Test 3: Matt Hammond Love & Sex Flashcards
Name and Describe Two Relationship Identities:
(A) Monogamy:
Romantic or sexual
relationship with one other
person that is consensual.
(B) Consensual Non-
Monogamy:
Romantic or sexual
intimacy with more than
one person that is
consensual.
What is committment?
Long-term intention to maintain a relationship.
*commitment is unique construct from these two relationship identities! You can be in a monogamous or consensual non- monogamous relationship without any commitment.
Consensual Non-Monogamy covers a broad category of relationship identities:
but does not include…
- Open relationships
- Polyamorous relationships
- Commerce
- Poly/mono relationships
- Dating around
- Don’t tell, don’t ask
- 100-mile run
- Soft swing
- Closed group swinging
- Casual sex
- Con sex
- Unicorn polyamory
- Religious/social polyamory
- Polyfidelity
- BDSM play or d/s
- non-monogamy
*Does not include cheating which involves nonconsensual polyamory and a break of trust/rule.
Main questions people ask when researching polyamory?
Q: How many people are in non-monogamous relationships?
Current estimate is 5-10% of the population.
This is equivalent to 1 in 20 or 1 in 10 people, which is a very high percentage of the population.
Approx. the same amount of people who own cats are in a consensual non-monogamous relationship.
If non-monogamy is so common why is it so hard to name someone we know who is in this type of relationship?
(A) Anti-CNM Prejudice:
There are high levels of stereotyping and discrimination.
Reports of personal experience of anti-CNM discrimination is between28-43% which is an alarmingly high percentage. Considering the average person has experienced only 5.5% of discrimination.
(B) Structural Discrimination:
Society is set up for favoring monogamous relationships, when you do not fit this relationship identity it is much harder at a policy level to adopt a child or get married because you do not fit the “normative” family structure.
How can we apply social psychological research to this social phenomenon?
By myth-busting common myths that underpin anti-CNM discrimination and using empirical research to inform and improve policies around these issues.
Note: we are targeting the beliefs that lead to prejudice and not the experience of discrimination itself.
(3) Myths about Consensual
Monogamy:
(A) Humans have a limited
supply of Love
(B) Non-Polyamory
relationships will harm
children
(C) In CNM relationships there
is a danger of jealousy and
inequality(1) Humans have a limited supply of love can be myth busted using…
Two older theories of “love”:
(A) Hendricks & Hendricks
(1993) describe being in
love as…
*93% of people said when
they were in love, they
also feel love. 87% of
people said that when
they're in love, they also
felt sexual attraction.
*For people who felt love
only 14% also felt sexual
attraction. 23% of people
who felt love also felt they
were in love.
*people who felt sexual
attraction for half the time
also were in love with them
and half the time felt love
for them.
(B) Sternberg’s (1987)
triangular theory of love:
Main points: > Intimacy + commitment + passion = love > Passion + intimacy = romantic love > Intimacy + commitment = conmpaniote love
**both models highlight that love is made up of components/dimensions of feeling of love and sexual desire.
Two modern theories of love:
(A) Functional Perspective (Aron
and Aron, 1991)
Love is a psychological process – functions to build and maintain social bonds.
(B) Biological/Interpretive Theory
(Fisher, 2004)
bonding or sexual desire are biological systems --- get interpreted as being love.
****in both theories of love there
is “no limited supply of love”
both are systems for all
relationships platonic or
romantic. Unlimited supply of
love.
Biological/Interpretive Theory of Love (Fisher, 2004)
Looked at FMRI scans when subjects were asked to think about a maternal figure or romantic partner. They found that there are certain aspects of loving someone that is localized to parts of the brain.
(A) Estrogen/testosterone
Sex hormone in both females and males. Females have more estrogen than males and males have more testosterone than females.
Hormone associated with sex drive and horniness.
Too much testosterone is linked to male patterned baldness.
(B) Oxytocin/vasopressin
Termed the Love hormone or cuddle hormone because it went crazy when mothers bonded with their child.
Since then there has been research that found these hormones are linked to aggression, primarily aggression motivated to protect what is ours and anyone outside your group. Animals who mate with anything were found to have low levels of these hormones.
A better label is a bonding hormone, forming a connection that you are trying to protect. It can explain the warmth feeling we get when we are in love or eat chocolate.
It’s the ompff we get during sex.
(C) Dopamine/Norepinephrine
(serotonin)
Motivation reward system: Dopamine increases.
