PSYCHOLOGY RELATIONSHIPS A2

REWARD/ NEED SATISFACTION THEORY - Byrne and Clore

• we are attracted to people who we find gratifying to be with
• rewarding stimuli produces positive feelings, operant conditioning, states that we will repeat behaviour if leads to good outcome. Byrne & Clore suggest relationships are directly associated with reinforcement
• we like people who are associated with pleasant events, classical conditioning, suggests previously neutral stimuli can become positively valued due to association

A02
Griffit and Guay: ppts evaluated on a creative task by experimenter/ asked to rate experimenter/ was highest when positively evaluated/ onlooker also rated highly when positive evaluation.
Cate et al: 337 individuals asessed relationships in terms of rewards & satisfaction/ reward level superior to anything else/ doesn't explore giving of rewards though

SIMILARITY - Byrne, Clore & Smeaton

• people are more likely to like people similar to them, Caspi and Herbiner found that married couples with similar personalities were more happy
• attitude allignement occurs, partners modify attitudes or relationships may fail

AO2
Rosenbaum suggested dissimilarity was more important, the dissimilarity-repulsion hypothesis has been tested in many cultures e.g. Singapore, USA. SImilarity is initially important then its dissimilarity.
Other factors like self concept, economic level and physical condition are equally important. So much so research has found that people with similar fat levels go for each other!

AO2 HIGHER
Deterministic/ reductionist/ behavioural theory - easy to test but hard doesnt take into account other approaches such as evolutionary (love is a way to speed up mating process)/ Cultural differences - needs of men rather than women/ mundane realism - most in labs apart from caspi.

SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY - Thibaut and Kelley

• Profit & loss, all behaviour is a series of exchanges where people try to max rewards and min costs. Rewards from relationships e.g. sex/financial stability/companionship.
• Comparison level, standard against all relationships are judged, product of experiences. If CL is exceeded relationship is success.
• Comparison level for alternativeI, a new relationship can take the place of another if rewards are higher.

AO2
Rusbult & Martz: women stay in abusive relationships because investments outweigh losses.
In one study, ppts were asked to rate members of opposite sex based on attractiveness, in realtionships generally rated lower. Social exchange theory doesnt explain why some people leave relationships even if no alternative.
'Selfish' - mainly applies to individualist cultures, cultural bias.



EQUITY THEORY - Walster et al

• People want to achieve fairness in their relationships, according to this theory, ANY kind of inequity creates distress. Same for people who recieve a lot and give little.
• Equity doesnt mean equality. Instead of input and output its a subjective view of each partner; partners benefits - costs = partners benefits - costs
• A study of over 200 married couples found that satisfaction was highest for those who judged their relationship to be equitible.

AO2
Clarke & Mills: different types of relationships demand different input and output measurements, but LT relationships believe things will balance out in long run.
Demarris: in a survey of 1500 couple from US, it was found that inequity led to risk of divorce.

AO2 HIGHER
determinist/ cultural bias/ reductionist/ gender differences

REASON FOR REALATIONSHIP BREAKDOWN - Duck

• Lack of skills, individuals lacking social skills are unrewarding to partner
• Lack of stimulation, SET suggests that people look for rewards in reltionships on of which is 'stimulation'. Baxter says that people often quote boredom or the relationships isnt going anywhere for breakup reasons.
• Maintenence difficulties, being away from each other puts strain on realtionship e.g. uni.

AO2
Boekhout et al: affairs direct result of lack of stimulation or skills/ undergraduates rated emotional and sexual reasons for affairs/ ppts judges sexual reasons more likely for men and emotional for women.
LDRR & LDF more common, 70% of students sampled had experienced LDRR and 90% LDF. As long as lovers are reuinited regularily LDRR can be successful.

MODEL OF BREAKDOWN - Rollie and Duck

• BREAKDOWN; dissatisfaction with relationship
• INTRAPSYCHIC PROCESS: brooding of partners faults and relational 'costs', alternatives to relationship considered
• DYADIC PROCESS; people confront partners, discuss feelings and future. Relationship can be saved here.
• SOCIAL PROCESSES; support seeking from third parties
• GRAVE-DRESSING; stories prepared for different people, saving face, tidying up memories.
• RESURRECTION PROCESS: defining what to get out of future relationships, recreating sense of own social standing.

