Lesson 8 - Rusbult’s investment model

Question 1

Who made the investment model?

Answer 1

Rusbult

Question 2

What are the 3 factors that affect the commitment level?

Answer 2

Satisfaction
Quality of Alternatives
Investments

Question 3

Explain Satisfaction Levels

Answer 3

Satisfaction is the positive or negative emotional experiences that a person in a relationship feels. It is affected by how much someone’s individual needs are fulfilled.

Question 4

Explain Quality of Alternatives.

Answer 4

This is when someone may believe that their individual needs would be better fulfilled by a different partner from outside the relationship.

Question 5

Explain investment.

Answer 5

Investment size contributes to the stability of the relationship. It measures the extent to which resources are put into the relationship e.g. mutual home or friends.

Question 6

Name the 2 types of investment.

Answer 6

Intrinsic Investment
Extrinsic Investment

Question 7

Define Intrinsic Investment.

Answer 7

This is direct investment such as money, energy, and emotion.

Question 8

Define extrinsic investment.

Answer 8

This is investment that was not present initially but developed over time e.g. Children, shared memories.

Question 9

Define commitment levels.

Answer 9

This is essentially whether the relationship will persist and continue. When there is high commitment levels from both partners, then the relationship will succeed. Commitment should involve equity.

Question 10

Evaluation of Rusbult’s Investment Model - Van Lange

Answer 10

Van Lange (1997) studied students from Taiwan, and from the Netherlands. He found that high commitment levels in a relationship, were directly related to high satisfaction, low quality of alternatives, and high investment size.

Question 11

Who made the investment model?

Answer 11

Rusbult

Question 12

Evaluation of Rusbult’s Investment Model - explains infidelity

Answer 12

The investment model can explain why infidelity might occur. If someone’s current relationship has low satisfaction and a high quality of alternatives, then it is not surprising that infidelity may occur.

Question 13

Evaluation of Rusbult’s Investment Model - explains abusive relationships

Answer 13

In abusive relationships, where the satisfaction is low, and the victim should leave, they may not leave due to the investment. They may have high investment in the relationship, and they may have a low quality of alternatives. An example of high investment could be having children together.

Question 14

Evaluation of Rusbult’s Investment Model - hard to measure

Answer 14

The factors of commitment in Rusbult’s model are extremely hard to measure. They are quite subjective.

However, Rusbult responded to this criticism by constructing an investment model scale, which allowed all of the factors to be measured in a reliable and valid way. This involved self-reports, but this just leads to social desirability bias.

Question 15

Evaluation of Rusbult’s Investment Model - Lin (Gender Differences)

Answer 15

Lin (1995) found that females tend to report higher satisfaction, poorer quality of alternatives, greater investment and stronger commitment in relationships compared to males. Therefore, gender differences exist, and are not accounted for.

Question 16

Evaluation of Rusbult’s Investment Model - Includes homosexual relationships

Answer 16

Rusbult administered the investment model scale questionnaires to partners in homosexual relationships, and found that all of the factors were found to be important when looking at commitment.

Question 17

Who did research on the investment model?

Answer 17

Le and Agnew

Question 18

What was the methodology of Le and Agnew’s study?

Answer 18

Le and Agnew condcuted a meta-analysis of 52 studies.
They investigated 11,000 participants from 5 countries (UK, USA, Israel, Taiwan and the Netherlands).
They investigated the different factors of the investment model.

Question 19

What were the findings of Le and Agnew’s study?

Answer 19

They found that satisfaction, quality of alternatives and investment all had an effect on commitment.
Satisfaction had the highest correlation with +0.68.
Quality of alternatives had the lowest correlation with commitment (-0.48)
Investment was correlated with +0.46
Those with high commitment were more likely to stay.

Question 20

Evaluation of Le and Agnew’s study - Cultural Validity

Answer 20

They conducted the study with participants from 5 different countries. This means the study has good cultural validity, and there is support for Rusbult’s investment model.

Question 21

Evaluation of Le and Agnew’s study - Kelley (Social Exchange Theory)

Answer 21

Both the social exchange theory and the investment model acknowledge that people look at other people they could have a relationship with. In the investment model it is quality of alternatives, and in the social exchange theory it is CL.alt.

Question 22

Evaluation of Le and Agnew’s study - complexity of relationships

Answer 22

They use correlation coefficients with 3 factors to observe the commitment of a relationship. There are many other factors that are significantly more important.

Question 23

Evaluation of Le and Agnew’s study - investment is over simplified

Answer 23

Investment is over simplified. Investment is not only the resources that have just been invested. Investment might be about future plans as well such as living together.

Goodfriend and Agnew extended investment to future plans in 2008.