week 11, post 3

I thought an important aspect discussed in this chapter was maintaing equity in family relationships. First, the importance for making fairness a high priority within the family is high and is a key component in a healthy family. fairness is also important because no one person in the family deserves the entire responsibility to maintain the family.

Two theories that that explain why equity is positive for maintaining a healthy families are the social exchange theory and the equity theory. The equity theory is is defined as “fairness, based on the perception that both people invest equally in a relationship and benefit similarly from there investments” (p. 318) If this is holds true, than that relationship is positive. 

The social exchange theory talks about how people conduct cost-benefit analyses and that if the benefit out weights the cost, then that relationship is positive.  These two theories are important explain how fairness is important in a family setting. 

week 11, post 2

Some of the trends that have been discussed in this chapter are a high divorce rate, especially among those who have already gotten one. I think this trend will continue to grow over time because it has become more acceptable among our generation. The kids growing up now have seen the amount of divorce that takes place and because of this divorce will be more acceptable when they grow older and marry. I think another trend that will continue to grow is the amount of single parents. The superstars that are culture values are not responsible parents, they are children with to much money that go around and party all the time. I think that this will shape the future of marriage, or the lack of marriage, because people will want to stay single longer. Lastly, i think that over the next 50 years we will see a decrease in the amount of children that people have. It has already gone down a lot, but i think it will continue to lower because the lack of resources this over crowded earth has.

week 11, post 1

My definition of family are the people that i am really close with. I do not think that family should be limited to blood related only because there are a select few people that I consider my family but are not related to me. I think that family members do things for each other without expecting something in return. When you do a favor for people you expect something in return. I think that most people would think that my definition is wrong because there are many people that do not know everyone in there family or do not like everyone in there family. Because of this, those people would not do things for those people. I think that culture affects the definition of family, and is why it is different for everyone.

week 10 post 3

This is an interesting point that the chapter discusses and i personally believe that it is unethical to purposely misrepresent your self over the internet. I think that it is unethical because the reasons behind representing yourself inaccurately is to hide reasons in which if other people know that may not communicate with you. I think that deception is more likely in an online setting, but happens in both settings. I think that this is because it is easier to deceive someone over the internet because it is easy to represent yourself as something you are not on the internet. I think that deception is is not limited to online setting, i just think that more people are capable of online deception because it is easier to achieve. It takes a smarter person that deceive someone that is looking right at them, and is why more people use deception online. 

week 10 post 2

something that i fond interesting in chapter 11 was the styles of loving. The three styles of loving discussed in the book are Eros, Storge, and Ludus. The eros style is powerful, intense love that may include sexual, spiritual, intellectual, or emotional attraction. this style is known to be the most spontaneous type of love and is also the fastest moving one. 

Storge type of love is less intense that Eros. It is known as the love based on friendship and compatibility.  This type of love tends to develop of a longer period of time and because of this is more likely to be peaceful and stable. The highs and lows do not compare with an Eros based love relationship. 

finally, ludus love is know as the playful love. these type of lovers see love as a game and a “lighthearted adventure full of challenges, puzzles, and fun”. People tend to go through ludic stages in life but are not true ludics. 

week 10 post 1

I have been in a situation where commitment was present in a relationship but not love. First, the difference between love and commitment in a relationship is this. Commitment is “ the intention to remain involved with a relationship”, whereas love is defined as “intensely positive feelings fervent desire for another person” (p. 277) While it is ideal that you have both while in a relationship, there are plenty situations where only one of these are present. In my situation, I was committed to a girl, but did not love her. She was a really good friend of mine but i did not have the feelings that i thought i had for her. I wanted to stay in the relationship because i did not want to hurt her. The relationship dragged on and eventually ended. i think i can conclude that you need both love and commitment for a relationship to work the best. If you love a girl, but do not want to be committed to only her, then she will find someone who will. 

