Relationships : Filter Theory

Question 1

Outline filter theory.

Answer 1

• ## Kerckhoff and Davis’ filter theory proposes that despite a seemingly huge pool of potential romantic partners, a series of social and psychological processes (filters) lead us to become attracted to a select number of people.

Question 2

What is the first filter?

Answer 2

The first filter is social demography. This includes a wide range of social factors that influence the chances of potential partners spending enough time with each others that an attraction can develop. It is an important filter to determine whether a relationship will even start. Relevant factors include: location, social class, level of education, ethnicity, sexuality and religion. It illustrates the importance of homogamy in attraction. This is the idea that we are more likely to become attracted to a person whose views are similar to ours.

Question 3

What is the second filter?

Answer 3

• The second filter is similarity is attitudes. Unlike the first filter, which focuses on social factors, this second filter focuses on a psychological characteristic : the attitudes a person has.
• This filter depends on a similarity on basic attitudes, such as views on politics, social issues like climate change, and values like having children.
• The degree of similarity in attitudes is important in the early phase of a relationship and is the best predictor of the relationship becoming stable.
• Similarity of attitudes illustrate the role of homogamy in attraction.

Question 4

What is the third filter?

Answer 4

• This refers to whether partners view each other as having characteristics that compliment their own, meaning they each fulfil each others needs.
• For example, if one partner was especially dominant and liked taking charge, and the other was more submissive and preferred to be led, then these partners would have complimentary needs, meaning their attraction would persist.
• Complementary isn’t the same as ‘opposites attract’. More than finding a partner with different qualities, successful long term relationship rely on harmonious qualities, rather just a level of similarity.
• This filter demonstrates heterogamy (meaning attraction to people who are different), which also plays a role in attraction.

Question 5

Why have filters theory’s explanation for attraction been considered overly simplistic?

Answer 5

Explaining attraction only in terms of a few basic variables, like social demography and complimentarity of
needs factor, means ignoring other aspects of romantic attraction, such as physical attractiveness. This suggests that research into romantic relationships could benefit from the use of a more holistic
account, that seeks to account for the way multiple factors work together to explain what we find attractive,
rather than reducing attraction to a small set of variables, like those outlined by filter theory. Moreover,
since people are individuals, there is enormous variation in what people find attractive. It is therefore questionable whether taking a nomothetic approach that seeks to establish general laws about how variables, like social demography, contribute to attraction is a valid approach. This again highlights the value of an idiographic approach, that could describe the unique ways individuals perceive attractiveness (including physical attractiveness), rather than seeking to develop general laws about the factors affecting attraction.

Question 6

What research support is there for filter theory as an explanation for attraction?

Answer 6

Using a longitudinal design, Kerckhoff and Davis (1962) found that for couples
dating under 18 months, similarity in attitudes was the most significant predictor of for one partner’s feeling of intimacy towards the other, but for longer term relationships complementarity mattered more. These findings support filter theory’s prediction that as a relationship
develops, complementarity of needs supersedes similarity in attitudes in
determining the level of attraction within a romantic relationship. This suggests that filter theory can explain the development of attraction in romantic relationships. These findings are especially credible as they make use of a longitudinal design. One advantage of this design is that it provides a full
chronological view of events, allowing the researchers to make stronger claims about the causal relationship between the variables in filter theory and the development of attraction (e.g., having similar attitudes precedes, and
therefore causes, greater attraction). This is superior to relying on a
questionnaire administered at a single time, as this would make it difficult to
establish the direction of causation between levels of attraction and variables, like complementarity of needs.

Question 7

What is a limitation of filter theory as an explanation of attraction in romantic relationships?

Answer 7

Some of its stages have become less relevant in the modern world. For example, as modern society is much more multi-cultural and interconnected (in particular due to the internet) than in the 1960s, social demography may becoming less of a barrier to developing a relationship as it once was. This may lead to the criticism that the theory’s explanation of attraction in romantic relationships lacks temporal validity. Its conclusions may have been true for a particular time, when people were only able to connect with those near them, but now it is less relevant in a more connected age. However, although the relevance of some aspects of the social demography filter may have been affected by technological change, it’s difficult to see how others, such as complimentary of needs will have changed. Arguably filter theory needs updating, but this doesn’t mean it needs to be entirely abandoned as a way of explaining attraction in romantic relationships.