Report 2:

”My Understanding of the Unity Model of Marriage”

By Hiroko Kikuchi

Instructions for this report are at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy22/409b-g22-report2.htm

I am answering Questions 3, 6, 12, 5 and 8

QUESTIONS

The Question I am answering is Question 3

A husband and wife seem to get along real well together, enjoying the same activities, having fun, being popular with friends, etc. Then they have a fight over some disagreement and they show disrespect and hatred for each other.

(a) Explain why this turnabout can happen and what is its cause. Be sure to use some aspect of the theory given in the Lecture Notes.

(b) Discuss how married partners can reverse this flip-flop cycle so that it never occurs again. In your explanation be sure to apply the unity model, the threefold self, and the conjoint self, as explained in the Lecture Notes.

(c) Anything else you have to say.

Answers

(a) Explain why this turnabout can happen and what is its cause. Be sure to use some aspect of the theory given in the Lecture Notes.

If I would be very straightforward and be very simple to answer this question, I would say that the couple has not reached the Unity level based on the lecture notes by Dr. Leon James.

Now, I would like to explain why a couple has fights, has arguments, and disrespect for each other could happen in their marriage using aspects of the theories from the lecture notes.

At first, I would to explain about three major level of the marriage used in the lecture notes. Those three levels are;

Dominance – This is pretty much described by the name. This is when the husbands dominate the relationship. The husband usually has the absolute power and authority overt the wife, and the wife needs to be submissive. If the wife does not comply with the husband’s demands and requests, the husband could punish the wife both mentally and physically.

Equity – This is when the husband and wife have equal opportunities. Therefore, in this level, the wife is able to express her own feelings, ideas, demands, and requests to her husband. Since the husband acknowledged about some of the wife’s rights, he may comply with wife’s demand, but not always. Therefore, when two different perspectives are expressed and have disagreement, the couples could get into arguments and fights.

Unity - This is total unity, harmony, and conjoined level for marriage relationship. This is the ultimate happiness, which human beings are capable of, and it is also called “Heaven”. To achieve this level, it might take a long time depend of the relationships. In order to achieve this level the husband must become rationally, and spiritually ready. This is when the husband see eternal life with his wife even afterlife, and he starts to think and reason like the wife.

Within those three levels, there is “Threefold Self”. “Threefold Self” is the three fields that define individual’s behaviors in their relationships. Those three domains are;

1. Sensorimotor is responsible for individual’s sensations, perception, and motor act (any observable behaviors) in relationships. This is the first level of the marriage and it is external. Couples usually start their relationship from this level. For examples, couples eat dinner at restaurant, have conversations, going to movie together.

2. Cognitive is responsible for any thinking, ideas and reasoning we do in relationships. In this level, women try to change her husband’s thinking instead of adopting his ideas to reach the unity level. However, the husbands usually see women’s challenge to change him as if she is taking the husband’s independency and power away. Therefore, disagreement and any other conflicts could trigger an argument or fight.

3. Affective is responsible for feelings and motivations we keep in our relationship. This is the inmost level, and this is the ultimate happiness for the couples. This is when the couples are in unity, harmony, and conjoined together. The husband seeks eternal life with his wife afterlife.

Those three “threefold self” are interconnected, and that’s what operate gender relationships.

Therefore, I could say that the couple who enjoy doing activities together, being popular by friends have arguments and fights over disagreement because they are stuck in the “Equity” level of the unity model of marriage relationship. The couple are happily together externally or sensorimotor level, which the couple enjoys doing activities together. However, because the couple has unity in sensorimotor level, it does not lead the couples into unity of cognitive or affective level. When the couples have arguments and fight, it means that the husband is still self-focus. Therefore, even though he listens and gives chance to the wife to expresses her feelings, ideas, beliefs, reasoning, he still focuses on his own ideas. As you can see, the wife is trying to guide her husband to think like how she thinks to reach the unity level.

However, the husband is still self-centers and he does not give up his own ideas. The husband is please when his wife knows how he thinks and reason according to the husband’s way. Therefore, the wife is trying to change her husband’s ways of thinking to harmonize their relationships, but the husband does not want to give away his authority. Therefore, there are conflicts occurs between the husband and wife. This is why the couples have arguments and fight when they decide certain decisions such as how to raise children, buying a new car, buying a house. Then the couples usually start to show disrespect and hatred to each other when they are mad. Then husband could decide to go back to dominance level, and he could his wife.

In order to stop the couples from having fights, arguments, and disrespect of each other, the couples must move into the inmost and internally level called “Unity” level. As I have explained in the previous section, the couple is stuck in the equity level. To visualize this explanation, I would like to use the table 4 from the lecture note.

Section 16. This is Table 4 (READ TABLE FROM BOTTOM UP)

MODEL THAT GOVERNS THEIR INTERACTIONS	THREEFO0LD SELF
MODEL THAT GOVERNS THEIR INTERACTIONS	SENSORIMOTOR (external)	COGNITIVE (internal)	AFFECTIVE (inmost)
UNITY	7b zone 7 SU 7a ------>	<------8b zone 8 CU 8a------>	<------ 9b zone 9 AU 9a
EQUITY	4b zone 4 SE 4a------>	<------ 5b zone 5 CE 5a------>	<------ 6b zone 6 AE 6a
DOMINANCE	1b zone 1 SD 1a ------>	<------ 2b zone 2 CD 2a ------>	<------ 3b zone 3 AD 3a

To reach the unity level, the couple must go through each step (1a through 9b). I believe that highlighted pink area is where the couple in stuck. The neither of the couple is dominating one another, but they are not as close as one. They are in the equity model, which is 6a in the table. The process of 4a through 6a is where the couples are learning to deepen their intimacy. During the process of going through 4a to 6a, this is when the husband has new habit, which, he let his wife express her feelings and argues with him. However, he needs to change the habit into routine. Therefore, now the husband needs to at least act like he respects to the wife’s ideas and reasoning, and suppress his own feelings. As the husband gets used to this routine, the husbands will start to think and act more voluntarily, and eventually he will starts to respect his wife truly.

The equity level is very popular and comfortable for the husband. The husbands are usually satisfied within equity level because the men and women have equal opportunities. Therefore the husband believes that the wife is happy about him being good listeners. However, the wife is eager to move one further step into the unity level from equity level. The wife is going to seek inmost, and inward connection with her husband. In order for husband to move into 7a from 4b, the husband must start think about eternal happiness afterlife with his wife. When the husband is going through 7a to 9a, the husbands are usually tempted to go back to equity or dominance level to negotiate or fight back to the wife’s demands or requests.

However, if the wife continue to guide her husband into total union, harmony, and conjunction internally, the husband eventually overcome his temptations to go back to dominance or equity level. Then the husbands and the wife will experience affective conjunction, which the husband’s threefold self will be according to his wife’s threefold self. In order for the couple to achieve ultimate happiness of the unity model, some might take only few years, but others might take 30 years or more.

(c) Anything else you have to say.

Dr. James stated that it took for him to achieve unity model with wife about 20 years! Wow, I was very shocked. It just sound so difficult for the couple to achieve the unity model of the marriage, but I guess if the couple is truly in love, and neither of them do not give up on each other, they could reach the unity level someday. I am not married, so I could not really apply the unity model into my own relationship, but I though about it. When I though about my own relationship, we are definitely in the equity level. I wonder approximately, how many couples in the whole world are in the unity model currently? I hope it’s large numbers, so that would be encouraging for the couples that are seeking to reach the unity level.

The Question I am answering is Question 6

(a) Consider Table 6 in the Lecture Notes, which is in the Section on Making Field Observations. It gives 20 examples of Behavioral Indicators of One's Relationship Model, along with Yes/No specifications for the three models

(b) First explain what this table is trying to show and how it is doing that (give a couple of examples to illustrate concretely).

(c) Give brief explanations for what the three models are.

(d) Create a similar table of 20 new items that you make up yourself, and fill in the Yes/No columns.

(e) Calculate the percent overlap.

(f) Discuss what your results show.

(g) How can such an approach be expanded to help couples be more aware of their interaction pattern?

(h) Anything else you have to say.

Answers

Please look at the table created by Dr. James.

Behavioral Indicators of One's Relationship Model	1 Dominance Model	2 Equity Model	3 Unity Model
Partners tolerate role differences, either culturally defined or by personal preference	Yes	Yes	Yes
Partners tolerate some disagreements as something normal and inevitable	Yes	Yes	No
Partners tolerate status differences between a man and a woman	Yes	No	No
Partners insist on exclusivity so that neither may carry on close friendships with others	No	No	Yes
Partners allow each other privacy or separate activities that the other is not involved in	Yes	Yes	No
Partners believe themselves to be married in this life and in the afterlife in heaven to eternity	No	No	Yes
Each partner is tolerant of some of the other's faults and tries to live with them	Yes	Yes	No
The man always cooperates with the woman's attempts to change him	No	No	Yes
When partners disagree they negotiate to reach a consensus	No	Yes	No
When partners disagree the man gives in to the woman's way of thinking	No	No	Yes
Partners can't stand being separated even for a few hours, and get very anxious	No	No	Yes
Partners are mutually interdependent and complementary in all areas	No	No	Yes
Partners have total confidence in each other, feeling free of any criticism ever	No	No	Yes
Partners never try to punish each other or retaliate for anything	No	No	Yes
While making seating choices for guests at a wedding, splitting up the married couples	Yes	Yes	No
Partners assume responsibility for each other's feelings and emotions	No	No	Yes
Partners try to make each other happy	Yes	Yes	Yes
Partners allow each other to have incompatible opinions about various topics	Yes	Yes	No
Partners never diminish in enthusiasm and admiration for each other	No	No	Yes
The original passion of love decreases as the years go by	Yes	Yes	No

Dr. Leon James wrote that “This type of contrastive analysis shows that the dominance model has an 84% overlap in answers with the equity model but only 16% overlap with the unity model. Similarly the equity model has only a 16% overlap with the unity model. This shows that the unity model is most different from the other two. It is also the most difficult to achieve unless the husband is spiritually enlightened and has the afterlife in mind regarding their eternal conjunction.” (James, 2005)

(b) First explain what this table is trying to show and how it is doing that (give a couple of examples to illustrate concretely).

