The most obvious elements in any communication are the communicators themselves. When sending and receiving messages, each communicator is influenced by cognitions, the thoughts they have about themselves and others, including their understanding and awareness of who they are (smart, funny, compassionate, and so on), how well they like who they are, and how successful they think they are. We discuss this process in much more depth in Chapter 2. But for now, understand that your cognitions influence your behavior when you communicate. Behavior is observable communication, including verbal messages (the words you use) and nonverbal messages (facial expressions, body movements, clothing, gestures). So your cognitions inform your behavior—the messages you encode and send—which are then received and decoded by your communication partner. Your partner’s own cognitions influence how he or she interprets the message, prepares feedback, and encodes a new verbal or nonverbal message that is sent to you.

This constant cycle can be seen in the following example. Devon knows that he’s a good student, but he struggles with math, chemistry, and physics. This embarrasses him because his mother is a doctor and his brother is an engineer. He rarely feels like he will succeed in these areas. He tells his friend Kayla that he can’t figure out why he failed his recent physics test since he studied for days beforehand. When he says this, his eyes are downcast and he looks angry. Kayla likes to think that she’s a good listener and prides herself on the fact that she rarely responds emotionally to delicate situations. She receives and decodes Devon’s message, prepares feedback, and encodes and sends a message of her own: she calmly asks whether Devon contacted his physics professor or an academic tutor for extra help. Devon receives and decodes Kayla’s message in

Because communication situations have so many “moving parts,” they can vary greatly. Moreover, successful communicators usually have a high degree of cognitive complexity. That is, they can consider multiple scenarios, formulate multiple theories, and make multiple interpretations when encoding and decoding messages. In this case, Kayla might have considered that Devon really just needed some friendly reassurance rather than advice; Devon might have realized that Kayla was just trying to offer a helpful suggestion.