Relationships Summary

Relationship Formation, Maintenance & Breakdown

For romantic relationships to begin, there must be an attraction. Several factors have been identified that facilitate this: proximity, familiarity, similarity and physical attractiveness.
The sociobiological explanation is an evolutionary theory. It perceives relationship formation as a form of 'survival efficiency', with different focuses between males and females.
The reinforcement and needs satisfaction explanation is a behaviourist/learning explanation which sees conditioning as an explanation for relationship formation.
Social exchange theory explains relationships in terms of maximising benefits and minimising costs.
Equity theory views individuals as motivated to achieve fairness in their relationships and feel dissatisfied with unfairness.
Duck and Lee both proposed theories of dissolution which describe relationship break-ups as a series of stages to be worked through.

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Sexual selection involves the selection of characteristics increasing reproductive success.
Differences between male and female sexual behaviour have arisen, as they are exposed to different selective pressures.
Males and females have evolved different strategies to maximise reproductive success.
Parental investment concerns investment in individual offspring, which increases the offspring's chances of achieving reproductive success, at the expense of parents' ability to invest in other children.
Evolutionary theory predicts differences between how male and female parental investment differs, and these predictions have generally been supported.
Parent-offspring conflict concerns confrontations which arise from children desiring greater investment than parents have been selected to provide.
Offspring demonstrate various strategies in order to try and maximise parental investment in them at the expense of siblings.

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The continuity hypothesis predicts that infant attachment types persist into adulthood, predicting the nature of adult relationships. This is supported by research.
Evidence suggests that there is intergenerational continuity between adults' attachment styles and those of their children.
Relationships with peers influence later adult relationships, playing a key role in helping achieve independence.
Western cultures emphasise individualism, characterised by voluntary relationships, often of a short-term nature, based on ideas of romantic love.
Non-western cultures emphasise collectivism, characterised by arranged marriages, generally of a long-term nature, based on ideals of the common good.
Conflicts can arise in multicultural societies where a range of romantic relationship styles exist side by side.

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