The development of both relationships progressed in a steady and predictable way. My relationship with Sage developed at a faster pace in the Knapps stage model than it did with Ema, especially because when the hidden window in the Johari window was revealed, spontaneity occurred and it was easier to peel back the layers of myself with Sage because I felt more comfortable opening up about myself quicker than with Ema. A pattern I noticed in the progression of each relationships was that the similarities between me and each of my partners, impacted the quality of the conversation and the breadth and depth of a conversation, referring to the social penetration theory. The breadth and depth of the conversation depended on the topic of the conversation and I felt myself being more passionate about topics that I believed in. Except for icebreaker questions, the conversations with both of my partners differed immensely, but was unique in their own ways.
Using the Knapps stage model, different stages progressed at a faster pace than others in each relationship because of the difference in topic discussion that sparked something deeper and brought the relationship to the next stage in the Knapps stage model. In the initiating stage, I had a stronger connection with Ema because when asking about her demographics, she told me she was born and raised in New York, which is where I hope to live and attain my master’s in business. Whereas my first conversation with Sage started off dry, but then escalated when we talked about our similar views of the world and cultural beliefs. Both partners showed subtle nonverbal cues that included tone of voice, body language, and gestures, which were consistently positive throughout each of our conversations.
My first impression of each partner during the initiating stage in the Knapps stage model was different with each partner because with Ema, I had no preexisting conversations with her and we both tried to be likeable to each other, but the difference with both of the partners was that Sage and I both used low self-monitors in the initiating stage by using our inner beliefs and values in deciding how to behave, whereas from what I could tell, Ema used high self-monitors and monitored her surroundings and changed her behavior to fit in with the small talk, which made the conversation feel forced.
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In both relationships, during the initiating stage, there was hesitation in the small talk of the conversation, which felt like the first impressions with both partners were controlled and cautious. The first impressions with both my partners influenced the next few meetings and throughout the semester immensely. My first impression of Ema was predictable as our relationship grew, but my first impression with Sage was not predictable and the difference between the two partners was that Sage went a different route in entering this new relationship by slowly and progressively growing the relationship, rather than with Ema’s first impression feeling forced.
There were many communication dimensions that were similar and different with each partner. In the narrow-broad dimension, the breadth in the conversations with Ema consisted of talks about a few topics that revealed a lot within the topics, whereas in conversations with Sage, we discussed many topics and revealed a little about each topic. The public-personal dimension is the depth of the social interaction and the public personality that is revealed. There was a big difference in the topics of depth with each partner.
My conversations with Ema consisted of the topic of our personal relationships with our partners and this differed with my conversations with Sage because the depth of our conversations were still intense, but the quality and topics of discussion were more meaningful and important to me. My personal beliefs came out in the depth of conversations with Sage, whereas my private self, which included my personal relationship was magnified in most of the conversations with Ema. In the stylized and unique dimension, each conversation was one of a kind and distinctive from the other. As each of the individual relationships began to grow, the talk becomes more specific and unique to the relationship. For example, in the progression of my relationship with sage, a verbal greeting turned into physical touch, giving me a hug. Each relationship was personalized and showed signs of growth in different ways.
There were a few communication norms that developed in my relationship. In my relationship with Ema, our topic discussion included Schutz’s theory of interpersonal needs in comparison to her relationship with her partner. There were many needs that she was dissatisfied with or lacking from her partner which included affection, intimate conversation, honesty and openness, and admiration. Ema ranked herself the highest score of need for each of these emotional needs and she was so dissatisfied with her relationship that she had to take herself out of the relationship.
What was surprising to me throughout the depth of each conversation was how her strong negative opinions about her relationship turned around in a number of days and suddenly all of her needs were being met which seemed to extreme to be true. My conversation with Sage using the social penetration theory, started at the level of depth being superficial which makes sense because we were just getting to know each other, and gradually moved up a level to intimate and somewhat personal. This “onion theory” is a good representation of how interpersonal communication moves from relatively, shallow, non-intimate levels to deeper, more intimate ones.
Three situations that were most difficult for me and my partner to deal was the start of the conversation, which involved small talk. With my in class partner, Professor Donley asked us to start our first conversation informally presenting our projects about who we were, which was a good icebreaker into our first conversation, but after the projects were presented, I felt an awkward pause in our conversation. I tried to ask her common questions about her life including her major, what year of college she is in, and where she was from, which sparked similar interests and the conversation grew from there. Another difficult situation encountered in my conversation with Ema was the topics of the conversation, which was mostly involving our personal relationships and not much more.
To try and widen our topics of discussion I tried to integrate different topics into discussion, but it didn’t work out well because we somehow found our conversation going back to the discussion of our relationship with our partners. The last difficulty I found in my conversations was with Sage when we had our first conversation because we knew each other and have had brief encounters before our first meeting, but have not taken the time to get to know each other. During the first meeting I could tell that Sage is an introvert and didn’t want to jump into an in depth conversation immediately which is normal, but my first impression of her was reserved and unforthcoming.
The communication strategies I used to try and break this was just asking more questions about herself, forcing her to open up and have in depth conversations which in turn, to my surprise, the second meeting was one of the in depth conversations I have ever had. As my conversations with both partners continued, the hidden self in the Johari Window shifted to the open self as information that only I knew that others didn’t know about myself turned into information that we both I and my partners began to learn about me, which just took time and as each relationship progressed. The Johari Window is a good example of interaction progress and how we build trust by opening our personal shades to others so that we become an open window.
