for Maria the Tutor

8 Communication Climate:

The Foundation of

Personal Relationships

Communication Climate

• The overall feeling or emotional mood

between people – warm or cold, safe or

anxious, comfortable or awkward, accepting

or rejecting, open or guarded – that is

shaped by verbal and nonverbal interaction

between people

Features of Satisfying

Personal Relationships

• Investment

• Commitment

• Trust

• Comfort and relational dialectics

Relational Dialectics

• Autonomy vs. connection

• Novelty vs. predictability

• Openness vs. closedness

Negotiating Dialectical Tensions

• Neutralization

• Selection

• Separation

• Reframing

Levels of Confirmation And

Disconfirmation

• Recognizing that another person exists

• Acknowledgment of what another feels,

thinks, or says

• Endorsement – accepting another’s feelings

or thoughts

Confirming and Disconfirming Messages

Defensive and Supportive Climates

• Evaluation vs. description

• Certainty vs. provisionalism

• Strategy vs. spontaneity

• Control vs. problem orientation

• Neutrality vs. empathy

• Superiority vs. equality

Guidelines for Creating and Sustaining

Healthy Climates

• Actively use communication to build

climates

• Accept and confirm others

• Affirm and assert yourself

• Respect diversity in relationships

• Respond constructively to criticism

Aggression, Assertion, & Deference

Respond Constructively to Criticism

• Seek more information

• Consider the criticism thoughtfully

• If you decide the criticism is valid, consider

whether you want to change how you act

• Thank the person who offered the criticism