Week 10 - Attachment and Love Flashcards
The people we love can be a resource or a burden
Support, companionship, self-regulation OR
Support failures, rejection/neglect, harmful influences
Attachment Theory:
Separation from caregivers produces problems
Children with stable parental relationships develop stable close relationships
Development of attachment system – regulates proximity‐seeking behaviours connecting infants and caregivers
Mary Ainsworth ‐ Strange situation
- Caregiver and child are invited into a novel room.
- Caregiver and child are left alone. Child is free to explore. 523
- Stranger enters, sits down, talks to caregiver, and then tries to engage child in play.
- Caregiver leaves. Stranger and child are alone.
- Caregiver returns for the first reunion, and stranger leaves unobtrusively. Caregiver settles child, if necessary, and then withdraws to a chair in the room.
- Caregiver leaves. Child is alone.
- Stranger returns and tries to settle child, if necessary, and then withdraws to the chair.
- Caregiver returns for the second reunion, and stranger leaves unobtrusively. Caregiver settles child and then withdraws to the chair.
Attachment Styles
Secure
Healthy communication style
Able to ask for help when needed
Can self-regulate emotions
Secure - it is easy for me to become emotionally close
Attachment Styles
Anxious
Clinginess
Fear of abandonment
Needs constant reassurance
Anxious/preoccupied - i want to be emotionally intimate but often find others are reluctant to get close
Attachment Styles
Avoidant
Difficulty expressing emotions
Tends to emotionally withdraw from others
Unwilling to ask for help
Attachment Styles
Disorganized
Incorporates characteristics of anxious and avoidant styles
Fear of rejection but difficulty with intimacy
Low self-worth
Unresolved/disorganized - often related ot trauma - cannot tolerate emotional closeness. Argumentative, abusive, antisocial
Attachment patterns predict functioning many years later
Secure attachment - preschool children adapt better to parental absence and relate to strangers
Insecure attachment - preschool children get tongue-tied with strangers
Long-term outcomes- relationship problems, mental disorders, conduct problems
Secure Adult Attachment
Comfort with emotional closeness, lack of abandonment concern
Successful at recruiting care - better coping
Less intense grief
HIgher physical energy
More able to pursue optimal human functioning
Insecure Attachment
Insecurely attached children seem tongue-tied when communicating with adults, and they had general difficulty relating to their caregivers
long-term consequences of insecure attachment, such as relationship problems, emotional disorders, mental disorders, and conduct problems
adolescents - signs that their parents loved them
adolescents - signs that their parents loved them
researchers found that adolescents as a group viewed encouragement, affection, and instrumental support from their parents as signs that their parents loved them
Certain styles of attachment may also predict the development of compassionate love,
positively predicted by a secure dispositional style as opposed to one that is more avoidant or dismissing
compassionate love appears to affect the relationship between the level of sacredness a couple gives their marriage and the satisfaction they feel in their marriage
researchers looked at couples who viewed their marriage as sacred and found that those high in this perception were higher in compassionate love for one another, and this was strongly related to marital satisfaction
people high in compassionate love may be more compassionate to members of different racial groups and developing compassionate love for this purpose might decrease bias and prejudice
Love
Greek terms, that define this primary emotional experience:
(1) eros, the search for the beautiful;
(2) philia, the affection in friendship;
(3) nomos, submission and obedience to the divine; and
(4) agape, or the bestowal of love by the divine.
What’s the difference between Attachment and Love?
Maybe nothing
Same motivational system and parallel behaviors
Parts of Romantic Love
Romantic love is characterized by intense arousal and warm affection
Passionate love - (the intense arousal that fuels a romantic union) involves a state of absorption between two people that often is accompanied by moods ranging from ecstasy to anguish.
Companionate love - . Companionate love (the soothing, steady warmth that sustains a relationship) is manifested in a strong bond and an intertwining of lives that brings about feelings of comfort and peace
Triangular Theory of love
love is a mix of three components:
(1) passion, or physical attractiveness and romantic drives;
(2) intimacy, or feelings of closeness and connectedness; and
(3) commitment, involving the decision to initiate and sustain a relationship
intimacy and passion combined produce romantic love
intimacy and commitment together constitute companionate love.
