Interpersonal Communication CHP 10

Competing Demands

Friendships exist within larger social systems that affect how they function. We may not have enough time or energy left to maintain friendships, even those that matter to us.

Repairing friendships

Even when serious violations occur between friends, relationships sometimes can be repaired. We are usually more willing to stay friends with someone who hurt us unintentionally than with someone who deliberately harmed us. To revive a friendship that has waned, however, both friends must be committed to rebuilding trust and intimacy.

Acceptance

Expect friends to accept us, including our flaws Homosexuals tend to rely more on friendships than do homosexuals

Interracial friendships

require more effort than intraracial friendships, yet the basic foundations of the friendships don't differ. Acceptance and responsiveness and revealing information about yourself and accepting information about the other are keys in same and different-race friendships

Trust

First dimension: Confidence that others will be dependable Second dimension: rooted in the belief that a friend cares about us and our welfare Level of trust depends on a number of factors 1.) Individual histories influence our capacity to trust others 2.) Family scripts also influence how much and how quickly we trust others 3.) Willingness to take risks also influences trust in relationships

Culture

American and Japanese: Similar in age and ethnic heritage Japanese: togetherness, trust and warmth American: understanding, respect, and sincerity European Americans: sincerity and freedom to express ideas Asian American: courtesy, restraint and respect for families African American: problem solving and respect for ethnic heritage Latin American: relationship support and emotional expressiveness

fourth growth stage

At some point, people decide they are friends, whether they vocalize that explicitly or not. The touchstone of this stage is the assumption of continuity. Whereas in earlier stages people don't count on getting together unless they make a specific plan, stabilized friends assume they'll continue to see each other even if they don't have specific dates reserved. We take future interaction for granted because we consider the relationship ongoing.

Friends of the road

Change as we move along the road of life Workplace and neighborhood friends tend to be friends of the road.

Friendships deteriorate or dissolve due to serious violations

Communication changes in predictable ways Defensiveness and uncertainty rise, causing people to be more guarded, less spontaneous, and less disclosure than they were

Guidelines for Communication between Friends

Confirming climate, engage in effective verbal and nonverbal communication, managing conflict constructively In addition to these general principles, we can identify four specific guidelines for satisfying communication between friends

Clearest indicator that a friendship is fading

Decreased quantity and quality of communication

Diverse communication styles

Friendships may also be strained by misunderstandings that arise from diverse cultural backgrounds. Many traditional Asian societies, people are socialized to be modest, whereas American culture encourages celebration of ourselves. Misunderstandings also arise from differences between social groups in the United States. African Americans are more communal than European Americans, so taking care of extended family members is a priority. Instead, how we interpret and judge others' communication is the root of tension and hurt. Misunderstandings result from our interpretations of others' behaviors, not the behaviors themselves. This reminds us of the need to distinguish between facts and inferences.

External pressures

Friendships may encounter pressures from outside sources. Three such pressures are competing demands, personal changes, and geographic distance.

Social Media and Friendships

Many of us rely on digital and online communication for easy and ongoing contact with friends. Many online friendships are not as rich and close as face-to-face friendships. Research showing that people often disclose more and more quickly online than they do in person suggests that online friendships may have a distinct trajectory in which revelations occur sooner.

Don't sweat the small stuff

Most friendships die not because of major violations and problems but because of small slights and irritations that slowly destroy closeness. Knowing that perceptions are subjective, you might remind yourself not to focus on aspects of a friend that you dislike or find bothersome. There's a big difference between acknowledging irritations and letting them preoccupy us. All of us want to be accepted and valued despite our flaws. It does mean you accept friends and don't try to change them to suit your personal preferences.

Geographic Distance

Most friendships face the challenge of distance, and many don't survive it. A majority of North Americans have at least one long-distance friendship. Perhaps the most obvious influence is how much people care about continuing to be friends. The greater the commitment, the more likely a friendship is to persist despite separation.

Grow from differences

Open to diversity in people. Western culture encourages us to think in either-or terms: Either he acts like I do, or he's wrong; either she's like me, or she's odd. The problem with either-or thinking is that it sharply limits interpersonal growth.

Sustaining a long distance friendship

Socioeconomic class- friends with greater economic resources are better able to maintain their relationships than are friends with less discretionary income. Flexibility in managing work and family. White-collar workers usually have considerable flexibility in work schedules, so they can make time to travel. Blue-collar workers tend to have less personal control over their job schedules and how much vacation time they get.

Cyberbullying

Text messages, online comments and rumors, embarrassing pictures posted online, and videos and fake profiles that are meant to hurt another person and are sent by email or smart phones or posted on social networking sites. 43% of teenagers are subject to some form of cyberbullying. For LGBTQ teenagers the percentage is even higher: 53%.

Engage in Dual Perspective

To be a good friend, we must understand our friends' perspectives, thoughts, and feelings. The point is to understand what friends feel and think and to accept that as their reality. To exercise dual perspective, we distinguish between our judgments and perceptions and what friends say and do. When we feel hurt or offended by something a friend says, we should remember that our perceptions and inferences do not equal their behavior.

