Beebe, Beebe and Redmond – Interpersonal Communication, 8e Testbank
Chapter 10: Managing Relationship Challenges
Multiple Choice Questions
1) In essence, we forgive others for a failure event when
A) our retaliation attempts fail.
B) it is culturally correct to do so.
C) it is in our own best interest to do so.
D) we are physically separated.
2) What did Cupach and Spitzberg describe as a repeated non-threatening invasion of a
person’s privacy by an acquaintance who desires or assumes a close relationship?
A) obsessive relational intrusion
B) stalking
C) surveillance behaviors
D) obsessive-compulsive stalking
3) When Maria accuses John of cheating on her, John admits that he did go out with Angela
but that he only did so to help her through a difficult time and that Maria shouldn’t worry
about it. John’s account is most appropriately labeled a(n)
A) reproach.
B) justification.
C) excuse.
D) absence of an account.
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4) Maria’s accusation that John cheated on her is called a(n)
A) reproach.
B) account.
C) excuse.
D) assent.
5) One study suggests that people who are in long-distance relationships can maintain
relationships similar to those between people who are geographically close, as long as they
are able to get together at least
A) once a week.
B) once a month.
C) twice every three months.
D) every three months.
6) The two general categories of reasons people are deceptive are
A) altruistic and to gain resources.
B) altruistic and self-serving.
C) to protect one’s self-image and self-serving.
D) self-serving and to gain resources.
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Beebe, Beebe and Redmond – Interpersonal Communication, 8e Testbank
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response.
A) invulnerable
B) vulnerable
C) active verbal
D) acquiescent
11) When Albert calls his housemate Mark a slob, Mark responds with, “Right! Why don’t you
take a closer look at your room?” Mark’s reaction is best characterized as a(n) ________
response.
A) invulnerable
B) acquiescent
C) active verbal
D) vulnerable
12) Repeated, unwelcome intrusions that create concern for personal safety and fear in the
target are collectively known as
A) stalking.
B) failure events.
C) reproach.
D) invulnerable responses.
13) Believing that our partner is the only person who can really meet our relational needs is
Beebe, Beebe and Redmond – Interpersonal Communication, 8e Testbank
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known as perceived partner
A) allness.
B) uniqueness.
C) oneness.
D) cohesiveness.
14) Of the following, the single strongest predictor of divorce is
A) defensive behavior.
B) criticism or attacks on someone’s personality.
C) stonewalling.
D) display of contempt.
15) If all four signs of communication behaviors that indicate increasing problems in a marriage
are consistently present, the chance a couple will eventually divorce is ________ percent.
A) 70
B) 80
C) 63
D) 94
16) The reasons for evoking jealousy in a relationship include relational
A) rewards and relational revenge.
B) escalation and relational intimacy.
C) rewards and relational escalation.
Beebe, Beebe and Redmond – Interpersonal Communication, 8e Testbank
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D) intimacy and relational revenge.
17) Jim uses verbal threats against Toni as a way of maintaining dominance in their relationship.
Jim’s actions display which type of partner violence as defined in the text?
A) violent resistance
B) situational couple violence
C) intimate terrorism
D) obsessive relational intrusion
18) In this stage of the ending of a relationship, one or both partners finalize the public story
that they can share with others about what happened. This takes place during the ________
phase in the dissolution process.
A) grave-dressing
B) social
C) intrapsychic
D) dyadic
19) Seemingly out of the blue, Harriot comes home from work one day and says to her partner
Sherry, “I’ve found someone else. I’m moving out tomorrow.” The type of breakup this
example represents is
A) unplanned extinction.
B) fading away.
C) incrementalism.
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D) sudden death.
20) Trouble has been brewing in the relationship between Shawn and Trevor for quite some
time. One problem seems to go away and another one emerges. At some point, the couple
decides they can’t take it anymore and decide to break up. This kind of breakup is best
identified as an example of
A) unilateral dissolution.
B) incrementalism.
C) sudden death.
D) fading away.
21) According to the research by Michael Cody concerning students’ assessments of what
caused their intimate heterosexual relationships to break up, the number one cited cause was
A) faults.
B) infidelity.
C) unwillingness to compromise.
D) feeling constrained.
22) When one researcher asked individuals to identify why their friendships with a friend of the
same sex ended, first on the list of reasons was
A) new friends replacing old friends as circumstances changed.
