Social Relationships

Cognitive, Affective and Motivational Processes

Joseph P. Forgas, Julie Fitness

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781138882959
• eBook ISBN: 9781135430160
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Human beings are an intrinsically gregarious species - our personal relationships are of immense interest to us and are a key factor in achieving happiness and well being. From the moment of birth, humans crave love and intimacy and we devote much energy to creating and maintaining successful personal relationships throughout our personal and our working lives. However, modern industrialized societies present a particularly challenging environment for sustaining rewarding personal relationships. Understanding how people initiate, develop, maintain, and terminate relationships is one of the core issues in psychology, and the subject matter of this book.

Contributors to this volume are all leading researchers in relationship science, and they seek here to explore and integrate the subtle influence that evolutionary, socio-cultural, and intra-psychic (cognitive, affective and motivational) variables play in relationship processes. In addition to discussing the latest advances in areas of relationship research, they also advocate an expanded theoretical approach that incorporates many of the insights gained from evolutionary psychology, social cognition, and research on affect and motivation.

The contributions should be highly relevant to researchers, teachers, students, laypersons and to everyone who is interested in the subtleties of human relationships. The book is also highly recommended to clinical, health, and relationship professionals who deal with relationship issues in their daily work.

1
Introduction and Basic Principles

1
Evolutionary, Sociocultural, and Intrapsychic Influences on Personal Relationships

An Introductory Review

JOSEPH P. FORGAS AND JULIE FITNESS

Contents

Introduction

Social Relationships and Social Systems

Symbolic Processes in Relationships

The Social Psychology of Relationships: A Potted History

Current Research Directions

Outline of the Book

Part 1: Social Relationships—Basic Principles and Fundamental Processes

Part 2: Cognitive Processes in Social Relationships

Part 3: Motivational and Affective Processes in Relationships

Part 4: Managing Relationship Problems

Conclusions

Acknowledgments

References

Introduction

The extraordinary importance of personal relationships to the health and happiness of human beings hardly can be overstated. From the time they are born, humans crave love and intimacy and the joy of knowing that they are valued and cherished by others. However, personal relationships are neither straightforward nor easy to understand and manage. Modern industrialized societies, with their emphasis on personal advancement, mobility, and adaptability, present a particularly challenging context for meaningful, long-term personal relationships to develop and flourish. Inevitably, people will experience rejection and loneliness at various times in their lives; close, loving relationships will sour and fall apart; relationship partners will experience discrepant needs and desires; and intentionally or not, relationship partners will hurt one another, neglect one another, and make one another miserable. Understanding how personal relationships are initiated, developed, maintained, and terminated is one of the core issues in psychology and is the subject matter of this book. In particular, contributions to the volume seek to explore and integrate the subtle influence that evolutionary, sociocultural, and intrapsychic (i.e., cognitive, affective, and motivational) variables play in relationship processes.

Despite their centrality to human existence, scientific interest in the whys and wherefores of personal relationships is relatively recent. Throughout much of psychology’s history as a distinct discipline it was tacitly assumed that lust, love, jealousy, hate, and the dynamics of relationship development and deterioration belonged to the nonscientific domain of poets, playwrights, and novelists. Over the past 30 years scientific research on the topic has undergone an explosive rate of growth, inspired by the pioneering work of social psychologists with a determination to demystify human relationships, International conferences dedicated to personal relationship topics and themes are held every year; various high-impact journals are committed to publishing quality relationship research (e.g., Personal Relationships; Journal of Social and Personal Relationships; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology), and there is now a growing number of handbooks, texts, and monographs on relationship research (e.g., Berscheid and Regan, 2005; Fletcher and Clark, 2001; Miller, Perlman, and Brehm, 2007; Noller and Feeney, 2006; Vangelisti and Perlman, 2006).

