Discuss Theories of the Maintenance of Relationships (8 and 16 marks)

One Theory into the maintenance of relationships is Walster et al’s Equity theory. This says that people want equity in a relationship and inequity has a big potential to cause dissatisfaction. People who either give a lot and receive a little or give a little and receive a lot in a relationship would see inequity and therefore become dissatisfied.

A supporting study was conducted into the Equity Theory by Stafford and Canary (2006) who asked over 200 couples to complete measures of equity and marital satisfaction. It was found that satisfaction was highest in those who saw their relationships to be equitable and lowest in those who saw it as inequitable. This would support Equity as a theory for the maintenance of relationships as it shows that if people feel equal in the relationship they are more likely to happy in the relationship and therefore want to maintain it.

DeMaris (2007) also carried out a study which supported the equity theory as a theory for the maintenance of relationships by having 1500 couples take the ‘US National Survey of Families and Households’ and found that inequity was a high cause of marital dispute and raised the risk of divorce, especially when the women felt under benefited. This supports the equity theory as it shows that people who do not feel their relationship is equitable are more likely to have marital disputes and think of divorce which goes against maintaining the relationship meaning that if they had equity their relationships would be maintained better.

The Equity theory however could suffer from Gender bias as it has been suggested by research that women and men see equity in a relationship differently and that women often seek less for themselves in a relationship. This therefore reduces the Validity of the theory.

Another Theory of the maintenance of relationships is the Investment Theory. This theory looks more at how much commitment to a relationship is down to investment rather than satisfaction and says that if we have a greater investment in a relationship we are more likely to have a bigger commitment to it. These investments can be financial, temporal or emotional.

Dindia and Baxtor (1987) conducted a study which supported the investment theory by looking into how 50 couples maintained their relationships and found that the longer a couple was together the higher satisfaction was with less maintenance strategies being used. This suggests that temporal investment is linked to the commitment to the relationship which would support the investment theory as a theory of the maintenance of relationship as, as the investment got bigger so did the commitment to maintaining the relationship.    

The investment theory can also be used to explain the maintenance of abusive relationships and why individuals stay in an abusive relationship. Rusbult and Martz (1995) conducted a study to look into this by interviewing women form a shelter for women coming out of abusive relationships.  They found that when abused women felt their investment in a relationship was significant, they were less likely to leave their partners. This would support the investment theory as a theory of the maintenance of relationships as it shows that people are more likely to stay in a relationship and are therefore more committed to it, even an abusive one, the bigger their investment is.

However this study was carried out using interviews which is a self-report method meaning that participants could have given answers which they thought to be socially desirable rather than truthful answers, this needs to be taken into account when drawing conclusions are drawn from the results of this study as they could be inaccurate.

The Investment theory can be said to be culturally bias and cannot be generalised across the world as in some cultures it is things such as religious pressure or breakups being socially unaccepted that cause the maintenance of a relationships rather than how much investment or commitment a person has to it.

Discuss Theories for the Breakdown of Relationships (8 and 16 marks)

One Theory for the breakdown of relationships is Walster et al’s Equity theory. This says that people want equity in a relationship and inequity has a big potential to cause dissatisfaction. People who either give a lot and receive a little or give a little and receive a lot in a relationship would see inequity and therefore become dissatisfied leading the relationship to breakdown.

A supporting study was conducted into the Equity Theory by Stafford and Canary (2006) who asked over 200 couples to complete measures of equity and marital satisfaction. It was found that satisfaction was highest in those who saw their relationships to be equitable and lowest in those who saw it as inequitable. This would support Equity as a theory for the breakdown of relationships as it shows that if people don’t feel equal in a relationship they are more likely to become dissatisfied and therefore not want to maintain the relationship causing it to breakdown.

DeMaris (2007) also carried out a study which supported the equity theory as a theory for the breakdown of relationships by having 1500 couples take the ‘US National Survey of Families and Households’ and found that inequity was a high cause of marital dispute and raised the risk of divorce, especially when the women felt under benefited. This supports the equity theory as it shows that people who do not feel their relationship is equitable are more likely to have marital disputes and think of divorce causing the relationship to breakdown.

