PSY327H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Human Sexual Activity, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Charlotte York Goldenblatt
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Questions
Are people who have lots of sex happier?
How do you keep the spark alive in relationships?
Why do people cheat?
Can you love more than one person at the same time?
Plan for Today
Part 1: Sexuality
Part 2: Jealousy & Infidelity
Part 3: Non-Monogamy
Sexuality and well-being
Quality of sex life predicts relationship quality
•
Sex has physical health benefits
•
Sexual Frequency and Sexual Satisfaction
Sexual frequency is associated with increased sexual satisfaction
•
The link is bidirectional.
•
Consistent for men and women, for people living in Western vs. non Western
countries, for same-sex and mixed-sex couples.
•
Also benefits for satisfaction with life in general . . .
•
Satisfaction with life
30,645 participants
•
Sexual frequency only matters for well-being for people in relationships
•
Found a curcilinear effect of sexual frequency on life satisfaction
•
Sexuality and Well-Being
Sexuality and Well-Being
Sexual Conflicts of Interest
Romantic partners inevitable encounter situations in which their sexual interests
differ
•
One of top 3 most cited arguments, common reason to seek therapy•
Difficult type of conflict to resolve•
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
Self expansion1.
Sexual communication2.
Sexual goals3.
Sexual communal motivation4.
Self Expansion
In new relationships, people are rapidly expanding their sense of self.•
We start to incorporate the other person into our sense of self (self-other overlap)•
Declines in Self Expansion
We tend to get into routines with our romantic partners and do fewer novel and
exciting activities
•
To maintain satisfaction, we need to engage in activities that enable us to KEEP
expanding our sense of self
•
Self Expansion in Daily Life
118 couples filled out surveys for 28 days•
Average age=32•
Average relationship duration=5 years•
Each day rated relationship satisfaction, sexual activity, and sexual desire•
Measure of Self Expansion
How much did being with your partner expand your sense of the kinds of person you
are?
•
How much did being with your partner result in you having a new experience?•
Results
More daily self expansion predicted:
Higher sexual desire•
36% more likely to have sex•
More satisfied with their relationship•
•
Experimental Study
198 participants from amazons mechanical turk•
Mean age=33, mean relationship duration=7 years•
Randomly assigned them to one of three conditions:
Self-expanding activities•
Comfortable activities•
Control: no information•
•
Weekend self expansion study
% Who Had Sex?
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
Self expansion1.
Sexual communication2.
Sexual goals3.
Sexual communal motivation4.
Communication
97% said they could talk to their partner about sex, but only 28% reported serious
discussion in past year.
•
Long-term couples understand 62% of behaviours that partner finds pleasing, 26% of
what find displeasing
•
Communication
Sexual communication is important for sexual satisfaction and sexual well-being.
Instrumental function•
Expressive function•
•
Sexual assertiveness (asking for and initiating what you want) is linked to satisfaction.•
Couples with sexual problems have poorer sexual and non-sexual communication.•
How and When To Communicate
Communicating nonverbally during sex is related to greater satisfaction. •
Couples more satisfied from using sexual terms vs. technical terms•
Charlotte, On Faking Orgasm
“…if you really like the guy what's one little moment of ooh-ooh versus spending the
whole night in bed alone?...And who's to say that one moment is any more important
than when he gets up and pours you a cup of coffee in the morning?”
- Charlotte York, Sex and the City
Faking It?
70% of women do not experience orgasm as a result of intercourse•
Men (25%) and women (50%) report faking orgasm
Want sex to end, orgasm unlikely, want to avoid hurting partner•
Women may fake orgasm in an attempt to retain mate•
•
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
Self expansion1.
Sexual communication2.
Sexual goals3.
Sexual communal motivation4.
Sexual Goals
Approach goals: pursuing positive sexual outcomes•
Avoidance goals: trying to avoid negative sexual outcomes•
methods
Sexual Goals Measure
Study 1: daily results
Study 1: longitudinal results
Study 2: daily results
Study 2: longitudinal results
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
1. Self expansion
Sexual communication2.
3. Sexual goals
4. Sexual communal motivation
Sexual Communal Motivation
• The motivation to meet a partner’s sexual needs
• How high a priority is it for you to meet your partner’s sexual needs?
• How far would you be willing to go to meet your partner’s sexual needs?
Sexual Communal Motivation
Have partners with higher sexual and relationship satisfaction•
But they are also higher in sexual and relationship satisfaction too!•
Maintain higher sexual desire over time•
Maintaining desire over time
Remember approach goals?
21-Day Dyadic Daily Experience Study
• Participants:
• 101 established couples ages 18-53 years, together 6 months-22 years
• Intake session: sexual communal motivation
• Daily diary: engaged in sex? Sexual desire. Sexual satisfaction
Desire Discrepancies
• Partners reported sexual desire each day
• Desire discrepancies on 69% of days
• Tested desire discrepancy as a moderator
• Goal: demonstrate effects of communal motivation even on days when people
had lower desire than their partner
•
•
Unmitigated sexual communication
• Communal motivation to meet a partners sexual needs that is unmitigated by agency
• Involves neglecting ones own sexual needs
Sexual communal motivation
• On days when people were higher in sexual communal motivation…
• They reported higher relationship satisfaction
• Both partners reported higher sexual satisfaction
Unmitigated sexual communication
• On days when people were higher in unmitigated sexual communication…
• They reported lower sexual and marginally lower relationship satisfaction
• No effects for the partner
In Sum
• Sexuality matters for well-being, but there are challenges to sexuality in long-term
relationships.
