Social Development, Friendship and Mate Selection

1. Social Development, Friendship and Mate Selection

2. Nature of Relationships • Need for Affiliation • Evolutionary value • Varies with situation cognitive clarity emotional comparison emotional support

3. Reciprocity and Interdependence • Basic unit is the dyad • Dyad is reciprocal/interdependent • Relationships are dynamic

4. Benefits of Relating • Information and assistance • Learn about culture and history • Identify and select mates • Receive reassurance/help with coping • Contributes to sense of self • Provide companionship • Source of interest/fun

5. Links to Well-Being • Health and mortality • Relationship between social relations and health is bidirectional • Quality more important than quantity • Negative social interactions lower self-esteem undermine coping increase physiological arousal

6. Characteristics of a High-Quality Relationship • Social Support: interpersonal transactions that provide the following: • positive affect • affirmation • aid

7. Impact of Quality of Life • Social support: contributes to sense of well-being and life satisfaction • Reduces uncertainty and enhances sense of personal control/social competence • Contributes to self-esteem

8. Impact on Mental Health • Social support protects from negative effects of stressful life events depression schizophrenia alcoholism

9. Impact on Physical Health • Social support related to positive effects on three systems: cardiovascular, endocrine, immune • Mechanisms: buffer effects of stress and enhance health promoting behaviors

10. Convoy Model of Social Relationships • Enmeshed in social network of emotionally close others • Moves with the person through life • Person gives and receives social support

11. Developmental Patterns • Late adolescence/early adulthood: social exploration and expansion • Early 30s: convoy has been selected; peripheral relationship dropped

12. Theories of Social Aging • Disengagement: mutual withdrawal • Activity: withdrawal imposed • Socioemotional selectivity theory: actively selecting • Goal is to maximize social/emotional gains and minimize social/emotional risks

13. Impact of Early Experience on Adult Relationships • Erikson: psychoanalytic hierarchical stage theory • Intimacy at time of expanding social interaction • Attachment theory

14. Attachment Theory • Life-span perspective • Attachment: an emotional bond between two people • John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth • Continuing influence on subsequent relationships

15. Key Components • Attachment behavioral system: ethology universal to species purpose: promote proximity for survival preprogrammed, signaling behaviors initially indiscriminate maternal sensitivity/responsiveness shapes quality affectional bonds

16. Key Components 2 • Quality of Attachment • Secure: 62%; responsive/sensitive caregiving • Anxious/Ambivalent: 15%; inconsistent/inappropriate caregiving • Avoidant: 23%; unresponsive/rejecting caregiving

17. Key Components 3 • Working Models: cognitive component • Mental representations self and other • Key to long-term effect • Adult attachment regulated by internal working models formed early in life

18. Attachment Theory and Romantic Love • Attachment styles originating infancy influence romantic love relationships • Secure: happy, friendly, trusting, accepting, supportive; last twice as long • Anxious/ambivalent: jealousy, emotional ups and downs, desire for reciprocation, intense sexual desire; fall in love quickly while finding relationships unsatisfying • Avoidant: fear of intimacy, jealousy, lack of acceptance; believe love hard to find and rarely lasting.

19. Reorganization of Mental Models • Some able to overcome negative parent-child relationships • Reorganization- some history of secure attachment • Secure style very stable • More likely to move to secure style if: educated lived away from parents and/or lived with with spouse before marriage

20. Advantages of Attachment Theory • Provides a life-span perspective • Offers insight into origins of various relational styles • Emphasis on working models consistent with schemas in cognitive psychology

21. Limitations of Attachment Theory • Methodological: self-report data • Cultural variations

22. Friendship • Research issues: Studies of development in adulthood are rare • Definitions vary • Few longitudinal studies • Overgeneralization

23. Nature of Friendships • Why we make friends: sociable system • Definition: a voluntary association between equals high in similarity and whose primary orientation is toward enjoyment and personal satisfaction • Longevity • Voluntary; less regulated by social/legal • Based on similarity • Oriented toward enjoyment • Trust

24. Functions of Friendships • Contributes to self-esteem • Serve as confidants • Serve as models of coping • Buffer stress • Provide acceptance • Major source of enjoyment

25. Friendship vs. Kinship • Family: more significant and long-term assistance • Obligatory, not voluntary • More different in terms of interests, age • “Get on nerves more” • Some overlap and substitution

26. Gender Differences • Women: closer, deeper, more intimate, offer more support, more satisfied, more communal or helping orientation, greater levels of continuity, more frequent contact • Men: group and activity oriented, more guarded less self-disclosing, less intimate • Men expect less and tolerate conflict

27. Friendship Development Over the Life Span • Rate of interaction declined after high school and rose again in oldest group • Middle-aged less than 10% of time • Newlyweds: largest friendship network • Often durable over time • Women: available time and need • Men: take place of family members

28. Leaving Home • “Boomerang kids” • Due to: financial or personal setback, unemployment, parent’s affluent life-style • Parents influence process of leaving home

29. Mate Selection • Process of successive hurdles • Filters: • Propinquity: repeated exposure effect • Attractiveness: matching hypothesis, evolutionary hypothesis • Similarity: niche picking • Reciprocity • Complementarity: family myth • Timing: temporal readiness