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Interpersonal Attraction. Close Relationships. Love . Most people in the United States today believe that love is essential for a successful marriage. In the U.S., love is seen as more important today than it was in the 1960s.
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Love • Most people in the United States today believe that love is essential for a successful marriage. • In the U.S., love is seen as more important today than it was in the 1960s. • Romantic love is seen as more important in individualistic cultures than it is in collectivist cultures.
Love • The experience of romantic love differs from person to person, culture to culture, and over historical time. • Most of the studies have been done on young white middle-class adults in the U.S., so we need to be cautious about generalizing.
What is love? • There seem to be multiple kinds of love; different scales to measure these have been developed in the past decade. • Companionate love is the feelings of intimacy and affection we feel for another person when we care deeply for the person, but do not necessarily experience passion or arousal in his or her presence. • Passionate love is the feelings of intense longing, accompanied by physiological arousal, we feel for another person; when our love is reciprocated, we feel great fulfillment and ecstasy, but when it is not, we feel sadness and despair.
Passionate Love Wildly emotional Uncontrollable Physiological arousal Preoccupation with other Idealization of other Strikes suddenly, fades quickly Companionate Love Affection we feel for those w/whom our lives are intertwined Trust Caring Tolerance Develops slowly, basis for enduring relationship Love
Love: Thoughts • Three basic themes: • Attachment • Caring • Trust & Self-Disclosure Rubin (1970, 1973)
Love: Behaviors • Verbal expressions, e.g., “I love you.” • Physical expression, e.g., hug & kiss • Verbal self-disclosure • Nonverbal display of happiness near other • Material signs, e.g., presents, helping • Nonmaterial signs, e.g., encouragement, interest, respect • Making sacrifices to maintain the relationship
Close Relationships: Defining Love Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love • Sternberg developed the triangular theory of love i.e. different kinds of love consist of varying degrees of three components: • intimacy, • passion, • commitment.
Sternberg's Love Triangle • Commitment:The cognitive aspect of love. • In this stage the two people involved in the relationship have decisions made on the length of the relationship, whether the relationship is short-term or long-term. • Intimacy:Intimacy involves a more emotional aspect of love. • This is where sharing communcation and mutual support are assessed in the relationship. • A sense of closeness and togetherness are established. • Passion: This involves a more motivational aspect of love. • This is where the physical attributes of the people involved come into play, and romantic passion is established.
To get a better visual sense of this theory, imagine commitment, intimacy, and compassion each having an equal side of the triangle. • If the people involved in the r/ship combine different aspects of the triangle, the results show different ways of loving. • Non love : NOT- having commitment, intimacy/ passion. • Empty love : Have only commitment. • Infatuation : Have only passion. • Companionate love : Have commitment & intimacy, but not passion • Fatuous love : Have commitment &passion, but not intimacy. • Romantic love : Have intimacy and passion, but not passion. • Consummate love : Have intimacy, passion, and commitment. This is the best kind of love having all components of the triangle.
Jealousy • a reaction to perceived threat to the continuity or quality of a relationship • More likely to be jealous are people who are • Highly dependent • Have few alternative relationships • More insecure
Jealousy • Sex Differences • Men get more jealous of sexual infidelity • “paternity certainty” threatened • Women get more jealous of emotional infidelity • Fear of loss of resource support for rearing offspring • Much but not all work supports an evolutionary interpretation
Adult Romantic Attraction • Secure, Avoidant, Anxious/Ambivalent • The proportion of adults classified these ways is similar to the proportion of infants • However, unlike with children, adult attachments are reciprocal, between peers, and sexual.
Adult Romantic Attraction • Many theorists believe that infant attachment to caregivers provides a “working model” for adult relationships. • There is some evidence for continuity. • However, attachment style may change if a person has a significant attachment-related event (e.g., divorce, abuse, etc.)
Adult Romantic Attraction • In general, people with a secure attachment style have more satisfying, committed, close, and well-adjusted relationships than avoidant people. • Secure people are more responsive to their partner’s needs than avoidant or anxious people.
Ending Intimate Relationships: The Process of Breaking Up • Recently, researchers have started to look at what drives people to end relationships and the processes involved in breaking up a relationship.
The Process of Breaking Up • Duck (1982) theorizes that there are four stages involved in the dissolution of a relationship: • intrapersonal (focusing on dissatisfaction) • dyadic (revealing these to the partner) • social (announcing the breakup to others) • back to intrapersonal (devising accounts of the breakup as we recover from it).
The Experience of Breaking Up Akert (1998) and others find that the role people play in a breakup is a key determinant of how they feel about it: breakees were most upset, breakers least, and mutuals in the middle. Women experienced somewhat more negative emotions than men. When the breakup is mutual, partners are more likely to remain friends after the relationships has ended.
