PSC 150: Relationship Science Midterm 1 Study Guide
common sense wisdom is contradictory
"out of sight out of mind" vs "absence makes the heart grow fonder" - opposites attract vs birds of a feather flock together" - or our example: are we attracted to people who like us or to people who play hard to get - common sense does not state when the behavior will occur --> there are conditions where we like people who like us and conditions where we like people who play 'hard to get' - we can only draw conclusions on these topics with evidence
Measurement Strategies: Self-Reports
- A research participant's own descriptions and evaluations of his or her experiences. - fixed-response scales --> the researcher determines the specific questions and possible answers, making it easy to compare responses between individuals (eg. The Love Scale and questionnaires). - Alternative approach is the open-ended question, in which the researcher asks a question and the respondent gives any answer that comes to mind. - open ended questions helpful in gathering details they can then use to generate more specific questions. - qualitative research, an approach that relies primarily on open-ended questions and other loosely structured information (Eden research who lived in poor neighborhood in Philadelphia).
What Makes a Theory Influential?
- A theory is an interconnected set of beliefs, knowledge, and assumptions that relate to understanding a phenomenon or situation. - influential theories are generally described formally; someone has stated a set of explicit premises and explained the predictions that follow from them. - it has inspired research and scholarship. - make predictions that withstand multiple tests.
Indirect Measures
- An approach to data collection in which respondents either do not know or cannot control the information they are providing. - measure indirect cognitive word associations as either positive or negative and their answers gives us insight on the couples commitment. - measure behaviors that couples may not be able to control even if they want to (eg. reaction time, the time it takes to recognize a stimulus when it is flashed briefly on a screen) - implicit attitudes—the automatic tendency to associate a stimulus with positive or negative feelings
Attachment Theory
- Attachment theory proposes that the intimate relationships we form as adults are shaped largely by the nature of the bonds we formed with our primary caregivers during infancy and early childhood. - attachment figure—someone who provides the child with comfort and safety. - attachment behavior system—a set of behaviors and reactions that monitors and promotes the closeness of caregivers. Focuses on three factors: (1) We pay attention to our own internal states. (2) We keep track of our caregiver's availability and responsiveness. (3) We look out for potential threats in the environment. -felt security, the sense of safety and protection that allows the developing child to explore the world and take risks.
inclusive fitness
- Developed by William Hamilton explains why infertile worker bees and ants spend their whole life helping their nest to survive and reproduce. - related to grandmother hypothesis - they can send the genes they share with their siblings on to the next generation by sacrificing their service to protecting their siblings offspring.
controversies in life history model
- Hazan argues that the primary function of attachment in adulthood is to bond adults together so children ae raised with greater success. evolutionary processes have simply lifted a pre-existing system that was originally designed to promote bonding between mothers and children to facilitate bonding between adult romantic partners. the other styles, other than secure are then pathological outcomes or deviations from modal security. But, insecure attachment rates are high.
Evolutionary Psychology
- applying evolutionary principles to the human mind - to a beetle the smell of rotten eggs is wonderful, but to us it is terrible. This association is made in the brain. A. Domain Specific - the functional specialization of the human mind --> falons are specified to do a thing, and so does our mind - evolution equipped humans with specific adaptations (not general-purpose) designed to overcome specific problems that would have occurred repeatedly in our ancestral past - language learning- not an associative mechanism alone - domain specificity: adaptive responses that resulted in 'functional specializations' of the human mind The Watson Selection Task - instead of doing it with numbers and letters, which is quite abstract, if we do it in the context of social situations, people tend to get it better. - much easier when task is related to 'social construct' --> changes the task from a formal logic problem into a cheater detection problem - cheater detection is a 'problem' that needed to be 'solved' in humans ancestral environments --> therefore, humans evolved a 'cheater detection' mechanism - other domain-specific mechanism evolved to deal with mating, friendship, kin etc. --> mind as 'swiss army knife' metaphor (modulatory) B. Functionality - mental adaptations served a function in ancestral environments --> for this adaptation to be retained, the functional properties must have increased reproductive success. - why don't men line up at sperm banks --> can only be understood with modern reasoning as it is novel and our ancestors didn't have this concept - why do we crave fatty foods --> needed for survival as we needed the calories and energy, and so in modern times this would not have been available to indulge on to this degree, and so when we have it in access, our evolved tendencies get hijacked. 3. The classics: Davis Buss 'big 3' - men and women do not approach mates in the same way - 1. mate preference --> women had to solve the adaptive problem of identifying which mates would be able/willing to invest in offspring --> status --> older mates - men had to solve the adaptive problem of identifying fertile mates - attractiveness - younger mates - most dramatic sex differences when asked preferred age: men want younger mates, and women want older males. 2. Jealousy - women tend to be jealous of forming a deep emotional attachment is worse than sexual intercourse. - men are split 50/50 on whether emotional vs physical cheating is worse. - Buss Data - men were split about 50/50 - women were much more likely (80/20) to select the emotional choice why? - men face the problem of paternity certainty - how do they know for sure that an offspring is theirs - women face the problem of loss of resources, perhaps if her mate becomes emotionally attached to someone else 3. Short term sexual strategies - parental investment difference--> men should be more eager than women to have short-term sexual relationships - Buss asked how many people you would like to have in the next month: women tend to say lower numbers of partners, and the sex difference gets larger and larger, as women want fewer partners, while men want more. - when asked about the likelihood they would have sexual intercourse with someone you do not know someone very well: if someone you know more, they are more willing, at one month, women would say it is not likely, while men say they are more than likely to be okay with it. - the three questions study (Clark and Hartfield. 1989) - male and females confederates approached strangers on a campus - "hi, I've noticed you around campus and I find you very attractive" M= 50%, F= 56% - "would you go out with me tonight" M= 69%, F= 6% - "Would you go to bed with me tonight" M= 75%, F=0%
some methods of discovering truth
- intuition: it just feels true - metaphysics: religion, mythology, etc. - logic: basic assumptions, if-then reasoning, etc. - science: based on observation and evidence * phycologists use science
Normative processes and outcomes in adulthood
- partners who display more secure base behaviors toward their mates have partners who are more likely to explore and seek out new opportunities.
Introduction to the field
- people have traditionally looked to philosophers, composers, writers and other artists to gain insight into romantic relationships
Intimate Relationships Contribute to Larger Communities
- shared home becomes two households--> electricity and water usage goes up - Divorce reduces the likelihood that people will vote in an election - More than half of all recent mass shootings in the United States involve an attack on a family member
Human Evolution
- we split from the apes ~6 million years ago - homo sapiens are very young (200,000 years)
Challenges of Relationship Science
1. Understanding Relationships Involves Studying Constructs 2. Relationships Are Complex and Multidetermined 3. Couples Are Not Objects
2 premises in relationship science
1. almost nothing in life is as important as our relationships with others 2. we cant afford to leave this topic to the philosophers and artists. We really cant afford to leave this topic to charlatans. Rather we must use science to understand it.
