Journal Reflection Chapter 12 - Relationships with Family Members

A family is a network of people who share their lives over long periods of time, are bound by blood, marriage, or commitment, consider themselves family, and share a significant history and anticipated future (McCornack and Morrison 327). Families often possess a strong sense of family identity and share intense complex emotional bonds. There are several different types of families and family dynamics. How families communicate is dependent upon the family communication pattern. The family communication pattern is influenced by two dimensions: conversation orientation and conformity orientation. Conversation orientation is the "degree to which family members are encouraged to discuss a variety of topics" (McCornack and Morrison 334). Conformity orientation is the "degree to which families believe communication should emphasize similarity or diversity" (McCornack and Morrison 334). Dependent on where your family stands on these two dimensions will decide your family communication pattern. There are four family communication patterns: consensual families, pluralistic families, protective families, and Laissez-faire families (McCornack and Morrison 335). Understanding the communication pattern specific to your family is important.

For example, my family communication pattern is pluralistic. The pluralistic family communication pattern consists of high conversation and low conformity. Because I understand this, I am able to navigate conflict with my family better. To conclude, understanding your family communication pattern is important in order to better navigate and maintain healthy familial relationships.

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Journal Reflection Chapter 10 - Managing Conflict and Power

According to the textbook, "conflict is the process that occurs when people perceive that they have incompatible goals or that someone is interfering in their ability to achieve their objectives" (McCornack&Morrison, 2019, p.260). Most conflicts can be characterized by four features: begin with perception, involve clashes in goals or behaviors, is a process, and it is dynamic (McCornack&Morrison, 2019, p.260). Conflict is inevitable however, understanding these four features can help to recognize conflict thus allowing you to handle conflict more appropriately. It is also important to understand you deal with conflict. Understanding your conflict style allows you to analyze how you deal with conflict. For example, after taking the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument assessment my highest scores were in compromising (sharing) and avoiding withdrawal. This means, I either compromise with others in a conflict or I avoid conflict altogether. After learning this I fee...

Journal Reflection Chapter 3 - Perception

Perception plays an important role in interpersonal communication. The way we perceive someone will directly influence communication with said individual. According to the textbook, several processes occur when perceiving someone: selection, organization, response, and interpretation (McCornack & Morrison, 2019, p.64 ) . These processes occur naturally but it improves interpersonal communication competence when you understand the processes and how they influence your communication with others. Personally, I think it is valuable to understand how you interpret information. The process of interpretation is how you make sense of the communication event. This can be broken down into internal attribution and external attribution. For example, if you are someone like me who typically uses external attributions in explanation for others' comments or behaviors then you are likely to presume that the reason why a friend is late for your lunch date is because of traffic. Whereas s...

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