3.5. Clarifying Misunderstandings. Readings

How do misunderstandings occur?

Researchers have developed a great diversity of approaches and theories about how to achieve efficient and authentic communication. Some rules and fundamental principles can be established on this basis. The first rule is that what is essential for a good communication is the quality of the relationship between the persons involved in this communication. It is a question of capacity to create a relational context that will facilitate expression and receptivity.

As a second rule, for communication to be effective and of high quality, it is necessary to listen, observe, analyse, express oneself and control. Listening means taking the other person's point of view into account, showing interest verbally or non-verbally; observing and analysing in order to understand the explicit and implicit part of the communication, according to psychological and social components of the persons involved in communication; expressing yourself according to the person you are talking to and the nature of the subject of the communication; controlling through the feedback given to the message. 

A third rule is crucial: all communication takes place in a psychological context, which is always a social and ideological context. The role and weight of social norms, social representations and reference values are considerable. Communication must always be studied and understood in terms of the interaction between three types of factors: psychological, cognitive and social.

It is well known that reluctance or even fear have always been part of human interactions, leading inevitably to misinterpretation and miscomprehension. In any encounter, misunderstandings happen frequently because our own culture heavily influences how we perceive other’s intentions. Rejecting otherness, people intend to protect themselves from a form of threat regarding values, ways of life, or identities they are familiar with. Research about racism shows that there was a substantial change in the definition of this concept. It is no longer a question of biological, physical, or intellectual inferiority, but an incompatibility that exists between cultural, national, religious, ethnic specificities. This new definition of racism insists on the fact that the differences of the minority group can be seen as a threat for the dominant group. In the context of education, lecturers must learn how to reflect about their own beliefs, values, and attitudes, and avoid an ethnocentric evaluation of situations of misunderstandings among students.