Chapter 10: relationships

Evolution for romantic relationships (3 broad stages)

escalating, navigating, and deteriorating. After we initiate interest and as we continue to interact with others, both breadth and depth of disclosure increase. If increase interaction intensifies attraction, the relationship may escalate. As a romantic relationship heaths up, partners often idealize each other. The prediction that people will seek relationships with others who closely match their values, attitudes, social background, and physical attractiveness. Some couples move onto commitment.

Passion

intensively positive feelings and desires for another person. Passion is based on the rewards of involvement and is not equivalent to commitment.

Reframing

transcends the apparent contradiction between two dialectical poles and reinterprets them as not in tension Instead of viewing autonomy and closeness as opposing, these partners transcended the apparent tension between the two to define the needs as mutually enhancing.

psychological responsibility

The obligation to remember, plan, and coordinate domestic work and child care. In general, women assume psychological responsibility for child care and housework even when both partners share in the actual doing of tasks.

matching hypothesis

The prediction that people will seek relationships with others who closely match their values, attitudes, social background, and physical attractiveness.

Relationship Dialects

The tensions between opposing forces or tendencies that are normal parts of all relationships: autonomy/connection, novelty/predictability, and openness/closedness. There are three types: 1. Autonomy/connection 2. novelty/predictability 3. Openness/closedness

Equity Theory

The theory that people are happier and more satisfied with equitable relationships than inequitable ones. In equitable relationships, partners perceive the benefits and costs of the relationship as about equal for each of them. Equity has multiple dimensions. We may evaluate the fairness of financial, emotional, physical, and other contributions to a relationship.

How do gay and lesbian partners manage domestic responsibilities?

They strive for and achieve more balanced power than heterosexual couples. Gay and lesbian couples report a greater desire for shared power and decision making than do heterosexual couples.

Aspects that cause relationships to end/ are signs of an ending relationship

- when people individually dwell on a problem in a relationship and about their dissatisfaction with the partner. - There are sex differences in sources of jealousy. Women = jelly of emotional commitments. Men = jelly of sexual commitments. - For women, unhappiness occurs when communication declines in quality of quantity. - Men are more likely to be dissatisfied by specific behaviors or the lack of valued behaviors. - Deteriorating relationships often experience the breakdown of established patterns, understandings, and rules.

Guidelines for Communicating in Personal Relationships

1. Adapt communication to manage distance 2. Ensure Equity in Family Relationships; 2005). In addition, the inequity of the arrangement is a primary source of relationship dissatisfaction and instability. 3. Avoid Intimate Partner Violence 4. Insist on Safe Sex

What are the two primary reasons why people don't practice safer sex.

1. People find it embarrassing to talk about sex or make direct request of partners. 2. People fail to negotiate safer sex because alcohol or other drugs have diminished their ability for rational thoughts and control.

Relationship culture

A private world of rules, understandings, and patterns of acting and interpreting that partners create to give meaning to their relationship; the nucleus of intimacy. It is not static. Includes how couples manage relationship dialect.

features of personal relationships

A relationship defined by uniqueness, rules, relationship dialectics, commitment, and embeddedness in contexts. Personal relationships, unlike social ones, are irreplaceable. 1. uniqueness, 2. Voluntary commitment 3. Relationship Rules 4. Affected by Contexts 5. Relationship Dialects

Mania

An obsessive style that often reflect person insecurity. Marked by emotional extremes.

Evolutionary beginning of Friendships

Being with interaction on social roles. In initial interactions, we rely on standard social roles . If we like the initial interaction, we are likely to try to get to know them better so see if there are sufficient common grounds and interests to develop a friendship Friendships may form as a result of being in the same environment. Ex: people who work in the same office/ If both people enjoy interacting, they may move outside of conventional social roles. Friendship grows as people show increased involvement and caring. At this point, friends often begin to work out their private ways of relating. The benchmark of an established friendship is the assumption of continuity. Trust is another criterion of established friendship.

The evolutionary course of personal relationships

Changing in a relationship dont just happen but rather are causes by particular instances called TURNING POINT. There are evolutionary models for both Friendships and Romantic Relationships

Voluntary commitment

Commitment is the decision to remain with a relationship. 1 of 3 dimensions of enduring romantic relationships, commitment has more influence on a relationship than does love alone. It is the intuition to share the future. Commitment grows out of investment which is what we put into a relationship that we cannot retrieve if the relationship were to end. We invest ourselves in others. The more we invest, the harder it is to end.

Uniqueness

In personal relationships, the particulate people and what they create between them define the connection. They are unique as they are irreplaceable. When the person leaves or dies, so does the relationship.

