INTER-PERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Personal skills are personal characteristics of an individual. They are what make up one’s personality. They
help the person get along in a new situation. Personal skills are developed through paid and unpaid work
experiences, volunteerism, hobbies, classroom experiences and through everyday living.

To become an effective personality, one should have the following personal skills:

• Self Management Skills

• Independent Learning Skills
• Goal Skills

The following are the personal skills one needs to inculcate and improvise for valuable personality
development:

REFLECTION
• Contemplating past experiences to modify your behaviour and plan future.
• Being aware of your own motivations, needs and desires.
• Identifying ways to change negative behaviour, feelings or attitudes.

SELF-AWARENESS
• The perception of your skills, knowledge, responsibilities and value, both – professionally and
personally.
• Being able to acknowledge your talents and feel confident about yourself and what you can do.

FLEXIBILITY
• Being able to adapt to new situations, by applying your skills in different areas or by acquiring new
skills as needed.
• Being committed to working constructively with people with different values, backgrounds, views
and levels of understanding.

TIME MANAGEMENT
• Identifying different demands
• Setting priorities
• Scheduling time
• Being aware of personal time preferences
• Keeping track of appointments and commitments

COMMITMENT
• Being dependable, trustworthy and putting everything into your work.
• Willingness to commit an obligation to your goals and persevering towards those goals.
• Possessing a determination to achieve success, focusing on the target of your commitments.

GOAL SETTING
• Identifying goals that are important to you.
• Committing to working towards achieving those goals.
• Setting realistic, clearly defined goals with a specific time frame.
• Tracking your progress. Adjusting and adding goals.

PLANNING AND MONITORING

• Developing a detailed, realistic strategy to solve problem or reach goal.
 • Anticipating problems or constraints, regularly reviewing and adjusting plans to accommodate
changes in your situation and priorities.
• Assessing the success of a strategy in reaching the original goal, within the set time frame, resource
and budget allocations.

SELF-APPRAISAL
• Objectively analyzing your own situation, skills and qualities, recognizing your strengths and
weaknesses and acknowledging areas for improvement.
• Reflecting on and accurately judging your efforts and progress.
• Identifying areas of your life where you would like to increase your knowledge or skills and setting
goals to meet those aims.

SELF-ESTEEM
Self-esteem is the opinion you have of yourself.
• Step 1: Rebut the Inner Critic
• Step 2: Practice Self-Nurturing
• Step 3: Get Help from Others

STRESS MANAGEMENT
• Become aware of your stressors and your emotional and physical reactions.
• Recognize what you can change.
• Reduce the intensity of your emotional reactions to stress.
• Learn to moderate your physical reactions to stress.
• Build your physical reserves.
• Maintain your emotional reserves.

THINKING SKILLS
One’s personality develops as one develops
• Logical Thinking
• Critical Thinking
• Creative Thinking

CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Change comes through
• Acceptance of the change
• Belief in yourself
• Desire to succeed
And this change is greater than all the troubles and hardships one goes through.

SELF-MANAGING LEADERSHIP
• To be a cool and clam person.
• To have a clear vision and understanding.
• To be confident and committed.
• To be creative.
• To experience the charisma of contentment through inner qualities.

SUCCESS MANAGEMENT
• Change your mind set
• Have / Show responsibility
• Goal orientation
• Don’t feel tense / degraded
 • Positive thinking
• Confidence
• Body language

SELF-DISCIPLINE
• Acceptance
• Motivation
• Self-control
• Will power
• Hard work
• Industry
• Persistence
• Goals

SELF-ASSESSMENT
Self-assessment is the process of identifying what matters most to you, what you enjoy, and what you are
good at. These attributes are usually divided into
• Values
• Interests
• Personality
• Skills

Personal skills help us accept responsibilities that go along with our career and let us advance in our
profession. Accepting responsibilities can be done voluntarily or involuntarily. In most realistic work
situations, we will be asked to accept responsibilities that are not included in our job description. Handling
these requests in a positive manner can lead to career success. Personal skills and the right inculcation of
them in our personality helps us to learn new skills, improve chances for advancement, make a positive
contribution to the department and company, develop good interpersonal skills and meet deadlines
effectively.

