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Intimate
Relationships
NINTH EDITION
Rowland S. Miller
Sam Houston State University
miL04267_fm_i-xvi.indd 1 12/01/21 7:55 PM

INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS, NINTH EDITION
Published by McGraw Hill LLC, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10121. Copyright ©2022
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Miller, Rowland S. author.
Title: Intimate relationships / Rowland S. Miller, Sam Houston State University
Description: Ninth edition. | New York, NY : McGraw Hill, [2022] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020028611 | ISBN 9781260804263 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Family life education. | Interpersonal relations.
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Contents
PREFACE ix
ABOUT THE AUTHOR xii
1. The Building Blocks of Relationships 1

the nature and importance of intimacy 2
the influence of culture 6
the influence of experience 14
the influence of individual differences 20
the influence of human nature 37
the influence of interaction 41
the dark side of relationships 42
for your consideration 42
key terms 43
chapter summary 43
suggestions for satisfaction 45
references 45
2. Research Methods 59
the short history of relationship science 60
developing a question 64
obtaining participants 64
choosing a design 68
the nature of our data 70
the ethics of such endeavors 76
iii

iv Contents
interpreting and integrating results 78

a final note 80
key terms 81
chapter summary 81
references 82
3. Attraction 87
the fundamental basis of attraction 87
proximity: liking those near us 88
physical attractiveness: liking those who are lovely 94
reciprocity: liking those who like us 105
similarity: liking those who are like us 107
so, what do men and women want? 116
key terms 119
chapter summary 119
references 121
4. Social Cognition 133

first impressions (and beyond) 133
the power of perceptions 140
impression management 156
so, just how well do we know our partners? 161
key terms 166
chapter summary 167
references 169

Contents v
5. Communication 179
nonverbal communication 181
verbal communication 193
dysfunctional communication and what to do about it 203
key terms 209
chapter summary 209
references 211
6. Interdependency 221
social exchange 221
the economies of relationships 229
are we really this greedy? 241
the nature of commitment 249
key terms 255
chapter summary 255
references 257
7. Friendship 266
the nature of friendship 266
friendship across the life cycle 275
differences in friendship 279
friendship difficulties 285
key terms 296
chapter summary 296
references 298

vi Contents
8. Love 308
a brief history of love 308
types of love 310
individual and cultural differences in love 327
does love last? 331
key terms 336
chapter summary 336
references 337
9. Sexuality 343
sexual attitudes 343
sexual behavior 348
sexual satisfaction 366
sexual coercion 374
key terms 377
chapter summary 377
references 379
10. Stresses and Strains 395

perceived relational value 395
hurt feelings 397
ostracism 400
jealousy 402
deception and lying 413
betrayal 417
forgiveness 421

Contents vii

key terms 424
chapter summary 424
references 426
11. Conflict 436

the nature of conflict 436
the course of conflict 440
the outcomes of conflict 454
key terms 460
chapter summary 460
references 462
12. Power and Violence 468

power and interdependence 468
violence in relationships 482
key terms 493
chapter summary 493
references 495
13. The Dissolution and Loss of Relationships 503

the changing rate of divorce 503
the predictors of divorce 509
breaking up 519
the aftermath of breakups 523

viii Contents

key terms 533
chapter summary 533
references 535
14. Maintaining and Repairing Relationships 544

maintaining and enhancing relationships 546
repairing relationships 554
in conclusion 563
key terms 564
chapter summary 565
references 566
AUTHOR INDEX I-1

SUBJECT INDEX I-26

Preface to the Ninth Edition
Welcome to Intimate Relationships! I’m very pleased that you’re here. I’ve been deeply
honored by the high regard this book has enjoyed, and I’m privileged to offer you
another very thorough update on the remarkable work being done in relationship
science. The field is busier, broader, and more innovative than ever, so a new edition
is warranted—and this one contains almost 800 citations of brand-new work published
in the last 3 years. No other survey of relationship science is as current, comprehen-
sive, and complete.
Readers report that you won’t find another textbook that’s as much fun to read,
either. I’m more delighted by that than I can easily express. This is a scholarly work
primarily intended to provide college audiences with broad coverage of an entire field
of inquiry, but it’s written in a friendly, accessible style that gets students to read
chapters they haven’t been assigned—and that’s a real mark of success! But really,
that’s also not surprising because so much of relationship science is so fascinating.
No other science strikes closer to home. For that reason, and given its welcoming,
reader-friendly style, this book has proven to be of interest to the general public, too.
(As my father said, “Everybody should read this book.”)
So, here’s a new edition. It contains whole chapters on key topics that other books
barely mention and has a much wider reach, citing hundreds more studies, than other
books do. It draws on social psychology, communication studies, family studies,
sociology, clinical psychology, neuroscience, demography, economics, and more. It’s
much more current and comprehensive and more fun to read than any other overview
of the modern science of close relationships. Welcome!
ix

x Preface to the Ninth Edition
What’s New in This Edition

Two new features have enhanced the pedagogy and increased the lasting value of the
book. Key Terms that are introduced are now listed at the end of each chapter alongside
the page numbers that provide their definitions. And more importantly, the insights of
each chapter are now synthesized into applied Suggestions for Satisfaction from
relationship science that offer readers helpful recommendations that can improve their
chances for contentment in their own relationships. (The Suggestions also provide
instructors with starting points for enlightening discussions!)
In addition, as usual, after thorough, substantive revision, this new edition is remark-
ably up-to-date and cutting-edge. It contains 796 (!) new references that support new or
expanded treatment of a variety of intriguing and noteworthy topics that include:
Tinder Sexual rejections

Humility Implicit attitudes
Flooding Facial expressions
Savoring Life History Theory
Stealthing Friends with benefits
Selfishness Commitment readiness
Remarriage Traditional masculinity
Foodie calls Back burner relationships
Social media Satisficers and maximizers
Transference Transgenders’ relationships
Open science Consensual non-monogamy
The Dark Triad Evolutionary perspective on attraction
Further, in substantially expanded discussions of gender and sexual orientation,

the book now quietly but explicitly rejects any assumptions that there are just two
genders or that heterosexual relationships are in some fashion more genuine than
same-sex partnerships. Both assumptions, of course, are simply untrue. I’ll also note
in particular the book’s brand-new consideration of transgenders’ relationships and
consensual non-monogamy; both topics have been of interest to relationship scientists
since my last edition, and there’s now news to share with you.
What Hasn’t Changed

If you’re familiar with the eighth edition of this book, you’ll find things in the same
places. Vital influences on intimate relationships are introduced in chapter 1, and when
they are mentioned in later chapters, footnotes remind readers where to find definitions
that will refresh their memories.
Thought-provoking Points to Ponder appear in each chapter, too. They invite read-
ers to think more deeply about intriguing phenomena, and they can serve equally well
as touchstones for class discussion, topics for individual essays, and personal reflections
regarding one’s own behavior in close relationships.
The book’s singular style also remains intact. There’s someone here behind these
pages. I occasionally break the third wall, speaking directly to the reader, both to be

Preface to the Ninth Edition xi
friendly and to make some key points (and because I can’t help myself). I relish the
opportunity to introduce this dynamic, exciting science to a newcomer—what a remark-
able privilege!—and readers report that it shows.
Finally, this new edition is again available as a digital SmartBook that offers a
personalized and adaptive reading experience. Students do better when their text tells
them which concepts are giving them trouble, so if you haven’t examined the Smart-
Book for Intimate Relationships, I encourage you to do so.
Kudos and fond remembrance are due to Sharon Stephens Brehm, the original
creator of this book, who was the first person to write a text that offered a compre-
hensive introduction to relationship science. Her contributions to our field endure. And
despite the passage of some years, I remain deeply grateful to Dan Perlman, the co-
author who offered me the opportunity to join him in crafting a prior edition. No
colleague could be more generous. I’ve also been grateful during this edition for the
wonderful support and assistance of editorial and production professionals, Elisa
Odoardi, Susan Raley, Carrie Burger, Beth Blech, Danielle Clement, Maria McGreal,
and Jitendra Uniyal. Thanks, y’all!
And I’m glad you’re here! I hope you enjoy the book.
The 9th edition of Intimate Relationships is now available online with Connect,
McGraw-Hill Education’s integrated assignment and assessment platform. Connect also
offers SmartBook® 2.0 for the new edition, which is the first adaptive reading experi-
ence proven to improve grades and help students study more effectively. All of the title’s
website and ancillary content is also available through Connect, including:
• A full Test Bank of multiple choice questions that test students on central concepts
and ideas in each chapter.
• An Instructor’s Manual for each chapter with full chapter outlines, sample test
questions, and discussion topics.
• Lecture Slides for instructor use in class.

About the Author
Rowland S. Miller is Distinguished Regents Professor

Emeritus of Psychology at Sam Houston State Univer-
sity in Huntsville, Texas. He has been teaching a
course in Close Relationships for over 35 years, and
he won the 2008 Teaching Award from the Interna-
tional Association for Relationship Research (primar-
ily as a result of this book). He’s also been recognized
as one of the most outstanding college teachers in
Texas by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation, which
named him a Piper Professor of 2016. He is a Fellow
of the Association for Psychological Science and the
Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and he
won the Edwin Newman Award for Excellence in
Research from Psi Chi and the American Psychological
Association. His parents were happily married for Courtesy of Carolyn A. Miller
73 years, and he’d like to have as long with his wonder-
ful wife, Carolyn, to whom this book is dedicated; she was a huge help behind the
scenes, talking the author out of (nearly) all of his bad ideas.
xii

About the Author xiii
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xiv Contents
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Contents xv
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CHAPTER 1
The Building Blocks of

