Chapter 11

Question 1

What are the aspects of friendships in adulthood?

Answer 1

• Stages: acquaintanceship, buildup, continuation, deterioration, and ending
  – progression depends on basis of attraction, knowledge, communication, importance, new potential friends.
• Life transitions: often results in fewer friends
• Life satisfaction: effected by quantity and qualitu of friends
• Diverse friendships led to positive attitude towards like people
• Basis of friendship: are affective (emotional - self disclosure & expressions from trust, loyalty, commitment) shared/communal (mutually interested activities), sociability & compatibility (sources amusement, fun, recreation).
• Both in person & online (not shown to harm friendships).
• Women: shared confidences,
• Men: shared activates (share confidences to less people)
• Cross-sex friendships seem to help men with love relationships but not women.

Question 2

What is Sternberg’s theory?

Answer 2

Love has three basic components
1) passion: intense physiological desire for someone
2) intimacy: the feeling that one can share all one’s thoughts and actions with another
3) commitment, willingness to stay with a person through good and bad times. Equivalency between the three tends toward more happiness. Balance shifts with time

Question 3

What is the nature of abuse in some relationships?

Answer 3

• Victim risk increases: female, Latina, African American, atypical family structure, more romantic partners, early onset sexual activity, victim child abuse
• Progression from verbal to physical to severe physical to murder.
• Fundamental differences in these types and the underlying causes change with type
• Culture can be another factor
• Some legal systems are not set up to handle it

Question 4

What about singlehood?

Answer 4

• Some haven’t found the right person while others prefer singlehood
• Singles face negative stereotypes
• Meanings and implications of singleness are often related to cultural and religious beliefs
• Singles either want to be married, oscillate between wanting to be married and not wanting it to and want to be single

Question 5

What are the aspects of cohabitation?

Answer 5

• People in committed, intimate, sexual relationships who live together but are not married
• often for convenience–sharing expenses and sexual accessibility
• common life style in other cultures and some benefits
• some intend marriage others do not

Question 6

What is marriage like throughout the life course?

Answer 6

• Couples who marry younger are more likely to get divorced
• More maturity when get married make more likely marriage satisfaction along with commonality and feelings of equality
• Satisfaction tends to increase, decrease (often because of stress of children or inability to have children) and then increase
• After wedding bliss couples need to learn how to communicate and manage stress

Question 7

What about common forms of families.

Answer 7

• In western society: nuclear family - only parents and children
• Around the World: extended family - grandparents and other relatives live with parents and children