What are the barriers to effective communication?

Concept

A barrier to communication is any factor in the sender, the message, the channel or the receiver that distorts, blocks or discourages the transfer of the intended meaning.

In face-to-face communication the most frequent barriers are psychological rather than technical: listener responses that move attention away from what the speaker means and towards the listener’s own evaluation of it. Thomas Gordon grouped twelve such responses as the roadblocks to communication, and preaching or moralising, judging or criticising, and reassuring or consoling are three of them.

Application

Apply that definition to the set moralising, being judgemental and comments of consolation. Moralising substitutes a prescription about what the speaker ought to do for a reply to what he actually said. Being judgemental attaches an evaluation to the speaker instead of engaging with the content of the message. Comments of consolation close the topic with reassurance before the speaker has finished disclosing. Each of the three withdraws attention from the speaker’s meaning and shuts down the return flow of feedback that effective communication depends on, so every element of this set obstructs the process.

Contrast

• Dialogue, summary and self-review all act on the feedback loop: dialogue reverses the sender and receiver roles turn by turn, a summary returns the received content to its source for confirmation, and self-review checks the communicator’s own clarity. These strengthen shared meaning rather than obstruct it.

• Use of simple words, cool reaction and defensive attitude is a mixed set: simple wording reduces semantic noise and a cool reaction keeps the emotional channel open, so only the defensive attitude behaves as an obstruction. A set that is partly facilitative does not answer a question that asks for the barriers.

• Personal statements, eye contact and simple narration are standard communication aids: an "I" statement owns the claim and lowers defensiveness in the listener, eye contact sustains the non-verbal channel of attention, and sequential narration reduces the listener’s decoding load.

Hence the set in which every element obstructs the flow of meaning is moralising, being judgemental and comments of consolation.