Uga COMM 1500 test two

Relational maintenance

The communication and behaviors people use to keep a relationship in existence, preserve its quality, and maintain satisfaction and commitment.

Relational maintenance strategy

A specific behavior or communication approach used to preserve or improve a relationship.

Positivity

A relationship-maintenance strategy involving being pleasant, supportive, cheerful, and enjoyable to interact with.

Openness

A maintenance strategy involving honest communication, self-disclosure, and discussion of the relationship and each person's needs.

Assurances

Messages or actions that communicate commitment, care, and confidence in the future of a relationship.

Social networks

A maintenance strategy involving spending time with, maintaining connections to, or gaining support from friends and family who are important to the relationship.

Sharing tasks

A maintenance strategy in which relationship partners fairly divide responsibilities and cooperate in completing them.

Factors influencing relationship maintenance

Personal, relational, situational, and cultural factors that affect how people maintain relationships, such as commitment, satisfaction, relationship type, available time, communication preferences, and social expectations.

Social media and relationships: positive impacts

Social media can help people stay connected over distance, communicate frequently, share experiences, express support, and maintain social networks.

Social media and relationships: negative impacts

Social media can contribute to jealousy, misunderstandings, privacy concerns, distraction, comparison, and conflict when online behavior is interpreted negatively.

Non-voluntary relationship

A relationship a person cannot easily choose to begin or end because of social roles, obligations, or circumstances, such as relationships with coworkers, in-laws, or classmates.

Maintaining non-voluntary relationships

Using appropriate boundaries, respectful communication, cooperation, and conflict-management strategies to sustain a necessary relationship despite personal dislike or disagreement.

Relational message

A message that communicates information about the relationship between people, such as how they regard, value, trust, or relate to each other.

Verbal communication

The use of spoken or written words to convey meaning.

Nonverbal communication

The communication of meaning through behavior and cues other than words, such as facial expressions, gaze, gestures, posture, vocal qualities, and touch.

Content message

The literal or subject-matter information communicated by a message; it concerns what the communication is about.

Relational message

The meaning a message conveys about the relationship between communicators, including how they regard each other or how they understand their relationship.

Dominance

A relational dimension that communicates relative power, control, authority, or influence between people.

Affiliation

A relational dimension that communicates warmth, liking, closeness, friendliness, or connection between people.

Nonverbal communication

The communication of meaning through cues other than words, including facial expressions, gaze, gestures, posture, touch, physical distance, and vocal qualities.

Importance of nonverbal communication

Nonverbal cues can express emotion, communicate relational meaning, regulate conversations, reinforce or contradict words, and influence how messages are interpreted.

Gaze

The direction and pattern of a person's visual attention toward another person or object during interaction.

Mutual gaze

When two people look at each other at the same time.

Turn-taking behavior

Communication cues that help people coordinate who speaks next, such as pauses, changes in gaze, intonation, and gestures.

Visual dominance

The use or pattern of gaze associated with dominance or status; its exact operational definition may vary by the course's textbook or lecture.

Facial expression

Movements of facial muscles that communicate or reveal emotional states and social intentions.

Universal emotional expressions

Facial expressions commonly associated across cultures with basic emotions; textbooks often discuss happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust, although classifications can vary.

Emotional contagion

The process through which one person's emotional expressions or state influence another person's emotions.

Motor mimicry

The tendency to imitate another person's movements or expressions, sometimes contributing to shared emotional experience.

Empathy

The ability to understand or respond to another person's emotional experience.

Touch

Physical contact used to communicate meanings such as affection, support, reassurance, greeting, dominance, or comfort; meaning depends on context and relationship.

Hearing

The physiological process of detecting sound.

Listening

The active process of attending to, interpreting, and making sense of a message.

Hearing versus listening

Hearing is the physical reception of sound; listening involves actively processing and understanding what another person communicates.

Effective listening

The practice of paying attention, interpreting a speaker's message accurately, and responding in ways that demonstrate understanding.

Listening skill: attending

Focusing attention on the speaker and reducing distractions.

Listening skill: interpreting

Making sense of a speaker's words, feelings, intentions, and context.

Listening skill: responding

Providing verbal or nonverbal feedback that shows attention and understanding, such as asking relevant questions or paraphrasing.

Barriers to effective listening

Factors that interfere with understanding, such as distractions, interrupting, rehearsing a reply instead of listening, prejudice, defensiveness, emotional overload, or premature judgment.

Transgression

A behavior that violates a relationship's expectations, rules, or standards and may damage trust or satisfaction.

Relationship repair

Communication and behavior intended to address harm, restore trust, and improve a relationship after a transgression.

Relationship maintenance

Ongoing communication and behavior intended to preserve a relationship's quality and stability over time.

Relationship repair versus maintenance

Repair responds to a problem or breach that has occurred; maintenance consists of continuing behaviors that help sustain the relationship.

Behavioral factors in relationship repair

Characteristics of the transgression itself, such as its severity, repetition, intent, or consequences, that influence whether and how the relationship can be repaired.

Situational factors in relationship repair

Contextual circumstances affecting repair, such as the relationship's history, the setting, available support, timing, or external pressures.

Account episode

A communication sequence in which someone explains or responds to an action that has violated another person's expectations.

Account episode: explanation

An account that describes why an action occurred or what circumstances contributed to it.

Account episode: justification

An account that acknowledges an action but argues that it was reasonable or appropriate under the circumstances.

Account episode: excuse

An account that acknowledges the action but reduces the person's responsibility by pointing to limited control or external circumstances.