The Equity theory however could suffer from Gender bias as it has been suggested by research that women and men see equity in a relationship differently and that women often seek less for themselves in a relationship. This therefore reduces the Validity of the theory.

The validity can also be reduced by the fact that the Equity theory is also seen to be culturally bias as research would suggest that in other cultures, such as Jamaica, equity is not an important factor in a relationship. This theory can therefore not be generalised to all cultures.

Another theory for the breakdown of relationships is the Investment Theory. This theory looks more at how much commitment to a relationship is down to investment rather than satisfaction and says that if we have a smaller investment in a relationship we are more likely to have a smaller commitment to it therefore leading to its breakdown. These investments can be financial, temporal or emotional.

Dindia and Baxtor (1987) conducted a study which supported the investment theory by looking into how 50 couples maintained their relationships and found that the longer a couple was together the higher satisfaction was with less maintenance strategies being used. This suggests that temporal investment is linked to the commitment to the relationship which would support the investment theory as a theory of the breakdown of relationship as, as the investment got bigger so did the commitment to maintaining the relationship therefore showing that if the commitment is low there is less want to maintain the relationship meaning it is more likely to breakdown. 

The Investment theory can be said to be culturally bias and cannot be generalised across the world as in some cultures it is things such as religious pressure or breakups being socially unaccepted that determine whether or not a relationship breaks up rather than how much investment or commitment a person has to it.

Discuss Theories about the Formation of Relationships (8 and 16 marks)

One theory of the formation of relationships is Byrne and Clore’s Reward/Need Satisfaction theory which says that we look for a relationship with someone who meets our needs and whom we can get the biggest reward from. We are also said to like people who we associate with pleasant events and who we met when happy as we are much more inclined to like someone we meet when happy rather than when sad.

Griffit and Guay (1996) conducted a study to support the reward/need satisfaction theory by having an experimenter evaluate participants carrying out a task and then asking them to rate how much they liked the experimenter. They found the rating was highest when the experimenter had evaluated the participant positively on their performance. This would support the reward need satisfaction theory as the participants liked the experimenter more when they were feeling good and associated them with a pleasant experience.

Cate et al (1982) carried out a study to look into how important rewards are in a relationship, and therefore whether the reward/need satisfaction theory is right in saying we look for someone who can give us reward, by asking 337 individuals to assess their current relationships in terms of reward level and satisfaction. Results showed that reward level was superior to all other factors in relationship satisfaction. This supports the reward/need satisfaction theory as a theory for the formation of relationships as it shows that we value rewards in a relationship and therefore will seek someone who can give us this when forming a relationship.

Cate’s study however is lacking in internal validity as it was carried out using a self-report method. This means that participants could have given answers which they thought were socially desirable rather than totally truthful ones and this should be taken into account when using these results to draw conclusions about theories of the formation of relationships and should be looked at alongside other studies to make wrong conclusions are not drawn.

Most studies carried out into the reward/need satisfaction theory are lab studies and therefore cannot show that the principles of need, reward and satisfaction apply to relationships in real life. This would cause the studies to lack mundane realism and means that these studies along with studies carried out not in a lab should be looked at together when conclusions are drawn about the formation of relationships.

The reward/need satisfaction theory also has some problems with cultural bias as it does not account for differences in relationships in different cultures which will change the way in which relationships are formed. This means it cannot therefore be fully generalised to the whole population meaning it is lacking in population validity. 

Another theory of formation of relationships is Byrne, Clore and Smeaton’s Similarity theory. This says that we are attracted to people similar to ourselves in personality and attitude. This is said to stop as many arguments and disagreements occurring as you and your partner are more likely to have the same views and this is said to make for a longer healthier relationship.

Newcomb (1961) conducted a study which supported the Similarity theory by randomly allocating 17 male students into shared rooms while they studied at Michigan University. He found that by the end of the year 58% of those who had been paired with someone who was similar to themselves had formed friendships with their room-mate compared to only 25% of those with different attitudes and personalities. This would support the Similarity theory of formation of relationships as It showed those who were similar were willing and more likely to form relationship that those with different personalities and attitudes who didn’t get on so well.

