Ch.1 - The Building Blocks of Relationships

Do we really like being alone?

• COVID-19 in 2020

• Humans need some kind of human contact

◦ Why we use solitary confinement as a form of punishment

‣ Causes emotional/psychological stress

◦ Schizoid - lack of desire to have relationships

Nature of Intimacy

• The Seven Components of Intimacy (the psychological closeness with someone else) the more intimate you are, the more you have of these:

◦ Knowledge

‣ We share more intimate info w/ our partners

◦ Interdependence

‣ Our lives become more intertwined

‣ Your partner/friend responds to how you are feeling (e.g., excitement, sadness, etc.)

◦ Caring

‣ We have more affection towards them

◦ Trust

‣ W/ personal info (our secrets and others’ that we tell them)

‣ W/ our feelings

‣ To take care of us

‣ The more severe the violation of trust, the farther from trust you get

‣ The more intimate the trust, the more painful the violation is, but also the more likely we are to work for that trust again

‣ Constantly looking for affirmation, not trusting what your partner is saying, can be emotionally draining

◦ Responsiveness

‣ Do you need more emotional support? Yes, it’s a relationship

◦ Mutuality: when “I” becomes “We”

◦ Commitment: taking a long-term view, willingness/desire to continue the relationship

‣ The amount of effort that you put into the relationship

Is Intimacy a Basic Part of Human Nature?

• The Need to Belong

◦ What happens when we don’t spend time w/ our loved ones?

‣ Effects of divorce?

• Broken heart syndrome between spouses: one spouse dies, within 6 mo, they have a high chance of experience extreme broken heart (?)

• More likely to get the flu - divorce affects mental health and weakens your immune system

◦ having a good support system decreases the effects on the person from breakups/divorce

‣ Breakups effects

• Your heart aches

• Hygiene suffers

• Hormonal affects

• Experiencing real physiological pain

◦ Coan et al. 2006

• Is the need to belong a product of our evolution?

◦ These traits we have help us survive

◦ You are more inclined to value you life more, have something/someone to live for

◦ Safety in numbers

◦ My genes survive with family living after me

1.17.25

The Influence of Culture on Intimacy

• Times have changed since your grandparents married…

◦ Fewer people are marrying & those that do are waiting longer to marry

‣ 94% majority adults married in the 60s

‣ 49% of adults married currently

‣ Married women in the minority

• Less influence of religion on marriage

• Technology

◦ Tinder’s Hook-up culture

• Living longer

• Career

• Different priorities

• Generational curse (parents were divorce)

• Education

‣ 19-20 years of age of marriage lectures

‣ Now 28 years female-29 years male for marriage age

‣ Singlism : discrimination or negative thoughts about people that choose to be single or just are single but want to be in a relationship

◦ Cohabitation : living together even when you aren’t married

‣ Rare in the 60s

• 95% would be married before living together

• Only 5% would cohabitate

‣ More these days

• Cost of living

• Less of expectation that women must live with parents until they get married

• Culture matters

• Considered as “pre-marriage”

• Less stigma these days

◦ Considered as “living in sin” back in the day or “shacking up”

‣ Increases likelihood of divorce

◦ Babies

‣ 95% born in marriages

‣ 40% born to unwed mothers

• Society is more accepting

• Women were given more rights

• Less stigma against children born out of wedlock

• 26.9 years is the average age of having a child

◦ Divorce

‣ High

‣ 50% marriages end in divorce

‣ Higher education is a factor that improves chances of your marriage surviving

‣ More ways/reasons to get divorce

‣ Less stigma

‣ 70% in unhappy marriages

◦ Single-parent homes

‣ 60% will live in a single parent household

• 40% will be under the age of 12

◦ Stay at home moms

‣ These days, moms have to go back to work early

• Too costly to stay at home

Why have our cultural norms changed?