• Many factors can promote desire and satisfaction
•Self-expansion, sexual communication, sexual goals, sexual communal
motivation
Break
Plan for Today
Part 1: Sexuality
Part 2: Jealousy & Infidelity
Part 3: Non-Monogamy
TopHat Question
Have you ever been jealous of someone who has interacted with your romantic
partner?
A. Yes
B. No
TopHat Question
How did the situation make you feel?
A. mostly sad and hurt
B. mostly angry
C. mostly anxious
D. mix of all 3
Jealousy
• A combination of hurt, anger, and fear
• Occurs when people face the potential loss of a valued relationship to someone else
• Reactive jealousy occurs in response to an actual threat.
• Suspicious jealousy occurs when one’s partner hasn’t misbehaved, and suspicions do
not fit the facts.
Who’s Prone to Jealousy?
• Individual differences in susceptibility to jealousy are related to a combination of:
• Dependence on a relationship - when people feel that they need their partners
(e.g., low avoidant attachment)
• Feelings of inadequacy - when people feel that they aren’t good enough for
their partner (e.g., anxious attachment)
Responses to Jealousy
• Securely attached people are more likely to express their concerns and try to repair
the relationship.
• Avoidantly attached people tend to avoid the issue and to pretend that they don’t
care.
• Women are more likely to react to jealousy by trying to improve the relationship.
• Men are more likely to strive to protect their egos.
Jealousy and Facebook
Facebook
• Extremely popular among Canadians, esp. young people
• Changed the way we communicate about relationships and our access to information
• Information seeking: “creeping”
Two Studies
• Study 1 hypothesis
• The more people spend time using Facebook, the more jealousy they will
experience.
• Study 2 hypothesis
• Exposure to jealousy triggers on Facebook will lead to more information
seeking.
Study 1
• 343 undergraduate Facebook users
• On average, 385 FB friends; 45 minutes per day!
• Majority were currently involved in dating relationships
• Created a new measure of jealousy on Facebook
Facebook Jealousy Measure
• How likely are you to become jealous after your partner has added an unknown
member of the opposite sex?
• How likely are you to monitor your partner’s activities on Facebook?
Study 1 Results
• Women spent significantly more time on Facebook than men
• Time spent on Facebook predicted increased jealousy, even controlling for other
personal and relationship factors.
• But only for women, not men
Study 1 Results
Study 2
• 160 psychology undergraduate students
• Used simulated environment to expose participants to a picture of their “partner” on
FB
• Partner was pictured with either: (a) a cousin, (b) friend, or (c) unknown
• Measured jealousy and time spent searching
Study 2 Results
• Participants were most jealous and spent the most time creeping when person was
unknown or a mutual friend as opposed to a cousin.
• For women, the more jealousy they felt, the more time they spent creeping.
•No link for men
“I would never look at her FB page . . . I would just rather not know.” (man)
“I’m sure if I looked at it every day, I would feel kind of jealous and bummed out. So I
never look at hers and she tells me she always looks at mine, and she asked me
questions about being in pictures with girls or whatever. But I’ll never look at her
Facebook.” (man)
“It’s just really easy access, like, if you have a question and you don’t trust the person,
you can just go on Facebook and find it. It’s just a really easy investigative tool. You
don’t really need blind trust anymore, you can just go on Facebook and keep tabs on
people.” (woman)
Implications
• Facebook (social networking sites) give us new opportunities.
• But it also creates new challenges.
• We need to learn more about how we can maximize the potential rewards while also
dealing with the new challenges.
TopHat Question
• What is your gender?
• Male
• Female
• Do not identify/prefer not to say
TopHat Question
• Think of a serious, committed romantic relationship. Imagine that you discover that
the person with whom you’ve been seriously involved became interested in someone
else.
• What would distress or upset you more:
• A. Imagining your partner forming a deep emotional attachment to that person.
• B. Imagining your partner having passionate sexual intercourse with that
person.
Jealousy and Infidelity
• From an evolutionary perspective, men should be more threatened by sexual infidelity
because of paternity uncertainty.
• Women should be more threatened by withdrawal of protective resources so they
should be especially threatened by emotional infidelity.
• 60% of the men said the sex would be more troubling, but only 17% of the women
did.
% Reporting More Distress to Sexual Infidelity
Jealousy and Infidelity
In fact, men and women do appear to be differentially sensitive to the two types of
threat.
Evolution, Jealousy and Infidelity
• Is this sex difference the result of evolutionary pressures?
• Both sexes hate both types of infidelity.
• Men and women are more similar than they are different.
Two Types of Love
•Passionate love
• Feelings of intense longing with physiological arousal; when it is reciprocated,
we feel fulfillment and ecstasy, and when it is not, we feel despair
•Companionate love
• Feelings of intimacy and affection we feel for another person about whom we
care deeply
Companionate Love Lasts
• Hundreds of couples married 15 years or longer asked why their marriages lasted
Two most important reasons
“My spouse is my best friend.”1.
2. “I like my spouse as a person.”
•
Predicaments of Passion
• People often marry out of passionate love, but then long-term commitment is based
on a state which CHANGES.
• Passionate love trumps intimacy and commitment, which may lead people to do
things they regret (infidelity).
