Chapter 6: Interpersonal Communication

Who was Baxter?

Baxter (and others) have developed and demonstrated the importance of dialectic theory in interpersonal relationships

Who was William Schutz?

Believed that there are three basic interpersonal needs that are satisfied through interaction with others

Who were Bruess and Pearson?

Bruess and Pearson found that couples who created personal idioms expressed high relational satisfaction

What is the final stage of relational development?

Commitment

An extrovert being friends with an introvert demonstrates which type of relationship?

Complementary

What are some things we associate with healthy relationships that can become harmful?

Self-disclosure, affectionate communication, mutual influence, development of a unique relationship

Who were Sillars, Shellen, McIntosh, and Pomegranate?

Sillars, Shellen, McIntosh, and Pomegranate found that people in long-term and satisfied relationships are more likely to use joint rather than individual identity pronouns

What does interpersonal communication include?

Includes our interactions with strangers, with salespeople, with waiters, with our close friends, our lovers, and our family members

What is the unknown area?

Information that is unknown to you and to others

We can also think of interpersonal communication as communication that occurs within __________________.

Interpersonal relationships

_______________ have made new kinds of friendships possible by allowing people to communicate with each other online.

Social networking sites

Who are Spitzberg and Cupach>

Spitzberg and Cupach have provided the most comprehensive treatment of the shadowy side of relationships

What is deceptive communication?

The practice of deliberately making somebody believe things that are not true

What is bargaining?

The process in which two or more parties attempt to reach an agreement on what each should give and receive in a transaction between them

The relational maintenance stage is not like a _____________.

plateau

Through _____________________, couples create a shared culture

playful interaction and creation of rituals

The quality of friendships is affected by _____________________.

psychological predispositions

As people age, family members become more __________ as friends

salient

What is the Johari Window?

t's a simple and useful tool for understanding and training: self-awareness. personal development. improving communications

What is self-disclosure?

The process of making intentional revelations about yourself that others would be unlikely to know and that generally constitute private, sensitive, or confidential information

What is interpersonal communication?

The process of using messages to generate meaning between at least two people in a situation that allows mutual opportunities for both speaking and listening

What is argumentativeness?

The quality or state of being argumentative; synonymous with contentiousness or combativeness

What is compliance-resisting?

The refusal of targets of influence messages to comply with requests

What is defensiveness?

The response that occurs when a person feels attacked

What is relational maintenance?

The stage in a relationship after a couple has bonded and in which they engage in the process of keeping the relationship together

What is relational deterioration?

The stage in a relationship in which the prior bond disintegrates

What is stability/change?

The tension between wanting events, conversations, and behavior to be the same and desiring change

What is integration/separation?

The tension between wanting to be separate entities and wanting to be integrated with another person

What is expression/privacy?

The tension between wanting to self-disclose and be completely open and wanting to be private and closed

What is dialectic?

The tension that exists between two conflicting or interacting forces, elements, or ideas

Interpersonal relationships are important because...?

They fulfill our needs for inclusion, affection, and control

Who were Thibaut and Kelley?

Thibaut and Kelley underlined the importance of bargaining in interpersonal communication.

What are friends with benefits?

Those who are not romantically involved but who have agreed to have a sexual relationship

Jourard suggests that self-disclosure makes us _______________ to others and helps others to see us as a distinctive human being

Transparent

What are personal idioms?

Unique forms of expression and language understood only by individual couples

What is description?

Used to report their observations rather than offering evaluative comments

Who were Vangelisti and Crumley?

Vangelisti and Crumley determined that people respond in one of three ways: active verbal responses, acquiescent responses, and invulnerable responses

Is self-disclosure voluntary or involuntary?

Voluntary

Who was Wilmot?

Wilmot suggests that relationships stabilize when the partners reach a basic level of agreement about what they want from the relationship

What is the hidden area?

Includes information that you know about yourself but others do not

What are relationships?

Associations or connections

What are the three most common categories that hurtful message fall into?

- Accusation - Evaluation - Inform

What rituals are important characteristics of long-term interpersonal relationships?

- Couple-time rituals - Idiosyncratic/symbolic rituals - Daily routines and tasks - Intimacy rituals - Communication rituals - Patterns, habits, and mannerisms - Spiritual ritual

What are the behaviors that reducing defensiveness in others?

- Description - Problem Orientation - Empathy - Equality - Provisionalism - Spontaneity

What factors affect appropriate self-disclosure?

