Communication in Families

I believe that communication in families is the most crucial part of building a tight-knit family. The guidelines for effective communication in families according to Wood (2007) include: maintaining equity in family relationships, making daily choices to enhance intimacy, show respect and consideration, and not sweating the small stuff. I believe that some of these are important, but I know in my family we only use a few of these concepts. We show a lot of respect and consideration for each other as well as not sweating the small stuff. In our family we are completely open and we all know everything about each other. To some people on the outside they probably think it might be excessive, but I am happy to say that my mom, sister, and brother are my best friends. Communication in families is something that should be the building block to every family, but I feel and see in everyday life that it is almost rare to come across. I feel very fortunate to have a mother that made the lines of communication completely open, and made us the close family that we are. The concept of communication in families and relating it to my family shows some similarities, but there are differences as well. I think that every family is different and not one family lives by textual guidelines, and this is the way it should be.

Friendship

The development of friendship is a very transparent process. There is a lot of work that each person needs to put in to make a friendship work and be worthwhile. This is why I believe that it is better to have quality friends rather than quantity of friends.

The Concept

The development of friendship according to Wood (2007) says that the majority of friendships evolve through a series of stages. These stages include: role-limited interaction, friendly relations, moving toward friendship, nascent friendship, stabilized friendship, and weaning friendship. Role-limited interaction involves the initial meeting of new peers. During this time we tend to rely on standard social rules and roles. We also limit personal disclosure (Wood, 2007). In this stage it is the beginning of a possible friendship, it is almost like testing the waters to see what type of person they are and if you could see a friendship in the future. The next stage is friendly relations and this is where each person checks out to see whether common ground exists (Weinstock & Bond, 2000). This stage is where you try and see what types of things you have in common and whether or not you can act on these commonalities. The third stage of developing a friendship s moving toward friendship. According to Wood this stage starts moving us beyond social roles. We start to disclose small portions of ourselves to our new friend. This is where many friendships never move beyond this phase (Knapp & Vangelisti, 2005). In this phase you decide whether or not you can become friends with this person and disclose all of your personal information or if you are going to leave it at being surface friends. The next stage is nascent friendship. If people get past the moving toward friendship stage they think of themselves as being friends or becoming friends. In this stage we start sharing feelings, values, concerns, and interests (Wood, 2007). This stage is where you start to self-disclose information that will either bring you closer to your new friend or distinguish you away from them because you do not share enough things in common. If you do share many values and interests you will most likely move onto the next phase and this is the stabilized friendship phase. The main point of this stage is the assumption of continuity (Wood, 2007). This is where you start to trust the friend you have made and almost make ground rules and rituals for your friendship. In this stage you and your friend decide what types of activities and rituals you will have together. The last phase of the development of friendship is waning friendship. This is where bone or both friends stop investing in a friendship (Wood, 2007). In this stage one or both friends decide that the friendship is not working for various reasons and start to pull away from the friendship. The development of friendship is a long and usually disappointing road, but when you get through all of these stages and avoid the waning friendship this is where you get the quality friends rather than the quantity of friends.

The Problem

When I first transferred to ISU I was determined to meet the “best friend” you are supposed to meet in college. I started going out with some friends from home and then I met a girl at a party whose name is “Tegan.” Tegan and I talked all night at a party and became best friends virtually overnight. We disclosed information to each other pretty quickly and learned that we had a lot in common when it came to our values and interests in life. Our friendship was something that I had never experienced and I thought that we were going to be (as cliché as this is) best friends for life. We spent all the free time we had together for a year and a half, which meant that we spent every single day together. We would go out, stay in, do anything that friend’s do and have a great time doing it. Some things happened and we got into some disputes that tore us apart. At this point in our relationship we barely speak to each other. To think back to a year and a half ago where we were at compared to now boggles my mind. I believe in my heart when we both grow up and mature more we will become close friends once again, but at this point it is nearly impossible.

