PSY exam 2
Describe the physiological, cognitive, and behavioral experience of passionate love.
(belief that another person caused one's arousal), romantic thoughts and beliefs. Any form of strong arousal, good or bad, can influence feelings of romantic love.
Differentiate between the various forms of sexual violation and the ways to reduce sexual violation.
1- when one persons coaxes or cons another to submit to touching that he or she doesn't want. 2-verbal manipulation or intentional intoxication leads to penetration of genitals. 3,4-various degrees of physical force and more likely to seem illegal.
Specify the average age of first intercourse among American youth, indicating the trend in the virginity rate.
17
Describe the investment model of commitment developed by Rusbult and her colleagues, indicating the factors that affect people's commitment levels and the results of their impact on relationship maintenance mechanisms.
According to the investment model, commitment emerges from all the elements of social exchange that are associated with people's CLs and CLaltS. Satisfaction increases commitment. People with more enticing alternative are less likely to stay in their existing relationship.
Describe commitment in intimate relationships.
Committed people take action to protect and maintain their relationship
Explain people's chances for long-lasting love and suggest what they may do to increase those chances.
Companionate love is very satisfying an may be more stable than romantic love is. If lovers are good friends and work to battle boredom, they may improve their chances for a long, contended relationship.
Discuss the influence of positive behaviors and negative behaviors in relationships and their impact on the rewards-to-cost ratio in successful marriages.
Counting up the rewards and costs of a relation ship provides extraordinary information about its current state and likely future.
Explain the concept of equity in intimate relationships and discuss the distress of inequity in relationships.
Equity occurs when both partners gain benefits from a relationship that are proportional to their contributions to it.
7 channels of nonverbal communication
Facial Expression: signal moods and emotions in an easily recognizable manner Gazing behavior: direction & amount of eye contact is influential, communicates interest & affection Body movement: gestures and posture convey meaning Touch: helps define relationships, conveys closeness and affection Interpersonal distances: different zones of personal space signal different kinds of interaction (Intimate-0-8in, personal-1.5-4ft, social- 4-12ft, public 12ft+) Smell: different emotions cause people to release different chemicals which elicit different aromas. Paralanguage: includes all variations in a person's voice other than the actual words used.
Suggest ways of communication that can make things better rather than worse
Focus conversation on discrete, manageable behaviors that unlike personality can be readily changed. Use I-statements that specify our feelings. "When you do X in situation Y, I feel Z"
Compassionate love
Intimacy combines with selfless caring for the beloved to form compassionate love. Compassionate acts enhance relationships.
Explain the three components of love identified by Sternberg and how these components combine to form eight different kinds of love.
Intimacy: the feelings of warmth, understanding, trust, support and sharing that often characterize loving relationships. Passion: physical arousal and desire, excitement and need. Commitment: feelings of permanence, stability and the decisions to devote oneself to a relationship and to work to maintain it. * Each of the three components makes a loving relationship more satisfying, and the most rewarding romances contain big servings of all three ingredients.
Discuss the dysfunctional communication patterns of unhappy partners
Kitchen-sinking: when they voice a complaint but address several topics at once. "it's not just your carelessness, it's about your drinking and your lousy attitude" Off-beam: wandering from topic to topic so that the conversation never stays on one topic long enough to resolve it Mindreading: when people assume that they understand their partner's thoughts, feelings, and opinions without asking. Interrupting: unhappy partners interrupt each other in negative ways more Yes-butting: distressed couple also listen poorly by finding something wrong or un-workable with anything their partners say. Cross-complaining: instead of expressing interest in what their partners have to say, they just respond with a complaint of their own. Negative affect: when they talk with each other they too often react to their partner's complaints with sarcastic disregard that is demeaning and scornful, making problems worse. Ex: criticism, contempt (insults, mockery), defensiveness, stonewalling (withdrawing into silence), belligerence (aggressive rejection)
Specify how specific attitudes toward condoms, illusions of invulnerability, alcohol, and general attitudes toward sex influence the use of condoms
Many o us believe that bad things are generally more liekely to happen to tohers than to us, so we fail to take precautions.
Mention gender similarities and differences in love.
