Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Coming Together: A Perspective on Relationships across the Life Span
- 2 Relationships as Outcomes and Contexts
- 3 Child-Parent Relationships
- 4 A Dynamic Ecological Systems Perspective on Emotion Regulation Development within the Sibling Relationship Context
- 5 Romantic and Marital Relationships
- 6 Close Relationships across the Life Span: Toward a Theory of Relationship Types
- 7 Friendship across the Life Span: Reciprocity in Individual and Relationship Development
- 8 The Consequential Stranger: Peripheral Relationships across the Life Span
- 9 Stress in Social Relationships: Coping and Adaptation across the Life Span
- 10 Social Support and Physical Health across the Life Span: Socioemotional Influences
- 11 Social Cognition and Social Relationships
- 12 Dyadic Fits and Transactions in Personality and Relationships
- 13 Relational Competence across the Life Span
- 14 Social Motivation across the Life Span
- 15 A Lifetime of Relationships Mediated by Technology
- Subject Index
- Author Index
- References
11 - Social Cognition and Social Relationships
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Coming Together: A Perspective on Relationships across the Life Span
- 2 Relationships as Outcomes and Contexts
- 3 Child-Parent Relationships
- 4 A Dynamic Ecological Systems Perspective on Emotion Regulation Development within the Sibling Relationship Context
- 5 Romantic and Marital Relationships
- 6 Close Relationships across the Life Span: Toward a Theory of Relationship Types
- 7 Friendship across the Life Span: Reciprocity in Individual and Relationship Development
- 8 The Consequential Stranger: Peripheral Relationships across the Life Span
- 9 Stress in Social Relationships: Coping and Adaptation across the Life Span
- 10 Social Support and Physical Health across the Life Span: Socioemotional Influences
- 11 Social Cognition and Social Relationships
- 12 Dyadic Fits and Transactions in Personality and Relationships
- 13 Relational Competence across the Life Span
- 14 Social Motivation across the Life Span
- 15 A Lifetime of Relationships Mediated by Technology
- Subject Index
- Author Index
- References
Summary
From a social cognitive and developmental perspective, we offer a content-based explanation for age differences in social judgment biases when individuals are presented with relationship dilemmas. Older adults' tendency to blame individuals for negative outcomes in relationship situations may reflect age-related differences in the nature and content of information stored in long-term memory (knowledge, beliefs, and values) that are relevant to the particular social judgment. Older adults may have highly schematized social rules for appropriate behavior that are chronically accessible and drive social judgments in particular situations, especially in the domain of marital relationships. In addition, we suggest that changes in emotional functioning as we grow older also impact the attributional processes in the context of marital relationships.
There is a substantive body of research examining the importance of social cognitive mechanisms in understanding adaptive social relationships. These include how relationship enhancing attributions relate to marital satisfaction (Bradbury & Fincham, 1990; Lopez, 1993), how selectively attending to negative aspects of a relationship creates relationship distress (Baucom, Epstein, Sayers, & Sher, 1989; Sillars, Roberts, Leonard, & Dun, 2000), how individuals preserve positive self-views in the context of a relationship (Fincham & Beach, 1999), and the accessibility of attitudes, values, and beliefs when engaging in interpersonal interactions (Baldwin, 1992; Fincham & Beach, 1999). Individual differences in the influence of such cognitive representations and processes may help us to differentiate adaptive from dysfunctional cognitions in dealing with relationship situations across the life span.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Growing TogetherPersonal Relationships Across the Life Span, pp. 268 - 289Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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