Argues that a long term relationship is more likely to be formed if it meets the needs of the partners and provides rewards.
Byrne and Clore (1970)
state that most stimuli on our lives is viewed as rewarding ( these meet our needs, such as financial security etc..) or punishing.
rewarding stimuli produces positive feelings in us and punishing stimuli produces negative feelings in us.
according the the principles of operant conditioning we are likely to repeat any behaviour that leads to a desirbale outcome and avoid behanviour that leads to an undesirbale outcomes
Byrne and Clores theory suggests, therefore, that we enter into relationships because the presence of some individuals is driectly associated with reinforcement, which makes them more attractive to us.
we also like people who are associated with pleasent events. if we meet someone where were feeling happy were more inclined to like them and vice versa.
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AO1 Points- 4 Marks
in this way a previous neutral stimulus can become positively valued through its association with a pleasent event
Byrne and Clore believed that the balance of positive and negative feelings was crucial in relationship formation.
relationships where the positive feelings outweigh the negative feelingswere more liekly to develop ans succeed whereas, vice versa, they were likely to fail.
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AO2/AO3 points (8 marks)
Griffit and Guay (1969):
Participants were evealuated on a creative task by an experimenter and then asked to rate how much they liked the experimenter.
this rating was highest when the experimenter had positively evaluated the participants' performance on the task.
this supports the claim that we like some individuals because they provide direct reinforcement
participants also had to say how much they liked an onlooker.
the onlooker was rated higher in the condition where the performance of the participant had been positively evealuated. In fact, pp's rated both experimenter and onlooker the same.
This supports the claim that we also like people who are associated with pleasent events.
Aron et al (2005) found that participants who measured very high on a self-report questionnaire of romantic love also showed strong activity in particular areas of the brain including the ventral tegmantal area.
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AO2/AO3 points (8 marks)
Early-stage, intense romantic love was associated with elated levels of activity in subcortical reward regions of the brain, rich in the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Cate et al (1982) asked 337 individuals to assess their current relationships in terms of reward level and satisfaction
results showed that reward level was superior to all other factors in determining relationship satisfaction.
however, a basic problem with the reward/need satisfaction theory is that it only explores the recieving of rewards, whereas, Hays (1985) found that we gain staisfaction from giving as well as receiving
Cultural Differences-
the reward/need staisfaction theory does not account for cultural and gender differences in the formation of relationships.
Lott (1994) suggests that in many cultures women are more focused on the needs of others rather than receiving reinforcement.
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AO2/AO3 points (8 marks)
Evolutionary Explanation:
Aron et al (2005) suggest that the brain reward system associated with romantic love most probably evolved to drive our ancestors to focus their courtship energy on specific individuals.
Even love at first sight, the authors claim, is a basic mammalian response that our ancestors inherited to speed up the mating process.
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