Interpersonal Communication: Chapters 10, 11, 12, & 14

Rawlin’s 7 Stages of Friendship

• 1. Role-Limited Interaction:  this is when two people make the first contact. 

• 2. Friendly Relations:  You talk about interests, hobbies, experiences, etc and seek to determine whether our interest is reciprocated

  • Friendly relationships turn toward friendships with four behaviors:

    • moves away from what is required in the specific role relationship,

    • fewer stereotyped lines of interaction,

    • individual violations of public propriety, and

    • greater spontaneity

• 3. Moving Toward Friendship:  At this point, people started spending time together voluntarily and look to expand on the friendship.  You also increase breadth and depth by talking about attitudes and values. 

• 4. Nascent Friendship:  Interaction becomes regularized and stereotypes you put on friendships is eliminated.

• 5. Stabilized Friendship:  Here, both parties depend on the friendship and the two people count on each other automatically.  They trust each other, share intimate information, and expect that you will be friends for awhile. 

  • Active Friendships: ones where there is a negotiated sense of mutual accessibility and availability for both parties in the friendship

  • Dormant friendships: share either a valued history or a sufficient amount of sustained contact to anticipate or remain eligible for a resumption of the friendship at any time

  • Commemorative Friendships: reflect a specific space and time in our lives, but current interaction is minimal and primarily reflects a time when the two friends were highly involved in each other’s lives

• 6. Waning Friendship: the friendship and it is harder to maintain than before.  

• 7. Post Friendship: Even if a friendship ended on a horrible note, there are still parts of that friendship that will remain with us forever

Matthews’ 3 Friendship Styles

• 1. Independent: often saw their friendships based on specific circumstances in their lives and not necessarily specific friends.

  • They also never reported having a close, special, or best friend relationship, so during periods of major life events, they didn’t have specific commitments to the people they called “friends.”

• 2. Discerning: marked by a deep connection with a friend or group of friends regardless of changing circumstances in their lives

  • when a discerning person loses a friend, they are the most likely to experience a deep sense of loss in their lives.

• 3. Aquisitive: people who moved through their lives collecting a variety of friendships, allowing circumstances to make possible the meeting of likely candidates, but then, committing themselves to the friendships once they were made, at the very least for the period of time during which they and their friends were geographically proximate

  • having close connections with all of the friends they’ve met, and unlike the discerning, acquisitives were open to developing new friendships throughout their lives

Healthy & Unhealthy Friendships

• Good and Bad Relationships: Another system for understanding friendships is to think of them with regard to two basic psychological constructs: health and enjoyment.

  • Types of Relationships:

    • 1. Ideal Friendship: Healthy and enjoyable

    • 2. Waning Friendship: Healthy and not enjoyable

    • 3. Problematic Friendship: Not healthy and enjoyable

    • 4. Deviant Friendship: Not healthy and not enjoyable

two factors were the most important when it came to developing cross-group friendships: racism and exposure to cross-group friendships.

• First, individuals who are racist are less likely to engage in crossgroup friendships.

• Second, actual exposure to cross-group friendships can lead to more intergroup contact and more positive attitudes towards members in those groups.

  • Ultimately, successful cross-group friendships succeed or fail based on two primary factors: time and self-disclosure.

Fitzpatrick’s Marriage Relational Dimensions

• 1. Conventional v. Unconventional Ideology

  • Ideology of Traditionalism: a couple has a very historically grounded and conservative perspective of marriage

    • families should strive to keep up appearances and not talk about any of the issues going on within the family itself

  • Ideology of Uncertainty and Change: the notion that people should be open to uncertainty

• 2. Interdependence v. Autonomy

  • Sharing: consists of two components

    • 1. discussing the affective or emotional health of each of the partners and the relationship while exhibiting nonverbal affective displays

    • 2. expands across the other dimensions

    • open sharing of love and caring, and the tendency to communicate a wide range and intensity of feelings. There is a sharing of both task and leisure activities, as well as a considerable degree of mutual empathy. Finally, these relational partners not only visit with friends but also seek new friends and experiences

  • Autonomy: an individual’s independence in their own behaviors and thoughts

  • Undifferentiated Space: there are few constraints on physical spaces within the home. Spouses do not see her/his/their ownership of personal belongings as much as they do ownership as a couple.

