It's Not What You Say, It's How You Say It
Let's look at two scenarios that illustrate how important it is to understand the content-relationship communications concept.
First Scenario: Gloria Pendergast is reading the morning paper while her husband, Charlie, is cooking up some eggs (They take turns cooking). Gloria suddenly looks up from the paper and asks rather flirtatiously, "Oh dear, when are those eggs going to be finished?" Charlie perceives he is receiving positive attention from Gloria and responds casually with, "Here they come now, dear," and brings her a nice plate of sausage and eggs, and gives her a big kiss.
Second Scenario: Charlie Pendergast is at the table reading the morning paper while his wife, Gloria, is cooking up some eggs for breakfast. Charlie, face buried in the paper and obviously irritated, verbally assaults Gloria with, "Oh Dear, WHEN ARE THOSE EGGS GOING TO BE DONE?!" Gloria, feeling hurt and unappreciated, slowly turns, fire in her eyes, and says, "Here they come now...DEAR!" and throws the plate full of eggs down on the table in front of him, and stomps off to the bedroom.
In both scenarios, the content of the sender's message was exactly the same. However, the relationship set up between the two in the second scenario differed greatly from that established in scenario number one. Consequently, the receiver gave a vastly different response.
- In the first scenario, Charlie sent a positive relationship message.
- In the second scenario, the relationship message was very negative. To the receiver, how the sender sent the message had far more impact than what was said.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
4-4. According to the content-relationship communications model, why may the response from someone receiving the same message be so different?
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