Transcript Chapter 8 - Gordon State College

Relationships
Feldman 12-3/13-1/13-3
.
8-1
FORMING RELATIONSHIPS:
Factors in Attraction
Similarity
Proximity & Familiarity
Physical Attractiveness
(Personality Traits)
8-2
Similarity
 Similarity is when someone else’s attitudes and
behavior are similar to ours.
 It provides:
 Consensual validation – support for our own attitudes
and behavior
 Comfort – lack of conflict and a feeling of shared
understanding between the individuals
 . . . the people we like most are usually similar to us.
8-3
Familiarity and Similarity
 Familiarity is necessary for a close relationship to develop
 Moreland and Beach (1992) found students said they liked women who
attended class more often, even though the targets didn’t interact with
anyone
 Familiarity happens with repeated exposure. The “mere
exposure effect” says that the more we are exposed to a
person or object, the more positive our feelings about it
become.
 Proximity or geographical nearness leads to repeated
opportunities for exposure and allows familiarity to
develop.
8-4
Physical Attractiveness
 In the process of selecting new people to get to know,
we tend to judge them to some extent by their physical
attractiveness.
 Some qualities, such as good grooming, may indicate
desirable personality traits.
8-5
Physical Attractiveness
 Men may be more affected by physical attractiveness
than are women.
 Heterosexual men rate as important in women:



good looks
cooking skills
frugality
 And women know and respond to this:
 Buss (1988) found that women use tactics that alter their
appearance (wear make-up, keep well-groomed, wear
stylish clothes, wear jewelry).
8-6
Physical Attractiveness
 And women have different criteria.
 When seeking an intimate partner, heterosexual women
rate as important in men:





Considerateness
Honesty
Dependability
Kindness
Understanding
 Buss (1988) found that men use tactics that involve
resource possession and display (brag about cars and
money, display strength) to impress women.
©
8-7
Physical Attractiveness
 The Matching Hypotheses says that although most
people would like to go out with 10’s, when it comes
down to it, most of us select people whom we believe
match our own level of attractiveness.
8-8
Personality Traits
 Anderson (1968) found we are attracted to people with
personality traits such as being:
 sincere
 honest
 understanding
 loyal
 truthful
 trustworthy
 intelligent
 dependable
©
8-9
Aging and the Social World
Social Network – Social Support
 Social Convoy model of social relations — go through
life embedded in personal network of individuals that
give social support
 Helps those of all ages cope
 Improves mental and physical health
 Linked to reduced symptoms of disease
 Linked to longevity
 Emotionally positive contact lowers depression
 The composition (people) of the convoy changes, but
it does not go away.
Friendship
Six Functions of Friendship
 Companionship
 Stimulation
 Physical support
 Ego support
 Social comparison
 Intimacy/affection
 intimacy in friendship — self-disclosure
and sharing of private thoughts
Friendship
Strategies for Making Friends
Appropriate
• Initiate interaction
• Be nice
• Behave prosocially
• Show respect
• Give social support
Inappropriate
 Be psychologically
aggressive
 Present oneself
negatively
 Behave antisocially
Social or Relationship Skills
 Probably start in the home, perhaps as early as infancy.
 Develop as a person grows.
 In pre-school years are developed through play.
©
8-13
Play and Leisure
Childhood
 Functions of play
 Health
 Affiliation with peers
 Cognitive development
 Exploration
 Tension release, master anxiety and conflicts

Play therapy
Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Developmental Changes
 Early Childhood
 Frequency of peer interaction increases
 Middle/Late Childhood
 Children spend increasing time in peer interaction
 Average time spent
 10% of time spent with peers at age 2
 20% of time spent with peers at age 4
 40% of time spent with peers during ages 7-11
Friendship
Friendship during Adolescence
 Need for intimacy intensifies
 Quality of friendship more strongly linked to
feelings of well-being
 Important sources of support
 Friends are active partners in building a sense of
identity
Friendship
Friendship during Adolescence
 Friendships in adolescence and adulthood tend to be
intimate relationships involving trust, acceptance,
liking and mutual understanding.
 The benefits include:
 reducing loneliness
 being a source of self-esteem
 providing emotional support
 providing information and social comparison
 fulfilling the need to be accepted or to belong
Gender and Friendship
 In childhood, boys and girls remain voluntarily gender
segregated. Boys play with boys and girls with girls.
 Boys’ play tends to involve rough-and-tumble activity,
larger play groups, and the tendency to establish a
hierarchy of who has the most status.
 Girls play involves smaller groups, equal status, and
social scenarios involving negotiation and compromise
(and often some drama).
8-18
Gender and Friendship
 In friendships between women, women
 have close friends
 are likely to listen and be sympathetic
 share their thoughts and feelings
 use rapport talk
 In friendships between men, men are more likely to
engage in activities, show competition and use report
talk.
 In friendships between women and men, problems can
arise because of different expectations of romantic
involvement.
8-19
And sometimes we are temporarily without friends.
 Loneliness can occur with life transitions, such as:
 moving
 divorce
 death of friend or family member
 first year of college
 At the beginning of college life, 75%
said they felt lonely at least part
of the time
©
8-20
Friendship
Friendship in Late Adulthood
 Important role; tend to narrow social network
 Choose close friends over new friends
 Friends replace distant family
 Gender differences
 Women: more depressed without a best friend; no
change in desire for friends
 Men: decreased desire for new and close friends in
older adulthood