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Notes individuals involved within it also having their time alone to themselves. Individuals who are
only defined by a specific relationship they are a part of can result in the loss of individual
identity.

Certainty and Uncertainty
Individuals desire a sense of assurance and predictability in the interpersonal relationships
they are a part of. However, they also desire having a variety in their interactions that come
from having spontaneity and mystery within their relationships as well. Much research has
shown that relationships which become bland and monotonous are not desirable.

Openness and Closedness
In close interpersonal relationships, individuals may often feel a pressure to reveal personal
information. This assumption can be supported if one looks at the postulations within social
penetration theory, which is another theory used often within the study of communication.
This tension may also spawn a natural desire to keep an amount of personal privacy from
other individuals. The struggle in this sense, illustrates the essence of relational dialectics.

Coordinated Management of Meaning

Coordinated management of meaning is a theory assuming that two individuals engaging in
an interaction are each constructing their own interpretation and perception behind what a
conversation means. A core assumption within this theory includes the belief that all individuals
interact based on rules that are expected to be followed while engaging in communication.
“Individuals within any social situation first want to understand what is going on and apply
rules to figure things out”.
There are two different types of rules that individuals can apply in any communicative situation.
These include constitutive and regulative rules.
Constitutive rules: “Are essentially rules of meaning used by communicators to interpret or
understand an event or message”.
Regulative rules: “Are essentially rules of action used to determine how to respond or behave”.
An example of this can be seen if one thinks of a hypothetical situation in which two individuals
are engaging in conversation. If one individual sends a message to the other, the message
receiver must then take that interaction and interpret what it means. Oftentimes this can be
done on an almost instantaneous level because the interpretation rules applied to the situation
are immediate and simple. However, there are also times when one may have to search for an
appropriate interpretation of the ‘rules’ within an interaction. This simply depends on each
communicator’s previous beliefs and perceptions within a given context and how they can
apply these rules to the current communicative interaction. Important to understand within
the constructs of this theory is the fact that these ‘rules’ of meaning “are always chosen within
a context”. Furthermore, the context of a situation can be understood as a framework for
interpreting specific events.
The authors of this theory believe that there are a number of different context an individual
can refer to when interpreting a communicative event. These include the relationship context,
the episode context, the self-concept context, and the archetype context.
Relationship context: This context assumes that there are mutual expectations between individuals
who are members of a group.

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