Psychology
Romantic Relationship
A romantic relationship refers to an intimate connection between two individuals characterized by love, affection, and mutual commitment. It involves emotional bonding, physical attraction, and shared experiences, and plays a significant role in an individual's psychological well-being. Romantic relationships are influenced by various factors such as communication, trust, and compatibility, and can have a profound impact on an individual's overall mental health and happiness.
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7 Key excerpts on "Romantic Relationship"
eBook - PDFThe SAGE Handbook of Social Psychology
Concise Student Edition
- Michael A Hogg, Joel Cooper, Michael A Hogg, Joel Cooper(Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
Human beings are among the most social animals on the planet. Little wonder, then, that laypersons and scientists alike are strongly motivated to explain, evaluate, predict, and manage intimate relationships. Research relevant to human relation-ships has taken place for decades across several disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, biology, and, of course, the psychological subdis-ciplines including clinical psychology, develop-mental psychology, and cognitive psychology. However, within psychology, the study of human intimate relationships has been dominated by social psychology. Up to the late 1970s, social psychological research into relationships focused mainly on the factors that attract people to one another at the initial stages of relationship development. This research tended to be atheoretical, and the results read like a laundry list of variables that predict attraction between strangers, including similarity, proximity, physical attractiveness, and so forth. In the 1980s, the psychological zeitgeist moved toward a growing recognition of the complexity inherent in the development, maintenance, and dissolution phases of dyadic Romantic Relationships, to the point where the study of intimate relation-ships is now one of the major domains in social psychology. Over the past decade, social psychological research on intimate relationships has been marked by three major developments. First, there has been an explosion of work concerned with the role that social cognition (beliefs, cognitive processes, etc.) and emotions play in intimate relationships. Second, there has been a burgeoning interest in how attachment processes contribute to the functioning of adult Romantic Relationships, based on the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth on infant– caregiver attachment bonds. Third, evolutionary psychology has steadily increased its influence in the area, although not without controversy and opposition.
eBook - ePubThe Handbook of Life-Span Development, Volume 2
Social and Emotional Development
- (Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
In this framework, “intimate” simply refers to the element of sexual desire or behavior in the relationship. More commonly, however, intimate relationships are defined as relationships involving both emotional and physical intimacy, and these are the types of relationships which form the topic of this chapter. Although the ensuing review will focus on social-psychological investigations of intimate relationships, it bears noting that the past several decades have also seen increased attention to the evolutionary bases of these relationships—or pairbonds, as they are typically called—and to questions regarding the nature and origin of romantic love. Hence, a brief overview of this area provides a useful foundation for the review to follow. Romantic love, as opposed to more general forms of love experienced for friends and family, has been defined in numerous ways by psychologists, but perhaps the most serviceable definition is that provided by Aron and Aron (1991): “the constellation of behaviors, cognitions, and emotions associated with a desire to enter or maintain a close relationship with a specific other person” (p. 26). Notable in this definition is the multifactorial nature of love, involving “behaviors, cognitions, emotions,” the motivational force of love (i.e., desire to enter or maintain a relationship), its focus on a single target, and, lastly, the absence of any mention of sexual desire
eBook - PDF- Kaplan, Jonathan S, Martell, Christopher R., Stewart, Ian, Dahl, JoAnne(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Context Press(Publisher)
Chapter 1 Introduction to Romantic Love • Introduction • Psychological Perspectives • Problems with the Conventional View • An Alternative Perspective • Conclusion Introduction Romantic love is a meaningful experience for countless human beings. It can bring great joy, but it can also bring immense pain and suffering. Given the importance of love for so many people, it behooves us to understand it to the greatest extent possible in both its positive and its negative aspects. ACT and RFT in Relationships 2 The conventional view of romantic love is as an emotional experience. This view has become prevalent throughout the world and is especially well established in modern Western society. In many cultures, love in this sense, rather than duty or social standing, has become the predominant reason for people to establish long-term, committed relationships. To date, psychological research as well has focused typically on the emotional aspects of love, which are sometimes conflated with cognitions and behaviors. Given that the field of psychol- ogy has been dominated by a focus on love as an emotion, we propose a different perspective. From the vantage point of modern behavioral analysis, and more specifically relational frame theory (RFT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), we suggest that to consider love as valued action offers a novel perspective, one that can lead to vibrant and fulfilling relationships. Before we introduce our perspective on love, however, let us discuss some of mainstream psychology’s key ideas about love. Psychological Perspectives Across the ages, the subject of romantic love has been pondered and treated by philosophers, poets, songwriters, novelists, artists, and spiritual figures. In modern times, romantic love is celebrated in literature, music, visual art, and film, and it pro- vides fodder for most daytime dramas and talk shows. However, it has only recently come under scrutiny within contemporary psychology.
eBook - PDFLove and Attraction
An International Conference
- Mark Cook, Glenn Wilson, Mark Cook, Glenn Wilson(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Pergamon(Publisher)
The romantic lover should not need to be told what is expected of him. The Romantic Relationship also requires that some sure sign of great personal involvement be given, in the language of affective expression, and/or behavioral gesture, and/or intimate self-disclosure. Typologically speaking, then, romantic love is an intimate relationship that compares structurally with close friendship, and contrasts with marital love (a familial relationship), on the one hand, and with a superficial sexual liaison (a casual relationship) on the other. The external or contextual structure of a relationship is set by its functional position within a larger institutional matrix. The constraints imposed by this larger matrix have a powerful formative influence on the relationship. Viewed in this perspective, we can see that the romantic love relationship is essentially an interstitial or transitional social form — one that serves as the port of entry to or exit from a major institutional role, or as a covert adjunct to an established institutional group, or as an interim involvement bridging the gap between institutional commitments. In Western societies, at least, the main institutional context of romantic love is the family or kinship system. As a transitional device, the romantic love relationship may serve as a vehicle for forming, and for dissolving, a marriage. As an adjunctive device, the romantic love relationship takes the form of an illicit extramarital affair, but when the affair is really an intimate rather than a casual relationship it is unstable and is either quickly terminated or transformed into a vehicle for terminating an unsatisfactory marriage. Finally, as a liminal or interstitial relationship, romantic love is an explicitly time-limited engagement that carries its partners through a relatively unstructured period between formal commitments of one sort or another. Thus we have the summer romance, the shipboard romance, etc.
