Analysis of Relational Communication PDF

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Analysis of Relational Communication Interpersonal communication is the interactions between two or more people, and it is both verbal and nonverbal forms of communication. Intercultural communication is an essential element to any relationship. In life there are many relationships that will be formed, and not all of them will stick, but it is important to analyze how we communicate in any relationship, whether they be just a friendship, romantic relationship, or relationships with family members. Mark Knapp has a theory of the various phases that relationships go through, which will be discussed throughout this paper. Understanding one’s interpersonal communication skills and the stages in which relationships go through is important for healthy relationships. My best friend and I have been friends for a little over six years and looking back at those six years I can relate them to Knapp’s ten stages of a relationship. We started becoming friends when we were both on our middle school’s cheer team. At this point of our friendship is when the initiation stage began. We weren’t quite comfortable with each other and there was only an exchange of small talk between us. It didn’t take long to enter the next stage of our relationship, which is the experimenting stage. In the textbook it states that those in the relationship “audition each other to see if there are any similarities” (Grand Canyon University, 2016), which is when we got to know what we like to do in our free time outside of cheer and school, or what kind of music we like. After determining our similarities, we entered the intensifying and integrating stages of our relationship. This is when we started to see each other outside of practice in a less formatted setting and brought each other over to our homes to meet our families. We haven’t experienced many of the stages of coming apart besides the differentiating stage. As we grow older there are more things that we don’t agree on, but it does not harm our relationship. The textbook states that the differentiating stage, “is not always a sign of a deteriorating relationship;

some degree of individualism in a relationship is healthy” (Grand Canyon University, 2016). I think that the stage of differentiating has helped us maintain a friendship for so long because we both have our own interests and are able to go our separate ways, but are able to support each other in our hobbies as well as spend time together doing things that we both enjoy. Similar to most relationships there is interpersonal conflict between my best friend and me, but we always make sure it is handled in a mature way, even if that means taking a step back to cool down before resolving the conflict. Markman et al. (1993) states that, “numerous research studies have shown that quantity of conflict in a relationship is not as important as how the conflict is handled”. The best conflict management style that I have analyzed that works well for our friendship is collaborating, and “the collaborating style takes the most work in terms of communication competence, it ultimately leads to a win/win situation in which neither party has to make concessions because a mutually beneficial solution is discovered or created” (Jones, 2013). Whenever conflict arises, we both put in equal amounts of effort to resolve it. For example, if one of us is upset about something the other did we make sure communicate openly with each other so the effort can be made to make the situation better. Understanding how interpersonal communication is expressed in different relationships is important because it helps those involved with the relationship communicate in a healthy manner and resolve conflict in a way that benefits all parties. By analyze different relationships you can apply Mark Knapp’s theory of relational development stages to each relationship. Not only does studying relationships show how they form and break apart, but it can also be inferred how different people handle conflict management within their own relationships.

References

Grand Canyon University (Ed.) (2016). Human communication. Markman, H. J., Mari Jo Renick, Frank J. Floyd, Scott M. Stanley, and Mari Clements, “Preventing Marital Distress through Communication and Conflict Management Training: A 4- and 5-Year Follow-Up,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 61, no. 1 (1993): 70–77. Jones, R. G. (2013). Communication in the real world: an introduction to communication studies. Irvington, NY: Flat World Knowledge....