Essay Example on Interplay: Theory & Application for Everyday Relationships

Introduction

Packed with contemporary examples, accessible writing, and cutting-edge research, Interplay is a text that is useful to all students as it helps them apply insight from scholarship to their everyday life in and out of college. With a unique blend of topics, the thirteen edition offers its readers a perfect balance of theory and application so that they can understand and improve their own relationships. The authors, use appealing visual format and rich pedagogy while highlighting the breadth of interpersonal communication research and theory to give readers practical skills of initiating and maintaining personal relationships. These features make the book a market leader in Interpersonal relationship. This study focuses on Chapter 9 of the text which highlights the Dimensions of Interpersonal Relationships. Like any other chapter in the text, Chapter 9 includes updated features such as Focus on Research as well as Watch and Discuss activities where readers can explore and apply the concepts by discussing the questions after watching the viral videos.

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Stages of Forming Relationships

In the first section of the chapter, the authors give details about the various stages of forming relationships. The text identifies ten steps namely initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, bonding differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding, and terminating. As expected, each stage has its own characteristics, goals, and strategies of communication. For instance, in the initiating phase, the primary goals include showing other people that you are interested in making physical contact with them as well as demonstrating to them that you are worth their time. Initiating is characterized by brief communication which uses conventional formulas such as remarks about innocuous subjects such as the weather, news event among others, and friendly expressions. The second stage of experimenting involves searching for common grounds between the communicators. The search usually starts with basic questions such as "Where do you come from? Where did you attend high school?" the main characteristic of experimenting stage is the extensive use and tolerance of small talk as it helps identify similar interests, as well as help people, decide whether to pursue the relationship further.

If the second stage is successful, the communicators proceed to the third step of intensifying their relationship. Common traits of this stage are spending more time together, participating in shared interests, and hanging out with mutual friends among others. For romantically involved couples, the range of activities to indicate an intensifying relationship is quite wide ranging from regular dates to gifts. Additionally, the couples will spend more than a quarter of the time they spend together expressing their feelings directly. The next stage of integrating follows soon after where people start to form social circles. This stage is more profound in romantic relationships as people are addressed as a couple, identify with each other, and begin to own property together. Phrases like "our car, our apartment, and our favorite song" is commonly used. In contemporary relationships, integrating involves sharing a person's problems or happiness.

In the next stage of bonding, people in relationships make symbolic public gestures to show the world of the existence of the friendship. In contemporary relationships, bonding leads to activities such as initiation into a sorority and marking the bonded status through public commitment among other strategies. For couples, bonding can be seen through engagement, sharing a residence, or marriage. All the stages leading to bonding are the development stages. Soon relationships reach maturity and start to die. Differentiating is the first stage of a declining relationship, it is characterized by lack of commitment, replacing the "our" with "my" as people start feeling the need to reestablish their individual identities. The next stage is circumscribing where partners try to reduce their contact with each other. Notably, the distinction between circumscribing and differentiating is not very clear because the two share common features.

Nonetheless, stagnating follows after with traits such as relationship boredom and odd behaviors toward each other without much feelings. Because stagnation is usually unpleasant people start avoiding each other. Avoiding creates both emotional and physical distance. Finally, the relationship is terminated.

Relational Dynamics and Communication

While the concept of forming relationships through the stages mentioned above is generally accepted, not all theorists support it. According to such theorists, people in a relationship usually face the same challenges regardless of whether the relationship is brand new or has lasted for decades. Consequently, the focus of the supporters of this ideology is the continuous maintenance of relationships. The argument is that people in any relationship seek goals they consider important but in most cases are incompatible. The result of the constant struggle is the creation of conflicts between the incompatible forces known as dialectical tensions.

According to research, while men in heterosexual romantic relationships often want more autonomy, women want more commitment and connection. As such, for people involved in a romantic relationship, autonomy-connection dialectic is among the most significant factors affecting how they relate. For instance, while an issue such as cell phone use may be trivial in other types of relationships, it can create dialectic tension between people who are romantically involved with each other. Interestingly, research indicates that managing autonomy and connection is as crucial during divorce as it is during the early stages of marriage. This is illustrated where separating partners seek ways to salvage and reconcile the unbreakable bonds of their personal history such as children, friends, and finances with their new independence.

Conflicting autonomy and connection are also evident in relationships between parents and their children. Apparently, the struggles may not seize to end just because the children grow up and start living independently. On the one hand, parents will experience mixed feelings of relief as the children start living alone while at the same time longing to stay connected with them. On the other hand, the adult children feel excited about being on their own but will still miss the bonds they had created with their parents when young and probably took for granted. Therefore, dialectic tensions can exist in any type of relationship.

Communicating About Relationships

Because relationships are dynamic and usually complex, it is essential that people maintain and improve their communication in order to sustain their relationships. The first step is identifying the content and relational dimension of every message. While the content of a message may be obvious, we should identify its relational dimension which refers to the feelings between the communicators displayed through the messages. Some of the issues conveyed by relational messages include respect, intimacy, control, and affinity. As such, every statement a person makes extends beyond discussing the subject matter to revealing something about feelings towards the speaker and the relationship.

In most cases, people are unaware of the relational dimensions of messages they are bombarded with every day. This is because the content of the messages match people's belief about the amount of control, intimacy, or liking that is appropriate in a given relationship. Furthermore, relational messages are expressed nonverbally, and some of the cues used may not be obvious to the recipient.

Repairing Damaged Relationships

It is common that relationships, no matter satisfying and stable they are, will usually face a bumpy patch. Sources of problems affecting relationships may vary from work-related issues, competing relationships, finances, and other external forces. Sometimes, internal issues such as differences and disagreements may be the cause of damage. When a relationship is damaged, some of the effects may include lack of commitment, separation both physically and psychologically, disrespect, and aggression which could be expressed verbally or physically. Some relational transgressions may be intentional while others are nonintentional while they can happen once or repeatedly.

Nonetheless, research reaffirms the commonsense notion that talking about the violation is always the first step into repairing a relationship. Talking about the transgression may include stating how it affected the relationships or making an apology on the offender's part. These two strategies provide more positive outcomes than making a spontaneous apology. In a previous chapter, the authors offered tips on making clear, assertive messages when one feels to have been wronged. The person responsible for unintentional transgression should ask questions such as "What did I do wrong? or Why did my behavior hurt you?" and listen nondefensively. It is important to note that asking such questions and listening to the answers without getting defensive can be a huge challenge.

Works Cited

Adler, Ronald Brian, et al. Interplay: The process of interpersonal communication. Oxford University Press. 2014.