Chapter 5: Romantic Love and Positive Families Flashcards
Two-Factor Theory of Love
A theory of love that consists of passionate love and companionate love.
Passionate Love
An intense longing for one’s beloved.
Companionate Love
A quieter form of love associated with affection, companionship, friendship, and long-term commitment to relationships.
Sternberg’s Love Triangle
All experiences of love are built on 3 emotional components: passion, intimacy, and commitment.
Passion
An intense emotional response to the other person; one of the 3 components of Sternberg’s Love Triangle.
Intimacy
Warmth, closeness, and sharing of self in a relationship; one of the 3 components of Sternberg’s Love Triangle.
Commitment
The decision to maintain the relationship; one of the 3 components of Sternberg’s Love Triangle.
Six Love Styles
A multidimensional theory of love consisting of 6 love styles: eros, storge, ludus, pragma, mania, and agape.
Eros
Infatuated and obsessed style of love.
Storge
Affectionate, close, and emotionally intimate style of love (familial/friend).
Ludus
“Game-playing” style of love, can be emotionally manipulative.
Pragma
Practical and pragmatic style of love, focused on the partner’s desired qualities.
Mania
Intensely passionate and often painful style of love, involves wild emotionality.
Agape
Selfless style of love, focused on giving rather than receiving.
Consummate Love
Passion + commitment + intimacy.
Romantic Love
Intimacy + passion.
Companionate Love
Intimacy + commitment.
Fatuous Love
Passion + commitment.
Liking
Intimacy alone.
Infatuation
Passion alone.
Empty Love
Commitment alone.
Love as a Prototype
Implicit theory of love; we compare our current feelings with a cultural standard or ideal and see how closely the real matches the ideal. Meaning of being “in love” can vary.
Right Hemisphere Brain Activation
Love
Left Hemisphere Brain Activation
Lust
Positivity Resonance
Resonating with your partner on a cellular and hormonal level through mutual responsiveness in face-to-face interactions.
Momentary upwellings
For Fredrickson, love is defined as a “momentary upwelling” of 3 tightly interrelated events:
- a sharing of + emotions between people
- a synchrony between the biochemistry and behaviors of the people
- a reflected “motive to invest in each other’s well-being that brings mutual care”
Bids for Attention
Small interactions in which one person invites the other to respond with affection or support.
Capitalization
Sharing positive events with others.
Passive-Destructive
Capitalization response that ignores the message. Turns focus inward, avoids, ignores speaker.
Active-Destructive
Capitalization response that negatively interprets the message. Quashing the event, dismissive, demeaning.
Passive-Constructive
Capitalization response that reflects the positive tone but is subdued and short. Low energy, delayed response, quiet.
Active-Constructive response
Capitalization response that provides excitement and enthusiasm for the other’s good news; most associated with relationship satisfaction. Enthusiastic support, eye contact, authentic.
The Love Hierarchy
Three levels of hierarchically arranged meanings people use to describe love. Consists of Tier 1: love, Tier 2: compatibility and passion, and Tier 3: valued qualities
Valued qualities
The lowest level of the love hierarchy. Consists of eight clusters: trust, sincerity, mutual understanding, compatibility, fulfillment, sexuality, intimacy, and mutual needs.
Compatibility and passion
The middle tier of the love hierarchy.
- Compatibility is the “warm” factor that allows for commitment over time and feelings of companionship, friendship, and respect (companionate love).
- Passion is the “hot” factor that defines feelings of desire, romance, and sexual need (passionate love).
Love
The highest level of the love hierarchy.
Minding
A way of paying close attention to relationships, of not acting out of habit, and allowing creative new ways to experience a relationship and one’s partner.
Components of Minding
- Knowing and being known
- Attribution
- Acceptance and respect
- Reciprocity
- Continuity
Knowing and being known
Having someone who knows your authentic self and all of your short-comings and vice-versa; referred to by the Gottmans’ as the “love map”
Dispositional authenticity
An ability to be open, truthful, honest with yourself, and in congruence with your deepest beliefs.
