Close Relationships Mask Poor Communication (Interpersonal Friendships/Relationships)

Thinking about How “Close Relationships Sometimes Mask Poor Communication”

David Christian Toepfer

COM 200

Dr. Sherell Harell

April 13^th, 2014

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                        In our everyday lives we encounter family and friends, or even co-workers that we care for or even love a great deal. When we communicate with these individuals we seem to have masked the reality that we might not understand the other person/s; views, insights, feelings etc. as we properly should. This makes it hard to know how the person you are communicating with really is. In doing so we may find ourselves ignorant to the other’s true selves, this seems to happen overtime and be attributed to the ideology of unconditional love within close relationships between two or more people. I enjoyed reading the required resources for this assignment very much indeed, and gained some new insight to answer the questions provided to structure the contents of this short essay.

I think that that the article “Close Relationships Sometimes Mask Poor Communication” provided from U.S. News and World Report (2011, January) did a phenomenal job at providing quality examples of just how their title was validated with statistics from credible sources. As cited in U.S. News and World Report; "People commonly believe that they communicate better with close friends than with strangers. That closeness can lead people to overestimate how well they communicate, a phenomenon we term the 'closeness-communication bias,'" (2011, January Para. 3). We can see here how initially within the article we are provided with good, clear content informing us about exactly what this article is going to be about. I have had many instances that correlate well with this closeness-communication bias, for example; I was involved within a relationship with an individual who seemed to have some problems in the communication department and I became accustom to just writing off her subtle hints as nothing to worry about. I felt like I did the majority of the talking within the relationship and she seemed to be okay with it, “seemed” is the important word in that sentence. I would consistently try to penetrate the guarded walls she put forth and did my best at that time in my life to try to understand what was going on in her head and exactly what I could do to improve upon the communication skills within our relationship. I was quite assured that she understood me well, but I don’t think that she truly did, I think that her issues with interpersonal communication hindered her from truly finding out who I really was and vice versa. It seems as if when people are involved in deep conversation etc. they seem to be able to find more out about each-

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-other than opposed to one speaking party and one party that does not seem to be to interested in the conversation.

            As cited here in U.S. News and World Report; "A wife who says to her husband, 'it's getting hot in here,' as a hint for her husband to turn up the air conditioning a notch, may be surprised when he interprets her statement as a coy, amorous advance instead," (2011, January Para.6). This is yet another terrific example expanding on just how these misinterpretations in communication can lead to conflict in a relationship for many different reasons and in many different ways. As we learn in our textbook, self control coupled with good interpersonal communication skills are both equally important in developing a positive relationship especially in reference to communication specifically (Sole, K. 2010).

            In regards to the personal situation that I expressed just a moment ago, I think that there are a plethora of different ways in which I could go about improving upon my communication skills to more clearly assert myself. I also think that there are many ways in which I could improve upon understanding the other party’s point of view so that I may be able to improve upon the relationship’s dexterity. One important aspect of good communication is perception checking which can be described as “Confirming with other people what you perceive in a communication situation” (Sole, K. 2010, P. 86). This stood out to be an excellent contributor to me understanding the other party’s point of view, feelings, thoughts, fears, dreams etc and so on. Another way in which I could work to make my communication more clearly to the other party or parties is to improve upon my self-efficiency which the text describes as “Having confidence in your ability to think, judge, choose, and decide; trusting yourself and being self-reliant” (Sole, K. 2010, P 86). I think that increasing my abilities in these departments would be playing a very critical role at being a better interpersonal communicator as well. For example; if I would have been more intuitive about my previous situation and used the abilities that are described in the utilization of self-efficiency to allow myself to better judge the other parties true selves.

           

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References

Close relationships sometimes mask poor communication. (2011, January). U.S. News & World Report,

 doi: 2270370591 Retreived from http://vizedhtmlcontent.next.ecollege.com/pub

/content/9defb49d-32f0-4fa1-99dc-8958fcefcdf1/COM200.Readings.Anonymous.pdf

Kathy Sole. 2010. Making Connections: Understanding Interpersonal Communication. Bridgepoint

Education, Inc., San Diego, CA. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books

/AUCOM200.11.1