What Does Being "In Love" Mean?

For starters, see p. 254 of your text re: voluntary marriages and review this paragraph:

Further insight can be gained from the lay Chrisitan theologian C.S. Lewis

Love and Commitment
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 97-99
The idea that "being in love" is the only reason for remaining married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at all. If love is the whole thing, then the promise can add nothing; and if it adds nothing, then it should not be made. The curious thing is that lovers themselves, while they remain really in love, know this better than those who talk about love. As Chesterton pointed out, those who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. Love songs all over the world are full of vows of eternal constancy. [This] law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion's own nature; it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of itself impels them to do.

And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits one to being true even if I cease to be in love (emphasis added).  A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way (emphasis added).

Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called "being in love" usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending "They lived happily ever after" is taken to mean "They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married," then it says what probably never was nor ever could be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships?

But, of course, ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense--love as distinct from "being in love"--is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be "in love" with someone else.

"Being in love" first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise

Assignment #3: Lost Love

The song written and sung by Tom Paxton tells a common story:

1/ What is the story...what has happened?
2/ What emotions does he feel
3/ Is this an example of lost passionate love, lost companionate love, or both?
4/ Does the song and words convey the sense of loss to you?

Post responses online. Due Friday.

Study Guide Chapter 9-12

Here's some areas to study carefully for the test upcoming on Chapters 9-12. This listing is not all inclusive, but is intended to give you an idea of how well you know the material now. If some or all the questions make no sense, you need to continue to carefully review the material. Caution: this is not a list of questions on the test!

Don't forget to use the study tools in your textbook and at your textbook web site, too!

Review your notes, especially for material not in the book, but on the class web site or part of class discussions.

Studying as part of a small group helps, even if it's just 2 persons.

Chapter 9 Social Processes, Society and Culture

• Importance of the Situation
• Rules, explicit and implicit: give some examples of both
• Stanford Prison Experiment: basic importance; what happened to guards and inmates?
• Social norms=should
• Role of the group
• Deviation from the norm: consequences?
• Conformity
• What is informational vs. normative influence
• What does counter-normative mean?
• Asch experiment basics
• Norm crystallization
• The autokinetic effect illusion: what happens?
• Norm perpetuation and transmission
• Minority opinion aspects
• Group Thinking
• Polarization by the group
• Information influence
• Social comparison-representing an extreme position; effects?
• What is "group think"?
• Situational Power
• "No man is an island" aspects of
• Altruism/Prosocial Behavior
• Roots
• Facilitators of altruism: kinship, etc.
• Reciprocal altruism
• Role of distress when favors offered
• Indirect altruism
• Prosocial Behavior
• Motives (4)
• Empathy-altruism factor
• Genovese Effect
• Who was Kitty Genovese?
• Role of bystanders
• Diffusion of responsibility
• Need to:
• Notice
• Label as emergency
• Feel responsible
• Aggression
• Lorenz' theories of human aggression based on observation of animals
• Counter-theories re: evolution
• Physical vs. social aggression differences; genetic bases
• Role of serotonin and cortisol
• Impulse vs. instrumental aggression differences
• Personality traits linked to aggression: which ones?
• Role of the Situation: blocked in reaching goals
• Escalation w/direct provocation
• Cultural connectivity or no?
• Exposure to violence a factor
• Family history
• Conflict and Peace Psychology
• Milgram's Experiment
• Level of conformity?
• Demand characteristics
• Variation in results of Milgram's experiments (Fig. 9.7)
• Genocide and War Psychology
• Set of forces
• Who is the enemy and how are they portrayed?
• Why go to war? Motivations?
• Family nexus
• Fears of persecution
• Protect of resources, identity
• Peace Psychology
• The authoritarian, the group and leadership style
• Authoritarian, lasissez=faire vs. democratic governance
• Contact!
• Change in small increments

Chapter 10 Communicating Effectively

Basics

• Key components of communication
• Encoding/decoding: who does what?
• What interferes with processing?
• Content and relationship factors (power and status)
• Transactional nature: what does that mean? quick bursts or ongoing communication?
• Example of context of communication?

