Rusbults investment model Flashcards
introduction
Rusbult designed this model to battle essential flaws in SET.
• A theory of romantic relationships /
Maintenance.
• The investment model emphasizes the central role of commitment in a relationship.
• Commitment is defined as:
• A romantic partners intention or desire to continue a relationship, reflecting a belief that the relationship has a viable long-term future.
satisfaction and comparison with alternatives
Satisfaction
• Based on CL
• Costs and rewards - many rewards = satisfying
• Partners are generally satisfied when they are getting more out of the relationship than they expect based on previous relationships.
Comparison with alternative
• Based on the Clalt
• Could be needs be better met outside of this relationship
Investment
CL and Clalt are not enough to explain commitment - Every time a relationship started costing too much it would end.
• Rusbult introduced the idea of investment
• What we would lose if the relationship ended?
Intrinsic Investments
• Anything we directly put into the relationship
• Tangible and intangible.
Extrinsic Investments
• Things that did not previously exist but do now
• Tangible and intangible
commitment
if all of these things are fine then the relationship can continue
satisfaction vs commitment
The main psychological factor that keeps people in romantic relationships is not satisfaction, but commitment.
• Important distinction
• Can help us to explain why dissatisfied partners stay in relationships
• They are committed
• They have invested a lot and don’t want to see it go to waste.
• People will work hard to maintain and repair relationships and push through rough patches.
strength-research support
One strength of the investment model is support from a meta analysis by Le and Agnew (2003).
They reviewed 52 studies, from the late nineteen seventies to 1999, which together included around 11,000 participants from five countries. They found that satisfaction, comparison with alternatives and investment size all predicted relationship commitment.
Relationships in which commitment was greatest were the most stable and lasted the 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 there is a validity to Rusbult’s claim that these factors are universally important features of romantic relationships
counterpoint to research-correlation vs causation
However, although strong correlations have been found between all the important factors predicted by the investment model, such as in Le and Agnew’s research, unfortunately correlational research does 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 of 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.
strength-the model can explain abusive relationships
Another strength is that the model can explain why people remain in relationships that could be seen as having very low levels of satisfaction, for example those that involve intimate partner violence (IPV, commonly known as abusive relationships).
Rusbult and Martz (1955) studied women at a domestic abuse refuge and found those most likely to return to an abusive partner reported having made the greatest investment and having fewest attractive alternatives.
These women were dissatisfied with their relationships but still committed to them.
Therefore the model shows the satisfaction on its own cannot explain why people stay in relationships - commitment and investment are also important factors.
limitation-oversimplified view of investments
A final limitation of the model is that it views investment in a simplistic one-dimensional way.
Goodfriend and Agnew (2008) point out that there is more to investment than just the resources you have already put into a relationship, as in the early stages of a relationship partners will have made very few actual investments.
The model therefore has been extended to include the investment partners plan on making in the future. They are motivated to commit to each other because they want to see their cherished plans for the future work out.
This means the original model is limited because it fails to recognize the true complexity of investment, especially how planning for the future influences commitment
6 marker
Rusbults investment model suggests that the success of a romantic relationship rests on the level of commitment that the partners have to the relationship and commitment depends on three factors, satisfaction, quality of alternatives and level of investment.
Satisfaction is based on the concept of the comparison level. A satisfying relationship is one where there are many rewards for example support, fun, companionship, sex, and few costs e.g. conflict, anxiety etc. Partners are generally satisfied if they are getting more out of the relationship than they expect to.
The second Factor is comparison with alternatives. This is all about romantic partners asking themselves whether there Are more rewarding and less costly alternatives? Alternatives include not just relationships with other people but the possibility of having no romantic relationship at all.
The 3rd Factor is an investment, which refers to anything that we would stand to lose if the relationship were to end. There are two types of investment intrinsic and extrinsic and both can be tangible and intangible. Intrinsic investments are things that have been put directly into the relationship. examples are things like money, possessions, energy and emotions. Extrinsic investments are things that did not previously exist in the relationship, but are now closely associated with it. Things like jointly bought items and children and shared memories.
So if we put all of these together we can say that if partners in a relationship experience high levels of satisfaction, with less attractive alternatives and they have an increasing level of investment then we can can confidently say that partners will be committed to the relationship and it will continue.
