HUMAN BONDING FINAL EXAM

Participation Polls 9 and 10

Poll 9 findings:

• Most recent romantic interest usually developed in person: 59% met in person through school, activities, or shared spaces.

• 22% experienced infatuation for 2+ people at the same time.

• 23% experienced infatuation for someone they were not sexually attracted to.

• Most common crush symptoms: preoccupation/constant thoughts, physiological arousal, idealization, and mood dependence.

• Most common crush behaviors: monitoring social media, scrolling through old posts, overanalyzing interactions, replaying conversations/messages, checking replies anxiously.

Poll 10 findings:

• Friendships were viewed as much more personally meaningful than parasocial or AI relationships.

• Human relationships provide emotional warmth, deep understanding, genuine empathy, physical presence/touch, reciprocity, shared memories, spontaneity, and accountability/growth.

• Giving support was rated as very important or central to identity by many students, especially women.

Romantic infatuation: symptoms, duration, time course

Symptoms:

• Sudden onset

• Physiological arousal

• Mental preoccupation

• Mood dependence

• Idealization

• Often one main target

Biggest tell: mental preoccupation.
Most dangerous symptom: idealization.

Time course:

• Onset: sudden

• Peak: around 6 months

• Waning: up to the 2-year mark

• After about 2 years, either the relationship ends or mutual attachment develops.

What changes the timeline:

• Quick cohabitation shortens it.

• Delayed sex lengthens it.

• Long distance lengthens it.

Is infatuation normal? Is it lust? What is its function?

Is it normal?
Yes. It is common, typical, and normal, though not especially rational.

How long does it last?
It peaks around 6 months and usually wanes by about 2 years.

Is it just lust/sexual desire?
No. There is overlap, but they are not identical. Evidence against them being the same includes the different subjective experience and the existence of pre-pubertal infatuation.

Function:
Infatuation focuses attention and motivation on one person long enough to promote pair-bond formation.

Neurochemistry of pair bonding

Dopamine:
The “wanting” system. It drives motivation, approach, desire, and learning. It is especially important early in infatuation.

Opiates:
The “liking” system. They create satisfaction, contentment, pleasure, and comfort. They become more important as attachment develops.

Oxytocin:
Tracks with closeness, comfort, trust, care behaviors, orgasm, labor, and milk letdown. In pair bonds, it supports comfort and bonding.

Norepinephrine:
The attention/salience marker. It makes the partner stand out: their face, voice, name, and reminders become highly noticeable. It helps explain mental preoccupation.

Advantage of pair bonding for offspring

Pair bonding supports cooperative parenting and biparental care. This increases offspring survival because offspring receive more protection, resources, and caregiving.

Ethological indicators of monogamy/promiscuity in humans

Features ethologists use:

• Os penis/penile bone

• Testes size

• Overt vs. covert ovulation

• Sex for non-reproductive purposes

• Reported sexual behavior

• Sexual dimorphism

• Paternal care

• Separation distress

Humans by category:

• No os penis: suggests monogamous pattern because arousal and engagement with a target are required.

• Medium testes size: ambiguous.

• Mostly covert ovulation: suggests monogamous pattern because continuous pairing helps reproduction.

• Sex for fun / non-reproductive sex: suggests monogamous/pair-bond function.

• Reported sexual behavior: mixed/ambiguous.

• Sexual dimorphism: moderate, so ambiguous.

• Paternal care: suggests monogamy; paternal care is rare in mammals.

• Separation distress: strongly supports pair bonding/social monogamy.

Conclusion:
Humans mostly qualify as socially monogamous, but sexual monogamy is less clear and varies by gender, orientation, culture, norms, values, and individual choices.

Intimacy: definition, factors, importance

Definition:
Intimacy comes from Latin intimare, meaning “to make the innermost self known to another.”

Key point:
Intimacy is interpersonal, develops over time, requires at least two people, and applies to friendships, romantic relationships, and family.

Forms of intimacy:

• Physical

• Emotional

• Sexual

• Intellectual/spiritual/aesthetic also possible

Intimacy factors:

• Verbal self-disclosure: Must be reciprocal and gradual. Acceptance and validation are essential.

