LOVE ATTRACTION ATTACHMENT AND INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS What gets

LOVE, ATTRACTION, ATTACHMENT, AND INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS What gets us together and then keeps us that way

LOVE • • What exactly is it ? An attitude ? A phenomenon ? Hard to define – can it be measured ?

“THE LOVE SCALE” • Rubin tried by having hundreds of couples respond to a questionnaire. • The Love Scale had three components: • Attachment – the desire for another’s presence and emotional support • Caring – concern for the other’s well being • Intimacy – desire for close, confidential communication

Love Scale Like Scale Subjects are asked to answer the following questions concerning their attitudes towards the loved one. Subjects are asked to answer the flowing questions regarding a close friend. • 1. If [loved one] were feeling badly, my first duty would be to cheer him/her up. • 1. When I am with [friend], we are almost always in the same mood. • 2. I feel that I can confide in [loved one] about virtually everything. • 2. I think that [friend] is unusually well adjusted. • • 3. I find it easy to ignore [loved one]’s faults. 3. I would highly recommend [friend] for a responsible job. • 4. I would do almost anything for [loved one]. • 4. In my opinion, [friend] is an exceptionally mature person. • 5. I feel very possessive toward [loved one]. • 5. I have great confidence in [friend]’s good judgment. • 6. If I could never be with [loved one], I would feel miserable. • 6. Most people would react very favorably to [friend] after a brief acquaintance. • 7. If I were lonely, my first thought would be to seek [loved one] out. • 7. I think that [friend] and I are quite similar to each other. • 8. One of my primary concerns is [loved one]’s welfare. • 8. I would vote for [friend] in a class or group election. • • 9. I would forgive [loved one] for practically anything. 9. I think that [friend] is one of those people who quickly wins respect. • • 10. I feel responsible for [loved one]’s well being. 10. I feel that [friend] is an extremely intelligent person. • 11. When I am with [loved one], I spend a good deal of time just looking at him/her. • 11. [Friend] is one of the most likeable people I know. • 12. [Friend] is the sort of person whom I myself would like to be. • 12. I would greatly enjoy being confided in by [loved one]. • 13. It seems to me that it is very easy for [friend] to gain admiration. • 13. It would be hard for me to get along without [loved one]. *Answers are on a 9 -point Likert scale from “Not True” to “Definitely True” for each scale.

STERNBERG’S TRIANGULAR THEORY Love’s Three Faces Passion • Fuels romantic feelings and desire for sexual interaction and unification • Similar to an addiction, intensity causes a powerful craving Intimacy • The emotional component • A sense of bonding • Warmth, sharing, emotional closeness • Willing to help and share private essence Commitment • The cognitive aspect • A conscious decision to love another • The choice to maintain a relationship despite challenges

LABELS • Infatuation – just passion • Empty (love) – commitment only • Companionate – intimacy & commitment • Romantic – passion & intimacy • Consummate – love that has it all

“LIKING” • Liking in this case is not used in a trivial sense. Sternberg says that this intimate liking characterizes true friendships, in which a person feels a bondedness, a warmth, and a closeness with another but not intense passion or long-term commitment.

INFATUATED LOVE • Infatuated love is often what is felt as "love at first sight. " But without the intimacy and the commitment components of love, infatuated love may disappear suddenly

EMPTY LOVE • Empty love: Sometimes, a stronger love deteriorates into empty love, in which the commitment remains, but the intimacy and passion have died. In cultures in which arranged marriages are common, relationships often begin as empty love.

ROMANTIC LOVE • Romantic love: Romantic lovers are bonded emotionally (as in liking) and physically through passionate arousal

SUPPORT FOR THE TRIANGLE ? • Research shows that: 1) the presence of intimacy and commitment predict stability and duration, 2) married have more commitment 3) intimacy continually rises in long term relationships 4) passion drops more sharply for women

FALLING IN LOVE • Why do we fall in love? • Is it to escape loneliness? • To answer our deepest need? • The ultimate extension of our social network?

PROXIMITY • Geographic nearness • The Mere Exposure Effect – repeated contact with novel stimuli tends to increase liking for the stimuli • People also tend to meet in locations engaging in activities that reflect common interests – the NHSLS confirms this Mere Exposure Effect: Have you ever met someone you didn't like very much at first and then over time, even if you didn't really have personal interactions with the person you started liking them (or disliking them less)? This might have been due to the mere exposure effect in which you begin to like something simply because you are exposed to it over and over again. I bet if you think about it you can come up with all sorts of things that you like simply because you are exposed to it repeatedly. There are many advertisers who bombard you with their products for this reason.

MORE PROXIMITY • Work and school – offer much time shared together and many shared common interests • t. As the old saying goes "you don't dip your pen in the company ink. " In other words, you shouldn't get into a dating or sexual relationship with a co-worker. • But consider this: according to a recent Workplace Options survey, nearly 85% of 18 -29 year olds would have a romantic relationship with a co-worker, compared to just over 35% for 30 -46 year olds and about 30% of 47 -66 year olds. Even more shocking is that 40% of those 18 -29 year olds would date their supervisors. According to a Career. Builder survey, interoffice dating has a fairly high success rate--of the 38% of people surveyed that dated a co-worker at least once, 31% went on to marry that co-worker!

SIMILARITY • Lovers often share beliefs, values, attitudes, interests and intellect • Usually they have similar levels of physical attractiveness • Homophily – tendency to have relationships with those of equal education, social status, age, religion, etc.