Potential Management

According to Lempers & Clark-Lempers (1993) the nature of same-sex friendships leads to potential closeness differences when compared to cross-sex friendships. Same-sex friendships are perceived as more significant than cross-sex friendships. As well as this according to Johnson (2004) emerging adults report knowing their same sex friend longer, spending more time with that friends, and being more committed to that friend. With this being said it is found that there is higher emotional closeness for same-sex friendships rather than cross-sex relationships. This studied showed that same-sex friendships are usually more valid than cross-sex relationships. When it came to Tegan and my relationship this concept did not really fit. Nevertheless, we skipped around a lot of the steps of the development of friendship. Since we became so close overnight we completely skipped the role-limited interaction, friendly relations, and moving toward friendship stages. I do not know if in turn this is what led to our disaster, but I think that there are different circumstances for every single friendship. Skipping all of the steps of the development of friendship was a different pace for me and I do not regret becoming so close with Tegan overnight, but I do think if we would have taken more time to become familiar with each other things may have panned out differently. Everything in life is a learning experience, and this was one of the biggest ones I have come across in my life, thus far. If I were to give advice to somebody about the development of friendship, I would most definitely tell them to go through all of the steps besides the waning friendship, if they could avoid it. I think that this is the healthiest way to start a relationship, and it will hopefully result in moving past the moving toward friendship stage.

Johnson, H., Brady, E., McNair, R., Congdon, D., Niznik, J., & Anderson, S. (2007). IDENTITY AS A MODERATOR OF GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE EMOTIONAL CLOSENESS OF EMERGING ADULTS' SAME- AND CROSS-SEX FRIENDSHIPS. Adolescence, 42(165), 1-23. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Understanding Emotions

We recently put my family dog to sleep. I knew that this was going to be a rough obstacle I was going to have to get over, but it has been much harder than anticipated. Winston was an Old English sheepdog who was 13 and he lived a really great life. I feel as though I am socially constructed to feel like I should be grateful that he lived that long and that he was an extremely happy dog. But my basic emotions just mourn him and want him to be here to live another 13 years. We moved into my house and immediately got Winston, so returning home and him not being there is like living in an empty house. I have had a hard time understanding my emotions as to what I feel versus what I am supposed to feel. I feel as though I lost a part of my family, and myself and when other read this or when I express this to them they simply do not understand. This makes me refrain from expressing the sorrows that I really have about his passing. Then in turn this makes me feel stupid for caring about how I am supposed to feel, because I know how I actually do feel. Right when I heard the news I thought about this concept and it really put things into perspective about the true difference between basic emotions and socially constructed emotions. I also now know what it means by saying that emotions are holistic. This hit me like a brick wall and I am dealing with it in the only way I know how and that is with my basic emotions.

Conflict or not to conflict...

A couple months ago my best friend, Chrissy, and me got into one of our first arguments. We have a very playful relationship and we joke around a lot and it may seem like we are fighting, but we never are. So on this particular day we had a party and some things got out of hand. I wanted to handle it one way and she wanted to handle it the opposite way. We were both a little intoxicated so we decided to go with my way and then we would talk about it in the morning. Morning came and we started to discuss our issue. The problem that we had was that there were some people at our apartment that we did not know. Chrissy wanted them to leave and I said it was okay if they stayed; she got really heated over this. So they stayed and everything ended up working out, just as I thought. So when we talked about this we both tried to use constructive conflict communication so we were not disrespecting each other. We both listened closely to each other and understood where each other were coming from. We both let each other say what we had to say without interruptions. I asked her why she was so concerned with the random people being over and she expressed that she just felt uncomfortable not knowing them. I came to realize that this was a valid argument and I expressed that to Chrissy. We focused on the way that we both felt about the situation and how we would come to a consensus together the next time this problem came up. We both once again expressed our points of views and ultimately came to a compromise that it was okay that those people stayed and we worked through the conflict with constructive communication.

Non-Listening

Today I want to look at issues in relationships in relation to forms of non- listening. Within this concept I also want to recognize the various forms of non-listening.

The Concept
Non-listening according to Wood (2007) is called this because it simply does not involve real listening. There are six various types that most people engage in at least one point or other in their life. The six types of non-listening include: pseudolistening, monopolizing, selective listening, defensive listening, ambushing, and literal listening. All of these types of non-listening differ. They are all exceptionally important for us to understand so we can avoid using these tactics. To understand these styles will also allow us to realize if they are being used on us. Pseudolistening is simply pretending to listen. We pretend to be attentive, but our minds are elsewhere. The reasons we typically use pseudolistening is because we are bored or are too lost in the conversation already. The next type of non-listening is monopolizing. Monopolizing is continuously focusing communication on ourselves instead of listening to the person who is talking. This form of non-listening always tries to steer the attention from the speaker to the listener, in turn causing no listening on the listeners behalf, until they find their window for them to cut in. Similar to monopolizing, the next type is selective listening. Selective listening involves focusing only on particular parts of communication. This refers to listening to the only things that interest you. The next style us defensive listening. Defensive listening perceives personal attacks, criticism, or hostility in communication that is not critical or mean-spirited. When defensive listening is occurring we as the listener believe that the speaker is attacking us or that they do not trust us, or there is some other underlying hostility in the speaker’s message. Ambushing is listening carefully for the purpose of attacking a speaker. This is like the opposite of defensive listening, instead of the speaker attacking us; we are looking for certain words or tones to turn around on the speaker and the message. The last style is literal listening, and literal listening involves listening only for content and ignoring the relationship level of meaning. Literal listening does not give a conversation any depth it just relates back to the message and not the thoughts behind the message.