Relationships
The Nature and Importance of Intimacy ♦ The Influence of

Culture ♦ The Influence of Experience ♦ The Influence of Individual
Differences ♦ The Influence of Human Nature ♦ The Influence of
Interaction ♦ The Dark Side of Relationships ♦ For Your
Consideration ♦ Key Terms ♦ Chapter Summary ♦ Suggestions for
Satisfaction ♦ References
How’s this for a vacation? Imagine yourself in a nicely appointed suite with a pastoral
view. You’ve got high-speed access to Netflix and Hulu, video games, plenty of books
and magazines, and all the supplies for your favorite hobby. Delightful food and drink
are provided, and you have your favorite entertainments at hand. But there’s a catch:
No one else is around, and you have no phone and no access to the Web. You’re
completely alone. You have almost everything you want except for other people. Texts,
tweets, Instagram, and Snapchat are unavailable. No one else is even in sight, and you
cannot interact with anyone else in any way.
How’s that for a vacation? A few of us would enjoy the solitude for a while, but
most of us would quickly find it surprisingly stressful to be completely detached from
other people (Schachter, 1959). Most of us need others even more than we realize.
Day by day, we tend to prefer the time we spend with others to the time we spend
alone (Bernstein et al., 2018), and there’s a reason prisons sometimes use solitary
confinement as a form of punishment: Human beings are a very social species. People
suffer when they are deprived of close contact with others, and at the core of our social
nature is our need for intimate relationships.
Our relationships with others are central aspects of our lives. They’re indispensable
and vital, so it’s useful to understand how they start, how they operate, how they thrive,
and how, sometimes, they end in a haze of anger and pain.
This book will promote your own understanding of close relationships. It draws on
psychology, sociology, communication studies, family studies, and neuroscience to offer
a comprehensive survey of what behavioral scientists have learned about relationships
through careful research. It offers a different, more scientific view of relationships than
you’ll find in magazines or the movies; it’s more reasoned, more cautious, and often less
romantic. You’ll also find that this is not a how-to manual. Insights abound in the pages
ahead, and there’ll be plenty of news you can use, but you’ll need to bring your own
values and personal experiences to bear on the information presented here.
1
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 1 12/01/21 4:03 PM

2 chapter 1: The Building Blocks of Relationships
To set the stage for the discoveries to come, we’ll first define our subject matter.
What are intimate relationships? Why do they matter so much? Then, we’ll consider
the fundamental building blocks of close relationships: the cultures we inhabit, the
experiences we encounter, the personalities we possess, the human origins we all share,
and the interactions we conduct. In order to understand relationships, we need to
consider who we are, where we are, and how we got there.
THE NATURE AND IMPORTANCE OF INTIMACY

Relationships come in all shapes and sizes. We can have consequential contact with
almost anyone—cashiers, classmates, fellow commuters, and kin (Epley & Schroeder,
2014)—but we’ll focus here on our relationships with friends and lovers because they
exemplify intimate relationships. Our primary focus is on intimate relationships between
adults.
The Nature of Intimacy

What, then, is intimacy? That’s actually a complex question because intimacy is a
multifaceted concept with several different components. It’s generally held (Ben-Ari &
Lavee, 2007) that intimate relationships differ from more casual associations in at least
seven specific ways: knowledge, interdependence, caring, trust, responsiveness, mutual-
ity, and commitment.
First, intimate partners have extensive personal, often confidential, knowledge
about each other. They share information about their histories, preferences, feelings,
and desires that they do not reveal to most of the other people they know.
The lives of intimate partners are also intertwined: What each partner does
affects what the other partner wants to do and can do (Fitzsimons et al., 2015).
Interdependence between intimates—the extent to which they need and influence each
other—is frequent (they often affect each other), strong (they have meaningful impact
on each other), diverse (they influence each other in many different ways), and
enduring (they influence each other over long periods of time). When relationships
are interdependent, one’s behavior affects one’s partner as well as oneself (Berscheid
et al., 2004).
The qualities that make these close ties tolerable are caring, trust, and responsive-
ness. Intimate partners care about each other; they feel more affection for one another
than they do for most others. They also trust one another, expecting to be treated fairly
and honorably (Thielmann & Hilbig, 2015). People expect that no undue harm will
result from their intimate relationships, and if it does, they often become wary and
reduce the openness and interdependence that characterize closeness (Jones et al.,
1997). In contrast, intimacy increases when people believe that their partners under-
stand, respect, and appreciate them, being attentively and effectively responsive to their
needs and concerned for their welfare (Reis & Gable, 2015). Responsiveness is power-
fully rewarding, and the perception that our partners recognize, understand, and sup-
port our needs and wishes is a core ingredient of our very best relationships (Reis
et al., 2017).
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 2 12/01/21 4:03 PM

chapter 1: The Building Blocks of Relationships 3
As a result of these close ties, people who are intimate also consider themselves
to be a couple instead of two entirely separate individuals. They exhibit a high degree
of mutuality, which means that they recognize their close connection and think of
themselves as “us” instead of “me” and “him” (or “her”) (Davis & Weigel, 2020). In
fact, that change in outlook—from “I” to “us”—often signals the subtle but significant
moment in a developing relationship when new partners first acknowledge their attach-
ment to each other (Agnew et al., 1998). Indeed, researchers can assess the amount
of intimacy in a close relationship by simply asking partners to rate the extent to which
they “overlap.” The Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale (see Figure 1.1) is a straight-
forward measure of mutuality that does a remarkably good job of distinguishing between
intimate and more casual relationships (Aron et al., 2013).
Finally, intimate partners are ordinarily committed to their relationships. That is,
they expect their partnerships to continue indefinitely, and they invest the time, effort,
and resources that are needed to realize that goal. Without such commitment, people
who were once very close may find themselves less and less interdependent and knowl-
edgeable about each other as time goes by.
None of these components is absolutely required for intimacy to occur, and each
may exist when the others are absent. For instance, spouses in a stale, unhappy mar-
riage may be very interdependent, closely coordinating the practical details of their
daily lives, but living in a psychological vacuum devoid of much affection or respon-
siveness. Such partners would certainly be more intimate than mere acquaintances
are, but they would undoubtedly feel less close to one another than they used to
(perhaps, for instance, when they decided to marry), when more of the components
were present. In general, our most satisfying and meaningful intimate relationships
include all seven of these defining characteristics (Fletcher et al., 2000), but intimacy
can exist to a lesser degree when only some of them are in place. And as unhappy
marriages demonstrate, intimacy can also vary enormously over the course of a long
relationship.
FIGURE 1.1. The Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale.

How intimate is a relationship? Just asking people to pick the picture that portrays a particu-
lar partnership does a remarkably good job of assessing the closeness they feel.
Please circle the picture below that best describes your current relationship with your partner.
Self Other Self Other Self Other Self Other
Self Other Self Other Self Other
Source: Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Smollan, D. (1992). “Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale and the structure of
interpersonal closeness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 596–612.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 3 12/01/21 4:03 PM

So, there’s no one kind of intimate relationship. Indeed, a fundamental lesson

about relationships is a very simple one: They come in all shapes and sizes. This variety
is a source of great complexity, but it’s also endlessly fascinating. (And that’s why I
wrote this book!)
The Need to Belong

Our focus on intimate relationships means that we’ll not consider the wide variety of
interactions that you have each day with casual friends and acquaintances. Should we
be so particular? Is such a focus justified? The answers, of course, are yes. Although
our casual interactions can be very influential (Sandstrom & Dunn, 2014), there’s
something special about intimate relationships (Venaglia & Lemay, 2017). In fact, a
powerful and pervasive drive to establish intimacy with others may be a basic part of
our human nature. According to theorists Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary (1995), we
need frequent, pleasant interactions with intimate partners in lasting, caring relation-
ships if we’re to function normally. There is a human need to belong in close relation-
ships, and if the need is not met, a variety of problems follows.
Our need to belong is presumed to necessitate “regular social contact with those
to whom one feels connected” (Baumeister & Leary, 1995, p. 501). In order to fulfill
the need, we are driven to establish and maintain close relationships with other people;
we require interaction and communion with those who know and care for us. But we
only need a few close relationships; when the need to belong is satiated, our drive to
form additional relationships is reduced. (Thus, when it comes to relationships, quality
is more important than quantity.) It also doesn’t matter much who our partners are;
as long as they provide us stable affection and acceptance, our need can be satisfied.
Thus, when an important relationship ends, we are often able to find replacement
partners who—though they may be quite different from our previous partners—are none-
theless able to satisfy our need to belong (Hirsch & Clark, 2019).
Some of the support for this theory comes from the ease with which we form
relationships with others and from the tenacity with which we then resist the dissolu-
tion of our existing social ties. Indeed, when a valued relationship is in peril, we may
find it hard to think about anything else. The potency of the need to belong may also
be why being entirely alone for a long period of time is so stressful (Schachter, 1959);
anything that threatens our sense of connection to other people can be hard to take
(Leary & Miller, 2012).
In fact, some of the strongest evidence supporting a need to belong comes from
studies of the biological benefits we accrue from satisfying close ties to others. In gen-
eral, people live happier, healthier, longer lives when they’re closely connected to others
than they do when they’re on their own (Loving & Sbarra, 2015). Holding a lover’s
hand reduces the brain’s alarm in response to threatening situations (Coan et al., 2006),
and pain seems less potent when one simply looks at a photograph of a loving partner
(Master et al., 2009). Wounds even heal faster when others accept and support us
(Gouin et al., 2010). In contrast, people with insufficient intimacy in their lives are at
risk for a wide variety of health problems (Valtorta et al., 2016). When they’re lonely,
young adults have weaker immune responses, leaving them more likely to catch a cold
or flu (Pressman et al., 2005). Across the life span, people who have few friends or
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 4 12/01/21 4:03 PM

lovers—and even those who simply live alone—have much

higher mortality rates than do those who are closely
A Point to Ponder
connected to caring partners (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015); Why are married people less
in one extensive study, people who lacked close ties to likely to die from cancer than
others were 2 to 3 times more likely to die over a 9-year unmarried people are? Are
span (Berkman & Glass, 2000). Married people in the unhealthy people simply less
United States are less likely to die from any of the 10 likely to get married, or is
marriage advantageous to our
leading causes of cancer-related death than unmarried
health? How might marriage
people are (Aizer et al., 2013). And losing one’s existing be beneficial?
ties to others is damaging, too: Elderly widows and wid-
owers are much more likely to die in the first few months after the loss of their spouses
than they would have been had their marriages continued (Elwert & Christakis, 2008),
and a divorce also increases one’s risk of an early death (Zhang et al., 2016).
Our mental and physical health is also affected by the quality of our connections
to others (Robles et al., 2014) (see Figure 1.2). Day by day, people who have pleas-
ant interactions with others who care for them are more satisfied with their lives
FIGURE 1.2. Satisfying intimacy and life and death.

