Human Relationships

by Steve Duck

Overview

The Fourth Edition of this highly successful textbook provides a unique and comprehensive introduction to the study and understanding of human relationships. This thoroughly revised edition combines the most recent research from social, personality, and developmental psychology, communication studies, family studies, and sociology with greater interdisciplinarity coverage and emphasis on processes of everyday life. Fresh insights from family studies, developmental psychology, occupational, and organizational psychology also combine to bring new perspectives to this thorough survey of the field. Thoroughly updated, with new chapters on Relating Difficulty, "small media" technology and relationships, and practical applications, the new edition is responsive to the student demand for insight into their own lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412929998
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	03/08/2007
Edition description:	Fourth Edition
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	7.32(w) x 9.13(h) x (d)

About the Author

Steve Duck taught in the United Kingdom before taking up the Daniel and Amy Starch Distinguished Research Chair in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Iowa. He has been a professor of communication studies, an adjunct professor of psychology, and a former Dean's Administrative Fellow and is now Chair of the Rhetoric Department. He has taught interpersonal communication courses, mostly on relationships but also on nonverbal communication, communication in everyday life, construction of identity, communication theory, organizational leadership, and procedures and practices for leaders. More recently, he has taught composition, speaking, and rhetoric, especially for STEM students. By training an interdisciplinary thinker, Steve has focused on the development and decline of relationships, although he has also done research on the dynamics of television production techniques and persuasive messages in health contexts. Steve has written or edited 60 books on relationships and other matters and was the founder and, for the first 15 years, the editor of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. His book Meaningful Relationships: Talking, Sense, and Relating won the G. R. Miller Book Award from the Interpersonal Communication Division of the National Communication Association. Steve cofounded a series of international conferences on personal relationships. He won the University of Iowa's first Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award in 2001 and the National Communication Association's Robert J. Kibler Memorial Award in 2004 for "dedication to excellence, commitment to the profession, concern for others, vision of what could be, acceptance of diversity, and forthrightness." He was the 2010 recipient of the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Helen Kechriotis Nelson Teaching Award for a lifetime of excellence in teaching, and in the same year was elected one of the National Communication Association's Distinguished Scholars. He received the NCA's 2019 Mark L. Knapp Award in Interpersonal Communication for career contributions to the study of interpersonal communication. He hopes to make it to the Iowa State Fair one day.

Table of Contents

Preface     ix
Acknowledgements     xiii
Publisher's Acknowledgements     xiv
Meaning and Relationships in a Biological and Cultural Context     1
Contexts for analysing relationships     2
Biology: the animal background     3
Culture: the large overlay     4
Daily practices and everyday experience     5
Uncertainty and practicality     6
Quality and appropriateness in relationships     9
Communication as a context for 'quality'     10
Communicative contexts for doing relationships     12
Silent language: nonverbal communication     13
Are there social rules about space?     14
Nonverbal systems of meaning     20
[Un]Skillful use of nonverbal cues     23
Speaking up for yourself: using words     25
It ain't what you say: The role of language and paralanguage     25
More about content     29
Using language to relate to other people     31
Putting verbal and nonverbal together     36
Summary     37
Self questions     38
Further reading     38
Practical matters     39
Attachment and Emotion     40
Effects of childhood on later relationships I: attachment     42
Effects of childhood on later relationships II: experiences and observations     46
Life at home and school     47
Interpreting emotions     49
Labelling and expressing feelings     52
Positive emotion: love     56
Are there different types of love?     58
Developing love?     60
The behaviour of lovers     62
Some problematic emotions: jealousy and shyness     64
Jealousy     64
Shyness     67
Summary     69
Self questions     70
Further reading     71
Practical matters     71
Daily Life: The Everyday Conduct and Management of Relationships     72
Starting relationships: biological and cultural contexts of attraction     75
Information and acquaintance: how we reveal things about ourselves     77
Getting to know you: shared meaning     79
Uncertainty reduction     80
Self-disclosure     82
The nature of relationships: everyday management in a practical physical world     85
How strategic are we in making acquaintances?     85
Self-disclosure as a strategic relational activity     88
Establishing, developing and maintaining relationships     90
Do partners always agree about their relationship?     93
Does it matter what 'outsiders' think?     93
Break up and resurrection of relationships     96
When things go wrong     96
Putting it right     100
Summary     103
Self questions     104
Further reading     104
Practical matters     104
Relationships within other Relationships: Social Networks and Families     106
Organizing an exclusive relationship within other relationships     108
The social context for organizing relationships     109
Who makes a relationship work?     111
Getting the relationship organized for outsiders     114
Recognizing two people as 'a couple'     115
Social norms and expectations     117
Organizing the couple's new connections     119
Adding children to the relationship     121
Families and networks     122
Systemic interdependence     125
Happy families?     128
Parents and peers as influences on kids     130
The disorganizing effects of family breakup and reconstitution     132
Children and divorce or reconfiguration     135
Summary     138
Self questions     139
Further reading     140
Practical matters     140
Influencing Strangers, Acquaintances and Friends     141
Relating is persuasive and vice versa     144
Persuading strangers, acquaintances and friends     144
Everyday persuasion     146
Influencing strangers     147
Strangers on the train     148
Being noticed     150
The apathetic context     152
The dog owner's dilemma     154
Dissonance     155
Problems with these ideas     155
Logos: Messages and persuasion     156
Reflections     158
Social and relational face: Was it something I said?     159
Everyday talk as persuasive     161
Persuasion and concerns about the relational context     163
The relational network as a morally persuasive context     165
Relationships as hidden persuaders     168
Summary     171
Self questions     171
Further reading     172
Practical matters      172
Technology and the Boundaries of Relationships: it's all Geek to me     173
Crossing relational spaces     175
The Internet as problematic relating     178
Some relational downsides of the technology     185
The Internet as a relational acquisition and development tool     190
Oh give me a phone where the charges don't roam...mobile phones and perpetual availability     192
The mobile self and its mobile relationships     195
Smudging the time boundary     196
Summary     200
Self questions     201
Further reading     202
Practical matters     203
The Management of Relationship Difficulty     204
Four degrees of...separation     205
Hamlet's fardels: the daily binds of relating     209
Whips and scorns: unpredictable events and unwelcome minor stresses/rough patches     213
Some more unusual problems with relationships     218
The darker side of relationships     222
The greyer side of regular relating difficulty     224
Are there difficult people?     224
Triangulation     227
Summary     233
Self questions     234
Further reading      234
Practical matters     235
Some Applications of Relationship Research     236
Relationships are knowledge     239
Relationships are knowledge movers and shakers     241
Applying relational knowledge     243
Speaking to convictions: relationships in legal settings     244
Relationships in the workplace/marketplace     250
Engagement     251
Relationships and health     253
Summary     259
Further reading     260
References     261
Author Index     289
Subject Index     293

Editorial Reviews

‘There is a wide ranging reference list, which contributes to making Human Relationships an invaluable book for all students and professionals who want to understand interpersonal relationships from a wide perspective' - Therapeutic Communities

From the Publisher