Lecture 3: Communication

Question 1

What are the 5 functions of nonverbal communication in relationships?

Answer 1

• (1) Providing information — a person’s behavior allows others to make inferences about his or her intentions, feelings, traits, and meaning
• (2) Regulating interaction — nonverbal behavior provides cues that regulate the efficient give-and-take of smooth conversations and other interactions
• (3) Defining the nature of the relationship — the type of partnership two people share may be evident in their nonverbal behavior
• (4) Interpersonal influence — goal-oriented behavior designed to influence someone else
• (5) Impression management — nonverbal behavior that is managed by a person or a couple to create or enhance a particular image

Question 2

What is self-disclosure and why does it lead to closeness?

Answer 2

• self-disclosure: the process of revealing personal information to someone else
• It promotes closeness because:
  
  • (1) If we’re attracted to others, we tend to be more open with them
  • (2) We tend to like others because we have self-disclosed to them
  • (3) It’s rewarding to be entrusted with self-disclosures from others
• Compared to those who engage in more superficial small talk, people who have substantive, deep conversations and who make themselves known to others enjoy better health and more satisfaction with life
  
  • One of the most important communications: tell others you love them, verbally — it’s beneficial to them and to you

Question 3

What is social penetration theory?

Answer 3

• social penetration theory: relationships develop through systematic changes in communication
• People are likely to start off a conversation with superficial topics, but if they find it rewarding, they try to move closer by increasing two aspects of their communication:
  
  • (1) Its breadth: the variety of topics they discuss, and
  • (2) Its depth: the personal significance of the topics they discuss

Question 4

What is disclosure reciprocity?

Answer 4

• disclosure reciprocity: new partners tend to match each other’s level of openness, disclosing more as the other person does, and disclosing less if the other person’s self-disclosure declines
• Later, pattern of exchange of information is less rigid

Question 5

When might self-disclosure have negative outcomes?

Answer 5

• Disclosing highly personal information too early & disclosing to anyone who will listen – viewed negatively about others
• Can’t make blanket statements about self-disclosure
• Discussing topics considered off-limits for given stage of relationship (taboo topics)

Question 6

What are taboo topics and how do they impact relationships?

Answer 6

• Explicitly or implicitly, partners may agree to steer clear of taboo topics, sensitive matters that, in their opinion, may threaten the quality of their relationship.
  
  • Curiously, the most common taboo topic is the state of the relationship itself
  • Current and past relations, and sexual experiences, are often avoided
• The more taboo topics there are in a relationship, the less satisfied the partners are unless they feel that they’re avoiding touchy topics to promote and protect their relationship

Question 7

What are high openers?

Answer 7

• high openers: People who are better at drawing more intimate information out from others more quickly
• Appear more attentive during conversation—gazing and nodding more, and looking interested—and they verbally express more interest in what others are saying
• They seem to be absorbed by what others have to say, so they tend to be very good interviewers

Question 8

What is the role of self-disclosure in long-term relationships?

Answer 8

• In longer-term relationships (LTRs), partners continue to disclose
  
  • Sometimes something about self the partner does not know
  • But more often about daily experiences and future aspirations
  • Both are important
• Responses to these disclosures can foster intimacy and encourage future disclosures
  
  • OR can undermine connection and discourage future disclosures

Question 9

What is Reis & Patrick’s (1996) intimacy process model (or interpersonal model of intimacy)?

Answer 9

(1) Meaningful self-disclosure — characterized by authenticity, openness, and honesty
(2) Respond to each with interest and empathy
(3) Perceived partner responsiveness — your partner judges you as being responsive

Question 10

What is the interpersonal gap?

Answer 10

• interpersonal gap: when the sender’s intentions differ from the effect on the receiver

Question 11

What is responsiveness and what are its 3 components?

