Intimate Relationships Exam 2

Personality

The distinctive and relatively stable qualities that characterize an individual, that have some coherence or internal organization, and that affect how the person behaves in and adapts to the world.

Trait Approach

• How relationship scientists study personality

• An approach to studying personality based on the adjectives people use to describe themselves and others.

Enduring characteristics of partners

According to Lewis Terman these are the driving force of a successful relationship

personality differences make a difference in peoples

• Relationship Expectations
• Perceptions of their Partner
• Relationship behaviors

Negative Affectivity

• Inclination to experience unpleasant emotions
• Aspects: Low self-esteem, Anxiety, Hostility, Self-consciousness, Pessimism
• Related to Relationship dissatisfaction, jealousy, and dependence
• Related to divorce if person is also impulsive

Extraversion

• prefernce for social interaction and lively activity

Openness

• receptiveness to new ideas, approaches, and experiences

Agreeableness

• Selfless concern for others; generous, trusting
• Related to higher relationship satisfaction
• Partners of people low in this feel partner disparages them

Conscientiousness

• Degree of discipline and organization

True

even measures of personality taken in childhood can predict relationships later in life

Kelly and Conley (1987)

• negativitiy was greater in those who became unhappy in their marriage and those who later divorced
• Among unhappy couples who eventually divorced, husbands were more outgoing and impulsive
• Unhappy spouses are more likely to procede toward divorce if the husbands have personality traits that make them prone to engage in behaviors that undermine the relationship

High in Negative Affectivity

people who are relatively _ are inclined to interpret their partner's negative behaviors critically, and those critical interpretations tend to be more stable and rigid over time

Dependence Regulation Model

• A model describing how couples balance their desire for closeness with the recognition that intimacy also leaves them vulnerable to being hurt or betrayed
• specifically explains how those with low self-esteem may sabotage their relationships by underestimating how favorably their partners view them.

Low Self-esteem

• Like other aspects of personality it tends to be relatively stable over time and trait like
• contributes to relationship functioning, both through behavior and through perceptions of the partner's behavior

Partners of disagreeable people

complain of being treated with condescension and a lack of respect

Partners of those prone to negative emotions

are more likely to cite self-centeredness, jealousy, and dependence as difficulties in their relationships

Consequences of Negative Affectivity and Low Self-esteem

• Underestimating the partner's regard for self
  o "My partner doesn't think much of me"
• Perceiving the partner in an unfavorable light
• Perceiving the relationship in an unfavorable light

Similar

partners are far more _ in age, general intelligence, political views, and religious beliefs than they are in personality characteristic

Does personality similarity matter?

• You are much more likely to have relationship success if you search for someone who has an agreeable, emotionally stable personality rather than someone who has a personality similar to your own

Wallerstien Divorce Study

emphasized intensive interviews, conducted at several points with a small, nonrandom sample of families undergoing divorce; they did not use a control group of intact families studied over the same interval

Hetherington team

used standardized questionnaires and direct observation with large samples of families, including those who were divorced, intact, and remarried.

Measures of Personalitiy in Childhood

• Personality traits exhibited in childhood can predict relationship satisfaction later in life
  · Aggression in children under 10 is linked to higher rates of divorce
  · Anxious children tend to have lower relationship satisfaction
  · Children with poor impulse control have higher rates of conflict

family of origin

the family in which one grows up, usually consisting of parents and siblings

Childhood Experiences in Families

• Early experience in our family of origin makes a difference in our relationship expectations and experiences.
• Some aspects of this early experience are
  o Parents' relationship with each other
  o Our relationship with our parents

intergenerational transmission effects

• The characteristics of one's family of origin that carry forward in time to influence intimate relationships during adolescence and adulthood
  o Parental conflict is related to children's subsequent divorce likelihood.
  o Parental marital satisfaction is related to children's subsequent marital satisfaction.
  o Parents' relationship behavior is related to children's subsequent relationship behavior

Childhood experiences influencing relationships

• Children with turbulent family backgrounds are more cautious toward relationships and more accepting of divorce.
• Children from unstable families have less money and smaller social networks in adulthood.
• Children from unstable families experience more relationship distress