Here’s a remarkable example of the manner in which satisfying intimacy is associated with bet-
ter health. In this investigation, middle-aged patients with congestive heart failure were tracked
for several years after their diseases were diagnosed. Forty-eight months later, most of the
patients with less satisfying marriages had died, whereas most of the people who were more
happily married were still alive. This pattern occurred both when the initial illnesses were rela-
tively mild and more severe, so it’s a powerful example of the link between happy intimacy and
better health. In another study, patients who were satisfied with their marriages when they had
heart surgery were over 3 times more likely to still be alive 15 years later than were those who
were unhappily married (King & Reis, 2012). Evidently, fulfilling our needs to belong can be a
matter of life or death.
1.0
.9
Proportion of Patients Alive
.8
.7 Better Marital
Quality
.6
.5
Poorer Marital
.4 Quality
.3
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Months from Diagnosis
Source: Coyne, J. C., Rohrbaugh, M. J., Shoham, V., Sonnega, J. S., Nicklas, J. M., & Cranford, J. A. (2001).
“Prognostic importance of marital quality for survival of congestive heart failure,” American Journal of Cardiology,
88, 526–529.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 5 12/01/21 4:03 PM

than are those who lack such social contact (Sun et al., 2020), and this is true around
the world (Galínha et al., 2013). In contrast, psychiatric problems, anxiety disorders,
substance abuse, inflammation, obesity, and sleep problems all tend to afflict those
with troubled ties to others (Gouin et al., 2020; Kiecolt-Glaser & Wilson, 2017). On
the surface (as I’ll explain in detail in chapter 2), such patterns do not necessarily
mean that shallow, superficial relationships cause psychological problems; after all,
people who are prone to such problems may find it difficult to form loving relation-
ships in the first place. Nevertheless, it does appear that a lack of intimacy can both
cause such problems and make them worse (Braithwaite & Holt-Lunstad, 2017). In
general, whether we’re young or old (Allen et al., 2015), gay or straight (Wight
et al., 2013), or married or just cohabiting (Kohn & Averett, 2014), our well-being
seems to depend on how well we satisfy the need to belong. Evidently, “we are wired
for close connection with others and this connection is vital to our survival”
(Johnson, 2019).
Why should we need intimacy so much? Why are we such a social species? One
possibility is that the need to belong evolved over eons, gradually becoming a natural
tendency in all human beings (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). That argument goes this
way: Because early humans lived in small groups surrounded by a difficult environ-
ment full of saber-toothed tigers, people who were loners were less likely than gre-
garious humans to have children who would grow to maturity and reproduce. In such
a setting, a tendency to form stable, affectionate connections to others would have
been evolutionarily adaptive, making it more likely that one’s children would survive
and thrive (Hare, 2017). As a result, our species slowly came to be characterized by
people who cared deeply about what others thought of them and who sought accep-
tance and closeness from others. Admittedly, this view—which represents a provoca-
tive way of thinking about our modern behavior (and about which I’ll have more to
say later in this chapter)—is speculative. Nevertheless, whether or not this evolution-
ary account is entirely correct, there is little doubt that almost all of us now care
deeply about the quality of our attachments to others. We are also at a loss, prone
to illness and maladjustment, when we have insufficient intimacy in our lives. We
know that food and shelter are essential for life, but the need to belong suggests that
intimacy with others is essential for a good, long life as well (Sbarra & Coan, 2018).
“Human beings need social connections just like we need oxygen, food, and water”
(Gabriel, 2020).
Now, let’s examine the major influences that determine what sort of relationships
we construct when we seek to satisfy the need to belong. We’ll start with a counterpoint
to our innate need for intimacy: the changing cultures that provide the norms that
govern our intimate relationships.
THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE
I know it seems like ancient history—smart phones and Snapchat and AIDS didn’t
exist—but let’s look back at 1965, which may have been around the time that your
grandparents were deciding to marry. If they were a typical couple, they would have
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 6 12/01/21 4:03 PM

married in their early twenties, before she was 21 and before he was 23.1 They prob-
ably would not have lived together, or “cohabited,” without being married because
almost no one did at that time. And it’s also unlikely that they would have had a baby
without being married; 95 percent of the children born in the United States in 1965
had parents who were married to each other. Once they settled in, your grandmother
probably did not work outside the home—most women didn’t—and when her kids were
preschoolers, it’s quite likely that she stayed home with them all day; most women
did. It’s also likely that their children—in particular, your mom or dad—grew up in a
household in which both of their parents were present at the end of the day.
Things these days are very different (Smock & Schwartz, 2020). The last several
decades have seen dramatic changes in the cultural context in which we conduct our
close relationships. Indeed, you shouldn’t be surprised if your grandparents are aston-
ished by the cultural landscape that you face today. In the United States,
•• Fewer people are marrying than ever before. Back in 1965, almost everyone
(94 percent) married at some point in their lives, but more people remain unmar-
ried today. Demographers now predict that fewer than 80 percent of young adults
will ever marry (and that proportion is even lower in Europe [Perelli-Harris &
Lyons-Amos, 2015]). Include everyone who is divorced, widowed, or never mar-
ried, and slightly less than half (49 percent) of the adult population of the United
States is presently married. That’s an all-time low.
•• People are waiting longer to marry. On average, a woman is 28 years old when
she marries for the first time, and a man is almost 30, and these are the oldest
such ages in American history. That’s much older than your grandparents prob-
ably were when they got married (see Figure 1.3). A great many Americans
(43 percent) reach their mid-30s without marrying. Do you feel sorry for people
who are 35 and single? Read the “Are You Prejudiced Against Singles?” box2
on page 9.
•• People routinely live together even when they’re not married. Cohabitation was
very rare in 1965—only 5 percent of all adults ever did it—but it is now ordinary.
More Americans under the age of 44 have cohabited than have ever been married
(Horowitz et al., 2019).
•• People often have babies even when they’re not married. This was an uncommon
event in 1965; only 5 percent of the babies born in the United States that year
had unmarried mothers. Some children were conceived out of wedlock, but their
parents usually got married before they were born. Not these days. In 2018,
40 percent of the babies born in the United States had unmarried mothers (Martin
et al., 2019). On average, an American mother now has her first child (at age 26.9)
before she gets married (at 28.0), and about one-third (32 percent) of children in
the United States presently live with an unmarried parent (Livingston, 2018a).
1
These and the following statistics were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau at www.census.gov, the U.S.
National Center for Health Statistics at www.cdc.gov/nchs, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics at bls.gov
/data, the Pew Research Center at pewsocialtrends.org, and the National Center for Family and Marriage
Research at www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr.html.
2
Please try to overcome your usual temptation to skip past the boxes. Many of them will be worth your time.
Trust me.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 7 12/01/21 4:03 PM

30
29
28
27
26
25
Age
24
23
22
21
Men
20 Women
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005 2010 2015 2019
Year
FIGURE 1.3. Average age of first marriage in the United States.

American men and women are waiting longer to get married than ever before.
•• About one-half of all marriages end in divorce, a failure rate that’s 2-and-a-half
times higher than it was when your grandparents married. In recent years, the
divorce rate has been slowly decreasing for couples with college degrees—which is
probably good news if you’re reading this book!—but it remains high and unchanged
for people with less education. In 2018, in the United States, there were just under
half as many divorces as marriages (Schweizer, 2019). So because not all lasting
marriages are happy ones, an American couple getting married this year is more
likely to divorce sometime down the road than to live happily ever after.3
•• Most preschool children have parents who work outside the home. In 1965, three-
quarters of U.S. mothers stayed home all day when their children were too young
to go to school, but only one-quarter of them (and 7 percent of fathers) do so
now (Livingston, 2018b).
These remarkable changes suggest that our shared assumptions about the role that
marriage and parenthood will play in our lives have changed substantially in recent
years. Once upon a time, everybody got married within a few years of leaving high
school and, happy or sad, they tended to stay with their original partners. Pregnant
3
This is sobering, but your chances for a happy marriage (should you choose to marry) are likely to be better
than those of most other people. You’re reading this book, and your interest in relationship science is likely
to improve your chances considerably.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 8 12/01/21 4:03 PM

Are You Prejudiced Against Singles?
Here’s a term you probably haven’t seen be- less” with lousy lovers (Spielmann et al.,
fore: singlism. It refers to prejudice and dis- 2020).
crimination against those who choose to Still, we make an obvious mistake if we
remain single and opt not to devote them- casually assume that singles are unhealthy,
selves to a primary romantic relationship. lonely loners. Yes, some singles remain unat-
Many of us assume that normal people want tached because they lack self-confidence and
to be a part of a romantic couple, so we find social skill (Apostolou, 2019), but many oth-
it odd when anyone chooses instead to stay ers are single by choice because they like it that
single (Fisher & Sakaluk, 2020). The result is way (Pepping et al., 2018). They have an active
a culture that offers benefits to married cou- social life and close, supportive friendships
ples and puts singles at a disadvantage with that provide them all the intimacy they desire,
regard to such things as Social Security bene- and they remain uncoupled because they cel-
fits, insurance rates, and service in restau- ebrate their freedom and self-sufficiency. They
rants (DePaulo, 2014). have closer relationships with their parents,
Intimacy is good for us, and married siblings, neighbors, and friends than married
people live longer than unmarried people do. people do (Sarkisian & Gerstel, 2016), and as
Middle-aged Americans who have never mar- one woman wrote to Dear Abby (2016), “I do
ried are 2½ times more likely than those who what I want when I want and how I want. I
are married to die an early death (Siegler control the remote, the thermostat and my
et al., 2013). Patterns like these lead some re- money. I have no desire for male companion-
searchers to straightforwardly recommend ship and can honestly say I have never felt hap-
happy romances as desirable goals in life. pier or more content in my life.”
And most single people do want to have So, what do you think? Is there some-
romantic partners; few singles (12 percent) thing wrong or missing in people who are con-
prefer being unattached to being in a steady tent to remain single? If you think there is, you
romantic relationship (Poortman & Liefbroer, may profit by reading Bella DePaulo’s blog
2010), and a fear of being single can lead defending singles at www.psychologytoday
people to lower their standards and “settle for .com/blog/living-single.
people felt they had to get married, and cohabitation was known as “living in sin.” But
not so anymore. Marriage is now a choice, even if a baby is on the way, and increasing
numbers of us are putting it off or not getting married at all. If we do marry, we’re
less likely to consider it a solemn, life-long commitment (Cherlin, 2009). In general,
recent years have seen enormous change in the cultural norms that used to encourage
people to get, and stay, married.
Do these changes matter? Indeed, they do. Cultural standards provide a foundation
for our relationships (Kretz, 2019); they shape our expectations and define the patterns
we think to be normal. Let’s consider, in particular, the huge rise in the prevalence of
cohabitation that has occurred in recent years. Most young adults now believe that it
is desirable for a couple to live together before they get married so that they can spend
more time together, share expenses, and test their compatibility (Horowitz et al., 2019).
Such attitudes make cohabitation a reasonable choice—and indeed, most people now
cohabit before they ever marry. However, when people do not already have firm plans
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 9 12/01/21 4:03 PM

