Chapter 1

Formal Study Guide for Midterm Exam

PSYCH 332: Psychology of Intimate Relationships

Chapter 1 focus:
Why Intimate Relationships
What makes a Relationship Important?
Love and the Essential Mystery of Intimate Relationships

Why Do Intimate Relationships Matter?

● Intimate relationships matter because they are the only setting in which feelings
and experiences like these occur.
● For all of us, to love and be loved are the most basic human needs, and few
punishments are more costly than loneliness and social isolation.
○ People the world over view their relationships as a vital source of meaning
and purpose in life.
○ When we are down, sick, or dying we want nothing more than physical
comfort and company and the company of those who love us the most.
○ We learn about who we are, what we will tolerate, and what we
can accomplish from our closet relationships.
○ Without an understanding of our intimate relationships, we cannot fully
appreciate the whole range of experiences that gives our lives depth, color,
and significance.
● Relationships are so fundamental to our emotional lives that we can be soothed
and comforted by even the smallest gesture.

The Holding Hand Study:

a) Certain brain regions, including the right anterior insula, are known to respond
to threats that people perceive in their environment.
b) When women hold their husband’s hand, however, these regions become less–
active the “signal change” is reduced–compared to when they hold a stranger’s
hand or no hand at all.
c) This benefit appears to be greatest for women in happy marriages who show
more deactivation in these regions compared to women who report less
happiness.
i) As happiness goes up, activation of these threat-related brain regions go
down.
1) This research shows that we are biologically attuned not just to
people in general, but to the person with whom we share an
intimate bond. As remarkable as it may seem, when we are holding
our partners’ hand, we are exerting control over our mate's
 nervous system, empowering him or her to be strong in the face
of an uncontrollable threat.
2) This human capacity for intimacy–like the capacity for language,
reasoning, or social perception–enables us to regulate our
emotions and the emotions of people close to us, and
therefore adapt to the world in which we live.
ii) Understanding intimate relationships, this basic feature of who we are, is
thus essential to understanding the human condition.
iii) One of life's cruel ironies is that the closeness that makes us glow with
feelings of passion and companionship also leaves us vulnerable to pain
that relationships can cause. Few of us will escape the unpleasant
experiences that can occur in relationships.
1) We may feel unappreciated or misunderstood, or have to face
jealousy and heartache, or suffer through sexual rejection, verbal
abuse, or infidelity.
2) We might even inflict such feelings or behaviors on someone we
profess to love.
iv) Experiences even more extreme than these are far from rare relationships;
for example, about 4.8 million women and 2.9 million men are assaulted
by their intimate partners each year.

Intimate Relationships Bring the Best of Us…

● Intimate relationships are capable of bringing out the very best and the very
worst in all of us, then it should follow that they will have all sorts of powerful
consequences, far beyond the emotions they evoke.

Intimate Relationships Affect Our Happiness and Well-being:

 ● Our relationships affect subjective well-being, or how happy we are with in
general, or how happy we are with life in general. For example, knowing
someone's relationship status tells us something about that person’s
subjective well-being. In research studies, married people have greater happiness
when compared to people who are divorced, separated, or widowed. Among
people who are unmarried, those who live with a partner tend to be happier than
those living alone.
● For people who are in committed partnerships, relationship quality–how good or
bad people judge their relationship to be–can affect their overall subjective well-
being.
○ For example

Intimate relationships Are Universal

● Pairbounds are the relationships between two individuals who share emotional
and or/practical investments.
● Pairbounds are universal across all cultures.

Intimate Relationships Determine the Survival of Our Species (1)

● As a species, we are the product of natural selection, which forms the basis of
Charles Darwin theory of evolution.
○ Our social relationships help determine whether a specific gene or set of
genes improves fitness.