Answer 11

• responsiveness: attentive and supportive recognition of one person’s needs and interests by another
• Measured via partner self-report as perceived partner responsiveness
  
  • There isn’t an “objectively correct” responsive interaction – there’s worse way to do it than others, but it’s important that the other person thinks you did a good job
• 3 components:
  
  • Feeling understood – this is particularly important
    
    • We have to listen with the intent to understand
  • Go beyond the superficial meaning (read between the lines, notice facial expressions and tone)
    
    • Ask questions to encourage elaboration and check your own assumptions about what they feel
  • Feeling valued, respected, and validated
    
    • Validation of our partners that acknowledges the legitimacy of their opinions and communicates respect for their positions is always a desirable goal in intimate interaction
• Feeling cared for

Question 12

What is nonverbal sensitivity and why is it important in relationships?

Answer 12

• nonverbal sensitivity: the sensitivity and accuracy with which couples read, decode, and correctly interpret each other’s nonverbal behavior
  
  • Can predict how happy their relationship will be
• When nonverbal exchanges fail, there may be errors in encoding or decoding, or both
• Women typically start with an advantage at both tasks because, if no deception is involved, women are both better encoders and more astute decoders than men are on average

Question 13

Explain Noller’s findings on gender differences in nonverbal sensitivity.

Answer 13

• Noller (1980): Husbands in unhappy marriages sent more confusing messages and made more decoding errors than happy husbands did
  
  • No differences among the wives, so the poorer communication that Noller observed in the distressed marriages appeared to be the husbands’ fault.”
  • On the other hand, Noller (1981): In unhappy marriages, both the husbands and wives understood strangers better than they understood each other
• Noller (2006): Once partners grow dissatisfied for any reason, they tend to start tuning each other out, and that causes them to communicate less adeptly than they could if they really tried
• Just as with empathy, it’s not that men are unable to have such sensitivity, but that women are generally more motivated to
  
  • With coaching, men can also be high in nonverbal sensitivity

Question 14

What are the benefits of responsiveness?

Answer 14

• People who perceive their relationship partners as more responsive feel more close, satisfied, and committed to those relationships
• Promotes intimacy by encouraging self-disclosure, trust, and interdependency
• The basic tenet of secure relationships is responsiveness

Question 15

Explain Collins & Feeny’s (2004) experiment on attachment styles and perceived responsiveness.

Answer 15

• Romantic couples
  
  • Told 1 member would give speech that will be taped and evaluated by a group of other students
  • Spontaneous (videotaped interaction)
  • Partner delivered the speech
• Just after they delivered the speech, they received a note of support from partner
  
  • Note predetermined by researchers and simply copied by partner
  • Unambiguous/high support
  • Ambiguous/low support
• DVs – asked the person who received the note:
  
  • How supportive was the note?
  • How supportive was your partner’s behaviour before the speech (i.e. before they ostensibly wrote the note)?
• Results: All Ps rated unambiguously supportive notes positively
  
  • However, for the ambiguous notes, Ps who were more insecurely attached rated the notes as more inconsiderate and upsetting
  • Furthermore, insecure Ps who received the ambiguous notes rated partner’s prior behaviour (i.e. before they wrote the note) as less supportive
• Conclusion: Working models of self and others can bias perceptions of support experiences

Question 16

What is capitalization and what are its benefits?

Answer 16

• capitalization: responding with enthusiasm or excitement when a partner/friend shares good news
• A process with 2 components:
  
  • One person shares good news with another
  • The other person responds with enthusiasm and excitement
  • Both increases enjoyment or pleasure about the event
    
    • AND enhances the relationship itself
• Feel closer to those who enhance our excitement about personal successes
• Relationships in which capitalization occurs more often are more satisfying and longer lasting

Question 17

What is empathic accuracy?

Answer 17

• empathic accuracy: capability to accurately infer what another person is thinking or feeling
  
  • In other words, understanding what they are trying to communicate (verbally and/or nonverbally)
    
    • Or what they’re not communicating (reading between the lines)
• Ability to have empathic accuracy (almost like “mind reading”) is positively associated with
  
  • Familiarity
  • Motivation to be accurate
• What about gender; are women more empathically accurate?

Question 18

Explain Study 1 in Klein & Hodge’s (2001) experiment on gender and empathic accuracy.