to marry, cohabitation does not make it more likely that a subsequent marriage (if one
occurs) will be successful; instead, such cohabitation increases a couple’s risk that they
will later divorce (Rosenfeld & Roesler, 2019). There are probably several reasons for
this. First, on average, those who cohabit begin living together at younger ages than
their older—and possibly wiser—peers who get married (Kuperberg, 2014). But more
importantly, couples who choose to cohabit are usually less committed to each other
than are those who marry—they are, after all, keeping their options open (Wagner,
2019)—so they encounter more problems and uncertainties than married people do.
They’re less satisfied and they trust each other less (Horowitz et al., 2019) because
they experience more conflict (Stanley et al., 2010), jealousy (Gatzeva & Paik, 2011),
infidelity (Wagner, 2019), and physical aggression (Manning et al., 2018) than spouses
do. Clearly, cohabitation is more tumultuous and volatile than marriage usually is. As
a result, the longer people cohabit, the less enthusiastic about marriage—and the more
accepting of divorce—they become. Take a look at Figure 1.4: As time passes, cohabitat-
ing couples gradually become less likely to ever marry but no less likely to split up;
5 years down the road, cohabitating couples are just as likely to break up as they were
when they moved in together. (Marriage is fundamentally different. The longer a cou-
ple is married, the less likely they are to ever divorce [Wolfinger, 2005]). Overall, then,
casual cohabitation that is intended to test the partners’ compatibility seems to
FIGURE 1.4. The outcomes of cohabitation over time.

Here’s what became of 2,746 cohabiting couples in the United States over a span of 5 years.
As time passed, couples were less likely to marry, but no less likely to break up. After living
together for 5 years, cohabiting couples were just as likely to break up as they were when they
moved in together. (The transition rate describes the percentage of couples who either broke
up or got married each month. The numbers seem low, but they reflect the proportion of cou-
ples who quit cohabiting each month, so the proportions add up and become sizable as
months go by.)
.035
.03
.025
Transition Rate
.02
Marriage
Dissolution
.015
.01
.005
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Months
Source: Wolfinger, N. H. (2005). Understanding the divorce cycle: The children of divorce in their own marriages.
Cambridge University Press.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 10 12/01/21 4:03 PM

undermine the positive attitudes toward marriage, and the determination to make a
marriage work, that support marital success (Busby et al., 2019). Couples who are
engaged to marry when they move in together typically fare better than those who
cohabit without plans to marry (Willoughby & Belt, 2016), but even they tend to be
less happy with their relationships than those who marry without cohabiting first
(Brown et al., 2017). So casual cohabitation is corrosive, and these days, cohabiting
partners are actually less likely to ever marry than in the past (Sassler & Lichter, 2020).
Widespread acceptance of cohabitation as a “trial run” is probably one reason why,
compared to 1965, fewer people get married and fewer marriages last.4
Sources of Change
So, the norms that currently govern our intimate relationships differ from those that
guided prior generations, and there are several reasons why. One set of influences
involves economics. Societies tend to harbor more single people, tolerate more divorces,
and support a later age of marriage the more industrialized and affluent they become
(South et al., 2001), and levels of socioeconomic development have increased around
the world. Education and financial resources allow people to be more independent, so
that women in particular are less likely to marry than they used to be (Dooley, 2010).
And in American marriages, close to one of every three wives earns more than her
husband (Parker & Stepler, 2017), so “the traditional male breadwinner model has
given way to one where women routinely support households and outearn the men
they are married to, and nobody cares or thinks it’s odd” (Mundy, 2012, p. 5).5
Over the years, the individualism—that is, the support of self-expression and the
emphasis on personal fulfillment—that characterizes Western cultures has also become
more pronounced (Santos et al., 2017). This isn’t good news, but most of us are more
materialistic (Twenge & Kasser, 2013) and less concerned with others (Twenge, 2013)
than our grandparents were. And arguably, this focus on our own happiness has led
us to expect more personal gratification from our intimate partnerships—more pleasure
and delight, and fewer hassles and sacrifices—than our grandparents did (Finkel, 2017).
Unlike prior generations (who often stayed together for the “sake of the kids”), we feel
justified in ending our partnerships to seek contentment elsewhere if we become dis-
satisfied (Cherlin, 2009). Eastern cultures promote a more collective sense of self in
which people feel more closely tied to their families and social groups (Markus, 2017),
and the divorce rates in such cultures (such as Japan) are much lower than they are
in the United States (Cherlin, 2009).
New technology matters, too. Modern reproductive technologies allow single
women to bear children fathered by men picked from a catalog at a sperm bank whom
4
Most people don’t know this, so here’s an example of an important pattern we’ll encounter often: Popular
opinion assumes one thing, but relationship science finds another. Instances such as these demonstrate the
value of careful scientific studies of close relationships. Ignorance isn’t bliss. Intimate partnerships are
complex, and accurate information is especially beneficial when common sense and folk wisdom would lead
us astray.
5
Well, actually, some men, particularly those with traditional views of what it means to be a man (Coughlin
& Wade, 2012), are troubled when they earn less than their wives. Their self-esteem suffers (Ratliff & Oishi,
2013), and they are more likely than other men to use drugs to treat erectile dysfunction (Pierce et al., 2013).
Traditional masculinity can be costly in close relationships, a point to which we’ll return on page 28.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 11 12/01/21 4:03 PM

the women have never met! Women can also control their fertility, having children only
when they choose, and American women are having fewer children than they used to.
The American birth rate is at an all-time low (Hamilton et al., 2019), and one in every
four young American women has used emergency contraception—a “morning-after”
pill—to help keep it that way (Haeger et al., 2018).
Modern communication technologies are also transforming the ways in which we
conduct our relationships (Okdie & Ewoldsen, 2018). Your grandparents didn’t have
mobile phones, so they didn’t expect to be able to reach each other anywhere at any
time of day. They certainly didn’t do any sexting—that is, sending sexually explicit images
of themselves to others with a smartphone—as more than 20 percent of young adults
now have (Garcia et al., 2016, who also found that 23 percent of the time, those who
receive a sext share it with two or three others). And they did not have to develop rules
about how frequently they could text each other, how long they could take to respond,
and whether or not they could read the messages and examine the call histories on the
other’s phone; these days, couples are happier if they do (Halpern & Katz, 2017).
In addition, most of the people you know are on Facebook (Gramlich, 2019),
connected to hundreds of “friends,”6 and that can complicate our more intimate part-
nerships. Facebook provides an entertaining and efficient way to (help to) satisfy our
needs for social contact (Waytz & Gray, 2018), but it can also create dilemmas for
lovers, who have to decide when to go “Facebook official” and announce that they’re
now “in a relationship” (Seidman et al., 2019). (They also have to decide what that
means: Women tend to think that this change in status signals more intensity and
commitment than men do [Fox & Warber, 2013].) Thereafter, a partner’s heavy use of
Facebook (McDaniel & Drouin, 2019) and pictures of one’s partner partying with
others (Utz et al., 2015) can incite conflict and jealousy, and a breakup can be embar-
rassingly public (Haimson et al., 2018). Clearly, social media such as Facebook and
Snapchat can be mixed blessings in close relationships.
Moreover, many of us are permanently connected
to our social networks, with our smartphones always by A Point to Ponder
our sides (Lapierre, 2020), and we are too often Which of the remarkable
tempted to “give precedence to people we are not with changes in technology over
over people we are with” (Price, 2011, p. 27). Modern the last 50 years has had the
couples have to put up with a lot of technoference, the most profound effect on our
frequent interruptions of their interactions that are relationships? Birth control
caused by their various technological devices (McDan- pills? Smartphones? Online
iel & Drouin, 2019), and phubbing—which occurs when dating sites? Something else?
one partner snubs another by focusing on a phone—is
particularly obnoxious (Roberts & David, 2016). No one much likes to be ignored while
you text or talk with someone else (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2018), but it hap-
pens most of the time when two friends are eating together (Vanden Abeele et al.,
2019). In fact—and this is troubling—our devices can be so alluring and distracting
6
Psychology students at Sam Houston State University (n = 298) do have hundreds of Facebook “friends”—562
each, on average—but that number doesn’t mean much because most of them aren’t real friends; 45 percent
of them are mere acquaintances, and others (7 percent) are strangers they have never met (Miller et al.,
2014). We’ll return to this point in chapter 7, but for now, let me ask: How many people on your Facebook
list are really your friends?
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 12 12/01/21 4:03 PM

