UNIT II:

INTERPERSONAL
COMMUNICATION

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 Chapter 7
Understanding Interpersonal
Communication in Relationships
Marital Problems
Managing Conflict
Communication Principles

Appropriately Be aware of
adapt your your
message to communication
others

Listen and Effectively use

respond and
thoughtfully to interpret verbal
others messages
Effectively use
and
interpret
nonverbal
messages
 Understanding Interpersonal
Communication
 What Is Interpersonal Communication?

 Initiating Relationships

 Maintaining Relationships Through

 Interpersonal Communication
Chapter 7: Understanding Interpersonal Communication
What Is Interpersonal
Communication?
 Interpersonal communication is a
special form of unmediated human
communication that occurs when we
interact simultaneously with another
person and attempt to mutually influence
each other, usually for the purpose of
managing relationships.
Chapter 7: Understanding Interpersonal Communication
What Is Interpersonal
Communication?
 IPC involves quality.
 impersonal communication

 IPC involves simultaneous interaction between

individuals.

 IPC involves mutual influence between individuals.

 IPC is the fundamental means we use to manage our

relationships.
IMPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
Chapter 7: Understanding Interpersonal Communication

Initiating Relationships
 Interpersonal Attraction Defined
 degree to which you desire to form or maintain
an IP relationship

 Short-Term Initial Attraction

 potential for development

 Long-Term Maintenance Attraction

 sustains relationships
Chapter 7: Understanding Interpersonal Communication

Elements of IP Attraction
 Similarity
 Physical and Sexual
Attraction
 Proximity
 Complementarity
 inclusion
 control
 affection
Chapter 7: Understanding Interpersonal Communication

Communicating Our Attraction

 Direct and Indirect

Strategies

 Immediacy

 Verbal and Nonverbal

Cues
Getting That First Conversation Going

 Reducing Uncertainty

 uncertainty reduction theory

 passive, active, interactive strategies

 Getting That First Conversation Going

 What Do You Say First?

 The Art and Skill of Asking Great Questions

 conversational narcissism/self-absorbed
communicator style

 The Art and Skill of Giving and Receiving

Compliments
Chapter 7: Understanding Interpersonal Communication

Maintaining Relationships
Through IPC
 Self-Disclosure Defined
 we voluntarily provide information to others that
they would not learn if we did not tell them

 Reciprocity in Self-Disclosure

 Appropriateness in Self-Disclosure
 Assessing the Risks of Self-Disclosure
 Self-Disclosure, Intimacy, and Gender
Chapter 7: Understanding Interpersonal Communication

Models of Self-Disclosure
 Social Penetration
 developed by Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor

 illustrates how much and what kind of information

we reveal in various stages of relationships

 circles represent breadth and depth of penetration

 each relationship represents a degree of social

penetration
Chapter 7: Understanding Interpersonal Communication

Models of Self-Disclosure
The Social Penetration Model
Early in a relationship As the relationship develops

Very Very
Intimate Intimate

Intimate Superficial
Chapter 7: Understanding Interpersonal Communication

Models of Self-Disclosure
 Johari Window
 reflects various stages of relational
development, degrees of self-awareness, and
others’ perceptions of us

 square window represents yourself

 the self encompasses everything about you,

including things you don’t realize
 Models of Self-Disclosure
The Johari Window Model
Known to Not Known
Self to Self

Known to
Others OPEN BLIND

Not
Known to
HIDDEN UNKNOWN
Others
Checking Out Our
Interpersonal
Hunches