Expectations about infidelity
•97-100% say infidelity is unacceptable
• US marriages: 98-99% expect exclusivity
• Yet only 52% of dating couples have an explicit agreement.
• Do you expect monogamy in your romantic relationships?
A. Yes
B. No
C. I’m not sure
• Have you made an explicit monogamy agreement in your current (or previous)
romantic relationship?
A. Yes
B. No
Prevalence of infidelity
•15-25% of married couples
• Lifetime occurrence in oldest cohort: 19% of women and 37% of men
•25-60% of dating relationships
• Among divorced couples: 40% of men and 44% of women
Why study infidelity
• Extramarital affairs are 2nd leading cause of divorce for women and 3rd leading cause
for men
1st: Emotional problems
2nd for men: difficulties in sexual relationship
• Therapists report as 3rd most difficult issue to treat
1st: Lack of loving feelings
2nd: Alcoholism
Cause or consequences?
• Does infidelity increase the risk of divorce?
• Or is infidelity merely a symptom of a marriage that has already come apart?
Its bidirectional
•17-year longitudinal study of more than 1,000 married couples in U.S.
• Evidence for bidirectionality
•
Commitment =/= Monogamy
• Commitment = intention to maintain the relationship over the long-term
• Monogamy = one romantic/sexual partner only
Consensual Non-Monogamy
• Relationships in which all parties agree that it is acceptable to have additional
romantic or sexual partners.
• ~5.3% population
• 21% involved in CNM at some point in their lives
Three Categories of CNM
• Open relationships: partners can pursue additional sexual relationships
• Swinging: partners can have sex outside of the relationship, usually in context of
specific events
• Polyamory: partners can engage in romantic relationships with more than one person
“In our marriage vows, we didn’t say ‘forsaking all others.’ The vow that we made was
that you will never hear that I did something after the fact . . . one spouse can say to
the other, ‘Look, I need to have sex with somebody. I’m not going to if you don’t
approve of it, but please approve of it.’”
- Will Smith
Consensual Non-Monogamy =/= Cheating
• Consenting to a non-monogamous arrangement alters the definition of cheating.
• Cheating is breaking whatever boundaries the couple has set up.
CNM and Well-Being
• Stigma: Monogamous relationships consistently rated more positively than CNM
• In reality: Similar relationship quality and psychological well-being
Dan Savage on “Monogamish”
CNM Mythbusters!
• Myth #1: More Jealousy?
• Myth #2: More Sexually Risky?
• Myth #3: Detracts from Primary Relationship
Myth #1: More Jealousy?
• Busted:
• Jealousy is actually more manageable in CNM relationships
• In swingers, jealousy diminished over time
• In poly relationships, partners can feel compersion
•
•
Myth #2: More Sexually Risky?
• Busted: non-monogamy is healthier alternative to unfaithfulness
• Monogamous people who have been unfaithful to their partner use less sexual
protection
• Get tested for STI's less frequently
• Are less likely to discuss sexual health with new partners
Myth #3: Detracts from Primary Relationship
• Busted
• Need fulfillment with one partner was very slightly, negatively related to
satisfaction with another
• But, not related to commitment to the other partner
Same-Sex CNM
• Monogamy is viewed as more positive than CNM, just like for heterosexuals.
• No differences b/t monogamous & CNM gay men on:
• Sexual satisfaction, communication, or sexual frequency
• Monogamous MORE sexually jealous
CNM: Summary
• There is a lot of stigma toward people in CNM relationships.
• But they seem to be doing just fine!
Week 7: Sexuality, Infidelity, & Non-monogamy
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
3:52 PM
Questions
Are people who have lots of sex happier?
How do you keep the spark alive in relationships?
Why do people cheat?
Can you love more than one person at the same time?
Plan for Today
Part 1: Sexuality
Part 2: Jealousy & Infidelity
Part 3: Non-Monogamy
Sexuality and well-being
Quality of sex life predicts relationship quality•
Sex has physical health benefits•
Sexual Frequency and Sexual Satisfaction
Sexual frequency is associated with increased sexual satisfaction•
The link is bidirectional.•
Consistent for men and women, for people living in Western vs. non Western
countries, for same-sex and mixed-sex couples.
•
Also benefits for satisfaction with life in general . . . •
Satisfaction with life
30,645 participants•
Sexual frequency only matters for well-being for people in relationships•
Found a curcilinear effect of sexual frequency on life satisfaction•
Sexuality and Well-Being
Sexuality and Well-Being
Sexual Conflicts of Interest
Romantic partners inevitable encounter situations in which their sexual interests
differ
•
One of top 3 most cited arguments, common reason to seek therapy•
Difficult type of conflict to resolve•
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
Self expansion1.
Sexual communication2.
Sexual goals3.
Sexual communal motivation4.
Self Expansion
In new relationships, people are rapidly expanding their sense of self.•
We start to incorporate the other person into our sense of self (self-other overlap)•
Declines in Self Expansion
We tend to get into routines with our romantic partners and do fewer novel and
exciting activities
•
To maintain satisfaction, we need to engage in activities that enable us to KEEP
expanding our sense of self
•
Self Expansion in Daily Life
118 couples filled out surveys for 28 days•
Average age=32•
Average relationship duration=5 years•
Each day rated relationship satisfaction, sexual activity, and sexual desire•
Measure of Self Expansion
How much did being with your partner expand your sense of the kinds of person you
are?