Emotional Closeness

Emotional intimacy grows out of investment Time talk and shared experience Sex and gender influence how we experience and express intimacy with friends

Growth Stages

Friendships begin when people meet each other Initial meeting is first stage During this stage we rely on standard social rules and roles. We tend to be polite and to limit personal disclosure. They tend to rely on general scripts and stereotypes at first. Check to see whether common ground, values, and interests exist

Willingness to invest

Grow out of personal investments Expect to invest time, effort, thought, and feeling in our friendships Investments we make tend to stoke our commitment to friendships

Communicate Honestly

Honesty is one of the most important gifts friends can give each other. Even when honesty is less than pleasant or is not what we think we want to hear, we count on it from friends. In fact, people believe that honest feedback is what sets real friends apart from others. The key is to care enough about a person to look out for her or his welfare. Friends who want to help each other give honest, often critical feedback so that others can improve. We can be supportive and loving while being honest about important matters.

Pressures on friendships

Like all human relationships, friendships are subject to internal tensions and external pressures.

Personal Changes

Our friendships change as our lives do. Although a few friendships are lifelong, most are not. Gained and lost friends as you made major transitions in your life.

Cyberbullying differs from face-to-face bullying in two important ways

First, it is often perpetrated anonymously. Second, cyberbullying has no necessary stopping point. Online bullying can follow the victim anywhere, 24-7. It is unremitting.

Two communication principles help us avoid misinterpreting our friends

First, it's useful to ask questions to find out what others mean. Second, we should explain, or translate, our own feelings and needs so the friend understands what would feel supportive to us.

Closeness through dialogue

Females emphasize talk as a primary path to intimacy Women see talking and listening- f2f or via social media as the main activities that create and sustain closeness

Internal Tensions

Friendships are vulnerable to tensions inherent in being close. Relationship stresses that grow out of people and their interactions

Sexual Interaction

Friendships between heterosexual men and women or between gay men or between lesbians often include sexual tensions. Even if there is no actual sexual activity, sexual undertones may ripple beneath the surface of friendships. Sexual attraction or invitations become more challenging between friends who have agreed not to have a sexual relationship.

The Development of friendship

Friendships evolve through a series of stages that involve progressive investments

Cyberbullying with gender

Girls who are victims tend to be more physically developed than others in their age cohort, are perceived as less attractive than peers, or are perceived as more attractive than peers. One of the more common tactics for bullying girls is to spread rumors that they are sluts. Boys, especially non-white boys, who are perceived as feminine are most likely to be victims of cyberbullying. In fact, posting comments that a boy is gay is a common form of cyberbullying.

Second growth stage

If invitations to move beyond social roles are reciprocated, a fledgling friendship is launched Small self-disclosure to signal that we'd like to personalize the relationship or meet outside of contexts that naturally occur The friends enjoy interacting but generally don't invest a lot of effort to arrange times together. Disclosures tend to be limited as are investments and expectations of support.

Close friendships

Unlikely to stabilize until there is a mutually high level of trust. Once friends have earned each other's trust, they communicate more openly and fully. As friendships become stabilized, they are often integrated into the larger contexts of each friend's social networks. When we interact in our social circles, we are often nurturing multiple established friendships at the same time. Stabilized friendships may continue indefinitely, in some cases lasting a lifetime

Online communication

Increasingly popular way to maintain established friendships Nearly two-thirds of the people surveyed reported that they had a good friendship with someone first met online. Friendships maintained largely through email and Internet communication were as personal and committed as those maintained through face-to-face contact

Third growth stage

Interact more personally with others, disclose more about ourselves, have shared experiences, and share thoughts, feelings, values, concerns, interests, and so forth At this point, friends begin to work out their private rules for interacting. During the nascent stage friends are working out rules for their relationship, often they aren't aware of the rules until later. The milestones of this stage are that people begin to think of themselves as friends and to work out their own patterns for interaction.

Relational Dialectics

Opposing human needs that create tension and propel change in close relationships. The three dialectics of connection/autonomy, openness/privacy, and novelty/familiarity punctuate our friendships, prompting us to adjust continually to natural yet contradictory needs. Friendships can be strained when people have different needs. Differing needs don't reflect unequal commitment to the friendship.

Support

Relationship messages "I care about you." How we respond and listen show support Letting them know they're not alone Having the grace to accept friends when they hurt us Availability Men support friends through "covert intimacy" (indirect way men support one another) Men communicate support more instrumentally Men more likely to support through diversions

Friends of the heart

Remain close regardless of distance and circumstances Intimate friends tend to be friends of the heart

Closeness through doing

Sharing activities Closeness through doing often is the primary in men's friendship Strong emotional bonds and personal knowledge can develop without verbal interaction Give and take of favors

Relationship Rules

Unspoken understandings that regulate how people interact. Although friends may never explicitly discuss their rules, the rules matter, as we discover when one is violated. Rules regulate both trivial and important aspects of interaction. Many of our friendship rules reflect cultural perspectives.

The Nature of Friendship

Voluntary Lack institutionalized structure or guidelines Five basic expectations

Deterioration Stages

When one or both friends stop investing in a friendship, it is likely to wane. Occasionally friendships end abruptly and sometimes dramatically, generally occasioned by serious breaches in trust. It is more common for friendships to wane gradually

Gender with geographic distance

Women and men differ in how likely they are to maintain long-distance friendships because they respectively see talking and activity as the nucleus of closeness. Women can sustain ties with important friends by talking on the phone, texting, emailing, and writing. Men, on the other hand, can't share activities with friends who are not present. Thus, they may be more likely to replace friends who have moved away with others who can share activities they enjoy.