Description

Nickola Overall is a Professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Nickola investigates how people can best manage conflict, stress, power, and insecurities within couple and family relationships. Her goal is to identify how to overcome barriers to healthy relationships and societies. Nickola’s research and mentoring has been recognized by several  awards and international fellowships. Her most recent edited book, The Research Handbook of Couple and Family Relationships, emphasizes that understanding how people think  and behave requires knowing how people develop and influence each other within close relationships.

Abstract

Humans are deeply dependent on others, creating a constant negotiation of power. Power determines whether people can satisfy their own needs and goals or whether they  must prioritize the needs and goals of others. Using the high-stakes context of couple and family relationships, I will outline when power leads to inhibition, aggression, or  manipulation, and when power leads to accommodation, protection, or neglect. Using gender ideologies, I will reveal how competitive and cooperative strategies emerge to  negotiate dependence, divide power, and sustain power asymmetries. The way power and sexism operate within couple and family relationships offers new insights into how  humans negotiate, enact, and divide power.

This lecture will take place at 3:30 pm in Psychology 1312 on the UCSB campus and is free and open to the public. This lecture will also be followed with refreshments and a post-lecture discussion.