Running head: PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 1 Predicting Social Intimacy: Exploring Contribution of Romantic Relationships and Interpersonal Dependency to and Gender Differences in Social Intimacy Vanessa Jones University of Nebraska - Lincoln
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 2 Abstract The present study sought to predict social intimacy using relationship and interpersonal predictors. A second purpose of this study was to determine whether there were any gender differences using these predictors. The participants in this study consisted of 455 undergraduate students, who were surveyed using a demographic questionnaire, Miller s Social Intimacy Scale, dating subscale of the DAQ, and Interpersonal Dependency Inventory. A series of regression analyses were run, and found that romantic relationship predictors and interpersonal dependency predictors did significantly predict social intimacy. This study also found that this model had a better fit for males, than females, though they did not have any structural differences in the regression weights.
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 3 Predicting Social Intimacy: Exploring Contribution of Romantic Relationships and Interpersonal Dependency to and Gender Differences in Social Intimacy By nature humans are social creatures, and as social creatures we rely on our relationships we have with other humans to see us through our lives. These relationships we experience with other people have been referred to as intimacy. Miller and Lefcourt (1982) defined social intimacy as the closeness we experience with others (e.g. significant others, family members, and friends). In later research she was able to support her hypothesis that people who have lower levels of social intimacy are more prone to higher levels of emotional disturbance and have lower coping abilities when negative life changes occur (Miller, n.d.). Others have continued her research and reported similar findings in studies ranging from looking at how couples cope with the stress of having a chronically ill child (Walker, Johnson, Manion, & Cloutier, 1996) to understanding motivations of sexual offenders (Marshall, Champagne, Brown, & Miller, 1998) It should not be surprising that social intimacy and romantic relationships are related. In order to have a romantic relationship there must be some form of social intimacy or closeness with another individual. There have been many studies that have examined the relationship between social intimacy and romantic relationships. One such study looked at how single individuals and those in relationships imagined intimacy with media figures of the opposite gender, and found that single individuals reported greater imagined intimacy with media figures than those in relationships (Greenwood & Long, 2010). Another study found that relationship length was negatively correlated with passion, yet positively correlated with commitment (Ahmetogul & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2010).
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 4 Another aspect to social intimacy is interpersonal dependency. Interpersonal dependency is defined as a complex of thoughts, beliefs, feelings and behaviors revolving around needs to associate closely with valued other people (Hirschfeld et. al., 1977). Previous research has not looked at the direct relationship between interpersonal dependence and social intimacy, however there is research to support the relationship through indirect relationships. There have been connections made between loneliness and interpersonal dependency (Prichard & Yalch, 2009). Another study reported moderate negative correlations between social skills and interpersonal dependency and found that interpersonal dependency acts as a moderator between social skills and depression (Huprich, Clancy, Bomstein, & Nelson-Gray, 2004). Another study reported a strong relationship between interpersonal dependency and unfriendly perception of social relationships, and concluded that interpersonal dependency was significantly related to social perception, friendly relationships and emotions (Wang et. al., 2014). It has long been believed that men and women view intimacy differently, and the widebelieved assumption is that women tend to view intimacy as an emotional thing, whereas men view intimacy in a more physical way. These are conflicting views are often explained by societal acceptable gender roles, as one study found that men are judged more negatively by other men when the express emotional intimacy (Gaia, 2013). A study comparing middle age men and college age men and the effect gender roles had on social intimacy; found that middle age men expressed significantly lower amounts of social intimacy than the college age men (Mahalik, Locke, Theodore, Cournoyer, & Lloyd, 2001). Another study found that most of the data from their study supported these claims above, however they also reported conflicting data on a few aspects of emotional social intimacy in what women reported (Hook, Gerstein, Detterich, & Gridley, 2003).
