Honesty and Open Communication, Research Paper Example

In exploring ethos, I looked into how interpersonal communication such as language effects the way that people interact with one another regarding their sense of honesty and moral interactions.  In looking at these interactions, a more informed opinion concerning how honesty and communication impact one another can be achieved.  This impact and how it is informed by both social and environmental factors is the source of discussion.  This is what I tried to find out about honesty.

In doing this research, looking at both stereotypes and the language employed by individuals in society inform the notions that are built around these social interactions.  These results were informed by research into how the sending and receiving of messages is affected by noise, context, culture and feedback.

First of all, it is apparent that healthy communication is more readily achieved by those who have open and honest ways of processing and distributing information to one another.  “When the interests of signaller and signal receiver are perfectly aligned, the evolutionary benefits of reliable communication are straightforward. But when interests are not aligned, signallers might be selected to manipulate signal receivers with misleading signals, and the signal receivers might evolve to disregard such communications.” (Zollman, 1)  In this sense, if these modes of communication are disrupted it becomes difficult to maintain healthy modes of ethical interactions among individuals in society.

In this sense, it is obvious that the way in which individuals are able to consistently create and strenghten their interpersonal relationships, the stronger their ability to communicate with one another becomes.  This is what I expected to happen.  It made sense beforehand that it would be easier for individuals to be honest when they are able to be open to the use of language in order to better understand one another on a deeper level.

On the other hand, these individuals developed self-concepts that involved their relationships with one anther.  This is what surprised me.  In order to strengthen their notions of trust with one another, individuals within society created structures of ideologies involving unique self-images that they could see as relating to one another in a positive sense.  In order to break through the semantic noise of dialogues that do not necessarily connect them with each other, they were able to find a deeper more meaningful way of communication in an effective honest manner.

One thing that I did not take into account in this dialogue was how individuals are effected by cultural or moral principles when communicating with one another.  By viewing how individuals in different countries communicate and how this is informed through notions of honesty, it would become apparent that these individuals have differing modes of communication that, even on an interpersonal level, are fundamentally different in their nature.  Not only could this have a profound impact upon the outcomes of these conclusions, but could also lead to a more informed understanding of how differing cultures and populations interact with one another.  This is what I would you do differently if I could.

Works Cited

Brown, Elizabeth N. Honesty and Open Communication. Daily Business and Legal Newspaper. 2005.

Crampton, Peter C. Promoting Honesty in Negotiations: An Exercise in Practical Ethics. Business Ethics Quarterly. Vol. 3. Issue. 4. 1993.

Krakaur, David C. The Evolution of Exploitation and Honesty in Animal Communication: A Model Using Artificial Neural Networks.Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, Vol. 348, No. 1325. (May 30, 1995), pp. 355-361.

Scott-Phillips, Thomas C. Evolutionary Stable Communication and Pragmatics. Universtiy of Edinburgh. 2008.

Shearer, James. The Advantage of Open Honest Communication. The Optimization Group. 2004.

Kollman, Kevin J. The Evolution of Partially Honest Communication. Proceedings of the Royal Society. 2012.