Account episode: apology

An expression of regret or responsibility for a harmful action, often accompanied by a request for forgiveness or a commitment to change.

Forgiveness

A process of changing one's response to a transgression by reducing resentment or the desire to retaliate; it does not necessarily mean excusing the behavior or restoring the relationship.

Questions to consider when forgiving

Consider the severity and pattern of the behavior, whether the person accepts responsibility, whether change is likely, the safety of continued contact, and whether trust can realistically be rebuilt.

Relational dialectics

The ongoing tensions between competing needs or desires that occur within relationships.

Dialectical tension: autonomy-connection

The tension between wanting independence and wanting closeness with another person.

Dialectical tension: openness-closedness

The tension between wanting to share information and wanting privacy or discretion.

Dialectical tension: novelty-predictability

The tension between wanting excitement and change and wanting routine and stability.

Managing dialectics

The process of handling competing relationship needs rather than assuming one need must always win.

Selection

Managing a dialectical tension by emphasizing one need over its opposing need.

Separation

Managing a dialectical tension by satisfying opposing needs at different times or in different situations.

Neutralization

Managing a dialectical tension by compromising so that neither need is completely satisfied.

Reframing

Managing a dialectical tension by changing how the competing needs are understood so they seem less contradictory.

Social Exchange Theory

A theory associated with Thibaut and Kelley proposing that people evaluate relationships partly by weighing perceived rewards and costs and comparing outcomes with expectations and alternatives.

Relationship rewards

Benefits received from a relationship, such as companionship, support, affection, enjoyment, or practical help.

Relationship costs

Efforts, sacrifices, frustrations, obligations, or negative experiences associated with a relationship.

Relationship outcome

The perceived rewards minus the perceived costs of a relationship.

Comparison level (CL)

The standard a person uses to evaluate whether a relationship's outcomes are satisfactory, based partly on expectations and past experiences.

Comparison level of alternatives (CLalt)

The standard used to evaluate the outcomes a person believes are available outside the current relationship or through being alone.

Relationship satisfaction

The degree to which a relationship's perceived outcomes meet or exceed a person's comparison level.

Relationship stability

The likelihood that a relationship will continue, influenced in Social Exchange Theory by the outcomes available in the relationship compared with available alternatives.

High outcome

An outcome in which perceived relationship rewards are high relative to costs; satisfaction still depends on the person's comparison level.

Low outcome

An outcome in which perceived rewards are relatively low or costs are relatively high.

High comparison level

A high standard for what a relationship should provide; a relationship may feel unsatisfactory even when its outcomes are objectively beneficial.

Low comparison level

A lower standard for expected relationship outcomes; a relationship may feel satisfactory even when its rewards are limited.

High comparison level of alternatives

A belief that better outcomes are available elsewhere, which may reduce the stability of the current relationship.

Low comparison level of alternatives

A belief that alternatives are less rewarding than the current relationship, which may increase its stability.

Equity Theory

A theory proposing that people evaluate relationships partly by comparing their contributions and benefits with those of their partner.

Inputs

What a person contributes to a relationship, such as time, effort, support, money, or commitment.

Outcomes

What a person receives from a relationship, such as affection, help, recognition, companionship, or resources.

Equity

A perceived state in which each partner's ratio of outcomes to inputs is fair relative to the other's.

Under-benefited person

A person who believes they contribute more relative to what they receive than their partner does, creating a sense of unfairness.

Over-benefited person

A person who believes they receive more relative to their contributions than their partner does, which can produce guilt or discomfort.

Inequity

Perceived unfairness in the balance between a person's contributions and outcomes compared with a partner's.

Meaning-based theories

Theories emphasizing the meaning people find in experiences and relationships when interpreting their lives and making decisions.

Relational orientation

A general approach to relationships that influences expectations about reciprocity, responsibility, and how benefits should be exchanged.

Exchange orientation

A relational orientation in which people pay close attention to the balance of giving and receiving and expect relatively direct reciprocity.

Communal orientation

A relational orientation in which people respond to a partner's needs because they care about that person, without expecting an immediate equivalent return.

Personality trait

A relatively enduring pattern of thinking, feeling, or behaving that can influence interpersonal communication.

Extraversion

A personality trait associated with sociability, assertiveness, energy, and a tendency to seek social interaction.

Ambivert

A person whose behavior reflects both introverted and extraverted tendencies, depending on the situation.

Emotional intelligence

The ability to perceive, understand, use, and manage emotions in oneself and others.

Emotional intelligence: perceiving emotions

Recognizing emotional information from facial expressions, vocal cues, body language, and other signals.

Emotional intelligence: using emotions

Using emotional information to support thinking, attention, problem-solving, or decision-making.

Emotional intelligence: understanding emotions

Recognizing emotional causes, meanings, combinations, and how emotions may change over time.

Emotional intelligence: managing emotions

Regulating one's own emotions and responding constructively to other people's emotions.

Empathy

The ability to understand or share another person's emotional experience or perspective.

Perspective-taking

Understanding a situation from another person's point of view, including their beliefs, thoughts, or interpretation of events.

Affective empathy

Emotionally responding to or sharing in another person's feelings.

Perspective-taking versus affective empathy

Perspective-taking emphasizes understanding how another person sees a situation; affective empathy emphasizes an emotional response to that person's experience.

Cognitive complexity

The ability to recognize multiple dimensions of a situation, consider alternative interpretations, and distinguish among nuanced ideas or perspectives.

Self-monitoring

The degree to which a person observes and adjusts their behavior to fit social cues, situations, and others' reactions.