INTER-PERSONAL SKILLS

“Personality” is the key to success. It is true that each individual is different and hence acts differently. It is
only when a person starts working in a group that the need to mend one’s behaviour arises.

To develop interpersonal skills

• Work harmoniously with others
• Evaluate and accept responsibilities
• Identify methods you use to respond to conflict
• Work in teams more efficiently

How to develop Inter-personal Skills?

• Develop assertive approaches.

• Accept responsibilities.
• Be positive about usual work responsibilities.
• Accept additional responsibilities.

Inter-personal skills can be classified in to:

LEADERSHIP
The eight attitudes:

1.Power to listen - Patience

2.Availability - Humility
3.Tolerance - Love
4.Adaptability - Maturity
5.Discrimination - Knowledge
6.Decision Making - Clarity of mind
7.Ability to respond - Courage
8.Team Spirit - Co-operation

NETWORKING
• Creating contacts with other people and maintaining those contacts.
• Acquiring and maintaining information about people who might be useful contacts for specific
purposes.
• Using a contact in an ethical manner to help each of you meet specific goals.

TEAMWORK
• Working with others in a group with a common goal.
• Cooperating with others.
• Being responsive to others ideas.
• Taking a collaborative approach to learning.
• Taking a responsibility for developing.
• Achieving group goals.

MENTORING
• Being a trusted advisor and helper with experience in a particular field.
• Actively supporting and guiding someone to develop knowledge and experience.
• To achieve career or personal goals.
A mentoring relationship may be formal or informal, but must involve trust, mutual respect and commitment
as both parties work together to achieve a goal.

GROUPWORK
• Any activity in which students work together.
• Any activity, which has been specifically designed so that students work in pairs or groups and may
be assessed as a group.
• Students come together naturally to help each other with their work.
• Peer group activity in lab classes, tutorials, etc,.

DECISION MAKING
• Identifying appropriate evidence and weighing up that evidence to make a choice.
• Taking responsibility for a decision and its outcomes.

PROBLEM SOLVING
• Define the problem.
• Verify your understanding of the problem.
• Prioritize the problem.
• Understand your role in the problem.
• Look at potential causes for the problem.
• Identify alternative approaches to resolve the problem.
 • Select an approach to resolve the problem.
• Monitor implementation of the plan.
• Verify if the problem has been resolved or not.

DELEGATION
• Taking responsibility for determining when to ask someone else to make a decision or carry out a
task.
• Distributing responsibility and authority in a group by giving someone else the discretion to make
decisions that you have the authority to make.

COLLABORATION
• Working cooperatively and productively with other team members to contribute to the outcomes of
the team’s work.
• Dividing the workload and sharing the results of your own work with others in the group.
• Assisting members of the group who are having difficulty completing their tasks.

MOTIVATION
• Generating enthusiasm and energy by being positive, focusing on finding solutions and maintaining a
positive attitude even when things are not going well.
• Encouraging others to come up with solutions, listening carefully to their ideas and offering
constructive feedback.
• Being prepared to support others in taking agreed, calculated risks and not blaming others when
things go wrong.

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
The ingredients of conflict:
• Needs
• Perceptions
• Power
• Values
• Feelings and emotions

Managing conflict
Step 1: Analyze the conflict
Step 2: Determine management strategy

Conflict Management Strategies

• Collaboration – cooperating
• Compromise – winning a little / losing a little
• Competition – defeating the other party
• Accommodation – being obliging to the other party
• Avoidance – running away, escapism

NEGOTIATION SKILLS
• A compromise to settle an argument or issue to benefit ourselves as much as possible.
• Communication is always the link that will be used to negotiate the issue/argument whether it is face-
to-face, on the telephone or in writing.
• Negotiation is not always between two people: it can involve several members from two parties.

