Lecture 5: Rejection and Exclusion in Interpersonal relationships
What is deceiver's distrust and how can it affect close relationships?
*Deceiver's distrust*: when people lie to others, they often begin to perceive the recipient of the lies as less honest and trustworthy - occurs because the liars assume that other people are just like them, so they assume that others share their own deceitful motives and because they feel better about themselves when they believe their faults are shared by others
How is jealousy defined? More specifically, describe the two types of jealousy that are based on he threat of the rival (reactive vs suspicious), and describe the two types of jealousy based on the type of potential infidelity (sexual vs emotional)?
*Jealousy* is the affective reaction to a potential loss of a valued relationship to a real or imagined rival --> *reactive jealousy*: when someone becomes aware of an actual threat to a valued relationship - threat may not be a current event - it may have occurred in the past, or may be anticipated in the near future - but is always occurs in response to a realistic danger --> *suspicious jealousy*: when one's partner hasn't misbehaved and one's suspicions do not fit the facts at hand - results in worried and mistrustful vigilance and snooping as the jealous partner seeks to confirm his/her suspicions and it can range from a mild overactive imagination to outright paranoia - is unfounded; it results from situations that would not trouble a more secure and more trusting partner --> *emotional infidelity*: the possibility that the partners are falling in love with someone else --> *sexual infidelity* cheating - reactive jealousy can be connected to both types of infidelity, since a cheating partner could be cheating just for sex or bc he fell in love - suspicious jealousy should only be connected to emotional infidelity
What are gender differences in same-sex and cross-sex friendships?
*Same-sex friendships*: - men's same-sex friendships are lower in maintenance and intimacy compared with women's; women have higher expectations of loyalty and commitment - women are more sensitive to violations of friendship expectations and react more negatively in three out of four categories: symmetrical reciprocity (e.g. loyalty), communion (e.g. self-disclosure, intimacy), and solidarity (e.g. companionship); males in contrast has higher expectations in agency (e.g. physical fitness, status) - evolutionary women are more dependent on intimacy because of their intensive investment in bearing; moreover because women hold less power in society, they may be more reliant on their friendships for support *Cross-sex friendships:* - more likely to lead to conflict about friendship rule violations, miscommunication, and tension around the topic of sexual or romantic intimacy - it is more acceptable for women to express physical affection with a friend than it is for men ( also because men are more likely to reciprocate this affection) - individuals not involved in a romantic relationship held higher expectations for their cross-sex friends than for the same-sex friends
What is the role of rumination in the relationship between revenge (punishment after a transgression) and emotional reactions?
- Revenge has a negative impact on affect and this impact is direct and also partly mediated by rumination --> if you seek revenge , you're going to ruminate even more about the matter and lose even more affect for your partner
What variables predict vengefulness?
- lower levels of honesty, humility and agreeableness predict vengefulness - dispositional vengefulness has been shown to be negatively related to forgiveness and positively related to appraisals of revenge - research on gender differences in revenge within close relationships typically indicates that men are more vengeful
What is the adaptive value of (non-pathological) jealousy?
- motivate behavior to protect close relationships from interference with others
18. How do the findings of Gomillion, Gabriel and Murray (2014) illustrate the potential cost of becoming interdependent with a romantic partner?
- the more central the partner is to one's life the more jealous one is - stronger effect when one is less confident in partner's caring - rather than sharing, people in this situation adopt a more defensive approach - they derogate the quality of their partners' frienships
In some instances of school shootings the perpetrators have been ostracized from their peer groups. How could you explain their reactions given what is known about reactions to ostracism?
--> Usually people who are ostracized may work harder to regain their partners regard, being compliant and doing what their tormentors want, especially when they think the relationship (and relational values) can be repaired -->However, antagonistic reactions occur when ostracism seems illegitimate and unjust and threatens people's feelings of control for self-worth - instances of ostracism or romantic rejection precede in most awful cases where students take guns to school and shoot innocent classmates --> also, as mentioned people, with low SE experience more ostracism, and are more likely to carry grudge - people who commit school shooting should have rather low SE
What are the reasons behind jealous reactions that romantic partner's same sex friends can elicit? What is the difference between the jealous reactions that same sex friends and the opposite sex friends evoke, and how can it be explained?