Steve Kelley Editorial Cartoon used with the permission of Steve Kelley and Creators Syndicate. All rights reserved.
Phubbing is obnoxious and is best avoided.
(Kushlev et al., 2019) that simply having your smartphone lying on the table is likely
to reduce the quality of the conversation you share at dinner with a friend (Dwyer et
al., 2018). Here’s a suggestion: When you next go out to dinner with your lover, why
don’t you leave your phone in the car? ”When technology diminishes our relationships
with loved ones and distracts us from the things that truly matter, it’s no longer a tool;
it’s a toxin” (Lane, 2017).
Finally, an important—but more subtle—influence on the norms that govern rela-
tionships is the relative numbers of young men and women in a given culture (Sng &
Ackerman, 2020). Societies and regions of the world in which men are more numerous
than women tend to have very different standards than those in which women outnum-
ber men. I’m describing a region’s sex ratio, a simple count of the number of men for
every 100 women in a specific population. When the sex ratio is high, there are more
men than women; when it is low, there are fewer men than women.
The baby boom that followed World War II caused the U.S. sex ratio, which had
been very high, to plummet to low levels at the end of the 1960s. For a time after the
war, more babies were born each year than in the preceding year; this meant that when
the “boomers” entered adulthood, there were fewer older men than younger women, and
the sex ratio dropped. However, when birthrates began to slow and fewer children entered
the demographic pipeline, each new flock of women was smaller than the preceding flock
of men, and the U.S. sex ratio crept higher in the 1990s. Since then, reasonably stable
birthrates have resulted in fairly equal numbers of marriageable men and women today.
These changes may have been more important than most people realize. Cultures
with high sex ratios (in which there aren’t enough women) tend to support traditional,
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 13 12/01/21 4:03 PM

old-fashioned roles for men and women (Secord, 1983). After the men buy expensive
engagement rings (Griskevicius et al., 2012), women stay home raising children while
the men work outside the home. Such cultures also tend to be sexually conservative.
The ideal newlywed is a virgin bride, unwed pregnancy is shameful, open cohabitation
is rare, and divorce is discouraged. In contrast, cultures with low sex ratios (in which
there are too few men) tend to be less traditional and more permissive. Women seek
high-paying careers (Durante et al., 2012), and they are allowed (if not encouraged) to
have sexual relationships outside of marriage (Moss & Maner, 2016). The specifics
vary with each historical period, but this general pattern has occurred throughout his-
tory (Guttentag & Secord, 1983). Ancient Rome, which was renowned for its sybaritic
behavior? A low sex ratio. Victorian England, famous for its prim and proper ways? A
high sex ratio. The Roaring Twenties, a footloose and playful decade? A low sex ratio.
And in more recent memory, the “sexual revolution” and the advent of “women’s lib-
eration” in the late 1960s? A very low sex ratio.
Thus, the remarkable changes in the norms for U.S. relationships since 1965 may
be due, in part, to dramatic fluctuations in U.S. sex ratios. Indeed, another test of this
pattern is presently unfolding in China, where limitations on family size and a prefer-
ence for male children have produced a dramatic scarcity of young women. Prospective
grooms will outnumber prospective brides in China by more than 50 percent for the
next 25 years (Huang, 2014). What changes in China’s norms should we expect? The
rough but real link between a culture’s proportions of men and women and its relational
norms serves as a compelling example of the manner in which culture can affect our
relationships. To a substantial degree, what we expect and what we accept in our deal-
ings with others can spring from the standards of the time and place in which we live.
THE INFLUENCE OF EXPERIENCE
Our relationships are also affected by the histories and experiences we bring to them,
and there is no better example of this than the global orientations toward relationships
known as attachment styles. Years ago, developmental researchers (e.g., Bowlby, 1969)
realized that infants displayed various patterns of attachment to their major caregivers
(usually their mothers). The prevailing assumption was that whenever they were hungry,
wet, or scared, some children found responsive care and protection to be reliably avail-
able, and they learned that other people were trustworthy sources of security and
kindness. As a result, such children developed a secure style of attachment: They hap-
pily bonded with others and relied on them comfortably, and they readily developed
relationships characterized by relaxed trust.
Other children encountered different situations. For some, attentive care was
unpredictable and inconsistent. Their caregivers were warm and interested on some
occasions but distracted, anxious, or unavailable on others. These children thus devel-
oped fretful, mixed feelings about others known as anxious-ambivalent attachments.
Being uncertain of when (or if) a departing caregiver would return, such children
became nervous, clingy, and needy in their relationships with others.
Finally, for a third group of children, care was provided reluctantly by rejecting or
hostile adults. Such children learned that little good came from depending on others,
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 14 12/01/21 4:03 PM

Tom Merton/Corbis
Children’s relationships with their major caregivers teach them trust or fear that sets the stage
for their subsequent relationships with others. How responsive, reliable, and effective was the
care that you received?
and they withdrew from others with an avoidant style of attachment. Avoidant
children were often suspicious of others, and they did not easily form trusting, close
relationships.
The important point, then, is that researchers believed that early interpersonal
experiences shaped the course of one’s subsequent relationships. Indeed, attachment
processes became a popular topic of research because the different styles were so obvi-
ous in many children. When they faced a strange, intimidating environment, for
instance, secure children ran to their mothers, calmed down, and then set out to bravely
explore the unfamiliar new setting (Ainsworth et al., 1978). Anxious-ambivalent chil-
dren cried and clung to their mothers, ignoring the parents’ reassurances that all was
well.
These patterns were impressive, but relationship researchers really began to take
notice of attachment styles when Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver (1987) demonstrated
that similar orientations toward close relationships could also be observed among
adults. Their surveys found that most people said that they were relaxed and comfort-
able depending on others; that is, they sounded secure in their intimate relationships.
However, a substantial minority (about 40 percent) said they were insecure; they either
found it difficult to trust and to depend on their partners, or they nervously worried
that their relationships wouldn’t last. In addition, respondents reported childhood
memories and current attitudes that fit their styles of attachment. Secure people gener-
ally held positive images of themselves and others, and remembered their parents as
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 15 12/01/21 4:03 PM

loving and supportive. In contrast, insecure people viewed others with uncertainty or
distrust, and remembered their parents as inconsistent or cold.
With provocative results like these, attachment research quickly became one of the
hottest fields in relationship science (e.g., Mikulincer & Shaver, 2018). And researchers
promptly realized that there seemed to be four, rather than three, patterns of attachment
in adults. In particular, theorist Kim Bartholomew (1990) suggested that there were two
different reasons why people might wish to avoid being too close to others. In one case,
people could want relationships with others but be wary of them, fearing rejection and
mistrusting them. In the other case, people could be independent and self-reliant, genu-
inely preferring autonomy and freedom rather than close attachments to others.
Thus, Bartholomew (1990) proposed four general categories of attachment style
(see Table 1.1). The first, a secure style, remained the same as the secure style identi-
fied in children. The second, a preoccupied style, was a new name for anxious ambiva-
lence. Bartholomew renamed the category to reflect the fact that, because they
nervously depended on others’ approval to feel good about themselves, such people
worried about, and were preoccupied with, the status of their relationships.
The third and fourth styles reflected two different ways to be “avoidant.” Fearful
people avoided intimacy with others because of their fears of rejection. Although they
wanted others to like them, they worried about the risks of relying on others. In con-
trast, people with a dismissing style felt that intimacy with others just wasn’t worth the
trouble. Dismissing people rejected interdependency with others because they felt self-
sufficient, and they didn’t care much whether others liked them or not.
It’s also now generally accepted that two broad themes underlie and distinguish
these four styles of attachment (Gillath et al., 2016). First, people differ in their avoid-
ance of intimacy, which affects the ease and trust with which they accept interdependent
intimacy with others. People who are comfortable and relaxed in close relationships are
TABLE 1.1. Four Types of Attachment Style
Which of these paragraphs describes you best?
Secure It is easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfort-

able depending on others and having others depend on me. I don’t
worry about being alone or having others not accept me.
Preoccupied I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often
find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I am
uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes
worry that others don’t value me as much as I value them.
Fearful I am uncomfortable getting close to others. I want emotionally close
relationships, but I find it difficult to trust others completely or to
depend on them. I worry that I will be hurt if I allow myself to
become too close to others.
Dismissing I am comfortable without close emotional relationships. It is very
important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient, and I prefer
not to depend on others or have others depend on me.
Source: Bartholomew, K. (1990). “Avoidance of intimacy: An attachment perspective,” Journal of Social and Personal
Relationships, 7, 147–178.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 16 12/01/21 4:03 PM

low in avoidance, whereas those who distrust others, value their independence, and keep
their emotional distance are high in avoidance (Ren et al., 2017). People also differ in
their anxiety about abandonment, the dread that others will find them unworthy and
leave them. Secure people take great comfort in closeness with others and do not worry
that others will mistreat them; as a result, they gladly seek intimate interdependency
with others. In contrast, with all three of the other styles, people are burdened with
anxiety or discomfort that leaves them less at ease in close relationships. Preoccupied
people want closeness but anxiously fear rejection. Dismissing people don’t worry about
rejection but don’t like closeness. And fearful people get it from both sides, being
uncomfortable with intimacy and worrying it won’t last. (See Figure 1.5.)
Importantly, the two themes of avoidance of intimacy and anxiety about
abandonment are continuous dimensions that range from low to high. This means that,
although it’s convenient to talk about attachment styles as if they were discrete, pure
categories that do not overlap, it’s not really accurate to do so (Lubiewska & Van de
Vijver, 2020). When they are simply asked to pick which one of the four paragraphs
in Table 1.1 fits them best, most people in the United States—usually around 60 percent—
describe themselves as being securely attached (Mickelson et al., 1997).7 However, if
FIGURE 1.5. The dimensions underlying attachment.

Low Avoidance
of Intimacy
SECURE PREOCCUPIED
Comfortable with intimacy Uneasy and vigilant toward
and interdependence; any threat to the relationship;
optimistic and sociable needy and jealous
Low Anxiety High Anxiety

about about
Abandonment Abandonment
DISMISSING FEARFUL
Self-reliant and uninterested Fearful of rejection and
in intimacy; mistrustful of others;
indifferent and independent suspicious and shy
High Avoidance
of Intimacy
7
This isn’t true of American college students; only about 40 percent of them are secure. And that proportion
has been declining over the last 30 years; more collegians are insecure than in years past (Konrath et al.,
2014). [Here’s a Point to Ponder in a footnote! Why do you think that is?] Also, in many other countries,
secure styles are more common than any of the other three styles but secure people are outnumbered by
the other three groups combined. Thus, in most regions of the world, more people are insecure than secure
(Schmitt, 2008). Nevertheless, there is some good news here: Around the world, people tend to become less
anxious and avoidant as they age (e.g., Chopik et al., 2019). So, even if you’re insecure now, time and experi-
ence may teach you to be more secure 30 years from now.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 17 12/01/21 4:03 PM

