Social Psychology

1
Social Psychology

• Attraction

2
Plan for Today

• Attraction
• Friendship
• Love
• Jealousy
• Attachment

3
What is attractive?

• Robin Gilmour (1988) men and women have
  completely different top ten lists of desired
  attributes.
• Women Achievement, leadership qualities, skill
  at job, earning potential, sense of humor,
  intellectual ability, attentiveness, common
  sense, athletic ability, good abstract reasoning
• Men Physical attractiveness, ability in bed,
  warmth and affection, social skill, homemaking
  ability, dress sense, sensitivity to others
  needs, good taste, moral perception, artistic
  creativity.

4
Mere Exposure Effect

• Prefer letters of own first name
• Telephone directory names, most familiar names
  will correlate with most liked names and least
  familiar with least liked (Harrison, 1967)
• .87
• (Zajonc, 1970) Three cheers for Pat Milligan
  (Hal Evry)

5
Attraction to Others

• Proximity
• Physical attractiveness
• Similarity
• Reciprocal liking
• Relationship rewards

6
Affiliation

• Hill (1987) 4 dimensions of affiliation
  motivation
• Emotional support
• Attention
• Positive stimulation
• Social comparisons

7
Think of one close friendship formed since coming
to University?

• Proximity effects
• Segal 1974 study with police trainees
• Proximity and alphabetical surname correlated
  with frienship
• The Black Bag
• the students attitude changed from hostility
  toward the Black Bag to curisoity and finally to
  frienship.

8
Physical Attractiveness

• Matching phenomena
• Physical attractiveness stereotype
• Fairy tales
• Stigmatization
• Evolution
• Culture

9
Similarity

• Contrast opposites attract?
• Liking begets liking
• Similarity breeds liking
• We like those who like us (attribution)
• Reward theory of attraction

10
Love Styles

• Eros passionate love
• Ludus game for mutual enjoyment
• Storge friendship love
• Mania possessive love
• Pragma practical love
• Agape selfless love

11
Love Styles

• Sternbergs Love Triangle
• Passion motivational (addiction)
• Intimacy emotional/affective
• Commitment cognitive
• Non love is absence of all 3.
• Intimacy alone is akin to friendship
• Passion alone is infatuation
• Commitment alone is empty love

12
Love Styles

• Romantic love Intimacy and passion
• Hollywood love passion and commitment
• Companionate love intimacy and commitment
• Consumate or complete love is special

13
Jealousy

• The thoughts and feelings that arise when an
  actual or desired relationship is threatened
• Evolutionary gender differences
• Men are more distressed about sexual infidelity
  than emotional infidelity
• Women are more distressed about emotional than
  sexual infidelity
• Cultural differences US vs Germany, Netherlands

14
Jealousy

• Self esteem
• Men and women respond differently to jealousy
• Is jealousy a sign of true love?
• Coping with jealousy

15
Read the descriptions below and choose the one
that best summarizes your feelings and behavior
in romantic love relationships.

• ____ I find it relatively easy to get close to
  others and am comfortable depending on them. I
  dont often worry about being abandoned or about
  someone geeing too close to me.
• ___ I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to
  others, I find it difficult to trust them
  completely, 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.
• ___ I find that others are reluctant to get as
  close as I would like. I often worry that my
  partner doesnt really love me or wont want to
  stay with me. I want to get very close to my
  partner, and this sometimes scares people away.

16
Read the following paragraphs and check the one
that best describes your relationship with your
mother when you were growing up. Then do the same
for your relationship with your father.

• ___ She/he was generally warm and responsive
  she/he was good at knowing when to be supportive
  and when to let me operate on my own our
  relationship was almost always comfortable, and I
  have no major reservations or complaints about it
• ___ She/he was fairly cold and distant, or
  rejecting, not very responsive I wasnt her/his
  highest priority her/his concerns were often
  elsewhere.
• ___ She/he was noticeably inconsistent in her/his
  reactions to me, sometimes warm and sometimes
  not she/he had her/his own agendas which
  sometimes got in the way of her/his receptiveness
  and responsiveness to my needs she/he definitely
  loved me but didnt always show it in the best
  way.

17
Attachment

• Mary Ainsworths attachment styles
• Secure
• Avoidant
• Anxious / Ambivalent