A Lifetime of Communication: Transformations Through Relational Dialogues (Lea's Series on Personal

437 Pages·2004·25.29 MB·English

by  Julie Yingling

A Lifetime of Communication
Transformations Through Relational Dialogues
LEA's SERIES ON PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Steve Duck, Series Editor
Bennett • Time and Intimacy: A New Science of Personal Relationships
Canary/Dainton • Maintaining Relationships Through Communication:
Relational, Contextual, and Cultural Variations
Christopher • To Dance the Dance: A Symbolic Interaction Exploration of
Premarital Sexuality
Buncombe/Harrison/Allan/Marsden • The State of Affairs: Explorations in
Infidelity and Commitment
Goodwin/Cramer • Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, The
Disapproved, and The Forbidden
Honeycutt/Cantrill • Cognition, Communication, and Romantic Relationships
Miller/Alberts/Hecht/Trost/Krizek • Adolescent Relationships and Drug Use
Monsour • Men and Women as Friends: Relationships Across the Life Span in
the 21st Century
Rogers/Escudero • Relational Communication: An Interactional Perspective to
the Study of Process and Form
Yingling • A Lifetime of Communication: Transformations Through Relational
Dialogues
A Lifetime of Communication
Transformations Through Relational Dialogues
Julie Yingling
Humboldt State University
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
2004 Mahwah, New Jersey London
Copyright © 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other
means, without prior written permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430
Cover art by Rick Davids
Cover design by Sean Trane Sciarrone
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yingling, Julie.
A lifetime of communication: transformation through relational
dialogues / Julie Yingling.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-4092-3 (hard : alk. Paper)
ISBN 0-8058-4093-1 (pbk.: alk. Paper)
1. Interpersonal communication—Textbooks. 2. Developmental
psychology—Textbooks. I. Title. II. Series.
BF637.C45Y56 2004
153.6—dc22 2003049452
CIP
Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-
free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability.
Printed in the United States of America
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Series Foreword ix
Preface xi
1 Developmental Proceses: A Brief Theoretical History 1
Traditional Explanations of Development 3
Breakthroughs in Developmental Theory: 1900-1930 5
The Legacy: Contemporary Thought About Human
Interaction 11
Assumptions of a Relational-Dialogical Perspective
of Development 17
Summary 20
Notes 21
2 Infant Development: Biological Endowments and Beyond 23
The Nature of Becoming Human: Ontogeny 23
Nature and Nurture: The Recipe for a Human 28
Summary 46
Notes 46
3 Cocreating Self and Other: Influence and Reciprocity 49
in the First 2 Years
Mutual Influence 49
Reciprocity in Protoconversation 65
vi CONTENTS
Developmental Milestones of the First 2 Years 70
Summary 80
Notes 80
4 Creating a Mind: Dialogue in Symbols 83
The Peculiarities of Human Communication 83
Human Thinking: Constituting a Mind 91
Self as a Special Concept 107
Summary 110
Notes 111
5 Early Relationships: Knowing the Other 113
Relationshipping: Creating Self and Sociality 113
Beginners' Relationships: Dichotomies on the Way
to Dialectics 115
Summary: Implications for Relational Dialectics 145
Notes 147
6 Childhood: Negotiating Competence Between Self 149
and Other
Communicative and Relational Competence 149
Contexts for Developing Competence 173
Summary 179
Notes 180
7 Adolescence: Flowers of Maturation, Seeds of Dialectics 183
The Physiology of Puberty 184
The Mind of the Adolescent: Processing Experience 185
Building Relationship Skills and Creating Relational
Models 194
Summary: Dualisms to Dialectics 204
Notes 205
CONTENTS vi
8 The College Years: Rhetorical Challenges at the Boundaries 207
Knowing the World and Knowing Self 208
Effects of Formal Education on Communication 232
Summary 233
Notes 234
9 Young Adulthood: Romancing Other and Self 237
Toward Dialogue: Differentiation From and Fusion
With 237
Dialogue: Beyond Competence to Rhetorical Elegance 245
Relationship Maintenance and Change:
Negotiation and Refinement 250
Summary 265
Achieving Intimacy and Isolation 266
Notes 266
10 Middle Adulthood: Nurturing and Relinquishing Youth 269
Tensions in Middle Adulthood: Aging, Identity,
and Dialectics 270
Mid-Adult Relationshipping 275
Summary: Generativity and Stagnation 292
Notes 293
11 Older Adulthood: Power in Drawing Together 295
and Falling Apart
Time and Tensions in the Later Years 295
Dialogic Challenges of Older Adulthood 302
Connections and Disconnections: Relationships
in Later Years 306
Relational Variations 317
Preparing for Death 319
Summary 320
Notes 321
viii CONTENTS
12 Human Communication Futures: Beyond Dualities 323
to Dialogic Consciousness
The Relational-Dialogical Theory of Development 324
Implications of Dialogic Development 327
Conclusion 334
Notes 334
Glosary 37
References 343
Author Index 39
Subject Index 415
Series Foreword
Since its inception, the Personal Relationships series from Lawrence Erlbaum Asso-
ciates has sought to review the progress in the academic work on relationships with
respect to a broad array of issues, and to do so in an accessible manner that also illus-
trates its practical value. The LEA series already includes books intended to pass on
the accumulated scholarship to both the next generation of students and those who
deal with relationship issues in the broader world beyond the academy. The series
thus not only comprises monographs and other academic resources exemplifying
the multidisciplinary nature of this area, but also includes books suitable for use in
the growing numbers of courses on relationships and in the growing number of
professions that deal with relationship issues.
The series has the goal of providing a comprehensive and current survey of the-
ory and research in personal relationships through the careful analysis of the prob-
lems encountered and solved in research, yet it also considers the systematic
application of that work in a practical context. These resources not only are in-
tended to be comprehensive assessments of progress on particular "hot" and rele-
vant topics, but also have already shown that they are significant influences on the
future directions and development of the study of personal relationships and appli-
cation of its insights. Although each volume is well centered, all series authors at-
tempt to place the respective topics in the broader context of other research on
relationships and within a range of wider disciplinary traditions. The series already
offers incisive and forward-looking reviews, and also demonstrates the broader
theoretical implications of relationships for the range of disciplines from which the
research originates. Collectively, the volumes include original studies, reviews of
relevant theory and research, and new theories oriented toward the understanding
of personal relationships both in themselves and within the context of broader the-
ories of family process, social psychology, and communication.
Reflecting the diverse composition of personal relationship study, readers in
numerous disciplines—social psychology, communication, sociology, family
studies, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, personality, counseling,
ix