The 5 Axioms of Communication by Watzlawick, Beavin and Jackson

“One cannot not communicate.” The 5 axioms of communication by Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin Bavelas and Don D. Jackson still remain among the most important cornerstones in communication research to this day. The three authors published their communication theory in 1967 in “Pragmatics of Human Communication”. Among others, Friedemann Schulz von Thun was greatly inspired by their research. Today, we will take a look at what these famous axioms are all about.
Table of Contents:
00:00 - Greeting
00:31 - About (the) axioms
01:27 - The impossibility of not communicating
04:31 - The content and relationship levels of communication
07:50 - The punctuation of the sequence of events
10:15 - Digital and analogic communication
13:58 - Symmetrical and complementary interaction
19:41 - Conclusion
20:25 - Pragmatics of Human Communication
25:41 - Have a nice day!
Our video about metacommunication:
• Metacommunication
You can find all videos about Friedemann Schulz von Thun in our Schulz von Thun playlist:
• Schulz von Thun
#softskills #communication #watzlawick
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=== Literature and online sources ===
Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes
by Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin Bavelas and Don D. Jackson
Publisher: WW Norton & Co.
Amazon.com: www.amazon.com/dp/0393710599
Amazon.co.uk: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0393710599
Amazon.com.au: www.amazon.com.au/dp/0393707075
Amazon.in: www.amazon.in/dp/0393707075
Wikipedia: Mental Research Institute (English)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_...
Wikipedia: Palo-Alto-Gruppe (German)
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo-Al...
Wikipedia: Paul Watzlawick (English)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watzlawick
Wikipedia: Janet H. Beavin (English)
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_H...
Wikipedia: Donald deAvila Jackson (English)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_...
The rights to book covers are held by the respective publisher.

Пікірлер: 23

  • @mariateresavannieuwenhove5487
    @mariateresavannieuwenhove54879 ай бұрын

    Excellent and clear explanation of the 5 axioms of communication. Thank you so much!!!

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    8 ай бұрын

    Thanks a lot, and welcome to the channel! 🙂

  • @murphymutabazi1474
    @murphymutabazi14744 ай бұрын

    😅du bist der beste man!..Am passing my exam tomorrow

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    4 ай бұрын

    Thanks! I hope your exam went well! 😀

  • @Merdmerdm
    @Merdmerdm2 жыл бұрын

    Großartiges Video, sehr hilfreich da dieses Thema Teil meines Prüfungsstoffes ist, vielen Dank dafür! Übrigens chapeau für das freie Sprechen, richtig gut gemacht!

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    2 жыл бұрын

    Vielen Dank für das Lob, und willkommen beim Kanal! 🙂 Es gibt übrigens von allen Videos auch eine deutsche Version, auf dem Schwesterkanal Soft Skills deutsch.

  • @zuberikhemis7060
    @zuberikhemis7060 Жыл бұрын

    I like the way the axioms are been simplified bravo.

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    Жыл бұрын

    Thanks a lot, and welcome to the channel! 🙂

  • @FMCariappa
    @FMCariappa Жыл бұрын

    Love from India. Thank you for the wonderful explanation dear sir. Namaste 🙏

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    Жыл бұрын

    Thanks a lot, and welcome to the channel! 🙂

  • @WarrenNyambeNamangolwa3445
    @WarrenNyambeNamangolwa3445 Жыл бұрын

    Thanks so much for sharing this 🙏

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    Жыл бұрын

    Welcome to the channel! Glad you like it 🙂

  • @grancuadrado
    @grancuadrado3 жыл бұрын

    Great video. Really interesting. Great explanation and wow ! I think it was a one shot video... really impressive

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    3 жыл бұрын

    Thanks, and welcome to the channel! 🙂 The videos are one-shots to keep the editing time low.

  • @marcridge871
    @marcridge8712 жыл бұрын

    Thanks for your video. It helped understanding a few things.

