Welcome to lesson seventeen, module two, liking and loving. In
lesson seventeen, module one we discussed attraction, now we’re going to
discuss relationships more specifically.
Let’s move to slide two and begin. Inter dependence theory has three
components, a comparison level, your current outcome and your
alternatives. Typically graphs on a vertical axis. You can quantify
these in whatever way you feel is appropriate. On a 10 point scale, a
100 point scale, whatever number you like. What you typically do is ask
people where they would rate their current relationship. Then ask them
where they would rate the alternative, that is, if you weren’t in this
relationship, what would be the next best relationship situation for
you. In some cases that might be being single. You then rate that in
terms of how positive or negative it would be on this scale. The top of
the scale would indicate a more positive relationship and the bottom a
more negative one. We then asked them, "What do you think you can
reasonably expect from a relationship in terms of your satisfaction?" and
what you find is they typically will set their comparison level again
somewhere on this scale. The pattern, that is which item is above which
other item, constitutes satisfaction and independence. Your outcomes
minus your comparison level is how satisfied you are. In this case, with
the comparison level above the outcome, you would have a negative satisfaction
score or dissatisfaction. The difference between your outcome and your
alternatives or outcome minus alternatives is equal to dependence. If
your current outcome is better than your next best alternative, then
your dependent on that relationship. You can then see that it is very
possible that someone who’s quite dissatisfied with their relationship
feels entirely dependent on that relationship. This is one theory that
explains why perhaps people stay in domestic violence situations.
Let’s move on to slide three. What can we do to keep our partners in
relationships and what do people often do. Well given the theory, one
thing you can do is make sure that the alternatives stay lower than
outcomes. Make sure that your partner is dependent on a relationship. We
often do this by derogating alternatives. For example if we see an
attractive person walk by while we’re with our partner, we may make a
point of derogating that attractive person, especially if that person is
someone we think our partner might be interested in. Attacking that
persons car, walk, clothes, anything, simply to make sure our partner
doesn’t see that person as a viable alternative. A more severe measure
that’s often used by men who engage in patriarchal terrorism and
domestic violence situations includes telling a partner that her
comparison level is very low, she couldn’t deserve anyone better, no one
really has a better relationship, especially given that she’s worthless
and so on. Where does that comparison level come from? The comparison
level takes into account your parents relationship, all the
relationships your friends have, relationships you’ve seen on the media,
and what you believe you can reasonably expect given your place in the
world. If, given a theory, you’re not dependent on a relationship. That
is your alternative is above your current outcome and so obviously
increase your satisfaction and commit to that alternative. The theory
says you would then immediately proceed to the next better alternative.
Now remember all of these components are perceived, not objective, and
it's the person in the relationship perception, not outsiders. So people who
try to help women out of domestic violence situations often try to
explain that they do have alternatives, that we may not be evaluating
that alternative in the same way that the women inside the relationship
is.
Let’s move on to slide four. How do you know if it’s love? Much research
has been done trying to quantify love or trying to come up with a list
of things that people who are in love typically do. And the list is
quite long, as you can see. The first symptom is intrusive thinking,
that is, even while you’re doing other things that are completely
unrelated to your partner or the loved one, you continue to think about
your relationship with them. Idealization is the second. This is when
you believe your partner has some ideal qualities and whatever flaws
they have you dismiss or you feel that they might even be endearing in
some way. Third you have inclusion of other and self. There’s actually a
scale that measures this. If you ask people to draw two circles, one
representing themselves and one the partner. The closer the circles are
and the more overlap between the circles, the more likely they are to be
committed and in a love relationship. We’ll also talk about some studies
that explore sacrifice. Your willingness to sacrifice your own
well-being for the sake of your partner. And these can be small
sacrifices. For example, choosing to eat the bad entrée as opposed to
having your partner go ahead and eat it while you enjoy a good entrée at
a restaurant. We also know the symptomology of those reporting to be in
love include unstable psychophysiological responses, longing for emotional
union over sexual union, desire for sexual exclusivity and ultimately
emotional dependence.
Let’s move to slide five. Sternberg has the triangle theory of
love. It has three components; passion, intimacy and commitment. What
you can see here is that each kind of love is made up of one or two or
even three of these kinds of love, these components. When you have a
relationship based entirely on passion, we typically refer to that as
infatuation. If it’s based only on intimacy, that is there is no passion
nor commitment, we call that liking. If you have both passion and
intimacy, we typically call those romantic love and it has become a
western ideal, it’s very culturally specific. In some cases, we have only intimacy and commitment, we call that companionate love. The
passion has died out, the people still remain together. And then there’s
also commitment and passion. Very little intimacy in these
relationships. We call that fatuous love. When you have all three of
these together, we have actually the western ideal which is Consummate
Love, that is that you would have both passion, intimacy and commitment
in order to have an ideal relationship. Again this theory is very
American and very westernized.