• Kinesics/body language: Defended vs. undefended posture; flirting sequence; body language both promotes and reveals intimacy.

• Proxemics/physical space: Use of personal space. Entering the intimate zone is always noticed and can build intimacy or feel threatening.

• Physical touch: Where, how, and how long touch occurs changes its meaning.

• Paralinguistics: Manner of speaking, including elevated pitch, varied pitch, sing-song contours, and infant-directed speech qualities.

• Settings: Private spaces, smaller groups, low interruption, unspecified ending time, eating/sleeping together, dim lighting.

Importance:
Intimacy is one of the strongest predictors of relationship satisfaction and helps pair bonds form. Loneliness can even be defined as the absence of intimacy.

Commitment and social exchange theory

Commitment definition:
In relationship science, commitment is the intention to continue a relationship.

Three types of commitment:

• Personal commitment: “I want to.” The relationship is rewarding.

• Moral commitment: “I ought to.” I promised; I have an obligation.

• Structural commitment: “I have to.” Legal, social, financial, or practical barriers make leaving hard.

Social exchange theory:
People remain in relationships when benefits outweigh costs.

Key concepts:

• Outcome: What you get from the relationship.

• Comparison Level (CL): Your standard for what you deserve. If outcome > CL, you are satisfied.

• Comparison Level for Alternatives (CLalt): Whether you think you could do better elsewhere. If CLalt is high, the relationship is unstable.

Sociosexual orientation

Sociosexual orientation measures individual differences in how strongly someone links love and sex.

• Restricted sociosexual orientation: Sex is strongly tied to love/commitment.

• Unrestricted sociosexual orientation: More openness to casual or uncommitted sex.

This matters because people with differing sociosexual orientations may have different expectations around sex, exclusivity, and commitment.

Prairie voles and pair-bonding experiments

Prairie voles are used because they are socially monogamous, form mate bonds, show biparental care, and pair-bonded voles attack strangers.

How scientists measure bonding:

• In humans: self-report, physiology, fMRI, limited functional studies.

• In animals: behavioral assays, neurobiological analysis, neuroimaging, invasive functional studies.

Common vole experiments:

• Partner preference formation: Does the vole prefer the partner over a stranger?

• Selective aggression: Does the pair-bonded vole attack unfamiliar voles?

• Biparental care: Do both parents care for offspring?

• Neurobiological manipulation: Change receptor systems such as oxytocin, vasopressin, or dopamine to test causal roles.

Key finding:
Oxytocin, vasopressin, and dopamine facilitate social bonding.

ABCs of adult attachment and four styles

Affect = feelings

• Secure: safety, contentment

• Anxious: anxious, insecure, angry

• Avoidant: rejected, sad, angry

Behavior = actions

• Secure: turn to someone when needed

• Anxious: make demands, cling, signal distress loudly

• Avoidant: handle it alone, avoid closeness

Cognition = thoughts

• Secure: others are available and I can depend on them

• Anxious: others may abandon me

• Avoidant: I cannot rely on others / I should not need others

Dimensional model:
Adult attachment is measured on two dimensions:

• Anxiety

• Avoidance

Four styles:

• Low anxiety, low avoidance: secure

• High anxiety, low avoidance: anxious/preoccupied

• Low anxiety, high avoidance: dismissing/avoidant

• High anxiety, high avoidance: fearful/disorganized

HPA axis and autonomic nervous system

HPA axis:
Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. It controls cortisol and stress-response regulation.

Autonomic nervous system:
Regulates automatic bodily arousal. Includes:

• Sympathetic nervous system: fight-or-flight

• Parasympathetic nervous system: rest-and-digest, including vagus nerve activity

Concrete caregiving example:
In rats, more maternal licking strengthens the negative feedback loop of the HPA axis by changing methylation/expression of glucocorticoid receptors. This means the stress response shuts off more effectively. Early stress can strengthen amygdala-HPA connections, making stress activation more likely.

Mate choice theories

Sexual Strategies Theory:
Predicts men and women have different mating strategies because of different parental investment.

• Men: many partners, fertility cues.

• Women: fewer partners, status/resources.

