Relationship Science: History, Methodology, Attraction, Love, and Gender

Vocabulary flashcards covering the core concepts, theories, and historical frameworks of relationship science, including eras of marriage, methodologies, predictors of attraction, models of love, and evolutionary gender dynamics.

The Pragmatic Era

The historical era of marriage (ending around 1850) during which life was precarious and marriage was primarily centered on meeting basic survival needs.

The Love-Based Era

The historical era of marriage (1850–1965) characterized by an increasing focus on personal fulfillment, cleaved psyche views, and specialized gender roles of breadwinner and homemaker.

Cleaved Psyche

A historical perspective within the Love-Based Era viewing the fundamental nature of manness and womaness as distinctly separate and specialized.

The Self-Expressive Era

The modern era of marriage (1965–present) where love remains crucial but is no longer sufficient, placing principal emphasis on self-expression and personal growth.

Normative Flux

The tension societies face between social norms that either tolerate false positives to reduce false negatives ('don't miss out' / valuing love connection) or tolerate false negatives to reduce false positives ('don't make mistakes' / avoiding rejection) during initiation behavior under uncertainty.

Indirect Measures

Assessment tools, such as PEPT reaction time measures where participants categorize words after a brief prime, that evaluate implicit attitudes beyond self-reports to predict newlywed satisfaction trajectories.

Romantic Attraction

The experience of finding someone desirable as a potential intimate partner.

Matching Phenomenon

The tendency of romantic partners to possess similar levels of physical appearance.

Vertical Attributes

Qualities on which individuals can be evaluated and ranked hierarchically, such as physical attractiveness, health status, and income levels.

Horizontal Attributes

Qualities on which individuals can differ without being judged as objectively better or worse than anyone else, such as food preferences, hobbies, political beliefs, and career choices.

Complementarity

The unsupported proposition that individuals are attracted to partners who have qualities that complement or contrast their own.

Unrequited Love

Love that is one-sided and not reciprocated by the other person.

Familiarity

A classic predictor of attraction where people exhibit increased liking for those they have encountered more frequently, driven by mere exposure.

Coolidge Effect

A phenomenon illustrated in sexual desire studies where sexual interest wanes after repeated exposure to the same stimulus but restores upon introduction of a novel stimulus.

Reciprocity

A classic predictor of attraction demonstrating our tendency to like people who like us, especially if they are selective toward others.

Dyadic Reciprocity

Attraction and liking that is uniquely shared between two specific individuals.

Generalized Reciprocity

The tendency for people who generally like everyone to be liked by others, which is desirable in platonic contexts but undesirable in romantic contexts.

Perceived Similarity

Liking individuals based on the belief that they share similar traits with oneself, despite empirical evidence showing that actual similarity does not reliably predict attraction.

Misattribution of Arousal

An error in judgment whereby an individual incorrectly attributes unrelated physiological activation to romantic attraction toward a target person, an effect that only enhances attraction if the target is already deemed attractive.

Mate Value

A person's overall desirability in the mating market, which drives individuals to pair up with partners of comparable desirability.

Triangular Model of Love

A framework proposing that love is constituted by different blends of three primary components: intimacy ('warm'), passion ('hot'), and decision/commitment ('cool').

Passionate Love

A state of intense longing for union with another person that functions like a craving, tending to be highest at the beginning of a relationship.

Companionate Love

The affection and deep attachment felt for individuals with whom our lives are intertwined, which typically strengthens as a relationship endures over time.

Sexual Selection

A specific form of natural selection arising from differences in mating success across individuals.

Intrasexual Selection

Direct competition among members of one sex for mating opportunities with the other sex, where the contested sex plays a relatively passive role.

Intersexual Selection

Competition to be chosen by the opposite sex via displays of attractive traits, where the selecting sex plays an active decision-making role.

Differential Parental Investment

The evolutionary principle asserting that the biological sex investing greater resources in producing and raising offspring will be more selective when choosing mates.

Single-Mindset Critique

The critique against traditional mating models, asserting that people do not enter relationships strictly with a short-term or long-term mindset because relational intent is ambiguous early on.

Social Roles Critique

The viewpoint proposing that biological factors channel men and women into differing social roles, which in turn shape their observed mate preferences.

Hypothetical Partners Critique

The finding that an individual's self-reported, stated mate preferences fail to predict their actual revealed attraction when interacting with real prospective partners.