Chapter 7 Developing and Maintaining Relationships 201If there is a threat to your privacy boundaries (for example, your trusted
friend told your secret to someone else), you experience boundary turbulence
and must readjust your need for privacy against your need for self-disclosure and
connection (Guerrero, Andersen, & Afifi, 2013; Theiss, Knobloch, Checton,
& Magsamen-Conrad, 2009). Boundary turbulence occurs in mediated situa-
tions, too. If you have personal information about someone else, do you have the
right to “tweet” that? What about inside jokes or pictures taken at a party—do
you have the right to share them with others? Judgments can be made about you
based on what your “friends” do on Facebook (Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim,
Westerman, & Tong, 2008), and you often alter the kinds of disclosures you
make depending on whether or not your parents are Facebook friends (Child
& Westermann, 2013) or whether you are messaging friends who are distant
versus nearby (Waters & Ackerman, 2011). So you can see how complex privacy
management becomes in online communication.
Strategic Topic Avoidance
Certain topics are simply too sensitive for some people to confront openly.
One or both relational partners can use strategic topic avoidance to maneuver
the conversation away from potentially embarrassing, vulnerable, or otherwise
undesirable topics (Dailey & Palomares, 2004). Just as in privacy manage-
ment, there are topics we avoid because we are culturally trained to do so. For
example, prior relationships, negative information, dating experiences, money
issues, and sexual experiences are largely considered inappropriate for public
communication (Baxter & Wilmot, 1985; Dailey & Palomares, 2004; Guerrero
& Afifi, 1995). So if a colleague at the office asks about the size of your recent
bonus, you could say that it’s none of his business, but research shows that you’d
be better off to use a less direct avoidance tactic, such as keeping silent, deflect-
ing, giving an unrelated response, lying, or simply ending the conversation
(Dailey & Palomares, 2004).
Like other issues related to self-disclosure, there are ethical considerations
regarding pursuing and avoiding topics. Is it appropriate for parents to disclose
the private details of their impending divorce to their children? They may mean
well (for example, they may want to reduce uncertainty for their children), but
they may use such strategies unethically (such as if each parent argues for his or
her own side of the story in order to be viewed in a better light). In addition,
adolescent children may suffer emotionally and view the disclosures as inappro-
priate (Afifi, McManus, Hutchinson, & Baker, 2007).
Every relationship is unique and, as we have discussed, relational partners
may experience different degrees of comfort with disclosure or avoidance at
different times. For example, dating couples who are experiencing relationship
dissatisfaction have been found to engage in more topic avoidance, often to cre-
ate some emotional distance (Merrill & Afifi, 2012). On the other hand, peo-
ple in more satisfying relationships may also use topic avoidance, but as a way
to be sensitive to the other person’s concerns and accommodate to the other’s
needs (Dailey & Palomares, 2004). In other words, strategic topic avoidance
can have benefits or detriments, depending on how and why the topics are
being avoided.
What topics do you con-
sider strictly off-limits? Are
there some topics you are
willing to discuss with some
people but not with others?
How do you inform others
of your unwillingness to
discuss these topics?AND YOU?