Chapter 8 Communicating in Intimate Relationships
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Chapter 8—Communicating in Intimate Relationships
At a Glance
The Nature of Intimate Relationships
Characteristics of Romantic Relationships
Forming and Communicating in Romantic Relationships
Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter you should be able to:
1. Describe characteristics that are common to intimate relationships.
2. Identify examples of relationships that demonstrate the three most common dialectical
tensions.
3. Summarize common attributes of romantic relationships.
4. Identify examples of how culture influences expectations of romantic relationships.
5. Summarize the steps in forming relationships.
6. Describe how romantic relationships vary in how they handle important communication
behaviors.
Chapter 8 Communicating in Intimate Relationships
Lecture Outline
I. The Nature of Intimate Relationships
A. Intimacy is the significant emotional closeness experienced in a relationship,
whether romantic or not.
B. Intimate relationships require deep commitment.
1. Commitment is our desire to stay in a relationship no matter what happens.
2. Intimate relationships usually require a level of emotional commitment, or a
sense of responsibility for each other’s feelings and emotional well-being.
3. Intimate relationships include a level of social commitment, which motivates
us to spend time together, to compromise, to be generous with praise, and to
C. Intimate relationships foster interdependence.
1. Intimate relationships include high degrees of interdependence, in that what
happens to one person affects everyone else in the relationship.
2. What distinguishes intimate relationships is their degree of interdependence.
D. Intimate relationships require continuous investment.
1. Compared to other relationships, intimate relationships exhibit a higher degree
of investment, or commitment of our energies and resources.
2. We invest time, attention, and material resources in relationships.
E. Intimate relationships spark dialectical tensions.
1. Dialectical tensions are conflicts between two important but opposing needs
or desires.
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2. Within families, romantic relationships, and friendships, three dialectical
tensions often arise:
a. Autonomy versus connection
i. Autonomy is the desire to be one’s own person.
ii. Connection is the desire to be close to others.
b. Openness versus closedness
i. Openness is the desire for disclosure and honesty.
ii. Closedness is the desire to keep certain facts, thoughts, or ideas to
oneself.
c. Predictability versus novelty
i. Predictability is the desire for consistency and stability.
ii. Novelty is the desire for fresh, new experiences.
3. Researchers believe that dialectical tensions are a normal part of any close,
interdependent relationship and become problematic only when people fail to
manage them constructively.
II. Characteristics of Romantic Relationships
A. Importance to our health and well-being
1. Married people live longer and healthier lives than those who never marry.
a. Being married reduces a person’s likelihood of engaging in risky health
behaviors. Married people drink less and are less likely to use illicit drugs
than their unmarried counterparts.
2. Studies have shown that the health benefits of marriage are greater for men
than for women.
B. Romantic relationships and exclusivity
1. One common expectation for romantic relationships is that they are exclusive.
a. Usually, exclusivity takes the form of monogamy, which means being in
only one romantic relationship at a time and avoiding romantic or sexual
involvement with others outside that relationship.
2. Not all romantic partners expect their relationships to be exclusive.
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3. Some romantic partners choose to have “open” relationships in which
romantic or sexual involvement with people outside the relationship is
accepted.
C. Romantic relationships and voluntariness
1. Another common expectation of romantic relationships is that they are
voluntary.
a. People choose for themselves whether to be romantically involved.
2. Even if people enter into romantic relationships voluntarily, they do not
always stay in them voluntarily.
3. People who are unhappy in relationships may stay in them involuntarily for
the following reasons:
a. They want to provide stability for their children.
b. Their religious beliefs disallow separation or divorce.
4. Stability does not necessarily imply relationship satisfaction.
D. Romantic relationships and love
1. In much of the Western world, people think of marriage and other romantic
relationships as being based on love.
E. Romantic relationships and sexuality
1. In many ways, people communicate similarly in same- and opposite-sex
romantic relationships.
