Looking Out, Looking In: Interpersonal Communication Chapters 8–12

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Chapters 8 through 12 of Looking Out, Looking In (16th Edition), addressing listening concepts, relational stages and dialectics, family and romantic dynamics, communication climates, and interpersonal conflict management.

Hearing

The physiological process in which sound waves strike the eardrum and cause vibrations that are transmitted to the brain.

Listening

The cognitive process that occurs when the brain reconstructs electrochemical impulses into a representation of the original sound and gives them meaning.

Mindless Listening

A valuable listening strategy used to react to routine or non-critical messages automatically and without significant mental effort.

Mindful Listening

A listening style that involves giving careful, thoughtful attention and responses to important messages.

Listening Process

A five-step operational cycle consisting of hearing, attending, understanding, responding, and remembering.

Pseudolistening

An ineffective listening behavior characterized by giving the physical appearance of listening without actually attending to the message.

Stage-Hogging

An ineffective listening habit where speakers turn conversational focus entirely to themselves and disregard others' input.

Selective Listening

An ineffective response style where the receiver responds only to parts of a message that interest them and ignores the rest.

Insulated Listening

An ineffective listening practice where listeners deliberately fail to acknowledge or process topics they prefer not to discuss.

Defensive Listening

The ineffective habit of interpreting innocent remarks as personal attacks or criticisms.

Ambushing

Listening attentively to a speaker for the sole purpose of gathering information to attack what they say.

Prompting

A listening response that uses silences and brief statements of encouragement to draw others out and help them solve their own problems.

Paraphrasing

A listening response where the receiver restates the speaker's thoughts or feelings in their own words to verify understanding of factual or personal information.

Supporting (Listening Response)

A response style indicating solidarity with the speaker, manifested through empathizing, agreement, offers to help, praise, or reassurance.

Reciprocal Attraction

The relational phenomenon where individuals are strongly drawn to and like people who demonstrate that they like them.

Stages of Relational Development

Mark Knapp's 10-stage model representing relationships through phases of coming together (initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, bonding), relational maintenance, and coming apart (differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding, terminating).

Dialectical Tensions

Inherent relational conflicts that arise when two opposing or incompatible forces exist simultaneously within a relationship.

Connection-Autonomy Dialectic

The internal relational tension between the desire for intimacy and closeness versus the desire to maintain individual independence.

Openness-Privacy Dialectic

The internal relational tension between the need for disclosure and honest sharing versus the need to maintain private boundaries.

Predictability-Novelty Dialectic

The internal relational tension between wanting stability, reliability, and routine versus craving freshness, surprise, and spontaneity.

Content Messages

Communication dimensions that focus on the explicit subject, topic, or information being discussed.

Relational Messages

Messages that convey statements about how the communicating parties feel toward one another, reflecting affinity, immediacy, respect, or control.

Metacommunication

Messages that people exchange, either verbally or nonverbally, about their communication and relational process.

Relational Transgressions

Violations of explicit or implicit relational rules, such as lack of commitment, physical or emotional distance, disrespect, problematic emotions, and aggression.

Conversation Orientation

The degree to which a family open-mindedly discusses a wide range of topics among its members.

Conformity Orientation

The degree to which a family enforces uniformity of attitudes, values, and beliefs across members.

Triangular Theory of Love

Robert Sternberg's conceptual framework positing that love consists of three interconnected components: intimacy, passion, and commitment.

Relational Turning Points

Transformative developmental moments or events that alter a relationship in a fundamental, lasting way.

Volatile Conflict Style

A couple's relational conflict approach where arguments are intense, passionate contests to be won.

Avoidant Conflict Style

A couple's relational conflict approach characterized by ignoring, downplaying, or minimizing contentious issues.

Validating Conflict Style

A couple's relational conflict approach where partners manage disagreements openly, cooperatively, and with mutual respect.

Communication Climate

The overall emotional tone and social feeling of a relationship determined by the messages exchanged.

Confirming Communication

Messages that convey recognition, acknowledgment, and endorsement, signaling value and respect for the other person.

Disconfirming Communication

Messages that signal a lack of regard or value for another person through behaviors such as imperviousness, interrupting, or ambiguity.

Face-Threatening Acts

Communication behaviors and messages that challenge, diminish, or undermine the image and identity an individual seeks to present.

Assertive Message Format

A structured, non-defensive communication framework comprising five elements: behavior, interpretation, feeling, consequence, and intention.

Organizational Artifacts

Tangible, physical, and visible aspects of an organization that members and observers can see, hear, or feel.

Organizational Values

The explicit goals, principles, operational strategies, and qualities shared and prioritized by members of an organization.

Organizational Assumptions

Deeply entrenched, unexamined beliefs and ideas within an organization that are taken for granted as the normal way of doing things.

Interpersonal Conflict

An expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from the other party.

Conflict Styles Grid

A model organizing interpersonal conflict management into five distinct approaches—avoiding, accommodating, competing, compromising, and collaborating—based on relative concern for self versus concern for others.

Avoiding (Conflict Style)

A lose-lose conflict response where individuals non-assertively stay away from or ignore disagreements due to low concern for both self and others.

Accommodating (Conflict Style)

A lose-win conflict style where one allows others to have their way rather than asserting one's own viewpoint, showing low concern for self and high concern for others.

Competing (Conflict Style)

A win-lose conflict response driven by high concern for self and low concern for others, framing conflict resolution as an 'either-or' struggle.

Compromising (Conflict Style)

A partial lose-lose conflict approach in which both parties sacrifice portions of their original goals to achieve a mutually workable middle ground.

Collaborating (Conflict Style)

A win-win conflict approach demonstrating high concern for self and others by developing creative, integrative solutions satisfying everyone's needs.

Complementary Conflict Style

A relational conflict pattern where partners use distinct but mutually reinforcing behavioral tactics during disputes.

Symmetrical Conflict Style

A relational conflict pattern where both communicating partners deploy the exact same behavioral tactics in a dispute.

Parallel Conflict Style

A relational pattern where partners alternate between complementary and symmetrical communication styles across different issues.

The Four Horsemen

Four particularly destructive conflict behaviors that severely damage relationships: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling.

Conflict Rituals

Usually unacknowledged, repetitive, and interlocking sequences of behavior that relational partners routinely reenact during conflicts.