1
2
3
Because of
Because of how
Because of how
the person's
attributes
the person makes
you feel (your
mood)
the person makes
you feel about
yourself
(your self-esteem)
The Anatomy of
Relationships
And the rules and skills needed to
manage them successfully
j
Michael Argyle and
Monika Henderson
"
(1984)
Goodwin (1987)
Archival records of over 27,000
patients
Related Marital Status (currently
married or currently unmarried) to
1. Stage of cancer at diagnosis
earlier for married sample
2. Treatment
more likely for married sample
3. Survival
longer for married sample
Social Support as a Buffer between Life
Stressors and Psychological and Physical
Distress
Social Support
!
!
Stressors ---------------------- Psychological
and physical
distress
Types of Social Support
1. emotional
2. appraisal
3. informational
4. instrumental
Antonovsky(1987)
Unraveling the mystery
of health
Concept: Sense of Coherence
Components:
1. comprehensibility: the surrounding
world makes sense, is predictable.
2. Manageability: ability or perception that
one can cope, meet challenges.
3. Meaningfulness: life is worthy of
commitment and engagement.
PsycINFO search: sense of coherence
3602 results.
Sense of coherence and marital status
0 results
Studies have found a negative relation
between sense of coherence and
psychological and physical distress,
Or, that sense of coherence moderates
the influence of stressors on
psychological and physical distress.
Olsson (2006)
1. In Swedish samples, group of parents
had higher sense of coherence
compared to high school students
compared to couples in therapy.
2. With high school students, controlling
for depression, fewer “disturbances” in
family relations and more closeness in
the family predicted higher levels of
sense of coherence.
With parents, closeness in the family
predicted sense of coherence beyond
depression.
The Role of Attributions Regarding
Positive and Negative Behaviour of Your
Partner in Happy and Unhappy
Relationships
Happy in Your Relationship
!
Expect Positive Behaviour
Positive Behaviour
(consistent)
Negative Behaviour
(inconsistent)
!
!
Causal Attributions
Causal Attributions
Internal
Stable
Global
Responsibility
Attributions
Intentional
Unselfish
Praise
External
Unstable
Specific
Responsibility
Attributions
Unintentional
Unselfish
No blame
Unhappy in Your Relationship
!
Expect Negative Behaviour
Positive Behaviour
(inconsistent)
Negative Behaviour
(consistent)
!
!
Causal Attributions
Causal Attributions
External
Unstable
Specific
Internal
Stable
Global
Responsibility
Attributions
Responsibility
Attributions
Unintentional
Selfish
No praise
Intentional
Selfish
Blame
Longitudinal study
Participants were married females
Time 1
(12 month interval)
Level of positive
attribution
activity
Satisfaction
in marriage
Time 2
Level of positive
attribution
activity
Satisfaction
in marriage
1. What is relation between attribution
activity, Time 1 and satisfaction, Time 2?
2. What is the relation between satisfaction,
Time 1 and attribution activity, Time 2?
Murray (1996)
Married couples and dating couples
independently completed the following
questionnaire concerning 20 trait-adjectives
Male Partner
Female Partner
Ratings of partner
Ratings of partner
Ratings of self
Ratings of self
Ratings of "ideal"
partner
Ratings of "ideal"
partner
1. Ratings of partner using self-rating as
criterion.
Correlation coefficients around +.35
Therefore, there was considerable
discrepancy, or error, in how judges rated
their partners.
2. Rating of actual partner was positively
associated with rating of ideal partner,
but, there was no association between rating
of ideal partner and the partner’s self-rating.
In other words, we tend to view our actual
partner to be similar to our ideal partner,
even though this is not necessarily the case.
3. This bias was found to be more typical of
people who reported higher levels of
satisfaction in their relationship.
Rook (1987). Data available from 1050
respondents to a prior survey concerning:
Psychological ill-being (e.g., ratings on
emotions such as anxious, sad)
Major life stressors
Minor life stressors (daily hassles)
Social support: instrumental, emotional,
informational, and appraisal
Companionate activities: frequency of
occurrence and number of different people
(e.g., going out to diner with someone,
meeting someone in a park).
Multiple regression analyses predicting
psychological ill-being.
Predictors variables are: major or minor
stressors, social support, and companionate
activities (frequency or number).
Analysis with major life stressors
1. Major life stressors positively
associated with psychological ill-being
2. Companionate activities negatively
associated with psychological ill-being
3. Social support unrelated to
psychological ill-being in terms of
main effect,
But, interaction, such that, at high
levels of major life stressors, social
support now negatively related to
psychological ill-being
Analysis with minor life stressors
1. Minor life stressors positively
associated with psychological ill-being
2. minor life stressors interacted with
companionate activities such that
companionate activities were more
highly negatively related to
psychological ill-being when minor life
stressors were higher.
Elliot (2006)
Approach and avoidance motivation
Research primarily in the achievement area (a
predisposition to succeed or a predisposition to
avoid failure), but recently applied to
interpersonal relationships.
Hierarchical Model: begins with two
dispositional constructs:
i) Hope for affiliation.
ii) Fear of rejection.
Two corresponding lower level concepts:
i) Approach social goals (e.g., trying to
deepen one's relationships)
ii) Avoidance social goals (e.g., trying to
avoid conflict in one's relationships)
Participants were university students.
The study used questionnaires to measure:
1. Approach goals in friendships and avoidance
goals in friendships.
2. Relationship satisfaction
3. Loneliness
4. Reported frequency of relational events and
their perceived importance (8 positive and 8
negative events in questionnaire).
e.g., I had especially good interactions with
friend(s)
I felt left out or rejected by a friend or
family member
Some results:
1. Friendship approach positively related to
relationship satisfaction.
2. Friendship approach negatively related to
loneliness.
3. Friendship approach positively related to
frequency of positive events.
4. Friendship approach negatively related to
frequency of negative events.
5. Friendship avoidance positively related to
negative events (particularly for males).
In a second study, approach and avoidance
social goals linked to psychological and physical
well-being (over time).
Hope for affiliation positively associated
with psychological well-being.
Fear of rejection positively associated with
physical symptoms of illness.
DePaulo(1998)
Students kept a diary for seven days
which included a social interaction
record and a deception record.
A lie was defined as any time you
intentionally try to mislead someone.
Later asked, among other things, was this
lie ever discovered, and if you could
relive this social interaction, would you
tell the lie again.
Two major categories of lies: selfcentered, and other-oriented.
Participants told fewer lies per social
interaction to those they were closer to
and felt more uncomfortable in this
regard
Other-oriented lies more frequent that
self-oriented lies to best friends and
friends; the reverse to acquaintances and
strangers.
Lies told to close partners were more
often discovered.
Adult Attachment Style
Secure: I find it relatively easy to get close to
others and am comfortable depending on
them and having them depend on me. I do
not often worry about being abandoned or
about someone getting too close to me.
Avoidant: I am somewhat uncomfortable
being close to others; I find it difficult to
trust them, difficult to allow myself to
depend on them. I am nervous when anyone
gets too close, and often love partners want
me to be more intimate than I feel
comfortable being.
Anxious/ambivalent: I find that others are
reluctant to get as close as I would like. I
often worry that my partner does not really
love me or will not want to stay with me. I
want to merge completely with another
person, and this desire sometimes scares
people away.
Attachment Styles
!
Jealousy
!
Violence in Intimate Relationships