• Socioeconomic development

◦ More money, more choice

◦ More education/being able to support yourself

• Increasing individualism

◦ Individualistic : focus on your happiness, do what is best for yourself

‣ Incr in divorce

‣ “I have a right to be happy”

• Gotten worse where we don’t put in the work to make this thing that doesn’t make me happy, happy

◦ Collectivist : focus on the happiness of the group, you do what is best for the group

• New technology

◦ Phones - can easily get ahold of you

‣ Phubbing - being on the phone while in the presence of other people, making it feel like your phone is more important

‣ Anxiety over answering messaging

‣ 80% do Sexting

• 20% admit to it

◦ IVF

‣ Can wait to have kids

• But problems in later

• Lower sex ratio

‣ Sex ratio = number of men / number of women (# of men compared to women)

‣ High sex ratio - more men

• Work harder for women

• Women treat sex as casual

• Victorian England - sexually conservative

‣ Low sex ratio - more women

• Divorce rates down = less options for women

• Women more permissive (allows or tolerates things that are more disapproving to society)

• 1980s

◦ Sex outside of marriage

◦ Women working outside of marriage, women are powerful

‣ As the pop #s change, it affects how we date

1.24.25

Attachment

• 3 broad types of attachment styles in children

◦ Secure : easily consoled, feel safe, trust parent, more exploring

‣ 60% of babies

◦ Anxious-ambivalent : cannot be consoled when mother comes back, under a lot of stress, explore room but constantly look back at mom

‣ Grab mother’s shirt while also pulling away

‣ Small percentage

◦ Avoidant : don’t get upset at leaving them, doesn’t want them to pick them up

• Hazan & Shaver (1987)

◦ Applied theory to adults

‣ Doesn’t apply well to adults

**** Bartholomew’s four style model of attachment ****

• Based on 2 continuous dimensions

◦ Anxiety over abandonment

◦ Avoidance of intimacy

◦ Because there are dimensions, you can vary on how much of that style you are

‣ You can BE secure, but may be on the lower on the scale

• 4 Styles ******

◦ Secure : Comfortable with intimacy & autonomy in close relationships; self-confident

‣ 60%

◦ Preoccupied : preoccupied with close relationships; dependent on others for self worth; demanding, approach orientation toward others

◦ Dismissing : compulsively self-reliant; downplays the importance of intimate relationships

◦ Fearful : dependent on others; avoids intimacy due to fear of rejection

‣ Low self-esteem & high attachment anxiety

‣ Clinging & pushing away

• Are we locked into our attachment styles?

◦ No! They can change as things happen you (like maybe a breakup will cause you to go from secure to fearful, especially if they cheated)

◦ Parents can affect which style you become

The influence of Individual Differences

• We’re all individuals with our own combinations of talents & traits

◦ Sex Differences : there is no significant difference between the 2

‣ So why does this myth persist?

‣ So really, it’s more like “Men are from North Dakota, women are from South Dakota”

‣ They have more in common with each their than they do differences

Gender Differences

• Sex differences vs. Gender Differences

• Gender roles : masculine v. feminine traits (low self esteem) (opposing)

◦ Instrumental traits : masculine traits

‣ They serve a purpose, useful

‣ Dominant, logical, rational

‣ Struggle with talking about emotions (an extreme)

◦ Expressive traits : feminine traits

‣ About expression

‣ Caring, nurturing, kind, gentle

◦ Androgynous : high in instrumental & high in expressive traits

‣ Make better partners

• Better at adopting other POV

• How I behave at work isn’t how I should act at home

• Adaptable

• Generations becoming more androgynous (a good thing)

• High emotional intelligence (ooo, crossover!!!)

• Are Traditional Gender Roles Good for your Relationship?

• Can change

◦ Women can wear pants now

◦ Depending on occupations, it can be culturally appropriate to do something normally for women (actor men can wear makeup)

• Affected by culture, changes rapidly

Personality (Each one is a subscale)

• The Big Five Personality Traits (McCrea & Costa, 1997)

◦ *****Openness to experience : how imaginative you are, creative, original, curious

‣ LEAST important to relationships

◦ Conscientiousness : hardworking, well-organized, punctual

◦ Extraversion : joiner, talkative, outgoing, impulsive, more affectionate

◦ Agreeableness : trusting, lenient, soft-hearted, good-natured

◦ *****Neuroticism : worried, temperamental, self-conscious, motions (anxiety, depression)

‣ MOST important to relationships (ideally, we want the lower end of this scale)

1.27.25

Self-Esteem

• What is self-esteem?

