Lesson 8 - Duck's Phase Model

Question 1

What is relationship breakdown (Duck)

Answer 1

Relationship breakdown or termination occurs when one or both people in the relationship feel that the relationship is not working, and therefore wish the relationship to end.

Question 2

What are the 4 phases of relationship breakdown (Duck)

Answer 2

1. Intra-psychic Processes
2. Dyadic Processes
3. Social Processes
4. Grave Dressing Processes

Question 3

Intra-psychic Processes (Duck)

Answer 3

This is characterised by the dissatisfied partner privately thinking about their relationship and brooding about the problems they have identified. The dissatisfied partner focuses on their partner’s faults and the fact that they are under-benefitting from the relationship. They might feel depressed and withdraw from social interactions with their partner.

Question 4

Dyadic Processes (Duck)

Answer 4

The dissatisfied partner privately communicates with their partner about the fact that they are dissatisfied with the relationship. Both partners might think carefully about investments they have in the relationships e.g. house, children, joint possessions etc. There could be reconciliation if the partner accepts the validity of the dissatisfied partner’s views and promises to change their behaviour or makes agreements to sort out issues. Marital therapy might be useful at this point if the process becomes difficult. The dissatisfied partner might still believe that, “I would be justified in withdrawing from the relationship”, in which case, the breakdown process would continue.

Question 5

Social Processes (Duck)

Answer 5

If there is a break up, it is made public to friends and family which means that the problem is harder to deny or ignore. Advice and support are given from people outside the relationship and alliances are made. This can involve criticising former partners e.g. “I never really liked him anyway” and scapegoating, “It was all her fault.” Younger adults might experience breakdown very frequently in this period of their life, as they are striving to meet their ideal partner and are testing the market. Older couples experience breakdown less frequently, and some might be resigned to not finding a new partner in the future if the relationship breaks down.

Question 6

Grave Dressing Processes (Duck)

Answer 6

As the relationship dies and breaks down, there is the need to mourn and justify our actions. We need to create an account of what the relationship was like and why it broke down. Ex-partners begin their post relationship lives and begin to publicise accounts of how the relationship broke down, making sure their social credit remains high. Stories might be told about betrayal, or how they both struggled to make it work and different versions of the relationship are given to different people. Partners might reinterpret their point of view of their ex partners e.g. “they were rebellious” become “they were irresponsible.”

Question 7

Strengths of Duck’s Phase Model

Answer 7

Duck’s phase model was devised in 1982. However, improvements have been
made to the model as time has passed. Duck teamed up with a psychologist
called Rollie in 2006 and introduced a fifth phase to this model called, the
resurrection phase. This is where the person engages in personal growth and
gets prepared for new romantic relationships.

Support for Duck’s phase model comes from the social exchange theory. This theory would support Duck’s phase model and would state that if a relationship has high costs and minimal rewards then the relationship is not worth continuing, but instead would breakdown.

Question 8

Weaknesses of Duck’s Phase Model

Answer 8

Akert (1998) has criticized Duck’s phase model. Akert found that the role that people had in deciding if the relationship should breakdown, was the most
important prediction of the breakdown experience. Akert found that those who did not initiate the end of the relationship were the most miserable, lonely, depressed and angry in the weeks after the relationship ended. Those who initiate the break down were the least stressed and least upset, but did feel guilty.

Duck’s phase model ignores gender differences that exist when analysing the
breakdown of relationships. Kassin (1996) found research evidence to suggest that females emphasise unhappiness, lack of emotional support and
incompatibility as reasons for relationship breakdown, whereas males state lack of sex and/or fun. Females often wish to stay friends with an ex-partner, but males would rather have a clean break and not stay friends.

Duck’s phase model could be viewed as overly simplistic. It is reducing the
complex phenomenon of relationship breakdown into four simple stages that
must follow a specific order. In the real world it would seem unlikely that
relationship breakdown can be compartmentalised or reduced into four basic
stages. Relationship breakdown is very unpredictable, and it could be the case that breakdown does not happen in this chronological order. Some couples break up, make up, break up, etc