Sociology
hurlthepearl
soc103chp5friendshiplovecommitment.pptFriendship, Love & Commitment
How Do You Define Love?
- Write 10 words that Love means to you
- Prototypes of Love, Beverley Fehr (U. of Winnipeg)
Prototypes - Models
- Intimacy
- Self-Disclosure
- Commitment
- Faithfulness
- Unconditional
Importance of Love
- Mother love
- Parental love
- Friendship love
- Romantic love (links to sexuality and societal restrictions)
- Sexual attraction and passion ranked well below trust, honesty, and happiness in importance. When given a large list of features, people appear unwilling to rate passion and sexual feelings as important defining features of love—even when the focus is on passionate love!
Styles of Love
- John Lee
- Eros
- Ludus
- Storge
- Mania
- Agape
- Pragma
Eros
- God of Lust
- Love of beauty
- Attracted by the visual
- Burns brightly,
often quickly fades
Ludus
- Love is fun, a sport
- Not serious
- Non-committal
Storge
- Love based on friendship
- Women tend to be more storgic
Mania
- Obsessive love
- Possessive
- Dependent
- Controlling
Agape
- Selfless love
- As a parent would love a child
- Sacrifice
Pragma
- Practical love
- One looks for specific criteria
- Education, occupation, religion, etc.
EHarmony.com, Match.com
Gender/Age Differences in Styles of Love
- Clyde & Susan Hendrick (U. of Miami, TX Tech U.)
- Men – ludus; Women – storge, pragma
- Mania is often the first love style of teens.
- Relationships based on similar love styles were found to last longer
Eric Fromm (1900-1980)
German Social Psychologist
- Wrote The Art of Loving (1956)
Four Components of Love According to Fromm
- Care - wanting the best for those we love
- Responsibility - being sensitive to the needs of others
- Respect - accepting them for who they are
- Knowledge - being aware of needs/ values/goals/feelings of oneself and others
Levels of Love According to Fromm
- Fromm identified levels of development of love
- Infantile love = I love you because I am loved
- Immature love = I love you because I need you
- Mature love = I need you because I love you
- Erotic love = deceptive love b/c it soon exhausts
- He popularized the idea of Self-Love - you have to love yourself in order to love others - i.e. think yourself worthy
Love – A Biopsychosocial Process
- Chemicals are present in the brain when people fall in love: Testosterone, Estrogen, Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Serotonin, Oxytocin, and Vasopressin.
- Dopamine, Norepinephrine, and Serotonin are more commonly found during the attraction phase.
- Higher levels of Testosterone and Estrogen are present during the lustful phase.
- Oxytocin and Vasopressin are linked to long term bonding and relationships
Chemicals Related to Addictions
- Dopamine, Norepinephrine, and Serotonin
- Higher in addicts (gamblers, drug and alcohol abusers)
- Higher in people with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)
How We Learn to Love –
Wheel Theory
- Ira & Harriet Reiss (U. of Minnesota)
- Rapport, self-revelation, mutual dependency, intimacy
- Affected by one’s sociocultural background and role conceptions
Triangular Theory
- Intimacy, passion, commitment
Attachment Theory
- John Bowlby (1907-1990)
- London born psychoanalyst who postulated our early caregivers and relationships with them affect the quality of our later relationships
Styles of Infant Attachment Continue Through Adulthood
- Secure
- Anxious/ambivalent
- Avoidant
SECURE ADULTS
- Relatively easy to get close to tohers
- Comfortable depending on others and vice versa
- Feel they are worthy of love
- Generally don’t worry about being left
- Higher rates of happiness, trust, satisfaction
ANXIOUS OR AMBIVALENT ADULTS
- They feel others can’t get as close as they want
- Feel unworthy of love, need constant approval
- Worry their partners do not really
love them or that they will leave
- Often obsessive love
AVOIDANT ADULTS
- Discomfort in being close to others
- Distrustful and fearful of becoming dependent
- Maintain distance, avoid intimacy
- Either no relationships or multiple partners
Early Deprivation Studies
- Rene Spitz (1940s), William Goldfarb (1950s), John Bowlby (1950s)
- First year emotional deprivation studies of orphans
Unrequited Love
- Cyrano style
- Giselle style
- Don Quixote style
The Cyrano Style
- Desire to have a romantic relationship with someone specifically regardless of how hopeless the love is
The Giselle Style
- Misperceiving that a relationship is more likely to happen than it is
The Don Quixote Style
- General desire to be in love, regardless of whom we love (no specific love object)
Jealousy – The Green Eyed Monster
- What is jealousy?
- Aversive reaction that occurs because of a partner’s real, imagined, or likely involvement with a third person
Types of Jealousy
- Suspicious jealousy
- Reactive jealousy
Functions of Jealousy
- Why do we get jealous?
- Boundary marker
- Clarifies behavior
What Would Bother You More?
- Your mate has sex with someone else but does not love them?
OR
- Your mate says they have fallen in love with someone else but have not had sex with that person yet?
Gender Differences in Jealousy
- Dr. David Buss (1953- )
- Educated at U. of Calif, Berkeley
- Taught - Harvard, U. of Michigan, U. of Texas
- Research on mating strategies,
conflict between the sexes,
status, social reputation,
prestige, jealousy, homicide,
stalking
The Dangerous Passion
- Wrote: The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex
- http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/buss-passion.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
- Gender differences result in:
- Male Sexual Jealousy
- Female Sexual Jealousy
Male Sexual Jealousy
- Jealousy evolved
- Men cannot be sure if their partner’s children are their own, so they could be caring for some other man’s children
- Many men today do not even live with their own biological
children
Female Sexual Jealousy
- Women need men’s interest, attention, resources, support, etc., so women who are most vigilant about keeping their mates interest kept their support
Mating Psychology
- Since a man’s maximum lifetime reproductive output is limited only by the number of pregnancies he can cause, every extramarital encounter represents another potential offspring.
- So, men developed short-term mating psych.
- But a woman’s maximum lifetime reproductive output is limited by the number of pregnancies she can carry to term, and a single mate can provide a woman with all the sperm she needs.
- So, women developed long-term mating psych.
“Tacits” – Concealment, Vigilance, Undermining Self-Esteem
- We use techniques (“tacits”) to ward off rivals.
- The typical battered woman reports that her husband "tries to limit my contact with friends and family" (tactic of concealment), "insists on knowing where I am at all times" (tactic of vigilance), and "calls me names to put me down and make me feel bad about myself" (tactic of undermining self-esteem).
Consequences of Jealousy
- Thus, jealousy helped our ancestors, and us, to cope with a host of real reproductive threats.
- But, it can be explosive and expose partners to extreme danger.
- The dark side of jealousy causes men to explode violently to reduce the odds that their partners will stray.
- Women seeking refuge at shelters usually report that their husbands seethe with jealousy.
- Jealousy is the leading cause of spousal battering and puts women at risk of being killed.
So…
- Jealousy is not
romantic.
- Jealousy does not
mean you love
someone or they
love you.
- Jealousy is really not
necessary.