Answer 18

• 121 undergraduates (71 F, 50 M)
• Procedure: Watched video of a woman being interviewed after receiving negative academic feedback
  
  • Instructed to try to infer the thoughts and feelings of the target (empathic accuracy task)
  • Also a completed sympathy questionnaire - either BEFORE (priming them to think about sympathy) or AFTER the empathic accuracy task (control group)
  • Also measured extent Ps felt range of emotions after watching the video (e.g. alarmed, grieved), wanted to control for what the participants were feeling since empathic accuracy is about imagining how the other person would feel
• DV: Empathic accuracy
  
  • 4 independent judges coded the accuracy of Ps’ inferences (compared to the experience reported by the target in the video)
• Results: Females more accurate than men – but only when given the sympathy questionnaire before doing the empathic accuracy task
• Conclusion: When cued into the fact that a task is about empathy, the women outperform the men – presumably because they are more motivated to perform well (i.e. match the stereotype that women are more empathic than men)

Question 19

Explain Study 2 in Klein & Hodge’s (2001) experiment, attempting to increase men’s empathic accuracy motivation.

Answer 19

• 108 undergraduates (53 F, 54 M)
• Procedure:
  
  • Watched the same video of a woman being interviewed after receiving negative academic feedback
  • Completed a sympathy questionnaire BEFOREHAND
  • Instructed to try to infer the thoughts and feelings of the target
• Money condition: also told that would receive $2 for fully correct answer, $1 for somewhat correct answer, no money for incorrect answer
• Control condition: no additional instructions
• DV: Empathic accuracy
• Result: Females more accurate in the control condition
  
  • But no gender differences in the money condition
  • Differences between women in the control and money conditions are also insignificant
• Conclusion: gender differences in empathic accuracy are due to motivation, not ability

Question 20

What are the 3 main sources of gender differences in communication?

Answer 20

• Topics of conversation:
  
  • (1) Women more likely to discuss feelings; men more likely to discuss objects or events; i.e. being more expressive vs. instrumental – when they’re talking to each other
    
    • However, when young adults chatted with strangers online using written messages, they were generally unable to correctly guess the sex of the person they were chatting with if the researchers didn’t tell them
    • The sorts of things that distinguish men’s and women’s conversations (such as the latest sports results) rarely came up, so there was usually no way to determine with whom one was chatting
  • (2) Women more likely to have serious discussions; men more likely to make jokes (again, when it’s with the same gender)
    
    • These differences less apparent when men and women interact with each other, but women are still more self-disclosing than men in relationships
    • Men are more likely to open up to women than men, which means they often depend on women for emotional warmth and intimacy
• Style of conversation:
  
  • (3) Women speak less forcefully, directly than men
    
    • Women speak more often (but are also interrupted more) than men – maybe because they constantly have to start over due to being interrupted
    • Sometimes men don’t disclose & sometimes women don’t effectively disclose

Question 21

How do androgynous men fair in intimate interactions?

Answer 21

• Androgynous men tend to have meaningful, intimate interactions with both sexes just as women do
  
  • Only traditional, macho-men aren’t likely to disclose to other men
• The typical intimacy of a person’s interactions is tied to his or her level of expressivity; it doesn’t matter whether the person is a man or woman.
  
  • Expressivity is a trait that ranges from low to high in both women and men, so it makes more sense to take note of individual differences in communicative style than to lump all men together and treat them as a group distinct from women
• blirtatiousness: whether you can blurt out your thoughts in a rapid-fire manner or need a lot of time to think about their words
  
  • Androgynous men aren’t bothered by highly blirtatious women, but traditional guys tend to be dissatisfied in the long run when they are paired with assertive, talkative women

Question 22

What is social cognition and how does it impact intimate relationships?

Answer 22

• social cognition: the processes of perception, interpretation, belief, and memory with which we evaluate and understand ourselves and other people
• This is important because what we think helps to determine what we feel, and then how we act
  
  • And can have negative consequences if our perceptions are inaccurate

Question 23

How much information can we get from first impressions and do first impressions have lasting influences on perceptions of people?