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    2 жыл бұрын

    Thanks, I'm glad the video was helpful 🙂

  • @hughobyrne2588
    @hughobyrne2588 Жыл бұрын

    Thank you for the video. Tom Scott also did a video on axioms of communication. I've found myself thinking on these kinds of issues when dealing with logic problems. Logic problems often begin with a story. So, people expect the axioms of communication associated with storytelling, and casual/informal communication, to apply. But, the thing about logic puzzles is, any axiom that's not bound in logic... doesn't apply. For instance, it sometimes happens that the description of a logic puzzle has a 'red herring' thrown in - a statement designed to prime your mind into thinking a certain way, or about certain things, that do not actually apply to answering the logical question asked, and lead you astray in your reasoning if you're not careful. The expectation of informal axioms applying in a formal statement of a logic problem makes for people seeing paradoxes where there really are none.

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    Жыл бұрын

    Welcome to the channel! 🙂 Do you refer to riddles such as this one?: "Two fisherman return from the sea. As they tell you, they threw away all those they could catch, and they kept all those the couldn't". They are talking about lice, which is difficult to figure out at first, since you assume that fisherman are talking about fish.

  • @hughobyrne2588

    @hughobyrne2588

    Жыл бұрын

    @@SoftSkillsEnglish That's a good one. Part of the controversy surrounding "The Monty Hall Problem", as I see it, is that there are two questions which are very similar, and some people ask one question when they think they're asking another. In particular, in order to reach the conclusion "It is better to switch", a necessary part of the logic is that Monty Hall possesses knowledge, and purposefully *acts* in a particular way based on the knowledge he has. If you're not careful in how the question is precisely worded, though, you can end up asking a question in which Monty has knowledge - but the question does not state that his actions are bound by that knowledge. And other language in what has become the canonical wording of the question written by Craig Whitaker indicates that Monty's action is *not* bound by the knowledge. An axiom of cooperative communication might be that one person doesn't waste another person's time by giving irrelevant details, therefore if the question states that Monty has knowledge, that's only relevant if Monty acts on the knowledge - but if it's not given in the logic puzzle that Monty acts on the knowledge, then it's not a given that you can legitimately use in a proper line of reasoning from stated question to fully-justified correct answer. More recently, "9=90, 8=72, 7=56, 6=42, 3=?". An axiom of communication that a listener might apply is that the speaker is telling a story, and that the order of the sequence matters. The pattern is: multiply by 10, multiply by 9, multiply by 8, multiply by 7... what comes next is multiply by 6. An axiom that a mathematician might apply is that a statement being true (or false or indeterminate) is an inherent property of the statement, immutable, that "8=72" expresses something, the same thing whether it precedes or succeeds "9=90". The pattern a mathematician sees is, "multiply the number by the number one greater", so 3 gets multiplied by 4. Both axioms are valid, and when someone is telling a story, I certainly expect they will tell it in order, but where the two axioms are in conflict, particularly where the language of mathematics is being used, the mathematician's axiom of communication clearly comes in ahead of the story-expecter's.

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    Жыл бұрын

    I understand the second one (I had assumed 3*4, but I see that the unknown rule could also require 3*6). I'm not so sure about Monty Hall, though - if he wouldn't act on his knowledge, he would just select one of the remaining doors randomly, so he might reveal the prize instead of a goat, right? Wouldn't the game be over, then, without a chance of winning?

  • @hughobyrne2588

    @hughobyrne2588

    Жыл бұрын

    @@SoftSkillsEnglish Right. It could happen that you go to a game show... and you're not shown three doors, you're shown a large wheel for spinning, with prizes on all the sectors. It could be that you are shown three doors, you you pick one door, and the host says "Let's look at what you've won!", opens your door and you get what you get. The question doesn't say it's against the law that the host should just immediately give you your first choice. Depending on the precise wording used in asking the question, it's not impossible that the host could ppen a door... and we see a car behind it.

  • @senjukingz4122
    @senjukingz4122 Жыл бұрын

    Ty! This helped me out a lot

  • @SoftSkillsEnglish

    @SoftSkillsEnglish

    Жыл бұрын

    I'm glad to hear that! Welcome to the channel 🙂

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