Unfortunately, however, there has also been a tendency in recent years for the study of relationships to become somewhat separated from the mainstream of research in social, cognitive, developmental, and clinical psychology. Further, it is becoming increasingly difficult to integrate all the theoretical and empirical developments in a field that now encompasses every conceivable aspect of relational structure (including families, friendships, and cyber romances) and process (including cognition, emotion, aggression, social support, and loneliness). The aim of the current volume is to present an integrative overview of the field by an international group of leading researchers who seek to survey the most dynamic and exciting recent developments in the social psychology of close relationships. Further, the current volume picks up a number of threads from the last volume specifically devoted to social psychological aspects of relationships (see Fletcher and Fitness, 1996) and provides an up-to-date forum where the most significant developments in the field during the past decade can be surveyed.

Rather than merely focusing on traditional research areas mainly concerned with well-established relationship processes, contributions to this volume also advocate an expanded theoretical approach that incorporates many of the insights gained from contemporary research in evolutionary psychology, social cognition, and research on affect and motivation. Several of the contributors to this volume are pioneers in the field of relationship research. Elaine Hatfield, for example, was one of the first to experimentally investigate the mysteries of interpersonal attraction, and she and her collaborators (including Ellen Berscheid) conducted some of the most original—and influential—work in the field. The idea of asking young experimental confederates to approach unknown men and women on a university campus and to ask if they would go to bed with them may seem challenging at first, but Clark and Hatfield’s (1989) work in the late 1970s and early 1980s demonstrated the existence of enduring gender differences in mating preferences that were largely consistent with the predictions of evolutionary social psychology (see also Chapter 3 in this volume).

The book is organized into three main sections. After this general introductory chapter by the editors, the first section considers some fundamental theoretical approaches and processes that inform contemporary relationship research, including historical and cultural perspectives on romantic love (Chapter 2), evolutionary influences on relationships (Chapter 3), the important role that personality and developmental factors play in relationships and patterns of attachment (Chapter 4), and cultural variations in attachment patterns (Chapter 5).

The second section of the book focuses on cognitive processes in social relationships and contains four chapters that explore the role of misrepresentations in relationships (Chapter 6), the influence of conscious reflections on relationship maintenance (Chapter 7), the role of attentional flexibility in promoting relationship quality (Chapter 8), and relational commitment as a factor in continuity and change in relationships (Chapter 9).

The third part of the book investigates the role of motivational and affective processes in relationships, such as the links between social identity and relationships (Chapter 10), the antecedents of negative affectivity in relationships (Chapter 11), and the effects of positive and negative moods on relationship cognition and behaviors (Chapter 12). Chapter 13 in this section discusses the role of approach and avoidance motives in close relationships, and Chapter 14 looks at competition and cooperation motives in sibling relationships.

The fourth and final part of the book focuses on the management of relationship problems and discusses punishment and forgiveness in close relationships (Chapter 15), variables influencing partner violence (Chapter 16), mechanisms of risk management in relationships (Chapter 17), the use of exclusion and ostracism in relationships (Chapter 18), and the consequences of paying attention to alternatives in close relationships (Chapter 19).

This introductory chapter in particular surveys the major themes covered in the book, highlights the links between the various chapters, and proposes future avenues for research in this area.

Social Relationships and Social Systems

From the dawn of evolution, human beings mostly lived in small, close, face-to-face groups. From our earliest hunter-gatherer ancestors to life in small-scale villages that was dominant everywhere as recently as in the 18th century, human social relationships typically involved intimately known others, mostly members of our small, immediate group. The sophisticated ability of human beings to relate to each other is probably one of the cornerstones of the evolutionary success of our species and serves as the foundation of the increasingly complex forms of social organization we have been able to develop. Homo sapiens is a highly sociable species. The astounding development of our mental and cognitive abilities and our impressive record of achievements owe a great deal to the highly elaborate strategies we have developed for getting on with each other and coordinating our interpersonal relationships (Pinker, 1997). In fact, we might argue that the cognitive capacity to create and maintain complex relationships constitutes the essential “glue” that holds families, groups, and even whole societies together. However, this ancestral social environment has now almost completely disappeared from our lives. The 18th century brought with it a fundamental revolution in social relationships.

