Intimacy - Minnesota State University Moorhead



Intimacy

According to Erikson, intimacy is only possible after achieving a stable personal identity.

The inability to develop meaningful relationships can have negative consequences and negatively affect physical health.

Friendships

Friendship: voluntary social relationship carried out within a social context.

Characteristics of friendship: enjoyment, acceptance, trust, respect, mutual assistance, confiding, understanding, spontaneity.

Friends can also be career mentors

A confidant is an extremely close friend, and affects morale, coping, and avoidance of psychosomatic symptoms.

Friendship—important part of life at every age. It provides:

companionship,

someone to share activities with,

emotional support through difficult times,

and a sense of identity and history

Meaning of friendship changes little over the lifespan—the context and content may change

Regardless of age—people cite mutuality and reciprocity as key elements of friendship.

Studies suggest friendship may become less oriented toward the self, and more oriented toward others in adulthood

Extreme social isolation is associated with psychiatric illness, poor achievement, failure to thrive, and limited job success.

Most adults reveal personal secrets and problems to their relatives but do activities with their friends.

Female friendships involve more intimacy than male friendships. Women's friendships are based on talk. Men's friendships are marked by doing.

Friendships during the Adult Years

Newly married young adults have more friends than adolescents, middle-aged adults, or the elderly.

By middle adulthood, many friends are "old friends," and closeness and convenience is less salient in establishing friendships.

Social convoy is the network of close relationships that accompany an individual throughout life; women generally have larger social convoys.

Convoy Model: Antonucci and Kahn----model of social relations across the life span.

Individual is enmeshed is a social network of emotionally close others—who move with the person thru life (like a convoy of trucks on highway)

Mutual benefits due to these associations—ind. both give social support to; and receives social support from this convoy

3 concentric circles---represent network of relationships

Networks identified by asking people to name important people in lives, then describe quality and function of relationships

Inner circle: closest and most important people—who considered so important in our lives can’t live without them. Spouse, best friend

Middle and outer rings: less close, but still important

By early 30’s---convoy members usually chosen.

Relationship with those selected becomes increasingly close and satisfying

As time goes by—less satisfying and more casual, peripheral relationships dropped, for example those considered acquaintances

Carstenson refers to this as the “Proactive priming process”—networks become more selective as move through life.

Primary goal of social networks is to maximize social and emotional gains; minimize social and emotional risks.

This pattern forms basis of Carstenson’s Socioemtional Selectivity theory.

Socioemotional selectivity theory states that older adults become more selective about their social networks. Because they place a high value on emotional satisfaction, older adults often spend more time with familiar individuals with whom they have had rewarding relationships.

Carstensen argues that older adults deliberately withdraw from social contact with individuals peripheral to their lives, while they maintain or increase contact with close friends and some family members

Selective optimization with compensation theory states that successful aging is linked with three main factors: selection, optimization, and compensation.

• Selection is based on the concept that older adults have a reduced capacity and loss of functioning, which require a reduction in performance in most life domains.

• Optimization suggests that it is possible to maintain performance in some areas through continued practice and technology.

• Compensation involves altering and modifying how one carries out previous tasks in order to increase the level of functioning.

The process of selective optimization with compensation is likely to be effective whenever loss is prominent in a person’s life.

Loneliness

There are two kinds of loneliness : emotional isolation and social isolation, and one type of relationship can not substitute for the other.

Emotional isolation results from the loss or absence of an emotional attachment.

Social isolation occurs through the loss or absence of social ties.

Development of a Marriage

Courtship

Initially, physical appearance is very important.

Selection process involves mutual qualities and interests; complementary qualities may play a role, too.

The Early Years of Marriage

Ideally, the first few years of marriage are filled with exploration and evaluation.

Pre-marital cohabitation and marital satisfaction are inversely related in first-time marriages.

The Parenting Years

A parental imperative makes maximal use of a division of labor between the sexes.

Many young adults are delaying parenting until much later so it is not always at the beginning of adulthood now.

Early articulators decide not to have children and make that decision at a relatively young age.

Postponers continue to delay the decision to have children until children are not part of the marriage.

Benefits of being childfree include the time the couple has together; relationships are equal in marital satisfaction to other couples.

Having Children

Transition into parenthood is often associated with higher marital dissatisfaction.

Parenthood requires increasing financial responsibilities, lowers the number and changes the types of friendships, and lessens free-time.

Factors predicting stable or increasing marital satisfaction for mothers are: husband’s expression of fondness for her, his interest in their relationship, and her interest in him and their relationship.

Factors that have an impact on marital satisfaction:

Affectionate and enjoyable personal relations

Togetherness

Good parental role models

Acceptance of conflict as normal

Homogenous personalities

Satisfaction with sexual relationship

Research done by Levinson maintains that most important determinant of marital satisfaction is extent to which the couple is able to resolve conflict.

In distressed marriages—reciprocal expressions of negative feelings and behaviors is noted.

Levinson: love not usually enough for successful marriage. Effective problem-solving skills and good communication necessary.

Long marriages—able to work out problems together, not let them “fester”

How couples handle disagreements and fights—may predict marriage success.

Whining, defensiveness, stubbornness, and withdrawal—signs of trouble.

Arguing, showing anger (as form of communication) seem to be good for a marriage. Study by Gottman: couples who learned to “fight fair” were 50% less likely to divorce

Gender differences in marital satisfaction:

Marriage appears to benefit men more than women.

All ages—men more satisfied with marriage than women

Studies suggest that women get physical and mental benefits from good marriages, while men benefit regardless of quality of marriage.

Health toll of staying in unhappy marriage hardest on women because in US culture, wife had primary responsibility to try resolve ailing marriage.

Regardless of age & length marriage—women express more positive and negative emotion than men, and more likely to confront problem in marriage---men more likely to withdraw from conflict and “stonewall” or be nonexpressive when experiencing strong negative emotion.

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