Close relationships: health and infidelity

Question 1

What is health and well-being in close relationships?

Answer 1

exert a sustained influence on human health health and mortality with:
- 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

Question 2

What is morbidity and mortality in close relationships?

Answer 2

• 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

Question 3

What illnesses/conditions can occur when relationships go wrong?

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

Who highlighted that social support predicts healthier cortisol profiles in close relationships and health?

Answer 4

• Slatcher, Robles, Repetti & Fellows, 2010

Question 5

Who highlighted that close relationships reduced susceptibility in infection and illness, espcecially under stress,in close relationships and health?

Answer 5

• Cohen et al, 2015

Question 6

What was Oishi, Schiller & Gross 2013 in close relationships and health?

Answer 6

• experimental study
• P’s who were led to feel understood ( vs misunderstood or control) had higher pain tolerance to ice water

Question 7

Who demonstrated that imagined or symbolic presence of close others reduces perceptions of pain?

Answer 7

• Master et al 2009

Question 8

Who demonstrated that close others attenuates neural activity in brain regions associated with threat?

Answer 8

• Eiesenberger et al 2011

Question 9

What research comes under couple health concordance?

Answer 9

• Hoppman et al 2011
• Jackson et al 2015
• Leong et al 2014
• Garin et al 2008

Question 10

What did Hoppmann et al 2011 demonstrated in couples health concordance?

Answer 10

• couples mutually influence each others mental and physical health trajectories

Question 11

What did Jackson et al 2015 demonstrated in couples health concordance?

Answer 11

• people typically choose a partner who is similiar in terms of attitudes, demographics, and health related behaviours eg diet - health behaviour concordance

Question 12

What did Leong et al 2014 demonstrated in couples health concordance?

Answer 12

-when one partner has a history of diabetes, spousal risk for diabetes increased by 26%

Question 13

What did Garin et al 2008 demonstrated in couples health concordance?

Answer 13

• individual can benefit from an intervention delivered to their partner via ripple effect

Question 14

In couples health concordance, what is behavioural convergence?

Answer 14

• those in relationships share a lifestyle as well as common stressors: common living enviornment, poor resources, eat together etc

Question 15

What can be threats to relationships?

Answer 15

-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

Question 16

In threats to relationships, what does external factors refer to?

Answer 16

• birth of child, loss of job, extra job responsibilities

Question 17

In threats to relationships, what does stresses from social norms refer to?

Answer 17

expectations that mean and women enact specific roles

Question 18

What can depression do to the body when a relationship fails?

Answer 18

• alters multiple biological systems eg endocrine, immune, cardiovascular, metabolic, neurocognitive

Question 19

What are depressive symptoms strongly associated with?

Answer 19

-Depression
-depressed individuals> poorer health habits eg alcohol and drugs

Question 20

What did Beach (2014) demonstrate in depression and marriage?

Answer 20

• distressed marriages enhance depressive symptoms and depression promotes poorer marital quality

Question 21

What are the key research studies in gender differences?

Answer 21

• Derry et al 2015
• Whisman 2001
• Hagedoorn et al 2001
• Robles et al 2014

Question 22

What did Derry et al 2015 discuss in gender differences?

Answer 22

relationship-related distress has stronger ties to inflammation among women than men

Question 23

What did Whisman 2001 discuss in gender differences?

Answer 23

the relationship between depression and marital quality is stronger among women than men

Question 24

What did Hagedoorn et al 2001 discuss in gender differences?

Answer 24

women suffer greater adverse effects when caregiving husband with dementia than men experience when they become caregivers

Question 25

What did Robles et al 2014 discuss in gender differences?

Answer 25

meta anlaysis didnt find gender differences

Question 26

What do contemporary evolutionary perspectives say in terms of monogamy and infidelity?

Answer 26

• 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

Question 27

What are the types of infidelity?

Answer 27

• sexual (or behavioural)
• emotional and cyber (electronic)

Question 28

From an evolutionary perspective in regards to infidelity, what are the differences between women and mens views?

Answer 28

• 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

Question 29

What is the most common reason for divorce?

Answer 29

-infidelity

Question 30

Why is infidelity the most common reason for divorce?

Answer 30

• 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)

Question 31

What is the impact of infidelity as the most common reason for divorce?

Answer 31

• reliably associated with poorer mental health particularly depression/anxiety and PTSD
• relationship dissolution/divorce which has been shown to adversely impact offspring

Question 32

Who proposed the investment model?

Answer 32

• Rusbult, 1980, 1983; 1998

Question 33

What is the investment model an extension of?

Answer 33

• interdependence theory (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959)

Question 34

What is the investment model ?

Answer 34

• 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

Question 35

How can conflict be handled in maintaining relationships in the face of threat?

Answer 35

• constructively -actively discussing the problem
• destructively- respond to negative acts with reciprocatory of negative feelings and acts

Question 36

What is destructive accommodation?

Answer 36

• criticism that characterises the person as a whole
  -contempt
  -defensiveness
  -stonewalling

Question 37

What is constructive accommodation?

Answer 37

• 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

Question 38

How can couples patterns of accommodation can influence relationship satisfaction and longevity?

Answer 38

-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

Question 39

What are some psychological consequences of break ups?

Answer 39

-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

Question 40

What are the challenges in studying close relationships?

Answer 40

• 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

Question 41

What is health concordance?

Answer 41

-researchers have found that couples often have similar or concordant health statuses

Question 42

What is health concordant behaviours?

Answer 42

-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

Question 43

What is behavioural convergence?

Answer 43

• those in relationships share a lifestyle as well as common stressors, e.g. common living environment, pool resources, eating together, sharing social networks

Question 44

What is cortisol and what occurs when high levels are present?

Answer 44

-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