RELATIONAL

COMMUNICATION
Chapter 8
WHY ENTER INTO A RELATIONSHIP?
 Affection
 Support

 Companionship

 Predictability
FORCES OF HUMAN ATTRACTION
Human Attraction- a force that brings people together

 Proximity
 Liking/perceived reciprocity of liking
 Physical attractiveness
 Similarity
 Self-esteem
 Anxiety
 Social isolation
PROXIMITY
 Geographic closeness
 We are attracted to people we are close to, those who are
nearest us.
 Affects who we meet and whether the relationship will
continue
Why? (
 Another explanation: “interaction, not distance per se”
LIKING
 We like and are attracted to people who like us.
“perceived reciprocity of liking”
-Increases our self-esteem
-Increases our self-worth
 Sometimes regardless of other factors
PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS
 Physically attractive photos rated more likeable, more
friendly, more intelligent
 But, relationship is somewhat curvilinear
SIMILARITY OR OPPOSITES?
 “Birds of a feather, flock together” or “Opposites
attract?”
 Actually little evidence that opposites attract.

 We want to meet people who share our same

interests.
 Demographics, attitudes, attractiveness,
personality
- More effective communicative outcomes
SELF-ESTEEM
 Recent changes in self-esteem can influence your choice
of people.
 Recently lowered self-esteem might encourage dating…
“the rebound”
REPEAT EXPOSURE
 Simple repeat exposure increases liking
 In studies of humans and rats, liking was a function of
exposure
 Anecdotal evidence of people who initially disliked their
current spouse
ANXIETY
 Affects our need to interact and affiliate with others.
 Personal anxiety kindles relationships

 Anecdotal evidence from crisis situations

 Boot camps- people who share relative unpleasant

experiences often become more cohesive as a group
 Lost
ISOLATION
 Prolonged isolation is unpleasant
 Loneliness and isolation increase attraction
-Standards for acceptable friends are lowered
CHARACTERISTICS OF RELATIONSHIPS
 Context: The setting and communication climate
 Communication Climate: the emotional tone of an
episode or relationship.
-Determined by how valued people see themselves
 Confirmation vs. Disconfirmation

 Supportiveness vs. Defensiveness

- Content and relationship dimension of messages

CLIMATES I
 Confirmation- any behavior that causes another person
to value himself/herself more
 Confirming Climates have messages that characterized
by:
 Direct acknowledgment
 Expressing positive feeling
 Clarifying response
 Agreement
 Supportive response
CLIMATES I CONT.
 Disconfirmation- one of the most damaging
interpersonal responses: disconfirmation says in effect
‘you do not exist’.
 Disconfirming Climates have messages characterized by:
 Impervious responses (ignoring)
 Interrupting responses (break in)
 Tangential responses (go off topic)
 Impersonal responses (disengagement)
 Disagreement focusing on person (rather than ideas)
CONFIRMATION AND DISCONFIRMATION: SOME
WAYS OF RESPONDING
CHILLING EFFECT
 Idea that person with greater power ‘encourages’ other
person into silence
CLIMATES II
 Supportiveness vs. Defensiveness
 Defensiveness- behavior used to protect ourselves from
what we perceive to be a threat
CLIMATES II
CHARACTERISTICS OF RELATIONSHIPS
CONT.
 Trust-Belief or feeling that no harm will come to you from the other
person in the relationship.
-Belief that those on whom we depend will meet our expectations of them
-Needed for all relationships
-Element of predictability
 Lying and deception – May lie to each other more than other people
(mainatain harmony or protect feelings and self-esteem)
-Honesty may be more ideal than real
 Time – Intensity is affected by the amount of time passes between
encounters(roadtrip vs. weekly dinner)
- Sometimes, it is not the quantity, but quality and desire to want to
spend time
KNAPP’S THEORY OF THE LIFE CYCLE
OF RELATIONSHIPS
 “Staircase Model”…differences in communication at
each stage.
 STAGES OF COMING TOGETHER CONT.
 Stages of coming together
 Initiating - Initial display of self-first conversation

 Experimenting – small talk, audition, find similarities and differences

 Intensifying – self disclosure increases, close friends, hand-holding,

greater eye contact

 Integrating– cultivate opinions as a couple, consider yourselves a

couple, romance, “our song”

 Bonding – public ritual, formal binding, social and institutional

support
LUKE AND LAURA ARE IN THE GIDDY
PHASE OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP WHERE
THEY ARE BEGINNING TO REFER TO
THEMSELVES AS A COUPLE. THIS IS (D)
A. Initiating
B. Experimenting
C. Intensifying
D. Integrating
E. Bonding
STAGES OF COMING APART
(RELATIONSHIP DISSOLUTION)
 Differentiating
Talk about differences more.
More “me/you” than “we”,
increased disagreements

 Circumscribing
Less info exchange, topics
controlled, superficial comm,
less reciprocity
COMING APART CONT…
 Stagnating
- Almost no communication (like that of strangers), holding it
together for some reasons.

 Avoiding
- Avoid face to face, separate lives, avoid pain of relationship
loss

 Terminating
- Summary statements, the longer the relationship, the longer and
more painful the termination
DUCK’S MODEL OF DISSOLUTION
 Focuseson the relationship between cognition
and communication during the dissolution
process

 Includes
the social network as well as
communication within the dyad

 Thedissolution process begins when there is

communication breakdown and dissatisfaction
with the relationship
DUCK’S MODEL OF DISSOLUTION
 Intrapsychic phase – Threshold: “I can’t stand this
anymore”

 Dyadic phase – Threshold: “I’d be justified in

withdrawing”

 Social phase – Threshold: “I mean it”

 Grave dressing phase – Threshold “It’s now inevitable”

CATASTROPHE THEORY
 Some relationships are characterized by sudden death.
 Such catastrophic events include:
 Infidelity
 Serious arguments
 Physical violence
 The discovery of incompatibility
MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS
 Keeping a relationship in existence
 Keeping a relationship in a desired state
 Keeping a relationship satisfactory
 Keeping a relationship in repair
 Routine vs. Strategic behaviors
MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS
 Traditional model of romantic maintenance (Canary & Stafford,
1992; Canary & Dainton, 2003)
 Positivity
 Openness
 Assurances
 Networks
 Tasks

 Maintaining close friendships (Fehr, 2000)

 Self-disclosure
 Supportiveness
 Spending time together

 Gottman’s magic ratio: 5 to 1