someone has moderate anxiety about abandonment and middling avoidance of inti-
macy, which category fits him or her best? The use of any of the four categories is
rather arbitrary in the middle ranges of anxiety and avoidance where the boundaries
of the categories meet.
So don’t treat the neat classifications in Figure 1.5 too seriously. The more sophis-
ticated way to think about attachment is that there seem to be two important themes
that shape people’s global orientations toward relationships with others. (You can see
where you stand on the items that are often used to measure anxiety and avoidance
on page 74 in chapter 2.) Both are important, and if you compare high scorers on
either dimension to low scorers on that dimension, you’re likely to see meaningful
differences in the manner in which those people conduct their relationships. Indeed,
current studies of attachment (e.g., Hudson et al., 2020) routinely describe people with
regard to their relative standing on the two dimensions of anxiety and avoidance instead
of labeling them as secure, preoccupied, fearful, or dismissing.
Nevertheless, the four labels are so concise that they are still widely used, so stay
sharp. Developmental researchers used to speak of only three attachment styles: secure,
avoidant, and anxious-ambivalent. Now theorists routinely speak of four styles, but they
treat them as convenient labels for sets of anxiety and avoidance scores, not as dis-
tinctly different categories that have nothing in common. The biggest distinction is
between people who are “secure” and those who are not (being those who have high
anxiety about abandonment or high avoidance of intimacy, or both) (Arriaga &
Kumashiro, 2019). And for now, the important point is that attachment styles appear
to be orientations toward relationships that are largely learned from our experiences
with others. They are prime examples of the manner in which the proclivities and
perspectives we bring to a new relationship emerge in part from our experiences in
prior partnerships.
Let’s examine this idea more closely. Any relationship is shaped by many different
influences—that’s the point of this chapter—and both babies and adults affect through
their own behavior the treatment they receive from others. As any parent knows, for
instance, babies are born with various temperaments and arousal levels. Some new-
borns have an easy, pleasant temperament, whereas others are fussy and excitable, and
inborn differences in personality and emotionality make some children easier to parent
than others. Thus, the quality of parenting a baby receives can depend, in part, on the
child’s own personality and behavior; in this way, people’s attachment styles are influ-
enced by the traits with which they were born, and our genes shape our styles (Masarik
et al., 2014).
However, our experiences play much larger roles in shaping the styles we bring to
subsequent relationships (Fraley & Roisman, 2019). The levels of acceptance or rejec-
tion we receive from our parents are huge influences early on (Woodhouse et al., 2020).
Expectant mothers who are glad to be pregnant are more likely to have secure toddlers
a year later than are mothers-to-be whose pregnancies were unwanted or unplanned
(Gillath et al., 2019). Once their babies are born, mothers who enjoy intimacy and who
are comfortable with closeness tend to be more attentive and sensitive caregivers (Jones
et al., 2015), so secure moms tend to have secure children, whereas insecure mothers
tend to have insecure children (Verhage et al., 2016). Indeed, when mothers with dif-
ficult, irritable babies are trained to be sensitive and responsive parents, their toddlers
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 18 12/01/21 4:03 PM

Was Your Childhood Calm or Chaotic?
Some of us experienced childhoods that were (Simpson, 2019). If life is hard and uncertain,
comfortable and full of familiar routines; our one needs to act fast! In contrast, comfortable
families didn’t struggle financially, we didn’t and reliable environments support “slow”
move often, and our parents didn’t keep strategies; people reach puberty later, start
changing partners. Others of us, though, had having sex when they’re older and have fewer
childhoods that were comparatively harsh partners and fewer children. Their relation-
and/or unpredictable. Perhaps we were poor, ships also tend to be more stable and lasting
so that life was austere and inhospitable, or (Bae & Wickrama, 2019).
perhaps upheaval was common, so that we Remarkably, recent discoveries gener-
never knew what to expect. Notably, these ally support life history predictions, with cha-
different past environments may be having otic childhoods seeming to set people on
more influence on our current relationships paths in which secure attachments to others
than we realize. are relatively hard to attain (Szepsenwol &
According to a perspective known as life Simpson, 2019). We’re not prisoners of our
history theory, harsh or unpredictable environ- pasts (Hudson et al., 2020), but studies of life
ments lead young adults to pursue “fast” strat- histories offer striking examples of the man-
egies of mating in which they mature faster, ner in which, consciously or not, we may im-
have sex sooner (and with more people), and port our past experiences into our present
have more children (and at a younger age) partnerships.
are much more likely to end up securely attached to them than they would have been
in the absence of such training (van den Boom, 1994). And a mother’s influence on
the attachment styles of her children does not end in preschool: The parenting adoles-
cents receive as seventh graders predicts how they will behave in their own romances
and friendships when they become adults (Hadiwijaya et al., 2020), and remarkably,
teens who have nurturing and supportive relationships with their parents will be likely
to have richer relationships with their lovers and friends 60 years later (Waldinger &
Schulz, 2016). There’s no doubt that youngsters import the lessons they learn at home
into their subsequent relationships with others (Fraley & Roisman, 2019).
We’re not prisoners of our experiences as children, however, because our attach-
ment styles continue to be shaped by the experiences we encounter as adults (Haak
et al., 2017). Being learned, attachment styles can be unlearned, and over time, attach-
ment styles can change (Fraley, 2019). A devoted, fun, and supportive partner may
gradually make an avoidant person less wary of intimacy (Arriaga & Kumashiro, 2019),
but a bad breakup can make a formerly secure person insecure. Our attachment to a
particular partner can even fluctuate some from day to day (Girme et al., 2018), but
the good news is that those who want to become less anxious or avoidant usually suceed
in doing so (Hudson et al., 2020).
Nevertheless, once they have been established, attachment styles can also be stable
and long-lasting as they lead people to create new relationships that reinforce their
existing tendencies (Hadden et al., 2014). By remaining aloof and avoiding interdepen-
dency, for instance, fearful people may never learn that some people can be trusted
and closeness can be comforting—and that perpetuates their fearful style. In the absence
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 19 12/01/21 4:03 PM

of dramatic new experiences, people’s styles of attachment can persist for decades
(Fraley, 2002), with great effect: Marriages are happier when both spouses have secure
styles (Siegel et al., 2019), and insecure people are more likely than those who are
secure to be divorced and single (McNelis & Segrin, 2019).
Thus, our global beliefs about the nature and worth of close relationships appear
to be shaped by our experiences within them. By good luck or bad, our earliest notions
about our own interpersonal worth and the trustworthiness of others emerge from our
interactions with our major caregivers and start us down a path of either trust or fear.
But that journey never stops, and later obstacles or aid from fellow travelers may divert
us and change our routes. Our learned styles of attachment to others may either change
with time or persist indefinitely, depending on our interpersonal experiences.
THE INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Once they are formed, attachment styles also exemplify the idiosyncratic personal
characteristics that people bring to their partnerships with others. We’re all individuals
with singular combinations of experiences and traits, and the differences among us
influence our relationships. In this section of the chapter, we’ll consider five influential
types of individual variation: sex differences, gender differences, sexual orientations,
personalities, and self-esteem.
Sex Differences
At this moment, you’re doing something rare. You’re reading an academic textbook
about relationship science, and that’s something most people will never do. This is
probably the first serious text you’ve ever read about relationships, too, and that means
that we need to confront—and hopefully correct—some of the stereotypes you may hold
about the differences between men and women in intimate relationships.
This may not be easy. Many of us are used to thinking that men and women have
very different approaches to intimacy—that, for instance, “men are from Mars, women
are from Venus.” A well-known book with that title asserted that
men and women differ in all areas of their lives. Not only do men and women com-
municate differently but they think, feel, perceive, react, respond, love, need, and appre-
ciate differently. They almost seem to be from different planets, speaking different
languages and needing different nourishment. (Gray, 1992, p. 5)
Wow! Men and women sound like they’re members of different species. No wonder
heterosexual relationships are sometimes problematic!
But the truth is more subtle. Human traits obviously vary across a wide range, and
(in most cases) if we graph the number of people who possess a certain talent or abil-
ity, we’ll get a distinctive chart known as a normal curve. Such curves describe the
frequencies with which particular levels of some trait can be found in people, and they
demonstrate that (a) most people have talents or abilities that are only slightly better
or worse than average and (b) extreme levels of most traits, high or low, are very rare.
Consider height, for example: A few people are very short or very tall, but most of us
are only two or three inches shorter or taller than the average for our sex.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 20 12/01/21 4:03 PM

One Sex The Other Sex
Number of People
Less More
Some Ability or Trait
FIGURE 1.6. An imaginary sex difference.
Popular stereotypes portray the sexes as being very different, with almost no overlap between
the styles and preferences of the two sexes. This is not the way things really are.
Why should we care about this? Because many lay stereotypes about men and women
portray the sexes as having very different ranges of interests, styles, and abilities. As one
example, men are often portrayed as being more interested in sex than women are (see
the “Combating Simplistic Stereotypes” box on page 23), and the images of the sexes that
people hold often seem to resemble the situation pictured in Figure 1.6. The difference
between the average man and the average woman is presumed to be large, and there is
almost no overlap between the sexes at all. But, despite the “Mars” and “Venus” stereo-
types, this is not the way things really are. As we’ll see in chapter 9, men do tend to have
higher sex drives, on average, than women do. Nevertheless, actual sex differences take
the form of the graphs shown in Figure 1.7, which depict ranges of interests and talents
that overlap to a substantial extent (Hyde et al., 2019).
The three graphs in Figure 1.7 illustrate sex differences that are considered by
researchers to be small, medium, and large, respectively. Formally, they differ with
respect to a d statistic that specifies the size of a difference between two groups.8 In
FIGURE 1.7. Actual sex differences take the form of overlapping normal curves.
The three graphs depict small, medium, and large sex differences, respectively. (To keep them
simple, they portray the ranges of attitudes or behavior as being the same for both sexes. This
isn’t always the case in real life.)
A d = .2 B d = .5 C d = .8
(a small sex difference) (a medium sex difference) (a large sex difference)
Number of People
Score Score Score
8
To get a d score in these cases, you compute the difference between the average man and the average
woman, and divide it by the average differences among the scores within each sex (which is the standard
deviation of those scores). The resulting d value tells you how large the sex difference is compared to the
usual amount by which men and women differ among themselves.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 21 12/01/21 4:03 PM

