RELATIONSHIPS. Relationship formation

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1 1 RELATIONSHIPS Relationship formation Reward/need satisfaction model Direct reinforcement may encourage the formation of a relationship between individuals. Operant conditioning could occur where an individual is positively reinforced with the potential partner offering pleasant stimulus e.g. smiling. Additionally the potential partner may provide for social needs such as friendship and sex, furthering the likelihood of a relationship developing. Negative reinforcement may be involved where a negative stimulus is removed by the potential partner e.g. if a woman helps a man through a troubled time in his life he may find her more attractive as she has helped to alleviate his negative stimuli. Liking through association : Classical conditioning The potential partner may be associated with pleasant circumstances. If someone was in a good mood and they met another individual, they may associate such other individual with the positive mood, consequently finding them more attractive because of the association. Evaluation of the reward/need satisfaction Advantage Hays: stated that we find value in rewarding others and that we like relationships to be equal. Ethics: research into relationship formation is very unlikely to elicit any significant ethical issues. May and Hamilton supporting classical conditioning: Female students listened to pleasant music, unpleasant music or no music while rating the appearances of photos of male strangers. Those who rated while listening to the pleasant music rated the strangers as better looking. Disadvantage Cultural differences: non-western relationships are less focused on individual rewards. Gender differences: women have been found to want to meet the needs of others more than men. Scientific method : study lacks ecological validity where is doesn t reflect a real-life situation or conditions. Internal validity: only photos were used Nurture: ignores natures influence e.g. evolution upon attraction Reductionist :relationship initiation broken down into stimulus and response. Deterministic : associations may be made outside their control, influencing who they like

2 2 The Matching Hypothesis Walster A persons search for a partner is influenced by what they want in a partner and who they think they can get as a partner. The more socially desirable a person is, the more they would expect their potential partner to be. In this sense, most people are in fact influenced by their chances of having affection reciprocated. This relates to how someone may feel that another individual is out of their league, where they deem the chances of such individual returning their affection as low. Overall the initial attraction towards someone would be determined by a comparison between the other persons attractiveness and their own attractiveness. Those that are matched in social desirability are more likely to interact affectionately and consequently are more likely to initiate successful relationships than individuals that are mismatched on attractiveness levels. Evaluation Advantages Disadvantages Walster dance study: everyone reacted positively to physically attractive dates and were more likely to to arrange subsequent dates with them regardless of intelligence and personality. Matching in the real world: strong correlations for attractiveness scores in actual couples. There is similarity between each partner s levels of physical attractiveness. The stronger the match, the more committed the couple were. Reductionist :people may pair up based on personality rather than physical attractiveness. Gender difference: physical attractiveness valued more by men than women, where men can compensate with resources if they lack physical attractiveness. Hatfield and Sprecher: in the real world, third parties influence matching where parents can match children. Cultural bias: study based only on American behaviour. Ecological validity: Walster study lacks realism Ethics: ratings based on attractiveness, individuals may experience psychological discomfort when given ratings. Heterosexual bias: homosexual interactions not considered. Biological determinism: physical attractiveness is something we are mostly born with.

3 3 Relationship maintenance Social exchange theory Emphasises the effect of costs and rewards upon a relationship. The goal of the relationship is to maximize rewards and minimize costs where the best possible outcome for a relationship is sought. Thibaut and Kelley outlined four stages in the development of long-term relationships based on their model. Firstly in sampling, a variety of relationships are evaluated until one is selected, secondly bargaining occurs with them identifying sources of profit and loss within that one relationship. Thirdly commitment eventually comes about where the exchange of rewards becomes predictable. Finally institutionalization, where interactions have been fully established. Underlying the four stages, individuals have comparison levels where they consider previous and other peoples relationships against their own as well as a comparison level for alternatives where they compare their relationship with other possibilities. Extending on social exchange theory, Walster developed equity theory of which there are four key principles 1) Firstly individuals maximise rewards and minimise negative experiences 2) Couples negotiate distribution of rewards. 3) If relationship is inequitable, dissatisfaction is produced. 4) If the person losing out thinks there is an opportunity to restore fairness they may try to reestablish equity, where the larger the feeling of inequity the more effort it is to realign. Advantages Prins showed that there are gender differences related to how inequity is perceived. When women perceive inequity they may have extramarital affairs, though men didn t express the desire to have affair because of inequity. Kahn: men were found to view relationships as being interactions in which what they get out of it is what they put in, whereas women felt that both individuals should receive equal regardless of what they put in Disadvantage Cultural bias: individualist principles inherent with Economic emphasis in couples striving for what is most rewarding for themselves as individuals, with collectivist cultures being ignored. Reductionist: reduced down to trading of needs and wants, stages of a relationship are broken down. Ignores influence of emotions and media. Alpha bias: exaggerates differences in the ways that males and females recognize relationship maintenance, ignoring the commonalities. Feeney : found that the theory fails to consider the variance in contexts in which relationships occur in modern times. The studies supporting equity theory have artificial means of analyzing relationships and they are difficult to generalize from because they lack ecological validity with their unrealistic settings.

