DEFINITION OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Interpersonal communication is communication between two or more connected individuals that involves dyadic primacy (the two-person unit is of central importance), dyadic coalitions (two-person groups form even in larger groups), and dyadic consciousness (the two persons think of themselves as a pair).

Interpersonal communication can take place and interpersonal relationships can develop from face-to-face interactions as well as those you have on the Internet. Interpersonal communication serves a variety of purposes. It enables you to learn, relate, influence, play, and help.

Elements of Interpersonal Communication

Source-receiver is the person who sends and receives interpersonal messages simultaneously. Encoding-decoding refers to the act of putting meaning into verbal and nonverbal messages and deriving meaning from the messages you receive from others. Competence is the knowledge of and ability to use effectively your own communication system. Messages are the signals that serve as stimuli for a receiver; metamessages are messages that refer to other messages. o Feedback messages are messages that are sent back by the receiver to the source in response to other messages. o Feedforward messages are messages that preface other messages and ask that the listener approach future messages in a certain way. o Messages can quickly overload the channels, making meaningful interaction impossible. Channels are the media through which messages pass and which act as a bridge between source and receiver, for example, the vocal-auditory channel used in speaking or the cutaneous-tactile channel used in touch. Noise is the inevitable physical, physiological, psychological, and semantic interference that distorts a message.

Context is the physical, social-psychological, temporal, and cultural environment in which communication takes place. Ethics is the moral dimension of communication, the study of what makes behavior moral or good as opposed to immoral and bad.

PURPOSE OF IPC
With good, solid, interpersonal communication skills, you will be more likely to succeed in both your marriage and in your career. It helps in all aspects of personal interaction, contact, and communication between individuals or members of a group. Effective interpersonal communication depends on a variety of interpersonal skills including listening, asserting, influencing, persuading, empathizing, sensitivity, and diplomacy. Important aspects of communication between people include body language and other forms of nonverbal communication.