It has been suggested that both the reward/need satisfaction theory and the similarity theory have evolved from our ancestors drive to focus their efforts on the right relationships and this suggests an evolutionary basis to both of these theories.  Because of this it can be argued that they are speculative and based on little or no evidence. Hayes argued that evolutionary psychology has a tendency to ignore ‘null findings’ and facts that do not fit the theory that is being proposed. However it can be argued that all science does this to some extent not just evolutionary psychology.  

Discuss the Relationship between Sexual Selection and Human Reproductive Behaviour (8 & 12 marks)

Reproductive success is a big part of evolution as without it genes would not be passed on. Darwin (1874) came up with the theory of Sexual Selection to explain how one sex attracts the other which contained two processes; Intrasexual Selection (mate competition) where one sex competes with each other to gain access to the other sex and Intersexual Selection (mate choice) where one sex looks for members of the other sex that possess certain wanted qualities.

The female menstrual cycle is said to be a factor of Sexual Selection. It is suggested that women nearest to the most fertile part of their cycle are the most attractive to men. Miller et al (2007) did a study to support this in the US by looking at the amount of tips lap dancers received at various stages of their menstrual cycle. He found that the girls in the most fertile part of their cycle earned almost twice the amount of tips as the others. This would support the menstrual cycle as a factor of Sexual Selection as it showed that the most fertile females were the most attractive to the males.

Humans have a variety of different mating strategies, some of which have evolve for short term mating success. These tend to be more apparent in men as they aim to pass on as many genes as possible through short term mating and casual whereas females can only have one child at a time and so are more likely to look for long term mating. 

A study to support that evolved short term mating strategies are more apparent in men was carried out by Clarke and Hatfield (1989) when both male and female experimenters approached total strangers and asked them a number of questions. It was found that of the females approached 50% agreed to go on a date with the stranger, 6% agreed to go back to his apartment and 0% agreed to have sex with him whereas of the men approach 50% agreed to go on a date, 69% to go back to the apartment and 75% to have sex with her. This supports that men are more interested in passing on their genes quickly through short term mating as they were far more interested in mating with the girl straight away and not interested on going on a date whereas the girls were totally not interested in mating straight away but were interested in dating suggesting that they had more long term mating strategies in mind.

Research consistently shows that men more than women have a desire for short term mating, however this is a very gender bias view. Although short term mating carries some considerable potential costs to a woman there are also possible benefits of it, such as more genetically diverse offspring and a way of getting out of a poor quality relationship, which also need to be taken into account when looking into short term mating.

In long term mating both sexes invest very highly in any offspring. As a poor quality long term mate could be disastrous for both sexes there is very high level of sexual selection in both when choosing a long term partner.

This was shown by Buss (1989) in a supporting study where he looked at what both males and females want from a partner in over 10,000 people in 37 different cultures. The main results showed that women desired men with resources whereas most men put more importance on physical appearance and age (wanting younger women) suggesting that they are looking for fertility. Both sexes were shown to want both intelligence and dependableness which are both linked to long term mating. This shows that sexual selection is very important to both sexes but it also differs a lot between the two and also shows that choosing a good long term partner through sexual selection is an important part of the human reproductive behaviour.

Buss’s study is very valid both generally and culturally as it was carried out on a very large sample across many cultures meaning it was more likely to be a representative sample allowing his results to be generalized to others. 

Discuss the Influence of Childhood on Adult Relationships (8 and 16 marks)

Parent-Child Relationships are one way in which childhood can affect your adult relationships. Shaver et al (1988) said that our romantic love in adult relationships is effected by three things from our childhood; attachment, caregiving and sexuality. Relationships in adulthood are said to be a continuum of early attachment styles because this promotes your internal working model of relationships. Caregiving is also learned by modelling the behaviour of your primary caregiver, along with sexuality.

Simpson et al (2007) carried out a longitudinal study across 25 years to support the effects of Parent-child relationships on Adult relationships. He studies 78 participants at 4 key points across the 25 years; infancy, where at one year caregivers reported on their attachment behaviour, early childhood, where at 6-8 years teachers were asked about interactions of the child with peers, adolescence, where at 16 participants were asked to describe any friendships or relationships, and adulthood, where participants romantic relationships were described. He found that the expressions of emotion in adult relationships can be lined back to a person’s early attachment experiences and that those who were securely attached as infants were more socially confident at 6-8 years, closer to their friends at 16 and more expressive and emotionally attached in relationships in adulthood. This supports the fact that Parent-Child relationships have an effect on adult relationships as it shows that the relationship in the form of the attachment type between a parent and child does in fact affect how attached and emotional we are in adult relationships.    