This table is trying to show that the different phases which men and women go through as a married couple. In this particular table, three phases (dominance, equity, and unity which I am going to talk about later) are being compared and contrasted by the specific situational questionnaires. To find out which phase or model the couple is in, all they have to do is answer the questions in the diagram. The questions in the diagram describe specific situations, and the couple just needs to answer by “Yes” or “No.” After the couple answered all of the questions in the table, it just needed to be calculated the overlap percentage to find out which model the couple is in. The questionnaires are very simple and straightforward, but the couple could get meaningful and helpful results from the test.

Now, I would like to give two examples to show what is the table is trying to show. For example, 9^th question in the table “When partners disagree they negotiate to reach a consensus”, the answer by each phases are the following:

Dominance: “NO” because in dominance phase, man is the only one who has the rights in saying in the married life. The wife needs to be submissive, and she has no rights to talk back to her husband or else, she could be punished.
Equity: “YES” because in this phase, the husband has realized that marriage is more than just him being dominant. As a result of that, the wife has rights to talk back to her husband to express her own feelings and ideas. Therefore, a couple in this phase argues, talk about, or negotiate to decide certain things or solve problems.
Unity: “NO” because the couple in this stage has great respects to each other. Therefore, they don’t have to negotiate to understand each other’s demands or request.

Another example is 8^th question from the table. “The man always cooperates with the woman's attempts to change him”, the answer by each phases are the following:

Dominance: Obviously “NO”. The man in this phase gets pleasure by having higher authority over his wife. Therefore, he never cooperates with his wife. He wouldn’t even listen to the wife’s requests.
Equity: “NO”. Even though the husband has realized some of the wife’s rights and he listens to the wife’s requests and suggestions, he is not always cooperative to the wife.
Unity: “YES”. The husband in this phase always will be cooperative to the wife’s demands because they are in total harmony. If the wife suggest to the husband to tuck in the shirt in pant, then he will listen and he tuck his shirts in the pant.

(c) Give brief explanations for what the three models are.

There are three different phases or models in the “Unity Model of The Marriage” by Dr. Leon James. Those three models are;

Dominance: This is the lowest and first level in the unity model. This phase is just what it sounds like, and the men (husbands) are dominating over the women (wives). Therefore, the husbands have the absolute authority and power over the wife. The wife needs to be submissive in this level. This is a selfish phase by men, and the men enjoy being superior over the women. If the women don’t comply with their husbands, the husbands could punish them physically or mentally. The couple in this level is connected only by externally.

Equity: This is the second level in the unity model. To move on to this level from the dominance level, the husband need to realize and willingly trying to change his behaviors. In this level, the husbands had to acknowledge that the wife also has the rights to express her feelings. Therefore, the wife is able to make some requests and demands to her husbands, and the husband would comply with some of the wife’s requests. For example, if the wife asks her husband to take trash, then the husband would do it for the wife, but not always. If the couple has different opinions about certain topics, then the couples talks about and negotiate to come up with the solutions. However, if the husband decided that he doesn’t want to stay in the equity model, the husbands could always go back to dominance model.

Unity: This is the third and last and inmost model in the unity model. The couples in this phase are in total union, unity, and conjunction. This is the happiest marriage the couple could experience as human being. Therefore, it is also called “heaven”. To move into this phase from the equity level, the husbands need to start to think like as if the husband and wife are eternally together afterlife. This type of ideas motivates the husbands to become cooperative and thoughtful. Therefore, the husband start to think more like wife, and eventually, the husbands is going to be receptive to wife’s inner feelings. For example, the wife doesn’t need to tell her husband to take the trash for her anymore. The husband knows that the wife needs help taking trash out for her. Therefore, the husband takes out the trash without being asked by the wife.

In the each phase of the dominance, equity, and unity, it is divided into three fields called “Threefold Self”. Those are;

· Sensorimotor: This threefold self operates individual’s sensations, perceptions, and motor act (any external behaviors which we can observe such as talking and facial expressions).

· Cognitive: This threefold self operates individual’s thinking, beliefs, reasoning and ideas.

· Affective: This threefold self operates the feeling, emotions, and motivation the couple maintains in their marriage life.

(d) Create a similar table of 20 new items that you make up yourself, and fill in the Yes/No columns.

I have created my own table similar to the one created by Dr. Leon James.

Behavioral Indicators of One's Relationship Model	1 Dominance Model	2 Equity Model	3 Unity Model
1. Partners dose not have any arguments.	No	No	Yes
2. Partners could not being separated even for an hour.	No	No	Yes
3. The wife needs to comply all of her husband’s demands and orders.	Yes	No	No
4. Partners fight or argue over who gets a remote control.	No	Yes	No
5. The husband is willing to change his behaviors for his wife.	No	Yes	Yes
6. Partners talk bad about each other.	Yes	Yes	No
7. The husband has absolute authority over the wife.	Yes	No	No
8. Partners will love each other eternally.	No	No	Yes
9. Husband support his wife anyways he can.	No	No	Yes
10. Partners are in total union, harmony, and conjoined.	No	No	Yes
11. Husband forces his sexual demands on his wife.	Yes	No	No
12. Partners are able to listen to each other.	No	Yes	Yes
13. Partners love each other.	Yes	Yes	Yes
14. Partners enjoy activities separately.	Yes	Yes	No
15. Partners express their different opinions, ideas, beliefs, and reasoning.	Yes	Yes	No
16. Husband enjoys explicit materials.	Yes	Yes	No
17. Husband understands his wife’s requests and demands without told by his wife.	No	No	Yes
18. Partners argue to solve their differences.	No	Yes	No
19. Partners are in happiest marriage which human beings are capable of.	No	No	Yes
20. Wife is allowed to talk back to her husband.	No	Yes	Yes

(e) Calculate the percent overlap.

Percent Overlap:

I have analyzed and calculated my own table shown above. Here is the result;

· The Dominance phase has 60% overlap with the Equity phase

· The Dominance phase has 15% overlap with the Unity phase.

· The Equity phase has 35% overlap with the Unity phase.

(f) Discuss what your results show.

Results

When I have analyzed my own table, the results were pretty much similar to the one Dr. James had came up with from his table. The numbers clearly showed that the unity model is the most different from the dominance model. The overlap percentage between the dominance model and the unity model was only 15%. This is a very low numbers, and I could conclude that those two models are opposite of one another. This confirmed that the couples in the dominance model are very far away from reaching to the unity model. It also means that it is almost impossible to reach straight into the unity model from the dominance model. As Dr. James had stated in his writing, reaching to the unity model is very difficult unless the husbands are spiritually guided and he starts to think about the conjoined afterlife with his partner.

From my table, I have found out that the equity model overlap with the unity model by 35%. The equity model overlap to the unity model 20% more compare to the dominance model vs. unity model. However, the number is still low, and the result confirmed the equity model is also different from the unity model. Once again, unless the husbands are spiritually guided and he is able to think about conjoined afterlife with his partner, the couple is not able to move onto the unity model.

The result also showed that the dominance model and the equity model overlap 60%. This number indicates that the dominance model and the equity model are pretty much similar, and this finding complies with Dr. James’s finding. The husbands in the equity model have realized and acknowledged about the wife’s rights. Therefore, the husband starts to listen to his wife’s demands and requests. The wife is also able to express her feelings, beliefs, ideas, and reasoning to her husband. However, the couple still argues and fights about certain topics when they have disagreements such as which movies to watch or which restaurant to go. Therefore, the husband is still trying to dominate over the wife by fighting back to the wife’s ideas. This example clearly explains why the dominance and the equity model overlap highly.

(g) How can such an approach be expanded to help couples be more aware of their interaction pattern?

I feel that the table like this is very useful for many couples to find out about their own marriage relationship style. The best thing about this test is that it is very simple! Both of the questions and answers are very straightforward. By using a table created by Dr. James, the couple could easily know which model they are in right now. I think that the knowing their relationships is very important for any couple, and it is the first step to reach over to the unity model. I feel that if the couple know about their marriage styles, they could study and look over their behaviors, motivations, reasoning in their marriage. From there, they can work out any problems they have. If the couples could not realize and acknowledge about their problems they are facing, they could not create better relationship.

Dr. James had stated that it took about 20 years for him to reach the unity model with his wife. Reaching the unity model is not easy process, but I believe that this type of table could fasten the speed of the couple trying to reach the unity model. Therefore, table like this is very beneficially to the married couples. After all, who does not want to have happy marriage? I am sure that every married couples want to reach the happiest marriage which human beings are capable of, the “Unity Model”.

(h) Anything else you have to say.

I thought that the creating my own table and analyzing the data helped me to understand about the three different models better. Also, by calculating overlap percentage, it made me think more about how one model is very different from one another. It also made me realized that the journey to the unity model is very difficult, but it is not impossible. It was nice to know that the all of the three models overlap somewhat. By knowing this information, I believe that it is up to the couples (or husband) to move into the unity model.

The Question I am answering is Question 12

(a) Consider Table 9 in the Lecture Notes, which is in the Section on Making Field Observations. It lists two-dozen AUVs – anti unity values that are commonly portrayed in the media – soaps, comedy, and drama.

(b) Select at least three programs for which you can watch several episodes or shows. Briefly describe a few scenes from each show to illustrate the portrayal of gender interactions that are contrary to having a successful marriage.

(c) Now describe the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor aspects of these interactions.

(d) What are your reactions to these observations?

(e) What is your explanation as to why these interactions are portrayed so often? What might be the consequences for couples and society?

(g)Anything else you have to say.

Answers

This is a Table 9 from the lecture notes.

