Case Integration

Case Integration

All cases reviewed in this course were meant to show us how important communication is, while using real life stories and scenarios that targeted communication in relationships as a whole.  Throughout the term I have learned a number of things about communication in relationships and how important they are in order to have successful relationships throughout life. Interpersonal Communication is the exchange of nonverbal and verbal messages between two people, regardless of the relationship they share. Some of the cases reviewed were;

 Mirror, Mirror on the wall discussed weight, identity, self-talk, body image, self-esteem, false identities, and identity management. Reece has a weight problem and doesn’t like to eat because she doesn’t feel like she looks as pretty or nice as her other two friends do. She communicates verbally and nonverbally with her friends all the time just how she feels about herself.

 We’ll Never Be That Kind of Couple touched on the variability of intimate violence, power, dominance, and influence; this is a case study that taught me another way of managing conflict. A married couple had issues with power, violence, and abuse, which lead to problems managing tension. The male and female in this case study were both searching for a way to manage their conflict. When reflecting on the analysis of this case it portrays the importance of forgiveness when managing conflict.

 “The Queen and Her Bee” gave an insight to forms of aggressive communication and how to manage such destructive manners. Two best friends who are very different from one another find themselves in conflict and are handled through aggressive communication, which is an apparent negative form on conflict management. It showed me how friendships can be hurt and abused through improper conflict management.

 Friends of the Heart discussed idiomatic behaviors, closeness, immediacy, and social support. As two friends take a rode trip we journey along three theories the rules theory: where the two have certain rules in the relationship which can be re-negotiated at any time, the equity theory where Jay and Sophie connect in a balance of give and take within their communications, and the dialectical theory: which gives tension between their two voices, which they have effectively managed. This case study has a good blend of all three theories, which gives depth, meaning, and closeness in their friendship, while communicating through some hard emotions with meta-communications.

    “Yard Sales and Yellow Roses: Rituals in Enduring Relationships”
The case Jack and Martha dealt heavily in relational culture. Our book states that "relational culture weaves partners together not through the activities or interactions themselves, but in the meanings partners assign to these activities and interactions." Which the meaning that comes from their activities and action is an appreciation for the time the two get to spend together.




All of the stories were different, but they all had one thing in common….

Communication is the fundamental thing that brings us all together and yet also the thing that pulls us apart. We all communicate in different ways to express our feelings, emotions, wants, needs, and everything in-between, but because of this, we often find ourselves in situations where we can’t communicate effectively with one another.

Everyone has their own personal identity and we all have to manage that identity.  Now we have to communicate with people that are different than us.  You would think it would be easy, but nothing worthwhile is easy. Who knew that culture, age, gender, experience, closeness, or even our non-verbal cues could effect how we communicate with each other. The funny thing is, that it affects us so much that we form false identities in our self-presentations.  


No matter how hard we try to get along and understand each other, communication is always there to help us understand each other or to hinder us with uncertainty, to strengthen us with closeness or to weaken us with hard emotions. Sometimes we strengthen our relationships and other times we end them.

People communicate their identities and their social self.  However, some people have issues with identity management. There are six principals to identity management that affect the way we perceive people’s actions and behaviors. These principles include: identity and the hierarchical structure, identity and the looking glass self, identity and the interpretation of feedback, expectations and behavior, self-evaluation, goal achievement and lastly identity and relationships. This means that ones identity, is based on a complex theory of self that incorporates expectations, self-fulfilling prophecies, and feedback from others. That the psychological process of self esteem and self concept are based on how we manage our identities and that the importance of awareness can go a long way toward helping people understand the development and deterioration of relationships.  

You decide that you want to get closer and initiate or intensify the relationship.  So, now comes this scary part, self-disclosure and we panic over feelings like - fear of rejection, loss of control, loss of individuality….but within no time a relationship has developed and the journey begins.

