is that there are stages in the development of relationships - and that those stages are characterized by certain patterns of communication. The basic thesis of this model is that - when people desire to move a relationship from one level, or stage, to another - interpersonal relationships change because the participants want to increase or decrease certain feelings. As a general rule, people desire to increase positive feelings; conversely, people usually want to decrease negative feelings.
This is, of course, a simplification of a complex process. The reason for that simplification explains the genesis of Knapp's model:
Scientists are forever seeking to bring order to a seemingly chaotic world of overlapping, interdependent, dynamic, and intricate processes (Knapp & Vangelisti, 1992, p. 32).
In attempting to "bring order" to the field of interpersonal communications, social scientists have found it necessary to create descriptive models that help the observer to discern patterns of movement or stasis through the "chaos". It is important to note from the beginning that these models help the observer to develop theories, not axioms; no one claims for the dialectical theory, for example, that it should be treated with the same certainty as Newton's Law of Gravity. Rather, one should consider the "rules" of the theory as one would consider water in a current - a conflux of like movement heading in one direction, with ample opportunity for offshoots, dropouts and diversions. Noted earlier, Knapp introduces his model with a prelude of disclaimers concerning the inapplicability of "good" and "bad" to the process; reusing the metaphor of Nature, one finds that Knapp considers the manifestations of interpersonal relationships to be analogous to natural forces. One does not consider the wind, in its entirety, to be "good" or "bad" - it simply is:
It is not "bad" to terminate relationships nor is it necessarily "good" to b...