1. Living together unmarried

2. Having children out of wedlock

3. Making each other jealous on purpose

4. Adultery for various reasons

5. Promiscuity and bi-sexuality

6. Sexy dressing for men other than one's partner

7. Having a same sex best friend who is placed ahead of the partner or in competition for certain things

8. Having a heterosexual best friend who is placed ahead of the partner or in competition for certain things

9. Same sex friends going out as a group for fun and entertainment without their partners

10. Flirting with other gender as retaliation against one's partner (or other reason)

11. Separate interests and activities accepted for partners

12. Manipulating partner through deception

13. Accepting the idea that it's OK to "agree to disagree" about some things

14. Promoting the idea that one should not try to change one's partner but should accept them with their faults, etc.

15. Girls only or boys only entertainment

16. Acceptance of the idea that men are more important

17. Promoting the idea that men are more rational than women

18. Promoting the idea that women are generally frivolous as part of their gender

19. Making it look normal for a man to exploit women

20. Making it look normal for a man to abuse women

21. Making it look normal for a man to have prerogatives or perks that women should accept and honor (e.g., serving men, doing what they want no matter what, being dominant, etc.)

22. Making it look like what women say and think as less important

23. Accepting the idea that a man does not need to "grovel" when he apologizes for something bad he did to her (the minimum is enough and she should not ask for more even if her feelings are still hurt or else she is being "unreasonable" etc.)

Table 9 shows situational examples, which is anti-unity value (AUV). Many TV shows such as soap opera, drama, and sitcom contain the AUV. Also, the media is constantly portraying and exposing the false images of the couples on the TV.

(c) Now describe the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor aspects of these interactions.

My choice of three shows are:

1. “Friends” (drama / comedy)

2. “Everybody Loves Raymond” (comedy)

3. “Family Guy” (cartoon)

Here are some scenes descriptions from the each show, which illustrated AUV.

1. Friends – This is a show about six friends (Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Chandler, and Joey) who live in NY area. It is a comedy and drama, and the story is based on everyday life. It was very popular show because many viewers were able to relate to most of the characters in the show.

1. Chandler meets a beautiful woman at coffee shop, and he becomes intimate with her. However, he finds out that she is married and seeing many guys. Ross and Joey tell Chandler how lucky he is. Ross and Joey also encourage Chandler to be happy because he gets to sleep around with woman without dating seriously. Eventually, Chandler tells a woman that he doesn’t want to see her anymore because it is wrong. Chandler also wanted the woman to see him only.

· Sensorimotor – Chandler enjoys intimacy relationship with a beautiful woman.

· Cognitive – Chandler thinks it is wrong to have intimate relationship with married woman.

· Affective – Chandler wanted a woman to see only him. Chandler is motivated to keep his relationship one on one.

2. Six of them going to Las Vegas for vacation. Rachel and Ross get drunk and get married at chapel. Next day, they have realized that they got married while they were drunk. They ended up getting a divorce, but remain very good friends.

· Sensorimotor – Rachel and Ross enjoy doing activities together. In this case, they enjoyed drinking alcohols together very much.

· Cognitive – Next day, Rachel and Ross realized that they have done wrong thing. They know that they shouldn’t get marry when they were so drunk. They knew that such action was not acceptable.

· Affective – Both Rachel and Ross have ideas of when is the right time to get marry. (Definitely not when they were drunk).

3. Rachel and Ross are on and off relationships, and they ended up having a baby together, but not married. Rachel moves into Ross’s apartment to raise a child together.

· Sensorimotor – They enjoy taking care of the baby together.

· Cognitive – They have ideas that a baby should grow up with a baby’s mom and dad.

· Affective –Rachel and Ross’s relationships are based on their baby. They maintain their relationship according to what is good for the baby.

2. Everybody Loves Raymond – This is a show about Raymond, a successful sport write who has wife, Debra, and three children. Raymond’s parents and older brother also live across the street. The story involves many married couple issues.

1. One night, Debra asks Raymond if she can have a bathroom for by herself, so she can make the place very girly. Raymond agreed and he asks her to have sex that night. Few days later, Raymond brags about he doesn’t have to ask Debra to have sex anymore since he gave the bathroom to her.

· Sensorimotor – They get intimate, and both Raymond and Debra get what they wish.

· Cognitive – Both Raymond and Debra think that if they give up on something, they can get what they want, and both of they will be happy, and stay good mood.

· Affective – Both Raymond and Debra are motivated by what t they want. (Raymond wants sex, and Debra wants a bathroom)

2. Raymond’s older brother, Robert breaks up with his long time girlfriend. Robert is depressed, so Debra tells Raymond to spend more time with Robert to cheer him up. At first, Raymond didn’t want to, but he starts to enjoys his hobbies (he loves to play golf) using excuse of “I think I need to spend some more time with Robert to cheer him up.”

· Sensorimotor – Raymond enjoys his hobbies without worry about his wife complains about him.

· Cognitive – Raymond think as long as his wife thinks he is helping his own brother, Raymond could lie to Debra.

· Affective – Raymond wants to keep the relationship peace by listening to his wife’s advices, but he lies about helping brother and enjoys his hobbies instead.

3. After Raymond and Debra went to vacation, they left their luggage on the stairway. Raymond feels that Debra should put away the luggage. One day, Raymond finds out that Debra is wearing clothes, which she was wearing at vacation. Raymond thinks that Debra is challenging him, and Raymond tries various ways to let Debra put away the luggage. Raymond ended up putting blue cheese in the luggage the day he goes away for business trip.

· Sensorimotor – They both behave like nothing is going on.

· Cognitive – Both Debra and Raymond think that one of them should put away the luggage. Both of them are being stubborn.

· Affective – Both Debra and Raymond act like they don’t care about the luggage. They both behave like it is not a big deal, so they don’t have to argue about it.

3. Family Guy – This is a cartoon. In this show, there is a Peter (the husband), Louis (the wife), three children (Chris, Meg, Stewie), and a family dog, Brian. It is a cartoon, but the stories are not suitable for children.

1. Peter asks Louis if he can go to the party at their neighbor’s house. Louis says “No” because peter always do something wrong when he gets drunk. Therefore, Peter promises Louis that he is going to drink beer, but he lied and ended up getting very drunk next day.

· Sensorimotor – Peter enjoys time with his “guy friends”.

· Cognitive – Peter thinks that since Louis is not with him at the part, Peter thinks it is okay to do anything he wants.

· Affective – Peter is satisfied as long as he is happy with what he does. Peter doesn’t really care about how Louis thinks about Peter drinking.

2. Louis goes out dinner with her old friends. However, Peter thinks that Louis is cheating on him, and Peter ended up following Louis to spy on her.

· Sensorimotor – Louis goes to dinner and enjoys spending time with her old friend.

· Cognitive – Peter thinks his wife is not faithful, and he decided to follow to catch any evidence of cheating behaviors.

· Affective – Peter does not trust Louis. Louis also enjoys being away from her husband.

3. Peter gets many plastic surgeries to become super handsome man. Peter loves all the special attention he gets from other people especially by women. Louis doesn’t like the ideas of plastic surgery, but peter continues to have surgeries.

· Sensorimotor – Peter goes out to get plastic surgeries. Peter act as how he wants it.

· Cognitive – Peter thinks it is good idea to get plastic surgeries as long as he gets special treatments.

· Affective – Peter does not listen to Louis. Peter does not follow Louis’s feelings.

(d) What are your reactions to these observations?

I was somewhat shocked to find out many AUV in the each show. “Friends” is one of my favorite TV shows, so it was kind of sad that something I really like contained many AUV. The reason I like “Friends” is because I could relate to many of the events that characters went to though in the show. Many of the scenarios in the shows are very common, and that is why I think “Friends” was really popular show and lasted for 10 years. Therefore, I started to think of my own life. Since I can relate to many of the stories in “Friends”, that is because I am also practicing some of the AUV in my life. For example, my boyfriend and I have been living together for three years now, and we are not married. This is clearly AUV, but I didn’t know that it is actually bad thing until I took this class.

“Everybody Loves Raymond” is not my favorite show, but I watch the show a lot. I think the show is funny, and it makes me laugh most of the time. “Family Guy” is cartoon, but this is definitely not suitable for children. Many of the episodes contain sexual and violent contents. However, it is funny. My boyfriend really likes this show, and I know many guy friends who like to watch “Family guy”. The show was cancelled, but because of the popular demands, it is coming back on TV next month. I think that event though people are aware of non-sense or stereo typed images portrayed on the TV, they like to watch it anyway because it is funny and entertainment. I have learned that many TV shows contain AUV, but I will not stop watching “Friends”, “Everybody Loves Raymond”, and “Family Guy”.

However, I am aware of the AUV, so I won’t be influenced by any of the TV shows portraying AUV. It is impossible to stop the media and TV shows, so I think that the important thing is to educate people about the false images portrayed on the TV shows.

(e) What is your explanation as to why these interactions are portrayed so often? What might be the consequences for couples and society?

I think that some of the AUV is portrayed on the TV so often is because many people are not seeing as AUV. For example, first example shown on the table 9 from the lecture note is “Living together unmarried.” As I have mentioned in the ealier, my boyfriend and I have been dating for more than five years, and we have been living together for three years now. The one of the reasons I decided to live together with my boyfriend is to get to know more about his values, beliefs, and life styles, and so on before actually marrying him. I see couples living together unmarried more like “trial periods”. I am sure that many people in my generation would agree to my perspective, and they don’t see couples living together unmarried as bad thing.

I think that they would see the idea as better compare to marring without knowing each other’s life style. Then I have learned that such idea is very wrong from this class, and I started to see the point. I think that living together unmarried make the couple numbs about getting married because they would be so comfortable living together without making lifetime decision. 50% of the marriages in the USA end up divorce, but the “divorce” is still a big deal in our society. However, “break up” is not as big deal as “divorce”. Therefore, I think that the couples who live together unmarried has idea somewhere in their head thinking, “Well, if we come to face major disagreements or fights, we can just end the relationship anytime. It’ not a big deal”.

However, married couples could not always have divorce as the solution to end their relationship. Therefore, only married couples could reach the unity model after working on many problems to create strong relationships.

