Relationships Flashcards
Intra-psychic Phase
1)
- Cognitive process = thinking over dissatisfaction of the shortcomings of the relationship
- Share this w/ close friend
- Evaluates relationship and starts to make plans
Dyadic Phase
2)
-Focus on interpersonal process between couple, they can’t avoid not talking about the problems
-Characteristics: anxiety, hostility, rethinking commitments
-2 outcomes: ()desire to repair it
()continuation of break up
Social Phase
3)
-Break-up made public; partners try forming pacts/ getting support
- Mutual friends choose sides = factions and gossip
- Friends provide reinforcement or judgement of who’s at fault, some try speeding it up by revealing info
Grave-dressing
4)
-Aftermath: coming up w/ story for public to keep positive reputation often at other’s expense
- Creating liveable personal story by processing memories
- Can = accepting incompatibility
Incomplete model
- Model doesn’t account for dynamic changes in break ups
- Rollie / Duck: original model = over simplified;
()Added resurrection phase: ex partners use experience from this relationship in future ones.
()Progression between phases not inevitable - can go back
()Reasons for breakdown = emphasised instead of linear break up
Methodological issues
- Duck’s model = retrospective - experiences of breakdown normally given sometime after breakdown so might not always = accurate / reliable, early stages = often distorted / forgotten
- Researchers = reluctant to study current relationships as don’t want to worsen them so theory doesn’t include early part
Useful real-life application
Strength:
-Suggests ways to reverse breakdown - recognises different repair strategies = effective at different points
-e.g. Duck:
intra-psychic phase: encouraged to focus on partners positive aspects
dyadic phase - attempt to improve communication + improvement of social skills = key to relationship stability
Sexual-selection
-Why apparently disadvantageous characteristics = good in human reproductive behaviour as it makes them more attractive or provides advantage over competitor’s reproductive rights
Anisogamy
- Difference between male / female sex cells. Male sex cells = v small, mobile, abundant from puberty onwards, women’s not
- Means no shortage of fertile males but finite females
- Means different mating strategies: intersexual / intra-sexual selection
Inter-sexual selection
- Female strategy = quality over quantity, coz ova = rarer than sperm / more effort to produce = more commitment
- Sexes = choosy dont want to waste time / resources, but consequences of wrong decision = worse for women = good for women to be choosy, male competes for female
- Runaway process = over time attractive characteristics become more prominent as children inherit the chosen genes from parents = increasing probability offspring will pass on their genes.
Intra-sexual selection
- Preferred male strategy = quantity over quality: competition between males, winning characteristic genes are passed on e.g. size
- Encourages controversial behaviour e.g. aggression …
- Anisogamy = male strategy intra-sexual as limited effort of sperm production and dont need to stay, behavioural characteristics = attraction to youth / sensitivity / fertility
Inappropriate underlying SET assumption
- Argued doesn’t recognise 2 different relationships, between colleagues where they keep score as predicted, but romantic ones score isn’t kept
- SET claims rewards / costs = reciprocated / constantly monitored, but at beginning this = abnormal / impossible
Real life application
-Used in cognitive couple therapy: partners trained to increase positive and decrease negative interactions throughout day, found to significantly improve 2/3s of relationships and they felt much happier
