Lesson 8 - Rusbult's investment model Flashcards
what factors make up Rusbult’s investment model?
- satisfaction
- alternatives
- investments
- commitment level
= influence future decision to stay or leave
satisfaction levels
- satisfaction = positive or negative emotional experiences that a person in a relationship feels
- influenced by extent to which partner fulfils + gratifies their individual needs
- satisfaction levels can be compared against previous relationships
comparison/ quality of alternatives
- when a person feels their important needs might be fulfilled better outside of the relationship
- if there is an attractive alternative to the current relationship = leave current relationship
- alternative option could also be single rather than stay in a poor quality relationship
investment size
- contributes to the stability of the relationship
- measure of the importance + extent of the resources attached to the relationship that could be lost if the relationship were to end e.g. mutual friends, home etc..
intrinsic = direct investment e.g. money, energy, emotion
extrinsic = developed over time that wasn’t present at the start, e.g. children, shared memories
commitment level
- refers to the whether the relationship will persist + continue
- if commitment = high + both partners are happy = relationship will continue
- involves equity
need:
- high satisfaction
- low comparison/ quality of alternatives
- high investment size
= for high commitment levels
ads of Rusbult’s investment model
- research support
- infidelity + abusive
- investment model scale
disads of Rusbult’s investment model
- measurability
- gender differences
- oversimplified
infidelity + abusive - ads of the Investment Model
- model is very useful cus it can help explain the behaviour of infidelity
- might occur if a person’s current relationship has low satisfaction + there is a high quality of alternatives
= lessen commitment levels
= present relationships likely to end - can also explain why some people may stay in abusive relationships
- satisfaction is low
- but may stay due to low QoA
- investment is too high e.g. have children
research support - ads of the Investment Model
- research conducted to support investment model when examining all key factors
- studied students from Taiwan + Netherlands
= found evidence that high commitment levels in a relationships were related to: - high satisfaction
- low QoA
- high investment size
social exchange theory - ads of research on the Investment Model
- the factor fo ‘quality of alternatives’ + ‘CL.alt’ is very similar to the Social Exchange theory by Kelley
= both of these factors focus on the alternative people that a person could have a relationship w/
oversimplified - disads of research on the Investment Model
- concept of ‘investment’ has been oversimplified in the research
- investment is not just about what resources a person has put into the relationship
- might also be about future plans that have not yet happened
- psychs extended this research + the model proposed by Rusbult to include the fact that investment can be future plans
investment model scale - ads of the Investment Model
- model good at being applied to explain the factor of commitment in a variety of different relationships
- Rusbult administered Investment Model Scale questionnaires to parts in homosexual relationships
= found that all factors fo model were found to be important when looking at commitment
measurability - disads of the Investment Model
- difficult to measure the factors of commitment, satisfaction, investment + QoA
- Rusbult responded to this criticism
- constructed investment model which could measure each of the key variables
- in a reliable + valid way
- scales involved self reports, which then created further problems of social desirability bias
gender differences - disads of the Investment Model
- psych criticises Rusbult’s model cus it doesn’t take into account gender differences that might exist when looking at relationships
- found that females tend to report higher satisfaction
- poorer quality of alternatives
- greater investment
- stronger commitment in relationships
- compared to males
= gender differences do exist
