Interpersonal Relations, Attachment, and Social Cognition in Relationships

Intimate relations

Knowledge → know so much about each other

Interdependence

Need and influence each other.

Caring

Feel extra affection.

Trust

Don't expect harm.

Responsiveness

Response to needs.

Mutuality

Think of as 'us.'

Commitment

Believe it will last.

Singlism

Prejudice against those who never marry.

Technointerference

Makes relationships harder.

Phubbing

One partner ignores the other for their phone.

Sex ratio

There are more men than women.

Attachment styles

4 types: Secure, preoccupied, fearful, dismissing.

Sex differences

Biological distinctions.

Gender differences

Social and psychosocial distinctions.

Big 5 personality traits

Open-mindedness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Negative emotionality.

Convenience samples

Participants who are easily available (usually college students).

Representative samples

More costly but better reflect the population.

Correlational design

Describes the strength and direction of an association between two variables.

Experimental design

Experiments control and manipulate situations to delineate cause and effect.

Self-reports

Participants describe their own thoughts and behavior (may not always tell the truth).

Observations

Expensive to conduct, and reactivity can be a problem.

Physiological measures

Measurements of people's biological changes indicate how our physical states are associated with social interactions.

Statistical analysis

Determines the likelihood that results could have occurred by chance.

Meta-analysis

Lends confidence to conclusions by statistically combining results from several studies.

Stress

anxiety = fear; roots are stemming from big emotions

Types of relationships

Family, Romantic relationships, Friends (biggest impact on life satisfaction), teachers/students, Pets, Co-workers

Strong relationships with AI and celebrities

Possible to form strong relationships, one-sided but still exists, and people recognize it

Attachment

Childhood: parenting styles affect childhood attachment style; Mothers' feelings about parenthood affect their child.

Harlow's monkeys

Children seek comfort over food and water, as demonstrated by Harlow's monkeys who go to cloth mother.

Bowlby

"from cradle to grave" → affecting you all your life

Adult and child attachment

Feelings of safety when near; Close, intimate bodily contact (when crying, hold them); Feel insecure when inaccessible; Share discoveries with each other ("look at this"); Mutual preoccupation with each other.

Didactic relationships

Relationships can be didactic; Ex: avoidant with parents but secure with romantic relationships.

Attachment as a dyadic mental working model

Attachment: a dyadic mental working model of relationships; You respond to your surroundings.

Anxious and avoidant attraction

Anxious and avoidant tend to attract each other; Hope the other person will offset their shortcomings.

Push-pull of relationships

Creates a high → not boring; Think love needs to be chased.

Abandonment feelings

Abandonment from your caregiver or partner feels like rejection and NEVER feels good.

John Bowlby

Cradle to grave.

Mary Ainsworth

Strange assessment (where child goes when danger occurs).

Psychology of attachment

Prenatal and newborns: know maternal scent; Rapid early learning processes: vocal and visual recognition; Regular through warmth, touch, and smell; Give and take: imitation, reciprocity, and attachment.

Adult attachment statistics

60% secure, 20% avoidant, 20% anxious.

Dimensions vs. categories in attachment

Has been a push to create dimensions instead of categories; However researchers don't use these dimensions because it is harder to research.

Real life attachment usage

In real life you should use dimensions.

Attachment style change

How can attachment styles change from childhood to adulthood?

Attachment in adulthood

Some overlap (same biological systems) through marked differences; expectations and beliefs about relationships and events.

7 components to intimacy

Knowledge, care, trust, responsiveness, independence, mutuality, commitment, belonging.

Belonging

Can be yourself (uses a lot of cognitive energy to not), more energy, feel safe and comfortable; not sustainable to remain in relationships that you don't belong; not able to survive on our own.

Social cognition

Refers to all the processes of perception, interpretation, belief, and memory with which we evaluate and understand ourselves and other people.

First meeting effect

First meeting affects our judgments and perceptions months later; can be very hard to change views.

Judgment formation time

Only takes 33 milliseconds for us to form judgments of a stranger's attractiveness, trustworthiness, and status.