•
How much did being with your partner result in you having a new experience?•
Results
More daily self expansion predicted:
Higher sexual desire•
36% more likely to have sex•
More satisfied with their relationship•
•
Experimental Study
198 participants from amazons mechanical turk•
Mean age=33, mean relationship duration=7 years•
Randomly assigned them to one of three conditions:
Self-expanding activities•
Comfortable activities•
Control: no information•
•
Weekend self expansion study
% Who Had Sex?
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
Self expansion1.
Sexual communication2.
Sexual goals3.
Sexual communal motivation4.
Communication
97% said they could talk to their partner about sex, but only 28% reported serious
discussion in past year.
•
Long-term couples understand 62% of behaviours that partner finds pleasing, 26% of
what find displeasing
•
Communication
Sexual communication is important for sexual satisfaction and sexual well-being.
Instrumental function•
Expressive function•
•
Sexual assertiveness (asking for and initiating what you want) is linked to satisfaction.•
Couples with sexual problems have poorer sexual and non-sexual communication.•
How and When To Communicate
Communicating nonverbally during sex is related to greater satisfaction. •
Couples more satisfied from using sexual terms vs. technical terms•
Charlotte, On Faking Orgasm
“…if you really like the guy what's one little moment of ooh-ooh versus spending the
whole night in bed alone?...And who's to say that one moment is any more important
than when he gets up and pours you a cup of coffee in the morning?”
- Charlotte York, Sex and the City
Faking It?
70% of women do not experience orgasm as a result of intercourse•
Men (25%) and women (50%) report faking orgasm
Want sex to end, orgasm unlikely, want to avoid hurting partner•
Women may fake orgasm in an attempt to retain mate•
•
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
Self expansion1.
Sexual communication2.
Sexual goals3.
Sexual communal motivation4.
Sexual Goals
Approach goals: pursuing positive sexual outcomes•
Avoidance goals: trying to avoid negative sexual outcomes•
methods
Sexual Goals Measure
Study 1: daily results
Study 1: longitudinal results
Study 2: daily results
Study 2: longitudinal results
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
1. Self expansion
Sexual communication2.
3. Sexual goals
4. Sexual communal motivation
Sexual Communal Motivation
• The motivation to meet a partner’s sexual needs
• How high a priority is it for you to meet your partner’s sexual needs?
• How far would you be willing to go to meet your partner’s sexual needs?
Sexual Communal Motivation
Have partners with higher sexual and relationship satisfaction•
But they are also higher in sexual and relationship satisfaction too!•
Maintain higher sexual desire over time•
Maintaining desire over time
Remember approach goals?
21-Day Dyadic Daily Experience Study
• Participants:
• 101 established couples ages 18-53 years, together 6 months-22 years
• Intake session: sexual communal motivation
• Daily diary: engaged in sex? Sexual desire. Sexual satisfaction
Desire Discrepancies
• Partners reported sexual desire each day
• Desire discrepancies on 69% of days
• Tested desire discrepancy as a moderator
• Goal: demonstrate effects of communal motivation even on days when people
had lower desire than their partner
•
•
Unmitigated sexual communication
• Communal motivation to meet a partners sexual needs that is unmitigated by agency
• Involves neglecting ones own sexual needs
Sexual communal motivation
• On days when people were higher in sexual communal motivation…
• They reported higher relationship satisfaction
• Both partners reported higher sexual satisfaction
Unmitigated sexual communication
• On days when people were higher in unmitigated sexual communication…
• They reported lower sexual and marginally lower relationship satisfaction
• No effects for the partner
In Sum
• Sexuality matters for well-being, but there are challenges to sexuality in long-term
relationships.
• Many factors can promote desire and satisfaction
•Self-expansion, sexual communication, sexual goals, sexual communal
motivation
Break
Plan for Today
Part 1: Sexuality
Part 2: Jealousy & Infidelity
Part 3: Non-Monogamy
TopHat Question
Have you ever been jealous of someone who has interacted with your romantic
partner?
A. Yes
B. No
TopHat Question
How did the situation make you feel?
A. mostly sad and hurt
B. mostly angry
C. mostly anxious
D. mix of all 3
Jealousy
• A combination of hurt, anger, and fear
• Occurs when people face the potential loss of a valued relationship to someone else
• Reactive jealousy occurs in response to an actual threat.
• Suspicious jealousy occurs when one’s partner hasn’t misbehaved, and suspicions do
not fit the facts.
Who’s Prone to Jealousy?
• Individual differences in susceptibility to jealousy are related to a combination of:
• Dependence on a relationship - when people feel that they need their partners
(e.g., low avoidant attachment)
• Feelings of inadequacy - when people feel that they aren’t good enough for
their partner (e.g., anxious attachment)
Responses to Jealousy
• Securely attached people are more likely to express their concerns and try to repair
the relationship.
• Avoidantly attached people tend to avoid the issue and to pretend that they don’t
care.
• Women are more likely to react to jealousy by trying to improve the relationship.
• Men are more likely to strive to protect their egos.
Jealousy and Facebook
Facebook
• Extremely popular among Canadians, esp. young people
• Changed the way we communicate about relationships and our access to information
• Information seeking: “creeping”
Two Studies
• Study 1 hypothesis
• The more people spend time using Facebook, the more jealousy they will
experience.