- Disclosure generally increases as relational intimacy increases - Disclosure tends to be reciprocal, though it does not generally occur in families - Negative disclosure is directly related to the intimacy of the relationship; however, positive disclosure does not necessarily increase as the relationship becomes more intimate - Disclosure may be avoided for a variety of reasons - Disclosure varies across cultures - Relational satisfaction and disclosure are curvilinearly related

What are the behaviors that encourage defensive behaviors in others?

- Evaluation - Control - Neutrality - Superiority - Certainty - Strategy

Why do people choose to have online friends?

- No clear personality factors distinguish social networkers from others - Sense of safety and security - May seem more exciting than day-to-day setting - Some people might be attracted to social networking sites because they can create a more idealized self

How do we determine the people to become family/friends/lovers with?

- Proximity - Attractiveness - Responsiveness - Similarity - Complmentary

What are some gender and cultural differences between motivations for maintaining relationships?

- Women tend to use more maintenance strategies than do men - People with different ethnicities express different primary needs in their interpersonal relationships - People from different generations view intergenerational communication differently

What are Baxter's Dialectic Tensions?

-Integration/separation - Stability/change - Expression/privacy

What are three essential features of a bargaining situation?

1. All parties perceive the possibility of reaching an agreement in which each party would be better off, or no worse off, than if no agreement were reached 2. All parties perceive more than one such agreement that could be reached 3. Each party perceives the others as having conflicting preferences or opposed interests

In the approaching a cross-cultural relationship, try to do what?

1. Have meaningful personal interaction 2. Maintain equal status 3. Find ways to build interdependence 4. Respect individual differences

Why is self-disclosure important?

1. It allows us to develop a greater understanding of ourselves 2. Allows you to develop a more positive attitude about yourself and others, as well as more meaningful relationship 3. One way relationships grow in depth and meaning

What is compliance-gaining?

Attempts made by a source of messages to influence a target "to perform some desired behavior that the target otherwise might not perform"

We may begin a relationship with someone based on how desirable that person is to work within the classroom. This type of motivation is called...?

Attractiveness

What are the six stages in how friendships develop?

1. Role-limited interaction 2. Friendly Relations 3. Moving toward friendship 4. Stabilized friendship 5. Diminishing Friendship

What are the three basic interpersonal needs that are satisfied through interaction with others?

1. The need for inclusion, or becoming involved with others 2. The need for affection, or holding fond or tender feelings toward another person 3. The need for control, or having the ability to influence others, our environment, and ourselves

What is attractiveness?

A concept that includes physical attractiveness, how desirable a person is to work with, how much " social value" the person has for others

What 10 categories can hurtful messages fall into?

Accusation, evaluation, directive, advise, express desire, inform, question, threat, joke, and lie

What are interpersonal relationships?

Associations between at least two people who are interdependent, who use some consistent patterns of interaction, and who interacted for an extended period of time

When is conflict dysfunctional?

Conflict is dysfunctional if you avoid talking about your problems, withdraw, become sullen, or when you take criticism or suggestions as a personal attack

What is the blind area?

Consists of information known to others but unknown to you

Conflict can either be ______________ or __________________.

Constructive, dysfunctional

A motivation for terminating a relationship by deliberately making somebody believe untrue things is labeled?

Deceptive communication

What is certainty?

Denotes a lack of openness to alternative ideas

Most relationships go through definable stages of _______________.

Development, maintenance, and deterioration

What does it mean to inform?

Disclose feelings that involve the partner

What are rituals?

Formalized patterns of actions or words followed regularly

When does friendly relations occur?

Friendly relations occur when two people determine that they have mutual interests or other common ground

How are friendships maintained?

Friendships are maintained differently, depending on the intent of the relational partners

What are the two things friendships can be based on?

Friendships can be based on shared activities or on the level of information we exchange with others

What does support include?

Giving advice, expressing concern, and offering assistance and can vary as a result of the receiver's age, and the support provider's goals

What is empathy?

Implies concern for others, as shown through careful listening for both the content and the intent of the other's message

What is spontaneity?

Implies naturalness and a lack of premeditation

What are accusations?

Imply or state fault or offense

What are evaluations?

Imply or state fault or offense

What are contradictions?

In dialectic theory, the idea that each person in a relationship might have two opposing desires for maintaining the relationship

What is a stabilized friendship?

In nascent friendship they think of themselves as friends and begin to established in each other's live

What does role-limited interaction include?

Includes an encounter in which individuals are polite and careful with their disclosures

What is the open area?

Includes information that is known to you and to other people

Why may relational deterioration occur?

May occur because of the pressures of external events, because of differences that develop within the couple, or because of relationships with other people

What is equality?

Means that the communicator demonstrates that he or she is neither superior not inferior to the second person

What is neutrality?

