• May 02, 2024
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Unlike evaluative speech, descriptive speech usually causes at least some discomfort

The definition of defensive behavior is any action taken by an individual who senses or anticipates danger from others in the group. The defensive person invests a significant amount of energy in defending themselves, even when they also pay some attention to the shared job. In addition to talking on the subject, he considers how he comes across to other people, how he could be viewed more favorably, how he might prevail, impress, or avoid punishment, and or how he might deflect or prevent a perceived assault.

Such internal emotions and external behaviors often make others adopt protective stances as well. if left uncontrolled, the vicious cycle that results grows more and more damaging. Put simply, defensive behavior leads to defensive listening, which in turn results in verbal, facial, and postural clues that heighten the original communicator's defenses.

The listener is unable to focus on the content due to defense arousal. Defensive communicators not only give off conflicting motive, emotion, and value cues, but defensive recipients also misinterpret the information they receive. A person's ability to effectively discern the intentions, morals, and feelings of the sender diminishes as they grow more defensive.Through research of tape-recorded conversations, the author found a positive correlation between increases in defensive behavior and decreases in communication efficiency.

Furthermore, the opposite is also true. The more "supportive" or defense-reductive the environment, the less the recipient interprets distorted loadings in the communication that result from projections of his own fears, desires, and worries. Receivers are more able to focus on the message's structure, content, and cognitive implications as defenses are lowered.

Categories of Defensive and Supportive Communications
Working with recordings of conversations in a variety of situations during an eight-year period, the author created the six pairs of supporting and defensive categories. When a listener interprets behavior as having any of the traits given in the left-hand column, it makes them feel defensive. when they interpret the same behavior as having any of the traits listed in the right-hand column, they feel less defensive. The degree of defensiveness exhibited by the individual and the overall atmosphere within the group at the moment determine how much of these reactions take place.

Evaluation and Description
Whenever someone speaks or acts in a way that seems judgmental, defensiveness grows. The recipient becomes alert if the sender appears to be assessing or passing judgment on them through their facial expression, way of speaking, voice tone, or verbal content. Of course, the reaction could be inhibited by other variables. For example, if the listener believed that the speaker was being honest and spontaneous and saw him as an equal, the evaluativeness in the message would be mitigated or possibly missed entirely. The other five types of possibly defense-producing climates fall under the same general rules. There is interaction between these six groupings.

It might be challenging to structure statements that the defensive person will see as nonjudgmental since our attitudes toward other people are usually, if not always, evaluative. Even the most basic question typically reveals the answer that the asker wants to hear or suggests the answer that would be consistent with their set of values. Immediately after an earthquake that rocked the house, a mother, for instance, asked her young son, "Bobby, where are you?" Bobby's shy and apologetic "Mommy, I didn't do it" revealed how his ingrained mild defensiveness caused him to react by projecting his own guilt and assuming that questions are loaded with accusations.

Group members who are insecure are more prone to assign blame, categorize people as good or bad, pass moral judgment on their peers, and doubt the significance, motivation, and affective content of the speeches they hear. The listener becomes defensive when they believe the speaker's standards are different from their own since value loadings suggest a judgment of other people.

Unlike evaluative speech, descriptive speech usually causes at least some discomfort. Speech acts that are descriptive are those that the listener interprets as neutrally loaded material or as sincere requests for information. In particular, minimally defense-producing presentation of feelings, events, perceptions, or processes does not request or indicate that the recipient modifies behavior or attitude. The challenges faced by news reporters in covering unions, Communists, Black people, and religious activities without giving away the newspaper's "party" line serve as an example of how difficult it may be to avoid overtone. An article's opening line frequently indicates which side the newspaper's editorial stance supports.

Control and Problem Orientation
Speech that manipulates the listener elicits resistance. The majority of our social interactions involve someone attempting to affect another person in some way, whether it is by influencing behavior, changing an attitude, or limiting the scope of the activity. The degree to which control attempts cause defensiveness relies on how transparent they are; resistance is increased when one suspects that there are ulterior motivations. Because of this, nondirective therapists and progressive educators encounter numerous obstacles in their attempts to avoid forcing their beliefs, points of view, or problem-solving techniques on their clients. Control is the norm, thus those who don't practice control must gain the impression that their actions are motivated by nothing secret. Listeners have become cynical and paranoid due to an onslaught of persuasive "messages" from the political, educational, special causes, advertising, religious, medical, industrial relations, and guiding domains.

The change agent's implicit belief that the target of their alteration is unworthy is present in every attempt to modify them. The listener has a legitimate reason to get defensive when the speaker subtly perceives them as uninformed, immature, foolish, ignorant, incapable of making their own decisions, or with incorrect or inadequate attitudes.