Several historical factors contributed to the rapid disappearance of traditional, face-to-face society and the fundamental change in human relatedness and social integration that occurred (Durkheim, 1956). The philosophy of the enlightenment laid the conceptual groundwork for the influential ideology of the liberated, self-sufficient, and mobile individual, freed from the restrictive influence of unalterable social norms and conventions. This ideology found its political expression in the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Industrialization produced large-scale dislocation and mobility and the reassembly of massive, socially disconnected working populations as required by technologies of mass production. These developments had crucial consequences for the way people related to each other.

In traditional, small-scale societies social relationships are typically long term, stable, and highly regulated. One’s place in society is largely determined by ascribed status and rigid norms. Mobility is restricted, and relationships mainly function at the direct, interpersonal level. Compare this with life in modern mass societies. Most people we encounter are strangers. Our position in society is flexible, personal anonymity is widespread, and mobility is high—yet we need the support and comfort provided by enduring social relationships more than ever. The fact that most people we deal with are not intimately known to us makes interpersonal behavior and relationship building and maintenance more difficult and problematic than ever before. It is perhaps not surprising that the emergence of psychology and social psychology as a science of interpersonal relationships has so clearly coincided with the advent of mass societies. For the first time, relating to each other—once a natural, automatic process almost entirely enacted within the confines of small, intimate, and enduring social communities—has become uncertain and problematic and, thus, an object of concern, reflection, and study (Goffman, 1972).

To relate to others, we now need to employ ever more sophisticated and elaborate cognitive and motivational strategies, and success is far from assured. Emile Durkheim, the father of modern sociology, was among the first to identify a fundamental distinction between social relationships based on organic solidarity and those based on mechanical solidarity (Durkheim, 1956). The complex web of intense, everyday, face-to-face relationships and interactions that provide cohesion and unity to small-scale, primary social groups is on the wane. Modern mass societies function on the basis of indirect, impersonal, and disembodied networks of relationships that do not require face-to-face interaction. We now depend on, and are influenced by, strangers we never meet, and our relationships are increasingly regulated by rules and contractual expectations that are no longer based on personal contact or experience. The last few hundred years produced a form of social living that is profoundly different from the way human beings lived throughout previous millenia.

Our past evolutionary history could scarcely have prepared us for life in the kind of anonymous mass societies we now find ourselves in. Several of the chapters here discuss the kind of evolutionary (Chapter 3) and sociohistorical (Chapters 2 and 5) influences that continue to shape our relationship processes. Arguably, then, understanding the various ways that people relate to each other and the role of cognitive, motivational, and affective mechanisms in these processes has probably never been of greater importance than today. As modern industrialized societies become ever more complex and impersonal and as geographical, social, and demographic mobility increase exponentially, the ability to maintain stable, flourishing social relationships becomes an increasing complex and demanding task. The demands of relating to and interacting with people in such an environment call for ever more sophisticated and complex cognitive, affective, and motivational strategies, as several of the chapters here suggest (Chapters 7, 8, 10, and 12). It is not surprising, then, that there has been growing recent interest in the kind of symbolic, cognitive mechanisms that partners rely on to manage and maintain their relationships, a topic we shall turn to next.

Symbolic Processes in Relationships

The ability to construct accurate, reliable, and flexible symbolic cognitive representations and strategies about relationships is a critically important skill for relationship satisfaction and success. Several chapters in this volume explore the operation of such symbolic processes in relationships and investigate the functions of attentional flexibility (Chapter 8), identity processes (Chapter 10), reflections about the relationship (Chapter 7), as well as mood effects on relationship cogn...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION AND BASIC PRINCIPLES
• SECTION 2 COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN RELATIONSHIPS
• SECTION 3 MOTIVATIONAL AND AFFECTIVE PROCESSES IN RELATIONSHIPS
• SECTION 4 MANAGING RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS
• Index