It does not matter how we work hard or how brilliant our ideas are, if we cannot connect with people,
working around us, our life will suffer. The good news is that there are several concrete things we can do to
improve our social skills. The following are some tips for improving interpersonal skills:
 1. Smile
2. Be appreciative
3. Pay attention to others
4. Practice active listening
5. Bring people together
6. Resolve conflicts
7. Communicate clearly
8. Humour them
9. See it from their side
10. Don’t complain

Interpersonal skills in the digital age are somewhat more complex than they have been in the past. E-mail,
Voice mail, Audio conferencing, Video conferencing and the myriad of other technologies enable individuals
to communicate with each other. The challenge to the students is to perfect interpersonal skills not only face-
to-face interactions but virtual situations to devise win-win solutions and constructively influence the
behaviour of others.

Models of Communication

1. Aristotle’s Model of Communication

2. Shannon-Waever Mathematical Model, 1949

Strengths

• This model, or a variation on it, is the most common communication model used in low-level
communication texts.

• Within a decade a host of other disciplines—many in the behavioral sciences—adapted it to countless

interpersonal situations, often distorting it or making exaggerated claims for its use.

• It has been taken as an approximation of the process of human communication.”

• It has significant heuristic value.

• The concepts of this model became staples in communication research

• It provided an influential yet counter-intuitive definition of communication.

Weaknesses

• It is not analogous to much of human communication.

• “Only a fraction of the information conveyed in interpersonal encounters can be taken as remotely
corresponding to the teletype action of statistically rare or redundant signals.”

• “Though Shannon’s technical concept of information is fascinating in many respects, it ranks among
the least important ways of conceiving of what we recognize as “information.” “

• It is only formal—does not account for content

• Shannon and Weaver were concerned only with technical problems associated with the selection and
arrangement of discrete units of information—in short, with purely formal matters, not content.
Hence, their model does not apply to semantic or pragmatic dimensions of language. “

3. Berlo’s Model of Communication

 This model was significant after World War II because:

• The idea of “source” was flexible enough to include oral, written, electronic, or any other kind of
“symbolic” generator-of-messages.

• “Message” was made the central element, stressing the transmission of ideas.

• The model recognized that receivers were important to communication, for they were the targets.

• The notions of “encoding” and “decoding” emphasized the problems we all have (psycho-
linguistically) in translating our own thoughts into words or other symbols and in deciphering the
words or symbols of others into terms we ourselves can understand.

Weaknesses

• It tends to stress the manipulation of the message—the encoding and decoding processes

• It implies that human communication is like machine communication, like signal-sending in

telephone, television, computer, and radar systems.

• It even seems to stress that most problems in human communication can be solved by technical
accuracy-by choosing the “right” symbols, preventing interference, and sending efficient messages.
• But even with the “right” symbols, people misunderstand each other. “Problems in “meaning” or
“meaningfulness” often aren’t a matter of comprehension, but of reaction, of agreement, of shared
concepts, beliefs, attitudes, values. To put the com- back into communication, we need a meaning-
centered theory of communication

4. Schramm’s Interactive Model, 1954Wilbur Schramm (1954) was one of the first to alter the
mathematical model of Shannon and Weaver. He conceived of decoding and encoding as activities
maintained simultaneously by sender and receiver; he also made provisions for a two-way interchange of
messages. Notice also the inclusion of an “interpreter” as an abstract representation of the problem of
meaning.

Strengths

• Schramm provided the additional notion of a “field of experience,” or the psychological frame of
reference; this refers to the type of orientation or attitudes which interactants maintain toward each
other.

• It Included Feedback. Communication is reciprocal, two-way, even though the feedback may be
delayed.

• It included Included Context - A message may have different meanings, depending upon the specific
context or setting.

• It in included Culture - A message may have different meanings associated with it depending upon
the culture or society. Communication systems, thus, operate within the confines of cultural rules and
expectations to which we all have been educated.

