PSYCH 137C - LECTURE 4/4/12 1:01 PM Benjamin Karney – [email protected] Office hours: W + F – 2:30 – 3:30 – Franz 4560 The Power of Intimate Relationships Who cares about intimate relationships? • Everyone, fundamental part of human existence + experience since dawn of culture Intimate Relationships and Happiness • Also central to being a happy person • Quality of relationships matter – happy person – happy relationships • Marriage (relationships) contributes most to how happy a person is overall o You cant be happy unless your relationships are happy + vice versa What Makes a Relationship? Interdependence! • State in which one person’s behavior affects the other persons’ outcomes + vice versa • = Relationship: how we affect each other • We have a relationship/interdependence with everyone on the planet to a certain degree (environment) Dimensions of Interdependence: • Frequency of contact • Duration of contact • Diversity of different interactions • Direction of influence (uni - or bidirectional) • Strength of influence Close Relationship: A strong, frequent, and diverse interdependence of long duration • No direction included Intimate Relationship: • Recognizing the partner as special and unique: a personal relationship • Desire, especially lust and sexual desire o Actual sexual intercourse is not necessary o Potential for eroticism must be present • Is physical intimacy by itself intimacy? o Intimate relationships are not necessarily romantic (couples who have been together for a long time)o Potential to have sex + where it started counts • Are intimate relationships the same as romantic relationships o Intimate relationships are broader than romantic relationships (tho they overlap) Why Intimate Relationships Matter Intimate relationships are: • Universal, powerful, + affect our health – highest highs + lowest lows • Marriage is not universal, but intimate relationships (pair-bonding) are in 90% of cultures • People in good relationship live longer, recover from disease quicker o Study of cytokines in wounds: heal quicker in happy couples Study: How do relationships affect firing of neurons in threat: Experiment: after seeing an X – women get shocked on ankle 3 conditions: women alone / research assistant (stranger) hand holding / relationship partner’s hand ⇒ Women holding partner’s hand showed less stress response – brain reacted differently because partner was around. Effect was biggest for those who were in happy relationship → Our brains are wired to physically respond to our relationship partners What do we want to know about Intimate Relationships? The Longevity Question • Why do some relationships last a long time? • Commitment, investment, alternatives • Divorce rates fall the more years couples are married (highest divorce rate: 2-4 yrs) The Satisfaction Question • Similarity, trust, eroticism The Change Question! • All relationships start out satisfying but why and what changes? • Where does love go/how do you keep it alive? People disagree about Intimate Relationships Attraction: • Express interest or play hard to get? • Differing opinions → science to find answer Conflict: • Should couples embrace it or avoid it? • Happy couples learn to avoid certain things in a relationshipDivorce: • How does it affect children? Methods Matter Direct experience matters, but people have different experiences • Often we don’t just need to know what’s best for us, but what’s best for other people too What if we want to give advice, or set policy? • Lots of funding for finding better relationships especially in low-income homes What tools have we got for sorting out different versions of the truth about intimate relationships? • How can we figure out how to choose between all the contradictory advice about relationships? • Relationship researchers have developed a specific set of tools: • What do we measure? Relationship science measures constructs Construct: • An abstract idea (love, commitment, satisfaction) • Not directly measurable, constructed by humans • Not imaginary, but an abstract idea (exists, but difficult to measure) Operationalization: • The process of translating an abstract idea into concrete terms so it can be studied • We cannot measure constructs, but we can measure operationalizations of a construct How can we measure Love? Strategy 1: Self-reports • Very common • Operationalization: “the love scale” – numerical scores (one possible form of operationalization) • There are many ways to operationalize a construct Some things you just have to ask about Strategy 2: Systematic Observation • What should we observe? o Verbal communication  People in love: more “we/us” statements, people less in love: “me/I” o Non-verbal communication o Written communicationo Biological responses  Measure active brain areas  Parts of brains that light up are the same that light up for drug addicts (strong sensors that make us addicted)  Brains of older people in love looks the same as younger ones in love (50 yrs old vs. 5 weeks old couple – same brain activity) • Pros and Cons of Self-Reports: Pros: • Easy to do • Cheap, quick • Sometimes gets at exactly what we want to know Cons: • Don’t always tell the truth (violent behavior) • Don’t always know the truth Study: What behaviors are listed good relationships? Asked both partners the same questions for behaviors during the last 24 hours • Unhappy relationships: reported lots of negative behaviors and not a lot of positive behaviors • Spouses disagreed about what kind of behaviors they engaged in in the last 24 hours • Interpretation of lack of agreement about events in last 24 hours: o People don’t know (they are not lying, they simply don’t know/remember) o Little ability to remember mundane behavior • Assume certain behaviors more/less common according to whether they felt they are in a good or bad relationship o Happy people reported pos behaviors – sentimate override  When we don’t know the answer to a specific question, we use our global sentimate to override (= sentimate override) • Pros and Cons of Observation Pros: • Very relevant (if you choose well) • Can watch verbal + non-verbal communication • But can’t watch everything