Human Adjustment
John W. Santrock
Chapter 8:
Friendship and Love
Relationships
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Chapter Outline
Forming Relationships: Attraction
Friendship
Love
The Dark Side of Close Relationships
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Learning Goals
1. Discuss the factors involved in attraction
2. Describe friendship
3. Characterize the types of love and other factors
involved in love
4. Explain the dark side of close relationships
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FORMING RELATIONSHIPS:
ATTRACTION
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Familiarity and Similarity
Physical Attractiveness
Personality Traits
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Familiarity and Similarity
 Familiarity is necessary for a close relationship to
develop
– Moreland and Beach (1992) found students said they liked
women who attended class more often, even though the
targets didn’t interact with anyone
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Familiarity and Similarity
 Similarity is also important and the people we like are
usually similar to us.
– Consensual validation - our own attitudes and behavior
are supported when someone else’s attitudes and behavior
are similar to ours
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Physical Attractiveness
 When seeking an intimate partner, heterosexual
women rate as important in men:
– Considerateness
– Honesty
– Dependability
– Kindness
– Understanding
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Physical Attractiveness
 Heterosexual men rate as important in women:
– good looks
– cooking skills
– frugality
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Physical Attractiveness
 Buss (1988) found that:
– men use tactics that involve resource possession and
display (brag about cars and money, display strength)
– women use tactics that alter their appearance (wear makeup, keep well-groomed, wear stylish clothes, wear jewelry)
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Physical Attractiveness
Matching hypothesis = although people may prefer a
more attractive person in the abstract, in the real world,
they end up choosing someone close to their own level
of attractiveness
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Personality Traits
 Anderson (1968) found we are attracted to people with
personality traits such as being:
– sincere
– honest
– understanding
– loyal
– truthful
– trustworthy
– intelligent
– dependable
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Review - Learning Goal 1
– What roles do familiarity and similarity play in attraction?
– What is the link between physical attractiveness and
attraction?
– How are personality traits related to attraction?
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FRIENDSHIP
The Benefits of Friendship
Gender and Friendship
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The Benefits of Friendship
Friendships = close relationships that involve intimacy,
trust, acceptance, mutual liking, and understanding
 Benefits of friendship include:
– can reduce loneliness
– be source of self-esteem
– provide emotional support
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Gender and Friendship
 In friendships between women, women
– have close friends
– are likely to listen and be sympathetic
– share their thoughts and feelings
 In friendships between men, men are more likely to
engage in activities and show more competition
 In friendships between women and men, problems
arise because of different expectations
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Adjustment Strategies
for Getting and Keeping Friends
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1. Be nice, kind, and considerate
2. Be honest and trustworthy
3. Respect others
4. Provide emotional support
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LOVE
What is love?
Attachment
Gender and Love
Falling Out of Love
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What Is Love?
 Liking involves
– Similarity
– positive evaluation of another person
 Loving involves:
– being close to someone
– dependency
– a self-less orientation
– absorption and exclusiveness
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Romantic Love
Romantic love (passionate love) = type of love that
has strong components of sexuality and infatuation,
and often predominates in the early part of a love
relationship
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Romantic Love
 Romantic love includes intermingling of emotions:
– fear
– anger
– sexual desire
– joy
– jealousy
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Affectionate Love
Affectionate love (companionate love) = type of
love that occurs when individuals desire to have the
other person near and have a deep, caring affection
for the person
 In a love relationship, the early stage of romantic love
grows into affection
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Affectionate Love
 Affectionate love includes:
– secure attachment
– familiarity
– a deeply caring relationship
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Consummate Love
 Consummate love - in Robert Sternberg’s view, the
strongest form of love that consists of:
– passion (sexual attraction)
– intimacy (emotional feeling of closeness)
– commitment (cognitive appraisal of relationship)
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Consummate Love
 Sternberg argues passion, intimacy, and commitment
can combine to form various patterns of love:
– infatuation
– affectionate love
– fatuous love
– consummate love
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Figure 8.4 Sternberg’s Triangle of Love
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Attachment
