Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

I decided to discuss Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for this portion on the reading because it was really interesting to me. It is a Hierarchy of five human motivational needs arranged by ascending order of importance, developed by Abraham Maslow. The five ascending needs are (1) physiological, (2) safety, (3) belonging, (4) self-esteem, and (5) self-actualization. Only unsatisfied needs are motivators. Once a need is satisfied, the next level emerges as a motivator. Then you continue so on and so forth. Physiological needs include the most basic needs that are vital to survival, such as the need for water, air, food and sleep. Safety needs include needs for safety and security. Belonging needs include friendship, love, and affection. Self-esteem needs include the need for things that reflect on self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition and accomplishment. Finally self-actualization needs, the highest on the hierarchy, people are self-aware, concerned with personal growth, less concerned with the opinions of others and are more interested fulfilling their potential. Below is the hierarchy:

Personal Relationship

I would have to say the relationship with my girlfriend is a relationship that has become closer over time. In the earliest stage of our relationship we were still trying to figure each other out even though we had known each other for quite a while before. There were certain things we did not know about each other. A lot of flirting was going on between us. At the beginning I guess our relationship would be closer to a I-You relationship even though I believe we communicated more than that.  During that stage we talked about school, friends, and other random stuff; Nothing really too personal at the time. We avoided talks about family, past relationships, and gossip about things. Those subjects were for our best friends at the time. In our relationships current state we talk about each and everything there is to talk about. I mean after three years together there really are no secrets between each other. There is not one thing we don’t talk about. We have become one another’s best friend after everything we have experienced together throughout our relationship. I can definitely identify differences in experiences but that is not likely since we have experienced basically everything together.

Linear and Interactive Models of Communication

Linear communication was the first model of interpersonal communication. Linear, meaning one way, is the process in which a person acts upon another person. It is a verbal model that consisted of five questions describing a sequence of acts that make up communication. The sequence goes as follows: who? Says what? In what channel? to whom? and with what effect? An example of linear communication would be to attend a lecture from a university professor because there is no interaction what so ever.  This model of communication flows in only one direction from a sender to a passive receiver. Interactive models portray communication as a process in which listeners give feedback in response to a certain message. In this model one person is the sender and one is the receiver there is no actual conversation it’s just a response to a message. An example of this model would be a professor asking a question to a student in class and the student responding. The major difference between the two is that in linear communication only one person is participating and in interactive two parties are speaking.