RECIPROCITY • We tend to like people who like us • Couples who show equal levels of affection last longer

PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS • Attractive people ate both sought as friends and lovers and perceived as possessing many desired qualities • We like to look at them • We think they have more to offer • We like being seen with them • Maybe they are more confident • We think they are healthier

WHAT DOES YOUR DREAM GUY/GIRL LOOK LIKE? • When it comes to love (or lust, as the case may be), men and women know what they like when they see it. Ask people to describe their ideal romantic partners, and they might draw a blank or merely offer a vague outline, but that doesn't matter so much, since they'll immediately know when they encounter him or her. According to Rutgers University anthropologist Helen Fisher, the human body is such a finely tuned attraction-seeking machine, it takes only one second to intuitively decide whether someone's physically hot or not [source: Fisher]. Upon closer inspection, we might change our minds, or we just might have found what we've been looking for all along.

• To help ensure that the good ones don't get away, our bodies produce a host of physical signs of attraction that grab our attention and direct it toward the dreamboat in question. When those physiological mechanisms kick in, even a brief glimpse of a crush can leave us short of breath and dazed. And unpleasant as some of these reactions might be, we can at least take heart that at some point, the following five lovesick symptoms happen to all of us…

• Why do literature and art always associate romance and the heart? Because our hearts are set aflutter, pulses literally racing, at the sight of someone attractive [source: Fisher]. In fact, the heart-attraction relationship is so potent, studies have found that increasing someone's heart rate and then putting him or her near a pretty stranger can artificially ignite a flame of affection [source: Foster et al]. • Per usual, the brain is ultimately responsible for this physiological response, not Cupid and his archery acumen. During early-stage romantic love -- scientific terminology for the honeymoon phase -- the brain releases norepinephrine whenever we're around a love interest to shake us into action [source: Obringer]. That adrenaline-like neurotransmitter spurs our motivational decision-making, possibly prodding us to chat up Mr. or Ms. Right. Meanwhile, our adrenaline-addled hearts are likely pumping faster than usual in order to get us through the taxing ordeal [source: Landau].

• If you're introduced to someone who immediately makes your heart go gaga, it might be best to avoid a handshake. Sweating palms is a classic physiological response to attraction. The same cocktail of chemicals that prods our pulses also stokes our sweat glands. Collectively known as monoamines, dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin combine to produce feelings of excitement, with a side of breathlessness and moist hands [source: Mc. Loughlin]. Norepinephrine in particular is the culprit for goading our sweat glands into activation, and since our palms are riddled with up to 3, 000 miniscule sweat glands per square inch, they can quickly become a telltale signal of sexual interest. • Men also might be stricken with sweaty palms more often than women. Rutgers University anthropologist Helen Fisher suggests that since men are more visually stimulated than women, their brains dole out bigger doses of monoamine

• Repeated studies have confirmed that heterosexual women prefer deeper voices whispering sweet nothings in their ears. In addition to associating lower-pitched male voices with masculinity, women associate those bass notes with authority, larger body size and physical attractiveness [source: O'Luanaigh]. Fortunately for tenors out there, a recent Australian study at least debunked the notion that a deeper voice intimated superior sperm quality [source: Parry]. • Perhaps since deeper-pitched voices have attracted such a sexy reputation, people may lower their registers when speaking to their special someones. In a 2010 study, male and female study participants were asked to record messages to be played for fictional recipients. Researchers showed individual participants photos of fictional message recipients; the more attractive participants rated the fictional recipients, the more likely they were to deepen their voices [source: Phys. Org]. But a conflicting study found that the more tantalizing the male face, the higher - not lower -- women raised their vocal pitch [source: Fraccaro et al]. Either way, it seems we attempt to fine tune our voices to sound like sweet music to our beloveds' ears.

• Dusty Springfield wasn't talking nonsense when she sang about "The Look of Love. " The chart-topping blonde with the golden voice belted out scientifically plausible lyrics about come-hither eyes, as studies have shown that our pupils play an active role in signaling attraction. When we spot a comely face, our brains release dopamine, which triggers pupil dilation [source: Murphy]. Thanks to the surge of dopamine in our brains that excites the nerve endings in our eyes, the pupil muscles contract and dilate our peepers [source: Spiers and Calne]. • But pupil preferences aren't uniform across the board, and bigger isn't always better. Whereas heterosexual men find women with larger dilated pupils more feminine and beautiful, most straight women opt for medium male dilations that signal sexual interest, but not to a potentially violent extreme [source: Tombs and Silverman]. However, women who tend to engage in short-term sexual relationships with "bad boys" were googlyeyed for the larger pupils as well

• Nineteenth-century British writer and aphorism documentarian Charles Caleb Colton ushered the phrase "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" into common usage in 1820 • . When people interact in dating scenarios, and things are going well, body language mirroring often happens subconsciously. For instance, someone will lean in close to the dinner table, and other person follows in suit. • Better yet, without knowing it, these subtle gestures also serve to stoke each other's romantic egos. A 2009 study on mimicry in a speed dating environment revealed that men gave more favorable ratings to women who slightly mirrored their verbal and nonverbal patterns [source: Gueguen]. Scratching their faces after the men scratched their faces, for instance, ultimately increased the women's sexual attractiveness after the 5 -minute interaction [source: Jarrett]. If that body language exchange sparks a longlasting relationship, men's and women's bodies tend to play copycat as they age together as well. According to a 2006 study, the longer couples stick together, well after the jittery symptoms of attraction have calmed, the more they physically begin to look alike