Relationship class final
contempt
Communication that conveys an air of superiority and often conveys a lack of respect.
Communicative Infidelity
Engaging in sexual activity with a third party to communicate a message to one's partner (e.g., to make them jealous, to get revenge).
Obsessive Relational Intrusion (ORI)
Unwanted behaviors that invade someone's privacy and that are used for the purpose of trying to get close to someone.
Patterns of Conflict Interaction
(1) negative reciprocity (2) demand-withdraw (3) the four horsemen of the apocalypse (4) accommodation
Conflict Style: Collaborating
-A direct and cooperative conflict style that involves creative problem solving and finding new solutions that meet both parties' needs. -I win, you win
conflict style: Compromising
-A direct and moderately cooperative conflict style that involves giving up some things you want to get other things you want. -I win and lose, you win and lose
conflict style: Competitive Fighting
-A direct and uncooperative conflict style that often involves using verbally aggressive behaviors such as name-calling.
attribution hypothesis
-A perceptual process of assigning reasons or causes to one's own behavior or that of others. -According to this hypothesis, people in happy relationships tend to make relationship-enhancing attributions, whereas people in unhappy relationships tend to make distress-maintaining attributions.
conflict style: yielding
-An indirect and cooperative conflict style that involves one partner giving into and accommodating the other partner.
conflict style: indirect fighting
-An indirect and uncooperative conflict style that involves using passive-aggressive behaviors such as rolling one's eyes or pulling away from one's partner.
conflict styles: avoiding
-An indirect conflict style that is neither inherently cooperative nor inherently uncooperative, and involves tactics such as avoiding a topic, changing the subject, or agreeing to disagree. -I lose, you lose
Frequency of conflict in various relationships
-Most likely to occur in close relationships; Most romantic couples have between one and three disagreements per week, with one or two disagreements per month being particularly unpleasant. -Although too much conflict may reflect relational problems, some level of conflict is normal and healthy in close relationships. -Conflict is more likely to occur within family and romantic relationships than friendships or work relationships. -Like conflict between parents and children, conflict between siblings is often intense during early childhood and adolescence.
Power as enabling or disabling
-Power can be enabling or disabling. -Power is part of the human spirit that infuses us with agency and potency and helps us achieve success. -Power is disabling when it leads to destructive patterns of communication. Three such patterns are: (1) emotional insensitivity (2) the chilling effect (3) the demand-withdrawal pattern
Power as a relational concept
-Power exists in relationships. -Power is a relational concept; one individual cannot be dominant without someone else being submissive.
Power as resource based
-Power usually represents a struggle over resources; scarce and valued resources create more intense and protracted power struggles. -People bring numerous resources to their relationships.
Relational transgressions
-Relational transgressions occur when people violate implicit or explicit relational rules The top relational transgressions identified by college students are: (1) having sex with someone else (2) wanting to or actually dating others (3) deceiving others about something significant
Power as a prerogative
-The partner with more power can make and break the rules. -According to this prerogative principle, powerful people can violate norms, break relational rules, and manage interactions without as much cost as less powerful people.
Power as having less to lose
-The person with less to lose has greater power. -People who are dependent on their relationship or partner are less powerful, especially if they know their partner has low commitment and might leave them. -Dependence power -Quality of alternatives -Principle of least interest
Power
-is a basic feature of relationships because humans want to have autonomy, control their lives, and be free agents:
Power as a perception
-people can use powerful communication, but if others don't perceive or accept their power, their behavior is not dominant -Objective power is the authority associated with factors such as position, strength, weaponry, and wealth.
Equivocations Term
A deceptive form of communication that involves making an indirect ambiguous statement, such as saying that your friend's new hairstyle (that you hate) is the "latest fashion" when you are asked if you like it.
4 horsemen of the apocalypse
A destructive conflict pattern that includes the following four behaviors: (1) complaints/criticisms, (2) contempt/disgust, (3) defensiveness, and (4) stonewalling.
Verbal Aggressiveness
A style that focuses on attacking the other person's self-concept, often with the intention of hurting the other person. Verbally aggressive people engage in such tactics as teasing, threatening, and criticizing the partner's character or appearance.
Counter-Jealousy Induction, As a Communicative Response To Jealousy
Action taken to make the partner feel jealous too, such as flirting with someone else.
Negative Communication, As a Communicative Response To Jealousy
Aggressive and passive-aggressive communication that reflects negativity, such as arguing, being sarcastic, acting rude, ignoring the partner, giving cold or dirty looks, and withdrawing affection.
Why relationships end: Alcohol and drugs
Alcohol and drugs have been cited as one of the top 10 reasons for marital breakup in several studies. Alcohol and drug abuse may lead to violence, addiction, problems with the law, the squandering of money, and problems at work—any of which can greatly strain a relationship.
Demand-Withdraw interaction
Also called a demand-withdraw interaction pattern. Occurs when one person wants to engage in conflict or demands change whereas the other partner wants to avoid the topic and/or the demanding person and maintain the status quo.
why relationships end: loss of love
Chronic dissatisfaction Relationship disillusionment
Defensiveness
Communication designed to defend oneself against attacks by deflecting blame to someone or something else.
Silence, As a Communicative Response To Jealousy
Decreasing communication, often by getting quiet and not talking as much as usual, when feeling jealous.
Why Relationships End: Infidelity and interest in a third party
Despite the oft-repeated folk wisdom that "opposites attract," a more valid cliché is "birds of a feather flock together" Lack of similarity in attitudes, activities, and interests, as well as differences in ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds, can precipitate relational breakups. Differences in educational background, intelligence, emotional involvement, and health also pose problems for relationships.
