Chapter 1 Communication: Essential Human Behavior 7Relationships also involve interdependence, meaning
that what we do affects others and what others do affects us.
For example, Jamie flips burgers to get a paycheck to help pay
for college—that’s her goal. Her boss depends on Jamie to do
her job well and keep the business profitable. And the custom-
ers, who just want an inexpensive and quick lunch, depend
on both of them. Jamie, the boss, and the lunch customers
are interdependent. Jamie and her boss must communicate
to get along well and yet keep their relationship professional.
Similarly, Jamie and her boss use communication to establish
a trusting and loyal relationship with their customers without
getting to know each of them on a personal level.
Communication is also important for managing relation-
ships over time. Perhaps you made a best friend in kinder-
garten and you and he have remained close despite physical
distance and the introduction of new friends and romantic
partners into the mix. Verbal and nonverbal behaviors (see
Chapters 3 and 4) likely had a big role in maintaining this
relationship: You video chat with your friend once a month,
keep up with each other on Facebook, and text him on his
birthday, reinforcing the relationship with laughs and words
of encouragement. You’ve also likely lost friendships as time has passed. Perhaps
you broke up with your high school sweetheart when the two of you went to sep-
arate colleges. Your phone calls and visits became less frequent and—when you
did speak—you found your communication uncomfortable and strained. The
kinds of verbal and nonverbal relational “work” you do in managing relation-
ships may signal their health or demise, revealing how communication functions
to establish and maintain your relationships happily or unhappily.
Influencing Others
Most communication is influential in one way or another. Some influence is
intentional: a politician uses gestures strategically during a press conference to
shape how voters perceive her. Other influence is unintentional: Michaela’s lack
of eye contact during an after-class meeting gives her professor the sense that she
lacks confidence, but she’s really just having trouble with her contact lenses.
The ability of one person, group, or organization to influence others and the
way in which their interactions are conducted is called control. Unlike affection,
which you can give and receive infinitely, control is finite: the more control
one person has in a relationship or situation, the less the others tend to have.
Distribution of control is worked out through communication—by how people
talk with each other, what they say, and when they interact. This negotiation of
control may seem like a power struggle at times. But it is a necessary aspect of
every type of relationship: family, friends, romantic partners, colleagues, doctors
and patients, teachers and students, advertisers and consumers.
The amount of control you have over others or that they have over you
varies depending on the situation and each person’s status. Sometimes control
shifts from one party to another. For example, as a new bank employee, Manny
CONTESTANTS IN
DEMANDING COMPETI-
TIONS such as The Amazing
Race know that it would be
impossible to achieve goals
without cooperation and clear
communication. Heather Wines/
CBS via Getty ImagesCONNECT
As you learn in Chapter
16, persuasive speaking
is an attempt to influence
others’ attitudes, beliefs,
or behaviors. It may seem
as though the speaker
has all of the control in
the speaking situation,
but this isn’t the case.
The audience members
can exert influence on the
speaker through a variety
of nonverbal cues (like eye
contact and facial expres-
sions) that may cause the
speaker to alter his or her
behavior.