Deck 11: Close Relationships and Well-Being

Question 1

Which of the following is true concerning the effects of social relationships on well-being? Relationships

A) predict happiness across different cultures, are as important as smoking and obesity to physical health, and are a major contributor to mental health.
B) have declined in importance for well-being as the divorce rate has soared over the last 40 years in Western cultures.
C) are more important for well-being in individualistic cultures than in collectivist cultures where family relations are more highly valued.
D) contribute significantly more to physical than to mental health.

Answer 1

predict happiness across different cultures, are as important as smoking and obesity to physical health, and are a major contributor to mental health.

Question 2

Oxytocin is one example of the biological underpinnings of human's "need to belong" because it is

A) released when were are afraid or distressed and motivates people to seek the company of others.
B) increased by physical contact (e.g., touch, hug) and produces a sense of calm and safety.
C) similar to dopamine in its pleasurable effects and is released by laughter in the company of others.
D) absent in reclusive animals species who don't need to band together to survive like humans.

Answer 2

increased by physical contact (e.g., touch, hug) and produces a sense of calm and safety.

Question 3

One of the ways two people increase their mutual knowledge of each other is called disclosure reciprocity. This means

A) finding common interests as a way to "see the self in the other."
B) reciprocating positive comments and creating an atmosphere of mutual trust.
C) reciprocating the need to keep personal information confidential.
D) reciprocating a personal disclosure and matching its level of intimacy.

Answer 3

reciprocating a personal disclosure and matching its level of intimacy.

Question 4

Trust in a relationship is all about

A) keeping confidences.
B) care and concern for the other.
C) interdependence.
D) mutual affection.

Question 5

When partners shift from describing their relationship by singular pronouns (e.g., "she and I") to plural pronouns (e.g., "we" or "us") this contributes to feelings of

A) caring.
B) mutuality.
C) knowledge.
D) trust.

Question 6

In their research on differences between exchange and communal relationships, Clark and Mills found that tit-for-tat reciprocation of favors

A) increased liking in intimate relationships, but created discomfort in more formal and less personal relationships.
B) increased liking in both communal relationships and in formal exchange relationships.
C) increased liking in more formal exchange relationships, but decreased liking in more intimate communal relationships.
D) was a major characteristic of long-term happily married couples.

Question 7

Humor, teasing, playful banter, and laughing together

A) are one of things we enjoy the most about our relationships.
B) help release tensions and stress.
C) characterize happy couples married over 50 years.
D) all of the above

Question 8

Consistent with the direct effects hypothesis of social support, Shelly Gable and her colleagues have documented a process called capitalization. This refers to

A) the additional emotional benefits that come from sharing a positive life event with other people.
B) how asking for support increases the strength of the response from others.
C) the way optimistic people "capitalize" on their positive outlook by making it easy for others to support them.
D) how sharing a negative life event with others helps buffer stress and build coping resources.

Question 9

Gable and her colleagues found that capitalization effects that include enhanced relationship quality and subjective well-being occur

A) whenever people tell their partner about a good thing that has happened to them.
B) only when our partner gives an enthusiastic and supportive response.
C) only when the good thing shared enhances the self-esteem and self-image of the partner as well.
D) only when our partner can capitalize (i.e., make gains) as a result of the sharing the event as well.

Question 10

Relationship researchers comparing friendship and romantic partners have investigated what people mean when they say they "love" someone and when they say they are "in love" with someone. Studies suggest that

A) "love" and "in love" are used interchangeable to describe both friendship and romance.
B) in both friendship and romance, people think of relationships as progressing from "love" to "in love."
C) "in love" involves feelings of sexual desire and attraction and is used to describe romantic, but not friendship, relationships.
D) being and staying "in love" based on romance is more important to the success of a marriage than is the "love" based on friendship.

Question 11

According to your textbook's comparison of friendship and love, which of the following characterizes romantic love more than friendship?

