Love is very complicated concept, that up till now, many of us fail to fully comprehend the true meaning of it. Love plays a very significant role in relationships. It helps to faciliate the formation and development of relationships in different forms - interpersonal relationships (friendships, close relations with family members), impersonal relationships (a waitress and a customer), and intimate relationships (husband and wife). How are relationships formed then? Is there a certain procedure to go through in order to get together? Interestingly, Mark Knapp has developed a 10 Stage Relational Development Model to depict the various stages that couples go through in their relationships.
The first 5 stages comprises of happy moments couples go through - the "Coming Together" stages. The next 5 stages, also known as the "Coming Apart" stages, is often filled with conflicting ideas and unhappiness.
A real life example that illustrates this model would be Singapore table tennis player Li Jia Wei's previous relationship with national badminton player Ronald Susilo. Their relationship developed after they got to know each other (they were both national players) and it even advanced to the Bonding Stage where both of them announced their engagement publicly in 2004. However, their relationship went into doldrums when differences began to arise. They even had to settle their financial disputes in court. In January 2008, both of them decided to call off their engagement, illustrating stage 10 of Knapp's model: Termination. I feel that their relationship is a very clear example of Knapp's model, whereby their relationship developed and intensified in the early stages. Subsequently, when they realised that they have too many uncommon things (the language they speak?), and cultural differences, their relationship began to stagnate and ultimately, they decided to terminate it. 10 months after their break-up, news regarding Li Jia Wei's new romance with a Beijing businessman was made public. This evidently illustrates the Resurrection Process (Duck's Model of Relational Dissolution). According to Duck, breakups can be represented in a series of processes. One of the process, the Ressurection Process, is where the couple splits and move on with their individual lives. Both of them have already gone separate ways to look for their future prospective other halves. In this case, Jia Wei is already engaged to her new romance. (Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Sport/Story/STIStory_286163.html )
(Picture Source: http://www.youth.sg/content/view/52/66/)
Nonetheless, it is not fair to conclude that Knapp's Model is always applicable based on just this example. Couples may actually skip certain stages and advance to another stage, or they may also regress to a previous stage to maintain their relationship. A point which I would like to make in particular would be the issue of self-disclosure. As identified in Knapp's Model, self-disclosure takes place as early as the second stage. Self-disclosure actually refers to the sharing of information about yourself that the other person is unlikely to know voluntarily. This means that you actually have to decide on what you want to let the person know about you and how much you want the other person to know about you. Most of the time, self-disclosure is reciprocal whereby after sharing bits of information about yourself, the other party discloses certain things about him/her too. Self-disclosure is a very important aspect in every relationship because it requires a certain level of trust before a person is actually willing to share unknown information stuff about himself. For me, I feel that self-disclosure is a form of getting to know each other better and trusting the other party with the additional information that you have provided. By disclosing certain stuff about yourself to another person, you are actually letting another person into your world of thoughts. Besides that, disclosure should be done in a slow manner, whereby we learn a little more about each other and digest that information before bombarding more stuff to the other party. This is critically important in maintaining relationships. If only one party is contributing his/her thoughts and feelings, it becomes a one-way communication because the feelings of the other party is unheard. Now, the main problem is, how much to disclose and when is an appropriate time to disclose? Personally, I feel that inner thoughts and emotions should only be disclosed to people whom you are close with, people whom you have already established a mutual understanding with. On the other hand, basic information such as your interests and hobbies can be shared even with people whom you have been just accquainted with. If one were to divulge too many of his/her secrets, there will be a high tendency of creating misperceptions and misunderstandings. 
(Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/heatherleggettphotograpy/2299588734/ )
What about you? Do you think self-disclosure is neccessary in developing relationships? How much then is sufficient and who do you choose? Comment!
12 comments:
Of what I could say, love is not only complicated but undefined in many different relationships such as friendship, family, business partner and couples. Where usually during the first stage when two person meet, this initiative process which mainly associated with the first impression and judgment of the person themselves depending on thinking and level of maturity. When thing goes well, people will start to develop the bonding which is well illustrate by the Mark Knapp’s Relationship Stages Model.
On the hand with the given example of Li Jia Wei which not only fully emphasize the theory of Mark Knapp Escalation model but the termination model as well where the relationship or should I say the communication between the two person starts to diminish.
But if you would to really observe, not every expect of life can be clarify. There are lots of things that cannot be explained theoretically especially love between couples which mainly depend on the individual psychological thinking and personality. Under certain circumstances, bonding can be developed between two people not by verbal communication but non-verbal communication as well. Usually under such situation, the love will fall hard. For these who had watch the comedy movie by Mike Myer, in the movie the guru emphasize about “love with knowledge and love without knowledge”.
Where love with knowledge requires commitment and devotion, which we talk about self-disclosure. In a matter of fact, self-disclosure develops naturally not only depending on the time but the situation. In this part, both party will step forward and understand each other better where in the point the level of maturity and thinking taken place for better understanding. And I myself felt that to really love someone, you don’t have to mind about anything because the result itself is not important even if there won’t be any happy ending. Of how much you disclose yourself to the other half doesn’t matter, it is matter of trust and belief. After all, love is more than just extraordinary!
