Cognitive Approach to HR formation

Question 1

Intro

Answer 1

One approach to understanding personal relationships is the cognitive approach, specifically mental schemas. Two models connect relationships and mental schemas. These are the Similarity-Attraction model and the Internal Working model.

Question 2

Similarity attraction model

Answer 2

• Determines the extent to which people perceive another person as similar to themselves and may be one explanation for attraction

Byrne (1991)
- Motivation to find others who are similar, which may have something to do with keeping a person’s perspective coherent with what they already know
- People struggle for guaranteed certainty in dealing with the world around them.
-Aspects that can be considered: age, social class, religion, cultural background, personality, education, intelligence, physical attractiveness and attitudes.

Fehr (2001):
- Interacting with similar individuals validates one’s views and confirms their views of the self and the world, thus helping to satisfy an individual’s need to feel that they are correct.
- It makes sense that other people’s support for one’s views and attitudes is rewarding because it validates one’s opinion and that can boost someone’s self-esteem.
- Similarity effects tend to be strongest and most consistent for attitudes, values, activity preferences and attractiveness.
-Personality similarity has shown weakness.

Question 3

Markey and Markey (2007)

Answer 3

Aim: the extent to which similarity is a factor in the way people choose a partner

Procedure:
- Using questionnaires, the researchers asked a large self-selected sample of undergraduate students to describe the psychological characteristics, values, and attitudes of their ideal romantic partner, without thinking of anyone in particular.
- Afterwards, they were asked to describe themselves

Results:
- The way participants described themselves was similar to what they were seeking in their ideal partner

Question 4

Second Markey and Markey study

Answer 4

Participants:
106 heterosexual young couples who had been together for a year, were recruited through advertisements in the local university campus where the research took place.

Procedure:
- The participants filled out a questionnaire about their own as well as their partner’s personality characteristics.

Result:
In line with the first investigation, confirming people want partners who are similar to themselves.
- Also found that couples who experienced the most loving and harmonious relationships have romantic partners similar to themselves in some characteristics but not all.
- Total similarity may be a wish but perhaps not ideal when it comes to maintaining harmony long-term.

Question 5

Limitations

Answer 5

• Answers based on questionnaires: may have been influenced by demand characteristics.
  -Results based on a large sample, increase the reliability of the study.
  -Not representative of other populations as it is only American students.
  -The study used correlational analysis and it is, therefore, difficult to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between personality and preference in a romantic partner.

Question 6

Internal working model of attachment

Answer 6

• Mental representation formed through a child’s early experiences with their primary caregiver
• Influences how youngster interacts and builds relationships with others as they grow.
• The way a child interprets and reacts to a caregiver’s behaviour creates an expectation and a mental image that they will use to plan and make decisions with other people.
• The model influences an individual’s emotions, behaviour, interaction with others and expectations of others in relationships
• Stable over time, meaning the quality of the parent-child relationship in early life can affect a person’s future relationship.

Question 7

Attachment types

Answer 7

1. Secure- which consists of a positive sense of love
2. Avoidant- which refers to a childhood of being unloved and rejected
3. Resistant- stems from being exposed to an angry and confused early caregiver
4. Disorganized- which consists of not expecting good outcomes from love based on caregivers not being consistent with their affection

Question 8

Hazan and Shaver (1987)

Answer 8

Aim: demonstrate how expectations and beliefs people have about themselves and their close connections as a result of their experiences with early attachment figures as children are reflected in attraction and relationship development.

Sample: A self-selected sample of 620 people between 14 and 82 years.

Procedure:
- Participants were asked to respond to a “love quiz” in a local newspaper, in which they indicated which of the three patterns best described their feelings about romantic relationships.
-They had to read three statements and then choose the paragraph that best described them regarding close relationships while using the first part of the love quiz to categorize the participants’ attachment styles.
- They sorted the participants into Ainsworth’s attachment types:

• Secure
• Insecure-resistant
  -Insecure-avoidant

Results:
- More of the participants showed secure adult attachments, as they were more likely to have balanced and longer-lasting romantic relationships and described their romantic relationships as positive, happy, friendly and trusting.

Question 9

Evaluation of study

Answer 9

• Not representative as it does not take into consideration other cultures and there is an equal ratio of women and men, therefore participants are likely to show similarities in their answers.
• Self-reported: biased, lowering internal validity

Question 10

Applicability

Answer 10

• It can be used to explain how date sites work or could work. Many mobile apps use information gathered from the user’s social media account (typically, Facebook), rather than having users manually fill out extensive profiles.
• This makes available a lot of information that was previously unavailable for conventional online dating services. Furthermore, it increases trust in the user’s identity, age, hometown, present city, profession, education, etc. (Duguay, 2017).

Question 11

Limitations of Theory

Answer 11

Reductionist: not reliant plainly on biological aspects. Instead formed by our schema from past relationships and sense of self.
- It is difficult to determine a definite casual relationship.
-Does not consider an internal working model

CA is reductionist, as it does not consider biological or sociocultural factors in the formation of relationships.