Studies Flashcards
1
Q
Buss
A
- Surveyed over 33 countries and 10,000 adults
- Asked questions about age and attributes that the evolutionary theory predicts about partner preference
- Women= greater value on resource related characteristics
- Men= valued reproductive capacity in terms of good looks and younger mates
- Reflects the idea of anisogamy
2
Q
Clark and Hatfield
A
- Male and female volunteers to approach opposite sex students, asking ‘I’ve noticed you around campus. I find you attractive. Will you go to bed with me tonight?’
- 75% of males agreed but not a single female did
3
Q
Penton-Voak et al
A
- Females mate preferences change across the menstrual cycle
- Preferred masculine features during fertile period, but feminised features for a long term mate
4
Q
Chang et al
A
-Compared partner preferences in China over 25 years and found some changes
5
Q
Altman and Taylor
A
- Gradually revealing emotions and listening to reciprocal sharing, people gain a greater understanding of each other and display trust
- As they increasingly disclose more, they ‘penetrate’ more into each others lives
6
Q
Reis and Shaver
A
- In order to develop a relationship there needs to be a reciprocal element to disclosure as well as an increase in breadth and depth
- Balance of self-disclosure between partners
7
Q
Sprecher and Hendrick
A
-Studied hetrosexual couples and found that as self-disclosure increased, so did relationship satisfaction
8
Q
Laurenceau et al
A
- Asked ppts to write diary entries about relationship progress
- Found that self-disclosure and perception of disclosure led to greater feelings of intimacy
9
Q
Tang et al
A
- Men and women in USA tended to disclose more sexual thoughts than romantic partners in China
- However there level of relationship satisfaction was high in both cultures
10
Q
Shackelford and Larsen
A
- People with symmetrical faces are rated as more attractive
- Shows an honest sign of genetic fitness
- Neotenous features (baby face) are also rated favourably
11
Q
Dion et al
A
-Attractive people are consistently rated as successful, kind and sociable when compared with unattractive people
12
Q
Walster (theory)
A
- Matching hypothesis
- A person’s partner choice is a balance between desire to have the most physically attractive person possible and their wish to avoid being rejected by someone who is ‘way out of their league’
13
Q
Palmer and Peterson
A
- Asked ppts to rate attractive and unattractive people in terms of how politically competent and knowledgeable they are
- Found that attractive people were consistently rated higher on these characteristics compared to unattractive ones
14
Q
Towhey
A
- Asked male and female ppts to rate how much they would like a target individual based on their photo and some biological info
- Ppts also had to complete the MACHO scale designed to measure sexist attitudes
- Found ppts who scored highly on the scale were more likely to be influenced by the physical attractiveness when making judgements about likeability
15
Q
Feingold
A
- Meta-analysis of 17 studies
- Found a correlation in rating of attractiveness between partners
- Supports meta-analysis
16
Q
Walster et al (study)
A
- US uni students invited to attend a dance party and were randomly matched to a partner, and secretly judged on attractiveness
- During intervals at the party, 4 months and 6 months later, students were asked if they found their partner attractive
- Original research for matching hypothesis failed to confirm it
17
Q
Taylor et al
A
-No evidence that online daters were driven by their own or their potential partners physical attractiveness
18
Q
Kerckhoff and Davis
A
- Filter theory
- Studied student couples and discovered several criteria people use to choose a partner
- They call these filters, as they help people sift through potential partners to choose the right one
- The filters assume greater/ lesser importance at different stages of a relationship
- These are;
1) Social demography
2) Similarity of attitudes
3) Complementarity - They also set the cut off point for short term relationships at 18 months
19
Q
Winch
A
- Found that similarity of interests, attitudes and personality traits were very important for couples in the beginning of relationships
- Complementarity had more impact on long term relationships
20
Q
Newcomb
A
- Offered ppts free accommodation for a year
- Assigned a roommate, and found that a stable friendship developed if roommates had a similar background and attitudes to life
21
Q
Levenger
A
- Claims that it is difficult to replicate Kerckhoff and Davis’ study due to the difficulty in correlating length and depth of relationships
- And of determining what constitutes short and long term relationships
22
Q
Thibault and Kelly
A
- Describes romantic relationships using the economic terminology of profit (rewards) and loss (costs)
- They claim that partners strive to maximise rewards and minimise costs
- The costs and rewards are subjective and change over time
- They proposed 2 levels of comparison
