Exam three Relationship: Love and Sexuality

Chapter 8

Love

• Desire to enter, maintain, or expand relationship with an entity

- Ex: I love myself 

-Ex: I love myself family

-Ex: I love chicken wings

-Ex: I love Natalie Portman

Four dimensions of love: Culture Value

• Is love a desirable or undesirable state?

Four dimensions of love: Sexuality

• Should love be sexual or nonsexual?

Four dimensions of love: sexual orientation

• should love only involve other-sex partners?

Martial status

should we only love our spouses or others?

Sternbergs triangle of love: Passion

• Physiological arousal, sexual attraction

Sternbergs triangle of love: Intimacy

• closeness, sharing, support, concern

Sternbergs triangle of love: commitment 

• conscious decision to remain in relationship

low Intimacy, low passion, low commitment

non-love

high intimacy, low passion, low commitment

liking

low intimacy, high passion, low commitment

infatuated

low intimacy, low passion, high commitment 

empty

high intimacy, high passion, low commitment

romantic

high intimacy, low passion, high commitment

companionate

intimacy low, passion high, commitment high

fatuous

intimacy high, passion high, commitment high

consummate 

Love over time

Passion starts off high and declines as relationship continues in terms of Sex(18 times/ month) wear mark. 2-3 years around 9 times /month, and 10 years sex? Intimacy and commitment increase through out relationship

Acker and Davis (1992) Study

• Measured passion, intimacy, commitment

• Relationship length

• Relationship stage

• Relationship satisfaction

• Results: Intimacy was always important for satisfaction but did not become more or less important. Passion started off high than decreased only to increase and go back up again after decline. Commitment became more and more important as relationship continues.

Companionate love 

• Help partner stay together 

• Solves the commitment problem

Styles of loving (Lee, 1973) study: Eros

• Passionate love, “love at first sight”

Styles of loving (Lee, 1973) study Ludus

• Game playing love, several partners at once

Styles of loving: Storage

• Friendship love, de-emphasizes passion

Styles of loving: Mania

• Possessive, dependent love, obsession

Styles of loving: Agape

• Selfless love, giving, altruistic, duty

styles of loving: Progma

• shopping list love, logical and practical

Gender differences in love

• More similar than different

• Men more likely to believe in “Love at first sight”

• Men want their love to be passionate

• Women are more cautious and selective

• Women feel passion more slowly

Ackerman, Griskevicious, and Li (2011) study

• Scenario in which you are in a new relationship and your partner says “I love you” 

• Ps told to imagine they either have or have not had sex yet

• Measured happiness to hearing “I love you”

• Results: In Pre-Sex group both men/women were happy to hear I love you but men were slightly happier. With post-sex both were happy as well but women were more happier to hear I love you

Love and Biology

• Passion love releases dopamine

• Companionate love releases oxytocin

-Promotes a soothing sense well-being

-Enduring attachments to those who become associated with its presence in bloodstream

Love is blind

• when people feel romantic attraction, they tend underestimate or ignore their lover’s faults

• When men expected to date a woman they thought her lousy work was better than it was

Passion 

• state of intense longing for union with another

• Two factors of passionate attraction 

- Physiological arousal

-Belief that the other person caused arousal 

White et al (1981) Study

• men ran in place for 15 seconds or 120 seconds

• Say a video of woman they expected to meet

• She was either attractive or unattractive

• Rated how attracted to women they were

• Results: Men who jogged for longer thought the lady was more attractive than those who jogged for 15 seconds in attractive group. In unattractive group men found her as less attractive in both categories of time but those who jogged longer found her less attractive than those who jogged for 15 seconds.

kendrick et al. (1990) study

• Men and women rate traits on how important they are for a variety of mating settings

-Date, sex, committed relationship, marriage

• Minimum acceptable criteria

-A measure of standards

• Results: For women there standards went up as commitment went up. For men it was the same besides sex (tend to have lower standards).

Moss and Maner (2016) study

• Manipulate sex ratio perceptions

• Measured SOI and same-sex aggression

• Ps more into casual sex when they perceived more women than men

• Ps more aggressive toward desirable same sex rivals when majority sex

-Not more aggressive when minority sex

• Not toward less-desirable rivals

Permissiveness with affection standard

• Premarital sex acceptable if it occurs within committed, caring relationship

• Men slightly more permissive than women especially regarding casual premarital sex

• America more conservative than other industrialized countries about pre marital sex

• Cultural differences in sexual permissiveness related to pathogen prevalence

Menston and Buss (2007) study

• Reasons for having sex

-Emotional reasons, physical aspects, pragmatic (do it to accomplish goal), insecurity

• Men and women equally likely to have sex for emotional reasons

• Men more likely to have sex for all other reasons

Frequency of sex

• status of relationship (are they in long term or short term relationship)

• Age

• Length of relationship

• Sexual orientation

Sexual satisfaction

• when frequency is close to desired frequency

• When ratio of sex to arguments is high

• when sex is one of the many other positive activities S

Self determination theory: Autonomy

• choose and control own activities

Self-determination theory: Competence

• Confident and capable

Self determination theory: Relatedness

• close and connected

Baumeister (2000) Study

• Erotic plasticity 

• Women’s sexuality is more plastic than men’s 

• Women’s “total sexual outlet” (how many orgasms you have) tends to fluctuate

• women’s sexual attitudes are influenced by peers and religious beliefs more than men’s 

• Women engage in more attitude inconsistent sexual behavior than do men