Chapter 5
Getting Closer
Initiating and Intensifying
Relationships
Activate your brain

Which of the following are examples of
self-disclosure? Why?
– “I am a communication major.”
– “I grew up in a small town.”
– “I have had several sexual partners.”
– “My parents got divorced when I was only five
years old.”
– “I was pregnant once but had a miscarriage.”
– “I occasionally smoke marijuana.”
Assess Your Skills
Rate yourself: 1 = poor at this; 5 = good at this
– Asking or suggesting to someone new that
you get together and do something
– Telling someone you don’t like a certain way
he/she has been treating you
– Telling others things that secretly make you
feel anxious or afraid
– Being a good and sensitive listener for
someone who is upset
– Being able to put resentful feelings aside
during a fight
How People Develop New Relationships

Skills:
– Relationship Initiation
 Approaching others, good first impressions,
introductions, initiating conversations, invitations
– Self-disclosure
 Appropriate depth, amount, and timing of disclosure
– Providing Emotional Support
 Ability to respond appropriately to emotional needs
of others—validate feelings and sometimes offer
(but not impose) advice
– Responsiveness: shows care, concern, and liking
or respect
Skills, cont.
– Negative Assertion
 When there is a control or power struggle, being
able to assert one’s preferences, decisions, needs,
etc. constructively (face-saving)
– Conflict Management
 Conflict = real or perceived incompatible goals
 In early phases of relationships, people are on best
behavior and tend to avoid disagreements. As
relationships develop, interdependence invites goal
conflict. Why?
 Skills = The ability to listen to partner, understand
his/her perspective (even when don’t agree), and
refrain from expressing hostile feelings
Are you skilled?
Communication skills (Box 5.1, pp. 100-102)
How did you rate yourself?
 Asking or suggesting to someone new that you get
together and do something (rel. initiation skill)
 Telling someone you don’t like a certain way he/she
has been treating you (neg. assertion skill)
 Telling others things that secretly make you feel
anxious or afraid (self-disclosure skill)
 Being a good and sensitive listener for someone who
is upset (emotional support skill)
 Being able to put resentful feelings aside during a
fight (conflict management skill)
Note-Remember—skills without motivation are
useless
 It takes effort to listen, to avoid just
saying “get over it,” to reveal your
feelings, or to keep the sarcasm out of
your voice during conflict.

Self-Disclosure

Textbook
 Self-disclosure: verbal communication that
reveals something about the self to others

Metts
 Self-disclosure: verbal communication that
reveals something about the self that would
not otherwise be known and that carries some
degree of risk.
 Why include not otherwise known?
 Risk to whom?
Which of the following would meet the
textbook’s definition of self-disclosure
– I am a communication major.”
– “I grew up in a small town.”
– “I have had several sexual partners.”
– “My parents got divorced when I was only five
years old.”
– I was pregnant once but had a miscarriage.
– I occasionally smoke marijuana.
Which would meet Metts’ definition?
Dimensions of Self-disclosure

Breadth and depth: Onion metaphor
Dimensions, cont.

Frequency:
– How often self-disclosure occurs in a
relationship (friendship, romance, family, coworkers) (Is online easier than face-to-face)?
 Duration:
– Length of self-disclosure episode (in
friendships, more important than frequency)
 Valence:
– Positive or negative content
– Probably more of a continuum than either/or
 Veracity: Can untrue information be selfdisclosure?
Risks Associated with Self-Disclosure
Self-disclosure within a dialectical
perspective
 Openness vs. closedness
 Fear of exposure or rejection
 Fear of retaliation or angry responses
 Fear of loss of control
 Fear of losing individuality

Self-disclosure & Liking


(Box 5.2, p. 108)
The Disclosure-Liking Hypothesis:
When people self-disclose to one
another, they tend to like one another
more
The Liking-Disclosure Hypothesis:
When people like someone, they tend to
self-disclose to her/him more

When doesn’t self-disclosure lead to
liking? (Box 5.2 cont.)
 Too Much Disclosure Too Early
Violates social norms
 Indiscriminant Disclosure
When revealer seems to tell everyone
everything
 Negative Responses to Disclosure

People are uncomfortable when disclosure is
not reciprocated or is belittled and criticized
Examples?
Reciprocity of Self-disclosure

The Dyadic Effect
– In the initial stages of relationships, selfdisclosure is often reciprocal—Why?
 social exchange explanation
– Balance costs (vulnerability) & rewards (trust)
 uncertainty reduction
 model on other’s behavior to be socially appropriate

Couples who believe they reciprocate selfdisclosure are more satisfied.
– Note that the reciprocated disclosure can be
delayed
Stages of Relationship Development
Knapp’s Staircase Model:
 Stages of Coming Together
 Stages of Coming Apart
 Space between each stage is “stabilizing”

