Factors Affecting Attraction In Romantic Relationships - The Filter Theory Flashcards
What is the filter theory?
The explanation of relationship formation and the factors affecting attraction
What are the 3 filters of the filter theory?
- Social demography
- Similarity in attitudes
- Complementarity of needs
What do the factors suggest?
The filters reduce the range of availability of romantic partners
What is social demography
The wide range of factors all of which influence the chase for potential partners meeting in the first place
What are the examples of social demography?
- Location (proximity)
- Social class
- Level of education
- Ethnic group
- Religion
What is similarity of attitudes?
Refers to when partners will often share important beliefs and values, partly because the field of available has already narrowed by the first filter to those who have social and cultural characteristics in common
What did Kerckhoff and Davis find?
similarity in attitudes and values was of central importance at the start of a relationship and was the best predictor of the relationship becoming stable
What is complementarity of needs?
This refers to the ability of romantic pretend meeting each other’s needs
What is supporting evidence of the filter theory?
Kerckhoff and Davis 1962 - they carried out a longitudinal study of dating couples, they completed a questionnaire that assessed two main factors: similarity of attitudes/beliefs and complementarity of needs. Etc
What are the evaluation points for the filter theory?
+ Supporting evidence - Kerckhoff and Davis 1962
- Direction of causality may be wrong - Gruber-Baldini et al 1995
+ Allows people make predictions - filtering process
- Contradictory evidence - Markey and Markey 2013
