Final Study Guide (Second Half) - Love Actually

Health paradox of adolescence

Adolescence is physically the healthiest period of the lifespan

• Improvements in strength, speed, reaction time, reasoning abilities, immune function

• Increased resistance to cold, heat, hunger, dehydration

Yet: overall morbidity and mortality rates increase 200% from childhood to late adolescence

Why is there a health paradox of adolescence?

• Role of intensifying affective (emotional and motivational) influences on behavior

• How these influences interact with risk and risk-promoting social contexts

• Due to the socio-affective changes that begin at puberty

Morbidity and mortality in adolescence

Primary sources of death/disability are related to problems with control of behavior and emotion

• accidents, suicide, homicide

Dopamine

neurotransmitter that’s important in the reward system; indicates salience (important in love)

• Lower levels of dopamine at baseline in adolescence

• In adolescence there is increased activity in neural circuits that release dopamine in response to novel stimuli

4 features that characterize adolescent brain development (Dan Siegel)

NCIS

1. Novelty seeking: looking for new things, relationships, etc.

2. Increased emotional intensity

3. Creative exploration: creativity in terms of activities and thought (thinking outside-the-box)

4. Social engagement: having peer relationships

What are the implications for an increased drive for rewards in adolescents?

• Increased impulsivity (increased behaviors occur without reflection)

• Increased susceptibility to addiction

• Shapes hyperrationality

Hyperrationality

Amplifying meaning/significance/importance of a positive aspect of an experience

• Ex: racing a car on the highway

  • Pros: it’s fun, thrilling, earn street cred with peers

  • Cons: you could crash and die

  • With hyperrationality:

    • You evaluate the odds: 95% no crash, 5% crash

    • You correctly assess the probabilities

    • But you de-emphasize the severity of the negative outcome (because there’s only a small change it’ll happen)

    • In the end, you say, “chances are I’ll be fine” and do it

Changing ideas and behavior in adolescence

• increased social engagement → enhanced drive for peer connectedness

• increased emotional intensity → enhanced vitality for life

• enhanced creative exploration → new conceptual thinking/abstract reasoning; questioning the status quo

Implications of neurobiological changes in adolescence

• Profound changes in romantic interest, motivation, emotional intensity 

• Intensification of many types of goal-directed behavior (especially those related to social status)

• Not necessarily a question of “immature” vs. “mature” brain

• The features of neurobiology during adolescence (and the associated behaviors) may be adaptive and important to nurture in many ways 

Identity vs Role Confusion

• 13-24 years

• Main question: “who am I and where am I going?”

• Virtue: fidelity (trueness to your sense of self after a period of experimentation)

• The adolescent is newly concerned with how they appear to others. Superego identity is the accrued confidence that the outer sameness and continuity prepared in the future are matched by the sameness and continuity of one’s meaning for oneself, as evidenced in the promise of a career. The ability to settle on a school or occupational identity is pleasant

• In later stages of adolescence, the child develops a sense of sexual identity. As they make the transition from childhood to adulthood, adolescents ponder the roles they will play in the adult world

• Initially, they are apt to experience some role confusion - mixed ideas and feelings about the specific ways in which they will fit into society - and may experiment with a variety of behaviors and activities (e.g., tinkering with cars, babysitting for neighbors, affiliating with certain political or religious groups)

• Eventually, Erikson proposed, most adolescents achieve a sense of identity regarding who they are and where their lives are headed. Erikson coined identity crisis

• Each stage that came before and follows has its own ‘crisis,’ but even more so now, for this marks the transition from childhood to adulthood. This passage is necessary because “throughout infancy and childhood, a person forms many identifications. But the need for identity in youth is not met by these. This turning point in human development seems to be the reconciliation between ‘the person one has come to be’ and ‘the person society expects one to become.” 

• This emerging sense of self will be established by ‘forging’ past experiences with anticipations of the future 

Intimacy vs Isolation

• 25-40 yrs

• Main questions: “am I loved and wanted?” or “shall I share my life with someone or live alone?”