Knapp’s Staircase Model
“Coming Together” Stages
Stage 1: Initiating



Initial encounters
Greeting rituals/opening lines
Social politeness &
impression management
Predicted Outcome Value Theory
Stage 2: Experimenting
 Small talk (breadth over depth)
 Establishing similarities and differences
 Most relationships do not move beyond this stage
Stage 3: Intensifying
 In-depth disclosure and
emotional expression
 Verbal statements of
Commitment
 Using future tense
 Using “we” instead of “I”
Stage 4: Integrating
 Coupling –
– both within and outside the dyad
 Social networks often merge
 Attitudes and preferences often merge
 Can sometimes finish each other’s sentences
Stage 5: Bonding
Public commitment via social ritual
 Marriage is paradigm case
 Businesses can merge
and create bonding
 Civic Unions
 Relationship becomes
“institutionalized”
 Significant barriers to breakup

Text says that friends can do bonding with
tattoos, but Knapp would say that is not a good
example.
Critique of Stage Models
Some couples skip stages—at least initially
– May go back and move up the staircase again
 Metts add:
– One person may be in one stage but the other
is in a different stage
– Doesn’t include indicators of satisfaction or
quality
 Relationship might progress according to
stage descriptions, but not be satisfying to
couple

Turning Points
Turning points are any event or occurrence
that is associated with change in a
relationship (e.g.,commitment, satisfaction)
 In contrast to stage approaches, the
turning point approach is nonlinear
 Studies suggest that around 50-60% of
close relationships follow a nonlinear
developmental path

Types of Turning Points

Communication-based
– Get-to-know time; quality/intimate
communication
Activities and Special Occasions
 Passion (e.g., first sex)
 Romantic Relationship Transitions (e.g.,

love at first sight, expressing love)

Commitment and Exclusivity
– external competition, serious commitment

Changes in Families and Social Networks
– Changes in family membership (blended
family; new baby)
– Interference from a romantic partner or other
third party in friendship

Proximity and Distance
– Separations and reunions
– Distance/independence from parents
– Becoming roommates (friends)
– Moving in together or moving out

Crisis and Conflict
– Conflict and disengagement (first big fight;
breaking up)
– Crisis situations, support or sacrifice
– Making up

Perceptual Changes
– Positive psychic change
– Negative psychic change
A Turning Point Analysis (p. 109)
First Dates

Dating Scripts (what is a script?)
– Traditional sex-roles
– Are these traditions changing? (83% of men
reported being asked out on a first date by a
woman; Mongeau et al., 1993—what about
2012?)
– Views of women who initiate? Expectations of
men?
 Men desire and expect
more sexual activity
on first date!! Who knew?
First Dates, cont.
Goals for First Dates
•Having fun
•Reducing uncertainty about the partner
depends on relationship—romance?
friendship?
•Investigating romantic potential
•Developing friendship
•Engaging in sexual activity (males more
than females)
Best date when partners share same goals
Five Things Not to Say on a First Date
Relationship Prior to First Date

Existing relationship influences goals of first date:
– Friends vs. strangers influence efforts to
reduce uncertainty
– Friends more likely to assess romantic potential
and seek sexual involvement than strangers or
acquaintances
– Want to have fun regardless of relationship
Question: Are traditional first date scripts still
relevant to young adults? (hanging out & hooking
up?)
First encounters: Metts add
Flirting
Women: moving closer,
smiling, sneaking glances,
or tossing hair, eye-brow
flash, brief then
extended gaze
 Men: gestures that get
women to notice them
and imply high status,
such as taking up space,
and open posture

Traditional sex-roles?
Pantagraph article
Opening Lines

Cute-flippant (e.g., “Is that
your hair?”; “I’m easy. Are
you?”). –least preferred by
women


Innocuous (“What do you
think of the band?”) –more
preferred by women than
men
Direct (e.g., “It’s hot in
here. Would you like to go
outside for a while?”)—
more preferred by men
than woman
Cohabitation
 Relational
Stability
– Lower than for marriage and more likely to
divorce if they do marry
– Why?
 Fewer restraints?
 Selection effect?
 Relational Quality
– Findings are mixed—may be due more to time
– “Honeymoon” phase
Cohabitation, cont.

Communication Patterns
– Some evidence of conflict and violence
– But not so much just co-habiting vs. married
as attitudes that encourage co-habiting rather
than marriage:
 fear of commitment
 desire for a high level of autonomy
 negative attitudes toward marriage
 Co-habiting couples who plan to marry do not
differ much from married couples