• Evidence: there are some differences, but they are modest; most people want similar things.

Likes-Attract Hypothesis:
People prefer partners who match traits they see in themselves. If someone values/possesses a trait, they want that trait in a partner. Evidence supports this more strongly than extreme sex-difference predictions.

Adventitious Model:
Mate choice is shaped by available options and propinquity. Twin studies show identical twins do not choose especially similar spouses within the available pool, suggesting specific mate choice is partly chance/opportunity-based.

Overall conclusion:
Human mate choice is not explained well by one simple model. Evidence supports modest sex differences, strong similarity/assortment effects, and a major role for availability and propinquity.

Breakups: three characteristics and 9 stages

Three common characteristics:

• Breakups are a process, not sudden.

• They are typically unilateral: initiator vs. partner.

• They usually proceed through about 9 stages.

9 stages:

1. Private Doubts: Initiator has doubts but does not share them.

2. Indirect Expressions: Dissatisfaction leaks out indirectly.

3. Turning Outward: Initiator seeks satisfaction through new friends, interests, activities.

4. Rewriting History: Initiator reinterprets the relationship as always having been wrong.

5. Public Expression: Initiator tells others or disrespects partner publicly.

6. Exploring Single Life: Initiator imagines or experiments with single life.

7. Taking Action: Indirect but suspicious actions; partner becomes aware.

8. Trying: Partner tries to repair; initiator tries to prove it cannot be repaired.

9. Separating: Initiator is determined to end it but may hedge with “space” or “a break.”

Gottman’s four horsemen and Markman intervention

Four horsemen:

1. Global criticism: “You always…”; attacks character.

2. Defensiveness: “Well, you actually…”

3. Contempt: Disgust, disrespect, superiority.

4. Stonewalling: Disengaging/refusing to participate.

Why important:
They predict divorce because they undermine major bonding processes:

• Criticism = opposite of idealization

• Defensiveness = opposite of intimacy

• Contempt = opposite of attraction

• Stonewalling = opposite of commitment

How to interrupt them:

• Validation

• Affection

• Humor

• Better communication skills

Markman’s PREP intervention:
Prevention and Relationship Education Program. It aimed to improve communication. Findings were mixed but generally showed improved communication and, in one Army-couples study, lower divorce in the PREP group than control.

“Magic” ratio of positive to negative interactions

Gottman found that couples generally need about a 5:1 positive-to-negative interaction ratio to maintain satisfaction. A 10:1 ratio is even better. Modern interpretation: it is less about a literal magic number and more that “more positive interactions are better.”

Infidelity: definition, causes, prevalence, impact, SST prediction

Definition:
Secret sexual and/or romantic activity with someone other than an exclusive partner. Consensual non-monogamy and polyamory do not count.

Causes/risk factors:

• Social norms: people are more likely to cheat if family/friends do.

• Unrestricted sociosexual orientation

• Narcissism, psychopathy

• Ambiguous behaviors

• Opportunity

• Sometimes unrelated unhappiness or temptation

Protective factors:

• Intimacy

• Commitment

• Mate similarity

• Overall satisfaction

Impact:
Infidelity is one of the most frequent causes of divorce worldwide, but it may be a distal rather than immediate cause.

Sexual Strategies Theory prediction:
Men should be more likely to cheat because they can increase reproductive success through multiple partners. For jealousy, SST predicts men should be more distressed by sexual infidelity because of paternity uncertainty, while women should be more distressed by emotional infidelity because of potential loss of partner resources.

Jealousy

Definition:
Jealousy occurs when you stand to lose something valued, especially a valued relationship or bond.

What provokes jealousy:

• Partner’s emotional involvement with someone else

• Partner’s sexual involvement with someone else

• Rival threats

• Potential loss of partner attention, investment, or commitment

Who experiences it:
Jealousy is normative in human bonding. It is not only gender-specific or age-specific; even babies can show jealousy-like responses.

Potential consequences:

• Mate guarding

• Conflict

• Stalking

• Violence

• Spousal battery and homicide in extreme cases

Loneliness, morbidity, mortality

Definition:
Loneliness is the absence of intimate or responsive relationships. It is related to the quality of social connections, not just the number of people around you.