• Virtue: love 

• This conflict is emphasized around the ages of 30. At the start of this stage, identity vs role confusion is coming to an end, and it still lingers at the foundation of the stage (Erikson, 1950)

• Young adults are still eager to blend their identities with friends. They want to fit in

• Erikson believes we are sometimes isolated due to intimacy. We are afraid of rejections such as being turned down or our partners breaking up with us. We are familiar with pain, and to some of us, rejection is painful; our egos cannot bear the pair

• Once people have established their identities, they are ready to make long-term commitments to others. They become capable of forming intimate, reciprocal relationships (e.g. through close friendships or marriage) and willingly make the sacrifices and compromises that such relationships require

• If people cannot form these intimate relationships - perhaps because of their own needs - a sense of isolation may result

Pruning

Neural connections gets whittled down

• Process that can be intensified with stress

• May reveal genetically or experientially vulnerable circuits

  • Most of the major psychiatric disorders—of thought, mood, and anxiety—have their major onset during this vulnerable period

  • “Use it or lose it” principle applies to adolescence

Myelin formation

Enables the remaining and connected neurons to communicate with each other with more coordination and speed

• Permits the action potential—the ions flowing in and out of the membrane creating a flow of charge down the long axonal length—to move one 100 times faster

• Resting time between firings, the refractory period, is 30 times quicker

  • Neural firing becomes 3000 times quicker with myelination

• Practice lays down myelin to enable a skill

Identity formation

• begins where the usefulness of identification ends

• arises from the selective rejection and mutual assimilation of childhood identifications, and their absorption in a new configuration, which, in turn, is dependence on the process by which a society identifies the young individual, recognizing him as somebody who had to become the way he is, and who, being the way he is, is taken for granted

Psychosocial moratorium

A period during adolescence and young adulthood when a person postpones commitment to an identity and instead explores different roles, beliefs, and values

• The college experience provides the moratorium described by Erikson in which the struggle for identity is conducted in a remarkable adult-free and relatively consequence-free atmosphere

Dunbar’s number

• Noticed correlation between primate brain size and average social group size

• Suggested “cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships” (a group “where everyone knows everyone”)

• Number of people one knows and keeps social contact with

• Combines data from 38 different primate species and extrapolated results to propose that humans (based on neocortex size) should be able to have between 100-230 meaningful social relationships (150 is often cited)

The double flame on love and eroticism

Difference between eroticism and sexuality:

• Eroticism is not mere animal sexuality

  • Includes ceremony, representation, sexuality transfigured

• Imaginations turns sex into ceremony and rite

• Sex act is for reproduction, but:

  • With sexuality → pleasure serves procreation

  • With eroticism → pleasure is an end to itself

What is the relationship of poetry and language?

Poetry : Language :: Eroticism : Sexuality → poetry is to language as to eroticism is to sexuality

What is the erotic? (according to Esther Perel)

The experience of sex; the meaning of it

• A life force

• An antidote to death

• How do you re-invent, re-imagine yourself?

  • Bring an energy, a vitality, an aliveness back

  • Aliveness goes with meaning, purpose, creativity, playfulness, connection to oneself, to one’s family, to one’s partner, and to the world

What is desire?

Desire is to own the wanting

In order to own something:

• There needs to be a sovereign self

• That is free to choose

• And feels worth of wanting

• And feels worth of receiving

this is the reason why desire is so intimately connected to the sense of self-worth

Erotic intelligence

the ability of a couple to reinvent themselves on location and to create a new relational arrangement with each other

• Need to change in order to stay alive

• Novelty is needed

• Novelty is not about new positions

• Novelty is the new experiences of yourself in the world and of your partner in relationship to you in the world

• That involved taking risks and having an active engagement with the unknown

• Creates a sense of purpose, aliveness, joy, transmission

Stephen Mitchell: Strange Loops of Sexuality

• Sexual events take on conceptual, emotional, psychological, spiritual dimensions in humans

• Bodies and minds are inseparable dimensions of sexual experience

• Pleasure for oneself is thought of as unloving, indecent, selfish, dangerous, or rude

Two approaches

• Approach #1: Freudian Approach - Sexual Animals

  • Humans are both social and antisocial

  • Harkens back to Plato and human’s dual nature (ex: unicorn, griffin, sphinx, etc.)

