Title: Module Information
Course: PIM - Tricky Communication: Intent vs. Impact > Section: Introduction

This module explores communication and its impact. You will investigate how oral, non-verbal, and written communications all can have unintended impacts and consider strategies for reducing harm.

By completing it, you will better recognize and participate in cultural differences in verbal and nonverbal communication and negotiate a shared understanding based on those differences (AAC&U Intercultural Knowledge and Competence Value Rubric). You will also be able to critically examine actions for alignment with intent, recognizing more than one pathway to action and making decisions that take the impact on others into account. (actions/responses, adapted from the Champlain College Competency Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Rubric).

Watch the video and read the framing text below. You will need this knowledge later in the module.

In addition to the Golden Rule, you may have heard the following one growing up:

     Sticks and stones may break my bones

    But words shall never hurt me...

This rule may be helpful to children who have to navigate the bullies at recess, but it is not always useful in other contexts. Words can dash hopes and dreams, tear down self-esteem, and destroy relationships. They can do so without the speaker's or writer's intention. Yet the impact is the same: the person on the other end of the communication is negatively affected.

If you've ever been ghosted, ignored in a conversation, or avoided on the street for no apparent reason, then you also know that silence and body language, even when unconscious and not intended to harm, can be just as detrimental.

The person producing the words, the silence, and the body language may also be impacted if a relationship turns sour when that was not their intention.

Now watch the video below to consider how curiosity and assuming positive intent can serve as strategies when intent and impact don't align.

Watch the video and read the framing information below. You will need this information later in the module.

In addition to the Golden Rule, you may have heard the following one growing up:

     Sticks and stones may break my bones

    But words shall never hurt me...

This rule may be helpful to children who have to navigate the bullies at recess, but it is not always useful in other contexts. Words can dash hopes and dreams, tear down self-esteem, and destroy relationships. They can do so without the speaker's or writer's intention. Yet the impact is the same: the person on the other end of the communication is negatively affected.

If you've ever been ghosted, ignored in a conversation, or avoided on the street for no apparent reason, then you also know that silence and body language, even when unconscious and not intended to harm, can be just as detrimental.

The person producing the words, the silence, and the body language may also be impacted if a relationship turns sour when that was not their intention.

Now watch the video below to consider how curiosity and assuming positive intent can serve as strategies when intent and impact don't align.