Lecture 10

• Filter theories:

  1. Similarities in physical appearance, race or ethnicity, education,

  socioeconomic status, religion → provides basis for dating

  2. More disclose about themselves, look for similarity in values, attitudes,

  beliefs, and personality traits → if compatible: relationship may survive
• Three components of adult love relationships, Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

  1. Passion (sexual arousal)

  2. Intimacy (feelings of closeness)

  3. Commitment (marriage; exclusive, lifelong cohabiting relationships)
• Does marriage make people happy?

  Robust evidence: marriage status is linked to better health and subjective well-being

  • Stronger effects for men than for women

  • But: benefits of marriage apply to happy marriages

  • Also: No differences in midlife happiness in married vs. long-term

  cohabiting couples
• The Main Marital Pathway: Downhill and Then Up

  • Marriage begins with high expectations, after which disenchantment

  sets in

  • Happiness is at its peak during honeymoon phase

  • Satisfaction rapidly slopes downward, and then tends to decline more

  slowly or level out around year four

  • Positive change occurs with empty nest
• Positive changes divorce


  • Production of emotional growth

  and feelings of self-sufficiency

  • Relief for some who were

  unhappy
• Negative changes divorce


  Disengagement of one parent

  through lack of contact or not

  paying child support

  • Challenges with discipline or lack

  of connection to stepchildren
• Deinstitutionalization:


  Decline in marriage and emergence of alternative family forms during last third of 20th century
• Cohabitation


  = living together without being married
• • Challenges single


  forming intimate relationships, loneliness, marriage-oriented society, social & financial prejudice
• Advantages: single


  more time for life decisions, autonomous decisions, time to develop personal resources, explore places and things, privacy
• Challenges for new parents

  ▪ Alterations in hormones, neurobiology

  ▪ Physical health

  ▪ Self-concept, identity

  ▪ Perceived efficacy

  ▪ Emotional health

  ▪ Relationships

  ▪ Social networks

  ▪ Varying degrees of exhaustion, depression, anxiety, marital conflict,

  emotional lability, social isolation, feelings of guilt

  ▪ Disconnect between media representation of parenthood and the reality
• Which challenges are linked to parenting?

  • Less time for intimacy:

  Time is invested in children,

  household, work

  • Division of labor: Women are forced

  into gender-typical roles, have to

  cut back career
• Fathers are stepping up, but some gender roles remain…


  • Although dads are really pitching in to do hands-on childcare, their

  involvement is still skewed toward play activities (rough-and-tumble

  play)

  • Women provide more than twice as much hands-on childcare as men

  • Significant variability in father involvement (related to views of women’s

  roles, women’s workload)
• The Transition to Parenthood – Relationship satisfaction


  Relationship satisfaction increases before birth (honeymoon effect) decreases after birth and continues to decrease afterwards Relationship satisfaction decreases even further after the birth of the second child
• Longitudinal studies of couples’ relationships :

  • Parenthood makes couples less intimate and happy

  • (Heterosexual) parenthood tends to produce more

  traditional and conflict-ridden marital roles

  • Great variability in how couples cope

  • Having a good prior relationship key to adjusting

  well
• Sandwich generation


  • Those in midlife are often involved in caregiving and

  support for their children AND their parents (Pinquart &

  Sörensen, 2007; Pierret, 2006; Spillman & Pezzin, 2000)

  • In 2012, 47% of middle-aged adults, who are raising

  or supporting a child, also have a parent over age 65

  (Taylor et al., 2013)

  • Subjective well-being of middle-aged adults is often

  linked to the perception if their children have

  successfully adjusted after leaving home (Ryff et al.,

  1994)
• Empty nest syndrome


  • Not the majority

  • Decline in marital satisfaction

  • For most: increase in marital satisfaction, increase in quality of time spent

  with partner

  • But, sometimes children move back in → boomerang kids/Back-to-Bedroom

  • Financial and emotional support; Can be a postive experience for both, but also…

  • For parents: loss of privacy, conflicting schedules, relationship with partner is invaded

  • For children: loss of privacy and independence, feel like being treated as a child