A) less clarity of rules, more complex feelings, and higher expectations.
B) clearer rules, consistency in feelings, and inconsistent expectations.
C) passion, intimacy, and mutuality.
D) intensity, loss of self, faithfulness, and vulnerability.

Question 12

A fundamental difference between romantic love and companionate love is whether an intimate relationship is built primarily on

A) passion or friendship.
B) intimacy or commitment.
C) self-interest or compromise.
D) emotion or realism.

Question 13

In Sternberg's triangular theory of love, different varieties of love are based on three essential ingredients. These are

A) romance, friendship, and knowledge.
B) love, friendship, and mutual interest.
C) intimacy, shared interests, and mutuality.
D) intimacy, passion, and commitment.

Question 14

Many social observers believe that the increasing emphasis on romantic love and emotional fulfillment in marriage

A) contributes to divorce because expectations are too high, which leads to disillusionment.
B) contributes to divorce because the psychological basis of romantic love and emotional fulfillment are nearly opposite.
C) will reduce the divorce rate by providing a more stable emotional foundation for marriage.
D) will strengthen the institution of marriage by complementing the "practical" needs marriage has always fulfilled.

Question 15

Two-career couples. No fault divorce laws. Financial independence. Commonality of divorce. What do these factors have to do with the dramatic rise in divorce rates over that last 40 years, according to relationship researchers?

A) They are sources of stress and conflict that led many good marriages to go bad.
B) It is simply easier to get out of an unhappy marriage today than in the past.
C) They help explain why cohabitation has become a viable alternative to marriage.
D) all of the above

Question 16

"If a person had all the other qualities you desire, would you still marry this person if you were not in love?" American college students were asked this question in the 1960s and again in the 1990s. When researchers compared answers for the two time periods they found

A) for both time periods the overwhelming answer (over 90%) was "no."
B) most students (especially women) answered "no" in the 1960s, but a strong majority answered "yes" in the 1990s.
C) many students (especially women) said "yes" in the 1960s, but in the 1990s the overwhelming response of both men and women was "no."
D) there was virtually no change in answers between the two time periods; a majority of women answered "yes" and a majority of men answered "no" in the 60s and the 90s.

Question 17

"If a person had all the other qualities you desire, would you still marry this person if you were not in love?" Recent studies have asked this question of people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Results of these cross-cultural surveys strongly suggest that the importance of romantic love as a basis for marriage is

A) limited to Western cultures.
B) becoming universal across cultures.
C) increasing in Eastern but decreasing in Western cultures.
D) has not changed over the last 40 to 50 years.

Question 18

Longitudinal studies consistently show one potential difficulty with passion and romantic love as the primary basis for marriage, which is that

A) these positive emotions together with marital satisfaction decline over time.
B) passionate feelings lead people to marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons.
C) only couples with the most intense passion and romance can sustain these feelings over time.
D) romantic love interferes with the day to day practical problems that married couples confront.

Question 19

Houston and his colleagues in their PAIR project have been studying 168 couples that were married in 1981. Their research supports a disillusionment model of divorce because they found that couples who were at the highest risk of divorce

A) had the highest need for emotional fulfillment.
B) began their marriages deeply in love, but confronted the most conflicts over finances, in-laws, and careers
C) began their marriages at the highest levels of romance, but had the steepest declines in marital satisfaction and romantic feelings.
D) believed that that passion and romance were the exclusive basis for a successful marriage and therefore a decline in these feelings signified a failing marriage.

Question 20

Is it best to be realistic or idealistic about your partner's personal qualities? Do we want to be "known" or "adored"? According to Swann's self-verification theory, people want to be

A) adored because love is supposed to be blind.
B) "known" because a partner's understanding of who you "really" are creates strong feelings of intimacy as relationships mature over time.
C) known because it is only through love that we really find ourselves.
D) adored because people want only positive feedback about their positive qualities and not negative feedback about their undesirable qualities.

