The slides to The Psychology of Relationships by Dr. Kathrine Bejanyan

1. The Psychology of Relationships

2. Dr. Kathrine Bejanyan
Relationship Consulting
kathrinebejanyan.com
 Psychology PhD
o Social Psychology
 M.A. Counselling
Psychology
o Licensed Marriage Family
Therapist (California,USA)
o Accredited member of the
British Association for
Counselling and
Psychotherapy
• Therapy/consulting
• Focus on relationship work
• Singles, couples, groups, organisations
• Education plus insight

3. Love
Cindy’s Relationship Dilemma:
I’ve been dating this guy for a while now, over 6
months. He’s a nice guy and fits every quality I want in
a husband. However, I don’t feel a spark. He is not
physically my type, he looks and dresses in the
opposite way from what I find attractive. He’s also not
romantic like other boyfriends have been in the past.
The chemistry is missing and “I just don’t love him”.
I’m wondering if I should stay in the relationship and
keep giving it a chance?

4. In the mid-1960 a study by Kepart (1967) asked
over a 1,000 students “If a boy or girl had all the
other qualities you desired, would you marry this
person if you were not in love with him or her?”
• 35% of men and 76% of women said they would marry
someone they did not love
• Men considered passion or love to be more essential
• Women were less romantic in their beliefs and said the
absence of love would not necessarily deter them from
considering marriage

5. • Before the 1700 no society ever really equated romantic
or passionate love with marriage
• Marriage was viewed as an alliance between two
families (Dion & Dion, 1993)
• Things that were considered for an appropriate match
included:
– Social class, status
– Family background, reputation
– Religion
– Economic position, property, wealth
– Health

6. • Romantic love was considered to be impractical,
unnecessary, and often dangerous
• Most stories, songs or plays connected dark endings to
lovers who acted upon their love
• Romantic love had very little place in proper society,
certainly no place in marriage
– Passionate love was depicted as either
unrequited, never consummated,
creating family tragedies, breaking up
alliances or ending in suicide or death
for the lovers

7. Modern Western Marriages:
• Love is viewed as the primary prerequisite for marriage,
often considered the most important factor (Simpson,
Campbell, & Berscheid, 1986).
•Falling in love and selecting a potential mate is
considered a normal developmental task for most late
adolescents and young adults (Medora et al., 2002)
•Men and women nowadays value and expect love in
their relationships

8. The same question asked in recent research “If a
boy or girl had all the other qualities you desired,
would you marry this person if you were not in
love with him or her?”
• 14% of men and 9% of women said
they would not marry without love
• Romantic love is now so important
that, men and women claim that if they
fell out of love, they would not consider
staying married
How important is romantic love?

9. • There is considerable evidence that romantic love is a
cultural-universal (Jankowiak and Fischer, 1992) and
has an evolutionary basis (Buss & Schmitt, 1993).
• Romantic love serves a clear purpose – reproduction
and survival
– Romantic love is an important factor in drawing two people
together; intensifying their passionate and sexual desire for
each other, culminating in offspring.
• It’s nature’s way of making sure we don’t get too busy
with life, forget to do the deed and die out.
• Romantic love increases our feelings of euphoria,
infatuation, passion and erotic desire for one another.
In short, it makes us feel great!

10. Drawback
It’s not meant to last!
1. Making a baby doesn’t take very long
2. To stay in this state of bliss means nothing would
get done (intrusive thinking, near obsession)
3. Our ancestors did not survive for very long
4. It’s not in our genetic interest to breed with the
same person over and over again, decreased
genetic diversity

11. Romantic love is transient (Helen Fisher, 2004)
•Our ancestors were primed to fall passionately,
sexually in love for about 4 years – enough time to
come together, conceive a child and take care of it
through its infancy stage, increasing its survival rate
– Attraction and attachment
•In tribal societies by the age of four, children are
generally self-sufficient and prefer to spend most of
their time playing with other children
•It would be a genetic disadvantage to only breed with
the same person

12. The truth is we are simply not hard-wired to keep
romantic-love passionate and alive decades to come
with the same person. We are wired for shorter-term
love, long enough to come together and procreate.

13. Marrying for love does not determine what happens
to a couple after their marriage. Couples still
continue to face common marital challenges like
managing other familial relationships, coping with
conflicts over sexuality, fidelity, roles and
responsibilities . Thus, the normativity of marrying
for love is seldom complete or unproblematic.
Modern Loves, edited by Jennifer Hirsch and Holly Wardlow

14. Companionate love
•This love is less intense in degree compared to
romantic love but it’s based on feelings of deep
connection, bonding and affection
•Two people have to be actively engaged in the process
of building this kind of love. Unlike romantic love, it
doesn’t just happen reflexively
•Takes skill, awareness and intentionality to develop
• After romantic love subsides a more
substantial foundation is necessary
to sustain a long-term successful
relationship

15. To Recap:
Initial romantic attraction is natural to humans
but maintaining love over time isn’t
•Don’t rely on romantic love to instinctively give you long-term
success and happiness
•Accepting that there is nothing normal about long-term love,
can help you realise that you have much more control over the
development and maintenance of your love life than you think.
•You are not helpless in the pursuit of love, some people aren’t
just more lucky than others, you are in control
• Learn about love and relationships and do more of the things
that can magnify love over the long-run and less of those that
destroy it

16. Standards
• Romantic love isn’t a good judge of character. You can
fall completely in love with someone very different than
you, who lives and acts in entirely different ways but to
make a relationship work in the long run, you need to
share similar values and lifestyle.
• Becoming clear about what you are looking for from a
relationship helps you save time, effort and heartache
• It can prevent us from becoming entangled in
relationships with people who we know are wrong for us

17. • London singles today have a long list of “musts” and “must nots”
they want from a partner and a relationship
– I want him to have a good job, be caring, understand my emotional
needs, be attractive; I want her to be intelligent, attractive, thoughtful,
easy-going, active, fun, etc.
• Modern values emphasis the self and its pursuit of instant, self-
gratification
• Technological advances has lead to an exponential increase in
the number of available people to date but these advances have
also focused us in the wrong direction
• Too many people are aware of what the other brings to the table
but not enough on what benefits they bring to the relationship
• While knowing what characteristics you want from a partner is
important, embodying these qualities yourself is even more
important.

