The purpose of this literary review is to identify which interpersonal processes create personal boundaries and determine to what extent personal boundaries have on interpersonal relationships; exclusively exploring privacy boundaries as a key element of maintaining healthy intimate relationships. This review utilizes peer reviewed journals to further delve into the theories behind personal boundary conditions. Friends with benefits and romantic relationships often create situations where privacy boundaries, along with levels of self disclosure, contribute to intimacy and the overall success of the relationship. Within those relationships, people establish privacy boundaries as a way to disseminate information about themselves. The overarching question is: Why do people set privacy boundaries when engaging in these types of relationships? This review analyzes the research regarding key elements of self disclosure in regards to boundaries; such as gender, context, time and individual uniqueness. Providing clarity into understanding the role of privacy boundaries and self disclosure within those relationships.
Keywords: Boundaries, interpersonal relationships
Exploring the Importance of Privacy Boundaries in Interpersonal Relationships: Understanding the construct of boundaries in Romantic and Friends with Benefits Relationships Specifically.
Boundaries are natural limitations set as privacy guidelines for people to abide by when engaged in social relationships. In the areas of romantic and friends with benefit relationships, if not clearly communicated, prematurely crossing privacy boundaries can have a negative effect on the relationship. The posed question for this literary analysis is to assess self disclosure and privacy boundaries as necessary components to maintaining healthy relationships and understanding what elements allow privacy boundaries to become circumstantial within intimate interpersonal relationships. This report will analyze peer reviewed articles for commonalities throughout the research which support the identified areas of study within interpersonal relationships. Self disclosure, uncertainty reduction and intimacy are complementary topics to boundaries within relationships.
Privacy Boundaries
Self Disclosure
In regards to romantic and friends with benefit relationships, self disclosure serves as a pre -cursor for privacy boundaries. Self disclosure is the amount of information one is willing to tell about themselves. According to Sprecher and Hendrick, self disclosure is a time based sequence where the amount of information revealed about a person is dependent on the level of intimacy with their partner and time. Romantic and friends with benefit relationships are examples of intimate interpersonal relationships where self disclosure is relative to one's emotional level of expectancy and where reciprocity in that openness then outlines the emotional expectancy of the overall relationship (Sprecher and Hendrick, 2004, p. 860.)
Sprecher and Hendrick’s research utilized surveys to track intimate couples and measure the success of their relationship in correlation to their levels of comfortability regarding self disclosure. Their findings concluded in finding variables such as: individual uniqueness and confidence regarding the person and the relationship (Sprecher and Hendricks, 2004, p. 863).
The Ideal Environment for Boundaries
Unlike platonic interpersonal relationships, a valuable factor in understanding self disclosure specifically within romantic and friends with benefit relationships is the addition of sexual intercourse. Research by Grello and Welsh (2006), support that there is an emotional investment component when agreeing to engage in sexual intercourse, whether it is a within a friends with benefit situation, or an established romantic relationship. According to Byers and Demmons (1999), “Communication skills in general, and the ability to communicate about sex in particular, facilitate relationship closeness and intimacy.” The notion that communication in addition to sexual intercourse contributes to an intimate environment suggests that in the highlighted relationships, self disclosure and privacy boundaries are subsequent to the level of intimacy within a relationship.
Research shows an interrelationship between the level of self disclosure within relationships and the level of sexual disclosure between engaged partners, (Byers and Demmons, 1999). In their findings, Byers and Demmons (1999) inferred that self disclosure was conclusive to the success of the overall relationship. By reviewing the research presented by Grello, Welsh, Byers and Demmons regarding the contributing factors toward a romantic and friends with beneficial relational environment prompting self disclosure, it can be determined that the level of self disclosure is determinant on the individual, context of the intimate relationship and sexual comfortability.
Self Disclosure as a Process
Sprecher and Hendrick (2004) argue that self disclosure is not a fixed component within a relationship, but a process which evolves into intimacy within individuals and their respective relationships. According to Vangelisti and Perlman (2006), self disclosure is not tantamount to intimate relationships, but instead outlines parameters for the specific relationship. In perspective, this means that privacy boundaries correlate to this idea because within romantic and friends with benefit relationships, there is certain level of control, disclosure and reciprocity needed to stimulate the intimacy levels.
The expected reciprocity of personal information within intimate relationships are recorded by Vangelisti and Perlman (2006) as the dyadic effect. The dyadic effect is simply defined as the process of disclosing personal information and in turn, the partner is then prompted to disclose information. The process of the dyadic effect increases over time and shows how the level of intimacy between two partners is also increased, lowering the amount of privacy boundaries within the relationship.
