HDFS Notes

Chapter 1: The Building Blocks of Relationships

• We are a very Social species

  • We suffer when we are deprived of close contact with others are we need intimate relationships

  • Physical contact produces oxytocin which makes people feel loved, doesn’t need to be sexual touching!

    • Applies to even Introverts

• The Seven components of Intimacy

  • Knowledge: Intimate partners have extensive personal, often confidential, information about each other

    • Examples are sharing personal trauma with a friend which whom you trust

  • Interdependence: intimate partners have strong, diverse, and enduring influence on each other

    • Not depending on each other, just influencing one another. Example: If i started working out, Elle may want to focus on her diet.

  • Caring: Intimate partners feel more affection for one another than they do for most others.

  • Trust: Intimate partners expect treatment from one another that is fair and honorable

  • Responsiveness: Intimate partners are attentive to each other’s needs, and they support each other more effectively than they do most others

  • Mutuality: Intimate partners think of themselves as a couple instead of two entirely separate individuals

    • A goal, but independence is healthy in relationships!

  • Commitment: Intimate partners expect their relationship to continue, and they work to realize that goal

    • NONE of these components are absolutely required to exist, but out most satisfying and meaningful intimate relationships include all seven of these defining characteristics

• The Need for intimacy

  • The need to belong - A powerful drive to establish intimate connections to others.

    • People suffer both mentally and physically, when they lack intimacy

    • A tendency to form stable, affectionate connections to others may have been evolutionary

  • When diagnosed with congestive heart failure, those in happy marriages lived longer than those without.

• The Influence of Culture

  • Fewer people are marrying than ever before: fewer than half of the adults in the United States are presently married.

  • People are waiting longer to marry

    • These things have changed due to increasing socioeconomic development and people’s increasing individualism.

• Fubbing

  • Snubbing somebody by focusing on their phone