week 9 post 2

I thought this was a interesting site. Never thought that something like this excised but i guess there is a site for anything if you looked for it. The site was good because it offered good advice in the advice forum for things to do in a friendship. I think this was good because a lot of time people go and get into situations that they have never delt with before. This page offers advice on a few topics discussed in the book like sexual attention advice and relationship advice. It also gets into friendships and the the types of things that you need to have in a strong friendship. I think the the things represented on the website show the real problems in relationships and friendships. A lot of the same things are mentioned in the book which to me shows that the problems talked about in the book are actually problems that people encounter in real life. My experience is that things that books talk about are don’t always happen in real life all the time, and the book does a good job at explaining the real problems in relationships 

week 9 post 1

Mikey and I have been very close friends ever since middle school. The investments that i have made for this friendship include time, effort, thought and feeling. I think the biggest investment though would be time. I can remember hanging out with him all day. The only time that we did not hang out was during class. We spent time together at school, on the football field, baseball field, and he lived up the street from me. I think all the time that was spent together allowed the other investments to gradually build up, and is why our friendship is so tight.

I think the way we built trust was originally from playing competitive sports together. On the football field i had to be confident that he was going to do his job so that i could do mine. If i tried to do both of our assignments then i would bot be able to get anything done, so i had to be confident that he could get it done. From that i started to trust Mikey. 

Football also helped me accept mikey. Football is a great sport because it reveals  true character. There is no hiding who you are on the football field. So after playing ball with mike i knew what kind of person he was and i was okay with that.

week 7 post 2

I often feel defensive in situations in which I am being accused of something. In this particular situation I was being accused of spilling cranberry juice on my friends carpet. The communication toward me was negative and supported a defensive climate rather than a supportive climate. The most common types of defensive communication that was used was strategy and evaluation. He was trying to get me to commit my mistake by carefully asking what i had been doing all night and did mention that the juice had been spilled. I knew that it had happened and i knew what he was eluding to so this made me defensive. Secondly, He was evaluating the situation on passed experiences and thought it was me before he knew any of the hard facts. These two types of communication preformed by my friend created a defensive climate and made it hard to resolve the situation. On one hand he thought i had did it without giving me a chance and how he went about it made me defensive. 

week 7 post 1

I thought an important subject in this chapter was commitment. The book describes commitment as the “decision to remain in a relationship” (p. 198). This is simple but I think commitment it more than just that. The book goes on and explains that commitment is really the intention to share failure. I think this is a better definition of the word because anyone can stick with someone if all is good and lucrative, but when things go bad is what test true commitment of a person. I think commitment is important because it is the foundation of all relationships. If someone is truly committed to making a relationship work, than that relationship will have a better chance to survive. All the other aspects f a relationship like trust, comfort, and openness mean nothing with out the essential building block of commitment. lastly the book distinguishes between commitment and love and stats that love is a feeling in which we can not control whereas commitment is a decision that we make.

week 5 post 2

The six types of fallacies are perfectionism, obsessions with shoulds, overgeneralization, taking responsibilities from others, helplessness, and fear of catastrophic failure. I think all of these fallacies happen in everyday interpersonal communication. The ones that I have doe a few times are trying to be a perfectionist. The book says a perfectionist has unrealistic self concept, stress, chronic dissatisfaction with self, and jealousy and envious of others. I think i hold myself to a high standard that is sometime unattainable because I want to be successful in life. The funny thing is that it is usually only with things that challenge me, things that come easy i lose interest in and become lazy. I also have a friend who commits the fallacy of fear of catastrophic failure. This is explain as when a person has negative fantasies of what could happen and inability to do things because of what might happen. she often does not strive to do big things because she is afraid of failing, because of this she sets her goals low. I think a way to monitor your interpersonal communication to make yourself to stay away from these fallacies is to be positive and set measurable and attainable goals for yourself.

week 5 post 1

I think the perspective on emotions that I relate with the most is the perceptual view of emotions. Like the book states, “External objects and events, as well as physiological reactions, have no intrinsic meaning.” (p. 174) This means that specific actions or events that happen are not linked with emotional reactions. The theory explains that each event is seen subjectively from the persona and depending on the situation and circumstance, and emotional reaction happens. Before a fight a persons ands may be shaking because they are scared. But that same person hands may be be shaking on the day of graduation because of the joy they are experiencing. This shows how the situation is the determining factor in what the emotion is rather than the physical reaction that is caused by the emotion. I related most with this perception because i can relate to my own experiences with it. 