Love maps
Mental maps that people make to store information about their relationship and details about their partner.
Attributions
Judgments we make about the causes of behavior.
Fundamental attribution error
if other people do bad things, we think they are bad people and attribute it to their stable personality. On the other hand, we perceive ourselves as having made a temporary, non-personality related mistake. We explain our mistakes away situationally.
Michelangelo phenomenon
Close relationship partners are often active participants in each other’s personal development and goal pursuit. A final statue (ideal person) is present from the beginning, and a sculptor (partner) must chip away unnecessary bits of marble to reveal the hidden form inside.
Interdependence
A balance between independence and dependence that is necessary for a healthy relationship.
Self-expansion model of relationships
A person is motivated to expand their concept of self by incorporating qualities of those they feel close to. You begin as two separate entities. As you spend time together there begins to be overlap/incorporation. There is a merging of interests and values, but you still want to maintain a sense of independence.
Initial attraction
- Proximity
- Attractiveness
- Shared attitudes
- Reciprocity
Relationship satisfaction
Satisfaction in any intimate relationship is a dynamic process that changes over time. Predictors of relationship satisfaction include:
- Personality traits, particularly curiosity (beneficial) and neuroticism (harmful)
- Communication: bids for attention, capitalization, self-disclosure, empathy, gratitude/empathy/curiosity
Self-disclosure and trust
There is a bidirectional effect of self-disclosure on trust. They more people in close relationships trust each other, the more information they are willing to self-disclose with increases their sense of trust and leads them to continue to self-disclose.
Ways to maintain relationship stability over time
- Friendship
- Similarity of attitudes/values (opposites can attract but are not usually stable)
- Self-confidence and nurturance
- Bids for attention
- Culture of appreciation
- Genuine interest
- Passion and deep attachment
- Acceptance
Positive explanatory style for relationships
The more positive the explanations are for a spouse’s behavior, the more satisfied and stable are the relationships. If you attribute your partner’s behavior optimistically, you have a better chance of a long-lasting relationship.
Positive illusions
Positive romantic illusions are beneficial for relationship success! It is better to think of your partner as slightly better than they really are. This can help maintain passion and satisfaction in a romantic relationship.
Minding relationships with acceptance and respect
Focusing on what you do with the increased knowledge about your partner. This involves:
- realistic acknowledgement
- respecting differences
- interdependence
- empathy & forgiveness
- self-compassion
- self-expansion model: A person is motivated to expand their concept of self by incorporating qualities of those they feel close to. They begin as 2 separate entities. As they spend time together there begins to be overlap/incorporation (overlapping circles), merging of interests and values, but still want to maintain a sense of independence.
Reciprocity
The degree to which each person in the relationship feels a fair balance of benefits from being together. Give and take between two people in a relationship.
Balance Theory (emotions)
Regulating + and - emotions, balance of responsibilities and communication within a relationship (predictable/unpredictable)
Regulated couples
Couples for whom patterns of emotionality are balanced and predictable.
Validated couples
Regulated couples who seem to be stable and free from undue conflict.
Non-regulated couples
Couples who tend to exhibit unbalanced and unpredictable patterns of emotionality. Linked to lower relationship satisfaction and stability.
Social exchange theory
Relationships are an exchange of rewards and costs. Satisfaction is the result of a cost-benefit analysis that evaluates the ratio of positive interactions to negative interactions.
Factors of social exchange theory
Satisfaction is the result of a cost-benefit analysis that evaluates the ratio of +/- interactions. More + than - interactions result in relationship satisfaction.
- Satisfaction with relationship: assessed by looking at past/other people’s relationships
- Alternatives (different potential partners)
- Investment: length of time/commitment invested into the relationship
- Morality: relationship values and beliefs
- Barriers: what are the barriers to leaving?
Continuity
Paying attention to the relationship over time. Involves personal growth, strengths and virtues, and physical intimacy.
