Unit 4 Relationships Flashcards
Buss
Aim: test if evolutionary theories explain mate preferences across cultures
Procedure: Two translated surveys asking participants to rate or rank characteristics
Results: Women valued good financial prospects more than men, men preferred younger partners, men valued physical attractiveness more than women, men from collectivist cultures valued chastity and domestic skills, women from collectivist cultures valued ambition, status, finances
Graham and Conoley
Aim: Understand the role of attributions in relationships
Procedure: mostly white couples underwent stress measurement, attribution measurement, and marital satisfaction measurement
Results: Stressful events had less of an impact on marital satisfaction if the participant had positive attributions of their partners (moderation/buffering effect)
Levine et. al.
Aim: Investigate cultural differences in the importance of love in marriage
Procedure: Survey on students asking about their attitude on importance of love for marriage, participants from eleven countries
Results: Strong differences in the percieved importance of love between countries. Countries with more importance had higher divorce rates, mostly western/individualistic cultures
Fisher et. al.
Aim: Investigate a link between dopaminergic brain regions and early stages of romantic love
Procedure: Participants placed in an fMRI scanner and shown a picture of their romantic partner, then given a distraction task and a photo of someone they don’t have a connection with
Results: fMRI showed that dopaminergic regions of the brain were the most active when viewing photo of their partner, areas associated with motivation and reward
Gottman and Levenson
Aim: Determine how communication affects marital satisfaction and likelihood of divorce
Procedure: Interviews and observations recorded to analyze facial expressions, couples discussed one neutral, one pleasant, and one unpleasant topics, video analyzed by coding, follow-up to determine who stayed together
Results: Two groups identified: regulated and unregulated. Regulated had more positive interactions and non-regulated were more likely to divorce. Participants who showed the four horsemen characteristics were more likely to divorce
Fincham et. al.
Aim: Measure correlations between attributions and marital satisfaction
Procedure: 130 mostly white couples given questionnaires and test determining marital satisfaction, also attributions were analyzed
Results: Marital satisfaction had a negative correlation with causual attributions at the beginning of the study, persisted after 18 months (negative attributions leads to less marital satisfaction)
Evolutionary theory
Four ideas: humans are driven by need to reproduce, some species are better adapted than others (differential fitness), survival of the fittest, natural selection (Buss)
EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptations)
Historical environment in which a species’ psychological and physical traits evolved (Buss)
Sample representativeness
Sample does not represent certain minority groups (Buss)
Constructive validity
The extent a test or measuring tool actually measures the concept it is trying to measure (Buss)
Biology of love
Attraction is primarily a physiological response, include neurotransmitters and hormones (Fisher and Levine)
Neurotransmitters involved in love
Dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, oxytocin, vasopressin (Fisher and Levine)
Four horsemen theory
Four destructive communication patterns that can predict the end of a relationship (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling) (Gottman and Rehman)
Social penetration theory
Close relationships are formed over time, communication moves from shallow levels to deeper ones, explains how communication can develop close relationships. Orientation, exploratory, affective, stable stages (Gottman and Rehman)
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Something happens because we expect it to (limitation in methodology) (Gottman and Rehman)
Fatal attraction theory
What attracted us to our partner in the first place could be the reason the relationship ends (Fincham)
Hatfield equity theory
Relationships are more likely to endure if both partners feel the relationship is fair (Fincham)
Attribution theory
Attributions (explanations for partners’ behaviors) can impact marital satisfaction (positive attributions = good, negative attributions = bad) (Fincham)
Buffering effect
Certain factors or mechanisms can reduce or mitigate the negative impact of stress or adverse conditions on an individual’s well-being/the relationship (Graham and Conoley)