Weaknesses

• Schramm’s model, while less linear, still accounts for only bilateral communication between two
parties. The complex, multiple levels of communication between several sources is beyond this
model.

Other Non-linear Models

• Dance’s Helical Spiral, 1967

• Westley and MacLean’s Conceptual Model, 1957
• Becker’s Mosaic Model, 1968
• Ruesch and Bateson, Functional Model, 1951
• Barnlund’s Transactional Model, 1970
• A Systemic Model of Communication, 1972
 • Brown’s Holographic Model, 1987
• A Fractal Model

Exchange Theory Model of Inter-personal Communication

A new model of interpersonal communication is proposed based on social exchange theory. This
conceptualization is proposed as an alternative to the prevalent "two-step" model and is offered in order to
encourage new research directions. Social exchange theory is a social psychological and sociological
perspective that explains social change and stability as a process of negotiated exchanges between parties.
Social exchange theory posits that all human relationships are formed by the use of a subjective cost-benefit
analysis and the comparison of alternatives. The theory has roots in economics, psychology and sociology.

Social exchange theory features many of the main assumptions found in rational choice theory and
structuralism. Katherine Miller outlines several major objections to or problems with the social exchange
theory as developed from early seminal works (Miller 2005):

• The theory reduces human interaction to a purely rational process that arises from economic theory.
• The theory favors openness as it was developed in the 1970s when ideas of freedom and openness
were preferred, but there may be times when openness isn’t the best option in a relationship.
• The theory assumes that the ultimate goal of a relationship is intimacy when this might not always be
the case.
• The theory places relationships in a linear structure, when some relationships might skip steps or go
backwards in terms of intimacy.

It also is strongly seated in an individualist mindset, which may limit its application in and description of
collectivist cultures. Social behavior is an exchange of goods, material goods but also non-material ones,
such as the symbols of approval or prestige. Persons that give much to others try to get much from them, and
persons that get much from others are under pressure to give much to them. This process of influence tends
to work out at equilibrium to a balance in the exchanges. For a person in an exchange, what he gives may be
a cost to him, just as what he gets may be a reward, and his behavior changes less as the difference of the
two, profit, tends to a maximum.

Transactional Analysis

Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is an integrative approach to the theory of
psychology and psychotherapy. Integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanist and
cognitive approaches. It was developed by Canadian-born US psychiatrist Eric Berne during the late 1950s.

According to the International Transactional Analysis Association TA 'is a theory of personality and a
systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and personal change'.

1. As a theory of personality, TA describes how people are structured psychologically. It uses what is
perhaps its best known model, the ego-state (Parent-Adult-Child) model to do this. This same model
helps explain how people function and express their personality in their behavior[1]
2. It is a theory of communication that can be extended to the analysis of systems and organisations.
3. It offers a theory for child development, by explaining how our adult patterns of life originated in
childhood. This explanation is based on the idea of a "Life (or Childhood) Script": the assumption
that we continue to re-play childhood strategies, even when this results in pain or defeat. Thus it
claims to offer a theory of psychopathology.
4. In practical application, it can be used in the diagnosis and treatment of many types of psychological
disorders, and provides a method of therapy for individuals, couples, families and groups.
5. Outside the therapeutic field, it has been used in education, to help teachers remain in clear
communication at an appropriate level, in counselling and consultancy, in management and
communications training, and by other bodies[1].
Philosophy of TA

• People are OK; thus each person has validity, importance, equality of respect[2].
• Everyone (with only few exceptions, such as the severely brain-damaged) has the capacity to think[2].
• People decide their story and destiny, and these decisions can be changed[2].

