Communication in Personal Relationships

1
Communication inPersonal Relationships

• Imagine that suddenly you have no close friends
  and no romantic partner.

2
Understanding Personal Relationships

• A Voluntary commitment between irreplaceable
  individuals who are influenced by rules,
  relationship dialectics, and surrounding
  contexts.
• Features of personal relationships
• Uniqueness
• Commitment
• Relationship rules
• Embeddedness in contexts
• Relationship Dialectics

3
Features of Personal Relationships

• Uniqueness
• Social relationship vs. Personal relationship
• Connection defined by particular people and what
  they create
• Commitment
• A decision to remain with relationship, intention
  to share with the future
• Passion, Investment

4
Features of Personal Relationships

• Relationship Rules
• Guiding communication and interaction
• Constitutive rules Meanings in various
  communication
• Regulative rules When and with whom specified
  shalt not in marriage, religious groups

5
Features of Personal Relationships

• Embeddednes in contexts (social)
• Surroundings influence interactions
• Social norms in groups
• Particular others generalized others
• Approval and disapproval
• Increasing cultural diversity

6
Features of Personal Relationships

• Relationship dialectics Opposing vs. Continuous
  tensions
• Autonomy / Connection
• Wanting to be separated and connected
• Novelty / Predictability
• Wanting routines and novelty
• Openness/ Closedness
• Desires to be open and to maintain privacy

7
Four Ways to Deal with Dialectical Tensions

• Neutralization
• Negotiating a balance
• Separation
• Favoring one and ignoring the other
• Segmentation
• Assigning spheres
• Reframing
• Redefining contradictions

8
Evolutionary Course ofFriendship (6 stages)

• Role-limited interaction
• Friendly relations
• Common ground and interest
• Moving toward friendship
• Stepping beyond social roles
• Nascent friendship
• Increased involvement and caring
• Stabilized friendship
• Shared assumption of continuity Trust
• Waning friendship
• Ceased being committed

9
Evolutionary Course ofRomantic Relationship (3
phases)

• Escalating
• Typically six stages
• Navigating
• Ongoing process of communication to sustain
  intimacy over time
• Deteriorating
• Intimacy weakens, dissatisfaction mounts

10
Escalating (6 stages)

• Individuals not interacting
• Invitational communication
• Proximity Similarity
• Exploratory communication
• Intensifying communication
• Involves idealized (more than real euphoria),
  personalized communication (private codes)

11
Escalating

• Revising communication
• Coming down to talk about strengths, problems,
  the future
• Negotiation, even conflicts
• Commitment
• Decision to stay with a relationship permanently

12
Navigating

• Dynamic (not stable), thru new problems
• Relationship culture The nucleus
• Rules, understandings, patterns
• Usually unspoken

13
Deteriorating (5 phases)

• Dyadic breakdown
• Degeneration of relationship culture
• Gender differences (p. 202)
• Intrapsychic phase
• Brooding about problems, thinking about
  alternatives
• Dyadic phase
• Not always occur, tends to involve conflict
• Avoiding taking about problems

14
Deteriorating

• Social phase
• How to explain breakup
• Seeking social support
• Grave dressing
• Burying the relationship, accepting its end

15
Styles of Loving (p. 201)

• Eros ?? ??
• Storge ?? ??
• Ludus ?? ??
• Mania ?? ??
• Agape ????
• Pragma ?? ??

16
Challenges inPersonal Relationship

• Dealing with distance
• Lack of daily communication
• Unrealistic expectation for time together
• Managing dual-career relationship
• Lack of equity
• Women with more psychological responsibilities
• Resisting violence and abuse between intimates
• Violence seldom stops without intervention
• Predictable cycle (p. 208)
• Negotiating safer sex
• More difficult to talk about sex than to engage
  in it
• Under influence of alcohol or drugs