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.

Equity

The concept of equity was meaningful to me this week. I have a child and (obviously) am back in school, so the idea of equity in my marriage is one that has come up a lot. Both my husband and I are trying to find the right balance between work, school (for me), home and me-time. This means that when one of us, or both of us feel like things are not equitable, it puts a huge strain on our relationship. For example, I might feel that he doesn’t do enough to take care of our daughter or help around the house, so I will get upset. For him, he’s not used to doing all these extra things I used to take care of, so it’s stressful for him that I get on his case about it. The period of adjustment was really rough. But, I’m happy to say that we’ve reached an understanding on what is fair and as a result, our relational contentment is much higher. What a difference! I think the authors are right that relational contentment is highest when both people feel that they are being treated equitably. This applies for new and long-term relationships, in my opinion.

Perfunctory Apology & Full Apology

I know a little girl, she’s 4, and I hear the perfunctory apology from her most of the time. She hurts a friend or does something else that warrants an apology and her parents make her (force her) to apologize. She obviously doesn’t know what it means to be truly sorry and so what we hear is a simple “I’m sorry.” There have been rare instances, however, when she has given the full apology (as much as a 4 year old can, anyway). You can hear the sincerity in her voice and see it in her eyes. That makes all the difference in the world because what use is a full apology if the apologizer doesn’t mean it? In my mind, sincerity is key. But it has to be the right amount of sincerity. If the person seems overly apologetic, I am suspicious that s/he is faking it. Obviously everyone in this class is not a pre-schooler, but I thought the analogy was apt. Perfunctory apologies, especially if the offense is grave, are perceived as insufficient and I am only comfortable with them in situations where they are clearly appropriate. For example, I bumped into someone by accident. I would say a simple “I’m sorry” and that would suffice. But most of the time, I will try to use a full apology because it seems more effective.

Personalistic Self-disclosure

The amount a person discloses largely depends on whether the disclosure is personalistic or general. For the former, I am comfortable with my close friends and there is little they don’t know about me. General self-disclosure is information available to anyone. What interests me is the process, or evolution, from general to personal self-disclosure. For instance, you might start a new job and you would be involved in general disclosure, but over time some co-workers might become your friends. I think this is the hard part--negotiating self-disclosure when the context doesn’t pre-determine for you the path the relationship might take. For example, you might think that you’re good friends with your co-worker after working together for a couple of years and engage in high self-disclosure, but they might have a different outlook and see you purely as a work colleague, and not a friend. So in this case, there might be an awkward situation in which you divulge personal information and the co-worker tells everyone in the office. Seeing eye to eye on the level of intimacy, sometimes, is not clear.

The last point I want to make is that sometimes, even when you’re very close to a friend or family member, you will consciously not disclose information for fear of hurting or disappointing them. This is very ironic because theoretically, you should be able to self-disclose to the greatest degree with close friends and family. My brothers used to intercept the mail so my parents would not see their bad grades!

Norm of Reciprocity

I agree with the authors that the norm of reciprocity means “offering a communicative response that matches a partner’s previous communication.” Especially when we’re disclosing information that is highly personal or alternatively, that affects our sense of self, we expect the other party to reciprocate. For instance, if I tell my friend about a difficult time in my past, I would want them to feel comfortable enough with me to divulge information that is comparably intimate. When this doesn’t happen is the problem. When I’ve made a decision to take the relationship to a deeper level by disclosing sensitive information and it’s not reciprocated, I will either back off from the relationship or terminate it. A lot of it has to do with my feelings being hurt that the other person didn’t “trust me” enough, or simply the sense that we don’t agree on the status and future of the relationship. I also believe that there has to be a mutual understanding (implicit or explicit) on the level of reciprocity for a relationship to succeed long-term. With little or no reciprocity, I get tired of doing the work to maintain the relationship when obviously the other person doesn’t consider it a priority enough to expend the effort. In this case, the relationship fizzles out pretty quickly. I'm sure a lot of people have had similar experiences when a budding relationship comes to an end because it's not a "two-way road."

Impact of Culture on Self-Presentation

I have to say that so far, I’ve been mostly unimpressed about the generalizations about culture. I think that they are such sweeping generalizations that they are not useful to students and arguably even perpetuate stereotypes about non-Western cultures. On page 178, the authors cite a study by Kanagawa and colleagues from 2001 that argues “communication of self-critical, self-effacing statements in these cultures improves the speaker’s self-image because the individual is admitting to those present that he or she is aware of a socially shared ideal of excellence that he or she cannot possibly achieve.” Although this may have been the ideal at one time (likely during Confucius’ time!), more realistically, acts of self-deprecation and humility are part of a cultural ritual that does not actually involve the unattainable aspiration of achieving shared ideal of excellence. They are considered a strategy for being accepted and well received by others because people tend to like people who are humble, rather than people who are arrogant.

