COM 131 Ch. 11 Outline

Revising communication (Fifth stage of growth in relationships)

During this stage, partners come out of the clouds to look at their relationship more realistically. Problems are recognized, and partners evaluate whether they want to work through them.

Individuality (First stage of growth in relationships)

Each of us is an individual with particular needs, goals, love styles, perceptual tendencies, and qualities that affect what we look for in relationships.

Explorational communication (Third stage of growth in relationships)

It focuses on exchanging information. People fish for common interests and grounds for interaction. Eg. Do you like jazz? Or Where have you traveled? This phase can stabilize as a casual dating relationship.

Grave-dressing processes

It involves burying the relationship and accepting its end. It includes making sense of the relationship: what it meant, why it failed, and how it affected us. Also, we will explain to others why the relationship ended.

Dyadic processes

It involves the breakdown of established patterns, rules, and rituals that make up the relational culture. Partners may stop talking after dinner, no longer call when they are running late, etc. This stage is where they should talk about their problems, or it will only get worse.

Agape (Secondary Style of Love)

It is a blend of storge and eros. These lovers feel the intense passion of eros and the constancy of storge. They put a loved one's happiness ahead of their own without any expectation of reciprocity.

Storge (Primary Style of Love)

It is a comfortable kind of love based on friendship and compatibility. It tends to develop gradually and to be peaceful and stable. • It grows out of common interests, values, and life goals.

Love

It is a feeling based on the rewards of our involvement with a person.

Social support

It is a phase in which partners look to friends and family for support. During this phase, partners often criticize their exes and expect friends to take their side.

Eros (Primary Style of Love)

It is a powerful, passionate style of love that blazes to life suddenly and dramatically. It is an intense kind of love that may include sexual, spiritual, intellectual, or emotional attraction or all of these. • It is the most intuitive and spontaneous of all love styles, and it is the fastest moving. • These lovers are likely to self-disclose early in a relationship, be very sentimental, and fall in love fast.

Relational culture

It is a private world of rules, understandings, meanings, and patterns of acting and interpreting that partners create for their relationship. The rules and rituals that partners develop and follow provide a predictable rhythm for intimate interaction.

Social penetration theory

It is intimacy that grows as interaction between people penetrates from the outer to inner layers of each person's personality. Basically, we have to move beyond the surface of another person to know him or her well enough to develop an I-Thou relationship.

Commitment (Sixth stage of growth in relationships)

It is the decision to stay with the relationship.

Commitment (Dimensions of Romantic Relationships)

It is the intention (decision) to remain involved in the relationship. • Two reasons why people commit to relationships: • They find it comfortable and pleasing. • They stay in a relationship to avoid negative consequences that would accompany ending it such as family disapproval, religious values, etc.

Navigation

It is the ongoing process of staying committed and living a life together despite ups and downs, and pleasant and unpleasant surprises.

Passion (Dimensions of Romantic Relationships)

It is what first springs to mind when we think about romance. It describes intensely positive feelings and desire for another person. This characteristic may set romance apart from other relationships, but it isn't the glue that holds romantic relationships together.

Intrapsychic processes (First stage of Deterioration)

One or both partners begin to feel dissatisfied with the relationship and to focus their thoughts on its problems or shortcomings. Partners may begin to think about alternatives to the relationship.

Invitational communication (Second stage of growth in relationships)

People signal that they are interested in interacting; during this stage, they also respond to invitations from others such as saying, "I love this kind of music" is really saying, "I'm interested in interacting. Are you?"

Deterioration

Some relationships stop all of a sudden such as a person moves, a death, or simply quit calling without explanation.

Placemaking

The process of creating a comfortable personal environment that reflects the values, experiences, and tastes of the couple such as artwork, photos, CDs, etc.

Resurrection processes

The two people move on with their lives without the other as an intimate.

Mania (Secondary Style of Love)

These lovers have the passion of eros, but they play by ludic rules. They often experience emotional extremes, ranging from euphoria to despair, and may obsess about a relationship.

Committed romantic relationships

They are relationships between individuals who assume that they will be primary and continuing parts of each other's lives. • They are voluntary, at least in Western culture. • They involve romantic and sexual feelings. • We expect these relationships to be permanently or at least for a very long time.

Ludus (Primary Style of Love)

This is a playful love, because lovers see love as a game. It is full of challenges, puzzles, and fun, but commitment is not the goal. • They like to play the field and enjoy falling in love.

Intimacy (Dimensions of Romantic Relationships)

This is feelings of closeness, connection, and tenderness. It is abiding affection and warm feelings for another person.

Pragma (Secondary Style of Love)

This is practical love. These lovers have clear criteria for partners, such as religious affiliation, career, and family background. • Practical considerations are the foundation of enduring commitment, so these must be satisfied before they allow themselves to fall in love.

Intensifying communication (Fourth stage of growth in relationships)

This stage is when partners spend more time together, and they rely less on external structures such as movies or parties. Personal biographies are filled in, and partners increasingly learn how the other feels and thinks. Partners often exaggerate each other's virtues, downplay or fail to perceive vices, and overlook problems in the relationship.