B) physical separation.
C) people often just grow to dislike a characteristic of the friend’s behavior or personality.
Beebe, Beebe and Redmond – Interpersonal Communication, 8e Testbank
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D) one friend’s dating activity or romantic relationships interfering with the relationship.
23) In order, Duck’s phases of ending a relationship are:
A) intrapsychic, confidant/dyadic, social, grave-dressing, and resurrection.
B) intrapsychic, social, confidant/dyadic, grave-dressing, and resurrection.
C) confidant/dyadic, social, termination, and grave-dressing, and resurrection.
D) confidant/dyadic, termination, social, resurrection, and grave-dressing.
24) Max has been dumped by his girlfriend and is trying to work through his post-dissolution
grief. One strategy that is helping him is to mentally review his ex’s flaws. Max is engaging
in which of Weber’s strategies?
A) Figure out what happened.
B) Get some perspective.
C) Prepare to feel better.
D) Realize, don’t idealize.
25) When Felix tells Alex that he doesn’t want to be friends anymore because, “I just don’t like
the way you behave around other people,” the strategy for terminating their friendship,
according to Baxter, is a(n)
A) indirect strategy of withdrawal.
B) direct strategy of negative identity management.
C) direct strategy of justification.
D) indirect strategy of de-escalation.
Beebe, Beebe and Redmond – Interpersonal Communication, 8e Testbank
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Answer: B
Chapter number: 10
Module number: 10.3
Learning Objective: 10.3 Explain the process of relational de-escalation and termination,
including strategies for terminating and recovering.
Topic: Relationship De-Escalation and Termination
Difficulty: Moderate
Skill: Apply What You Know
True/False Questions
1) Failure events can be implicit or explicit.
2) Reproaches are usually indirect statements conveyed through hints or nonverbal messages.
3) Bald-faced lies are outright falsifications of information intended to deceive the listener and
impact the behavior of those who hear them more than white lies or exaggeration.
4) Generally, humorously phrased hurtful messages were found by researchers to be less
hurtful than non-humorously phrased comments EXCEPT when they were about abilities or
intelligence, de-escalating the relationship, or about a person’s hopes or plans.
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5) Researchers Vangelisti and Crumley found that, in general, harsh messages that invoke pain,
such as “I don’t love you anymore,” have less of a negative impact than an accusation or
comment about someone’s abilities.
6) Bald-faced lies involve embellishing the facts.
7) When Alicia wanted to end her relationship with Todd, but Todd wanted the relationship
continue, the relationship ended due to a bilateral dissolution.
8) Obsessive relational intrusion is marked by such behaviors as unregulated self-disclosing,
arranging coincidental meetings, and expressing a desire for physical contact.
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9) When Emily and Larry start asking each other whether their relationship is working, and
whether they should continue to see each other exclusively, they have entered the
intrapsychic phase of the dissolution of their relationship.
10) De-escalation is an indirect termination strategy.
11) Ellie wants to break up with Kevin, but doesn’t have the heart to tell him, so she starts
criticizing things about him, like how sloppy and lazy he is and how his friends annoy her.
Ellie secretly, and even somewhat unconsciously, hopes that Kevin will take the hint and
ask Ellie to break up with him. Ellie’s approach to ending this relationship is an example of
the indirect strategy of cost escalation.
12) Research by Stafford and Reske found that couples in long-distance premarital relationships
had less communication but greater satisfaction and higher expectation for the likelihood of
marriage than those in geographically close relationships.
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13) Gay and lesbian couples engage in the same kinds of relational maintenance activities as
heterosexual couples.
14) Jealousy and envy are interchangeable terms.
15) Responding with violence to a specific relational conflict or tension is what Michael
Johnson refers to as intimate terrorism.
1) Describe the difference between a reproach and an account, and define and give an
example of a failure event.
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Beebe, Beebe and Redmond – Interpersonal Communication, 8e Testbank
false information.
5) What are two general categories and five specific reasons that people are deceptive?
6) Explain the factors that determine the impact of physical separation and distance on long–
distance relationships (LDRs).
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7) Describe six phases of Duck’s model of ending relationships.
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8) Why do people lie to each other? Use examples to support your explanations.
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Beebe, Beebe and Redmond – Interpersonal Communication, 8e Testbank
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