Intrapersonal Communication

Intrapersonal communication is defined as communicating with oneself. Some scholars have expanded communicating with oneself to include a vast range of cognitive behaviors, mental entities (e.g., traits), and knowledge and processes (e.g., association and comparison). This entry distinguishes the study of mental entities and processes from intrapersonal communication, though both are close relatives often carrying the label “intrapersonal.” This entry further distinguishes between using the term intrapersonal to refer to cognitive behavior broadly defined versus using the term intrapersonal communication to refer to internal processes of communication (e.g., interpretation of messages from others, determining goals and tactics, self-assurance, self-discovery, and self-delusion). With an understanding of intrapersonal communication as a distinct area of study, this entry also considers how the Internet has been used to carry out research on intrapersonal communication.

The typical college textbook on the subject of human communication organizes communication [Page 811]theories and research into levels beginning with the level of one person and going up to masses of people, with intrapersonal communication at the lowest level, followed by interpersonal communication, small group communication, public communication, and mass communication, and each successive level adding a greater number of people. According to this model, intrapersonal communication is seen as communication at the level of the individual.

Much like the concept of communication itself, intrapersonal communication is subject to a range of definitions. Some observers say that intrapersonal communication concerns the messages one sends to themselves. Some scholars define it as talking out loud to one’s self. Intrapersonal communication often is said to include one’s self-view as a mediator of intrapersonal processes and as an outcome of interpersonal communication. Other scholars see intrapersonal communication operating as we take part in all other levels of communication, interpersonal, small group, public and mass communication, as well as computer-mediated communication. Some have even questioned whether or not communication applies below the level of the dyad, making the concept of intrapersonal communication an oxymoron.

Discussions of intrapersonal communication have at times included all mental entities and processes of the mind: dimensions of personality, such as introversion and extroversion; evaluations, such as liking and satisfaction; memory and its many and complex subsystems, such as short-term memory and long-term memory, recall, recognition and rote learning; emotions; and cognitive processes, such as pattern recognition, comparing, judging, retrieving, organizing, forming associations, searching, and paying attention. However, such a broadly inclusive definition of intrapersonal communication makes it difficult to investigate.

Although the focus of intrapersonal communication is on processes occurring within the individual, it need not be limited to communication events consisting of only one person. Stimuli coming from outside the individual’s body may provide the materials for the mind to operate upon. Hence, this model intrapersonal communication has been tied to thinking, planning, imagining, analyzing, problem solving, strategizing, producing messages, dreaming, reflecting, and perceiving.

A closely related field of study to intrapersonal communication is called social cognition. Social cognition is associated with social psychology and cognitive psychology, and it looks at the cognitions underlying how we perceive one another, how we think about one another, mental processes that operate as we come to know things about people, and our thoughts about what we see and hear from others. Social cognition is concerned with attitudes and beliefs, implicit theories of human behavior, social anxiety, and self-monitoring. In part, social cognition overlaps with intrapersonal communication and is subject to the same distinction we have made above between all mental processes and entities attributed to the mind (cognitive psychology) versus higher order processes involving messages such as problem solving, evaluating, and analyzing (intrapersonal communication).

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