Tashiro and Frazier: observations of undergraduates who had recently broken up reproted emotional distress and personal growth. Grave dressing and resurrection process allowed them to move on.
The model stresses importance of communication, in intrapsychic phase and social processes can help relationship reform.

AO2 HIGHER
ethical issues with research/ deterministic/ gender differences/ nomothetic approach

INTER - AND INTRA - SEXUAL SELECTION  - Darwin
Intersexual selection: members of one sex compete with each other for members of the other sex, victors can pass on their genes, whatever traits that resulted in a win are passed on to the next generation.
Intrasexual selection: involves preference for members of opposite sex who possess certain qualities e.g. if females prefer tall males there will be more tall males over time. Preferences of one sex therefore determine areas the opposite sex compete for. e.g. resources/ plumage.
AO2
Being choosy wastes time and energy, but being choosy means that genetic quality of offspring will be higher so are more lilely to survive.
SHORT TERM MATING PREFERENCES
According to parental investment, males want sex earlier on to spread genes but females dont. The less time it takes to have sex with a woman the more women he can impregnate, Buss, men lower their standards when mating oppurtunities are presented and show a decrease in attraction AFTER sex so can hastily depart.
LONGER TERM MATING PREFERENCES
Both sexes invest heavily in offspring so both are choosy. Buss found that:
- in a study of 10,000 people from 37 cultures women wanted men with good financial prospects/ men placed more importance on physical attractiveness (fertility)/ men wanted mates who were younger (fertility)/ both wanted mates who were intelligent, king and dependable.

AO2
Penton-Voak et al: female mate choice varies over menstrual cycle. Women chose slightly feminised versions of male face as most attractive for LT. This suggests that females may choose males whose feminised appearance suggests kindness so good for parental care, but could also have sex with a masculine man, testostorone supresses immune system so if they are healthy despite this its good to pass on. Its also suggested that when a woman is most fertile she produces pheramones making them more attractive to males at this point, lap dancers at certain times of the month were paid more.
From Buss's study its apparant that men go for younger women, some argue that this is because they are 'easier to control' BUT its also found that teenage boys are most attracted to older women, despite the fact they are not interested in them.

AO2 HIGHER
Deterministic/ reductionist/ psychology is a science/  nature vs nurture/ nomothetic approach/ gender bias/ doesnt take into account homosexual relationships.

'Any investment by a parent in an offspring that increases the chance that the offspring will survive (alive or yet to be born) - Trivers
WHY DO FEMALES INVEST MORE?
As brain size increased due to adaptive pressures childbirth became more painful, so infants are born earlier. So they are more dependant, females need to breastfeed as well as 9 months of pregnancy.
COSTS OF MATERNAL INVESTMENT
Minimum maternal investment is 9 months, paternal is enough to impregnate the female, making random mating really costly for women.
PATERNAL INVESTMENT & CUCKOLDRY
When males do investthey have to make sure the child is their own. As they dont want to waste resources.
SEXUAL AND EMOTIONAL JEALOUSY
A man who's mate was unfaithful risks cuckoldry, whereas for a female if her partner was risks resources going elsewhere. Sexual jealousy is a cure for these problems, men more jealous of sexual women of emotional Buss (look at previous study for AO2)
A02
Baker & bellis: found that from a uk national survey of 2700 women as much as 14% of the pop were a result of extra marrital affairs, the whole resources for husband and 'stud' for sex thing.
Shared care can increase offspring chance of survival, meaning males restrict reproductive activities.

