HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS Flashcards
What are the three components of love?
Intimacy, passion, companionship
ERQ OPENING
- Evolutionary Theories argue that the purpose of attraction is to procreate.
- What does the biological approach to human relationships suggest?
- humans are attracted to traits that would have the greatest advantages for our potential offspring.
- attraction is a pysiological response.
limitations to the bio approach?
- cannot establish cause and effect relationship.
- most research is conducted using animal models
Outline the neurotransmission explanation for human relationships:
- Helen fisher
- there is a specific attraction systen in the brain that is associated wth dopamine rich areas.
- evolved to help individuals attract mates and focus their mating energy on one specific partner.
- biochemical cocktail: dopamine, noradrenaline, and seratonin.
Dopamine
Motivation hormone
Noradrenaline
- Controls emotion and stress
- increases attentiveness and alertness to a new partner.
Seratonin (drops when we fall in love):
Calmness, control of emotions, etc..
Testosterone
- Increases levels of sexual attraction.
Explain the role of neurotransmitters in personal relationships:
- When pleasure is experienced, dopamin produced in the Ventral Tregmental Area in the midbrain is released (to amygdala, NA, hippocampus, and prefrontal c).
- Dopamine enhances impulsive behavior while seratonin reduces it.
Fisher (FOR NEUROTRANSMITTERS AND LOVE):
Aim: To test if there are specific neural mechanisms associated with romantic love.
M:
1) self-selected sample of 10 women and 7 men who were intensely in love for an average of 7.4 months.
2) conducted a semi-structured interview to establish duration and intensity of participants love.
3) likert scale on traits they associated with love.
4) particpants were placed on fMRI for 30 seconds while they saw a picture of a loved one.
R:
- great activity in the brain’s reward centers.
F:
- Love is a motivation system/need/craving designed to enable mating.
Marazitti
Aim: Identify the role of seratonin levels on obsession.
M:
1) 60 participants: 20 in love since 6 months, 20 with obsessive compulsive disorder, and 20 normal.
3) Blood samples from each showed that seratonin levels were similar to those who had obsessive compulsive disorder.
- didnt examine S activity in the brain.
Explain the hormones explanation of personal relationships:
- Bowlby proposed that human have specific behavioral and physical responsesknown as attachement behaviors.
Vassopressin
- Linked to territorialty.
- linked to sexual behavior, parental behavior, bonding with mates.
- Has receptors in the amygdala (emotional regulation) and the nucleus accumbens (addiction).
Winslow et al (for hormones in human relationships and the animal extension):
- Prairie voles (known for monogamous relationships)
- allocated to 3 conditions: Oxytocin, Vasopressin, or control
- exposed to a reproductive female that was slightly tethered to prevent her from moving.
- those injected with vasopressin spent as much time with the mate as with the stranger, those with not or oxytocin were attracted to the mate.
Walum et al (Hormones in personal relationships):
Aim: To see if men with higher VPN had more marital satisfaction.
P:
1) sample of 552 males was tested for allele 334 (genetic variation that leads to lower VSP levels).
2) Took a likert scale test about attachement, marital satisfaction, etc..
3) men with the genetic variation were less satisfied with their marriage. were more likely to be single. no such effect was seen on women.
Similarity attraction model:
- people tend to be attracted to those similar to them.
- seek validation for their opinions, mannerisms, etc..
Markey and Markey (similarity attraction model):
Aim: Investigate the extent to which similarity has a role.
P:
- questionnaire about ideal mate characteristics and their own to see the similarity.
- follow-up study was conducted with young couples.
R:
- those who had more harmonious relationships had more similarities.
Explain the Internal Working Model:
- relationships are formed based on mental perceptions from childhood/ from relationships.
Hazen and Shafer (Schema in relationships):
- Aim: investigate the role of early attachement figures on relationships.
- Method:
- volunteers took a ‘‘love quiz’’ in a newspaper where they described their feelings about relationships.
- took another quiz where they detailed their parents relationship.
R - those who chose: secure, avoidant lovers, ambivalent lovers had the same patterns with their parents.
The Halo Effect:
- Tendency for an impression created in one area to influence another area.
Dion et al (the Halo effect):
Aim: if attractiveness played a role in judgements:
- particpants were given an envelope of three photos (attractive, average, unattractive).
- those who were more attractive were given higher ratings in positive traits.
Zajonc, lab experiment (mere exposure effect):
- Showed studnets at MICHSTATE the faces of males with different frequencies.
- asked them to rate their likability on a 7-point scale.
- ## more times seen, higher likability.
Moreland and Beach
- 4 confederated were use dwith different visit numbers of lectures (0,5,10,15).
- students asked to fill a survey and rate the girls.
- those who had 10-15 visits had a higher rating.
The role of culture on human relationships:
- Passionate love is mostly a western concept.
- Marriage is an outcome of a loving relationship.
- opposite relationship in other cultures.