Overall, the varying research provided insight into the theory that self disclosure is self evolving process that operates without the constraint of time and furthers the parameters of a romantic and friends with benefits relationship through the development of intimacy.
Uncertainty Reduction in Romantic Relationships
A unique finding in the research regarding privacy boundaries within romantic relationships is the theory of uncertainty reduction. Parks and Adelman (1983) records uncertainty reduction by the process of a relationship progressing through time as the ambiguity decreases about each person in the relationship. This theory implies that if two partners are engaged in a romantic relationship and only one partner is decreasing the uncertainty reduction by the dissemination of information about oneself, then it can also be implied that the other partner might feel increased satisfaction toward the overall relationship; whereas the partner that is not disseminating information about their self would cause the other partner to feel decreased satisfaction toward the overall relationship (Parks, M., Adelman, M., 1983).
“Increased uncertainty also means that more time and energy must be expended to achieve understanding (Parks, M., Adelman, M., 1983, p. 57).” Therefore, when analyzing relationships, the level of uncertainty between partners is dependent on both partners individual time and energy commitment to maintaining the relationship. Parks and Adelman (1983) added to this concept by stating that variables contributing to uncertainty would also contribute to the overall balance of the relationship. Their research also concluded that factors such as communication with a partners network and relatives prompted uncertainty reduction; meaning that the more involved one was with a partners social network, the more balanced the relationship was.
Intimacy
According to Laurenceau, intimacy is a multifaceted process which bridges self disclosure and disclosure responsiveness in partners and perception (Laurenceau, 1998). Laurenceau’s article also provided research supporting the theory of intimacy being a communicative process. As stated earlier in this report, time is an important factor to developing levels of comfortability within relationships. Laurenceau (1998) highlighted two fundamental pieces of intimacy as self disclosure and responsiveness between partners. Additional research within Laurenceau’s report suggested that the level of intimacy is dependent upon both partners commitment to responsiveness and dissemination of emotional information over personal facts (Laurenceau, 1998). Therefore, the input of time as a constant can now be determined as highly valuable component to the development of intimacy within relationships.
Methods
There were ample research methods utilized to retrieve the data presented throughout this collection of articles. Surveys were the most used approach which was consistent throughout the conducted research to efficiently identify and measure the contextual situations of interpersonal relationships where boundaries were present. A majority of the collected articles used current undergraduate students and recent graduates as survey subjects when delving into the topic of self disclosure in interpersonal relationships.
In addition to surveys, one research tactic stood out amongst all of the articles. Laurenceau (1998) research method utilized research journals for their subjects to transcribe their contextual situations and emotions regarding the study. “The RIR is an event-contingent diary that participants complete immediately following their social interactions over a specified period of time,” (Laurenceau, 1998, p. 1240). Due to the nature of interpersonal relationships being contingent on involved participants, personalities and emotional factors, the use of an experience based diary would result in qualitative data versus quantitative data gathered by use of a survey.
In regards to the topic of this report, qualitative data was preferred to allow accurate assessment when exploring the importance of privacy boundaries in interpersonal relationships. The qualitative data provided by the research conducted in the Laurencreau (1998) article was able to present far more information than any of the other articles chosen for this study. It can be said the data discrepancy is due to the opposing approach to the research. Surveys provide generalized data which does not typically provide insight into understanding the contextual basis of a situation. The distinctive research journaling method allowed for an in-depth view into each contributing factor to boundaries: self disclosure, intimacy and responsiveness, on a transactional scale (Laurencreau, 1998).
Conclusion
Of the highlighted researchers, Zick Rubin, Daltmas Taylor and Irwin Altman made remarkable observations within their respective studies (Vangelisti, 2006). Rubin is regarded for his extensive research concerning self disclosure reciprocity and also for disecting the theory of openness as an underlying component of self disclosure (Vangelisti, 2006). Taylor and Altman made notable contributions by fueling their research regarding interpersonal relationships with psychology (Vangelisti, 2006). Altman’s research presented the theory that boundaries and privacy in interpersonal relationships stem from the need to balance the dissemination of personal information (Vangelisti, 2006). This literary analysis sought to identify and analyze the selected texts which support and provide insight into the exploration of the importance of privacy boundaries in interpersonal relationships. The goal was to assess self disclosure and privacy boundaries as necessary components to maintaining healthy relationships and understanding what elements allow privacy boundaries to become circumstantial within intimate interpersonal relationships.