Social psychology, the 15 chapter, section 1

the 6 components of closeness

▪ Knowledge
▪ Caring
▪ Interdependence
▪ Mutuality
▪ Trust
▪ Commitment

Parasocial relationships

Individuals’ relationships with people in the media:
celebrities, television characters, and athletes

romantic love definition

Pope (1980): characterized by preoccupation, deep
desire, despair in separation, and joy in reunion

Different feelings of liking others

Rubin (1973): Scales distinguished feelings of liking (many types of
relationships) from feelings of love (romantic relationships)

What Is It Like to Experience Romantic Love?

Fisher (2004): Recurrent cross-cultural themes: beloved is focus of attention, feelings, desire; source of meaning and value; joy and despair

Terror management theory of love

Suggests that love and close relationships help us to
buffer the dread of being aware of our mortality

Attachment theory of love

prototypic experience of love is a young child’s bond
with the primary caretaker

Self-expansion model

Posits that love relationships often are valuable paths to
personal growth

Securely attached:

An attachment style characterized by 60% prevalence:
-positive view of the self and others

-low anxiety and avoidance

-satisfying, stable relationships

Anxious-ambivalent:

An attachment style characterized by 20% prevalence:
- negative view of the self but a positive view of others

-high anxiety

- low avoidance

-intense but unstable relationships

Fearfully avoidant:

An avoidant attachment style characterized by 10% prevalence:
-a negative view of both the self and others,
-high anxiety and avoidance
-distant relationships in which the person does not feel worthy
- does not trust others
- fears rejection

Dismissive avoidant:

An avoidant attachment style characterized by 10% prevalence:
- a negative view of others but a positive view
of the self
- high anxiety and avoidance
- distant relationships

Schachter’s Two-Factor Theory

Emotions result from physiological arousal and a label for that arousal based on cues present when the arousal is felt

bridge experiment

When Dutton and Aron (1974) interviewed people on
this bridge over the Capilano River in British Columbia, they
found that the experience influenced affection toward a
person encountered on the bridge.

Social exchange model

An economic perspective that assumes that people
approach relationships with an underlying motivation of self-interest

Equity theory:

People are motivated to maintain a sense of fairness or equity, whereby both partners feel that the proportion of outcomes (rewards) to inputs (costs) that each receives is roughly equal

Neuroscientific research

Increased activation of dopamine-rich areas in the brain occurs when loved one is contemplated