When the media portray the AUV, or any other false or stereotype images through TV to many viewers, I think that it could affect many of the young children and adolescences. This is very scary because if many children watch false and wrong ideas portrayed on the TV over and over, they will soon start to accept the ideas as good or “normal ”ideas. For example, a teenage boy who loved to watch wresting on the TV killed a young girl by trying wresting action on the girl. The adults know that the actions shown on the wresting is fake or tested to make sure nobody get hurt. However, the teenage boy did not know that. This tragic accident clearly support the idea of the strong media influenced on children and adolescences. The influences on the adult would be popularity of the ideas shown on the TV.

For examples, in “Friends”, Ross and Rachel were on and off relationship in the 10 years show. Rachel and Ross remain best friends even though they divorced when they accidentally get married after they got drunk or they had a baby after one night fling. No matter how serious were the problems, they solved, and remained very good friends. I think that the Ross and Rachel’s situations are very rare, but they watch Ross and Rachel’s story for 10 years, people will start to think it is okay. I think that many AUV portrayed on the TV make the viewers to think the AUV is not really AUV. Especially, if the show is poplar, any ideas portrayed on the TV make are good or acceptable.

The Question I am answering is Question 5

(a) Select six student reports on marriage from Generation 20 and/or 21 (in any combination), as listed in the Readings section of the Lecture Notes.

(b) Summarize each of the six reports. Be sure to put a link to the students' reports.

(c) Add a General Conclusion Section in which you discuss your reactions to what each student did and said – (i) their ideas, (ii) their method, (iii) their explanations.

(d) What did they gain from doing their reports?

(e) How do their ideas influence what you yourself think about these issues?

(f) Anything else you have to say.

Answers

1. Generation 20: Student Reports on Marriage

“Gender Unity--Annotated Bibliography” by Shortcake

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bs2004/shortcake/report1.htm

Summary

In Shortcake’s report 1 “Gender Unity--Annotated Bibliography”, Shortcake starts his or her report with “Preface” section. In this section, Shortcake mentioned about various topics covered in psychology classes at UHM throughout years, which were taught by Dr. Leon James. Shortcake picked three reports from previous generations, and he or she summarized and added personal comments to the three reports. At last Shortcake talked about the differences she had noticed comparing past generations to his or her generation (G20). Shortcake had noticed that in the past generation, “Dominance” phase used to be called “Traditional”.

In the introduction section, Shortcake described the class topic, which is “Gender and Discourse: How Men and Women Talk Differently”, and Shortcake made comments about how interesting and important the topic is to her and everyone.

In the main part of the report 1 “Annotated Bibliography on Gender Unity”, there were divided into four categories:

1. Articles on Gender Relationships

2. Generational Curriculum: Student Reports on Gender and Driving

3. Articles on Analyzing Talk by Leon James

4. Generational Curriculum: Student Reports on Analysis of Talk

There were more than 30 articles to choose from the reading lists, and Shortcake choose total of ten articles for those four categories. Then Shortcake described and explained about the each articles. Shortcake also stated if he or she agreed to the each articles. Shortcake also added his or her own personal opinions, ideas, and experiences related to the each articles.

In conclusion, Shortcake talked about his or her feeling toward the report 1. Shortcake mention some of his her life style, and beliefs.

At last, Shortcake finishes her report 1 with “Future generations” sections, which Shortcake wrote advices to the future generations. Shortcake’s advices are that even though the class topics are difficult to understand and controversial at first, it is very interesting, so don’t give up!

Reactions

i) Idea – I did have some of the ideas that I could relate and agree to Shortcake’s idea. For examples, I can totally agree when Shortcake though that it is very interesting to study about how people act, interact, and communicate with each other. I also think that analysis of human behaviors and way of interactions are very interesting field to observe. I also agree to the part, which Shortcake mentioned about “Dominant” phase in the Unity model used to be “Traditional”, but the meaning of “Traditional” really mean men dominating the women.

If I looked for the word “traditional” in the dictionary, I am sure that the dictionary would not have the word definition as “men dominance”. However, if we think about the traditional styled married couples, many people would describe the relationship as “men dominance”. Therefore, I also agree that “Traditional phase” is more like “Dominance” phase.

I also had some ideas that I could not agree with Shortcake. When Shortcake talked about how most schools are hospitable for boys than girls. From my own experiences, I think that the school is hospitable for both boys and girls. I think that if sex preferences are shown at school, the particular teachers or the curriculums usually case the sex preferences.

ii) Method – I think that Shortcake’s report was well organized in ways of how the web was designed. The report was easy to read, and it is eye friendly. All of the paragraphs are not jammed, and since Shortcake used bigger, I had easier time reading. I think that Shortcake used her own opinions, ideas, and beliefs in the report to attract readers. By including many of Shortcake’s ideas, the readers could understand Shortcake’s ideas better.

iii) Explanation – As I have mentioned in the previous question, I thought hat Shortcake included many of Shortcake’s ideas, beliefs, opinions, and experiences. I think that including those ideas make report more interesting for the readers because we can relate and understand the author better ways. However, I felt that some of her explanations were not clear enough. I think that Shortcake tried to keep explanation very simple, but it was too simple. I think that when author talks about some of the personal experiences, the author needs to make sure that the readers could understand very clearly.

What did the writer gain from doing the report?

Shortcake has found out that the topics are strongly tied with “religious” aspects, and she probably hasn’t taken the class if she knew about it before. She also found out that writings based on Swedenborg are somewhat confusing to Shortcake, and Shortcake had hard time relating to the beliefs. She also mentions that relationship types described in the report are only accepted during the recent years, and people need to open their eyes in order to learn and practice Unity model of marriage style.

How do their ideas influence what you yourself think about these issues?

When I read Shortcake’s report, I noticed that Shortcake used many of his or her own opinions into her report. However, I only could find few of the ideas that I could relate to her. Therefore, her report didn’t really give much influenced on how I think. I think that in order for me to get influenced from other report, I need to relate to the author better. In this particular report, my ideas and Shortcake’s ideas are different, that it was very hard for me to be inspired by Shortcake. I think that this is natural because everyone has different opinions, and some people think very similar and some of them not.

2. Generation 20: Student Reports on Marriage

“Gender Unity--Applied Project” by Jennifer Combs

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bs2004/combs/report%202.htm

Summary

In report 2 “Gender Unity--Applied Project” by Jennifer Combs, Jennifer starts off her report with “Preface” section. In this section, she briefly explained about what she had to do in the report 1, and she included conclusions of the report 1. Then she briefly explains about report 2, which she is going to perform self-witnessing observation in “threefold self in her gender relationships.”

Then, Jennifer moves onto “Introduction”. In this section, Jennifer explained what is “self-witnessing” with examples, and she defined the idea as “Self-Witnessing would be observing yourself in every action based on Cognitive, Affective, and Sensorimotor effects” (Combs, 2004) Then she also explained about “threefold self” with examples, and she defined the word as “joint product of biology, culture, and socialization in gender relationships.” (Combs, 2004) She also mentioned that she would be performing the experiment based on her relationship with her husband.

Jennifer moves on to the main part of the report 2, which she talked about the experiment she had performed for the report. At first, Jennifer described how she designed the experiment and how she is going to perform them. She explained that she looked into the dominant areas of the relationship she has with her husband. Jennifer gathered data from three different fields based on threefold self, which are sensorimotor (control area), cognitive (negotiation area), and affective (trust and mutual dependence).

After Jennifer displayed her data from her experiments, she analyzed and discussed her results. Jennifer stated that the experiment helped her to find out the level of the relationships she had with her husband, and she was also able to find out about the good and problem parts of her marriage relationships. Then she went further to explain more about the finding from the experiment, and she included how she feels about the unity model after she had performed the experiment.

In the “conclusion section”, Jennifer wrote about her findings through the report 2, and she explained her feelings toward the findings. She described the report 2 as very assignment, and it helped her to understand her relationships with her husband. She believes that because of the experiment, Jennifer and her husband could work on the area they need to improve to become better couple.

At last, in “Future Generations” section, she wrote advices to the future generations. Her advice is that everyone should look into their relationships, so they could find out the problems, and they could work out to be happier. She also said that reading Dr. James’s lecture notes would be very helpful to understand the models.

Reactions

i) Idea – I agreed to lots of Jennifer’s ideas toward the unity model. Jennifer stated that it is important for the couples to find out about their own relationship style, so they can look into positive and negative aspects in their lives. I also believe that knowing your problems is keys to solve those problems just like Jennifer had stated in her report. I also agree to Jennifer’s idea about doing experiment really helped her understand her own relationships. I think that people are able to gain lots of information and knowledge through the books, but applying the information into real life is excellent ways to understand the information better and deeper.

I agreed to this idea so much because I wrote exactly same statement in my report when I was taking driving psychology from Dr. James a year ago. I had to applied method used in driving psychology to find out about my dangerous driving habits, and modify them into safer ones. By actually conducting the study on myself, I was able to understand the ideas even better than just reading them from the book.

ii) Method – For Jennifer’s own experiment to study about dominant or control areas of her relationships with her husband based on the threefold self, she has used combined methods taking from both Dr. James’s lecture notes, and her own. She took questioners asking specific situation from lecture notes written by Dr. James’s. Then she would read the questions, and Jennifer and her husband discussed about them. I though that the methods she used in the report were well organized. Therefore, she was able to conduct the experiment very smoothly, and she came out with useful results.

iii) Explanation – Jennifer’s report was very organized and it was very easy for me to understand. I thought that Jennifer’s explanations were very convincing because she had performed the experiment on her relationships. I also liked how Jennifer included lots of her opinions based on her experiences. She used lots of common experiences which many people probably experiences as well. Therefore, I could easily understand her explanations. The word choice Jennifer used to explain her ideas were also good. She did great job describing any vocabulary word used in the class. Therefore, even the first time readers exposed to the unity model could understand what Jennifer was studying about.

What did the writer gain from doing the report?