Men and women are more similar than different when it comes to love, but women pick their lovers more carefully and fall in love less quickly than men do.
Explain how gender, sexual orientation, sociosexuality, relationship quality, and equity predict the likelihood of sexual infidelity.
Men are more likely to cheat, gay men have sex the most outside of the relationship. People with unrestricted sociosexuality tend to be dynamic, flirtatious people always on the prowl.
Discuss gender differences in sexual desire.
Men have higher sex drives than women on average. Men masturbate more, think about sex more, spend more money on sex, want to have sex earlier.
Explain the attitudes toward casual sex and how men and women differ in their sexual opinions.
Men: hold more permissive sexual values and attitudes. Men are more likely to think that sex without love is okay, and usually feel better the morning after a hookup than women. More likely to regret things they DIDN'T do. Women: More likely than men to regret past sexual behavior.
Explain the attitudes toward same-sex sexuality and reasons that its acceptance is ever increasing.
Most Americans no longer hold the view that same-sex relationships are morally wrong. Because of exposure to gay couples, and understanding same sex relations more, we are more accepting than ever before.
Impression management
Nonverbal behavior that is managed by a person or couple to create or enhance a particular image
With the help of interdependence theory, explain how CLs tend to fluctuate with the outcomes received.
Our CLs tend to fluctuate along with the outcomes we receive. When we first encounter excellent outcomes, we're delighted, but our pleasure may slowly dwindle as we come to take such benefits for granted and our CLs rise.
Explain the power of respect and validation in good communication.
Partners should communicate respect and recognition of the other' point of view even when they disagree.
Explain how romantic emotions change with age
People mellow with age, experiencing less intense love as time goes by.
Provide evidence that clear communication is linked with sexual satisfaction and indicate gender differences in the perception of possible sexual situations.
People who talk candidly about sex have more fulfilling interactions with their partners.
Discuss the importance of various neurotransmitters in the experience of different types of love.
Romantic, passionate love stimulate the release of DOPAMINE (reward and pleasure center) Companionate love involves OXYCTOCIN (relaxation and reduces stress) "love and cuddle hormone"
Define self-disclosure and discuss social penetration theory. What is the link between self-disclosure and relationship satisfaction?
Self-disclosure: the process of revealing personal information to someone else Social penetration theory: relationships develop through systematic changes in communication. Self-disclosure increases in both breadth and depth as a relationship develops. -When we self-disclose to others, we tend to like them more. Intimacy requires self-disclosure and partner responsiveness. Couples who self-disclose more, tend to be happier.
Discuss the self-expansion model and the relational turbulence model using examples
Self-expansion model of human motivation that holds that we are attracted to partnerships that expand the range of our interests, skills, and experiences. The key to staying happy, according to the self-expansion model, is to combat boredom by creatively finding ways to continue your personal growth. Relationship turbulence model: we should expect a period of adjustment and turmoil as new partners become more accustomed to their interdependence. (a partner assuming they're spending the weekend together when that interferes with the other's plans)
1.Describe a simple model of interpersonal communication and how communication may result in an interpersonal gap.
Sender's (private) - Sender's (public)- Effect on listener Sender's style of encoding and listener's style of decoding may result in gap Interpersonal gap: the sender's intentions differ from the effect on the receiver. More likely to occur in close relationships than amongst strangers
Provide an evidence-based analysis on whether gender differences in self-disclosure are because of cultural or biological differences. Note the function of androgyny in gender differences for expressivity.
The difference between men and women in self-disclosure is a GENDER difference that is more closely associated with people's gender roles than with their biological sex. Androgynous men and women are high in expressivity and engage in intimate verbal communication.
Describe the various factors associated with sexual satisfaction (age, number of partners, frequency, fulfilment of basic need such as autonomy, motivations for sex and beliefs about sex).
The more sex you have the happier you are
Explain the importance of accurate encoding and decoding of nonverbal communication in marital satisfaction and the role played by husbands and wives when they miscommunicate.
The sensitivity and accuracy with which couples read, decode, and correctly interpret each other's nonverbal communication predict how happy their relationship will be. Husbands in unhappy marriages sent more confusing messages and made more decoding errors than happy husbands did- there were no such differences in women, so the poorer communication appears to be the husband's fault.
