Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Close Relationships
- Evolutionary perspectives on relationships
- Evolutionary fitness
- Ability to pass on your genes
and survive mating years
- Reproductive investment
- Sex with the most
reproductive costs
= choosier
- Sexual choosiness
- Least cost = more
partners, competition and
more physical variation
- Human mating
- Polygamy
- Polygyny
- Polyandry
- Many males with one female
- Many females with one male
- 90% of mammals
- Monogamy
- Reproductive partnership
based on a permanent tie
- Usually have less
sexual dimorphism
- Biological basis of monogamy
- Co-occurence of oxytocin and
dopamine in nucleus accumbens
- Dopamine
- Reward neurotransmitter
- Oxytocin
- "attachment" hormone
- All 5% of monogamous animals
share this anatomical feature
- There are no oxytocin receptors
in polygamous animals
- Homosexuality
- Widely displayed
among animals
- Young adulthood
- more polygamy
- Mid 20's - more
monogamy
- Need to belong
- Motivation of belonging
- Human survival tactics require more people
- Children are helpless for many years
- People with strong social networks
are healthier and happier
- Sociometer theory
- Self esteem is a gauge of
interpersonal relationships
- Social isolation
- Long term isolation is
a form of punishment
in society
- Harlow's monkeys
- After 3 months - huddle alone, rocking, self
mutilation, abusive parentlng.
- Attachment theory
- Infant attachment
- How infants become emotionally
attached to caregiver and become
emotionally distressed at loss of
caregiver
- Provides a "secure
base" for exploring
- Imprinting
- Basic form of attachment
bond, shortly after birth
- Must occur within the
sensitive period
- Adult attachment
- Prefers proximity
- Turn to partner for support
- Use partner as a
secure base
- Attachment styles
- Measured through:
- Attachment avoidance
- Attachment anxiety
- Secure attachment
- 56% - trust, friendship,
positive emotions
- Believe in enduring love, trust.
- Self is likeable
- Caregivers were responsive and caring
- Anxious-ambivalent
- 19% - love is preoccupying, merge with
someone else
- Falls in love easily,
has self doubts
- Mixture of positive and
negative experiences
from caregivers
- Avoidant
- Fear of closeness
and lack of trust
- Doubtful of existence of love
- Self is independant
- Caregivers are cold and rejecting
- Fearful vs. dismissive avoidant
- Closeness
- Cognitive component
- Self expansion theory
- Information about close others
are closely associated with self
related information
- More situational attributes for self
and close other
- Longer reaction times when
making me/not me judgements
of spouse's characteristics
- Interdependant
theory/investment model
- Components of commitment are:
- Satisfaction
- Quality of alternatives
- Resource investment
- Reward/cost ratio
- Ratio of positive feedback to
negative feedback that
partners give in a relationship
- Flourish - 5.1 positive/negative
- Divorce - 0.77 positive/negative
- Commitment = high satisfaction
+ low quality of alternatives +
high resource investment
- When commitment is high = more
use of plural pronouns
- Affective component
- Companionate love
- Feelings of intimacy we feel when
we care deeply for a person,
without sexual arousal
- Can exist between lovers or friends
- Passionate love
- Feelings of intense longing for a person,
accompanied with physiological arousal
- Positive illusions
- Idealization of close others, seeing them as more
positive than they see themselves
- Couples who maintain positive illusions
have less conflict and are more satisfied
- Behavioural component
- Cooperative dilemmas
- When one partners behaves destructively, it
is better to focus on long term goals than
short, self serving goals
- Relationship dissolution
- What couples do well
- Marriage stability correlates with:
- Married after age 20
- Grew up in 2 parent homes
- Dated but did not live together
- Frequent sex, rare arguments
- Novel experiences
- Sharing new experiences and exploration of
environment with partner as secure base
- Why relationships fail
- Low equity
- Lack of positive illusions
- Low interdependance
- How relationships fail
- Friendships - use "passive strategies" - ignoring the person
- Romantic - use direct confrontation
- Rejection
- Brain during social rejection
- Neurological experience of physical pain
- Anterior cingulate cortex - associated with distress
signal during physical pain
- Right ventral prefrontal cortex - associated with
regulation and inhibition of felt pain.
- Tylenol participant reported less
hurt feelings than placebo