 Quality of romantic relationship is linked with quality of
our attachment (emotional bond) to caregivers such as
our parents during infancy and childhood
– Romantic partners give us secure base to return to and
obtain comfort from in stressful times
– We learn an attachment style as infants and use it as a
model for adult relationships
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Attachment Styles
 Mary Ainsworth (1979) identified three attachment
styles between infants and caregiver:
– Secure attachment style (70%) - caregiver is responsive
to infant’s needs; infant trusts caregiver
– Avoidant attachment style (20%) - caregiver is distant or
rejecting; infant suppresses desire to be close to caregiver
– Ambivalent attachment style (10%) - caregiver is
inconsistently available and overbearing with affection;
infant clings anxiously to caregiver and then fights against
closeness by pushing away
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Links Between Attachment in Childhood and
Close Relationships in Adulthood
 Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver (1987) examined
continuity between childhood attachment and romantic
relationships
– Securely attached infants are more likely to have a secure
attachment to adult romantic partner
– Individuals with avoidant attachment style in childhood find
it difficult to develop intimate relationship in adulthood
 Individuals can revise attachment styles in adulthood
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Gender and Love
 Men conceptualize love more in terms of passion
 Women think of love more in terms of friendship
 Women are more expressive and affectionate than
men in marriage
 Women disclose more to romantic partners
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Falling Out of Love
 Falling out of love may be wise if you are:
– obsessed with a person who betrays your trust
– involved with someone who is draining you emotionally or
financially
– desperately in love with someone who does not return
feelings
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THE DARK SIDE OF
CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS
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Anger
Jealousy
Spouse and Partner Abuse
Dependence
Loneliness
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Anger
 Driscoll (2002) identifies three cyclic patterns of anger
in close relationships:
– Anger justifies itself - you make arguments to justify your
anger and then use these arguments to fuel further anger
– Passivity and outburst - your resentment builds as a result
of failure to confront problems and then anger bursts out
– Catharsis (perceived injustice) your partner’s anger makes
you angry, which makes your partner angry all over again
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Anger
 Carol Tavris (1989) provides suggestions to break cycle
of anger:
– Stop thinking you will rescue your partner
– Assume responsibility for your emotions and actions
– Civility is important
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Jealousy
Jealousy = fear of perceived possibility of losing
someone else’s exclusive love
 Jealousy emerges when there is a challenge to the
relationship
– Men tend to show sexual jealousy
– Women are upset at emotional infidelity
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Jealousy
 Jealous individuals tend to idealize their partner and
underestimate their own worth
 Overcoming jealousy involves reducing feelings of
insecurity and thinking more rationally about the
relationship
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Spouse and Partner Abuse
 Anger and jealousy can lead to spouse or partner
abuse
 Spouse/partner abuse affects one in four couples
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Spouse and Partner Abuse
 Walker (2000) described a three-phase cycle of
domestic violence:
1. tension building
2. acute battering incident
3. loving-contrition
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Spouse and Partner Abuse
 Obstacles to change in batterers:
– they minimize and deny amount of violence
– they are dependent on spouse as source of intimacy and
support
– they have low self-esteem
– they were socialized with violence
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Dependence
 An excessively dependent person is perceived as a
burden by the partner
– The partner feels resentment and hostility
 Excessively dependent people have low self-esteem
and feelings of insecurity
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Adjustment Strategies
for Overcoming Excessive Dependence
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1. Admit the problem exists
2. Explore the reasons for such neediness
3. Initiate strategies that lead to increased
independence
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Loneliness
 People who do not interact with others in close
relationships may feel lonely
 Chronic loneliness is linked with impaired physical and
mental health
 Men blame themselves for being lonely
 Women blame external factors for their loneliness
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Loneliness and Life’s Transitions
 Loneliness can occur with life transitions, such as:
– moving
– divorce
– death of friend or family member
– first year of college
 At the beginning of college life, 75%
said they felt lonely at least part
of the time
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Loneliness and Technology
 Technology might be contributing to loneliness
– link between television-viewing and loneliness
– Internet may increase social disengagement
 For some, the Internet may help overcome loneliness
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