What is the basis and importance of intimacy?

Relationships are the central aspect of our human lives. That's why it's important to understand how relationships work and how they are maintained. This book will help to understand the building blocks of intimate relationships. Psychology, sociology, communication studies, family studies and neuroscience have all played a role in understanding relationships. 

Relationships come in all shapes and sizes, but the focus will be on the more intimate relationships between adults. Intimate relationships differ from more superficial and casual relationships in seven different ways: in knowledge, interdependence, care, trust, responsiveness, reciprocity and commitment.

• Within intimate relationships, there is more shared knowledge about personal and confidential information.
• The lives of the persons in an intimate relationship have a great interdependence and are strongly intertwined. Mutual dependency refers to the extent to which intimates need each other and influence each other based on the frequency, strength, diversity and duration of influence. If there's a strong degree of interdependence in a relationship, one person's behavior affects the behavior of the other person.
• Intimates in a relationship care about each other and feel more affection for each other than for most other people.
• There is also a lot of trust in an intimate relationship. Intimates are confident that they will be treated fairly and respectfully.
• The degree of intimacy within a relationship increases when the people in that relationship believe that their partner understands, respects, and values them. Responsiveness refers to the extent to which intimates respond effectively and attentively to their partner's needs.
• Reciprocity refers to the extent to which partners recognize and think of their close relationship with each other in terms of "we" rather than "I." 
• Finally, intimate partners are generally very involved in their relationship and show a lot of commitment. Without this involvement, an ever-decreasing interdependence and knowledge about each other's lives arises.

Our most satisfying and meaningful relationships have these seven aspects. The degree of intimacy in a relationship can change enormously over time. The inclusion of other in the self-scale shows this variation in intimacy within relationships, by portraying the degree of subjectively experienced overlap between yourself and the other. A fundamental lesson about relationships is that they come in all shapes and sizes.

People have an internal need to belong in intimate relationships, which results in us wanting regular social contact with the one we feel connected to. To meet this need, the need to belong, people are driven to create and maintain close relationships with others. Interaction and union with those who are important to us is essential in maintaining our relationships with them. There is a lot of scientific evidence to support the existence of the need to belong. For example, research has shown that people live longer, happier and healthier lives when they have intimate relationships with others than when people are alone. People with few intimate relationships in their lives are more prone to a wide range of health problems. For example, they have a weaker immune system response, which makes them more susceptible to disease. Our mental and physical health are affected by the quality of the connections we make with others in our lives. Psychiatric problems, anxiety disorders, substance use, inflammatory reactions, obesity and sleep problems are all more common in people who make little connection with others in their lives. From an evolutionary perspective, the need to belong is very adaptive.

What influence does culture have on intimacy?

In recent decades, there have been dramatic changes in the cultural context in which we shape our intimate relationships. In the United States today, far fewer couples are getting married, people are waiting longer to get married, people are living together for a long time without getting married and people are more often having children without being married. Today, 1 in 3 marriages ends in divorce. In addition, more and more mothers also work outside the home. Getting married is now a choice and not an obligation. Sinlingism refers to the prejudice and discrimination against people who consciously choose not to have a partner. Cultural standards provide a foundation for our personal relationships. They shape our expectations and patterns of thinking. Overall, research has shown that getting married more often leads to a happy relationship than living together. 

The norms that influence our intimate relationships are changeable and different from the norms of previous generations. Individualism values self-expression and emphasizes personal development. Contemporary Western cultures are characterized by an individualistic point of view. The industrialized economy and many technological developments also play a major role in the changes mentioned before. Modern means of communication are transforming the way we shape and connect within relationships. Sexting refers to sending sexually explicit images of yourself to others via, usually, a smartphone. Many of us are permanently connected to the world through social networks. Technoference refers to the interruptions in the interactions within a relationship due to the distraction caused by technological devices. Phubbing occurs when someone ignores another person because he or she is distracted by her phone. Societies and regions around the world vary greatly in the gender ratio of the number of men per 100 women in a given region. 

What influence does experience have on intimacy?

Our relationships are greatly influenced by our personal experiences and our history. Every human being is characterized by a global orientation style towards relationships. We call this the attachment style.

• People with a secure attachment style bond better with other people and find it easier to rely on others.
• People with an anxious-ambivalent attachment style have created mixed feelings toward others.
• People with an avoidant attachment style are not as likely to trust others and have difficulty forming close relationships with others. 

Researchers have found that the personal experiences with others during the first years of life have a huge influence on the progress of the relationships later in his or her life. Bartholomew (1999) proposed in later research that there are not three but four different attachment styles: a secure, a preoccupied, an anxious and a dismissive attachment style. 

