Rusbult's Investment Model Flashcards
According to Rusbult et al (2011),…
commitment depends on three factors.
The 3 factors:
Satisfaction, comparison with alternatives, investment.
Satisfaction.
The extent to which romantic partners feel the rewards of a relationship exceed the costs.
Based on the concept of the comparison level.
Each partner is generally satisfied if they are getting more out of the relationship than they expect based on previous experience and social norms.
Comparison with alternatives.
A judgement that partners make concerning whether a relationship with a different partner would bring more rewards and fewer costs.
Alternatives include not just relationships with other people, but the possibilities of having no romantic relationship at all.
Investment.
The resources associated with a romantic relationship which partners would lose if their relationship were to end.
2 major types of investment.
Intrinsic and extrinsic investment.
Intrinsic investment.
Are any resources we put directly into the relationship.
They can be tangible things, such as money and possessions.
Can also be resources less easy to quantify (intangibles) such as energy, emotion and self-disclosures.
Extrinsic investment.
Resources that previously did not feature in the relationship, but are now associated with it.
Tangibles include possessions bought together, mutual friends and children.
If the partners in a relationship experience high levels of satisfaction and the alternatives are less attractive and the sizes of their investment are increasing,…
Then we can confidently predict that partners will be committed to the relationship.
Satisfaction versus commitment.
Commitment - a main psychological factor; satisfaction - contributory.
An important distinction, because it can help to explain why dissatisfied partners may choose to stay in a relationship - it’s because they’re committed tot heir partner.
They have made an investment that they don’t want to see to go to waster, therefore they’ll work hard to maintain and repair a damaged relationship.
Relationship maintenance mechanisms.
Enduring partners don’t engage in tit-for-tat retaliation but instead promote the relationship (accommodation). They also put their partner’s interests first (willingness to sacrifice), and forgive them for serious transgressions (forgiveness).
Committed partners think about each other and potential alternatives in specific ways; they are unrealistically positive about their partner (positive illusions), and negative about tempting alternatives and other people’s relationships (ridiculing alternatives), much more so than less committed partners.
Limitation: The model views investment in a simplistic one-dimensional way.
Goodfriend and Agnew (2008) point out that there is more investment than just the resources you have already put into a relationship. In the early stages, partners will have made very few actual investments.
Goodfriend and Agnew extended Rusbult’s original model by including the investment partners make in their future plans. They are motivated to commit to each other because they want to see their cherished plans for the future work out.
This means that the original model is limited because it fails to recognise the true complexity of investment, especially how planning for the future influences commitment.
Strength: The model is an explanation of relationships that involve intimate partner violence.
Rusbult and Martz (1995) studied domestically abused women at a shelter and found that those most likely to return to an abusive partner reported having made the greatest investment and having the fewest attractive alternatives. These women were dissatisfied with their relationships but still committed to them.
Therefore the model shows that satisfaction on its own cannot explain why people stay in relationships - commitment and investment are also factors.
Strength: The investment model is supported by a meta-analysis conducted by Benjamin Le and Agnew (2003).
(includes counterpoint)
They reviewed 52 studies, from the later 1970s to 1999, which together included about 11,000 ppts from 5 countries. They found that satisfaction, CLalt and investment size all predicted relationship commitment. Relationships in which commitment was greatest were the most stable and lasted longest. These outcomes were true for both men and women, across all cultures in the analysis, and for homosexual as well as heterosexual couples.
This suggests that there is validity to Rusbult’s claim that these factors are universally important features of romantic relationships.
Strong correlations have been found between all the important factors predicted by the investment model.
For example in the studies of Le and Agnew’s meta-analysis were correlational. However, correlational studies do not allow us to conclude that the factors identified by the model cause commitment in a relationship. It could be that the more committed you feel towards your partner, the more investment you are willing to make in the relationship, so the direction causality may be the reverse of that suggested by the model.
Therefore it is not clear that the model has identified the causes of commitment rather than factors that are associated with it.