Evidence for the role of culture (Levine et al; Buss, lie et al):
- Individualistic societes were more likely to rate as essential for marriage .
- dion and dion saw marriage as an alliance between more than 2 people.
- Buss: (questionairre where they ranked aspects of a marriage0, very simililar mating characteristics (young, chastity, rich, older) across cultures.
- Li et al: questionnaire where they could use ‘‘100 dollars’’ to spend on an ideal partner.
- women chose financial security, men chose physical attractiveness.
two types of communication patterns:
- relationship-enhancing and distress maintaining patterns.
The 12-month old prospective study for attributional styles in communication:
A: The role of communication styles in relationship success.
R:
- found that relationship enhancing patterns at the beginning of the study were good predictors for marital success by the end.
- marital success in the beginning did not which patterns would show up later.
F:
- Kinds of attribution influence the behavior of couples and vice versa.
Bradbury and Fincham (distress maintaining patterns, attribution styles):
A: Meta-analysis on couples and how they communicated.
F:
- found that happy relationships engage in relationship-enhancing patterns (no blaming).
- unhappy couples engage in distress-maintaining patterns.
Counterclaim to attribution styles:
- Arguing that it all comes down to attribution styles is reductionist.
- Can lead to excusing violent behavior as negative behaviors are seen as situational instead of dispositional.
Social penetration theory
- Close relationships are formed by a process of gradual self-disclosure (sharing personal things with a trusted other).
- Based on cost-benefit analysis: if disclosure leads to self-validation, the relationship is valued.
- If parter is critical/disinterested, the relationship is avoided.
Stages of social penetration theory (Open Every Aspect Slowly):
- Orientation: Sharing simple info without vulnerability.
- Exploratory: Revealing more but on safe topics.
- Affective: Sharing private/personal matters, involves intimate physical relationships.
- Stable: Development of trust.
Collins and Miller (Social Penetration Theory):
A:
- Meta-analysis to investigate the relationship between self-disclosure and and social likability.
F:
- Found that those who disclose intimate information about themselves are more liked.
Limitations of Social Penetration Theory:
- Difficult to determine a cause-and-effect relationship between disclosure and healthy relationships.
- bidirectionally ambiguous.
- Sampling bias: Western Women.
- Overly simplistic: men and women have different disclosure patterns.
- Reductionist if used alone.
Relationships Ending - ERQ Opening:
- Relationships offer predictability, and end when this predictability is disrupted.
- Relationships work based on agreements between partners to minimize the potential for conflict.
- When rules are violated, they end.
Social Exchange Theory (Kelley and Thibaut):
- Cost-benefit analysis.
- the more ‘‘invested’’, the more in return.
- ## will endure only as it is profitable.
Counterclaim for Social Exchange Theory:
- Elaine walster: ‘‘too simplistic’’
- no reliable way of measuring costs and benefits.
- the ‘‘perception’’ of equity is what determines whether a relationship will be maintained.
Equity Theory
- used to explain infidelity
- when a partner does not have enough affection, the seek it elsewhere.
- they feel guilty that they now owe them loyalty, rebalancing the sense of equity
Hatefield et al (1979) - Equity Theory
A: study on 2000 couples
M: those who felt deprived/under-benefited had extramarital sex sooner after marriage than those over-benefited.
- those over-benefited were just as doubtful as those under-benefited.
Limitations of Exchange Theories:
- Fail to take into account emotions that can override ‘‘profit motive’’.
- lacks cross-cultural validity
- difficult to quantify costs and rewards to hard to test the theory.
Term for Being applied to more than one culture:
Cross-culture validity
Flora and Sergin (similarity attraction model, research methods):
A: Test the role of (common interests, desire to spend time, negative feelings) in the well-being of a relationship.
M:
- 66 couples that dated for 6 months, 65 couples married for 4 years.
- self-reported data.
- interviewed 262 participants on the degree of -ve/+ve feelings, contentment, dissapointment with their partner.
- Contacted them after 1 year, no married couples split up, 1/4 of couples split up.
- Still together asked to fill out a questionnaire to get an idea of their relationship satisfaction and personal well-being.
F:
- positive correlation between common interests, activities, and desire to spend time together in males and females.
- frequency of negative feelings at the beginning of the study was a predictor for women (the more -ve feelings, the less satisfied).
- gender difference in men and women’s idea of good relationship.
Fatal Attraction Theory (Femlee - 1995):
- What attracts us to our partner in the first place may end up being the reason that the relationship ends.
Femlee (1995):
- 301 Male and Female university students.
- asked to think about the most recent relationship that ended.
- asked to list qualities that attracted them to their former partner.
- asked which qualities led to the break up.
- in 88/301 cases, what had been seen as attractive is what ended the relationship.
Most common fatal attraction patterns:
- Fun to Foolish
- Strong to Domineering
- Spontaneous to Unpredictable
Communication as an Ending Factor for Relationships (Gottman):
- Negative communication style would lead to the break-up of a relationship.
- Four communication styles that threaten a relationship: critism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
