Marriages and Families: Changes, Choices, and Constraints Seventh Edition

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• Marriages and FamiliesChanges, Choices, and
  ConstraintsSeventh Edition
• Nijole V. Benokraitis
• Chapter Six
• Romance, Love, and Loving Relationships

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I Love You Man!!

• Love, both as an emotion and a behavior, is
  essential to human survival.
• The family is usually our first form of love it
  provides not only the necessary physical things
  to get by, but it also provides the necessary
  emotional support we need to grow up.

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Self-Love

• For social scientists, self-love is an important
  part of self-esteem.
• Friendshipa friend is someone for whom you feel
  affection and respectyou can count on them for
  assistance and they can count on you.
• Friends can even help you live a longer,
  healthier life.

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Eight Important Qualities of Friendshipby Keith
Davis

• 1. Enjoymentfriends enjoy being together.
• 2. Acceptancefriends accept each other the way
  they are.
• 3. Trustfriends trust and look out for each
  other.
• 4. Respectfriends respect each others
  judgment.

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Eight Important Qualities of Friendshipby Keith
Davis

• 5. Mutual supportfriends help each other
  without expecting anything in return.
• 6. Confidingfriends share experiences and
  feelings.
• 7. Understandingfriends are sympathetic about
  each others feelings and thoughts.
• 8. Honestyfriends are open and honest. They
  feel free to be themselves and say what they
  think.

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What Is Love?

• Love includes all of the qualities of friendship
  plus three more
• Sexual desire
• Priority over other relationships
• Caring to the point of self-sacrifice
• Love, like friendship, is a process that grows
  over time.

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What Is love?

• People sometimes make distinctions between loving
  someonelike a family member, aunt, uncle, etc.
• Being in love for most people is differentthis
  is about romantic love.
• Both types of love nonetheless are multifaceted,
  based on respect, and are often demanding.

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Attraction

• What attracts people to each other? Does
  everyone have one true love? Many cultural
  norms and values bring us together and it isnt
  necessarily as romantic as it seems.
• We are influenced by all those around us,
  especially our family, when it comes to who we
  love.

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Love and Lust

• There is a distinct difference between love and
  lust. Psychologists Pamela Regan and Ellen
  Berscheid (1999) differentiated among sexual
  arousal (or lust), sexual desire, and romantic
  love.
• They describe sexual arousal is a physiological
  rather than a psychological state. Sexual
  desire, in contrast, is a psychological state.
• Romantic love is an intense feeling that can
  provide ecstasy when fulfilled or deep suffering
  when the feeling isnt reciprocated.

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Caring, Intimacy,and Commitment

• Love includes caring or wanting to help the other
  person. Caring means responding to the other
  persons needs.
• Intimacy emphasizes feelings of closeness.
  Couples experience intimacy when they have shared
  history, an identity as a couple, emotional
  interest in each other, and share hopes and
  dreams for the future (P.M. Brown, 1995).
• Commitment is a persons intention to remain in
  a relationship and work through any problems. It
  doesnt necessarily mean marriage but it may lead
  to marriage.

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Caring, Intimacy,and Commitment

• Mutual commitment can arise out of a sense of
  loyalty and fidelity to ones partner, a
  religious or legal belief in the sanctity of
  marriage, or a legal contract.

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Theories about Loveand Loving

• Biological theories maintain that love is
  grounded in evolution, biology, and chemistry.
  Some evolutionists and biologists see love as
  necessary to form long-term relationships for the
  continuation of the species.
• They may see love as short-lived because it is a
  chemical reaction in the brain.

