Love and close relationships

Testosterone: hormone associated with masculinity. Men have 5-10x more testosterone than women. It peaks in men around 20 years old. High testosterone is associated with sensation seeking (Campbell et al, 2009), interest in exploring new places and meeting new people, restlessness, more willing to take risks (Dabbs, 2000), and a high sex drive. Testosterone levels typically drop among men about to become fathers (Dabbs, 2000).

Love: a desire to enter, maintain, or expand a close, connected, and ongoing relationship with another person (Reiss & Aron, 2008). Loving refers to attachment, caring, and intimacy.  Berscheid & Walster (1978) define two types of love:

• Passionate love: intense longing for union with another person
• Companionate love: affection for partners we share life experience with

Lee (1977) defined 6 styles of love

• Eros (passionate): ****** love with a strong physical component
• Ludus (game-playing): playful and uncommitted; love is a game
• Storge (friendship): love that emphasises friendship and commitment
• Mania (possessive): possessive, obsessive love, full of fantasy
• Pragma (logical): practical and pragmatic, dispassionate love
• Agape (selfless): altruistic, selfless, dutiful love

Triangular model of love (Sternberg et al, 1986): suggested that there are different types of love made up of different combinations of passion, intimacy, and commitment.

• Romantic love: intimacy + passion
• Fatuous love: passion + commitment
• Companionate love: intimacy + commitment
• Consummate love: intimacy + passion + commitment
• Infatuation: passion alone
• Liking: intimacy alone
• Empty love: commitment alone

Passionate love: related to activation of reward related brain regions, arousal, and novelty. Elaine Hatfield defined passionate love as a state of intense longing for union with another person. Passionate love seemingly decreases in the early years of marriage (Aron et al, 2006). This type of love is related to sexual drive, but the two involve different brain systems (Aron et al, 2005). fMRI studies demonstrate: when participants in the throes of passion are shown a picture of the person whom they love, they show activation in brain areas associated with motivation, euphoria, and reward.

Companionate love: a strong version of a communal relationship (Clark & Mills, 1993) - a relationship built on mutual expectations that oneself and a partner will be responsive to each other's needs. Being married or more generally being in relationships is related to better health (Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001; DePaulo & Morris, 2006). This love is linked with intimacy, bonding, trust, caring, understanding and valuing of self and others, providing support.

Whilst there are many benefits to being in love, there are also downsides.

Love is a significant source of suicides, homicides, and major and minor emotional disorders, such as anxiety and depression (Fisher, 1992). Passionate love is probably more commonly unrequited. Even if requited, passionate love is frequently associated with large swings in positive and negative mood. In ongoing loving relationships, violence and jealousy can be common.

Need for affiliation: we have a need to belong - a powerful motivation, inner drive to connect with other people (Bowlby, 1969). Harlow's (1958) monkey study showed that even monkeys chose the cloth feeding mannequin over a more harsher wire feeder. We have a need to be in a relationship in which people share mutual concern for each other, and a need for regular social contact. Failure to satisfy this need leads to health problems

• Premature death rates higher among people without social connections (Lynch, 1979)
• Physical and mental health problems associated with lonelines (Cacioppo et al, 2002)
• Loneliness impairs the immune system (Caccioppo & Hawkley, 2005)

Ostracism: being excluded, rejected or ignored by others. Continual ostracism is associated with health problems and lowered self esteem (Williams, 2001). Williams (2007/09) showed that ostracised participants felt sad, expressed having less control, and losing a sense of belonging, feeling their fundamental needs like a need for meaning, were threatened. Zhong & Liljenkust (2006) showed that ostracised participants rated the temperature of the room as colder than it actually was - they felt cold as a result of being rejected. They also desired warm food and drink over cold, and much more than that of controls. Ostracism activates the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex the same in both social and physical pain (Eisenberger & Lieberman, 2004). Acetaminophen that reduces physical pain via the CNS also reduces distress responses to social pain/ostracism (DeWall et al, 2010). However, there is still unique activation for physical pain and social rejection, despite common fMRI activity at a gross anatomical level

Rejection sensitivty: personality trait - a tendency to expect rejection from others and to be oversensitive to possible rejection (Downey & Romoero-Canyas, 2005). Men who are romantically involved and high on rejection sensitivity are more prone to violence in their relationships (Downey et al, 2000). Men who aren't romantically involved and high on rejection sensitivity tend to avoid romantic opportunities especially when rejection is possible.

Close relationships are characterised by loving, caring, commitment, and intimacy (Clark & LeMay, 2010; Hendrick & Hendrick, 2000).

Parents/carers - develop attachment styles. These form bases for interpersonal trust - the belief that other people are generally trustworthy, dependable and reliable. Grandparents often compensate for shortcomings in relationships with parents/carers (Lin & Harwood, 2003). People without siblings tend to be less liked and more victimised; siblings provide useful training in dealing with peers (Kitzmann et al, 2002).