Question 21

Is it best to be realistic or idealistic about your partner's personal qualities? Do we want to be "known" or "adored"? A recent longitudinal study by Neff and Karney suggests that both accuracy in our partner's understanding of us and global adoration of who we are as individuals are important. These researchers found that

A) accuracy led to adoration.
B) adoration led to accuracy.
C) the benefits of accuracy and honest evaluation required a high level of adoration between partners.
D) the benefits of adoration depended on whether partner evaluations were also accurate.

Question 22

According to attachment theory, some of our most basic emotional responses to intimate relationships are shaped by

A) our dating experiences as teenagers.
B) relationships with our parents.
C) our level of self-esteem and emotional security.
D) the level of mutual trust that develops early in a relationship.

Question 23

Cross-cultural studies suggest that the meaning and value of different attachments styles

A) may be unique to Western cultures and may not apply to countries like Japan.
B) seem to be universal across cultures.
C) depend on a parent's approach to child-rearing and not on their culture.
D) reflect the unique interaction of parents' and their child's personality.

Question 24

The current view of adult attachment styles is that they are continuous rather than discrete categories and reflect two underlying dimensions of

A) security and insecurity.
B) preoccupied dismissive.
C) anxiety and avoidance.
D) intimate and distant.

Question 25

Which of the following describes the terms and meanings of the current two-dimensional model of adult attachment styles?

A) security-degree of emotional stability / insecurity-degree of fear of rejection
B) anxiety-degree of fear of abandonment and rejection / avoidance-degree of trust and comfort
C) intimacy-degree of desire for closeness /distance-degree of need for independence
D) preoccupied-degree of importance of intimate relationships / dismissive-degree of independence and individualism

Question 26

The preoccupied attachment style describes people who are

A) high on avoidance and high on anxiety and who are obsessed with intimate relationships but can't make them work.
B) low on avoidance and high on anxiety and are "needy" or "clingy" in relationships because they need their low self-esteem propped up by others.
C) low on anxiety and high on avoidance and afraid of being rejected by others.
D) low on both avoidance and anxiety and expend considerable energy developing healthy intimate relationships.

Question 27

Which attachment style describes people who are both high in avoidance and anxiety, view others as untrustworthy, and fear being unlovable and rejected by others?

A) secure
B) preoccupied
C) dismissing avoidant
D) fearful avoidant

Question 28

Is the dismissive avoidant attachment style an exception to the "no man is an island" general rule? That is, are dismissive types really "islands" that don't need or want affection and approval from others? A recent study by Carvallo and Gabriel suggests that the answer is

A) yes, dismissives are islands because they rejected feedback that others liked and accepted them.
B) yes, dismissives are islands because they showed no response to feedback that others liked and accepted them.
C) no, dismissives are not islands because they experienced more positive feelings in response to feedback that others liked and accepted them than did people with a low dismissive view.
D) no, dismissives are not islands because this category of attachment style cannot be reliably assessed or evaluated.

Question 29

Which adult attachment style is associated with being a supportive partner, more intimate disclosures, more satisfying social life, and a higher level of emotional well-being?

A) secure
B) preoccupied
C) dismissing avoidant
D) fearful avoidant

Question 30

A curious implication of relationship research such as Gottman's "love lab" studies, is that once a relationship is well established, its success seems to depend more on the

A) genetics than the environment.
B) life events than individual personalities.
C) presence of affection than the absence of conflict.
D) absence of conflict than the presence of affection.

Question 31

In Gottman and his colleagues's "love lab" studies, married couples are observed in an apartment where their verbal, nonverbal and physiological responses are carefully recorded. Gottman found that happy/stable couples were distinguished from those headed for divorce by

A) the presence or absence negative behaviors.
B) the presence or absence of love and affection.
C) the ratio of positive to negative behaviors.
D) the degree of mutual support and affirmation.

Question 32

Within a relationship, negative affect reciprocity refers to the

A) tit-for-tat exchange and retaliation of negative verbal and nonverbal expressions.
B) demand/withdraw pattern of communication where one partner criticizes and the other clams up and stops communicating.
C) hurt, bad feelings, and anger that one partner feels in response to the critical comments of the other.
D) mutual stonewalling that occurs between two partners when conversations get heated and neither side is willing to compromise or offer construction suggestions.