Biological effects:

• Greater vigilance to threat

• Higher cortisol / HPA activation

• Changes in gene expression

• More proinflammatory signaling

• Reduced responsiveness to anti-inflammatory signals

Health outcomes:

• Loneliness is linked to higher morbidity and mortality.

• Lonely people are more likely to die.

• Loneliness is associated with dementia risk.

Touch, support, closeness, and physical health

Nonsexual physical touch:
Hand-holding with a loved one during shock reduces threat and pain responses compared with holding a stranger’s hand or no hand.

Social support:
Social support can improve health outcomes, including kidney transplant graft survival.

Closeness/intimacy:
Close relationships promote rest-and-digest states, lower stress physiology, and may support healing.

Hugs:
In Cohen et al.’s cold/virus study, hugs predicted lower odds of infection.

Oxytocin + intimacy:
Oxytocin alone did not enhance wound healing, but when combined with partner interaction or everyday intimacy, it was associated with faster recovery.

Overall effect of social relationships on health and longevity

Close relationships have a large and meaningful effect on health and longevity. The lecture framed social connection as something human biology expects because close relationships were a fact of life for nearly all of human evolution. Social disconnection is therefore not just emotionally painful; it affects stress, inflammation, immune function, cardiovascular function, illness risk, and mortality.

What is the difference between so-called “primary” and “secondary” drives? What is the “secondary drive theory” of infant attachment or why babies love their mothers? What are some of the reasons that Bowlby doubted its validity?

• Primary drives: innate, biologically necessary for survival (e.g. hunger, thirst, warmth, contact comfort)

• Secondary drives: become motivating only because they are associated with primary drives

• Secondary Drive Theory of Attachment: 

  • Babies love their mothers because mothers feed them

  • Attachment is learning through association with food and survival 

  • Infants become attached to mothers because they associate them with the reduction of primary drives (hunger) through feeding

• Why Bowlby doubted it

  • Babies show intense distress when separated when if they are well-fed

  • Attachment behaviors occur in non-feeding context

  • Harlow’s work showed infants prefer comfort over food

  • Cross-species evidence showed attachment exists independent of feeding

What are the four features that define attachment bonds and set them apart from other types of social relationships? What is the emotion co-regulation function of attachment bonds?

• Proximity Maintenance: desire to be near the attachment figure

• Separation Distress: Distress when attachment figure leaves

• Safe Haven: turning to attachment figure for comfort when stressed

• Secure base: attachment figure enables exploration (can go out and do things knowing that they have our back/will protect us)

• Emotion Co-Regulation:

  • Caregiver helps regulate infant’s… stress, arousal, fear, physiological states

• Attachment relationships are different because the child is looking for comfort, security, and proximity → if they do not have these the child will face distress

Within Bowlby’s theory, what is meant by “monotropy” and “attachment hierarchies” and “cradle to grave”?

• Monotropy: one attachment figure has disproportionate importance 

  • having one go-to person → if something happens, this is the person you want to comfort you

• Attachment hierarchy: multiple attachment figures that are ranked by importance

• Cradle to Grave: 

  • The attachment system is operational and fundamental from birth to death. It is an inborn system that can regulate emotions

  • Normative restructuring: the structure stays the same throughout your life (you have a number one at the top), but who the most important person is at the top of the hierarchy changes

  • As a child, attachment figure is a parent

  • As an adult, attachment figure is usually a partner

  • As an elderly person, attachment figure may become one of your children

What are the approximate ages, stages, and related behaviors in the ontogeny (formation) of infant- caregiver attachment bonds?

• 0-2 months: "pre-attachment"

  • Does not care who take care of them

  • Not born attached to anyone

• 2-6 months: "attachment in the making"

  • Start to show preferences towards certain people

  • Will start to smile if others smile at them

• 6-8 months: "clear-cut attachment"

  • Babies can get around on their own

  • Stranger anxiety

  • Separation distress

• 24 months: "goal-corrected partnership"

  • Child starts to recognize that attachment figure (AF) has goals too

  • The relationship starts to mature past a one-sided relationship where the child's needs were being met

What are three adaptive challenges that humans had to successfully negotiate to continue as a species, and what are the corresponding behavioral systems that evolved in response to these challenges?

