Professional Documents
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Divorce Communication
Divorce Communication
Research Paper
Social Penetration Theory and Divorce
Emily Huttner
11/18/2015
Research Paper
November 18, 2015
Introduction
of connection, understanding and love; at least that is what is thought to be reasons for getting
married. Both partners feel as though they can be open with one another and engage in
communication that is understood and effective. But what is it that changes when couples
relationships begin to dissolve. More than forty percent of all marriages end in divorce, by
looking at how communication develops and changes over time, can the way in which married
their relationship?
Many couples seek out guidance and advice from friends, family and or even counselors
to help them try to understand what is causing difficulty in their relationships. The problem is
that issues are being discussed outside of the relationship and not between the individuals. Is this
because their communication has already become ineffective, have they reached a new stage in
their relationship? The only people who truly know are the couple, and unless expressed to one
communication seems to be something that a lot of individuals believe is required for the
relationship to be successful. Communication is something that individuals engage in all the time
and should be practically inherent but when does our communication become difficult and
ineffective?
Social Penetration Theory developed by Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor shows the
different stages in interpersonal relationships and the extent of our disclosure. Their theory has
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six key elements; social penetration, personality structure, self-disclosure, depth of penetration,
law of reciprocity and breath of penetration. Mark Knapps relationship model is divided by a
relationship coming together and coming apart, each with five steps. Coming together stages
apart when differentiating begins followed by circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding and resulting
in termination. In between coming together and falling apart there is relationship maintenance.
If couples take the time to look at how their communication changes overtime maybe
they can work together to maintain positive communication and if they do see elements of
communication leading to dissolve they can choose to make changes or effectively communicate
how they want to begin to live their lives separately but through an open dialogue.
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Literature Review
This literature review seeks to explore the existing ideas surrounding interpersonal
communication during the dissolve of relationships by reviewing Altman and Taylors Social
Penetration Theory as well as Mark Knapps Relationship Model and case studies. By looking at
the research of Altman and Taylor and Knapp the review hopes to link communication patterns
intimacy with another person through mutual self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability.
Altman and Taylor suggest that when developing relationships, individuals have a personality
structure which they refer to as, onion like. These layers are our feelings about ourselves, others,
and the world. The further the penetration into these layers the more protected they become. The
outer layers are things about an individual that are seen. The inner layers are, as described by
Griffin (2015) made up of values, self-concept, unresolved conflicts and deeply felt emotions.
The layers are penetrated through self-disclosure. Self- disclosure is the voluntary sharing
of an individuals self, any information they share about themselves; values, beliefs, stories,
feelings etc. The theory suggests that through social penetration you work to peel back the layers
while developing a relationship but the law of reciprocity requires both individuals to disclose
and the degree to which they disclosed would be mirrored by the other individual. Depth of
penetration is the amount disclosed about a particular part of an individuals life and breath of
Mark Knapps relationship model includes ten stages of coming together and coming
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followed by experimenting where we make small talk, chatting about things such as a movie or
about the weather, intensifying is where we try to find out similarities, integrating is when we
work to manage or relationship with this individual as well as anyone else that is important to us,
and then there is bonding, the relationship has developed and identify as best friends or if in a
coming together, if not that is when our relationships begin to fall apart.
In the stages of coming apart the first stage is differentiating this is where individuals
start to focus on themselves, separate from the relationship. Circumscribing is when we begin to
limit the topics we discuss in the relationship, followed by stagnating where you stop discussing
topics, typically being any issues within the relationship. The relationship truly comes to an end
when there is avoiding; the individual doesnt want to interact with the other any longer and ends
identifying cognitive, affective, and Behavioral dimensions Knapps Relational Stages Model,
works to further develop Knapps relational model as a tool for classification. For each of the
relational stages they recorded the stage, things individuals said, how they felt and their
behaviors. As stated before there are ten stages in the model. In the process of coming apart
during the differentiating stage individuals would argue, apologize and discuss their
incompatibility, they had feelings of separation, slight loneliness, confusion and being
During circumscribing discussion would only include everyday matters and would feel
cold, distance, depressed, frustrated, unloved and misunderstood and individuals would then
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pursue different activities and act aloof. When reaching the stage of stagnating individuals
discussions were considered old news and would give short answers to questions, feeling
unwanted, scared, bored and sentimental, ceasing physical contact and going out. Avoiding and
Terminating are the last two stages. Avoid is when communication has be avoided or stopped,
there is no discussion about the relationship saying things such as I dont know and I dont
care, leaving individuals feeling nervous, helpless and annoyed, eating in silence, staying busy
and spending time away from one another. Terminating surprisingly enough does involve
communicating but individuals may discuss what went wrong, feeling unhappy but relieved, sad,
depressed, happy, lonely and or scared, dividing things up and possibly crying. After identifying
the dialogue, feelings and behaviors associated with each stage it is easier to look at a
The comparative test evaluated by Joe Ayres in his analysis of Uncertainy and Social
compares the dialogue and advancement of relationships through social penetration theory of
Altman and Taylor to the uncertainty reduction theory of Charles Berger. Berger argues the less
you know about someone the more questions you ask and Altman & Taylor studied what types
of behaviors are the results of developed relationships and how they progress over time. This test
coded the dialogue of two individuals who had just met and the dialogue of two individuals who
had, had developed relationships. The expected outcome was for the stranger encounters to result
in more questions than those who had established friendships. The dialogue was coded as
descriptive, evaluative or nothing. The results found that strangers use descriptive more often
than friends and that friends have a balance of descriptive and evaluative comments. Instead of
finding out who asked more questions the comparative test showed patterns in what type of
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responses were given; either descriptive, evaluative or nothing. Relationship dialogue changes
over time, if we reach a point where we are not asking as many questions are we still interested
in the relationship?
