7-1 Discussion: Pick the Right Date

Graduate Discussion Rubric.html

Graduate Discussion Rubric

Overview

Your active participation in the discussions is essential to your overall success this term. Discussion questions will help you make meaningful connections between the course content and the larger concepts of the course. These discussions give you a chance to express your own thoughts, ask questions, and gain insight from your peers and instructor.

Directions

For each discussion, you must create one initial post and follow up with at least two response posts.

For your initial post, do the following:

• Write a post of 1 to 2 paragraphs.
• In Module One, complete your initial post by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.
• In Modules Two through Ten, complete your initial post by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.
• Consider content from other parts of the course where appropriate. Use proper citation methods for your discipline when referencing scholarly or popular sources.

For your response posts, do the following:

• Reply to at least two classmates outside of your own initial post thread.
• In Module One, complete your two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.
• In Modules Two through Ten, complete your two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.
• Demonstrate more depth and thought than saying things like “I agree” or “You are wrong.” Guidance is provided for you in the discussion prompt.

Discussion Rubric

Reading and Resources16.html

Library Article: Sexual Strategies Theory: An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Mating This article provides the evolutionary theory on attracting and mating. 

Library Article: Attraction on the Internet Read the assignment on Attraction on the Internet in The Encyclopedia of Human Relations (pp. 881–884), which provides an overview of the predictors of attraction in our modern society.

Library Article: Universality of the Triangular Theory of Love: Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of the Triangular Love Scale in 25 Countries This Shapiro Library article discusses the Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale – STLS) through the examination of more than 11,000 respondents from 25 countries. This article may help you with the Module Seven discussion question.

Library Article: Absence of a Mere-Exposure Effect in Older and Younger Adults This Shapiro Library article examines the mere-exposure effect. The researchers studied adult age differences in mere-exposure effects, and report four experiments assessing mere-exposure to neutral-face stimuli in groups of older and younger adult participants. This article may help you with the Module Seven discussion question.

Library Article: A Triangular Theory of Love This Shapiro Library classic article was the first to ask: What does it mean “to love” someone? A review of this article will provide a solid foundation to the tripartite theory regarding the nature of love and loves in various kinds of relationships. This article may help you with the Module Seven discussion question.

Module Overview6.html

Interpersonal Attraction

What Is Love?

What is love? This is a question that has been discussed for centuries. Love is a very difficult term to define, and perhaps even more difficult to measure. One well-known psychologist, Robert Sternberg, created the most accepted theory called the triangular theory of love (Sorokowski et al., 2021). According to Sternberg (1986), there are three components to love: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy refers to emotional intimacy—the sharing of personal details from a person’s life. Intimacy can be found in friendships as well as romantic relationships. Commitment means that two people stay together for a long period of time. Passion means that there is sexual chemistry and excitement between the two people. If you have all three components of love, Sternberg would call that consummate, or complete, love (Sternberg, 1986).

One might ask: Are you still in love if you only have one or two of these components? The quick answer would be “yes,” but it would not be a complete form of love. For example, if you have emotional intimacy and passion, but no commitment, then you are said to have romantic love. This may be very exciting, but is only short lived. If you have commitment without intimacy or passion, then you have empty love, a very unfulfilling type of love. It would be easy to argue that empty love is not love at all, since all empty love means is that the couple stays together, but nothing else (Sorokowski et al., 2021).

Love and the Brain

Can you tell if a person is in love by examining their brain? To a certain degree, the answer is “yes.” Couples in the early part of a relationship are experiencing passionate love, one that is marked by higher levels of dopamine, a pleasure chemical in the brain. Dopamine is the same drug that is triggered by food like chocolate or the “high” you get after a good workout at the gym. When a couple has been together for years and has a very stable relationship, you will find that their dopamine levels are not as high, but their brains are marked by higher levels of serotonin. Serotonin brings feelings of happiness, stability, and calmness to people who have elevated levels of this chemical in their brains (Blum, 1997).

Attraction, Love, and Rejection

Love, of course, is never the first step in a relationship. The first step is usually attraction. What draws two people together? Can we scientifically predict who will be attracted to whom? Research has shown that there are several factors that may predict an attraction between two individuals. Some of these factors include proximity, similarity, and physical attractiveness (Finkel & Baumeister, 2019).

Proximity, or close location, is the most important variable that leads to attraction. The more exposure you have to another person, the more likely you are to become friends or relationship partners with them. This occurs because as you spend more time with each other, you get to know them better, and start to see the qualities that you both share. This is called the mere-exposure effect (Chow et al., 2022). Similarity is also a very important variable, especially regarding long-term relationships. The more that your values, interests, and aspirations match your partner’s, the more likely your relationship is to be successful. Some couples would argue that they are quite different and that “opposites attract.” Research has generally shown this to be false. Our differences tend to stand out, thus making us seem very different. However, the more similar people are, the more likely their relationship is to succeed (Finkel & Baumeister, 2019).

If you were given the variables of proximity, similarity, and physical attractiveness, could you accurately predict who would be attracted to whom? This module will address this question, and more.

References

Graduate Discussion Rubric.html

Graduate Discussion Rubric

Overview

Your active participation in the discussions is essential to your overall success this term. Discussion questions will help you make meaningful connections between the course content and the larger concepts of the course. These discussions give you a chance to express your own thoughts, ask questions, and gain insight from your peers and instructor.

Directions

For each discussion, you must create one initial post and follow up with at least two response posts.

For your initial post, do the following:

• Write a post of 1 to 2 paragraphs.
• In Module One, complete your initial post by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.
• In Modules Two through Ten, complete your initial post by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.
• Consider content from other parts of the course where appropriate. Use proper citation methods for your discipline when referencing scholarly or popular sources.

For your response posts, do the following:

• Reply to at least two classmates outside of your own initial post thread.
• In Module One, complete your two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.
• In Modules Two through Ten, complete your two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.
• Demonstrate more depth and thought than saying things like “I agree” or “You are wrong.” Guidance is provided for you in the discussion prompt.

Discussion Rubric