By reading through her report, I could see that Jennifer gained lots of information from the experiments. Since she conducted the experiments on the relationships Jennifer has with her husband, it helped Jennifer and her husband to understand their relationship better. Jennifer stated that her and her husband found out about both positive and negatives parts of their relationships. Since the couple acknowledged about their problems, Jennifer said that her and her husband could work on the problems to become even better couple. Also, the report helped Jennifer to understand about the unity model even further and deeper level because she actually applied the ideas and methods into her own relationship.

How do their ideas influence what you yourself think about these issues?

Even though I am not married and Jennifer is, many of the ideas and opinions expressed by Jennifer are very similar to mine. For example, Jennifer stated that knowing the couple’s relationship styles, they could become better couple. I to tally agree with her idea. I enjoy reading someone who has different opinions from me, but I can feel closer to the author when I can relate to the author’s ideas better. Jennifer’s ideas are very similar to mine, so her report didn’t influenced me how I think about the unity model. However, knowing there is someone whose ideas are very similar to me, that made me happy. Everyone is different and I enjoy individuality. However, I grew up in society based on collectivism, so I feel more comfortable and confident when I know that there is someone similar to me.

3. Generation 20: Student Reports on Marriage

“My Proposal for TV Ratings on Anti-Unity Values (AUV)”

by Suzanne Howard

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bs2004/howard/report3.htm

Summary

In Suzanne Howard’s third report on “My Proposal for TV Ratings on Anti-Unity Values (AUV)”, she starts off her report with “Preface” section. In this section, she summarized what she had done for her previous report on “Mapping the Threefold Self in Gender Relationships.” She described her second report as very personal one as she had discussed her past relationships, and she used many examples from her won experiences. She also stated that the report 2 helped her to understand general gender relationships.

Then Suzanne introduced about what she is going to do for report 3. Suzanne described main purpose of the report 3 as to be more aware of what is shown on TV program indirect ways through out the media. Suzanne watched third season of “Sex and The City”, and she observed any Anti-Unity Values shown in the popular program.

In “Introduction” section, Suzanne briefly explained about the model of gender relationships. She described three phases (dominance, equity, and unity) and threefold self within the each model (sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective) using the chart from Dr. Leon James’s lecture note.

In the third section of the report “Class Oral Presentations and Lecture Discussions”, she picked three class presentations done by Ryan Lau (Reference #2 “The Surrendered Wife vs. the Surrendered Husband by: Leon James”), Sayaka Kitamura (Reference #4 “Rage-Depression Survey Results--Gender by Leon James and Diane Nahl”), and Jocelyn Hostetler (Reference #10 “Feminine Wisdom by Erik Sandstrvm Sr. and Comment by Linda Simonetti Odhner”). Then Suzanne gave feedback to the each presentation.

In the main part of the report 3 “My Proposal for AUV Ratings on TV (Anti-Unity Values)”, Suzanne defined and explained about AUV Ratings. Suzanne included example of AUV on soap oprah called “One Life to Live” observed by Dr. Leon James. Then Suzanne moves on to explain about her own procedures. Suzanne watched third season of “Sex and the City”, to gather her data. Suzanne wrote down thirteen different situations from the show and she described how each scene included AUV. After Suzanne described her data, she explained about the AUV scaling, and analyzed the data.

In the “Conclusions” section, Suzanne talked about how the report 3 helped her to be more aware about what is accepted in our society. She also criticized about how media plays strong role influencing the viewers, and some of them are good and some of them are really bad. Then Suzanne closes the conclusion part by giving her own opinions and ideas about AUV, media, and watching TV.

At last, Suzanne give advices to the future generations in the “Future Generations” section stating that the students need to read lecture notes and class materials very carefully. She also stated that students should get help from Dr. James if they don’t understand something because Dr. James is very helpful.

Reactions

i) Idea – I enjoyed reading Suzanne’s report, and I have found many ideas that I could relate to. I strongly agree to Suzanne’s idea about how media is playing major role when it comes to bring new ideas into our mind. I think that the media is everywhere, and we are exposed to many different ideas (both good and bad) through TV, radio, ad, music, magazines, and many more ways. Suzanne also talked about how media has changed greatly over the years, and much more AUV is exposed to many people today. I also agree to that. There are many more ideas that I could relate to Suzanne, and it was great to read her report.

ii) Method – I though that Suzanne followed very basic method of taking note while watching the program worked out very well on her experiments. She picked thirteen scenes related to AUV, and she described each of them very well. Since I choose to do the AUV rating for one of the questions for my report, it was very helpful to know how Suzanne conducted the study.

iii) Explanation – I think that Suzanne did excellent jobs explaining what she had to explain in the report. She included many examples when she was explaining the ideas, and that could help reader understand the report better. Suzanne’s explanations are very straightforward and details, Therefore, that made Suzanne’s report well organized easy to understand.

What did the writer gain from doing the report?

I think that Suzanne was able to become more aware of how the media is playing major roles as messengers to many people. Suzanne stated that there are “good” sources spread by the media, the amount of negative resources (include AUV) available to the people and society through the media. I also think that she has learned how to use AUV scale to rate any TV programs, and skills she has learned though report 3 are very useful in the future.

How do their ideas influence what you yourself think about these issues?

This report gave me a lot of influences on me because observation of AUV rating and scaling is one of the required question in this report. As I have mentioned in the earlier, I have found out many ideas that I could relate to Suzanne. Therefore, reading her ideas and opinions about AUV was very interesting. It helped me think about my own opinions even further. Even though I have similar ideas with Suzanne, her choice of the wording to describe her ideas was different from me. Therefore, she showed me that there are many ways to describe similar ideas using different words. After I read the report, I started to think about the ways to describe my feelings and opinions about the issues using different words.

4. Generation 20: Student Reports on Marriage

“My Proposal for TV Ratings on Anti-Unity Values (AUV)”

by Brigitlynn Duclos

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bs2004/duclos/report3.htm

Summary

In Brigitlynn’s third report on “My Proposal for TV Ratings on Anti-Unity Values (AUV)”, she begins her report with “Preface” section. In this section, Brigitlynn briefly explained what she had done for her report 2. Brigitlynn summarized that she had to defined what is self-witnessing, and threefold self are, and she had to performed experiment to the couple she knew using self-witnessing techniques. Brigitlynn also briefly explain about what she is going to do on report 3.

Next section was “Introduction”, and Brigitlynn briefly summarize information on the three unity models of the marriage (dominance, equity, and unity), and its three threefold self (sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective).

The third section in the report was “Class Oral Presentations and Lecture Discussions”, and Brigitlynn picked three oral presentations, and she explained what had each student presented in their presentation. Brigitlynn also add her comments and feedback to each presentation she had picked. Brigitlynn’s three choice were about “Revolt Of Woman” by W.L. Gladesh, “Feminine Wisdom”, and “Doctrine of the Wife for Husbands: A Spiritual Practice for achieving Unity” by Dr. James.

In the main part of the report “My proposal for AUV Ratings on TV (Anti-Unity Values)”, Brigitlynn first explained the meaning of AUV. Brigitlynn said, “AUV Ratings is a way to measure the amount of anti-unity values that are seen in everyday life.” (Duclos, 2004) Then Brigitlynn described the procedures she had followed to conduct her experiment. Brigitlynn used sample questions from Dr. James’s lecture notes to look for AUV by watching TV show called “Everybody Loves Raymond”, “Friends” and “The Simpson’s”.

Then Brigitlynn talked about data she had gathered by watching TV. After that, Brigitlynn had scaled total of sixteen AUV situations she had observed from three different TV programs using 1 to 5 along with her opinions. She has found out that the Simpson’s had 92% of least unified, Everybody Loves Raymond was 76%, and Friends had 73% of anti-unity values.

In conclusions, Brigitlynn talked about her findings from doing the report 3, and how is useful to her. Brigitlynn stated that in the beginning of the semester, she really didn’t notice about culturally attitude toward men and women. However, now Brigitlynn had notice lots of ideas constructed by the media.

Brigitlynn finished her report 3 with “Future Generations” section. In this section, Brigitlynn gives advices to the future generations. Brigitlynn wishes good luck to all the future generations, and she wishes that students in the future generation gain as much as information they can get to improve their relationships.

Reactions

i) Idea – I couldn’t strongly agree nor disagree to Brigitlynn’s ideas. She had stated many interesting and great perspectives about gender relationships issues. However, the ways Brigitlynn expressed her feelings and opinions about some the issues on gender relationships are somewhat different from me. Even though her perspectives are somewhat different from me, she expressed her beliefs, opinions, reasoning, and ideas very thoughtfully and very well.

ii) Method – Brigitlynn used samples questions, which Dr. James had created for his experiment. Brigitlynn watched three different TV shows (The Simpson’s, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Friends) and she observed to find out any AUV display during the show. I think she followed very good methods to gather data she needs for the report.

iii) Explanation – I really liked the ways Brigitlynn explained each situations she had observed to rate using AUV scale. She explained the each scene very well and clearly. Therefore, I rarely watch the Simpson’s, I was able to understand the situations and relationship in the show very well. I think that Brigitlynn did great job explaining without make the reader confusing.

What did the writer gain from doing the report?

By doing the report 3 “My Proposal for TV Ratings on Anti-Unity Values (AUV)”, it showed that the society we live in today is more like “dominance” model in the unity model. Brigitlynn stated that by being aware about AUV is very useful because she can be alerted if someone tried to treat her with dominance manner. In the beginning of the semester, Brigitlynn never cared to notice about such as gender relationships issues and AUV in her life. However, by doing the reports throughout the semester, it increased the level of awareness, and she started to notice about gender relationships issues and AUV around her.

How do their ideas influence what you yourself think about these issues?