The Ego-State (or Parent-Adult-Child, PAC) model

At any given time, a person experiences and manifests their personality through a mixture of behaviours,
thoughts and feelings. Typically, according to TA, there are three ego-states that people consistently use:

• Parent ("exteropsyche"): a state in which people behave, feel, and think in response to an unconscious
mimicking of how their parents (or other parental figures) acted, or how they interpreted their parent's
actions. For example, a person may shout at someone out of frustration because they learned from an
influential figure in childhood the lesson that this seemed to be a way of relating that worked.
• Adult ("neopsyche"): a state of the ego which is most like a computer processing information and
making predictions absent of major emotions that could affect its operation. Learning to strengthen
the Adult is a goal of TA. While a person is in the Adult ego state, he/she is directed towards an
objective appraisal of reality.
• Child ("archaeopsyche"): a state in which people behave, feel and think similarly to how they did in
childhood. For example, a person who receives a poor evaluation at work may respond by looking at
the floor, and crying or pouting, as they used to when scolded as a child. Conversely, a person who
receives a good evaluation may respond with a broad smile and a joyful gesture of thanks. The Child
is the source of emotions, creation, recreation, spontaneity and intimacy.

Kinds of transactions

There are basically three kinds of transactions:

1. Reciprocal/Complementary (the simplest)

2. Crossed
3. Duplex/Covert (the most complex)

Reciprocal or Complementary Transactions

A simple, reciprocal transaction occurs when both partners are addressing the ego state the other is in. These
are also called complementary transactions. Example 1: A: "Have you been able to write the report?" B: "Yes
- I'm about to email it to you." ----(This exchange was Adult to Adult). Example 2: A: "Would you like to
skip this meeting and go watch a film with me instead?" B: "I'd love to - I don't want to work anymore, what
should we go and see?" (Child to Child). Example 3: A: "You should have your room tidy by now!" (Parent
to Child) B: "Will you stop hassling me? I'll do it eventually!" (Child to Parent). Communication like this
can continue indefinitely. (Clearly it will stop at some stage - but this psychologically balanced exchange of
strokes can continue for some time).

Crossed Transactions

Communication failures are typically caused by a 'crossed transaction' where partners address ego states
other than that their partner is in. Consider the above examples jumbled up a bit. Example 1a: A: "Have you
been able to write that report?" (Adult to Adult) B: "Will you stop hassling me? I'll do it eventually!" (Child
to Parent) is a crossed transaction likely to produce problems in the workplace. A may respond with a Parent
to Child transaction. For instance: A: "If you don't change your attitude, you'll get fired. "Example 2a: A: "Is
your room tidy yet?" (Parent to Child) B: "I'm just going to do it, actually." (Adult to Adult) is a more
positive crossed transaction. There is however the risk that A will feel aggrieved that B is acting responsibly
and not playing their role, and the conversation will develop into: A: "I can never trust you to do things!"
(Parent to Child) B: "Why don't you believe anything I say?" (Adult to Adult), which can continue
indefinitely.

Duplex or Covert transactions

Another class of transaction is the 'duplex' or 'covert' transactions, where the explicit social conversation
occurs in parallel with an implicit psychological transaction. For instance, A: "I need you to stay late at
the office with me." (Adult words), body language indicates sexual intent (flirtatious Child) B: "Of
course." (Adult response to Adult statement), winking or grinning (Child accepts the hidden motive).

Life positions

In TA theory,"Life Position" refers to the general feeling about life (specifically, the unconscious feeling, as
opposed to a conscious philosophical position) that colours every dyadic (i.e. person-to-person) transaction.
Initially four such Life Positions were proposed:

1. "I'm Not OK, You're OK" (I-U+)

2. "I'm Not OK, You're Not OK" (I-U-)
3. "I'm OK, You're Not OK" (I+U-)
4. OK, You're OK" (I+U+)

Johari Window

A Johari window is a cognitive psychological tool created by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1969 in the
United States, used to help people better understand their interpersonal communication and relationships. It
is used primarily in self-help groups and corporate settings as a heuristic exercise. When performing the
exercise, the subject is given a list of 56 adjectives and picks five or six that they feel describe their own
personality. Peers of the subject are then given the same list, and each pick five or six adjectives that describe
the subject. These adjectives are then mapped onto a grid.