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Helen Fisher of Rutgers University -3 stages of
love lust, attraction and attachment
Stage 1 Lust This is the first stage of love
and is driven by the sex hormones testosterone
and estrogen in both men and women.
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Does love change the way you think? A landmark
experiment in Pisa, Italy showed that early love
(the attraction phase) really changes the way you
think. Dr Donatella Marazziti, a
psychiatrist at the University of Pisa advertised
for twenty couples who'd been madly in love for
less than six months. She wanted to see if the
brain mechanisms that cause you to constantly
think about your lover, were related to the brain
mechanisms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. By
analysing blood samples from the lovers, Dr
Marazitti discovered that serotonin levels of new
lovers were equivalent to the low serotonin
levels of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
patients. Love needs to be blind Newly
smitten lovers often idealise their partner,
magnifying their virtues and explaining away
their flaws says Ellen Berscheid, a leading
researcher on the psychology of love. New
couples also exalt the relationship itself. It's
very common to think they have a relationship
that's closer and more special than anyone
else's. Psychologists think we need this
rose-tinted view. It makes us want to stay
together to enter the next stage of love
attachment.
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Stage 3 Attachment Attachment is the bond that
keeps couples together long enough for them to
have and raise children. Oxytocin - The cuddle
hormone Oxytocin is a powerful hormone released
by men and women during orgasm. It probably
deepens the feelings of attachment and makes
couples feel much closer to one another after
they have had sex. The theory goes that the more
sex a couple has, the deeper their bond becomes.
VasopressinVasopressin is another important
hormone in the long-term commitment stage and is
released after sex. Vasopressin (also called
anti-diuretic hormone) works with your kidneys to
control thirst. Its potential role in long-term
relationships was discovered when scientists
looked at the prairie vole. Prairie voles
indulge in far more sex than necessary for
reproduction. They also like humans - form
fairly stable pair-bonds. When male prairie
voles were given a drug that suppresses the
effect of vasopressin, the bond with their
partner deteriorated immediately as they lost
their devotion and failed to protect their
partner from new suitors.
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Theories about Loveand Loving

• Sociological perspectives and some psychological
  theories claim that culture, not brain chemistry,
  plays the role of Cupid.

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Theories about Loveand Loving

• These theories include
• Attachment theory
• Reisss wheel theory of love
• Sternbergs triangular theory of love
• Lees research on the styles of loving
• Exchange theories

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Attachment Theory

• This theory proposes that our primary motivation
  in life is to be connected with other people,
  because this is the only true security we will
  ever have.
• John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth are researchers
  associated most often with this theory.
• Several studies have tracked attachment style
  from toddlerhood through adulthood and have found
  that attachment styles can change over the life
  course, regardless of a childs early experiences.

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Reisss Wheel Theoryof Love

• Sociologist Ira Reiss and his associates have
  proposed a wheel theory of love, that generated
  much research for several decades. Reiss
  described four stages of love rapport
  self-revelation mutual dependence and
  personality need fulfillment.

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Sternbergs Triangular Theory of Love

• Sternberg said that love has three important
  components
• Intimacyencompasses feelings of closeness,
  connectedness, and bonding.
• Passionleads to romance, physical attraction,
  and sexual consummation.
• Decision/commitmenthas a short- and long-term
  dimension. A couple makes a short-term
  commitment to love each other, which can turn
  into a long-term commitment to stay in love.

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Sternbergs Triangular Theory of Love

• According to Sternberg, the mix of intimacy,
  passion, and commitment can vary from one
  relationship to another.
• Love can vary from one relationship in which
  there is no love to another relationship in which
  all kinds of love are present.

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Lees Styles of Loving

• John Lee developed one the most widely cited and
  studied theories of love. According to Lee,
  there are six basic styles of loving eros,
  mania, ludus, storge, agape, and pragma, all of
  which overlap.

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Exchange Theory

• Social scientists often describe love as a social
  exchange process. Romantic love and long-term
  relationships involve exchange and negotiation.

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Functions of Loveand Loving

• Love ensures human survivalloving someone and
  being loved ensures the survival of our species.
• Love enhances our physical and emotional
  healthnumerous studies have shown a connection
  between our emotions and our physical and
  emotional health, and love is certainly one of
  those essential emotions.

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Functions of Loveand Loving

• Love improves the quality of our liveslove
  fosters self-esteem. From a solid basis of love,
  children can then go out and face the world with
  the emotional support of their families.
• Love is funlove doesnt appear out of nowhere,
  to get and keep love, one has be active and take
  some chances.

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Experiencing Love

• Who is most likely to be in love? According to
  recent research, it is men between the ages of
  30-49 and people who are married. Surprised?
• For most people caring, trusting, respect, and
  honesty are central to loving.

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Are Men or WomenMore Romantic?

