Interpersonal relationships: concept, examples, classification

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Total ratings received: 1083.

A person is considered a person only if he lives, communicates and interacts with other people who surround him. This material is devoted to the topic of interpersonal relationships, which is studied in class in the 6th grade of social studies. Using this article, you can repeat the topic you have studied and prepare additional information for the lesson.

The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Ekaterina Valerievna Alexandrova.

Experience as a history and social studies teacher - 11 years.

What are interpersonal relationships?

Interpersonal relationships are all types of interactions in which people enter: feelings, judgments, communication, joint affairs, exchange of emotions, etc. They are based on social connections that already exist or emerge again between members of society. As a rule, interpersonal relationships are established for a specific purpose : to obtain some benefit, share emotions, receive support, learn or communicate something. An important component of such relationships is mutual trust and understanding.

Interpersonal relationships are realized primarily in the form of three main forms of interaction:

• verbal – exchange of information through oral speech;
• nonverbal – transmission of information through gestures and other nonverbal signals;
• affective - the exchange of emotions through such means of expression as laughter, crying, etc.

The first interpersonal relationships begin to form in a child immediately after birth (despite the fact that the newborn is not yet formally considered a person). Through crying, laughter and other emotions, he interacts with his parents, informing them of his feelings and desires. Gradually, the interaction becomes more and more conscious, but this can be considered real interpersonal relationships when the child’s primary socialization is completed.

Features of interpersonal relationships

This type of interaction has a number of characteristic features:

• Interpersonal relationships are highly dependent on emotional assessments , both conscious and unconscious. This rule is observed even for formal and business relationships.
• Each of the interacting subjects participates in them as a unique individual , possessing certain character traits and occupying a certain place in society.
• These relationships do not arise spontaneously, but develop gradually through communication and other types of communication.
• Interpersonal relationships are not constant. They can change both for the better and for the worse, sometimes changing their vector to the opposite.

Examples of Interpersonal Relationships

To better understand what interpersonal relationships are, consider a few typical examples that each of us has encountered, regardless of social status and other factors:

• Everyday. This group includes all types of interaction that do not involve too close communication. This type of interpersonal relationship covers a wide circle of people, which includes everyone with whom we come into contact in one way or another in everyday life: neighbors, colleagues, employees of neighboring offices, sellers, hairdressers and other people.
• Friendly. This group includes relationships that are not too close, but involve pleasant time spent together. For example, if your friend invited you to hang out with his colleagues and you had a lot of fun together, you are unlikely to immediately call them friends. But if you want to meet these people again, that's what friendship is.
• Friendly. This form of relationship implies that people are connected by a certain common activity. However, they are not close enough to be considered friends, but they have common goals and trust each other.
• Friendly. Such relationships imply that people are very close. Friendship does not arise simply on the basis of common interests or mutual sympathy. To become friends, people communicate for a long time, get closer emotionally, learn to understand each other, taking into account all the features and subtleties of their characters.
• Love ones. This form of relationship involves emotional intimacy and the presence of romantic feelings. In love, people are not as selective as in friendship (therefore they do not always choose partners rationally), but in terms of the degree of affection, love relationships are the strongest.
• Related. Involvement in kinship relationships occurs at birth, and yet they can exist in different forms. For some, all relatives are close people, for others only close people are important, and other relatives are equated to ordinary acquaintances.
• Marital. Despite the fact that marital relationships originate from love relationships, they are very different in content. By their nature, they are closer to family relations, and at the same time they imply compliance with a number of mutual obligations, the violation of which entails public censure and some forms of legal liability (such as a deliberately losing position in a divorce).

The level of interpersonal relationships depends on how mature the individuals involved are. Each participant must understand his responsibility to the other and adhere to certain rules, which, although not specifically stated, are implied.

How to establish contact with people: useful tips

As you already understand, relationships between people are built on trust, which is not so easy to achieve. Below are some helpful tips to help you open up a little, which will speed up the process of connecting with others.

