Context
Everything that affects a relationship outside of the couple and their interactions; includes physical, social, cultural, and historical elements.
Proximal Context
The immediate circumstances or environmental factors that affect a psychological phenomenon; for example, marriage appears to afford protection through improved health.
Distal Context
Elements in the environment that are removed from a couple and affect them indirectly; for example, the social and cultural contexts within which relationships form and develop.
Examples of proximal context.
Time of day an interaction ties place, the room the couple interacts in, whether the lights are on or off, whether each partner had a good day at work or not.
Examples of distal context.
Social, religious, and cultural contexts.
Stressor
An event or circumstance that makes demands on person and requires some kind of adjustment, response, or adaptation; represented by A in the ABC-X model.
Resource
An asset; a source of practical, social, or emotional support outside a couple that contributes to their ability to interact effectively or adapt to stresses and circumstances; represented by B in the ABC-X model.
Chronic Conditions
Aspects of the environment that are relatively stable and enduring, such as the quality of one’s neighbourhood or one’s socioeconomic status.
Acute Event
An experience that has a relatively clear onset and the possibility of an end point, such as a car accident, an illness, or a period of unemployment.
Chronic conditions tend to influence relationships in a ___ manner, while the effects of acute events are ___.
Stable, reversible.
What model indicates stress as a factor in relationships?
ABC-X.
Controllable, predictable stressors have ___ effect on relationships than uncontrollable, unpredictable stressors.
Less.
Stress Pile-Up
The accumulation of stress when one adverse event leads to other adverse events.
Fight-or-Flight Response
A physiological response to stress or threat that prepares the body to take action, either by confronting the threat (fight) or by escaping it (flight).
Yerkes-Dodson Law
The idea that performance on a simple task improves as arousal increases but that performance then decreases as arousal continues to rise.
True or false? Physiological arousal helps negative experiences.
False.
When outside stress was high, couples who excused their partners due to low levels of stress…
Blamed their partners for negative behaviours.
Relationship satisfaction tends to ___ after being exposed to external stressors.
Decline.
Stress Spillover
The transmission of the effects of stress from one domain in a person’s life to other domains, such as from outside a relationship to inside.
Long-Distance Relationships
A relationship in which partners spend most of their time physically separated from each other, restricting regular face-to-face interaction.
Stress Crossover
The transmission of the effects of stress from one person to another.
Stress ___ is experienced within an individual, while stress ___ is experienced between individuals.
Spillover, crossover.
Socioeconomic Status (SES)
All the ways individuals differ in their ranking within a social structure, including income, education, and occupation.
Has marriage lost its value?
There is no evidence of this.
While attitudes concerning marriage have not changed, what has?
Attitudes toward divorce, premarital sex, unmarried cohabitation, remaining single, and choosing to be childless all became more acceptable.
4 obstacles to getting married for low income women.
- Affordability.
- Fear of divorce.
- Fear of losing autonomy.
- Fear of domestic violence.
How do we improve helping low-income couples?
- Acknowledge the real challenges that low-income couples face.
- Any programs that improve the lives of low-income individuals are likely to benefit their relationships as well.
Social Networks
The families, friendships, neighbourhoods, clubs, and institutions through which individuals are connected.
Sociometry
A method of measuring and displaying the strength and number of relationships within a collection of individuals, achieved by asking all members of the group about the quality and quantity of their interactions with every other member of the group.
Psychological Network
Those who play important roles in a person’s life.
Interactive Network
The set of people with whom an individual interacts regularly.
Network Density
The degree to which members of an individual’s social network are themselves connected to other people within the network.
Network Overlap
The extent to which partners in a relationship consider the same individuals to be part of their personal networks.
Social Capital
The tangible and intangible benefits individuals derive from their relationships with others.
When do social networks keep partners together?
- When the social networks of the two partners overlap.
2. When the social networks of both partners approve of and support the relationship.
Substitutability
The degree to which different members of a social network may fulfill the same needs for an individual.
