Reflection Opportunity 1
As you write in your portfolio this week, consider Practical Considerations #2 (p. 23):
Recall the last major conflict you had with a family member (or members). Apply each of the
characteristics of dark family communication to the conflict and evaluate how each influenced
the situation’s outcomes.
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The Nature of Dark Communication: The “What”
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She sees my communication as intentionally negative. I see her response as childish.
Neither one of us have a good outcome, at this point the negativity from both of us
makes us want to stop the conversation because we’re both upset.
Interlocking Interaction Structures: The “Where”
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The verbal messages between us would be deemed harmful if we were each interpreting
them that way. If I were having a conversation with one of my employees, I would state
facts such as “you are always late, coming in after 9 a.m.” when I state that same fact
with my sister, because of our history together she sees it as her little sister trying to boss
her around. She takes it negatively and her response to what I say is negative, which I
then get upset.
Meaning-making Process: The “How”
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My sister and I got into an argument about how she’s always late for work. We work in
the same department. She’s an individual level contributor and I’m a manager. I’m not
over her but I can see in my role that it would be a challenge for her boss to manage that.
She told me that it was none of my business, I told her that I’d hate for her to get fired
over something that can easily be fixed. She asked if I knew something that I wasn’t
telling her, and I told her no, truthfully, it’s just hard to see her doing something to ruin
her image and I don’t want that to color people’s view on her. She’s a hard worker in
other aspects but being late isn’t a good way to show that she’s got good work ethic.
Our communication is affected by our own personality traits within the individual
structure. We’re both very different, and the way we see things impacts our ability to
communicate well with each other. The dyadic structure of sibling-sibling communication
affects our communication negatively as well, as we often fall back into our old ways of
communicating. Neither one of us wants to look at the discussion from the other’s point
of view, which is very likely what we would do if we were not related. Our old arguments
resurface, the silly, childish ones where she thinks I’m trying to always be right, and I
think she’s just trying to be my bossy, older sister that tells me what to do. Both these
structures keep our arguments from reaching successful outcomes.
Time: The “When”
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Our arguments in the current day may be about very different things than our arguments
of the past. Our fights from childhood still shadow our communication with darkness
though. We learned a certain way to deal with each other, and because we know that no
matter what we’ll always be sisters, sometimes we fight now like we did when we were
children, hurting each other’s feelings trying to be right, when we should just listen to
what the other has to say and try to work it out in the way that is best for both of us.
Reflection Opportunity 2
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How does dark family communication at the individual level impact the family system?
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We are all different individuals even though we live in a family system. We can all be
experiencing different types of personality dispositions, which tends to color our
interpretation of communication. For example, within my family structure, both my
mother and my sister suffer from depression. When they are having a rough day, they
may interpret meanings completely different from how my dad and I do. Fights can start,
feelings can be hurt or people can be left out based on what meanings they assign to
whatever communications are being had within the family structure. In my example,
when these things do happen, I find myself checking in with them both to make sure that
they’re okay, and that they’re not having “dark” emotions that stem from conversations.
Their depression has in turn changed my communication with the family, because if they
were not suffering from depression, I’d not feel like I had to check in with them often, to
make sure that they are okay. This is something that has become “normal” for our family
communication.
How do your personal good & bad days impact how you perceive messages?
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I know that I can take offense to seemingly benign communication when I’m not in a
good mood or if I’m having a bad day where a lot of things seem to go wrong. In my
personal relationship with my fiancé, this is something I’m very aware of, because I
notice sometimes if I’m in a bad mood, the things my fiancé says will appear to be noncaring even though he says the same things all the time, and I usually don’t get upset by
them. I have to take a step back, mentally, ask myself if it’s really me taking offense when
there is no reason to, or assessing whether there is something deeper there that we
should talk about. In my experience, any bad days I have makes me interpret
communications negatively. When I’m having good days, nothing really seems to bother
me. Even things that could be easily taken negatively.
Reflection Opportunity 3
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How has sibling rivalry affected you or your friends? How about sibling conflict and sibling
fighting? How would you differentiate sibling conflict from sibling abuse?
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My sister and I experienced sibling rivalry growing up, and she still states that she feels
like she’s in “competition” with me, even though I do not feel that way. When we were
kids, I often felt like she was the smart one, she was involved in many clubs at school, she
did well in class and made sure that she got good grades and was always in advanced
math classes. I didn’t realize then that she was jealous of me because I seemed to get
away with anything, for example I would often skip school in favor of hanging out with
friends that were older and had graduated, but yet I didn’t get in that much trouble. As
we got older, people would often compliment me on my singing ability, I’ve always been
involved in choir and now that I’m older, I sing karaoke and since she and I are so close,
she always hears others telling me how good my voice is. She’s got many talents, she
makes beautiful jewelry and often paints wood crafts, but if people tell her she’s got
great skills, she’ll often downplay them, and instead say that she has to be good at
something because I was the one that got all the talent. This attitude still affects us to
this day, and I think it sometimes makes her have dark emotions about herself, even
though there is no reason to feel that way.
