Communicative Rationality in Couple Interaction: Conflicted Couple in Guilan Province

Zadfallah, Naser; Yaghoobi Chobari, Ali; Ghoolami, Mohammad Reza

doi:10.22034/jss.2024.2021844.1823

Communicative Rationality in Couple Interaction: Conflicted Couple in Guilan Province

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Naser Zadfallah ¹

Ali Yaghoobi chobari ²

Mohammad Reza Ghoolami ²

¹ PhD student in Cultural Sociology, University of Guilan, Iran. naser

² Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Guilan, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22034/jss.2024.2021844.1823

Abstract

Communicative rationality as imagination and emotional capital plays a constructive and vital role in the stability of families. The purpose of the article is to investigate the rationality of communication among couples in Guilan province. In terms of research method, qualitative approach, theoretical sampling, data-based method and semi-structured interview have been used. The number of interviewees was 45, who were examined with maximum variety until theoretical saturation was achieved.
The findings show that the interviewees are divided into two types of dialogue and monologue families among couples in Guilan province. Therefore, in conflicting couples, monologue relationships or, in Martin Buber's words, the "I-It" rule, but in dialogue couples, they have an "I-Thou" relationship. The most important causal conditions of communication rationality among the interviewees can be patriarchal thinking, lack of flexibility, lack of empathic understanding, arrogance, emotional immaturity and extramarital relationships. One of the intervening conditions or social processes in the Habermasian sense is the weakening of modern world life, which has caused the distance of marital relationships, erosion of social capital, family collapse and the dominance of strategic relations. Also, based on the lived experience of the interviewees, the lower classes of society who have less socio-economic capital have weaker communication rationality. According to the findings, the central core of the issue of communication rationality between couples is the concept of "instrumental rationality" and the weakness of the "I-Thou" relationship.

Keywords

Empathic imagination

intimacy

communicative rationality

dialogue

monologue

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