Schemas: A Study Of Romantic Relationships

In the movie Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz, two different kinds of love are exposed. The love relationship between Ilsa Lund and Rick is a more passionate relationship while the one between Ilsa and Victor Laszlo is more intimate. Love is composed of different feelings and because of that it can be expressed, as seen in Casablanca, in different ways. “The Intimate Relationship Mind”, a text by Garth J. O. Fletcher and Megan Stenswick, helps support that claim providing a scientific background on how love is shaped by those different feelings. It says that “love is composed of three distinct and basic components that each represent evolved adaptations; namely, intimacy, commitment,

After reading the chapter “Romantic Communication in Intimate Relationships: The Romantic Construal Model”, I was left with a lot of new knowledge. The Romantic Construal Model, which identifies how people judge romantic acts via personalization, specialness and conveyed value, is something that I had never heard of before and enjoyed learning about, but like with any new concept I was left with lots of questions as well as relations to other things I have previously learned. For this thought paper my question that I am going to address is why are certain types of communication more valuable to romantic intimate relationships than others?

Based on the intimacy component in the triangular theory of love the couple Hong Shun and Sheryl The second component in the triangular theory of love is passion. The passion component refers to the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation, and related phenomena in loving relationships. The passion component thus includes within its purview those sources of motivational and other forms of arousal that lead to the experience of passion in a loving relationship (Robert J. Steinberg n.d.). According to the passion in the triangular theory of love, we can see that the couple Hong Shun and Sheryl The last component in the triangular theory of love is commitment. The commitment component refers to, in the short term, the decision that one loves someone else, and in the long term, the commitment to maintain that love. The commitment component thus includes within its purview the cognitive elements that are involved in decision making about the existence of and potential long-term commitment to a loving relationship (Robert J. Steinberg n.d.). Based on the commitment component, we can conclude that the couple Hong Shun and Sheryl, does not have much commitment to their

The human idea of love is quite possibly the most misunderstood in today’s society. Love can be between a man and woman, mother/father and their kids, or even really good friends. However, these relationships of love go through many interactions and stages to start and progress. Many psychological events must occur and be worked through in order to be successful. All relationships must endure the five perspectives of human behavior. These perspectives are biological, learning, social and cultural, cognitive, and psychodynamic influences.

The three prototypes explored are avoidant, anxious-ambivalent, and secure attachments which describes how partners will behave in close relationships and how caring and supportive each individual is within their relationship. Avoidant attached individuals are withdrawn from relationships and untrustworthy of others. Anxious-Ambivalent individuals worry often about their partner’s needs being fulfilled as well as theirs and analyze if they’re moving too fast in the relationship when compared to their partner. Secured individuals are completely trustworthy of their partner and confident in their feelings and

Kerchoff and Davis used their model to do a study on students who had been together for more than or less than 18 months. They were asked to complete questionnaires over 7 months on attitudes and personality of their partners compared to theirs; it was found that this was important in relationships up

Hazan and Shaver (1987) aimed to investigate whether they could classify the responders’ love relationships as secure, ambivalent, and avoidant, whether there was a correlation between the formed attachment pattern from childhood and attachment pattern during the love relationships, and whether there was a correlation between the distribution of childhood attachment patterns and adult love relationships’ attachment patterns.

A study performed by Hatfield et al. examined cognitive process in romantic relationships using Schemas which are mental representations of categories or

Males were more likely to score higher on tests that scale romanticism and are more prone to recognize their romantic feelings much earlier than females (Kanin et al. 64). Since males tend to recognize the love feeling earlier, for males to be determined as “more romantic,” the definition must be based on the speed of the recognition of the romantic feeling (Kanin et al. 71).

Modern day society, even with all of its technological and cultural advancements, still struggles with the question of “How do we love?” To put it in simpler terms, what factors exactly play a role in who we as human beings choose in partners over another? What attracts us to one person and not another? It is hard to imagine a concrete formula that works for each and every individual on the planet, since there are infinitely too many factors that play into the development of attraction between individuals. The advent of society has served only to introduce even more possible factors of attraction, which further complicate the issue. Whereas animals may choose to mate with each other due to a display of superior genetics, humans have to contend

"In conjunction with this previous embodiment research, our speed-dating results strongly suggest that the mere act of approaching a potential love interest can boost desire." The authors concluded women are not any picker than men in choosing their partner. It also concluded that those who rotated experienced greater romantic desire for their partners, compared to those who sat through the speed dating event. I agree with the authors I believe that both sex can feel more confident when being approached and can promote tendencies to experience romantic desires and romantic chemistry with their partners. I also believe that being presented with a lot of options can be demotivating as well which can cause a person not to make a

Sociological perspectives explains love relationships as not perfect but a working progress. A commitment which relies on continuous maintenance and reassurance. Love relationship practices and investments are configured in experiences that will be shared in the past, present and in the future.

Disney’s “love at first sight” concept, eludes the viewer to conclude that by simply making eye contact with another, it is possible to instantly fall in love. According to psychologist Robert Sternberg’s “Triangular Theory of Love”, there are three components of a loving relationship: intimacy, passion, and the decision or commitment (Sterberg). “Love at first sight” falls under the passion category, characterized by the physical aspects of a relationship, including attraction and sexual consumption (Richardson). Despite the fact that passion is important, these relationships, lack intimacy, or all of the emotional aspects of an accord. Without intimacy, it is near impossible to sustain a happy and healthy relationship as both partners do not practice empathy, make attempts to understand their mate, nor do they show proper compassion to their lover. Furthermore, the relationship also lacks decision or commitment, a vital aspect of any marriage. The commitment to sustain a relationship and marry another individual for life is the foundation of marriage. Without this foundation, a marriage cannot mature and develop as the companions change through the years. In order for a marriage to work, all three components must be present, and collectively work together to ensure a loving and structured

Simpson et al. found that participants in existing relationships rated people of the opposite sex as less attractive than participants not in relationships. This suggests that people judge prospects of new alternative relationships as less profitable if they are already in a committed relationship.

The article “Romantic Comedies Affect Beliefs About Relationships”, written by Arlyn Riskind, suggests to readers that romantic films are a major source for developing unrealistic expectations about love and relationships. “A survey of 335 undergraduate students in the Midwest found a significant relationship between reporting watching romantic films often and belief in the ideals “love conquers all,” “one and only” love (soul mate) and “love at first sight” (Riskind). These findings compliment the expectation that watching romantic movies is a major source leading to the unrealistic expectations among viewers.