Answer 23

• One study found that first impressions can last up to 10 weeks after meeting a person, even when they’re false
• It only takes us about 39 milliseconds to judge someone’s face and make an impression of them
  
  • e.g. Whether or not a face is angry, and such judgements form a stereotype of that person
  • It’s hard to avoid using such stereotypes since we’re often unaware of them
• We can gain a lot information about someone with just a glance
  
  • One study found that strangers could quite accurately judge strangers’ age, gender, income, and even anxiety about abandonment, just from a picture of their shoes

Question 24

Explain the Darley & Gross (1983) study about how primacy effects work in first impressions to influence our perceptions of others.

Answer 24

• primacy effect: a tendency for the first information we receive about others to carry special weight, along with our instant impressions and our stereotypes, in shaping our overall impressions of them
• Ps learned about a little girl named Hannah who was either rich or poor and judged her academic performance
  
  • Initially, Ps didn’t show any difference in their ratings of Hannah’s intelligence
• However, after watching a video about Hannah performing inconsistently on a test (getting hard questions right but easy questions wrong) — Ps who thought that Hannah was poor cited her mistakes and judged her as performing below average
  
  • Those who thought she was rich noted her successes and rated her as considerably better than average
• Neither group is technically incorrect and can both point to evidence supporting their views
• But what matters is that their perceptions contradict each other based on first impressions

Question 25

Explain the Snyder & Swann (1987) study on how confirmation bias works in first impressions to influence our perceptions of others.

Answer 25

• confirmation bias: people generally seek information that will prove them right more often than they look for examples that would prove them wrong
• Study: People who were asked to interview others to find out whether they’re sociable, i.e. an introvert or extrovert, and their questions differed significantly based on what researchers had told them to find out

Question 26

How does being overconfident influence our perceptions of others?

Answer 26

• overconfident: thinking that we’re more accurate than we really are and making more mistakes than we realize
• After knowing our partners for a greater amount of time, we become increasingly confident in what we know about them, despite not actually being more accurate

Question 27

How may our impressions be influenced by outside factors that we’re not aware of?

Answer 27

• In one experiment, Ps who had warmer hands (by holding a cup of coffee) judged a stranger as warmer than those with cold hands
• In another experiment, sitting at a wobbly table on a wobbly chair increased P’s desire for stability in a mate
• In both experiments, Ps were completely unaware of the external conditions swaying their judgments

Question 28

What is impression management?

Answer 28

• impression management: trying to influence the impressions of us that others form
• Nearly anything we do in the presence of others may be strategically regulated
  
  • e.g. Women eating less on dates with attractive men, or men being more risky or pretending to be unaffected by horror movies to impress women
• Impression management increases our changes of accomplishing our interpersonal objectives
  
  • Doesn’t mean that people are being untruthful and they actually rarely pretend to be things they’re not since frauds are exposed and rejected
  • Rather, they attempt to guide people to the most desirable attributes of their “real” self

Question 29

What are the 4 broad strategies in impression management?

Answer 29

• (1) ingratiation: trying to get others to like us by doing favours, paying compliments, agreeing with them, and being generally charming
  
  • Usually elicits positive reactions from others, if such behaviour is sincere
• (2) self-promotion: recounting our accomplishments or strategically arranging public demonstrations of our skills
• (3) intimidation: portraying oneself as ruthless, dangerous, and menacing so that others will do your bidding
  
  • Generally produces an undesirable image and can drive people away, but if used only occasionally can get you what you want
• (4) supplication: presenting oneself as inept or infirm to avoid obligations and to elicit help and support from others

Question 30

How does impression management work in intimate relationships?

Answer 30

Impression management in intimate relationships is moderated by two features:

• (1) The motivation to self-monitor: readiness to adjust their behavior to fit the varying norms of different situations
  
  • Low self-monitors are less attentive to social norms and less flexible; they have smaller repertoires of skills, so they behave more consistently from one situation to the next, making the same impressions even when they don’t fit in
    
    • If low self-monitors had all their friends over, fewer people would come, but they’d all be a lot alike
  • High self-monitors tend to have more friends than low self-monitors do, but they have less in common with each of them
    
    • They strive to steer clear of any topics that would cause dispute
    • Enjoy interactions of greater intimacy earlier on, trying to establish common ground with those they meet — but later on, they end up spending less of their time on individual friends
    • If they threw a party and invited all those friends, very different people who have little in common with each other would show up
• (2) We usually go to less trouble to maintain favorable images for our intimate partners than we do for others
  
  • We know our friends and lovers like us, so there’s less motivation to win their approval
  • Because they know us well, there’s less we can do to have much effect on what they think
  • However, it’s also likely that people simply get lazy
    
    • And this can become a problem in relationships down the line

Question 31

What are positive illusions and how do they influence relationships?