Friendships: a relationship of mutual affection between people. Stronger form of interpersonal bond than an assoication. Spending time together, self-disclosure, mutual support, people to whom we generally lie less (DePaulo & Kashy, 1998), and in front of whom we self-enhance less (Tice et al, 1995). Women form more friendships (Fredrickson, 1995) based on intimacy (Fehr, 2004).

Attachment style: individual differences in how people relate to others in close relationships (Eastwick & Finkel, 2008) - one of the important determinants of the quality of close relationships. Attachment styles are learned in childhood, and based on relationships with parents/carers. To a large extent, they are stable into adulthood (Caspi, 2000).

• Secure attachment: healthy feelings about the self and about important others. High in interpersonal trust. Better able to create stable, enriching interpersonal relationships with other individuals as adults (Hazan & Diamond, 2000). Typically, relationships last longer, and there is less jealousy
• Anxious attachment: desires to reach out to others but too anxious about the self, considers self unworthy and spoils relationships. Less warm with partners, more likely to get angry at them, have more difficult expressing feelings, and more jealousy (Collins & Feeney, 2000)
• Dismissing attachment: healthy feelings about self but doesn't trust, and fears about connecting with others, difficult to create genuine closeness. Trouble creating close relationships (Gabriel et al, 2005). Difficulty expressing and understanding emotions
• Fearful/avoidant attachment: relationships with others are poor and so is the self-concept, forms few relationships and often unhappy ones

Similarity: friendships form based on perceived similarity rather than actual similarity (Selfhout et al, 2009). Actual similarity and closeness in romantic relationships are important.

As relationships progress, people begin to know each other better and care for each other better.

Reciprocal self disclosure: the tendency to communicate frequently, share feelings, thoughts and experiences without fear of reprisal. Process of revealing personal information about oneself to someone else. It is a fundamental human need, and has important implications for development and maintenance of self-concept. Contributes to personal growth.

Closeness: perceived closeness between partners predicts how long a relationship will last. In close relationships, cognitive representations of the self and the other tend to merge (Aron, Aron, Tudor & Nelson, 1991). The social representation of a significant other is rich, complex, and detailed.

Trust: abstract, positive expectation that a partner can be relied on to care for one, and be responsive to one's needs, now and in the future.

3 components in trust

• Predictability: frequent violations of expectations results in diminished trust
• Dependability: can this person be relied upon? Based on generalised traits of a person
• Faith: belief that in new future situations, this person can be relied upon (Rempel, Holmes & Zanna, 1985)

Communal relationships: partners suspend their need for equity and exchange, giving support to the partner in order to meet his or her needs, and without consideration of the costs to themselves. Altruistic.
Exchange relationships: partners keep track of their contributions to the partnership (Clark & Mills, 1979)
Happier couples are less likely to "keep score" of their respective contributions (Buunk, Van Yperen, Taylor & Collins, 1991). If one or both partners feel they're unfairly contributing more than their fair share, the relationship suffers; partners who feel they're contributing more will become upset. People stay in relationships longer when they feel they're being rewarded by them (Margolin & Wampold, 1981). In relationships that last, the partners are aware of the needs of the other person, and attempt to meet them equitably.

Responsiveness: perceived partner responsiveness (Reis & Patrick, 1996) - feeling that relationship partners recognise, value, and behaviourally support the self; feeling understood, validated, and cared for in the relationship. Central to many important relationship processes - promotes trust, leads to further self-disclosure and deepening of intimacy, communal orientation, interdependence, and "secure base" for exploration and personal growth (even for adults).

Interdependence and commitment: people rely on each other to meet goals. Complex coordination of actions and tasks, remembering tasks, relying on the others memory. Commitment refers to the feelings and actions that keep partners working together to maintain the relationship. Committed partners are less likely to imagine themselves with anyone else, rate own partner as more attractive, and are less likely to break up even if costs become high (Simpson, 1987; Slotter et al, 2011). When considering whether to stay or leave, we consider both costs and benefits of current relationships, and costs and benefits of alternatives (Rusbult, Olsen, Davis & Hannon, 2001). Breaking up is more difficult in relationships that are interdependent and committed.

Jealousy: concern that a person we care about is shifting their affection or loyalty to someone else. We experience jealousy because social rejection, even expected rather than actual, threatens our self-esteem. Buss et al (1992): participants who had dismissing attachment styles scored significantly higher jealousy scores for both men and women than all other attachment styles. Secure, fearful, and anxious all scored similarly, with fearful marginally higher than both anxious and secure. Desteno et al (2006): we experience a jealousy inducing condition, experience a reduction in self-esteem which then results in jealousy.

Relationship termination: people are reluctant to break up in a relationship. They are especially reluctant to let the other person know that the relationship is over. With friendships, communication may just cease. Internet makes it easier to end relationships, via messaging. Surveys show face-to-face break ups emphasise good things about the relationship, and that it is the most compassionate strategy. Least compassionate is text message, emailing negative aspects, and using a third party (Sprecher et al, 2010).