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 5 The purpose of the present study is to predict social intimacy using romantic relationship predictors and interpersonal dependency and determine any gender differences that may be present in social intimacy using those predictors. The five research questions in this study are: 1) Do relationship and interpersonal dependency predictors significantly predict social intimacy? 2) Does the relationship model account for the same amount of variance as the full model? 3) Does the interpersonal dependence model account for the same amount of variance as the full model? 4) Is there a difference between the predictive utility of the relationship model and the interpersonal dependency model? 5) Are there gender differences in the fit of the full model? Method Participants The participants in this study consisted of 494 (307 female, 187 male) traditional and nontraditional undergraduate students from a midsize Midwestern university in the United States. Of the 494 participants, 455 (female, male) were included in the analysis, those excluded had missing data on one or more of the measures in the variables. Participants ranged in ages from 17 to 39, with an average age of 20.646. Participants were asked to self report their ethnicity, 89.3% European-American, 4.7% African-American, 3% Hispanic-American, and 1.8% Asian- American. Materials This students collected data from a series of questionnaires that consisted of basic demographic questions in addition to additional questionnaires listed below, as well as others which were not used in this study. All surveys and questionnaires were self report and were completed in naturalistic settings, wherever the participant was at the time of being asked to participate. The questionnaires consisted of a series of demographic questions as well as several
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 6 surveys. The demographic questions collected information such as age, race, gender, relationship status, relationship length, seriousness of relationship and number of relationships during the last year, as well as other variables which were not used in this study. Data collected from three additional questionnaires included in the participant self report were used for this study. The dating subscale from the Dating and Assertive Questionnaire (DAQ) consists of a series of situations which are used to assess dating competence a higher score on the dating subscale suggests higher dating competence (Levenson & Grottman, 1978). The Miller s Social Intimacy Scale (MSIS) is a scale that was developed to assess social intimacy or closeness with others and is a 24 item questionnaire, higher scores suggests higher social intimacy (Miller & Lefcourt, 1982). The Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (IDI) measures the thoughts, behaviors, and feeling revolving around the need to associate closely with valued people (Hirschfeld et. al., 1977). The IDI is separated into three subscales: emotional reliance, lack of self confidence, and assertion of autonomy, all of which were used in this study. A higher score on emotional reliance means higher reliance on others, a higher score on lack of self confidence means lower self confidence, and a higher score on assertion of autonomy means more autonomy. Procedures Students in the introductory to statistics class first completed one of the surveys themselves, they were then instructed to seek out other undergraduate students to complete the surveys. Students were informed that the only requirement to complete the survey was that they participant be an undergraduate student, age was not an eliminating factor for this particular study. Students selected participants using the criteria above and administered the self report questionnaires wherever the participant was at the time. Informed consent was not collected
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 7 from participants in this study at any point. After all the surveys were collected they were scored and compared. The data was then entered into a larger database that consisted of data from multiple sections of the introductory to statistics course. For the present study, research hypotheses were then formulated using the variables listed above and several multiple regression analysis were run using SPSS version 22. Results A series of regression analyses were run to examine the relationship between social intimacy and gender, current relationship status, most recent relationship length, most recent relationship seriousness, number of relationships in the last year, dating subscale score from DAQ, emotional reliance, lack of self confidence, and autonomy. The univariate statistics are summarized in table 1 and table 2 shows the regression weights for the various models. The full model had an R 2 = 0.200, F(8, 446) = 13.947, p < 0.001, with gender, current relationship status, most recent relationship seriousness, emotional reliance, lack of self confidence, and autonomy having significant regression weights and gender seeming to have the largest contribution. The first research hypothesis was that a model including just relationship predictors (current relationship status, most recent relationship length, most recent relationship seriousness, number of relationships in the last year, and dating subscale score from DAQ), the relationship model, would perform as well as the full model. This reduced model had an R 2 = 0.131, F(5, 449) = 13.555, p < 0.001, with current relationship status, most recent relationship seriousness, and the DAQ dating subscale score having significant regression weights and current relationship seriousness seeming to have the largest contribution to this model. Contrary to the hypothesis, this model did not perform as well as the full model, R 2 -change = 0.069, F-change(3, 446) = 12.816, p < 0.001.
