Classroom ‘baehaviors’: An examination of couples’ management of relational privacy in the classroom
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This study investigates how couples navigate privacy boundaries and ownership within a classroom context through Petronio’s (2002) Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory. Like the workplace, the classroom presents a unique environment in which outside individuals may obtrusively obtain private information about an individual or a couple through observation and revelation. Therefore, this research examined how couples conceal, reveal, or unintentionally leak information about their dating relationship to an instructor. Through dyadic interviews, couples revealed the foundational criteria that influenced the development of privacy rules, the perceived sense of ownership their instructor obtains over the private information, and the influence of relational turbulence on academic and relational success. Ultimately, couples create “self-destructive boundaries” by failing to negotiate all aspects of certain criteria (i.e. physical and social context) and allowing others to access private information through observations of nonverbal behavior. Additionally, the presence of classroom standards of performance creates a sense of embodied competition for couples that introduces turbulence both inside and outside of the classroom.