--> fear that their romantic partner's most valued friends could undermine their central importance to their partner's life - friends maybe most threatening for people who are more dependent on their partners because their partners are especially central to their lives --> same sex friends mostly evoke partner friend jealousy (PFI), whereas opposite sex friends should evoke bother PFI and romantic rival jealousy - individuals usually choose opposite sex friends based on the same criteria with which they select romantic partners and often see opposite sex friends as potential romantic partners - participants were sign. more jealous of their partners' romantic alternatives than their partners' same sex friends, suggesting that romantic rivals may be more threatening in general
Explain the evolutionary reasoning in line with which one can expect men to be more sexually jealous and women to be more emotionally jealous.
--> men having emotional bond with another women can signal potential loss of the relationship and investment to one's offspring - in ancestral past, women who frequently and naively mated with men who then abandoned them probably did not reproduce as successfully as did women who insisted on more proof that a man was there to stay --> men face a reproductive problem that women don't have: paternity uncertainty - a women always knows whether or not a child is hers, but unless he is completely confident that his mate hadn't had sex with other men, a man cant be certain that he is the child's father - potential evolutionary costs of failing to detect a partner's infidelity are so great that natural selection may have favored men who were too suspicious of their partners' faithfulnes over those who were not suspicious enough
What are the long-term consequences of ostracism?
--> targets of ostracism typically don't consider their partners' withdrawal to be kind or effective way to behave, and they believe ostracism to damage their relationships --> silent treatment of ostracism threatens our need to belong, damages our feelings of self-worth, and reduces perceived control over our interactions --> they also may look for new, less punishing partners (after exclusion people are eager to make new, kinder friends) - people with high self-regard are more likely than those with lower self-esteem to end their relationships with their ostracizers and seek new partners who will treat them better- and perhaps as a result, they get the silent treatment less often - people with low SE experience more ostracism and are more likely to carry grudge and ostracize others in return --> instead of leaving those who ostracize them, they are more likely to hang around but be spiteful
What can be considered as an effective way to react to early instances of ostracism? keep in mind the needs that are thwarted when being ostracized.
Based on the above mentioned needs that are diminished, a jigsaw classroom might help to combat early ostracism. In jigsaw classrooms, competition is replaced with active cooperation which is necessary for success.
When considering unrequited love, explain the emotional reactions from the perspective of the would-be-lover, and from the perspective of the rejector.
Both feel a similar amount of negative emotions. The one who feels the attraction feels rejected and devalued in his/her relational value. The rejector feels guilt.
What is the functional value of revenge and forgiveness in friendships?
Forgiveness and revenge evolved to serve complementary functions - the preservation of valuable relationships in the case of forgiveness and the deterrence of harm in the case of revenge - our evolution led to the development of behaviors designed to ensure their continuance into the future; both forgiveness and revenge are powerful tools for correcting the partner's behavior and/or regulating sociual interactions
Please describe the circumstance under which forgiveness can successfully occur
Forgiveness has important ingredients: - genuine, sincere contrition; betrayers should sincerely acknowledge their wrongs and apologize without giving any excuses - empathy on the part of the victim; people who can take their partner's perspectives and those who can admit that they are not perfect, either, are more forgiving - stopping to ruminate about one's hurt and the partners' flaws
Reflect about the types of relationship in which forgiveness is likely to be effective and why.
Forgiveness is advantageous when a partner misbehaves rarely and deserves to be forgiven, but it can actually be detrimental when your partner is unrepentant (I.e. when frequently disrespectful) - Forgiveness that is offered in the absence of genuine contrition may be perceived to be license to offend again
Describe how perceived relational value can contribute to one's experience of unrequited love?
If one perceived his/her relational value as too high, he or she could be "falling upward'- aiming for someone out of your league. This is of course makes you approach people that do not match with you on mate value. The probability of unrequited love and rejection is much higher. Rejection also hurts if we care a lot about what others think of us.
Please describe detection of partner's deception and the role of truth bias in it.