Means that the originator of the message does not show concern for the second person

What are hurtful messages?

Messages that create emotional pain or upset

What does moving toward friendship allow?

Moving toward friendship allows them to introduce a personal topic or set up times to get together

Is aggressiveness the same thing as argumentativeness?

No

What are some things that are the shadowy side of relationships?

Obsession, jealousy, misunderstanding, gossip, conflict, codependency

What is evaluation?

Occurs when an individual makes a judgement about another person or his or her behavior

What is superiority?

Occurs when the first person treats the second as a person or lower status

What is the difference between self-disclosure, confession, and revelation?

Self-disclosure → voluntary Confession → Forced or coerced information Revelation → Unintentional or inadvertent communication

Who are Pearce and Sharp?

Pearce and Sharp distinguish among self-disclosure, confession, and revelation

What is problem-orientation?

People who do not act as though they have the solution but are eager to discuss multiple ideas

What is interdependence?

People's being mutually dependent on each other and having an impact on each other

You childhood nickname and the pet name your significant other calls you are examples of?

Personal idioms

Obsession, jealousy, gossip, and mental abuse are examples of...?

Possible negative qualities of some interpersonal relationships

What are privacy rules?

Privacy rules are created to control the permeability of the boundary

What is the communication privacy management theory?

Provides a useful framework for helping people think about the rules they create regarding when they will and will not share private information and how they manage privacy boundaries once they have shared private information

Who was Rawlins?

Rawlins provides a six-stage model of how friendships develop

What is strategy?

Refers to the employment of manipulative and premeditative behavior

If two people in a relationship start to merge their social circles and purchase items together, they are exhibiting actions in the...?

Relational development stage

What are complementary relationships?

Relationships in which each person supplies something the other person of persons lack

What are symmetrical relationships?

Relationships in which participants mirror each other or are highly similar

Pearson found that happy long-term marriages were characterized by what?

Stubbornness, distortion, unconditional acceptance, and the continuous push and pull of autonomy or independence versus unity or interdependence

What is provisionalism?

Suggests that the communicator does not communicate certainty or a total conviction but is open to other ideas

What is control?

Suggests that the speaker does not allow the second person to join in the discussion of how a problem should be solved

Communication and relationship development are _________________.

Symbiotic

What is behavioral flexibility?

The ability to alter behavior to adapt to new situations and to relate in new ways when necessary

What is aggressiveness?

The assertion of one's right at the expense of others and caring about one's own needs but no one else's

What is affection?

The holding of fond or tender feelings towards another person

What is complementarity?

The idea that we sometimes bond with people whose strengths and our weaknesses

What is similarity?

The idea that we sometimes bond with people whose strengths and our weaknesses

What is responsiveness?

The idea that we tend to select our friends and loved ones from peoples who demonstrate positive interest in us

What is relational development?

The initial stage in a relationship that moves a couple from meeting to mating

What is proximity?

The location, distance, or range between persons and things

What is influence?

The power to affect other people's thinking or actions

How can you experience conflict more positively?

You can begin to experience conflict more positively by remaining calm, express your feelings in words, trying to be specific about what is bothering you, trying to deal with one issue at a time, considering your language, and establishing ground rules for both of you

What factors affect the appropriateness of affectionate communication?

Your own and the other person's sex, the kind of relationships you have, the privacy and emotional intensity of the situation, and your predispositions

What are the three ways people respond?

active verbal responses, acquiescent responses, and invulnerable responses

Which is not an element of an interpersonal relationship? a. It includes at least two people b. It involves people who are interdependent c. Its patterns of interaction are inconsistent d. Individuals in an interpersonal relationship have interacted for some time.

c. Its patterns of interaction are inconsistent

Which of the following statements regarding friendship is true? a. Friendships remain unchanged over time. b. All friendships are maintained identically, regardless of relational partners' intent c. The quality of friendship is affected by other psychological predispositions d. For many older women, their only friend is their husband.

c. The quality of friendship is affected by other psychological predispositions

Which of the following is very important in interpersonal communication, given that relationships between people are constantly changing? a. bargaining b. self-concept c. behavioral flexibility d. dialectic tensions

c. behavioral flexibility

Individuals in interpersonal relationships use some _____________ patterns of interaction.

consistent

When we communicate with others on the basis of general social interaction rules, we are engaging in _______________ communication.

impersonal

When we make predictions based on more discriminating information about the other specific person, we are communicating _________________.

interpersonally

Interpersonal communication can be limited to those situations in which we we have knowledge of the ___________________ of the other person

personal characteristics, qualities, or behaviors