Charles Handy calls this concept the Johari House with four rooms. Room 1 is the part of ourselves that we
see and others see. Room 2 is the aspect that others see but we are not aware of. Room 3 is the most
mysterious room in that the unconscious or subconscious part of us is seen by neither ourselves nor others.
Room 4 is our private space, which we know but keep from others.

The concept is clearly related to the ideas propounded in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator programme,
which in turn derive from theories about the personality first explored by the pioneering psychologist Carl
Jung.

Johari Window Questionnaire

Instructions: Read each numbered item carefully. Read the statements marked “A” and “B.” Determine
which statement is most similar to what you would do. Assign a point value to the A and B statements
using the following scale. The total point value for A and B is five (5).
If statement A is most similar to what you would do: A=5 B=0
If statement A is not satisfactory, but better than B: A = 4 or 3 B = 1 or 2
If statement B is most similar to what you would do: A=0 B=5
If statement B is not satisfactory, but better than A: A = 1 or 2 B = 4 or 3

1. If a friend of mine had a “personality conflict” with a mutual acquaintance of ours and I thought it was important for
them to get along, I would:
⎯ A. Tell my friend that I felt s/he was partially responsible for any problems with this other person and try to let
him/her know how the person was being affected by him/her.
⎯ B. Not get involved because I wouldn’t be able to continue to get along with both of them once I had entered into
their conflict in any way.

2. If one of my friends and I had a heated argument in the past and I realized that s/he was ill at ease around me from that
time on, I would:
⎯ A. Just let the whole thing drop to avoid making things worse by discussing it.
⎯ B. Bring up his/her behavior and ask how s/he felt the argument had affected our relationship.

3. If a friend began to avoid me and act in an aloof and withdrawn manner, I would:
⎯ A. Tell him/her about his/her behavior and suggest that s/he tell me what was on his/her mind.
⎯ B. Follow his/her lead & keep our contact brief & aloof since that seems to be what s/he wants.

4. If two of my friends and I were talking and one of them slipped and brought up a personal problem of mine that
involved the other friend, of which s/he was not yet aware, I would:
⎯ A. Change the subject and signal my friend to do the same.
⎯ B. Briefly explain what the other friend was talking about and suggest that we go into it later.

5. If a friend of mine were to tell me that, in his/her opinion, I was doing things that made me less effective than I might
be in social situations, I would:
⎯ A. Ask him/her to describe what s/he has observed and suggest changes I might make.
⎯ B. Resent his/her criticism and let him/her know why I behave the way I do.

6. If one of my friends aspired to an office in our organization for which I felt s/he was unqualified, and if s/he had been
tentatively assigned to that position by the leader of our group, I would:
⎯ A. Not mention any misgivings to either my friend or the leader of our group and let them handle it in their own
way.
⎯ B. Tell my friend and the group leader of my misgivings and leave the final decision to them.

7. If I felt that one of my friends was being unfair to me and his/her other friends, but none of the other friends had
mentioned anything about it, I would:
⎯ A. Ask the other friends how they perceive the situation to see if they felt s/he was being unfair.
⎯ B. Not ask the others how they perceive our friend, but wait for them to bring it up with me.

8. If I were preoccupied with some personal matters and a friend told me that I had become irritated with him/her and
others and that I was jumping on him/her for unimportant things, I would:
⎯ A. Tell him/her I was preoccupied and would probably be on edge for a while.
⎯ B. Listen to his/her complaints but not explain myself to him/her.

9. If I had heard some friends discussing an ugly rumor about a friend of mine which I knew could hurt him/her and s/he
asked me what I knew about it, if anything, I would:
⎯ A. Say I didn’t know anything and tell him/her our friends wouldn’t believe ugly rumors anyway.
⎯ B. Tell him/her exactly what I had heard, when I had heard it, and from whom I had heard it.

10. If a friend pointed out that I had a personality conflict with another friend with whom it was important for me to get
along, I would:
⎯ A. Consider his/her comments out of line and tell him/her I didn’t want to discuss the matter.
⎯ B. Talk about it openly with him/her to find out how my behavior was being affected by this.

