Intimate Relationship on Social Psychology

Intimate Relationships The human animal is indeed a social animal. Throughout our history, Homo sapiens has demonstrated its need to maintain and make new social bonds, especially in the romantic and sexual arena. This short report examines the factors that modern individuals reports as important in beginning a personal relationship. Both single and committed males and females will be surveyed, and results compared withy regard to gender, age, and divorce and past experience.

This survey consisted of asking eight individuals the following question: "What factors were important in choosing your current (or last) relationship partner?" Four women were interviewed; two were married [one married four months (age 28), and the other married twenty years (age 48)], and two were unmarried [one divorced (age 35), and one never married (age 23)]. Four men were interviewed; two were married [one married four months (age 24), and the other married twenty years (age 52)], and two single [one divorced (age 27), and one never married (age 37)].

There were some important differences between males and females in the factors that they reported as important in beginning a personal relationship. Women on average reported personal characteristics like a sense of humor, intelligence, and kindness at a slightly higher rate than did the men. Men, however, reported physical characteristics like attractive breasts or legs at a slightly higher rate. These differing responses may reflect the importance of physical characteristics in choosing a mate for males, and the importance of personal characteristics for females.

However, this difference may also be explained by the influence of age and marital status. Age played perhaps a more important role in determining the importance of physical and personal characteristics than did the gender of the respondent. Older individuals rarely mentioned physical characteristics as important in choosing a mate, regardless of their gender. Married individuals also rarely mentioned physical characteristics as an important component of choosing a relationship partner.

Only one of the married individuals in the survey mentioned more than one physical characteristic as important; this was the 24-year-old-married male, who reported seven of ten important characteristics as physical in nature. Interestingly, the young age of this individual may indicate that his age was the primary determinant in his choice of physical characteristics over personal characteristics. In support of this theory, the 23-year-old unmarried female listed physical characteristics as four of her nine characteristics.

In contrast, the 35-year-old divorced female chose no physical characteristics in her list of factors. Similarly, the 37-year-old never married man chose no physical factors in his description, while four of the eleven characteristics noted by the 27-year-old divorced man were physical in nature. In addition, two of the four women noted financial security or a good job as a factor in choosing a mate, while none of the males noted a similar quality.

This response likely reflects the continuing gender stereotype of the male in our society as an important breadwinner. Married individuals mentioned personal characteristics like intelligence and compatibility as important factors slightly more often than did unmarried individuals. This effect would likely have been higher except for the strong preference among the 24-year-old-married male, who reported seven of ten important characteristics as physical. In contrast, the older married male (age 52) mentioned no physical characteristics in his report.

These age and marital differences are interesting, as they may indicate one of two options: either those who have been married a long time chose their current partners based on personal characteristics rather than physical ones, or they choose to remember their choice as based on the personal rather than physical. This second choice is particularly interesting, as it may simply be that the factors that sustain a marriage are primarily personal rather than physical.

As such, it can be theorized that the answers of these long-married individuals reflect the current factors that are important to them in a relationship, rather than the factors that were important at the beginning of a.