The Moment Of Truth

The moment of truth is the latest U.S television game show in which the contestants are strapped to a lie detector and are asked 50 questions about their most intimate secrets before they come on the show. On the show, from those 50 questions 21 questions are selected to be asked. The answer to the question is either yes or no. There is no explanation required. The questions become more and more personal as they go higher. Parents, friends and partners of the person playing are invited on the show. The questions are such that they could destroy all the interpersonal relationships of the person in the hot seat. All this is done to earn money. the maximum amount a person could win is half a million dollars!!! But one untruthful answer and you loose everything. This is all at the cost of ones relations? Is it worth it? I don't think so.

Here is the a clip from the opening night of the show. This clip also provide an idea about the questions usually asked:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td3hpNX6PNc

Its a fact that most people come on the show to earn some money, but there were a few who came just because they needed a platform for self- disclosure. It made me wonder that is their interpersonal relationships and communication is so bad that they have to resort to such vicious game shows? And is it this game show providing the right platform for such revelations of a person to their loved ones?

Before answering the above questions let me start by providing some definitions. As defined in the book "Thinking Through Communication" by Sarah Trenholm, 'in a sense, all communication is interpersonal, because it occurs between people. The term interpersonal communication, however, is generally reserved for two-person, face-to-face interaction and is often used interchangeably with the term dyadic communication.' As defined by abacon.com 'Self-disclosure is not simply providing information to another person. Instead, scholars define self-disclosure as sharing information with others that they would not normally know or discover. Self-disclosure involves risk and vulnerability on the part of the person sharing the information.'

Self-disclosure is the key to increasing relational skills. But there are some rules that we need to follow to make sure that self-disclosure leads to improving your relational skills. How much and what you disclose depends on the relationship in concern. You cannot just disclose some secrets to your mom in front of your friends. This is the first reason why the game show is the wrong platform for sharing your secrets as everyone close to you is present and there is atleast one question regarding each member. The second and the most important rule is the place where this revelation of truth takes place. This kind of conversations should take place in complete privacy and not in a studio in the presence of a large audience. And definitely not an a show which will be aired on national television! This could do nothing but damage the relationship severly.

Another important point to be noted during a disclosure is that a reponce from the reciever is absolutly necessary. Without this response the disclosure won't bridge the communication gap but will only increase it. Because there are so many people watching the show the reciver of the message is unable to provide a response to the sender and this furthur compecates the matter.

As indicated in the definition self-disclosure is something that the reciever has never heard before. On this show the contestant not only reveals one unknown secret but reveals any number of truths between 1 to 21 and they are usually more than one. This is the result of avoiding and postponing the managment of conflict which is known as "gunnysacking". Due to gunnysacking the even if the conflicts arise one of the partner tends to avoid discussing and keep the complete truth from the other partner. Gunnysacking furthur weakens the relationship.

So as we could see that rather than resorting to such game shows to reveal the truths to your dear ones, it is wiser to do it in privacy, where you can recieve the response from the reciever and work towards working the relationship. There is another advantage of privacy and thats is instead of one way disclosure, even your partner might disclose some facts about his/her life that you were unaware of.

Here are some more episodes for you to watch and to form your own opinion on the issue raised above. Your comments will be appreciated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGqrLYSzbiQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX4Cm3J8QIY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcjVzM1Xjtw&feature=related

Whom to vote? - problems faced by the two U.S precidential candidates.

Today I was just going through some current news online, when I came across this piece of news. The news was relating to the current presidential elections going on in the United States Of America. The article talked about how Barack Obama is suffering in polls because of racial discrimination. The article says, "The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points." It also says that, "one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles."

This current situation is a perfect example of stereotyping. Just because he is a black he is subjected to adjectives such as being lazy and violent. Later on the article also says that racial discrimination is not the biggest factor that is affecting Obama's votes- "Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that." Regardless of this fact, the article points out that, "Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice." In the field of politics this 6 percent points of support also makes a huge difference. It would definetly be wrong if people do not vote for Obama only based on the fact that he is a black.

On the other hand, the other contestant of the current elections, Republican John McCain is suffering in the polls due to the fact that he is closely acquainted with the current President of the United States Of America. The article says, "He's an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation's oldest first-term president." Here is an example of how we are judged by the people based on our interpersonal relationships. Even if it is true that we are influenced by the people we acquaint with, it is unfair that we are judged completely based on this fact.

I think that people should consider all the aspects of both the competitors before making any decisions. it is very important to keep aside all the prejudices and look at the situation from an open-minded perspective.

For the entire article go to:- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26803840

Culture :- A factor for faulty communication.

I remember when I first came to Singapore, I had a rough time communicating with people as i was not used to their accent and they were not used to mine. As I just started to get over this problem I was faced with another one; and that was the different usage of the same word. Once I had visited my dad in his office and to pass my time I offered to help with any minor task they had to offer. At this offer a guy comes to me and asks me to chop some papers for him and hands me a stack. Thinking that by 'chopping' he probably means that he wants me to shred some papers i asked for a paper shredder. Looking at his puzzled look i ask him what did he mean by "chop papers"? Handing me some official stamps he tells me that by "chopping" he meant "stamping" the papers!!!! That is when I realized that in Singapore 'chopping' means 'stamping' whereas in India (that is where I come from), by 'chopping' we mean cutting(in case of vegetables) and shredding(in the case of papers). This is a good example of how in different cultures the same words have different meanings and this could result in faulty communication. Had I not asked him for the meaning of 'chop' i probably would have cut those important documents into small pieces!!!

Culture and perspective influence each other to a great extent. A perspective is defined in the book 'Thinking through communication' by Sarah Trenholm as a coherent set of assumptions about the way a process operates. And these assumptions that one makes about a certain process might differ from culture to culture.

Culture is one of the major factors that defines a persons thought process, hence influencing a persons psychological perspective. As written in 'Thinking through communication' by Sarah Trenholm, psychological perspective focuses on what happens "inside the heads" of communicators as they transmit or receive messages. If the communicators are from different cultural background the sender might send the message from a certain psychological perspective but the reciever being from a different cultural backgroung might interpret differently. This could result in faulty communication.

Sports - a good career or bad?

Sports has always been an excellent form of recreation. But what about taking up one as a career? Even though these days the number of people taking up sports as a career have increased, still there is a certain kind of reluctance in many families about letting their young ones be a sportsperson. There could be many reason for this reluctance. Some cultures have a very conservative approach towards sports. It is only to be played for fun and is not meant to earn a living. People of this belief could argue that it involves a lot of investment and there is an uncertainty in the amount of returns one will receive. Even in schools sports sports activities are regarded as extra-curricular activity and has a secondary status.

To promote sports as a profession, sports competition winners around the world are rewarded heavily in cash. Not only this, but sports persons have also earned themselves a great amount of respect from their audience. Even governments are funding sports events generously. Even recently, the Olympics held at Beijing was an excellent show of the grandeur of sports events.

Through all this, these people are trying to communicate that after all sports is not a bad option or career.