Since Brigitlynn conducted AUV experiment on one of my favorite TV show “Friends”, it was very interesting. Even though Friends had lowest percentage in AUV when it compared to two other shows, Brigitlynn still found out that Friends had 73% of AUV. That is a big number! Therefore, the results influenced my ideas about “Friends” being my one of the favorite TV shows. By reading Brigitlynn’s report, it made me to think about the other favorite TV shows, and all of the TV programs that I watch everyday. It is very hard anyone to watch a TV program with 0% AUV right now. However, I think that the awareness about the large amounts of AUV exposed to many of the program, we can still watch the show and not be educated by the wrong ideas.

5. Generation 20: Student Reports on Marriage

“My Proposal for TV Ratings on Anti-Unity Values (AUV)” by Chris M

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bs2004/chrism/report3.htm

Summary

Chris starts his third report on “My Proposal for TV Ratings on Anti-Unity Values (AUV)” with “Preface” section. In this section, he briefly reviewed what he had done for his previous report. For his report 2, he did experiment about the daily emotional spin cycle, which he measured people’s reactions and emotions when they performed certain motor actions. From the report 2, Chris found out that threefold self is constantly spinning or cycling, and three of them (sesnsorimotor, cognitive, and affective) are interconnected and working together. Then Chris talks about AUV briefly, which is report 3’s main topic.

In “Introduction”, Chris explained about Gender Unity Model (dominance, equity, and unity), and three of the threefold self (sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective) within the Gender Unity Model. Then Chris continued his “Introduction” section by introducing his classmate’s reports (Joshua Kent and Ryan Lau) to show how they feel and think about the Gender Unity Model.

“Class Oral Presentations and Lecture Discussion” is the next part of the report, and Chris picked three oral presentations, which are 1.Reference #11“Doctrine of the Wife for Husbands: A Spiritual Practice for Achieving Unity”, 2. Feminine Wisdom, and 3. Reference #12 “The Surrendered Wife vs. the Surrendered Husband.” Then, he wrote about the both agreement and disagreement of ideas from the each articles.

In the main section of the report “My Proposal for AUV Ratings on TV (Anti-Unity Values)”, Chris starts off this section by explaining about AUV with an example. Then he moves on to explain about the procedures he had followed to conduct an experiment. Chris picked two TV shows called “The King of Queens”, “Fraiser”, and “Port Charles: Tainted Love”. Chris watched those programs and took notes according to the sample lists of AUV. After this, Chris introduced his data from the experiment and he summarized the each show’s episodes. Then he talked about total of six AUV he had noticed by watching the shows, and talked about how he about the each situations. Chris also rated the each situation according to the scale, which he had come up with. Chris used scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the closest to unity) to rate each shows.

In the “Conclusions” part of the report, he stated that he was not sure if the assignment truly helped him to identify social and cultural attitudes toward our society. However, Chris had realized that many of the TV programs shown on TV have different level of AUV. Chris also stated that one thing the assignment made him aware of was that we live in the “man’s world”.

Lastly, Chris closes his report with “Future Generations” section. In this section, Chris gives advices to the future generations. Chris stated not to give up! He confessed that he had no idea how to upload report on the web, and the topics were somewhat difficult to understand because he was unfamiliar with the topics at beginning of the semester. However, he made it! He advises to read the lecture notes over and over because it will help to understand the topics better and better.

Reactions

i) Idea – It was very interesting to read about gender unity and AUV from man’s perspectives. There were couples of ideas that I could not agree with. For example, Chris stated that, “It seems that the women are always portrayed as the smart ones and always turn out to make the right decisions.” (Chris M, 2004). I agree in sense that I’ve seen many TV shows where wife gives advises to the husband, but he didn’t listened, and he ended up getting trouble. However, when it comes to occupations, I think many women are portrayed as the one need to tae care of the house chores. I was also able to find some ideas that I could relate to, so it was very interesting to read Chris’s report.

ii) Method – Chris followed very simple methods, but good ones. He watched three TV programs, and he looked for any AUV displayed in the shows. He found AUV based on sample examples from Dr. James’s experiment. I thought that Chris followed good methods, and he was bale to gathered data.

iii) Explanation – I thought that the ways Chris explained his ideas, feelings, reasoning, and beliefs were very clear. It was very easy to read the report, and I didn’t have to read over and over to understand his writing. I think that Chris did great jobs explaining what he needed to explain for the report. I felt that he was very honest with his feelings, and I enjoyed reading his perspectives on the gender unity model.

What did the writer gain from doing the report?

From doing the report 3, Chris sated that he became aware of many TV programs he watches contain some sort of AUV. He also believed that he had changed his views about how the media is portraying social and cultural attitudes in our society, and he learned about what a healthy relationships should be like in gender unity model. By doing the AUV rating experiment, Chris also become aware of reality of world vs. false images portrayed in TV shows.

How do their ideas influence what you yourself think about these issues?

I have found some of the ideas that I could relate to, and also the ideas that I could not relate to written by Chris M. When I found that ideas that I could relate to, it just made me realized that I am finding more people that have similar ideas as mine. Then, when I read the ideas that I could not relate to, it just remind me that there are various different ideas expressed by people that I could see. It is very interesting to read about ideas that I didn’t see in myself because I can know about different ideas from different perspective. From Chris’s report, his ideas did not influenced strongly the way I think toward Gender Unity Model, but I enjoyed reading report from man’s perspectives and how Chris felt about the AUV and Gender Unity Model.

6. Generation 21: Student Reports on Marriage

My Understanding of the Unity Model of Marriage by Cheryl Sabey

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2004/sabey/409b-g21-report2.htm

Summary

In Cheryl Sabey’s report 2 on “My Understanding of the Unity Model of Marriage”, she starts her report with “Introduction” section. In this section, Cheryl wrote about what the class had been doing throughout the semester. Cheryl stated that the class uses four books; “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands”, “Gender and Discourse”, “Doctrine of the Wife”, and “Conjugial Love”, and students are applying ideas from the book to Dr. James’s Unity Model of the Marriage.

In this report, Cheryl had to pick five questions out of thirteen questions. The first question (Question #2) Cheryl picked asked to contrast different ideas expressed by three books; “Gender & Discourse” by Dr. Deborah Tannen, “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands” by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and “The Doctrine of the Wife” by Dr. Leon James. By reading “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands” by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Cheryl felt that if Dr. Laura Schlessinger was the husband, and she is supporting every husbands in the world. Cheryl stated that Dr. Laura’s traditional ideas confirm the characteristics seen in dominance model by men in the society. For the book of “Gender & Discourse” by Dr. Deborah Tannen, Cheryl summarized this book as emphasizes on different conversational approach by men and women.

Cheryl stated that individual’s conversation style is influenced by society and cultures they grew up with, and recognizing difference conversation styles among people is the key to improve communication. For the book of “The Doctrine of the Wife” by Dr. Leon James, Cheryl summarized and stated that Dr. James emphasize the ideas of women having natural ability to achieve conjugial love, but men don’t. Therefore, the men need to learn about the unity or spiritual conjoined self through out relationships with his wife.

Second question (Question #5) Cheryl picked for the report was asking to select six student’s reports on marriage from the previous generation (G20). Cheryl also had to summarize each reports and gives her reactions and opinions about each student’s reports. Cheryl picked Suzanne Howard, and Ryan Lau for the report1, Shortcake and Brigitlynn Duclos for the report 2, and Makana Liwai and Jennifer Combs for the report 3.

Third question (Question #6) Cheryl chose was asking to consider the table 6 from the class lecture notes in the section of Making Field Observations. Cheryl had to explain the table 6, which the table showed comparison and contrast among three different unity model of the marriage (dominance, equity, and unity). She also had to make her own version the table, and discuss the results and findings. From this section, Cheryl found that dominance level is the farthest from the unity model, and they have almost opposite perspectives.

Fourth question (Question #7) Cheryl chose for the report was asking to find ten brief quotes from Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s book, “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands”, and analyze and show character of threefold self from the each quotes. Cheryl also had to discuss Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s philosophy, and reactions to it. Cheryl’s ten quotes were

· “Men are only interested in two things: If I’m not horny, make me a sandwich.” JOHN (pg. xiii)

· “What ever happened to sweetness? If you act like a Bi*ch, you will be treated like a Bi*ch. I asked my wife once if she wanted something, as she was being unusually nice. She angrily said to me ‘I would never be nice to anyone to get them to do something for me. That is sucking up!’ So, what is the alternative? Treat them like Sh*t? A man takes care of his woman and a woman should take care of her man! What a concept!” CLIFFORD (pg. 5)

· “[My wife] feels that if she doesn’t remind me again and again, something won’t get done. But the fact is, it makes me feel like her child and that Mommy needs to check up on me. It’s degrading…My greatest pleasure is when I feel like her hero. Like her ‘man.’ Not her boy.” EVAN (pg. 31)

· “My wife still doesn’t get it. I would be much more willing to do the chores she wants me to do if I got some show of appreciation for doing them.” CHARLIE (pg. 45)

· “Despite our rugged outward appearance, most men tend to have delicate psyches. I know four very happily married men. In each case their wives make a point of stroking their egos and making them feel that they approve of them. Consequently, these men practically worship their wives.” JIM (pg. 73)

· “Women need to realize that we are just going to do stupid stuff…We men usually walk away from conflict with out wives without hostile thoughts, but unforgiveness on the woman’s part will just hold them captive and build into more resentment. Forgiveness is the key to any successful relationship, in marriage or out, and sometimes you should give it if it deserved or not.” JEFF (pg. 100)

· “When I feel that my wife feels safe in my arms, then I know that I am doing my job. To be desired is an extension of this closeness.” MIKE (pg. 132)

· “I’ve been relegated to being the warm, soft, cuddly teddy bear on her bed, instead of the white knight in her bed. I don’t feel like a man. My self-esteem is the bottom of the well. I just want to be a man with the woman I love in my arms.” CURTIS (pg. 155)

· “A woman would do well to understand that an honest, faithful husband who goes on a three-week hunting trip is not telling her he doesn’t love her. He just wants to kill something. Nothing more complicated than that.” JOSH (pg. 171)

· “Frequently, when I get angry over something, she has said or done and have the temerity to express my feelings, she just dismisses it as me being overtired, or some other trite toss-off. This is akin to a guy seeing a woman angry and saying, ‘Guess it’s that time of the month again!” KEN (pg. 79)

Cheryl basically disagree with Dr. Laura Schlessinger overall because she thinks Dr. Laura Schlessinger is pleasing husband’s perspective too much.

