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Romantic Relationships

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Involve friendships/professional as well as romantic relationships ... You develop informal nicknames. Yours are? Integrating ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Romantic Relationships


1
Romantic Relationships
  • Coming Together 7302

2
  • Chances are great that everyone in this class is,
    has been, or will be involved in a romantic
    relationship we all are, have been or will be
    involved in a breakup of a romantic relationship

3
  • Most relationships are bound by a cultural script
  • What is the cultural script for your
    relationship?
  • What is our personal script for a relationship?
  • These are associated with relational schemata

4
Opening the Door
  • Intimate Relationships
  • Involve friendships/professional as well as
    romantic relationships
  • Intimate relationships involve basic emotions
    such as love, compassion and caring
  • In intimate relationships we reveal more and
    share secrets

5
How do we come together?
  • Similarity
  • We are attracted to people who look like us,
    dress like us, like the same things and have the
    same value system
  • Complementarity
  • Sometimes we are attracted to people because they
    are different from the way we are, however, by
    far, most people are attracted because of
    similarity

6
  • Reciprocal Liking
  • We seem to be attracted to people who like us
  • Physical Beauty
  • We seem to be attracted to people who we think
    are attractive, at least initially
  • If people like us, though, we think they are more
    attractive as time goes by

7
Filtering TheoryStephen Duck
  • Sociological or incidental cues
  • We must have the opportunity to observe each
    other
  • Other pre-interaction cues
  • We actually scrutinize the object of our interest
  • Interaction cues
  • We converse, exchange turns, make eye contact

8
Filtering Theory
  • Cognitive cues
  • All our observations combine so that we form
    impressions of the other person
  • What type of person the other is
  • What his/her value system might be
  • His/her political, religious, beliefs
  • And so on!

9
Relational Stages - Mark Knapp
  • Initiating
  • Make contact
  • First impressions
  • You can exit the relationship at this point, but
    you can also become intrigued with the other
    person

10
Experimenting
  • Finding out about each other
  • Explore the possibilities of a relationship
  • Spend time with each other
  • What does this person like? Dislike?
  • Small talk (a way of auditioning for a
    relationship)

11
Intensifying
  • You open up to each other
  • You spend large amounts of time together
  • You self-disclose
  • You tease each other
  • You develop informal nicknames
  • Yours are?

12
Integrating
  • Attitudes become more similar and the level of
    coupleness increases
  • The couple receives invitations addressed to both
    of them
  • They see themselves as a unit with a shared
    history
  • What are we doing this weekend?

13
Bonding
  • Announce commitment to the world
  • Engagement, marriage
  • Making a public statement of permanent attachment

14
Differentiating
  • Re-establish their own identity
  • Courtship emphasized we now emphasize I
  • Differentiation can be positive
  • Individuals need to keep a sense of self within
    the boundaries of the relationship

15
Differentiating
  • While Knapp refers to differentiation as one of
    the coming apart stages, it is in reality an
    inevitable stage of any relationship that has
    bonded
  • Often it arises when there is a source of tension
    or stress

16
Differentiating
  • This stage can be successful if a healthy balance
    is maintained between individuality and
    commitment to the relationship

17
Circumscribing
  • Stepping apart for each other just a little bit
  • Dont communicate with the same quality and
    quantity of messages as they once did
  • Withdraw from each other to avoid conflict

18
Stagnating
  • Things become routine, a hollow shell with no
    life
  • Going through the motions
  • Expecting nothing from the relationship

19
Avoiding
  • Partners begin to feel too uncomfortable with
    each other, and create more distance by avoiding
    each other
  • They spend time apart
  • Psychologically avoid each other
  • Clear that the relationship is about to end
  • Pretending to be asleep when he/she comes home

20
Terminating
  • Partners seek to end the relationship
  • Depending on the relationship, termination may be
    a very short stage or it may be a bitter, long
    drawn out battle
  • The relationship may end over lunch, a note left
    in the bedroom or a legal document calling for
    the dissolution of the marriage

21
Two ways to end
  • Sudden death of the relationship
  • Passing away
  • Murray Davis, Intimate Relations

22
Gender Differences in Expressing Care
  • Women tend to create and express closeness
    through personal, self-disclosive talk
  • Men rely on instrumental displays of affection,
    solving problems, physical intimacy
  • Misunderstandings can occur between masculine and
    feminine individuals because of differences in
    expressing and experiencing caring

23
  • I love you. I told you that I loved you when I
    married you, so you can assume that I still love
    you until I tell you different. If something
    changes I will tell you.

