The spoken or nonverbal exchange of information, thoughts, and feelings between two or more people is referred to as interpersonal communication. During communication, various ethical issues may arise, as different people can have different values and goals. This report will assess one of these issues from the perspective of the Interpersonal Communications theory, as well as describe the communication practices used to address the issue.
The ethical dilemma that I ran into was when I got engaged with my fiancé. While we wanted to keep our engagement and future marriage secret, I knew that in high school I promised my best friend that we will be the groomsman at my wedding. Thus, he would want to know that I am planning to get married and take part in the ceremony.
However, my fiancé and I had reasons to keep this confidential, leaving me with an ethical choice of either telling or not telling my friend about our engagement. On one hand, telling him would violate the confidentiality we wanted to keep with my fiancée. On the other hand, keeping our engagement in secret would break my promise of making my friend the groomsman. Thus, not doing anything was not an option in this situation.
While I avoided making this decision at first, I spoke to my fiancé about this. After talking and trying to understand each other’s point, we have decided, that telling my friend about our engagement would do no harm on the condition that he keeps our secret. What we have done with my fiancé was engaging in dual perspective, viewing the situation through the lenses of each other’s thoughts and values (Wood, 2019). This allowed us to make a decision that would be optimal for both of us.
To summarize, the knowledge of Interpersonal Communications theory has allowed me to solve an issue in the most beneficial way. Not only was I able to keep my engagement secret, I was also able to make my best friend my de facto groomsman and thus keep my promise to him. Thus, engaging in dual perspective has allowed us to make an optimal decision for all parties involved.
Reference
Wood, J. T. (2019). Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.