How Communication Affects Relationships Essay

Today’s society hinges on the idea that communication shapes relationships and how successful they are. While growing up, children are taught how to properly act and talk in order to maintain a healthy relationship and be effective communicators. However, what if instead of the communication being the determination of the relationship, the type of relationship is essentially what shapes the communication? More specifically, how does the relationship of family members effect the communication involved, compared to the relationship of romantic partners? By observing and analyzing this in everyday life, one can begin to recognize that these specific types of relationships can effect the impacts, outcomes, goals, and overall nature of the communication. Over the past few months I was able to observe and analyze a number of interactions between different types of relationships. One of the first interactions I observed this year involved a romantic relationship. My roommate Megan was in a new relationship and this relationship clearly affected the ways she …show more content…
Commitment is the decision to remain in a relationship (Wood 2015). The level of commitment in a relationship determines how conflict affects the nature of the relationship itself. When there is a high level of commitment, members of the relationship are less likely to let small disagreements and struggles permanently harm the relationship. Family relationships and romantic relationships have the highest levels of commitment compared to the lower level of commitment that relationship between friends, or coworkers hold. Consequently, between both interactions I observed, conflict was unable to permanently affect or impair the relationship because of the high levels of commitment. This potentially would play out much differently if the interactions I observed took place between relationships with a lower level of