• Survive to reproductive age: We are born helpless - In order to survive infancy and early life we must find someone who will take care of us - ​attachment system

• Successfully reproduce: To continue as a species, we need to reproduce - the ​sexual mating system​ ensures this

• Support offspring to reproductive age: We have to provide adequate care to our offspring so that they also survive to a reproductive age - ​parental/caregiving system

What were the results of the evolutionary developments of bipedalism and increased brain size in terms of attachment and pairbonding?

• Bipedalism → narrower pelvis

• Narrow pelvis → limits birth canal size

• Larger brains → babies born neurologically immature

• Result:

  • Extreme infant helplessness

  • Strong attachment system required

  • Evolution of pairbonding to support caregiving

• Pairbonding co-opts attachment system (exaptation)

• Co-opts attachment system: This means the mechanisms used for romantic love (like longing, emotional dependence, and comfort-seeking) were "borrowed" or recruited from a pre-existing system: the one that bonds infants to their caregivers.

• Pair-bonding: The formation of a close, long-term romantic relationship between two adults, characterized by partner preference, companionship, and shared parental care.

• Co-opts attachment system: This means the mechanisms used for romantic love (like longing, emotional dependence, and comfort-seeking) were "borrowed" or recruited from a pre-existing system: the one that bonds infants to their caregivers.

What factors promote bonding between infants and adults by activating the parental/caregiving system?

• Neotenous features (baby-like features)

• Adverseness in Infants Cry

• Infants soft, smooth skin

• Infant-directed speech (IDS) ("baby talk")

What are the factors that influence an infant’s “selection” of an attachment figure? Why these factors?

• Familiarity/proximity: ​who's around/available, who's familiar, and who responds to their needs

• Competence/maturity: ​babies can tell the difference between a child face and an adult face

  • They can also detect differences in the competence of the person handling them

  • They get attached to people who are mature and competent - they understand who is (not) capable of taking care of them

• Physical intimacy: ​they are more likely to get attached to people who interact with them intimately and seem invested in their well-being

  • Whispering, nuzzling, snuggling → babies detect the difference in these interactions and realize that this person cares about them and is invested.

What is the bi-phasic response to separation from an attachment figure? Based on his studies of rat mothers and pups, what did Hofer conclude about the “despair” phase and about attachment bonds more generally?

• Phase 1: PROTEST

  • Distress, seek contact with primary caregiver

• Phase 2: DESPAIR

  • Reject other caregivers

  • Appetite and sleep disturbances

  • Depression-like state

• Hofer’s conclusions:

  • Missing features caused different symptoms

    • Lack of milk → slow HR

    • Lack of warmth → inactivity

    • Lack of touch → reduced growth hormone

  • Conclusion: physiological co-regulation is an inherent feature of attachment, physiological dysregulation results from separations

  • Inherent part of bonding is physiological (and psychological) co-regulation, its an inherent feature of attachment

    • Baby stops being coregulated by its parent if it experiences chronic separation

      • Panic to Sadness

      • Rat research (Hofer)

        • Rat mother taken away from pups, systematic features added

In terms of parent-infant co-sleeping, what sleeping arrangement is currently recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics?

• Same room, different surface

  • Infant sleeps in crib or bassinet

  • In parents’ room

• Maximizes:

  • Arousals (protective)

  • Airflow

  • Safety

• Avoids risks of bed-sharing

What is so-called “kangaroo care,” and what are its short- and long-term effects?

• Kangaroo care: Skin-to-skin contact between caregiver and infant (when babies are born prematurely, they will usually be put into an incubator for warmth – experiment done without incubators where babies had skin contact with mother)

  • Short-term effects:

    • Less crying

    • Lower stress hormones

    • Better sleep

    • Faster weight gain

  • Long-term effects:

    • Better emotional regulation

    • More exploration

    • Less aggression and impulsivity years later

What are the three main pattern/styles of infant-caregiver attachment identified by Ainsworth et al. and what characterizes the laboratory behavior of babies in each of the three categories?