Trivers: parents and children will be in conflict about weaning and parents force siblings to get on even though they're not naturally inclined.
CONFLICT BEFORE BIRTH
Pre-eclampsia this is a consq. of fatal rise in blood pressre caused by foetus secreting hormones, when it wants more nutrition. Adaptive for foetus fatal for mother Haig.
CONFLICT AFTER BIRTH
When offspring is young and helpless its in parents interest to invest more, and less in older siblings. Parent-offspring conflict is more intense when parent directs resources to younger child.
SIBLING RIVALRY
Individual offsrpring want their own resources at the expense of other offspring, as a result comp. may occur.
AO2
Haig: mothers that have high blood pressure have fewer miscarrages. And larger babies at birth.
Salmon & Daly: many younger children dont bother to compete and instead develop traits such as cooperativeness and alliances with non-relatives.
Lalumiere et al: parental strategy, steer siblings along dfferent developmental paths.
Middle born children often suffer because of PI, and its found severe suicide attempts were more common amongst them from a survey of 1600 US adolescents.
AO2 HIGHER
deterministic/ reductionist/ psychology is a science/ nature vs nurture/ individual differences/ gender differences

Parent-child relationships:

• shaver et al suggests that adult relationships derive from attatchment, caregiving and sexuality systems from infancy
• Internal working model - bowlby, later realtionships based on internal working model, early attatchment styles influence.
• caregiving from knowledge how to care for others from primary attatchment figure.
• sexuality system, avoidant attatchment types likely to view sex without love is pleasureable

Interaction with peers  - Nangle et al suggests that childhood friendships are training grounds for important relationships. Meyer and gast as AO2
AO2
in a meta analysis correlations were found between early attatchment type and later relatonships, insecure-resitant attatchment was reason for low correlations/ attacthment may not be constant, current relationships and breakups influence.
girls have more intimate relationships = happier relationships/ boys more competetive (intrasexual selection?)
Simpson: longitudinal study of 25 years, 78ppts/ findings showed adult romantic relationships can be related back to childhood



Parent-child relationships
Adolescents aquire relationship experience with each relationship affecting next/current one. Formal operational thinking allows adolescents to view relationships more objectively; logical conclusion for the benefit of the individual and the individuals relationships.
Interaction with peers
In adolescence attatchment normally shifts from parents to peers/ romantic relationships allow adolescent to gain intamacy that is different from parents. Madsen found that a small amount of dating amongst 15-17 year olds was good but too much was maladaptive.

AO2
Autonomy is most productive when accompanied by continuous warm close relationship with parents. Larcon et al found that 10-18 year olds (with pagers) spent less time with parents in early adolescence but spent about the same time with each parent.
Neeman et al found that romantic involvement in early to middle adolescence decreased academic performance/ timing of romantic relationship can influence, if any, they will have.
Madsens findings that early relationships can affect later ones has been challenged by findings where 20 year old relationships had no influence on relationships at 30.

AO2 HIGHER
Deterministic/ nature vs nurture/ reductionist/ nomothetic approach/ individual differences/ ethical issues

Voluntary or non-voluntary relationships: western cultures means we can travel and can interact with lots of people easily, so have a 'pool' of potential relationships, non western cultures dont and its mainly tied to family and economic circumstance.
Individual or group-based relationships: western cultures individualist so seek pleasure and happiness, reward need satisfaction theory etc, collectivist cultures concerned more with family needs etc.
Continuity & Discontinuity Hsu: compared chinese and north american societies, he described the chinese suspicion that is associated with change, in american culture progress is seen as good. Non western cultures favour continuity therefore have long relattionships whereas wester favour discontinuity so relationships are more temporary.
Norms general description of appropriate behaviour, Ting Toomy found that individualist cultures reciprocity in relationships is voluntary whereas in collectivist cultures its obligitory. In japan there are specific rules about gift giving/ taking.
Rules in a formal relationship they are explicit, or in friendships difficult to define. Different rules have been found across cultures such as rules for close friendship, but similarities include improtance of relationship rules such as showing curtesy and respect and avoiding social intimacy.

A02
Arranged marriages have low divorce rate and over half fell in love with each other, In rapidly developing countries, china, there has been an increase in love marriages, a study found that women that had fell in love felt better about marriages/ parents may be better judge, children 'blinded by love' but freedom of mate choice seems to promote stability Xatohe & Whyte. Urbanisation may have led to increased divorce rates since 1960.
 Research on cross cultural differneces in normas anr ules is important to be able to conduct cross cultural relationshops successfully. It improves relations between host cultures.

AO2 HIGHER

Deterministic/ individual differences/ evolutionary theory (love an evolutionary adaption)/ psychology is a science (hard to measure)