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
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
8 comments:
Hi Shivani! Happened to come across your COM101 blog; I like this post. Well done! =)
I'm a big fan of this show in the sense that it can be interesting to see how the contestants and his/her friends and family respond to the very difficult questions asked. However, I would never want to be a contestant on the show (especially the wife of any contestant).
This show can seriously make the family come together or in most cases, break the family apart. If I were to be a dishonest wife to someone especially, I would be heartbroken to hurt the feelings of my husband in the later stages of our relationship. However, this is why self disclosure is so important in relationships! If the couple revealed personal things about themselves earlier in their relationship, they would be able to trust each other more.
Then again if they already did so, they would not even be on this show and reveal negative things about themselves to America, oops.. I mean THE WORLD!
hi again! i really liked your friends entry so thought of checking out the others as well and i agree with Uma. i like this post as well.
i like the show but i wont call myself a fan of this show. i only watch when i come across it while surfing channels. yes i think the time and place of disclosure is indeed very important. especially for the point that you made about getting the response. to sort their problems and differences out one need the other person to respond to it. then only can they discuss and solve it.
and yeah i also agree with Uma on the point that disclosure should take place as early as possible.
hey uma! thank you so much. glad that you liked my post. yeah i agree with you that self disclosure at the later stages of relationship have a higher chance of hurting your partner. and it would surely be heartbreaking. hence self disclosure is very important from the beginning. but as you said that if this true then there would be no show like 'the moment of truth'.
this makes me wonder to what limits can we go to entertain ourselves! that too at the cost of other people's relationships.
hey jen. thanks to you too. glad that you too liked my entries!
yeah in case of self disclosures it is extremely important to follow the interactive model of communication. where the both individuals involved can react to each others comments.
hey, this a very interesting post. i love watching this show too but never thought of it this way. its a very novel perspective. i agree to all the points about self disclosure made by you, uma and jen.
and its so true that we go to such limits to entertain ourselves. we become so selfish, that we have fun watching others misery!!!
heya everyone...
form the fact that we- "the audience" enjoy watching such shows is reason that they are made. they sell cause we buy them!!
yeah so true!! this also proves another amazing thing, that it is not only the media that influences us, but that even we- "the audience" influence the media.....
yeah ..as they say make what could be sold and not sell what you make;)
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