- Interpersonal communication is dyadic and is your primary tool for building, maintaining, and ending relationships.
- The four defining characteristics of interpersonal communication are that it is transactional, dynamic, relational, and impactful.
- Scholars suggest that five factors influence how people form interpersonal relationships: proximity, resources, similarity, reciprocal liking, and physical attractiveness.
- Though each type is unique, people build and maintain their relationships—romantic, family, friends, and workplace—through interpersonal communication.
- Many relationships progress through certain stages, marked by differences in communication and intimacy. These turning points can be positive—initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, and bonding—or negative—differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding, and terminating.