Interpersonal Theory Final

• accumulated knowledge
• based on evidence
• organized set of concepts and explanations about a phenomenon

• Explanation (scope, validity, parsimony)
• prediction
• control
• heuristic
• communicative
• inspiration

• scope
• concepts (elements)
• connections (explanations)
• assumptions (accept as true)
• generalizations (conclusions based on theory)

• Empiricism (positivism): absolute truths (post-positivist allows for a bit of interpretivism). Rationalism. Traditional social science. Hypothetico-deductive approach. Variable-analytic tradition
• Interpretivism (naturalism): subjectivism, humanism, constructivism. Assumes action is voluntary, knowledge is created socially, theories are contextually bound/value laden/based on engaging with the world, theories affect reality.

• explanatory power
• formalization/coherence
• integration/comprehensiveness (no contradictions)
• parsimony (simple) 
• falsifiability (ability to be proven wrong)
• accuracy (reflect reality)
• fruitfulness (generates new knowledge)

• predictive power
• specificity
• breadth
• novelty
• control
• aesthetics

take something abstract and make it measurable

• explain why humans communicate affection
• benefits of affection
• benefits of providing affection
• consequences of lack of affection

• post-positivist
• main human goals are procreation and survival
• we are not always aware of how comm serves these goals
• we don't need to be aware for these to affect our behavior

• Need and capacity for affection are inborn
• expressions are usually consistent with actually feelings (covary)
• Affection comm is adaptive
• We vary in optimal tolerances for affection and affectionate behaviors
• Affectionate behaviors that violate the range of optimal tolerance are physiologically aversive

• Affection is displayed through comm (verbal, direct nonverbal, indirect nonverbal)
• These are usually interpreted accurately

• Explains why some relationships are more affectionate
• Explains how affection affects health
• Explains why humans are affectionate
• Provides means for non-pharmacological health interventions

• Problematic "no touch" children policies
• Does it matter who is touching you to heal you?
• Stress moderating properties
• Skin to skin contact at birth is important
• haptic=touch

• Understand how parent-child interaction affects personality development
• How relational experiences affect communication within relationships/relational quality

• Innate need to form attachments (product of biological forces and social interaction)
• Attachment system is activated when humans need protection from experience/stress

• Attachment security spectrum from secure to insecure
• Need secure base (protect us from harm, provide us with protection/intimacy)
• IWMS/IWMO cross to get 4 types (preoccupied, secure, fearful, dismissive)
• Attachment is relatively stable (can change with time/relationship)
• Goodness of fit (secure, dismissive, anxious ambivalent)

• Comm leads to attachment
• Attachment influences comm creating relationship quality
• attachment influences comm influences partner response reinforces/alters attachment

• Parenting
• Relational maintenance
• Conflict
• Intimacy
• Pain tolerance
• Social Skills

• balances models of self and others
• relatable to everyone
• considers thought processes of others
• huge population for study

• 4 sections? Or on a spectrum?
• Scope can be too big

• Family of Origin vs. Family of Procreation
• Intergenerational transmission of conflict
• Juxtaposition of continuum of attachments vs. discrete attachment types
• We may love differently than our partner, not more or less

• Explain how/why strangers communicate
• Expanded to cover other relationships
• First 15 minutes of interaction with a stranger

• Uncertainty ALWAYS leads to anxiety
• post-positivist
• uncertainty is uncomfortable BECAUSE it produces anxiety
• comm can be both a cause and an effect of uncertainty
• we seek to reduce uncertainty if expectations are violated/we anticipate future interactions/the individual is associated with costs and rewards

• Defining uncertainty (levels: high/low, types: cognitive/behavioral, interpersonal relationships: self/partner/relationship)
• Axioms: + information seeking behaviors/reciprocity rate, all else is -
• Predictions: 3 strategies to reduce uncertainty- Seeking info (active, passive, interactive), planning, hedging

Comm can be both a cause and an effect of uncertainty

Romantic relationships (competing relationship, unexplained behavior, sudden change in contact/closeness, massive change in personality or values, deception, reactions)

• Been around for a long time
• predictive power
• lots of research
• comm is central to the theory
• fruitful
• parsimonious
• scope
• breadth

• Assumes uncertainty is always unwanted/leads to anxiety
• has been applied to so many different scenarios so that it doesn't always apply

• Predictability/novelty
• control?
• ecological validity
• health and family comm
• topic avoidance
• advanced care directives
• role of relationships

Predict people's comm decisions (health comm)

• Uncertainty leads to a VARIETY of emotions
• People will ALWAYS manage uncertainty, not necessarily reduce it
• Post-positivist
• Sometimes people desire uncertainty
• Difference between information and uncertainty

• Management
• 1. seek information
• 2. avoid information
• 3. adapt to uncertainty

health field

• Gives us better understanding in making predictions
• explanatory power

• Less precise because more latitude in making decisions
• lack of predictive power

• Predictability/novelty
• Control?
• Ecological Validity
• Topic avoidance
• family and health comm

• Uncertainty MAY cause anxiety
• post-positivist
• interpersonal relationships (doctor/patient)
• only applies when people are motivated to reduce uncertainty
• blend of the last two theories