While for the situation of Li Jia Wei, I can say that she is under the classification of love without knowledge where self-disclosure did not really goes well or for what I should say distortion between the relationship .
Anyway, good job!
for me, i think self disclosure should only take place when couples have already advanced to a certain level, and not at the 1st stage of experimenting. sometimes, we do not know who to trust, and who to confide in. furthermore, a certain level of mutual trust between the two individuals is absolutely necessary. if this trust is betrayed, there is a very high possibility for the couple to end up terminating their relationship as mentioned in stage 10 of the knapp's model.
hmm, i think the knapp model is something that most of us, excluding those who are not studying communications are not so familiar with. i feel that the 1st 5 stages are stages where many of us can identify and see ourselves in when we are in a relationship. the coming apart stages are then rather erm, abstract? or shall i say, we tend to neglect all these minor differences that may surface, which makes the problem escalate.
definitely, self-disclosure should only take place after the intensifying stage. some people like to get to know the other party at the 1st 2 stages. but for me, i will only share more personal and intimate stuff after i have the feeling that i know i will want to be with this person. there will be a sense of gratification if the other party reciprocates but if he/she does not, it may convey a message to me that i should not be saying so much about myself. i think there is no standard model that caters to every relationship and we should take one step at a time and act accordingly. however, i would have to admit that this is a good post! the susilo and jiawei example may be just one out of many other good examples, but at least you managed to choose one that can illustrate to us (using real life examples) the different stages without using boring textbook examples.
as the saying goes, love is blind. we never know when we are going to advance into the different stages that are depicted by the knapps model. by the time we realise that we are actually in the stagnation stage, we may have already felt that everything has gone to a point that the relationship is beyond salvation. the model may be relevant to relationships, but i feel that we should just use it as a guide and not follow it too closely. afterall, we are human beings who are swayed by emotions and not guided by rules. interesting examples given though.
each and every one of us have a different opinion on how much to disclose and when to do so. i feel that in order to let 2 acquaintances to move on and become close friends, it is essential for self disclosure to take place almost as soon as it can. the more you get to know about someone, the more you know whether you want to accept this person as a friend or not. however, things disclosed should not be too personal and intimate that it makes the other party feel uncomfortable. when it reaches to a stage where both are very comfortable with each other, then more personal topics should be touched upon.
the knapp model truly reflects the stages that many of us go thru during relationships. although we may be aware of the existence of this model, most of the time, we only realize that the model works after the relationship has terminated and when we look back into our past. human begins are led by feelings and emotions, thus i guess it is still quite hard to self reflect and think on what stage we are in currently. however, i think it still serves as a useful guiding purpose for future better management of relationships.
i feel that self disclosure should not only be emphasized in boygirl relationships but also in friendships, family relationships as well as working relationships. friends should be comfortable with sharing with each other their personal lives. not to mention family memebers. it is critical for family members to be open with each other in order to remain close and bonded. thus, i feel that self disclosure is very important even in our daily lives and not only in our love lives.
Self-disclourse is necessary in developing a relationship but only to a certain extend. There are certain things that your partners don't need to know. Have you heard of the saying that ignorance is bliss?
It's not about being untrue to your partners, its about being wise - knowing which things to share and which not to share. Some things are better left unsaid..
Until you know both of you are comfortable to handle the truth, then perhaps you can share more, otherwise, it is best to retain that little bit of confidentialty to yourself, even though that person could be your closest/special one.
i feel that self-disclosure is a very sensitive issue and it really lies within the individual on the extent of disclosure. in certain cases, some individuals are very adamant at only disclosing personal thoughts and feelings to people whom they are close too. yet at the same time, there is a group of people who are comfortable with sharing personal stories with people whom they have just met. i feel that this really depends on the individual
like what you mentioned, i feel that self-disclosure is defnitely reciprocal. if i were to keep talking and not listen to what the other party has to say, i guess it will only make me feel uncomfortable and weird. especially when it is important to have mutual trust and communication in a relationship. it is not a good thing to be too "closed". instead, we should take one step at a time and let things go with the flow, let the self disclosure process take place naturally.
knapp's relational model has definitely provided us with a certain framework for us to assess our relationships from time to time. but i feel that when we are in the midst of a relationship, we are often blinded by love and we cant spot or realize the potential problems that are arising. as such, the model does not become very useful. instead, it becomes a useful tool only when we are looking back and by then, it would have been too late. nonetheless, we could probably use it as a framework or as a guideline for our future relationships.
like what i have mentioned, i guess the knapp relational model should only be used as a reference and one should not follow it too closely because not every relationship goes through all the 10 stages. besides that, we also learn about other relational models like the duck's theory and so on. thus, we should all just take the model as a reference guide and not follow it too closely. afterall, we are human beings who do things based on our own emotions and decisions. we should not restrict ourselves to just this model.
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