Romantic Relationship

4 Key excerpts on "Romantic Relationship"

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  eBook - ePub

  The 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

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  eBook - ePub

  The Science of Intimate Relationships

  • Garth J. O. Fletcher, Jeffry A. Simpson, Lorne Campbell, Nickola C. Overall(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  We will have a lot more to say about self‐regulation in relationships in other chapters, but we summarize this section by simply making the point that thoughts or emotions in relationship contexts can be hidden or expressed in behavior (in either a muffled or full‐blown fashion). Accordingly, relationship behavior can be an uncertain guide to what is happening in the mind of the other.

  Interlude and a Caveat

  So, let us summarize where we have got to thus far. We have laid out a model in which relationship thinking occurs as a function of goals, stored lay relationship theories, and online processing. These factors are inextricably intertwined in relationship contexts and drive cognition, affect, and behavior. Because the goals of finding a mate and building intimate relationships are basic to human nature, humans spend a good deal of time thinking about relationships and building theories about them. Most people do not consciously analyze their own relationships every minute of every day. Yet, as the research convincingly shows, relationship theories continue to unconsciously guide relationship thoughts and behavior even when the individual is not explicitly paying attention to their partner or the relationship.

  The critical reader at this point may think our treatment sounds rather too cerebral for comfort. Certainly, individuals develop relationship theories that they use to reach goals. However, surely (it could be argued) a key feature of intimate relationships is that they are shot through with powerful emotions including love, anger, jealousy, and even hatred. Moreover, relationship cognitions are typically not dispassionate intellectual judgments, but are “hot” cognitions, suffused with positive or negative feelings).

  We plead guilty. Our cognitive treatment requires buttressing regarding the role of emotions. Indeed, intimate interpersonal relationships constitute the crucible within which emotions are expressed, learnt, and used both in infancy and throughout life. Consider basic emotions like anger, love, hate, jealousy, guilt, and shame. These are largely social or interpersonal emotions, and are almost certainly experienced and expressed most frequently within the contexts of intimate relationships. As will be seen, however, understanding how emotions function within intimate relationships by no means implies that we can disregard the role of cognition.

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  eBook - ePub

  Close Relationships

  A Sourcebook

  • Clyde A. Hendrick, Susan S. Hendrick(Authors)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Because relationships provide the context within which most people expect and hope that their intimacy needs will be met, it is important to extend our investigations of intimacy beyond interactions to relationships. The best way in which to approach the study of intimate relationships is to investigate intimate interactions within those relationships and to compare relationships that are characterized by more or less frequent and rewarding intimacy. With this approach, intimacy is primarily defined as a characteristic of interinteractions, with the discovery of its relationshiplevel concomitants and sequelae now a matter of empirical investigation. Scholarship then can focus on learning more about the mechanisms by which intimate interactions interact with other characteristics of relationships to produce enduring emotional and attitudinal states such as satisfaction, love, and trust (or, conversely, ambivalence and mistrust). Finally, research can augment knowledge gained from investigating the internal processes by which relationships are maintained through explorations of influential contextual factors external to relationships.

  In this section, I explore processes that shape Romantic Relationships, close friendships, and parent-child relationships, all relationships with the potential for intimacy. Factors affecting intimate relationships, like those affecting interactions, can be organized as mutually embedded contexts, each of which exerts independent effects on individual and relationship functioning while also interacting with other factors.

  The Individual Partner

  Most of the scholarship on intimate relationships and the forces that shape them has focused on effects of (and on) individual partners. Most likely, as Figure 17.2 illustrates, the effects of individuals and relationships on one another are transactional or mutually influential. A substantial body of information now is available on the transactional relationship between partners’ personalities and relationship functioning or the satisfaction, harmony, and stability that characterizes their personal relationships. The most extensive and important segment of this literature has examined individual psychological development and its association with the characteristics of relationships with parents, peer acquaintances, friends, and romantic partners.

  Although not all research on individuals in intimate relationships has taken a life span perspective, I suggest that there are many advantages to doing so. A life span perspective helps us to understand how individual vulnerabilities, needs, and preoccupations shift in concert with developing capacities and resources, on the one hand, and with a changing social milieu, on the other.

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  Organizing Relationships

  Traditional and Emerging Perspectives on Workplace Relationships

  • Patricia M. Sias(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Workplace romance does not need to be feared, however. These relationships can be quite rewarding for the individuals involved as well as the work environment in which they exist. In this chapter, I discuss existing research on romantic workplace relationships, focusing on developmental processes, the “gray area” between romance and sexual harassment, consequences and outcomes of workplace romance, and workplace romance policy and law. As in other chapters, I also develop a research agenda for the future by conceptualizing Romantic Relationships from a variety of theoretical perspectives and provide a case study highlighting the practical implications of current research and alternative theoretical perspectives.

  Overview

  While philosophers and scholars have found defining love an exercise in futility, researchers do agree on a few defining characteristics of workplace Romantic Relationships. At a broad level, a workplace Romantic Relationship is any “relationship between two members of the same organization that entails mutual attraction” (Pierce, Byrne, & Aguinis, 1996, p. 6). At a deeper level, workplace romances incorporate both emotional and physiological components, including the following:

  (a) an intense, passionate desire to be in the presence of one’s romantic partner, (b) a shared, intimate exchange of personal disclosures, (c) affection and respect, (d) pleasant emotional states such as need satisfaction, happiness, and sexual gratification, and (e) physiological arousal and the desire for sexual acts such as kissing, petting, and intercourse with one’s partner. (Pierce et al., 1996, p. 6)

  Thus, workplace Romantic Relationships are emotional, physiological, and consensual. It is important to note that the consensual nature of these relationships distinguishes workplace romance from sexual harassment. Because the focus of this chapter is on consensual Romantic Relationships, I do not review the vast literature on sexual harassment in the workplace. However, romance and sexual harassment are not always clear-cut and can overlap. Moreover, what begins as a romance sometimes devolves into harassment. Accordingly, I begin this chapter with discussion of the “gray area” between romance and harassment before discussing research in the area of workplace Romantic Relationships. This research is summarized in Table 5.1

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