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Chapter 6: Interpersonal Communication
Essay Questions
1. Explain the concept of interpersonal relationships.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
2. Define behavioral flexibility and explain why it is an important concept.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
3. Explain the needs for inclusion, affection, and control and how they are related to interpersonal communication.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
4. Compare and contrast symmetrical and complementary relationships.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
5. List and describe some essential interpersonal communication behaviors as noted by the text.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
6. Which factors affect appropriate self-disclosure?
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Remember
7. Explain how relationships develop.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
8. Explain how relationships deteriorate.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
9. What is self-disclosure and why is it important in interpersonal communication?
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
10. Discuss the implications of influencing others in interpersonal relationships.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
11. How can you increase your behavioral flexibility?
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
12. Discuss why it may be mistaken to only consider the positive aspects of interpersonal communication and personal relationships.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
13. Explain why the term plateau is not used to describe the relationship maintenance stage of personal relationships.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
14. Discuss how Baxter and Montgomery’s notion of relational dialectics can be used to explain what happened in the relationship maintenance
stage of personal relationships.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
15. Identify and explain at least two examples of relationship dialectics.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
16. Explain what compliance resisting is and provide an example from one of your interpersonal relationships.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
17. Discuss how the terms responsiveness, similarity, and complimentary explain potential reasons for forming relationships.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
18. Discuss three motivations, as explained by the textbook, that people have for terminating relationships.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
19. Using terms from the chapter, identify and describe three reasons for initiating relationships.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
20. Explain the Johari window’s quadrants.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
21. Provide an example of how compliance-gaining might be used in an interpersonal conversation.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
22. Discuss the importance of personal idioms and rituals in relationships. Provide an example of each.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
23. Explain the process of bargaining in interpersonal relationships. What are the essential features of bargaining?
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
24. Explain the concept of friendship and its importance in our lives.
Answer: Answers will vary.
Bloom’s level: Understand
True/False Questions
25. William Schultz cited three basic interpersonal needs that we satisfy through others: the need for inclusion, the need for affection, and the
need for control.
26. A complementary relationship is one in which the two people mutually reinforce each other with compliments.
27. In a symmetrical relationship, Helen might do the family budget because Harry hates math.
28. Bargaining is when two parties attempt to reach an agreement about what each should give and receive in a transaction between them.
29. Conflict can be a constructive and creative aspect of relationships.
30. Conflict is always detrimental to relationships.
31. In the Johari window, the hidden area includes information that you know but others do not know.
32. Interpersonal communication includes dyadic (two-person) and small-group communication.
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33. Commitment is the first stage of relational development.
34. Developing rituals together occurs as people maintain their relationships.
35. Initially in a relationship we are more interested in a person’s attractiveness, but later we are more interested in their empathy, care, and
concern.
36. A person in a wheelchair who tells you that she is handicapped is providing you with a self-disclosure.
37. Behavior flexibility is important because people are in constant flux.
38. Behavior flexibility is demonstrated by the man who can be tender with his child, loving to his wife, and courageous in his job as a firefighter.
39. The dialectical theory of Baxter and Montgomery describes the maintenance stage of relationships as a plateau.
40. Dialectic theory assumes that relationships remain relatively stable and unchanging over time.
41. Friendships are maintained similarly, regardless of the intent of the relational partners.
42. Interpersonal relationships are always positive situations.
43. People in a mutual romance situation report the most relationship maintenance behaviors.
44. Aggressiveness is the same thing as argumentativeness.
45. Disclosure generally increases as relational intimacy increases.
46. As we become closer to another person, we are more likely to reveal negative information about ourselves.
47. Extremely high and low levels of self-disclosure are associated with high levels of satisfaction with a relationship.
48. Personal idioms are understood only by you.
49. In bargaining all parties must perceive that more than one potential agreement could be reached.
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50. People in interpersonal relationships generally have interacted for some period of time.
51. Relationship maintenance occurs after people in a relationship have bonded.
52. There is no way to reduce defensiveness.
53. Pria’s boyfriend Leonard doesn’t tell her about his family anymore. This makes her upset with their relationship. What factor affecting self-
disclosure can be identified here?
a. Disclosure might be avoided for a variety of reasons.
b. Disclosure tends to be reciprocal.
c. Disclosure helps build relationships.
d. Relational satisfaction and disclosure are curvilinearly related.
54. Grayson doesn’t talk about his parents’ divorce with his girlfriend because it is still a painful subject to discuss. What factor affecting self-
disclosure can be identified here?
a. Disclosure might be avoided for a variety of reasons.
b. Disclosure tends to be reciprocal.
c. Disclosure helps build relationships.
d. Relational satisfaction and disclosure are curvilinearly related.