the realm of sexual attitudes and behavior, graph A depicts the different ages of men
and women when they first have intercourse (men tend to be slightly younger), graph
B illustrates the relative frequencies with which they masturbate (men masturbate
more often), and graph C depicts a hypothetical difference that is larger than any that
is known to actually exist. That’s right. A sprawling analysis of modern studies of
human sexuality involving 1,419,807 participants from 87 different countries failed to
find any difference in the sexual attitudes and behavior of men and women that was
as large as that pictured in graph C (Petersen & Hyde, 2010). Obviously, the real-life
examples that do exist look nothing like the silly stereotype pictured in Figure 1.6.
More specifically, these examples make three vital points about psychological sex
differences:
•• Some differences are real but quite small. (Don’t be confused by researchers’
terminology; when they talk about a “significant” sex difference, they’re usually
referring to a “statistically significant”—that is, numerically reliable—difference,
and it may actually be quite modest in size.) Almost all of the differences between
men and women that you will encounter in this book fall in the small to medium
range.
•• The range of behavior and opinions among members of a given sex is always huge
compared to the average difference between the sexes. Men are more accepting of
casual, uncommitted sex than women are (Petersen & Hyde, 2010), but that cer-
tainly doesn’t mean that all men like casual sex. Some men like to have sex with
strangers, but other men don’t like that at all, and the sexual preferences of the
two groups of men have less in common than those of the average man and the
average woman do. Another way to put this is that despite this sex difference in
sexual permissiveness, a highly permissive man has more in common with the
average woman on this trait than he does with a low-scoring man.
•• The overlap in behavior and opinions is so large that many members of one sex
will always score higher than the average member of the other sex. With a sex
difference of medium size (with men higher and a d value of .5), one-third of all
women will still score higher than the average man. What this means is that if
you’re looking for folks who like casual sex, you shouldn’t just look for men because
you heard that “men are more accepting of casual sex than women are”; you should
look for permissive people, many of whom will be women despite the difference
between the sexes.
The bottom line is that men and women usually overlap so thoroughly that they are
much more similar than different on most of the dimensions and topics of interest to
relationship science (Zell et al., 2015). It’s completely misguided to suggest that men
and women come from different planets and are distinctly different because it simply
isn’t true (Hyde et al., 2019). “Research does not support the view that men and women
come from different cultures, let alone separate worlds” (Canary & Emmers-Sommer,
1997, p. vi). According to the careful science of relationships you’ll study in this book,
it’s more accurate to say that “men are from North Dakota, and women are from South
Dakota” (Dindia, 2006, p. 18). (Or, as a bumper sticker I saw one day suggests: “Men
are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Deal with it.”)
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 22 12/01/21 4:03 PM

Combating Simplistic Stereotypes
Here’s a joke that showed up in my quite trivial. Both women and men generally
inbox one day: want their intimate partners to provide them
with lots of affection and warmth (Brum-
How to Impress a Woman: baugh & Wood, 2013).
Compliment her. Cuddle her. Kiss her. But so what? What are the conse-
Caress her. Love her. Comfort her. Protect quences of wrongly believing that men are all
her. Hug her. Hold her. Spend money on alike, having little in common with women?
her. Wine and dine her. Listen to her. Care Pessimism and hopelessness, for two (Metts
for her. Stand by her. Support her. Go to the & Cupach, 1990). People who really believe
ends of the earth for her. that the sexes are very different are less likely
to try to repair their heterosexual relation-
How to Impress a Man:
ships when conflicts occur (as they inevita-
Show up naked. Bring beer.
bly do). Thinking of the other sex as a bunch
It’s a cute joke. But it may not be harmless. It of aliens from another world is not just
reinforces the stereotypes that women seek inaccurate—it can also be damaging, forestall-
warmth and tenderness in their relation- ing efforts to understand a partner’s point of
ships, whereas men simply seek unemotional view and preventing collaborative problem
sex. In truth, men and women differ little in solving. For that reason, I’ll try to do my part
their desires in close relationships; they’re to avoid perpetuating wrongful impressions
not “opposite” sexes at all (Hyde, 2014). Al- by comparing men and women to the other
though individuals of both sexes may differ sex, not the opposite sex, for the remainder of
substantially from each other, the differences this book. Words matter (MacArthur et al.,
between the average man and the average 2020), so I invite you to use similar language
woman are usually rather small and often when you think and talk about the sexes.
Thus, sex differences in intimate relationships tend to be much less noteworthy

and influential than laypeople often think. Now that you’re reading a serious text on
intimate relationships, you need to think more carefully about sex differences and
interpret them more reasonably.9 There are interesting differences between the sexes
that are meaningful parts of the fabric of relationships, and we’ll encounter several of
them in the chapters that follow. But they occur in the context of even broader simi-
larities between the sexes, and the differences are always modest when they are com-
pared to the full range of human variation. It’s more work, but also more sophisticated
and accurate, to think of individual differences, not sex differences, as the more impor-
tant influences on interpersonal interaction. People differ among themselves whether
they are male or female (as in the case of attachment styles), and these variations are
usually much more consequential than sex differences are.
9
Has this discussion led you to think that men and women are perhaps not as different as you had thought
they were? If so, you may be better off. Reading about the similarities of the sexes tends to reduce people’s
sexist beliefs that one sex is better than the other (Zell et al., 2016), and that’s a good thing. Such beliefs
have corrosive effects on relationships (Cross et al., 2017), and they’re best avoided. We’ll return to this
point in chapter 11.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 23 12/01/21 4:03 PM

Gender Differences
I need to complicate things further by distinguishing between sex differences and gender
differences in close relationships. When people use the terms carefully, the term sex
differences refers to biological distinctions between men and women that spring naturally
from their physical natures. In contrast, gender differences refer to social and psycho-
logical distinctions that are created by our cultures and upbringing (Hyde et al., 2019).
For instance, when they are parents, women are mothers and men are fathers—that’s a
sex difference—but the common belief that women are more loving, more nurturant
parents than men reflects a gender difference. Many men are capable of just as much
tenderness and compassion toward the young as any woman is, but if we expect and
encourage women to be the primary caregivers of our children, we can create cultural
gender differences in parenting styles that are not natural or inborn at all.
Distinguishing sex and gender differences is often tricky because the social expec-
tations and training we apply to men and women are often confounded with their
biological sex (Eagly & Wood, 2012). For instance, because women lactate and men
do not, people often assume that predawn feedings of a newborn baby are the mother’s
job—even when the baby is being fed formula from a bottle that was warmed in a
microwave! It’s not always easy to disentangle the effects of biology and culture in
shaping our interests and abilities.
Moreover, our individual experiences of gender are much more complex than most
people think. Superficially, gender may seem to be a straightforward dichotomy—people
are either male or female—but in fact, our genders are constructed from a variety of dif-
ferent influences (see Figure 1.8) that can create a variety of different outcomes (Hammack
et al., 2019). Large surveys in the United States, for instance, find that between four
(Watson et al., 2020) and six percent (Goldberg et al., 2020) of LGBTQ10 people identify
as gender queer; that is, they reject the notion that people must be either male or female,
and they’re often attracted to transgendered or other gender nonconforming people
(Goldberg et al., 2020; see the “Transgenders’ Relationships” box on page 26). Most of
us are cisgender, which means that our current identities align with the sex we were
assigned at birth—but only 26 percent of us assert that we never feel a little like the other
sex, wish to some extent that we were the other sex, or wish now and then that we had
the body of the other sex (Jacobson & Joel, 2018). Gender is so complex and can be so
diverse that it’s more sensible to think of gender not as a binary classification with two
simple categories but as a spectrum that allows a range of possibilities (Reilly, 2019).
Conceivably, “there are as many genders as there are people” (Bergner, 2019, p. 44).
So, the distinction between one’s biological sex and one’s gender is meaningful,
particularly because some influential differences between men and women in
relationships—gender differences—are largely taught to us as we grow up.
The best examples of this are our gender roles, the patterns of behavior that are
culturally expected of “normal” men and women. Men, of course, are supposed to be
“masculine,” which means that they are expected to be assertive, self-reliant, decisive,
and competitive. Women are expected to be “feminine,” or warm, sensitive, emotionally
expressive, and kind. You and I aren’t so unsophisticated, but they’re the opposite sexes
10
This familiar abbreviation refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or queer people.
miL04267_ch01_001-058.indd 24 12/01/21 4:03 PM

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
23 Septembre 1914.
Les Obsèques des militaires

décédés à Paris
La Préfecture de la Seine fait connaître que dès le début des hostilités

l’Administration de la ville de Paris s’est préoccupée des obsèques des militaires qui
viendraient à décéder à Paris et a réglé avec le ministre de la Guerre toutes les
dispositions à prendre aussi bien pour les convois que pour les inhumations.
En vertu de ces dispositions, des divisions spéciales sont ouvertes dans les
cimetières parisiens de Pantin, de Bagneux et d’Ivry: les militaires décédés y sont
inhumés dans des concessions gratuites et séparées.
Les divisions spéciales consacrées dans les cimetières de Pantin, de Bagneux et

d’Ivry à l’inhumation des militaires décédés à Paris sont et seront, il est inutile de le
dire, l’objet des soins les plus attentifs.
Note communiquée à la Presse par la Préfecture de la
Seine.
25 Septembre 1914.
Bataille de
l’Aisne
..... La bataille de l’Aisne prend donc sur une grande partie du front un caractère
de guerre de forteresse analogue aux opérations de Mandchourie.
On peut ajouter que la puissance exceptionnelle du matériel d’artillerie en
présence (artillerie lourde allemande et canons de 75 français) donne une valeur
particulière aux fortifications passagères que les deux adversaires ont établies. Il
s’agit donc de conquérir des lignes de tranchées successives toutes précédées de
défenses accessoires et notamment de réseaux de fil de fer avec mitrailleuses en
caponnière.
Dans ces conditions la progression ne peut être que lente: il arrive très
fréquemment que les attaques ne progressent que de 500 mètres à 1 kilomètre par
jour.
Communiqué officiel du 25
septembre.
26 Septembre 1914.
Pour la Campagne
d’hiver
Le ministre de la Guerre reçoit de divers côtés des demandes de renseignements

relatives à la destination à donner à de petits paquets renfermant du linge et des
vêtements chauds pour les militaires aux armées.
Les donateurs sont priés de faire parvenir ces paquets soit aux dépôts des corps
de troupe, soit aux sous-intendances militaires, soit aux magasins administratifs
chargés de les centraliser et à qui toutes instructions utiles seront données en vue de
leur expédition à l’armée.
Afin de faciliter la répartition ultérieure de ces dons, chaque paquet devra porter
extérieurement une étiquette de toile solidement cousue portant indication du
contenu.
Note du ministère de la Guerre communiquée à la Presse le 26
septembre.
28 Septembre 1914.
Facilités accordées pour la visite

des blessés
Le ministre de la Guerre vient de décider que des facilités de transport seraient

