Throughout the last couple of centuries, traditional ideals of romantic love have suggested people find their soul mate, marry the loved one, have children, and live happily ever after. The cultural beliefs in love marriages have long shaped people’s dreams of a […]
Long-standing cultural ideologies of love have encouraged men and women to fall in love, get married, and spend their lives happily with their spouses. It turns out, however, that many single men and women can also be happy. And being single is […]
The “need to belong” is, at its core, a desire to feel loved and accepted. And all men and women have such needs and strive to fulfill them in their relationships with caregivers. Infants, from the early days of their lives, experience […]
Animal species’ need for positive social connections and bonding has deep evolutionary roots. According to scientific evidence, many animals, including birds, dogs, cats, and primates, exhibit social emotions, behaviors, and a need for bonding and love. They are capable of loving and […]
Men and women in close relationships hope to experience joyful and optimistic times together. They are happy to share everything good that happens in their lives. The people close to them are happy to hear the good news. It is widely held […]
The feeling of intimate belonging fulfills people’s needs for intimacy. However, people can satisfy their need to belong in various ways in different cultures, depending on their norms. A distinction between collectivistic (interdependent) and individualistic (independent) values is especially important for our […]
Self-disclosure is the way an individual communicates and shares personal information with another. Values and opinions, goals and aspirations, plans and thoughts, feelings and preferences, achievements and failures, fears and hopes, dreams and disappointments—all these internal personal things can be disclosed. They […]
Scholars and laypeople frequently refer to psychological closeness in interpersonal relationships as “intimacy.” It might be either physical or emotional proximity, or their combination. It can be bodily, sexual, physical, emotional, or intellectual. The understanding of intimacy is also culturally diverse. Intimacy […]
The article explains how social propinquity and residential proximity affect our interpersonal relationships, love, and marriage. Men and women tend to like those with whom they get together frequently. In social science, this is called the “propinquity effect.” They have favorable attitudes […]