Separation (and the alternative method)

It assesses the need in a dialect and ignores the other. Partners assign one pole of a dialectic to certain spheres of activities or topics and assign the contradictory dialectical pole to distinct spheres of activities or topics. This is the least satisfying response. Ex: Friends might agree to make novel a priority and suppress their needs for routine. There is an alternate method to separation... Cyclic Alteration: occurs when partners cycle between dialectical poles to favor each pole alternatively.

Ludus

Loving, playful, and sometimes manipulative. loving. For ludic lovers, love is a challenge, a puzzle, a game to be relished but not to lead to commitment.

What are the four ways people deal with dialect tension?

Neutralization, separation, segmentation, and reframing.

novelty/predictability

One of three relationship dialectics; the tension between the desire for spontaneous, new experiences, and the desire for routines and familiar experiences. We like certain levels of routine to provide security and predictability in our lives but we also can get bored.

autonomy/connection

One of three relationship dialectics; the tension between the need for personal autonomy, or independence, and connection, or intimacy. You want to remain somewhat independent yet also be intimate.

In person vs online relationships

Online relationships form faster and they allow more deliberate and sometimes deceptive attempts to control self-presentation. Online relationships foster idealized perceptions to continue interest. Online relationships cannot experience the kind of closeness that is fueled by touch, smell, and taste

Turning Point

Particular experiences and events that cause relationships to become more or less intimate.

How does culture affect relationship rules?

People from different racial and ethnic backgrounds may not understand each other's relationship rules. Ex: Latinas and Latinos regard supportive communication and respect as key norms in friendship. BUT African Americans place more priority on showing respect and consideration. Asian Americans emphasize exchanging ideas, and European Americans place highest priority on honesty, disclosure, and advice.

Two greatest influences on initial attraction

Proximity and Similarity. This shows that communication is systematic. The systemic character of communication means that context affects what happens when people transact.

social relationships

Replaceable relationships that tend to follow broad social scripts and rules and in which participants tend to assume conventional social roles in relation to one another. Contrast with personal relationship. In social relationships, the individual people are less important than the roles they fulfill.

Segmentation

Segmentation responses meet one dialectical need while ignoring or not satisfying the other dialectical need. EX: friends might be open about many topics but respect each other's privacy and refrain from prying in one or two areas.

Evolution for the ending of a friendship

Surrounding contexts can cause a relationship to end, for instance, if someone gets a job far away. Common interests that once fueled a relationship may dissolve. Friendships may end cause they ahem run their natural course and have become too boring. Friendships end due to rule violations.

Affected by Contexts

Surrounding relationships influence interactions between people. Families influence what we look for in people. Social circles establish norms for activities. Larger society may influence interaction between intimate. The many social contexts of our lives affect wheat we expect of relationships and how we communicate in them,.

Cycle of Abues

Tension mounts in the abuser; the abuser explodes, becoming violent; the abuser then is remorseful and loving; the victim feels loved and reassured that the relationship is working; then tension mounts anew, and the cycle begins again

Pragma

based on practical considerations and criteria for attachment. It is a pragmatic and goal-oriented style fo loving. Pragmas rely on reason and practical considerations when initially selecting people to love.

Storge

is a comfortable, "best friends" kind of love that grows gradually to create a stable, even-keeled companionship.

Eros

is a style of loving that is passionate, intense, and fast moving. Not confined to sexual passion, eros may be expressed in spiritual, intellectual, or emotional ways. Loving, passionate, intense, and erotic.

personal relationship

is a voluntary commitment between irreplaceable individuals who are influenced by rules, relationship dialectics, and surrounding contexts. Defined by uniqueness, rules, relationship dialectics, commitment, and embeddedness in contexts. Personal relationships, unlike social ones, are irreplaceable.

Neutralization

negations a blanc between the opposing dialect forces. Involved striking a compromise in which both needs are met to an extent,

openness-closedness

one of three relationship dialectics; the tension between the desire to share private thoughts, feelings, and experiences with intimates and the desire to preserve personal privacy. EX: sharing sex life with family.

Relationship Rules

rules that guide how partners communicate and interpret each others communication. Relationship rules are typically unspoken understandings between partners. Constitutive Rules: Define how we interpret communication. They are worked over time as people learn what things people to people. ex: some people count listing as caring. Regulative Rules; Govern interactions by specifying when and with whom to engage in various kinds of communication. Ex: limiting PDA Shalt Not Rules: define what each person won't tolerate.

Agape

selfless and focused on the other's happiness. A beloved's happiness is more important than one's own. Agapic lovers are generous, unselfish, and devoted.