Chapter 8
Person-to-Person:
Relationships in Context
ABOUT CHAPTER 8
In this chapter students learn that emotions can have a significant impact on relationships. As
communicators, people experience some emotion at all times. If we have a tendency to
experience one particular emotion repeatedly, we have what is called an emotional trait.
Students learn that feelings are at the heart of all-important relationships. How we deal with our
feelings not only influences the course of our relationships, but also the course of our lives. The
chapter also provides discussion of how conflict affects communication, and of how conflicts can
be effectively resolved. Assertion, non-assertion, and aggression are considered as ways of
handling emotionally charged situations. Finally, students are given an opportunity to explore
“DESC scripts.”
In the Instructor’s Edition of this text you will find additional Teaching Tips and suggestions for
Group Exercises for use in class.
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES AND CONTENT
Objectives and Content Activities and Resources
LO1 Explain the role attraction plays in
relationship development
In the Text:
Pages 201-204
Review, reflect, & Apply
Recall
Understand
Evaluate
Media Wise: TV, the Internet, and the
Family
Sidebar Discussion Starters
In the Instructor’s Manual
8.12 Skill Builder Complete Two Tasks
OLC: Self-Inventory
LO 2 Identify and distinguish among the
following relationship life contexts:
acquaintanceship. Friendship, and
In the Text:
Page 204-209
Sidebar Discussion Starters
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romantic, family and work relationships. In the Instructor’s Manual
8.13 Skill Builder: Describe
LO3 Define emotional intelligence In the Text:
Pages 209-217
Review, Reflect & Apply
Understand
Evaluate
Create
Work It Out: Describe
Ethics and Communication: Emotional
Contagion
Exploring Diversity: Culture, Gender and
Emotional Displays
Discussion Starters
In the Instructors Manual:
8.7 Skill Builder: Likes and Dislikes
8.14 SkillBuilder: Rants and Revelations
Worksheet for Likes and Dislikes
LO 4 Identify types of relational conflict
and the techniques used to manage conflict
effectively
In the Text:
Pages 217-227
Skill Builder: Do You Argue the Right
Way?
Discussion Starters
Emotional Displays
In the Instructor’s Manual:
8.2Skill Builder: Feeling Feelings
8.8 Skill Builder: The Conflict Inferno
8.14 Skill Builder: Tied in Knots
8.15 Skill Builder: Share a Conflict
LO 5 Understand technology’s influence
on the quantity and quality of our
relationships
In the Text:
Pages 227-230
Discussion Starters
In the Instructor’s Manual:
8.4 Skill Builder: Nonassertive
Motivations
8.5 Skill Builder: Ready-Aim-Fire
8.6 Skill Builder: Lovers, Friends,
Strangers
Worksheet for Lovers, Friends, and
Strangers
LO 6 Build skills for handling relationships
in all contexts
In the Text:
Pages 230-231
Review, Reflect and Apply
Understand
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Analyze
Evaluate
Thinking Critically: Reflect and Respond
Sidebar Discussion Starters
In the Instructor’s Manual:
8.9 Skill Builder: Electronic Friendship
8.10 Skill Builder: The Expression of
Emotion Online
8.16 Skill builder: Cyberafair
Additional Activities In the Text:
Pages 240-243
In the Instructor’s Manual:
Self-Analysis Scale
Skill Builder: Listen/View
Additional Resources On the Online Learning Center (OLC):
Key Term Flashcards
Self-Quizzes
Key Term Crosswords
Self Quizzes
PowerPoint Files (Teacher Area of OLC)
PART TWO: Unit Wrap Up 242-243
Consider this Case: Breaking Up is Hard to
Do
In the instructor’s manual
Lets go to the DVD: Investigating Rachel
Getting Married
LESSON OUTLINE FOR CHAPTER 8
I. You and Your Emotions
A. An Emotions Survey
B. Emotion States and Traits
C. What Do Feelings Feel Like?
D. What Do Feelings Look Like?
Incorporate activities from the text and the instructor’s manual
II. Emotions and Relationships
A. Factors in Attraction
B. The Role of Feelings in Relationships
C. Suppression and Disclosure of Feelings
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Incorporate activities from the text and the instructor’s manual
III. Conflicts and Relationships
A. Managing Conflict: Handling Feelings During Conflict
B. Gender, Culture, and the Handling of Conflict
C. How Conflict Arises
D. Resolving Conflict: Styles of Expression
Incorporate activities from the text and the instructor’s manual
IV. Technology, Relationships, and the Communication of Emotion
Incorporate activities from the text and the instructor’s manual
V. Expressing Your Feelings Effectively in Relationships
A. Consider This Case: Breaking Up
B. Let’s Go to the DVD: Investigating Rachel Getting Married
UNIT WRAP UP
You may want to use the Case Study Breaking Up as a summary of the unit for discussion or an
essay exam.
