Relationships AO3

What is a criticism of Buss' study?

It did not distinguish between preferences people have for a brief sexual encounter and those they have for a long term partner.
Kenrick asked students to ranks various attributes accourding to four levels of intimacy. When seeking a marriage partner, intelligence is important to both sexes. When seeking a sexual partner , intelligence matter less, especially to men.
Kenrick's study shows that the evolutionary theory could be criticused for being alpha gender biased by suggesting only female value intelligence.

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What did Davis do?

Davis conducted a content analysis on personal ads from a newspaper to look at what characteristics men and women look for in a partner. Ads were classified on different categories e.g. employment,education, honesty, attractiveness etc.
Physical characteristics were more frequently required by men (36% compared to 18%). Employment and intellectual aattributes were significantly more desired by women.
However, physical attractivness was the most required characteristic in both (which would go against evolutionary theory).

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Issue with Davis' sample?

Mean age of people placing in the ads was 40 and this may be a confoundign variable since women at this age have much reduced fertility.

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What did Clarke and Hatfield find?

'Hi, I've been noticing you around campus, and I find you very attractive.'
'Would you have sex with me?'...
0% of women agreed to sex whereas 75% of men agreed to have sex. Of the men who didnt accept they were often apologetic and cited a prior commitment with parents or a fiance.
This supports the assumption that women are choosy with mate choices.

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Evolutionary theory is reductionist?

Reduces complex social and sexual behaviour into a reproductive strategy. The meaning of life is simplified to the spreading of genes. This oversimplifies the explanation and deemphatises the role of other factors for example the role of culture. It could be argued that men value physical attractiveness more because the media emphatises the importance and appeal of these characterisitics.

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Evolutionary theory is deterministic?

if our biology determines our mate choice then this menas we have little or bno choice about the way we respond to others . Many argue that their choice in partner actually involves a good deal of deliberation and thought.
Biological determinism raises socially sensitive issues as some argued it can be used as an excuse for poor behaviour like being unfaithful as men want to maximise reproductive success.

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Support for sperm competition?

The significance of testes size is that it indicates the degree of sperm competition. The bigger the testes the greater the competion.
Human testes are later than gorillas but smaller than chimps which supports the evolutionary theory that there has been intra sexual sleection in the past resulting in the evolution of bigger testes.

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What did Sprecher and Hendrick find?

They studies hetrosexual dating couples and found strong correlations between several measures of satisfaction and self disclosure . Men and women who used self disclosure and believed their partners did likewise were more satisfied and commited to their romantic relationship.

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Why is self disclosure culture bias?

The prediction that increasing breadth and depth of self disclosure will lead to a more satisfied reationship is not true for all cultures. To some extent it depends on the type of exposure.
Tand reveiwed the research literature regarding self disclosure. They concluded that men and women in the USA self disclose significantly more than men and women in China. Both of these levels are linked to relationship satisfaction in those cultures.

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What did Meltzer find?

Objective ratings of wive's ttractiveness were positively related to levels of satisafction in husbands. This was true at the beginning of the marriage and 4 years later. The same relationship did not hold for women. This shows that women place less importance on physical attractiveness.

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What did Eastwick and Finkel find?

Although men say they value attractivness more than women and women look for earning potential, these differeces may not predict actual behaviour. They used evidence from speed dating and followed up the Ps 30 days later. There were no significant differences between genders in the importance of looks or earnings.

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Blind Date Study ?

Students from Uni of Minnesota bought tickets to a 'comuter dance.'
When Ps picked up tickers, 4 other student quickly rated their attractiveness.
Ps completed a lengthy questionaire and wer told their repsonses would be used to match them with a date.
The pairing was in fact done randomly.
During the dance Ps were asked to complete a questionaire about their date.
They found that regardless of their own physical attractiveness Ps repsonded more positively ot more attractive dates.
Ps also were more likley to try and arrange further dates with those who were more hysically attractive.

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Waltser's follow up findings?

Ps met before the dance and were given a choice in who they could partner. Ps therefore had more control which had more ecological validity. This time, they found that Ps did prefer someone who matched their own perceived physical attractiveness.