The Problem
So the other day Chrissy was talking to her friend from home, Ashley. She wanted to talk to her about her relationship issues. Now Ashley is a talker, and has more of a hard time listening because she is used to being the one that is getting listened to. Chrissy was hesitant to talk to Ashley about her issues because of this reason, but wanted to try just in case. One thing Chrissy brought up in conversation was that her boyfriend never seems to want to spend time with Chrissy when she is with her girlfriends. Ashley responded by saying “Well some of your friends at school are kind of hard to be around.” Chrissy took that with a grain of salt and then told her another concern about PDA and how she does not like to show it but her boyfriend does. Ashley came back and said “What is PDA again?” Chrissy wanted to give her one more chance so she said “My last concern is that my boyfriend might drink too much.” In full demand Ashley came back to say “Well yeah my boyfriend drinks a lot, too…” and after this she never stopped talking about herself.

Potential Management
According to Simon (2009) “The tactic of selective attention goes hand in hand with the inattentional thinking patterns. They almost always know what you’re about to say before you actually say it. And, they almost immediately start tuning you out. So, when they start tuning you out, you have absolute assurance they have no intention of changing course.” This research shows that selective listening is a problem and that it happens immediately in a conversation and you are tuned out the rest of the time. In my example with Chrissy and Ashley, Ashley used selective listening throughout the entire conversation by taking out parts that she wanted to hear. She asked questions that were irrelevant, as well as using monopolizing to make everything about herself as usual. I think it is hard for Ashley to understand that she has a problem with not listening and it is hard for Chrissy and other friends to express to her these feelings. Ashley uses too many forms of non-listening and it is going to turn into no one wanting to talk to her, because there is an unfair exchange between talking and listening. The only way you could manage the issue would be to express all of these feelings to her. Then she would have to educate herself on all of these forms of non-listening she uses and she would have to figure out how to change her ways, or she will be left in the dark with no friends to talk to or listen to her anymore.
Simon, G. (2009). Selective Listening and Attention: Hearing What You Want to Hear as a Manipulation Tactic. Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life.

Journal Entry #2

Attachment Styles

            In Chapter 2 we talked about four different types of attachment styles.  The four include: secure, fearful, dismissive, and anxious/ambivalent.  In class we talked about these different attachment styles in relation to children, so that is how I am going to relate this.  The attachment style that I am most related to with my mother is the secure attachment style.  According to Wood (2010), “A secure attachment style is facilitated when the caregiver responds in a consistently attentive and loving way to the child.  In response, the child develops a positive sense of worth, and a positive view of others” (p. 47).  I think there are grey areas on these attachment styles as you grow older, but all in all I believe that this style was definitely the attachment that I had with my mother growing up.  My mother’s life has always revolved around my sister, my brother, and myself.  In return my mother is all of our best friends.  She always was there for us and we do the same in return now that we are older.  As far as the grey area goes I believe now that we are older we learn things on our own in addition to what my mother taught us and we go through spurts where we have trust and other issues with people, but I do not feel that this coincides with my attachment style from when I was a little baby/kid.  I thank my mother as much as I can for using her attachment style on me because I believe that it has allowed me to build the relationships that I have in my life.

 

Journal Entry #1

Identity Scripts

            In Chapter 2 we talked about identity scripts.  Identity scripts according to Wood (2010), “Define our roles, how we are to play them, and the basic elements in the plots of our lives” (p. 47).  When I think about identity scripts one in particular that sticks with me deals with sports and my dad.  My parents have been separated since I have been in the seventh grade and the only times that I can remember with my dad involve me and/or my brother and/or sister playing sports.  Sports were a huge part of my dad growing up so he instilled those same values in us. He always forced my sister and I to play softball and I hated it.  I think it was resentment toward my dad that made me hate the sport even more.  Because of these “values” that my dad tried to instill in us that only had to do with athletics made me have an identity script of being athletic even when I quit the sports after high school.  To this day my best fried calls me “jock strap” which is just foul and ridiculous, but I believe it is because I played sports my whole life and the identity script still sticks with me.