Interpersonal Communication Paper_ Final Draft

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Pulaski Technical College *

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Communications

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Apr 3, 2024

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Lawrence 1 Emily Lawrence March 5th, 2024 ACOM 1300 Section (993) Professor Waldrop-Burke Academic Integrity Statement: By submitting this assignment I acknowledge all work to be my own. The Guide to Better Communication Tactics (Emily’s Version) Consequences, both positive and negative, can be the ultimate determinant for the remainder of relationships, regardless if it is a familial, romantic, or platonic relationship. Negative and positive consequences are usually brought about through interpersonal communication. Interpersonal communication is communication between two or more people. It is the foundation of any blossoming relationship and a quintessential part in keeping a relationship stable. This essay is going to be used to make an example of where communication can go wrong and how the consequences can affect your relationship, and what you can potentially learn from those consequences; I am qualified to talk about this because I learned first hand how communication and its consequences can potentially uproot your entire relationship. In this essay, I will attempt to explain how negative communication techniques (1) conflict damage upon friendships and (2) can be remedied through communication ethics and concepts as listed in the Communication in the real world: An introduction to communication studies and Survival Guide . Case Background This story centers around my bestfriend, Kaylee, and I. For some context, we have been

Lawrence 2 friends since 7th grade. Our relationship has always been steady, but there have been moments in the past where we were not as close like we are now; this is not a contributing factor to the conflict in the story. Before the story takes place, we were in a great place in our friendship. The story starts with where I am deciding to go to college. I am dead set on going to UCA, and my friend was still undecided on where she was going. I told her it would be a good idea to go to UCA because I thought it would be nice to have a friend there with me. She ultimately decided that she was going to go to UCA and that we were going to be roommates. Everything was going smoothly until I started to have doubts about going to school there. The two main doubts were my fear of change (leaving home) and looking at my financial aid and seeing that I could not afford to go there. I ruminated on this information for a while until I started to act strange around Kaylee. Everytime she wanted to talk about college–whether that be about classes or dorm shopping–I would avoid answering her questions by changing the subject or neglecting to do activities for college like dorm shopping with her–all of this comes to a head a week and half before the semester starts. We were on our senior trip, which had already been chaotic for a number of reasons, but it was made worse by Kaylee finding out that I was not sure about going to UCA. We got into a heated argument about it. This situation left our friendship in limbo and her trust in me diminished. In the end, I ended up pulling out from UCA and going to Pulaski Tech until I transferred to UALR this semester. Our friendship was able to recover from this, but, expectantly, took a while to return to its “original” state. Theoretical Grounding The theoretical framework I used in analyzing this situation is through the use of an ethical communication value and two communication concepts that led to my maladaptive behavior. The ethical communication value that best defines this scenario is fairness. Fairness is

Lawrence 3 considering all sides of a situation without showing favor to our own interests (Department of Applied Communication, 2023). An example of fairness is letting everyone voice their opinions and concerns they may have about a problem (e.g. deciding what restaurant you want to go to, what you want to do as an activity that day, etc.) and making a final decision based on the group’s consensus instead of one individual choosing what the group will do. The communication concepts that were highly prevalent in my conflict were being highly influenced by the anxious attachment style and using the avoidant style of conflict management. The anxious attachment style is characterized by a desire for closeness but also anxieties about being abandoned. People with this attachment style experience self-doubt and more intense negative emotions like anger and anxiety ( Communication in the real world: An introduction to communication studies , 2016). An example of someone who has an anxious attachment style is Cassie from Euphoria . The avoidant coping style is composed of passive or indirect actions to avoid conflicts and often can lead to the end of relationships if not careful ( Communication in the real world: An introduction to communication studies , 2016). An example of this coping style is avoiding studying for an important exam that is worth half of your grade. Case Analysis Identifying the ethical dilemma present in this case is beneficial in analyzing what you did wrong. In my conflict, the ethical dilemma is the way I withheld the fact that I did not want to attend UCA anymore until the last second. The two choices or options I was presented with in handling my ethical dilemma were negative and highly not ideal. I had the choice of either telling my friend at an “appropriate time” about my decision and dealing with the conflict in a mature manner, or putting the decision off of telling her until I would be eventually forced to tell her; I chose the latter because thinking about the situation caused me a lot of emotional distress.

