Friendship And Attraction: Factors And Survey Results

Factors Leading to Friendship and Attraction

Have your questions been already answered in the vUWS Discussion Forum on Reflection (Learning Journal) 2?  Can you find answers in the Learning Guide?  If not, ask your question/s in the discussion forum for Reflection (Learning Journal) 2.

Subtopic 1: What leads to friendship and attraction?

A mysterious student has been attending a class for the past two months enveloped in a big black bag. Only his bare feet show. Each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11 a.m. the Black Bag sits on a small table near the back of the classroom. Charles Goetzinger, professor of the class, knows the identity of the person inside. None of the 20 students in the class does. Goetzinger said “the students’ attitudes changed from hostility toward the Black Bag to curiosity and finally to friendship.”

Four factors leading to friendship and attraction are proximity, interaction, mere exposure, and similarity. Which factor does the above story illustrate?

The above story illustrate the factor of proximity and interaction. As the mysterious student attends the class he remains nearby to the other students. Secondly, whenever he will interact with other students he will eventually develop friendship with them.

	Friend 1	Friend 2
Where did you meet this friend?	Neighbourhood	College
How did the friendship develop?	Studying together and hanging out together.	On the first day of my college, this friend sat near me we exchanged views and shared lunch and gradually we became friends.

Which of the following factors were present? Use your textbook and briefly explain how it was a factor.
Proximity	Proximity factor was present because we were neighbours.	Introduction of ourselves in the very first lecture of the college.
Interaction	Yes, because we were neighbours and hence we used to interact on a regular basis.	Regular meeting in lectures and in the college.
Mere exposure	This factor was not present	This factor was not present.
Similarity	We both had a common interest in basketball.	We both had a common interest in dancing.

Think of yourself and think of your best friend.  

Tick the adjectives that apply to you and then those that apply to your best friend.  

		Self	Friend
1.	active	ü	ü
2.	aggressive	×	×
3.	ambitious	ü	ü
4.	belligerent	×	×
5.	brave	ü	×
6.	dependent	×	ü
7.	dominant	ü	ü
8.	gentle	ü	ü
9.	Helpful	ü	ü
10.	independent	ü	×
11.	needs sympathy	×	×
12.	obliging	ü	ü
13.	passive	ü	ü
14.	peaceful	ü	ü
15.	protective	ü	ü
16.	seeks protection	×	ü
17.	self-centred	×	×
18.	self-confident	ü	ü
19.	sociable	ü	ü
20.	tactless	×	×
21.	timid	×	×
22.	unconventional	×	×

Write about what the survey says about your friendship with your friend:

Are you similar or complementary?

If you are complementary, in what way are you complementary?

No, we both are not complementary.

Do you agree with what the survey says about your relationship with your friend? Why or why not?

Yes, I agree with what the survey says about my relationship with my friend. As from the above observation we both are meek complemented by assertive personality

Pick something from what your textbook says about similarity and complementarity that matches your experience.

The example of sitting with someone at the start of the class and becoming friend at the end of the class.

Is there anything that does not match your experience?

List four attributes you most look for in a partner:

1. Personality

1. Nature

1. Attitude

1. Eyes

What would you expect to find? [Hints can be found in Myers and Karantzas (2016, pp. 284-285) and Myers (2013, pp. 281-283; 2010, pp. 274-278)].

I would expect to find a person who is sweet, helpful, genuine and friendly.

Online Love

Read the arguments in your textbook for and against Internet relationships and enter four points for and against Internet relationships.

Activities for Sub-Topic 1

Myers and Karantzas (2016, pp. 308-310) the Myers (2013, pp. 303-304; 2010, pp. 298-299).

For	Against
1.  Internet relationships help individuals to choose partner according to their choice and gives them access to many potential partners.	1. Most of the times, the choice of partner becomes very confusing.
2. In an internet relationship, individuals get to know a person completely before meeting the person and hence risk of commitment is very less.	2. In a face-to-face communication has more information in comparison to an online communication. Hence, all the information of the other person is not collected.
3. Internet relationships are non-threating. The people can meet anywhere and anytime they do not have any threat.	3. Internet relationships can be forgery. Nobody has an idea whether it’s a genuine account or a fake one or the other person is truthful or not.
4. Internet relationship grows faster than normal relationship because find it easy to share everything online with the other person rather than sharing things face-to-face.	4. Many times we find a person like us and we like them but the distance becomes an issue. In internet relationship, distance is one of the worst issues.

