The purpose of this paper is to explain the communication difficulties that occurred between Malcolm King and Russell Alger in the case study on the Gage Company. Specifically, this paper will clarify and prove the following:
The reason why King felt that Alger was deceitful was that King employed an aggressive psychological defense in his communication with people which Alger did not understand.
The reason why Alger did not try to prove his theories to King was that he employed a combination of withdrawal, submissiveness, and rationalization in his own psychological defenses.
The reason why King did not immediately discuss some of AlgerÆs changes is King employed the psychological defense known as withdrawal as well as submissiveness in order to avoid conflict with Alger.
The reason why Alger backed off from attempting to communicate with King was that King used the communication roadblock known as name-calling or labeling.
The reason why King was frustrated in his attempts to communicate with Alger was that Alger employed the communication roadblock known as diverting.
The following paragraphs will use a combination of the Gage Company case study, the class handout on psychological defenses, and the book People Skills (1979), by Robert Bolton, to define, demonstrate, and interpret the above statements.
First, according to the class handout, aggression is attacking or taking someoneÆs ôpsychological or physical spaceö as a means of protecting themselves. If King attacked AlgerÆs ideas outright as impractical and nanve without listening long enough to hear AlgerÆs reasoning, then it is logical to assume that King was employing an aggressive psychological defense. Further, King continued to not only aggressively question AlgerÆs decisions regarding company changes, which is another form of roadblocking discussed by Bolton (1979), but he also assumed that the only way to ôtestö someoneÆs strength w...