Patronizing Speech

I found the section on patronizing speech interesting. Though I'm nowhere near being an old person, I could somehow relate to the examples in this section. I could imagine being old and listening to what people said, but also how they said it, and how it would affect how I felt about myself. I would want to be treated with respect, as the book said, rather than being ordered around (overly directive message) or being coddled (overly nurturing message). When you're not treated with dignity, it affects how you feel about yourself and i can see why lots of seniors get geriatric depression, mentioned towards the end of the chapter. Considering how limited some seniors must feel (because their bodies and minds are not as powerful), it would be very upsetting if people used patronizing speech on a regular basis.

Bartholomew Model

I found this model to be very interesting. I know a lot of people who fit into these models of attachment fairly accurately. In particular, there is a friend who is the fearful avoidant type. She avoids true intimacy because she’s always afraid of rejection. With friends, she always feels like she has to be the image of the perfect friend, mom and wife. For example, she always cleaned her place before I came over because she was afraid that my image of her would be tarnished. She is my husband’s best friend’s wife and even though I always considered us close, I found out later that she wasn’t being completely upfront with me and I think it’s because she was afraid of rejection. To this day she puts on a front to compensate for her low self-esteem and high attachment anxiety. She is overly dependent on her husband to make her feel better, but also because she’s afraid he will leave her. We rarely see each other now because we live very far apart, but now that I know the true her, I feel sorry for her while simultaneously feeling upset that she was deceptive all this time. Having a relationship with someone who is the fearful avoidant type is hard.

Urgency Hypothesis

Urgency hypothesis makes complete sense to me. Most people try to be polite and socially appropriate, but when there is a lack of time, they often resort to more direct means. For example, I was standing in line waiting to buy some food at Costco’s food court when this woman cut in front of the line. Apparently she was late for a birthday party and she needed the pizzas right away. I assume she is normally not so rude, but being late for the party made her goal of getting the pizzas right away more urgent, so she had to be as effective as possible. She was lucky that no one complained or made a big deal out of it, but sometimes I think what’s done in the name of efficiency can backfire. For example, there could have been a big guy who argued with her for ten minutes, which would have undermined her intent to be effective.

Marwell and Schmitt’s Typology

This list of 16 compliance messages stood out for me. Of course I have a long way to go before having to deal with an unpredictable teenager, but it occurred to me that parents must have to use many of these strategies on a regular basis if their child is not compliant. Their typology is over 40 years old and I think it’s still extremely relevant. What I like about this list is that it’s very comprehensive, to the point of being almost universal. We’ve talked (the textbooks has mentioned) cultural differences in communication as a major theme, and I believe this list applies to all cultures. They are practical strategies we can use to try to convince the other person.

Attitude Similarity

When I read this section, I was shocked that there is a social science term for what I’ve always thought about successful relationships—that people seek their own kind. Life together as a couple is easier if you have the same basis or outlook on life. Especially in the beginning of a relationship, you try to find common ground (in another part of our readings) and I found commonalities can really escalate a relationship. The second part of my philosophy, or the reason why I think this way is that no matter how similar we think we are to the other person, there are bound to be differences and differences often lead to conflict. And not that conflict is always necessarily bad for a relationship, but I think that too much conflict can undermine the relationship.

Cascade Model

From this week's readings, I found this concept to be meaningful because I think it very accurately describes the stages people go through when they are disengaging from their marriage. It is described as a "decline in marital satisfaction, which leads to consideration of separation or divorce, which leads to separation, which leads to divorce." A woman I know went through this process and as far as I know, these are the exact steps she went through. Of course the entire process was not as straightforward as the cascade model might seem, but generally this is accurate. What's sad is that the marital satisfaction started on their honeymoon. They argued to the point that she came back alone. Ultimately, they were divorced in a matter of a couple of years. So that couple is a prime example of "relatively greater amount of negativity (versus positivity) appears to predict early divorce." (p. 332) I think the authors are right when they say that positive maintenance behaviors and support keep relationships intact, because we all know that every relationship has its ups and downs.

Developing Relationships Online

This section is very important because it is so relevant to the present. So many people meet online—an option that wasn’t available even 20 years ago. The internet has given us a way to connect with people from all over the world, literally. This section is particularly important to me because I met my husband online. Granted, it wasn’t on the www—it was on a school’s computer system, but nevertheless we did not meet through friends, at a bar or other common ways. Aside from us, I have one other friend who met her husband online. Both of us met our husbands during the early days of the internet, when there weren’t as many people online and somehow it felt “safer.” I’m not sure if this was simply our perception, but back then it seemed like people were more honest in their communication with each other. That’s why I was shocked to read the statistics from an earlier reading about the percentages of people who lied about their basic profile information (weight, income, marital status, etc.) But on the other hand, maybe it shouldn’t surprise me because a friend who recently had a few relationships with men she met online was lied to about these very basics.