Attraction and Relationships

I. The Need To Belong A. Affiliation Need: a motivation to reach out and bond with other people in relationships. We actively select people that will provide positive and ongoing interactions. B. Ostracism: exclusion, by general consent, from social acceptance, privileges, friendship, etc. II. Attraction I. Proximity: we are more likely to develop relationships with people who live near us and become familiar to us than people who live far away or do not become familiar to us.

A.Mere Exposure Effect: the more often we see someone or something new, the more likely we are to start to like that person or thing.

The Man in The Big Black Bag! A female stranger attends a class again & again & again.

II. Similarity A. Do Opposites Attract? B. Complementarity: when two people in a relationship value the same thing, but one struggles to exhibit behavior consistent with what he or she values. The person that struggles benefits from the other person who does not struggle. C. Personality Traits: mental, emotional, temperamental, and behavioral traits, or attributes.

D. The Big Five Personality Traits… 1) Neuroticism: the tendency to experience emotional instability: anxiety, hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness, and vulnerability very easily. 2) Extraversion: the tendency to seek stimulation and enjoy the company of other people. 3) Agreeableness: the tendency to be trusting and compassionate rather than distrustful of and antagonistic towards others. 4) Conscientiousness: the tendency to show self-discipline, to be reliable, and to strive for competence and achievement. 5) Openness to Experience: the tendency to enjoy new experiences and new ideas.

III. Liking Those Who Like Us A. Self-Esteem and Liking B. Disliking then Liking C. Association and Liking

IV. Physical Attractiveness A. Attractiveness and Dating

B. The Matching Phenomenon: the tendency for men and women to choose as partners those who are a “good match” in attractiveness and other traits. C. The Physical-Attractiveness Stereotype: we perceive attractive people to be healthier, happier, more sensitive, more successful, and more socially skilled. What is beautiful is good. D. Attractiveness and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

E. Who is Attractive? 1) Differences across time and cultures… 2) Similarities across time and cultures… High attractiveness ratings that are associated with female faces: Large eyes, Small nose, Small chin, Prominent cheekbones, Narrow cheeks, High eyebrows, Big smile High attractiveness ratings that are associated with male faces: Large eyes, Prominent cheekbones, Large chin, Big smile Dilated Pupils… The Big Giveaway! Symmetry

3) The Misattribution of Arousal 4) Social Comparison After seeing more attractive members of the opposite sex, we tend to judge less attractive members of the opposite sex to be even less attractive. After seeing more attractive members of the same sex, we tend to judge ourselves to be even less attractive members of our sex than if we hadn’t been exposed to more attractive members of our sex. 5) The Attractiveness of Those We Love

III. Sex A. Freud and Personality 1) Id: the part that is comprised of all of our biological drives that demand immediate gratification. 2) Ego: the rational, negotiating, and decision-making component of the personality. 3) Superego: the internalized values and rules we receive from our parents and society.

B. Freud and Relationship Defense Mechanisms 1) Fantasy: gratifying frustrated desires in imaginary achievements (“daydreaming” is a common form). 2) Identification: increasing feelings of worth by identifying self with another person or institution, often of illustrious standing. 3) Isolation: cutting off emotional charge from hurtful situations. 4) Humor: the comical expression of negative ideas and feelings that gives pleasure to others. The thoughts retain a portion of their innate distress, but they are “skirted round” by witticism.

C. Sexual Identity: achieved by seeing oneself as a sexual being, recognizing one's sexual orientation, coming to terms with sexual desires, and forming romantic or sexual attachments. D. Sexual Orientation: the focus of consistent sexual, romantic, and affectionate interest, either heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. E. Sexual Imagery F. Sexual Fantasizing G. Sexual Variety

Differences between men and women regarding preferences for various sexual acts.

Desired Number of Sexual Partners Over the Course of One’s Lifetime

H. Evolutionary Sexology: men are primarily attracted to women’s appearance; women are primarily attracted to men’s resources; because these foster reproductive success. I. Sexual Attitudes 1) Reproductive: attitude concerning sex that sex is permissible only for reproductive purposes within marriage. 2) Traditional: attitude concerning sex that sex is permissible only within marriage. 3) Relational: attitude concerning sex that sex should be accompanied by love or affection, but not necessarily marriage. 4) Recreational: attitude concerning sex that whatever feels good and doesn’t hurt anyone is fine. Nymphomania: abnormally excessive and uncontrollable sexual desire in women. Satyriasis: abnormally excessive and uncontrollable sexual desire in men.

IV. Love A. Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love 1) Intimacy: the emotional element of love, involving self-disclosure, which leads to connection, warmth and trust. 2) Passion: the motivational element of love, based on inner drives that translate physiological arousal into sexual desire. 3) Commitment: the cognitive element of love, the decision to love and stay with the beloved.

