Question

Consider a young adult female who is becoming unhappy in her relationship with her boyfriend. Describe how each of the following four perspectives (psychoanalytic, learning, cognitive & contextual) would explain why she is experiencing this difficulty.

Answer 1

We can study relationship and social behavior from many perspectives. Considering the above case, where young adult female is unhappy in her relationship with her boyfriend, let us analyze the situation in below given perspectives.

1. Psychoanalytic perspective: Psychoanalysis theory states our first relationship establishes with our primary care giver and this first relationship lays a foundation to whatever relationship we develop further with others. According to psychoanalysts, when we are in love (establishing relationship), we actually in love with our own good self image reflected by other person, and when this image fades, we may become unhappy with relationship (Lucie Cantin). In this case, young adult female at first may perceived good image of her primary care giver (father) in boyfriend and engaged in relationship, but when the image she perceived turned out different than actual after some time, she is now feeling unhappy due to disparity between before and after images of boyfriend.

2. Social learning perspective: According to social learning theory, the relationship is affected by our learning from partner. We exchange our learning with each other like behavior, interactions, etc. Example: Spouse influenced by partner's behavior at social gathering and learns the same behavior. Whenever partner feels certain behavior as opposite to their fundamental learned behavior, partner may feel disparity resulting in unhappy relationship. In the above case, the young female may felt some basic differences in behaviors in key areas like mutual respect, attitude towards certain category, responsibility, etc. These differences in behavior might have influenced negatively as the female could not adapt or learn these behaviors which are conflicting to her fundamental beliefs. Hence, the disparity and conflict in learning or adapting to partners behavior made female feel unhappy in her relationship.

3. Cognitive perspective: Cognitive theory studies the way we provide attention (example: selective attention), our perception, our language usage and memory, critical thinking and problem solving ability, etc. Cognitive perspective is related to study of our sensory input, processing, storage, and decision making. Example: How we perceive a situation through our sensory input, importance given to perceived situation, deciding the action, etc. In the above case, young female might have felt some conflicts with her boyfriend's perception of environment and responsibility and conflict with decision making pattern resulting in unhappy relationship.

4. Contextual perspective: Contextual theory includes study of facts, individual psychology, systematic transactions, relational ethics. In other words, objective facts and appraisal of facts by individual are studied, also with possible resulting behaviors in such situations and ethics followed. In the above case, young female may have encountered some objective facts like difficulty paying bills, health and employment issues of boyfriend, reality different than perceived euphoria, etc. At this situation, female may be unable to cope with stress and her appraisal of facts resulted in stressful feeling. This stressful situation may affected her behavioral transactions with boyfriend resulting in clashes and finally resulting in unhappy relationship.