An undermining study of the effects that parent-child relationships have on adult relationships was carried out by Suomi and Harlow (1978) who looked at rhesus monkeys and the effect early attachment had on them and found that those moneys whom when young had had completely adequate parent-child relationships but bad peer relationships where the ones who displayed inappropriate social and sexual behaviour as adults. The longer they were left without contact with other young monkeys the worse this got. This would undermine the effects of parent-child relationships on adult relationships as this showed that adult relationships are more likely to be effected by bad peer relationships than parent-child relationships.

However this study was carried out on animals and therefore the results are not as undermining of parent-child relationships effect on adult relationships as those of a study carried out on humans would be and the results cannot be fully generalised to humans which causes the study to lack external validity. Although experiment into this topic cannot be carried out on human children as it carries big ethical issues and therefore conducting studies on animals is the only way we can gain an insight into certain topic areas.

Another way in which childhood can affect adult relationships is through childhood abuse. This can have a number of negative effects on adult’s psychological functions, especially in their trust of other people. This therefore makes it difficult for those adults to form and maintain a healthy relationship.

Berenson and Anderson (2006) provided support for the idea that abused children have difficulties in adult relationships by finding that adult women in particular who had been abused in childhood displayed negative reactions to those who reminded them of their abusive parent and that they tend to use inappropriate behaviour learnt from this parent in their own relationships causing their relationships to often be negative ones. This supports the fact that childhood influences adult relationships as it shows that behaviour learnt in childhood is carried on into adult relationships and when this is bad or abusive it can ruin and adult relationships.

The influence of childhood on adult relationships can be seen to be deterministic as it says that our childhood has a fixed effect on our adult relationship, however this is not the case as we have free will to choose how we act in later relationships and whether or not to let these experiences lead us. Also social learning theory would say that we learn though observing other which in this case could be seeing relationships completely different to those we have experienced before and copying those instead of building on our own bad experiences.   

Discuss Sex differences in Parental Investment (8 and 16 marks)

Parental Investment is said to be any investment by a parent in an offspring that increases the chance that the offspring will survive at the expense of that parent’s ability to invest in any other offspring.

One Sex difference in parental investment is that men are more concerned about cuckoldry than women. This is due to the fact that women know 100% that the offspring is theirs however a man does not know this and is therefore worried as they do not want to invest their resources in any offspring that is not their own.

Daley and Wilson (1982) conducted a study to support the fact that men are more concerned by cuckoldry than women by making recordings of spontaneous conversations in a maternity ward. They found that relatives are much more likely to comment on the baby’s resemblance to the father than any other family member. It was also recorded in one conversation a man commenting that is the baby looked like his partners ex-boyfriend, who was of a different race, he would not invest in it. This supports the fact that men are more concerned about cuckoldry than women as people comment on the baby’s resemblance to the father to reassure him that the baby is his and also they are shown to be more concerned about making sure that the baby is very like them.

This study however was a naturalistic observation and therefore there were many uncontrolled extraneous variables present which could have affected the results. Also the sample of participants is very unlikely to be representative of the whole population and therefore cannot be fully generalised across the population.

However Anderson (1999) conducted a study which would undermine the fact that men are more concerned by cuckoldry than women by looking at the investment of stepfathers in children that were not their own. He found that there was no discrimination between children that were their own and the children that were not. This would undermine the fact that men are more concerned about cuckoldry as it would suggest men are not as bothered as it has been suggested about investing resources in to genes that are not their own.   

Sex differences in  Parental investment can be seen to be reductionist as it is based just on evolutionary factors alone which is a very limited view of parental investment and has ignored things such as the media and our own upbringing that can also have an effect on how we invest in offspring in the present day. This therefore is a far too specific view and a better-rounded one should be looked at before any conclusions are drawn.