People communicate closeness in various ways and depending on the relationship, we communicate differently.  Sometimes you spend a lot of time together, talking, engage in long eye contact or romantic touch as manifestations of emotional and relational closeness.   Immediacy behaviors such as smiling, using idioms, and speaking in confidence are ways to engage in closeness, and as cognitive valence theory suggests, when two people experience a series of moves and countermoves closeness is created. A simple way of saying it – it takes two to tango!



 When someone is in your life, you feel close to them, you open up to them. So we maintain relationships through positivity, routine talk and openness, humor, assurances, task sharing, supportiveness, joint activities, social networking, and constructive conflict management.  The dialectical perspective suggests, relationships cycle through periods of highs and lows.  When things are not going well, it is a signal that a change needs to be made. Routine maintenance is critical because positive behavior helps to sustain relationships.

         

Friends of the Heart: Communication between Long-Term Friends

Friends of the Heart: Communication between Long-Term Friends

In this blog I plan to use the case study, “Friends of the Heart: Communication between Long-Term Friends”, to explain closeness and immediacy in relationships. In interpersonal relationships, there are three different types of closeness: Physical, emotional, and relational. Therefore, It’s the level of closeness in the relationship that sets unique relationships apart.  Closeness is a multi-layered, complex concept that has various significances.  Spatial proximity sometimes refers to the term close or closeness; while closeness can also refer to the type of relationships people have and or the way some people feel about each other.

Analyzing the different types of immediacy between Jay and Sophie. These two have been close friends for 13 years so you can only imagine all of the fun times, hard knocks, life lessons they have been through together and all the different types of immediacy they have had with one another. Jay and Sophie are both gay and they both have partners. Sophie’s father has recently passed and she has to travel to his house and clear it out.  She travels across country with her best friend, Jay, in a moving van.  Their goal: to bring back what they feel is important to keep from her father’s house. On their trip, they have a few arguments you see a lot of different levels in their friendship. You see the closeness and you see the arguments and silly irritations that every friendship has, but all in all, they realize how good of friends they really are.

In this case, physical closeness, or “the amount of spatial proximity and physical closeness people have”, is exhibited throughout the entire story.  Jay and Sophie are in very close proximity with each other, as they are driving 2,000 miles together.   When they stop for a break, they sleep in the same hotel room.  This shows us that they have a high level of physical closeness.

Jay and Sophie have nonverbal immediacy between them. Jay can tell that Sophie is distressed over something just by the kinesics that she is giving out to him and she can tell that he is tired and wants to sleep by his kinesics. The longer we know someone the more we can read and understand his or her verbal and nonverbal communication. We also see the touching part of kinesics when Sophie is stroking his hair and then just stops. Physical touch in a friendship shows the closeness and comfort in the relationship.

They also have verbal immediacy; they have their own language and style of talking to each other. They kind of tease and joke with one another but it is not meant in a mean way but an affectionate way. One thing we really see between Jay and Sophie is this depth of disclosure. Since they have been friends for so long they have gone through a lot together and have told each other a lot of things because they are comfortable in their friendship. You see this when Sophie talks about her first real heartbreak or when Jay tells her about his previous boyfriend passing away. You do not usually talk about these things with strangers.

They further show a great amount of emotional support in their friendship. Jay and Sophie have been friends through thick and thin. When Jay lost a boyfriend Sophie was there for him and when Sophie lost her father Jay was there for her. They both understood that this was an extended process that takes time and they did not lead the other out of the grief and loss but followed their friend through this rough and long process. Jay and Sophie are great at balancing the rewards and costs and they do not use each other for things. Since they have been friends for so long they have negotiated their relational expectations and even though these two get into arguments they effectively manage their tensions.