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We often got into arguments when we were young, when our friends were around, when
they were not around, it didn’t seem to matter, if we felt we needed to argue, we did it.
We’re still like this even though we’re grown adults. We’ve been with girlfriends before
who tell us it makes them uncomfortable for them to be with us when we’re arguing, and
we even had one that slapped us both when we were in a particularly heated argument
while at a birthday party. I would say our need to have it out, or to “right-fight” has
affected some of our friendships, not enough that people do not want to spend time with
us, but I think it has made us more aware that we need to calm down and not argue
while around others. If it’s a big enough issue that we need to work through, we now try
to wait and discuss it when others are not around.
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I think sibling conflict is something “normal” where siblings don’t always see eye-to-eye,
so they argue about it, hopefully coming to some sort of agreement. Sibling abuse is
when one sibling focuses on the weaknesses of the other, exploiting that weakness and
taking advantage of opportunities to make them feel bad with verbal communication,
and in addition to that, physically abusing them when they feel like they want to show
them that they have the upper hand. I feel like they are very different forms of
communication, conflict seeming like something that can be worked through.
If you don’t have a sibling, how can you relate dark sibling communication to other peer
relationships?
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I have a friend that is an only child. She and I were very close for a while, doing
everything together and spending so much time in each other’s lives. There were many
times where we’d get into a disagreement, and I’d be willing to work it out but she’d tell
me the friendship wasn’t working and we needed to move on. I never thought of a
friendship as so black and white, but I think that she never learned that arguments like
this are okay, as long as you can communicate through them. I think that her lack of
siblings made it so she didn’t understand that it’s ok to argue. It’s something that people
do, and as long as they aren’t saying hurtful things to one another, disagreements are
part of human nature. She and I are still friends, not like we used to be, but we’ve both
grown and she’s become a lot more open to disagreement and communication that she
previously had thought was only negative.
Reflection Opportunity 4
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Consider how you think your family would be classified according to Family Communication
Patterns theory or the Circumplex model. What do you think communication scholars would
conclude about your family’s communication behaviors?
o I think that my family would be classified as Structurally Connected. My mom and dad
shared the leadership, if it was necessary, so did my sister over me. The roles were stable
within my family and change only happened when it was demanded. We have a high
loyalty to one another, even when we were upset with each other, after all we were the
only family we had, so we chose to protect one another when we needed to. There was
some interdependence, although I’d say there was definitely more dependence on one
o
another than would be considered normal. This makes me think of the time when my
mom moved to California with my dad to get a new job. My sister and I were on our own
for a while, which seemed to work out until I moved to California when I got married,
leaving my sister behind in Utah. She had a very hard time, she felt abandoned and
sought therapy. Her therapist had recommended that her negative feelings were due to
the fact that her relationship with her family members was based on co-dependence,
something she still continues to struggle with today in her relationship with her husband.
I wonder what communication scholars would say about my family’s communication
behaviors. I tend to think that my assessment is skewed because I am actually in the
family, and may not see things for what they actually are. I might see positives in what
are actually negatives and vice versa. I did assess the far end of the spectrum with the
descriptions of the disengaged/enmeshed and the chaotic/rigid types, and didn’t see that
my family communication fit into those areas, but I suppose I could be wrong. After all,
many times we only see what we want to see.
Reflection Opportunity 5
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What are some socially influencing factors that affect your family? Do they have dark and/or
bright effects? (p.113)
o When I was younger, my mom and my dad both worked. My sister and I were what was
popularly called “latchkey kids” during that time, because we’d come home to an empty
house after school. We were allowed to watch TV after we did our homework, and the
shows I often watched were the “after school specials” that depicted some issue within a
family. The issues were identified, then worked through, all in the space of one hour. I
thought that’s how all families handled problems and I think experienced a lot of dismay
over the fact that my family did not work that way. I remember seeing a lot of families in
TV shows that appeared to be “perfect” and experiencing some jealousy or longing that
my family was not that way. My mom was single for a large part of my childhood, she
divorced my dad when I was three and did not meet my step-dad until I was 8, so I think
that during those years, TV shows really did affect my view on family and make me feel
bad that I wasn’t experiencing the life that was depicted in these popular shows. When I
was a teenager, I remember watching shows like Beverly Hills, 90210, and being sad that
my parents couldn’t buy me a car or afford to buy me the trendiest clothing and
accessories like the teens on the show. I’d say that media was a huge influence on my life
and on my interaction with my family during my childhood and teenage years.
o I feel like the effects were mostly negative. I think that there is a possibility that there
could have been bright effects if there were children in the shows I watched that had
good behaviors that I copied and performed, but I remember more negative effects than
bright ones. Mostly feelings of jealousy and sadness that my life couldn’t be like what I
was seeing on TV.