Consummate love, the most durable type, is manifested when all three components (passion, intimacy, commitment)
commitment was the best predictor of relationship satisfaction in these opposite-sex relationships, especially for the long-term partnerships
Culture is associated with romantic love behaviors
U.S. participants identified “friendship and comfort love” as a key component of romantic love, these features were nonexistent in the other two samples - russian and Lithuanian
Different cultural practices such as arranged marriages
Value of love in society
Emotional investment
Verbal expressions of love –verbal expression of love, particularly a public declaration of this love, was much less common in Germany when compared with U.S. participants
Physical expressions of love
Men report falling in love more times than women
Perhaps due to definition - unrequited, requited
Intercultural couples in US
How does this relate positive psychology - more research is needed
Minding definition
Knowing and Being Known
“reciprocal knowing process involving the nonstop, interrelated thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of persons in a relationship”
Knowing and Being Known
—-mindfulness is a conscious process - moment-to moment effort.
—each partner in the relationship must want to know the other person’s hopes, dreams, fears, vulnerabilities, and uncertainties.
—-balance between their own self-expression and learning about the other person
Minding
Making Relationship Enhancing Attributions for behaviors
Attributing positive behaviors to dispositional causes and negative behaviors to external, situational causes may be the most adaptive approach to making sense of another person’s behavior
Making charitable attributions (i.e., going beyond the benefit of the doubt; T. Krieshok, personal communication, June 21, 2005) occasionally can resolve conflicts before they become divisive
Minding
Accepting and respecting
requires an empathic connection along with refined social skills
mindful acceptance of personal strengths and weaknesses is necessary for the continued development of the relationship
Minding
Maintaining reciprocity and continuity in minding.
“Each partner’s active participation and involvement in relationship-enhancing thoughts and behavior
A lack of conscious engagement displayed by one partner can lead to frustration or contempt on the part of the other partner - require planning and strategizing to become closer as the relationship matures.
Flourishing Relationships
The Benefits of Marriage?
But wait….correlation does not equal causation!!
Happy people may be more likely to be married ◦
Happiness peaks right before marriage (Clark et al., 2008)
Happiness in marriage vs. cohabitation
No differences (Perelli-Harris, 2019)
The Benefits of Marriage Happy Long-Term Relationships
Marriage increases long-term happiness
Lower risk of disease – cardiovascular, respiratory
Living a long life (Terman study: Tucker et al., 1996)
Those who stayed married (and those who never married!)
The Gottmans’ Love Lab
Studied thousands of married couples and can now predict relationship success with 91% accuracy!
They have a “Love Lab” and ask couples to engage in a 15-minute conversation.
The Magic Ratio is 5 positive interactions to 1 negative interaction.
Healthy = 5:1
Unhealthy = 1:1
“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”
1 - Criticism – verbal attacks of personality or character.
“You always talk about yourself. Why are you so selfish?”
2 - Defensiveness – victimizing yourself to avoid attack and reverse blame
“It’s not my fault we’re late. It’s your fault because you always get ready at the last second. “
3 - Contempt – attacking sense of self with an intent to insult
“You forgot to load the dishwasher again. Ugh. You are so lazy. (rolls eyes)”
4 - Stonewalling – withdrawing to avoid conflict and convey disapproval
Creating a Culture of Appreciation
Gottman’s “Sound relationship house” theory has guided his work
His theory led to the notion that sharing appreciation honours partner’ contributions ◦
—The partner receives appreciation positively
—-Appreciation prevents contempt
The Takeaway? Say thanks to your partner.
Thanks for taking out the garbage.
Thanks for making coffee.
Thanks for your big contribution
Forgiveness - McCullough (1998; 2000): Prosocial motivation
Less desire for avoidance; less desire to harm or seek revenge
Increased desire to act positively
Enright (1998): Abandon resentment and cultivate compassion
defined forgiveness as “a willingness to abandon one’s right to resentment, negative judgment, and indifferent behavior toward one who unjustly hurt us, while fostering the undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity, and even love toward him or her”
crucial that the forgiving person develop a benevolent stance toward the transgressing person
Tangney (1999):
Cognitive-affective transformation
Victim assesses the harm
Victim “cancels the debt”
Victim cancels the negative emotions
Individual removes him/herself from the victim role
Forgiveness parallels the stages of recovery from psychological trauma.
impact stage 1
To a search for meaning or understanding of what happened to them.
there is typically a rampage of negative emotions—hurt, fear, and anger. At this time, the partners may swing from numbness to very bad feelings
Forgiveness parallels the stages of recovery from psychological trauma.
meaning stage 2
the partners search desperately to comprehend why the affair happened
Forgiveness parallels the stages of recovery from psychological trauma.