• Darwin argued that we come from “lower” forms of life → consciousness, reason, civilization, morality

• Approach #2: Strange Loops

Freud and “psychical impotence”

• “Where such men love, they have no desire and where they desire, they cannot love”

  • Madonna-Whore Complex

  • Love/attachment is related to familiar figures, and sexual love feels oedipal/incestuous

• Freud suggested this was very common and may be somewhat inescapable in civilized society 

Strange Loops

“The real adventure and risk of sexuality stem from the breach it creates in the conventional boundaries between self and other. We establish decency in intimate relationships to facilitate continuity, security, and attachment. But bodily states and pleasures are full of surprises. What is at risk of being considered indecent in the exposures of sex is not the beast in us but the me-ness in us.”

Self/Other

“Interpersonal relational processes generate private, interior processes, which reshape interpersonal processes, on and on, in a self-propelling strange loop, an endless Mobius Strip in which internal and external are perpetually regenerating and transforming themselves and each other.”

Ultimate conclusion of “Strange Loops”

• Erotic passion destabilizes one’s sense of self

• Partner makes possible unfamiliar experience of ourselves and we find their otherness captivating 

• We want to control these experiences and the others who inspire them

  • Make these safer because we’re attache

• Unconscious attempts to make them safer makes also decreases their eroticism

Intimate Relationships on Sexuality (Ch. 9)

Sex doesn’t always involve romantic intimacy, but for most of us, romantic intimacy involves sex

• Sexual satisfaction and behavior can therefore be dependent on the nature and health of those relationships

Current day attitudes towards sex

• <25% report belief that premarital sex is wrong

• Permissiveness with affection

• Mixed feelings about hookups

  • Both sexes enjoy them less than they think other people do

• Men and women differ in sexual attitudes/values, though gap is closing

  • Men more permissive; more likely to think sex without love is okay; more likely to regret inaction than action

  • May be due to continued cultural sexual double standard

Current day attitudes towards same-sex sexuality

Sizable shift in approval of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage in many countries in recent years

• Possible reasons include greater visibility of LGBTQ+ individuals and better understanding of different types of sexuality

Cultural differences in attitudes about sex

American attitudes are more conservative compared to Western European countries

• More conservative beliefs about premarital sex, extramarital sex, and same-sex relationships

Sexual behavior in Americans

Estimated 97% of Americans have sex for the first time before marriage

• Usually in a steady, close relationship

• Some regret tends to follow if not in a relationship

Sex in relationships

• Relationship status, age, and sexual orientation influence frequency of sex

• Couples who have sex 1x/week report being just as happy as others who have more frequent sex

Infidelity

• Men appear to cheat more than women

• Men are more likely to have an unrestricted sociosexual orientation

• Evolutionary perspective: Good genes hypothesis / sperm competition

• Other perspectives: cheating is due to low relationship quality

Sexual desire imbalances

On balance, men do appear to have higher sex drive than women and may lead to conflict in heterosexual relationships

Safe/unsafe sex can be influenced by a variety of factors

Underestimates of risk, faulty decision making, pluralistic ignorance, inequalities of power, abstinence education, low self-control, concerns about intimacy and pleasure

Sexual satisfaction

• Sexual interactions are rewarding when they fulfill needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness

• Traditional gender roles tend to undermine women’s choice and control in bed

• Having sex for approach and not avoidance motives is better

• Endorsement of sexual growth beliefs is desirable

Sexual communication

• Direct and honest communication is associated with greater satisfaction

• Good communication can also avoid misperceptions of sexual intent

• Gay and lesbian couples discuss preference more openly and report enjoying better sex

Sexual Coercion

Ways to combat sexual coercion

• Beware partners who view sex as a contest 

• Reduce the need for assertions by setting sexual boundaries before you start engaging in sexual behavior

• Education around consent

• Distinction between right and wrong is clearer when ground rules are discussed in advance

• Consider your partner as an equal whose preferences and pleasure are important == respect and thoughtfulness is key

Singles and Casual Relationships

• In 2010, 27% of adult Americans reported living single (unmarried and living alone)

• Singlism: prejudice against singles

  • Being single viewed as a “deficit” identity

• Sexuality among singles

  • Some may be fully or partially celibate

  • Most are sexually active

    • Hookups, FWBs, actively dating/pursuing committed relationships

TED Talk - Dr. Barry Schwartz takeaways

• “Official dogma” in Western societies is that to maximize welfare of citizens, we want to maximize freedom

