Interpersonal and Family Communication

(Primary Faculty: F. Dickson, M.C. Morr Serewicz, E. Suter)
The area of interpersonal and social interaction explores how human communication works in our everyday lives, specifically, how people interact, and the impact their actions have on relationships between members of dyads, families, groups, organizations, and cultures. A basic premise of work in this area is that human interaction is fundamental to the construction, development, and maintenance of personal, social, and institutional relationships, and to the organization of social life as we know it today. This area spans multiple domains of communication research, including family communication, language and social interaction, organizational communication, and intercultural communication.

The curriculum in this area draws from and is grounded in several significant traditions in social science and communication research, namely social-psychological and ethno-methodological approaches. Courses focus on current trends and significant contributions to research in interpersonal communication and research on language and social interaction. The objective of study in this area is to facilitate an increased understanding of the communication processes and practices that occur within various contexts of interpersonal and social relationships, such as close, intimate relationships, including friendships, marriages, family relationships, as well as in relationships developed among colleagues, professionals and clients, and experts and lay persons, in the workplace and in public institutions.

Recent faculty research includes: communication themes and conflict dynamics among later-life married couples, ommunication themes among couples that have survived the Holocaust, the use of personal experience as public knowledge on talk radio, the management of difficult conversations within health-care settings, group termination and closure, privacy and disclosure in families, and transitions in family and romantic relationships

Recent dissertations have included: the construction of family identity in families with internationally adopted children; sexual identity and self disclosure among heterosexual and gay, lesbian and bi-sexual adolescents; conflict in interfaith marriages; and health scripts among married couples.

Sample of course topics in interpersonal and social interaction:
- Relational Communication
- Topics in Language and Social Interaction
- Narrative Communication
- Seminar in Family Communication
- Theories of Interpersonal Communication
- Theories of Group Communication
- Group Methods and Facilitation
- Communication and Mediated Relationships
- Talk at Work