Last question (Question #9) Cheryl picked was asking to consider table 7a and 7b in the lecture notes in the section of Making Field Observations, and create two similar tables of her own. Cheryl created two tables, and one table showed feelings of closeness among the three unity models. The other table showed feelings of not getting along with each other among the three unity models.

In the “Conclusion” section, Cheryl stated that she really enjoyed the class and the concepts she had learned in the class are very beneficially to her. Cheryl said that because of the class, she looked into her own relationship to find out the style she was in.

Cheryl finishes her report with “Future Generations”, which Cheryl advices to the future generations. Cheryl’s advices are to read class materials, attend class every week, open up mind for others, and ask questions if needed.

Reactions

i) Idea – I found many ideas that I could relate to Cheryl, especially the ideas she expressed about Dr. Laura Schlessinger. I also think that relationship between men and women should not be one weighted or favored in the one side only. I also strongly agreed that it is important to the students to open up the mind to look into various different perspectives. I think that PSY491b covers multiple different views about gender relationships issues, so it is very important to able to understand and distinguish the difference among different perspectives.

ii) Method – I think that her methods to complete the report were to read the materials very well, ask questions if she needed to have, and opened up her mind to accept various perspectives. As Cheryl stated in the report, it was somewhat difficult to understand the topics and models presented in the class, but reading the materials over and over and attend class every week helped her to understand the topic better.

iii) Explanation – Each question, Cheryl explained what she had to explain for he question very well. Her report was very organized, and all of her ideas and feelings she had expressed in the paper were clear to understand. I think that she was able to explain her own ideas because she understood the material very well. I think that Cheryl did excellent jobs answering five questions for the report.

What did the writer gain from doing the report?

Cheryl stated she had learned many different perspectives and theories about how relationships work from the class throughout the semester. From the ideas she had learned, Cheryl said that she could apply those ideas and theories into her own relationships to figure out which model she is in. Cheryl also became aware of how the media is portraying the false perspectives about gender relationships, and how those perspectives are interfering with reality.

How do their ideas influence what you yourself think about these issues?

Once again, since I was able to find many ideas that I could relate to Cheryl, her ideas did not strongly influence on how I think and feel about the gender issues. However, since her report is very similar to the one I am writing right now, it was interesting to read about her answers, especially she picked different questions than I am answering in this report. By reading her report, it made me to think about my own reactions to the questions I am not answering.

Comments

This is question was very interesting because it gave me opportunities to read many different student’s ideas, perspectives, reasoning, and beliefs. I found very interesting that I found much more ideas and concepts that I can related the reports written by female students compare to the male report. I only included one report written by male student, but I found many ideas that I could not relate to. Therefore, it made me to curious to read other reports written by male students. I think that the topics coved in this class are very controversial, so there should be tons of different opinions expressed by different people. Therefore, I really enjoyed reading other student’s report from previous generations.

The Question I am answering is Question 8

(a) Consider Table 5 in the Lecture Notes, which is in the Section on Making Field Observations. It lists Areas of Observation for observing interactions between the partners in a couple.

(b) Use some of the listed areas to make observations about the threefold self of a couple you know, or you and your partner as a couple.

(c) How do these data help you in assessing the quality of the partners’ relationship in relation to the nine zones of the unity model?

(d) How do you explain these observations--what do they show or why are things this way with that couple?

(e) Explain how you now understand gender relationships in terms of dominance, equity, unity, biology, culture, and spirituality.

(f) Anything else you have to say.

Answers

(a) Consider Table 5 in the Lecture Notes, which is in the Section on Making Field Observations. It lists Areas of Observation for observing interactions between the partners in a couple.

This is a Table 5 from the lecture notes.

Areas of Observation for
Sensorimotor Dominance vs. Sensorimotor Equity vs. Sensorimotor Unity
Zones 1, 4 ,7

1. Who gets to hold and control the TV remote

2. Whose choice prevails for what home movies to watch

3. Who chooses what restaurant to go to

4. What interaction dynamics goes on in each other's appearance--clothes, body shape, hair, etc.

5. How much influence is each partner willing to take from the other regarding how to behave with friends or family, or others

6. How do they talk to each other and what does the talk reveal about their cognitive and affective self

7. What are the conditions under which they are physically intimate and how do they act and react

8. How do they coordinate their movements while walking, doing tasks at home, sitting beside each other

9. What kind of facial expressions do they have when alone together

10. What are their preferences in tastes, colors, odors, sounds, lighting

11. Who changes topics in a conversation or introduces new topics

12. Who is attentive to the other

13. Who doesn't answer, looks away, avoids, ignores, walks out

14. Who yells, expresses angry and hurtful words, hits, acts threatening, throws things

15. Who marks dates, events, anniversaries, celebrations, birthday cards, flowers

16. etc.

Areas of Observation for
Cognitive Dominance vs. Cognitive Equity vs. Cognitive Unity
Zones 2, 5, 8

1. What do the two partners think of each other in terms of who controls whom, when, and how

2. How do they use "equity philosophy" in their relationship (i.e., how they decide about sharing work, duties, money, responsibilities)

3. What is their attitude about one partner trying to influence the other (e.g., when trying to change the other's habits, beliefs, loyalties, personality traits)

4. What does each partner think of the other's opinions and views (e.g., dislikes them, ignores them, isn't interested in them, argues against them, etc. -- or the opposite of these -- likes them, pays attention to them, is interested in them, goes along with them, etc.)

5. What do the two partners seriously disagree about or argue about without resolution of the problem

6. How much agreement or disagreement exists between the partners regarding God and their being together in the afterlife

7. How much do the two partners let themselves be intellectually influenced by each other's ideas

8. How clear are they to each other when discussing things (e.g., hiding things, keeping secrets, being touchy or oversensitive to some topics, talking guardedly or with reserve, -- or the opposite)

9. How much does each believe in marriage myths like "Passion decreases with time" or "Absence makes the heart fonder" or "Wives tend to nag" or "Husbands need their own hobbies" etc.

10. etc.

Areas of Observation for
Affective Dominance vs. Affective Equity vs. Affective Unity
Zones 3, 6, 9

1. How motivated is each partner to remember relationship things (dates one of them considers important, celebrations, joint memories, intimate events, preferences of the other for various things like food or activities)

2. How motivated is each to the idea of putting the partner ahead of everything else--children, friends, family, career, and attachments.

3. How committed is each partner to the idea of total unity (e.g., feeling free to raise and talk about any topic, feeling motivated to eliminate all disagreements between them by wanting to change for the sake of the other, and so on)

4. What motivates them to consider each other ahead of everything else, or not

5. How much do the partners abuse or hurt each other (e.g., retaliation, punishment, sulking, staying away, breaking promises, being unfaithful or disloyal, being uncaring or unloving, manipulating, forcing)

6. How passionate is each partner towards the other (e.g., in being romantic, in making the other feel special and exclusive, etc.)

7. How much are the partners motivated to stay together as much as they can (e.g., shopping together, leisure activities, lunches, watching TV, hobbies, house tasks, seeing others, vs. doing separate things each on their own (e.g., seeing friends, sports and games, hobbies, TV programs, shopping separately)

8. How romantic are they with each other? Is she his Sweetheart? Is he her Ideal Man?

9. etc.

This table shows some of the examples area of observation for threefold self for the couples.

(b) Use some of the listed areas to make observations about the threefold self of a couple you know, or you and your partner as a couple.

Since I am not married, I thought of observing my parents. However, my parents live 2500 miles away from me. Therefore, I decided to observe my neighbor Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe who has been married for 32 years! I have known Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe for only three years since I have moved into this apartment, but they have been treating me like if I am one of their children. I always go to Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe’s house to play with their dog, and I really enjoy spending time with them. I think Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe is a very sweet couple, and I really enjoyed observing their interactions.

Here is some information about Mr. Mrs. Watanabe. Mr. Watanabe is 65 years old right now, and he was born and raised in California. He is a Japanese-American. Mrs. Watanabe is 52 years old and she is also from California. She is a Caucasian. They have been married for 36 years, and they have been living in Hawaii since 1972.

Areas of Observation

Sensorimotor Dominance vs. Sensorimotor Equity vs. Sensorimotor Unity

1. How do they coordinate their movements while walking, doing tasks at home, and sitting beside each other?

- Mrs. Watanabe has her office to do her works at home, so she does spend time alone in the office if she has to. However, when Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe eat dinner, watch TV, play with their dog, they sit next to each other on the same couch. They enjoy watching movies together because they love films! They are member of film festivals, and they always go to the international film festivals together whenever they have one.

2. Who gets to hold and control the TV remote?

- Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe have two TVs. When they want to watch same thing, they watch together, but when they want to watch something else, Mrs. Watanabe goes to her office to watch her show. They told me that they should be able to watch whatever they want to watch.

3. Who chooses what restaurant to go to?

Since both Mr. Watanabe only eat Japanese or Asian foods, they usually got to Asian food restaurants. Mrs. Watanabe loves Asian foods, and she goes to Western food restaurants with her co-workers during the time. Therefore, she told me that she doesn’t mind going to Asian restaurants whenever they go out and eat.

Cognitive Dominance vs. Cognitive Equity vs. Cognitive Unity

1. What does each partner think of the other's opinions and views (e.g., dislikes them, ignores them, isn't interested in them, argues against them, etc. -- or the opposite of these -- likes them, pays attention to them, is interested in them, goes along with them, etc)

- I haven’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe fighting before, but I hear them expressing their own opinions to each other to decide something. For examples, they have just renovated their bedrooms and bathrooms, and they were talking about what color to pain the walls. Mr. Watanabe wanted something neutral, but Mrs. Watanabe wanted to paint with light purple, which is her favorite color.