• We maximize choice in order to maximize freedom

• We can see how choices have permeated all aspects of our lives

  • Shopping at the supermarket

  • Health care decisions

  • Constructing our identities

  • Deciding on marriage and family

• There are pros and cons to having so many choices. Pros may be more obvious, so he wants to discuss cons

  • Paralysis rather than liberation

  • Opportunity costs

Maximizers and satisficers

• Maximizers want the best

• Satisficers (combo of “satisfy” and “suffice”) want good enough

• Maximizers seem to make better choices and do often get better outcomes (e.g., jobs with higher salary) but they are less happy/satisfied with them

• The older you are, the less likely you are to be a maximizer

The paradox of choice and dating

• “If you are in a big city or on an online dating site, you are flooded with options. Seeing all these options… are we now comparing our potential partners not to other potential partners but rather to an idealized person whom no one could measure up to?”

• “How many people do you need to see before you know you’ve found the best? The answer is every damn person there is. How else do you know it’s the best? If you’re looking for the best, this is a recipe for complete misery.”

“To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This” by Mandy Len Catron

• “The 36 Questions That Lead to Love”

• Based on the study by psychologist Arthur Aron and colleagues that explored whether intimacy between two strangers can be accelerated by having them ask each other a specific series of personal questions 

• 36 questions in the study are broken up into three sets, with each set intended to be more probing than the previous one

• Based on premise that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness

The Study (“Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness,” 1997) - Study 1

• Looked at effect on cross-sex and all female pairs

• People had to be strangers

• Counterbalanced different patterns of attachment styles

• Didn’t match people who disagreed on an important value

• Pairs did either small-talk or closeness-generating procedure

• Results: pairs who did the closeness generating procedure did report feeling more close to partner in all groups/pairings

The Study - Study 2

Same as first, but put people together for task even if they disagreed on important issues

• Disagreement didn’t seem to affect results: people still felt closer in the closeness manipulation task

• Study 2 also examined whether telling people they were expected to like each other before the task increased feelings of closeness

  • No effect here either

• Both studies found that those with avoidant/dismissive attachment styles experienced less closeness

  • But also found that perceptions of others might change if you experienced closeness with them

The Study - Study 3

Introverts might experience less closeness than extroverts, unless they were told the task was to get close

What are the characteristics of a good relationship?

• Positive communication

  • John Gottman, PhD: ratio of positive to negative comments that emerge during an interaction = the strongest predictor of whether a relationship will succeed or fail

    • Successful relationships had 5:1 or better ratio

• healthy sexuality

• self-expansion

Healthy sexuality

partners who communicate about sex in general and during sex tend to be more sexually satisfied

Self-expansion

humans have a need to “expand” or grow the self over time; this can be accomplished by engaging in activities that are exciting and novel and developing new relationships

• Incorporating certain characteristics of the partner with ourselves

Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

• “Pessimism can be a friend of love”

• Survival of love over time depends on teaching each other to be the best versions of ourselves

• Better question to ask when meeting on a first date: “How are you crazy? I’m crazy like this”

Sternberg Triangular Theory of Love

• Intimacy: emotional dimension; sense of bondedness and connection

• Passion: motivational dimension; physical attraction; sexual desire/attraction

• Commitment: cognitive dimension; conscious decision to maintain a relationship over time 

• Each person has a unique ratio of different amounts of each component (intimacy, passion, commitment)

• Ratios of components change over time

• The more a couple’s ratios match, the more likely they are to be satisfied in the relationship

Love Languages by Gary Chapman

• Physical touch: it can be sex or holding hands. With this love language, the speaker feels affection

• Gifts: gifting is symbolic of love and affection

• Quality time: expressing affection with undivided, undistracted attention

• Acts of service: actions, rather than words, are used to show and receive love

• Words of affirmation: expressing affection through spoken affection, praise, or appreciation

Investment model of commitment: contributors

SQIR

Contributors

• satisfaction

• quality of alternatives

• investments

Consequences

• relationship maintenance mechanisms

Satisfaction

• Subjective evaluation of the relationship

• Overall ratio of good things to bad things in a relationship

• Evaluate one’s satisfaction relative to some comparison level (compared to satisfaction in past relationships; compared to friend’s satisfaction in relationships)

Quality of alternatives

• Perception of how desirable all other people in the dating pool currently are

• Comparison of alternatives

• Includes different relationship states with current partner (e.g., more desirable to be friends? FWB?)