Verbal Communication

• Speaking
• Denotation (objective) and connotation (subjective)
• Consider the audience; problems with the abstract
• Simplicity rules
• Verbal and non-verbal consistency
• Listening
• Hearing vs. listening: what is difference? When does learning occur?
• 5 key strategies for better listening
• Self-Disclosure
• What 4 aspects of SD does the Johari Window show?
• Gender differences
• Importance of trust
• Timing in relationship: relevance?
• 5 Strategies for Increasing Self-disclosure
• Conflict
• 4 ways we deal with conflict
• 6 Ways to Become More Assertive
• Trends in Western countries
• Gender and Verbal Communication
• Rapport vs. Report Talk: Opposites
• Gender differences
• Barriers
• Judging
• Proposing/Pushing Solutions (non-collaborative)
• Avoiding Other's Concerns
• "...speaking of"
• One-upping
• 5 Strategies for Good Verbal Communication

Non-Verbal Communication

• Characteristics
• Ambiguous often
• Hard to hide
• "The truth will out..."
• Non-verbal leakage
• 6 ways to detect
• Clusters of non-verbal; may conflict w/ verbal
• Cultural differences
• Gender differences in non-verbal communication

• Body Communication
• Gestures: motion of limbs or body
• Facial: cultural differences
• Eye communication
• 4 Functions
• Touch
• Expresses ____________________?
• Status and power aspects
• Gender differences
• Spatial (Proxemics)
• 4 distance categories and differences
• Power and status conveyed
• Who has more space and privacy? Why?
• SSSHHHHHHH!
• Is silence comfortable to everyone? Why not?
• What does a good listener do  with silence?
• Types and examples of paralanguage
• How can you convey different meaning through various elements of paralangauge for the simple sentence "My dog has fleas"? (Try with examples in Fig. 10.9)

Chapter 11 Making and Keeping Friends

• Intro
• More contacts, fewer close friends
• Friends now based on shared interests/pleasures/satisfactions
• Search for closeness; possibility of loneliness greater
• Expectations exceed understanding of what is involved
• Both types of friends needed
• First Impressions
• Durable
• Based on sketchy information
• Negative given more weight; mistakes viewed as "intentional"
• Also, first impressions involve social comparisons
• Components
• Attractiveness
• Attractive people viewed as "better"
• Certain physical attributes. Which ones?
• American perspectives on who is "attractive"
• Ethnocentrism a factor
• "Settle" for what type of person (as far as appearance)?
• Handicapped persons are attractive, in spite of your book's claims, even though they are "different" from the rest of us.
• Reputations
• Similarity
• Personality aspects: similarities and complementary aspects
• Propinquity-Closeness
• Get to know subtle aspects: the  little things
• Interaction linked to liking (kind of obvious, yes?)
• Non-verbal
• 'You remind me of............."
• Gazers vs avoiders
• Verbal-paralanguage
• Mistaken Impressions
• False consensus
• Signs of status? Real?
• Stereotypes: a natural tendency
• "Devil' or "halo" effect
• Fundamental attribution
• Shyness
• What is it?
• What % of Americans say they have a problem with shyness (as opposed to social phobia or social anxiety disorder)?
• Similar across cultures
• 3 basic types
• What % of population has the more extreme form?
• Why does our culture "shun" persons who may be shy? Why?
• Is it genetic? Learned?
• 5 steps to manage shyness
• Keeping Friends
• Extraordinary value of friendships: name some great aspects
• "A friend in need is a friend indeed": significance of this well-known phrase
• Self-Disclosure
• Health benefits: what are they?
• Some situations of SD can backfire. When?
• High self-esteem helps
• Gender differences: describe some
• Same Sex-Opposite Sex Friends
• Intimacy among women
• Also tensions, jealousies, rejection
• Men: dominance, property money
• Sex a factor between sexes
• Who benefits more from opposite sex friendships?
• Motives (6) why people want to "keep it platonic"
• Staying friends
• Trust!
• Life transitions cause break-up of friendships: name some transitions that might cause a friendship to wither
• We're trusting less overall: why is that?
• Loneliness
• Quality and quantity is lower than desired
• Health linkage
• Duration, not intensity, key
• Declines over time
• What parental situation causes serious loneliness in some
• 4 aspects of EI (Emotional Intelligence)
• Our focus (obsession) with self-fulfillment....good or bad?
• Lonely persons exaggerate internal, diminish external as a cause of loneliness