1) Comparison Level
2) Comparison level of alternatives - They also proposed 4 stages of a relationship
1) Sampling stage
2) Bargaining stage
3) Commitment stage
4) Institutionalisation stage
23
Q
Sprecher
A
- Conducted a longitudinal study with 101 US uni couples
- Found that Comparison Levels for alternatives were a strong predictor of commitment in a relationship
24
Q
Argyle
A
- Argues that people rarely start assessing their relationships before they feel unsatisfied with them
- Eg being unhappy may make them question if they are getting more rewards than costs
25
Walster et al
- Equity theory
- For fairness in the relationship the level of profit should be the same for each partner (rewards:cost ratio)
- A person who gets more benefits from a relationship than they put in will feel guilt= These people are over-benefited
- Those who put a lot in but get very little back will be angry and resentful= These people are under-benefited
26
Utne et al
- Carried out a survey of 118 recently married couples, measuring equity with 2 self-report scales
- The husbands and wives were between 16 and 45 years old and had been together for more than 2 years before marrying
- Found that couples who consider their relationship equitable were more satisfied than those who saw themselves as over/under benefiting
27
Huseman et al
- Suggests that some people are less sensitive to equity
- They describe some partners as 'benevolents'= prepared to contribute more to the relationship than they get out of it
- Some are described as 'entitleds' who believe they deserve to be over benefited and accept it without guilt
28
Aumer-Ryan
- Suggested that there's cultural differences in the link between equity and satisfaction
- Couples from individualist cultures considered their relationship most satisfying when it was equitable
- Couples from collectivist cultures were most satisfied when they were over benefiting
- This was consistent for both men and women
29
Rusbult et al
- Investment model, which developed the Social Exchange Model
- They developed SET further as many couples stay together despite the costs outweighing the rewards
- They found 3 factors which maintain commitment;
1) Satisfaction level
2) Comparison with alternatives
3) Investment size
- He also said that there was 2 types of investment= intrinsic (Things we put directly into the relationship like money) and extrinsic (Things brought into people's life like children)
- He also identified maintenance mechanisms that partners use to keep relationships going= accommodation, willingness to sacrifice, forgiveness, positive illusions and ridiculing alternatives
30
Rusbult and Maltz
- In their study of 'battered women'
- found that women who were most likely to return to an abusive partner who those who reported making the greatest investment n the relationship and they didn't have have any appealing alternatives
31
Le and Agnew
- Conducted a meta-analysis of 52 studies from the late 1970s to 1999, featuring 11,000 ppts from 5 countries
- Discovered that satisfaction, comparison for alternatives and investment greatly contribute to commitment= which is a feature of long term relationships
- These outcomes were true for both men and women, across all cultures and for homosexual and heterosexual relationships
32
Agnew and Goodfriend
- Suggested that there's more to investment than just the resources that you have already put into the relationship
- They extended Rusbult's original model by including the investment romantic partners make in their future plans
- They extended Rusbult's original model by including the investment romantic partners make in their future plans
- With many motivated to commit as they want their future plans to work
33
Duck
- Suggested that ending a relationship is not a one-off event but a process
- Each phase is marked by 1 partner, reaching a 'threshold'
- Break up beings from dissatisfaction
- He proposed 4 stages;
1) Intra-psychic stage
2) dyadic
3) social phase
4) 'grave-dressing'
34
Rollie and Duck
- Suggested that the original model is over simplified
- Adding a 5th stage resurrection phase, where ex-partners turns their attention to future relationships, using the experiences gained from their ended one
35
Tashiro and Frazier
- Supported the resurrection stage
| - Found that ppts (undergrads) reported experiencing personal growth as a result as well as emotional distress
36
McKenna and Bargh
- Proposed the idea of absence of gating
- a gate= anything that could get in the way of a relationship developing such as appearance and anxiety
- Face to face relationships are gated, whereas virtual aren't, which is a huge advantage as it allows relationships to progress faster
- The distance forces people to refocus on self-disclosure, rather than something else
- This means that people are allowed to create the kind of person they want to be
37
Walther
- Hyperpersonal model
- Online relationships can be more personal and involve greater self-disclosure.