Think of an example that shows some of the points for and/or against Internet relationships. How does the example match the points?

One of my friends found a person on internet and after a couple of months she got into a relationship with that person. Both of them were comfortable with each other and shared every little thing about their life. But the main problem they encountered was the distance. They were not able to meet very often and this use to be very frustrating for them.

While the Internet may help people form supportive romantic partnerships, which are important for psychological and physical health, there are pitfalls and cautions.

1. When people get many options they become choosy and judgmental, and hence they focus only on a narrow set of criteria’s like attractiveness and interests.
2. As people do not get to meet the other person for a long period of time and hence before meeting they create many unrealistic expectations about the other person.

The e-harmony advertisement shown in the lecture talked about ‘deep compatibility’.  How does this relate to the similarity factor in relationships and what does the above article say about this (e.g. the algorithms – or formulas – used to generate matches)?

Most of the online sites encourage a soul mate search option and these matching sites causes unrealistic and destructive approach to relationships.

The science-based approaches used by these sites like the algorithm-based matching are worthless and gives wrong assumptions about deep compatibility. They say that the two persons are deeply compatible but when done manually it is not so, as a result it gives wrong assumptions.

Subtopic 2: What is love?

When we think of ‘love’, we often think of romantic or passionate love; the type of love that we see in the movies (rom-coms) and hear sung on the radio in popular songs.  However, there are many theories and models of different types of love.  

Sternberg’s ‘love triangle’ or ‘triarchic’ theory of love can be found in Myers and Karantzas (2016, p. 297) or Myers (2013, p. 292; 2010, p. 287).  As you complete the triangle below with the Sternberg’s types of love, you might reflect on, if you are in a relationship, where yours is situated and where you would like it to go. If you are not in a relationship, you could think of a relationship of people that you know well.

Read Myers and Karantzas (2016, pp. 296-300) or Myers (2013, pp. 292-297; 2010, pp. 286-292) and, in your own words, describe the difference between romantic love and companionate love.

Companionate love is a kind of love which is deeper than friendship as it is a long-term commitment which is made by two people.

Friendship Survey Results

On the other hand, romantic love is when a person feels an emotional high, or passion for someone. It can also be called as a state of intense craving for union with one another,

Review ‘Would you marry someone you didn’t love?’ (Passer, Smith & Norris, 2016, p. 23; Passer & Smith, 2013, p 21; Passer & Smith, 2010, pp. 14 – 15).

How do you think the differences seen in people from different cultures relate to the ‘independent’ and ‘interdependent’ selves you explored in Tutorial 2 on ‘Self & Identity’?

Love is very important for a marriage because many people responded that they would never marry someone they didn’t love.

Some people say they are independent i.e. they focus only on their own needs and desires and hence they can marry someone they don’t love because the other person is not so much important for them.

Few people say that they are interdependent i.e. they think of the people who are close to them. Hence, they want to marry a person they love because in one way or the other they are dependent on their partner.

People of different cultures have different views on how important love is for marriage, their point of view changes in accordance with their culture.

Subtopic 3: When love goes wrong

Read Myers and Karantzas (2016, pp. 317-320) or Myers (2013, pp. 305-308; 2010, pp. 300 – 303, and review the lecture slides on the divorce and relationship breakdown statistics.

What is the current Australian divorce rate?

According to the Bureau of Statistics, the 2014 rates of divorce were 2.0 per 1000 people. While in 2013 census the rate of divorce was 2.1 per 1000 people. Hence, there were 46,498divorces in 2014 and 47,638 divorces in 2013.

What percentage of couples co-habit before getting married?