What hurts relationships
- Relationship satisfaction decreases upon the birth of a child, bottoms out when they reach adolescence and begins to increase as their child ages into adulthood and leaves home (empty nest).
- Conflict: not about the situation itself but how you handle it in your relationship.
- Negative patterns of communication
Demand-withdraw pattern
- Criticism (often takes the form of a harsh setup and negative reciprocity), and it is followed by…
- Contempt from the other that leads to…
- Defensiveness and ends with…
- Withdrawal
- “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”
- toxic pattern of communication that hurts relationships
Stonewalling
When one person withdraws attention in a passive-aggressive attempt to punish the other person.
Harsh setup and negative reciprocity
A sequence where an initial negative comment, often designed to hurt, only serves to stimulate a negative response from the partner and an increasing cycle of deliberately hurtful comments or insults. (bidirectional influence)
Flourishing families (Adler)
- warmth and respect
- democratic decision-making
- promote educational maturity and autonomy
- relationships with other families and community
Types of parenting behavior (Baumrind)
- Restrictiveness
- Appropriateness
- Communicability
- Warmth and support
Authoritarian (strict rules, moderate demands, low communication, low warmth) and permissive (few rules. low demands, low communication, low warmth) are considered to be the least effective parenting styles.
Authoritative (reasonable rules, high demands, high communication, high warmth and support) is considered to be the most effective parenting style.
Authoritative parenting type
Consists of reasonable rules, high demands, high communication, high warmth and support. The most effective parenting style.
Resilient families
Healthy families which adjust well and flourish during and after challenges.
Family-centered positive psychology
Focuses on strengths in the family and the individuals, as well as on assets that help promote better families, promotes partnership with community resources.
The Gottmans’ advice
- Enhance love maps
- Nurture fondness and admiration
- Turn toward each other instead of away
- Let your partner influence you
- Solve your solvable problems
- Overcome gridlock and move toward dialogue
- Create shared meaning about your relationship
Social and cultural influences
- changing our expectations about romantic relationships can help increase satisfaction
- interracial couples can have unique stressors
- cultural differences include perspectives on romantic love, familism, and social harmony
Gable et al. 2004 study summary (sharing + events)
Study 1: Undergrad students wrote about their most + and most - daily experience and took daily measures of affect and well-being. They were asked to report how often they shared these experiences with others. People more likely to share + events. + affect and life satisfaction higher on days that people shared their most + event with others!
Study 2: Dating couples were asked to complete measures of relationship quality and perceived responses to capitalization attempts. Capitalization responses were associated with relationship quality. Active-constructive responses were positively correlated with relationship quality, while all other responses (passive-destructive, active-destructive, and passive-constructive) were negatively correlated with relationship quality.
Study 3: Married couples were asked to complete measures of relationship quality and perceived responses to capitalization attempts. The results of study 2 were replicated, in that only active-constructive responses were positively associated with relationship quality.
Study 4: Undergrad students completed daily measures on affect, life satisfaction and wrote about their most +/- daily event. Positive events were more likely to be remembered than negative events. Participants experienced increased + affect and life satisfaction when they shared their + event with others. When the 1st person they told gave an active-constructive response, they experienced greater capitalization benefits.
Micro-moments
Little moments when you are interacting lovingly and tenderly with your romantic partner, gazing/smiling at each other, typically requires physical touch/face-to-face interaction. Small, daily intimate interactions are really important for establishing deeper connection and trust! Micro-moments of love shared between friends and committed lovers are the same, just differ in frequency.
Negative sentiment override/flooding
Person becomes shell-shocked and retreats into a mode of responding that seeks protection. Causes adverse physical reactions (increased heart rate, blood pressure, stimulates fight/flight response).
Repair attempts
Efforts to calm down a tense situation or to de-escalate tension so that flooding does not occur.
Minding relationships
A way of paying close attention to relationships, not acting out of habit, and allowing new creative ways to experience a relationship and one’s partner.