- These relationships develop quickly as self-disclosure happens earlier, and are more intense and intimate
- They also end more quickly because the high excitement level of the interaction isn’t matched by the level of trust between the partners = boom and bust phenomenon (Cooper & Sportolari)
- The sender of the message has more time to manipulate their image than they would FtF = selective self-presentation
38
Cooper & Sportolari
-Online relationships end more quickly because the high excitement level of the interaction isn’t matched by the level of trust between the partners = boom and bust phenomenon
39
Bargh et al
- importance of anonymity
- When you’re aware the other people do not know your identity, you feel less accountable for your behaviour, and so may disclose more to a ‘stranger’ than someone you know - strangers on a train effect.
40
Sproull and Kiesler
- Reduced cues theory
- CMC (computer-mediated communication) relationships are less effective than FtF ones because they lack many of the cues we normally depend on including our physical appearance.
- CMC particularly lacks cues to our emotional state, e.g. facial expressions
- Lack of cues leads to de-individuation because it reduces people’s sense of identity, in turn encourages disinhibition in relating to others
- Virtual relationships more likely to involve blunt and aggressive communication
41
Rosenfeld and Thomas
- Showed the importance of internet in helping people to make and maintain relationships
- studied 4000 US adults and found that individuals with internet access at home were more likely to be in romantic relationships
- Of these individuals, 72% of those who had internet access at home had a romantic partner, whereas this figure was much lower (36%) for those without internet access.
- Even after controlling variables such as age and gender, individuals with internet access were still twice as likely to have a romantic partner
42
Walther and Tidwell
- They point out that non-verbal cues aren't missing in CMC, but instead are different
- Such as style and timing of their messages.
- Furthermore acrostics, emoticons and emojis, are used as effective substitutes for facial expressions and tone of voice.
43
McKenna and Bargh
- Looked at CMC used by lonely and socially anxious people
- Found that such people were able to express their ‘true selves’ more than in FtF relationships=
- Of the romantic relationships that initially formed online, 70% survived more than two years
- This is a higher proportion than for relationships formed in the offline world
44
Maltby 1
- Identified 3 levels of parasocial relationships;
1) Entertainment-Social
2) Intense-Personal
3) Borderline pathological
45
McCutcheon et al (Theory)
- developed the Celebrity Attitude Scale
- She also proposed the Absorption-Addiction model to explain parasocial relationships
- Where people form parasocial relationships because of deficiencies in their own lives, e.g. lack of fulfillment in everyday relationships, and this allows escape or a way of finding fulfillment
- Someone who initially has an E-S orientation to a certain celebrity may be triggered into more intense involvement by a personal crisis
- Absorption= Seeking fulfillment in celebrity worship motivates the individual to focus their attention on the celebrity - becoming preoccupied
- Addiction= Needs to sustain commitment to relationship by feeling a closer involvement with the celebrity
46
McCutcheon et al
- examined the correlation between attachment type and celebrity worship levels using 229 participants
- no link between insecure-resistant attachment and more intense levels of parasocial relationships was found
47
Maltby 2
- Linked types of personality to levels of parasocial relationships
- He found links between the entertainment-social category with extraverted personality
48
Maltby et al
- They measured the relationship between celeb worship and body image in teens
- Found young girls who were at the intense-personal level tended to have a poor body image, especially if they admired a celebrity’s physical appearance
- Suspected that this link may be a precursor to the development of eating disorders