55. Which of the following would be a good example of self-disclosure?
a. You tell the person you meet that you are nearly six feet tall.
b. You tell the person you meet that you are an African American.
c. You tell the person you meet that you are getting bald.
d. You tell the person that you meet that your parents were originally from Mississippi.
56. The opposite of defensive communication is
a. descriptive communication.
b. supportive communication.
c. provisional communication .
d. neutral communication.
57. The concept that suggests that your roommate is more likely to become your friend than a person ten blocks away is known as
a. proximity.
b. similarity.
c. collaboration.
d. familiarity.
58. He is good at writing and understanding literature; she is a whiz at math and statistics; together they make a great pair. The concept of
friendship illustrated here is
a. symmetry.
b. complementary.
c. responsiveness.
d. proximity.
59. “The ability to alter behavior in order to adapt to new situations and to relate in new ways when necessary” is a definition of
a. androgyny.
b. behavioral flexibility.
c. passages.
d. complementary relationships.
60. What is one strategy for appropriate self-disclosure in interpersonal relationships?
a. Gradually decrease disclosure as your relationship develops.
b. Disclose all information, even if it might cause you personal harm.
c. Reveal information to others as they reveal information to you.
d. Remember that disclosure is the same across all cultures.
61. Which association below is not part of the textbook definition of interpersonal relationships?
a. one between two or more people who are interdependent
b. one between two or more people who have interacted for some period of time
c. one between two or more people who use some consistent patters of interaction
d. one between two or more people who exhibit affection toward each other
62. Which of the following descriptions applies to someone with an interpersonal relationship as defined in the book?
a. a father who left his family long ago and believes that he has a relationship with a child he has not seen or heard from for years
b. a guy who drops into the restaurant every couple of months, knows the waitress’s first name, and believes that he has an interpersonal
relationship with her
c. a married couple that have quarreled with each other for years
d. a woman who cannot remember the names of all the men she has dated in the last year
63. According to William Schultz, three interpersonal needs that are satisfied through interaction with others are
a. inclusion, affection, and control
b. physical well-being, safety, and security
c. inclusion, self-actualization, and socialization
d. esteem, affection, and control
64. Which of the following is a good example of a complementary relationship?
a. She likes him a lot, but he doesn’t think much of her.
b. She is shy, and he likes to speak for both of them.
c. She and he are both good at math, so together they do the family budget.
d. She and he like food, so they both enjoy every meal.
65. A relationship in which the two people are very similar is called
a. a complementary relationship.
b. a symmetrical relationship.
c. a cost-benefit relationship.
d. an independent relationship.
66. Which type of need can only be fulfilled through interpersonal interaction?
a. safety
b. affection
c. security
d. information
67. Rashi and Anita marry because they are of the same cultural background. This is most likely what type of relationship?
a. asymmetrical
b. symmetrical
c. co-cultural
d. ethnocentric
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68. Which relational dialectic involves tensions surrounding the need for consistency in a relationship as well as “newness and novelty.”
a. integration and separation
b. expression and privacy
c. stability and change
d. old and new
69. Raymond and Terry have a strong relationship and share many things with each other. At times, however, Raymond feels that Terry wants to
know what he is doing at all times. Which dialectical tension is Raymond most likely experiencing?
a. integration and separation
b. expression and privacy
c. stability and change
d. old and new
70. Susan and Walter are out on a date. During the course of conversation, Walter tells Susan that his parents recently got divorced. After hearing
this, Susan feels compelled to tell Walter that her parents were divorced when she was very young. What factor affecting self-disclosure can
be identified here?
a. Disclosure might be avoided for a variety of reasons.
b. Disclosure tends to be reciprocal.
c. Disclosure helps build relationships.
d. Relational satisfaction and disclosure are curvilinearly related.
71. In which stage of how friends develop do people think of themselves as friends and begin to establish their own private ways of interacting?
a. Role-limited interaction
b. Friendly relations
c. Nascent friendship
d. Stabilized friendship
72. In relationships formalized patterns of actions or words that are followed regularly and are indicators of relational uniqueness are called
a. personal idioms.
b. relational dialectics.
c. uncertainty reducers.
d. rituals.
73. Which of the following is not one of the three stages in interpersonal relationships?
a. social penetration
b. relational development
c. relational deterioration
d. relational maintenance
74. In which stage of how friends develop do people determine that they have mutual interests or other common ground?
a. Role-limited interaction
b. Friendly relations
c. Nascent friendship
d. Stabilized friendship
75. Relationships in which the two people are not romantically involved but have a sexual relationship are called
a. nascent friends.
b. stabilized friendships.
c. friends with benefits.
d. diminished friendships.
76. Which of the following is a reason people terminate relationships?
a. aggressiveness
b. compliance-gaining
c. personal idioms
d. behavioral flexibility