Chapter 9 Interpersonal Communication

7 Factors that affect our choice of relational partners.

Why are similarities a strong foundation for relationships?

When each partners characteristics satisfy the other's needs.

Social exchange formula that explains why we form and maintain relationships.

Minimum standard of what behavior is acceptable.

Refers to a comparison between the rewards received in a present situation and those expected to receive in others.

Getting back an amount and kind of information equivalent to what you reveal.

Three keys to satisfying self disclosure

three components of Relationship development as described by Mark Knapp.

Communication aimed at keeping relationships operating smoothly and satisfactorily.

The goal in this stage is to show interest in making contact and to demonstrate you are a person worth talking to.

Happens after initiating and begins the search for common ground.

A time of relational excitement and euphoria. When qualitative interpersonal relationships begin to develop.

The stage in which individuals begin to take on an identity as a social unit, become more intimate, become clearer about relationship norms/appropriate behaviors,  and our ability to influence each other's daily routine increases.

The stage described as the culmination of a developed relationship. A relationship that involves a significant measure of public commitment. Making it official.

In this stage, change plays an important role. A time of reestablishment of identities.

Communication between partners decreases in quantity and quality.

The stage in which members behave toward each other in old familiar ways without feeling. No growth occurs.

When stagnation becomes too unpleasant and individuals begin to create distance between each other.

Research by Jon Hess reveals the following as ways to gain distance in avoiding:

Conflicts that arise when two opposing or incompatible forces exist simultaneously.

The conflicting desires for connection and independence. A set of contradictory needs which creates communication challenges.

Internal struggle. We want to be close to others but at the same time seek independence.

External struggle to meet competing needs. The struggle to reconcile a desire for involvement in the "outside world" with the desire to live their own lives free of interference from others.

Operates both between partners and when they face others outside the relationship.

When partners may know each other too well, boredom can surface.

Surfaces when the challenges that people in a relationship face when trying to meet others expectations as well as their own.

Important need to maintain some space between ourselves and others.

Your commitment to the relationship may compel you toward honesty, but your concern for the other persons feelingsand a desire for privacy may lead you to be less than honest.

Tensions develop realted to concealing versus revealing information.

8 Stategies for managing dialectical tensions

Messages that refer to other messages.

When one partner violates the explicit terms of the relationship, letting the other one down in some way.

4 Types of relational transgressions.