Psychology 137C Week 2 Lecture 301/17/11Theoretical Perspectives on Close Relationships“Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation offacts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.”- Henri Poincare: French Mathematician (1854-1912)- We need more than facts, we need a way to organize and systemize themTheoretical Frameworks for Understanding Intimate Relationships (Chapter 3)- “There is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature.” – William Whewell, 1847. What is a theory? What does a good theory do? What does a good theory of close relationships do? What are the starting points and building blocks for theories about relationships?What is a Theory? A theory is a kind of a caricature. It exaggerates some features of nature and ignores or minimizes others. Another word for theory is model. Representation of something else that pulls out all of the unnecessary parts and leaves us with just the crucial parts The features that are emphasized are seen as being especially important for capturing, representing, or explaining some phenomenon.What does a good theory do? Draws attention to important processes. Organizes existing knowledge. Explains important phenomena in an elegant, ‘parsimonious’ way. Specifies predictions and hypotheses. Guides measurement decisions.What does a good theory of close relationships do? Because relationships are complex and largely unexplored, our theories should be reasonably comprehensive. And we may need more than one! Theory should connect different levels of phenomena involved in relationships. Theory should specify “mechanisms” of change. One of the important things about relationships is that they change so it is important to study how and why they change Theories About Intimate Relationships:- Evolution- Attachment- Social Exchange- Social Learning - Social Ecology*How does each of these theories connect to real phenomena in intimate relationships?Evolution- Why? “Humans seek particular mates to solve specific adaptive problems that their ancestors confronted .… mate preferences and mate decisions are hypothesized to be strategic products of selection pressures operating duringancestral conditions.” - Intimate relationships are a context to which children are created and reared- Main idea is that relationships are not merely a social convenience, we are participating in a tradition of relating to other people in a way that continues the human conditions over vast spans of time- Evolutionary theorists think about the long term prospects of a relationship- Dating, mating and relating all evolve over vast spans of time- Draws our attention to the decisions and contingencies that exist on our behavior, specifically, around having and rearing children - Charles Darwin, forefather of evolutionary theory- David Buss, distinguished professor, leading scholar to make a bridge between Darwinian principles and close relationships- According to David Buss: humans seek particular mates to solve specific adaptive problems that their ancestors faced- Adaptive problem: how to maximize the likelihood that offspring will reproduce?Attachment and Early Experience- Attachment theorist would not disagree with an evolutionary point of view- Not competing theories, just different perspectives - The relationship that someone forms with her or hers caregiver is what reallymatters according to attachment theorists - Mary Ainsworth, Canadian developmental psychologist- Why? Child-caregiver interactions give rise to ‘working models’ of attachment that guide our subsequent thoughts, feelings, and behavior in intimate relationships.Interdependence and Social Exchange - Why? Partners evaluate the rewards and costs associated with being in a relationship, along with barriers to leaving the relationship and their available alternatives.- Interdependence- bilaterally dependent in our relationships- Wouldn’t disagree with evolutionary and/or attachment theories, but argue that what really matters are the rewards relative to the costs of the relationships- Bartering quality- Might cause one to consider their alternatives- Economical model- Hal Kelley, leading proponent of the social exchange/interdependence theory- Caryl Rosbult, leading proponent of the social exchange/interdependence theory- Emerges from social psychologySocial Learning Theory- Our behavior is molded and shaped within relationships. Also, rewarding and punishing interactions may affect subsequent behaviors and judgments of satisfaction with a relationship.- Relationship partners engaging in rewarding and punishing behaviors and that affects how the other person responds in their behavior, and how the partners evaluate the relationship as good or bad- Social learning theorists don’t necessarily disagree with social exchange theorists, but choose to focus on the behaviors that each partner is displaying- Emerges from clinical psychologist because it provides us with some leveragefor thinking about ways of changing people’s relationships- Social learning theorists attempt to help couples find a way to engage in positive behavior- Gayla Margolin, leading proponent of social learning theory- Robert Weiss, leading proponent of social learning theory- Neil Jacobson, leading proponent of social learning theory- More important to know the models, not the names of the leading proponentsSocial Ecology and Context- Why? Relationships exist in particular sociocultural contexts, which affect judgments and expectations about relationships. Also, couples must adapt routinely to acute and chronic stressors.- When we think of relationships, we think of the immediate dyadic contexts- The quality of our interactions with our partners are impacted by the quality of one’s neighborhood- Reuben Hill- Urie BronfenbrennerNadine and Frank- video watched in class- Contextual difference - ReligionLet’s illustrate these theories by revisiting our critical question from Lecture 1: Why do some long-term committed relationships end while others continue?Evolution- We have not evolved to have committed relationships; we have evolved to send our genes into the future. Committed relationships do enhance the fitness of our offspring, but infidelity may be a way of having more children with more mates.Attachment and