You can use a clip from Rachel Getting Married in class, or ask students to rent and view the
video for class discussion or an essay assignment.
Lets Go to the DVD
Investigating
Rachel Getting Married
In Rachel getting Married, Kym returns home from rehab one day before her sister Rachel’s
marriage to Sidney, a musician. Kym’s reintroduction into her dysfunctional family acts as a
catalyst causing repressed conflicts to surface, precipitating an examination of interpersonal
relationships, old and new. After viewing the film, respond to the following questions.
1. Pick any two characters in the film and analyze what their conversations suggest about
their relationship.
2. How is the romantic relationship between Rachel and Sidney portrayed?
3. In what way does the wedding ceremony function as a metaphor for the concepts of
family, friendship, and love?
4. How do the characters handle their emotions?
5. How do the characters respond when faced with interpersonal conflict?
6. What does the film reveal about the dark side of relationships?
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TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Describe how being able to read other people’s facial expressions carefully might affect
the work atmosphere and workers’ productivity.
2. Recall an instance when you failed to respond to the feelings of another person. How was
your relationship affected?
3. Has increased distance ever affected the relationship between you and another person?
(For example, did you leave for college and the other person stayed home?)
4. What emotions have you tried to avoid exhibiting? What caused you to believe it was in
your best interest not to reveal these emotions?
5. Consider several conflict situations you have been involved in recently. Why did you or
the other person(s) define each situation as a conflict?
6. Describe situations or people in your own life that cause you to feel shy. How did
experiencing such shyness affect you?
7. Describe a situation in which you allowed someone to take advantage of you. How might
you have avoided such a situation?
8. Discuss Sidney Jourard’s theory that males in our society are compelled not to disclose
their feelings, and therefore, are at risk of early, stress-related death. How does this idea
conform to the latest medical findings you have read or heard about?
9. Discuss the ways in which you express emotion online. How do others do it?
ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION STARTERS
1. Describe some of the ways face reading might affect the atmosphere of a workplace and
the worker’s productivity.
2. Dr. Redford Williams stated, “Angry, cynical people are 5 times as likely to die before 50
as people who are calm and trusting.” Why do you feel this is so?
3. Are you able to decipher the look of fear?
4. Think of an instance when you read and responded to someone else’s feelings. Think of
an instance when you failed to do so. How was the relationship you shared affected in
each case?
5. Explore the relationships you shared with a person who was critical of you, one who
praised you, one who cooperated with you, and one who competed with you. Which
relationship caused the most problems? Which was the most satisfying? The most
productive?
6. To whom do you feel free to say, “I’m frightened of that,” or “What you just did
disappointed me,” or “I really care about you”?
7. What conflicts have you been involved in recently in class or at work. Why did you
define each situation as a conflict?
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8. When evaluating a conflict, Americans tend to see one side as right and the other as
wrong. In contrast, the Chinese are more likely to see the validity of both sides. What do
you see as the benefits and drawbacks of each orientation?
9. In a cyber affair, two persons have an interpersonal relationship online that is not
necessarily physical or intimate. In cyber sex, which is anonymous and built on fantasy,
two persons talk about having sex and describe various sexual acts. If your significant
other were to have a cyber affair or engage in cyber sex, would you consider him or her
to be guilty of infidelity? Why or why not? What relational factors do you believe lead
someone to have a cyber affair and engage in cyber sex?
10. Share a conflict you were party to that was settled responsibly and one that escalated out
of control. What rules do you think we should have for handling conflict effectively?
ADDITIONAL LECTURE
Use a DESC Script to Handle Feelings Assertively.
DESC is an acronym for describe, express, specify, and consequences. It is a system for
expressing one’s feelings.
In their book Asserting Yourself, Sharon Bower and Gordon Bower present a technique you can
use to handle interpersonal dilemmas effectively. The approach utilizes what is called a DESC
script (Describe, Express, Specify, Consequences). A script contains characters (you and the
person with whom you are relating), a plot (an event or situation that has left you dissatisfied), a
setting (the time and place the action occurred), and a message (the words and nonverbal cues of
the action).
