Communicate to Connect: Interpersonal Communication for Today's Relationships

By introducing classic, foundational interpersonal communication frameworks and key interpersonal communication theories, Communicate to Connect: Interpersonal Communication for Today’s Relationships provides students with vital information regarding how humans interact and build, maintain, and dissolve relationships with one another.

The book begins with chapters that define communication and introduce verbal communication and nonverbal communication. Additional chapters underscore the importance of listening, present common social roles and expectations related to communication, and provide guidance to increase message effectiveness and persuasion. Students learn about attachment and communication; secrets, self-disclosure, and privacy; maintaining long-distance relationships; the internet as a means of social support; and relationship dissolution, including the processes of hurt, anger, and forgiveness. Concluding chapters speak to organizational and workplace communication, family relationships, and cultural differences in interpersonal communication. Each chapter features a lab assignment that instructs students to participate in real-world observations and activities that foster connections between theory and application.

Addressing topics that resonate with and serve the needs of modern undergraduate students, Communicate to Connect is an exemplary resource for foundational courses in interpersonal communication, close relationships, and relational communication.

Elizabeth Dorrance Hall, Ph.D. is a communication researcher and social scientist. She is an assistant professor of communication at Michigan State University and a director of the Family Communication and Relationships Lab. Dr. Dorrance Hall holds a Ph.D. in family and interpersonal communication from Purdue University. Her research focuses on difficult conversations and how close relationships evolve over time. Dr. Dorrance Hall has authored numerous articles on interpersonal communication for Communication Research, Health Communication, Family Relations, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Journal of Family Communication, and Communication Monographs, to name a few.