Let’s move on to slide six. When discussing relationships, we can also
talk about attachment style. For those of you who have taken
developmental psychology, you should recognize these. The idea here is
that in childhood and in previous relationships, we develop a positive
or negative image of others and a positive or negative image of
the self. People who are securely attached tend to display low
anxiety, they’re not avoidant and they get involved in relationships.
These are people that are great communicators, they’re not afraid to
talk about issues, they aren’t anxious and they’re not afraid that the
relationship will end just because they bring up an issue. You have a
positive image of others, expect that they will be treated well, and
also have a positive image of themselves. Those who have a positive
image of others, but a negative self-image tend to be preoccupied.
They’re highly anxious, they’re not avoidant, they’re willing to
discuss their problems. They do get involved in relationships, but they
tend to be very anxious about the relationship ending. They’re afraid
that they aren’t worthy of the person or the other. When you have a
negative image of others and a positive self-image, we call this the
dismissing attachment style. Here again you have low anxiety, but you
don’t really trust others, so you avoid them, very hesitant to get
involved in relationships in this style. You have a negative self-image
and a negative image of others, this is called a fearful attachment
style. You will often display high anxiety, avoid others and be hesitant
to get involved in relationships. Often people think that an ideal
relationship is one where we don’t have to discuss issues, but the
research indicates that secures tend to have longer lasting relationships and
report more relationship satisfaction primarily because they’re willing
to discuss the issues that come up in any relationship.
Let’s move on to slide seven. Knee, in 1998, developed two theories of
the ways in which people approach relationships; the destiny versus
growth orientation. Those who have a destiny orientation tend to avoid
conflict. They believe if it’s meant to be, all should go well and there
shouldn’t be conflict in their relationship. These people will often
initiate break up at the first sign of problems and at the end they will
believe it was all a mistake. Perhaps it was meant to be that we were
together for a short time, but we were not meant to be over the long
term. Those with the growth orientation, take a more long term approach.
They tend to cultivate the relationship, they tend to develop coping
strategies for dealing with conflict. They’re very into talking about
problems and analyzing relationships and never see a relationship as a
mistake. People who have this orientation tend to have very satisfying
relationships that last over the long term.
Let’s move on to slide eight. Relationships develop over time from
exchange to communal. They typically start as exchange relationships and
this applies not only to romantic relationships, but friendships and
work relationships as well. That is, when you first move in with a
roommate, you may decide that you’re going to have an exchange
relationship, you keep track of who owes whom what, you make sure that
you’re only buying your half of the laundry detergent and dishwashing
detergent and only doing your part of the housework. However, over time
as you begin to like that person, it may develop into communal, that is
eventually you quit keeping track of the dollars and cents and assume
that given that you’re both fair people, it will come out even in the
end. However, right before you’re going to break up, the lease ends or
there’s some sort of dissolution to the relationship, people will often
shift back to exchange and try to settle the score in some instance,
balance the checkbook, if you will.
Let’s move on to slide nine. What about sex. It’s an important part of
most romantic relationships, Buss & Schmitt in 1993 asked people
when would be an appropriate time to have sex, so if the conditions were
right, would you consider having sexual intercourse with someone you
viewed as desirable if you knew the person for an hour, a day, a month,
six months, two years or five years. At five years, everyone says
they’re pretty willing to have sex with that person, provided they’re
desirable and the conditions are right. The same thing for two years,
very close between men and women. However, the six months, one month,
one day and one hour, men are much more willing to say yes whereas women
are much more willing to say no, they are not willing to have sex with
that person.
Let’s move on to slide ten. Clark and Hatfield in 1989, they did a
similar study trying to determine which kind of offer men and women would
take. A confederate approached men and women on campus and asked them
one of the three following questions. The confederate in all cases was
very attractive and all participants were heterosexual. They asked
would you go out with me tonight, would you come over to my apartment
and would you go to bed with me. Interestingly we see a reverse pattern,
so men were more likely to say yes to going to bed with someone than
they were to say that they would go out with someone. Whereas with women you
find exactly the opposite pattern. Obviously there are safety issues at
stake for women that simply don’t exist for men, but it’s interesting
that men are willing to go to bed with individuals whom they wouldn’t
even go out with or go to their apartment unless sex is also involved.