• Study 2 hypothesis
• Exposure to jealousy triggers on Facebook will lead to more information
seeking.
Study 1
• 343 undergraduate Facebook users
• On average, 385 FB friends; 45 minutes per day!
• Majority were currently involved in dating relationships
• Created a new measure of jealousy on Facebook
Facebook Jealousy Measure
• How likely are you to become jealous after your partner has added an unknown
member of the opposite sex?
• How likely are you to monitor your partner’s activities on Facebook?
Study 1 Results
• Women spent significantly more time on Facebook than men
• Time spent on Facebook predicted increased jealousy, even controlling for other
personal and relationship factors.
• But only for women, not men
Study 1 Results
Study 2
• 160 psychology undergraduate students
• Used simulated environment to expose participants to a picture of their “partner” on
FB
• Partner was pictured with either: (a) a cousin, (b) friend, or (c) unknown
• Measured jealousy and time spent searching
Study 2 Results
• Participants were most jealous and spent the most time creeping when person was
unknown or a mutual friend as opposed to a cousin.
• For women, the more jealousy they felt, the more time they spent creeping.
•No link for men
“I would never look at her FB page . . . I would just rather not know.” (man)
“I’m sure if I looked at it every day, I would feel kind of jealous and bummed out. So I
never look at hers and she tells me she always looks at mine, and she asked me
questions about being in pictures with girls or whatever. But I’ll never look at her
Facebook.” (man)
“It’s just really easy access, like, if you have a question and you don’t trust the person,
you can just go on Facebook and find it. It’s just a really easy investigative tool. You
don’t really need blind trust anymore, you can just go on Facebook and keep tabs on
people.” (woman)
Implications
• Facebook (social networking sites) give us new opportunities.
• But it also creates new challenges.
• We need to learn more about how we can maximize the potential rewards while also
dealing with the new challenges.
TopHat Question
• What is your gender?
• Male
• Female
• Do not identify/prefer not to say
TopHat Question
• Think of a serious, committed romantic relationship. Imagine that you discover that
the person with whom you’ve been seriously involved became interested in someone
else.
• What would distress or upset you more:
• A. Imagining your partner forming a deep emotional attachment to that person.
• B. Imagining your partner having passionate sexual intercourse with that
person.
Jealousy and Infidelity
• From an evolutionary perspective, men should be more threatened by sexual infidelity
because of paternity uncertainty.
• Women should be more threatened by withdrawal of protective resources so they
should be especially threatened by emotional infidelity.
• 60% of the men said the sex would be more troubling, but only 17% of the women
did.
% Reporting More Distress to Sexual Infidelity
Jealousy and Infidelity
In fact, men and women do appear to be differentially sensitive to the two types of
threat.
Evolution, Jealousy and Infidelity
• Is this sex difference the result of evolutionary pressures?
• Both sexes hate both types of infidelity.
• Men and women are more similar than they are different.
Two Types of Love
•Passionate love
• Feelings of intense longing with physiological arousal; when it is reciprocated,
we feel fulfillment and ecstasy, and when it is not, we feel despair
•Companionate love
• Feelings of intimacy and affection we feel for another person about whom we
care deeply
Companionate Love Lasts
• Hundreds of couples married 15 years or longer asked why their marriages lasted
Two most important reasons
“My spouse is my best friend.”1.
2. “I like my spouse as a person.”
•
Predicaments of Passion
• People often marry out of passionate love, but then long-term commitment is based
on a state which CHANGES.
• Passionate love trumps intimacy and commitment, which may lead people to do
things they regret (infidelity).
Expectations about infidelity
•97-100% say infidelity is unacceptable
• US marriages: 98-99% expect exclusivity
• Yet only 52% of dating couples have an explicit agreement.
• Do you expect monogamy in your romantic relationships?
A. Yes
B. No
C. I’m not sure
• Have you made an explicit monogamy agreement in your current (or previous)
romantic relationship?
A. Yes
B. No
Prevalence of infidelity
•15-25% of married couples
• Lifetime occurrence in oldest cohort: 19% of women and 37% of men
•25-60% of dating relationships
• Among divorced couples: 40% of men and 44% of women
Why study infidelity
• Extramarital affairs are 2nd leading cause of divorce for women and 3rd leading cause
for men
1st: Emotional problems
2nd for men: difficulties in sexual relationship
• Therapists report as 3rd most difficult issue to treat
1st: Lack of loving feelings
2nd: Alcoholism
Cause or consequences?
• Does infidelity increase the risk of divorce?
• Or is infidelity merely a symptom of a marriage that has already come apart?
Its bidirectional
•17-year longitudinal study of more than 1,000 married couples in U.S.
• Evidence for bidirectionality
•
Commitment =/= Monogamy
• Commitment = intention to maintain the relationship over the long-term
• Monogamy = one romantic/sexual partner only
Consensual Non-Monogamy
• Relationships in which all parties agree that it is acceptable to have additional
romantic or sexual partners.
• ~5.3% population
• 21% involved in CNM at some point in their lives
Three Categories of CNM
• Open relationships: partners can pursue additional sexual relationships
• Swinging: partners can have sex outside of the relationship, usually in context of
specific events
• Polyamory: partners can engage in romantic relationships with more than one person
“In our marriage vows, we didn’t say ‘forsaking all others.’ The vow that we made was
that you will never hear that I did something after the fact . . . one spouse can say to
the other, ‘Look, I need to have sex with somebody. I’m not going to if you don’t
approve of it, but please approve of it.’”
