Affiliation and Love Flashcards
Are there advantages to being attractive?
Yes! Also because of self-fulfilling prophecies:
- Attractive children receive higher grades
- Attractive adults are more successful
- If you are female, babies will gaze longer
- If you are a female defendant, the jurors will like you more
What increases attractiveness? Evolutionary perspective
- Reproductive fitness
- Fertility - A women near ovulation prefers competitive men
- Red - Used as a sexual symbol
- Hourglass figure - To signify good health
- Attractive faces - People like more feminine faces, also we like averageness rather than unusual features
- The ideal partner has warmth, trustworthiness (care and intimacy), vitality, attractiveness (healthy and reproductive fitness) and status and resources (socially prominent and financially stable)
What increases liking?
- Proximity - Because interaction takes little effort
- Familiarity - You feel more comfortable and you like the person more and mere exposure effect
- Attitude similarity
- Social matching
- Similar level of aspiration (for assortative mating)
- Similarity in general (culture, age, intellect…)
- Personal characteristics, people prefer others who have similar interests, who are warm, kind, reveal their emotions and thoughts (self-disclosure) which can lead to disclosure reciprocity
How do we judge if we want to be with someone or not?
- Reinforcement-affect model:
- Positive consequence, we like the person more
- Automatic activation (when there is a strong evaluative link, the person is more salient) - Costs and benefits:
- Cost-reward ration ‘What will it cost me to get a positive reward from that person?’
- Minimax strategy - minimize costs and maximize rewards - Comparison level - We compare our partners with our exes
- Social exchange - Pay-offs, costs and rewards
- Equity theory (the ratio of inputs and outputs is the same for both partners) - Occurs where there is a mutual exchange of resources where these sources are limited and must be distributed
- Distributive justice v. procedural justice
- You smell/taste nice
Why?
- Need to affiliate
- Instinct
- Isolation creates anxiety - Social comparison theory (without attachment you can not compare yourself -> You do not know how to behave -> You become anxious)
- Friendship creates positive feelings
Friendship brings us:
- Status
- Information
- Emotional support
- Material benefits
Attachment styles
- Secure - Trust in others, you are not scared to be in a relationship
- Avoidant - Suppression of attachment needs, you are scared of being in a relationship
- Anxious - Concern that others will not reciprocate one’s desire for intimacy, you want to be in a relationship so bad you might jeopardize it.
What happens in close relationships?
- Emotion-in-relationship model - A strong and well-established expectation of your partner’s behavior
- Different kinds of love (consummate, compassionate, romantic, fatuous, liking, empty and infatuation) determine by passion (sexual attraction), intimacy (warmth) and commitment
- Three-factor theory of love - for romantic love, you need:
- A cultural determinant which acknowledges love as a state
- An appropriate love object
- Emotional arousal
Relationships that work
Cost-benefits analysis
- Benefit helps (whether intentional or unintentional)
- Costs hinder (whether intentional or unintentional))
- Communal behavior helps
Three main factors for long-term relationships:
- Personal dedication - Positive attraction
- Moral commitment - Sense of obligation
- Constraint commitment - Makes it costly to leave a relationship
But you also need trust and forgiveness, and that your partner is somewhat similar to your ideal partner
How and why do relationships end?
Why?
- New life
- Alternative partners
- Expectation that the relationship will fail
- Lack of commitment
What happens than? Either the partner shows loyalty or neglect and show either voice or exit behavior. They can also engage in partner regulation and/or self regulation
How? Relationship model dissolution (check fig. 14.10, p. 571):
- Intrapsychic phase (I can’t do this anymore)
- Dyadic phase (I should do it, it’s justified)
- Social phase (negotiate)
- Grave-dressing phase (inevitable)
Gender differences?
Women tend to stick with women which have a similar level of attractiveness - To avoid competition?
Males are more tolerant
What is love?
- Love is like a drug, increase in VTA activity.
