Chapter 8; Personal Relationships PDF

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02/12/2019 What are Personal Relationships? ● Different Types of relationships have different styles of communication. ● Social Relationships ○ Participants are interchangeable and communicate using socially-understood norms and rules ● Personal Relationships ○ Participants are irreplaceable and communicate in close, unique ways Benefits of Personal Relationships ● Relationships and What You Know ○ Everyday communication reinforces our relationships and what we know ○ People whom you know and spend time with affect your knowledge through communication ● Influencing What You Know ○ Relationships influence our distribution of information ○ This includes information about your social network and the world in general ● Evaluating What You Know ○ Communicating with others offers opportunities to test our knowledge of the world ○ Interactions may support or challenge our beliefs and view of the world ○ We associate with those who share similar attitudes and beliefs ■ Thus, interactions usually support our beliefs and views Relationships and the Support: Six Provisions of Relationships (Robert Wise) ● Belonging and a sense of reliable alliance ○ Feeling connected with others provides stability and comfort ● Emotional Integration and Stability ○ Provide opportunities to express and evaluate emotion ● Opportunity to talk about yourself ○ Sense of being known and accepted ● Opportunity to help others ○ Being there for others; mutually beneficial ● Provision of physical support ○ Providing physical to others ● Reassurance of worth and value ○ Feeling confirmed and valuable as a human being

Initiating Relationships: The Relationship Filtering Model ● Talking to Strangers ○ Without interacting with strangers, relationship would never develop ○ Our initial impressions are based solely on how they look and sound ○ We ask questions to fill in missing information ○ Non-Controversial topics ○ Information we learn helps us decide how to move forward ○ The filtering process is engaged in by the other person as well as by us Steps in the Relational Filtering Model ● Physical Appearance ○ We make assumptions about others based on physical observations ● Behavior/Nonverbal Communication ○ Actions are clues to how a person thinks ● Roles ○ Formal and/or informal and reveals information about how someone thinking and sees the world ● Attitude/Personality ○ Final Step to build the best model of someone ○ Finding others’ deeper selves Transacting and Maintaining Personal Relationships ● Composing Relationships Through Communication ○ Relationships are partly essentialized and indexed through communication ● Essential Function of Talk ○ Occurs when talk makes the relationship is real ● Indexical Function of Talk ○ Indicated the nature if the relationships between speakers ● Transforming Relationships ○ Relationships are transformed through communication ■ When type of relationships changes, we say and do different things ■ Changes in talk and communication ■ Transformation usually the result of more or less intimacy ● Relationship Talk: Direct ○ Occurs in special ways on occasions, and with special care ○ Partners focus on definition of the relationship ○ Some topics difficult to discuss ○ Cultural differences ○ Result may be wanted or unwanted

● Relationship Talk: Indirect ○ Most transforming communication is indirect ○ Involves less risk ○ Flirtation used to push the envelope ■ Serves as an indirect form or question ■ May be seen as a statement of fact, a friendly joke, or more sexually or relationally loaded ■ Responses may vary based on interest Keeping Relationships Going Through Communication ● Relational Continuity Constructional Units ○ Composes relationships and maintains them when people are apart ● Prospective ○ Note that an absence is about to happen ● Introspective ○ Acknowledge the absence us already happening ● Retrospective ○ Signal the end of the absence Relational Dialectics ● The study of contradictions in relationships and how they are managed ● Contradictions ○ Interplay between two things that are both at once connected and opposed ● Praxis ○ People are both actors and objects of their own actions ● Totality ○ Emphasizes the complex nature of personal relationships ○ Contradictions are interconnected Internal and External Dialectics ● Internal Dialectics occur within the relationship itself ○ Connectedness-Separation ○ Certainty-Uncertainty ○ Openness-Closedness ● External Dialectics involve a relational unit and other relationship units or people within social networks ○ Inclusion-Seclusion ○ Conventionality-Uniqueness ○ Revelation-Concealment

Coming Apart ● Six symptoms and sources of decline ○ Deterioration in communication ■ Communication becomes problematic and lobred ○ Destructive Conflict ■ Conflict overshadows positive aspects of relationship ○ Changes in Evaluative Standards ■ Relationship no longer seems as good as it once did ○ Major Transgressions ○ Inequity ○ Personal Reflections Breakdown Process Model ● Intrapsychic Process ○ Reflecting on strengths and weaknesses of a relationship ● Dyadic Process ○ Confronting partner and discussing a problem ● Social Process ○ Telling other people about the problem ● Grave Dressing Process ○ Story creation/eulogy for relationship ○ Why the relationship died ● Resurrection Process ○ Preparation for new relationships; Public and Private...