Emotional closeness is defined as of having a “sense of shared experiences, trust, enjoyment, concern and caring in a relationship.” The interdependence people share is relational closeness.   Interdependent people “exchange resources; influence one another’s thoughts, behaviors, and emotions; and meet each other’s needs.” Both forms of closeness are exhibited in this case when it talks about Jay and Sophie’s past together.  They met in college and it says that, if they were heterosexual, it would have been a classic case of love-at-first-sight.  Both shared experiences and gained trust for one another through their losses in their love lives. These losses gave them the opportunity to be there for each other in interdependence.  Jay would call Sophie every night after she broke up with her girlfriend to make sure she didn’t go to sleep alone.  Sophie was always there for Jay.  At one point, she tried to talk to him about how he had chosen not to date anymore after his last boyfriend died but he got very angry and stormed out.  After this, she just accepted him with love and understanding.

Sophie took the trip with Jay since he was available and also because Sophie’s girlfriend Melissa couldn’t go and they were not going to let her drive across country by herself to get her Dad’s things. This shows emotional closeness that Jay and Melissa both have for Sophie.

As she was at her father’s house, she began to think of the conversations she had with him before he died and how she wished she had paid more attention to what he was saying. This shows that Sophie missed that closeness she had with her father. When Jay and Sophie were leaving the house she seemed bothered and Jay could tell. She told him not to smoke his cigarettes in the rental truck. Jay couldn’t believe after all he was doing for her that she wouldn’t let him just smoke in the truck. This shows paradox of affection towards Sophie by Jay. They joked around how they called each other Thelma and Louise the whole trip. This shows relational closeness because they both share the same thought. They also had a disagreement about playing Lady Gaga on the trip because Jay didn’t want to listen to her. Even though Jay didn’t like the song he began to sing along which turned Sophie’s mood around from almost crying over her father to instant smiling. This shows support behavior because he sang along even though he didn’t want to but he did so just to put a smile on his friends face. She now felt light-hearted and excited. Sophie was complaining about Jay not keeping track of the mileage and how much gas they had used because she wanted to be reimbursed by her brothers for the expenses of the trip. Jay reacted by ignoring her and changing the subject and by avoiding her stares, which shows avoidance within the relationship. Jay also told Sophie years earlier that his partner had died of AIDS and that he had no interest of finding love again. This shows self-disclosure on Jay’s part. As Sophie tried to encourage Jay to date again, he stormed out of his birthday party. Sophie went to his house to try and make things better but Jay wouldn’t answer. Soon after, Jay came to visit Sophie and they mended the relationship. He would call her every night to say goodnight because Sophie had told him that she missed someone saying goodnight to her like her Dad or ex partner used to do. Sophie also did not have a good relationship with her older brother Mike because she felt like he was all about money and didn’t think she was doing enough with herself. While on the trip Jay realized that he had real insight to Sophie’s life and asked her personal questions that Sophie responded to with detail and shared stories that she had not done before. This shows how their relationship got stronger in closeness and also self-disclosure on Sophie’s part.

Closeness and immediacy play a very crucial role in relationships, as we saw with Jay and Sophie.  One doesn’t always have to be experiencing each kind of closeness (physical, emotional and relational) in order to feel close to someone or to have a successful relationship. At the end of the story, Sophie and Jay pulled into a hotel for the night; Sophie told Jay that he had been such a huge help to her and that she was sorry for acting like a jerk. Sophie apologizes to Jay for being a pain and tells him how much he means to her by telling him she loves him. He does not like this sappy stuff but he responds with “I love you, too, Sophie”, which is always great to hear from such a close friend, which shows the verbal immediacy they have in their friendship. 