Answer 31

• positive illusions: portray our partners “in the best possible light” — such ‘illusions’ are a mix of realistic knowledge about our partners and idealized perceptions of them
  
  • Not ignoring a partner’s faults, but more likely to make excuses for them or less likely to think such faults are important
• If we fool ourselves too much with positive illusions, we may eventually end up disappointing ourselves or putting too much pressure on our partners by expecting them to be perfect
• But if we’re quite aware of their flaws, such illusions can actually be beneficial for a relationship
  
  • They allow us to be more committed to our partners by judging their behaviour positively and doing so improves their self-esteem
  • Somewhat-idealized views of romantic partners are associated with greater satisfaction as time goes by
• Over time, as we come to know our partners better, we tend to revise our perceptions of what we want in an ideal partner to fit the partner we currently have

Question 32

What are attributions?

Answer 32

• attributions: the explanations we generate for why things happen — and in particular why a person did or did not do something
  
  • Internal vs. external attributions
  • Causes might be stable vs. unstable
  • And controllable vs. uncontrollable

Question 33

What are actor-observer effects and how does it impact relationships?

Answer 33

• actor/observer effects: when partners generate different explanations for their own behavior than they do for the similar things they see their partners do
  
  • Two people usually agree about what each of them did but to disagree about why each of them did it
    
    • And are unlikely to be aware of the discrepancies in their attributions
  • When partners make a conscious effort to try to understand the other’s point of view, the actor/observer discrepancy gets smaller, but it rarely vanishes completely
• Often leads to trait-ascription bias: tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable, others as more predictable across situations

Question 34

What are self-serving biases and how does it impact relationships?

Answer 34

• self-serving biases: when people readily take credit for their successes but try to avoid the blame for their failures
  
  • Although they won’t tell their partners, people usually think that they personally deserve much of the credit when their relationships are going well, but they’re not much to blame if a partnership is doing poorly
• When people think about doing good things, they often feel better about themselves due to their good intentions — but if they don’t follow through, nobody else, including their partner, has a reason to think them more considerate than they are

Question 35

How do happy and unhappy people differ in the way they make attributions for their partners’ actions?

Answer 35

• Happy people make attributions for their partners’ behavior that are relationship enhancing
  
  • Positive actions by the partner are judged to be intentional, habitual, and indicative of the partner’s fine character; i.e. controllable, stable, and internal attributions
  • Negative actions are attributed to external, unstable, and uncontrollable causes
• Unhappy people make distress-maintaining attributions that regard a partner’s negative actions as deliberate and routine and positive behavior as unintended and accidental
  
  • This is called the fundamental attribution error: the tendency to over-emphasize others’ internal characteristics, rather than external circumstances, to explain their behaviour
  • When kindnesses seem accidental and hurts seem deliberate, satisfaction is hard to come by

Question 36

What is reconstructive memory and how does it influence relationship satisfaction?

Answer 36

• reconstructive memory: our memories are continually revised and rewritten as new information is obtained
• Partners’ current feelings about each other influence what they remember about their shared past
  
  • If they’re presently happy, people tend to forget past disappointments
    
    • If they’re unhappy and their relationship is failing, they underestimate how happy and loving they used to be
  • Contented lovers are likely to recall that they have had some problems in the past but that things have recently gotten better, so they are happier now than they used to be
    
    • If you follow couples over time, they’ll tell you this over and over even when their satisfaction with each other is gradually eroding instead of increasing

Question 37

What are marital paradigms and the 3 main kinds?

Answer 37

• marital paradigms: broad assumptions about whether, when, and under what circumstances we should marry that are accompanied by beliefs about what it’s like to be married
• Romanticism
• Destiny beliefs
• Growth beliefs

Question 38

What is romanticism and how does it impact peoples’ views of relationships?