Experiments and Correlational Studies
A. Experiments (very powerful -allow for causal conclusions) B. Correlational Studies C. Developmental Designs
Human Evolution
A. Our Primate Origin 1. genetics - Mendel's theory of genetic inheritance (1860's) --> largely ignored until the 20th century - the contribution of each parent retains its integrity 2. The modern synthesis - combining Mendelian genetics with Darwinian natural selection (1930's - 1940's) - natural selection changes the frequency of genes --> examples: the peppered moth --> new species can form when natural selection operates on non-interbreeding populations of the same species --> the moth was mostly white, but mutations making it more black became more popular during the industrial revolution because the birch trees became covered in soot, and thus darker. 3. DNA and Humans - genes are made up of DNA - we share approximately 94-99% of our genes with the chimpanzee - genes can function like a 'clock' --> mutations in the silent portion of our DNA accumulate at a measurable rate --> we can combine these insights with the fossil record to trace our history B. The Hunter Gatherer - from 2 million until 10,000 years ago - small bands (150 people) --> largely kin based - semi-nomadic: moving from place to place frequently, but not settle in one permanent location for very long - egalitarian --> leadership is fluid C. The Strange Nature of Human Development 1. human brains --> extremally large and require a great deal of energy to maintain - our brains are very immature at birth --> if brain gets too big, the head would not fi through the pelvis --> Auatalopethecus 'Lucy' brain could fit in through pelvis --> homo erectus --> homo sapiens - pelvic bone didnt grow bigger to accommodate increased brain size. brain is just big enough to fit in the pelvis. -- adult brain size got bigger, and natural selection solved this problem through humans giving birth to infants who would have benefited from additional time in utero, and who are essentially undeveloped. Babies thus would need more time to develop outside the utero, and we give birth to underdeveloped babies. Humans have a slow life history trajectory as we need a lot of time to grow big. 2. Cooperative Breeding (Alloparenting) - human women live long past menopause - the grandmother hypothesis: it is adaptive in humans for an extended network of older kin to aide in child rearing, foraging, etc. - presence of grandmothers reduces a child's mortality dramatically - an inclusive fitness effect - grandmothers share 25% of genes 3. Pair-Bonding - fathers also provide food and protection - sexual dimorphism is an indicator of mating arrangements - for austropithescenes, we do not think they pair-bonded because we can use the degree of sexual dimorphism to get an idea about the mating arrangement. -we have less dimorphism because the way we demonstrate a functioning partnership, is not by beating up other males, but by forming coordination with another person, showing you are committed, and so there is less selection pressure to make males big and strong. --> Gorillas: Males are 2.4 x size of females --> Homo Erectus: males are 1.2 x the size of females --> humans: males are 1.2 x size of females - less dimorphism = more pair-bonding - all these species show cooperative breeding (marmosets, humans, wolves): --> large brains and exceptional levels of social intelligence --> long-term pair bonding and cooperative breeding 4. Acquire Culture - in our extended period of development, we must learn our culture - how do you build a kayak? --> trial and error? --> learn from others? -- Accumulating culture --> it's not just that we can learn from observation, but we learn in a cumulative way, so you learn from my grandfather, I make improvements and pass on my knowledge - social rules are also leaned --> woodabe men impressing women by wearing makeup and dress nicely
which of the following statements about genetics is false?
A. The modern synthesis explained how natural selection affected gene frequencies B. humans share more than 90% of their DNA with chimpanzees C. Genetic Mutations in nonfunctional portion of DNA function like a clock ANSWER: D. All of the above are true
Some Basics
A. theories, hypotheses, and operationalization B. Reliability and Validity C. Frequency distributions D. Central Tendency
attachment
Attachment: a strong emotional bond between caregiver and child A. foundations of attachment theory (1950's) 1. Prevailing view: cupboard love (behaviorism) - mom satisfies hunger - this enhances pleasure - associative mom with pleasure - this is why we love mom Bowlby (1973) 2. Harlow's Monkeys - Harlow's studies came about by accident --> he isolated monkeys to keep them free from disease --> when the gauze diapers carpeting the cages were replaced, the infant monkeys protested violently - the solitary rearing resulted in healthy bodies, but unhealthy minds --> they responded to prospective mates with trembling and fear Famous experiment - he isolated monkeys for 6-12 hours after birth - wire and terrycloth 'mothers' - IV: which mothers provided milk -DV: 'loving' behaviors (aka 'bonding or 'attachment' behaviors) Results: - the monkeys 'loved' their cloth mothers and hated their wire mothers - the source of milk was irrelevant Harlow's conclusions and speculations - contact comfort: infant monkeys possess, literally, an 'attachment' system-an innate predisposition to attach to a soft, warm, and furry body. - Nursing ensures frequent, intimate body contact 3. Bowlby's orphans - during WWII, the British government evacuated children from London to protect them from German bombings - many became undersized and developed psychological disorders despite being fed and bathed - Bowlby argued humans have a fundamental attachment need and that the breaking of attachment bonds is destructive - The end of cupboard love ---------------------------------------------- B. Normative processes - attachment dynamics 'adaptively' or "on average." 1. Felt secure - the attachment-behavioral system is activated under stressful circumstances - the aim of the attachment system is to establish felt security: --> the elimination of anxiety/distress, achieving calmness and quiescence. - when felt security is achieved, other systems become available (eg. peer affiliation, exploration, play) 2. Complementary attachment styles - Infants: cry, smile, raise arms to be held, etc., - Caregiver: feel distressed when infants cries, feel happy when infants smiles, etc. - humans evolved to have complementary attachments, and both are motivated parties, infants to parents when they are in distress and parents to respond to the distress. 3. Three Adaptive Functions of Attachment A. Proximity Maintenance - staying near the caregiver -" The essential feature of affectionate bonding is that bonded partners tend to remain in proximity to one another" (Bowlby, 1973) B. Safe Haven - seeking out caregivers for comfort when distressed (scrubs video in the tub) - Harlow found that exposing his infant monkeys to scary stimuli caused them to run to their cloth mothers (but not the wire monkeys) for comfort C. Secure Base - establishing an anchor to facilitate exploration - secure base is a prerequisite for exploration 4. Reactions to attachment disruption Three stages --> protest --> despair --> emotional detachment - the behaviors at all three stages are adaptive --------------------------------------------- C. Individual Differences - stable, personality-like differences in 'attachment styles' 1. Internal Working Models - experience-based expectations about the self's worthiness and others' responsiveness - Model of self -->Am I worthy of being loved - Model of others --> are others, responsive caregivers - these models influence functioning in future relationships 2. Ainsworth's 'Strange Situation.' - mother, baby, observer, and 2 separation and reunion events - 3 attachment styles Secure: --> happy to play/explore when CG is present --> friendly to strangers while CG is present --> becomes distressed when CG leaves --> quickly comforted upon CG return Avoidant - not overtly distressed by CG's departure - snubs CG upon reunion, no reunion - But: heart rate elevated, just like other kids Anxious/Ambivalent - anxious throughout the test - clings to CH, wary of exploring - inconsolable when CG leaves - both seek and rejects caregiving when CG returns Disorganized (uncommon) 4. why the three attachment styles - critical question: 'can I count on my attachment figure to be available and responsive when needed?' - possible answers, yes, no, maybe three attachment styles - secure: (60% yes) - avoidants (20% no) - Anxious/ambivalent (15% maybe) * cultural differences 5. Caregivers' relationship at home - all three styles are sensible responses to the infant's circumstances --> secure: caregivers are consistently available and responsive --> avoidants: caregivers deflect or rebuff infants bids for comfort --> anxious/ambivalent: caregivers are inconsistent- sometimes unavailable, sometimes intrusive * extinction response
Is there a genetic component?
Beyond the effects of the genes shared by parents and offspring, parental divorce really does increase the likelihood of emotional difficulties and divorce tendencies.
Reliability and Validity
RELIABILITY: the tendency for a measure to produce the same result whenever it is used to measure the same thing - think consistent - a ruler, a scale, a self-report measure of happiness etc. VALIDITY: the extent to which a measurement and a topic are conceptually related - Think accurate - is the measure sensibly related to the underlying construct
Human nature and genes
The discovery of DNA is the basis of reproduction for all life on Earth. - regulatory gees: promote or inhibit the production of protein by the DNA genes, allowing the development of the organism over its life span to be attuned to the environment and giving it flexibility to respond depending on new or changing information from the environment.
Do the effects of intimate relationships on children's well-being disappear as the kids get older?
The families that children grow up in influence the way they manage their own intimate relationships even decades later. - they tend to raise children who grow up and follow in their footsteps
individual differences in attachment
The quality of caregiving that children receive depends in part on local environmental conditions, which in turn affects how individuals view mating and parenting when they become adults. - Strange Situation--> three primary attachment patterns: secure, anxious, and avoidant. - secure --> use their mothers as a safe haven and a secure base in order to control and reduce negative emotions when upset. - avoidant --> control and reduce their negative feelings in an independent and self-reliant way by not turning to their mothers for comfort and support. Act distressed when mothers return to the room and make conflicting attempts to glean comfort.