• Secure (B)

  • Seeks contact at reunion

  • Easily soothed

  • Returns to exploration

• Anxious/Ambivalent (C)

  • Seeks contact but resists soothing

  • Angry, clingy

• Avoidant (A)

  • Avoids caregiver

  • Appears emotionally disengaged

What one variable assessed over the first 3 months of life predicted how babies would behave in the “strange situation” at 12 months of age? How was this variable defined by Ainsworth? And what are the caregiving antecedents of each of the patterns/styles?

• Variable: Caregiver responsiveness to infant distress

• Defined by Ainsworth as:

  • Noticing signals

  • Interpreting signals correctly

  • Responding promptly and warmly

• Antecedents 

  • Secure → consistently responsive caregiving

  • Anxious → inconsistent responsiveness

  • Avoidant → consistent unresponsiveness

What evidence indicates that infant attachment styles as observed in the strange situation at one year of age are the result of experiences with caregivers and not just inborn differences in infant temperament?

• There are neonatal differences in stress reactivity but…

  • Children have different attachment styles with different attachment figures

  • Child's temperament does not predict attachment style

  • Responsiveness training can change styles

  • There is not a good reason a 12-month old baby should push away or ignore an attachment figure unless something in the relationship went wrong.

Early attachment patterns/styles emerge from a combination of an infant’s innate predisposition to form bonds with adult caregivers and the consistent/inconsistent responsiveness/unresponsiveness of the adult caregivers they happen to end up with. How in theory do these early bonding experiences affect future relationships by literally getting into their heads and under their skin?

• Both the ANS (autonomic nervous system) and the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) are built in to help regulate levels of stress

• Oxytocin and opioids down-regulate bring you down to a level of homeostasis.

  • Contact with an attachment figure triggers the release of both oxytocin and opioids.

  • Contact with an attachment figure reduces your feeling of stress. They can calm you and regulate your stress level. This is unique to the attachment figure.

  • These aspects of emotion regulation in the attachment system are how early experiences of relationships affect you at a profound level that carries over into adult relationships

How did Harlow test the secondary-drive theory of attachment? What did he conclude? What were the “sleeper effects” he found? What accounts for the effects of early attachment deprivation on the later-developing sexual mating and parental/caregiving systems?

• How he tested it

  • Infant monkeys raised with:

    • Wire mother (food)

    • Cloth mother (comfort)

• Conclusion

  • Infants preferred comfort over food

  • Contact comfort is a primary drive

• Sleeper effects

  • What was Disrupted:

    • Attachment system

    • Sexual mating system

    • Caregiving system

• Why effects spread

  • Overlapping neurobiology of bonding systems

Know the general bonding-related milestones between ~2 years and puberty. Be familiar with the concepts of sexual imprinting, the Westermarck effect, and the differences between them.

• ~2-3 years: Goal-corrected partnerships

  • Child begins to understand that caregivers:

    • Have their own goals

    • May leave but will return

  • Attachment behavior becomes more negotiated

    • Less intense protest at separation

    • More verbal communication

  • Attachment system still present but better regulated

• Early childhood 

  • Increased importance of peer relationships and cooperative play

  • Attachment figure remains as primary source of security and emotional back-up system

  • Children begin practicing emotional regulation and social reciprocity

• Middle childhood

  • Attachment system becomes less visible, not less important

  • Children rely more on internal working models and self-regulation

  • Peer acceptance becomes increasingly salient

  • First proto-romatic interests may appear

• Late childhood / pre-puberty

  • Emergence of crushes and romantic curiosity 

  • Sexual mating system begins to come online

  • Attachment system starts preparing to shift targets from caregivers to peers

• Sexual imprinting

  • A process by which early social experiences shape later sexual or romantic preferences

  • Typically involves exposure during a sensitive period

  • Operates largely outside conscious awareness

• Westermarck Effect

  • A mechanism that suppresses sexual attraction between individuals who:

    • Are raised together during early childhood

    • Experience prolonged close co-residence

  • Functions as an incest-avoidance mechanism

  • Does not require genetic relatedness

  • Operates automatically, not through conscious moral rules