F. Romantic relationships around the world
1. Culture affects expectations for exclusivity.
a. Western cultures emphasize exclusivity in romantic relationships.
b. Other countries, primarily in Africa and southern Asia, allow polygamy,
in which one person has two or more spouses at once.
c. Some cultures are also more accepting of marital infidelity.
2. Culture affects expectations for voluntariness.
a. People in Western cultures expect to be able to choose their romantic
partners.
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i. In the practice of arranged marriage, children are sometimes allowed
to reject their parents’ selection of a spouse.
ii. In other cases, children may be pressured to marry their parents’
choice.
3. Culture affects expectations for love.
a. In individualistic Western cultures, most people feel that love is necessary
for marriage.
4. Culture affects expectations for sexuality.
a. Social and legal acceptance of same-sex romantic relationships varies
dramatically among different cultures.
III. Forming and Communicating in Romantic Relationships
A. Getting in: stages of relationship development
1. Mark Knapp has suggested that relationship formation involves five separate
stages:
a. The initiating stage occurs when people meet and interact for the first
time.
b. The experimenting stage occurs when people have conversations to learn
more about another person.
2. Individual and cultural variations in relationship formation
a. Not every couple goes through the stages of relationship development in
the same way.
b. Relationship formation is not necessarily the same in all cultures.
3. Forming relationships online
a. The Internet provides a wide range of options for meeting people and
developing relationships, including dating sites, social networking sites,
chat rooms, bulletin boards, and massively multiplayer online role-playing
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i. The pool of prospective dating partners is limited to those with
Internet access.
ii. The information offered in online profiles may be inaccurate.
B. Communicating in romantic relationships
1. Romantic relationships vary in how they handle conflict.
a. According to William Wilmot and Joyce Hocker, conflict is an expressed
struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive
incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from the other party
in achieving their goals.
b. The way couples handle conflict, rather than the amount of conflict they
have, is what influences the success of their relationship.
c. The work of John Gottman suggests marital couples can be classified into
four groups, depending on how they handle conflict:
i. Validating couples talk about their disagreements openly and
cooperatively.
d. There are some differences between the conflict styles of homosexual and
heterosexual couples.
i. Gay and lesbian couples use more humor and positive emotion during
conflict conversations.
ii. Homosexual couples are less likely to become hostile after a conflict.
2. Romantic relationships vary in how they handle privacy.
a. According to communication privacy management (CPM) theory
developed by Sandra Petronio, we have ways of managing the tensions
between disclosing certain information and keeping other information
private.
3. Romantic relationships vary in how they handle emotional communication.
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a. Happy partners communicate more positive emotion and less negative
emotion with each other than do unhappy partners.
b. Unhappy couples are more likely than happy couples to reciprocate
expressions of negative emotion.
4. Romantic relationships vary in how they handle instrumental communication.
a. People in most romantic relationships communicate with each other using
instrumental communication, which is communication about day-to-day
topics and tasks.
b. The way partners negotiate the division of everyday tasks matters for their
relationship for at least two reasons:
i. Day-to-day tasks need to be completed, so couples cannot leave
decisions about who will do them to chance.
ii. The way in which partners divide mundane, everyday tasks often
reflects the balance of power in their relationship.
C. Getting out: ending romantic relationships
1. Romantic relationships develop over time, and when they come apart, they
also come apart over time.
2. Knapp has described five stages relationships go through when they end:
a. The differentiating stage occurs when partners begin to view differences
as undesirable or annoying.
b. The circumscribing stage occurs when partners begin to decrease the
quality and quantity of their communication with each other.
c. The stagnating stage occurs when the relationship stops growing and the
partners feel as if they are just “going through the motions” of the
relationship.
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ii. For legally married partners, relational termination means getting a
divorce, which is the legal discontinuation of the marriage.
IV. Communicating in Families
A. What makes a family?
1. Genetic ties
a. Many family members are related “by blood,” meaning they share a
specific proportion of genetic material.
b. Although sharing a genetic tie makes two people biological relatives, it
does not mean they share a social or emotional relationship.
