Psychology - Relationships - Theories of romantic relationships: Rusbult's investment model Flashcards
What does Rusbults investment model examine?
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.
What are the three key factors that determine commitment level?
Satisfaction, Alternatives and Investment size
What are satisfaction levels?
The positive or negative emotional experiences that a person in a relationship feels.
What is satisfaction influenced by?
The extent to which their partner fulfils and gratifies their individual needs in the relationship
What can satisfaction levels be compared against?
Previous relationships
What is Comparison/quality of alternatives?
When a person might think about whether their important needs might be fulfilled better outside of the relationship.
What could happen if there is an attractive alternative to the current relationship?
The individual might leave and not invest in it.
What could happen if there is no good quality alternatives?
The person may stay in the relationship as there are no better options
What could an alternative option be other than another relationship?
Being single
What is the investment size and what does it contribute to?
Measures importance and extent of the resources attached and the fact they could be lost if the relationship ended. Contributes to stability.
What creates a strong foundation for a relationship according to Rusbult?
Partners investing in their relationship. This could be costly to break.
What type of force is investment size and how?
A powerful psychological force that motivates people to continue with their relationship
What are the two types of investments in a relationship?
Intrinsic and Extrinsic
Intrinsic investment
Direct investment like money, energy and emotion
Extrinsic investment
Investment that was not present at the start but has developed over time, children, memories.
What is Commitment level?
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.
What leads to High commitment levels?
High satisfaction, Low comparison/quality of alternatives, High investment size
Who conducted research on the investment model?
Le and Agnew (2003)
What type of study did Le and Agnew (2003) conduct?
A meta analysis of 52 studies between 1979 and 1990 exploring factors of investment model.
Who did Le and Agnew (2003) study?
11,000 participants from 5 countries; UK, USA, Israel, Taiwan and Netherlands.
What did Le and Agnew (2003) find?
satisfaction, alternatives and investment correlated with commitment. Those who had high commitment were likely to stay and those with low commitment likely to leave
What did Le and Agnew (2003) find about satisfaction and commitment?
Significantly correlated, strongest at +0.68 out of all other factors.
What did Le and Agnew (2003) find about alternatives?
Lowest correlation with commitment at -0.48
What did Le and Agnew (2003) find about investment size?
Correlated with commitment at +0.46
What are the advantages of Rusbults investment model?
- Research support by Van Lange (1997) - Explains infidelity - applied to explain commitment in different relationships
What research did Van Lange (1997) conduct to support Rusbult’s investment model?
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
How can the investment model explain infidelity?
May occur if a relationship has low satisfaction and high quality of alternatives, both lessening the commitment levels
How can the investment model explain why people stay in abusive relationships?
The satisfaction is low and the victim should leave but they may stay as there is low quality of alternatives and high investment
How can Rusbult’s investment model be applied to explain the factor of commitment in a variety of different relationships?
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.
What are the weaknesses of the investment model?
- Difficult to measure the factors - Social desirability bias - Lin (1995) criticises as it doesn’t look at gender differences
How did Rusbult respond to the criticism of it being difficult to measure the factors?
By constructing an investment model scale.
What problems did the investment model scale raise?
Used self reports and this created further problems of social desirability bias as they wanted to look good so pretended to be more satisfied.
Why did Lin (1995) criticise Rusbult for not accounting for gender differences?
Lin found females tend to report higher satisfaction, poorer quality of alternatives, greater investment and stronger commitment compared to males.