Social Psychology
a social psychological approach to intimate relationships focuses on the interaction between two individuals, paying close attention to both behavior and what goes on in the peoples minds (emotional and cognitions) 1. Continuing stream of research on the nature and process of interdependence- the behavioral, emotional, and cognitive ties that bind partners together in romantic relationships. 2. Understanding the inner workings of the intimate relationship mind by studying the role that social cognition and emotion play in intimate relationships. 3. Topic of love attracted attention 4. study of communication enabled an increasingly illuminating analysis of interaction in intimate relationships. 5. Interest in how attachment and bonding processes, forged in childhood, contribute to adult romantic relationships. 6. increasingly examined the link between evolutionary psychology and social psychology.
normative developmental factors
a) the way in which infants reactions and behaviors are synchronized with their caretakers from the time the baby is born, b) young children's tendency to remain in close physical contact with and proximity to their caregivers, especially when they are upset or afraid, and c)the way in which attachment behaviors emerge and develop in a series of sages.
Intimate Relationships Determine the Survival of Our Species
- Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, dating to 1859, reveals that who we are today as a species is a product of natural selection operating over a vast expanse of time. - Random changes in genes from one generation to the next sometimes lead to enhanced fitness, or improvements in the chances that the offspring will survive and reproduce. - Intimate relationships are an essential part of the mechanism of evolution, as fitness is affected, directly or indirectly, by the ways human mates attract and select each other, their willingness and ability to reproduce, and the attachments they form with each other and their offspring.
The Evolutionary Perspective
- Evolutionary psychology assumes that the brain, like every organ in the body, evolved in response to specific selection pressures that led some preferences and capacities to be associated with more successful reproduction, and others to be associated with less successful reproduction. - A feature may be adaptive because it increases an organism's chances for survival; this is the basis for the idea of "survival of the fittest." A feature also may be adaptive because it directly increases an organism's chances of successfully reproducing by helping the organism attract or compete for mates. - e environment of evolutionary adaptedness—the period tens of thousands of years ago when our species took its current form. - theory of parental investment: sexual selection pressures can vary based on the amount of energy and resources each parent must invest to raise offspring. - cross-cultural studies in which researchers identify behaviors that characterize mating and sexuality consistently across a wide variety of countries and cultures.
Freud and Skinner
- Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis, the theory that popularized the distinction between the conscious and unconscious mind. - He proposed that partner choices in adulthood were shaped by motives developed during infancy and early childhood. Freud believed relationship problems surface when partners begin to play out with each other their unresolved issues and conflicts with their parents. ---------------------------- - Skinner was the founder of radical behaviorism, the idea that behaviors are shaped (or "conditioned") by their consequences, and that positive consequences make behaviors more likely and negative consequences make them less likely. - the forces that drive us exist primarily in the present, not the past. Successful relationships depend on the extent to which pleasing behaviors are rewarded and encouraged, and displeasing behaviors are extinguished through negative reinforcement. Relationship problems arise when partners unintentionally reinforce each other's displeasing behaviors.
Practice: to test whether a new type of couples therapy works, a clinician randomly selects 80 couples from her client list. Forty couples receive the new therapy during their next visit, and forty couples receive the standard therapy. At the end of the session, the clinician measures how satisfied the couples members are in tehri relationship.
- IV: the type of therapy couples receive (new treatment or standard treatment) - DP: satisfaction with the relationship - Experimental condition: the new therapy treatment - Control condition: standard therapy treatment
Intimate Relationships Are Universal
- Known more generally as pairbonds, these unions can take different forms, but at their core they typically involve two individuals who have some degree of emotional and practical investment in each other. - A hardwired capacity for intimacy does not necessarily imply that this capacity is the same for all people within a culture, or for all cultures at a specific time, or for all people across historical time - Young adults in North America and China identify the same basic emotions and categorize positive emotions and negative emotions that same way—except in the case of love. - For North American students, love is intensely positive and is equated with personal happiness, but Chinese students view love as negatively tinged with unrequited feelings, infatuation, and sorrow. - interdependent or collectivist societies and how they choose mates ----> individualistic: the family is a support system for the individual, who leaves home, falls in love, eventually introduces the mate to the family. ----> Collectivist: individuals are the support systems for families in interdependent societies. Families collaborate to find partners for their offspring to enhance the family's stability or social standing.
REASON 1: Intimate Relationships Affect Our Happiness and Well-Being
- Our relationships affect our subjective well-being( or how happy we are with life in general) - relationship status: Independent of relationship quality, the type of relationship an individual is currently experiencing (e.g., dating, married, divorced, widowed, or no relationship). - studies: married people report greater happiness compared to people who are unmarried and living together, and compared to people who are divorced, separated, or widowed. Among people who are unmarried, those who live with a partner tend to be happier than those living alone. - For people who are in committed partnerships, relationship quality—how good or bad people judge their relationship to be—can affect their overall subjective wellbeing. - The quality of intimate relationships is so powerful it indicates more about a person's overall subjective well-being than does his or her satisfaction with any other domain in life, including work, finances, friendships, community, and health. - people who are happy in their relationship tend to become happier overall with their lives. -IMPORTANT IDEA: people tend to be happier when they are in a relationship that is of high quality and that endures.
Social Ecological Models
- Social ecology refers a range of approaches emphasizing the interplay between people and their environments. - explains how the stresses, supports, and constraints in the environment of a couple may affect the way they think, feel, and act in their relationship. - microsystem contains the couple's family and friends. - mesosystem includes the neighborhood, social system, and culture in which the relationship takes place - macrosystem: the national and historical forces affecting the relationship. - The ABC-X model, also known as crisis theory, is named for the four letters corresponding to the four elements Hill considered crucial to understanding the effects of external challenges on relationship: stressor, resources, crisis, and interpretation of stressor
Social Learning Theory
- Social learning theory takes a more interpersonal approach and defines rewards and costs in terms of the behaviors partners exchange during their interactions with each other. - behaviors partners exhibit during their interactions directly predict the quality of their intimate relationship, such that positive behaviors strengthen the relationship and negative behaviors do harm. - partners learn from their experiences in each interaction about the quality of their relationship. - Coercion theory, an offshoot of social learning theory, describes how two people may reinforce each other's undesirable behaviors unintentionally. Central to coercion theory is the idea of escape conditioning, the reinforcing of behaviors that lead to ending a negative experience.
Challenge #1 Understanding Relationships Involves Studying Constructs
- Theories in social science vs physical science--> social scientists tend to theorize about ideas instead of things - psychological constructs: An abstract concept (such as love, trust, or commitment) that relationship scientists strive to define, measure, and study. - love lacks measurable physical features such as mass or temperature, so testing predictions about love and other similar constructs raises some a unique challenge for relationship researchers: How can we measure abstract ideas? - testing predictions about psychological constructs such as love requires researchers to translate abstract ideas into something concrete that can be observed or measured, a step in the research process called operationalization. - operationalization: A key stage in the research process in which an abstract concept (a psychological construct) is translated into concrete terms so that predictions about that concept can be tested.
Why Intimate Relationships Are Important
- We learn about who we are, what we will tolerate, and what we can accomplish from our closest relationships. - Without an understanding of intimate relationships, we cannot fully appreciate the whole range of experiences that give our lives depth, color, and significance. - Relationships are so fundamental to our emotional lives that we can be soothed and comforted by even the smallest gesture. (electric shock experiment, x= shock, 0= no shock. 3 conditions: holding partner's hand, holding the hand of a stranger who is the same sex of your partner, and holding no hand. - RESULTS: brain regions governing emotional and behavioral threat responses were activated less when holding a partner's hand than when holding either no hand or a stranger's hand. The participants registered less threat by holding their partner's hand. The happier the women reported being in their relationships, the less their threat-related brain regions were activated when the shock was signaled. - SUGGESTS: shows that we are biologically attuned not just to people in general, but to the person with whom we share an intimate bond. Thus, understanding intimate relationships, this basic feature of who we are, is essential to understanding the human condition.
Parental Investment Theory
- based on sexual selection theory --> the sex investing the most time, energy, and resources into producing and raising its offspring should have evolved to be more discriminating when choosing mates. - in contrast, the sex that commits less time, energy, and resources to offspring should evolve to be less choosy and should also compete strenuously with members of the same sex to mate with the more discriminating sex.
