Ducks phase model Flashcards
intrapsychic stage-stage 1
This is when a person admits to himself or herself that they are dissatisfied with their relationship, and they spend a lot of time thinking about the reasons for this dissatisfaction and possible ways forward. This stage focuses on a person’s internal thought process that occurs before confronting the partner. Before a person moves to the next stage, they reach a threshold of thinking ‘1 can’t stand this anymore’.
dyadic stage-stage 2
The second phase, called dyadic, occurs when a person confronts their partner and voices their dissatisfaction. At this stage there are a lot of complaints coming from the partner initiating the break-up; common complaints involve a partner’s commitment to relationships. The dissatisfied partner also rethinks the alternatives to their current relationships. The threshold that is reached at this stage is: ‘I would be justified in withdrawing’.
social stage-stage 3
If, up to this point, the couple generally kept their disagreements private, at the next phase they involve friends and relatives and make their distress public. This is the social phase of relationship breakdown. According to Duck, once the conflict reaches this stage, it is more difficult for a couple to mend their relationship: friends and family will take sides, intervene in the couple’s relationship and offer advice, which makes reconciliation much more problematic (Although some friends will also try to offer help in order to repair the relationship). The threshold at this stage is ‘I mean it’. The social phase usually leads to the dissolution of the relationship.
grave dressing stage-stage 4
Having left their partner, both sides construct their version of why their relationship broke down. This usually involves minimising their faults and maximising their partner’s, but at the same time trying to show themselves as trustworthy and loyal in order to attract a new partner.
This process is called ‘grave-dressing’, signifying the closure of the previous relationship and readiness to start a new one. The threshold here is, unsurprisingly, ‘It’s time to start a new life’.
strength- useful real-life applications
A strength of the model is that it not only helps is to identify and understand the stages of relationship breakdown but also suggests various ways of reversing it, which could be highly beneficial in relationships counselling.
The Model is especially useful because it recognises that different repair strategies are more effective at particular points in the breakdown than others.
For example, Duck (1994) recommends that people in the intra - psychic phase could be encouraged to focus their brooding on the positive aspects of their partner. Also, as a feature of the dyadic phases communication, any attempt to improve this and perhaps improve wider social skills could be beneficial in fostering greater stability in the relationship. Neither of these strategies is likely to be of much use in the later phases of the breakdown.
This shows that ducks model of relationship breakdown can we used successfully to help couples contemplating breakup to improve their relationships and stay together.
methodological issues-retrospective data
A limitation of most of the research examining relationship breakdown is based on retrospective data, using questionnaires or interviews to ask participants about the break-up some time after it happened.
People’s memories of the event may not be accurate, and may also be coloured by their current situation, which means that their answers are not reliable. It is usually the very early stages of breakdown that tend to the most distorted or ignored altogether.
Unfortunately it is almost impossible to study the point at which problems first appear. Researchers are very reluctant to study relationships at this early point because their involvement could make things worse, and even hasten the end of the relationship that might otherwise have been rescued.
This means that part of Duck’s model is based on research that ignores this early part of the process so is an incomplete description of how relationships end.
limitation-incomplete model
According to Rollie and Duck (2006) the original of breakdown is oversimplified.
They modified the model and added in a fifth phase - the resurrection phrase, in which ex-partners turn their attention to future relationships, using the experiences gained from their recently ended one.
Existence of the resurrection stage was supported by Tashiro and Frazier (2003), who found that participants (undergraduates who had recently experienced a break-up) reported experiencing personal growth as a result of it, as well as emotional distress. Furthermore they make it clear that progression through the stages is not inevitable and it is possible to return to an earlier stages at any point rather than assuming linear progression from one phase to the next.
These changes overcomes the original weaknesses of the model including the fact that it does not account for the dynamic nature of break-ups with all their inherent uncertainty and complexity.
limitation-culture bias
A problem with the model is that it is based on relationships from individualist cultures, where ending the relationships is a voluntary choice, and separation and divorce are easily obtainable and do not carry stigma.
However, this may not be the case in collectivist cultures.
In such cultures, relationships are sometimes arranged by wider family members, and characterised by greater family involvement. This makes the relationship difficult to end, which means that the break-up process will not follow the phases proposed by Duck.
As a result, Duck’s model is culturally biased as it assumes that break-up process is universal, which is clearly not the case.