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Lawrence 4 The negative consequences that both of these options elicit are similar, with both of them having to deal with some sort of damage to the relationship and her being left without a roommate for a time. The ethical implication of this dilemma was my lack of fairness towards my friend in this situation. As evident in what I have been saying up to this point, I made this decision without the input of my friend. I did not consider how my actions would have affected her. When making a decision, you always need to hear every side before making a final judgment, and I did not do this. If I had shown her fairness, Kaylee could have given me feedback and her thoughts about what I was wanting to do and helped steer me toward a decision that did not have such a negative impact. Along with this, I was highly influenced by my anxious attachment style and my defective choice of the avoidant coping style. I acquired my anxious attachment style during my childhood development. Like stated previously, people with anxious attachment styles harbor the fear of abandonment, and I am no different. My line of thinking in this situation was that “if she did not know about my new plan, she would not stop being my friend.” This proved to be extremely flawed and almost led to my friendship ending. Coupled with this was my fear that she would “abandon” me when we got to college for new people. This was a driving force in my desire to not tell her about my decision. I was also having self-doubts about my future at UCA. Something that added more fuel to my perpetual fire was my misguided use of avoidant coping. I used avoidant coping in this conflict through my procrastination of telling my friend that I changed my mind about UCA. A habit I would become proficient in was avoiding thinking about college at all and avoiding anything that had to do with college, like shopping for dorm room decorations. Like I stated previously, I avoided and dodged any questions about college. This

Lawrence 5 was due to my coping with the stress of the situation through an avoidant coping style. Conflict Management: Recommendations Looking back at this conflict, there are a number of things I could have done differently that could have changed the outcome significantly. Something that could have benefited me heavily would have been learning a new coping style to deal with conflict in a proactive way instead of running from my problems. A coping style that would have been good for this specific situation would have been the collaborating style of coping. The collaborative coping style “involves a high degree of concern for self and others and usually indicates investment in the conflict situation and the relationship. Although the collaborating style takes the most work in terms of communication competence, it ultimately leads to a win/win situation in which neither party has to make concessions because a mutually beneficial solution is discovered or created,” ( Communication in the real world: An introduction to communication studies , 2016, 6.2. Conflict and Interpersonal Communication). By using a collaborative coping style, I could have explained my predicament in an emphatic way and given her room for feedback on my decision. Although I doubt I would have gone to UCA because it was too expensive, we could have worked out a situation in which we both benefited. For example, I could have helped her find a new roommate to compensate for having to withdraw from the university. Our relationship would not have taken that big of a hit if I had used this coping style. Honestly, the conflict could have been potentially prevented if I had been up front with her. On her part, she could have benefited from more self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is the purposeful disclosure of personal information to another person ( Communication in the real

Lawrence 6 world: An introduction to communication studies , 2016). Although I have been emphasizing my mistakes around communication, Kaylee could have been more assertive in her communication efforts. A lot of the bad tendencies I exhibited, she let them pass. She should have put more effort into her self-disclosure. Holding me accountable for my dodginess in this situation could have ended the conflict a lot faster than it did during its original course. In summary, more self- disclosure from Kaylee and better coping techniques from me could have altered and ultimately avoided the conflict if they had been exhibited compared to what was actually exhibited. Reflection The biggest lesson I learned from this scenario is that the timing of communication is everything. Waiting to tell someone something important can have detrimental effects on your relationships, and having poor interpersonal skills could cost you so many things, like close friendships. Ever since this has happened, I have been cautious and monitored the information I withhold from people, and I have developed better ways of coping with stress induced by decisions like the one I made. The foundational communication principle that applies to my situation and that I learned is that communicative behaviors are learned. Communicative behaviors are learned is a principle that believes that the process of communication is constant and inevitable, but the behaviors used in the process are not. Thus, you can learn to communicate in particular ways that will positively (or negatively) impact a situation (Department of Applied Communication, 2023). In consequence, all of the negative communication behaviors I had exhibited through this process had been learned. Being able to identify them makes it easier to rid myself of these behaviors and instill better behaviors in myself. If I were to show my friend this paper, our relationship from her point of view might be analyzed further. She would probably agree with some of the things I said about our relationship.

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Lawrence 7 I think our relationship would also be stronger because I have identified some communication errors we both made that we can learn from. In conclusion, I explained to the reader how identifying negative communication tactics and learning from the mistakes made by those tactics can benefit you in the long run. The way people learn from those negative communication tactics depends on how they analyze their own situations. For me, I was able to learn by seeing how negative communication tactics like allowing my anxious attachment style influence my lack of communication between my friend and me. Along with this, looking introspectively at the conflict allowed me to identify some flaws I made surrounding my relationship and my interpersonal communication. A lesson I learned and something I hope you remember is that you need to be careful in the way you speak, or do not speak, because the consequences of your actions can outweigh any justification or positive scenario you conjure up to explain why you did what you did and could potentially unravel some of the most important things in your life. References

Lawrence 8 Communication in the real world: An introduction to communication studies . (2016). Retrieved from https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/communication-in-the- real-world-an-introduction-to-communication-studies Department of Applied Communication. (2023). ACOM 1300: Survival guide . N.P.

Interpersonal Communication Paper_ Final Draft

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