Offloading the heavy lifting: the role of alloparents
- cooperative breeding: helpers help in the child-rearing are known as alloparents - alloparents provide considerable additional help in gathering resources and directly caring for offspring - mammalians and humans specifically live after menopause because they can form attachment bonds and serve as alloparents. Grandparents may help parent with housework - greater involvement of grandparents and kin in terms of providing material and emotional support to their own offspring predicts higher quality parenting and more secure attachments between mothers and their children.
C. Ethics of research
- every sensitive questions- more so than in many other areas of psychology - participants may . . . --> learn something they wish they didn't know --> learn they don't know something they wish they did - science's ethical imperative
Variation on Attachment themes
- father plays a special role in the development of girls' mating strategies, namely father's absence provides a particularly clear signal concerning how much girls can trust men in later life to provide good, stable levels of investment in time and their family. - reach puberty faster if the father is absent in one's life. - environmental risk model: the degree of harshness/difficulty of the local environment combined with its level of unpredictability determined which reproductive strategy (fast or slow) individuals will adopt in adulthood. - harsh environment --> slow reproductive strategy but only if the environment is predictable - if the environemt is both harsh and unpredictable, this produces a fast strategy.
Observational Measures
- gather data about relationship events without having to ask the people who are experiencing them, often by audio or video recording them instead. challenges - deciding who will do the observing (eg. spouses observe on another and mark specific behaviors done like take out the trash on the Spouse Observation Checklist) - problem with this conclusion was that no one had checked the accuracy of spouses' observations.
Humans are cultural animals
- humans are unique in possessing sophisticated cultural knowledge and beliefs which are passed from generation to generation through formal and informal channels. - this form of transmission is non-Darwinian. - a particular form of behavior may be universal because it has been culturally learned and applied in similar ways across thousands of years and has been transmitted socially. - Human behavior is likely to not to be purely a product of either evoked culture or transmitted culture but a combination of both. --> eg. enzyme lactate: if ancestors herded cows, you are likely to be lactose tolerant as an adult.
responsibilities of marriage were once institutionalized, why is that not the case anymore?
- institutions have weakened over the past century - Industrialization and the growth of cities decreased the degree to which families depended on children to sustain the family unit; - increased geographic mobility reduced the degree to which parents and families could monitor and influence their children; -growing educational achievements and economic independence for women have given them more control over their personal decisions
central tendency
- mean: the average of the measurements - median: the middle measurement, half below and half above - mode: the most frequent measurement
normative features of attachment
- mother-infant synchrony: mothers must synchronize their own behavior with their newborns behavior to forge strong infant-caregiver bonds. Mothers experience rush of hormones that make them feel receptive to emotional bonding. - pattern of baby talk: talk one octave higher, slow down speech, is preferred by young infants and is well suited to the developing hearing capacities of young infants. KEEPING CLOSE - maintain proximity by smiling broadly and squealing with joy across the room, infants draw caregivers toward them. Crying and screaming also grabs the attention of the caregiver and finally the infant may move closer to the caregiver.
Intimate Relationships and Social Conformity
- power of mutual influence as a force in intimate relationships. In addition, high-quality relationships can encourage partners to guide each other toward socially sanctioned lifestyles. - Social control theory: The view that social relationships regulate, and impose limits on, how individuals behave by encouraging people to conform to social norms; weaker relationships increase the occurrence of deviant behavior. - Intimate relationships in adulthood also affect whether people follow or break laws, or conform to or go against social conventions.
connection between normative capabilities in attachment and natural selection
- reproductive fitness is enhanced when (1) infants initially forged stronger emotional bonds with their caregivers (2) maintained closer physical contact with their parents, (3) successfully moved through each attachment stage and transferred attachment functions from parents or caregivers to close friends.
Measuring Relationship Satisfaction
- researchers disagree about the appropriate questions to use to operationalize relationship satisfaction - The Marital Adjustment Test consists of 15 items --> omnibus measure: A measure of a psychological construct that includes questions capturing a wide range of phenomena, usually applied to self-reports and characteristic of some measures of relationship satisfaction. - LIMITATIONS: work fine, until you want to compare those scores with scores from another method that addresses different specific aspects. - item-overlap problem occurs when tools that are measuring different constructs contain questions about similar topics. ---> Solution: Fincham & Bradbury recommended operationalizing relationship satisfaction exclusively in terms of global measures, or measures that ask partners only about their evaluations of their relationship as a whole (eg. Quality Marriage Index) - spouses are not necessarily very accurate observers of each other. - limitations of memory and awareness affect spouses' observations - Sentiment override: The tendency for partners' feelings about their relationship to overwhelm their perceptions of specific behaviors and aspects of their relationship. ---> Solution: To avoid problem, most observational research relies on observers who are completely independent of the relationship.
Social Exchange Theory
- social exchange theory emphasizes how individuals make decisions and evaluate their relationships in the moment. - Suggests that participants in all social interactions pursue their self-interest through the exchange of social goods, such as status, approval, and information. - people evaluate and make decisions about their relationships in the same way they approach economic decisions—by rationally analyzing the benefits and drawbacks, or rewards and costs. - social rewards: validation, security, companionship; and material rewards: protection, food. - subjective probability—your own judgment about the likelihood of different possible outcomes your actions will have. - COMMITMENT = SATISFACTION + DEPENDENCE
individual differences and outcome in adulthood
- the overpowering goal of anxious individuals is to achieve greater felt security. - when relationships are going well, attachment working models tend to stay in the background, exerting few effects. but when problems arise and one or both partners is under stress, attachment working models go into action. - orbital frontal cortex- associated with emotional regulation
Intimate Relationships Influence the Well-Being of Children
- the relationship status of parents is more influential than their race and education in determining whether their children will experience severe poverty. - Biological children of cohabiting parents have more behavioral and emotional problems, and are less engaged in their schoolwork, compared to the biological children of married parents, in part because having fewer financial resources can interfere with effective parenting. - The quality of the parents' relationship is related to their children's well-being. Children feel more upset and are less emotionally secure when their parents argue, leading them to act out and display aggression with their peers. - Conflict between parents also affects a wide range of biological systems in developing children, even reducing the quality of their sleep, speeding up the onset of puberty, and compromising their physical health. - Finally, children are affected by their parents' relationship transitions. Children who are exposed to more parental disruptions tend to have more behavioral problems and poorer health.
The strange nature of human development
- the unique nature of human development in the primate world is linked to one basic feature- the nature and size of the human brain - The growth of the human brain after birth outstrips all other higher primates.
How do we know love and intimacy have played an important role in human evolution?
- within the biological systems that enable procreation--> Sexual desire and interaction, are the result of an intricate cascade of neurochemical events linking erotic stimuli, both physical and psychological, that alter the sensitivity and functioning of the sex organs. - Romantic love appears to be no less biologically based. MRI scans taken while participants gaze at their beloved partner reveal brain activation in regions that are known to be stimulated when we receive a potent award (such as money or an intravenous injection of cocaine). - The hormone oxytocin is believed to be involved in sexual desire and romantic love --> Oxytocin is a key element in the human neurobiological system that promotes feelings of calmness, sociability, and trust, partly by reducing activity in fear-related brain structures like the amygdala and hypothalamus. - higher oxytocin levels correspond with increased displays of positive emotion, more affectionate touching, and a stronger sustained focus on the relationship.
interdependence theory
1. Comparison level vs comparison level alternatives 2. Fate vs behavior control 3. Interpersonal attributions
key features of evolutionary psychology
1. Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain and understand how human cognition and emotions evolve. To understand human behavior, we must look to the normal emotions, thoughts, and goals that humans possess because they contain the imprint of our evolutionary past. 2. The notion that humans evolved as general learning machines is not viewed as plausible from an evolutionary perspective. The human mind is similar to a cognitive Swiss Army knife rather than a general problem solver, and this is termed the modularity assumption. 3. Evolutionary approach is historical. Attempts to identify the selection forces that made specific mental modules functional within environments that existed. Being competitive with others may not make a person feel happy, but if such behavior produced greater reproductive success across hundreds of generations, it would be selected for in our species.
