Close relationships: health and infidelity Flashcards
What is health and well-being in close relationships?
- social isolation has strong negative consequences
- high levels of social integration for exceeding the protective effects on mortality of individual-level behaviours such as smoking cessation
What is morbidity and mortality in close relationships?
- morbidity and mortality and reliabily lower for the married than unmarried across a variety of acute and chronic conditions including cancer and recovery from surgery
- when relationships go wrong: separated and divorced individuals have heightened risk for physical and mental illness compared to married counterparts
What illnesses/conditions can occur when relationships go wrong?
- disrupted physiological stress responses
- elevated blood pressure
- cortisol reactivity
-poor immune responses - chronic pain
-obesity - moderators: individual differences and contextual factors, e.g. sex and poverty
Who highlighted that social support predicts healthier cortisol profiles in close relationships and health?
- Slatcher, Robles, Repetti & Fellows, 2010
Who highlighted that close relationships reduced susceptibility in infection and illness, espcecially under stress,in close relationships and health?
- Cohen et al, 2015
What was Oishi, Schiller & Gross 2013 in close relationships and health?
- experimental study
- P’s who were led to feel understood ( vs misunderstood or control) had higher pain tolerance to ice water
Who demonstrated that imagined or symbolic presence of close others reduces perceptions of pain?
- Master et al 2009
Who demonstrated that close others attenuates neural activity in brain regions associated with threat?
- Eiesenberger et al 2011
What research comes under couple health concordance?
- Hoppman et al 2011
- Jackson et al 2015
What did Hoppmann et al 2011 demonstrated in couples health concordance?
- couples mutually influence each others mental and physical health trajectories
What did Jackson et al 2015 demonstrated in couples health concordance?
- people typically choose a partner who is similiar in terms of attitudes, demographics, and health related behaviours eg diet - health behaviour concordance
In couples health concordance, what is behavioural convergence?
- those in relationships share a lifestyle as well as common stressors: common living enviornment, poor resources, eat together etc
What can be threats to relationships?
-interdependence (cognitive, behavioural, affective) can lead to disagreements
-external factors, social norms and real or perceived presence of rivals can trigger relationship breakdown
-suspected infidelity
In threats to relationships, what does external factors refer to?
- birth of child, loss of job, extra job responsibilities
In threats to relationships, what does stresses from social norms refer to?
expectations that mean and women enact specific roles
What can depression do to the body when a relationship fails?
- alters multiple biological systems eg endocrine, immune, cardiovascular, metabolic, neurocognitive
What are depressive symptoms strongly associated with?
-Depression
-depressed individuals> poorer health habits eg alcohol and drugs
What did Beach (2014) demonstrate in depression and marriage?
- distressed marriages enhance depressive symptoms and depression promotes poorer marital quality
What are the key research studies in gender differences?
- Derry et al 2015
- Whisman 2001
What did Derry et al 2015 discuss in gender differences?
relationship-related distress has stronger ties to inflammation among women than men
What did Whisman 2001 discuss in gender differences?
the relationship between depression and marital quality is stronger among women than men
What do contemporary evolutionary perspectives say in terms of monogamy and infidelity?
- emphasize the adaptive value of maintaining long-term relationships to ensure the survival of offspring
- suggest humans have evolved psychological biases- such as ignoring attractive alternative partners - to protect their primary, long term relationships
What are the types of infidelity?
- sexual (or behavioural)
- emotional and cyber (electronic)
From an evolutionary perspective in regards to infidelity, what are the differences between women and mens views?
- women primarily interested in securing commitment and resources and particularly afraid of emotional infidelity - infidelity that threatens the sustainability of a long term relationship
- sexual infidelity especially relevant for men- increases uncertainty of paternity and reducing chance of raising own biological child
What is the most common reason for divorce?
-infidelity
Why is infidelity the most common reason for divorce?
- can result in harmful individual and relational outcomes for both those who engaged in infidelity ( dimished self concept clarity, greater psychological discomfort) as well as primary partners ( loss of trust, greater relational uncertainty)
What is the impact of infidelity as the most common reason for divorce?
- reliably associated with poorer mental health particularly depression/anxiety and PTSD
- relationship dissolution/divorce which has been shown to adversely impact offspring
Who proposed the investment model?
- Rusbult, 1980, 1983; 1998
What is the investment model an extension of?
- interdependence theory (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959)
What is the investment model ?
- used to predict and explain infidelity in dating relationships
- posits that commitment is the primary determinant of relationship longevity or termination
- provides a useful framework for predicting efforts to main monogamy in intimate relationships
-demonstrates how relationship comitment influences how individuals manage their attraction to others
How can conflict be handled in maintaining relationships in the face of threat?
- constructively -actively discussing the problem
- destructively- respond to negative acts with reciprocatory of negative feelings and acts
What is destructive accommodation?
- criticism that characterises the person as a whole
-contempt
-defensiveness
-stonewalling
What is constructive accommodation?
- when couples are committed to the relationship
-among couples who idolise each other- report less overt conflict and fewer destructive ways of handling conflicts - among couples who believe relationships need to be worked on
- if attempts to respond constructively fails, conflict escalates
How can couples patterns of accommodation can influence relationship satisfaction and longevity?
-some partners have more resources to bring in the maintenane of their relationship
-couples with secure attachment styles tend to accomodate more positively
-couples with secure attachment styles tend to experience less jealously
-preoccupied or fearful attachments are more likely to show strong, negative emotions
What are some psychological consequences of break ups?
-both breaker upper and broken up with engage in self protection biases
-both tend to experience grief- often residual loving feelings for partner
- engage in self reflection - what went wrong
-writing about end of relationship may help - Pennebaker: self disclosure
What are the challenges in studying close relationships?
- often non experimental- hard to draw causal conclusions
-often samples of dating students or married couples- convenient populations and less research on same-sex partners - most research in North America- difficult to examine cultural differences
What is health concordance?
-researchers have found that couples often have similar or concordant health statuses
What is health concordant behaviours?
-couples are highly consistent in the health/unhealthy behaviours they perform, and a change in one partners health behaviour is often associated with a change in the other partners behaviour
What is behavioural convergence?
- those in relationships share a lifestyle as well as common stressors, e.g. common living environment, pool resources, eating together, sharing social networks
What is cortisol and what occurs when high levels are present?
-hormone that regulates a wide range of processes throughout the body
-elevated levels- interfere with learning, memory, associated with lower immune function and increase cholestoral