4 4 Investment model of relationships Rusbult: the investment model of relationships emphasizes the importance of three factors for a relationship to continue successfully: satisfaction, quality of alternatives and the amount of investment. 1) Firstly, satisfaction is the rewards minus the costs of being within a particular relationship. The outcome of this calculation is compared to the personal standard of what is acceptable, where if the calculated outcomes surpass the comparison level, individuals are satisfied. 2) Secondly, the quality of alternative relationships, where if there is an attractive alternative to their relationship, they may be drawn to it. Sometimes, however, they may stay in a relationship just because there is a lack of better alternatives. Alternatively, they could feel that having no relationship would be worse than having an unsatisfactory one. 3) Finally with investments into the relationship, this is anything that an individual puts into a relationship which may be lost if they leave e.g. time, friends, material possessions. Advantages Rusbult :questionnaires were used to measure college students views of relationships concerning how satisfied they were, what alternatives were available and how much they invested, all of which was compared to how committed they felt. High satisfaction and investment lead to committed relationships where as an attractive alternative is significant for break-down. Le and Agnew : meta-analysis which showed similar results concerning the importance of satisfaction and investment leading to a committed relationship. The study overcomes the heterosexual bias by involving homosexual couples and showing that investment was more important for them. Additionally both sexes were considered and no differences were found between them. The study also involved a large number of participants, at over 11,000 in five different countries, displaying the way it can be generalised appropriately with good population validity Disadvantage Demand characteristics may affect what information people input as well as the difficulties involved in interpreting what is written in questionnaires. A methodological issue : use of different procedures across the 52 studies in the metaanalysis, where the studies may not have used reliable procedures, providing results based on inconsistent methods of research.

5 5 The breakdown of romantic relationships Rollie and Ducks model of breakdown 1) Breakdown: one partner becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the relationship. If this dissatisfaction is reaches a high enough level, there is a progression to the next set of stages. 2) Intrapsychic: Internally: The individual may feel resentment towards their partner and become socially withdrawn. They may start to focus on partner s faults while considering other possible alternatives for partners. 3) Dyadic: Relationship problems are talked about, where reconciliation may occur. Discussion at this stage may be constructive to alleviate problems or if not, destructive conversation may lead them to want to leave. 4) Social stage: the breakup is announced to friends and relatives, where advice and support are sought. They may blame the other partner for the relationship breaking up so as to reduce social implications of leaving the relationship. 5) Grave-dressing: they provide different accounts of why the relationship broke down for different listeners They may describe how the relationship came about, what is was like and why it dissolved. 6) Resurrection: prepare for new relationships and think about what they want from a new relationship and what they should avoid. Evaluation Advantages Research support : after breakdown there is potential for growth Akert: There is a variation in the psychological reactions of the breakup where the person who initiated the breakup experiences less negative symptoms. Disadvantages Beta bias: Duck ignores differences in the way men/women cope with the breakdown of a relationship. Reductionism: reduces relationship breakdown to particular stages. Nurture: nature is not considered in this theory. Methodology: questionnaires were used to develop their theory so investigator bias may be present in their interpretation. Population validity: research taken within one culture so it can t be generalised

6 6 An evolutionary explanation of relationship breakdown There are numerous behavior s that serve an adaptive function in preventing relationship breakdown. For example males may increase emotional commitment if they are threatened with breakdown. This relates to how women prefer mates with resources or the potential to acquire them. The female judges how much a male is willing to share his resources by how much he is emotionally committed to her. Because of this, males increase emotional commitment as a way of preventing breakup e.g. showing more affection for a while. Promiscuity If males are threatened with relationship breakdown they may become promiscuous, so if the relationship were to breakdown, this could help them find a replacement mate quickly. Reputation Adaptive behaviours to prevent loss of reputation are also evident. For example the rejector is usually seen as cruel, so they may act sympathetically during the break up to prevent future mates from rejecting them. Advantage Perilloux and Buss: study of 98 uni students. Gender differences in coping were found with breakdown where females were more likely to use shopping for appearance enhancement. Males were found to use an increase in emotional commitment as a means to prevent relationship breakdown. Gender differences are considered : females shown to lose more if they lose partners commitment. Males engage in sex with other potential mates prior to break-up to quickly find alternatives. Disadvantage Nichols: evolutionary explanation ignores proximate causes of behaviour i.e. how modern culture influences behaviour Reductionist: behaviour is reduced down to adaptive function. Cultural validity: making generalisations of adaptations based on findings in one culture Population validity :students only of a particular age were used by Perilloux and Buss Issues with self-report data used by Perilloux and Buss, where participants may write socially desirable answers. Alpha bias: differences between males and females may be exaggerated.

