Communication & Theatre 4/510:
Advanced Interpersonal
Communication
ending relationships
Enright et al.: forgiveness = “a
willingness to abandon one’s right to
resentment, negative judgment, and
indifferent behavior toward one who
unjustly hurt us, while fostering the
underserved qualities of compassion,
generosity, and even love toward him
or her.”
(Galvin, p. 234)
forgiver and offender
mutually influence
each other.
How So?
Are there limits to forgiveness?
My
9/11Lai
Massacre
do you have limits for forgiveness in
your interpersonal relationships?
How does time
influence
forgiveness?
Forgiveness is a relational
drama. Take care when
writing the script!
Relational decline
coming apart
• differentiating
• circumscribing
• stagnating
• avoiding
• terminating
Steve Duck: relational dissolution
• intra-psychic phase
• dyadic phase
• social phase
• grave-dressing phase
Cupach: dialectical tension as symptomatic of
relational decline.
• confrontation and withdrawal followed by
superficiality
• unaligned availability
• unaligned depth and breadth of content
Miller and Parks:
• decrease use of future tense
• decrease “we, us, ours” etc..
• more conflict
• less time in conversation
• less touch
• greater distance
disintegrating communication
we leave as changed individuals
• different values
• definitions of self
• standards for relationship
• resocialization
• mourning
• self reflection
Roloff: most problems in
marriage are perpetual
Can we know resistance in
relationship without consent?
What forms of behavioral resistance may
indicate relational decline?
Soukup: traditionally
resistance is met with
coercion, which leads to
consent.
Wile in After the Fight
suggests that conflict is about
conversations a couple never
had, but needed to have.
These are typically avoided,
suppressed, withdrawn,
stonewalled.
Most of the times the male
in the relationship drives
negative affect.
Irritability in the male tends
to silence the female
What might binary
opposition be?
Why should we avoid binary opposition?
Seven Deadly Social Sins
• politics without principle
• wealth without work
• commerce without morality
• pleasure without conscience
• education without character
• science without humanity
• worship without sacrifice
-Gandhi
Kilmann and Thomas
Conflict Management Model
assertion compete
concern
for self
collaborate
compromise
non-assertion avoid
non-cooperation
accomodate
cooperation
concern
for other
Gottman: why marriages fail
• criticism
Why did you
do that?
• defensiveness (protect self)
Come and
get me if
you can!!
• contempt
How could
you be so
dumb!!!!!
• stonewalling (males exit conflict)
•divorce = > 5 to 1 + to – comments
On the other hand. . .
• validators survive (share core
values)
• fighters survive (if + to - > 5:1)
conflict minimizers survive (by avoiding
conflicts)
compatibility as to how we will disagree
is important
Happy marriages =
• emotional expression
•more self-disclosure by males
• males more engaged
Gottman - two marriages: his
and hers
• men have a harder time
recovering from being upset
- blood pressure & heart
rate rise higher and stay
high longer.
• physiologically men don’t
need to relate to people as
much as women . . .
a relation ship . . . who
tends to be in-charge?
In order to keep a man
engaged in a difficult
discussion, a woman often
raises the intensity to keep
the man responsive.
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