Close Relationships Midterm 2

Relationship maintence

Behaviors and strategies partners develop to ensure a healthy relationship

Intimacy process model beliefs

1. Partner understands core aspects of one’s inner self: needs, emotions, and beliefs

2. Partner validates and respects core aspects of oneself

3. Partner cares for and displays concern for one’s welfare

Interpreative filter (intimacy processing model)

How partner chooses to respond to our disclosures

-Degree of empathy and sensitivity guided by this filter

Responsive behavior (intimacy processing model)

1. Listen to the initial disclosure

2. Understand superficial meaning conveyed, as well as subtle hidden meanings

3. Respond in a responsive way, ex. questions to keep the other person talking

   1. Know when, whether, and how to make transtion to another topic

Intimacy processing model research

Increased self-disclosure predicted better percieved partner responsiveness, which predicted stronger feelings of closeness

How do intimate partners maintain closeness?

1. Engaging in shared activities

2. Supporting each other

3. Capitalizing on positive personal experiences

4. Forgiving each other for insensitive/inconsiderate actions

Self expansion model

-People want to increase capacity/effectiveness as individuals to achieve their goals

-Intimate relationships are a common way to enhance identity and increase achievements

-Shared activities are important to continue this idea of self-expansion so things don’t become boring and unpleasant

Social support

-responsiveness to anothers needs characterizied by validating worth, feelings, or actions orrr by providing information, assistance or resources

-the support people percieve to be able available to them tends to be more benecial than the support recieved 

Broaden and build theory

-importance of postive experiences and the ways partners do or don’t expand them

1. Enhance how we think abt. and respond to events of daily life

2. Build resources for maintaining wellbeing

Active construcrive response

-Best response for higher levels of intimacy

*Deconstructive is the opposite

Forgiveness

1. Motivation has to shift to intrapersonal (anger/blame —> charity/compassion)

   1. Silent forgiveness: only this shift happens

2. Behavior has to shift to interpersonal (express and demonstrate these new feelings)

   1. Hollow forgiveness: only this shift happens

Levels of forgiveness for significant betrayals

1. Impact stage: partners learn of transgression and begin to understand the impact itll have on them

2. Meaning stage: Offended partner tries to make sense of why this happened 

3. Moving on stage: Offended tries to adjust and move beyond the incident 

Conflict

-when one partners goals interferes with the other

-conflict is inevitable, people have many goals and partners rely on each other to meet those goals

Social exchange theory relation to conflict

-Partners evaluations of each others actions affects conversations and relationship satisfaction

-researchers interested in actual statements of disagreement rather than partners perceptions of one another

Coercion

Occurs when partners unintetionally reinforce each others undesireable behaviors

Ex. Partner demands I do something that I don’t want to do, and increase demand until I give in, then I will have rewarded my partner for being demanding

Coding system

Outline how specfific behavior partners show would be assigned to a category of communication

Structural model of marital interaction 

(Unhappy couples)

1. Less postive behavior and more negative behavior- unhappy couples 10x more likely to use a negative tone

2. Greater predictability of behavior between partners- choices on what to say/do are limited bc of strong emotional tone, arguements seem to always unfold the same way

   1. Longer cycles of reciporocal negative behaviors- reciprocate negativity and stay their for longer

reactivity hypothesis

-unhappy partners are more sensitive to the tone of immediate events 

-one person might be “on guard” trying to find meaning in what the other person is saying to gauge how the relationship is going

Talk table communication

1. Partner 1 rates intended impact of conversation “super negative → super positive”

2. Actual impact: partner 2 rates the impact of convo using same scale

3. Partner 1 rates actual impact of partner 2’s message, generates a response, then rates its impact

   1. Pattern continues for a conversation. Partners cannot see each others ratings

Demand/withdrawl

-One partner wants more emotional closeness, causing the other to pull away

-Both ppl downplay contributions to this pattern

-Polarized: partners have adpoted different viewpoints/positions in the arguement. Each partner makes it worse by doing what each sees as reasonable/justifable

Demand/withdrawl factors

1. Women want more to change/demand more (when discussing relationship struggles)

2. Pattern is more extreme in relationships where people want a lot of change, regardless of sex/gender

Sexual satisfaction

each partners evaluation of sexual aspects of relationship

-measured using self-report

-partners most satisfied with sex life are most satisfied with relationship as a whole

Involuntary celibacy

-going w/o sex despite having the desire to have it

-Rarely satisfied with their relationships but stay for other reasons 

Early vs later years predictions of sexual/relationship satisfaction

-Early relationship: Sexual satisfaction predicts changes in relationship satisfaction. Relationship satisfaction predicts changes in sexual satisfaction

-Later relationship: Sexual satisfaction still predicts changes in relationship satisfaction but relationship satisfaction no longer predicts changes in sexual satisfaction 

Sex satisfaction

-Have sex more frequently

-Newlyweds report that the more often they have sex, they are more satisfied with their relationship over the next 4 years

-More time having sex

-How long sexual encounters last

-Why you’re having sex matters: passion/desire for your partner vs seeing it as an obligation/chore

Primary reason to have sex

-to strengthen a relationship and get closer

-NT release oxytocin and vasopressin- biological basis of pairbonds

-nerve circuits and reward pathways are activated and reinforced, strengthening the connection 

Health benefits of sex

-kissing lowers chlosteral

-physical intimacy reduces physical symptoms

-sex affects hormone levels

-sex affects horomone levels (prolactin)

-sex burns calories (4.2 cals per min for men, 3.1 cals per minute for women)