- Will Smith
Consensual Non-Monogamy =/= Cheating
• Consenting to a non-monogamous arrangement alters the definition of cheating.
• Cheating is breaking whatever boundaries the couple has set up.
CNM and Well-Being
• Stigma: Monogamous relationships consistently rated more positively than CNM
• In reality: Similar relationship quality and psychological well-being
Dan Savage on “Monogamish”
CNM Mythbusters!
• Myth #1: More Jealousy?
• Myth #2: More Sexually Risky?
• Myth #3: Detracts from Primary Relationship
Myth #1: More Jealousy?
• Busted:
• Jealousy is actually more manageable in CNM relationships
• In swingers, jealousy diminished over time
• In poly relationships, partners can feel compersion
•
•
Myth #2: More Sexually Risky?
• Busted: non-monogamy is healthier alternative to unfaithfulness
• Monogamous people who have been unfaithful to their partner use less sexual
protection
• Get tested for STI's less frequently
• Are less likely to discuss sexual health with new partners
Myth #3: Detracts from Primary Relationship
• Busted
• Need fulfillment with one partner was very slightly, negatively related to
satisfaction with another
• But, not related to commitment to the other partner
Same-Sex CNM
• Monogamy is viewed as more positive than CNM, just like for heterosexuals.
• No differences b/t monogamous & CNM gay men on:
• Sexual satisfaction, communication, or sexual frequency
• Monogamous MORE sexually jealous
CNM: Summary
• There is a lot of stigma toward people in CNM relationships.
• But they seem to be doing just fine!
Week 7: Sexuality, Infidelity, & Non-monogamy
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
3:52 PM
Questions
Are people who have lots of sex happier?
How do you keep the spark alive in relationships?
Why do people cheat?
Can you love more than one person at the same time?
Plan for Today
Part 1: Sexuality
Part 2: Jealousy & Infidelity
Part 3: Non-Monogamy
Sexuality and well-being
Quality of sex life predicts relationship quality•
Sex has physical health benefits•
Sexual Frequency and Sexual Satisfaction
Sexual frequency is associated with increased sexual satisfaction•
The link is bidirectional.•
Consistent for men and women, for people living in Western vs. non Western
countries, for same-sex and mixed-sex couples.
•
Also benefits for satisfaction with life in general . . . •
Satisfaction with life
30,645 participants•
Sexual frequency only matters for well-being for people in relationships•
Found a curcilinear effect of sexual frequency on life satisfaction•
Sexuality and Well-Being
Sexuality and Well-Being
Sexual Conflicts of Interest
Romantic partners inevitable encounter situations in which their sexual interests
differ
•
One of top 3 most cited arguments, common reason to seek therapy
•
Difficult type of conflict to resolve
•
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
Self expansion
1.
Sexual communication2.
Sexual goals3.
Sexual communal motivation4.
Self Expansion
In new relationships, people are rapidly expanding their sense of self.•
We start to incorporate the other person into our sense of self (self-other overlap)•
Declines in Self Expansion
We tend to get into routines with our romantic partners and do fewer novel and
exciting activities
•
To maintain satisfaction, we need to engage in activities that enable us to KEEP
expanding our sense of self
•
Self Expansion in Daily Life
118 couples filled out surveys for 28 days•
Average age=32•
Average relationship duration=5 years•
Each day rated relationship satisfaction, sexual activity, and sexual desire•
Measure of Self Expansion
How much did being with your partner expand your sense of the kinds of person you
are?
•
How much did being with your partner result in you having a new experience?•
Results
More daily self expansion predicted:
Higher sexual desire•
36% more likely to have sex•
More satisfied with their relationship•
•
Experimental Study
198 participants from amazons mechanical turk•
Mean age=33, mean relationship duration=7 years•
Randomly assigned them to one of three conditions:
Self-expanding activities•
Comfortable activities•
Control: no information•
•
Weekend self expansion study
% Who Had Sex?
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
Self expansion1.
Sexual communication2.
Sexual goals3.
Sexual communal motivation4.
Communication
97% said they could talk to their partner about sex, but only 28% reported serious
discussion in past year.
•
Long-term couples understand 62% of behaviours that partner finds pleasing, 26% of
what find displeasing
•
Communication
Sexual communication is important for sexual satisfaction and sexual well-being.
Instrumental function•
Expressive function•
•
Sexual assertiveness (asking for and initiating what you want) is linked to satisfaction.•
Couples with sexual problems have poorer sexual and non-sexual communication.•
How and When To Communicate
Communicating nonverbally during sex is related to greater satisfaction. •
Couples more satisfied from using sexual terms vs. technical terms•
Charlotte, On Faking Orgasm
“…if you really like the guy what's one little moment of ooh-ooh versus spending the
whole night in bed alone?...And who's to say that one moment is any more important
than when he gets up and pours you a cup of coffee in the morning?”
- Charlotte York, Sex and the City
Faking It?
70% of women do not experience orgasm as a result of intercourse•
Men (25%) and women (50%) report faking orgasm
Want sex to end, orgasm unlikely, want to avoid hurting partner•
Women may fake orgasm in an attempt to retain mate•
•
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
Self expansion1.
Sexual communication2.
Sexual goals3.
