Lying in Relationships

Do women lie to their boyfriends? Popular culture would have us believe that they do. Once again, AskMen.com gives me a great example of this stereotype in their article “5 Lies All Women Tell”. The 5 lies they say all women tell are (1) I’m not mad at you, (2) I don’t mind if you go to strip clubs with the boys, (3) I’m just not ready for a boyfriend right now, (4) I don’t mind picking up the tab tonight; you always pay anyway, and (5) That was fucking great!

Kaplar & Gordon (2004) did a study called “The Enigma of Altruistic Lying: Perspective Differences in What Motivates and Justifies Lie Telling Within Romantic Relationships”. They recruited 122 undergraduate psychology students to write two narratives: one of a time they lied to a significant other and another of a time they were lied to by their significant other. For the purpose of this study, lying was defined as “both purposely leaving out relevant information and telling someone something that is not true.” Participants also filled out a questionnaire to determine whether they thought the lie was egotistical or altruistic. Their hypotheses were that (1) lie-tellers would consider their lie to be more altruistic than the lie-receiver, (2) lie-tellers would consider themselves to be honest people who got caught up in a lie by mistake, (3) lie-tellers would be more likely to consider their lie situational while the lie-receiver would attribute it to the lie-teller’s personality, (4) lie-tellers will report that their lie was justified the lie-receiver overreacted, and (5) the lie-teller will blame the lie-receiver for the incident. Because this was a within-participants design, all participants were both the lie-teller and the lie-receiver. They found that lie-receivers did not find the lie to be coming from a kind place as much as the lie-tellers did. They also looked at gender and found no differences in male and female lie narratives.

The AskMen article does say that some of these lies will be told in order to protect the boyfriends feelings, which is consistent with the Kaplar & Gordon (2004) research, but they also say that women may tell these lies to cover up how “pathetically needy” they are-another aspect of the Crazy Girl stereotype. Furthermore, Kaplar & Gordon found no differences in gender, even though AskMen.com insinuates that women lie to their boyfriends more.

References

Kaplar, M. E., & Gordon, A. K. (2004). The enigma of altruistic lying: Perspective differences in what motivates and justifies lie telling within romantic relationships. Personal Relationships, 11(4), 489-507. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.2004.00094.x

Manipulative Girlfriends

We have all heard the stereotype of the manipulative girlfriend who likes to play games. My article, "The Effects of a Ludus Love Style on Sexual Experience" (Hensley, 1996) starts out by giving an overview of different love styles. There is some overlap between these styles and Sternberg's model that our textbook discussed.

1. Eros (romantic love)

2. Ludus (game-playing love)

3. Storge (friendship love)

4. Mania (possessive or dependent love)

5. Pragma (logical love)

6. Agape (self-sacrificing love)

This article focuses on ludus love. Previous research has found that people with the ludus love type are more likely to be sexually aggressive. (Sarwer, Kalichman, Johnson, Early, & Akram 1993).

In this study, 305 participants were recruited from an American university. All participants reported that they were heterosexual and single. They had to fill out the Love Attitudes Scale, disclose their current relationship status, and report their sexual history (how many sexual partners they have had, etc). The findings showed that more men than women had the ludus love type. Sexual experience was also related to ludus.

lhttp://www.askmen.com/dating/curtsmith_100/122b_dating_advice.html This article (also from AskMen.com) aims to help men deal with "women's mind games". My article suggests that in fact, men are more likely to play mind games then women, yet I've never seen an article aimed at women about men's mind games. The AskMen article says that one of the ways women play mind games is to refuse sex ( she gets you hot and bothered and then backs off, or otherwise restricts your access to sex). Apparently women must consent to sex all the time or they are playing mind games. It is interesting that the author of this article doesn't seem to respect a women's right to say no to sex, and that is one of the aspects of ludus, or game-playing love. This article is extremely offensive to women, and it is not the only article I found on AskMen about mind games that women play. I am finding that AskMen.com is one of the biggest culprits of perpetuating the Crazy Girl stereotype.

References

Hensleym W. E. (1996). The effect of a ludus love style on sexual experience. Social Behavior And Personality, 24(3), 205-212. doi:10.2224/sbp.1996.24.3.205

Sarwer DB, Kalichman SC, Johnson JR, Early J, Ali S (1993). Sexual Aggression and Love Styles: An Exploratory Study. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 22, 265-275.

Clinginess in Romantic Relationships

The Psychology of Needy Women

This lovely article from AskMen.com informs men on how to deal with needy women. In case anyone is having trouble finding media examples of sexism, you’ll be happy to know that AskMen.com is jam-packed with misogynistic articles. This article outlines different attachment styles of women, including neediness.

I looked at the study “Gender, Love Schemas, and Reactions to Romantic Break-ups” (Choo, Levine, & Hatfield 1996) to further explore the “clingy” stereotype and how it affects romantic relationships.The purpose of this study was to see if there were any differences in the way people with different love schemas react to and cope with break-ups. A love schema is a cognitive model for what is appropriate to expect from yourself and from your partner in a love relationship. There are four types of love schemas:

(1) secure: people who are comfortable with both closeness and independence

(2) clingy: people who are comfortable with closeness but fear too much independence

(3) skittish: people who are fearful of too much closeness but are comfortable with indepence, and

(4) fickle: people who are uncomfortable with either closeness or independence

The participants in this study were recruited from the University of Hawaii. There were 77 men and 173 women, with a mean age of 23.14. The population was ethnically diverse.In order to qualify for the study you had to have been passionately in love, dated, and then broken up with someone. The participants filled out surveys to assess their love schema, their emotional reactions to the break-up, and their coping strategies to deal with the break-up.

