Current problems in the study of emotional relationships
Recognition of the relevance and usefulness of psychological research into emotional relationships does not remove doubts about the possibility of such research. Doubts are raised both by the specificity of the subject itself - it is unclear whether it has its own laws and can be included in the context of psychological, especially socio-psychological knowledge, and by the seemingly insufficient level of development of the methodological tools of modern social psychology. Eliminating, at least partially, these doubts will be the first step towards studying emotional relationships.
On an intuitive level, emotional relationships seem completely spontaneous, unpredictable and unconditional. Currently, this point of view is not widespread in Soviet psychology. Much more common is another, polar view, according to which emotional relations do not have specific laws of other areas of psychology or even somatics, that is, they can be derived directly from them without any special theoretical or empirical work. Behind this position is the idea “of emotional relationships not as a special psychological reality, but as an epiphenomenon of other phenomena, an inevitable consequence of a combination of already studied properties. Love, for example, can be viewed according to this position as an epiphenomenon of the physiological mechanisms that regulate sexual desire.
The tendency to reduce phenomena of one type to phenomena of another type, thereby reducing the specificity of the phenomenon being analyzed, has a long tradition in psychology and is manifested in the formulation of reductionist theories and ideas, in which the specificity of not only individual areas of psychology, but also psychology as a whole is lost. With all our sympathy for monistic theories, the authors of which strive to see general laws at various levels of psychological and even, as, for example, G. Selye, physiological human life, we must be extremely careful not to lose the specificity of the subject behind this desire for universality, without in which its content is emasculated and disappears.
Fundamental to resolving the issue of the epiphenomenality of emotional relationships, and therefore the presence or absence of specific laws to be studied, will be the degree of their “understandability” and predictability, both at the level of common sense and at the scientific level. If there is no uncertainty, then the laws of emotional relationships are either non-specific or so simple that recognizing them does not require much effort.
From the point of view of ordinary consciousness, common sense and completely ordinary life experience are enough to understand the patterns of formation, development and disintegration of emotional relationships in a couple. However, here we are faced not so much with the simplicity of the phenomenon, but with the fact that it is closed to consciousness by all kinds of prejudices and stereotypes. Apparent clarity does not protect against mistakes, sometimes tragic ones - divorce, loneliness, and other problems in the interpersonal sphere that a large number of people face are often the result of false forecasts and inadequate calculations of communication partners4. Empirical studies of emotional relationships, as will be shown below, show, in addition to facts that are consistent with the ideas of common sense, many that contradict these ideas - in some situations a beautiful girl is liked less than an ugly one, an intelligent person is liked less than a stupid one, etc. d. As for scientific analysis, none of the existing socio-psychological theories can accommodate all the collected data on the problem of the formation of emotional relationships. All this convincingly indicates that emotional relationships are not an epiphenomenon and that they have specific patterns that require special study.
What is personality?
Personality is an individual, it is you and me, every person on earth who has consciousness and self-awareness. A person achieves this at a certain age, when his behavior will be conscious in activity and communication. Each personality is taken within a certain framework in which its development and transformation are concentrated. The framework of the environment of an individual’s existence can be safely considered: social, political, economic, geographical.
Personality is characterized by the following main features:
- character,
- worldview,
- goals and ways to achieve them.
The regulatory role of emotional relationships
Emotional relationships play an important role in a person's life. Sociological studies conducted in our country and abroad have shown that stable emotional relationships consistently occupy first places in the hierarchy of values, ahead of such significant values as wealth and work.
A common feature in the biographies of people who rate themselves as happy is that they have secure and satisfying emotional relationships.
It can be assumed that, as historical development progresses, people's emotional relationships with each other increasingly act as direct regulators of behavior. This is due to the increasing role of psychological factors in determining such important institutions as the institutions of friendship and family. For example, if in the past it was possible to imagine a family characterized by predominantly negative emotional relationships between spouses or a general absence of intra-family emotional ties, today such a family is unlikely to exist.
The problem of the role of emotional relationships in human life is very relevant for psychological science. As A. N. Leontiev noted, classical theories of emotions “consider their transformation in a person as involution, which gives rise to a false ideal of education, which boils down to the requirement to “subordinate emotions to cold reason.” In fact, according to A.N. Leontyev, “emotional processes and states have their own positive evolution in a person.