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

B. Sternberg’s Seven Forms of Love 0) Non-Love: the absence of all three of Sternberg's components of love. 1) Liking: true friendships in which a person feels a bond, a warmth, and a closeness with another but not intense passion or long-term commitment. Women tend to have fewer friends than do men, but are very close with those friends. Men tend to have more friends than do women, but are less intimate with those friends. 2) Infatuation: pure passion; romantic relationships often start out as infatuation and become romantic love as intimacy develops over time.

3) Empty Love: characterized by commitment without intimacy or passion; sometimes a stronger love deteriorates into empty love. 4) Fatuous Love: (a.k.a. dumb love) can be exemplified by a whirlwind courtship and marriage in which a commitment is motivated largely by passion without the stabilizing influence of intimacy. 5) Romantic (Passionate) Love: an intense longing for a person fueled by intimate feelings and accompanied by physiological arousal; when our love is reciprocated, we feel great fulfillment and ecstasy, but when it is not, we feel sadness and despair.

6) Companionate Love: an intimate, non-passionate type of love that we feel when we care deeply for a person; it is stronger than friendship because of the element of long-term commitment. 7) Consummate Love: is the complete form of love, representing an ideal relationship toward which people strive (a.k.a. the perfect couple). Romantic (Passionate) Love between partners in arranged or love marriages in India.

C. What We’re Looking For in a Long-Term Loving Relationship U.S. men and women desire the same top 5 characteristics in a marriage partner. 1) Mutual Attraction (Love) 2) Emotional Stability and Maturity 3) Dependable Character 4) Pleasing Disposition 5) Education and Intelligence A couple of interesting differences in rankings… Ambition and Industriousness: Men = 11; Women = 6 Good Financial Prospects: Men = 16; Women = 11 Good Looks: Men = 7; Women = 13 D. Positive Illusions in Romantic Relationships

V. What Enables Close Relationships? A. Attachment Depending on our level of self-esteem and interpersonal trust, we may develop one of four possible attachment styles… 1) Secure Attachment Style: involves high self-esteem and high interpersonal trust. This style is the most desirable and leads to very positive outcomes, including enduring and rewarding relationships throughout life. 2) Fearful-Avoidant Attachment Style: involves low self-esteem and low interpersonal trust. This is the “least adaptive” style in that relationships are either avoided or are unhappy.

3) Preoccupied Attachment Style: involves low self-esteem and high interpersonal trust. This style leads to a very strong motive to establish relationships coupled with a fear of rejection. 4) Dismissive Attachment Style: involves high self-esteem and low interpersonal trust. This is a conflicted style in that an individual feels deserving of a good relationship, but is suspicious of possible partners.

B. Self-Disclosure: revealing important information about oneself to another. 1)Disclosure Reciprocity: the tendency for one person’s intimacy or self-disclosure to match that of a conversational partner. C. Online Relationships… The Costs and the Benefits 1) Friends 2) Lovers Love: An overlapping of selves. You become part of me and I become part of you.

D. Exchange/Equity Relationships: we seek relationships with people with whom we feel we can make equitable transactions of goods and services and that the rewards and costs experienced are roughly equal. 3) Comparison Level: people’s expectations about the level of rewards and punishments they are likely to receive in a particular relationship. 4) Comparison Level for Alternatives: people’s expectations about the level of rewards and punishments they would receive in an alternative relationship. E. Communal Relationships: relationships in which people’s primary concern is being responsive to the other person’s needs. 1) Overbenefited: getting a lot of rewards, incurring few costs, having to devote little time or energy to the relationship. 2) Underbenefited: getting few rewards, incurring a lot of costs, having to devote a lot of time and energy to the relationship.

F. Investment Model: the theory that people’s commitment to a relationship depends not only on their satisfaction with the relationship in terms of rewards, costs, and comparison levels but also on how much they have invested in the relationship that would be lost by leaving it. In sum, to predict whether people will stay in an intimate relationship, we need to know: 1) How satisfied they are with the relationship. 2) What they think of the alternatives. 3) How great is their investment in the relationship.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

VI. When Relationships End A. Jealousy 1) Several investigators have suggested that jealousy is rooted in low self-esteem or insecurities about self-worth. 2) Males seem less likely to admit they feel jealous but are more likely to express anger with themselves or toward the rival. 3) Females are more likely to react with depression and with attempts to make themselves more attractive to the partner. B. Infidelity 1) Males exhibit more distress to sexual than to emotional infidelity, while females exhibit more distress to emotional rather than to sexual infidelity.

C. People who are moderately happy or unhappy in their marriages are significantly less happy in their lives than those who are very happy in their marriages.

D. Responses to Relationship Distress Destructive Responses… 1) Exit (active): end the relationship. 2) Neglect (passive): ignore the partner and allow the relationship to deteriorate. Constructive Responses… 1) Voice (active): take active steps to improve relationship. 2) Loyalty (passive): wait for conditions to improve.