7 7 TOPIC 2 HUMAN REPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOUR The relationship between sexual selection and human reproductive behaviour Intrasexual competition: males have to compete with other males to obtain a female. Those that win and are successful may continue to produce offspring. Intersexual competition: this occurs for females. Females invest their time and resources heavily into raising a few offspring so they have to be picky and make the correct choice of partner, specifically searching for someone who can produce offspring worth of their investment. Females have more severe implications if they accidentally choose a partner with unsatisfactory genes. This results in intersexual selection where females choose the best available partner from the men that are competing, in order to ensure that their offspring are the best possible. The origins of mate choice Through evolution our ancestors evolved brains and neural adaptations that were related to favouring partners with particular traits. Females would reject or accept potential mates, with them being very selective as a way of ensuring better genetic quality of offspring. Important indicators: Physical indicators: body and face A physical indicator on a potential partner may display their strength and resistance to disease. For example our ancestors that were most muscular would have reproduced more easily and thus passed on such genes that allow muscle to develop more easily. Females would have selected such muscular males for their strength because they most able to protect them and their offspring. Such physical strength is sought for protection as well the opportunity for such genes to be passed on to their offspring, allowing their genes to be further passed on. With regards to facial features, both males and females seek a face that displays good health and consequently good genes, with the benefit of those genes being passed on to offspring. Females may want a male with a masculine face i.e. prominent cheekbones and a large jaw which shows high levels of testosterone, a hormone which is costly to release so only those that are most healthy can survive with its release. Males desire large eyes and breasts, both of which depict a female that is youthful and fertile, both desirable traits in a partner. Behavioural indicators: gift providing and personality Females favour males that offer gifts because this is a behavioural display of their resource commitment. Such provision of resources is desirable to females becayse, for example, food offered by the male can help in raising their offspring. Particular mental characteristics may be sought in a partner where those who have similar interests e.g. like the same music and movies, are more likely to stay in a relationship for longer due to sustained joint interests. This is related to evolution and is beneficial where the relationship being sustained allows the parents to raise the children effectively, with each parent being committed to their offspring. With this, evolution has allowed us to evolve language as a way of communicating our minds in order to determine those that can have a long and sustaining relationship, ensuring commitment.

8 8 The consequences of sexual selection: Short-term mating preferences Males may be more likely to be promiscuous because the more females they impregnate the more chances of reproductive success they have. Females are less likely to become promiscuous as they have a higher risk of poor offspring if they behave promiscuously. Evaluation Advantages Buss: most men have been found to marry younger women which reflects a natural preference for those that are youthful and fertile. Attraction to faces : agreement across cultures as to what makes a face attractive. Extension: preferences of women may vary according to menstrual cycle: attracted to masculine men when feeling fertile as they are strongest and offer best genetics. Attracted to feminine cooperative men afterwards, who can help raise children. Clark and Hatfield : 75% of men agreed to have sex with stranger, supporting how short term male mating preferences have evolved. Disadvantages Research focuses on what people say they prefer rather than what they actually choose in a relationship. Harvey and May: ethnic differences in testicle size = adaptive differences in mating strategies from different ancestral populations Reductionism: behaviour is reduced to natural responses from evolution.

9 9 Sex differences in parental investment Parental investment: this is where a parent invests in an individual offspring to increase its chances of surviving, even though it may be at the cost of other offspring. Sex differences Maternal investment Female can produce only limited number of offspring. More costly for females to have offspring as they can only produce offspring once every 9 months. Female invest most, so they are more selective of their offspring because they have more to lose. Females also invest more into the rearing of offspring where the baby spends 9 months in the womb and is then dependent on mothers milk for around 2 years. Women tend to be extremely concerned about the emotional focus of a male as they may feel they are at risk of losing resources to another female. Paternal investment Males invest less than females, so instead they compete with other males for reproductive opportunities. A lot of investment is in the courting stages for men because of this. However, there is difficulty for males in determining whether a child is their own, with there being a risk of cuckoldry, where they could potentially raise children that aren t their own. Men are more concerned about the female having sex with other males than for that female to be emotionally involved with another male. Evaluation of sex differences in parental investment Support Sexual jealousy: females can reduce the burden of providing so much for offspring by finding a male that shows potential skills as a carer. Buss: gender differences supported. Males display more distress about sexual infidelity, where they are more afraid of their partner cheating on them sexually. Females experience more distress concerning emotional infidelity as this displays lack of male commitment of resources. Geher et al.: males are adapted to view Themselves and behave as if they weere capable fathers even when they are not in reality. They are more desirable as potential mates this way. Anderson: men may care for step-children, but only to prove to mother that they will care for her children if they have offspring. Disadvantages Generalisation :may be social issues in assuming males are naturally promiscuous, where the behaviour may be viewed as normal due to its origins in nature.

