Theories Of Romantic Relationships: Rusbult’s Investment Model Flashcards
Rusbult’s investment model
The model examines a range of factors which have an effect of the amount of commitment that people put into their relationship, and whether the relationship is likely to continue or not. It is therefore an extension of SET. Rusbult’s investment model has three key factors which will decide commitment level and whether to leave or stay in a relationship.
Satisfaction, alternatives, investments
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Commitment level
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Future Stay or Leave decision
Satisfaction levels
Satisfaction is the positive or negative emotional experiences that a person in a relationship
feels. Satisfaction is influenced by extent to which their partner fulfills and gratifies their individual needs in the relationship e.g. domestic/sexual needs. Satisfaction levels can be compared against previous relationships, e.g. if someone feels more satisfied in their present relationship than they did in previous ones, then this is a positive outcome
Comparison/quality of alternatives
This is when a person might think about whether their important needs might be fulfilled better
outside of the relationship. If there is an attractive alternative to the current relationship, the
individual might leave the current relationship and not invest in it. If there are no good quality
alternatives, the person might stay in their present relationship because there are no better
options. The alternative option could even be that the person wants to be single, as this might
seem a better alternative than being in a poor quality relationship.
Investment size
Investment size contributes to the stability of the relationship. It is a measure of the importance and extent of the resources that are attached to the relationship and they could be lost if the relationship were to end, examples include mutual friends, home etc.
Partners invest in their relationship and create a strong foundation for the future and this could be costly to break. Investment size is a powerful psychological force which motivates people to continue with their relationship, especially if they have put in a great deal of time and effort into the relationship.
Two types of investment levels
Intrinsic investment and extrinsic investment
Intrinsic investment
Direct investment such as money, energy, emotion
Extrinsic investment
Investment that was not present at the start of the
relationship, but has developed over time e.g. children, shared memories
Commitment level
This refers to the whether the relationship will persist and continue. If commitment is high and both partners are happy, the relationship should continue and survive. Commitment should involve equity (a fair input from both partners). There would be high losses if someone was to leave the relationship with the following traits, this would be very risky.
Based on the consequences of satisfaction, alternatives and investment.
Research on the Investment Modelling by Le and Agnew (2003)
• Conducted a meta-analysis of 52 studies between 1970-1990 and explored the
different factors of the investment model. There were 11,000 participants from 5
countries, UK, USA, Israel, Taiwan and the Netherlands
• The findings showed that satisfaction, quality of alternatives and investment were
correlated with commitment
• Satisfaction and commitment were significantly correlated and had the strongest
correlation of +0.68 out of all of the other factors
• Quality of alternatives had the lowest correlation with commitment (-0.48)
• Investment size was correlated with commitment +0.46
• Those who had high commitment were likely to stay in the relationship, those with low
commitment were likely to leave.
Strengths of Modelling Investment Model
1) Research conducted by Van Lange (1997) supports Rusbult’s investment model when examining all of the key factors involved in the model. He studied students from Taiwan and from the Netherlands and found evidence that high commitment levels in a
relationship were related to high satisfaction, low quality of alternatives and high investment size.
2) Furthermore, the investment model is very useful because it can help explain the behaviour of infidelity which might occur if a person’s current relationship has low satisfaction and there is a high quality of alternative. Both of these factors would
lessen the commitment levels and the present relationship is likely to end and not continue. Rusbult’s model can also explain why some people might stay in abusive relationships; the satisfaction is low and the victim should really leave the relationship. However, they might stay in the abusive relationship because there are a low quality of
alternatives and the investment in the present relationship is too high, e.g. they have children.
3) Rusbult’s investment model has the strength of being applied to explain the factor of
commitment in a variety of different relationships. Rusbult administered Investment Model Scale questionnaires to participants in homosexual relationships and found that all factors of the investment model were found to be important when looking at commitment.
Disadvantages of Rusbult’s Investment Model
4) Rusbult’s model has been criticised because it is very difficult to measure the factors of commitment, satisfaction, investment and quality of alternatives. Rusbult responded to this criticism and constructed an investment model scale which could measure each of the key variables in a reliable and valid way. The research that Rusbult conducted using
these scales involved self-reports, and this then created further problems of social desirability bias. For example, if pps were using the scale in terms of satisfaction, in order to look good, they may have pretended to be more satisfied than they were to
show that they know how to maintain a relationship.
5) Lin (1995) criticises Rusbult’s model because it does not take into account gender differences that might exist when looking at relationships. Lin found that females tend to report higher satisfaction, poorer quality of alternatives, greater investment and stronger commitment in relationships compared to males. Therefore gender differences do exist
What type of theory is Rusbult’s investment model
Economic theory