Investments

• Both tangible (house, car, children, pet, bank account)

• And Intangible (memories, shared moments, time and effort spent)

Relationship maintenance mechanisms

• Accomodation: don’t fight fire with fire/rise to provocations

• Willingness to sacrifice: don’t always pursue own self-interest in order to maintain relationship

• Derogation of tempting alternatives: perceive other potential partners as less attractive 

Shortcomings of investment model

• Investment model doesn’t include the fact that forecasts (predictions about future satisfaction in the relationship) also affect commitment

• Investment model assumes there’s only one type of commitment; others disagree

• Theorized types of commitment

  • Personal commitment: committed to relationship because I’m happy and want to continue

  • Constraint commitment: I have to continue because it would be too costly to leave, but I would end it if I could

  • Moral commitment: it’s against my values to leave (e.g., believe in religious sanctity of marriage; feel strongly obligated to uphold vows)

Ch. 6 - Interdependency

• Relationships are predicted on social exchange

  • I give you what you want and you give me what I want - we reward each other

• Outcome = rewards - costs

  • We want the best possible outcomes

  • But we also compare outcomes in a relative way - outcomes cannot be measured “absolutely”

• Each person has their own Comparison Level (CL) in a relationship

  • Based on past experiences

  • Satisfaction will be based on if your outcome is higher or lower than your CL (Outcomes - CL = satisfaction or dissatisfaction)

• We also have a comparison level for alternatives (CLalt)

  • “Could I be doing better somewhere else?”

  • We won’t leave a current relationship unless we see better alternatives

  • CLalts therefore determine dependence (Outcomes - CLalt = dependence or independence)

• Investments also influence whether we will stay or go

  • Even if we have options, we might lose tangible goods (e.g., furniture or dishes) or intangible benefits (e.g., respect from in-laws or friends) if we leave

• People also don’t always perceive there to be alternatives

  • If you have low self-esteem

  • If you’re really satisfied with your partner 

Reasons for Declines in Satisfaction in Long-Term Relationships

• Lack of effort: we stop trying as hard when time goes by

• Interdependency as a magnifying glass: we are more negatively affected by interactions with intimate partners 

• Access to weaponry: the people closest to us can hurt us the most

• Unwelcome surprises: we don’t expect or foresee certain problems in our relationships

• Unrealistic expectations: our relationships can’t be all sunshine and roses

Personality traits and styles

• openness to experience

• conscientiousness

• extraversion

• agreeableness

• neuroticism

Openness to experience

Appreciation for adventure, imagination, curiosity

Conscientiousness

tendency to display self-discipline, strive for achievement, control impulses, regulate

Extraversion

getting energy from external activity/situations, enjoying interacting with people, perceived as having high energy, assert themselves

Agreeableness

Concern for social harmony; tendency to want to get along with others, willingness to compromise

Neuroticism

tendency to experience negative emotions (anxiety, anger, depression)

• Low tolerance for stress or aversive stimuli 

Attachment styles

Patterns of approaching and developing relationships with others

• Develop at least in part out of early life experiences with primary caregivers

• Relatively stable but can change as a result of new relationships/experiences

Securely attached individuals (anchor)

• Secure as individuals

• Have easy time getting close to others

• Willing to commit and fully share with another

• Don’t worry about being abandoned 

• Generally happy people

• Adapt easily to the needs of the moment

• Can help non-anchors become more anchor-like

• Expect committed partnerships to be mutually satisfying, supporting, and respectful

Avoidantly attached individuals (island)

• Independent and self-reliant

• Not comfortable with intimacy

• Take good care of themselves don’t want to become dependent on others

• Productive and creative, especially when given space

• Low maintenance

• Do not look for affection from others

• Tend to experience more interpersonal stress (sense a higher sense of threat in the presence of significant others or in social situations in general)

• Can be overly sensitive to perceived intrusions by significant other 

• Tend to look toward the future (avoid focusing on present or past relationships)

Anxiously Attached Individuals (Wave)

• Generous and giving

• Worry that their partners may not want to get as close as they would like

• Focused on taking care of others

• Fear their partner doesn’t love them or may leave them

• Happiest when around other people

• Can be jealous

• Able to see both sides of an issue

• Can both want to connect but also be afraid of connecting 

Desire in long-term relationships

• First time in history of humankind we are trying to experience sexuality in the long-term

• Sex over time for pleasure and connection, rooted in desire

What sustains desire in long-term relationships?