Chapter 12 Love and Commitment

• The Ingredients of Love
• Friendship/Love overlap: where?
• Differences w/friendships
• Theories of Love
• Hatfields conclusions: passionate and companionate love
• What conditions to qualify for falling "madly" in love?
• Sternberg's "Triangle of Love": so what are the 3 components, he says?
• Cultural variations: where do people come from who place love on a "pedestal"?
• Attachment styles (3)
• "Apple doesn't fall far from the tree": what does this refer to with styles of relationships?
• Male vs. Female differences?
• Commitment
• Cohabitation: define
• General characteristics (demographics)
• What is the "cohabitation effect"?
• What are definitional features of "battering abuse"
• Are they confined to one particular group of persons in terms of social, ethnic or economic factors?
• Marriage-legal union
• What is a common law marriage?
• Is gay marriage legal?
• Do Americans support gay unions? marriages? raising children in a gay marriage?
• Are people waiting longer to marry? Why?
• Are marriages between older people likely to last longer?
• What is meant by "voluntary marriage"?
• What shift in form of love occurs later in a marriage?
• Various aspects of negative and positive aspects of interaction in a marriage, esp. Gottman, Fincham, Kalmijn studies?
• What does 5:1 refer to?
• What's "consummate" love?
• Various aspects of adustments to sharing, communication and conflict
• Are marriages more egalitarian?
• What about perceptions of inequity in household chores?
• Issues with multiple roles.
• Several approaches to solve above problems
• Dynamics of sex itself
• Frequency or quality?
• Age factors
• Double standard of heterosexual sex: what is it exactly? Is the frequency of affairs becoming equal for men and women?
• What factors are more likely to lead a person to engage in extramarital affairs?
• Divorce
• Who initiates a divorce?
• Who makes more plans to divorce
• Who is more likely to follow through with a divorce?
• Who is more likely to talk with friends re: possible divorce?
• Who thinks more about it before actually getting a divorce ? (see a pattern here?)
• Est. time to recover?
• Single Parent Families and Remarriages
• Does divorce make children more vulnerable to psychological stress and depression?
• Does remarriage cause stress
• Is there some relationship between a single Mom and potential for economic hardship? What is statistical increase in likelihood of poverty  for kids for single-parent kids vs. married couple family?
• What is likelihood of success for a remarriage vs. first marriage?
• Are adolescents a source of difficulty in the success of remarriage?

Sybil: Don't Make Me Over

Lovers (and Friends) Ask: (Yes?)

Beauty and Disability

Recommended Reading: Friends and the Mall

Very interesting article re: friendships in adolescence:

Friends, Friends with Benefits and the Benefits of the Local Mall

Recommended Reading: Can You Be Too Attractive?

Heidi Alverson says we Americans "are so conflicted and dishonest about the power of beauty, we approach it like novices".

This article discusses some interesting points about being very "attractive".

Can You Be Too Beautiful?

Recommended Reading: Kids Live in a Virtual World, not a Real world?

Latest update on electronics indicates kids 8-18 spend up to 10 hours a day involved in electronic content of some sort? Are we creating electronic virtual humans or is the net effect of all this electronic media positive?

Living in a Virtual World?

Recommended Viewing: Body Language

A Case of Adults Cyberbullying a Sick Child

More Info Here

Mini Assignment-Mean Tots

Graphic from NYTimes 10/08/10

Hey, it's getting rough out there. Some say bullying is becoming a more common feature of the school experience.

Check out the NYT article by Pamela Paul on the current "State of the Playground".

The Playground Gets Even Tougher

Write a brief note and post online re:

1. Being a bullying victim, or
2. Witness to bullying, and intervening, or
3. Witness to bullying, and not intervening, or
4. Other types of experiences you may wish to share with bullying

Due Friday, October 15

Additional information from National Public Radio (NPR)

Bullying article and audio

Kim Severson: Spoon Fed

Interesting profile of this food writer for the New York Times who stopped comparing herself to others, and became her own clear voice. Related to elements of one's growing self-awareness leading to seperation from others, and an initial tendency to compare yourself [unrealistically often] to others in your field.

Human Relations Oral Report Outline

Human Relations Oral Report Outline

Human Relations Research Paper Outline

Human Relations Research Paper Outline

Missing? Current as of October 15, 2010

The following students have not submitted research report topics, oral reports or partners. You can not pass the course without topics!

Research Report Topic Missing

• Justin?

Oral Report Topics & Partner Missing

• Robert, Andrew, Drew: need oral report topic form!
• Justin?

Recommended Reading: Sharif's Robber's Cave Study