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 8 The second research hypothesis was that a model containing just predictors from the Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (emotional reliance, lack of self confidence, and autonomy), the interpersonal dependency model, would also perform as well as the full model. This model had an R 2 = 0.332, F(3, 451) = 18.657, p < 0.001, with all three predictors having significant regression weights and autonomy seeming to have the largest contribution to this model. Contrary to the hypothesis this model did not perform as well as the full model, R 2 - change = 0.090, F-change(5, 446) = 10.004, p < 0.001. Finally the predictive utility of the two reduced models was compared, using Steiger s Z- test. The correlation between these two models was r = 0.231, p < 0.001. Both models accounted for the same about of variance in social intimacy, Z = 0.579, p = 0.563. A series of regression analyses were also run to examine the relationship between social intimacy and current relationship status, most recent relationship length, most recent relationship seriousness, number of relationships in the last year, dating subscale score from DAQ, emotional reliance, lack of self confidence, and autonomy and compare these models derived from males and females. Table 3 shows the correlations of each variable with social intimacy and the multiple regression weights for each gender. For males this model had an R 2 = 0.253, F(8, 158) = 6.678, p < 0.001, with current relationship status, most recent relationship seriousness, emotional reliance, and lack of self confidence having significant regression weights and most recent relationship seriousness the seeming to have the largest contribution. For females this model had an R 2 = 0.116, F(8, 279) = 4.589, p < 0.001, with dating subscale score from the DAQ and autonomy having significant regression weights and dating subscale score seeming to have the largest contribution.
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 9 Comparisons of the fit of the model from males and females were run using Fisher s Z- test and revealed that the model fit significantly better for males than females, Z = 2.0211, p = 0.0433. A comparison of the structure of the models from the two groups was also conducted by applying the model derived from males to the data from females and comparing the resulting crossed R 2 with the direct R 2 originally obtained from this group. The direct R 2 = 0.116 and crossed R 2 = 0.079 were compared using Steiger s Z-test and were not found to be significantly different, Z = 1.810, p = 0.070, which indicates that there are not structural differences in the regression weights of the two models. Discussion Results of our full model regression analysis supported the hypothesis that relationship predictors and the subscales of the IDI significantly predict social intimacy. However despite the fact that both reduced models were significant, neither one of the reduced models (relationship model nor interpersonal dependence model) performed as well as the full model. This is probably due to the fact that social intimacy is a complex construct and the Miller Social Intimacy Scale, the measure used to estimate the construct, was designed to measure emotional closeness to family members and friends in addition to significant others (Miller & Lefcourt, 1982). Similarly, interpersonal dependence is a construct similar to social intimacy, but the findings of this study suggests that measures are not interchangeable. This study also determined that there were gender differences in the fit of the model, and that the model worked significantly better for males than females. This is contrary to most research conducted on the gender differences in men and women. This could be due to the presence of more concrete variables in this model such as seriousness and length of relationship and relationship status (all significant predictors). A study that looked at the intimacy goals of
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 10 men and women and their decision to enter into a dating relationship found that the presence of intimacy goals contributed to a higher likelihood of entering into a dating relationship in the future for men, but not for women (Sanderson, Keiter, Miles, & Yopyk, 2007). This could offer an explanation for how the variables in the model could have contributed to the model working better for men than women. The biggest limitation of this study was that all the data was collected prior to the design of the study. The researcher could not go out and collect her own data and had to choose from the data available. Two aspects of social intimacy that are lacking from this study are friendship and family, and future researchers should look at the differences between friendship and family in addition romantic relationships. This study also contradicts a lot of previous research (Mahalik, 2001; Gaia, 2013) conducted on the gender differences associated with social intimacy and should be to understand the differences.