18. • Often we expect too much from a partner when we ourselves
haven’t yet mastered these values.
– People think, when I find the “right” partner then I will practice the
values I preach “I will be more honest, committed, thoughtful, romantic,
etc.” because my partner will deserve it
• Who you are teaches people how to treat you. People will
interact with you on the basis of who you are, not who you
say you are.
– You may say you want a genuine, understanding, respectful
relationship, but if you do not actively practice these qualities
yourself in your everyday life, then you cannot expect the same
from a partner.
• Have integrity! It's not fair to ask a another person to live up
to your standards when you are not sure if you meet them
yourself

19. Equity
•What you get out of the relationship should be
roughly what you put into it.
– People in equitable long-term relationships are more
content (e.g., Fletcher et al., 1987)
– Grote and Clark (2001) followed married couples
longitudinally and found perceived inequity triggers
distress

20. Social Exchange Theory
– Cost-Reward Ratio – We are always seeking to obtain,
preserve or exchange things of value with other human
beings; we bargain over what we are prepared to give in
exchange for what they will give us.
– Minimax Strategy – we aim to minimise costs and maximise
rewards, although we may not be conscious of doing so.
• Relationship is unsatisfactory when the
costs exceed the rewards
• If one person is expected to be perfect,
it'll strain the relationship

21. To Recap:
It’s not just about the standards you have for the other
person, it’s about the standards you have for yourself.
Equity is critical!
•Have more awareness about what you bring to the relationship and
how the other person will be benefiting from being with you
•Don’t assume that the things you consider important are things they
consider important
•Be equally invested into the relationship – giving and receiving in a
fair amount
•Love doesn’t always look the way you think it should, be open to
possibilities

22. Connection
Every human being needs connection but the quality of that
connection depends on the emotional well-being of the two
people involved
•Authentic, genuine real-life love and a successful relationship
doesn’t just happen to you, it happens because of you
• It’s not about how lucky or fortunate
you are, it’s about who you are
• Our ability to relate to others, give
and receive love has to do with who
we are as a person

23. Adult relationship (attachment) style has been linked
to the mother-child relationship
– Bowlby (1969) research on infant - mother bonding found that
early experiences with this primary intimate relationship shapes
later ones
• Early attachment experiences form the basis of our internal
working models which determines how we think about
ourselves and relationships with others (Hazan 2004)
• Early attachment builds two attitudes
– self esteem
– interpersonal trust

24. • When very young, a human infant can do little more than cry, make
eye contact, smile, and snuggle to encourage its mother to keep it
near and meet its needs (Hazan & Shaver, 1987)
• Child develops either a trust or mistrust of others to meet his/her
needs
• Availability and consistency - When a child is
certain that an attachment figure will be
available to him whenever he desires, he
begins to builds confidence and trust in others
• When the caregiver is not consistently
available to the child, the child can be much
more prone to intense or chronic fear, worry

25. • Once mobile the child can actively pursue her mother
and vocalise its presence and needs
• The mother is the child’s secure base
– When the child is healthy, alert, unafraid, and in the presence of
its mother, it seems interested in exploring and mastering its
environment and establishing contact with other family and
community members
• The child is able to develop a
healthy sense of self-esteem and
confidence in being able to
depend on others to meet his or
her needs

26. Secure: Find it relatively easy to get close to
others and are comfortable depending on them
and having them depend on them. They don’t
often worry about being abandoned or rejected
or about someone getting too close to them.
Avoidant: Somewhat uncomfortable being
close to others; they find it difficult to trust them
completely or allow themselves to depend on
others. They get nervous when anyone gets
too close, and often, love partners want them to
be more intimate than they feel comfortable
being.
Anxious/Ambivalent: Find that others are reluctant to get as close as
they would like. Often worry that their partner doesn’t really love them
or won’t want to stay with them. They want to merge completely with
another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away.

27. • Confidence in the availability of attachment figures and
mastery of the self, or lack of it, is built up slowly during the
years of infancy and childhood
• Whatever expectations are developed during those years
tend to persist relatively unchanged and remain stable
throughout the rest of life.
• We attract and find partners that confirm our models and
repeat our patterns
• Your attachment style doesn’t have to
define you, by becoming aware of your
attachment style, you can begin to
challenge your deep rooted insecurities
fears and worries about yourself and
others

28. To Recap
Our childhood attachment patterns can help us understand
our strengths and vulnerabilities in our adult relationships
•Examine your childhood and understand what attachment style
•Work on recognising your patterns and not acting from your fears and
insecurities
•Focus on changing the emotional experience of your relationship
•In real life, hurt and pain are barriers to love, not bait.

29. Happy and healthy relationship which make us
feel cared for, nurtured, respected and valued
takes self-awareness, skill and intentionally

30. Dr. Kathrine Bejanyan
kathrinebejanyan.com
kathrine@kathrinebejanyan.com