What You ’ ll Learn

1. Communication skills help you converse with others, resist negative peer pressure, and resolve conflicts. These actions protect and promote health.

2. What You’ll Learn 1. Identify steps to follow to develop interpersonal communication skills. • Discuss I-messages, you-messages, mixed messages, and active listening. • Discuss resistance skills. • Describe how to be self-confident and assertive. • Describe types of conflict, conflict response styles, conflict-resolution skills, and the mediation process.

3. Key Terms • communication skills • I-message • you-message • active listening • peer pressure • resistance skills • assertive behavior • conflict-resolution skills • mediation • prejudice

4. How to Use Interpersonal Communication Skills 1. Choose the best way to communicate. • Your choices for how you communicate with others are almost unlimited. • How you communicate may depend on what you are trying to say.

5. How to Use Interpersonal Communication Skills Choose the best way to communicate. • To send a strong message you may combine verbal and nonverbal communication—the use of actions or body language to express emotions and thoughts.

6. How to Use Interpersonal Communication Skills Express your thoughts and feelings clearly.  • An I-message expresses your feelings or thoughts on a subject. • I-messages contain a specific behavior or event, the effect of the behavior or event on the person speaking, and the emotions that result.

7. Example "When you talk excessively in the class (student's behavior), I feel frustrated (teacher's feeling) because I cannot focus on the lesson being taught and on the other students in the class (reason)."

8. I feel _________________________________ (say your feeling) when you _____________________________ (describe the action) because _______________________________ (say why the action connects to your feeling)

9. How to Use Interpersonal Communication Skills Express your thoughts and feelings clearly.  • A you-message is a statement that blames or shames another person. • A you-message puts down another person for what he or she has said or done, even if you don’t have the whole story about what happened.

10. How to Use Interpersonal Communication Skills Mixed Messages • Using I-messages is more effective than using you-messages and helps maintain healthy relationships with others. • Avoid sending a mixed message—a message that gives two different meanings.

11. How to Use Interpersonal Communication Skills Listening Skills • Maintain eye contact and use gestures, such as nodding your head, to encourage conversation.

12. How to Use Interpersonal Communication Skills Active Listening • Active listening is the way you respond in conversation to show that you hear and understand what the speaker is saying.

13. How to Use Interpersonal Communication Skills Techniques for Active Listening • Clarifying a response Ask the speaker for more information. • Restating a response Repeat what you think the speaker has said. • Summarizing a response Summarize the main idea the speaker has stated. • Affirming a response State your appreciation for what the speaker has said.

14. How to Recognize Types of Peer Pressure • Peer pressure can be positive. • Positive peer pressure is influence from peers to behave in a responsible way. • Peer pressure can be negative. • Negative peer pressure is influence from peers to behave in a way that is not responsible.

15. Resistance Skills • Resistance skills are skills that help a person say “no” to an action or to leave a situation that they feel or know is dangerous or illegal. • Resistance skills sometimes are called refusal skills and can be used to resist negative peer pressure.

16. How Can You Be Self-Confident and Assertive? • When your behavior is self-confident and assertive, you show others that you are in control of yourself. • Assertive behavior is the honest expression of ideas, feelings, and decisions without worrying about what others think or without feeling threatened by the reactions of others. • You clearly state your feelings or decisions and do not back down.  

17. How Can You Be Self-Confident and Assertive? • Passive behavior • Passive behavior is the holding back of ideas, feelings, and decisions. • People with passive behavior do not stand up for themselves and lack self-confidence.  

18. How Can You Be Self-Confident and Assertive? • Aggressive behavior • Aggressive behavior is the use of words or actions that are disrespectful toward others.  • People with aggressive behavior threaten others because they lack self-confidence.  

19. Conflicts • A conflict is a disagreement between two or more people or between two or more choices. • There are four types of conflict and three conflict response styles.

20. What to Know About Types of Conflict • Intrapersonal conflict • Any conflict that occurs within a person is an intrapersonal conflict. • Interpersonal conflict • Any conflict that occurs between two or more people is an interpersonal conflict.

21. What to Know About Types of Conflict • Intragroup conflict • An intragroup conflict is a disagreement between people belonging to the same group. • Intergroup conflict • An intergroup conflict is a disagreement between two or more groups of people. • The conflict may involve different neighborhoods, schools, gangs, racial groups, religious groups, or nations.

22. What Is Your Conflict Response Style? • Conflict response style • A conflict response style is a pattern of behavior a person uses in a conflict situation. • The person may use one or a combination of conflict response styles.

23. What Is Your Conflict Response Style? • Conflict avoidance • When using conflict avoidance, a person chooses to avoid disagreements by not telling others he or she disagrees with them. • Conflict confrontation • When using conflict confrontation, a person attempts to settle a disagreement in a hostile, defiant, and aggressive way. • You believe your side of the story is the only one worth considering.

24. What Is Your Conflict Response Style? • Conflict resolution • Conflict resolution is a response style in which a person uses conflict-resolution skills to resolve a problem. • Conflict-resolution skills are steps that can be taken to settle a disagreement in a responsible way.

25. Mediation • Mediation may be used when people have a difficult time solving their differences. • Mediation is a process in which an outside person, or mediator, helps people in conflict reach a solution.

26. List as many examples of nonverbal communication as possible… • Observe your clothing, appearance, and school supplies. Which of these were influenced by peer pressure? Explain. • Which of the tactics in the resistance skills model (p.47) may be the most difficult to carry out in a real-life situation? Explain. • Give an example for each of the following: • intrapersonal conflict, • interpersonal conflict, • intergroup conflict • Intragroup conflict • Come up with a conflict situation/scenario. Explain how you can react using assertive behavior, aggressive behavior, and then passive behavior.

27. Study Guide 2. Match the example to the type of conflict. ___ intrapersonal conflict ___ interpersonal conflict ___ intragroup conflict ___ intergroup conflict A. A player on your baseball team is hit by a pitch thrown by the opposing pitcher. You and your teammates think it was intentional and vow to get even. B. You believe your friend should pay for dinner because you think he didn’t pay last time. He disagrees and claims to have paid the last time you were out. C. You must choose between an apple and an orange for a snack and you want both. D. Your group of friends has been asked to play football. Some of your friends want to play, others do not, but the entire group is needed for a team. C B D A

28. End of the Lesson