Sexual communal motivation4.
Sexual Goals
Approach goals: pursuing positive sexual outcomes•
Avoidance goals: trying to avoid negative sexual outcomes•
methods
Sexual Goals Measure
Study 1: daily results
Study 1: longitudinal results
Study 2: daily results
Study 2: longitudinal results
Maintaining Desire and Satisfaction
1. Self expansion
Sexual communication2.
3. Sexual goals
4. Sexual communal motivation
Sexual Communal Motivation
• The motivation to meet a partner’s sexual needs
• How high a priority is it for you to meet your partner’s sexual needs?
• How far would you be willing to go to meet your partner’s sexual needs?
Sexual Communal Motivation
Have partners with higher sexual and relationship satisfaction•
But they are also higher in sexual and relationship satisfaction too!•
Maintain higher sexual desire over time•
Maintaining desire over time
Remember approach goals?
21-Day Dyadic Daily Experience Study
• Participants:
• 101 established couples ages 18-53 years, together 6 months-22 years
• Intake session: sexual communal motivation
• Daily diary: engaged in sex? Sexual desire. Sexual satisfaction
Desire Discrepancies
• Partners reported sexual desire each day
• Desire discrepancies on 69% of days
• Tested desire discrepancy as a moderator
• Goal: demonstrate effects of communal motivation even on days when people
had lower desire than their partner
•
•
Unmitigated sexual communication
• Communal motivation to meet a partners sexual needs that is unmitigated by agency
• Involves neglecting ones own sexual needs
Sexual communal motivation
• On days when people were higher in sexual communal motivation…
• They reported higher relationship satisfaction
• Both partners reported higher sexual satisfaction
Unmitigated sexual communication
• On days when people were higher in unmitigated sexual communication…
• They reported lower sexual and marginally lower relationship satisfaction
• No effects for the partner
In Sum
• Sexuality matters for well-being, but there are challenges to sexuality in long-term
relationships.
• Many factors can promote desire and satisfaction
•Self-expansion, sexual communication, sexual goals, sexual communal
motivation
Break
Plan for Today
Part 1: Sexuality
Part 2: Jealousy & Infidelity
Part 3: Non-Monogamy
TopHat Question
Have you ever been jealous of someone who has interacted with your romantic
partner?
A. Yes
B. No
TopHat Question
How did the situation make you feel?
A. mostly sad and hurt
B. mostly angry
C. mostly anxious
D. mix of all 3
Jealousy
• A combination of hurt, anger, and fear
• Occurs when people face the potential loss of a valued relationship to someone else
• Reactive jealousy occurs in response to an actual threat.
• Suspicious jealousy occurs when one’s partner hasn’t misbehaved, and suspicions do
not fit the facts.
Who’s Prone to Jealousy?
• Individual differences in susceptibility to jealousy are related to a combination of:
• Dependence on a relationship - when people feel that they need their partners
(e.g., low avoidant attachment)
• Feelings of inadequacy - when people feel that they aren’t good enough for
their partner (e.g., anxious attachment)
Responses to Jealousy
• Securely attached people are more likely to express their concerns and try to repair
the relationship.
• Avoidantly attached people tend to avoid the issue and to pretend that they don’t
care.
• Women are more likely to react to jealousy by trying to improve the relationship.
• Men are more likely to strive to protect their egos.
Jealousy and Facebook
Facebook
• Extremely popular among Canadians, esp. young people
• Changed the way we communicate about relationships and our access to information
• Information seeking: “creeping”
Two Studies
• Study 1 hypothesis
• The more people spend time using Facebook, the more jealousy they will
experience.
• Study 2 hypothesis
• Exposure to jealousy triggers on Facebook will lead to more information
seeking.
Study 1
• 343 undergraduate Facebook users
• On average, 385 FB friends; 45 minutes per day!
• Majority were currently involved in dating relationships
• Created a new measure of jealousy on Facebook
Facebook Jealousy Measure
• How likely are you to become jealous after your partner has added an unknown
member of the opposite sex?
• How likely are you to monitor your partner’s activities on Facebook?
Study 1 Results
• Women spent significantly more time on Facebook than men
• Time spent on Facebook predicted increased jealousy, even controlling for other
personal and relationship factors.
• But only for women, not men
Study 1 Results
Study 2
• 160 psychology undergraduate students
• Used simulated environment to expose participants to a picture of their “partner” on
FB
• Partner was pictured with either: (a) a cousin, (b) friend, or (c) unknown
• Measured jealousy and time spent searching
Study 2 Results
• Participants were most jealous and spent the most time creeping when person was
unknown or a mutual friend as opposed to a cousin.
• For women, the more jealousy they felt, the more time they spent creeping.
•No link for men
“I would never look at her FB page . . . I would just rather not know.” (man)
“I’m sure if I looked at it every day, I would feel kind of jealous and bummed out. So I
never look at hers and she tells me she always looks at mine, and she asked me
questions about being in pictures with girls or whatever. But I’ll never look at her
Facebook.” (man)
“It’s just really easy access, like, if you have a question and you don’t trust the person,
you can just go on Facebook and find it. It’s just a really easy investigative tool. You
don’t really need blind trust anymore, you can just go on Facebook and keep tabs on
people.” (woman)
Implications
• Facebook (social networking sites) give us new opportunities.
• But it also creates new challenges.
