1Close Relationships• Self-fulfilling prophecy – Snyder, Tanke, & BerscheidClose Relationships• Relationship formation, maintenance, and breakupPassionate love• Must come into contact with someone who is an appropriate love object. – Role of chance2Passionate love– Given a chance encounter, what increases the probability that you will fall in love? • Role of arousalPassionate 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 partnerPassionate 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)3Excitation 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 more likely to call the attractive female E than those who had crossed the standard bridge.• Limitation?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 high arousal condition rated the attractive woman as more attractive and the unattractive woman as less attractive than did men in the low 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.4Divorce 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.5Cross-cultural differences• 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 declining feelings of love if they had been married more than five years. In contrast, those in arranged marriages reported more love if they were not newlyweds. Gupta & Singh (1982)Conflict and Communication in Long-term Romantic Relationships• Conflict is common in romantic relationships.6• 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 increased from casual to serious dating and leveled off at engagement and marriage. (Figure on overhead)7Braiker & Kelley (1979)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 increase from early to later stage of relationship, but as relationships moved into a state of uncertainty, conflict increased and love decreased.8Is 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 clip9• Gottman claims that his assessments (in the “Love Lab”) allow him to predict with 90% accuracy, which married couples are likely to remain in a stable relationship and which ones are likely to get divorced. • Thought question: Would you be able to predict as well as Gottman? Why or why not?Main predictors of divorce• Frequency of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. • Contempt (e.g., rolling the eyes) = one of the most important signals of serious marital problems, especially combined with insults or sarcasm. 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 parents10Following are descriptions of four general relationship styles that people often report. Please read each description and SELECT theletter corresponding to the style that best describes you or is closest to the way you generally are in your close relationships.• A. It is easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t worry about being alone or having others not accept me.• B. I am uncomfortable getting close to others. I want emotionally close relationships, but I find it difficult to trust others completely, or to depend on them. I worry that I will be hurt if I allow myself to become too close to others. • C. I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but Ioften find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry that others don’t value me as much as I value them. • D. I am comfortable without close emotional relationships. It is