Formation of Relationships

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  • Created by: Lauzz
  • Created on: 05-01-13 11:21
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  • Formation of Relationships (By Laura)
    • Matching Hypothesis (Walster)
      • The more socially desirable a person is, the more desirable their partner would be
      • Couples want to form relationships with the best possible partner who won't reject them
      • Support comes from Walster's Computer Dance Study
        • Regardless of own attractiveness, participants rated their matches higher if they were more physically attractive
        • But lacks ecological validity
        • Study was extended to be more natural
          • When participants were matched so their partners were of similar levels of attractiveness, more people said they would see their matches again
      • Also supported by Murstein's Faces Study
        • Participants were shown pictures of real and fake couples
        • They rated the real couples as being more similar in levels of attractiveness than fake couples
        • Low in validity as fake couples may have been put together to purposefully look dissimilar
      • Huston supports this
        • Found that men were likely to choose attractive women from a range of photos - but only if they felt they weren't going to be rejected
    • Similarity Hypothesis
      • Created by Byrne and Clore
      • People are attracted to others due to similarities which they share with each other
      • This could include similar attitudes, beliefs, personalities and likes
      • Similar to the Matching Hypothesis but is based on personalities rather than how attractive people are
    • Reward/Need Satisfaction Model (Byrne and Clore)
      • Said formation of relationships is based on rewards from Classical and Operant conditioning
      • Argyle's study supports this model
        • Individuals who are 'rewarding' (friendly, helpful, cheerful) tend to be liked the most
          • These people provide positive and negative reinforcement and so rewarding relationships are rated as positive
      • Aron's study also supports this
        • Participants were made up of people in relationships
          • They were only heterosexual relationships though, so cannot be generalised
        • Participants looked at pictures of their partner while their brain was being scanned
          • When looking at photos of their partner, dopamine-rich areas of the brain were active
            • This section is usually associated with rewards and the level of activity was positively correlated with the degree of love that they reported
      • Hays criticised the Reward-Need model
        • He said friendships were more concerned with equity than rewards

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