Relationships Studies Flashcards
Describe Hazan & Shaver’s Study
Investigate whether our adult relationships are directly related to our attachment type as a child
Researchers devised ‘Love Quiz’ with 2 components…
A measure of attachment type - a checklist of childhood relationships with parents
A love experience questionnaire - assessing individual beliefs about romantic love
Quiz printed in local newspaper & readers asked to send in responses & first 620 analysed
Researchers classified infant attachment types as: secure, insecure-resistant & insecure-avoidant & looked for corresponding adult love styles
Secure types described love experiences as happy, friendly & trusting
Insecure resistant experienced love as obsessive, fluctuating emotions, a need for reciprocation & containing a fear of abandonment
Insecure avoidant types feared intimacy, closeness & dependency
High correlation observed between infant attachment types & adult romantic love styles, concluding there’s evidence to support the model
Mainly female sample that responded to questionnaire - sampling bias as males underrepresented so may not be representative of general population - harder to generalise
Sample all from Colorado
Self-reported nature of data so vulnerable to demand characteristics & questions based on personal issues leading to possible temptation to lie which would invalidate results
Conducted in Western world - need to be cautious generalising results from Western - non-Western settings - affection displays & parenting types vary by country
Describe Gottman’s Study
Test whether older & younger married couples have different approaches to managing conflict & if these different approaches can be correlated with unhappiness in marriage
PPTS: 156 married couples
Came to lab after not taking for 8 hours
Observed discussing 3 topics in lab as physiological measurements were taken (heart rate)
Events that had happened that day
One pleasant topic that they agreed on
One topic they knew they would disagree about
Discussions video recorded & emotions observed
Older couples with longer marriages communicated more affection to partner
Middle aged couples displayed more negative emotion
Unhappy marriages expressed more negative emotions
Couples in happy marriages better able to manage their emotional displays to show more positive emotions while withholding negative ones, so in successful relationships people communicate with partner in way that avoids negative results
Methodological limitations surrounding generalisability - collected in lab in highly controlled & synthetic environment - low ecological validity
Variability of impacts from childhood experiences & past relationships on current communication which are not considered
Doesn’t account for oher marriage styles e.g. polygamy
Interpersonal relationships viewed differently depending on culture & region
Triangulation of data collection strengthens findings - quantitative e.g. heart rate - numerical so easier to analyse, fewer potential cognitive biases & qualitative e.g. emotional observation
Describe Stratton’s Study
Observe attributional styles in troubled families that sought therapeutic help
Films analysed of family therapy sessions from 8 families
Observed interactions were coded using a comprehensive checklist for coding attributional behaviours
1,799 attributions analysed, around 4 per min per family
Parents often used attributions implying children caused bad outcomes
Parents made more dispositional attributions for children than themselves
Negative behaviours of children labelled as more controllable
Attributional style consistently blamed children, children caused negative outcomes & parents affected by them, distress in family relationships associated with negative attributions
Only 8 families - small sample size
Only troubled families studied
Triangulation of methodology - observation & content analysis of transcripts occurred
Potential cultural bias - different dynamics between parent & child depending on culture & social norms
Describe Flora & Segrin’s Study
Investigate role of common interests, desire to spend time together & negative feelings towards other partner on the well-being of relationships
PPTS: 66 young couples - dating for minimum 6 months & 65 young couples - married for around 4 years
Longitudinal study, using self-report data from questionnaires & interviews
262 ppts interviewed about emotional aspects of relationship e.g. degree of positive/neg feelings & contentment/disappointment with partner
Most important factor of what attracted ppts to partners was common interests & desire to spend time together, more important than degree of positive/neg feelings
After year, couples contacted again, none of married couples had split but ¼ of lovers had split, those still together filled out new questionnaire to get idea of their satisfaction with relationship & personal well-being
For males: positive correlation between common interests & desire to spend time together
For women: same positive correlation, but most important factor in predicting satisfaction was the frequency of their own negative feelings they had felt at beginning of study, more negative feelings = less satisfaction a year on
Indicates a gender difference in men’s & women’s ideas of what constitutes good relationship
Self-reported data - several couples may have lied about feelings in relationships - hard to admit & very personal - open to social desirability bias
Conducted in US only - ethnocentric sampling bias, relationship dynamics may differ by culture
Correlational in nature
Describe Tashiro & Frazier’s Study
Investigate prevalence & correlated of personal growth & distress following romantic relationship breakups
Provides evidence for resurrection stage
PPTS: Undergraduates who had recently experienced break-up
Studied their feelings from recent break-ups in interviews
Ppts reported experiencing personal growth & better insight into themselves & what they desired from future relationships as result of break up as well as emotional distress
Through grave-dressing & resurrection processes they could move on with their lives
Issues with generalisability - only on students, relationships may differ based off age
Describe Clarke & Hatfield’s Study
Investigate how receptive men are in contrast to women to sexual invitations
PPTS: 48 male & 48 female ppts & 5 female, 4 male confederates which ranged attractiveness
Confederates told to approach people they thought were attractive enough to sleep with
After each interaction, asked to rate attractiveness of naive ppts, & there was no significant difference between different gender groups
After selecting ppt, confederate would state: ‘I’ve been noticing you around campus. I find you very attractive’ followed by ⅓ questions…
Would you go out with me tonight?