Humans need to reconcile two needs

1. Need for security/safety/dependability/permanence

2. Need for adventure/novelty/mystery/risk/surprise

What is the Real Problem with Long-Term Desire?

Crisis of desire ≈ crisis of imagination

The Relationship Between Love and Desire

Love = “to have”

• Minimize distance

• Contract the gap

• Know the beloved

• Minimize tensions

• Be close

Desire = “to want”

• Want an “other”

• Need for space

• “Fire needs air”

• Not neediness, not care-taking (anti-aphrodisiac)

When are you most drawn to your partner?

• When apart; when reunited. When one is able to get back in touch with one’s ability to imagine oneself with partner. Imagination rooted in absence and longing 

• When he/she is radiant, confident, self-sustaining; on stage; in his/her element; in the studio; holding court; seeing him/her from a comfortable distance; somewhat elusive

• When surprised; when laughing; when there’s novelty (ex: tuxedo or cowboy boots)

What is play?

Play is when risk is fun

• You can’t play when you are in a situation of danger, anxiety, or contraction

• You have you feel safe in order to play

• If you do not play, you won’t experience the erotic

Passion has phases

Passion is like the moon, it has intermittent eclipses

• This notion that people will live in a permanent state of passion is impossible (nobody would go to work)

• Successful couples have debunked the myth of spontaneity

Heartbreak / breakups

• ‘Tis better to have loved and lost / than never to have loved at all. - Alfred, Lord Tennyson from the poem “In Memoriam A.H.H.”

• Heartbreak is part of love

Loneliness and ambiguous loss

Ambiguous loss: occurs w/o closure or understanding. This kind of loss leaves a person searching for answers, and can complicate and delay the process of grieving, and often results in unresolved grief

Examples

• When a person is still physically present but psychologically gone (ex: a person with Alzheimer’s)

• When a person who is physically gone but psychologically still present (ex: someone who has disappeared)

• In both cases you cannot resolve the question of mourning and loss, because you don’t know if they are “here” or not 

A new form of loneliness in relationships

• Lying next to someone in bed who is scrolling through their social media feeds

• A partner having literally another life with their phone

• These examples are describing not the physical isolation of loneliness, but a loss of trust and social capital that partners are experiencing next to the person with whom they should not be feeling alone

Technology and relationships

• Technology has also potentially added complications that can add stressors to relationships

• Aforementioned lack of attention to partners when smartphones are always with us

• Worries about public interactions on social media

  • “Official” relationship status

  • Your partner sees your activity

• Might also worry about private interactions on social media

  • Possibility that technology makes it easier to cheat?

  • Snooping

• More breakups via text/online messages

4 negative patterns that predict divorce

1. criticism

2. contempt

3. defensiveness

4. stonewalling

Criticism

verbally attacking personality or character

Contempt

attacking sense of self with an intention to insult or psychologically abuse

Defensiveness

seeing yourself as the victim in efforts to ward off a perceived attack and reverse the blame

Stonewalling

withdrawing as a way to avoid conflict in efforts to convey disapproval, distance, and separation

Stresses and strains on relationships

• Ostracism

• Jealousy

• Deception/lying

• Betrayal 

Perceived relational value

• Painful when we perceive our relational value is lower than we would like

  • Mild rejection from others usually feels just as bad as more extreme rejection

  • Decreases in acceptance (relational devaluation) may be worse than constant rejection

• Rejection (social pain) lights up same areas in the brain as physical pain

  • Pain relieving medications also lower pain of social rejection

• Self-esteem and attachment style play a role in pain you experience from social rejection/decreases in relational value

Ostracism

• Ostracism = “cold shoulder” in relationships

• Feels painful, cold, dehumanizing; time seems to pass more slowly; increases stress hormones (cortisol)

• People who are ostracized respond in various ways 

  • Work to regain regard/being compliant

  • Looking for new partners/friends

  • aggressive/antagonistic reactions

• Self-esteem plays role in response

  • Higher self-esteem → won’t tolerate → will likely seek different friends when ostracized

    • Will likely be treated better as a result

  • Lower self-esteem will likely stick around and be spiteful

    • Carry a grudge and ostracize others in turn

Jealousy

• Hurt, anger, and fear that results from prospect of losing someone / being cast aside for someone else 

• 13% of all murders in the US result from one spouse killing another, commonly motivated by jealousy

• Two types

  • Reactive

  • Suspicious

Who is prone to jealousy?

