Chapter 6

1. Chapter 6 Communication and Conflict Resolution

2. Chapter Outline • Verbal and Nonverbal Communication • Nonverbal Communication • Gender Differences in Communication • Communication Patterns and Marriage

3. Chapter Outline • Developing Communication Skills • Power, Conflict, and Intimacy • Intimacy and Conflict • Experiencing and Managing Conflict

4. Functions of Nonverbal communication • Convey interpersonal attitudes • Express emotions • Handle the ongoing interaction. • For communication to be clear, verbal and nonverbal messages must agree. • Proximity, eye contact, and touch are important forms of nonverbal communication.

5. Gender Differences in Communication • Wives tend to send clearer messages. • Husbands may give neutral messages or withdraw. • Wives tend to give more positive or negative messages. • Wives tend to set the emotional tone and escalate arguments more than husbands.

6. Communication and Marital Satisfaction • How well a couple communicates before marriage can predict later marital satisfaction. • Self-disclosure prior to marriage is related to relationship satisfaction later. • Whether a couple’s premarital interactions are negative or positive can predict later marital satisfaction.

7. Happily Married Couples • Are willing to engage in conflict in nondestructive ways. • Have less frequent conflict and spend less time in conflict. • Disclose private feelings to partners. • Express equal levels of affection. • Spend more time together. • Accurately encode and decode messages.

8. Four Styles of Miscommunication • Placaters - passive, helpless, and always agreeable. • Blamers - act superior, are often angry, do not listen, try to escape responsibility. • Computers - correct, reasonable, and expressionless. • Distractors - frenetic and tend to change the subject.

9. Barriers to Communication • Traditional male gender role - discourages the expression of emotion. • Personal reasons, such as feelings of inadequacy • Fear of conflict.

10. Trust • Belief in the integrity of a person. • In order for trust to develop: • A relationship has to have the likelihood of continuing. • We must be able to predict how our partner will behave. • Our partner must have other acceptable options available to him or her.

11. Constructive Feedback • Focuses on: • “I” statements. • behavior rather than the person. • observations rather than judgments. • the observed incidence of behavior. • sharing ideas rather than giving advice. • its value to the recipient. • the amount the recipient can process. • an appropriate time and place.

12. Communication Loop

13. Mutual Affirmation • The basis of good communication in a relationship. • Includes: • mutual acceptance • mutual liking • expressing liking in words and actions

14. Power • The ability to influence another person or group. • Traditionally, legal as well as de facto power rested in the hands of the husband. • Recently, wives have been gaining more actual power in relationships, although the power distribution still remains unequal.

15. Six Bases of Marital Power • Coercive • Reward • Expert • Legitimate • Referent • Informational

16. Types of Conflict • Basic conflicts challenge fundamental rules. • Nonbasic conflicts do not threaten basic assumptions and may be negotiable. • Situational conflicts are based on specific issues. • Personality conflicts are based on the need to release pent-up feelings or on fundamental personality differences.

17. Major Sources of Marital Conflict • Sex • Money • Housework

18. Conflict Resolution • May be achieved through negotiation in three ways: • Agreement as a freely given gift • Bargaining • Coexistence

19. Family Problem-Solving Loop

20. Resolving Conflict • Happily married couples resolve conflict through paraphrasing, validation, and clarification. • Unhappy couples use confrontation, confrontation and defensiveness, and complaining and defensiveness.