skill directly to the study of motor skill, since it was from the latter source that the concept of communication as skill eventually emerged. The extent to which this analogy can be pursued is then discussed, together with an analysis of the nature of social skill per se. Overall, this chapter provides a reference point for the entire book, by delineating the nature, and defining features, of interpersonal skill.

Motor skills

The study of perceptual-motor skill has a long and rich tradition within psychology. Such skills, which involve co-ordinated physical movements of the body, are widely employed in human performance and include, for example, eating, dressing, walking, writing, riding a bicycle, or playing golf. Welford (1968) traced the scientific study of motor skill back to 1820, when the astronomer Bessel examined differences between individuals on a task that involved the recording of star-transit times. Direct psychological interest in the nature of motor skill really began with explorations by Bryan and Harter (1897) into the learning of Morse code, followed by studies on movement by Woodworth (1899), and investigations by Book (1908) into the learning of typewriting skills. Since this early research, the literature on perceptual-motor skill has become voluminous, and this area remains an important focus of study (Schmidt & Lee, 2014; van Andel, Cole, & Pepping, 2017). Numerous definitions of motor skill have been put forward. These emphasise a range of features of skilled performance.

First, motor skill is defined as behaviour that is goal-directed and intentional, rather than chance or unintentional (Whiting, 1975). It is regarded as the movement of parts of the body in order to accomplish particular objectives (Marteniuk, 1976). Thus, Magill and Anderson (2014, p. 3) iterated that motor skills are ‘activities or tasks that require voluntary control over movements of the joints and body segments to achieve a goal’. The goals that are being pursued in motor skill are context-related in that they are designed to meet the demands of a particular situation (driving a car, operating a computer, playing tennis, etc.).

A second feature of skill is its learned nature, in that it comprises practice-related improvement in goal-directed action (Stanley & Krakauer, 2013). Here, a distinction is made between instinctive responses (such as breathing and coughing), and learned behaviours. In his analysis of the field, Edwards (2011) concluded that for behaviour to be regarded as skilled it must have been learned. This aspect has been consistently highlighted by skills analysts. Accordingly, Shmuelof and Krakauer (2014) noted that skill involves acquiring a behaviour that was not previously available to the individual. Similarly, van der Fels, te Wierike, Hartman et al. (2014, p. 697) defined motor skills as ‘learned sequences of movements that are combined to produce a smooth, efficient action’.

This definition also highlights a third aspect of skill, namely that it entails fluent and effective performance. In this sense, skill is assessed on the display of procedural knowledge rather than declarative knowledge. In other words, judgements of motor skill are based on what we can actually do rather than on what we can verbalise (Diedrichsen & Kornysheva, 2015). It involves the implementation of complex motor performance in such a way as to demonstrate that a smooth integration of behaviour has occurred (Cratty, 1964). As defined by Proctor and Dutta (1995, p. 18), ‘Skill is goal-directed, well-organized behavior that is acquired through practice and performed with economy of effort’.

This leads on to a fourth facet, namely that skill involves internal processes, since ‘Motor skills are not only the movements themselves, but include the cognitive processes that give rise to movements’ (Cameron, Cottone, Murrah et al., 2016, p. 93). Skilled behaviour consists of an integrated learned hierarchy of smaller component behaviours, each of which contributes in part to the overall act (Diedrichsen & Kornysheva, 2015). This requires a high level of practice to control and shape the sequential collation and organisation of all of these movements (Summers, 1989).

While there are commonalities across definitions, theorists tend to emphasise different features, such that Irion (1966), in tracing the history of this research, concluded that there was difficulty in achieving an agreed definition of motor skill. This remains the case, with Diedrichsen and Kornysheva (2015, p. 227) pointing out that there is a general consensus that skill learning enables an individual ‘to accomplish a motor task better, faster, or more accurately than before. Beyond this accepted understanding of the common use of the word, there is little agreement in the literature about a more precise, scientific definition’. One reason for this is that the problems related to how we acquire skill are numerous and complex (Robb, 1972).

However, Welford (1958, p. 17) summarised the study of this field as being encapsulated in the question: ‘When we look at a man working, by what criteria in his performance can we tell whether he is skilled and competent or clumsy and ignorant?’ In other words, his basic distinction was between skilled and unskilled behaviour (although, in fact, these two concepts represent opposite ends of a continuum of skilled performance, with people being more or less skilled in relation to one another). In his pioneering investigations into the nature of skill, Welford (1958) identified three main characteristics.

1 They consist of an organised, co-ordinated activity in relation to an object or a situation and, therefore, involve a whole chain of sensory, central, and motor mechanisms, which underlie performance.

2 They are learnt, in that the understanding of the event or performance is built up gradually with repeated experience.

3 They are serial in nature, involving the ordering and co-ordination of many different processes or actions in sequence. Thus, the skill of driving involves a pre-set repertoire of behaviours, which must be carried out in temporal sequence (put gear into neutral, switch on ignition, and so on).

Interpersonal skills

Given the vast amount of attention devoted to the analysis and evaluation of motor skill performance, it is rather surprising that it was some considerable time before psychologists began to investigate seriously the nature of interpersonal skill. Welford (1980) attributed the growth of interest in this field to the initial work of Crossman. In a report on the effects of automation on management and social relations in industry, Crossman (1960) found that a crucial feature in the work of the operator of an automatic plant was the ability to use social skills to communicate with co-workers. He also noted that no real efforts had been made to identify or analyse these skills. Crossman subsequently contacted Michael Argyle, a social psychologist at the University of Oxford, and together they carried out a study of social skill, explicitly designed to investigate the similarities between man–machine and man–man interactions. In this way, the first parallels were drawn between motor and social skills.

In 1967 Fitts and Posner, in their discussion of technical skills, emphasised that social skills were also important. In the same year, Argyle and Kendon published a paper in which they related the features of motor skill, as identified by Welford, directly to the analysis of social skill. They proposed a definition of skill as comprising an organised, co-ordinated activity that involves

a chain of sensory, central and motor mechanisms … the performance, or stream of action, is continuously under the control of the sensory input … [and] … the outcomes of actions are continuously matched against some criterion of achievement or degree of approach to a goal.

(Argyle & Kendon, 1967, p. 56)

While recognising some of the important differences between motor and social performance, they argued that this definition could be applied in large part to the study of social skill.

The intervening decades since the publication of Argyle and Kendon’s paper have witnessed an explosion of interest in the nature, function, delineation, and content of socially skilled performance. However, quite often researchers and theorists in this area have been working in differing contexts, with little cross-fertilisation between those involved in clinical, professional and developmental set...