Close Relationships

Passionate love

• Must come into contact with someone who is an appropriate love object. – Role of chance

Passionate love

– Given a chance encounter, what increases the probability that you will fall in love?

• Role of arousal

Passionate love

• Two factor theory of passionate love (Hatfield & Berscheid)

• First, person must experience a general state of arousal

• Second, person must attribute this arousal to the potential partner

Passionate love

• Excitation transfer: The process whereby arousal caused by one stimulus (e.g., an anxiety provoking situation) is added to the arousal from a second stimulus (e.g., an attractive potential partner) and the combined arousal is attributed to the second stimulus (e.g., the potential partner)

Excitation transfer?

Dutton & Aron (1974) • Quasi-IV: Walked across a scary suspension

bridge (high arousal) or a more standard bridge (low arousal)

• DV: Later calls or does not call the attractive female E

• Results: Men who had crossed the scary bridge were ___________to call the attractive female E than those who had crossed the standard bridge.

• Limitations?

Excitation transfer

• White et al (1981) study • IV1: Men ran in place for 2 mins or 15 seconds (to create

high/low arousal)• IV2: Woman in video was attractive or unattractive • DV: After watching video, men rated woman’s

attractiveness. • Results: Men in the _____________condition rated the

attractive woman as ______attractive and the unattractive woman as ______ attractive than did men in the ____ arousal condition.

Passionate love usually cools over time.

• In U.S., initial honeymoon period is followed by a drop in satisfaction; continues to decline from 2-3 yrs; levels off around 4 yrs

• After 2 years of marriage, spouses express affection about half as often as when they were newlyweds.

Divorce rate

• Occurs most often within 7 yrs, with peak at 4-5 yrs.

• Second danger point about 16-20 yrs into marriage (16.4 yrs.) -- when kids leave home, or midlife crisis.

• May differ cross-culturally in arranged vs. love-based marriages.– Gupta & Singh (1982) study of 50 couples in

India. Half in arranged marriages, half married for “love.

– Results: Those who married for love reported ________feelings of love if they had been married more than five years. In contrast, those in arranged marriages reported ______love if they were not newlyweds.

• Figure on overhead

Conflict and Communication in Long-term Romantic Relationships

• Conflict is common in romantic relationships.

• Sometimes conflict arises from differing expectations.

• Sometimes conflict arises because partners have different perceptions of the same events.

What is the trajectory of conflict in long-term stable relationships?

– Classic study by Harriet Braiker and Harold Kelley (1979): 20 married couples provided accounts of their relationships, from casual dating, to serious dating, engagement, marriages, etc, and indicated degrees of love and conflict/negativity.

• Main point: Both love and conflict ________from casual to serious dating and _________at engagement and marriage.

What is the trajectory of conflict in relationships that breakup?

– Sally Lloyd and Rodney Cate (1985) took an approach similar to Braiker & Kelley, but they looked at 49 men and 48 women who had been in serious romantic relationships ), but had broken up in the last twelve months.

• Main point: Both love and conflict ________from early to later stage of relationship, but as relationships moved into a state of uncertainty, conflict _______and love _______.

• Figure -- overhead

Is conflict good or bad for a relationship?

– It depends on how the people deal with the conflict!

• Good: Open communication, constructive problem-solving

• Bad: Negative affect reciprocity (a tit-for-tat exchange of expressions of negative feelings) and demand-withdraw pattern (one person wants to discuss a relationship problem, the other withdraws)

How might couples improve their relationships?

• John Gottman, at University of Washington. “Love Lab”)• What kinds of measures do the researchers collect?• What kinds of information do you think the researchers

are using to estimate whether a couple is likely to divorce or remain together?

• What constructive behaviors (i.e., those that are probably good for the relationship) did you observe in these couples?

• What destructive behaviors (i.e., those that will likely harm the relationship) did you observe?

• Video clip

• Gottman claims that his assessments (in the “Love Lab”) allow him to predict with ________accuracy, which married couples are likely to remain in a stable relationship and which ones are likely to get divorced.

• Thought question: How well would you be able to predict married couples’ likelihood of divorce? On what would you base your prediction?

Main predictors of divorce

• Frequency of ________________

_______________________________.

• Contempt (e.g., rolling the eyes) = one of the ____________signals of _______ marital problems, especially combined with ______________.

Romantic love as an attachment relationship

• Hazan & Shaver, 1987

• Romantic love relationships are similar, in many ways, to the attachment relationship observed between children and their parents

Adult Attachment Theory

• Infant-caregiver bond serves the function of helping infants to regulate distress – Sensitive & responsive caregivers help to calm the infant

and to restore felt security

• Threatening situations trigger attachment behaviors– Threats can be physical or psychological

• Parallels between infant-caregiver relationship and adult romantic relationships (Hazan & Shaver, 1987)

– Both types of relationships may serve this regulatory function

Attachment theory

• Normative processes – all people engage in these processes

• Individual differences– Different experiences shape mental

representations (internal working models) of the self in relation to others

HIGH ANXIETY

LOW ANXIETY

HIGH AVOIDANCE

LOW AVOIDANCE

SECURE PREOCCUPIED

(anxious-ambivalent)

DISMISSING- AVOIDANT

FEARFUL-AVOIDANT