1. Interpersonal Relationships CHAPTER 7

2. Interpersonal Communication: all the interactions that occur between two people to help start, build, maintain, and sometimes end or define our interpersonal relationships Interpersonal Relationships: the sets of expectations two people have for each other based on their previous interactions. Healthy Relationships: Ones in which the interactions are satisfying and beneficial to all those involved. How we communicate is central to achieving that goal.

3. Acquaintances People we know by name and talk with when the opportunity arises, but interaction is limited Impersonal communication, or interchangeable chit-chat, is the basis for most conversations Saving face: the process of attempting to maintain a positive self-image Acquaintance Guidelines: 1. Initiate a conversation 2. Make your comments relevant 3. Develop an other-centered focus

4. Friends People with whom we have voluntarily negotiated more personal relationships. As friendships develop, people move toward interactions that are more interpersonally satisfying. Friendship Guidelines: 1. Initiation: Be proactive in setting up times to spend together 2. Responsiveness: Each person must listen and respond to the other 3. Self-disclosure: Share thoughts and feelings with each other, including personal history, opinions, and feelings 4. Emotional support: When friends are in need, confirm their feelings and help them make sense of what has happened 5. Conflict management: Handle disagreements through conversation

5. Intimates: Close, personal friends with whom we share a high degree of interdependence, commitment, disclosure, understanding, affection, and trust. Intimacy is not synonymous with “love” Platonic Relationships: Partners are not sexually attracted to each other or do not act on an attraction they feel. Romantic relationships: Partners have all of the above, plus act on sexual attraction. Both types must have trust, which is confidence in another in a way that almost always involves some risk Intimacy is based on at least one of the four types of interactions, which are heavily influenced by cultures and co-cultures: 1. Physical touch 2. Intellectual sharing of important ideas and opinion 3. Sharing important feelings 4. Participating in shared activities

6. Intimacy Guidelines Be dependable so your partner knows he or she can rely on you Be responsive in meeting your partner’s needs; put his or her needs ahead of your own at times Be collaborative in managing conflict; say you’re sorry, agree to disagree, let go of the need to be “right.” Be faithful by maintaining your partner’s confidential information and by abiding by sexual or other exclusivity agreements Be transparent by honestly sharing your real ideas and feelings Be willing to put your relationship first

7. Relationship Life Cycles All relationships tend to move through identifiable and overlapping phases of coming together and coming apart. How we move among the phases is based on how we communicate through each other: 1. Disclosure is the process of revealing confidential information, and feedback, which includes verbal and nonverbal responses to such information 2. Self-disclosure: the process of revealing confidential information 3. Other-disclosure: the confidential information shared about someone by a third party Social Penetration: Some self-disclosure reveals more about our thoughts and feelings than others. It depends on: Breadth: the range of different subjects you discuss with your partner Depth: the quality of information shared, which can range from relatively impersonal and “safe” to very confidential and risky.

8. The Johari Window The Open Pane: Represents the information about you that both you and your partner know. It includes information you have self-disclosed and observation about you that your partner has shared with you. The Secret Pane: Contains all those things that you know about yourself but that your partner does not et know about you. The information moves into the open pane once you self-disclose. The Blind Pane: Information that the other person knows about you, but about which you are unaware. They know it through observation or it might be other-disclosed. The Unknown Pane: Contains information that neither you nor your partner knows about you. We know it exists because we periodically discover it OPENBLIND SECRETUNKNOWN Known to Self Not Known to Self Not known to others Known to others

9. Stages of Relationships

10. Coming Together: Beginning Relationships The focus is on increasing your knowledge of the other person. The Relationship Filtering Model explains these steps: You assume someone is similar to you until he/she shows you differently You begin by communicating very generally about noncontroversial topics Based on what you know you make inferences about the person’s general attitudes, values, and ways of thinking If you decide you have enough common interests and attitudes, you choose to develop the relationship by disclosing more about yourself Relationships may begin face-to-face or online

11. Coming Together: Developing Relationships As the relationship deepens, you disclose more to one another, engaging in more physical contact, and feeling a deepening psychological closeness Partners tend to share greater physical contact, which may include sitting closer together, leaning toward each other, and engaging in more eye contact and touch (doesn’t have to involve romantic feelings) Cultural norms affect how people engage in physical contact: in some cultures, male friends may hold hands in public or kiss to greet one another; in contrast for orthodox Jews and observant Muslim women, touching men is abhorred If you find that psychological closeness is not deepening, you will like stay more causal acquaintances Relational maintenance: communication strategies used to keep a relationship operating smoothly and satisfactorily Sacrifice is also imperative for a relationship to develop

12. Coming Apart: Declining and Dissolving Relationships Declining relationships are marked by four stages: 1. Circumscribing: Communication decreases in both quantity and quality. 2. Stagnating: Partners just go through the motions of interacting with each other routinely without enthusiasm or emotion. For employees, it is called “job burnout.” 3. Avoiding: Partners create physical distance between themselves and make excuses not to do things together. Only communicate about safe topics, if at all. Not marked by hostility, but indifference. 4. Terminating: The people involved no longer interact with each other. Attempts to explain why relationships end is called gravedressing. Relationship Transformation occurs when partners continue to interact and influence each other through a different type of relationship

13. Mediated Communication & Interpersonal Relationships Technology can be used to meet someone new or to keep connected to friends and loved ones. Internet technology and social media have affected relationships in several important ways: 1. People can begin friendships and even meet their soul mates online; sometimes these stem from shared interests 2. Online partners usually respond to our verbal messages rather than our physical appearance or nonverbal cues; we are more likely to develop “pure relationships” based on mutual interests 3. Social media makes it very easy to stay connected and maintain existing relationships 4. Meeting people online can be riskier than meeting in person since we don’t know if their “cyber-self” is an accurate representation Hyperpersonal communication: differs from face-to-face interaction in that senders have a greater capacity to strategically manage their self-presentation; partners who meet online tend to like each other more than partners who first meet face-to-face

14. Technology & the relationship cycle Relationships that begin online follow a predictable schedule of adding additional media as they develop, bringing more nonverbal and contextual cues into play. Media multiplexity we use more than one medium to maintain our relationships; closer relationships use more media Media can also be used to dis-engage from relationships Online group Private e- mails Exchange pictures Make phone calls Video chat Face-to- face meetings

15. Dialectics in Interpersonal Relationships A dialectic is a tension between conflicting forces; There are four types of relational dialectics, or the competing psychological tensions that exist in any relationship: 1. Autonomy/Connection: the tension between the desire to do things independently and the desire link your actions and decisions with your partner 2. Openness/Closedness: the tension between the desire to share intimate ideas and feelings and the desire to maintain privacy 3. Novelty/Predictability: the tension between the desire for originality and freshness and the desire for consistency, reliability, and dependability

16. Managing Dialectical Tensions Temporal Selection: strategy of choosing one desire and ignoring the other for the time being Topical Segmentation: strategy of choosing certain topics with which to satisfy one desire and other topics for the opposite desire (choosing what to share with whom) Neutralization: strategy of compromising between the desires of one person and the desires of the other; partially meets the needs of both people but does not fully meet the needs of either Reframing: strategy of changing your perception about the level of tension; looking at your desires differently so that they no longer seem quote so contradictory