• Phases
• 1. Interpretation (is there a discrepancy?)
• 2. Evaluation (outcome and efficacy [comm/target/coping])
• 3. Decision (how to manage)

• Doctor-patient interaction
• sexual health seeking behaviors
• organ donation (article)

• Predictive power
• focuses on the other person

• Assumes rational thought
• emits role of other emotions

• Predictability/novelty
• control
• ecological validity
• health and family comm
• topic avoidance

• Answers "why" to bad situations/unexpected behaviors
• internal and external process of interpreting and understanding what is behind our own and other's behaviors

If we don't have all the information, we will draw our own conclusions

• Dimensions (globality, stability, locus, intent, selfishness, blameworthiness)
• correspondence vs. covariation
• responsibility
• bias (actor-observer, self-serving, negativity, relationship enhancing, activity)

• attributions are explanations for comm acts
• ...are meanings
• ...are what we communicate about
• ...determine comm acts

• relational satisfaction
• conflict
• nonverbal comm
• aggression/violence

• explanatory/predictive power
• evidence
• reasonable scope
• aesthetically pleasing
• makes sense

• Not consistently explained variables
• contextually/culturally bound
• not applied same way across cultures (limits usefulness)

• activity bias
• fatalism vs. agency

• Understand why and how people construct public images
• strategies to maintain/restore own or others' images
• competence: appropriateness and effectiveness

• Interpretivist
• self is symbolic construction
• all people have face (public image)
• motivated to preserve face
• interactions are symbolic enactments of cultural rituals
• all meaning everywhere is socially constructed

• All the world is a stage (dramaturgy)
• life is a performance (actor/part)
• other people must play with us
• front/back stage
• face can be lost (in wrong face, out of face, shamefaced) and restored through facework

when rules are broken, we use comm to restore order

• why people get embarrassed
• intimate partner violence
• social predicaments
• teasing at wedding/baby shower
• intercultural comm

• broad scope
• explanatory/predictive/heuristic power
• aesthetics
• coherences

non-parsimonious (simple)

Why people don't always directly say what they mean

• post-positivist
• interpretivist
• we are all motivated to maintain face and cooperate in interactions

• Face is public/social/claimed/something we want/on the line in every interaction
• Negative vs positive face
• impolite = doesn't consider negative face
• strategies (bald on record, positive face redress, negative face redress, off record, ignore/do nothing)

Face-threatening acts are negotiated through comm

• Predict how polite someone will be
• how behavior will be evaluated
• understand social processes

• Multi-disciplinary
• predictive/explanatory/heuristic power
• broad scope
• parsimonious
• conceptual interrelatedness

• Does not always apply in other cultures
• conceptualization of politeness

• Imaginative interactions (URT)
• need to belong theory
• organizational culture
• social proof
• looking-glass self (6 people) can lead to cognitive dissonance

• predict and explain behavior
• relational satisfaction/commitment

• post-positivist
• rational thought
• self-interest
• interpersonal relationships involve interdependence
• social behavior is a series of exchanges
• decisions based on evaluations of costs/rewards
• want to maximize rewards/minimize costs
• receiving rewards = obligation

• Costs and rewards (social, emotional, instrumental, opportunity)
• outcomes = overall level of profit/deficit (rewards minus costs)
• all about perception

• means through which exchanges take place
• actual resource being exchanged

• accounts for expectations
• CL to evaluate 
• based on other, what we experience, and media
• satisfaction = (rewards - costs) - CL
• satisfied when outcome meets/exceeds CL
• CLalt = perceive other options, high/low
• See chart about satisfied/committed

• perceived fairness
• underbenefitted/overbenefitted
• equity leads to maintenance behaviors
• relieve stress by 1. restoring actual equity 2. restoring psychological equity 3. leaving relationship

• parsimony
• heuristic/predictive/explanatory power
• validity

• does not apply to all relationships
• people are not always rational or self-serving

• control mutuality
• fitzpatrick couple types (traditional, independents, separates)
• does everyone want equity?
• denigration of alternatives

• understand ways humans make sense of their identities/relationships/lives
• interrogate the ways in which stories construct/confirm/reject/negotiate our identities

• interpretive and critical
• cortical congruence

• Master narrative -> narrative as concept -> stories
• importance of temporality
• narrative as ontology/epistemology/individual construction/relationship process

• restoring identity and lives
• cope with loss/trauma
• predict relational outcomes
• predict psychological health
• narrative therapy
• expressive writing

• useful
• fruitful
• breadth (both, theory of everything)

• no single theory
• breadth (theory of everything)

• drinking behaviors
• theory of normative social behavior (descriptive vs. Social norms)
• selective exposure
• shared identity
• affectives and impactiveness
• counter-narratives

• social exchange
• interdependence
• learned helplessness
• investment theory
• intergenerational transmission
• traumatic bonding theory
• paradoxical punishment
• attribution theory
• impression management
• co-dependence (afflicted/functional)
• religiosity/tradition/culture
• individual characteristics
• conflict styles