Impression management: the act of transmitting verbal and non-verbal messages to elicit a certain desired response. This is one of the most commonplace behaviors of interpersonal communication; many everyday verbal exchanges are meant to get a certain response out of the receiver of a message, whether it be an opinion or viewpoint or something more concrete. Altering one’s appearance can be an example of this, or by using different language behaviors, such as flattery (changingminds.org).
Individualism: the placing of priority with one’s own beliefs, ideas and behaviors over the ideas and views of another’s or others‘ in general. This is a common practice/value in many Western societies, being the opposite of conformity or simply compliant with others’ views or ideologies (DeFleur, Kearney, Plax & Defleur, 2005).
Interpersonal Communication: a process of using nonverbal and verbal cues to communicate with another person to provoke a certain kind of meaning. Interpersonal communication is different from other forms of communication because the focus of it is on only two people. There are three stages of interpersonal communication that people can go through which are engagement (when you initially meet, and you try to move to a more personal relationship), management (when you work toward keeping intimacy), and disengagement (the break up, or withdrawing from the relationship). Not everybody goes through all three of these stages, it depends on the kind of relationship you are involved in (DeFleur, Kearney, Plax, & DeFleur, 2005).