2. How much agreement or disagreement exists between the partners regarding God and their being together in the afterlife.

- Well, even though Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe go to church together every Sunday, Mr. Watanabe claims that he is a Buddhist. In contrast, Mrs. Watanabe is Christian. They told me that it is okay for them to practice their own beliefs, and they don’t want anybody converting their beliefs just because they got married.

3. How do they use "equity philosophy" in their relationship (i.e., how they decide about sharing work, duties, money, responsibilities)

- Mr. Watanabe does not think like man should not do the house chores. Mr. Watanabe said he does the house chores because he can do it better then Mrs. Watanabe. As for the money, I think it is private manner, so I didn’t ask them. However, from the observation, both of them are pretty much buying what they need and want. Mr. Watanabe showed me all of purses, which Mrs. Watanabe bought, but she never used them.

Affective Dominance vs. Affective Equity vs. Affective Unity

1.How romantic are they with each other? Is she his Sweetheart? Is he her Ideal Man?

- I think that Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe are very sweet to each other. Mr. Watanabe is ideal man for Mrs. Watanabe because Mr. Watanabe does all the house chores. Some people might say it is because Mr. Watanabe is retired, and Mrs. Watanabe is still working. However, Mrs. Watanabe told me that it she doesn’t like to cook, and Mr. Watanabe can cooks good, so it has been like that since when they were married.

2. How passionate is each partner towards the other.

- Every weekday morning at same time, Mr. Watanabe walks Mrs. Watanabe to her car. Mrs. Watanabe never has to set up her alarm clock because Mr. Watanabe makes sure that his wife gets up every morning.

3. How motivated is each partner to remember relationship things (dates one of them considers important, celebrations, joint memories, intimate events, and preferences of the other for various things like food or activities

- Mr. Watanabe cooks food everyday, but he asks what Mrs. Watanabe wants to eat. Mr. Watanabe takes Mrs. Watanabe’s request everyday! Also, Mr. Watanabe knows that Mrs. Watanabe doesn’t like to eat fish with bones attached, so Mr. Watanabe takes all of the bones to make sure Mrs. Watanabe can easily eat the fish.

(c) How do these data help you in assessing the quality of the partners’ relationship in relation to the nine zones of the unity model?

Section 16. This is Table 4 (READ TABLE FROM BOTTOM UP)

MODEL THAT GOVERNS THEIR INTERACTIONS	THREEFO0LD SELF
MODEL THAT GOVERNS THEIR INTERACTIONS	SENSORIMOTOR (external)	COGNITIVE (internal)	AFFECTIVE (inmost)
UNITY	7b zone 7 SU 7a ------>	<------8b zone 8 CU 8a------>	<------ 9b zone 9 AU 9a
EQUITY	4b zone 4 SE 4a------>	<------ 5b zone 5 CE 5a------>	<------ 6b zone 6 AE 6a
DOMINANCE	1b zone 1 SD 1a ------>	<------ 2b zone 2 CD 2a ------>	<------ 3b zone 3 AD 3a

From my observation, I could see they Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe is in different zones based on their threefold self in their marriage relationships.

For comparison between sensorimotor dominance, sensorimotor equity, and sensorimotor unity, I think that Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe are in both zone 1 and 4 depend on the situation. From my observation, I have found out that Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe only go to Asian restaurant because Mr. Watanabe only Asian foods. This situation shows that Mr. Watanabe is dominating the decision when it comes to which restaurant to go to. However, when it comes to TV remote, both Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe watches their own TV shows when they don’t have anything to watch together. Neither of them is forcing to watch their shows nor they try to watch their partner’ show together.

For comparison between cognitive dominance, cognitive equity, and cognitive unity, I think that Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe are in zone 5. For example, when Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe were deciding which color the walls should be painted, they both expressed their opinions based on their need. Mr. Watanabe wanted neural color, and Mrs. Watanabe wanted her favorite color painted on the walls. To solve this question, the walls in the Mrs. Watanabe’s office and bathrooms were painted purple, and living rooms and storage rooms were painted light brown. Mr. Watanabe didn’t force to use his color only, but he also didn’t give up what colored the walls should be painted according to his ideas.

For comparison between affective dominance, affective equity, and affective unity, I think that Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe are in both zone 6 and 9 depend on the situations. For example, when Mr. Watanabe wakes Mrs. Watanabe every morning, and takes to hey car is sweet. Mr. Watanabe knows that Mrs. Watanabe is not good at waking up early every morning. Therefore, Mr. Watanabe make sure that Mrs. Watanabe leave the house before the traffic. Mrs. Watanabe never asked Mr. Watanabe to wakes her up, but it has been their routine since Mr. Watanabe retired from his work. I think that Mr. Watanabe is thinking about what Mrs. Watanabe need everyday with out being asked, and he does that. Mr. Watanabe also takes menu request for the dinner, and he cooks according to what Mrs. Watanabe wants to eat.

When Mrs. Watanabe request such as macaroni and cheese, Mr. Watanabe cook macaroni and cheese just for Mrs. Watanabe, and he also cook something for him. (Mr. Watanabe only eats Asian foods). The reason I also though that Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe is in zone 6 is because Mr. Watanabe keep his request such as eating only Asian food, or believe in Buddhism. However, this is something he grew up with, and I don’t think he could change such behaviors just because he got married with someone from different cultural perspective.

(d) How do you explain these observations--what do they show or why are things this way with that couple?

This was very interesting especially I have observed the interracial marriage couple. I think that this couple is capable of reaching unity model. However, it might be difficult because they have different cultural backgrounds and perspectives based on there ethnicity. Mr. Watanabe is an ideal husband, who does all the house chores, and treats his wife very nicely. However, when it comes to religious belief or the foods, Mr. Watanabe does not give up his own preference on his wife.

For example, Mr. Watanabe preferred to eat only Asian food, and he doesn’t even eat chocolate, cookie, cake and so on. He loves to eat snack like manju, mochi, and senbei, and he will never change this. In contrast, Mrs. Watanabe loves sweets such as cake, cookies, chocolate, and ice cream. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe believe in different religions. Mr. Watanabe is Buddhist, and Mrs. Watanabe is Christina.

Even though Mr. Watanabe goes to church with his wife every Sunday and read about Christian, he claims that he is a Buddhist, and he will never change his believes. Therefore, it is difficult for them to reach the unity model. Therefore, I started think about couples, which came from totally different background. Are they able to reach the unity level event though each partners is not going to give up on their believes and culture? I have realized that the interracial marriage couples might have harder time reaching the unity level. Therefore, as long as Mr. Watanabe is able to give up on his own believes, I am not sure if they can reach the unity level.

For examples, Mr. Watanabe only eats Asian foods. Therefore, as long as he doesn’t change his preference in which foods he likes to eat, he will always dominate the decision of which restaurant the coupe is going to eat at. I wonder how couple like Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe could reach the unity level without changing their preference based on their ethnicity and cultures.

(e) Explain how you now understand gender relationships in terms of dominance, equity, unity, biology, culture, and spirituality.

After I have taken this course and doing this report, here is my understanding of gender relationships in the unity model. In the unity model of marriage, there are three different levels. Dominance is where the husband is the head of the house. Basically the husband dominates over the wife, and the wife needs to be submissive in order. If the wife does not comply with his husband’s demands and requests, the husband could punish the wife mentally and physically. This is the furthest level from unity level, and it is almost the opposite of the unity level. The second level is equity level, and many couples in our society are in this level. This level is when the husband and the wife have equal rights and opportunities. Therefore, both the husband and wife express their ideas, reasoning, and beliefs, and the different ideas or disagreement could trigger the fights or argument.

For the couples to move into equity level from the dominance level, the husbands need to be exposed to more modern perspectives, and he willingly needs to change his behaviors. When the husbands realize that the wife also has the same rights as the husband, the husbands will let the wife to express her feelings and requests. The equity level is very comfortable level, and many husbands are satisfied. However, the wife seeks to reach further level into the unity level. To reach the unity level, this is a long journey for the couples, and it could take forever to reach. The amounts of the years for couples to reach the unity level really depend, but it could be thirty years or more. In order for the couples to reach the unity level, the husbands need to be spiritually and rationally. Unity model is when the partners think about eternally begin together afterlife.

Therefore, they must be able to think spirituality about their relationship. However, spiritually thinking itself does not take the partners into the unity model. The husbands are usually tempted to go back to the equity and dominance level, so the wife need to guide the husband constantly. This is because the women is natural ability, in other words, women are born to reach the unity model with the partner. Unfortunately, the men are not.

Therefore, the wife must help the husband to reach the ultimate happiness of the marriage together. Within the three levels, there are domains called threefold self that, and they are sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective. Each level contains these threefold self. Therefore, it makes nine different zones when we write the unity model of marriage into table, and the couples could be placed in different threefold self in the different zones. The journey for the couples to reach the unity model could be difficult. However, when the couples reach the unity level, they are in the happiest marriage which, the human begins are capable of.

My Report on the Current Generation

1. Davis Hanai’s third presentation given on March 29, 2005.

“The Unity Model of Marriage, section 18” by Dr. Leon James

In this presentation, Davis looked over 20 questions from table 6, and he compared the outcome based on the threefold self. Davis’s three main concepts presented in the class was:

Sensorimotor Comparison – How our action affect the relationship?
Cognitive Comparison – Disagreement is one of the speed bumps in the relationship.
Affective Comparison – Everybody wants perfect marriage.

Davis stated that by comparing the three different level, and understand how three levels are interconnected together; the couples could work out the problems to improve relationships.

Report 2:

”My Understanding of the Unity Model of Marriage”

By Hiroko Kikuchi

Instructions for this report are at: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy22/409b-g22-report2.htm

QUESTIONS

Answers

Reactions

The Question I am answering is Question 8

Answers

Cognitive Dominance vs. Cognitive Equity vs. Cognitive Unity

Affective Dominance vs. Affective Equity vs. Affective Unity

Instructions for this report are at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy22/409b-g22-report2.htm