Introduction
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of romantic relationships for human beings. Indeed, successful romantic connections bring happiness, as well as emotional, financial, and social support (Campbell, Nelson, Parker, & Johnston, 2018). Moreover, building relationships has a significant impact on the development of people’s social skills. In this essay, the analysis of behavior patterns in heterosexual relationships that are common in Western cultures will be conducted. The writing will be based on two psychological theories, namely the script theory and the social learning theory.
At the beginning of the paper, brief descriptions of the main ideas of these theories will be provided. This information will be followed by a discussion of the factors that impact the behavior patterns of people in relationships. Then, several models that are common for heterosexual romantic connections will be characterized. The conclusion will summarise the main ideas of the work at the end of the paper.
Main body
The script theory was created by an American researcher, Silvan Tomkins. His main argument is that people’s behavior can be defined by specific patterns, which are called scripts, and appear as a result of specific situations that happen in humans’ lives. These scripts reside in people’s minds and, when it is necessary, start functioning. Every time, when people face similar scenarios, their brain starts looking for relevant knowledge from memory and uses it to create a model that can predict and affect person’s behavior (Lubarsky, Dory, Audetat, Custers, & Charlin, 2015). The theory is based on the main aspects of the affect theory, which implies the categorization of individuals’ effects that occurred as emotional responses on various impetuses. Thus, the script theory can be applied in an analysis of behavior models that are used by people.
As for the social learning theory, it was invented by Albert Bandura, a Canadian-American psychologist, and researcher. The theory is based on the point that all individuals learn through observations of activities performed by other people. It can be fulfilled by people unintentionally when they find individuals who have the same social status and start paying attention to them (Horsburgh, & Ippolito, 2018). According to this theory, observation is one of the best educational tools for human beings in psychology.
It is worth noticing that there are some patterns that help individuals to build strong and healthy relationships and patterns that result in the creation of unhealthy connections between people. The first romantic practice impacts the quality of people’s relationships in the future. In Western cultures, this experience usually happens at the time of young adulthood. The results of this practice depend on a number of factors.
For instance, the ability to create healthy relationships at a young age depends on the interpersonal skills of an individual and the family climate in his or her household. Thus, a group of scholars revealed that young American people, who were grown up in a more favorable family climate, have “more effective problem-solving skills and less violent behavior in their romantic relationships” (Xia, Fosco, Lippold, & Feinberg, 2018, p. 1499). However, those who were grown up in disadvantaged families have a tendency to create unhealthy behavioral patterns that prevent them from building happy relationships in the future. It happens because adolescents tend to subconsciously behave as their parents, as it is usually the only one example of relationships they observe on a regular basis.
Thinking about the common unhealthy behavior patterns in heterosexual relationships, it is logical to suggest that they are based on gender inequality. Gender inequality in families can be expressed in various ways. Thus, sometimes, men refuse to do some household chores, saying that these duties are supposed to be performed by women. Or, there are occasions when spouses treat their sons and daughters in a different way based on their sex.
If kids regularly observe evidence of gender differences in their family, the chances that this behavior will be inherited by them in the future are incredibly high. Thus, it is likely that boys will be insisting on dominating their female partners, which can lead to unnecessary conflicts. Meanwhile, daughters may think that being oppressed and refused to do something just because they are women is a regular practice. Therefore, it is important to avoid scenarios where the relationships between partners are not based on equality. The case here is that these types of relationships can provoke the development of unhealthy behavior patterns, such as the control-centered pattern and the caregiver pattern.
The control-centered pattern implies the domination of one of the partners in the relationships. In the context of gender inequality, it can be expressed through the total control of a female’s actions and feelings by a male. The initiative of building a relationship is usually taken by a dominant partner, as well as some other important duties, such as the provision of financial security of a couple. However, in general, it is not possible to consider this domination as a healthy behavior pattern because of a high level of inequality between a dominator and a subordinate.
The caregiver pattern implies the intentional efforts of a person aimed to change the behavior and way of life of his or her partner. For example, if a man with a control-centered behavior pattern dates an independent woman, he might think that it is possible to change the mentality and character of his girlfriend in some time. This mistake leads to continuous arguments, confrontations, and disappointments that eventually impact the relationships negatively.
In Western cultures, due to certain changes in gender roles in society, these behavior patterns in relationships can result in serious arguments between partners. Unfortunately, when a person is grown up in an unhealthy family climate, it also affects his or her ability to resolve conflicts. As a result, they are unable to deal with confrontations and emerging problems, which can even lead to the deterioration of their mental health (Tan, Hessel, Loeb, Schad, Allen, & Chango, 2016). Therefore, it is essential to work with adolescents in order to identify potential risks that they might experience in their romantic relationships in the future.
It would be fair to notice, that the best approach in heterosexual connections, as wells as in other types of romantic relationships, is the relationship-centered pattern. It is based on the equality of partners, mutual respect, and understanding. The building of this type of pattern is possible through the development of communication skills that ensure the ability of individuals to talk about their feelings and emotions in an effective way. In addition to communication, it is also important to be capable of hearing each other and continuously working on the relationships to make them stronger and more stable.
Thus, according to the script theory, people tend to memorize their first life experience and then apply their knowledge about it to all relevant situations that happen in the future. Being grown up in an emotionally unstable and unhealthy family, a person can follow negative behavior patterns inherited from his or her parents and relatives. This serves as evidence that proves the feasibility of the social learning theory. In this context, the main objects of observations are individuals’ parents and relatives. Therefore, if they see a healthy pattern of a romantic relationship, they borrow it for the future to build their successful connections.
Similarly, if the relationships they observe at home are disadvantaged, they learn it and reflect on their own romantic affairs, which results in a number of negative consequences. A pattern, based on their failure in the first relationship experience, works whenever these people try to build relationships again. As a result, it can be challenging to change the situation and build a happy romantic connection.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that family climate plays a significant role in defining the behavior patterns that are applied by people in heterosexual relationships. The main factor that triggers the development of negative approaches is gender inequality, which produces control-centered and caregiver patterns. A positive, relationship-centered pattern is possible to build for those partners who can communicate effectively. In addition, it is highly significant to pay keen attention to the first romantic experience of human beings, as it can affect future relationships of people. All the difficulties that occurred in this sphere should be eliminated as soon as possible through the development of personal skills and abilities.
References
Campbell, K., Nelson, J., Parker, M., & Johnston, S. (2018). Interpersonal chemistry in friendships and romantic relationships. Interpersona: An international journal on personal relationships, 12(1), 34-50.
Horsburgh, J., & Ippolito, K. (2017). A skill to be worked at: Using social learning theory to explore the process of learning from role models in clinical settings. BMC Medical Education. Web.
Lubarsky, S., Dory, V., Audetat, M., Custers, U., & Charlin, B. (2015). Using script theory to cultivate illness script formation and clinical reasoning in health professions education. Canadian medical education journal, 6(2), e61-e70.
Tan, J., Hessel, E., Loeb, E., Schad, M., Allen, J. & Chango, J. (2016). Long-term predictions from early adolescent attachment state of mind to romantic relationship behaviors. Journal of research on adolescence: the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence, 26(4), 1022-1035.
Xia, M., Fosco, G., Lippold, M., & Feinberg, M. (2018). A developmental perspective on young adult romantic relationships: Examining family and individual factors in adolescence. Journal of youth and adolescence, 47(7), 1499-1516.