Reflection Opportunity 6
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Consider how technological advancements have affected your life. What aspects of your
technological use with your family members are bright? Dark? Gray? (p. 134)
o Gaming devices like the Wii and the Playstation have made for bright usages within my
family. When I visit my parents (who are in their 50’s) they often like to play games with
their Wii, so that we can all get involved. They get the activity type or the board game
type, and we often pair up and play against one another, to see who can win. We will
o
o
have a fun time playing, no one gets left out and no one does “smack” talking that makes
anyone feel bad. We’re supportive and we have fun playing these games together.
I’d say that the invention of the smartphone created a whole new aspect of dark family
communication, because it seems that my mom and I are always on our phones. We’ll go
to Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram or play games like Words with Friends, making my
dad and my fiancé feel left out. They often make comments to us (that we share with one
another) or when we’re all together in a group, my dad and my fiancé will commiserate
with each other on how they are both ignored because mom and I are always on our
phones. I usually say “Like mother, like daughter” and go on with my life, but recently my
fiancé bought a new smartphone, and he’s always playing cards on the device, which I
found makes me feel left out. So now that I know how it feels, I make sure that when
we’re together, that we’re not on our phones, but instead engaged in conversation or if
we’re watching a movie we both like, we’re both paying it our full attention instead of
the device.
For gray aspects, I’d say things like Kindles and video gaming devices for when it’s just us
together. If he wants to play a video game, I’d read on my Kindle, this could possibly keep
us from talking about things, so we make sure to talk while doing these activities. We
don’t want to make each other feel like technology is more important to us than one
another.
Reflection Opportunity 7
Our Dark-Bright Tensions
Discuss your ideas with your group members, including how your group might manage dark-bright
tensions throughout the remainder of the semester.
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Reflections: We had very common bright elements. We all thought that we were doing a
great job offering up ideas and sharing openly. The dark elements were along the lines of
missing due dates, not having great communication with technology. Our outcome was
to use personal email instead of relying on Canvas notifications.
Reflection Opportunity 8
Our Dark-Bright Tensions
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Individually, write down one “bright side” element of your class group.
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Individually, write down one “dark side” element (any level) of your class group.
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Our team is very open to ideas and not afraid to share. Information sharing is working
within our group.
Canvas can cause issues with communications. We may not realize someone has emailed
or posted a comment if our settings aren’t correct. Technology issues.
Discuss your ideas with your group members, including how your group might manage darkbright tensions throughout the remainder of the semester.
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Reflections: We had very common bright elements. The dark elements were along the
lines of missing due dates, not having great communication based on dealing heavily on
technology.
Reflection Opportunity 9
What Can I Do About Workplace Bullying?
 Is this a type of dangerous liaison you should be concerned about?
 I think that everyone needs to be concerned about bullying, even if they don’t associate
themselves with bullying behavior, sometimes even things that are said out of context
can be taken the wrong way. It’s important to make sure that communications are clear,
and when times are stressful, communication must be managed so that the message isn’t
received as overly harsh or taken as bullying.
 What can you do, personally, to address workplace bullying?
 When I have been around people who have spoken harshly to others for no reason, or
exhibited more subtle bullying (I’ve never seen anything that would be construed as
outright bullying where I work), I remind them that people may not take things the same
way that they do. They may have meant to say something else but when it came out, it
was mean or hurtful, so I just tell them that from my point of view it came off as harsh. It
doesn’t hurt that I’m a manager, so my recommendation is usually listened to.
 With my team, I try to always be open and kind, I listen to them and try to help them find
solutions instead of putting my thoughts and opinions on them and then trying to make
them obey, like so many bad managers do. I want all of my team to be successful,
whatever that means to them.
Reflection Opportunity 10
Reflection: Fostering team civility & trust
Get into Research Groups
Construct your Group’s definition of “7C’s of Trust” & strategies to foster them:
Capability – physically and mentally being able to do something. Give opportunity to try
something first, then training to help them improve if they’re not able to do it right away.
Commitment – Being willing to fulfill a requirement and also an ability to see it through.
Fostering strategy would be to follow up to ensure the commitment will be expected.
Capacity – Physical and mental as well, to complete a task. Strategy would be to give
tools and resources and build on the tasks to help them to get better.
Connection – Relationships with the network you have. If you do not have a close
connection with people on your team, you may not care about the outcome. Being able
to expand your network. Strategy would be reaching out to others to let them know you
are there for them, that they can rely on you. Each person would have to be responsible
for fostering this strategy. Also, flexibility.