24
Tensions
  • Dichotomies are tensions that affect
    relationships
  • They are called relational dialectics

25
  • We sense tension when we are pulled in two
    directions at the same time

26
  • Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian philosopher, saw these
    tensions as the deep structure of all
    interpersonal experience

27
Centripetal forces
  • On the one hand, a centripetal or centralizing
    force, pulls us together with others

28
Centrifugal
  • On the other hand a centrifugal or decentralizing
    forces, pushes us apart

29
  • This isnt necessarily bad--it provides an
    opportunity for discussion, an occasion for
    people to work out their conflicting desires to
    connect with and differentiate from each other

30
Autonomy-Connection
  • For Baxter, this is the primary internal strain
    within relationships
  • No relationship can exist by definition unless
    the parties sacrifice some individual autonomy
  • Too much connection and individual identities are
    lost

31
  • Both masculine and feminine individuals desire
    autonomy and connection
  • Feminine individuals are socialized for focus on
    relationships and are comfortable with greater
    levels of connection

32
  • Masculine individuals, socialized toward
    independence, typically want greater autonomy
  • Differences can lead to problems in relationships
    when behaviors are interpreted from different
    perspectives

33
  • The external aspect of this is the pull between
    being isolated from the rest of the world and
    being involved in social networks--need time
    alone as a couple to solidify the relationship,
    but also need to be with others

34
Response Strategies to Autonomy Connection
  • Cyclic alternation
  • . . .we kind of kept floundering around together.
    . .drifting toward each other and drifting apart
    again. . .kind of a cycle
  • Very rare is the specifically negotiated
    alternation of autonomy connection

35
Response Strategies to Autonomy Connection
  • Selection
  • This is a proactive approach
  • We did want both autonomy and connection. We
    decided were going to give this a shot. We just
    kind of thought, if it doesnt work out , it
    doesnt work out. If it does all the better.

36
Predictability/Novelty
  • We need certainty, but a bit of
    novelty/spontaneity refreshes the relationship
  • A dysfunctional condition known as schismogenesis
    can result from overly rigid, I.e., predictable
    interaction

37
Ways to Cope
  • Segmentation
  • People like the spontaneity and excitement of not
    being able to predict what was going to occur in
    the interaction
  • Some areas of the relationship, however,
    predictability is key

38
One guy speaks
  • I guess novelty and predictability in my mind
    cant be mixed because they are for different
    things. Predictability is the confidence that
    shes not going to leave tomorrow and go out with
    another guy. I wanted confidence in that. And
    for novelty, I just wanted spunk. I wanted out
    time together to be fun and exciting.

39
Cyclic Alternation
  • For many respondents this was driven by the
    school calendar
  • Routines of classes, parties, studying, sports
    punctuated the academic term with the novelty of
    vacations and summers

40
One Respondent Speaks
  • Especially toward the end of the term when
    we was getting on our nerves, I would long for
    the break when we would have the time to do
    whatever we wanted to do. The vacations were
    like a shot in the arm for our relationship

41
Selection Response
  • Involves a concerted effort to enhance
    predictability or to enhance novelty
  • Talking about explicitly about issues such as the
    state of the relationship

42
Selection Continued
  • Some parties achieved novelty through greater
    autonomous, individual activity
  • One student says, The predictability is us the
    novelty is me. Thats why I decided to go back
    to school when our kids were old enough.

43
Selection Continued
  • Novelty by undertaking joint activities
  • We were caught in a rut--get up, go to classes
    together, study together, sleep together, get up,
    go to classes. . .In the middle of the term we
    decided to bag the rut and do things on impulse
    that we felt like doing. We took off to the
    beach in the middle of the week. Wed go dancing
    and parting. Both of our grades have suffered
    for what we did, but we dont have any regrets.

44
Openness/Closedness
  • Openness we develop intimacy
  • Closedness we protect ourselves
  • Quality Relationships balance these needs
  • Disclosure is a key element in developing deep
    and lasting relationships

45
Turning Points
  • Nonscripted interaction that can become a turning
    point in the relationship
  • First kiss
  • First argument
  • Meeting the parents

46
Working it Out
  • We use secret tests to determine the depth of the
    relationship
  • Endurance
  • Separation
  • Indirect hints
  • Triangle tests
  • Inquiry
  • Presentation as a couple
  • Testing the water through hints, jokes

47
  • All of these elements meld together as we develop
    and deepen our relationships.
  • The ideas we have just discussed offer an
    understanding of what is happening in the most
    important of human endeavors
  • Relationships are difficult, but they are worth
    it
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