Recovery stage, in which they “get on with their lives”
Last, the couple slowly begins to recapture a sense of control over their lives; a major goal in this stage is to keep the affair from ruling every waking thought of these two people
Cultivating Forgiveness: Forgiving Another Person
Gordon and colleagues (2004, 2005) therapy experiences with couples dealing with forgiveness as a result of infidelities
Sell (2016) studied intentional forgetting
Requires perspective taking and empathy
Gordon and colleagues (2004, 2005) therapy experiences with couples dealing with forgiveness as a result of infidelities
Promote a realistic appraisal of the relationship
Release negative affect/rumination toward the violating partner
Help the victimized partner lessen their desire to punish
Sell (2016) studied intentional forgetting
More likely to forgive Parallels to stages of psychological trauma
Impact to search for meaning to recovery
Cultivating Forgiveness: Forgiving Oneself
Required when feeling shame or guilt
Shame: I am bad
Guilt: I did something bad
To correct for such guilt, some sort of reparative action is warranted, such as confessing or apologizing
Cultivating Forgiveness: Forgiving Oneself
Jacinto and Edwards (2011) outline four therapeutic stages:
Recognition - refers to the awareness of the individual that self-forgiveness is justified.
Responsibility - the stage of responsibility is a basic “owning” of the transgressions the individual feels they have committed
Expression- an active emotion-approach stage in which the individual works on expressing the emotions related to the incident and dialogs about these feelings.
Recreating - helps individuals create a new self-image that acknowledges the past but looks toward and informs the future
Cultivating Forgiveness: Forgiving of a Situation
Forgiveness can be applied to non-people
Example: tornadoes
Stop thoughts about
negative life events and look ahead toward future
Research examining forgiveness of abusive partner (Gordon et al., 2004) showed that forgiveness led to returning to the violent situation
Forgiveness doesn’t always lead to positive outcomes!
Maladaptive behavior from self-forgiveness
Smokers forgave themselves for smoking – they continued to smoke! (Wohl & Thompson, 2011)
forgiveness represents a process that has an adaptive evolutionary advantage in that it helps to preserve the social structure.
First, by necessity, forgiveness involves a person’s sense of self because it is this source that is damaged during transgression by another.
Injury to the self is registered via sensorimotor input, and this input is mediated by the limbic system, the sympathetic nervous system, and the hypothalamus
Third, initiation of the reconciliation process by the person transgressed against involves activation of the temporal, parietal, and frontal lobes, along with limbic system input. Some research suggests that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex plays a key role when deciding to forgive a deception
the actual outward direction of the forgiveness occurs through the limbic system and is associated with positive emotions.
Individual and Cultural Variations in Forgiveness
There may be differences in defining forgiveness
Pardoning or moving on (Ballester et al., 2009)
Might be developmental process
The older you are, the more likely you are to forgive (Steiner et al., 2011, 2012)
Harmony can dictate forgiveness
Collectivist norms dictate forgiveness, even in situations where Westerners would be unlikely to forgive (Paz et al., 2008)
Religiosity; varies by culture
In religions, ‘forgive and forget’ go hand in hand
In psychology, that’s not true. We can forgive without reconciliation (Frise & McMinn, 2010)
Forgiveness and its Outcomes
Less rumination, less depression, less narcissistic entitlement
More longevity
Satisfaction and relationship maintenance
Final note: forgiveness has many benefits, but consequences may not always be positive. We are cautioned to look carefully at the situation before employing forgiveness strategies.
those who forgive are said to be less ruminative, are less depressed, and possess less narcissistic entitlement
longevity is also associated with practicing forgiveness, as is satisfaction within relationships
consequences of forgiveness may not always be positive
