GE 2109: Love, Sex, and Relationships: Psychological Perspectives PDF

GE 2109: Love, Sex, and Relationships: Psychological Perspectives Hui-Fang Chen Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences [email protected] Office: LI 5635 1 ...

GE 2109: Love, Sex, and Relationships: Psychological Perspectives Hui-Fang Chen Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences [email protected] Office: LI 5635 1  True or False? Men fall in love more quickly than do women.  True Men fall in love more quickly than women, describe more instrumental styles of love and are more likely to see sex as an expression of love. Because men have fewer deeply intimate, self-disclosing friendships, when they find this quality in a relationship they are more likely to perceive that relationship as special. Having more intimates with whom they can share their feelings, women are less likely to be as quick to characterize a particular relationship as love. 4  The Five Love Languages https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/love-language 5  6  Words of affirmation  "I really like how you're always on time to pick me up at work."  "You can always make me laugh."  Quality time  Giving someone your undivided attention  Receiving gifts  What is important is that you thought of him or her.  Acts of service  doing things you know the person would like you to do.  Physical touch  Questions Why does a person get attracted to others who is “the wrong person” (bad for us, or fatal attraction)? – Chicks dig bad boys (男人不壞女人不愛)? Why do we repeatedly fall into love with the same type of people?  Why do we need a relationship? The Need for Affiliation The Need for Intimacy The Need to Belong The Inevitability of Social Relationships Intimate Relationships Yesterday and Today 8 The need for affiliation 9  The need for affiliation The desire to seek out relationships for support and uncertainty reduction. – What is our skill level relative to others? – Are our personal thoughts and habits appropriate? – Do others share my core beliefs? We should be especially likely to seek out others during times of uncertainty and fear arousing situation. 10  Uncertainty reduction in the lab (Schachter, 1959) Purpose of study – to examine the physiological effects of receiving shocks. Group 1 – prepared to receive a painless shock. Group 2 – prepared to receive an intense and painful shock. All participants were given a choice to either wait by themselves or to wait with another participant. 11  Results Two-thirds of those expecting a painful shock chose to wait with someone else. Only one-third of those expecting a painless shock opted to wait with another participant. 12  Results (Cont.) In a follow-up study, research participants were told that the other person was or was not participating in the experiment. “Do you want to wait with he/her?” – 60% of participants expecting a painful shock elected to wait with someone who would share their fate. 13  What do the results tell us? – Waiting with another should reduce the emotional impact of a stressful situation. – It seems that misery loves miserable company. – Waiting with another could aid in fear reduction, others would serve as reference as to how one would react (e. g. coronary patients who has gone through the operation). 再生勇士 in Hong Kong http://www.regensoc.org.hk/index.php?page=encyclopedia 14 Beyond fear and uncertainty: We seek out like-minded others when we need to defend our beliefs When our self esteem is threatened, we seek others who are doing less well… so we can come out ahead. Affiliation motivation appears to be geared toward achieving the optimal balance between social contact and solitude. 15  The need for intimacy The need for intimacy may be why we feel compelled to seek out a special person to share our thoughts, our feelings, and perhaps our lives. This need triggers a desire for a warm, close, and communicative relationship with one particular person. 16  The need for intimacy vs. the need for affiliation The intensity of these needs varies from person to person. Those high in the need for affiliation tend to engage in active, controlling social behavior : emphasis on the quantity of relationships. By comparison, those high in need for intimacy place their emphasis on the depth and quality of social relationships. Studies showed that high in the need for intimacy seemed better socially adjusted in the long run. 17  The need to belong Humans have a pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and impactful relationships (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). – Important for survival and reproduction – Social bonds are acquired easily and sometimes arbitrarily – Infants readily attach and form bonds with their caregivers 18  The emotional experience and the need to belong Relationship initiation is often associated with happiness, elation, love, and joy. Relationship dissolution is generally associated with sadness, grief, anxiety, jealousy, and loneliness. – Some people choose to stay in harmful relationships such as under domestic violence. 19  “Good” marital relationships serve as important buffers against stress, physical and mental problems, even higher immunity and decrease rate of heart attack. Friendship in children: rejected children. 20  The inevitability of social relationships Most people spend their lives in a heavily populated social context that includes family, friends, neighborhood, community, school, and place of employment. Even for those desiring a life of solitude, social interaction is inevitable for practical reasons (food, supplies, medical attention, etc.). 21  Principles of social interactions (Homans, 1961) 1. People of equal status are more likely to interact. 2. People who are similar are more likely to interact. 3. The more frequently we interact with others, the more we will like them. 4. Frequent interactions and increased liking will result in increased sentiments of friendship. 22  How many friends do you have? The size of people’s social networks: ranging from about 250 to about 5,500 people. – Freeman and Thompson, “Estimating Acquaintanceship Volume,” in The Small World (Ablex, 1989) Looking more specifically at friendship: – A study using the exchange of Christmas cards as a proxy for closeness put the average person’s friend group at about 121 people. Hill and Dunbar, “Social Network Size in Humans” (Human Nature, March 2003) The average American trusts only 10 to 20 people. – DiPrete et al., “Segregation in Social Networks Based on Acquaintanceship and Trust” (American Journal of Sociology, Jan. 2011) 23  How to make friends? It takes about 50 hours of socializing to go from acquaintance to casual friend. An additional 40 hours to become a “real” friend. A total of 200 hours to become a close friend. Source: Hall, “How Many Hours Does It Take to Make a Friend?” (Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, March 2018) 24  Relationships across time (in old days) Pre-Industrial Revolution – the productive family unit. (each member of family contribute to raising cattle, or manufacturing goods) The Industrial Revolution – physically separate workplace and role specialization of husband and wife Post-World War II housing boom and the creation of suburban life. – during the day, commuters from the other boroughs and outside the city nearly double Manhattan’s population, from 1.6 million to 3.1 million. June 3, 2013 , New York Times 25  Situation in Hong Kong Median age at first marriage 33 32.5 32.5 32.2 32.2 32 31.9 31.6 31.5 31.5 31.4 31.4 31.2 31.2 31.2 31.2 31.2 31.2 31.2 31.2 31.1 31.1 31.1 31 31 30.8 30.5 30.5 30.2 30 30 30 30 29.9 29.8 29.6 29.6 29.5 29 28.5 28 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 Male 29.6 years old in 1994 26 26.5 years old in 1994 27 28 29 30  Situation in Hong Kong Delay first marriage. The crude marriage rate of Hong Kong people varied across times. – The crude marriage rate is the number of marriage registrations relative to the total population in the same period. The crude divorce rate of Hong Kong people increased a bit. Remarriages now account for about one in three marriages in the city. – https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3229912/what-about-kids-hong-kongs-high-divorce-and- remarriage-numbers-reveal-changing-attitudes-family Rates of marriages mix between china and HK people increased. Over 50% women employed (because we have domestic helpers) 31  Situation in Hong Kong The gender imbalance between more women and less men in Hong Kong has remained. 32  The social forces of change (Levinger, 1994) 1. Western societies have become increasingly concerned with issues of autonomy and personal control. 2. Women’s relationships with men have become less property oriented. 3. There have been reductions in the legal, economic, religious and social barriers against the ending of marriages. 33