Strategy and Spontaneity
The recipient becomes defensive when they believe the sender is using a tactic with unclear and conflicting motives. Nobody likes to be the victim of a covert motive or to be used as a test subject, role model, or impressed actor. The degree of defensiveness on the part of the listener can also make something that is concealed appear greater than it actually is. The reading public's strong response to The Hidden Persuaders' content highlights the frequency of defensive responses to the various driving forces underlying strategy. Particularly hated are group members who are perceived as "taking a role," as pretending to feel something, as playing games with their peers, as hiding knowledge, or as possessing unique sources of information. One participant complained that another was taking advantage of him by "using a listening technique"!

Reactions against what are seen as gimmicks and tricks to fool or "involve" people, to make a person think he or she is making their own decision, or to make the listener feel that the sender is genuinely interested in him or her as a person account for a large portion of the negative reaction to much of the so-called human relations training. Reactions become especially intense when it seems like someone is attempting to pass off a strategy as spontaneous. Someone mentioned a manager who used to get people mad by "spontaneously" glancing at his watch and saying things like, "My gosh, look at the time I must run to an appointment."

One's resistance to politicians who seem to be plotting behind one's back to win over votes, to psychologists whose interest in listening to oneself appears to be driven by something other than a manifest or content-level interest in one's behavior, or to the sophisticated, smooth, or clever person whose cunning one-upmanship is evident may all be explained by this aversion to deceit. The role-flexible person is sometimes hated in training groups because their behavioral adjustments are seen as calculated moves.

On the other hand, defensive reductive behavior is that which seems to be spontaneous and devoid of dishonesty. The communicator is likely to elicit the least amount of defensiveness if they are perceived as having a clear identity, simple motivations, being honest and forthright, and acting naturally in response to the circumstances.

Neutrality and Empathy
The listener gets defensive when he perceives neutrality in speech as showing a lack of concern for his well-being. Members of a group typically want to be seen as important people, as unique personalities, and as objects of affection and concern. Members of the group dislike the clinical, dispassionate, person-is-an-object-study mentality exhibited by many psychologist-trainers. Speech that lacks emotion and conveys little warmth or concern contrasts sharply with affective speech that is so strong in social settings that it can occasionally convey rejection.

However, communication that demonstrates respect for the listener's worth and understanding for their feelings is especially defense-reducing and beneficial. When a message conveys that the speaker understands the listener's difficulties, empathizes with her, and takes her sentiments seriously, it reassures the recipient. Even if these attempts to provide support—such as telling the receiver not to feel terrible or rejected or that she is too anxious—can be misinterpreted by the listener as an attempt to dispute the validity of the recipient's feelings. High levels of support are provided when one comprehends and empathizes with the other person's feelings without making any attempt to alter them.

Superiority and Equality
A person provokes defensiveness when they convey to another that they believe they are superior in terms of status, power, money, intelligence, physical attributes, or other areas. Similar to other forms of disruption, in this case the listener's focus is more on the effect loading of the remark than the cognitive components, due to anything that evokes emotions of inadequacy. In response, the recipient may not hear the message, forget it, compete with the sender, or develop jealousy toward them.

When someone feels superior to others, they tend to express their unwillingness to engage in a cooperative problem-solving relationship, their lack of desire for feedback, their lack of need for assistance, and/or their propensity to try to diminish the receiver's authority, status, or value.

There are numerous approaches to establish the feeling that the sender and the recipient are on an equal footing. When one believes that the sender is willing to engage in mutually respectful and cooperative participatory planning, one's defenses are lessened. Although there are frequent differences in skill, worth, ability, attractiveness, status, and power, the low defense communicator doesn't seem to give these differences any thought.


Certainty and Provisionalism
It is commonly recognized that dogmatism causes defensiveness. People who appear to have all the answers, don't seem to need any more information, and perceive themselves more as instructors than as colleagues often make people nervous. Additionally, in the writer's experiment, participants frequently

thought that outward displays of assurance implied inferiority complexes. They perceived the dogmatic person as someone who must always be correct, who prefers to win arguments over finding solutions, and who believes that their opinions are absolutes that must be upheld. This type of behavior was frequently linked to actions that other people saw as attempts at control. It seems that those in the right had little patience for those in the "wrong" who disagreed with the sender.

When one signals that one is willing to try new things with one's own conduct, attitudes, and ideas, the listener becomes less defensive. Someone who seems to be adopting flexible attitudes, researching topics rather than taking sides, solving problems rather than casting doubt on them, and being open to trying new things all suggest that the listener may have some influence over the investigation of the concepts or the shared quest. When someone is sincerely looking for information, they don't mind assistance or companionship along the route.
Conclusion


It should be very evident how the information above affects parents, teachers, managers, administrators, and therapists. Inciting defensiveness obstructs communication, which makes it challenging—and occasionally impossible—for anyone to express thoughts properly and make progress in solving therapeutic, educational, or management issues.

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