◦ How you feel about yourself and whether that is a good thing or a bad thing

◦ High self-esteem is a good thing

‣ Narcissism is not the same thing - actually a product of low self-esteem

‣ Helps us feel good about ourselves

‣ Protects us

• If something bad happens, we’ll survive, we see it as not a reflection of us

◦ We all have cognitive dissonance about thoughts of ourselves (e.g., oh, I’m not lazy)

• Sociometer theory : a way to gauge or measure our relationships

◦ Our self-esteem declines a people start to pull away from us

◦ Whatever we do/say incites a reaction to however the other person reacts, so we gauge our relationship on that

◦ If we feel rejection, we change, and if that change is accepted, we keep doing that, to maintain that high self-esteem

◦ It matters what my perception of what you think I am is

• Is self-esteem an evolved mechanism?

◦ It helps us survive

◦ We want people to want to be near us

◦ Rejection or dislike from the group is dangerous

◦ We want this gauge to say you are going okay

• How does low self-esteem affect a relationship?

◦ Ppl with low self-esteem don’t always have low self-esteem

◦ It’s unstable

◦ It exhausts the partner

‣ Constantly have to reassure them, to justify their feelings for the person w/ low self-esteem

◦ The low person wants to be with someone that agrees with them that they are a terrible person

‣ Backwards reaction

One Difference That Doesn’t Make a Difference

• Sexual Orientation

The Influence of Human Nature

• Certain tendencies that change our relationships

• Evolutionary influences

◦ 3 assumptions of evolutionary psych

‣ Natural selection : how our sex has changed our influences our relationships

• Offspring

‣ Men & women are only different in mating strategies because we faced different reproductive dilemmas

• They have different roles

• Parental investment

◦ Women have to invest a little over 9mo

‣ Bodily changes significantly

◦ Men only have to invest pre-ejaculate

‣ Man has to be steady, stable, and ready to be a provider

• Paternity uncertainty

◦ Women are certain; Men, not so much

◦ Leads men to look for loyalty in a partner

‣ Someone he can take home to his mother

‣ **** Culture still matters

• Which behaviors are adaptive, changes faster than evolution

◦ Men - spread your seed as much as poss

‣ However, today that’s bad because it leads to disease

‣ But in the past it was ok because the mortality rate was so high, today the risk is lower

‣ Today, it’s financially not possible and just too many risks

• Social pariah

• Disease possibility

• Do we look for the same thing in a short-term relationship that we look for in a long-term relationships?

◦ Short-term

‣ Attractiveness

‣ If it’s sexual, you don’t care what qualities that they may or may not have

◦ Long-term

‣ Attractiveness

‣ Loyal

‣ Kind

‣ Trustworthy

‣ Honesty

◦ Women look towards resources more, while men look at attractiveness more

Evolutionary Psychology

• Are these ideas still useful in the modern environments we face today?

• Can differences be explained not using evolutionary psychology?

◦ Ad Hoc : trying to explain modern thoughts by using past theories

◦ Women look for resources

‣ Economic status

• Culture plays a role

Influence of Interaction

• Relationships are much more than the sum of those parts

◦ You create something new, complex, and hard to look at

• Relationships are also dynamic

◦ They change

◦ It can be difficult to understand what is changing it

The Dark Side

• Intimacy is sometimes costly, too

◦ Single

◦ Have to tell ppl we aren’t together anymore

◦ Relieved and kinda sad

‣ You invested all that time and no longer have that connection

‣ You lost a part of yourself that your were in that part of your lifetime

◦ Swear off relationships —> then you find another

• So why take the risk?

◦ Hopes of love

◦ Good outcome

◦ Because it is still often worth it, simply to just find that connection