2. Legal obligations
a. Parents have many legal obligations toward their minor children.
b. Marriage is the most heavily regulated family relationship from a legal
perspective.
B. Types of families
1. Family of origin is the family we grew up in, so it typically consists of our
parents or stepparents and any siblings we have.
2. Family of procreation is the family we start as an adult, and it consists of our
spouse or romantic partner and/or any children we raise as our own.
3. The nuclear family is a traditional configuration of a married woman and man
and their biological children.
C. Communication issues in families
1. Family roles
a. Family roles embody the functions people serve in the family system and
are different from family positions.
i. Positions are based on the structure of our relationships with others.
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c. Virginia Satire has suggested that four roles are especially common during
conflict episodes.
i. The blamer holds others responsible for whatever goes wrong but
accepts no responsibility for his or her behaviors.
ii. The placater is the peacemaker who will go to any lengths to reduce
2. Family rituals
a. Family rituals are the repetitive activities that have special meaning for a
family.
b. Rituals reinforce a family’s values and provide a sense of belonging.
3. Family stories
a. Family stories explain, give families a sense of history, express what
family members expect of one other, and reinforce connections across
different generations.
4. Family secrets
a. Family secrets reinforce the family’s identity and exclusivity.
V. Improving Communication in Intimate Relationships
A. Go for fun: emphasize excitement.
1. Partners who engage together in exciting or exhilarating forms of play
increase their level of relationship satisfaction.
2. Less exhilarating activities, even if they’re pleasant, don’t have the same
effect.
B. Stay positive: use confirming messages.
1. Confirming messages are behaviors that indicate how much we value another
person.
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b. Inquiry orientation involves messages that invite others to work
cooperatively to solve problems or understand issues.
c. Spontaneity involves messages that are unplanned and free of hidden
motives.
3. There are at least six types of disconfirming messages that create a defensive,
unsupportive climate in relationships:
a. Evaluative messages convey judgments of what’s right and wrong, good
and bad.
b. Control messages attempt to impose one’s ideas on others and coerce
others to agree.
c. Strategic messages suggest the speaker is trying to direct other people’s
behaviors.
4. Confirming messages are particularly important in marital relationships.
C. Deal with the dark side: handle conflict constructively.
1. Couples who manage conflict in a positive way do so by avoiding certain
problematic behaviors.
2. Gottman identified four specific warning signs for separation or relational
dissolution:
a. Criticism involves words that pass judgment on someone or something.
i. Criticism often takes the form of complaints that focus on the other
person’s personality or character rather than on his or her problematic
behaviors.
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i. This behavior can include calling names, using sarcasm or mockery to
make fun of another person, and engaging in nonverbal behaviors that
suggest a low opinion of the partner.
ii. Contempt can also include ridiculing the person in front of others and
encouraging others to do the same.
c. Defensiveness means seeing yourself as a victim and denying
responsibility for your behaviors.
D. Get real: have realistic expectations.
1. When expectations are unrealistic, relationships are likely to fail.
2. A good approach is to appreciate each relationship individually and to
remember that the important people in our lives are important for different
reasons.
E. Push and pull: manage dialectical tensions.
1. Researchers have identified eight different strategies to manage dialectical
tensions:
a. Denial entails responding to only one side of the tension and ignoring the
other.
b. Disorientation means ending the relationship in which the tension exists.
c. Alternation means going back and forth between the two sides of a
tension.
d. Segmentation means dealing with one side of a tension in some aspects of
a relationship and with the other side of the tension in other aspects of that
relationship.
2. Individuals in families and romantic relationships commonly try several of
these strategies, and they may find some more effective than others.