Our Primate Origins
1. Genetics - Mendel's theory of genetic inheritance (1890's) --> largely ignored until the 20th century - the contribution of each parent retains its integrity 2. The Modern Synthesis - combining Mendelian genetics with Darwinian natural selection (1930's - 1940's) - natural selection changes the frequency of genes --> examples: the peppered moth --> new species can form when natural selection operates on non-interbreeding populations of the same species --> the moth was mostly white, but mutations making it more black became more popular during the industrial revolution because the birch trees became covered in soot, and thus darker. 3. DNA and Humans - genes are made up of DNA - we share approximately 94-99% of our genes with the chimpanzee - genes can function like a 'clock' --> mutations in the silent portion of our DNA accumulate at a measurable rate --> we can combine these insights with the fossil record to trace our history
3 conclusions on the evolutionary origin of our species
1. Humans originally evolved in Africa 2. We are a young species, evolving into our current biological state around 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. 3. roughly 70,000 years ago, we migrated from Africa to every region of the earth and with this migration being competed at least 10,000 years ago.
why relationships are important
1. Intimate Relationships Affect Our Happiness and Well-Being
Basic Evolutionary Principles
1. Tradeoffs - take time to grow big and strong - grow and achieve reproductive capacity quicker? - species vary in how they weigh these tradeoffs --> these tactics evolve in bundles --> key question: can you avoid predation and protect offspring? - mouse: be small live fast reproduce fats and die young - elephant: be big, live slowly, reproduce slowly, die old
Four phases of development
1. birth-(2-3 months): infants show no strong preference for being with any single caregiver or attachment figure. 2. (2-3 months)-7 months: infants become more selective, distinguish their daily caregiver and star to prefer certain people over others and direct attachment behavior toward their caregiver. 3. (7 months-3 years): start taking a more active role in seeking out their caregivers especially when they are upset, and in initiating contact with new people such as playmates. Start forming internal working model, which are beliefs, expectations and attitudes about relationships based on earlier experiences with attachment figures. Primary functions of attachment are (1) proximity maintenance, (2) safe haven, and (3) secure base. 4. age 3: start of developing partnerships with attachment figures that are more flexible and strategic. - maintain psychological proximity --> felt security.
C. Developmental Designs
1. cross-sectional design: compare people of different ages/relationships stages/cohorts --> compare kylies relationships with Kim's relationships --> problem: different ages/cohorts and different life stages 2. Retrospective design: ask people about their past experiences - compare kylies past relationship with Kris to Kim's past relationship with Kris - Problem: memories can be biased by recent events 3. Longitudinal Designs: follow people over time (best design when possible) - problem: participant attrition--> keeping participants in the study - still not experimental, so you cannot draw causal conclusions
Limitations in Designing Observational Studies
1. researchers disagree about the appropriate questions to use to operationalize relationship satisfaction 2. deciding what behaviors to observe. 3. establishing reliability among the observers --> Interrater reliability: the extent to which different observers agree that a specified behavior has or has not occurred
Experiments
1a. Independent variable: is deliberately manipulated --> ex. assign people to smoke 10 vs. 0 cigarettes per day --> experimental conditions vs the control condition 1b. Dependent Variable: is measured to see if the independent variable affects it. --> ex. likelihood of lung cancer 20 years later 2. Ransom Assignment: each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any condition of the IV (eg. new therapy vs standard therapy) - condition is determined by chance, not be self-selection - participants in the two groups should be the same on average except for the manipulated variable
Introduction to the field
A History of Scorn - 1920's: Harlowe Gale --> fired from the University of Minnesota for asking such questions as "have you ever blown in the ear of a person of the opposite sex in order to arouse their passion?" - 1958: Harry Harlow --> congressional investigating committee on "monkey love" - 1975: Elaine Walster [Hatfield] --> senator Proxime's (D Wisconsin) "Golden Fleece" award --> He called her work "a futile and wasteful effort to define the impossible".
Which of the following is the best example of alloparenting?
A young child has lost his mother. Fortunately, the child was found by his aunt, who now takes care of him
Which of the following is most consistent with the concept of domain-specificity? A) Humans ability to detect cheaters is much better than their ability to solve abstract logic problems, even when the structure of the problem is the same. B) Humans like the same qualities (eg. agreeableness) in their coworkers, friends, family and lover. C) The human mind can use logic to solve problems about a variety of topics D) Humans can use self-control to restrain their eating behavior, sexual behavior, or aggressive behavior
A) Humans ability to detect cheaters is much better than their ability to solve abstract logic problems, even when the structure of the problem is the same.
There is a species of seahorse in which the male invests more heavily than the female in offspring. Knowing this, what would you predict from parental investment theory? A) Male seahorses will be more choosy about mates than females B) female seahorses will be more choosy about mates than males C) Sexual selection will be irrelevant to this species D. B and C
A) Male seahorses will be more choosy about mates than females
What are the potential benefits of using a convenience sample? A) convenience samples are typically easy to find B) convenience samples tend to have especially high external validity C) conveniance samples are useful for understanding different cultures D) there are no benefits to using a convenience sample
A) convenience samples are typically easy to find
Life history and attachment
A. - Be small, live fast, reproduce fast, die young OR be big, live slowly and reproduce slowly, die old. - this distinction also applies within species (people who are more likely to be more investing in their offspring and other partners who are more interested in higher offspring) B. short term vs long-term orientations - Short term --> sexually active early in life (age of menarche: first menstrual period) --> short, less stable pair-bonds --> little investment in offspring - long term --> delayed sexual maturity --> enduring pair-bonds --> time and effort spent in parenting - short term encompasses the anxious and avoidant styles, but it considers broader factors, such as environmental stress - recent models: short term strategies emerge only when the environment is harsh and unpredictable --> harshness: difficulty obtaining food, working long hours, low wages --> unpredictability: parents moving, changing jobs, or changing romantic partners.
Basic Evolutionary Principle
A. Natural Selection - organisms in a population posses traits to different degrees (random variation) - these traits are heritable (ie. they have a genetic component) - depending on the environment, some variants may be selectively retained. - natural selection could create features that increase chances of survival (ie. spikes on a puffer fish) --> finding food --> defense against predators --> complexity arises from simplicity B. Sexual Selection - competition for mates between individuals of the same sex - results in differential mating and reproductive success 1. intrasexual selection - when members of a given sex compete with one another to drive away or kill their rivals - opposite sex is passive (eg. rams fighting) 2. intersexual choice - competition with other members of one's sex to be chosen by the other sex - opposite sex is active (peacock) - sexual section produces sexual dimorphism 3. handicaps: honest advertisements that indicate robust good health and high fertility (and are costly to maintain). - animals cannot fake it (turkey plumage) C. Adaptations defined: features of organisms that arose in the past through natural selection because they directly or indirectly contributed to reproductive success - adaptations solve a reproductive problem (survival and mating) --> eyes solve the problem of sensing light --> claws solve the problem of scratching/digging for food --> peacock's display solves the problem of attracting mates -> fear solves the problem of avoiding dangers D. Deferential Parental Investment (Trivers, 1972) - Darwin couldn't explain why males typically compete for the attention of females - the sex with the higher initial investment in the offspring (typically the female) is choosier about mates --> that sex has more to lose from a poor mating choice ---> withholding sex in exchange for investment: scrubs clip - females should desire mates who will invest resources in her and her offspring - males should desire mates who are fertile E. Life History Theory - the organism itself is subjected to natural selection pressures - also, the developmental pattern is subject to selection pressures
Data collection methods
A. Self-Reports: asking people about thoughts/feelings --> retrospective vs current - global vs specific --> 'how active is your sex life' vs 'how many times did you have sexual intercourse in the past week' - subjective vs objective --> "how satisficing is your relationship?' vs 'did your partner give you a present for your birthday?' - eg. Rubin's (1970) love measure. Largely current, global and subjective - Simpson and Gangestad (1991) sociosexuality measure. A mix. - self-reports always entail some subjectivity B. Observational Studies - coding over behaviors - couples interact in a labratory and are videorecorded - experience-sampling procedures can capture everyday interaction (eg. the iEAR) - women talk more than men? --> box sexes: 16,000 words per day C. Physiological measures - levels of hormones in blood/saliva, heart rate, muscle tension, fMRI brain scans --> comparing participants who have recently fallen in love with long-term married and in love individuals D. Archival Materials - photographs, dairies, public media --> using yearbook photos to predict later marital status E. Couple's report - compare two peoples report --> if a husband reported giving affection on Tuesday, did his wife report receiving affection form him on Tuesday?