10 10 TOPIC 3 EFFECTS OF EARLY EXPERIENCE AND CULTURE ON ADULT RELATIONSHIPS The influence of parent-child relationships and peer interactions upon adult relationships Parent-child relationships Shaver et al. outlined three systems that are acquired during infancy which are related to adult relationships. 1) The first is the attachment system which is related to the internal working model where aspects of an early attachment style continue to affect the later relationships during adulthood. This is due to the infant s primary attachment figure causing the child to develop a particular internal working model of relationships, leading the infant to expect in later life that it will have similar relationships to that of their relationship with their attachment figure. 2) Additionally the child will eventually model the caregiving behaviour of the attachment figure from whom they will obtain knowledge about how to care for the person they are in the relationship with. 3) A sexuality system also relates to their early attachment style, where for example an avoidant relationship may result in them finding it pleasurable to have sex without the involvement of love. Advantage Fraley (1998): meta-analysis displayed correlations between early attachment types and later relationships ranging from 0.1 to 0.5. Even though there was variability in the correlations, this is likely to be caused by the insecure anxious attachment type bringing about unstable behaviour, making it more difficult to record accurately. Kirkpatrick and Hazan (1994): relationship breakups are associated with a shift from secure to insecure attachments with significant early relationship experiences affecting current attachment types. Simpson et al. (2007) earlier social development may affect the expression of emotions in adult romantic relationships. This study was longitudinal displaying an effective causal relationship where the effects of childhood experiences were observed over time. Disadvantage Population bias: only US citizens included who are not representative of the parent-child relationships in other cultures, making it difficult to generalise reliably from such results. Beta bias: gender differences between how males and females are influenced by parents in future relationships is not considered, where the effects are assumed to be the same for both genders. It could be that the attachment type is determined by the current relationship, where for example happily married couples develop secure attachments. Only nurture considered: effect of nature upon future relationships is ignored. Influence of hormones and differences in brain structures could affect their behaviour within relationships at particular times in their lives.

11 11 Influence of cultural differences on relationships Collectivist vs. Individualist There is a distinction between collectivist and individualistic cultures, where in an individualist society there is an emphasis on independence of the individual and a focus on their personal goals.in a collectivist culture the significance is on interdependence and behaving to achieve collective goals. Such cultural values have a widespread effect and can influence relationship interactions. Individualistic: focused on individuals and their personal desires, so their needs come before the needs of extended family. Romantic love is seen as more significant. Collectivist: reasons for marriage tend to be economically related and are concerned with sharing of resources between families. Geographic/social mobility : an urban environment could influence relationships, where there is a larger choice of partners and fewer restrictions. In this sense there may be an illusion of free will with people thinking they can have more choice, though in reality, they are still limited by personal characteristics, e.g. appearance, social status and ethinicity, as well as being restrained by the chances of meeting someone they find attractive. In less urbanised areas, relationships are more likely to be involuntary with fewer options for partners, where arranged marriage is more likely to occur to establish family alliances.

12 12 Advantage Huang: individualistic ideals are increasing in Asian countries resulting in higher divorce rate because young people are reluctant to renounce personal desires for family Simmel: higher divorce rates = individualism encourages search for what the individual wants from a perfect partner/relationship Gibbons : Mexican students tend to be more interdependent in their relationships due to their upbringing in a collectivist society, whereas the independence of the American students is due to their individualistic society upbringing. Disadvantage Oversimplification of cultures into only two variations, where cultures tend to be more diverse. The distinction may not be reliable as cultures can change. Li et al. :few differences between relationship attitudes from Canada (individualist) compared to China (collectivist) Adar: non-western relationships are becoming less collectivist and group-based as discovered in Kibbutz families in Israel Internal validity: students may have been from a particular sub-culture within their country of origin rather than the dominant culture as a whole that may have affected their interpersonal relationships. Low population validity because of only student sample. Cultural bias: Moghaddam and Gibbons ethnocentric views affect perspective due to western ideals. Therefore, researchers who are indigenous to the cultures being studied should be involved to help limit the cultural bias. Collins and Coltrane: western individuals may marry for reasons other than love with nearly 50% of Americans stating that they didn t. Epstein: there can be romance in arranged marriage where more than half claimed that they had fallen in love with their partner, which may be related to the extremely low divorce rates in such marriages. Free will: little choice over who they can be with as there are numerous factors limiting their options, even in western society. Myers et al.: love may not be a good indicator of success within a relationship. When couples in arranged marriages from collectivist cultures were compared with those from the US they found that there were no major differences in marital satisfaction. This occurred even though love was shown to be less important for Indian marriages.