What is Reciprocity?
We like people more if they know they
like us
Explain the study on reciprocity
- Confederate and intercom
Paired a participant with a confederate to do a task
- Put them in diff rooms (they communicate via intercom)
At one point the confederate “forgot to shut the intercom off”
- They then tell positive / negative thing to researcher abt participant
- In turn the participant liked them more when they said smth positive about them
Recall that belonging has historically been essentially to our survival
* Are there biological mechanisms that positively reinforce belonging?
Explain PET study
Participants told that a desirable potential partner likes them: showed increased activation of a system of receptors that mediate rewarding effects of opioid drugs like heroin
➢ And the stronger the activation, the more desire to interact with that person
What is the Social pain hypothesis?
physical pain mechanisms may have been adapted to support affiliation
How does social pain enforce group cohesion?
Pain is our body’s way of telling us to pay attention to something that could cause tissue injury or death and take appropriate action:
➢ Social pain (e.g., responses to rejection or exclusion) may have evolved from physical pain to promote group cohesion
➢ Social pain could signal the need to stay with the group, encouraging cooperation, reconciliation, and survival
Language evidence of social pain being alike to physical pain:
International terms for hurt feelings resemble being harmed physically
Ex.
French = Blesse (hurt)
Cantonese = Siong Sum (hurt heart)
The two components of pain
What is the Sensory-discriminative component
provides information about intensity,
quality, and location
* Processed in primary and secondary somatosensory cortices and posterior
insula
The two components of pain
What is the Affective-motivational component
relates to emotional experience of the
pain (how distressing is it?) & drives motivation to escape or stop painful
experience
* Processed in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula
(AI)
Social pain hypothesis:
Neuroimaging evidence
Studies show increased dACC and/or AI
activation in response to social pain:
➢ Exclusion from a group
➢ Viewing photograph of rejecting ex-partner
➢ Artwork conveying sense of loneliness &
social disconnection
➢ Viewing disapproving facial expressions (for
individuals high in rejection sensitivity)
➢ Negative social evaluations
What is selectivity ?
(Ex. Intercom study)
Highest liking when confederate’s evaluations went from negative → positive
➢Although rated confederate more
positively (e.g., as ”kinder”) in consistently
positive condition
- If uniformly positive, could be that they like everybody
*** We want to feel that the other likes us
specifically (selectivity) - See this in romantic attraction contexts to
How do we see Selectivity in a speed dating study?
When a participant uniquely desired a particular partner, partner tended to reciprocate desire & feel more chemistry
with the participant
- When a participant tended to desire
many partners, partners experienced less
desire for & chemistry with participant
➢Mediated by perceived unselectivity—
suggests that this is something people
can pick up on 4 min conversation
Do people simply pursue the most attractive option?
(What is the exception to this)
No Balance assessment of reward & risks (rejection)
unconditional love
3 factors predict intensity of unrequited love?
➢ Perceived potential value of relationship
with the person
➢ Perceived probability of striking up a
relationship
➢ Perceived benefits to self of loving the
person, even if it is not reciprocate (bittersweet pain)
How can cultural scripts contribute to unrequited love?
Cultural depictions where would-be lover
persists & wins in the end
- Not many perspectives focus on the rejector
- These ppl may struggle how to act
Unrequited Love: How does the pursuer feel?
➢ Situation as high-stake gamble
➢ Look back on experience with mix of positive & negative emotion
➢ Feel that they had been led on & communication was unclear
Unrequited Love: How does the rejector feel?
➢ No-win situation
➢ Uniformly negative in their accounts
➢ See themselves as morally innocent but still feel guilty
➢ Reluctance to cause pain may be misconstrued as ”mixed signals”
So, should you play hard to get?
No,
Want to communicate that you’re selectively hard to get (partner feels special)
Within a relationship, want to be reliable & steady to foster sense of security in your partner
➢Ambiguity is bad for your partner and bad for your relationship
Why might similarity be attractive?
- Validation for our interests , beliefs, &
opinions - We can better predict the behavior of
similar others - Can participate in shared activities
- We expect those who are similar to us
to be more likely to like us - Interactions may run smoother
Why might ppl look for complementarity traits?
E.g., social + quiet, take charge + easy going
Why it might work:
➢ Each person brings something the other lacks
➢ Partners can divide roles or responsibilities
Desire for similarity:
Study: Participants filled out their traits and their romantic ideal
What did they find?
Tended to want partners whose personality traits were similar to their own
* Particularly true for warmth, but also true for dominance
(interesting cuz you’d expect a dominant person to want a submissive person)
Early Approaches on Effect of similarity on
initial attraction
➢ “Bogus stranger”: responses manipulated to be either similar or dissimilar to one’s own responses
➢ ”Coke date”: pair together individuals high or low on similarity and send them on a date
What did they find?
According to this research, attitudinal similarity predicts
- attraction for people we don’t know
- with whom we are newly acquainted
Recent speed dating study on Effect of similarity on initial attraction
What did they find?
Limited evidence of attraction & actual similarity in speed-dating context
(Maybe causal relationship / r extraversion, political conservatism, religion)
**perceived rather than actual similarity may play larger role
Caveat:
Speed dating study
Question of directionality with perceived similarity
Are people
1. Perceiving similarity -> Attraction
- Attraction -> Want to see similarity (to justify the connection you feel)
- Speed dating (hard to judge someone who u only talk to for 4 minutes)
- And some traits are easier to see then others (ex. extraversion)
What about established relationships?
Do we want similarity / opposites / complementary
For personality, still see more evidence for
similarity rather than complementarity, but not to the same extent as for romantic ideal
- The ppl we are with are usually someone similar to us
- More evidence of matching on attitudes/values/SES
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Class 114
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Class 261
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Class 315
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Class 433
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Class 529
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Class 619
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Class 724
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Class 823
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Class 915
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Class 1021
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Class 1133
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Class 1226
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Class 1322
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Class 14: Attachment 138
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Class 1526
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Class 1631
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Class 17: Sexuality 138
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Class 1842
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Class 19: Conflict 153
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Class 2041
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Class 21: Gaslighting8
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Class 22: Power, Influence, & Violence 132
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Class 2316
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Class 24: Relationship dissolution 17
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Class 2543
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Singlehood16
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Couples Therapy8
