Communicating in Close Relationships

1. Communicating in Close Relationships Chapter 10

2. Understanding Close Relationships Role relationships – partners are interdependent while accomplishing a task

3. Understanding Close Relationships Close relationships – exist over time and involve interdependent parts who satisfy each other’s needs, feel the emotional attachment to each other and enact unique communication patterns

4. Unique Communication Patterns The partner’s perception of the interaction The commitment reflected in the interactions The satisfaction expressed in the interactions

5. Understanding Close Relationships • Relationships as cultural performances • Relationships as cognitive constructs • Relationships as linguistic constructions • Relationships, culture, and gender • Relational culture

6. Types of Close Relationships Friendship is voluntary and provides social support, companionship, and validation Romantic relationships are voluntary, but involve sexual and romantic feelings

7. Types of Close Relationships • Families are unique close relationships • Membership is both voluntary and involuntary

8. Types of Close Relationships • Often characterized by family stories • Involve rituals or repeated patterns of communication events • Everyday interactions • Traditions • Celebrations

9. Explaining Communication in Close Relationships • Systems theory compares relationships to living systems in six important ways • Wholeness • Interdependence • Hierarchy

10. Explaining Communication in Close Relationships • Systems theory compares relationships to living systems in six important ways • Boundaries of openness • Calibration or feedback • Equifinality

11. Explaining Communication in Close Relationships Dialectics theory focuses on the tensions relational partners feel as a result of desiring two opposing things at once

12. Explaining Communication in Close Relationships • Most common relational dialectics • Autonomy and connection • Openness and protection • Novelty and predictability

13. Dialectics Theory • Additional dialectics found in friendships • Judgment and acceptance • Affection and instrumentality • Public and private • Ideal and real

14. Explaining Communication in Close Relationships Social exchange theory – isn’t just a single theory, but several theories all advanced in the same general assumptions of social exchange

15. Assumptions of Social Exchange Theory • People are motivated by rewards and wish to avoid punishment • People are rational • People evaluate costs and rewards differently • Costs constitute those things in a relationship that people judge as negative

16. Social Exchange Theory • Theory of interdependence – people stay in relationships where rewards for being in the relationship outweigh the costs • Comparison levels • Comparison levels for alternatives

17. Stage Models: Step by Step • Stages of coming together • Initiating – people notice each other • Experimenting – engage in small talk

18. Stage Models: Step by Step • Intensifying – self-disclosure increases closeness • Integrating - form clear identity as couple • Bonding - public commitment to the relationship

19. Stage Models: Step by Step • Stages of coming apart • Differentiating – begin to focus on their differences • Circumscribing – restraining communication to fewer topics to avoid conflict

20. Stage Models: Step by Step • Stagnating – express feelings of not feeling a need to talk at all • Avoiding – stay out of each others environment • Terminating – ending the relationship

21. Choices in Communicating in Close Relationships • Communication skills for maintaining relationships • Preventative maintenance • Supportiveness • Using humor

22. Choices in Communicating in Close Relationships • Communication skills for repairing relationships • Metacommunication – communication about communication • Apology and/or accounts