Chapter 13 - Dissolution and Loss of Relationships

Question 1

Reasons for increase in divorce rate (4)

Answer 1

-Cohabitation makes marriage less of a necessity
-Fantasies of marriage are unrealistic
-Normalization of women in the labour force
-Women are financially independent

Question 2

Levinger’s Barrier Model (3)

Answer 2

-Attraction
-Alternatives
-Barriers

Question 3

Levinger’s Barrier Model - Attraction

Answer 3

Enhanced by rewards, diminished by costsx

Question 4

Levinger’s Barrier Model - Alternatives

Answer 4

May lure someone away

Question 5

Levinger’s Barrier Model - Barriers

Answer 5

Make it hard to leave a relationship

Question 6

Karney and Bradbury’s Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation Model

Answer 6

3 major influences contributing to divorce

Question 7

Karney and Bradbury’s Vulnerability

Answer 7

some people enter marriage with enduring vulnerabilities that increase their risk of divorce.

Question 8

Example of vulnerabilities (5)

Answer 8

-adverse experiences in one’s family of origin
-poor education
-maladaptive personality traits
-bad social skills
-dysfunctional attitudes toward marriage.

Question 9

Karney and Bradbury’s adaptation

Answer 9

coping with life’s stresses

Question 10

Karney and Bradbury’s stressful events

Answer 10

require the partners to provide support to one another and to adjust to new circumstances

Question 11

Stress spillover

Answer 11

we bring surly moods home and interact irascibly with our innocent partners

Question 12

Enduring dynamics

Answer 12

spouses bring to their marriages problems, incompatibilities, and enduring vulnerabilities that surface during their courtship

Question 13

Emergent distress

Answer 13

the problematic behavior that ultimately destroys a couple begins after they marry.

Question 14

Huston’s 3 theories about why marriages go awry

Answer 14

-Enduring dynamics
-Emergent distress
-Disillusionment

Question 15

Disillusionment

Answer 15

couples typically begin their marriages with rosy, romanticized views of their relationship that are unrealistically positive. Reality erodes these fantasies.

Question 16

Best predictor of divorce (huston)

Answer 16

Disillusionment

Question 17

Best predictor of how happy a marriage would be (Huston)

Answer 17

Enduring dynamics

Question 18

Did Huston find that couples who divorced had been more or less affectionate at the beginning of their marriages

Answer 18

More affectionate

Question 19

3 broad types of influences on marital outcomes

Answer 19

-Cultural context
-Relational context
-Personal context

Question 20

Baxter’s Relationship Rules (8)

Answer 20

-Don’t be too possessive
-Don’t be too different
-Don’t be inconsiderate
-Don’t be close-lipped
-Don’t cheat
-Don’t spend too much time elsewhere
-Don’t exploit your partner
-Don’t be ordinary

Question 21

Persevering indirectness

Answer 21

repeated efforts to dissolve the relationship without ever announcing that intention and without engaging in any attempts to improve or repair the partnership.

Question 22

Relational cleansing

Answer 22

Blocking, deleting, unfollowing things to do with your ex

Question 23

Churning

Answer 23

Partners break up, reconcile, and get back together

Question 24

What makes a partnership hard to lose?

Answer 24

High degrees of mutuality and self-expansion

Question 25

Parental loss

Answer 25

Children who lose a parent to divorce are less well off

Question 26

Parental stress

Answer 26

Detrimental effects when quality of parenting goes down

Question 27

Economic hardship

Answer 27

Impoverished circumstances that sometimes follow divorce