Relationship and wellbeing
A. The need to Belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) - The need is for frequent, nonaversive interactions within an ongoing relational bond" B. Social Network structure and health - stronger social networks predict good health outcomes 1. The Alameda County Study (Berkman & Syme, 1979) - 9 year prospective study of around 5,000 people - measure of social network structure --> marriage --> close friends/relatives --> church membership --> informal group memberships - Results: social isolation predicts higher mortality --> controlling for health at baselines, SES, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, obesity, race, life satisfaction, and use of preventive health services 2. The Pittsburg Cold Study (Cohen et al., 1997) - ps were administered nasal drops containing cold viruses and were examined to investigate --> whether or not they developed colds --> the degree to which they produced mucus - beforehand, ps reported on the diversity of their special roles (eg. spouse, parent, friend, coworker) - Results: ps with 1-3 network roles were 4.2 times more likely to develop a cold than were those with 6+ network roles. C. Relationship quality and health - it's not just the existence of relationships 1. marital quality study (robles et al., 2014) - a meta-analysis: combining 126 articles and 72,000 people - Results: having a low-quality marriage predicts poorer health and elevated mortality rates. D. Social Rejections and "Hurt Feelings" - people say they experience 'pain' and 'hurt' from social rejection The Cyberball study (Eisenberger et al., 2003) - does social rejection cause activation in regions of the brain known to activate following physical pain - rejection manipulation: cyberball - Results: brain activation parallels the patterns that occur following physical pain
Relationship and Wellbeing
A. The need to Belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) B. Social Network structure and health C. Relationship quality and health D. Social Rejection and "Hurt Feelings"
Some Basics
A. Theories, hypotheses and operationalizations - THEORY: a hypothetical explanation of a natural phenomenon - HYPOTHESIS: a testable, falsifiable prediction made by a theory --> can support or disprove but never prove a theory - OPERATIONAL DEFINITION: description of an abstract property in concrete, measurable terms -does smoking cause lung cancer? --> abstract property: carcinogen exposure --> operational definition: # of cigarettes smoked per day
Charles Darwin
A. a voyage of the HMS beagle (1831-1836) - Galapagos mockingbird --> differed in subtle ways --> insight: species could change B. on the origin of species by Means of Natural Selection - Darwin drew an analogy to artificial selection - Darwin rushed to publish his theory when he learned that Alfred Russel Wallace had developed a similar one
Which of the following is NOT true of pair bonding?
A. it is associated with less sexual dimorphism ANSWER --> B. It characterizes most primates, like gorillas C. it is associated with Large Brains and social intelligence D. it encourages fathers to invest in their offspring
a car dealer survey everyone who bought a car in the last year and notices that customers who paid more for a car report greater satisfaction. Which of the following statements could be true?
A. paying more for a car causes people to be more satisfied with it B. people who really want a car (and hence will be satisfied with it) are willing to pay more for that car C. rich people pay more for cars and are more likely to be satisfied with their purchase in general. ANSWER: all of the above could be true
Attachment in Adulthood
A. the emphasis on individual differences - much of the research on adult attachment dynamics has explored 'attachment styles' - attachment styles: a persons characteristics pattern of expectations, needs, emotions, and behavior in social interactions and close relationships 1. Hazan and Shaver's 3-category model (1987) - builds on Ainsworth's work --> secure, avoidant, anxious ambivalent - assessment with a self-report measure - each attachment style was given a descriptor and asked to see which one best describes them. --> results were consistent with percentages of people found among infants 2. Bartholomew's 4-category model - splits the 'avoidants' category into 'dismissing' and 'fearful' - derived from crossing two of Bowlby's questions (working models) --> models of self: am I worthy of being loved? --> model of others: are others responsive caregivers? - SECURE (positive, positive), PREOCCUPIED (model of self negative and model of others positive), DISMISSING (model of self positive,, and model of others negative), FEARFUL (negative, negative). 3. Dimenstional Models (2 dimensions) - Anxiety over abandonment --> model of self: am I worthy of being loved? Avoidance of closeness --> model of others: are others responsive caregivers? 4. What do attachment styles predict? - attachment security predicts having relationships characterized by: -- greater satisfaction, commitment, trust intimacy, etc. --> less conflict, jealousy, negative emotions etc. Why? -secure individuals express their feelings clearly and accurately read their partner's nonverbals - secure individuals use effective conflict resolution strategies- they don't escalate conflict, nor do their leave things unresolved. - but it's not all bad -- in a dangerous situations -- . . . anxiously attached individuals are quick to sound the alarm - . . . avoidantly attached individuals quickly escape ta 'save themselves' but others typically follow suit - experiences with responsive relationships partners help people to form secure relationship-specific working models. --> over time, these relationship-specific working models affect global attachment styles. B. Normative attachment in adulthood - similarities between infant and fault attachment --> secure base, safe haven, and secure base. - 3 stages of distress: protest, despair, and detachment --> temporary (eg. work-related) separation, break-up
Research Methods in Relationship Science
A. the goal of science: to discover truth - truth: that which corresponds to reality B. Hindsight Bias C. Ethics of Research the hi
Pros and Cons of self-report
ADVANTAGES - On a practical level, they require little in the way of equipment. - Often the only way of measuring constructs of great interest to relationship researchers - self-reports have high construct validity: The extent to which an operationalization adequately represents a particular psychological construct. DISADVANTAGES - sometimes they are unable to provide meaningful answers to questions about their intimate relationships --> 1. people can't tell you what they don't know --> 2. people can't describe what they don't remember --> 3. people can't give meaningful answers if they misunderstand the questions. --> 4. people's reluctance to answer questions accurately when a true answer makes them look bad (ie. social desirability effect)
Which of the following are inconsistent with the 'cupboard love' perspective? A. Infants love their mothers who feed them B. Harlow's monkeys preferred the cloth mother to the wire mother, even when the wire mother fed them C. Bowlby's orphans (without caregivers) were underdeveloped even though they were well-nourished D: B and C are inconsistent with 'cupboard love' E. All of the above are inconsistent with 'cupboard love'
ANSWER: D: Both B and C are inconsistent with the 'cupboard love'
which feature could NOT be affected by natural selection?
ANSWER: The fact that cats have four legs, because all cats have four legs - humans large brain, because they require so much energy to maintain - a birds bright plumage, because it only advertises sexual desirability - a gene coding for sickly-cell anemia, because it could help an organisms desirability
which of the following does NOT illustrate the function of an evolved adaption?
ANSWER: a child's thumbs allow her to play Nintendo - a dogs nose helps it detect the presence of other animals - a birds wings allow it to escape predators - a male primates testosterone prompts it to initiate sex with willing females
Which of the following parent caregiving behaviors is most likely linked to anxious/ambivalent attachment styles? A) While the infant is signer-painting, the caregiver is doing the dishes, but every now and then walks over to the infant to smile and watch, and occasionally asks the infant questions about the painting. B) While the infant is doing a puzzle, the caregiver watches intrusively and guides the infant's hand to the correct puzzle pieces each time the infant selects the wrong piece. C) The infant has been crying in his or her bedroom for over half an hour but the caregiver ignores the infant until the crying becomes unbearable. D) Both B and C
ANSWER: both B and C
research question: does cheating lead to breakups? which of the following is a good operational definition of "breaking up"?
ANSWER: changing Facebook status to single NOT: a) the name of your ex-partner c) how much you dislike the dating scene in your city d) imagining the breakup didn't happen e) breakups cannot be operationalized by scientists
When Tony talks to his therapist about his past intimate relationships, he reports having felt uncomfortable talking about emotional topics with his girlfriends and nervous when he felt them trying to get too close. Based on this report, Tony most likely has which of the following attachment styles?
