HUMAN SEXUALITY MARRIAGE PRACTICES Factors Influencing Attraction o Proximity Mere exposure More opportunities to meet interact college People are likely to live near people of similar economic and social backgrounds o Physical Attractiveness Certain features of faces are associated with attractiveness Babies prefer attractive faces Cross culturally Different cultures improve beauty in different ways Different body types are judged to be more attractive in different parts of the world Body type standards vary over time o Similarity Our relationships and friendships share similar values We like those who are like ourselves Romantic pairs are similar in physical attractiveness Sense of humor is of particular importance o Reciprocity People like positive feedback Over time people prefer increasing affinity rather than decreasing affinity called the couple s curse People like direct opening lines more than flippant or innocuous o Courtship Female courtship rituals Flirting Behaviors o Smile o Lift eyebrows in fast jerky motion o Open their eyes wide o Lower their eyelids o Tilt heads down and to the side o Look away Male Courtship Rituals Submissive Displays o Palms up o Shoulder shrug o Tilt head Dominance Displays Defined as a specific subset of nonverbal behavior o 52 items identified Courtship is more important than physical attraction for garnering male interest o Entering personal space o Putting arm around shoulder o Swagger Resources Displays o Paying for food drink o Wearing expensive clothes o Bragging Male rituals harder to chronicle than female o The less ritualized and more original his approach the more likely a woman will accept it Leads to ad hoc courtship by human males The Real Chemistry of Love o Neurotransmitters have a profound effect on sexual attraction Two are most dramatic Phenylethylamine PEA o Associated with intense passion and attraction o Surging levels accompany the initial elation of a new love o Chemically similar to amphetamines Dopamine o Associated with pleasure reward and addiction o Its release produced great pleasure telling us what we like o Also similar to amphetamines o MRIS s of those passionately in love show heightened activity in parts of the frontal lobes saturated with dopamine receptors Love Styles o Hendrick and Hendrick had subjects write about a personal romantic relationship They studied the prevalence of different themes and found 6 love styles that romantic partners tend to have Eros Passionate Love o Love at first site o Men typically have higher ratings Storge Friendship Love o Very close friendship becomes love o Rated highest among subjects o Women typically have higher ratings Ludus Game Playing Love o Flirtatious and not committed o Men typically have higher ratings Mania Possessive Love o Feeling of ownership over lover o Women typically have higher ratings Pragma Logical Love o Cognitive appreciation for other s quality o Women typically have higher ratings Agape Selfless Love o Putting one s lover above one s self o Highly correlated with religiosity Triarchic Model of Love o 3 Aspects of Love Sternberg Intimacy Closeness two people feel psychologically how well partners understand each other Passion The amount of physical sexual attraction and romance Commitment The cognitive factors such as the decision to maintain the relationship Equity Theory Homans 1969 Messick Cook 1983 o Economic model of love o Rewards include love companionship consolation sexual gratification social acceptance o Costs include work to maintain relationship conflict compromise sacrifice of other opportunities for relationships o Your Benefits Your Contributions Partner s Benefits Partner s Contributions Comparison Level average expected outcome of the relationship Comparisons for Alternatives expectation of what could be received in a different relationship Investment what must be put into a relationship that cannot be recovered if the relationship ends What is Marriage o No definition broad enough to apply to all societies and situations o It establishes legal parentage of children o Gives spouses rights o Genitor the biological father of a child o Pater the socially recognized father of a child Incest and Exogamy o Exogamy the practice of seeking a spouse outside one s own group o Incest having sexual relations with a close relative Incest taboo is universal But what constitutes incest varies widely through cultures Cross Cousin Marriage and the Incest Taboo o Parallel Cousins children of two brothers or two sisters o Cross Cousins children of either a brother or a sister depends on the sex o There s no universally accepted explanation as to why all cultures ban incest Focus on risks and avoidance of father daughter incest correlates with a patriarchal Focus on avoiding brother sister incest in societies that have nonnuclear structures Homo sapiens are genetically programmed to avoid incest This theory has been refuted because specific kin types have a cultural rather than a nuclear family structure o Instinctive Horror Theory biological basis o Biological Degeneration unions brother sister mating The incest taboo developed in response to abnormal offspring being born from incestuous This is partly true offspring decline in fertility and survival follows generations of BUT human marriage patterns are based on specific cultural beliefs rather than universal concerns about biological degeneration o Attempt and Contempt Malinowki and Freud argued that the incest taboo originated to direct sexual feelings away from one s family to avoid disrupting the family structure and relations The opposite theory argues that people are less likely to be sexually attracted to those with whom they have grown up o Marry Out or Die Out A more accepted argument is that the taboo originated to ensure exogamy Idea from Levi Strauss Incest taboos force people to create and maintain wide social networks Incest taboos are seen as an adaptively advantageous cultural construct o Endogamy the marriage of people from the same group May occur in the same society as exogamy but don t apply to the same social unit Expresses and maintains social differences particularly in stratified societies Homogamy the practice of marrying someone similar to you in terms of background social status aspirations and interests Caste system in India is extremely endogamous India shares a castelike system with the U S Royal endogamy is similar to caste endogamy Manifest function the reason