True or False – Second marriages tend to be more stable because the partners have learned from their mistakes

What is Miller’s (1997) main thesis (idea or argument)? (Hint: the main thesis is usually found in the introduction. It will usually be restated in the conclusion, along with what is important about it.)

Miller’s main argument was that some relationships work while some do not work. Some couples get divorced because of frustrations, nuisances and disappointments with their relational partners. People are more sweet and adorable before marriage i.e. when they are in a relationship. It has been observed that if a person is sweet it does not guarantee that their relationship will work.

Miller (1997) describes eight ‘sources of aversiveness in close relationships’ – enter them in the table below.

1. Access to weaponry	5. Reduced effort
2. Misplaced expectations and unwelcome surprises	6. Interdependency ups the ante
3. Loss of illusion	7. Threat of exclusion
4. Erosion of novelty

Choose an example from real life or media (e.g. a movie or TV show) that illustrates one of Miller’s (1997) sources of aversiveness. In your own words, describe what happened and how it is an example of the source of aversiveness. How did it damage the relationship?

One of my neighbour who are in a committed relationship i.e. who are married from last 7 years are not able to keep up their relationship. This relationship is an example of reduced effort source of aversiveness as the couple is very much ambitious and both of them spend most of their time working. Hence, they do not give much time to each other and they talk less. This is the reason being together they are not together and they shout on each other. The work pressure makes them frustrated and they started losing interest in each other. The reduced efforts have damaged their relationship because none of them is trying to give time and is not willing to solve the issues.

Here you will find a list of advantages and disadvantages of arranged marriages and, most importantly, an SBS ‘Insight’ program on arranged marriages.  

Romantic love has many disadvantages like,

1. Being in romantic loves causes anxiety and disappointment after a particular time.
2. Some of the romantic relationships do not have parent’s approval. Mostly parents are disappointed as they do not get to choose the partner for their children.
3. In a romantic relationship, slowly and gradually love vanishes their priorities gets changed and they get frustrated.
4. As people are in a romantic relationship, they ignore the flaws of the other person but when they stay together for a long time they understand the person completely and in most of the cases they don’t find the other person good.

Refer to the Marking Sheet for Reflection (Learning Journal) 2 in Tutorial 2 Workbook.  There is a criterion for “Relevance to social world” which requires you to apply what you have learned to your social world.  Well-considered responses to this will include limitations of the application to your social world.

Pick one of the sub-topics from this Workbook. Attraction

Pick an experience or real-life example that is relevant to the sub-topic (it may be one that is shared by the whole class). Explain how it is relevant to your social world. Mostly people get attracted to people on internet on a very large scale. One of my friend got attracted to a person online, he started talking to him all day long. I was happy for my friend but for me I was losing my friend. He shared most of his secrets with the other person and as a result he started giving me less importance.

Describe a limitation of the example. For instance, where there are limits to how good an example it is of the concepts covered in this tutorial. Or where there are aspects of the example, which the concepts cannot explain. This example covers the internet relationships along with attractions and social world. It is also an example of how people become friends but it do not cover the topic “what is love?”

 

References

Albrecht, I. (2015). How We Hurt The Ones We Love. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98(2), 295-317. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/papq.12101

Dwyer, D. (2013). Interpersonal Relationships. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Finkel, E., Eastwick, P., Karney, B., Reis, H., & Sprecher, S. (2012). Online Dating. Psychological Science In The Public Interest, 13(1), 3-66. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1529100612436522

Griffin, T., Passer, M., & Myers, D.(2005). The individual in society. USA:Pearson.

Goodlett, E. (2016). Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Dating | Techwalla.com. Retrieved 20 January 2018, from https://www.techwalla.com/articles/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-online-dating.

Loambardo, C. (2015). Arranged Marriage Advantages and Disadvantages List | Samsung Galaxy Blog. Retrieved 20 January 2018, from https://thenextgalaxy.com/arranged-marriage-advantages-and-disadvantages-list/.

Myers, D., & Twenge, J. (2017). Social psychology.  NY: McGraw-Hill.

 Sternberg, R. (2017). Love. Robert J. Sternberg. Retrieved 20 January 2018, from https://www.robertjsternberg.com/love/.