The influence of Culture and Childhood on RR's PSYA3

Parent-Child relationships.

• Childhood Experiences.
• We see love as a combination of what happens in infancy (attatchment, caregiving) and the sexual systems.
• Relationships are likely to be a continuation of early attachment styles (secure, insecure, avoidant),(Bowlby) this is for sexual systems. (Freud)
• Also caregiving is about how one cares for another and this is learned by the primary attachment figure e.g a parent.
• Adolescent Experiences.
• Adolescent relationships are based on an internal working model based on the observation of their own parents relationship. (Allen and Land)
•  The introduction of formal operational thinking meant that adolescents could compare their current relationship to ideals and look elsewhere to get better relationship.

Interaction with peers.

• Childhood Experiences. The way that we see ourselves is determined by specific relationships.
• Children may develop a sense of their own value as a result of interactions and this may determine how they approach adult relationships. (Qualter and Munn)

• Adolescent Experiences.
• In adolescence attachment could compare their current relationship to ideals and look elsewhere to get a better relationship.
• Romantic relationships have a number of purposes: 1. help acheive separation from parents 2. gain emotional seperation.
• Teens who had low dating frequency predicted high quality adult relationships. This suggests too much dating can be bad. (Madsen)

Research Support.

• Parent-Child Experiences (Childhood)- A meta-analysis found correlations between early attachment types and later relationships. A low correlation is insecure-avoidant attachment because it's more unstable. It could be that an individuals attachment type is determined by the current relationship. This is why married couples are secure.
• Interaction with peers- A study found that girls have more intimate friendships than boys. (Richard and Schneider) Another study found that boys tend to have more of a competitive relationship and girls are more likely to cooperate and share.
• Parent-Child relationship (Adolescent)- Autonomy is more healthy when accompanied by close relationship with parents, this is called connectedness. 10-18 year olds paged on what they were doing, the older the person, less time with parents. (Larson)

• Restricted Samples- many of these studies have been done on a small selective group of adolescents from only one school or city in the USA and so makes these studies invalid because it cant be generalised for everyone.
• Non-human species- Monkeys who didnt have adequate peer interaction as a child displayed inappropriate social/sexual behaviour as an adult.The longer they didnt interact the more extreme their social inadequacies where.
• Determinism- Some studies show that if a child is insecurely attached at 1 they are doomed to have an unsatisfactory relationship later in life.
• Culture Bias- These studies were based on western relationships and western way of upbringin children and so cant be determined for non-western cultures too.

Western/Non-Western relationships.

• Voluntary/Involuntary.
• Western society have a higher mobility, communication and social rate which means they voluntary interact daily.
• Non-western societies have less interaction and means relationships are made by families or economic resources, involuntarily.
• Individual/Group Based.
• Western cultures put the importance on the freedom of the individual rather than the group. Which is making a relationship based on choice.
• Non-Western cultures have the group/family as the main concern. Which means they have a partner based on needs of the group.
• The importance of love.
• In America 14% said they would marry in the absence of love for financial security. (Western)
• Whereas Thailand it was 34% and India 24% (Non-western)

• Cultural Differences in Lonliness.
• 227 US and Korean students in how lonley they were when not in a relationship.
• US students showed higher levels of lonliness. This suggests that Western Cultures have a emphasised pressure on being in a romantic relationship.
• The Korean students showed lower levels of loniless. This suggests that non-western cultures have more of an emphasis on families rather than being in 'love'.

Western/Non-Western Cultures.

• Research Support.
• Voluntary/Non-voluntary- In non-western cultures were non-voluntary relationships there is a low divorce rate and they have reported to have fallen in love.
• Research Contradiction.
• Increasing Urbanisation- Romantic relationships can be explained by increasing urbanisaion, for example there has been an increase divorce rate in India despite being traditionally collectivist culture.
• Voluntary/Non-voluntary- No difference was reported in marital satisfaction between voluntary and non-voluntary marriages. 
• Marital Satisfaction- a non western culture such as china is moving away from the traditional arranged marriages, (70% in 1949 but just 10% in 1990). Women in china who married for love felt better than those who had an arranged marriage.

• Cultural Bias- The USA's veiw on romantic relationships as veiwed on TV and in the movies is giving people a wrong idea of what 'love' really is. This could cause them to have a lack of satisfaction in their real life relationships.
• Gender Bias- The majority of these films are made for female veiwing and are more likely to apply to a women audience and its a womens ideal of a relationship.