• If you are unable to strike up a conversation with someone, never look for the problem in another person, find it in yourself first. Are you sure you know your personality well? Achieve inner harmony with yourself.
• Make a psychological portrait of the person you want to deal with. You must know its features in order to understand what to pay special attention to.
• Show your interest in the other person. You may have several points of contact. And common interests always make communication easier.
• Pay attention to children's interpersonal relationships: there is definitely something to learn from them. Simple, without unnecessary worries, honest.
• Remember the main rule: you will never be able to gain a person’s trust if you have selfish goals. Even if this person does not know about your intentions, you will give yourself away on a subconscious level. The individual will feel that you are not interested in him and will never trust you.

The structure of interpersonal relationships

Despite all the variety of interpersonal relationships, their structure is quite simple and includes three main components: cognitive, emotional and behavioral. Let's look at each of them in more detail.

1. Cognitive component

This component includes various types of cognitive activity that arise in one way or another in interpersonal relationships (perception, thinking, imagination, and others). The cognitive component depends on mutual understanding, which has two main characteristics:

• adequacy – correct interpretation of incoming information;
• identification – unconscious identification of oneself with a partner.

2. Emotional component

These are the emotions that a subject experiences in relation to another subject in different forms of interaction:

• sympathy and antipathy;
• happiness and contentment;
• empathy (compassion).

3. Behavioral component

Without noticing it ourselves, we involuntarily express our attitude towards other people through various signs: facial expressions, gestures, intonation, the use of atypical speech patterns and other manifestations of a special attitude. Despite the fact that the behavioral component is weakly dependent on our will, it is the most important factor regulating interpersonal relationships, since it is easier to notice it from the outside than to control it.

Levels of interpersonal relationships

Depending on the duration, depth and degree of attachment of the participants, psychologists divide interpersonal relationships into 3 levels:

• Perceptual. This level is typical for the very beginning of a relationship. It implies that participants perceive different features and individual characteristics of each other. They may deny it, but their relationships are influenced by appearance, various personality traits, race and gender characteristics.
• Level of mutual attraction (or repulsion). Gradually, individuals get used to and become attached to each other (or, conversely, begin to experience antipathy), and the influence of perception weakens. They continue to get to know each other better and look for new ways to interact. If people are unpleasant to each other, but are forced to interact frequently, the hostility between them also increases.
• Interactive level. At this level, active emotional interaction between individuals occurs. Each of them feels that they need to exchange emotions, so they look for reasons and create situations in which they can communicate more. People who dislike each other also switch to emotional interaction, which is realized in the form of conflicts that only intensify their dislike.

Basics of proper communication

The inability to build relationships often becomes a problem in interpersonal interactions. If a person is afraid or does not know how to establish contacts, the development of connections is unlikely to be successful. Sometimes situations arise when a person cannot find the necessary words or expressions for a constructive dialogue. Because of this, misunderstandings arise in relationships.

The following tips from psychologists will help you learn to communicate with others faster:

1. You must be able to listen to your interlocutor and be interested in what he says.
2. A person needs to watch his facial expressions and smile more often.
3. When communicating, a partner should be called by name more often, when pronounced, its owner experiences positive emotions.
4. Speech is pleasant to the ear if it does not contain filler words.
5. A person needs to watch his intonation. An indifferent tone discourages the desire to continue communication.
6. A person who speaks clearly and beautifully is pleasant to listen to. When a person clearly expresses his thoughts, they will be understandable to the interlocutor.
7. People need to regularly replenish their vocabulary in order to correctly structure their speech and understand others.
8. If an individual feels fear when interacting with others, he needs to show willpower and work on his communication skills.

Any person is born and is in society throughout his life. It is impossible to isolate oneself from everyone, although a person can reduce the types of interpersonal connections and leave only the types of relationships necessary for it. However, only the successful creation of communicative interaction contributes to harmonious personal growth.