You begin the script by describing, as specifically and objectively as possible, the behavior of
another person that troubles you and makes you feel inadequate. By describing the bothersome
occurrence, you give yourself a chance to examine the situation and define your personal needs
and goals. Once you have identified what it is about the other person’s behavior that you find
undesirable, you are in a better position to handle it. Use simple, concrete, specific, and unbiased
terms to describe the other’s actions. For example, instead of screaming, “You’re always
overcharging me, you dirty cheat!” try, “You told me the repairs would cost $50 and now you are
charging me $110.” Instead of saying, “You’re ignoring me; you don’t care about me,” say, “You
avoid looking at me when we speak.”
After you have written a direct description of a behavior that bothers you (identifying the
characters the plot and the setting). Next add a few sentences expressing how you feel and what
you think about the behavior. To do this, get in touch with your emotions and use personal
statements—“I feel, I believe, my feelings,” etc.
Once you have described the behavior and expressed your feelings, you next step is to write
down your request for a specific different behavior. Make your request concrete and particular:
“Please stop. . .”
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Finally, note possible consequences in terms of your own and other people’s behavior and
feelings. Review your script and rehearse it until you feel that your verbal and nonverbal cues
support your goal.
Ask teams to create imaginary DESC scripts and present them to the class. Open the material up
to discussion.
ADDITIONAL SKILL BUILDERS
8.1 SKILL BUILDER: Questions, Questions, Questions
Gregory Stock started the question book series with The Question Book. Now there are more.
Some interesting ones include:
4000 Questions for Getting to Know Anyone. Barbara Kipfer, Random House, 2004
The Complete Book of Questions: 1001 Conversation Starters by Gary Poole. Zondervan
Publishers, 2003.
Divide the class into teams and select an interesting question. Have each team member answer
the question. Each team should then sum up the responses and report them to the entire class.
Keep it light.
8.2 SKILL BUILDER: Long-Distance Relationship Activities
What would happen to your relationships if they became long distance? Here are two sources of
activities to keep them going:
Long Distant Couples: Activities Handbook. National Institute for Long Distant
Relationships, 2000.
Long Distance: Gregory Guilder, JF. Milne Publishers, 2001.
8.3 SKILL BUILDER: Feeling Feelings
1. Describe the physical sensations, thoughts, and actions that accompany your experience of
each of the following emotions.
Physical Sensations Thoughts Actions
Happiness
Sadness
Surprise
2. Compare your responses with the responses of close friends or relatives. To what extent are
the physical sensations they experience similar to yours? In what ways are they different?
8.4 SKILL BUILDER: Nonassertive Motivations
1. Compile a list of adjectives that you believe describe a nonassertive woman.
2. Compile a list of adjectives that you believe describe a nonassertive man. Is this list different
from your first list? Why?
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3. Answer the following three questions about yourself:
a. If you were in the studio audience of a nationally broadcast TV talk show, would you be at
all nervous about asking a question “on the air”?
b. Have you ever wanted to argue with a waiter, but found yourself unable to do so? If so,
what were you afraid of?
c. Were you ever in a situation where you felt a need to express your innermost feelings to
someone but you were too nervous to do it? If so, why?
4. Interview one man and one woman, asking them to make the lists of adjectives in Items 1 and
2 above, and respond to the questions in Item 3.
5. Compare and contrast your own responses with those of your interviewees and your
classmates. What kinds of explanations were given for the nonassertive behaviors described in
Item 3?
8.5 SKILL BUILDER: Ready-Aim-Fire
1. Draw two pictures (abstract or literal), one portraying or symbolizing the way you feel (or
imagine you would feel) when being nonassertive; the other portraying or symbolizing the
way you feel when being aggressive. Compare and contrast the two images.
2. Describe a recent occasion when you displayed aggression during an interpersonal encounter.
Explain what prompted your aggression, how you treated the other person, how the other
person responded, and what the results were.
8.6 SKILL BUILDER: Lovers, Friends, and Strangers
1. Redraw the “relationship window” in the text, giving dominance to the quadrant that poses
the most problems for you.
2. Identify three different experiences (personal vignettes) that illustrate the types of problems
you have when interacting under the conditions in that quadrant.
3. For one week, keep a record of situations where you act assertively, nonassertively, and
aggressively when interacting with another person. Which quadrant of the relationship
window accounts for the most examples of assertive, aggressive, and nonassertive
communication? Bring three examples of each to class.
8.7 SKILL BUILDER: Likes and Dislikes (see Worksheet in the Worksheets section)
1. Identify five people to whom you are strongly attracted. How might each of the factors
discussed in the text–attractiveness, proximity, reinforcement, similarity, and
complementarity—help to explain the attraction?
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2. Identify five people to whom you are not attracted. Using the same factors, attempt to explain
why you do not find these people attractive.