Defining the Nature of Relationships (nonverbal com)
The type of partnership two people share may be evident in their nonverbal behavior.
Describe how different channels of nonverbal communication reinforce each other.
They work together to convey consistent information about a person's sentiments and intentions. They help tell you what people really mean by what they say (sarcasm)
Explain why prudent and cautious expectations about the futures of intimate relationships are more reasonable and sensible than romantic idealism.
Through lack of effort, because interdependency is a magnifying glass, and through access to weaponry, unwelcome surprises and unrealistic expectations, people usually encounter unanticipated costs even in good relationships
Give evidence that love declines over time and specify three influences on love that may help explain this decline.
To the extent that romance is enhanced by idealized glorification of one's partner, we should expect it to decline when people begin living together and reality slowly intrudes. Romance and passion involve, FANTASY, NOVELTY, and AROUSAL, and each fades with time.
Explain what happens when people become dependent on their partners and don't want to leave them.
We have an important stake in keeping our partner's happy, so that our partners will continue providing those desired rewards.
Discuss the various gender differences in verbal communication, such as topics and styles of conversation.
Women: feelings and people/ discuss personal aspects of their lives Men: impersonal matters, objects and actions, seeking laughs instead of counseling
Explain how one's CL, Clalt, and outcomes combine to produce four different types of relationships
Your CLalt describes the outcomes you'd receive by leaving your current relationship and moving to the best alternative partnership or situation you have available. Your CLaltS is the lowest level of outcome you will tolerate from our present partners.
Providing Information (nonverbal comm)
a person's behavior allows others to make inferences about his or her intention, feelings, traits and meaning
Moral commitment
a sense of moral obligation to one's partner or one's relationship. People feel they ought to continue the relationship because it would be improper to end it and break their promises.
Companionate love
commitment and intimacy combine. A deep friendship with someone with whom one's life is intertwined. Happy spouses usually say they are good friends.
Interpersonal Influence (nonverbal com)
goal-oriented behavior designed to influence someone else
Exchange relationships
governed by desire for immediate repayment of favors
Approach Motivation
in seeking rewards, we try to satisfy an appetite for desirable experiences. We pursue pleasure and our motivation for doing something is to feel good.
Regulating Interaction (nonverbal com)
nonverbal behavior provides cues that regulate the efficient give-and-take of smooth conversations and other interactions
How romantic love makes it easier to put tempting alternatives to one's present partners out of one's mind
omantic thoughts and beliefs help us ignore attractive alternatives
Avoidance Motivation
our desire to elude or escape punishment and pain so we strive to avoid undesired experiences and reduce negative feelings such as anxiety and fear.
How love alters one's thoughts about oneself
partners bring new experiences and new roles
Romantic love
passion and intimacy combine. Characterized by idealized evaluations of one's partner.
Evidence that one holds rosy views of one's romantic partners
positive illusions, people ignore or reinterpret undesirable information about potential partners
Communal relationships
selfless concern for others' needs
When people's outcomes fall below their CLs but higher than their CLaltS=
they're getting less than they expect. And feel they deserve, but they're still doing better than they think they can elsewhere. Dissatisfied relationship.
When people's outcomes exceed CLs, and CLaltS=
they're getting more from their partners than they expect AND they believe they're doing better than they could anywhere else. Happy & stable relationship.
When people's CLaltS are higher than their outcomes but their CLs are lower=
they're satisfied with their present partners but believe that they have even more attractive outcomes elsewhere.
When people's CLs and CLaltS are lower=
unhappy and unstable relationship that won't last long.
Discuss the key concepts of interdependence theory, and explain how they relate to one another
valuable interpersonal rewards Interdependence theory assumes that each of us has an idiosyncratic comparison level (CL) that describes the value of the outcomes that we've come expect and believe that we deserve in our dealings with others. Our CLs are based on our past experiences. Satisfaction derives from how our outcomes compare to our expectations-our comparison levels.
Constraint commitment
when people feel they have to continue a relationship because it would be too costly for them to leave. They fear the social and financial consequences of leaving and continue even when they wish to depart.
Personal commitment
when people want to continue a relationship because they are attracted to their partners and the relationship is satisfying