Lecture 22: Repairing, Maintaining, and Growing Relationships Flashcards
mechanisms for repair, maintenance, and growth
- seeing partner as part of yourself
- positive illusion & perceived superiority
- inattention and derogation of attractive alternatives
- willngness to sacrifice
- gratitude
- accomodation
- communal strength
- approach motivation
- self-disclosure
- responsiveness
- forgiveness
- play/self-expanding activities
- provision of safe haven & secure base support
- therapy
forgiveness
- Transformation to motivation to think, feel, and behave negatively after suffering a transgression
- Two components: decrease in negativity and increase in benevolence (goodwill toward the transgressor)
- Not the same thing as accepting, excusing, or condoning the offence
- Beliefs that these are requisite factors are barriers to forgiveness
forgiveness vs. reconciliation
Forgiveness makes reconciliation more likely but does not require reconciliation
victim-related predictive factors for forgiveness
- Empathy: perspective-taking, shift from dispositional to situational attributions
- Attachment security: less likely to ruminate about transgression
- Neuroticism (-): stronger negative emotional reactions to transgressions
- Agreeableness: trust, desire for harmony, compassion
- Self-control: allows the inhibition of rumination and desctructive responses, shift focus to long-term relationship goals
relationship-related predictive factors for forgiveness
Commitment, closeness, and satisfaction: greater value placed on relationship, the transformation of motivation (from acting based on self-interest to acting based on preferences for joint outcomes) that comes with greater interdependence
transgressor-related predictive factors for forgiveness
- Expressions of remorse, authentic apologies, making amends: increase empathy towards trasnsgressor, signal that one is unlikely to transgress again
- Costly apologies may further lower perceived risk of future transgressions
transgression-related predictive factors for forgiveness
- Perceived severity: subjective perceptions of harm
- Perceived responsibility: important in determining future risk
- Perceived intent: harder to forgive transgressions perceived as intentional
forgiveness and relational well-being
- Boots to relational well-being
- Greater conflict resolution as perceived by both parties
- Unresolved transgression may spill over into future conflicts
- Decreased likelihood of future transgressions (if victims & transgressors agree on the severity of the offence)
- Caveat: forgiveness positively associated with psychological & physical aggression in longitudinal research
- Greater commitment & relationship satisfaction
forgiveness and personal well-being
- Boots to personal well-being
- Decreases in stress systems activation (ex. Lower blood pressure, stress hormone levels, subjective stress, anxiety, and depression)
- Forgiveness is conceptualized as an emotional coping strategy that removes the emotional burden caused by transgressions
types of love over time
- Intimacy and commitment increase over time in a relationship
- Passion & sexual desire typically fade within the first 2 years of a relationship
consequences of decreasing passion
- Lower desire is linked to less relationship satisfaction, thoughts about leaving the relationship, and higher rates of infidelity
- One of the leading reasons why couples seeking counselling
- Almost half of divorces arise from low-conflict, relatively happy marriages
- Marital boredom is one of the leading causes for seeking divorce
- Divorces in low-conflict marriages are especially likely to negatively affect the well-being of partners and their children
- Passionate love predicts personal well-being & life satisfaction
why is passion hard to sustain?
Passion tends to be aroused by novelty & risk, while attachmetn & commitment tend to be reinforce most by feelings of familiarity & security
passion early on in a relationship
- Partner is a mystery, constant surprises, sense of uncertainty
- Lack of knowledge leaves room for fantasy
- Rapid self-expansion & growth of intimacy
passion in long-term relationships
- Declines in effort
- Sense of novelty & uncertainty has faded
Self-expansion has stalled - Hedonic adaption: habituation to new circumstances
- Feelings of passion are driven by subjective perceptions of increasing intimacy
- Shift from passionate eto ocmpanionate love may be interpreted as unhappiness
are we doomed to lose passion?
- Despite the average trends, declines in sexual desire are not inevitable or universal
- ⅓ people report that passion in their relation has stayed constant over time
- Among older adults (ages 65-80), 74% describe their sex life as satisfying
- Age-related declines in sexual desire are significantly smaller for people in better relationships
- Partner responsiveness increases desire
maintaining passion
To maintain satisfaction and passion, we need to engage in self-expanding activities
self-expansion in daily life study
- Couples (average relationship duration = 5 years) filled out a daily diary for 28 days
- Rated their relationship satisfaction, sexual acitivity, and sexual desire
- Measures of self-expansion
- More self-expansion predicted:
1. Higher sexual desire
2. 36% more likely to have sex
3. More satisfied with their relationship - Similar results were obtained in experimental studies
sharing self-expanding activities field study
- Married couples were assigned to participate in exciting, pleasant, or no additional activities for 1.5 hours/ week for 10 weeks
- Greater increase in relationship satisfaction in the exicting activity group relative to the other two groups
- The pleasant condition was not different from the control condition
sharing self-expanding activities lab study
- 1 of 2 activities:
1. Mundane but pleasant
2. Novel & challenging - Greater increase in satisfaction & love in the novel condition
how do self-expansion activities work?
- It’s not about the pleasantness of activities
- It could be due to the misattribution of arousal . But, physiological arousal isn’t enough alone to produce self-expansion. Self-expanding activities do not need to be physically arousing
- The key is having novel & challenging experiences
misattribution of arousal & self-expansion study
- A lab study attempted to separate novelty/challenge from arousal
- Novel & challenging activity: bouncing an unevenly weighted ball back and forth with a partner while hitting a specific target and moving along the floor
- Key control condition: running back & forth while wearing ankle weights
- Only the novel condition predicted an increase in relationship satisfaction; there is not effect of arousal
benefits of self-expansion
- Self-expansion promotes closeness & intimacy, which in turn promotes romantic passion
- While closeness to partner is important, may also benefit from a sense of otherness (sense of separateness from the other)
- Novel activities allow us to discover something new or surprising about the partner, value unique contributions they make to the relationship
- Both increased closeness & otherness mediate the relationship between self-expansion and higher desire
personal vs. relational self-expansion
Personal self-expansion experiences don’t directly involve one’s partner
personal self-expansion daily-diary studies
- Within-person increases in daily personal self-expansion is associated with greater passion
- Mediated by positive emotions
- High between-person levels of self-expansion associated with lower levels of passion
- Mediated by decreased intimacy