PERDEV

• Relationship


  The way in which two or more people, groups, countries, etc. talk to, behave toward, and deal with each other
• Types of relationships


  • Business transactional relationship
  • Professional relationship
  • Family relationship
  • Friendly relationship
  • Romantic relationship
• Personal relationship


  • Closely associated with a person and which can only have meaning to this person
  • Involves privacy and intimacy
  • Involves a degree of commitment to another person or persons
• Impersonal or informal relationship


  Commitment not to a person or group of persons, but to an entity such as a business organization, a principle, or a cause
• Elements of personal relationship

  • Attachment
  • Attraction
  • Love and intimacy
  • Commitment
• How attachment is developed

  1. Emotional connection between individuals formed during the first two years of life

  2. Kind of response the primary caregiver provides, usually the mother, in times of distress determines attachment styles

  3. Mother-child relationship established before and after birth

  4. Emotional experiences of expectant mothers affect the child in the womb
• Attachment styles


  • Secure attachment
  • Avoidant attachment
  • Anxious-ambivalent attachment
• Secure attachment


  Primary caregiver is most of the time present and available and when all the emotional needs of an infant are met, providing a sense of security to the infant
• Avoidant attachment


  • Primary caregiver is cold and detached, and even unresponsive to child's needs
  • Child senses rejection and this often leads to premature detachment and self-reliance
• Anxious-ambivalent attachment


  • Primary caregiver is not consistent in terms of presence and in meeting a child's emotional needs
  • Person may develop separation anxieties with loved one, or may have mixed feelings between hesitancy and commitment when entering into meaningful relationships
• Attraction


  • Primarily based on physiological or certain hormones that persons who get attracted to others often pick up with their noses
  • Liking another person's genes that are perceived through their physical looks
• Chemical basis of love

  • Attachment: Oxytocin, Vasopressin
  • Attraction: Pheromones, Lust, Testosterone, Estrogen, Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Serotonin, Nerve growth factor
  • Physical effects: Loss of appetite and sleep, Increased heart rate
• Three stages of falling in love

  • Lust
  • Attraction
  • Attachment
• Lust


  Driven by the sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen
• Attraction


  Love-struck phase, involving neurotransmitters in the brain such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin
• Attachment


  • When the couple in love decides to continue with the relationship, they enter the attachment stage where long-lasting commitments are exchanged, and may lead to raising a family
  • Involves the release of oxytocin and vasopressin
• Loving has a genetic basis, and is a natural drive that is as powerful as hunger
• Factors that influence attraction

  • Transference effect
  • Propinquity effect
  • Similarity
  • Reciprocity
  • Physical attractiveness
  • Personality characteristics and traits
• Transference effect


  We meet people who remind us of someone in the past who has affected our sense of self and our behavior
• Propinquity effect


  We often develop a sense of familiarity with people who live close to us, work with us, or go to school with us, which leads us to liking them more
• Similarity


  We often like people who we have similarities with, such as social class background, religious beliefs, age, and education
• Reciprocity


  We like people who like us back
• Physical attractiveness


  • Connotes positive health and reproductive fitness
  • Attractive features include average facial features, higher cheekbones, thinner jaws, larger eyes, and bilateral symmetry
• Personality characteristics and traits

  • Emphatic persons: who exude warmth and sympathy and who are also optimistic and maintain positive views
  • Socially competent persons: who are good communicators and enjoy good conversations
  • Having a happy and cheerful disposition, being poised and can present themselves well, outgoing, and sexually warm and responsive
• Love


  • A strong feeling of affection and concern for another person accompanied by sexual attraction
  • A feeling of devotion or adoration toward God or a god
  • A feeling of kindness or concern by God or a god towards humans
  • Sexual desire or activity
• Intimacy


  • That lovely moment when someone understands and validates us
  • Being open and vulnerable to a person whom we deeply trust, who we feel connected with, and who values us with unconditional positive regard
• Commitment


  An act of deciding to consistently fulfill and live by agreements made with another person, entity, or cause, where the values of integrity and respect serve as a guide to one's behavior and thinking
• Passion


  • The intense state of being that drives and consumes a person to pursue an interest, a vision, or a person
  • In terms of romantic love, passion connotes sexual attraction, as well as intimacy
• Sternberg proposed eight forms of love based on the combinations of intimacy, commitment, and passion