Conflict Management between Parents

• appears to be a crucial determinant of children's adjustment during this time,
• with lower levels of cooperation and higher levels of overt friction contributing to lower levels of children's well-being

Early Relationships with Caregivers

The relationships that parents have with their children are also related to children's relationship outcomes

Attachment Theory View

• Attachment style: stems from children's relationship with their parents
  • Based on people's views of themselves and their views of others
  • Involves two dimensions:
  o Anxious
  o Avoidance

Working Models of Attachment Theory

• Self-relevant Aspect of Anxiety
• Other-relevant Aspect of Avoidance
• People who are low in anxiety and avoidance are
  considered to be securely attached
• People who perceive themselves to be low in
  self-worth and others to be unapproachable are
  considered to be insecurely attached

Self-relevant Aspect of Anxiety

When caregivers are inconsistent and unavailable, we feel anxious, insecure, inadequate, and unworthy of care and attention

Other-relevant Aspect of Avoidance

• When we conclude that others are unreliable and are best avoided.

Attachment Style and Seeking Comfort

• Behavioral differences in people with different attachment styles can be clearly seen when they are experiencing stress:
  • People with secure attachment styles turn to their partner for comfort.
  • People with avoidant attachment styles avoid their partner as they experience higher levels of stress

Minimize

Interpretations made by individuals with a secure attachment style tend to _ the impact of negative events

Magnify

interpretations made by insecure people the impact of negative events

Insecure

Attachment theorists propose that _ individuals feel reluctant to engage with their partner, hesitant to share their personal thoughts and feelings, and anxious in the belief that opening up to their partner may result in pain and rejection

Romantic Attraction

the experience of finding someone desirable as a potential intimate partner

four classic predictors of attraction

• Physical Apperance
• Familiarity
• Reciprocity
• Percieved Similarity

matching phenomenon

The tendency for partners in an intimate relationship to be similar in physical appearance

Instrumentality Principle

• all else equal, we're attracted to others who can help us get what we currently want
• We tend to be more attracted to people who are instrumental to more of our goals

Physical Apperance

• the only predicator of whether randomly paired individuals will go on a date with each other
• equally important for men and women

Physical Attractiveness differences

• Women are more selective in whom they rate as attractive, but they are more willing to express interests in people they did not rate as attractive
• Men are less selective about whom they rate as attractive, but they are only likely to express interests in people they rated as attractive

How much does physical apperance matter?

• People like those who are more attractive
• However, people worry about being rejected
  o They tend to ask out those who have about the same level of physical attractiveness that they do

Why Appearance Makes a Differnce

• Physical appearance goes beyond who it is you will be staring at across the dinner table
• People tend to have a "what is beautiful is good" stereotype

What is beautiful is good

the assumption that people who are beautiful on the outside must be beautiful on the inside as well

Features of Appealing Faces

• Surprisingly, people tend to agree for the most part about who is attractive
• People with symmetrical faces
• People whose facial features look like an average of many people's faces

vertical attribute

a quality on which people can be ranked hierarchically

horizontal attribute

a quality on which people can differ without being judged better or worse than anyone else

False

people report being more attracted to individuals who they think have personality traits that they lack themselves

Familiarity

• liking those we've had contact with more times
• tends to increase liking, but the effect depends on the type of familiarity in the type of attraction
• Positive effect when familiarity is operationalized in terms of:
  · Mere exposure, as in The Classroom Study
  · Get-acquainted chats, as in The I.M. Study
  · Residential Proximity, as in The MIT Study

Traits we look for in partners

• Not surprisingly people want partners who are sincere and trustworthy
• On the other hand, people do not want partners who are deceitful and mean

Perceived Similarity

• liking those we think are similar to us
  § But the surprising finding here is the lack of evidence that actual similarity predicts attraction

Reciprocity

• liking those who like us
• Conventional wisdom says we should play hard to get
  · Don't call them and rarely return calls
  · Always end calls first
  · Don't see them more than once or twice a week
• The truth is that we like people who like us despite being generally selective

Unrequited Love

romantic attraction that is not reciprocated; there is no mutual interest on the part of the other person