Answer 38

• romanticism: the view that love should be the most important basis for choosing a mate
• People who are high in romanticism believe that (a) each of us has only one perfect, “true” love; (b) true love will find a way to overcome any obstacle; and (c) love is possible at first sight.
• Romantic people experience more love, satisfaction, and commitment in the first few months of their romantic partnerships than unromantic people do—but these beliefs tend to erode as time goes by

Question 39

What is the difference between destiny and growth beliefs and how does it impact perceptions of relationships?

Answer 39

• destiny beliefs: assumption that two people are either well suited for each other and destined to live happily ever after, or they’re not; inflexible view of intimate partnerships
• People who hold destiny beliefs become hostile when they are asked to confront their partners’ faults
  
  • growth beliefs: good relationships are believed to develop gradually as the partners work at surmounting challenges and overcoming obstacles, and a basic presumption is that with enough effort, almost any relationship can succeed
  • People who hold growth beliefs can discuss their lovers’ imperfections with equanimity

Question 40

What is a self-fulfilling prophecy and how does this influence relationships?

Answer 40

• self-fulfilling prophecies: false predictions that become true because they lead people to behave in ways that make the erroneous expectations come true
• Our perceptions of others not only influence our interpretations of the information we gain, they also guide our behavior toward others
  
  • As the perceiver interprets the target’s response, the perceiver is unlikely to recognize the role that he or she played in producing it

Question 41

Explain Snyder et al.’s (1977) study on self-fulfilling prophecies, with men talking to women on the phone.

Answer 41

• Men talked on the phone with women whom they were given fake pictures of, portraying them as very attractive or unattractive
• The men tended to react either warmly (towards attractive women) or with disinterest (towards unattractive women)
  
  • And women, based on how men were acting towards them, responded with either more warmth and appeal or not
• So the men elicited the exact types of reactions that would be expected, but they didn’t attribute the women’s behaviour to their own actions

Question 42

What is a self-concept and what are its 2 functions in a social interaction?

Answer 42

• self-concepts: encompass all of the beliefs and feelings we have about ourselves, including self-knowledge and self-esteem
  
  • All the components of the self-concept are intimately tied to our relationships with others
• Fulfills two functions during social interaction:
  
  • self-enhancement: seek feedback from others that will enhance their self-concepts and allow them to think of themselves as desirable, attractive, competent people
  • self-verification: want feedback that sustains our existing self-concepts

Question 43

How do the motives of people with negative self-concepts differ in social interactions?

Answer 43

• Self-enhancement – like global praise that suggests that their partners are happy with them, but they prefer self-verifying feedback about their specific faults
  
  • e.g. Partners who like you despite your faults
• Self-verification – like praise and compliments from others, but once they get a chance to think about them, they don’t believe or trust such feedback
• the marriage shift: if people with negative self-images find themselves married to spouses who praise and appreciate them too much, they’ll gradually find ways to avoid their spouses as much as possible
  
  • They begin to doubt that their partner is being genuine or may perceive them to be a fool for not pointing out their flaws

Question 44

What is illusion of transparency, and do we know our partners as well as we think?

Answer 44

• illusion of transparency: tendency to overestimate the extent our personal mental state is known by others, and others’ are known to us
• Because we hold many positive illusions of our partners to increase perceptions of similarity (and thus liking and happiness), we often don’t understand our partners as well as we think we do
  
  • This doesn’t mean we don’t know a great deal about our partners, and we continue to learn about them over time
  • However, accuracy in understanding isn’t just based on time, but motivation to understand each other correctly
• Often, partner legibility skews our ability to perceive partners correctly
  
  • The more evident a trait of someone’s is, the more accurately it will be perceived
    
    • e.g. People who are sociable and extraverted are likely to be accurately perceived as gregarious and affable, but high neuroticism is harder to detect
  • Some people are also just better at hiding their emotions
• The illusion of transparency is one effect which may obscure partner legibility

Question 45

What is naïve realism?

Answer 45

• naïve realism: tendency to believe we see the world objectively and others who disagree must be uninformed or biased

Question 46

Is information processing a perfect process?