Would you come over to my apartment?
Would you go to bed with me tonight?
Questions were asked randomly, only during weekdays & not in between classes or during rainy weather
All ppts were debriefed
Q1: Women 50%, Men 50%
Q2: Women 6%, Men 69%
Q3: Women 0%, Men 75%
Attractiveness of confederate had no significant impact on response of ppt & men were more willing to have casual sexual relations
Describe Sherif et al’s Study
Investigate whether strangers able to form cohesive groups with characteristic norms & a leadership hierarchy
PPTS: 22 middle class American white boys (11-12) (strangers) @ Oklahoma, Robbers Cave State Park Summer Camp
Split into 2 groups
Stage 1: 1st week - encourage to form attachments to group, bonding activities e.g. hiking - social norms formed, groups came up with names (the Eagles & the Rattlers)
Stage 2: 2nd week - competition phase - tournament set up with games e.g. tug of war, one group invited late to picnic where little food left (scarcity of resources)
Stage 3: Groups encouraged to cooperate to reach superordinate goal, firstly: social contact increased then had to work together to gain reward e.g. fixing broken water tank
Stage 1: Hierarchies established, became competitive/derogatory/hostile to other group
Stage 2: Negative attitudes & behaviours witnessed e.g. burning other group’s flag, unfavourable stereotypes & physical scuffles
Stage 3: Increased social contact didn’t lead to increased positive social interactions but communal tasks reduced conflict & friction between groups
Frustration leads to increased in-group favouritism & out-group hostility, creating competition
High ecological validity - natural environment, unaware in study
High internal validity - ppts were observed by camp leaders who were familiar to boys
Lacks external validity - findings can’t be generalised, boys all same ethnicity/socioeconomic background/age/gender
Cross cultural replications produced conflicting results - UK Boy Scouts remained cooperative despite hostility introduced
However, field experiment so not all variables controlled e.g. leaders of each group may have played large role in behaviour of groups
Hard to measure hostility
Describe Fein & Spencer’s Study
Investigate if stereotyping & prejudice would increase when group of men had sense of self threatened
PPTS: 61 male introductory psychology students from Williams College
Randomly allocated to control/negative feedback condition
Took made-up online test: ‘The Reasoning & Verbal Acuity Battery’ with questions impossible to answer
Control group told was fake intelligence test & negative feedback condition told was true test of intelligence
Negative feedback group received low scores on test, considering students had high SAT scores to enter uni, seen as very disappointing
Ppts asked to take ‘social judgement task’ & given ½ scenarios, both about 31 year old male Greg, a struggling artist in East Village in NYC, scenario summarised his career struggles
Scenario 1 begins with ‘Greg has been living with his girlfriend, Anne’
Scenario 2, word ‘partner’ was used & no name given - goal to make him appear gay
Read scenario & filled in questionnaire about Greg’s personality, rating traits on scale 0 (not at all) - 10 (extremely)
3 generic traits & 7 that were stereotypical of gay men (e.g. femininity)
Asked if would like Greg as friend & how similar they thought they were to him
Ppts who received negative feedback rated ‘gay implied’ man more stereotypically than those in control condition
Negative feedback condition rated themselves less likely to like Greg or be his friend than those in control regardless if whether he was gay/straight implied, but dislike strongest in ‘gay implied’ condition
Lowering someone’s self esteem makes them more likely to show prejudice
Pilot study was conducted - Greg explicitly labelled as gay/straight & ppts suspicious that study investigating stereotypes so researchers changed procedure to control for demand characteristics
Highly standardised, replicable, good internal validity but artificial, low ecological validity & doesn’t reflect real life situation - ppts may react differently
Assumption that men have strong self image because they’re clever may be false assumption
Only 15 men in ‘negative feedback & gay implied’ condition so ppt variability in independent samples design may lead to difference in results as previous experience with gay men unaccounted for
Describe De Dreu et al’s Study
Investigate role of oxytocin in in-group commitment & out-group derogation
Experiment 1
71 Dutch male ppts self administered oxytocin or a placebo
After 40 mins: answered set of questions on computer
5 key questions were from Moral Choice Dilemma Test, similar to ‘trolley dilemma’, another example was whether you would deny someone space on a lifeboat to prevent it from sinking
Person whose life had to be sacrificed/non-sacrificed was Dutch (in-group) or Arab (out-group)
Experiment 2
77 Dutch male ppts
Same experiment but member of out-group had German name
Placebo group - no statistically significant difference in sacrificing in-group/out-group
No difference between oxytocin & placebo in decision to sacrifice member of out-group
Oxytocin group less likely to sacrifice someone in their in-group
Compared with placebo, oxytocin reduced sacrifice of in-group members
Not driven by out-group derogation, treatment didn’t influence readiness to sacrifice out-group members instead driven by in-group bias
Oxytocin has a role in in-group favouritism but not in out-group derogation
Highly controlled: double blind treatments & ppts randomly allocated to conditions: high internal validity
Placebo group helps control for demand characteristics
Problem as answering questions about moral dilemmas while a part of a study doesn’t eliminate demand characteristics, may be some social desirability bias
Independent samples design: ppt variability may play role as prejudices not measured at start
Lacks ecological validity, answering questions on computer not same as being in crisis & making decision
No emotion in experiment - findings may not have value outside lab