week 4 post 3

I thought the “listening is a ten part skill” was an insightful reading and gave me a lot of good tips for then next time i am in a situation where i have to listen to someone, which is likely to be soon. The reading first talked about starting a conversation and said it is important to have an area of interest that both parties find interesting. If you are disinterested in what is being talked about you will be less likely to listen. It then talks about how we should not let the delivery hinder our view on the communication. if we do not like the way someone sounds we should not let that take away from the content that person is delivering. holding back from becoming to excited about the topic at hand is the next thing that is talked about. We should be aware of overstimulation because that will take away from the conversation. the next tip is to listen for ideas. the book says that listening for central ideas is important and will improve listening. It then talks about how being flexible is important for a good listeners. Each situation may call for something different, not being fixed into a certain way of doing something can be helpful. Then the reading talks about ways to improve listening. tips it gives is to simply work at listening. Paying attention to the process and trying to improve every chance you get can help. it then says it is important to resist distractions when listening. there are plenty of noise happening when trying to listen and trying to focus on what is being said can help. finally it talks about keeping your mind open. When listening it is important to keep your opinion open so you can hear the whole argument. if you are against something and decide that it is wrong right away you will stop listening and may miss something that will change your mind.

week 4 post 2

The six forms of nonolisting the book talks about are pseudolistening, monopolizing, selective listening, defensive listening, ambushing, and literal listening. Pseudolistening is when a person pretends to listen. This most commonly happens when we are at a meeting and we have something bigger on our minds, we on the outside we act like we are listening to the discussion, but in or minds we are elsewhere. Most pseudolisteners reveal themselves when asked a question because their answer will not be on topic. Monopolizing happens when a listener is focused on only there selves and no other aspect of the conversation. Two tactics thats monopolizing listers use are conversational rerouting and interrupting. Conversational rerouting is used to shift the topic back to themselves. It takes the conversation and focuses it back on one person. Interrupting is used to bring the topic back to something that interest us. Right when a conversation is about to take a new topic, the listener interrupts and brings it back to something that interest them.  selective listening is when a reader only focuses on certain parts of the communication, usually on the things they want to hear and block out things that do not interest us. defensive listening is defined as “perceiving personal attacks, criticism, or hostility,in communication that is not critical or mean-spirited” (p. 158). This happens to people that often feel attacked and have a need to defend there position, even when it does not call for it. Ambushing happens when a listener wants to attack the other person in the conversation, so they listen very close to what is being said so they can verbally attack them. Lastly, literal listening happens when a listener is only listening to content and does not take any other factor in anything else about the communication. People how do this seem to look over the relationship between the communicators and focus solely on the content, which can give you a completely different message. Nonlistening is detrimental to the communication process and should be recognized so it can not interfere.

week 4 post 1

I thought an important aspect that was reviewed in this chapter was the guidelines for effective listening. the three strategies that are mentioned are be mindful, adapt listening appropriately, and listen actively. being mindful explains that we must put aside our preoccupation and preconceptions so the listener can attend fully what is happening at the moment. The second tip involves the purpose for listening. Each situation has has a different emphasis and being aware of the situation will help listening. Lastly the book talks about listening actively. This means understanding all the aspects that go into listening and recognizing each individual part of and respecting that that will enhance the persons listening skills. Overall, these guidelines help individuals in the communication process known as listening. Listening is an important part of the communication process that is often overlooked, but when paid attention to it can greatly help the entire process 

week 3 post 3

An interesting concept that chapter four went over was about how we live in three dimensions of time. obviously, the first time that we all now is the present moment. But the chapter also explains that we also live in the present and the future. We live in the future because the knowledge of what we have done in the past effects what we intend on doing in the future. i thought this was an interesting concept because i have never thought about it like that before and it makes a lot of sense. The book further explains the importance of this concept and says that this is a keep factor in close relationships. It explains that shared expectations is a key factor in close relationships and things that have happened to us in the past set those expectations of how people will act in a relationship. Those who are closer will have the same kind of experiences and share the same expectations of how the other will act and how you will act. 

