Understanding Long-Term Relationships: Equity and Intimacy

1. Relationships And Love

2. Long Term Relationships • Exchange relationships • the need for equity (equal ratio of) rewards and costs • repaid immediately for favours • feel exploited when favours are not returned • keep track of who is contributing what to the relationship • helping the other person has no effect on our mood • Communal relationships • primary concern: being responsive to the other person's needs. • do not like to be repaid immediately for our favours • do not feel exploited when favours are not repaid • do not keep track of who is contributing what to the relationship • helping the person puts us in a good mood

3. Establishing a Relationship

4. Intimacy • Dimensions: • Physical intimacy • hugs, kisses, and physical closeness • Intellectual intimacy • exchange of important ideas, values and beliefs • Emotional intimacy • exchange of important feelings. • Shared activities • everything from working side-by-side at a job to meeting regularly for exercise workout

5. Rewards • Semi-Economic Model (social exchange theory) • We often seek out people who can give us rewards, either tangible or emotional, that are greater than or equal to the costs we encounter in dealing with them.  • Rewards: any outcomes we desire • Rewards - Costs = Outcome • Comparison level: what behaviours are acceptable • Comparison level of alternatives: rewards received in the present situation versus other rewards that could be expected to receive in others. • Interpersonal Resources:  love, status, information, money, goods, and services

6. Equity • Equity Theory • Concerned about equity in their relationships, • Rewards, costs, and contributions to the relationship are roughly equal to the rewards, costs, and contributions of the other person

7. Equity - Continued • Confirming and Valuing • Communication climate, or the emotional tone of a relationship, is the key to positive relationships.  • Tone of a relationship: degree to which people believe themselves to be valued by one another.  • Confirming describes messages that convey valuing

8. Establishing and Maintaining Relationships

9. Process Models • Rules • Shared opinions or beliefs about what should or should not be done • two major functions of rules • regulate behaviour to minimize potential sources of conflict • check on the exchange of rewards that motivate people to stay in relationships • Rules that apply to most relationships • respecting other people's privacy • not discussing what has been said in confidence • emotionally supportive • Additional rules apply in particular types of relationships, called clusters. • spouse, sibling and close friends • doctor, teacher and boss • Deception -the most important rule that should not be broken

10. Process Models Continued • Filter Theory • Relationships pass through a series of filters.  • First Filter: similarity of ethnic, racial, religious and social class groups determines the likelihood of people meeting in the first place • Our choice of friends/partners is made for us because the field of availables (the range of people who are realistically available for us to meet) • Second Filter: People's psychological characteristics and, specifically, agreement on basic values.  • best predictor of a relationship becoming more stable and permanent.  • Third Filter: Complementarity of emotional needs was the best predictor of a longer term commitment

11. Attachment Models • Infants form one of three basic attachments to the caregiver.  • Crucial feature - caregiver’s sensitivity • The sensitive caregiver sees things from the baby’s perspective, correctly interprets its signals, responds to its needs, and is accepting, cooperative and accessible.   Securely Attached Babies • The insensitive caregiver interacts almost exclusively in terms of their own wishes, moods and activities. Insecurely Attached Babies (anxious-avoidant or anxious-resistant)

13. Stage Models • Knapp’s Model • broad phases of “coming together” and “coming apart”.  • descriptive of intimate, romantic relationships and close friendships • Initiating: Expressing interest in making contact and showing that you are the kind of person worth getting to know. • Experimenting: uncertainty reduction - the process of getting to know others by gaining more information about them. • Intensifying: Interpersonal relationships now begin to emerge.  Feelings about the other person are now openly expressed, forms of address become more familiar, commitment is now openly expressed, and the parties begin to see themselves as “we” instead of separate individuals.

14. Integrating: Identification as a social unit.  Social circles merge.  Partners develop unique, ritualistic ways of behaving.  Obligation to the other person increases.  Some personal characteristics are replaced and we become different people. • Bonding: The parties make symbolic public gestures to show society that their relationship exists (rings, tokens, marriage). • Differentiating: The need to re-establish separate identities begins to emerge.  The key to successful differentiation is maintaining a commitment to the relationship while creating the space for autonomy and individuality. • Circumscribing: Communication between the partners decreases in quantity and quality.  It involves a certain amount of shrinking of interest and commitment. • Stagnating: No growth occurs.  Partners behave toward each other in old, familiar ways without much feeling. • Avoiding: The creation of physical, mental and emotional distance between the partners. • Termination: In romantic relationships the best predictor of whether the parties will become friends is whether they were friends before their emotional involvement.

15. Mr. D’s Ten Steps For Dating • Step 1:Find the person you like and find a way to tell them (e.g. send a note through a friend). • Step 2:Invite the person you like to a party or on a date – with your parents and theirs. • Step 3:Go on the date with the parents and the person you like. If you have to, you can hold hands with the person. • Step 4:After the first date, you’re allowed to go on a date without your parents – but you can still only hold hands. • Step 5:On the next date, you can hug the person – once, at the end of your date, but not too close.