Stereotypes

Provide us with preconceptions of what people are like; we fit them into boxes unwillingly.

Primary effect

A tendency for the first information we receive about others to carry special weight along with our instant impressions and our stereotypes in shaping our overall impressions of them.

Hannah experiment

Social class changes how we perceive how smart someone is when seeing them perform; affects our choices of new information given to us.

Confirmation bias

Seek information that will prove them right.

Overconfidence

Thinking that we are more accurate than we really are and making more mistakes than we realize.

Existing beliefs

Influential at every stage of a relationship; when it comes to friends and lovers we see what we want to see.

Most accurate predictions

Most accurate predictions of a heterosexual couple come from friends of the woman involved.

Possible illusions

Mix of realistic knowledge about our partners and idealized perceptions of them; we can increase our chances of happiness with them by looking on the bright side.

Attributions

Explanations we create for why things happen or why a person did something.

Actor/observer effects

Generate different explanations for their own behavior than they do for similar things they see their partners do.

Self-serving bias

Take credit for their successes but try to avoid blame for their failures.

Reconstructive memory

Memories are continually revised and rewritten as new information is obtained.

Marital paradigms

Broad assumptions about whether, when, and what circumstances we should marry.

Destiny beliefs

If a couple is made for each other they will just be perfect.

Growth beliefs

Good relationships develop gradually and take work.

Self-fulfilling prophesies

False predictions that come true because we will them to.

Self concept

All the feelings we have about ourselves.

Self enhancement

Desire for positive, complimentary feedback.

Implicit attitudes

Unintentional and automatic associations in our judgments that are evident when our partners come to mind.

Transference

Old feelings transferred to a new partner; we bring baggage from old partnerships if we see or notice something that reminds us of them.

Impression management

Trying to influence the impressions of us that others form.

High self monitors

Individuals who are less committed to their romantic partners and work less hard to present favorable images to their immediate partners than to others.

Partner legibility

Some personalities are easier and more visible to others.

Perceiver ability

Some judges are better than others, particularly in emotional intelligence.

Threatening perceptions

When accurate perceptions would be worrisome, intimate partners may actually be motivated to be inaccurate.

Research plan

Develop a question, obtain participants, choose a design, select a setting.

Experiment

Casual manipulation of a variable to see if it creates a change.

Correlational study

Does not manipulate variables, just measures them.

Self reports

Participants interpret questions differently, face difficulties with recall, and may have bias.

Archival materials

Includes diaries, journals, and photographs.

Ethics in research

Consent is voluntary, detailed information is provided, participants can withdraw at any time, and privacy and confidentiality are maintained.

Interpersonal gap

Senders' intentions differ from the effect on the receiver.

Functions of nonverbal behavior

Includes providing information, regulating interaction, defining the nature of the relationship, interpersonal influence, and impression management.

Display rules

Cultural norms that dictate what emotions are appropriate in particular situations.

Pupil dilation

Our pupils dilate when we see something that interests us.

Visual dominance ratio

Person talking 40% looking at others' eyes; Person listening 60% looking at others' eyes.

Intimate distance

0"-18"

Personal distance

1' ½" - 4'

Social distance

4'-12'

Public distance

12 - and up

Paralanguage

Includes all the variations in a person's voice other than actual words such as rhythm, pitch, loudness, rate.

Behavioral mimicry

Participants adopt similar postures and mannerisms, display similar expressions, and use similar paralanguage.

Self disclosure

Process of revealing personal information to someone else, which helps lead to closeness and intimacy.

Social penetration theory

Relationships develop through systemic changes in communication.

Kitchen sinking

Address several topics at once.

Off-beam

Wandering from topic to topic so that the conversation never stays on one issue for long enough to resolve it.

Yes butting

Responding with 'yes, we could try that but it won't work because…'

Cross complaining

Instead of a response, they complain with an issue of their own.

Behavior description

Tell partners what's on your mind and be specific without generalizing.

I statements

Start with 'I' and then describe a distinct emotional reaction.

Xyz statements

When you do x in y situation I feel z.