Chapter 5- Intimate Relationships and Communication

Psychologist Carl Rogers described three
conditions that characterize healthy relationships:

Genuineness, Empathy, & unconditional positive regard.

Gender role

The activities, abilities, and characteristics
deemed culturally appropriate for us based on our sex.

Socializing

infulences gender behaviors.

Attachment

the emotional tie between an infant and
caregiver or between two people in an intimate
relationship.

Love

positive factors that draw people together.

Sex

excitement and passion, adds fascination and
pleasure.

Commitment

reflects responsibility, reliability, and
faithfulness;relates to the decision to remain together
with the ultimate goal of making long-term plans.

Intimacy

feelings of attachment, closeness,
connectedness, and bondedness.

Passion

motivational drives and sexual attraction.

The Triangle Theory of Love

Intimacy, commitment, & passion.

What opportunities do our relationships offer?

• Healthiest relationships may be those that allow us to
feel secure even when we are apart.
• Relationships that offer the greatest chance to grow are
those in which we can be open, nonjudgmental,
expressive, and understood.

Three skills are essential to good communication
in relationships:

Self-disclosure, listening, & feedback.

Self-disclosure

revealing risky personal information—
usually helps create greater intimacy.

Listening

involves trying to understand instead of judging,
blaming, advising, or trying to control.

Feedback

a constructive response to another’s self-
disclosure that is usually reciprocal.

Sexual Orientation

a consistent pattern of
attraction to persons of the same sex or gender, a
different sex or gender, or more than one sex or
gender.

Heterosexual/straight

attraction to people of the other
sex.

Queer

an umbrella term for sexual orientations other
than heterosexual/straight.

Homophobia

fear or hatred of homosexuals

Authoritarian

high in demandingness, low in
responsiveness.

Authoritative

high in both demandingness and
responsiveness.

Permissive

high in responsiveness, low in
demandingness

Uninvolved

low in both demandingness and
responsiveness