Commonality – Being able to relate to others based of common traits, experiences, etc.
Strategies to foster this would be willing to speak up, to be open and to share
experiences with your team.
Character – Values a person holds or values that they would like to have, values that you
admire, reflects you and what you do. Includes leading, following, actions and how others
see you. The strategy to foster this is to provide an open, safe space for people to feel
free to be themselves.
Consistency – Factor of repetition and reliability. We can rely on each other and know
that we’ll be present and participating in our groups. Strategy to foster: providing an
opportunity of responsibility, an ability to try again if it’s not consistent the first time.
Follow up with each other, letting each group member know that we’re relying on that
consistency to be successful.
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Review communication strategies for promoting civility on pp. 67-69.
How would those strategies align with your strategies developed above?
A common theme in our strategies was willingness to be open, giving opportunity
to others to participate whether in person or online.
Which strategies offered by the authors seem useful to your group?
Avoiding negative face, speaking pleasant, using group pronouns, say thank you
for things that have been done, negotiate ways of turn-taking, affirming and
recognition.
Reflection Opportunity 11
For Discussion & Reflection Movie: Gung Ho
O
Use concepts from this chapter & from this week’s class discussions to analyze the movie in terms
of:
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Power (domination/marginalization)
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Power struggle between Stevenson and the Japanese
O
Example of moving worker off the line and putting him into a custodial position,
using power to demote after the baseball game
O
O
O
O
Stevenson being the voice or the “power” between the men and the Japanese.
Used referent power – likeability helped him to be charismatic and helped him to
get people to do what he wanted them to do
O
Marginalization – who was diminished? The manager of the plant, he was
diminished and put down by his boss in Japan
Structures (organizational & societal)
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The Japanese have a strong work ethic and they take pride in the company, vs.
the American worker who is worried more about themselves and their family
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The Japanese work overtime not for the money but for the good of the company
O
Structure of gender – men had the power and women were silenced, dinner
party was an example
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The Japanese men were silenced when “Audrey” asked if anyone cared if she
stayed at the dinner table while the other women left
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Notion of pride in quality. Japanese expect that people will work as hard as
possible to achieve quality so they expected that the Americans would be the
same way
Agency (how is it enacted? by whom?)
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Japanese were competitive with themselves, and wanting to be better for the
company, the Americans had a different type of competition with each other not
to be better for the company but to be better than one another
O
Agency is enacted by those in positions of power, for example, Stevenson does
whatever he wants as the liaison, but the employees can’t act in the same way.
O
Same goes for the agency of the Japanese managers, they do whatever they feel
is necessary to run their company in the same way that it is ran in Japan, not
allowing Stevenson or the employees to act with the same agency
Constructions of Civility & Incivility
O
The Americans mocking the Japanese when they were in the pond, also mocking
their eating with chopsticks
O
The Japanese mocked the American made cars
O
The baseball game showed the opposite opinions of the Japanese and
Americans, the Japanese were more respectful and the Americans were not
O
O
The exercising in the yard, the Americans mocked the Japanese doing their
exercises daily before work
O
Stevenson telling his girlfriend to shut up, the Japanese almost appeared to
approve
Ideologies (expressed & unexpressed)
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Work ethic in the Japanese culture, accuracy over distance example
O
Men have the power and women have none
O
Women are sexualized and used for the purpose of entertaining men in
American culture. The example is during the slide show Stevenson gives to the
Japanese; there is a slide of a well-endowed woman who is obviously not
employed in an automobile manufacturing plant, but her picture was put there
to influence men. The differing ideologies between Japan and America are
important here because the Japanese are not impressed. Women in Japanese
cultures are not used in the same way that women in American media are used.
If Stevenson gave the same presentation to American men, it would have gone
over much better.
Reflection Opportunity 12
Reflection on group assignment:
This has been the best group assignment that I’ve experienced in college. I think that the topics
that we covered in class, especially about how to turnaround “grouphate”, really helped us to all be
better team members! I wondered if just having that conversation alone would help people in different
courses to be better team members, maybe learning that concept would allow them to look at
themselves and help them to be thoughtful of their actions in group settings.
Final Reflection Opportunity
I found most of the course content to be helpful in everyday life. We covered topics that can be
used by everyone in every situation. I feel like the course helped me with my career in management, and
it gave me the opportunity to have a perspective into what others think and feel. I try to always put
myself into my employee’s shoes so that I’m treating them all fairly and equally, and the content of the
course just helped me solidify what I’m already doing. I’d recommend this class to anyone, but especially
parents (for the dark family communication topics) and those going into corporate America. This has
been a great class; thank you so much for all you’ve done to teach us in a way that aides in
understanding.