Psychology - Relationships - Theories of romantic relationships: Rusbult's investment model

Question 1

What does Rusbults investment model examine?

Answer 1

A range of factors which have an effect on the amount of commitment that people put into their relationship and whether it is likely to continue.

Question 2

What are the three key factors that determine commitment level?

Answer 2

Satisfaction, Alternatives and Investment size

Question 3

What are satisfaction levels?

Answer 3

The positive or negative emotional experiences that a person in a relationship feels.

Question 4

What is satisfaction influenced by?

Answer 4

The extent to which their partner fulfils and gratifies their individual needs in the relationship

Question 5

What can satisfaction levels be compared against?

Answer 5

Previous relationships

Question 6

What is Comparison/quality of alternatives?

Answer 6

When a person might think about whether their important needs might be fulfilled better outside of the relationship.

Question 7

What could happen if there is an attractive alternative to the current relationship?

Answer 7

The individual might leave and not invest in it.

Question 8

What could happen if there is no good quality alternatives?

Answer 8

The person may stay in the relationship as there are no better options

Question 9

What could an alternative option be other than another relationship?

Answer 9

Being single

Question 10

What is the investment size and what does it contribute to?

Answer 10

Measures importance and extent of the resources attached and the fact they could be lost if the relationship ended. Contributes to stability.

Question 11

What creates a strong foundation for a relationship according to Rusbult?

Answer 11

Partners investing in their relationship. This could be costly to break.

Question 12

What type of force is investment size and how?

Answer 12

A powerful psychological force that motivates people to continue with their relationship

Question 13

What are the two types of investments in a relationship?

Answer 13

Intrinsic and Extrinsic

Question 14

Intrinsic investment

Answer 14

Direct investment like money, energy and emotion

Question 15

Extrinsic investment

Answer 15

Investment that was not present at the start but has developed over time, children, memories.

Question 16

What is Commitment level?

Answer 16

Whether the relationship will persist and continue. If commitment is high and both partners are happy the relationship should continue and survive. Should involve equity.

Question 17

What leads to High commitment levels?

Answer 17

High satisfaction, Low comparison/quality of alternatives, High investment size

Question 18

Who conducted research on the investment model?

Answer 18

Le and Agnew (2003)

Question 19

What type of study did Le and Agnew (2003) conduct?

Answer 19

A meta analysis of 52 studies between 1979 and 1990 exploring factors of investment model.

Question 20

Who did Le and Agnew (2003) study?

Answer 20

11,000 participants from 5 countries; UK, USA, Israel, Taiwan and Netherlands.

Question 21

What did Le and Agnew (2003) find?

Answer 21

satisfaction, alternatives and investment correlated with commitment. Those who had high commitment were likely to stay and those with low commitment likely to leave

Question 22

What did Le and Agnew (2003) find about satisfaction and commitment?

Answer 22

Significantly correlated, strongest at +0.68 out of all other factors.

Question 23

What did Le and Agnew (2003) find about alternatives?

Answer 23

Lowest correlation with commitment at -0.48

Question 24

What did Le and Agnew (2003) find about investment size?

Answer 24

Correlated with commitment at +0.46

Question 25

What are the advantages of Rusbults investment model?

Answer 25

• Research support by Van Lange (1997) - Explains infidelity - applied to explain commitment in different relationships

Question 26

What research did Van Lange (1997) conduct to support Rusbult’s investment model?

Answer 26

Studies students from Taiwan and Netherlands finding evidence that high commitment levels in a relationship were related to high satisfaction, low quality of alternatives and high investment size

Question 27

How can the investment model explain infidelity?

Answer 27

May occur if a relationship has low satisfaction and high quality of alternatives, both lessening the commitment levels

Question 28

How can the investment model explain why people stay in abusive relationships?

Answer 28

The satisfaction is low and the victim should leave but they may stay as there is low quality of alternatives and high investment

Question 29

How can Rusbult’s investment model be applied to explain the factor of commitment in a variety of different relationships?

Answer 29

Rusbult administered Investment Model Scale questionnaires to participants in homosexual relationships and found all factors of the investment model were found to be important when looking at commitment.

Question 30

What are the weaknesses of the investment model?

Answer 30

• Difficult to measure the factors - Social desirability bias - Lin (1995) criticises as it doesn’t look at gender differences

Question 31

How did Rusbult respond to the criticism of it being difficult to measure the factors?

Answer 31

By constructing an investment model scale.

Question 32

What problems did the investment model scale raise?

Answer 32

Used self reports and this created further problems of social desirability bias as they wanted to look good so pretended to be more satisfied.

Question 33

Why did Lin (1995) criticise Rusbult for not accounting for gender differences?

Answer 33

Lin found females tend to report higher satisfaction, poorer quality of alternatives, greater investment and stronger commitment compared to males.