Internal and External Filters

Video Transcription

Hi, I'm Julie Tietz. And welcome to Conflict Resolution-- putting the pieces together. Today, we're going to talk about the internal and external filters that can get in the way of effective communication. So I'm just going to start off by listing off our key terms that I want you to be on the lookout for throughout this tutorial-- communication, message, internal filter, and external filter.

Since we're talking about communication, let's define that first. It's the process of moving information from person to person using symbolic codes. So it's the information or the message that we want to send from ourselves to another person. And a message is a packet of information which has been encoded and is moved from sender to receiver.

And we're going to talk about some filters or the objects or the static that can get in the way of us sending our messages to the receiver. And one of those is an external filter. And an external filter is an impediment to a message being received or being interpreted as intended or originating outside the mind of the receiver.

So this is something that is outside of our minds that is getting in the way of us receiving a message. And one of those could be literally static on the telephone. That gets in the way of us receiving a message from a sender.

Or it could be we are giving a message to another person who is going to then give it to another person. And they have misinterpreted what we wanted to say or left out some of the message. That is an external filter.

The other is an internal filter. And that is an impediment to a message being received or being interpreted as intended originating inside the mind of the receiver. So an internal filter is something that is inside our minds that get in the way of getting the message whereas the external, that is something that's outside of ourselves.

And internal filters could be a variety of different things. Maybe we don't like the person that is giving us a message. And so therefore, we tune them out. And we choose not to hear everything that they're saying.

Or maybe they spoke out of turn or were a little abrasive in their communication towards us. And we become offended. And so we in turn tune them out from receiving the entire message. So these are just a couple of different ways in which we can have internal filters in receiving messages.

And those filters that I mentioned, the static, the misinterpretation of our message, and our own personal internal biases about senders, these are all ways in which miscommunication can happen.

So how do we avoid this miscommunication? If it's an external filter, we must diversify our communication. And so we could do this by reinforcing our messages, maybe giving our messages in two different types of forms. Maybe we're speaking our messages, as well as writing out our messages. So maybe these external filters will not get in the way. And we can avoid miscommunication here.

And with internal factors, we need to clarify and double check with the sender to make sure that we aren't misinterpreting what they're saying and that we, yes, indeed, are giving them a confirmation message that we got the message, and we understand what they intended, or if we misunderstood their intentions, to just ask questions and to clarify so we can understand the meaning and have more effective communication.

So now that we've gone over some of the internal and external filters that can get in the way of communication, let's go over our key points. In communication, an external filter is a static external outside of ourselves that interfere with messages. An internal filter is the misinterpretation of messages that are within our minds.

And miscommunication can be avoided through being deliberate in our messages and clarifying our messages if there is some misinterpretation. And so in doing this, we can have more effective communication. I really hope that you've learned something today. And I can't wait to catch you again next time.