16. Mr. D’s Ten Steps for Dating • Step 6: The next time you see the person, you’re allowed to kiss – on the forehead. That’s it. Also, you must apply the three-second rule. • Step 7: On your next date, you can kiss the person on the cheek – five seconds, max – but then you have to stop and go home. • Step 8: Next time, you can kiss on the lips – but no tongue. • Step 9: Next, you can hug and kiss at the same time. • Step 10: You’ve gone too far. Break up. Go find someone else and start again at Step 1.

17. Stage Models - Continued • Stimulus-Value Role Theory • Stimulus stage • Attraction is based on external attributes • value stage • Similarity of values and beliefs becomes more important • Role stage • Commitment based on successful performance of relationship roles, such as husband and wife

18. Stage Models - Continued • Levinger’s Model • Five Stages • Acquaintance or initial attraction • Consolidation or continuation • Deterioration • Decline • Ending • At each stage, there are positive factors that promote the relationship's development and corresponding negative factors that prevent its development or cause its failure

19. Relationships Maturity • Three Levels • Self-Focused • The individual’s own wishes and plans overshadows those of others, and the individual shows little concern for others.  • Role-Focused • Perspective is stereotypical and emphasizes social acceptability.  • Individuals at this level know that acknowledging and respecting another is part of being a good friend or a romantic partner. • Individuated-Connected • one begins to understand oneself, as well as to have consideration for others’ motivations and to anticipate their needs.

20. Unsatisfying Relationships • Best Predictor of Breakup Experience = the role you play in it • Initiator of Breakup (“The Dumper”) – less upset, less stressed, more feelings of guilt/unhappiness, less physical symptoms (headaches, irregular eating or sleeping) • Non-Initiator of Breakup (“The Dumped”) – more miserable; high levels of loneliness, depression, unhappiness, and anger; more physical symptoms (even weeks later)

21. Culture • Individualism places greater emphasis on personal achievement and self-reliance.  • Collectivism places priority on the welfare and unity of the group.  • In cultures where arranged marriages occur, the relationship between love and marriage is the other way around, and marriage is seen as the basis on which to explore a loving relationship.  • The cultural background in which people have learned about love is important in shaping their concept of it.

22. Dissolution of Relationships • Lee’s Model • Five Stages • dissatisfaction is discovered • Dissatisfaction is then exposed • Some sort of negotiation about the dissatisfaction occurs • Attempts are made to resolve the problem • Relationship is terminated

23. Dissolution - Continued • Duck’s Model • Four Phases • Intrapsychic phase • Unable to stand the relationship – Relationship under review (good vs. bad), no action taken yet • Feeling justified in withdrawing from relationship • Dyadic Phase • Decide to confront the partner (or not) • Decide whether to repair it or end it • Social Phase • Public announcement – saving face/blame-placing • Friends and family provide support • End is inevitable • Grave-Dressing Phase • Grieving and “getting over it”

24. Dissolution - Continued • Exit-Voice-Loyalty-Neglect Model • Four Responses to Relationship Dissatisfaction • Exit • Leaving the relationship • Active strategy • Destructive • Neglect • Ignoring the relationship • Passive strategy • Destructive • Voice • Articulating concerns • Active strategy • Constructive • Loyalty • Staying in the relationship and accepting the other's behaviour • Passive strategy • Constructive

25. Attraction • Similarity • Mutual Attraction • Gain-Loss Effect (person likes you more now) • Competence • Disclosure • Proximity • Physical Attraction • Reinforcement-Affect Model (person makes you feel good about yourself)

26. Intimacy • The two people interact more often for a longer time and in more situations than do less intimate friends or acquaintances. • When apart, they attempt to restore proximity. • They “open up to each other”, revealing secrets, feelings, praise and criticism. • They develop their own ways of communicating. • Each develops the ability to anticipate how the other will behave and feel. • Their behaviours and goals become synchronized not identical, but they do not get in each other’s way. • Each becomes increasingly invested in the relationship. • Increasingly, the self-interest of each depends on the well-being of the relationship. • They see the relationship as virtually irreplaceable and unique. • They tend to relate to others as a pair, or couple. • They like, love and trust each other

27. Intimate Interaction • Young Adults show five different styles/types of intimate interaction: • Intimate • One or more deep and long-lasting love relationships. • Preintimate • Mixed emotions about commitment, an ambivalence that is reflected in the strategy of offering love without obligations or long-lasting bonds. • Stereotyped • Superficial relationships that tend to be dominated by friendship ties with same-sex rather than opposite-sex individuals. • Pseudointimate • Long-lasting sexual attachment with little or no depth or closeness.  • Isolated • Withdraws from social encounters and has little or no social contact with same- or opposite-sex individuals

28. Love • Many forms • one's mate • brother or sister • Child • parent or grandparent • Friend • Country • Can evolve or change over time • Three Components of Love • Intimacy • Passion • Decision/commitment

29. Types of Love • Liking • intimacy in the absence of passion or decision/commitment • refers to friendships in which one feels closeness, bondedness and warmth toward the other • Infatuation • passion without intimacy or decision/commitment. • Romantic • combination of intimacy and passion without commitment • Companionate • intimacy and decision/commitment in which the passion has subsided.