PSY - Human Relations

Important definitions
A close relationship is often defined as 'a relationship involving strong and frequent
interdependence in many domains of life
Sexual selection is defined as an evolutionary explanation for partner preference, based on the
idea of increasing reproductive advantages.
The parental investment theory suggests that the sex which invests the most in the offspring
after mating will be more choosy in mate selection
Confucian concepts emphasizes self-control, adherence to a social hierarchy, and social and
political order.
Evolutionary influences on personal relationships
Biological influences on attraction:
Evolution and attraction

- From an evolutionary viewpoint, romantic attraction between individuals is fundamentally
explained as some product of natural selection
Buss (2007) identifies five mating strategies inherited from human ancestors:
- long-term committed mating
- short-term mating
- extra-pair mating
- mate poaching
- mate guarding.
There are two main processes involved in sexual selection (Buss 2007):
Intrasexual competition within each sex: members of one sex compete or battle with each other
to gain preferential access to mates like stags locking horns.
Intersexual competition between the sexes: mating strategies are used to attract the opposite
sex, and members of one sex have preferences for certain qualities in the other sex, such as
wide hips or broad shoulders.
Put very generally, from an evolutionary viewpoint, males are considered attractive if they
appear to offer security and protection, and females are considered attractive if they appear to
offer childbearing potential.
Overall, Buss (1989) found that the data supported sex differences in mate preferences for
earning potential, relative youth, and physical attractiveness across the 37 samples.
Arguments supporting evolutionary factors in attraction
Men tend to emphasize physical attractiveness in attraction to a partner

Women tend to emphasize personality characteristics in attraction to a partner
The point is that evolutionary theory explains (to some extent) gender differences in attraction,
with a key focus on links between attraction and reproductive strategies. The main idea is that
gender differences in attraction might be explained by sexual selection and parental investment.
Arguments challenging evolutionary factors in attraction

- Evolutionary theory doesn't account for the role of cognitive or sociocultural influences,
for example, even though the decision-making processes involved in mate selection are
clearly cognitive. Evolutionary theory tries to explain what attracts one person to another
but does not explain the cognitive processes that might actually lead to mate selection
- The theory rests on the assumption that attraction is driven by reproduction, but since
same-sex couples cannot reproduce the evolutionary theory offers little explanation for
same-sex attraction. By the same token, evolutionary theory cannot really explain
friendly relationships either, because reproduction is not a factor in friendship the same
way it might be in a romantic relationship.
Biochemical influences on personal relationships
Hormones and attraction

Hormones:
- Some research has focused on behavioral changes in females in relation to ovulation,
with a variety of studies suggesting that females may dress more provocatively or flirt
more right around the time of ovulation
- it's fully possible that hormones are responding to behaviour, not driving it.
Hormones and Scent:

- There is also some evidence suggesting that males may have a hormonal response to
the scents of women in ovulation.
- In another t-shirt study, Miller and Maner (2009) found that when undergraduate males
smelled t-shirts worn by young women in ovulation, their own testosterone levels
increased:
- However, there is a clear heterosexual bias in these findings, and it is unclear how sex
and hormones may interact in homosexual attraction.
Pheromones and attraction

- In a review of available studies on human pheromones and sexual attraction, Grammer
et al. (2005) concluded that while humans cannot detect pheromones consciously, there
is enough evidence to suggest that humans may be using olfactory signals for social
interaction and reproduction.
- The researchers found few interactions between menstrual cycle and contraceptive use
on ratings of the vignettes and attractiveness, but did find that pheromone exposure
appeared to influence several of the ratings, particularly for questionnaire items related
to sexual attraction.
-
Neurotransmitters and attraction

- While there has been some research on the role of specific neurotransmitters, including
serotonin and dopamine, the likelier explanation is that attraction may be influenced
more by neural networks and neurotransmitter interactions than by specific
neurotransmitters.
-
- The neural networks for reward were particularly active in people who had recently been
rejected, suggesting (like Marazziti et al. 1999) that love and attraction are similar to
obsession, on a neurological level.
Cognitive influences on personal relationships
The similarity effect

The similarity-attraction hypothesis suggests that couples in a relationship tend to be similar in
age, religion, social class, cultural background, personality, education, intelligence, physical
attractiveness, and attitudes.
Some theorists have argued that similarity is reinforcing, such that similar people make an
individual feel more positively about themselves and the world, because similarity with others
essentially validates one's own attitudes or characteristics
According to this model, the similarity effect results from a cognitive evaluation of another's
attitudes and personality, and that's why the effect is more evident in positive evaluations of
positive characteristics.
- Actual similarity does not predict romantic attraction.