Avoidant
Which of the following is NOT one of the three adaptive functions of attachment? A) Staying close or seeking closeness to a caregiver B) Experience emotional detachment with maturity C) Seeking safety and comfort from a caregiver D) Having a 'secure Base' from which one can explore
B) Experience emotional detachment with maturity
people sometimes report that rejection causes 'physical pain' and 'hurt'. why might this be? A) there is a cranial nerve that fires when animals experience rejection B)being rejected activates the same areas of the brain that processes physical pain C) a common medical condition causes some people to experience the world in a more intense way D) the use of metaphor when describing rejection elicits sympathy and limits the likelihood of future rejection
B) being rejected activates the same areas of the brain that processes physical pain
Research on attachment has used 'the strange situation' to measure an infants reactions to periods of maternal separation. An infant who is generally not distressed when the caregiver leaves the room and also does not acknowledge her when she returns is said to have what type of attachment style? A. Secure B. Avoidant C. Ambivalent D. Disorganized E. Insecure-resistant
B. avoidant
Challenge # 2: Relationships Are Complex and Multidetermined
But if you want to understand the course of an intimate relationship, countless variables are likely to play a role because relationships are multidetermined, meaning they're affected by many different sources of influence at once. - Relationship researchers therefore have to be selective, drawing attention to some variables and deliberately ignoring others.
Which of the following does NOT fit with a short-term life history strategy? A) Mystery likes having brief sexual relationships with many women B) Jane experienced menarche at a fairly young age C) Grace was securely attached to her parents D) Barry's parents moved a lot when he was young and worked long hours for low wages
C) Grace was securely attached to her parents
Pair-bonding in animals is tied to which of the following? A) low social intelligence B) Low levels of parental care C) low levels of sexual dimorphism D) all of the above are true
C) low levels of sexual dimorphism
IN the correlation (r) between texting while driving and car accidents is large and positive, then researchers know: A) participants in their sample text while driving very frequently B) participants in their sample have lots of car accidents C) the more participants in their sample report that they text while driving, the more car accidents they report getting into. D. Both A and B
C) the more participants in their sample report that they text while driving, the more car accidents they report getting into.
Which of the following illustrates the concept of mother-infant synchrony? A) Mothers engaging in shared eye contact and smiling with their babies B) Complementary attachment systems in mother and child C) A child having a similar attachment style as his/her mother D) A and B
D) A and B
If Professor Eastwick wants to conduct an experiment with two groups, what is the best way for him to determine who is each group? A) Assign the first half of the class that arrives at the lecture hall to group 1 and the second half of the class that arrives to group 2 B) assign students sitting on the left side of the lecture hall to group 1 and the students sitting on the right to group 2 C) assign students with last names A-M to be in group 1 and students with the last names N-Z to be in group 2 D) Ask TAs to flip a coin for each student; the student goes to group 1 for heads and group 2 for tails.
D) Ask TAs to flip a coin for each student; the student goes to group 1 for heads and group 2 for tails.
Which of the following is true of a theory? A) it defines an abstract concept in concrete measurable terms B) it is a hypothetical explanation of a natural phenomenon C it can be used to generate hypotheses D) B and C
D) B and C: it is a hypothetical explanation of a natural phenomenon AND it can be used to generate hypotheses
Which of the following is an advantage of conducting relationship science? A) Relationships research is vital and interesting because almost nothing in life is as important as our relationships with others. B) Research findings can correct or explain contradictory conventional wisdom C) reporting evidence-based research can help counteract incorrect information presented by charlatans in the media D) all of the above are advantages of relationship sciences
D) all of the above are advantages of relationship sciences
Evolutionary Theory
Darwin: The Darwinian engine of evolution involves three core elements: variation, inheritance and selection. 1. variation in the characteristics of the organisms within a species 2. some of these variations must be inherited genetically 3. selection: environmental elements (such as competing animals, and access to food) influence to which particular individuals survive and reproduce successfully. - natural selection determined which genetic variations survive, thus regulating the changes in species over time. - Sexual selection: explains why male and female animals are so often different in appearance and behavior. These exaggerated and costly impediments signal to females that they are healthy specimens from good genetic stock. -- Sexual dimorphism: the difference in size between the sexes.
Domains and their level of Distal to Proximal explanations
Distal - evolutionary psychology - anthropological - developmental psychology - social psychology - sexual behavior - neuroscience Proximal
Which of the following studies uses an _____ design?
EXPERIMENTAL: some participants are told by a researcher to watch a scary movie and some are told to watch a boring movies, and participants who watched the scary movie report more love for their partner than those who watched the boring movie. CORRELATIONAL: reserachers who polled people walking out of a movie learned that as people rated the movie they'd just seen as scarier, they also rated their love for their romantic partner as higher. LONGITUDINAL: the more scary movies participants watch when they are 6, the more they report love for their romantic partner when they are 26. RETROSPECTIVE: participants who remember watching many scary movies as children report more love for their romantic partner today than participants who watched fewer scary movies
Life history theory
Goals of theory: based on observation that it is not only the biological and behavioral makeup of individuals organisms that evolve, but also their developmental patterns from birth to death. - Explains how and why different individuals within the human species are directed down different types of developmental pathways. Critical Role of Tradeoffs - grow big then reproduce, vs reproduce then grow big. - tradeoffs tend to occur on a dimension that catches some important clusters of characteristics
Is a child's fate determined entirely by his or her parents' intimate relationships?
Having a divorced parent increases one's chance of divorcing by about 10-20 percent beyond the level experienced by children from intact families
interdependent theory
Kelley and Thibaut has several interlocking components. Framed in terms of the rewards that partners can provide each other in different types of situations. However, the relationship evaluations and decisions that are made in specific situations are not based on the objective nature of rewards, but rather on the consistency between perceptions of rewards in relation to two kinds of standards -expectations about what benefits are deserved (comparison level or CL) and the perceived quality of available alternative partners or relationships (comparison level alternatives CLalt) 1. Comparison Level - if the perceived rewards in the current relationship are higher than both CL and CLalt, people should be relatively satisfied and committed. - keeping rewards constant, but moving CL or CLalt higher than perceived rewards should lower a person's relationship satisfaction and commitment in the current relationship. 2. Fate vs Behavior Control - second key feature is the manner in which two partners in a relationship coordinate their daily interactions to sustain cooperation and concern for each other. - focuses on the power and influence partners have over one another, and how they respond to one another when their interests either conflict or overlap. --> fate control: occurs when an individual decides to do something that affects his or her partner and the partner has little if any say in what happens (eg. arranging surprise party) --> can be problematic because one partner is consistently deprived of control and thus becomes unhappy. --> behavior control: both partners are involved and have more or less equal power and control over the final outcome. (eg. negotiating who will do what in organizing a party) 3. interpersonal attributions - greater trust commitment, and attitudes toward one's partner facilitate the often automatic shift that partners make from a selfish frame of mind to a relationship or partner-centered orientation.
How exactly do intimate relationships protect us and make us happy? What do relationships provide that promotes happiness?
PHYSICAL HEALTH 1. intimate relationships promote happiness because of their effect on our physical health. - people who can resolve relationship conflicts are less vulnerable to catching a common cold after being exposed to an experimentally administered virus (cohen) - Cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune functioning are all stronger when conflict and hostility are at a minimum in intimate relationships (KiecoltGlaser). - Married people are less likely than unmarried people to be diagnosed with cancer, to receive inadequate care for cancer, and to die as a result of cancer (Aizer). - People who remain in committed relationships, and avoid divorce, also live longer, compared to people with unstable partnerships and married people in general live longer than unmarried people do, and they gain an added advantage in longevity when their relationships are rewarding. - why relationships improve longevity --> scholars speculate that people in relationships, and those in healthy, positive relationships, receive more support than people who are on their own. - the researchers showed that people in happier relationships were less likely to die in this 4-year period compared to those in unhappier relationships (Coyne). SEXUAL INTIMACY - close relationships promote happiness through sexual intimacy - People say that sex is the activity that makes them happiest day-to-day. FINANCIAL WELLBEING - Studies indicate that people who remain married throughout adulthood accumulate more wealth than those who never marry, cohabit, or divorce. - people pay a price for relationship transitions, especially when partnerships end. People take a large financial hit when they divorce or dissolve a cohabiting relationship. - women's household income drops 58% for divorce and 33% when cohabitation ends. KEEP IN MIND: - selection effects: A bias that can arise in research because preexisting characteristics of people lead them to choose, or "select themselves into" certain experiences. - People who are happier are more likely to marry than stay single, and people who are happier before marriage are also less likely to divorce. These selection effect outcomes occur because happiness is said to "select" people into certain sorts of relationships, and it is the initial happiness that makes for the better relationship, not the reverse. - Selection effects can exist alongside so-called protection effects. - Protection effects: An association between two phenomena whereby one causes improvement or benefits in the other; for example, marriage appears to afford protection through improved health. - the idea that something real about being in a committed relationship provides some measure of protection that is not otherwise available to single or cohabiting individuals (eg. heart attack study). BOTTOM LINE: - support the idea that something about relationships, and not just the people who "select themselves" into different versions of them, really does produce benefits in the form of greater happiness and well-being.
