merging self cont and attachment theory start Flashcards
ARON AND ARON, 1995: FALLING IN LOVE AND SELF CONCEPT
→ People who fall in love report greater increase in self concept, self efficacy and self esteem compared to how they felt before falling in love and compared to others
Longitudinal study where people report on self concept, efficacy, etc and significant life evens
MASHEK ET AL, 2003
→ We tend to cognitively confuse ourselves with our close others
In remembering traits we’ve assigned to ourselves vs our close other, we have a hard time remembering whether we rated a trait for ourselves or close other - compared to when we assign traits to ourselves or to a famous person
SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF RAPID SELF EXPANSION…
Creates positive affect - the feeling of movement towards a desired goal
The faster we feel like we are moving towards our goals, the more positive affect
self expansion and falling in love
There is the idea that self expansion happens fast early on in relationships - could be positive affect associated with rapid self expansion be what causes the feeling of falling in love?
SELF EXPANSION =
○ Positive affect
○ Openness
○ Broadened understanding of the world
○ Curiosity
○ Increased tendency to approach and interact with the world
Roommate study: people who reported more positive affect/self expansion, reported greater understanding of their roommate
POTENTIAL FOR SELF EXPANSION AND INFIDELITY
Potential for infidelity increases as we begin to feel like there is less to gain from a relationship in terms of self expansion - maybe even hindering it?
SELF DISCLOSURE:
Sharing personal info
· Key to developing intimacy
· We tend to like people who share personal information with us
We tend to like people to whom we have shared personal info
ARON ET AL 1997
36 questions to fall in love
Lab based task for creating feelings of closeness - found that asking personal questions and answering personal questions does create greater feelings of closeness rather than surface level conversation
Doesn’t matter if:
→ P’s views don’t match
→ Ps are expected to like or dislike each other
→ Ps knew the goal of the experiment
Whether it was between women or men or both
SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY
We gradually move from exchanging superficial info intimate information over time
- Are scared of the risks of disclosure in the beginning
○ Evaluation - excessive disclosure = needy and immature
○ Maintenance
○ Defence - things we say could be used against us
Hard to talk about
RESPONSIVENESS
When we share, we want:
- Reciprocity
- Perceived partner responsiveness:
○ Understanding
○ Validation
○ Caring
(key to intimacy)
INTIMACY PROCESS MODEL
Intimacy is a back and forth exchange, mediated by both sides’ motives, goals, needs, and fears and their interpretation of the other’s disclosure and response
- Ex. What we think about what someone is saying will shape how we respond
- Our response will also be perceived by the other person’s own motives, goals, etc
- And will in turn shape their future disclosure
Basically, what we communicate isn’t always what is seen
LAURENCEAU ET AL, 1998
Perceptions of dating partner’s responsiveness mediated effect of disclosure on growth of intimacy
Event contingent recording (experience sampling ) - disclosure events w partner
RECIPROCOL INFLUENCES
Self enhancement vs self verification
- We want to be seen positively but we also want to be seen accurately
- We value partners that combine global adoration and specific accuracy
Study of married wives who had more accurate views about specific traits of their spouses provided better support
SHARED REALITY
Generalized shared reality=feelings of closeness, shared thoughts and feelings about the world
ROSSIGNAC-MILON ET AL, 2020
Couples high on baseline measure of shared reality respond to experimental threats to shared reality with reaffirming behaviour