in developing relationships use more idioms than those in dissolving relationships. Their study
looks at the idioms used by couples in developing and dissolving relationships.. The types of
idioms seeen in both stages of relationships differ as well. By identifying the frequency and types
of idioms used we can access when relationship maybe coming to an end. By placing the idioms
relationship and how they are specific to each stage. Their study also shows the how the use of
idioms change throughout relationship change, which social penetration theory shows us that
when couples become closer their relationships, they tend to become more particular in the way
we communicate.
The divorce conversation: The influence of face threat and facework on perceptions and
outcomes by Frisby, Booth-Butterfield, Dillow, Martin, & Weber looks at the dialogue between
individuals who have been through divorce and the ideas of face threats and facework. What
each spouse communicates about the other either become face threat or is facework. Face threats
are messages that portray the other spouse negatively and facework are messages that work to
portray the other spouse positively through the divorce process. Depending on the amount of
face threat and facework the relationship of the once married couple will be determined by how
they portrayed one another resulting in new and different types of relationships. How they treat
each other during the divorce will impact the future dynamic of their relationship allowing for
them to still be friends or avoid any and all contact ever again.
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problems and also reveals their (the counselors) influence on what the couples see as cause of
communication problems. This study argues that like the couples themselves, counselors seek to
understand the causes of communication problems through intended meaning. The way in which
a counselor perceives the couples communication problems can vary from counselor to
The analysis looked at the responses from fifty different counselors and their perceive
ideas of communication problems. The counselors place the problems in goal clusters;
expressing emotion and speaking for yourself where some of the top ranked behavioral goals
perceived by the counselors. The study also showed that most couples communication problems
are considered stable meaning the problems were things that were unchanging in the
relationship and that most couples that have communication problems that are the results of
unstable problems would rather wait out the period of instability than seek out counseling.
Counselors also indicated that sixty three percent of communication problems were also
external and can be influenced by behaviors taught to individuals by their families. This study
also found that overall the main problem in dissatisfying relationships one fourth of the
counselors noted that they were directly related to communication. Seeing that poor
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Conclusion
discuss but the dissolve of a relationship tends to be uncomfortable and much more complicated.
If a couple becomes concerned with the status of their relationship they can review their
dialogue, feelings and actions to see which relational stage they may be in. At first this idea
seems simple after looking at Avtgis, West and Andersons analysis but not every couples
dialogue, feelings and actions will be the same. Interpersonal relationships are complex as well
as the communication between the individuals, and can be broken down in many different ways,
such as specifically looking at idioms used and facework. Vangelistis work also shows the
variation among couples and the understanding of their problems. Though there is variation,
there is also a pattern, when couples start to with draw themselves, and there is less in depth
discussion, short responses, or if it has gotten to point where there is no discussion at all there is
a likely chance the relationship will reach termination, whether it is separation or divorce. It is
possible to predict the dissolve of a relationship by looking at communication, but you will have
a better chance of understanding of the stage of the relationship if you also take into account
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Reference List
Griffin, E., Ledbetter, A., & Sparks, G. (2015). Social Penetration Theory. A First Look at
Communication Theory (9th ed., pp. 96-107). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Avtgis, T. A., West, D. V., & Anderson, T. L. (1998). Relationship stages: An inductive analysis
Ayres, J. (1979). Uncertainty and social penetration theory expectations about relationship
doi:10.1080/01463370903320906
Frisby, B.N., Booth-Butterfield, M., Dillow, M.R., Martin, M.M., & Weber, K.A. ( 2011). The
divorce conversation: The influence of face threat and facework on perceptions and
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