Interpersonal Communication Chapter 6 PDF

Chapter 6: Interpersonal Communication  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. It is communication that occurs within interpersonal relationship...

Chapter 6: Interpersonal Communication  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. It is communication that occurs within interpersonal relationships.  Interpersonal relationships: associations between at least two people who are interdependent, who use some consistent patterns of interaction, and who have interacted for an extended period of time.  The importance of interpersonal relationships: - Basic interpersonal needs that are fulfilled through interpersonal relationships: 1. The need for inclusion: becoming involved with others. 2. The need for affection: holding fond or tender feelings toward another person. 3. The need for control: having the ability to influence others, our environment, and ourselves. - Our needs can be fulfilled by interpersonal relationships in: 1. Complementary relationships: relationships in which each person supplies something the other person or persons lack. 2. Symmetrical relationships: relationships in which participants mirror each other or are highly similar.  Qualities of negative relationships: - Conflict: conflict is inevitable and normal in interpersonal relationships, it can be constructive or dysfunctional. - Obsession (jealousy) - Misunderstanding - Gossip - Codependency - Abuse (sexual, physical, mental, and emotional abuse) - Extreme behaviors  Qualities of healthy relationships: - Self-disclosure - Affectionate communication  - Mutual influence - The development of a unique relationship  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. - The importance of self-disclosure: 1. Allows us to develop a greater understanding of ourselves 2. Allows us to develop a more positive attitude toward ourselves and others 3. Allows us to develop more meaningful relationships 4. Helps in grieving and healing a fractured identity 5. Adds relational depth and meaning - Johari window: depicts four kinds of information about a person.  The quadrants can expand or contract in size.  The quadrants can have different shapes with different people. I. Open area: such as your approximate height, your age. II. Blind area: such as your personality characteristics. III. Hidden area: any information that you don’t self-disclose. IV. Unknown area: such as when you will pass on.  Factors that affect appropriate self-disclosure: - Disclosure increases as relational intimacy increases. - Disclosure tends to be reciprocal. - The chance for negative disclosure increases with relational intimacy.  - Disclosure may be avoided for a variety of reasons: these reasons include self-protection, relationship protection, partner unresponsiveness, and social appropriateness. - Relational satisfaction and disclosure are curvilinearly related: satisfaction is lowest with no disclosure and with excessive disclosure, it is highest when self-disclosure is provided at moderate levels.  Friendships and new technology: - Social media facilitates interactions. - The use of social networking is predicted by:  Extroversion  Openness to new experiences - Reasons why people choose to have online friends:  Online friendships have a sense of safety and security.  Online friendships are perceived as more exciting than day-to- day relationships.  In social networking sites people can create a more idealized self.  Cross-cultural relationships: - Cross-cultural relationships work like any other type of relationship, one difference is that we may feel more tentative in initiating a dialogue with a person from another culture. - In approaching cross-cultural relationships try to do the following: 1. Have meaningful personal interaction 2. Maintain equal status 3. Find ways to build interdependence 4. Respect individual differences  Stages in interpersonal relationships: 1. Relational development: the initial stage in a relationship that moves a couple from meeting to mating. - The final stage in relational development is commitment. - Communication and relationship development are symbiotic, communication affects the growth of relationships and the growth of relationships affects communicative behavior.  2. 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. - Dialectic: the tension that exists between two conflicting or interacting forces, elements, or ideas.  Contradictions: in dialectic theory, the idea that each person in a relationship might have two opposing desires for maintaining the relationship.  Primary dialectic tensions: 1. The dialectic of integration/separation: the tension between wanting to be separate entities and wanting to be integrated with another person. 2. The dialectic of stability/change: the tension between wanting events, conversations, and behavior to be the same and desiring change. 3. The dialectic of expression/privacy: the tension between wanting to self-disclose and be completely open and wanting to be private and closed. - Maintained relationships are in motion and healthy relationships are always changing, a relationship that is static is probably dead or dying. 3. Relational deterioration: the stage in a relationship in which the prior bond disintegrates. - Reasons why this can occur: the pressures of external events, differences that develop within the couple, relationships with other people.  Motivations for initiating relationships: - Proximity: the location, distance, or range between persons and things. - Attractiveness: a concept that includes physical attractiveness, how desirable a person is to work with, and how much social value the person has for others. - Responsiveness: the idea that we tend to select our friends and loved ones from people who demonstrate positive interest in us.  - Similarity: the idea that our friends and loved ones are usually people who like or dislike the same things we do. - Complementarity: the idea that we sometimes bond with people whose strengths are our weaknesses.  Motivations for maintaining relationships: - Gender and cultural differences:  Women tend to use more maintenance strategies than do men.  People with different ethnicities express different primary needs in their interpersonal relationships. - Satisfying relationships  Motivations for terminating relationships: - Hurtful messages: messages that create emotional pain or upset.  Ways in which people respond to hurtful messages: 1. Active verbal responses, such as defending oneself 2. Acquiescent responses, such as apologizing 3. Invulnerable responses, such as laughing - Deceptive communication: the practice of deliberately making somebody believe things that are not true. - Aggressiveness: the assertion of one's rights at the expense of others and caring about one's own needs but no one else's. - Argumentativeness: the quality or state of being argumentative, synonymous with contentiousness or combativeness. - Defensiveness: the response that occurs when a person feels attacked.  Reducing defensiveness is essential to building trust.  Behaviors that create defensiveness: 1. Evaluation: occurs when an individual makes a judgment about another person or his or her behavior. 2. Control: the speaker does not allow the second person to join in the discussion of how a problem should be solved. 3. Neutrality: the originator of the message does not show concern for the second person. 4. Superiority: occurs when the first person treats the second person as a person of lower status.  5. Certainty: denotes a lack of openness to alternative ideas. 6. Strategy: refers to the employment of manipulative and premeditative behavior.  Behaviors that reduce defensiveness: 1. Description: people who use description report their observations rather than offering evaluative comments. 2. Problem orientation: people with a problem orientation do not act as though they have the solution but are eager to discuss multiple ideas. 3. Empathy: implies concern for others, as shown through careful listening for both the content and the intent of the other's message. 4. Equality: the communicator demonstrates that he or she is neither superior nor inferior to the second person. 5. Provisionalism: the communicator does not communicate certainty or a total conviction but is open to other ideas. 6. Spontaneity: implies naturalness and a lack of premeditation.  Essential interpersonal communication behaviors: - Using affectionate and supportive communication:  Affection: the holding of fond or tender feelings toward another person.  Variables that affect the appropriateness of affectionate communication: 1. Your own and the other person's sex 2. The kind of relationship you have (platonic or romantic) 3. The privacy and emotional intensity of the situation 4. Your predispositions  Support includes giving advice, expressing concern. and offering assistance.  Support can vary as a result of the receiver's age, the support provider's goal. - Influencing others:  Influence: the power to affect other people's thinking or actions.   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.  Compliance-resisting: the refusal of targets of influence messages to comply with requests. - Developing a unique relationship:  Personal idioms: unique forms of expression and language understood only by individual couples.  Rituals: formalized patterns of actions or words followed regularly.  The possibilities for improvement: - 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.  Essential features of a bargaining situation: 1. All parties perceive the possibility of reaching an agreement in which both parties would better off. 2. All parties perceive more than one such agreement that could be reached. 3. Each party perceives the other as having conflicting preferences or opposed interests. - Maintaining behavioral flexibility:  Behavioral flexibility: the ability to alter behavior to adapt to new situations and to relate in new ways when necessary.