• We need to learn more about how we can maximize the potential rewards while also
dealing with the new challenges.
TopHat Question
• What is your gender?
• Male
• Female
• Do not identify/prefer not to say
TopHat Question
• Think of a serious, committed romantic relationship. Imagine that you discover that
the person with whom you’ve been seriously involved became interested in someone
else.
• What would distress or upset you more:
• A. Imagining your partner forming a deep emotional attachment to that person.
• B. Imagining your partner having passionate sexual intercourse with that
person.
Jealousy and Infidelity
• From an evolutionary perspective, men should be more threatened by sexual infidelity
because of paternity uncertainty.
• Women should be more threatened by withdrawal of protective resources so they
should be especially threatened by emotional infidelity.
• 60% of the men said the sex would be more troubling, but only 17% of the women
did.
% Reporting More Distress to Sexual Infidelity
Jealousy and Infidelity
In fact, men and women do appear to be differentially sensitive to the two types of
threat.
Evolution, Jealousy and Infidelity
• Is this sex difference the result of evolutionary pressures?
• Both sexes hate both types of infidelity.
• Men and women are more similar than they are different.
Two Types of Love
•Passionate love
• Feelings of intense longing with physiological arousal; when it is reciprocated,
we feel fulfillment and ecstasy, and when it is not, we feel despair
•Companionate love
• Feelings of intimacy and affection we feel for another person about whom we
care deeply
Companionate Love Lasts
• Hundreds of couples married 15 years or longer asked why their marriages lasted
Two most important reasons
“My spouse is my best friend.”1.
2. “I like my spouse as a person.”
•
Predicaments of Passion
• People often marry out of passionate love, but then long-term commitment is based
on a state which CHANGES.
• Passionate love trumps intimacy and commitment, which may lead people to do
things they regret (infidelity).
Expectations about infidelity
•97-100% say infidelity is unacceptable
• US marriages: 98-99% expect exclusivity
• Yet only 52% of dating couples have an explicit agreement.
• Do you expect monogamy in your romantic relationships?
A. Yes
B. No
C. I’m not sure
• Have you made an explicit monogamy agreement in your current (or previous)
romantic relationship?
A. Yes
B. No
Prevalence of infidelity
•15-25% of married couples
• Lifetime occurrence in oldest cohort: 19% of women and 37% of men
•25-60% of dating relationships
• Among divorced couples: 40% of men and 44% of women
Why study infidelity
• Extramarital affairs are 2nd leading cause of divorce for women and 3rd leading cause
for men
1st: Emotional problems
2nd for men: difficulties in sexual relationship
• Therapists report as 3rd most difficult issue to treat
1st: Lack of loving feelings
2nd: Alcoholism
Cause or consequences?
• Does infidelity increase the risk of divorce?
• Or is infidelity merely a symptom of a marriage that has already come apart?
Its bidirectional
•17-year longitudinal study of more than 1,000 married couples in U.S.
• Evidence for bidirectionality
•
Commitment =/= Monogamy
• Commitment = intention to maintain the relationship over the long-term
• Monogamy = one romantic/sexual partner only
Consensual Non-Monogamy
• Relationships in which all parties agree that it is acceptable to have additional
romantic or sexual partners.
• ~5.3% population
• 21% involved in CNM at some point in their lives
Three Categories of CNM
• Open relationships: partners can pursue additional sexual relationships
• Swinging: partners can have sex outside of the relationship, usually in context of
specific events
• Polyamory: partners can engage in romantic relationships with more than one person
“In our marriage vows, we didn’t say ‘forsaking all others.’ The vow that we made was
that you will never hear that I did something after the fact . . . one spouse can say to
the other, ‘Look, I need to have sex with somebody. I’m not going to if you don’t
approve of it, but please approve of it.’”
- Will Smith
Consensual Non-Monogamy =/= Cheating
• Consenting to a non-monogamous arrangement alters the definition of cheating.
• Cheating is breaking whatever boundaries the couple has set up.
CNM and Well-Being
• Stigma: Monogamous relationships consistently rated more positively than CNM
• In reality: Similar relationship quality and psychological well-being
Dan Savage on “Monogamish”
CNM Mythbusters!
• Myth #1: More Jealousy?
• Myth #2: More Sexually Risky?
• Myth #3: Detracts from Primary Relationship
Myth #1: More Jealousy?
• Busted:
• Jealousy is actually more manageable in CNM relationships
• In swingers, jealousy diminished over time
• In poly relationships, partners can feel compersion
•
•
Myth #2: More Sexually Risky?
• Busted: non-monogamy is healthier alternative to unfaithfulness
• Monogamous people who have been unfaithful to their partner use less sexual
protection
• Get tested for STI's less frequently
• Are less likely to discuss sexual health with new partners
Myth #3: Detracts from Primary Relationship
• Busted
• Need fulfillment with one partner was very slightly, negatively related to
satisfaction with another
• But, not related to commitment to the other partner
Same-Sex CNM
• Monogamy is viewed as more positive than CNM, just like for heterosexuals.
• No differences b/t monogamous & CNM gay men on:
• Sexual satisfaction, communication, or sexual frequency
• Monogamous MORE sexually jealous
CNM: Summary
• There is a lot of stigma toward people in CNM relationships.
• But they seem to be doing just fine!
Week 7: Sexuality, Infidelity, & Non-monogamy
Wednesday, October 24, 2018 3:52 PM