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CHAPTER 8
COMMUNICATION AND RELATIONAL DYNAMICS
Objectives
After reading the material in Chapter Eight of Looking Out/Looking In, you should understand:
2. The ten stages of interpersonal relationships.
4. Strategies for managing dialectical tensions.
6. The content and relational aspects of messages.
8. The concept of metacommunication.
Specifically, you should be able to:
2. Use Knapp’s model to describe the nature of communication in the various stages of a
relationship.
4. Explain how change and culture affect communication in interpersonal relationships.
6. Describe how metacommunication can be used to improve the quality of a given relationship.
Notes on Class and Student Activities
A. How Fast Should We Go?
1. Ask students to describe what leads them to be attracted to certain people, and compare this to the
attraction variables in the text.
2. Next, review the stages of coming together in the text, and have students evaluate how quickly
they should go through each increasing stage of intimacy.
1. To what extent are your strong, positive personal relationships based on the listed attraction
variables?
Note 1. Some students have a tendency to describe romantic relationships of even a short duration as
Discussion
The activity includes a number of discussion questions for use with groups.
C. Your Dialectical Tensions (Pause and Reflect, text, p. 266, and Discovering Dialectics,
1. Have students make a column for each of the strategies for dealing with dialectical tensions.
2. Record how frequently each is used and in which types of situations.
D. Is Your Relationship Worthwhile?
1. Use as assignment or small group activity.
2. Ask students to diagram an important relationship using the social exchange equation [rewards –
1. How do first impressions in the workplace affect your ability to do your job? If first impression
was negative, how long did it take to break free of the bias?
F. Communicating About Relational Messages (8.3 in the Student Activities Manual)
Objectives
Instructions
Discussion Questions
1. For each item, which relational dimensions were identified? Did differences exist among group
members? If so, what accounted for the differences, and who is right? How do you know?