Let’s move on to slide eleven. What about extra dyadic mating. That is
having sex outside the dyadic relationship. We know that if you look at
extramarital sex, that is, people who’ve had sex outside of their
marriage, 34% of men indicate that they have and 20% of women and these
are people who are still currently married. There’s typically four types
of this cheating behavior; a one time thing, an emotionally charged in
love affair, marital battle induced cheating, and recurrent episodes
that are condoned. Items two and three most often lead to divorce. If
someone falls in love with someone else, there’s simply very little that
can be done to repair these primary relationships. Also if it’s marital
battle induced, this means at this point both people have cheated, one
initiated the cheating then the other partner decided that if you’re
going to cheat, I will, too. At this point there’s probably so much
conflict that divorce is likely to be the best option for that couple.
However if it’s a one time thing, it can often be dealt with through
counseling and within the marriage and recurrent episodes that are condoned
are often more frequent in older populations where there may be an
understanding that due to terminal illness or other differences in sex
drives, that one partner is allowed to go outside of the marriage and
this may also be dealt with inside the marriage.
Let’s move on to slide twelve. How do you deal with conflict in
relationships. Research has shown that there’s sort of a magic ratio.
You need five positive things to happen in your relationship for every
negative thing. This is why when something goes wrong there’s a large
fight or some other negative conflict event happens and the other
person, maybe the person who feels like they are most to blame, does
something positive; takes their partner out to dinner the next day and
then assumes that everything is going to be fine, often realizes that
negative things continue to come up. You need to have at least five
positive things happen for every negative thing. Relationships also show
decay. If you’re not married, relationships start to decay between one
and eight months into the dating relationship. During this point, the symptomology of being in love
begins to drop off and conflicts typically will arise. If you are
married, then decay happens around three to five years, so a little
sooner than the seven year itch movie would have us believe. Conflict
can also arise from fatal attraction. That is, what you initially liked
about the partner or thought was endearing may become a problem. So if
you first thought your partner was spunky, now you see it as
argumentative. "Intense interest in me" may become "possessiveness and jealousy" or
"off-beat"
may become "too eccentric". Another way to tell if a relationship is going
well or not, how much conflict there is can be judged by how often
people make the fundamental attribution error. We’ve already covered
this in a previous chapter, but if I say that I’m in a situation that
something strange is wrong with you when we both slip on the ice, then
we’re probably having some sort of conflict and the relationship is
likely to end. However, to the extent that you will give your partner the same
breaks that you give yourself in evaluating what is happening in a
situation, the more likely it is that the relationship will continue.
Let’s move on to slide thirteen. Another point of conflict is principle
of least interest. The person who can most easily leave the
relationship, that is the person who’s alternative is closest to the
current outcome is likely to be the one who does the breaking up as well
as likely to lead to conflict within the relationship because the other
person realizes that one of them is less interested in the relationship
than the other. Another common problem is communication. Many times
things become misinterpreted. Often this is due to stereotyping. It’s
fine that we stereotype people in order to maintain a cognitive
resources skill with our lives, however often these stereotypes leap
into our relationships as well, so women assuming that men have certain
characteristics and men assuming that women do, in spite of the fact
that this particular man or this particular woman with whom you’re in a
relationship is not necessarily going to be congruent with the
stereotype. So how do you deal with conflict. There are basically three
categories; three ways people approach conflict. One is that you
compromise to mutual satisfaction, the second is that you have a
volatile passionate dispute that involves yelling and third agreeing to
disagree or avoiding. You have clearly latched onto the attachment
styles and I’ll leave you to discern which ones those are, however, if
you’re trying to decide which of these three is best, the answer is
actually not one which many of you probably think is true, but rather
that both people had the same style. If you have someone who’s volatile
and passionate and someone who is agreeing to disagree, then you’re
probably going to have escalated conflicts. However, if you put two
volatile people together, they can be volatile at each other, they
understand that emotion, have compassion for their partner, and can deal
with the conflicts. The same is true if you both agree to disagree. Yes
you’re avoiding the topic, but the relationship will likely continue and
the conflict will decrease over time.
