2 2. Situational and psychological prerequisites for interpersonal communication

• Types of social situations
• Classification of types of situations of interpersonal communication.

Certainty of any situation gives goals, rules of conduct, roles adopted by communicators, verbal and non-verbal actions of the parties, a sequence of communicative acts, inherent knowledge of the parameters of the situation, the physical environment, the lexicon or thesaurus of the parties, skills to overcome barriers of mutual understanding.

Types of social situations:

• official event;
• personal interaction with close friends or relatives;
• a chance meeting;
• formal contacts at work or in public places;
• conflict and negotiation;
• group discussion.

Classification of types of situations of interpersonal communication was proposed by Eric Bern. It is based on what he called the need for time structuring. E. Burns offers six ways to structure time - four main and two borderline cases.

1. Closure when explicit communication is absent (border case).
2. Rituals or habitual, repetitive actions.
3. Pastime - semi-talk about the problems and events known to all.
4. Joint activity - working interaction.
5. Games. According to Bern, this is the most difficult form of communication, since in the game each side tries (playing a certain role) to achieve superiority, to win.
6. Proximity (border case). True closeness begins when social schemes, ulterior motives and limitations fade into the background. Bilateral proximity can be defined as free from gaming communication, suggesting a warm interest relationship between people, precluding the extraction of benefits.

Golovakha E.I. and Panina N.V. in the book "The Psychology of Human Understanding" (Kiev, 1989) propose a classification of social situations according to three levels of communication: social role, business and intimate-personal.

Thus, each of the given typologies proceeds from the possibility of defining and distinguishing typical social situations, i.e. situations that repeatedly arise in the interaction between people, therefore, their content and structure are known to members of a given culture or subculture.

• What gives certainty to any situation of social intercourse?
• What are the ways of structuring time suggested by E. Burn?