Intimate Relationships Determine the Survival of Our Species (2)

● Interaction with an intimate relationship partner releases oxytocin, a
neuropeptide.
○ Oxytocin is related to feelings of calmness and trust.
○ It release is related to the formation of intimate relationships

Impact of Relationship on Physical Health

● People who are in happier intimate relationships generally live longer.
○ People coping with congestive health failures who were in more satisfying
relationships were more likely to be alive when researchers followed up on
them four years later.

Intimate Relationships Influence on Well-being of Children

● Children are affected by the relationships status of their caregivers in a variety of
ways:
○ Level of poverty
○ Academic success
○ Behavioral problems
 ○ Emotional problems.

Beyond Marital Status

● Parental relationship satisfaction is related

Intimate relationships contribute to larger communities

● Social control theory: The view that intimate relationships regulate, and impose
limits, on behavior.
○ People in intimate, committed relationships are less likely to misuse
alcohol and drugs.
○ Weaker relationships deviant behavior.
○ These effects occur becuae relationships encourage people to conform to
social norms.

What Makes a Relationship Intimate

● Interdependence
○ That is bidirectional - the partners' behaviors affect each other.

● Personal
○ The partners treat each other as special.
○ Whereas impersonal relationships are formal and task oriented.
○ The interdependence is longer lasting
○ The interdependence is affected by the unique individual involved.

● Closeness
○ The strength, frequency, and diversity of the partners mutual influence of
each other.
○ Potential to be sexual.

Seven Common Attributes of Love

● Desire: wanting to be united with the partner, physically and emotionally.
● Idealization: believing the partner is unique and special.
● Joy: experiencing very strong, positive emotions.
● Preoccupation: thinking a lot about the partner and having little control over
these thoughts.
● Proximity: taking steps to maintain or restore physical closeness or emotional
contact with the partner.
● Prioritizing: giving the relationship more importance than other interests and
responsibilities.
● Caring: Experiencing and expressing feelings of empathy and compassion for the
partner.
 Triangle of Types of Relationships

Sternber’s Theory of Love

● According to psychologist Robert Sternberg (1986), love consists of passion,
intimacy, and commitment. Combinations of these three components yield
an infinite range of emotional experience in relationships, and when all three are
present to a high degree, a couple is said to have achieved consummate love.
● Types of Love:
○ Labeled romantic love by Sternberg, and describing pretty much ever
summer fling that’s ever happened, these relationships tend to burn
brightly and fade away quickly. Many involvements during adolescence
and early adulthood fall into this category, while people develop their
social identity, discover their sexual orientation, and navigate decisions
about work, school, peers, and family commitments as they consider
settling into longer-term partnerships.
○ Fatuous love typified by whirlwind courtships full of passionate sex and
vows to remain together, but lacking the sharing and caring need to
sustain those feelings.
○ Companionate love, where passion and sex are not so central to the
relationship, while friendship, open disclosure, and dedication give
partners a foundation for working together.
 ○ Consummate love, sustaining it is the real challenge, Like a weight loss
program, he notes, you might be able to reach your ideal goal for a short
time but struggle mightily to stay there.
● Studies further support the distinctions Sternberg's outlines:
○ Intimacy and sexual passion accomplish different goals. Thoughts of
love direct our gaze to faces rather than bodies, for example, while
thoughts of lust (sexual passion) tend to do the opposite. Research shows
that thinking about having casual sex with someone improves immediate
problem-solving ability and analytical thinking, while imagining a beloved
partner improves long-range thinking and creativity. Passion and love are
different and appear to be governed by different brain regions, with the
front of the insula activated more by love than lust, and the back of the
insula activated more by lust than love.
○ Commitment is different from intimacy – commitment comes easily
when two people are getting along well; the real test comes when partners
begin to grow apart. People who are more committed to keeping their
relationship strong actually communicate more constructively, and they
are less likely to break up. Commitment adds value over and above the
benefits of just having a good relationship, and is arguably the most
important resource for couples.
○ Intimacy, passion, and commitment develop at different rules.
In much the same way that prism breaks white light up into pure colors,
the passage of time in a relationship reveals the different components of
love.