• According to research, men are more likely to
  fall in love quickly. Both men and women tend to
  link love and sex.
• Men can be very romantic, but not see love as
  necessarily leading to marriage.

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Are Women or MenMore Intimate?

• Men and women show intimacy differently. Women
  link intimacy with being held, cuddled, and with
  communication.
• Men link intimacy with sex.
• For women, sex comes after intimacy, for men, sex
  is their way of expressing intimacy.

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Same-Sex Love

• Homophobiathe fear and hatred of homosexualshas
  decreased in the past decade. Gay men and
  lesbian women are more likely to openly display
  their relationships and feelings for one another.
• Breakups and all the relationship problems that
  heterosexual couples go through also haunt
  homosexual couples.

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Barriers toExperiencing Love

• A number of obstacles can block our search for
  love
• Mass society and demographic factorsbecause we
  live in a media age, our face-to-face
  conversations and lives have changed. We no
  longer need to see people face-to-face to chat or
  even to purchase something at a storewe can do
  it online, which diminishes our chances of
  meeting people.

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Barriers toExperiencing Love

• The double standardour society still
  discriminates against women in the sense that if
  men have premarital sex it is OK, but if a woman
  does that she is labeled a tramp (or worse).
• Me First individualismwe are a me first
  generation. We want our own needs to be met
  first and then we are willing to meet the needs
  of othersa real relationship cannot be that one
  sided.

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Barriers toExperiencing Love

• Personality and family characteristicsthose
  around us have a large influence on who we are
  attracted to and with whom we have relationships.
  
• We are responsible for our own relationships, but
  we still look to others for advice, especially
  family members, and when our family does not
  approve of our dating partner, it makes it more
  difficult to pursue that relationship.

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When Love Goes Wrong

• Narcissists are people who have exaggerated
  feelings of power and self-importance. They
  believe that they are unique.
• Narcissistic partners can be dangerous in a
  relationship. Depending, of course, on the
  person, they may become intensely jealous over
  meaningless things and try to control the partner.

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Jealousy

• Jealousy is a form of control of one partner over
  another. The person exhibiting the jealousy or
  control tries to isolate the victim by becoming
  jealous of every minute they spend doing
  something besides paying attention to them.

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Are Men or Women More Jealous?

• One researcher found that women are more jealous
  of emotional infidelity than of sexual
  infidelity.
• This could be for two reasons
• 1. They could blame themselvesMaybe I wasnt
  there enough for him.
• 2. They see an emotional affair as more
  threatening because it could develop into a
  long-term relationship.

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Jealousy and Stalking

• Some jealous lovers become obsessed and stalk
  their former lovers. Stalking behaviors include
  telephone harassment, following a person,
  threatening a person or their family, or now even
  cyberstalking. Many women live in fear for their
  lives because the men they once thought loved
  them are being abusive.

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Other Controlling Behaviors

• Threats of homicide or suicide, threats against
  family members or children, guilt trips,
  emotional abuse, and physical abuse.

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How Couples Change Romantic and Long-Term Love

• Long-lasting love provides security and
  constancy.
• Love usually starts as romantic love which is
  characterized by
• Finding it impossible to do anything but think
  about that one person.
• Wildly fluctuating moods.
• Finding it impossible to believe that they will
  ever love again.
• Fantasizing about how their partner will declare
  their love.
• Caring so desperately for the other person that
  nothing else seems to matter.
• Being willing to do anything for the beloved.

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Love in Long-Term Relationships

• Romance is just a stepping stone to long-term
  love. Some characteristics of long-term and
  romantic love overlap.

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Love in Long-Term Relationships

• Romantic love is fairly simple compared to
  long-term love.
• Romantic love is often self-centered, whereas
  long-term love is altruistic.
• Romance is typically short-lived because love
  changes over time.
• Long-term love grows and develops, whereas
  romantic love is typically immature.
• Companionate love is more characteristic of
  long-term relationships compared with passion and
  game-playing in romantic love.

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A Global View of Love

• The meaning and expression of love differs from
  culture to culture.
• Romantic love is an important component of
  marriage in about 89 of countries, whereas in
  some cultures kinship ties take precedence over
  romantic love.
• In some countries arranged marriages still exist.