Ch.16 - Relationships and Business Flashcards
Selection
- people choose to enter some situations and avoid others
* our decisions about selection determine the nature of our social world
Complementary Needs Theory
- different personality traits
- a dominant personality may be attracted to a submissive personality
- when one persons needs are opposite and complimentary to anothers
Attraction Similarity Theory
- similar personality traits
* someone who is extraverted may want an extraverted partner
Assortative Mating
- people seem to select mates that are similar to themselves
* almost on all factors, height, facial characteristics, personality traits
Matching Hypothesis
• although we would prefer to obtain extremely ideal romantic partners, we focus on obtaining ones whose attractiveness is about the same as our own
Botwin et Al
- studied dating and married couples
- correlated preferences for personality characteristics desired in a potential mate, and our own characteristics
- correlations are consistently positive: due to direct social preferences, based on personality characteristics of those doing the selecting
Do people get the mates they want?
- people generally want the same thing in a mate
- people seem to consistently get mates they want in terms of personality
- differences in scores between partner’s personality and ideals do not predict happiness
- people are happier marrying someone high on agreeableness, emotional stability, and openness
- one study finds having frequent intercourse protects couples from neuroticism
Predictors of a Happy Relationship
- Being high in agreeableness, openness, and low in neuroticism
- positive illusions
- agreeableness overall
Predictors of Relationship Dissolution
- emotional instability has been the most consistent predictor of breakups (jealousy)
- people with mates lacking desired characteristics
- low emotional stability, low impulse control, low conscientiousness, and low agreeableness predict breakups
- low agreeableness and conscientiousness predict infidelity
Violation of Desire Theory
• people with mates who lacked desired characteristics will more frequently end
Shyness
• tendency to feel tense, worried, and anxious during social interactions
Effects of Shyness on Relationships
- during adolescence, shy people tend to avoid social situations, resulting in isolation and greater health risk
- shy women are less likely to bring up contraception with their partners
Evocation
How features of personality elicit responses in others
Hostile Attributional Bias
- tendency to infer hostile intent on the part of others in the face of uncertain behavior from others
- because they expect others to be hostile, aggressive people treat others aggressively, then people who are treated aggressively tend to aggress back
Predictors of Evoking Hostility
- low agreeableness and emotional instability
- partners low on agreeableness use condescension, neglect, and invalidation of feelings to evoke the most anger
- partners low in conscientiousness relate to infidelity
