ed as the process linking discontinuous living entities with one another (American Psychiatric Association, 1987). Communication is made possible by the combined effects of perception, evaluation, and expression (Shock, 1985).
The social process of interpersonal communication involves three sets of determinants sensory, environmental, and psychological. Sensory determinants can both physically impede communication, and induce psychological factors which impinge on effective communications (Shock, Greulich, Costa, Andres, Lakatta, Arenberg, and Tobin, 1984). Environmental determinants are the people and the social systems with which an individual is associated, while psychological determinants are the ways in which an individual's experiences affects her or his knowledge, skills, and methods of adaptation (Eisdorfer, and Wilkie, 1977).
A person is an individual behavioral system (Fawcett, 1989), which, in turn, is a component of a larger social group behavioral system. For individuals and for social groups, the external environment includes all forces (objects, events, and situations) which are capable of impinging on either the individual or the social group. For individuals, the internal environment involves the psychological and physical characteristics of the individual which permit and facilitate reaction and adjustment to exte
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