Final Project Post

Overview:
This course was validating because many of the theories, concepts, and proven facts that I read in the textbook were ideas that I already either pondered or believed to be true due to my own detailed observations. Such as people who are happier before marriage are happier in marriage and are more prone to maintain their marriage as opposed to getting divorced. Also, that major life altering events such as divorce or death lower one's seemingly permanent set point of happiness. I have found the concept of evolutionary psychology interesting particularly in regards to the universal appeal of music and sexual selection. Priming and Reflexology also caught my attention. During this course I have realized and been amazed at how humans really animals and can be easily manipulated.
Favorite Part:
Being that relationships are of particular interest to me right now as I am going through a divorce, I enjoyed the sections of the text addressing, mate selection and the economics of the investment model. I particularly was able to relate and have an affinity to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Henry Murray's Psychological Needs as well as the Five-Factor Model. Chapters 8 and 9 in general were my favorite because they discuss the facets of personality, drive, reactions and overall why a person is who they are and why they do what they do which is what intrigues me towards psychology. I love to analyze and learn about myself and others and human interactions. During this course I have learned more about myself and the people I have interacted with. I conclude that my strongest needs are for cognition, understanding and respect. I firmly believe that Murray is accurate in his list of psychological needs.
Extension:
Unfortunately, I can not sem to find any videos or pictures for how I apply what I have learne din this course to life. Now, that I have labels for which to categorize people as I evaluate them I believe I will be better equipped to choose those who are more compatible with me. My husband's strongest need is for autonomy. After being married to him as well as having dated other men with this need in common I conclude that I am not compatible with people who have this strong need because they put up walls, are stubborn, spiteful and overall uncooperative towards my needs of cognition, understanding and belongingness. I do associate the need for autonomy with Love Avoidance. My husband as well as some others I have dated are Love Avoidants. The best definition of what a Love Avoidant is in Pia Mellody's book "Facing Love Addiction." Love Avoidants are people who were enmeshed by one parent moreso than abandoned by the other parent. Because the flow of nurturing was from child to parent at a young age the child/person learns that intimacy equals loss of autonomy. Due to therse cirumstances, the Love Avoidant's conscious fear is intimacy and subconscious fear is abandonment. It does not take much at all to trigger their fear of intimacy; they will be offensively defensive. Therefore, these people protect and fight for their autonomy like you would not believe which includes preventing, ruining, and avoiding being intimate with others. However, this behavior creates a lonely predicament for themselves which usually leads them to some kind of addiction which they also use as a wall to hide against intimacy.
On the other side of the fence is Love Addiction. I am a Love Addict. Love Addicts had one parent abandon them more than the other parent enmeshing them. They too from childhood do not learn what healthy intimacy is. Their conscious fear is abandonment and subconscious fear is intimacy. Their fear of abandonment is easily triggered. I associate the need for cognition and understanding with Love Addiction because they are tools used to attempt to be intimate which can end up being enmeshment.