Unpredicitability of Attraction

• relationship scientists use three types of data to predict relationship outcomes
  § data on individuals (traits, values, preferences)
  § data on dyads (satisfaction, conflict behavior)
  § data on situations (stress, attractive alternatives)
• but only the first type of data is available for matchmaking
  § Can individual-level data predict compatibility?
  § The task is hard
• Is romantic Attraction like a comet or like an earthquake?
  § Existing theory says earthquake because incredibly difficult to predict

Machine Learning Approach

• Completely exploratory
• ~150 predictors
• Predicting relationship variance (compatibility)
• Completely failed

misattribution of arousal

• The tendency for people to incorrectly label the source of the arousal that they are experiencing
• bridge study

mate selection

process through which a committed relationship is formed

proceptivity

anticipatory behaviors of receptiveness or availability, such as nonverbal signals, shown by one person to another to indicate that it would be acceptable to initiate a conversation

behavioral synchrony

The tendency for partners who are mutually involved and attracted to mimic each other's movements unconsciously.

Social Penetration Theory

A theory describing how the breadth and depth of personal self-disclosures exchanged by two people affect the development of the relationship between them

disclosure reciprocity

Responding to someone's personal disclosure by immediately revealing something equally personal.

The Matching Hypothesis

• we tend to pair up with others whose desirability (mate value) is similar to our own
  § The hypothesized mechanism is that most desirable people pair up and are therefore off the market
  § The less desirable people pair off with the most desirable people who remain
  § 10s with 10s and 9s with 9s, etc.

Mate value

• When people pair up right away, they tend to match in terms of physical attractiveness
  § But when they've known each other for a while first, that matching effect disappears
  § The Friend First Study

Relationship Maintenance

the routine behaviors and strategies partners develop to help make sure their relationship will continue

Intimacy Process model

a framework that describes intimacy in terms of disclosures and responses to those disclosures that serve to deepen or weaken feelings of understanding, validation, and caring in a committed relationship

Interpretive Filter

• A key component of the intimacy process model that involves how partners understand each other's disclosures and responses;
• sensitive, empathic interpretations increase feelings of closeness and intimacy, whereas critical or dismissive interpretations can threaten these feelings.

Responsive Behavior

• Listen to the initial disclosure.
• Understand the superficial meaning conveyed in the words, as well as subtle hidden meanings.
• Respond in a way that reflects this understanding, perhaps including questions that encourage and draw the other person out.
• Know whether, when, and how to make the transition to another topic.

Withdrawal

Leave the partner feeling invalidated and alone

Increased Self-disclosure

• predicted better perceived partner responsiveness, which in turn predicted stronger feelings of closeness among married couples

Face-to-Face Communication

• appears to generate a greater sense of partner responsiveness than online communication (Choi & Toma, 2022), as well as a greater sense of intimacy for both partners

Self-disclosure

the process of revealing personal information to someone else

Experimental Self-disclosure manipulations

• can foster closeness among strangers
  § The "36 Questions" method: over 45 minutes Participants discuss 3 increasingly intimate sets of topics
  o Set 1 ex: Would you want to be famous?
  o Set 2 ex: what do you value most in a friendship?
  o Set 3 ex: Of all the people in your family whose death would be the most disturbing

Benefits of Self-disclosure

• On average, we experience greater liking of strangers who have (vs. have not) self-disclosed to us
• Mutual, reciprocal self-disclosure tends to promote closeness
  § Calibrated in terms of the variety (breadth) and personal significance of topics (depth)
• But self-disclosure can undermine closeness if it's inappropriate, excessive, or unreciprocated
• Even in established relationships people sometimes make an effort to avoid discussing certain personal topics
  § In a study of college students, 74% indicated that they avoid at least one topic in their relationship

Avoided Topics in relationships

• Negative Life Experiences
• Relationship Norms
• Conflictual Topics
• Past Romantic Relationships
• Extra-relationship Activity
• State of the Relationship

IM chat Study

• two strangers chatted for 15 minutes via instant-message: A was randomly assigned to ask B (1) four or fewer questions or (2) nine or more questions
  · B liked A more when A asked more questions (especially follow-up questions), an effect that was mediated through perceptions of responsiveness
  · Third part observers did not show this preference

How Intimate Partners Communicate Closeness

• by engaging in shared activities,
• supporting each other,
• capitalizing on positive personal experiences,
• forgiving each other for insensitive and inconsiderate actions.
• sexual intimacy

self-expansion model

• A perspective on relationship maintenance based on the idea that people want to increase their capacity and effectiveness to achieve their goals and strive to acquire resources, enrich their identity, and strengthen their skills;
• intimate relationships are a common way people attempt to improve, or expand, themselves.