Unilateral Union: Obsessive Relational Intrusion and Stalking in a Romantic Context

A loving relationship can be a wonderful, positive, uplifting, rejuvenating thing but, when it ends emotions can arise that you never thought you had. When a person gets rejected by someone they love its a hard emotion to handle. It hurts when you think that the relationship is going in one direction and you find out that it's not reciprocated. 
This is what happened in the case, “Unilateral Union” Alex and Anna are co-workers. Alex has noticed Anna and thought that she was someone he would love to date or possibly marry. He tried asking her out in the past but, was never successful. He was delighted when he found out that they would be working on a project together. Anna had never noticed Alex before, however the work project brought them together and eventually they started dating. After 6 months of dating she started to withdrawal from the relationship and Alex thought she may be seeing another guy. She was avoiding him and was being aloof and evasive. She eventually broke up with Alex and this made him feel like she was making a mistake and if he tried harder she would see that mistake. He started calling her several times a day and sending flowers. His behavior scared Anna and she was starting to fear for her safety. She knew that he was following her and spying on her. She finally got a restraining order against him when she showed proof of his violent messages and the dagger he left in her mailbox.
Alex and Anna did not have co-orientation with each other, only at work when working together on the project. There was not a common focus in regards to their relationship. Anna wanted to break up with Alex a long time before she did but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Alex thought that everything was going great with Anna and was hurt when she broke up with him. The more she withdrew from the relationship the more he pursued her. He thinks if he is persistent that he will eventually win her back. His behavior scares her and she is afraid to go anywhere alone. She transferred to a different department just to get away from him. He wondered why she would leave because he knew how much she enjoyed working in the department she was already in. There was not a common focus in regards to their relationship. The more she withdrew from the situation the more he pursued her.
Punctuation in their interactions were not at the same time so their relationship was never on an equal playing field. Anna did like Alex in the beginning until she got to know him. At first she thought he was charming and attractive and eventually she knew he wasn't someone she would want to be with because he was very controlling. Alex felt like his best months were those spent with her and he could tell she wasn't feeling the same for him as he did for her. He thought he he gave her more attention he would eventually show her that he was a good person for her and she would want to be with him. When he found out that she was seeing another guy he immediately became jealous. This is a common reaction and it happens when a relationship is in transgression or if a partner is spending extra time with someone else. He valued Anna and when he was losing her it became a threat. Humans have the ability to act on emotions because we interpret and respond to situations through emotions. In this case Anna had the power because she did not want to be with Alex anymore. he was struggling to regain the power and was trying to influence her to do what he wanted. She viewed this as a negative form of power because he was harassing her and she was not freely able to control her environment.
There will be relationships in our lives that will eventually come to an end. It can be a difficult process to go through because a person gets used to being with someone. When infidelity occurs it can be sexual or emotional. If a person has emotional infidelity it is a lot more damaging because that person is involved with their heart and not their head. There is nothing that hurts worse than to be rejected by someone you love, and I honestly believe in situations like this, that the best revenge is forgiveness. 

Case Study 3: Yard Sales and Yellow Roses: Rituals in Enduring Relationships

Yard Sales and Yellow Roses: Rituals in Enduring Relationships

Martha and Jack’s Relationship Culture/Maintaining: In reality these days it is hard to find a couple that have been able to maintain their relationships whether in a friendship or marriage as well as Jack and Martha have. Of course, it helps that they have been able to stay on the level of communications within their 26 years of marriage. For example, during and through their courting stages, when they first started getting to know one another, there was a physical attraction and the enjoyment, excitement and companionship they shared that kept them wooing. This occurred within the initiating and experimenting stages of the two “coming together”. However, when they started acknowledging and accepting themselves as a couple, they began to self-disclose, which allowed both to see profoundly into one another’s beliefs and values; which happens within the intensifying and integrating stages. The final stage of “coming together” is bonding. Jack and Martha clearly and understandably loved what they discovered in and learned about each other resulting in their marriage. As a couple, they adapted to their life changes such as jobs and children. Knowing their partner has the same values and beliefs may have brought them closer together mentally and emotionally; they don’t always need to be together to know how they feel about one another.  However, by engaging in activities they enjoy with one another, such as sitting on the porch swing or their annual yard sale, they have managed to connect and bring out the positive nature in their relationship. 

Martha and Jack’s Rituals: Yellow rose, popcorn, Jack’s belly button, a midday text, nicknames, Mornings-fresh ground coffee, reading the paper together, porch swing, yard sale, 93 and 96 cents.

