merging self and other Flashcards
speed dating - selectivity matters
- When a p uniquely desired a particular partner, partner tended to feel more desire and chemistry
- When a p tended to desire many partners, partners experienced less desire and chemistry
Mediated by perceived unselectivity
- When a p tended to desire many partners, partners experienced less desire and chemistry
managing risk
Matching phenomenon: couples tend to be similar attractiveness
Means we don’t automatically pursue the most attractive option - we pick people we feel matched with
· Risks and rewards balance
Risk of rejection
bernstein 1983
People more likely to make moves in more ambiguous conditions
Movie study:
Movie playing on screens - one table occupied by pretty lady
Low ambiguity: same movie on both screen
High ambiguity: different movie
🎥🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🎬🎬🎬🎬📽🎥🎞🎞🎞🎞🎞🎞🍿🍿🍿
People more likely to go sit next to pretty lady when a different movie is playing - know its not about the movies since they were balanced across participants
why is unrequited love a strange phenomenon
Weird because we tend to try to maximize rewards and minimize costs - unrequited love is a minimal reward situation
aron et al 1998 - 3 factors that predict intensity of unrequited love
· Perceived potential value of relationship
· Probability of striking up a relationship
Perceived benefits to self of liking person, even if not reciprocated
cultural scripts
- Cultural depictions where would be lover persists and wins in the end - lots of scripts for pursuer
Fewer scripts for the rejector - less depictions from the target’s perspective - ‘scriptlessness”
baumeister, wotman and stillwell, 1993
Rejectors also feel like victims and have a sense of emotional interdependence and responsibility
- Both rejector and pursuer struggle to understand each other
Pursuer:
- High stakes gamble
- Look back on experience with ambivalence - high highs and low lows
- Feel like they have been led on and communication was unclear
Rejector:
- No win situation
- Uniformly negative in their accounts
- See themselves as morally innocent but still feel guilty
Reluctance to cause pain may be misconstrued as “mixed signals”
should you play hard to get?
· Selectively hard to get
· Don’t be mean to prospective partners
- Realize that prospective partners are wary of rejection and incurring high costs
🚦In a relationship…AVOID MIXED SIGNALS🚦
Ambiguity is bad for your partner and bad for your relationship
do we even know what we want
→ Traits that ps rate as important in an ideal partner do not predict actual attraction in speed dating event
→ People often disregard declared dealbreakers in the context of a broader relationship dynamic
○ Deal breakers = deal benders
context and attraction - dutton and aron, 1974
Preferences can feel like a stable part of our identity - but attraction can depend on where we encounter potential partner
CAPILANO SUSPENSION BRIDGE STUDY - DUTTON DN ARON, 1974
- Men more likely to be attracted to pretty women on scary bridge vs safe bridge
- Attribute fear of bridge to heart beating because of nice lady
misattribution of arousal
attributing physiological arousal (e.g., sympathetic nervous system activation) to the wrong source
summary of attraction
- Researchers focus on specific attraction factors
○ Proximity/familiarity, individual differences, similarity, reciprocity- Some factors that draw us together are instrinsically rewarding
- Motivated cognition
- Contextual factors
- Interpersonal chemistry=dyadic interactions
⚔️Forces that drew us together might not be the same ones that keep us together⚔️
intimacy
reciprocal, iterative interplay between the self and other
self concept
what we know and believe about ourselves
symbolic interactionism
Charles horton cooley: the looking glass self - develop self concept through interactions with others
- How do others see me?
- How do they evaluate me?
Develop and revise self concept based on these perceptions and judgments
active role of the individual
Individual plays active role in selecting and interpreting perceived judgments and perceptions of others - also attempts to manage others’ perceptions through self presentation strategies
symbolic interationism
the self is a social construction, developed and maintained via inferences from experiences with others - sense of self is experienced in relation to some audience (real or imagined, specific or generalized)
…we imagine the reactions of others (consciously and non consciously)
baldwin and holmes, 1987
Private beliefs are tailored for public acceptance - ps who read a sexy passages (50 shades of grey) rated them higher when they were primed to think about friends vs when they were primed to think about older relatives
self esteem
Trait level: enduring level of self regard, fairly stable
State level: dynamic, changing feelings about the self - vary moment to moment
sociometer theory, leary 1999
Self esteem as a “gauge” to assess the degree of acceptance by others
- Found that trait self esteem strongly correlates with perceptions of acceptance
Ps who were told another group member didn’t choose them for an assignment felt worse about themselves (duh)
valuation of personal attributes
Intrapersonal view: private self valuation
Interpersonal view: believing that one possesses certain attributes should only affect self esteem to the extent that one considers these attributes to be judged positively or negatively by other people
macdonald et al, 2003
How closely your performance in a given domain is tied to your self esteem depends on how much you think people around you value that domain
- Ps filled out a measure of self esteem
- Rated themselves in domains
Indicated how important the domains were for social approval or disapproval
baldwin, 1990
People primed with disapproving faces of people they respect were harder on themselves when evaluating previous ideas - opposite effect for approving face
self expansion model (aron and aron, 1986)
People are motivated to expand their potential efficacy - accrue resources, knowledge, perspectives
- Relationships are a good way to do this
In close relationships, the partners identities, perspectives, skills, and resources become included in the self