The results of this study found some significant differences in these variables. Secure women were more likely than secure men to feel relieved right after the break-up. Clingy men were more likely than clingy women to feel guilty. Fickle men felt better after a relationship than most women. Secure men were more likely to distract themselves with work or sports to cope with the break-up. Men felt less joy or relief after the break-up. Women were more likely to blame their partners for the break-up then men. People who fell into the clingy love schema had lower levels of feeling good after the break-up and higher levels of anxiety, anger, and sadness. The people in the clingy love schema were also more likely to blame themselves.

The authors were clear that, although some gender differences were found, they could have been due to chance, and there were also many similarities between men and women.Overall, this study does show some gender differences in dealing with a break-up.

The AskMen.com article actually did have somewhat scientific information about attachment styles. However, the article is still very sexist. The article concludes by saying “The good news is that you now have the psychological tools to start dealing with her effectively.” This article is not aimed at therapists or psychiatrists; men should not be treating women’s supposed psychological issues. This suggests that women really ARE more needy than men, and need men to read up on their issues and learn how to treat them.

References

Choo, P., Levine, T., & Hatfield, E. (1996). Gender, love schemas, and reactions to romantic break-ups. Journal of Social Behavior & Personality, 11(5), 143-160. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Stalking

This is a trailer for the hit film “Fatal Attraction.” In this movie, a married man has an affair with a woman who then starts to stalk him and his family obsessively, and eventually threatens their safety. There are many media portrayals of the jilted girlfriend who begins to obsessively stalk the man that dumped her, but how often do women really engage in these sorts of behaviors?

Purcell, Pathe, and Mullen (2009) looked at the gender differences in Austrailian juveniles who had a history of stalking. They defined stalking as something that occurs when one person repeatedly inflicts unwanted intrusions on another to such an extent that the recipient fears for his or her safety. They also outline 5 categories of stalkers based on motivation, which are:

- The rejected

- The intimacy seeker

- The incompetent suitor

- The resentful

- The predatory

The Purcell, Pathe, and Mullen (2009) study obtained their sample through an archival search of court records. The male and female juvenile stalkers were compared according to their demographics and stalking characteristics. They found that male stalkers were more likely to pursue ex-intimate partners in stalking, whereas females most commonly targeted estranged friends. The study also found that female stalkers were significantly more likely to engage in same-sex stalking than males. This is interesting because it suggests that, overall, most of the victims of stalking are female.

The study also looked at motivation for stalking. Males were found to be primarily motivated by rejection, while females were mostly motivated by an extention of bullying. Males were also more likely to be motivated by sexual predation, and females were most likely to be motivated by retaliation. Females were more likely to use harassing phone calls and rumor spreading as tactics, while males were more likely to loiter. The rate of threats and physical assault didn’t differ between males and females, although males were more likely to inflict property damage.

So, how accurate is the “fatal attraction” female stalker prototype? Not very accurate, according to this research. While 36% of the sample of stalkers were female, most of them didn’t stalk ex-lovers- the male stalkers did. It was the male stalkers who stalked because they had been rejected. Female stalkers often chose old friends as their targets. The stereotype of the psycho ex-girlfriend who wont leave you alone isn’t the norm for females, or even female stalkers.

Reference:

Purcell,R., Pathe, M., & Mullen P. (2009). Gender differences in stalking behaviour among juveniles. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 21, 555-568.

Intro Post

For a while I have known what gender stereotype I wanted to explore, but I couldn't figure out how to word it. I have spent a long time trying to articulate what this stereotype is to me. I finally decided to give it a name. I will be exploring what I call "The Crazy Girl Syndrome". A syndrome is essentially a collection of symptoms, and the symptoms for Crazy Girl Syndrome (CGS) are:
-obsessive/stalker-like behavior
-clingy/needy
-manipulative
-attention-seeking
-emotional instability
-lying

This stereotype is definitely seen a lot in the media. Throughout my life I have heard women being called "crazy", "crazy bitch", or "psycho bitch" for this sort of behavior. And, from my experience, there doesn't seem to be a male equivalent to this label. These Virgin Mobile commercials are perfect examples of CGS.

Now, here is a popular music video by a male band called Busted. It depicts a very similar scene, with stalker-like behavior, except it is portrayed as comical and cool. The stalking part begins at 1:30:

Lyrics: I climb a tree outside her home, to make sure that she's alone

I see her in her underwear, I can't help but stop and stare

This music video depicts a scene very similar to one of the Virgin Mobile commercials, but they are portrayed so differently. When a women is in a tree stalking someone, it is creepy and crazy. But when men do it to women, it is comical. This stereotype is harmful because I think it pathologizes a lot of normal female behaviors. Women do tend to be more overtly emotional, but instead of seeing this as healthy behavior, we exaggerate it and demonize it in the media. I wanted to explore this stereotype for my project because I think it harmful to women and to people with mental illnesses (and especially to women with mental illnesses). Even if some women do have these CGS symptoms, it isn't funny; it's serious. In my future blog posts, I will explore each of the symptoms associated with CGS.