A talk table is used to…
Measure how partners understand their interactions with each other.
Talk Table
Each partner uses the talk table and are asked to rate the intent of every statement they make. Each partner also rates the impact of the statement they hear from the other partner.
Information Processing
All the ways we organize our perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs about the world.
Do we tend to describe people globally or specifically?
Somewhere in between.
Fatal Attraction
A type of attraction in which qualities in a partner that are initially perceived as attractive grow to be sources of irritation later in the relationship.
Motive
A drive to reach a certain goal.
Bias
A tendency to process information to protect a particular point of view.
Motivated Reasoning
All the ways that motives, retires, and preferences shape how we select, interpret, and organize information, guided by satisfying specific needs and achieving specific goals.
Enhancement Motive
The desire to support and strengthen positive views if a partner and a relationship.
Enhancement Bias
The tendency to process information that supports positive beliefs about a partner and a relationship, rather than negative ones.
Accuracy Motive
The desire to understand a partner and to be understood in turn.
Diagnosticity Bias
A preference for information that may indicate important qualities in partner or a relationship; the tendency to perceive such information to be more revealing than it actually may be.
Confirmation Bias
A preference for information that supports one’s established beliefs and expectations.
What leads to enhancement, or believing the best?
Enhancement motive and enhancement bias.
What leads to accuracy, or being known?
Diagnosticity bias and confirmation bias.
Relationships are more satisfying when the partner views you more positively. True or false?
False, when they view you more accurately it contributes to confirmation bias, and makes the relationship more satisfying.
What leads to justification, or being right?
Sentiment override, justification motive, and self-serving bias.
Sentiment Override
Tendency for partners’ global feelings about their relationship to colour their perceptions of specific behaviours and experiences.
In what situation would a partner use sentiment override to rate a relationship more negatively than friend would?
When the relationship is unsatisfying.
Justification Motive
A preference for information that supports a positive view of oneself, even if it does not support a relationship.
Self-Serving Bias
The tendency to take credit for our success and to blame others or circumstances for our failures.
We use the justification motive to devalue the other person so…
We can absolve ourselves of the responsibility of the relationship ending.
Accommodation
The process of changing existing beliefs to integrate new information.
Assimilation
The process of integrating new information with existing knowledge without substantially changing the existing beliefs.
Initially, do couples assimilate or accommodate?
Assimilate.
What are the two broad strategies people take with negative information?
- Ignore it.
2. Implications are denied or minimized.
Selective Attention
Noticing and focusing on some information or stimuli in the environment and not others.
Empathy Accuracy Model
A framework to explain when partner should be more or less motivated to attend to and understand what each other is thinking and feeling. The model proposes that our motivation to understand our partner accurately varies, depending on how threatening our partner’s thoughts and feelings are likely to be.
The empathy accuracy model is based on ___ ___.
Selective attention.
Memory Bias
The tendency for people’s memories of the past to be distorted by their current feelings and desires.
Attribution
An explanation for a behaviour, the explanation attributes a behaviour to some more general cause.
What are the two dimensions that are especially important in attribution?
- Locus.
2. Stability.
Locus Dimension (in attribution).
With reference to attributions, the location of the cause of a behaviour, usually distinguishing between causes that are internal or external to the actor. See also stability dimension.
Stability Dimension (in attribution).
With reference to attributions, the duration of the cause of a behaviour, usually distinguishing between causes that are temporary or continuous. See also locus dimension.
True or false? The occurrence of an action is being disputed in attribution.
False, the causes and meanings are.
Are attributions always good? If not, give an example.
No. Battered women.
Flexible Standards
Standards that can be changed over time to that whatever is currently perceived to be positive about a relationship is considered important and whatever is currently perceive to be negative is dismissed as unimportant.
More ___ in standards lead to happier marriages.
Flexibility.
Cognitive Restructuring
A process by which the implications of a partner’s perceived faults are minimized by linking them to perceptions of the partner’s strengths.
Reinterpretation
A way that partner accomplish cognitive restructuring, by connecting a partner’s acknowledged faults to higher-level positive ideals. See also refutation.
Refutation
A way that partners accomplish cognitive restructuring, by interpreting negative behaviours to minimize their impact on the relationship. See also reinterpretation.
What are the two methods of cognitive restructuring?
- Reinterpretations.
2. Refutations.
“Yes, but” is characteristic of what method of cognitive restructuring?
Refutation.
Those who utilized cognitive restructuring in their relationships turned out to be quite unhappy. True or false?
False, they were happier.
Social Comparison
An individual’s use of information about others to evaluate his or her own attitudes and abilities.
Upward Social Comparisons
Evaluating oneself in relation to others who are doing better in that domain.
Downward Social Comparisons
A way of feeling better about oneself relative to others who are doing worse.
Derogating Alternative Partners
Protecting a current relationship by evaluating possible alternatives to the relationship negatively.
Cognitive Complexity
The extent to which ha person’s thoughts about particular subjects are well integrated and take multiple dimensions into consideration.
Effective processing of information in relationships requires not only the ability to assimilate negative information, but also…
A context that allows partners to exercise that ability.
Even those with high cognitive complexity struggle because…
They have trouble organizing their thoughts, especially in high stress situations like fights.
Commitment Calibration Hypothesis
The idea that threats to a relationship should motivate activities to protect the relationship only if the threat is calibrated to partners’ level of commitment. For them to take action, a threat must be big enough to not but not so big as to overwhelm their desire to remain in that relationship.
Which two groups were motivated to protect the relationship from a mild threat?
Unhappy married couples and happy daters.
What happened when the two groups who were motivated to protect the relationship from a mild threat faced a bigger threat (the person was interested in them)?
They did not derogate the alternative partners (their commitment was overwhelmed).
Satisfied partners magnified each others’ ___ and minimized each others’ ___, while unsatisfied partners did the opposite.
Strengths, weaknesses.
Why are relationship interactions seen as circular?
Those who are satisfied tend to reinforce that (preserve/enhance), while those who are unsatisfied reinforce that (justify distress).
