HPS304 Study Guide - Final Guide: Stress Management, Conditionality, Psychopathology
Social Psychology of Relationships: HPS304
Emily Zukic
Week 1: Social Cognition/Ideal standards
Social Cognition
-Relates to the process where information about the social world is encoded, stored and retrieved and
applied to social contexts
-Social knowledge is stored as mental structures: Schemas
-Schemas: mental representations of the social world that guide our emotions & behaviours
-Schemas can be activated on a conscious/unconscious level
Social Cognitions in Relationships
-3 critical aspects of relationship cognitions: content/structure/process
-Content: what comprises cognitions
-Structure: how we organise our thoughts
-Process: how cognitions guide and shape the way we function in relationships
Content of Cognitions
Theory: 2 Parts of the mind: store beliefs and values
Beliefs:
-Represent general ideas, theories, assumptions or expectations about relationships
-Can also represent specific/narrow expectations about the functioning of a relationships
-General & specific beliefs seem to affect the specific experiences that individuals anticipate in
relationships
-Affect the way we experience things in relationships
-The way you think things should pan out
Values:
-Constitute standards/ideals about the relationship that should be maintained/met
-Relates to what individuals think, should, wish, would occur in relationships
-What you want
Evidence
Beliefs
-Do exist & seem to interact in 2 ways with specific experiences to influence relationship
satisfaction
-1. Can motivate relationship behaviours that bolster initial satisfaction. We engage in self-fulfilling
prophecies
-2. Partners beliefs may affect how they interpret specific experiences in the relationship
-A key issue is the consistency between experiences & expectations
-Experiences that are consistent with relationship functioning beliefs are more easily endorsed, as
little cognitive effort is required to maintain the consistency compared to inconsistencies
Values
-Can influence satisfaction in similar ways to beliefs
-Relationship-relevant values moderate the impact of specific experiences on relationship
satisfaction
-Thus there isn’t a direct link between values and relationship satisfaction
-The greater the discrepancy between experience and values, the greater the dissatisfaction if
experience falls short of values
-Standards you want met, guide your satisfaction
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Benefits of high relationship standards?
-Epstein et al: No as a result of unrealistic relationship standards
-Murray et al: yes as high standards act as self-fulfilling prophecies leading to happier relationships
over time
-Karney et al: neither, high standards are only functional to the extent that one perceives the
standards are being met
Evidence
-Few studies have examined whether satisfaction is associated with level of agreement between
spouses beliefs and values
-To what extent is their relationship meeting what they expect of it
Structure of Cognitions
Theory
-Less studies conducted on the organisation of relationship cognitions compared to content
-2 aspects focused on
-1. Cognitive complexity: intricacy of our knowledge-base and how we compartmentalise and
integrate this information
-2. Accessibility: extent to which we can retrieve certain forms of relationship-relevant information
1. Cognitive complexity
-1. Differentiation: number of categories/kinds of information taken into account in evaluating
persons or events
-2. Integration: degree and quality of connections amongst these pieces of information
-Differentiation is a pre-requisite for integration
-The more complex and integrated information is, greater capacity for flexibility in assimilating
information about the relationship
Evidence
-Cognitive complexity seems to be associated with more flexible adaptive problem-solving
behaviours, possibility higher satisfaction. Seems to be moderated by how distressing the situation
is
2. Accessibility
-How quick we can recall a thought
-The speed to which we can remember things, influences a relationship
-The more accessible a cognition is, more stable it is, due to the frequency with which it is being
primed and accessed
-Highly accessible thoughts yield the greatest influence of interpreting a relationship situation, try to
make it fit within our line of thinking
-Colour the way you interpret your relationship
-Thoughts that aren’t accessible quickly are less likely to influence the interpretation of information,
and are thought to be less stable overtime
-Accessibility of certain mental schemas should moderate the impact of the cognition on the
interpretation of social experiences
Evidence
-People vary in their accessibility of relationship satisfaction
-Those with highly accessibility satisfaction, it moderated the association between satisfaction and
actual behaviours exchanged during marital interactions
-Behave in ways that foster satisfaction
-Our ability to access satisfaction, do more to keep relationship happy, helps to keep the relationship
stable in the long term
-Attachment suggests that different contexts prime the accessibility of different attachment models
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-Different social environment are more/less likely to prime different available relationship
cognitions
Process of cognitions
Maintenance & Enhancement
-Help maintain and enhance the relationship
-Want to be in positive relationship
-Cognitive processes of relationships include the ways we evaluate, recall, integrate and seek out
general and specific relationship information
-They way the process operate are thought to influence our relationship in ways that are
implemented to maintain and enhance our views on fulfilling and rewarding relationships
Cognitive strategies to define satisfaction in relationships
- Derogation of alternatives:
-Way of maintaining that one’s relationship is superior to others, to emphasis the negative or costs
associated with alternative partners
-Process acts as a defence against a threat to the relationship, ex an attractive relationship partner
- Selective attention:
- A means of maintaining positive global impressions of relationships, we only attend to information
that is consistent with our impressions
-Little research examined this other than examined attractiveness
-Those in committed relationships spent less time looking at slides of attractive members of the
opposite sex than those not in relationships
- Rationalisation:
-Develops narratives that highlight positive elements of relationships and discount negative
elements as a means of safeguarding positive impressions of the relationship
-People will construct stories about their relationships that support the general impressions they
desire to maintain
-Use rationalisations to interpret feedback from a partner
- Temporal comparison:
-Comparing the current state of the relationship with past points in time
-Peoples perception of change is geared towards emotional responses at the current time
-If relationship is in a current state of growth, then seen as all the past as rewarding, but if currently
stagnate or declining then perceive as distressing
-An important interaction occur when you combine time with holding overly positive/biased view of
relationship cognitions
-Couples who are highly distressed may benefit from therapy that teaches them ways to resolve
problems
- Social comparison:
-A way to justify remaining in an imperfect relationship is to engage in self-serving social
comparisons to decide that one’s relationship is better than others
-The degree of perceived superiority is associated with satisfaction, unsatisfied individuals are less
likely than satisfied to perceive their relationships as superior
Accuracy & Verification
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Relates to the process where information about the social world is encoded, stored and retrieved and applied to social contexts. Social knowledge is stored as mental structures: schemas. Schemas: mental representations of the social world that guide our emotions & behaviours. Schemas can be activated on a conscious/unconscious level. Process: how cognitions guide and shape the way we function in relationships. Theory: 2 parts of the mind: store beliefs and values. Represent general ideas, theories, assumptions or expectations about relationships. Can also represent specific/narrow expectations about the functioning of a relationships. General & specific beliefs seem to affect the specific experiences that individuals anticipate in relationships. Affect the way we experience things in relationships. The way you think things should pan out. Constitute standards/ideals about the relationship that should be maintained/met. Relates to what individuals think, should, wish, would occur in relationships.
