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Knapp and Vangelisti's Model of Relationship Development

athenian200

Circumspect
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I was clearing out my OneDrive files, and I came across this presentation I created a long time ago for a communication class. I decided to read some of my old notes over the slides, and put the presentation here so people could learn about the subject.

Sorry in advance for my awkward presentation. I did a lot better during the original presentation when I had all my notes and I had actually been rehearsing. My conclusion doesn't make a lot of sense because my teacher forced me to remove Relational Dialectics as a topic at the last minute, but for some reason didn't count off for the fact that I don't talk about it. I made an A on this originally.

EDIT: My video got taken down for including monetized content. I'm removing a clip I included originally... may take a few moments.



What are your thoughts on this model?
 
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Dio

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I was clearing out my OneDrive files, and I came across this presentation I created a long time ago for a communication class. I decided to read some of my old notes over the slides, and put the presentation here so people could learn about the subject.

Sorry in advance for my awkward presentation. I did a lot better during the original presentation when I had all my notes and I had actually been rehearsing. My conclusion doesn't make a lot of sense because my teacher forced me to remove Relational Dialectics as a topic at the last minute, but for some reason didn't count off for the fact that I don't talk about it. I made an A on this originally.




What are your thoughts on this model?


Psychology was one of my favourite subjects back in the day. I particularly enjoyed relationship psychology.

The Knapp and Vangelisti model seems to describe what tends to happen sometimes but not all the time. And you are right to say it doesnt take into account the fluid nature of relationships and that not every step has to be taken and they do not always have to be taken in the order described by the model.

I also think that some relationships that are going the way of separation can reverse course and the model doesnt seem to take that into account either. For instance a couple could find new common ground or interests during the apathy stage which can lead to increased interest in one another again.
 

athenian200

Circumspect
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Location
a place of settlement, activity, or residence.
I also think that some relationships that are going the way of separation can reverse course and the model doesnt seem to take that into account either. For instance a couple could find new common ground or interests during the apathy stage which can lead to increased interest in one another again.

It actually does, but the reasoning behind it was too complex for an introductory video. It's another thing my teacher had me cut. Picture a set of stairsteps... on one side, you have the coming together stages, and on the other, you have the coming apart stages. In the center of the steps between the two sides, you have a sort of stabilizing stage where things are balanced. This is how Knapp's theory incorporates elements of Relational Dialectics. At any point on the stairs, you can move to the point on the other side. If someone creeps you out when you first meet them, you might Terminate the relationship right then. If you find someone boring when you try Experimenting, you might immediately start Avoiding them and seek someone more interesting. That can go the other way too, of course, as you describe.

Now, research I actually cite in the video shows that the more times a relationship has to recover from the lower stages, the more strain it puts on it going forward. It's pretty normal for a relationship to recover from the Circumscribing stage on a semi-regular basis (which is a big part of why that region of four is called Relational Maintenance in the first place), but going down to Stagnating or Avoiding is nearly always a bad sign after people have been that close. I didn't talk about it in much detail because of how rushed this presentation was initially. Once people are in a cycle where they're alternating between Avoiding and Stagnating with a few comfortable moments of Experimenting in-between, it's unlikely that they will reach the higher levels again, and very likely that Termination will occur.

I had to present this in a linear way because that gives you an overview of how it works, but in reality the model is not completely linear. That's why it's better than Social Penetration theory, and that nuance is completely lost because I don't talk about Social Penetration theory vs. Relational Dialectics and explore the less linear aspects in detail.
 
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