Lies are typically shorter and less detailed than truths are, unless the lie is important and the liar is highly motivated to away with the lie - however, motivated liars do a poorer, more suspicious job because strong emotions are harder to conceal than mild feelings are There's no reliable relation between any particular pattern of nonverbal behavior and lying; however, there may b small discrepancies between liars verbal and nonverbal behavior Lying is usually apparent in changes in a person's ordinary demeanor, but to notice those changes, one may need some prior familiarity with the person's style; one can train to detect lies but usually only becomes a better judge of the person's truthfulness who one is training with *Truth bias*: people assume that their partners are usually telling the truth - hence, as relationships become intimate and trust increases, the partners accuracy in detecting deception declines - not many lies in close relationships are detected at the time they're told
What is ostracism? What are the two main ways how people deal with being ostracized and what are the consequences?
Ostracism is a strong feeling of prolonged social exclusion. It violates the need to belong, need for control and need for a meaningful existence. The two main reaction are either attempts to regain a sense of control or a sense of belong. The former might be achieved by lashing out and other antisocial behavior, while the latter is likely when prosocial behaviors are shown, aiming for reconnection/social inclusion.
Describe what relational value is and what reactions as decrease in relational value can trigger?
Relation value is described as the degree to which others consider their relationships with us to be valuable, important or close. It is the degree of acceptance. Put differently, relational value informs us if the others consider their relationships with us to be valuable. *Degrees of acceptance:* Maximal inclusion-others seek us out and out of their way to interact with us active inclusion-others welcome us but do not seek us out passive inclusion- others allow us to be included ambivalence- others do not care whether we are included or not passive-exclusion others ignore us but do not avoid us active exclusion- others avoid us, tolerating our presence only when necessary maximal exclusion- others banish us, sending us away, or abandon us A perceived decrease in relational value can cause feelings of rejection, social pain, and general negative affectivity. Based on the sociometer theory, a loss of perceived acceptance will result in less self-esteem. Ambivalence is not much more hurtful than maximal exclusion. Relational devaluation-decreases in others' perceived regard for us- is especially aversive.
What is currently known about the similarities between physical and social pain?
Social pain activates the same brain regions than physical pain, namely the *dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC)* and the*anterior insula (AI)* for the appraisal of pain, and the right *ventro-lateral prefrontal cortext (VLPFC)* for the regulation. With regard to evolution, social pain in response to exclusion signals that something is not right within the social environment of the individual. For survival, though, a functioning group is vital, and social exclusion has a motivational function. The social monitoring system is activated, which helps to navigate the social environment more successfully.
To what extent can we be confident that social rejection activates the pain matrix identified in studies of physical pain?
The pain matrix of social pain activates the same brain regions as did physical pain (dACC and AI --> appraisal, VLPFC --> detection) It would probably be beneficial to look at pharmacological effects of certain drugs on social pain, as it has been shown that certain analgesics (acetaminophen and marijuana) can reduce social pain. Future research could also investigate "temporal change during social exclusion for a better understanding of psychological and neural correlates during social exclusion".
What are some examples of self-recovery processes in reaction to social exclusion?
The self-recovery processes which recover primary needs and buffer against social exclusions are automatic emotional regulation processes. These make positive emotions highly accessible. Moreover, the *belonging regulation model* posits that people use indirect strategies to regain their sense of social connection with any entity (God, TV-show character) to feel connected again. To regain the feeling of connection, excluded individuals deal flexibly with their mental representations.
Describe the role of social monitoring system in reactions to social exclusion?
The social monitoring system (SMS) guides behavior and cognition in response to the current environment. It enhances perceptive and mental responses to cues and social info. When cues that transfer social acceptance are conveyed, an individual will work harder in order to obtain acceptance. They also engage in more behavioral mimicry. Prosocial behavior is shown because it might get one back into a group (social reconnection theory). When cues that transfer social threat are perceived, people might react with antisocial behavior in order to protect themselves. Furthermore, when there seems to be no opportunity for social interaction, no behavior is motivated. However, cognitively, the self-esteem (which based on the sociometer theory had gone down) has recovered, just like other primary needs (for control, belonging etc). This self recovery system buffers against the aversive effects of social exclusion
What type of individuals are especially prone to jealousy?
- Dependence (not having desirable alternatives) - Inadequacy., not matching in mate value - Attachment style and personality - dismissive individuals report higher sexual than emotional jealousy - Gender roles
What rival characteristic have been shown to make men and women jealous and why?
--> jealousy in men evoked by rival with high status characteristic - men more jealous to socially and physically dominant, high social status men --> jealousy in women evoked by physical attractiveness - women more jealous of physically attractive women