Pros and Cons of Physiological Measures
PROS - physiological responses are reliably associated with relationship experiences, and they provide a way of measuring these outcomes free from concerns about social desirability or faulty memories. CONS - the meaning of any physiological response can be ambiguous --> Ex. oxytocin is sometimes called the love hormone because studies have shown that higher blood levels of oxytocin play a role in pair-bonding, but the meaning of higher or lower oxytocin levels may vary widely depending on aspects of the situation and the person, eg. it can make people aggressive too.
Why would a researcher use observational measures when self-reports are easier and less expensive?
PROS - when used appropriately, observations directly assess behaviors of great interest to relationship researchers. - avoid some specific problems associated with self-reports. Because they usually make their notes during an event or immediately afterward, observers have less opportunity to rely on faulty or limited memories. - Similarly, because the behaviors they're watching don't reflect on them, their observations should not be subject to the social desirability effect. CONS - main problem with observational measures is the possibility of reactivity, when the act of observing a behavior actually changes that behavior. --> To minimize reactivity, some researchers hide their recording equipment, hoping couples will forget about the observers and focus on each other.
Pros and Cons of Indirect Measures
PROS - When people are unwilling or unable to answer direct questions, indirect measures can show what they are thinking and feeling anyway. CONS - The distance between the specific behaviors that indirect measurements examine and the abstract constructs researchers want to study --> The farther away researchers get from direct questions, the bigger chance that what they are studying may not be what they think they are studying
Which Measurement Strategy Is Best?
The best research adopts a multiple-method approach, operationalizing the constructs of interest in different ways and hoping the limitations of each measurement strategy will eventually cancel each other out, thereby letting the effects the researcher is most focused on emerge clearly.
Attachment Theory
all primates including humans, have an innate attachment system that was shaped by evolution to keep vulnerable infants in close physical proximity to their stronger and wiser caregivers. - all vulnerable infants show a specific sequence of attachment reactions when they are separated from their caregivers. --> nearly all protest loudly at caregiver absence, and Bowlby believed that it was a good initial strategy to promote infants' survival, especially those that were dependent. --> if that fails, infants enter a second stage, known as repair, in which they stop moving around, become quiet, and sometimes become despondent. Becoming depressed is a good strategy for infant survival as excessive movement can cause injuries. --> infants who had not been reunited with their caregivers enter the detachment stage where infants resume normal activities without their caregivers, gradually learning to function in an independent and self-reliant fashion. This detachment can pave the way for new bonds with new caregivers. TWO MAIN COMPONENTS: - a normative component: which explains typical features of attachment that apply to everyone, such as how and why attachment bonds form and remina stable over time and - individual difference component, which explains how and why people who have different attachment types think, feel and behave in different social situations.
of human bondage
alloparents and extensive parental care that pair boding allows has permitted the ability to wean infants relatively early and thereby reduce time periods between pregnancies. - monogamy: sustained romantic involvement with one partner - polygamy: one man involved with more than one women. - polyandry: one woman being romantically involved with many men
Which of the following persons would be LEAST likely to have their need to belong satisfied? A) someone who has many casual acquaintances at church b) someone who travels all the time for work and has only brief interactions with new people c) someone who has a satisfying romantic relationship d) someone who is unmarried but well liked by his/her coworkers.
b) someone who travels all the time for work and has only brief interactions with new people
Correlational Studies
correlation: the association between two variables - useful when one cannot manipulate the IV --> ethical or practical limitations - ex. is parental divorce associated with behavior problems? 1. Two problems with drawing causal conclusions from correlational research - First: reverse-causality problem --> perhaps behavior problems cause divorce ILLUSTRATED: watching televised violence ---> <----aggression - Second: the third variable problem --> perhaps genes underlying risk taking tendencies cause both divorce and behavior problems in ones child ILLUSTRATED: (x) watching televised violence ---> <----(y) aggression + (z) lack of adult supervision 2. the correlation coefficient - varies from -1 to +1 - sign indicates the direction of the association - magnitude (in absolute value) indicates the strength of association - correlations are high/strong when knowing the score on one variable gives you confidence about the score on the other
Frequency distributions
graphical representation of the measurement of a sample - a mean difference does not mean all people in one group differ from all people in the other.
intuition vs science
if an expert believes something to be true, should we also believe it? (testing therapeutic touch clip)--> found that the practitioners cant feel the body aura, but people still believe in it and it makes them feel better. - experts often have terrific insights, but scientists view these insights as testable hypotheses rather than as facts.
why is a peacock's tail an advertisement of desirability as a mate?
it is costly to maintain an impressive tail, and low quality males cannot fake it.
life history models of social development
life history model introduces a key idea- that developmental processes themselves have evolved according to the forces of natural and sexual selection. Relevant to undertaking how and why individual differences in attachment exist. Five stages: 1) specific events in child's family or origin like level of stress and relationship harmony 2) the quality of early child rearing experiences, such as the amount of sensitive, supportive responsive child receives. 3) the child's psychological and behavioral development particularly attachment types and internal working models which impacts 4) the child's rate of physical development (eg. how quickly sexual maturity is reached relative to his/her peers) and ultimately 5) the specific reproductive strategy adopted in adulthood MATING STRATEGIES - short term, opportunist orientation toward relationships, especially mating and parenting. become sexually active early in life, less table pair bonds and devote less time to parenting (increased quantity of children) - long-term investing orientation in which sexual activity begins later, pair bonds stronger, happier and more enduring and more time and effort are invested in parenting (typically have increased offspring quality, health and vitality)
Which of the following statements best illustrates the adaptiveness of the need to belong?
our ancestors lived in small groups, and having a need to belong encouraged them to work hard and be valuable group members
In the Pittsburg Cold Study, what factor predicted that participants were more likely to catch a cold when given the cold virus?
participants with less diverse social networks were more likely to catch a cold
attachment in adolescence and adulthood
secure adults reported being similar to secure children in terms of how they typically thought, felt and acted in their romantic relationships. - people see themselves as located independently somewhere on two different continuously distributed dimensions (1) the degree of avoidance, and (2) the degree of anxiety. - secure (low anxiety/low avoidance) - preoccupied (high anxiety/low avoidance) - dismissive (low anxiety/high avoidance) - fearful (high anxiety/high avoidance)
Physiological Measures
the body's physical reactions to specific experiences - functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology allows relationship scientists to examine how feelings of love relate to the activation of specific areas in the brain
The hindsight bias
the tendency to believe you "knew it all along" after learning that an event happened because it 'just made sense' - ex. the winner if the bachelor, supreme court justices
Challenge #3: Couples Are Not Objects
the way people respond as research participants can be affected by their awareness of being studied, as well as the environment of the research. - Couples can get tired, embarrassed, irritated, or bored. - The reasonable requirement that researchers remain sensitive to the experience of the couples they study limits the kinds of research they can conduct and the questions they can propose.
what is the main problem with a test for depression that measures how much soup a person eats in a week?
validity
What is human nature
we differ from other species by: - an exceptionally large brain given our size, with a massively developed cerebral prefrontal cortex - a fully developed capacity for language - a complex folk psychology , with associated theories of how the mind as well as other people function, based on cognitive representational attributes such as beliefs, desires and so on. etc.