Glossary terms beginning with U
The plain-language glossary behind The Architecture of Intimacy — a field guide to 369 green flags of healthy relationships.
Terms beginning with U
- umbrella review
- A top-level study that gathers and sums up many existing meta-analyses on a question, giving a broad view of what the combined research shows.
- Uncertainty Reduction Theory
- A communication theory holding that a central motive in human interaction is reducing uncertainty about other people, and that direct questions and self-disclosure are the most powerful tools for doing it.
- unconditional positive regard positive regard
- Warm acceptance and valuing of a person for their basic worth, no matter what they say or do — kept separate from approving of any particular behavior.
- under-benefited over-benefited · over-benefiting · under-benefiting
- Under-benefited means feeling you give more than you get; over-benefited means getting more than you give. Equity theory treats both as forms of imbalance.
- undermining social undermining
- Partner behavior that erodes rather than helps under stress — blame, criticism, or discouragement aimed at the struggling person; the research counterpart of support.
- undermining coparenting
- A parenting partnership in which one adult belittles, criticizes, or disparages the other's parenting, working against them instead of backing them up.
- unilateral unilateral dependence · unilateral move
- Done by one partner alone, affecting a shared outcome the other had no say in — the opposite of a joint choice.
- unmitigated communion self-erasure · unmitigated sexual communion
- Meeting a partner's needs at the cost of your own — giving that runs over what you want and erases your own needs instead of balancing both.
- unmitigated sexual communion unmitigated communion
- Focusing on a partner's sexual needs to the exclusion of your own — self-erasing over-giving that leaves the giver off the map, distinct from healthy motivation.
- unrealistic optimism
- Believing you are less likely than other people to experience bad outcomes — a rosy forecast about risk, as opposed to grounded confidence in your ability to handle a situation.
- upward comparison upward social comparison
- Comparing yourself to people who seem to be doing better than you — the direction of comparison a curated social media feed constantly invites.
- upward spiral upward spirals
- A self-reinforcing cycle where a small good feeling widens attention and builds warmth, which makes further good feeling more likely — so the pattern climbs instead of fading.