- Perceived similarity is a reliable predictor of romantic attraction.
- General perceived similarity is a stronger predictor of romantic attraction than specific
perceived similarity.
When participants perceived the potential mates as being similar to their own ideal selves, the
potential mates were found more attractive (Klohnen and Lo 2003): this supports the essence of
the similarity effect. It also backs up the idea that perceived similarity is more important to
attraction than actual similarity
In other words, cognitive processes are involved in attraction, but the key factor is perception,
not similarity. More specifically, perceptions of physical attractiveness appeared to drive
attraction in the speed-dating paradigm, which suggests an interaction between cognitive
processing and evolutionary factors.
Sociocultural influences on personal relationships
The role of culture

The general argument for the role of culture in personal relationships suggests that some of the
evolutionary findings for attraction might be better explained by culture than evolutionary factors.
Wallen (1989) argued that geography and culture offered stronger explanations for the
male/female differences in mate preferences. This effect was stronger for chastity, and Wallen
(1989) suggested that a cultural perspective might be more important than an evolutionary
perspective in interpreting the data. Some of the mate preferences appeared to be evolutionary,
because they were universal across the samples, but regional differences on measures like
chastity suggested that culture was a significant factor too.
The variations in preference rankings led the researchers to theorise that culture could be
plotted along several cultural dimensions influencing mate preferences. They formulated these
dimensions on the basis of the data, and the two main dimensions appeared to be (Buss et al.
1990):
- traditional vs. modern= Cultures that placed the highest preferences on such
characteristics in the data were plotted on the traditional end of the spectrum, while
cultures that placed the lowest preferences for the same data were plotted at the
'modern' end of the spectrum.
- the valuation of education, intelligence, and refinement.
Culture and relationship maintenance

Saunia Ahman and David Reid attempted to investigate whether special communication styles
were required to maintain arranged marriages
The researchers defined a traditional orientation to marriage in a South Asian cultural context as
meaning that (Ahmad and Reid 2008):
- marriages are arranged by the elders of one's extended family, who would continue to
play an important role in the couple's lives
- husbands and wives expect each other to follow a culturally typical gender-based
division of labour.
In theory, married partners who listen to understand each other are more satisfied with their
marriages. By contrast, partners who listen to respond to each other are less satisfied with their
marriages, possibly because they're not making as much effort to understand their partner.
The results indicated that greater adherence to traditional marital beliefs, such as the role of
elders in arranging the marriage or a gender-based division of labour, were correlated with lower
levels of interpersonal listening and marital satisfaction
However, a closer examination of the traditional orientation subscales revealed that the
expectation of a gender-based division of labour did not result in lower empathic listening in
one’s marriage or lower marital satisfaction. In other words, it wasn't the gender-based division
of labour that lowered marital satisfaction, but beliefs about equality.
Summary: In other words, there was an interaction among beliefs about marriage, listening
style, and marital satisfaction. Basically, the less one expects equality in a relationship, the less
one listens to understand, which in turn lowers marital satisfaction. So it's not a traditional
orientation to marriage on its own that makes marriage less satisfying, it's the lower expectation
of equality. This sometimes goes along with traditional beliefs about marriage and gender roles,
and that lack of equality then impacts how a married couple communicates.
So, as an example of confucian concepts, as long as a person believes that their partner is
adhering to the social hierarchy and maintaining marriage as a long-term association, they will
remain in the relationship. In this way, culture acts as a sort of foundation for a relationship, and
helps to keep relationships together in the long term.

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Important definitions

Evolutionary influences on personal relationships

Biological influences on attraction:

Evolution and attraction

Arguments supporting evolutionary factors in attraction

Men tend to emphasize physical attractiveness in attraction to a partner

Arguments challenging evolutionary factors in attraction

Biochemical influences on personal relationships

Hormones and attraction

Hormones and Scent:

Pheromones and attraction

Neurotransmitters and attraction

The similarity effect

- Actual similarity does not predict romantic attraction.

Sociocultural influences on personal relationships

The role of culture

- the valuation of education, intelligence, and refinement.

Culture and relationship maintenance

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