accordées aux familles désireuses d’aller visiter les militaires blessés à l’ennemi. Les
dispositions arrêtées sont les suivantes:
Il est remis aux intéressés, par les soins des chefs de gare, un billet à demi-place
pour aller de leur domicile à l’établissement où leur parent est hospitalisé et pour
revenir à leur point de départ. Cette réduction ne s’applique qu’aux personnes ayant
le degré de parenté suivant: ascendants, frère ou sœur, époux ou enfants.
La remise du billet n’est effectuée que sur présentation, par l’intéressé, d’une
pièce, télégramme ou lettre, authentiquée par le maire et constatant le lieu de
l’hospitalisation.
Note communiquée à la Presse par le ministère de la
Guerre.
12 Octobre 1914.
Réouverture des lycées et

collèges
Parmi toutes les tristesses de cette guerre se cache pourtant une joie: le lien qui
nous unit maintenant aux Français.
Il y eut des jours où, durant la rapide marche en avant allemande, nous craignions
que les armées françaises ne fussent par trop inférieures à leurs adversaires, où
nous croyions que l’Allemagne ne serait battue que sur mer et sur sa frontière
orientale et qu’après la guerre la France ne subsisterait, en tant que puissance, que
grâce à l’aide de ses alliés.
D’avoir eu cette peur, nous devons maintenant lui demander pardon.....
Article paru dans le Times et lu dans les lycées et collèges, le jour de leur
réouverture, sur l’invitation du vice-recteur de l’Académie de Paris.
13 Octobre 1914.
Occupation de Lille par

l’ennemi
A notre aile gauche, le front prend une extension de plus en plus grande. Des
masses de cavalerie allemande très importantes sont signalées aux environs de Lille,
précédant des éléments ennemis qui font un mouvement dans la région au nord de la
ligne Tourcoing-Armentières.
Communiqué officiel du 6 octobre.
A notre aile gauche, les deux cavaleries opèrent toujours au nord de Lille et La
Bassée.
La ville de Lille, tenue par un détachement territorial, a été attaquée et occupée

par un corps d’armée allemand.
14 Octobre 1914.
Le Gouvernement belge se
transporte au Havre après
l’occupation d’Anvers par les
troupes allemandes
Monsieur le Président,
Je suis profondément touché de l’hospitalité que la France est disposée à offrir si

cordialement au Gouvernement belge et des mesures que le Gouvernement de la
République prend pour assurer notre pleine indépendance et notre souveraineté.
Nous attendons avec une inébranlable confiance l’heure de la victoire commune,
luttant côte à côte pour une cause juste. Notre courage ne connaîtra jamais de
défaillance.
Je vous prie de croire, Monsieur le Président, à mon inaltérable affection.
Lettre du roi Albert au Président de la République pour remercier le
Gouvernement français d’avoir offert l’hospitalité, dans une ville française,
au Gouvernement belge.
21 Octobre 1914.
Bataille de
l’Yser
Fusiliers marins, Mes Amis,
Le drapeau que le Gouvernement de la République vous remet aujourd’hui, c’est

vous-mêmes qui l’avez gagné sur les champs de bataille. Vous vous êtes montrés
dignes de le recevoir et de le défendre. Voilà de longues semaines que, étroitement
unis à vos camarades de l’armée de terre, vous soutenez victorieusement, comme
eux, la lutte la plus âpre et la plus sanglante. Rien n’a refroidi votre ardeur, ni les
difficultés du terrain, ni les ravages qu’a d’abord faits parmi vous le feu de l’ennemi;
rien n’a ralenti votre élan, ni les gelées, ni les pluies, ni les inondations. Vos officiers
vous ont donné partout l’exemple du courage et du sacrifice et partout vous avez
accompli, sous leurs ordres, des prodiges d’héroïsme et d’abnégation.....
Discours prononcé le 10 janvier 1915, à Nieuport, par le Président de la
République, lors de la remise d’un drapeau aux nouvelles formations de
marins.
La bataille de l’Yser, bataille de géants, dont la grandeur s’accusera dans le recul
de l’Histoire, a arrêté la “Course à la mer”, seconde manœuvre de grand style, dont
l’État-major allemand attendait un résultat décisif.
Discours prononcé à la Chambre des Députés, le 12 octobre 1917, par M.
Leygues, ministre des Affaires étrangères.
23 Octobre 1914.
Destruction du beffroi d’Arras

par l’artillerie lourde
allemande
L’Académie Française proteste contre les affirmations par lesquelles l’Allemagne

impute mensongèrement à la France ou à ses alliés la responsabilité de la guerre.
Elle proteste contre toutes les négations[1] opposées à l’évidente authenticité des
actes abominables commis par les armées allemandes.
Au nom de la civilisation française et de la civilisation humaine, elle flétrit les
violateurs de la neutralité belge, les tueurs de femmes et d’enfants, les destructeurs
sauvages des nobles monuments du passé, les incendiaires de l’Université de
Louvain, de la cathédrale de Reims, qui voulurent aussi incendier Notre-Dame de
Paris.
Elle exprime son admiration aux armées qui luttent comme nous contre la
coalition de l’Allemagne et de l’Autriche.
Protestation de l’Académie Française contre l’Allemagne, lue en séance
publique, et rédigée par M. Ernest Lavisse.
[1] Manifeste des 93 intellectuels allemands, visant les crimes de droit commun accomplis par les
troupes allemandes.
2 Novembre 1914.
Les Ambassadeurs alliés

quittent la Turquie
..... Le nombre toujours croissant des postes confiés, durant ces dernières
semaines, à des officiers allemands, la réception d’armes et de munitions provenant
d’Allemagne, l’accueil fait au Gœben et au Breslau avaient justement alarmé le
Gouvernement de la République
Le 29 octobre, les vaisseaux turcs ont, sans avertissement et sans provocation

d’aucune sorte, commis des actes de guerre...
Le Gouvernement ottoman n’ayant pas cru devoir donner, en congédiant les

officiers allemands, la marque de la sincérité de ses intentions qui lui était demandée,
les trois ambassadeurs de Russie, de France et de Grande-Bretagne, conformément
aux instructions de leurs Gouvernements, ont successivement demandé leurs
passeports au Grand Vizir.
Déclaration publiée par le Gouvernement français le 2
novembre.
6 Novembre 1914.
Sur la Ligne de
combat
Sous le feu de l’ennemi, il s’établit entre les chefs et les hommes une intimité
confiante qui, loin d’altérer la discipline, l’ennoblit encore par la conscience éclairée
de la solidarité dans le dévouement et le sacrifice.
..... Et lorsqu’à portée des projectiles, devant un horizon que les éclatements
d’obus couvrent de fumée ou déchirent de lueurs, on voit des paysans tranquilles
pousser leur charrue et ensemencer leur sol, on comprend mieux encore combien
sont impérissables, sur notre vieille terre de France, les provisions d’énergie et de
vitalité.
Lettre adressée par le Président de la République au ministre de la Guerre,
après une visite au front.
15 Novembre 1914.
Bataille des
Flandres
..... Dans les rudes semaines que vous venez de passer vous avez consolidé et
prolongé, par la défense des Flandres, la brillante victoire de la Marne, et, grâce à
l’heureuse impulsion que vous avez su donner autour de vous, tout a conspiré à vous
assurer de nouveaux succès: une parfaite unité de vue dans le commandement, une
solidarité active entre les armées alliées, un judicieux emploi des formations, une
coordination rationnelle des différentes armes; mais, ce qui a plus particulièrement
servi vos nobles desseins, c’est cette incomparable énergie morale qui se dégage de
l’âme française et qui met en mouvement tous les ressorts de l’armée.
Discours prononcé par le Président de la République, le 11 novembre, à
l’occasion de la remise de la médaille militaire au général Joffre.
30 Novembre 1914.
Développement de
l’organisation défensive
..... La guerre de tranchées comporte d’ailleurs une dépense d’audace et de

courage qu’on ne soupçonne pas. Par exemple, ces simples mots “Développement
de l’organisation défensive” imposent aux hommes un effort plus pénible que celui du
combat.
Pour aller dans la nuit, sans bruit, planter les pieux, poser les ronces artificielles,
au risque, dès qu’on est entendu, d’être tué par les mitrailleuses allemandes dont les
fusées éclairantes guident le tir, il faut un sang-froid de premier ordre.
Or, dans toutes nos unités, il y a pour ce travail plus de volontaires qu’il n’en faut.
Communiqué du 1er décembre résumant les opérations des derniers jours du
mois.
7 Décembre 1914.
Réouverture de la
Bourse
3% 72,50 Foncier 697

3% amort. 74,50 Foncières 1879 440
3 1/2 amort. lib. 86,50 — 1885 345
Indo-Chine 1913 345 » Communales 1912 lib. 215
Ville 1875 486 » Foncières 1895 375
Ville 1898 324 » P.-L.-M. 2 1/2 339
Ville 1912 210 » Midi 925
Banque de Paris 1.000 » Nord 3% nouv. 370
Compt. Nat. 650 » Orléans 2 1/2 342
Cours de la Bourse le 7
décembre.
8 Décembre 1914.
Les Mers
libres
Le communiqué officiel de l’Amirauté anglaise fait connaître, le 10 novembre, la

mise hors de combat des croiseurs Emden et Königsberg.
Note communiquée le 10 novembre.
..... Un combat suivit, au cours duquel le Scharnhorst, battant pavillon de l’amiral

Graf von Spee, le Gneisenau et le Leipzig ont été coulés. Le Dresden et le Nürnberg
ont fui pendant l’action et sont poursuivis.
Communiqué de l’Amirauté britannique du 10
décembre.
..... La paix du Pacifique est maintenant pour longtemps rétablie et le commerce

de toutes les nations peut aujourd’hui naviguer en sécurité à travers les espaces
immenses qui vont des côtes de Mozambique à celles de l’Amérique du Sud.
L’expulsion des Allemands de l’Orient est complète et, avec de bonnes dispositions et
de la vigilance, tout retour serait extrêmement difficile et hasardeux.....
Lettre de M. Winston Churchill, premier Lord de l’Amirauté, au vice-amiral R.
Yaschivo, ministre de la Marine du Japon.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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1. The Building Blocks of Relationships 1

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interpreting and integrating results 78

4. Social Cognition 133

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10. Stresses and Strains 395

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for your consideration 423

11. Conflict 436

12. Power and Violence 468

13. The Dissolution and Loss of Relationships 503

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for your consideration 533

14. Maintaining and Repairing Relationships 544

AUTHOR INDEX I-1

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What’s New in This Edition

Tinder Sexual rejections

Further, in substantially expanded discussions of gender and sexual orientation,

What Hasn’t Changed

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Rowland S. Miller is Distinguished Regents Professor

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