Another Sex Difference in Parental investment is that females are better prepared both physically and mentally for parenting. Geher suggested that this was the product of evolution and looked into this by asking none parent undergraduates to complete a scale of how ready they perceived themselves to be for parenthood. Although the scale found no difference in perceived readiness for parenting between males and females, when scenarios were given emphasising the psychological costs of parenting males showed significantly higher levels of autonomic nervous system arousal. Although this does not seem to support the fact that females are better prepared for parenting as  both showed the same on the scale, it could actually support this as a self-report method was used to gather results which means that participants could have given socially desirable answers rather than truthful ones on how they actually felt and the fact that males showed a so much higher level of arousal on the second part of the study suggests that they may have lied about how ready they were for parenting on the first scale. This use of self-report also causes the study to lack internal validity.

A criticism of Sex differences in Parental investment is that it stresses evolutionary factors which determine parental investment. This means that it is very on the side of nature in the nature/nurture debate. This is an issue as it does not recognise the value of approaches such as the social learning theory which would explain the influence of nurture in parental investment. Therefore Sex differences in parental investment can be criticized as being too simplistic an explanation and it could be argued that both nature and nurture are important in explaining parental investment.  

Discuss Research into the Nature of Relationships in Different Cultures (8 & 16 marks)

Different cultures have different ideas on relationships and how they are viewed and acted out. For example love and romance are seen to be very important in the western cultures and marriages are based on this, however in non-western cultures, such as china, love and romance are less important. To Western cultures ‘falling in love’ is seen to be a vital part of growing up and Erikson (1968) believed that the establishment of an intimate relationship is an essential part of young adulthood which if unsuccessful can lead to social isolation.

A study which supported the fact that different cultures have their own ideas on relationships was carried out by Moore and Leung (2001) who compared 212 students, born and studying in Australia, with 106 students born in China but studying in Australia. They found that 61% of the Australian students were in relationships compared to only 38% of Chinese students. They also found that Australian males were more casual about relationships than Australian females whereas both Chinese males and females shoed similar levels of romance. This shows that there is a difference in the nature of relationships in different cultures as the Australian students and the Chinese students showed different results and different ideas on relationships. 

This study however is lacking in population validity and can therefore not be generalised to everybody in other cultures. This is because it was carried out on a sample of all similar aged people of only two different cultures who were all living in Australia which is not a representative sample of the whole population causing the study to have low external validity.

A supporting study into the idea that love is a basis for marriage was carried out by Levine et al (1995) who looked for evidence of this in 11 countries. When participants where asked if they would marry someone they did not know 86% of Americans said they would refuse compared to only 34% in Thailand and 24% in India. This suggests that western cultures are a lot more focused on the idea of love as a basis for marriage than other cultures who appear to be a lot more prepared to marry someone they do not love, again suggesting different ideas on relationships between cultures.

As Levine’s study was carried out across many cultures it has more cultural validity than the one conducted by Moore and Leung however we all tend to assume that what is done in our own culture is normal and therefore you can get cultural bias from the researcher.

The idea that the nature of relationships differs between cultures due to the differences in ideas about love can be seen to be to narrow as it leaves out other important ideas about relationships in different cultures such as wanting protection and resources from a mate rather than love. This is a weakness as it means that only a very small section of the factors that do effect relationships are looked at meaning from this research we can never get a good well rounded idea of why relationships differ in different cultures. For this to happen, other factors would have to be looked into and combined with this research.

One idea that is ignored in the differences in relationships between cultures due to love is voluntary and involuntary relationships. In western cultures we get choice of who we want to marry however in some cultures arranged marriages are the norm. This seems to work well for them due to low divorce rates and the fact that most people report that they have eventually fallen in love with their arranged partner. This was looked into by Gupta and Singh (982) in a supporting longitudinal study of 100 couples living in India, 50 form arranged marriages and 50 form love marriages. They were asked how much they ‘liked’ and ‘loved’ their partners after 1, 5 and 10 years of marriage. They found that in love marriages both liking and loving were very high to start off with however decreased over time. In arranged marriages however they were found to ‘like’ and ‘love’ each other more after 10 years than those form love marriages. This supports the differences in relationships in different cultures as it shows that different types of marriages work in different cultures.

Gupta and Singh’s study can however be criticised as, even though a longitudinal study can be useful for collecting results over a long period of time, it cannot show causation and therefore effects the internal reliability of the study.