· Identify factors that have influenced your choice of relational partners.
· Use Knapp’s model to describe the nature of communication in the various stages of a relationship.
Instructions:
1. Discuss the various situations below
2. Identify the relational stage(s) that many of these behaviors illustrate (for example: initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, bonding, differentiating, circumscribing, avoiding, stagnating, and terminating).
3. Cite information from Chapter 8 of Looking Out/Looking In that verifies the stage of the relationship and include the page number (283-287).
4. Record relational situations of your own in the same manner.
Example:
Two friends are discussing the effects of divorce in their families.
In your answer, tell me what stage this is and what communication you might see that would mean your explanation was true.
Relational state illustrated: This type of self-disclosure would most likely occur in an intensifying stage of a relationship (258), where our author explains that this communication would happen between friends that have gone
beyond the small talk of experimenting
and are beginning to develop more trust, more depth rather than breadth of self-disclosure, and where secrets are told and favors are given.
1. Two friends are telling one another about using/refusing drugs.
Relational stage illustrated:
2. Two classmates are comparing the results of their first exam.
Relational stage illustrated:
3. Two people seated next to each other on an overseas flight begin telling one another about their past romantic involvements.
Relational stage illustrated:
4. Two long-term friends are discussing their worries and feelings of responsibility regarding their parents’ advancing age.
Relational stage illustrated:
5. Cousins who practically lived at each other’s homes as teenagers five years ago now seem to have nothing to talk about.
Relational stage illustrated:
6. A divorced couple meets briefly to discuss education and vacation plans for their children.
Relational stage illustrated:
7. A man and woman who had dated for six months during college ten years ago now find themselves working for the same company.
Relational stage illustrated:
8. A manager and employee have agreed to sit down and talk about the problems they are experinceing with each other.
Relational stage illustrated:
9. Your example from your life:
Relational stage illustrated:
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