During my sophomore year, I was still finding my path at college and learning about all of my new relationships. Taking Interpersonal Communication was an interesting course in that it taught me so much about my own life and about mass media. Not only could I apply interpersonal communication theories to my own relationships, but I could also analyze those same theories portrayed in relationships in movies.

 

For this course, I had worked in a group to analyze the emotions and interpersonal relationships in the movie Monsters Inc. We focused on the six basic emotions: anger, fear, happiness, surprise, sadness, and disgust. We applied each of these emotions to the characters in the film and what role they played in various relationships. We discussed the impact emotional intelligence, theories in conflict management, and the impact nonverbals had on the different relationships and the emotions of the characters.

 

This was an interesting way of learning interpersonal communication concepts on a larger scale. Applying interpersonal communication theories to a cartoon film was a unique way of learning about the way we communicate with others and why we communicate differently in different situations. Having a grasp of these theories gave me the tools to be a more effective communicator.