Social Integration

involvement and interconnections with other people

Social Support

• Defined as "responsiveness to another's needs"
• Frequently assumed to be related positively to relationship satisfaction and stability
• Perceived vs Received Support

Perceived Social Support

the amount of support that you believe exists in your social network

Received Social Support

the amount of support you actually experience

Functions of Social Support

o Informational support: giving good advice
o Instrumental Support: providing tangible aid
o Emotional Support: showing concern

Visible Support

Efforts to promote the well-being of a partner that the recipient partner is aware of; a drawback is the possible compromise of the recipient's self-esteem

Invisible support

Efforts to promote the well-being of a partner that the receiving partner is not aware of receiving, thereby reducing a sense of obligation to reciprocate while protecting the recipient's self-esteem

broaden and build theory

idea that expressing positive emotions enhances how partners think about, and respond to, daily events, and helps build the resources for maintaining well-being

Capitalization

• An interpersonal process in which positive events are disclosed by one partner and elaborated on by the other partner, thereby enhancing the association between those events and the relationship;
• a strategy for maintaining intimacy
• differs across cultures

Forgiveness

• In the context of relationship maintenance, the transformation of anger or hurt feelings into a desire to be generous and unselfish toward the offending partner.
• for significant betrayals it progresses through 3 stages :
  o impact
  o meaning
  o moving on

Factors that affect Forgiveness

• Seriousness of the Offense
• Personality of the Victim
• Qualities of the Apologies
• Qualities of the Relationship

Impact Stage

The stage in the forgiveness process when partners learn of the transgression and begin to recognize the effect it has on them and their relationship; a time of disorientation, confusion, and hurt feelings.

Meaning Stage

The stage in the forgiveness process when the offended partner tries to make sense of why the transgression happened.

Moving on stage

The stage in the forgiveness process when the offended partner finds a way to adjust to and move beyond the incident

Aron et al (1997) Study 1

• participants in the self‑disclosure / relationship‑building condition reported significantly greater closeness after the interaction than participants in the small‑talk condition
• They did not find significant sex differences or sex interactions in closeness: both same‑sex and cross‑sex pairs could feel similarly close after doing the closeness tasks

Aron et. al (1997) Study 2

• Neither of the two manipulations (attitude disagreement vs non‑disagreement, nor expectation of mutual liking vs no expectation) had a significant effect on closeness.
• Actual self-disclosure during the task matters more than what people are told before about similarities or expected liking

Aron et. al (1997) Study 3

• Extravert pairs became much closer than introvert pairs in the no-mention-of-closeness condition
• However, relatively little difference between pairs in the closeness-as-a-task condition

Relationship Maintenance Mechanisms

the strategic actions people take to sustain their partnerships

Cognitive Maintenance Mechanisms

-cognitive interdependence
-positive illusions
-perceived superiority
-inattention to alternatives
-derogation of tempting alternatives

Cognitive Interdependence

• Think of yourself as a couple rather than separate individuals (Use "we, us and ours" more than "I, me, mine")
• makes other mechanisms more likely to occur

Positive Illusions

• idealizing each other and perceiving their relationship in the best possible light
• help protect peoples happiness
• Ex: Judging partner's faults as trivial, relationship deficiencies are unimportant, dismissing partner's misbehaviors

Relationships better served when?

• Regarding general qualities (e.g., kind) idealization is beneficial because it's easy to interpret a broad range of behavior as consistent with it
• Regarding specific qualities, accuracy is beneficial because it protects us from disappointment when counterevidence emerges