Relationships

Question 1

Fisher (1930)

Answer 1

• Proposed the “sexy son” hypothesis - women choose partners who can pass on the “sexy” characteristics to the next generation to allow them to succesfully mate the next generation of females

Question 2

Clark and Hatfield (1980)

Answer 2

• Asked florida University students “Would you go out with me tonight”, “Will you go back to my house” or “Will you hav sex with me”. 50% of both genders agreed to the data, while 0% of females agreed to sex compared to 75% of males. Supports the concepts of inter and intrasexual selection that males will attempt to sleep with as many women as possible while women will be more selective

Question 3

Singh (1993, 2007)

Answer 3

Men generally find a waist-hip ratio of 0.7 most attractive across cultures

Question 4

Cunningham

Answer 4

Men were most attracted to images of youthful faces (large eyes, small noses and chins) across both whites, Asians and Hispanics

Question 5

Waynforth and Dunbar (1995)

Answer 5

• Studied lonely hearts adverts in American newspaper. Women more than men tended to offer physical attractiveness and indicators of youth while men offered resources

Question 6

Walster (1966)

Answer 6

• 752 first-year students at the University of Minnesota were invited to a dance party
• Randomly matched to a partner, however when picking up their tickets they were secretly judged by a panel for their attractiveness
• During intervals at the party and 4 to 6 months later students were asked whether they found their partner attractive and whether they’d like to go on a second date with them
• Contrary to the matching hypothesis, students expressed higher appreciation of their partner if they were attractive, regardless of their own level of attractiveness

Question 7

Feingold (1988)

17 studies for matching hypothesis

Answer 7

• Found evidence to support the matching hypothesis by carrying out a meta-analysis of 17 studies using real-life couples
• Found a strong correlation between the partners’ ratings of attractiveness, just as preddicted by the matching hypothesis

Question 8

Tang et al. (2013)

Answer 8

• Reviewed literature regarding sexual self-disclosure
• Concluded that in the individualist culture of America men and women self-disclose much more sexual thoughts than men and women in China (a collectivist culture)

Question 9

Laurenceau et al. (2005)

Answer 9

• Used a method of writing a daily diary and found self-disclosure and perception of self-disclosure in a partner were linked to higher levels of intimacy in long-term married couples, increasing the validity of social penetration theory

Question 10

Joinson (2001) (Three studies)

Answer 10

• Study 1: Significantly higher levels of spontaneous self-disclosure in computer mediated discussions compared to face to face
• Study 2: Visually anonymous participants disclosed significantly more information about themselves than non-visually anonymous participants.
• Study 3: Private and public self-awareness were independently manipulated, and hightened private self awareness combined with reduced public self awareness was associated with higher leveld of spontaneous SD during computer-mediated communication.

Question 11

Sprecher and Hendrick

Answer 11

• Observed couples’ self-disclosure on dates
• Men and women were found to have similar levels of self-disclosure and a positive correlation was found between the amount of self disclosure and measures of quality of the relationship

Question 12

Name the three factors affecting filter theory

Answer 12

• Social demography
• Similarity in attitudes
• Complementarity

Question 13

Kirchoff and Davies

Answer 13

• Longditudinal study of student dating couples
• Found similarity of attitudes was the most important factor in short term relationships (<18 months) and complementarity was the most important in long term

Question 14

Research into insecure-resistant attachment and parasocial relationships

Answer 14

• McCutcheon et al. (2006)
• Examined the correlation between attachment type and celebrity worship levels using 229 participants
• Found no link between insecure-resistant attachment and more intense levels of parasocial relationships.

Question 15

Le and Agnew (2003)

Answer 15

• Found that satisfaction, comparison with alternatives and investment greatly contributed to commitment.
• Found this across both individualist and collectivist cultures in a meta analysis of 52 studies/11,000 ppts