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 11 References Ahmetoglu, G., Swami, V., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2010). The relationship between dimensions of love, personality, and relationship length. Archives of sexual behavior, 39(5), 1181-1190. Gaia, A. C. (2013). The role of gender stereotypes in the social acceptability of the expression of intimacy. The Social Science Journal, 50(4), 591-602. Greenwood, D. N., & Long, C. R. (2011). Attachment, belongingness needs, and relationship status predict imagined intimacy with media figures.. Communication Research, 38(2), 278-297. Hirschfeld, R. M., Klerman, G. L., Gouch, H. G., Barrett, J., Korchin, S. J., & Chodoff, P. (1977). A measure of interpersonal dependency. Journal of personality assessment, 41(6), 610-618.\ Hook, M. K., Gerstein, L. H., Detterich, L., & Gridley, B. (2003). How close are we? Measuring intimacy and examining gender differences. Journal of Counseling & Development, 81(4), 462-472. Huprich, S. K., Clancy, C., Bornstein, R. F., & Nelson-Gray, R. O. (2004). Do dependency and social skills combine to predict depression? Linking two diatheses in mood disorders research. Individual Differences Research, 2(1), 2-16. Levenson, R. W., & Gottman, J. M. (1978). Toward the assessment of social competence. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 46(3), 453. Mahalik, J. R., Locke, B. D., Theodore, H., Cournoyer, R. J., & Lloyd, B. F. (2001). A crossnational and cross-sectional comparison of men's gender role conflict and its relationship to social intimacy and self-esteem. Sex Roles, 45(1-2), 1-14.
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 12 Marshall, W. L., Champagne, F., Brown, C., & Miller, S. (1998). Empathy, intimacy, loneliness, and self-esteem in nonfamilial child molesters: A brief report. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 6(3), 87-98. Miller, R. S., & Lefcourt, H. M. (1982). The assessment of social intimacy.journal of personality Assessment, 46(5), 514-518. Miller, R. (n. d.). Social intimacy. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www. http://rickeymillerpsychologist.com/research/ Pritchard, M. E., & Yalch, K. L. (2009). Relationships among loneliness, interpersonal dependency, and disordered eating in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 46(3), 341-346. Sanderson, C. A., Keiter, E. J., Miles, M. G., & Yopyk, D. J. (2007). The association between intimacy goals and plans for initiating dating relationships.personal Relationships, 14(2), 225-243. Walker, J. G., Johnson, S., Manion, I., & Cloutier, P. (1996). Emotionally focused marital intervention for couples with chronically ill children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(5), 1029. Wang, S., Roche, M. J., Pincus, A. L., Conroy, D. E., Rebar, A. L., & Ram, N. (2014). Interpersonal dependency and emotion in every day life. Journal of Research in Personality, 53, 5-12.
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 13 Table 1 Univariate statistics for all variables in the model. Variable M SD Social Intimacy 68.284 11.961 Gender 1 1.621 0.486 Relationship status 2 0.536 0.499 Relationship length 15.455 17.364 Seriousness of relationship 4.906 1.947 Number of relationships 1.436 1.323 Dating subscale score 14.201 3.396 Emotional Reliance 43.114 8.391 Lack of self confidence 32.886 7.685 Autonomy 28.523 7.128 1 coded 1 = male, 2 = female 2 coded 0 = single, 1 = relationship
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 14 Table 2 Results from the various regression models Beta weights from the various models Interpersonal Dependency Model Variable Full Model Relationship Model Relationship status 1 0.158** 0.154** Relationship length 0.017-0.007 Seriousness of relationship 0.124** 0.195** Number of relationships -0.059-0.052 Dating subscale score 0.082 0.102* Emotional Reliance 0.143** 0.183*** Lack of self confidence -0.162** -0.208*** Autonomy -0.196*** -0.229*** 1 coded 0 = single, 1 = relationship * p <.05 **p <.01 ***p <.001
PREDICTING SOCIAL INTIMACY 15 Table 3 Correlations and multiple regression weights from male and female participants Male Female Variable r with Social intimacy b β r with Social intimacy b β Relationship status 1 0.341*** 4.711* 0.179 0.180** 1.166 0.339 Relationship length 0.267*** 0.003 0.004 0.083 0.000003 0.000007 Seriousness of relationship 0.406*** 1.686* 0.245 0.214*** 0.358 0.075 Number of relationships -0.115-1.017-0.113 0.004-0.133-0.017 Dating subscale score 0.211** -0.041-0.010 0.258*** 0.504** 0.184 Emotional Reliance 0.140 0.296* 0.178 0.111 0.113 0.109 Lack of self confidence -0.187* -0.420** -0.232-0.103-0.120* -0.108 Autonomy -0.152-0.144-0.076-0.141* -0.174-0.128 1 coded 0 = single, 1 = relationship * p <.05 **p <.01 ***p <.001