Martha and Jack without Rituals: Without these rituals, Martha and Jack would be missing a very essential part of their marriage. Behind each ritual lies a story full of meaning that’s ties them both together creating a unique bond; one that pulls them closer or as one would say the ties that bind. If they didn’t have these, they might feel a little distant, resulting in poor communication. Poor communication leads to misunderstandings and misunderstandings can often lead to relationship failure. 

Importance of Rituals: Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but the number of moments that take our breath away. Since life is full of many trials, the only thing that is constant is change and change occurs within every relationship. Rituals allow you to reflect upon cherished memories while also allowing you to anticipate to what is to come. Because we reflect and look forward to them always being a part of our lives, it can be easier to manage change as well as deal with loss. It provides an emotional connection with someone that words alone cannot describe.    

Martha and Jack: When someone is “on the outside looking in”, a little thing such as a 

porch swing may not seem like a big deal, but to Martha and Jack, it brings back a feeling, a 

memory, of when they first fell in love. You could also see this from a novelty vs. 

predictability standpoint. It is strange how when we love someone, the smallest things 

about them can drive us crazy, yet when those “things” are gone , we miss them because it 

just doesn’t feel right, hence absence makes the heart grow fonder. The porch swing to 

them was “food to their soul”. The porch swing was a place where they envisioned their 

future together. As their children grew older, rituals they had once had as a family may not 

take place anymore.  Now the porch swing not only allows them to reflect back and 

acknowledge their trials and triumphs, fiascoes and accomplishments as a couple, but also 

allowed them to reflect on their most cherished lifetime memories.   

Let Her Eat Cake Case Study 2

I will be discussing the case study “Let Her Eat Cake: Recognizing and Coordinating Rules for Communication”. This second case study is about two girls Ashley and Melissa that experience sorority rush during there first year of college, and instantly become friends. Towards the end of sorority rush they decided that they both want to be in the same house together, Sigma. Once rush is over and they find out that they made it into the Sigma sorority house they immediately meet with their ‘pledge leader’ Mallory. Mallory seems very intimidating and takes what she does seriously. She instructs the girls on what is expected and what they can look forward to during their new pledge meeting, as well as strongly suggesting that they learn a certain song by next meeting. After this first new member meeting both Ashley and Melissa and a few of the 22 other girls get right to memorizing the song. As the next meeting day arrives, both Melissa and Ashley arrive to the Sigma house at 5:59pm for their 6 o’clock dinner. They immediately realize that they were late because no one else was standing outside waiting and that they were not wearing the proper attire.

Before dinner started the girls are introduced to their ‘Big sisters’. Ashley’s big sister is Amanda who is very helpful in reminding Ashley on what is expecting during dinner. Melissa on the other hand has Mallory the ‘pledge mom’ as her big sister. During dinner Ashley and Amanda hit it off and you can see the strong relationship forming between them. Towards the end of the dinner Ashley notices that Melissa is having a terrible time and seems to dislike dinner. After dinner Mallory meet with all new pledges in the TV room, giving a stern lecture about proving they are worthy of active membership while giving everyone a copy of the “house rules of conduct” and then making an announcement to Ashley and Melissa saying that they both will be fined 5 dollars each for not wearing the appropriate attire. As the two girls walked home Melissa breaks down to Ashley and tells her what an awful time she had and that she dislikes her big sister and that being fined for wearing the wrong thing is stupid and that she just wants to quit.

Since Ashley knows how Melissa feels, Ashley goes to Amanda her big sister, to get advice about Melissa’s situation. As Ashley is explaining to Amanda what happened, Amanda is listening attentively and gives some advice for Ashley to relay back to Melissa.

One of the applications that stood out for me in this case was the concept of punctuation, emplotment and framing. The entire case goes through a story and then takes you into what Melissa’s experience was like and finally ending with everything that Melissa said and what it means or meant to Ashley and Amanda.