  • Temporal Regularity: examines strict a schedule couples stick to. Do they always get up at the same time?

• 3. Conflict engagement v. Avoidance

  • Conflict Avoidance

  • Assertiveness: persuasion and standing up for oneself

3 Marriage Types

• Traditionals: interdependent, conventional, and high levels of conflict engagement

  • greatest levels of satisfaction.

• Independents: interdependent, unconventional, and high levels of conflict engagement.

  • To these individuals, marriage is something that compliments their way of life and not something that constrains it.

• Separates: low interdependence, conventional, and low levels of conflict engagement.

  • these couples tend to focus more on maintaining their individual identity than relational maintenance.

  • lowest levels of marriage satisfaction

Same Sex Marriage

• Gay Males: same traditional, fewer independents and more separates

• Lesbians: more traditionals, fewer independents, and fewer separates

• In an analysis of the Journal of Family Communication, of the 300+ articles published in that journal since its inception in 2001, only nine articles have examined issues related to LGBTQIA+ families

Synchronous v. Asynchronous Communication

Synchronous Communication: real-time communication

Asynchronous Communication: communication when time permits

Nonverbal CMC

Because there is no nonverbal function of CMC, there is an aspect of impersonal communication. This lies on 3 assumptions:

1. Communication mediated by technology lacks nonverbal communication

2. Different media filter out or transmit different cues

3. Substituting technology-mediated for FtF communication will result in predictable changes in intrapersonal and interpersonal variables

Netiquette

• Netiquette: set of professional and social rules and norms that are considered polite when interacting with someone online 

  • Definition involves…

    • Context: Formal v. Informal

    • Rules and norms

    • Acceptable and Polite CMC behavior

    • Online interaction:

      • One-on-one v. one-to-many (i.e zoom meeting)

    • Range of mediating technologies

Erikson’s Identity

Erikson: Identity is developed through stages from birth to adulthood in which an individual faces crises that will influence their identity development.

1. Trust v. Mistrust (Hope)

2. Autonomy v. Shame (Will)

3. Initiative v. Guilt (Purpose)

4. Industry v. Inferiority (Competency)

5. Identity v. Role Confusion (Fidelity)

6. Intimacy v. Isolation (Love)

7. Generativity v. Stagnation (Care)

8. Ego Integrity v. Despair (Wisdom)

Pseudospeciation: tendency of humans to try to differentiate themselves from others. This creates in-groups and out-groups, and is very prominent in people under 18.

Goffman’s Online Identity

Goffman was the first to note that in interaction, people tend to guide the presentation of themselves to the other person. 

• Dramaturgical: Social interactions are theatrical performances in which individuals (1) manage impressions and (2) play social roles.

• Front Stage: Behaviors we engage in when we know we’re being watched

• Back stage: Behaviors we engage in when there is no audience

• Applied to Facebook, one’s blog is the stage of their performance. People who blog or report are keen to create their in-person identity online through creating their character similar to their real selves or disclosing offline identity.

  • People online mimic their onstage performances across mediums.

Types of Online Identities

Wood & Smith: 3 ways people express themselves online (anonymous, pseudonymous, and real life.

• Anonymous Identity: Communicate in a manner that hides their identity; 

  • Catfishing: Online predators fabricate online identities to lure victims into an emotional/romantic relationship.

  • Cyberbullying (9% of middle schoolers)

• Pseudonymous Identity: Use a different name

  • Book authors, famous people. 