Answer 46

• Any given behaviour could have many different motivations behind it
• When we attribute a motivation to a behaviour, it is a guess
  
  • Can be informed by experience
  • But also our own motivations & desires
  • We have to keep in mind that it is a guess and be open to changing our minds
• Deciding what others’ behaviours mean is one of the central challenges of human relationships
  
  • The only way to verify our guesses is by talking to the other person, then actually listening and being receptive to what they’re saying

Question 47

What are the 3 main miscommunication patterns of unhappy couples?

Answer 47

Communication patterns of unhappy couples:

• (1) Do a poor job of saying what they mean
• (2) Do a poor job of hearing each other
• (3) Display negative affect when they talk with each other

Question 48

What are 2 miscommunication patterns of people who don’t say what they mean?

Answer 48

• kitchen-sinking: when someone tries to address several topics at once (so that everything but the ‘kitchen sink’ gets dragged into the conversation)
• drifting off-beam: when the conversation wanders from topic to topic, never staying on one long enough to resolve it

Question 49

What are 4 miscommunication patterns of people who do a poor job of hearing each other?

Answer 49

• They jump to conclusions (often assuming the worst) and head off on tangents based on what they presume their partners really mean
• mindreading: when people assume that they understand their partners’ thoughts, feelings, and opinions without asking
• Interrupt each other in negative ways more than contented couples do
• yes-butting: communicates constant criticism of the others’ points of view: ‘Yeah, we could try that, but it won’t work because …’
• cross-complaining: instead of expressing interest in what their partners have to say, they just respond to a complaint with one of their own

Question 50

What are 5 miscommunication patterns of people who display negative affect when they talk with each other?

Answer 50

• Negative affect typically begins with clumsy criticism that attacks a partner’s personality or character instead of identifying a specific behavior that is causing concern
• Contempt in the form of insults, mockery, or hostile humor is often involved
  
  • The partners’ common response to such attacks is defensiveness; instead of treating the clumsy complaint as legitimate and reasonable, the partners seek to protect themselves from the unreasonable attack by making excuses or by cross-complaining and hurling counterattacks
• Stonewalling may follow as a partner ‘clams up’ and reacts to the messy situation by withdrawing into a stony silence
• Ultimately, destructive belligerence may occur with one partner aggressively rejecting the other altogether (‘So what? What are you gonna do about it?’)

Question 51

What are 3 strategies for us to more effectively say what we mean?

Answer 51

• behavior description: to identify as plainly and concretely as possible a specific behavior that annoyed us
  
  • Not only tells our partners what’s on our minds but also focuses the conversation on discrete, manageable behaviors that, unlike personalities, can often be readily changed
• I-statements: start with ‘I’ and then describe a distinct emotional reaction.
  
  • Forces us to identify our feelings, which can be useful both to us and to our partners
  • Help us to ‘own’ our feelings and to acknowledge them instead of keeping the entire focus on the partner
• XYZ statements: follow the form of ‘When you do X in situation Y’ (that’s a good behavior description), ‘I feel Z’ (an I-statement)

Question 52

What are 2 strategies for active listening?

Answer 52

• Paraphrasing a message can help us understand what others are trying to say then communicate attention and comprehension that they know we care what they’ve said
• perception checking: when people assess the accuracy of their inferences about a partner’s feelings by asking the partner for clarification

Question 53

Describe the rule “being polite and staying cool” in effective communication.

Answer 53

• Dissatisfied spouses spend more time locked into patterns of negative affect reciprocity in which they’re contemptuous of each other, with each being scornful of what the other has to say
  
  • Happy couples behave this way, too—but they break out of these ugly cycles more quickly than unhappy partners do
• Although XYZ statements and active listening skills can help prevent surly interactions altogether, people rarely have the presence of mind to use them once they get angry
  
  • Thus, being able to stay cool when you’re provoked by a partner and being able to calm down when you begin to get angry are very valuable skills
• A good idea is to (try to) reduce the number of provocations you encounter by agreeing in advance to be polite to each other when you disagree
  
  • You may wish to schedule regular meetings at which you and your partner (politely) air your grievances
  • Knowing that a problem will be addressed makes it easier to be pleasant to your partner the rest of the week