Interpersonal Behavior
The social psychology of interpersonal behavior spans a wide range of topics. For this breadth
essay, I will describe the three topical domains of hostility and aggression, affiliation and
attraction, and altruism and helping. While these three areas do not span the entire breadth of
interpersonal behavior they do encompass the largest subdomains of this area.
Affiliation and Attraction
While to be sure that love has largely been the domain of the poet and the songwriter, it has not
escaped attention from psychologists. Defining love has been until very recently a rather
allusive goal. However, in 1986, Robert Sternberg defined a triangular theory of love. In it,
Sternberg describes three distinct components to love including 1-decision/commitment which
consists primarily of a decision to maintain a longterm commitment, 2-intimacy. This
component includes feelings promoting mutual sharing, emotional support, and friendship and a
passion component which consists mainly of physiological arousal and feelings of excitement.
Sternberg’s model proposes that to the degree that these components occur in a relationship, the
style of love is reflected. That is, an individual who experiences significant passion without the
accompanying intimacy and decision/commitment would be experiencing infatuated love
whereas an individual who was experiencing intimacy and the decision/commitment without the
passion component would be experiencing companionent love. Thus, this model introduces a
dynamic and changing perspective of love. It is interesting to note that Sternberg’s three
components of love have been replicated by factor analysis, (Aron & Westbay, 1996). Having
done my master’s thesis on the topic related to premarital counseling, I have found it usefull to
use Sternberg’s triangular model of love with both premarital and marital couples in practice. I
have found that many couples rely to heavily upon an arrousal and excitement based
understanding of love and therefore determine that they are not in love, when in fact they may
simply need to develop other parts of their relationship. It is interesting to note that social
psychologists have found that there are gender differences that occur when describing love.
Abbey (1992) found that men tend to interpret interpersonal behavior between men and women
as containing more sexual ques. This led social psychologists to determine what factors each
gender labels as desirous in others. Townsend and Levy (1990) found that men preferred goodlooking women regardless of social class and dress. However, women were more attracted to
men who presented as confident, self-assured and well dressed. It is interesting to note that
many of these findings have been replicated across cultures. Specifically, identifying features of
attractivness in facial features as well as attractiveness in terms of social status.
Altruism and Helping Behavior
Kendrick, Newberg and Sealdeany (1999) outline three types of prosocial behavior, those being
pure altruism which they define as benefiting another intentionally for no external or internal
reward. 2 – Benevolence defined as the acts benefits another intentionally for no external
reward. Lastly, prosocial behavior is defined as benefitting another person intentionally. Why
do people proform prosocial behavior? Kendrick, Newberg and Sealdeany identify four main
reasons why people proform altruistic acts. One is to gain personal and material benefits.
Personal in this case is meant to mean genetic, family type relationships. That is, most
individuals are most likely to help someone in need who is a family member or someone who is
in a similar circumstance. Also, individuals are more likely to help others if they themselves
have been in a similar circumstance. For example, someone who had recently been stranded
with a flat tire on their car would be more likely to help another person stranded. I found this to
be true two summers ago when our window unit air-conditioner broke in the of the summer
where temperatures reached nearly 100 every day. Shortly after this, the Salvation Army asked
for fans to be donated in order to distribute in the homes of elderly people without air
conditioning. Having just been through the situation of having no air conditioning in the high
temperatures, I was highly motivated to help others in a similar circumstance and then collected
fans from family and friends to go to the Salvation Army. Another reason individuals may
perform prosocial behaviors are to gain approval and social status. This type of prosocial
behavior often reflects both an individuals need for approval as well as their understanding of
what expectations for prosocial behavior are. This type of behavior can be seen when a wealthy
businessman donated $150,000 to a local food bank. The persons beliefs about the expectations
of someone in his social class as well as his desire to be approved of by others may influence his
decision
You just stopped in the middle of a sentence!!!! Your P is written all over this
paper, but you did a very good job just to get something down on paper. Congratulations!!!
Another class is on its way!! Love you!!!! xoxoxoxoxoxo