11. If my relationship with a friend has been damaged by repeated arguments on an issue of importance to us both, I would:
⎯ A. Be cautious in my conversations with him/her so the issue would not come up again to worsen our relationship.
⎯ B. Explain the problems the controversy is causing for our relationship and suggest that we discuss it until we get it
resolved.

12. If in a conversation with a friend about his/her personal problems and behavior s/he suddenly suggested we discuss my
problems and behavior as well as his/her own, I would:
⎯ A. Be evasive and try to keep the discussion away from me.
⎯ B. Welcome the opportunity to hear what s/he felt about me and encourage his/her comments.
 13. If a friend of mine began to tell me about his/her hostile feelings about another friend whom s/he felt was being unkind
to others (and I agreed wholeheartedly), I would:
⎯ A. Listen and also express my own feelings to her/him so s/he would know where I stood.
⎯ B. Listen, but not express my own negative views and opinion because s/he might repeat what I said in confidence.

14. If I thought an ugly rumor was being spread about me and suspected that one of my friends had quite likely heard it, I
would:
⎯ A. Avoid mentioning the issue and leave it to him/her to tell me about it if s/he wanted to.
⎯ B. Risk putting him/her on the spot by asking directly what s/he knew about the rumor.

15. If had observed a friend in social situations and thought that s/he was doing a number of things which hurt his/her
relationships, I would:
⎯ A. Risk being seen as a busy-body and tell him/her what I had observed and my reactions to it.
⎯ B. Keep my opinion to myself rather than be seen as interfering in what is none of my business.

16. If two friends and I were talking and one of them inadvertently mentioned a personal problem which involved me, but
of which I knew nothing, I would:
⎯ A. Press them for information about the problem and their opinions on it.
⎯ B. Leave it up to my friends to tell me or not, letting them change the subject if they wished.

17. If a friend seemed to be preoccupied and began to jump on me for seemingly unimportant things, as well as others
without real cause, I would:
⎯ A. Treat him/her with kid gloves for a while on the assumption that s/he was having some temporary personal
problems which were none of my business.
⎯ B. Try to talk to him/her about it and explain how his/her behavior was affecting others.

18. If I had begun to dislike certain habits of a friend to the point that it was interfering with my enjoyment of their
company, I would:
⎯ A. Say nothing to him/her directly, but let him/her know my feelings by ignoring him/her whenever the annoying
habits were obvious.
⎯ B. Get my feelings out in the open and clear the air so that we could continue our friendship comfortably and
enjoyably.

19. In discussing social behavior with one of my more sensitive friends, I would:
⎯ A. Avoid mentioning his/her flaws and weaknesses so as not to hurt his/her feelings.
⎯ B. Focus on his/her flaws and weaknesses so s/he could improve his/her interpersonal skills.

20. If I knew my friends’ attitudes toward me had become rather negative lately and I knew I might be assigned an
important position in our group, I would:
⎯ A. Discuss my shortcomings with my friends so I could see where to improve.
⎯ B. Try to figure out my own shortcomings by myself so I could improve.
Johari Window Scoring Sheet
Below are two columns where you are to record the points you assigned for each response to the Johari
Window Questionnaire. Total the points at the bottom of each column.
Solicits Feedback

2B
3A
5A
7A
8B
10B
12B
14B
16A
20A

Total

Willingness to Disclose/Give Feedback

1A
4B
6B
9B
11B
13A
15A
17B
18B
19B

Total

Johari Window
Plot the totals from each column on the graph below. The total from the “Solicits
Feedback” column is recorded along the horizontal axis. The total from the
“Willingness to Disclose” column is recorded along the vertical axis. (NOTE: 0 is
at the top of the vertical axis and 50 at the bottom of the vertical axis!) Divide the
graph into four sections by drawing straight lines from the scores.
 Solicits Feedback
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
0 Open Blind
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50 Hidden Unknown

Dr. D. Ashalatha
Professor and Head, Department of HAS