Why Relationships End: incompatibility
Despite the oft-repeated folk wisdom that "opposites attract," a more valid cliché is "birds of a feather flock together" Lack of similarity in attitudes, activities, and interests, as well as differences in ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds, can precipitate relational breakups. Differences in educational background, intelligence, emotional involvement, and health also pose problems for relationships.
Types of infidelity
Emotional Communicative Online Sexual
Emotional Infidelity
Emotional involvement with another person to the extent that emotional resources such as romantic love, time, and attention are diverted to that person rather than to one's primary partner.
The Model of Accommodation
Four basic response choices that people have for dealing with problems in their relationships: (1) exit (2) neglect (3) voice (4) loyalty
flaming
Hostile expression of emotions online through means such as swearing, insulting, and name-calling.
Hurtful messages
Hurtful messages, which are words that elicit psychological pain, constitute a particular type of transgression because they violate rules about how people should treat each other in relationships. Hurtful messages inflict more pain when a person has experienced hurt in past relationships.
The Investment Model of Relationship-Maintaining Behavior
If people are highly committed to their relationship, they are likely to use five pro-relationship behaviors when they encounter problems in their relationship: (1) deciding to remain in the relationship (2) accommodating the partner (3) derogating alternatives (4) showing a willingness to sacrifice (5) perceiving relationship superiority
Isolated Common Couple Violence
Inappropriate physical aggression that occurs on rare occasions in a relationship when conflicts become especially heated.
Informational Familiarity
Knowing certain information about your relational partner, such as your partner's age or educational background, preventing your partner from being able to lie to you about those things.
Healing after a separation
Mutually negotiated breakups, goodwill toward one's ex, and disclosive communication among ex-partners result in the fewest bad feelings. Studies suggest that breakups are more protracted and distressing when indirect termination strategies are employed.
Relationship-Enhancing Attributions
Negative behavior is attributed to causes that are external, unstable, and specific.
Distress-Maintaining Attributions
Negative behavior is attributed to causes that are internal, stable, and global
Negative outcomes of relational breakups
Negative emotions Loneliness Financial consequences Effects on children Intergenerational transmission of divorce Health consequences
chilling effect
Occurs when a less powerful person stays silent on an issue or avoids engaging someone in conflict because of the possible negative consequences associated with speaking up, such as having the more powerful person become aggressive or leave the relationship.
accomadation
Occurs when people are able to overcome the initial tendency to retaliate in response to negative behavior and instead engage in cooperative communication to maintain their relationship.
mind reading
Occurs when people assume (often mistakenly) that they know their partner's feelings, motives, and behaviors.
emotional flooding
Occurs when people become surprised, overwhelmed, and disorganized by their partner's expressions of negative emotion during a conflict situation, causing them to feel high levels of arousal that can inhibit effective conflict management.
Gunnysacking
Occurs when people store up old grievances and then dump them on their partner during a conflict.
Why relationships end: growing apart
Often due to different interests Also wither from reduced quality and quantity of communication, distance, reduced efforts to maintain the relationship, or competition from hundreds of relationships in today's world
Positive outcomes of relational breakups
One positive outcome of relationship breakups is personal growth that can occur in the relationship's aftermath Personal positives: such as increased self-confidence and being able to handle life on one's own Relational positives: such as having learned how to communicate in a relationship and the importance of not jumping into a relationship too quickly
Signs of possession, as a communicative response to jealousy
Public displays designed to show people that one's partner is taken, such as holding the partner's hand.
Criticisms
Personal attacks that blame someone else for a problem.
Repeated Common Couple Violence
Physical aggression that occurs intermittently in a relationship when conflicts get especially heated.
Denial, As a Communicative Response To Jealousy
Pretending not to be jealous or falsely denying feeling jealous.
Acquiescent Responses
Responses that involve giving in, and acknowledging that the partner hurt you.
hurt feelings in relationships
Scholars have noted the paradoxical nature of hurt—the people with whom we share the strongest emotional connection have the power to hurt us in ways that other people cannot. -Devaluation involves feeling unappreciated and unimportant caused by relational transgressions and hurtful messages
hyperintmacy
Sending repeated and unwanted messages of interest and affection.
effect of conflict on relationships
Spillover effect: negative effects arise because parents who engage in dysfunctional conflict are also likely to have dysfunctional parenting styles. Socialization effect: children adopting conflict styles similar to their parents' conflict styles
Mental Maps
Thinking about how your partner is feeling and trying to understand his or her perspective.
empty threats
Threatening to do something (like break up with your partner) that you do not really intend to do.
Violent Communication, As a Communicative Response to Jealousy
Threats and actual violence, such as hitting, shoving, or threatening harm that occur in response to jealousy.
Stonewalling
When a person builds a metaphorical wall around herself or himself, shuts down, and withdraws from interaction with another person.
Romantic Jealousy
When people believe that a third party threatens the existence or quality of their primary love relationship.
Kitchen Sinking
When people rehash groups of old arguments when they get into a new argument so that there are too many issues to deal with at once.
Transgression-minimizing messages
focus on downplaying the severity of the transgression by using strategies such as saying that the partner's behavior was unintentional, explaining or justifying the partner's behavior, or saying that it is not a big deal
Transgression-maximizing messages
highlight the negative aspects of the transgression as well as the partner's role in causing that negativity. Specific forms of transgression-maximizing messages include blaming the partner and talking about how hurt one is.