Classification of interpersonal relationships

Interpersonal relationships are any form of interaction between individuals. Depending on the place each of them plays in society and how they are related to each other, several main types of relationships can be distinguished:

• Formal (official). Such relations are usually regulated by certain norms, rules, regulations, instructions or other documents. Participants in such relationships, as a rule, do not have personal attachments, but interact with each other in connection with some official, administrative or other need.
• Business (rational). These are interpersonal relationships that involve joint, mutually beneficial activities. Participants in such relationships can distribute responsibilities among themselves so that everyone does their part to achieve a common goal. Also, one of the participants can perform work for another for a fee.
• Informal (unofficial). This group includes various relationships that are not regulated by any formal rules. This could be, for example, friendly or friendly relations, joining teams to play football or volleyball, and so on. As a rule, in informal relationships the emotional component plays some role.
• Personal. This is a relationship based on an emotional connection. Typically, personal relationships take a long time to form and develop, during which their participants get to know each other better and get closer. Personal relationships can turn into friendships, companionship, friendships and love. Relationships built on hostility can also be classified as personal, although they develop according to different principles and usually imply that people interact forcedly, and not of their own free will.

It is worth noting that the listed types of interpersonal relationships are not completely independent, but intersect with each other. Thus, business relationships can be formalized to varying degrees, and personal relationships are usually informal (at the same time, marital relationships imply formalization and the consolidation of certain obligations).

11.2. Affiliation

Affiliation is a human need, manifested in his desire and desire to constantly be with people, to establish and maintain positive relationships with them. There are two sides to affiliation, one of which is associated with the desire for acceptance (SP) - the positive side of affiliation, or affiliation itself, and the other - with the fear of rejection (FR) - the negative side of affiliation. Moreover, the basis of this need is considered to be the fear of rejection. It is because of him that people strive to be accepted by other people. Therefore, the need for affiliation (the desire for acceptance) and the fear of rejection are related to each other. However, this connection is not direct, but inverse: the less expressed the fear of rejection, the more expressed the desire for acceptance, and vice versa. Other researchers talk about the independence of these two sides of affiliation, since the correlates of the need for acceptance and fear of rejection turn out to be different (Table 11.1).

As can be seen from the data presented in the table, subjects with a high level of affiliative interest had more close friends, which was found in both men and women. Duration of communication with close friends also showed a relationship only with affiliative interest. At the same time, the connection between similar worldviews and close friends was revealed only with fear of rejection, from which we can conclude that the subjects wanted to be sure that their friends would agree with them.

Table 11.1. Correlation connections between affiliative interest (AI) and fear of rejection (FR), on the one hand, and various forms of affiliative behavior, on the other (according to D. Myers, 2007, p. 398)

Differences between interpersonal relationships and social ones

Essentially, all types of human relationships can be divided into two categories: interpersonal and social. If interpersonal relationships are the direct interaction of specific individuals among themselves, then social relationships imply various forms of interaction within the framework of public life. In essence, social relationships are relationships between the social roles of individuals (between a doctor and a patient, a taxi driver and a passenger).

An important difference between social relationships and interpersonal relationships is that they are regulated and subject to certain rules, depending on the social roles of the individuals participating in them. This implies that the individuals themselves are depersonalized, and only their functions in society or within a specific social group are considered (manager and subordinate, taxi driver and passenger, parents and child).

Interpersonal relationships always involve interaction between specific individuals, taking into account all their individual characteristics. Social roles can also be taken into account, but not necessarily. The most characteristic differences include the following features of interpersonal interaction:

• feelings, experiences and emotional assessments of the participants play a significant role;
• they form and develop rather slowly (whereas social relationships arise immediately, for example, when hiring);
• they are constantly developing and changing (whereas social ones are usually static and change only under the influence of external factors, for example, when promoted).

Despite the presence of a very obvious difference, a clear boundary between social and interpersonal relationships cannot be drawn, since they intersect with each other. This is how colleagues often become friends, and office romances often arise between them. Marriage combines both types of relationships, since it is initially based on love, but at the same time implies formalization and certain social roles.

The role of feelings

All contacts are established on the basis of feelings towards others. They can be both positive and negative. First feelings are based on the external data of an acquaintance and only over time personal qualities and character traits are assessed.

factors can influence the distortion of feelings :

• inability to distinguish true intentions from motivation;
• the ability to objectively evaluate a new acquaintance;
• determination of attitudes imposed independently or by society;
• stereotypes;
• forcing events, inability to fully understand a person;
• not accepting other people's opinions.