The Formation of Romantic Relationships

This is a brief overview of notes on the main points of formation of relationships. it covers all the points in the AQA 'A' textbook for the topics and have been condesnsed down to the important bits. Enjoy :) 

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  • Created by: Priya
  • Created on: 12-03-13 16:41
Reward/Need Satisfaction Theory (Byrne and Clore, 1970)
Came up with two ways of forming relationships; (1) Rewards and Punishments and (2) Attraction Through Association
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Rewards and Punishments (A01)
People are likely to repeat behavior leading to desirable outcome and avoid behavior leading to negative outcomes. People enter a relationship because of the positive reinforcement (being with someone makes you happy) and makes them more attractive.
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Attraction Through Association (A01)
Meeting someone through a positive experience/when you're happy means that you're more inclined to like them. A balance of positive and negative feelings are needed but relationships are more likely to last when the positives outweigh the negatives.
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Rewards and Punishments (A02) Research Support
Griffitt and Guay evaluated people on a creative task and then asked them to rate their experimenter. They found that experimenters were rated higher when they assessed people positively.
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Rewards and Punishments (A02) Importance of Rewards
Cate et al asked 337 people to assess their current relationships in terms of reward level and satisfaction. Rewards were superior to all other factors.
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Rewards and Punishments (A02) Culture Differences
This model does not take into account other cultures. Many cultures women are more focused on the needs of others rather than receiving reinforcement.
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Similarity (Byrne, Clore and Smeaton, 1986)
Came up with a model that emphasizes similarity of; (1) Personality and (2) Attitude.
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Personality (A01)
People are attracted to others that are similar to them, although some say that opposites attract. However, research suggests that similarity is most often the rule, especially in long term relationships.
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Attitudes (A01)
Partners may have different attitudes towards certain subjects so a process of 'attitude alignment' occurs. This is when partners modify their attitude to become more similar.
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Similarity (A02) Similarity or Dissimilarity
Singh and Tan found that couples form a relationship due to similarity but as the relationship progresses they grow apart due to dissimilarity. This is called the dissimilarity-repulsion hypothesis.
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Similarity (A02) Limitations
Yoshida said that this model only looks at two factors and that it is a very narrow view. Other factors such as economic level and physical condition are equally important.
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Reward/Need Satisfaction Model and Similarity (A02)
Most of the studies used are lab experiments. Therefore, they do not necessarily show that the principles of the models apply to real life and therefore lack mundane realism.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

People are likely to repeat behavior leading to desirable outcome and avoid behavior leading to negative outcomes. People enter a relationship because of the positive reinforcement (being with someone makes you happy) and makes them more attractive.

Back

Rewards and Punishments (A01)

Card 3

Front

Meeting someone through a positive experience/when you're happy means that you're more inclined to like them. A balance of positive and negative feelings are needed but relationships are more likely to last when the positives outweigh the negatives.

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

Griffitt and Guay evaluated people on a creative task and then asked them to rate their experimenter. They found that experimenters were rated higher when they assessed people positively.

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

Cate et al asked 337 people to assess their current relationships in terms of reward level and satisfaction. Rewards were superior to all other factors.

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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