Marriages and Families:Changes, Choices, and Constraints

Seventh Edition

Nijole V. Benokraitis

Chapter Six

Romance, Love, and Loving Relationships

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.

Self-LoveFor social scientists, self-love is an

important part of self-esteem.Friendship—a friend is someone for

whom you feel affection and respect—you can count on them for assistance and they can count on you.

Friends can even help you live a longer, healthier life.

Eight Important Qualities of Friendship—by Keith Davis

1. Enjoyment–friends enjoy being together.

2. Acceptance–friends accept each other the way they are.

3. Trust—friends trust and look out for each other.

4. Respect—friends respect each other’s judgment.

Eight Important Qualities of Friendship—by Keith Davis

5. Mutual support–friends help each other without expecting anything in return.

6. Confiding–friends share experiences and feelings.

7. Understanding–friends are sympathetic about each other’s feelings and thoughts.

8. Honesty–friends are open and honest. They feel free to be themselves and say what they think.

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.

What Is love?People sometimes make distinctions

between loving someone—like a family member, aunt, uncle, etc.

Being “in love” for most people is different—this is about romantic love.

Both types of love nonetheless are multifaceted, based on respect, and are often demanding.

AttractionWhat attracts people to each other?

Does everyone have “one true love”? Many cultural norms and values bring us together and it isn’t necessarily as “romantic” as it seems.

We are influenced by all those around us, especially our family, when it comes to who we “love.”

Love and LustThere 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 isn’t reciprocated.

Love includes caring or wanting to help the other person. Caring means responding to the other person’s 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 person’s intention to remain in a relationship and work through any problems. It doesn’t necessarily mean marriage but it may lead to marriage.

Caring, Intimacy,and Commitment

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

Caring, Intimacy,and Commitment

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.

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.

Helen Fisher of Rutgers University -3 stages of love – lust, attraction and attachment

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.

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.

Theories about Loveand Loving

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

Theories about Loveand Loving

These theories include:•Attachment theory•Reiss’s wheel theory of love•Sternberg’s triangular theory of love•Lee’s research on the styles of loving•Exchange theories

Attachment TheoryThis 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 child’s early experiences.

Reiss’s 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.

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

Sternberg said that love has three important components:– Intimacy—encompasses feelings of closeness,

connectedness, and bonding.– Passion—leads to romance, physical attraction,

and sexual consummation.– Decision/commitment—has 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.

Sternberg’s 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.

Lee’s Styles of LovingJohn 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.

Exchange Theory

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

Functions of Loveand Loving

Love ensures human survival—loving someone and being loved ensures the survival of our species.

Love enhances our physical and emotional health—numerous studies have shown a connection between our emotions and our physical and emotional health, and love is certainly one of those essential emotions.

Functions of Loveand LovingLove improves the quality of our lives—love

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 fun—love doesn’t appear out of nowhere, to get and keep love, one has be active and take some chances.

Experiencing LoveWho 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.

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.

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.

Same-Sex LoveHomophobia—the fear and hatred of

homosexuals—has 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.

Barriers toExperiencing Love

A number of obstacles can block our search for love:– Mass society and demographic factors—because

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 store—we can do it online, which diminishes our chances of meeting people.

Barriers toExperiencing Love

– The double standard—our 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” individualism—we are a “me first” generation. We want our own needs to be met first and then we are willing to meet the needs of others—a real relationship cannot be that one sided.

Barriers toExperiencing Love

– Personality and family characteristics—those 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.

When Love Goes WrongNarcissists 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.

JealousyJealousy 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.

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 themselves—“Maybe I wasn’t there enough for him.”

2. They see an emotional affair as more threatening because it could develop into a long-term relationship.

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.

Other Controlling BehaviorsThreats of homicide or suicide, threats

against family members or children, guilt trips, emotional abuse, and physical abuse.

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.

Love in Long-Term Relationships

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

Love in Long-Term RelationshipsRomantic 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.

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.