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Matching hypothesis is reductionist?

The theory is too simplistic and there are many other factors which affect our choice in mate. A person may compensate for a lack of attractiveness with other desirable characteristics e.g. kindness, status and money.
Offering other desirable traits is known as 'complex matching.'

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Kerkoff and Davis longitudinal study?

They used a longitudinal study of student couples who had been together for either more or less than 18 months at the start of the study.
They completed several questionaires over a 7 month period in which they reported on attitude similarily and personality traits with their partner.
Attitude similarity was the most important factor up to about 18 months into a relationship.
After this time, psychological compatibiliy and the abilty to meet each other's needs became more important.

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FT and temporal validity?

Online dating has increased rapidly in recent years. This has changed the process of forming a relationship dramatically. In particular, it has reduced the importance of social demographic variables. The internet has made meeting potential partner much easier and we are a lot more likely to ursue someone outside of our deomgraphic than we would've been 30 years ago.

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Cause and Effect in filter theory?

The filter theory argues people find each other attractive because they are similar however Anderson conducted a longitudinal study and found cohabiting partners became more similiar over time.
They called this emotional convergence. This suggests that attitude similarity is an effect of intial attraction rather than a cause.

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SET ecological validity?

The majoirty of studies use artifical tasks and situations.
One common procedure involves two strangers ina game-playing situation where they can distribute rewards and costs. The two know nothing about each other and the relationship consists soley of the game yet the results are generalised to everday relationships.

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Measuring costs and benefits is an issue?

How do you compare benefit of seeing your children every day to the cost of arguing with your partner everyday?
It is unclear what the values of the CL and CLalt must be to threaten a realtionship; how attractive do alternatives need to be to leave your partner?
If it is not possible to measure rewards and costs they the theory cannot be a valid explanation of relationship.

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What did Stafford and Canary find?

They asked over 200 married couples to complete measures of equity and relationship satisfaction.
Findings revealed that satisfaction was the highest for spouses who perceived their relationships to be equitable, followed by over benefitted partners and lowest for under benefitted partners.

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Cultural validity of equity theory?

The theory assumes the need for equity is universal. however, Aumer-ryan compared collectivist and indiviudalistic cultures.
They found that equity produced a more satisfying relationship in individualistic cultutes whereas collectivist cultures were more satisfied when they were over benefitting from the relationship.

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Do all partner wants equity?

Not necessarily- research suggests that not all partners are concerned about achieveding equity. Huseman claimed that some people are less sensitive to equity than others. He called some partners benevolents as they are prepared to contribute more to a relationship than they received.
Some partners are known as entitleds who believes they deserve to be over benifitted and do this without feeling guilty.

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Support for IM?

Le et al carried out a meta-analyis, analyising data from 53 studies which included 11000 Ps from 5 countries to discover the key variable in relationship maintanance. They found that satisfaction, CLalt and investment size all predicted relationship commitment.
Relationships in which commitment was highest were the most stable and lasted the longest.
The findings applied to both genders, all cultures and for homosexual andhetrosexual relationships.

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How is the model reductionist?

It over simplifies the idea of investment. There is more to investment than the resources you have already put into a relationship.
Goodfriend and Agnew extended the orginal model by including the investment romantic partners make in their future plans.
The model is a limited explanation of relationships because it fails to recognise the true complexity of investement.

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Cause and effect in the IM?

Research is based off of correlational data. It could be that the more committed you feel towards your partner, the more investement you are williing to make in the relationship, so the direction of causality could be the reverse of that proposed by the model.

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Duck helps couples in counselling?

The model identifies the stages of breakdown but also suggets ways of reversing it. Different strategies can be used at each stage to try and save the realtionship e.g. in the intrapsychic phase therapists can advise couples to focus on the positives.

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Duck's model and teenagers?

Teen relationships are seen are unstable and are often traininf you for adult romantic relationships. Individuals may receive sympathy but there will be fewer attempts to reconcile the pair.
For older people there are often lower expectation about being able to find a replacement and the consequences of the breakup will be more significant . There may be more attmepts in the soical phase to reconcile the two.

