Describe and Evaluate two theories of the formation of romantic relationships Essay Example for Free

Describe and Evaluate two theories of the formation of romantic relationships Essay In 1970 Byrne and Clore introduced the reward/ need satisfaction theory for the formation of relationships. They suggested that we are attracted to individuals whose presence is rewarding for us, and that naturally we find stimuli rewarding if it meets an unmet need; the more rewards someone provides for us, the more we should be attracted to them. They believed that the formation if relationships was linked with the idea of classical and operant conditioning, with operant conditioning we are likely to repeat behaviours that leads to a desirable outcome and avoid behaviours that lead to undesirable ones, so we enter the relationships because the presence of some individuals is directly associated with reinforcement, making us have positive feelings, which makes them more attractive to us. For classical conditioning, we tend to prefer people who we associate with pleasant event, so for example if we meet someone somewhere where we are having a good time, then we will associate this person with this good time and find them more attractive in the long run. Byrne and Clore believed that the balance between positive and negative feelings in a relationship was crucial as relationships where the positive outweigh negative feelings were more likely to develop and succeed. Griffitt and Guay (1969), participants were evaluated on a creative task by an experimenter and then asked to rate how much they liked the experimenter. The rating was highest when the experimenter had positively evaluated the participant’s performance on the task. This study supports the claim that we like people who are associated with pleasant events. This provides strong support that similarity is important in attraction, but also highlights reciprocal liking also is factor in the formation of relationships; however this may not be the only factor influencing this. The experiment was only of an imaginary description, the participant is unlikely to truly demonstrate how they feel towards the stranger. The experiment doesnt demonstrate interaction of people, but rather just presents a statement about them, which reduces how far conclusions can be drawn. Although similarity may be a factor, how people socially interact is also important to how a person perceives another. In a laboratory experiment, Lehr and Gehr (2006) studied participants of both sexes to test the importance of reciprocal liking. Knowing that someone likes you is particularly rewarding and so is more likely to end up in mutual liking. Participants were given a description of a stranger, with varying degrees of similarity of the strangers attitude to the participants. In each description was a statement that the stranger either liked or did not like the participant. Researchers found significant effects for attitude similarity and liking. However this study doesn’t have ecological validity from where it was done in a lab setting and didn’t reflect real life situation or conditions However Cate et al (1982) asked 337 individuals to assess their current relationships in terms of reward level and satisfaction. Results showed that reward level was superior to all other factors in determining relationship satisfaction, however this theory only explores the receiving of rewards, the results may not be completely accurate though as some people may have picked the socially desirable answers. These studies all ignore natures influence on attraction and that it is to some extent an evolutionary need to have a partner that meets physical requirements. This model may be very culturally bound as all the studies done were in the western world’s individualistic cultures. In other cultures one partner may not expect rewards and may be entirely giving, or arranges marriages will also go against this theory as the long term is made to happen. For example, Lott (1994) suggests that in many cultures women are more focused on the needs of others rather than receiving reinforcement. This suggests that this theory is not a universal explanation of relationship formation and therefore culturally biased. However, this theory is supported by another theory on how relationships are formed Byrne, Clore and Smeatons Similarity Theory (1986) states that it is important that people are similar in order to be able to form a relationship. They theorise that there are two stages to deciding who to seek relations with first we sort out the people most dissimilar to us and secondly then seek out those who are most similar. Caspi and Herbener found that in married couples, those who were the happiest were those with the most similar personality traits.

The Glen Ridge Rape :: essays research papers

Bernard Lefkowitz’s Our Guys raises a lot of issues, all of which have been discussed throughout this semester.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Just a few pages into the book, words had already begun to jump out at me, capturing my attention. â€Å"The kids in Newark, black and brown, speaking Spanglish, hoods over their heads, wheeling their stolen cars over to the local chop shop -- they were aliens in America. Strange, forever separate and separated from the American ideal. But these Glen Ridge kids, they were pure gold, every mother’s dream, every father’s pride. They were not only Glen Ridge’s finest, but in their perfection they belonged to all of us. They were Our Guys (page 7).† This is a story about White Privilege, I thought. After reading the next two pages, I changed my mind. â€Å"...I wanted to understand how their status as young athlete celebrities in Glen Ridge influenced their treatment of girls and women, particularly those of their age.....I was especially curious about what license they were permitted as a clique of admired athletes and how that magnified the sense of superiority they felt as individuals (pages 8-9).† Oh! This is a story about jock culture, I thought.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I had only touched the surface. Later on, I realized Our Guys was about jock culture and white privilege...as well as rape cultures and patriarchy, male privilege and compulsory heterosexuality, pornography, accountability and â€Å"blame the victim.† All of these issues were part of this, a real life story, a real rape.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Reading the story of the Glen Ridge Rape, I was able to make observations and draw conclusions that Ridgers who lived inside their glass bubbles weren’t able to make. They didn't realize what type of things they were teaching their children. Morals and values are instilled into a person at a very early age. It can start at birth. Males of Glen Ridge were taught that they had power and were expected to do certain things. â€Å"In their youth sons were permitted and even expected to raise a little hell. ‘There was a boys-will-be-boys attitude that went back to the nineteen fifties’....Boys were supposed to be vigorous, assertive, competitive; they were expected to test the boundaries of behavior within clearly established limits† (page 63). This is what boys learned at such an early age. Many of them grew up in male dominant families. Patriarchy was practiced in many homes. Male influence made it difficult for most of them to establish str ong relationships with or learn to appreciate members of the opposite sex.