week 3 post 2

A couple things that I learned about “hate speech” is that it is much broader than I originally thought. The web site defines it as “principally racist and anti-Semitic speech”. But the page goes on and describes acts that fall into the category of hate speech which include cross burning. So any act that is racists or anti semitic is consider hate speech. All types of people engage in hate speech, but most descried on this page where those apart of groups that discriminate against others. There have been some countries that ban hate speech, but from what it seems like each country has its own agenda and by doing so they end up discriminating against a group. Example of this is how in Canada gay and lesbian speech is banned but the pornography thrives. Because of how it has already failed in other countries, i thinking censoring the internet would be bad because the government would abuse that power and end forcing their agenda onto us more than they already do. I also think it would violate out constitutional right. I am not to sure of any other ways to reduce hate speech.

week three-Post one

I would say that American society is like a painting. An abstract painting of something like a sunrise over and ocean or something colorful like that. I Use this metaphor because i think it represents the different cultures in our society. It also has some colors that over lap and create a different shade or a different color completely. This metaphor explains how in our society there are different types of people, represent by the solid colors in the painting. And there are also types of people that have over time americanized and become something completely different then the people who came before them, or in other words they have lost there differences. And lastly, there are the different shades that represent how those people are in the process of changing and slowly losing there differences. i think this metaphor represents the american society well because it appreciates the differences, but also recognizes that the differences people once came to america with are slowly being lost.

week 1, post 3

I thought the 8 principles of communication were an important aspect of this chapter. They are basic guidelines that help explain how communication works. The first principle was interesting to me because it talks about how every action, communicates something. If we choose to be silent we are still communicating because it shows that we are upset or something in that matter. I thought this was interesting because i can think of a few times where by not saying anything i was communicating the point i wanted across. The second principle talked about how interpersonal communication is irreversible. I thought this was one of the most important principles because so many times you say things out of anger that you wish you could take back. The book states that "once we say something to another person those words become apart of the relationship". This principle explains that we should be carful about what we say to people because those words stick with us for the remainder of the relationship, good or bad.

week 1, post 2

My friendship that i have with my buddy Ryan is a relationship that started about 4 years ago. At first i would say that the friendship was I-You relationship. We had just moved into the dorms and we did not really open up to each other in the begging. Most of the things that we talked about were about classes and how tough football was. We avoided personal topics about family and our past history and just talked about superficial things that were happening at the time. After time passed we started to get more comfortable with each other and started to trust one another. With this, we started discussing more personal things like family, past girlfriends, and our hometown and our other friends. The relationship i have with Ryan now is most definitely a I-Thou relationship because i see him as a unique human and communicate with him according to that.

week 1, post 1

The first model of communication that the book describes is the linear model. Models describe how something works. In linear models, communication works one way, or how one person acts on another person. This model consists of five questions that describe acts of communication. these five questions are, Who, says what, in what channel, to whom, and with what effect. The linear model only shows communication flowing in what direction which became why this model was hard to follow, because communication in most cases is free flowing. An example of the linear model might be when your communicating with a boss where his words go. You listen, and he speaks and tells you what to do. In this example the boss is the person communicating with the worker and the the communication is flowing one way, from the boss to the person the works for him.

The second model of communication is the interactive model. The big difference in this model opposed to the linear model is that listeners give feed back. Unlike the one way flowing model, this model shows how communication flows one way then back because it depicts the response.

Introduction

Hello class! the name is Chim Richards. This is my fourth year hear at San Jose state university. I will be graduating this semester, yay! I hail from San Diego, Pacific Beach to be more specific. Its a beautiful place. I enjoy playing sports like football and baseball and also enjoy going to the beach and doing all the fun beach activities. I am looking forward to this class meeting all my new class mates!