Adrenaline and excitement: increase in Norepinephrine
Serotonin decreases significantly: why we can’t eat or sleep because being in love disrupts our sleep/hunger regulation system
*all three associated with initial attraction
In summary, Love is defined by Fisher (2004) as the interpretation/described experience of different biological systems (e.g. neurotransmitters/hormones) that exist in all animals for survival and reproduction. Animals are exactly like humans; the key distinction is that we try to describe the experience.
Functional Perspective (Aron and Aron, 1991)
According to this perspective why do people fall out of love?
Love has a function, and is a combination of our behaviors, cognitions and emotions.
Is a motivational state: instances where a combination of things are linked by the same goal directed function.
e. g. hunger is a motivational state that directs us to the behavior of eating.
e. g. tiredness is a motivational state that directs us towards sleeping.
Therefore, love can be considered as a motivational state which directs us towards other people, to build and maintain positive social relationships.
Love is… a psychobiological function that produces mutual commitment, deep interconnections & physical well-being/safety between people.
Research Question: Why do we love, and fall in & out of love?
Changes in felt closeness between people is what causes people to feel love (intimacy). This can be temporarily induced in an experimental context by asking participants to ask each other a set of questions which were designed to promote mutual disclosure between pairs of subjects and ultimately leave subjects feeling happy and accepted by one another.
Questions were more personal than you would normally expect to have in a conversation with a stranger.
Designed to gradually build up intimacy between two individuals.
*therefore, with these questions, time and willing participants you could theoretically get any two people to fall in love.
(2) Non-Polyamory
relationships will harm
children
Zero evidence of any harm (or meaningful difference) between M/CNM families.
Caveat: CNM are inevitably more likely experience relationship dissolution simply because the risk increases as the number of people in the relationship increases.
However, there is also evidence of them potentially being more protected of this as well.
*Children in CNM families are more vulnerable to structural and external discrimination or prejudice that their parents face.
Adults who were raised in CNM families generally have better communication skills and safer sexual behaviors.
**Nobody has only two parental figures within a family network there are many people who help raise children so CNM should not be that surprising.
Define Jealousy and Compersion
(A) Jealousy:
An aversive emotion toward someone who is taking or threatening to take away someone or thing we own.
(B) Compersion:
Pleasure gained due to a partner’s pleasurable experience with someone else.
(3) In CNM relationships there is a danger of jealousy and inequality
In a CNM:
Communication about boundaries and attraction lead to better open communication channels.
**Therefore, open communication leads to less jealousy (not increase or decrease in relationship satisfaction).
Evidence: Murphy et al. (2019)
233 people in a 2-person relationship wanting to open their relationship to CNM. After a 2- month period they were interviewed again.
1/3 of the sample choose to keep their relationship monogamous → Same satisfaction
2/3 choose to engage in CNM → Higher satisfaction
*probably due to compersion their satisfaction increased!
How can compersion be applied?
Applying psychology to the world tells us about our own understanding of psychology.
Compersion can be applied to any area: it is not strictly sexual it can be platonic as well.
dogs eating cake: looking at this image makes me at least very happy.
Not because we want the cake they have, it’s a dog biscuit cake it wouldn’t taste nice.
This is an example, of compersion where we gain pleasure from seeing these dogs in pleasure.
*Thus, this could be applied to many domains of life.
How we approach Jealousy in a relationship….
How we approach Jealousy in a relationship, if we approach it with a lens that see’s jealousy as a protective factor that helps us keep what is perceived to be ours and may be taken from us
Or you could view jealousy as an indicator of poor communication within a relationship about needs, desires and fears which can lead to a maladaptive emotion like jealousy.
Is it probable that we will fall in love with robots?
Yes. It was once thought that same sex marriages and monogamous relationships were the norm. But as we develop as a society, we can see that this is not the case. However, with each of these changes members of these groups have faced discrimination and prejudice for going against societies “norms”.
Define sexual behaviour
Any type of sexual activity that generates pleasure between two or more people.
*It’s a more inclusive term and removes the focus from orgasms which is usually what comes to mind. Pleasure is doing a lot of work in this definition because it’s very subjective (large variations in what people consider pleasurable). To Be a little more specific pleasure includes dopamine, oxytocin/vasopressin and serotonin combination of these neurotransmissions released in your brain.
Attempts to make abstinence a thing:
(A) Evangelical Abstinence
Campaigns:
Trying to “make chastity sexy” using purity rings and the idea that true love is about waiting till or waiting till marriage.
(B) Kellogg's cereal was
developed in order to
promote abstinence by
providing children with a
boring breakfast food to
reduce the chance of
children’s horniess which
they believed to be due to
high sugary foods.
(C) same thing with grahams
crackers which were made
to be to make less sugary
food to prevent children
from being horny all the
time.