First, as empirical results show, emotional relationships influence the nature of intragroup interaction processes [P5]5. For example, there is a positive correlation between attraction and the tendency to come to the aid of the person with whom it is experienced. An increase in attractiveness is associated with an increase in altruistic actions, and altruism and help contribute to an increase in the mutual attractiveness of the interacting parties. The data available to date are insufficient to determine that...
This question is close to sociometric research, which has a long tradition in Soviet psychology, to decide whether a cause-and-effect relationship exists between two variables, altruistic behavior and drive, or whether the correlation is due to the effects of a latent variable; but the fact that there is a positive feedback relationship between attraction, on the one hand, and altruistic behavior, on the other, can be considered established. Thus, there is good reason to believe that mutual aid is stronger in groups with higher attractiveness.
People involved in emotional relationships tend to value each other more highly than strangers or even close, but unsympathetic people. At the verbal level, this is manifested in a friendly style of communication and positive characteristics of the interlocutors, which, firstly, helps to create a psychologically comfortable atmosphere in the group, and secondly, which is especially important in situations of conflict between groups, the group looks more unified in the eyes of those who does not belong to it.
Psychological comfort and confidence in the good attitude of other group members are important not only for themselves. Only if these conditions are met, the subject’s disagreement with the position expressed by another person does not reduce sympathy for him, but, on the contrary, increases it. Thus, members of a high attraction group can argue with each other and criticize each other without fear of the negative impact of these actions on the relationship. This helps create and maintain a creative atmosphere in the group.
Attractiveness influences the degree of conformity and imitation. Both phenomena are much more pronounced when the model is a person for whom the subject feels sympathy.
What is an emotion?
Emotion is a state associated with an assessment of the significance for an individual of the factors acting on him and expressed in the form of experiences of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of his current needs.
Depending on the above characteristics, the prevailing emotions in a person can be traced. We do not take a primitive level. If joy prevails in a person, this does not mean at all that he should always smile. Such an individual needs to go to a psychiatrist and undergo treatment.
A joyful person is dominated by an optimistic attitude, so his joyful emotions are more pronounced. This is determined by a person’s behavior and reaction in different life circumstances. But, in addition to this, the individual, like all people, experiences and experiences all other existing emotions.
Determinants of emotional relationships in couples
Emotional relationships at the first stage of their development are presented in the form of likes and dislikes of one person towards another.
External data, socio-demographic characteristics and behavioral patterns of a person are traditionally considered the main reason for sympathy or antipathy for this person on the part of other people.
What factors contribute to the formation of attachment and love (the formation of attraction).
Proximity can also lead to hostility; most acts of violence and murder occur among people living under the same roof. But much more often, proximity contributes to the development of attachment.
Sociologists have found that most people marry someone who lives next door, works in the same career field, or went to the same grade as their future spouse.
In fact, we are talking not only about geographical distance, but also about “functional distance”, which is characterized by how often people meet in everyday life, we are talking about the frequency of interactions.
Frequent interaction (being nearby, in the same place, at the same hour) allows people to recognize similarities with each other, experience mutual sympathy, and perceive each other as members of a certain social unit.
Thanks to the fact that someone is constantly in our field of vision, our love can be chained to almost any person who is even remotely similar to us and responds to our feelings.
Why does similarity cause love and not hate?
One of the answers:
Proximity allows us to discover similarities in each other.
Exchange of signs of attention (not indifference).
Moreover, the emergence of attachment contributes to the anticipation of interaction. In other words, having a positive expectation—the expectation that he or she will definitely be a pleasant person and that you will be perfectly compatible—increases the chances that you will have the most favorable relationship. Similarly, the situation of a first date (meeting) contributes to the emergence of sympathy.
Another reason why proximity becomes a factor in the formation of sympathy is “constant presence in the field of view.” When various kinds of previously unknown stimuli—abstruse words, Chinese characters, fragments of melodies, photographs of strangers—are constantly in view, this in itself causes people to prefer them. think about which letters of the alphabet are your favorite? All people, regardless of age, language or nationality, prefer the letters of their own name or those that are most commonly used in their native language. The “just being in the field of view” effect is manifested in the fact that being in the field of view leads to a feeling of liking, even if the exposed object did not specifically attract the subject’s attention.
Simply being in the visual field has been found to produce a stronger effect, especially in cases where people perceive stimuli without being aware of their presence.
It should be noted that sympathy for him is enhanced by his simple presence in the field of view. If this presence does not become intrusive.
The second determinant of sympathy is physical attractiveness.
In general, women love men for their character, and men tend to love women for their looks.
A number of experiments show that men value the physical attractiveness of the opposite sex more than women.