Progress and Technology Essay

The technology is such an important part of people lives that truly could not live without it, and it’s really has an influence to many people today in the whole world! How danger is this for the society depending on how they communicate, and progress their own lives with this technology? First of all Technologies play a very important role for most of adults, and especially teenagers because it makes life easier to live on and faster to do something. It is really helps people to communicate faster and easier than do hard labor from time to time whenever he/she want to talk to love ones, friends, and also family. Smartphones in our daily life today can capture sharp images with deeper colors compared to the cameras in competing smartphones. It can record high-definition video, and has two front-facing stereo speakers that could use for better documentary if having a filming or something. Individuals marketing businesses that could finish their presentation to work or something for a rushing day as a result of this really make jobs of people made easier than the old source to obtain source about something a person needs. Due to the cases of using technology like cellphones on texting while driving is very dangerous for young teenagers this is one of the most problem of the society today . As a matter of fact these incidents of accidental everyday always happen because of this problem about texting while driving. Those most of the teenagers exceedingly cannot live without cellphones and computer even in just twenty-four hours. It just depends on how people use it like they see a scandal scene in some place or about their friends or family then captured it, and send to a friend who knows the person. People have to had discipline on how using time in a manageable way about technology and daily life it is people duty to be discontented, but do not set aside other importan t things in daily life living.

The Medieval Chivalric Romance

Chivalric romance is a type of prose or verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They typically describe the adventures of quest-seeking, legendary knights who are portrayed as having heroic qualities. Chivalric romances celebrate an idealized code of civilized behavior that combines loyalty, honor, and courtly love. Knights of the Round Table and Romance The most famous examples are the Arthurian romances recounting the adventures of Lancelot, Galahad, Gawain, and the other â€Å"Knights of the Round Table.† These include the Lancelot (late 12th century) of Chrà ©tien de Troyes, the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th century), and Thomas Malorys prose romance (1485). Popular literature also drew on themes of romance, but with ironic or satiric intent. Romances reworked legends, fairy tales, and history to suit the readers (or, more likely, the hearers) tastes, but by 1600 they were out of fashion, and Miguel de Cervantes famously burlesqued them in his novel Don Quixote. Languages of Love Originally, romance literature was written in Old French, Anglo-Norman and Occitan, later, in English and German. During the early 13th century, romances were increasingly written as prose. In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there is a marked tendency to emphasize themes of courtly love, such as faithfulness in adversity. During the Gothic Revival, from c. 1800 the connotations of romance moved from the magical and fantastic to somewhat eerie Gothic adventure narratives. Queste del Saint Graal (Unknown) The Lancelot–Grail, also known as the Prose Lancelot, the Vulgate Cycle, or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is a major source of Arthurian legend written in French. It is a series of five prose volumes that tell the story of the quest for the Holy Grail and the romance of Lancelot and Guinevere.   The tales combine elements of the Old Testament with the birth of Merlin, whose magical origins are consistent with those told by Robert de Boron (Merlin as the son of a devil and a human mother who repents her sins and is baptized). The Vulgate Cycle was revised in the 13th century, much was left out and much was added. The resulting text, referred to as the Post-Vulgate Cycle, was an attempt to create greater unity in the material and to de-emphasize the secular love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere. This version of the cycle was one of the most important sources of Thomas Malorys Le Morte dArthur. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Unknown) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written in Middle English in the late 14th-century and is one of the best known Arthurian stories. The â€Å"Green Knight† is interpreted by some as a representation of the â€Å"Green Man† of folklore and by others as an allusion to Christ. Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, it draws on Welsh, Irish and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important poem in the romance genre and it remains popular to this day. Le Morte DArthur by Sir Thomas Malory Le Morte dArthur (the Death of Arthur) is a French compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of traditional tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. Malory both interprets existing French and English stories about these figures and also adds original material. First published in 1485 by William Caxton, Le Morte dArthur is perhaps the best-known work of Arthurian literature in English. Many modern Arthurian writers, including T.H. White (The Once and Future King) and Alfred, Lord Tennyson (The Idylls of the King) have used Malory as their source. Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (c. 1230) and Jean de Meun (c. 1275) The Roman de la Rose is a medieval French poem styled as an allegorical dream vision. It is a notable instance of courtly literature. The works stated purpose is to entertain and to teach others about the Art of Love. At various places in the poem, the Rose of the title is seen as the name of the lady and as a symbol of female sexuality. The other characters names function as ordinary names and also as abstractions illustrating the various factors that are involved in a love affair. The poem was written in two stages. The first 4,058 lines were written by Guillaume de Lorris circa 1230. They describe the attempts of a courtier to woo his beloved. This part of the story is set in a walled garden or locus amoenus, one of the traditional topoi of epic and chivalric literature. Around 1275, Jean de Meun composed an additional 17,724 lines. In this enormous coda, allegorical personages (Reason, Genius, etc.) hold forth on love. This is a typical rhetorical strategy employed by medieval writers. Sir Eglamour of Artois (Unknown) Sir Eglamour of Artois is a Middle English verse romance written c. 1350. It is a narrative poem of about 1300 lines. The fact that six manuscripts and five printed editions from the 15th and 16th centuries survive is evidence for the case that Sir Eglamour of Artois was likely quite popular in its time. The story is constructed from a large number of elements found in other medieval romances. Modern scholarly opinion is critical of the poem for this reason, but readers should note that â€Å"borrowing† material during the Middle Ages was quite common and even expected. Authors made use of the humility topos in order to translate or re-imagine already popular stories while acknowledging original authorship. If we view this poem from a 15th-century perspective as well as from a modern standpoint, we find, as Harriet Hudson argues, a romance [that] is carefully structured, the action highly unified, the narration lively† (Four Middle English Romances, 1996). The action of the story involves the hero fighting with a fifty-foot giant, a ferocious boar, and a dragon. The hero’s son is carried off by a griffin and the boy’s mother, like Geoffrey Chaucers heroine Constance, is carried in an open boat to a distant land.