**abstinence is not a “cool” position within society.
Sex in the World right now:
perception vs. realtity
(A) there is A LOT of sex in the media right now I.e. game of thrones which had violence and sex within mainstream culture. Family planning gives you free condoms and free checkups in NZ. Similarly, you can get a sexual therapist in NZ. Or in Teen vouge magazines the heading is marketing sex tips to teenagers.
*You may look at this and assume that young people are sexed crazed and having so much sex.
It turns out, is the opposite-
(B) A lot of publications in the world coming out now is talking about:
- the sex recession
- No boose, no sex, no fun- what’s up with millennials?
- Less sex, fewer babies
- America is in a sex draught and here’s why it matters
- it’s definitely on the decline.
Empirical Findings on the current rate of sex in modern society.
> The average age people start having sex is later in life (increasing steadily) > People have fewer sexual partners > People have sex less often (average = 1-2 times per week)
*especially so for adults 14-30 years (millennials and zoomers are having less sex)
(B) NZ Sexual Health Report
(2007 and 2012)
*NZ wide survey in high schoolers asking about sexual behaviors in youth.
2007- 1 in 3 ever had sex. 1 in 4 were currently sexually active.
Within five years in 2012- time achieved more than any sexual campaign ever has in reduce sexual activity in youth. The numbers dropped to 25% ever had sex and 20% currently sexually active.
(5) explanations for why people are having less sex
(A) Stress and Modern Society
A key theory is that in modern society we are running on stress and becoming more and more stressful. Since we have more things going on in our lives, we are seeing fewer long-term relationships because we have other priorities (career, education etc.).
(B) Bad Sex
Maybe the proliferation of sex toys and pornography within society that we maybe overwhelmed by sex and are subsequently having bad sex. Similarly, others question whether the younger generations who are exposed to a lot of pornography by the time the get to actually having sex, the act out what they see and end up having poor sex.
(C) Tinder Tech
Instead of these sites increasing the availability of sex these sites overload people with information on opportunity which ultimately ruins any decisions made.
(D) Self Image
That people’s self-images have changed drastically through the introduction of social media and on average people tend to be very self-critical and have a poor self-image which leads to people having sex less.
(E) Parents (sex) Lives
Parents come from a baby boomer generation. It’s possible that it has nothing to do with millennials sex lives but the fact that baby boomers are a significantly high comparison point. Or that they became helicopter parents who strongly monitored their children’s behaviours and inhibited the chance of them forming sexual relationships.
Gender and Sexuality:
(A) We need to understand sexuality across gender because….
*Men vs women stats)
> There are huge gender differences that exist:
Reported Masturbation frequency- in the last month 75% of men and only 35% of women.
Men tend to express higher approval for casual sex and a higher desire for sex.
Gay men couples report higher frequencies of sex than lesbian women couples.
Men spend an estimated average of 2x – 5x more time than women on pornography and sex toys.
**Key issue is that this gender difference is often falsely reported as in men want sex and women don’t want sex. The difference has nothing to do with gender itself but gender expectations!
What are gender expectations on sexuality?
Alexander & Fisher (2013; replicated in 2013)
This study asked participants to report the number of sexual partners they have had across three different conditions.
Bogus pipeline condition: in which people are asked this question whilst being hooked up to a lie detector machine (they don’t exist it just measure physiological measures of stress).-people tend to tell the truth in this condition.
Anonymous: told that if they answer the question their response will remain completely anonymous (control)
Exposure threat: a researcher stands by the door and they ask you to answer the question and hand it directly to them (highlights that someone may see what you’ve written).
The average is around four in the anonymous or pipeline conditions. A gender difference only emergences once there is an expectation that someone potentially seeing what you’ve written. Indicates that the gender difference found in literature are specifically about self-presentation. Men are seen to present themselves as desiring and having more sex then women. In contrast, women are seen to be more concerned about social desirability there are double standards for expected levels of sexual activity in women and it can be hard to find the “correct” number (not too high or too little).
> Men’s levels stayed statistically the same across conditions
> Womens was higher in the pipeline and lower in the exposure threat condition.
Sexuality and Definitions:
Gender differences as determines by researcher’s definition of sexuality. Previous literature tends to us a definition of sex/sexuality as defined by men (I.e. number of sexual partners).
How long was your last sexual encounter?
> Mode is 15-30 minuets which was most commonly reported by men and women in mixed sex relationships.
> However, is you look at the female same sex relationship’s patterns, they dominate the right side of the graph in 30-45, 45-60, 1-2 hours and 2+ hour sexual encounters.
*if you were to change the definition of sexuality to when you have sex do you go for hours? Same sex women would dominate and be considered more sexual than men, by this definition.
