10 Barriers to Communication to Overcome

Communication is a systematic process in which individuals interact with and through symbols to create and interpret meanings- By Julian Wood. The communication process requires a sender and a receiver. Messages are sent by a sender to a receiver using certain mechanical channels or mediums. Due to the use of these channels and mediums, the message sometimes gets interpreted in the wrong manner which makes it a barrier to communication. There are many such barriers that affect the communication process. Barriers are any obstacles or difficulties that come in the way of communication. Barriers can also be termed unwanted noises in the process of communication. Barriers are physical, mechanical, psychological, cultural, or linguistic in nature. Let us now see the top 10 barriers to communication.

The physical barrier consists of:

• Competing stimulus- competing stimulus in a form of another conversation going on within hearing distance or loud music or traffic noise in the background can be an example of competing stimulus.
• Environmental stress- In environmental stress, high temperature, humidity, poor ventilation, vibrations felt, a strong glare can contribute to distortion in the sending and receiving of messages.
• Subjective stress- Subjective stress includes lack of sleep, ill-health, mood variations, these often lead to great difficulties in listening and interpretation of messages.
• Ignorance of medium- Ignoring one medium, or preferring one medium over the other also leads to barriers to communication. The use of a medium with which the communicator is not familiar would turn the medium itself into a barrier. For e.g. — students studying personality development course in a village are taught by top soft skills trainers about reading personality books, but the village students are not taught to read, so the medium itself turns into a barrier.

2. Psychological Barrier:

These barriers occur due to the emotional characteristics and mental limitations of human beings. It includes self-image i.e. how one looks at himself. Resistance to change occurs when one denies changing himself/herself.

3. Linguistic and Cultural Barriers:

Cultural diversity makes communication difficult, as different cultures are associated with different languages, the signs, symbols, mindsets also vary. Different cultures have different meanings of words and behaviors. This leads to linguistic and cultural barriers to communication.

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4. Mechanical Barriers:

Mechanical barriers are those raised by the channels employed for interpersonal, group, or mass communication. Channels become barriers when messages are interfered with by some disturbance, so firstly it increases the difficulty in reception, and secondly, it prevents some elements of the message from reaching its destination.

5. Perceptual Barriers:

Perceptual barrier occurs when we perceive and interpret other people in a different way before even talking to them, this affects the communication process, we form an opinion beforehand and this affects the communication we have with those people leading to a barrier to communication.

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6. Nothing or little in common:

When the other person has nothing or very little in common with you, the other person loses interest in the conversation, he/she would not pay attention towards you leading to the lack of attention and listening which would make it a barrier.

7. Lack of eye contact:

Nonverbal factors also play an important role in effective communication, keeping eye contact with the person you are talking to makes a difference, it makes them understand you in a better way, lack of eye contact, leads to the audience getting away from you, the audience won’t feel connected to you making their interests fluctuate leading to a barrier.

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8. Talking too Much:

When you are talking you are not listening, and when you talk too much, you’re listening skills become less, and one-way communication doesn’t keep the other person engaged for a long time, you won’t be able to persuade the other person if you talk more and don’t listen to them. It would fall under the barrier of communication.

9. Gender barriers:

Gender barriers are the result of different ways in which different genders communicate with each other and the way they are expected to communicate. Gender barriers occur due to gender stereotypes, assumptions that we hold about other genders, and interpersonal differences. Two women talking will be completely different from two men talking. Gender barriers occur when one man and one woman talk to each other leading to various disagreements due to expectations and assumptions we have about each other. A top personality grooming trainer can help in improving self-confidence when it comes to gender barriers.

10. Lack of Enthusiasm:

If you yourself don’t believe in the things you are saying people won’t believe it either. Having enthusiasm creates a strong impression about you making the audience/ receiver believe in you. Therefore lack of Enthusiasm will not create that impact on the receiver, therefore the receiver will not believe you, and this would create a barrier to communication as the receiver won’t be interested and pay less attention toward you.

These are the 10 barriers of communication that we should keep in mind while having a communication. Keeping these barriers in mind we will be able to have a good and effective communication process.

Originally published at http://personalitydevelopmentskills.wordpress.com on January 22, 2022.