Week 3- Lust, love, attachment and marriage Flashcards
What drives mating behaviour
Sexual desire
What is sexual desire
Involves both imagination and pleasurable physical sensations. An innate, motivational force shaped by environmental and relationship factors
Why have sex?
Study of texan students found four underlying reasons
1- Emotional- a communication of love and commitment
2- Physical- Physical pleasure gained and physical attractiveness of potential partner
3- Pragmatic: Wish to attain some goal (pregnancy or venegeance)
4- Insecurity- Desire to boost one’s self esteem
What are the influences on sexual desire?
Biologica (illness/drugs) l, motivational (previous sexual history) and cognitive (fear or preg)
On average, how many times do men and women think about sex?
Men- 60 a week
Women- 15 a week
At the beginning of the relationship women are the gatekeepers- Men want sex sooner
What is the impact on sexual desire over time for women and emotional support
Decrease in sexual desire over time associated with lack of confiding relationship and insufficient emotional support from partner.
What are universal preferences for men and women in mates
Kindness, loyalty, emotional stability
What are male specific preferences
Youth and physical attractiveness.
What are female specific preferences
Status and resources
Why do men and women differ in mating preferences
Sexual strategies theory- Women need to be highly selective about mating- few reproductive opportunities. Need to ensure potential mate has resources and willingness to commit
Men are less fussy- should be especially attracted to youth and health (fertile)
What to men value in mating preferences?
Men value sexual experience in short-term but not long term mate. They are more included to casual and extra marital sex than woman.
Men have more sexual fantasies than women and with different content.
What is serial monogamy
Trade in the old wives as male income increases
What is computer dating as a function of male wealth?
computer dating- as men’s income rises, they request younger women
Social power implication for women
As women increasingly control their own resources, their preferences should become more like men’s- e.g. cougar. However women still prefer to marry up
Who has the most active sex lives
Gay men
What do gay men and lesbians prefer?
gay men can pursue quantity of sex (as heterosexual men tend to prefer) while lesbians can pursue emotional connection (as heterosexual women tend to prefer)
Same-sex attracted individuals are still following evolved mating strategies
What is the mating stategies linked with evolutionary psych
Better for most men to invest in one or two women and raise offspring successfully. However, men need to be able to guarantee they are biological fathers of their offspring.
What are women’s reproductive interests
Women opt for good genes in the short term while in a committed long term mate ship.
What is the evidence that women stray?
Timing of women’s affairs- more perfume, jewellry, dressing up
Long term partners are more attention to wives at ovulation
Is there a preference for babies that look like their fathers?
Yes- men prefer babies that physically look like them.
What is love?
A social relationship between people who many experience many different emotions towards one another at different times
What is Sternberg’s triangular model of love?
Three major factors
1- intimacy (emotional closeness)
2- passion (sexual desire)
3- Commitment (the ‘cognitive’ aspect of love)
What are the seven love types that the triangle produces?
Nonlove “refers simply to the absence of all three components of love.
Liking/friendship- One feels closeness, bondedness, and warmth toward the other, without feelings of intense passion or long-term commitment.”
“infatuation results from the experiencing of passionate arousal in the absence of intimacy and decision/commitment.
Empty love is characterized by commitment without intimacy or passion
Romantic love “derives from a combination of the intimate and passionate components of love without commitment
Companionate love is an intimate, non-passionate type of love that is stronger than friendship because of the element of long-term commitment.
Passion & commitment without intimacy = fatuous (foolish) love
Consummate love is the complete form of love,
What is limerence?
Romantic love lights up the anterior cingulate in the brain – photo evidence (Zeki, 2000)
Hormones associated with love – PEA
Produces an amphetamine-like ‘high’ – some become addicted to this feeling
What does the study on divorce rates demonstrate about limerance?
Helen Fisher’s work on divorce rates around the world (62 countries)
Commonly in the 4th year of marriage
Especially in marriages without children
But end of limerent phase not necessarily the end of a deep and enduring pairbond, especially if intimacy and attachment have developed
Why do people fall in love?
It takes a long time to bring up human offspring – parents need to love children
And companionate love keeps parents together long enough to do it
Babies need attachment to survive- how was this tested?
Harlow’s monkey experiments: testing the ‘cupboard love’ theory (1950s)
Baby monkeys craved contact comfort, not just milk
Overwhelmingly, the infant macaques preferred spending their time clinging to the cloth mother.[9] Even when only the wire mother could provide nourishment, the monkeys visited her only to feed.
Describe the three biological systems of integration
Attachment- desire to bond from birth
Sexual- desire for sexual union- kicks in during adolescence
Caregiving- desire to nuture from childhood