Let’s move on to slide fourteen. Breaking up. All relationships
typically end either in death or with a break up. Who knows how long the
relationship will last? Her friends in heterosexual relationships tend
to be the best predictors of break up. That is women when they talk
about their relationships with their friends, give their friends a very
objective viewpoint. They tell them about the good things that happened
with the relationship as well as the bad. However, when men talk to
their friends about relationships, they primarily focus on the good
unless they really are ready to end the relationship, at which point
they’ll tell their male friends I’m not really sure that this is going
where I think it is, at which point male friends are most likely to say
well then get out. However, her friends tend to be very objective. They
see the positive and the negative and have a pretty good sense of when
the relationship will end. Relationships end 75% of the time due to
dissatisfaction of one partner, the other partner or both and only 25%
of the time due to events; a move, a cheating incident, a large fight.
Some people engage in what we call break up resistance. This is an
indirect strategy where you try to undo the break up; telling your
partner it takes two to break up and I refuse. This doesn’t usually
work. When it does, typically what happens is the person who manages to
resist the break up simply gains power and then re-breaks up with the
other person. It’s often to maintain self-esteem but is often more
trouble than it’s actually worth.
Let’s move on to slide fifteen. What about long distance relationships;
can they work? They can work if you meet some minimal requirements. One
if there’s a promise of marriage. If the people believe that once they
do get to be together, that they will be married. Frequent visits. If
you can see your partner once a month, you have a better chance of
making that long distance relationship work than if you are seeing each
less frequently. Long distance relationships suffer from more
idealization, so people in spite of having pictures and so on, forget
what it’s really like to be around the partner. We know that it’s
because break up seems to increase during the holidays, so you’ve
idealized your partner, they come to visit often during the holidays,
and you remember what it’s like to be around them. In addition the
stress of the holidays also adds to this member. However in spite of all
these things, we know that commuter marriages are on the rise. We could
call these coast couples. One partner lives on the east coast, one
partner on the west coast and they fly back and forth every couple of
weeks. These relationships can be very productive and satisfying to
people who are career oriented, however, they still need the promise of
frequent visits and once those drop off, the relationship is likely to
be headed to a downfall.
Let’s move on to slide sixteen. Why get married, what will change. Often
people tend to co-habit, that is live together before they get married
and this is fine. However, they also then fall prey to grow up thinking
that being married won’t really change anything, so why do people get
married who are living together. There are societal reasons, parent
approval, religion, legal reasons, breaks in terms of taxes, health
benefits from an employer. However what it changes is the perception of
freedom to do what you want. It also changes our feelings of intrinsic
versus extrinsic motivation. Once you’re married you believe that what
your partner is doing for you is because they’re extrinsically
motivated. After all they are your husband or wife and that’s what
they’re supposed to do. Before marriage, those same behaviors that your
partner would do for you, you saw as intrinsically motivated; they did
it because they really loved you. Therefore, couples that get married
after co-habitation often have to find a new way to show that they love
their partner.
Let’s move on to slide seventeen. Why do people co-habit and what is it
like? Most people say they’re doing it as a trial prior to marriage to
make sure they can live with the person on a 24 hour basis before they
move in and make a life commitment. Also convenience. They’re already
spending more time at one place than another. What are these couples
like? Well 70% are monogamous and 50% will go on to get married.
However, they tend to be slightly more likely to get divorced than those
who do not live together first. We discussed that in the previous slide.
It’s harder to discern what your partner is doing because they like you
versus doing because they have to now that they are your husband or
wife. It’s very important that couples discuss this both before and
after marriage, especially if they have engagement/co-habitation
relationship.
Let’s move on to slide eighteen. We discussed briefly inclusion of other
and self. Here are some examples of the circles. The closer the circle,
the more committed you are to the relationship. The more the overlap,
the more likely it is that your relationship will last well into the
future. We can also measure how committed you are to your relationship
by simply asking you to describe a day with your partner and examine
your pronoun use. People who are in committed relationships will refer
to themselves as we; we went to the movies and then we went to dinner,
we went out dancing and then we went to a bar. However people who are in
a less committed relationship will say my partner and I or they will say
the partner’s name, so Kate and I, John and I went dancing, went to the
movies, etc. The more singular pronouns you use, the more likely it is
that the relationship is either not very committed at the moment or if
it was at one point, it is now dissolving. You can also look at how
fundamental attribution error and valuing me and mine might interact, so if you’re still telling
your partner that they’re clumsy when they fall on the ice, that’s
another idea that should tell you the relationship might be on the
rocks. However, if you still refer to what you have it’s really slick
out here and someone needs to shovel, then you’re probably making the
correct attribution and the relationship is going to be lasting over the
long term.
This concludes lesson seventeen, module two.