  • Reasons: (1) posts aren’t on brand and (2) people don’t want to be fully exposed online

• Real Life Identity: online and FtF identities are the same. 

Uses & Gratification Theory

Uses & Gratification Theory: people have specific goals they want to fufill, leading them to choose media because they get something out of it or it makes them happy.  It was originally developed to explain why people use the types of mass media they do.

• 5 Reasons people use the internet:

1. Utility: allows people to interact)

2. Pass Time

3. Information Seeking

4. Convenient: Easier than FtF or call

5. Entertainment

• People who used social media for utility were more anxious during FtF interactions and were less satisfied with life.

Social Presence Theory

• Social Presence Theory: Different technologies create different levels of social presence.

  • Social presence: The degree to which we perceive another as a real person and any interaction as a relationship.

    • People can vary in situations: reading a website won’t make you forget you’re using technology, but a text conversation with a friend may. 

Media Richness Theory

Media Richness Theory: the richer the media, the less ambiguous a message is for a receiver.

• Richness: the potential information carrying capacity of data.

• Lengel argued that media escalates in richness in the following order: computer output, formal memos, personal memos, telephone conversations, and FtF interactions.

Social Information Processing Theory (Walther)

• Social Information Processing Theory: asserts that over time, relationships formed in a CMC context can develop like those that are FtF. He does admit that these relationships will take more time to develop, but the relationships can reach the same end states as relationships formed FtF.

  • Hyperpersonal interactions: Go above and beyond traditional FtF

  • Individuals can fine-tune their messages

Relational Aggression

Relational Aggression: Behaviors that harm (damage relationships/acceptance) other

• Confrontational (direct) v. Nonconfrontational (indirect)

• 5 General Categories:

  • Inconsistent Friendships

  • Rumor/Gossip

  • Excluding/Ditching Friends

  • Social Intimidation

  • Technological/Note Aggression

Among women, relational aggression is viewed as normal and negative. 

• 7 Behaviors: (1) physical threat/attack, (2) rejection, (3) humiliation, (4) betrayal, (5) personal attack, (6) boy manipulation, & (7) relational deprevation.

  • Gossiping & rumors most common

• Conversation Themes:

  • Girls will be girls

  • Relational aggression as venting

  • Blaming the victim

  • Minimizing their role (bystander)

  • Regret paired with victim blaming

Verbal Aggression

Verbal Aggression: Communication that attacks self-concept, inducing psychological pain

• Behavioral inhibition + exposure to violence = relational aggression to partner

• Types of messages: character attacks, competence attacks, background attacks, physical appearance, maledictions, teasing, ridicule, threats, swearing, and nonverbal gestures. 

Bullying

Bullying: Repeated aggressive behavior based on power that causes victims to drop out and feel nervous and helpless.

• Physical, relational, verbal, and cyber.

Workplace Bullying Behaviors: isolation, intimidation, verbal threats, damaging professionalism, limiting opportunities, obstructing work, and denial of due justice. 

• Communication Styles:

  • Affirmative: friendly, relaxed, and attentive. 

Deception

Deception: lies with malicious intent.

• Otlar & Cody: deception is purposeful, goal-oriented, and used as a relational control device. 

• Types of Deception:

  • Falsification: presentation of false information

  • Concealment: withholding information

  • Equivocation: double, meaning ambiguous

• 4.88 deceptions per week 

  • 6 reasons for deception:

    • Relational maintanence

    • Managing face needs

    • Dialectical tensions

    • Relational control

    • Continuing previous deception

    • Unknown

Domestic Violence

• 1/3 were victims of sexual, physical, or stalking violence from partner.

• ¼ women and 1/10 men report impacts including fear, medical, law enforcement, shelters, etc.

• Stalking: Repeated attempts of unwanted contact as well as fear of safety.

• Kelly’s IPV Study: People who commit violent acts believe violence is acceptable and are prepared to use it.

  • Change beliefs regarding violence and partners should apologize and forgive.