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Key Terms
alternation
avoiding stage
balance
bonding stage
family of procreation
family rituals
infidelity
initiating stage
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Additional Lecture Ideas
1. Assign an out-of-class movie project. Ask students to choose a film that focuses on
intimate interpersonal relationships, and have them report their paper in speech form,
citing examples of the concepts discussed in Chapter 8. You can also offer a few film
selections that highlight intimate relationships; a good one you might assign that
focuses on romantic relationships is Valentine’s Day (2010).
Synopsis: February 14th, Valentine’s Day, is not a national holiday, but it is one of those days that
must be celebrated. Valentine’s Day follows the lives of several couples during this day. Their stories
are told through the interconnections they have with each other. Some will find romance in their
relationships, and others will feel the heartbreak of ending a relationship. In this Russian roulette world
of finding love, everyone in the film is asking for advice on how to find and keep true love.
a. Several relationships are highlighted throughout the film. Compare and contrast how the various
couples express intimacy toward one another.
b. Captain Kate Hazeltine picks up on several of her flight friend Holden’s nonverbal communication
behaviors and makes assumptions accordingly. She shares these with him; what are they?
c. Over the course of the day, florist Reed Bennett and his girlfriend Morley Clarkson experience
several stages of Knapp’s developmental model. Describe them.
2. “All in the Family” Speech Assignment. Assign your students a “family research”
project in which they write a report and give an oral presentation on a family story or
ritual. Encourage students to bring in family photographs or props that relate to the
stories and rituals they share.
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Classroom Discussion and Activity Topics
1. For a discussion starter, ask students to recall a recent conflict in a current or past
2. Divide students into four groups. Assign each group the same conflict scenario, but
assign a different family role to each group:
a. The blamer holds others responsible for whatever goes wrong but accepts no
responsibility for his or her behaviors.
b. The placater is the peacemaker who will go to any lengths to reduce conflict.
3. As a homework assignment, have students bring a sample song to class that depicts one
of the ten stages of Knapp’s relational development model. Play and discuss clips of the
song in class using iPods, a CD player, or your computer’s speakers. Discuss how
4. Divide students into small groups for discussion. Ask students to make a list of times
when they have heard disconfirming messages at home, school, or work. What types of
disconfirming messages were on the list? How could the disconfirming messages be
5. The Dark Side of Communication—When a Desire for Commitment Turns to Obsession.
Lead a discussion on obsessive relational intrusion and cyberstalking, discussed in
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For Review
1. What makes some relationships intimate?
2. How do we form, maintain, and dissolve romantic relationships?
3. What makes a family, and how do we communicate in families?
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Pop Quiz
Multiple Choice
1. Johann and his partner Cris go out to dinner and see a movie every Friday night. That routine
bores Johann but provides stability that Cris values. The dialectical tension Johann and Cris
are experiencing is
a. openness versus closedness.
b. autonomy versus connectedness.
c. presence versus absence.
d. predictability versus novelty.
2. The idea that romantic relationships occur between individuals who choose to be together
reflects the characteristic that romantic relationships are
a. exclusive.
b. voluntary.
c. composed of opposite-sex partners.
d. based on love.
3. The stage of Knapp’s relational model that helps individuals decide whether they have
enough in common to move the relationship forward is
a. initiating.
b. intensifying.
c. differentiating.
d. experimenting.
4. The practice in which one person has two or more spouses at a time is called
a. monogomy.
b. infidelity.
c. polygamy.
d. annulment.
5. Doug’s family has a tradition of calling his grandmother every Sunday morning. That
practice exemplifies a family
a. ritual.
b. role.
c. secret.
d. story.
Fill in the Blanks
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6. Connectedness is in dialectical tension with _____.
7. Discussions about topics such as who’s doing the laundry and who’s taking out the paper and
glass for recycling are examples of _____ communication.
8. According to Gottman, couples who talk openly about disagreements and stay calm
throughout conflict episodes are called _____ couples.
9. According to _____ theory, partners in a romantic relationship jointly own information about
their problems.
10. A romantic relationship is _____ when the partners are going through the motions of a
relationship that is no longer satisfying.