Abstract:
Different factors cause people to have various personalities. They are
often affected not only by how they perceive themselves, but also by how they
perceive other people. They are influenced by how they look and how they
behave. Because of the difference in their perception, their way of interacting to
others is thus affected as well.
The connection of the looks, behavior, and way of interaction, triggered
the researcher of this study to describe the connection of the three. She
encountered a literature on the Body Type theory that relates physique to
temperament by William Sheldon, and the concept of the Communication Styles
by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham (Johari Window) as developed by Chery!
Hamilton.
The body types or physiques according to Sheldon are Endomorphy
(round and fat), Mesomorphy (muscular and large-boned), and Ectomorphy
(frail and small-boned). The temperaments she associated to each physique are
Visceretonia (sociable and friendly), Somatotonia (active and argumanetative),
and Cerebrotonia (nervous and shy) respectively.
The communication style tendencies described by Hamilton are the open,
blind, hidden, and closed styles. The open communicators tend to use both
disclosure and feedback and are equally interested in people’s need and
company productivity. Blind communicators do not ask for feedback from others
and they tend to overuse disclosure. Hidden communicators are called “hidden”
because they hide their opinions, feelings, and knowledge from others. Lastly,
closed communicators seek very little feedback from others and disclose very
little to others.
The researcher adopted the questionnaires from these proponents in
order to elicit information from employees of PLDT Makati Operator Services
Center whom she chose as her respondents because of their interaction to
different kinds of people as well as to their co-workers and superiors. She
administered the data gathering through convenience sampling. She aimed to
describe how the respondents are distributed among physique and temperament
and tried to verify if the Body Type theory held true to them. She also described
the two most dominant communication styles for each physique-temperament
pair. The most dominant is what they use when things are going well. The
second most dominant style is the one they use under stress.
Most of the respondents are endomorphs and visceretonic. The least of
them are ectomorphs and cerebrotonic. 66% of them have matching physique
and temperament as how Sheldon established. They are the ones studied for the
communication style. For the endomorphy-visceretonia pair, the most of them
open communicators. This was also the result for the mesomorphy-somatotonia
pair. As for the ectomorphy-cerebrotonia pair, the most of them are closed
communicators.
