Week 5: Journal

Instructions

Given that people in close relationships have considerable information about their partners, it is not surprising that they can predict their relationship state and fate.  However, couples are prone to “develop various mental biases that serve to promote the continuation of the relationship and buffer the intimates from the more negative aspects of a relationship” (Agnew et al., 2001, p. 1042).  Although such distortions may be adaptive to relationship stability, the positively biased views may detract from the predictive value of couples’ own evaluation regarding relationship fate.  Thus, in order to obtain less biased views of a couple’s relationship (Agnew et al. (2001) investigated how well heterosexual couples’ social network can prognosticate the outcome of the couple’s relationship.  The researchers found considerable overlap between friends and the couple’s own perceptions of their romance; however, the friends’ perceptions tended to be more negative.  Because women tend to self-disclose relationship information more to their friends than do men, friends of the female couple member were more successful at predicting relationship dissolution.  In addition, the couples whose social networks overlap had more stable relationships.  An interesting implication of this research is that just as the self is socially constructed, social networks can have a profound influence on the fate of relationships.

Write a 250-300 word journal in APA format entry sharing your views on this matter.  Speculate how and/or why friends can impact romantic relationships.  Support your discussion integrating terms/concepts from both Chapters 8 and 9 (See attached pdf files).  Include at least one reference.

Due in 8 hours 03/05/2017 by 10 am