• A secure attachment is characterized by a low fear of abandonment and a low avoidance of intimacy.
• A preoccupied attachment is characterized by a high degree of fear of abandonment and a low avoidance of intimacy.
• A dismissive attachment is characterized by a low fear of abandonment and a high avoidance of intimacy. 
• An anxious attachment is characterized by a high degree of fear of abandonment and a high avoidance of intimacy.

The four labels that Bartholomew distinguished are still widely used. Our general attitudes and views on the value and nature of close relationships are shaped by our experiences with these relationships. Our learned attachment style can both change over time but also remain very firmly present. This depends on our interpersonal experiences. 

Which personal differences have an influence on intimacy?

People have different personalities and human character traits differ a lot. Normal distributions describe the frequencies in which a particular character trait occurs in a group of people. Most people are close to the average value of the normal curve. We can study the differences between men and women by superimposing the normal curves of men and women and examining the overlap. Most of the differences between the sexes are quite small. Men and women overlap extremely in most character traits and are thus much more equal than is often thought. 

Sex differences refer to the biological differences between men and women that are the direct result of physical differences. On the other hand, gender differences refer to social and psychological differences that originate in culture and upbringing. Gender roles are the patterns of behavior that a man or a woman is expected to have by society. Our gender consists of five components: our sex at birth, current gender identity, gender roles and expectations, the social representation of a gender and your personal evaluation of your gender. Overall, it is believed that women have many expressive character traits and men are more likely to have instrumental character traits. Examples of instrumental character traits are assertiveness, self-confidence, ambition, leadership and decisiveness. Examples of expressive character traits include warmth, tenderness, compassion, kindness, and sensitivity. Gender differences are interesting for researchers because they can be responsible for the incompatibility of the match between men and women.

Personality also has a big influence on the way people shape their relationships over the course of their lives. The central five character traits influence human behavior in their relationships over the course of life. Extraversion, kindness, conscientiousness, openness to new experiences and negative emotionality are the five traits that are part of the Big Five model. People are happier when they have social, adventurous and creative partners. The five character traits of the Big Five model have a big influence, but also the degree of selfishness is an important factor that affects our relationships. Humility is another factor. 

The way we evaluate ourselve creates a level of self-confidence. A leading theory states that self-confidence is a subjective indicator. This indicator is called the sociometer and measures the quality of our relationships with others. Close ties with another person give us support and care, but also make us vulnerable when this person is not loyal. 

Our sexual orientation, so what gender we are attracted to, also affects our relationships. Today, we have the perspective that sexual orientation is on a spectrum ranging from homosexual to heterosexual. Homosexual men are generally more expressive than heterosexual men. Homosexual women generally have more instrumental traits than heterosexual women. However, there are no major differences between homosexual and heterosexual couples, except that homosexual relationships are generally more satisfying than heterosexual relationships.

What is the human nature with regard to relationships?

Evolutionary psychology has three core assumptions:

1. Sexual selection has helped us become the species we are today. Natural selection refers to the benefits that allow them to survive more effectively than predators and natural pressures. Sexual selection is about benefits in terms of greater reproductive success.
2. Evolutionary psychology suggests that men and women differ in the extent to which they have had reproductive dilemmas historically. Parental investment refers to the extent to which a parent must invest time, energy and resources in his or her offspring in order to reproduce successfully. A woman usually has a higher degree of parental investment, especially from an evolutionary point of view. Men have a great paternity uncertainty, which refers to the uncertainty of whether the child in question is really his child. Men and women differ in terms of mating strategies. 
3. Cultural influences determine whether evolved patterns of behavior are adaptive or not. Cultural changes take place much faster and more accumulatively than evolution. Critics of the evolutionary perspective emphasize the role of culture in shaping male and female behavior. They hypothesize that patterns of behavior that are said to have evolved often differ greatly across different cultures.

How do interactions affect relationships?

The last building block of relationships has to do with the interaction between the two partners in a relationship. Relationships are created by the combination of the history and talents of the partnersp. Two partners influence each other and this produces an ever-changing outcome. Relationships are constructed by various influences, such as current culture and human nature. 

What is the flip-side of relationships?

There are both costs and benefits to a relationship. Relationships can be disappointing in many different ways. Some people have to deal with a partner who is not loyal or have more need for autonomy. Some people have a fear of intimacy. A relationship is a risk in a sense. Yet, most people do take this risk because we are a social species and need other people in our lives.