Argumentativeness

Argumentativeness is necessary to a large degree. It is certainly the foundation of some careers, like law, and I regard it as a highly valued skill. This doesn’t mean that people should argue for the sake of arguing; rather, that people should learn how to defend their views based on logic and rationale.

I was surprised to read that Korean women are not argumentative compared to American women. Later on in the paragraph the authors cite another study that found no differences, which I’m inclined to agree with. I’m Korean and lived in Korea for quite a while. The divorce rate in Korea has dramatically increased within the last few decades. Though there isn’t iron-clad causality between arguing and divorce, I think it’s safe to assume that many couples argue before getting divorced.

Habitual Listening and Optimum listening

These two types of listening made complete sense to me, and I witnessed them during public meetings I’ve recently attended. Most of the time, people are habitual listeners. They are listening passively and not using much brain power. So typically at a meeting, most people are listening, but not very intently. In some situations, though, people demonstrate optimum listening. I find this is the case when an announcement that might affect their job, for instance, is being made. When listening to another person can have a dramatic and direct effect on their lives, people really pay attention. What I found interesting were the differences in how this was reflected through body movements. (I almost said body language and had to stop myself!) I’m thinking of one person in particular and I noticed that he sat on the edge of his seat and looked the speaker in the eye intently when he was engaged in optimum listening, while for habitual listening he just sat back in his chair and you could almost see his mind wander.

Stereotypes

I was struck by what the authors had to say about stereotyping. I’ve always viewed it as “bad” or negative, even if they may be generally true. The fear is that we are lumping together in a group and assigning characteristics to them that might or might not be true. And just as I would hate to be judged by my ethnic or cultural background, I would hate to perpetrate this on me. However, the authors do make an important point that this process of categorizing helps people to “process information,” (p.139) all the while reminding us not to be negatively prejudiced. It seems that to take advantage of the advantages of stereotypes, we need to balance the categorization function and be open to learning about a person beyond the stereotype. I know this was extremely hard to do after 9/11, when all Muslims and even those who weren't Muslims (Sikhs, for example) became victims of hate crimes. While categorizing is the first step (I take back what i said about balancing--not a good analogy), ultimately we need to see people as individuals and not judge them according to the stereotype we think they belong to.

Machiavellian Behavior (p.438)

At first I was surprised to see Machiavelli mentioned in a communications book (usually he's discussed in political theory or ethics classes), but after reading this section it made more sense. I agree that highly competitive people may be more manipulative. These are the people who are willing to win at all costs, whether it be by bending or breaking the rules. However, I agree with Hunter, Gerbing, and Boster that this can't be determined by one set of questions. I would even go as far to say that we each have a degree of manipulation in each of us, and the degree depends on our personality as well as the unique situation. Sometimes we may be deliberately manipulating a person and other times doing the same thing without realizing it. I was a little confused why building coalitions was among the tactics of high Machs, though. Don't most people try to build coalitions? Coalitions are also part of the democratic process and I don't see them necessarily as negative. The other thought that occurred to me was that the distinction between high Machs and low Machs was presented quite starkly. This may not be applicable to most of us who are probably in the "midrange" Mach mentioned on p. 440. What do you all think?

Haptics

I found haptics to be interesting, especially in different cultural contexts. I was an exchange student in Korea and there was a Korean TA I was talking to. During the course of our conversation I touched his arm and meant nothing by it, but clearly he was surprised, and even bordered on alarmed for an instant. This, in turn, caught me off guard and I realized how inappropriate my action was in the Korean context. Had the same thing happened in North America, noone would have thought anything of it. This experience underscored for me, the importance of cultural context.

Hi

Hi everyone,

This is my second attempt blogging and I hope this works. I'm a grad student in the Public Administration program (Poli Sci Department) and am taking this course as an elective. I will be working in Oakland full-time this summer at the Association of Bay Area Governments, so I'll be blogging mostly in the evenings. Good luck on the quizzes everyone and see you in the blogosphere.

Textbook

Hi all,

If you opted for expedited shipping for your textbook, make sure there is someone to receive it. I wasn't told this and I had to call DHL back to make sure I received the book today. They are supposed to leave a note that they attempted to deliver, which they didn't, and I only found out because I was tracking the delivery online. Hope this helps.

Linda