Question

Explain how patterns of communication differ in some of the most common familial relationships.

Answer 1

Each family have their internal ways of communication and interaction. These ways, when observed leads to certain patterns of communication. In broad terms, two scientific researches took place to differ some of the most common familial relationships and their patterns of communication.

One, was the work Fitzpatrick and her colleagues on marital communication and the second, was the work of Ritchie on parent-child communication. These studies are often quoted together, as they are inter-dependent variables.

While studying communication between couples, Fitzpatrick has drawn three distinct marital relationships:

Traditional, Independent and Separate. Traditional communication is practiced by those couple who believe in sharing and expressing ideas only to each other. They maintain privacy and intimacy levels are kept between them. Independent marital communication is practiced by those who seek more autonomy and self- reliance in communication. Separate couples do not have open expression of emotions and often limit their thoughts to themselves.

While studying parent-child communication, Ritchie formulated two major dimension of parent-child communication pattern. They are:

Conformity orientation and Conversion orientation.

Families high on Conversion orientation support open communication between parent and child and give each other overt emotional support. Families high on Conformity orientation seek confusion-free communication, less aggression, less confrontation and minimal conflict. Such families take parents decision over children's in case of conflicts in order to maintain harmony. Some families have high orientation of both Conversion and Conformity and therefore in this case, there is open communication and expression however there is a strong pressure on agreements.

These communication patterns do not work in isolation. It depends on many factors such as family structure, culture, history, values, etc. A family living in a modern city can have traditional patterns of communication if they still adhere to their ancestral ways of communication. A family conflict may not always mean aggressive behaviour but it might only be a conversion orientation pattern fostering open expression of thoughts. Therefore, patterns of communication differ and collide in some of the common familial relationships.