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How is Duck's model culturally bias?

The model was based on American married couples. Relationships in individualistic societies are normally voluntary and temporary whereas collectivist societies have lower divorce rates and look to their social network for support. It is therefore unlikley that the process of relationship breakdown is the same across different cultures. This theorefore shows beta gender bias.

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Does type of CMC matter?

On social network sites like Facebook people tend to also have a relationship in the outside world nd therefore people will disclose more.
On internet dating sites self-disclosure is reduces because both parties anticipate meeting in the future. This expectation doesn't exist on online gaming sites and chatrooms where people are less inhibited. Researchers argue that any theory that sees CMC as a single construct cannot be a completely valid explanation as there is such a variety of ways to communicate online.

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Biological basis to disclose on social media?

Tamir and Mitchell found increased MRI activity in 2 brain regions that are associated with reward. These areas are strongly activated when people are talking about themselves and less so when they are talking about someone else. Ps experienced a gretaer sensation of pleasure when sharing thier thoughts that when they were told their thoughts would be kept private.
These findings suggest that the human tendency to share our personal experiences with others online may arise from the rewarding nature of self-disclosure.

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Criticism of the Reduced Cues Theory?

Some researchers argue that non-verbal cues are not missing from CMC they're just different. Researchers argue that people use other cues such as timing and style of their message.
The use of acrostics and emojis also help to convey the tone of the message. The success of CMC communication is also difficult for the Reduced Cues Theory to explain as CMC can be just as personal as face to face interactions.

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Support for absence of gating?

Baker and Oswald argued that virtual relationships are particularily helpful for shy people. Facebook and other social media sites help them to form relationships without the barriers they face in real life.
McKenna and Bargh found shy people were able to express their true selves more than in face to face situations. Of the romantic relationships that formed online, 70% survived more than 2 years which is a larger proportion than relationships formed in the real world.

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Maltby support for AA model?

He investigated the link between celebrity worship and body image and found female adolescents who reported having an intense-personal relationship with a female celebrity whose body image they admired tended to have poor body image.
They speculated that this link may be a precursor to eating disorders such as Anorexia. This therefore supports the model as it confirms the prediction that there will be a correlation between intensity of celebrity worshop and poor psychological functioning.

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PSR and personality linked?

He gave Ps the Eysenck personality questionaire.
They found tat the Entertainment-social level is linked to extraversion. The intense- personal level is linked to neuroticism and borderline-pathological is linked to psychoticism.
These findings provide support that the higher levels of a parasocial relationship are correlated with poor psychological functioning.

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What did Cole and Leet's do?

They had 115 student complete the parasocial scale and two attachment style questionaires.
They found that a person's willingness to form a para-social bond with their favourite TV personality was related to their attachment beliefs.
Insecure-resistant types were more likely to form parasocial bonds. Avoidant types were less likely to develop such relationships and secures were in the middle.

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Attachment theory lacks validity?

McCutheon measured attachment type and celebrity related attitudes in 299 participants.
They found that those with insecure-resistaant attachment were no more likely than secure attachemnt types to form parasocial relationships.
As this finding fails to support the central prediction of attachment theory it casts doubt on the validity of the explanation.

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Methodological issue in PSR research?

It uses self-report measures to collect data which since parasocial reationships and psychological function are sensitive topics participants may respond in a way to frame themselves in a positive light- social desirability bias.
Therefore research for boht theories may lack validity.

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Why is correlational data an issue?

Strong correlations have been found between celebrity worship and psychological functioning/ attachment type.
However,cause and effect annot be inferred. It could be that rather than psychological functioning/ attachment type causing parasocial relationships to form it may be that having a parasocial relationship itself may affect your psychological functioning/attachment type.

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Research generalisable cross-culturally?

Research studies have identified a tendency for some people to form aparasocial relationship with Harry Potter.
Schmid and Klimmit report that this tendency is not culturally specific.
Using and online questionarire, they found similar levels of parasocial attachment to Harry Potter in a individualistic culture (Germany) and a collectivist culture (Mexico).
Therefore, suggesting that the research has cross cultural validity as there are cultural similarities in parasocial relationships.

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