Communication and Intimacy

Avoid/Win

Complementary Pattern: -The person who is "giving in" all the time is motivated by fear (not intimacy) - oppressed fragile, vulnerable, not intimate -The person who like to win - they don't necessarily feel intimate they feel disconfirmed, like they don't matter, a variation of the silent treatment = more angry

types of meta messages

qualifying: qualifies the content of the message identity meta-message: we get information about how other see us and in relation to us

self disclosure (rule of reciprocity)

communicate on a meta level involvement and connection, building intimacy -rule of reciprocity: non reciprocity makes you feel vulnerable about your self-disclosure that you are not equally invested in each other.

Goals and the management strategies

-Avoidance -winning -intimacy

Intimacy/Intimacy

-Good enough - not Perfect -Importance of getting around to talking about what really matters! ---Less likely to attack listen and respond, greater degree of caring and not get defensive, etc

Feedback : about you as a person

-confirmation -Rejection: doing thing that people don't like -disconfirmation: the metamessages don't exist (silent treatment)

Misunderstandings (gender and Conversational stayles)

-connection v. control -gender and conversational styles: gender becomes important here. when a masculine communicator want to fix thing that females want to bring up just to talk ---females feel discounted

core concepts of communication

-message -metamessage -framing -Metacommunication -Feedback

Sources of Conflict (incongruence between metamessages and framing

-misunderstanding -Role conflict -Tensions around separateness v connectedness -equity/ fairness

Patterns that Promote Intimacy

-self disclosure -Transaction Mangagement -conflict Management

Tensions around separateness v connectedness

Different goals, we all need time together and time apart. → fights when the this arises

Task for Couple

Establish Communication patterns that promote Intimacy and Manage Conflict

Definition of Communication

Exchange of information in the form of messages information is contained in -symbols: words are symbols so are gestures -transactional patterns: all communicatio is transcational

Avoid/avoid

Psuedo-mutuality: they appear highly intimate, mutual but the relationship based upon anxiety and fear because they do not risk the intimacy

Avoid/Intimacy

Pursue/distance -Avoiding disinteresting in the conflict they just want them to tell them what to do -pursue : angry that they are chasing to have a conversation, then the more the distancer will move away

Win/Intimacy

Pursue/distance: the person who is interested pursue the win, the intimacy is only wanting to talk when they have a good talking conversation -Not bating into saying hurtful thing, by standing up and distancing they get more angry with you

Win/Win

Symmetrical Escalations: seems to be the most common -Conflict starts up, each struggle to get the other to give in, and characterized by ... -Symmetrical Escalation: you have to match my attacks with a bigger attacks ----Abusive dynamics can be domestic escalation

Role Conflict- Identity disruption

different view of how household tasks or roles should be handled -some conflict are taken as an identity disruption → clean the bathroom not the way you want it. When your partner is not doing things in the way it feels like it is discounting you

Transaction Management (situational adaptability)

every interaction is a bid for emotional intimacy -situational adaptability: opposite of a scene in public able to wait -we spend more time in transaction v. communication

Intimacy

fight in a more constructive way and acknowledges the importance of the issue and relationship -Increase the connection to each other → greater sense of contentment and connection

Winning

maybe part of our culture, we switch into the mode that we want to exercise our authority where we are right and they are wrong -The hurtful exchange and pointing out personal characteristic (not complaints) → leaves an emotional scar

metacommunication

often times there is a miscommunication in the process of understanding the metamessage and how one frames it.

avoidance

people are anxious about conflict and how it might ruin the relationship -Agreeing: the conflict doesn't get greater - placating behavior (smoothing over) -Miss out on opportunity to correct the behavior

Conflict management

the climate that you are creating -communicate idea that are congruent to the situation that you are in -people arguing in social situation

Equity/Fairness Complaints:

when you feel that your partner is getting a better deal than you are.