- Ashley K. Randall, Dominik Schoebi(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Intimate inter- action can also be simple moments of shared amusement or responding to another’s sadness. Intimacy is a primary feature of Romantic Relationships and this qual- ity has become more tightly entwined into couple relationship ideals in the last fifty years (Finkel et al., 2015). Intimacy is both created by emo- tion interaction and reflected in its course. Emotion, particularly positive emotion, is critical to forming and maintaining desired levels of intimacy that are rewarding to partners in these relationships (Huston et al., 2001; Shiota et al., 2004). The emotions expressed in the course of relationship interactions can signal intentions to affiliate or avoid (Campos et al., 2015), communicate the rewards, sorrows, or injuries obtained in the course of an interaction (Schoebi, 2008), solidify the commitments that bind a relationship (Gonzaga et al., 2001), or set in motion processes that portend the end of a relationship (Levenson & Gottman, 1983). For exam- ple, a partner’s happiness during time spent together is rewarding and an angry response to inconsideration lets a partner know that there is relationship repair work to be done. As these examples show, emotions facilitate adaptive responding, including in the context of forming, main- taining, and, if needed, dissolving intimate relationships (e.g., Keltner & Gross, 1999; Lazarus, 1991; Levenson, 1999). Intimate relationship formation In this section, we review research regarding relationship formation in romantic and non-romantic contexts. The latter provides important infor- mation that is applicable to the initiation and maintenance of romantic 164 Sharon Shenhav, Arpine Hovasapian, and Belinda Campos relationships (e.g., liking, closeness, enjoyment, similarity; Luo & Zhang, 2009; Tidwell et al., 2013; Vittengl & Holt, 2000). Indeed, emotion dynam- ics in non-romantic contexts can be key precursors to romantic relation- ship formation.
eBook - PDF- Gary N. Powell(Author)
- 1999(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
We note the difference between perceived romantic rela-tionships (i.e., relationships that observers believe have a sexual component) and actual Romantic Relationships (i.e., relationships between participants that actually have a sexual component). One may lead to the other but not necessarily imply the other. Romantically involved coworkers may success- 286 PROCESSES fully keep that aspect of their relationship secret from others, and/or others may wrongly suspect that two people are romantically involved. For example, in Something to Talk About (Raitt, 1991), there is a perceived but not an actual Romantic Relationship. If the singer gets her way, however, there will be a romance. Second, the term Romantic Relationship suggests that the relationship is wanted by both partners. If only one partner wants the relationship, even if it was once wanted by both, it is likely to constitute sexual harassment rather than what we would consider a Romantic Relationship. For examination of the interface between sexual harassment and workplace romance, including the effects of a dissolved workplace romance, see Witteman (1993), Pierce and Aguinis (1997), and Pierce, Aguinis, and Adams (1998). Third, our reference to Romantic Relationships in organizational settings suggests that we are examining Romantic Relationships between two members of the same organization or between one person in a given organization and another person with a close work-related connection to that organization (e.g., customer, client, independent contractor, student in an academic pro-gram). Fourth, unlike in most prior discussions of Romantic Relationships in work settings (e.g., Lobel, 1993; Mainiero, 1986; Pierce, Byrne, &: Aguinis, ships. Fifth, we do not examine relationships that are psychologically but not physically intimate (Lobel, Quinn, St. Clair, & Warfield, 1994). Finally, we do not examine relationships between married couples who jointly own and manage businesses.
eBook - PDFRomantic Love and Sexual Behavior
Perspectives from the Social Sciences
- Victor C. de Munck(Author)
- 1998(Publication Date)
- Praeger(Publisher)
In addition, not only is romantic love intricately associated with these and other significant 92 The Psychology of Love and Sexual Desire individual and interpersonal events, but also current social psychologi- cal discourse on romantic love suggests that sexuality is one of the dimensions that differentiates romantic love from other types and varieties of love. This chapter explores the social psychological discourse on romantic love and sexuality and then presents empirical evidence that romantic love is most closely associated with one particular aspect of sexuality, namely, sexual desire. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ON ROMANTIC LOVE AND SEXUALITY The type of linkage, if any, that exists between sexuality and (not necessarily romantic) love has been the focus of a great deal of theoreti- cal debate. Aron and Aron (1991), for example, divide the many theories that have touched upon love or sexuality into five general categories, including (1) theories of sexuality that ignore love or consider love to be one result of sexuality (e.g., Freud, sociobiological approaches); (2) theories that emphasize sexuality and consider love to be a minor feature of sexuality (e.g., Bowlby); (3) theories that consider love and sexuality to be separate (e.g., Reiss); (4) theories that empha- size love and view sexuality as a minor part of love (e.g., Sternberg, Lee, Rubin); and (5) theories that ignore sexuality or consider sexuality to be one result of love (e.g., Dion and Dion, Maslow, object relations theory). As this review illustrates, there is little consensus among social scientists about the nature of the association between sexuality and love. Nonetheless, as Aron and Aron and others have noted (e.g., Hendrick and Hendrick 1992), our own culture seems to link sexuality and romantic love quite closely. Sexless Romantic Love Theorists have not always followed suit.
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