Disconfirmations

Engaging in interpersonal communication is always a risk. Whenever we inter­act with a relational partner, we open ourselves up to rejection. Evelyn Sieburg believes that during communication we offer up a version of our self for ap­proval. Our partner can either confirm us (by accepting us for what we are) or can disconfirm us. Disconfirmations are rejecting responses, responses that leave us with a diminished sense of self-respect.

Sieburg has described seven ways in which we can (sometimes unknow­ingly) disconfirm one another. These ways are shown below:

Response		Example
Impervious		A: “Hi!”
B fails to acknowledge, even minimally A’s message.		(B continues talking on the phone, ignoring A.)
Interrupting		A: “So I said –”
B cuts A’s message short.		B: “Cot to go. Bye!”
Irrelevant		A: “He really hurt me.”
B’s response is unrelated to what A said.		B: “Do you like my coat?”
Tangential		A: “He really hurt me.”
B briefly acknowledges A, then changes topic.		B: “Too bad. I got dumped once. It was last year...”
Impersonal		A: “I don’t understand.”
B conducts a monologue or uses stilted, formal, or jargon-laden language.		B: “The dependent variable is conceptually isomorphic...”
Incoherent		A: “Do you love me?”
B’s response is rambling and hard to follow.		B: “Well, gosh, I mean, sure, that is, I...”
Incongruous		A: “Do you love me?”
B’s verbal and nonverbal messages are contradictory.		B: “Of course” (said in a bored, offhand way).

The first of the disconfirming responses occurs when one partner ignores the other. A parent who is too busy reading the paper to listen to a child’s story is giving an imper­vious response. The child is left with the message “You are not worth noticing.” A second way people disconfirm one another is by giving an interrupting re­sponse. An interruption is a one-up move that sends the message “You are not worth listening to.” Occasionally, we encounter people who burst into conversa­tions and immediately change the subject to something that has absolutely no bearing on what was said before. This is an example of an irrelevant response. A variation on this pattern is the tangential response, wherein an individual briefly acknowledges the topic but then goes on to discuss his or her own inter­ests. Both responses send the message “My concerns are more important than yours are.”

Impersonal responses are also disconfirming. The person who uses stilted, formal, distant language is signaling “I feel uncomfortable being close to you.” Another response that indicates a desire to escape from interaction is the inco­herent response. When someone seems embarrassed and tongue-tied, he or she says, in effect, “I feel uncomfortable with you.” A final way to disconfirm a part­ner is by sending incongruous responses, messages wherein the verbal and non­verbal cues don’t match. These double messages imply “I don’t want to deal with you directly and openly.”

Most people are disconfirming from time to time. Out of carelessness or irritation, we may use one of the responses just described. An occasional lapse is not necessarily problematic. However, if disconfirmations become habitual, they can destroy others’ self-esteem and can severely damage relationships.

Paradoxes

Couples sometimes fall into the habit of sending one another contradictory messages. These kinds of double messages are called paradoxes. We have seen two paradoxical patterns already: submissive symmetry and incongruous re­sponses. We can be paradoxical in other ways as well; for example, we may make statements such as “I know you’ll do well, but don’t worry if you fail” or “I don’t mind if you go camping this weekend; it doesn’t matter if I’m lonely and miserable.” These kinds of responses are confusing and annoying, and they place the receiver in an awkward position.

Another, and a potentially more serious, form of paradox is the double bind. A double bind is a particularly strong and enduring paradoxical commu­nication wherein the receiver is simultaneously given two opposing messages but is prohibited from resolving them. When a parent says to a child, “Come give me a hug, but recoils in disgust when the child approaches, the parent is delivering a double message. The child is being told to touch and not to touch at the same time. The child has no way to do the right thing. If the child obeys the verbal injunction and approaches the parent, the latter’s obvious disgust places the child in the wrong. If, on the other hand, the child decides to stay away, he or she has disobeyed the parent and is likely to be accused of being unloving. Over a long period of time, double binds can damage a partner’s sense of rationality and self-esteem.

Spirals

The final dysfunctional pattern we will look at is the spiral. In a spiral, one part­ner’s behavior intensifies that of the other.

In some spirals, called progressive spirals, the partners’ behaviors lead to increasing levels of involvement and sat­isfaction. Claudine shows trust in Michele, who decides to earn that trust by working hard. Michele’s hard work earns her more trust, and so on; over time, Claudine and Michele’s relationship becomes stronger. Unfortunately, not all spirals are positive. When misunderstanding leads to more misunderstanding, eventually damaging a relationship, partners have established what is called a regressive spiral. Leslie begins to suspect Toby of being unfaithful. Toby be­comes defensive and denies being in the wrong, but the denials only increase Leslie’s suspicions. As the conflict escalates, Toby begins to avoid Leslie, exhibit­ing behavior that convinces Leslie she was right in the first place. Finally, figur­ing, “If I’m going to be blamed, I might as well get something out of it,” Toby actually is unfaithful. The relationship has spiraled out of control, and, in the process, Leslie and Toby have created an interpersonal self-fulfilling prophecy. Leslie’s original prophecy (that Toby could not be trusted) has become true.

What can be done to stop spirals? In many cases, the partners need only sit down with one another and analyze the situation to determine what triggered the spiral and how it got out of control. In other cases, if the spiral has gone too far, the partners may need to turn to an objective third party who can help them describe their behaviors objectively and without defensiveness. The key to dealing with spirals is the same as that for dealing with any relational problem: partners must focus on patterns rather than on personalities.

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