Communication: Basic Properties and Their Relevance to Relationship Research

The current chapter focuses on basic properties of communication that inform the ways that the study of communication and the study of relationships intersect. These properties include interdependence (the idea that messages simultaneously influence and are influenced by messages that precede and follow them), reflexivity (the notion that communication creates and is constrained by structure), complexity (the concept that communication conveys multiple messages and functions at different levels of analysis), ambiguity (the notion that any given message has various meanings), and indeterminancy (the idea that messages can have multiple and diverse outcomes on relationships). Research on relationship narratives, message features, multiple goals, and message processing, among other topics, is reviewed and challenges for researchers who study communication and relationships are discussed.