Relationship notes

Question 1

Key researchers in virtual relationships

Answer 1

Walther
Sproull and Kiesler

Question 2

Who created the hyper personal model

Answer 2

Walther

Question 3

Who created the reduced cue theory

Answer 3

Sproull and Kiesler

Question 4

What is the hyper personal model

Answer 4

suggest that self-disclosure happens earlier
selective self-presentation
Projecting a positive image will then make an online partner want to disclose more personal information, increasing the intensity of the relationship.

Question 5

What is the Reduced cue theory

Answer 5

suggested that online relationships might be less open and honest than face-to-face ones, because in real life we are relying on a lot of subtle cues, such as facial expressions and tone of voice, and these cues are absent in virtual communications

Question 6

What is stranger on the train

Answer 6

virtual relationships are likely to disclose more as not likely to see them again

Question 7

What are gates

Answer 7

barriers to day-to day life e.g being to shy to talk to someone

Question 8

What is selective self presentation

Answer 8

Participants in online conversation have more time to ‘edit’ their responses to present themselves in a more positive light.

Question 9

Weakness of reduced cue theory

Answer 9

research that goes against it
Walther and Tidwell
argue online relationships may still share the similarity of featuring nonverbal signals
This includes the use of emojis, acronyms and length, timing and tone of messages

Question 10

Weakness issue and debates 1

Answer 10

Beta bias
McKenna et al. (2002) found that women tended to rate their relationships formed online as more intimate, and valued self-disclosure, especially in regards to emotion, more highly than men.

Question 11

Weakness issue and debates 2

Answer 11

Culturally different
attitudes to self-disclosure are different in different cultures. For example, Nakanishi (1986) found that, in contrast to American culture, women in Japan preferred lower levels of self-disclosure in close relationships.

Question 12

What did rusbult think was a key factor in sustaining a relationship?
What did it depend on ?

Answer 12

Commitment-
Depended on satisfaction, comparison with alternatives and investment

Question 13

define equity

Answer 13

relationships based on the idea of fairness for each partner
emphasises the need for each partner to experience a balance between Their cost and rewards

Question 14

What is anisogamy

Answer 14

Differences between male and female cell

Question 15

What are the findings to buss’s research

Answer 15

found that females reported valuing resource-based characteristics when choosing a male and males valued signs of female reproduction such as attractiveness and modernity

Question 16

What is the weakness of buss’s research

Answer 16

his use of questionnaires could lead to social desirability bias with participants answering in socially desirable ways rather than honestly.

Also, 77% of participants were from Western industrial nations which means Buss might have been measuring the effects of culture rather than an evolutionary determined behaviour .

Question 17

Who are the main researchers in self disclosure

Answer 17

Altman and Taylor - social penetration and Resis and shaver- breadth and depth

Question 18

Self- disclosure weakness culturally

Answer 18

Social Penetration Theory was developed based on research in a Western, individualist culture, so it may not apply to collectivist cultures. For example, Tang et al. (2013) found that men and women in the USA tended to disclose more sexual thoughts and feelings than romantic partners in China; however, the level of relationship satisfaction was high in both cultures.

Question 19

What is an issue with self-disclosure

Answer 19

Reductionist

By reducing relationship satisfaction to a single factor, Social Penetration Theory ignores many other aspects of romantic attraction, such as physical attractiveness, similarity of attitudes and complementarity.

Question 20

Who research the filter theory

Answer 20

Kerckhoff and Davis

Question 21

What are the three filters

Answer 21

Social demographic
Similarities in attitudes
Complementary

Question 22

A weakness to the filter theory

Answer 22

Culture bias

Most research supporting the Filter Theory uses participants from individualist, Western cultures. Individualist cultures value free choice in relationships, and describe the choice of partners in terms of individual preferences.

This means that Filter Theory suffers from culture bias, as it assumes that the rules of partner choice in Western cultures apply to relationships universally.

Question 23

Research to support the filter theory

Answer 23

Taylor – people tend to marry someone from their own ethnic group

Question 24

Who are the researchers for the SET

Answer 24

Thibault and Kelley

Question 25

SET- what does a partner use to assess the potential profits we gain from a relationship

Answer 25

• Comparison levels (CL)- refer to our perception of what we are worth and so what we can get out of a relationship.
• Comparison of alternatives- Individuals may consider ending a relationship if they can see that there are other alternatives which would give them a larger return on the investment

Question 26

Equity- what is the behavioural way to salvage a relationship

Answer 26

a individual increases their own cost to increase the reward of other individual

Question 27

What is a strength of the equity theory

Answer 27

Clear gender differences between males and females and highlight the importance of conducting research into males and females separately, to avoid gender bias

Question 28

What is a weakness of the equity theory

Answer 28

Evidence supporting the link between equity theory and the satisfaction or commitment in a relationship, as suggested by Utne et al

The study found that partners who rated their relationships as more equitable were also more satisfied with them.