A hypothesized need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships is evaluated in light of the empirical literature. The need is for frequent, nonaversive interactions within an ongoing relational bond. Consistent with the belongingness hypothesis, people form social attachments readily under most conditions and resist the dissolution of existing bonds. Belongingness appears to have multiple and strong effects on emotional patterns and on cognitive processes. Lack of attachments is linked to a variety of ill effects on health, adjustment, and well-being. Other evidence, such as that concerning satiation, substitution, and behavioral consequences, is likewise consistent with the hypothesized motivation. Several seeming counterexamples turned out not to disconfirm the hypothesis. Existing evidence supports the hypothesis that the need to belong is a powerful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation.

The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.

In this article, the author describes a new theoretical perspective on positive emotions and situates this new perspective within the emerging field of positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory posits that experiences of positive emotions broaden people's momentary thought-action repertoires, which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources. Preliminary empirical evidence supporting the broaden-and-build theory is reviewed, and open empirical questions that remain to be tested are identified. The theory and findings suggest that the capacity to experience positive emotions may be a fundamental human strength central to the study of human flourishing.

http://www.elaborer.org/cours/A13/lectures/Fredrickson2001.pdf

The role of positive emotions in positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

http://gosling.psy.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/JRP-03-tipi.pdf

A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers - often implicitly - assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these "standard subjects" are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species - frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior - hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

/pdf/the-weirdest-people-in-the-world-480wr4m3kb.pdf

The WEIRDest People in the World

This study attempts to disentangle the influence of arousal from novelty and challenge in the context of interpersonal attraction. Further, this study attempts to demonstrate the robustness of the arousal/attraction effect. Cross-sex stranger pairs participated in one of four game-like physical activities in a 2 (high vs. low novelty/challenge) × 2 (high vs. low arousal) between pairs design, then completed a measure of romantic attraction. As predicted, those participating in highly arousing activities showed significantly greater romantic attraction to their partners than did those participating in less arousing activities. There were no significant effects for novelty/challenge, contrary to expectations based on theory and previous parallel research showing such effects on love and satisfaction for couples in long-term relationships. Additionally, this is the first study to show an arousal-attraction effect using real randomly paired partners (as opposed to confederates or photographs), in which their actual interaction was the source of arousal.

Distinguishing Arousal from Novelty and Challenge in Initial Romantic Attraction between Strangers

Intergroup contact : still our best hope for improving intergroup relations

The mesolimbic dopamine pathway is important in reward evaluation, learning and memory, motivation and motor planning, and many clinical issues including drug abuse. Recently, researchers (utilizing predominantly fMRI methodology) have shown that the mesolimbic dopamine pathway is also important in pair bonding, particularly in the context of intense romantic love. This article summarizes this new and growing literature.

The Mesolimbic Dopamine Pathway and Romantic Love

Although the experience of closeness has received considerable attention in the close relationships literature, wanting less closeness with a romantic partner is less understood. Study 1 identified the lay understanding of what it means to want less closeness in a romantic relationship. In Studies 2 and 3, participants primed with descriptors of wanting less closeness, compared to those primed with control words, reported wanting significantly less closeness in their current relationship. As would be expected from models of adult attachment, those high on attachment-related avoidance responded more strongly to the experimental manipulation than those low on this dimension.

/pdf/wanting-less-closeness-in-romantic-relationships-3tdf5bcu56.pdf

Arthur Aron

Papers

Distinguishing Arousal from Novelty and Challenge in Initial Romantic Attraction between Strangers

Intergroup contact : still our best hope for improving intergroup relations

The Mesolimbic Dopamine Pathway and Romantic Love

Wanting Less Closeness in Romantic Relationships

Self-expansion and smoking abstinence.