Question 33

The demand/withdraw pattern of negative interaction in close relationships refers to exchanges where the

A) man makes demands and the woman withdraws from the conversation.
B) woman makes demands and the man withdraws from the conversation.
C) both partners make demands, but end up withdrawing from the conversation because no compromise can be reached.
D) escalation of demands that comes to include ending the relationship altogether.

Question 34

Relationship-enhancing and distress-maintaining attributions describe two major differences in how close relationship partners

A) respond to the distress of their partner.
B) communicate the need to talk about a relationship problem.
C) explain their own perceived role in improving the relationship.
D) explain the transgressions and faults of their partner.

Question 35

Knee and his colleagues have identified two distinct, implicit theories people may hold about how close relationships are supposed to work: romantic destiny and relationship growth. An essential difference between these two views has to do with whether difficulties in a relationship are viewed as

A) signifying incompatibility or opportunities for positive change.
B) caused by your partner or yourself.
C) requiring professional help or able to be solved by you and your partner's resourcefulness.
D) caused by perceptions about or the reality of your relationship.

Question 36

As described in Chapter 11, the major lessons of positive psychology, when applied to relationships, suggest that good relationships

A) require a positive attitude, positive behaviors, and positive goals.
B) require focusing on what's right and not on what's wrong.
C) are different than and not simply the opposite or the absence of a bad relationship.
D) are built on simultaneously fixing problems and cultivating positive emotions.

Question 37

In their seminal study, the Lauers asked 351 married couples, married 15 years or more, about what made their marriages last. The reason couples gave fit into the two general categories of

A) caring and compromise.
B) friendship and commitment.
C) commitment and sacrifice.
D) love and relationship growth.

Question 38

In the Lauers study of 351 couples married 15 years or more, what characteristic was listed as the top reason for an enduring marriage and exemplified in statements like "we laugh together," "we share interests and hobbies," and "my wife has grown more interesting over time"?

A) mutuality
B) commitment
C) relationship growth
D) friendship

Question 39

The Lauers' asked 351 couples married at least 15 years about the reasons for their enduring marriage. When asked about the importance of an enjoyable sex life

A) fewer than 10% believed it kept their marriage together.
B) a majority said conflict over sex was a significant barrier to an enduring marriage.
C) nearly 80% believed good sex and a enduring marriage go hand in hand.
D) very few couples who had stopped having sex were happy with their marriage.

Question 40

Most relationship researchers would affirm the implications of the Lauer's study of 351 couples married at least 15 years by arguing that enduring and happy marriages are built on

A) interlocking needs, shared values, mutual respect, and reciprocal affection.
B) shared optimism, shared commitment, and shared affection.
C) companionate love based on friendship rather than romantic love based on passion.
D) mutual commitment, sacrifice, and hard work.

Question 41

The argument that a shared sense of humor may indicate a fundamental compatibility in personalities between two people is based on the idea that laughter

A) cannot be faked or consciously controlled.
B) is highly enjoyable and bonds people together.
C) releases the tension caused by conflicts in a relationship.
D) is a response to life's dilemmas that shows significant individual variation.

Question 42

The demands of polite society and political correctness can create tension between honestly felt, but consciously denied, feelings towards minorities. Rappoport argues that ethnic humor

A) increases prejudice by releasing this tension in hurtful and destructive ways.
B) increases this tension between what we feel and what we express.
C) decreases prejudice by releasing this tension and detoxifying prejudice by getting it out in the open.
D) makes us laugh because of this tension, but comes at the expense of those who are its targets.

Question 43

Sharing a sense of humor and laughing together may enhance the stability and the quality of long-term relationships because

A) laughter helps release tension.
B) sex fades but laughter endures.
C) of the connection between who we are and what makes us laugh.
D) all of the above