Social Behavior Task 7 Affiliation and love

Primary cue in initially determining our evaluation of others. Basic requirement to form a relationship.

(Related to Evolutionary Social Psychology) People guess whether a prospective mate has good genes by looking, for example, at their appearance.

Factors:

• Fertility status: women fertility status affect how they relate to men.
• Seeing red: red enhances women's sexual attractiveness and is a signal for readiness for mating in different species.
• The hourglass figure: waist-to-hip ratio, men's preferencs because it signifies youth, health and fertility.
• Cultural/social differences: western cultures slim = fitn in other cultures heavier = fertile.

Humans have evolved to prefer average faces to those with unusual or distinctive features.

E.g.: ethnicity, symmetry of faces...

(Realted to evolutionary social psychology)

• Warmth-trustwothiness: showing care and intimacy
• Vitality-attractiveness: signs of health and reproductive fitness
• Status-resources: being socially prominent and financially sound

• Proximity
• Familiarity
• Attitude similarity
• Personality
• Self-disclosure
• Social matching
• Assortative mating

Factor of living close by.

• Plays a role in the early stages of forming a relationship.
  • More accessible

Linked to Mere exposure effect

The more familiar they are to us, the more comfortable we are with them and the more we like them.

• Higher proximity brings to higher familiarity
• If when familirity is higher, more differences can come to light, that can make people less attracted to eachother.

Powerful and positive determinant of attraction. People with similar pre-acquaintance attitudes become more attractive.

Anything that other people do to that agrees with your perception.

"Law of attraction": attraction towards a person bears linear relationship to actual proportion of similar attitudes shared with that person.

• Differences in attitudes and interests can lead to avoidance and dislike.

Having similar interests is less important than other personal characteristics: ‘desirable personality’.

-      Warmth, trustworthiness, kindness...

Sharing of intimate information and feelings with another person.

• Determinant of long-term intimacy in a relationship.

• People prefer people who reveal more about their feelings and thoughts.

• Social penetration model: people share more intimate topics with close friends than with a stranger.

People are paired-up on basis of having compatible attitudes and sharing demographic characteristics.

Non-random coupling of individuals based on their resemblance to each other on one or more characteristics (more rational than social matching).

• Personal mating sociometer: measure self-esteem based on feeling socially included or excluded – choosing a mate at similar level of aspiration.

People who reward us become associated with pleasure (we like them). People who punish us become associated with pain (we dislike them).

• Reinforcement-affect model: Model of attraction, we like people who are around when we experience a positive feeling.
• Automatic activation: attitudes that have a high evaluative link to situational cues are more likely to automatically come to minde from memory.

People use a form of everyday economics when they weigh up costs and rewards before deciding what to do.

• Behaviorism: emphasis on explaining observable behavior in terms of reinforcement schedules.

(Social exchange) Liking for another is determined by calculating what it will cost to be reinforced by that person.

• People exchange resources hoping to gain profit.
• Minimax strategy: in realting to others, we try to minimize the costs and maximize the rewards.

(Social exchange) Standard that develops over time, allowing us to judge whether a new relationship is profitable or not.

• Product of the comoparison with the average value of past experiences.

Equity theory: (case of Social exchange) a relationship is equitable when the ratio of inputs to outcomes is the same by both partners. Prefered by men.

Equality: each individual gives /is given the same resources and opportunities. Prefered by women.

Distributive justice: Fairness of outcome of a decision.

• Focus on outcome.
• Process might not be fair.

Procedural justice: Fairness of procedures used to make a decision.

• Fair procedures: may or may not result in equal allocation of resources.

• Focus on process.

A working close relationship is better served when the partners expand themselves to include the other. This happens when partners share some of their thoughts, using relational language.

People have a need to affiliate: urge to form connections and contact other people. 

• It is an instinct: hummans are innateley motivated to hather together, be part of a group.
  • Social isolation can lead to severe depression.

State of apathy and depression noted among institutionalized infants deprived of close contact with a caregiver.

• The warmth in contact between mother and infant is really important for the basis of attachment.

We compare our behaviors and opinions with those of others to establish the correct/socially approved way of thinking/behaving.

Tendency of an infant to maintain close physical proximity with the mother or primary caregiver.

Descriptions of the nature of people’s close relationships, thought to be established in childhood.

Theory that predicts people’s experience of emotion. Close relationships provide a context that elicits strong emotions due to the increased probability of behavior interrupting interpersonal expectations.

• Relationships demand on strong, well-established and wide-ranging expectations about a partner’s behaviour.

Combination of emotions, thoughts and actions which are often powerful, and usually associated with intimate relationships.

• Liking: desire to interact with a person
• Loving: adds an element of trust
• Being in love: sexual desire and excitement.

Love is a product of 3 interacting variables:

• Cultural concept of love: love as a state
• An appropriate person to love
• Emotional arousal: self-labelled "love" felt when interacting with or thinking about a love object.

• Passion: roughly equivalent to sexual attraction.
• Intimacy: feeling of warmth closeness and sharing
• Commitment: desire to continue an interpersonal relationship

• Consumate love: ultimate form of love, involves: passion intimacy and commitment.
• Romantic love: involves only passion and intimacy, intensly emotional state and confusion of many feelings.
• Companionate love: involves only commitment and intimacy, feeling of friendly affection and deep attachment. 
• Factuous love: involves only passion and commitment.
  • Unreal, illusiory, surface love.

People who know and care about us and can provide back-up during times of stress.

• Mariatal satisfaction is higher if social networks overlap.

A health relationship has high psychological attachment, long-term orientation and intention to persist.

• Personal dedication: positive attraction to a particular partner and relationship.
• Moral commitment: sense of obligation, religious duty or social responsability, controlled by a person's values and moral priniples.
• Constraint commitment: factors that make it costly to leave a realtionship.
• Trust: being able to trust and forgive.

• Partner regulation: Strategy that encourages a partner to match an ideal standard of behavior.
• Ideal standards model: people who think that their current partner closely matches their image of an ideal partner are more satisfied with their relationship.
• Michelangelo effect: one can influence their partner’s self-concept so that it becomes more similar to one’s own ideal self.
• Self-regulation: Strategies that we use to match our behaviour to an ideal or ‘ought’ standard.
• Commitment

When deterioration is identified, partners can:

• Take a passive stance and show:
  • Loyalty: optimistic, waiting for improvement to occur
  • Neglect: pessimistic, allowing deterioration to continue.
• Take an active stance:
  • Voice behavior: working on improvement
  • Exit behavior: active destruction, choosing to end it

There are 4 phases in most long-term break-ups:

• Intrapsychic phase
• Dyadic phase
• Social phase
• Grave-dressing phase

Three factors drive commitment and hence persistence in romantic relationships: satisfaction, investment, and quality of alternatives