The document discusses communication with partners. It identifies different communication styles such as thinkers, feelers, intuitors, and sensors. It emphasizes the importance of understanding one's own communication style and adapting when interacting with others who have different styles. The document also reviews several relationship theories and provides tips for effective communication with different personality types. It concludes that maintaining balance and meeting expectations are important for healthy relationships and recommends learning about different communication styles.

1. Running Head: The Communication with Partners
The Communication with Partners
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The Communication with Partners
Introduction
People need to communicate at home, school, or in the workplace. If a person has superior
communication skills, he or she is valued. This is because communication enhances mutual
understanding. The main components of communication are speaking and listening. Although
people tend to underrate the importance of listening, it is as important as speaking. However,
both listening and speaking are influenced by communication styles of people. To be a good
communicator and a listener, a person should evaluate his or her style and try to adjust
accordingly. If a person is an intuitor, for example, it is vital for such a person to learn how to
present his order ideas logically without moving from to topic-to-topic (Guffey & Loewy, 2013).
Otherwise, without the ability to speak coherently, it is hard to persuade other people.
Communication also plays an important part on relationships building and maintenance. Among
other things, relationships theories suggest that the communication is an important ingredient in
relationships.
Interpersonal topic I would like to investigate and why
The interpersonal topic I would like to investigate is communication with partners. While most
people consider communication is a simple matter of talking and listening, communication
involves much more. Communication skills can be learned. I will focus on communication with
partners and listening to them.
Self-tests
Based on Enneagram tests, my personality type is helper. INFP: introversion (I), intuition (N),
feeling (F), perception (P) (Stewart, 2012). According to de-vito model, I am an active listener
(Stewart, 2012). I do this by asking questions to clarify meaning.
Literature review
Relationship theories
How people develop and dissolve relationships has fascinated social scientists for centuries. In
order to explain the phenomena, the following theories have been proposed.

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According to attraction theory, people form relationships based on attraction. Attraction is based
on a set of 15 characteristics such as intelligence, ambition, facial appearance, etc. For most
people, there are five main characteristics that that determines attraction. These characteristics
are similarity, proximity, reinforcement, personality, Physical attractiveness, and educational and
socioeconomic status (Guffey & Loewy, 2013). In an online relationship, attraction is not
physical but depends on messages shared including photos and status updates.
People find that those living in the nearby or their proximity are the most attractive. In addition,
people who give gifts, rewards, or reinforcement as the most attractive. On the attractiveness,
people tend to like people who are pleasant and attractive over those who are unpleasant and
ugly. According to research, women emphasize on their physical attributes whereas men on their
socio economic status and education.
Relationship rules theory states that relationships are maintained by rules. Once those rules are
broken, the relationship collapses. One of the rules of friendships is offering emotional or
monetary support. When such support is not forthcoming especially when a person is in a
difficult situation, friendship suffers and may end completely. Relationships are also affected by
family rules, workplace rules, and romantic rules. Breaking these rules almost always harms the
relationship.
Relationship dialectics theory states that people in a relationship experience tensions that pull
them in the opposite direction. This is because of the desires people have for their relationship
conflicts. For example, people in a relationship desire autonomy and closeness at the same time.
The two cannot be attained at the same time, and this creates conflict or misunderstanding.
Social penetration theory explains what happens when relationships develop. This theory
suggests that the relationship between people has levels and as people get to know each other. As
relationship deepens, how people relate with each other as well as the messages they share
changes (Guffey & Loewy, 2013). Ending the relationship follows the process of de penetration,
people cuts out certain topics during a conversation as breadth and depth of the relationship
declines.
Social exchange theory posits that people enter into relationships that enable people maximize
profit. People calculate profit as the net of rewards after deducting costs. Reward could be a