8.8 SKILL BUILDER: The Conflict Inferno
1. Pretend that you and the other members of your class are trapped by fire on the top floor of a
skyscraper. An explosion could occur at any time. Only one very narrow stairway remains
open to lead the group to safety. You decide to form a line, single file, to go down this
stairway. Of course, those nearest the front of the line will have the greatest chance of
survival. Your task is to determine the order in which people will take their place in line.
2. You must give reasons why you yourself should head the line. How successful were you in
handling the conflicts that arose? Which communication strategies did you use? What
effects did they have?
8.9 SKILL BUILDER: Electronic Friendships
With the prevalence of cell phone and online buddy lists, friendships have become as portable,
disposable, and accessible as the new technologies used to sustain them. In Japan, as cheap cell
phones flood the market, teens are dialing one another all day for brief, faceless encounters.
1. Work with a partner to determine how you use the cell phone. How much time do you spend
on the device? Whom do you call daily? Are there people you call that you hardly know?
2. Report your observations to the class.
8.10 SKILL BUILDER: The Expression of Emotion Online
Select an individual with whom you interact regularly both face-to-face and online. Compare and
contrast the way you and your friend handle and express your emotions and feelings to each
other when using each medium. Consider these questions:
Do people feel freer to self-disclose when communicating face to face or online?
Do people seem to be more blunt online?
Are conflicts more apt to occur online or face-to-face?
When conflict surfaces, is it easier to resolve in-person or online?
8.11 SKILL BUILDER: Emotion Survey
Consider the following emotions below. Which of these feelings do you experience most
frequently in each relationship you have? Least frequently? Which feeling do you least enjoy?
Most enjoy? Why?
Anger
Happiness
Surprise
Fear
Sadness
8.12 SKILL BUILDER: Complete Two Tasks
Complete these two tasks:
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1. Identify the specific steps you would take to reduce uncertainty about someone
you do not know well
2. Explain the basis for then deciding whether a relationship with this persone would
or would not be rewarding.
Report your findings to your group or class.
8.13 SKILLBUILDER: Describe
Describe how :
attractiveness
proximity
similarity
reinforcement
complementarity
play a role in whether or not you are attracted to another person. Rank these attractors in terms of
their importance to you.
8.14 SKILLBUILDER: Rants and Revelations
On radio and television talk show, in blogs, in political and self-help columns, and in books,
we find people ranting, engaging in name calling, venting, delivering tirades and revealing
their innermost secrets. Listening and reacting to extremely angry or confessional unman
beings is almost an entertainment form.
Consider these questions:
1. What functions do you think mediated rants serve? Do we need to take steps to restore
civility into the common discussion of social problems?
2. With respect to public disclosures of private matters, are we creating a new type of
online intimacy? Are we making intimacy in the real world less important?
8.15 SKILLBUILDER: Tied in Knots
This exercise is suggested by an experience included in Virginia Satir’s book Peoplemaking
1. Think of some idea, belief, value need or goal that has involved you in conflict.
2. Identify the relevant aspects of yourself or other person or persons involved.
3. Choose class members to play the parts.
4. Cut string into 10 foot lengths. Ask the others to hold onto the rope.
5. Tell the story. Ask the players to pull or tug on the ropes when they were in conflict with
you.
In what ways does this exercise demonstrate the conflict process?
8.16 SKILLBUILDER: Taking Advantage
Describe an interpersonal situation in which someone took advantage of you and you permitted
it. What do you believe motivated the other person? What motivated you? Describe a situation in
which you took advantage of someone else. Why do you believe the other person allowed you to
victimize him or her?
8.17 SKILLBUILDER: Cyberaffair
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In a cyber-affair one person carries on an interpersonal relationship that is not necessarily
physical or intimate with another person online
In cybersex, which is anonymous, and built on fantasy persons talk about having sex, describing
various acts with an online partner.
If your significant other were to have a cyber-affair or engage in cybersex, would you consider
him or her to be guilty of infidelity? Why or why not?
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WORKSHEETS
Worksheet for Skill Builder 9.7: Likes and Dislikes
1. Identify five people to whom you are strongly attracted. Explain how attractiveness,
proximity, reinforcement, similarity, and complementarity help to explain the attraction.
Person 1 Person 2 Person 3 Person 4 Person 5
Attractiveness
Proximity
Reinforcement
Similarity
Complementarit
y
–
2. Identify five people to whom you are not attracted. Explain the lack of attraction using these
five factors.
Person 1 Person 2 Person 3 Person 4 Person 5
Attractiveness
Proximity
Reinforcement
Similarity
Complementarit
y
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