• People who are more dependent (low CLalt)

• People who feel inadequate in the relationship 

  • Can happen even if you have high self-esteem

  • May be a reason why we tend to engage in matching

• Preoccupied attachment tends to result in more jealousy

• People higher in neuroticism more likely to get jealous, agreeable people are less likely to become jealous

• Partners of those with “dark triad” traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) are jealous more often

  • This seems to be for good reason

  • Psychopaths may purposefully try to get partners jealous

Who gets us jealous?

• Romantic rivalry from a friend is more upsetting than from a stranger

  • But those who have high mate value will arouse more jealousy

• Attractive competitors evoke more jealousy in men and women

• Men more jealous of other men who are self-confident, dominant, assertive, and rich than simply those who are very handsome

• We tend to overestimate how attractive our partners think our rivals are, so we might suffer more distress than warranted

• Evolutionary theorists think that men and women in heterosexual relationships should be sensitive to different types of infidelity

  • Men should be more worried about sexual infidelity (because of paternity uncertainty)

  • Women should be more worried about emotional infidelity (because of parental investment)

• This has found to seemingly be true in heterosexual individuals

Responses to jealousy

Can hurt partner, try to make them jealous in turn, spy and restrict freedom, straightforwardly try to make things work, try to make oneself more desirable to make relationship work

Attachment styles’ responses to jealousy

• Secure and preoccupied (anxious) individuals – more likely to express concerns and try to repair

• Dismissing or fearful (avoidant) individuals – more likely to avoid issue or deny distress (pretend nothing is wrong, act like they don’t care)

Men and women’s responses to jealousy

• Women seek to improve the relationship by trying to compete

  • Women may be more likely to try to get partners jealous

    • Because they want to test relationship and get man to show he cares

    • However, men don’t tend to respond in this way, so this is likely to cause more problems in the relationship and drive them away

• Men seek to protect their ego by confronting/threatening rival and/or pursuing other partners

Coping constructively with jealousy

When jealousy is justified…

• Reduce connection between exclusivity of relationship and sense of self-worth

• Reduce rumination and strive to maintain sense of self-confidence and independence

If struggling with reactive and suspicious jealousy…

• Formal therapy can be helpful

• Reduce irrational / catastrophic thinking about threats to relationship and/or harm that would result from loss

• Enhance self-esteem of jealous person

• Improve communication skills so that expectations can be clarified and partners can agree on boundaries/limits

• Increase satisfaction and fairness in relationship

Deception and lying

• Deception: intentional behavior (outright lying)

• Other types of lying

  • Concealing info

  • Diverting attention from touchy subjects

  • Half-truths that are misleading

• Lies can be common in everyday life and relationships

  • However, those who lie more will experience deceiver’s distrust – frequent liars will start to perceive others as more untrustworthy in turn

• No single cue can indicate that people are lying (verbal, nonverbal, or physiological)

  • Tend to be extremely subtle signs that are hard to detect – and no specific pattern or general thing that gives away lying

• How well do we detect a partner’s deception?

  • We know our partner’s idiosyncrasies, but…

  • Tend to have a truth bias that leads us to assume partners are being honest and we don’t detect lies at the time

• People tell fewer lies in the relationships they find most rewarding

  • It isn’t easy, and it violates shared expectations

Betrayal

Disagreeable, hurtful actions by people we trusted and didn’t expect to violate our expectations

• Could be: infidelity, revealing secrets, gossiping about us behind our backs, teasing us in hurtful ways, breaking important promises, failing to support us, spending too much time elsewhere, abandoning the relationship

• People are rarely being deliberately malicious 

  • Competing demands of relationships are often inescapable

• Betrayal less frequent among those older, better educated, religious

• Those who repeatedly betray others are more unhappy, resentful, vengeful, and suspicious 

• Men and women don’t differ in tendency to betray, but targets

  • Men: romantic partners and business associates

  • Women: family and friends

• Those who betray often underestimate the harm they do

  • Betrayals are central complaints of spouses seeking therapy or divorce