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status, love, money, etc. The costs of relationship include doing favors and putting up with
inconveniences because of the relationship.
Equity theory states that people enter into a relationships that are rewarding and maintain them if
the ratio of reward is more than the cost. Studies support this theory as people have been found
to prefer equity in relationships. Benefitting too much from a relationship leads to guilt and
under benefitting leads to guilt.
Politeness theory suggests that people will maintain relationship where both parties respect each
other. When that does not happen, relationship deteriorates. People want to be thought of highly
in terms of being valued and esteemed. When the rules of politeness are maintained, relationship
is maintained.
Communication with partners
Communication goes beyond talking and listening. It involves specific skills that people develop
themselves and some that were learned from friends and relatives. Communication in all people
tends to follow four basic styles.
Thinkers are concerned about their ideas, and their communication is essentially verbalizing their
ideas without emotion. They are sometimes considered remote. Feelers focus more on
relationship feelings and are emotive. Intuitors focus on the bigger picture and idea generation
and skip from subject to subject during communication. They show satisfactory amount of
emotion. Sensors focus more on the point and move to make their conclusions, and they show
little emotion. During the communication process, the biggest problem is when the speaker and
the listen do not have much in common in terms of pace or degree of emotion.
Sensors are impatient with small-talk, or when people start sharing personal information. They
see no value in such information. When talking to these people, stick to the agenda item and
keeping ego in check. In order to interrupt communication, when a sensor is listening, he or she
can ask for less information in a polite manner. Instead of correcting or criticizing, a sensor
should ask for information in order to clarify. When the speaker is slow to reaches a conclusion,
writing notes will help keep focused on the message of the speaker. They should not feel
impatient when people share personal information but should also consider sharing some of their

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own. At the end of the speech during question and answer session, they should indicate they have
understood the message of the speaker but ask focused questions. The questions will allow the
speaker to respond strictly on certain areas and not repeat what he or she had already said.
When listening, thinkers are unique in their own way. Thinkers avoid sharing information. They
are interested in information that is less personal. In a conversation, it is advisable for a thinker
to steer the conversation from personal issues to the matter at hand. Focus on listening and take
notes. When the speaker is an intuited who keep on moving from topic to topic and from an idea
to the next, focus on the message and take notes in order to make sense out of the speech. Feelers
have a faster pace but share more personal information. If the speaker is emotional, it is not
advisable to interrupt them. If possible, validate the motion shared with a personal story. In order
to fit in during communication, a person should research about different communication styles in
order develop ways to deal with such people specific situations.
Feelers focus on relationships, as opposed to communicating a message. They care for the
feelings of others. They have an active listening style. In a meeting on a business conversation,
they should avoid being carried away by the emotion of the other person.
Intuitors focus on the bigger picture. Due to this ability, they are creative. Their main problem is
skipping from subject to subject and poor listening skills. It is advisable that the practice
listening as well as the art of speaking and articulating their points fully before moving to the
next point.
Tools for enabling communication
Communication is an important part of building and maintaining relationships. Listening as well
as speaking are an important parts of communication. Loss of hearing deeply affects
communication. For someone suffering from a hearing loss GPS tool is an important tool for
identifying communication partners who can help him or her during rehabilitation (“Tools for
enabling communication partners: The Hearing Journal” 2013).
Action plan
 Avoid getting inside emotion or to be carried away by emotion

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 Avoid helping the partner too much and give them personal space
 Allow the partner to develop an ability to share their feeling with time
 Make factual instead of emotional decisions
Conclusion
Communication is important when day-to-day relationships. The best strategy for maintaining
relationships is striving at creating balance and living up to the expectation of other people in a
relationship. Equity theory suggests that people aim to benefit equally in a relationship.
Therefore, a person should not seek to benefit more over the other person as that is damaging.
Additionally, people have expectations regarding their friends. For example, they expect some
form of support when in need. A person should, therefore, live to the expectations their friends
have about them and act accordingly. Failure to do that affects the relationships. Lastly, a person
should learn their communication style and try to fit in during meetings when they are speakers
or listeners.

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References
Interpersonal theories: relationship theories (source attached with no bibliographic information)
Listing styles and communication (source attached with no bibliographic information)
LOVE and Interpersonal Attraction - Why we like/dislike others (source attached with no
bibliographic information)
Guffey, M. E., & Loewy, D. (2013). Essentials of business communication (9th ed.). Mason, OH:
South-Western Cengage Learning.
Stewart, J. R. (2012). Bridges not walls: a book about interpersonal communication (11the ed.).
Dubuque, Iowa: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.
Tools for enabling communication partners : The Hearing Journal. (2013). Tools for enabling
communication partners : The Hearing Journal. Retrieved April 30, 2014, from
http://journals.lww.com/thehearingjournal/Fulltext/2011/05000/Tools_for_enabling_co
mmunication_partners.7.aspx