Transcript Chapter 6 - Academic Resources at Missouri Western

Chapter 6
Talk and
Interpersonal
Relationships
This Chapter Discusses:
1. How communication meets your
psychological and other needs
2. How communication can build
intimacy and relationships
3. How communication can also
decrease intimacy and
relationships
4. The concept of relational stages
Talk, Relationships, and
Knowledge
 We tend to talk with people who
share our beliefs and our views of
ourselves
 We compare our ideas with others
 Relationships influence how we
distribute information
 Therefore, relationships as well as
communication shape meaning
What We Get: The ‘Provisions’ of
Relationships
1. Belonging and a
sense of reliable
alliance
2. Emotional
integration and
stability
3. Opportunities to
communicate about
ourselves
4. Opportunities to
help others
5. Providing
assistance and
physical support
6. Reassurance of our
individual worth
and value
Composing Relationships
Through Talk
 ‘Social’ relationships—people
who perform the same
function in your life but are
basically interchangeable to
you
 ‘Personal’ relationships—
people who perform specific
and irreplaceable roles and
functions in your life
Analyzing ‘Small Talk’:
RCCUs
Relational Continuity Constructional
Units (Sigman, 1991)
 Prospective (recognize there will
be an absence in the relationship)
 Introspective (acknowledge the
absence is already happening)
 Retrospective (signal the end of
the absence)
Talk and Relational Change
 ‘Crossing boundaries’ between
types of relationships involves
changes in talk
 Direct talk (about the relationship)
can effect a change
 Indirect communication (flirting)
can also effect changes
Stages in Relationship
Development
 Relationships rarely develop in
simple steps or stages
 Partners in a relationship might
have different ideas about how it
should develop
 Some people lack the skills to
develop relationships
 There are people with whom we
do not want our relationship to
develop!
Duck’s Relationship Filtering
Model
Relationships are developed or
terminated based on our
interpretation of various cues:
 Physical appearance
 Behavior and nonverbal
communication
 Attitudes and personality
Duck’s Model of Serial
Construction of Meaning
Adds four steps to explain how
relationships develop through
talk:
1. Commonality (shared but unknown
experience)
2. Mutuality (discussed shared experience)
3. Equivalence of evaluation (same reaction
to common experience)
4. Sharing of meaning (making the
experience part of the relationship)
Duck’s Model of Serial
Construction of Meaning
Duck’s Model of Relational
Breakups
1. Intrapsychic (person thinks about
ending relationship)
2. Dyadic (person confronts partner to
discuss problems with relationship)
3. Social process (person tells other
people about relationship problems)
4. Grave dressing (creating the lasting
story of how/why the relationship
ended)
5. Resurrection (movement from old
relationship to entering new one)
Final Words on
Relationships and Stages
 People are not always aware that a problem is a
‘natural’ beginning stage to ending a
relationship
 People might report ‘stages’ even though that is
not their lived experience
 Talk and relational change are complex
interrelated processes
 ‘Bond/bind’ dilemma – rewards and costs, not
stages, might determine relationships
 ‘Dialectical tensions’ – relationships are in a
constant state of flux between issues