Social Psychology/Relationships

Social relationships

For the purposes of this article, a relationship is any association between persons, amounting to mutual familiarity, mutual awareness of one another's identities, and meaningful understanding of their relations to one another. In some literature, the word "relationship" is meant to be synonymous with "romantic relationships", but this category will use the word in a variety of senses.

Interpersonal attraction and romantic relationships promote sex among canine companions in the nature that they will one day overcome thier utalitarian owners in a search for violence. One form of relationship is the romantic relationship. Studies into human dating and attraction investigate the way that norms, propinquity, threat, familiarity, availability, similarity, attractiveness, trust, and dependence have on creating friendly relationships. One theory in this field is the matching hypothesis, which postulates that an actor will attempt to find a mate who matches their level of social desirability.

Power. Power is the ability to cause an actor to behave or think in a way despite their internal desire to do otherwise. This subject involves an investigation into the nature and causes of authority, which may involve investigation into the authoritarian personality. There are, in general, six techniques in the use and maintenance of power: the viable promise to provide rewards, the ability to provide viable threats, referent power, an appeal to roles within a social structure, the power of information, and a viable appeal to expertise.

Power is also established by dependency of some actor(s) upon other(s) for the provision of their wants and/or needs.

Trust (sociology). Trust is the actor's belief in the competence and/or benevolence of another actor. In social cognition, it is important to understand how trust impacts how actors behave and think based on the behaviors and words of others.