Relationships

Relationships

1. Formation / Maintanance

   • Sociobiological
     • Evolutionary approach
     • Men want young attractive women in order to have as many attractive children as possible to continue his gene pool.
       • It's suits men to be promiscuous in order to have as many children as possible. Women are limited to the number of children they can have however men are not.
     • Women want wealthy men to look after her and her ofspring to ensure the best life possible.
       • Women are programmed to mate with carefully chosen partners with plentiful resources to have children with.
     • Male - Polygamy Women - Monogamy
     • Buss et al
       • Analysis of 9000 questionnaires rating whats important to an individual when looking for a relationship.
       • Results show men rated physical attractiveness highly whereas women chose things such as "economic stability"
     • Singh et al
       • Men are attracted to women with a low waiste-to-hip ratio, although beauty is usually thinner but it is linked to high conception rates.
   • Filter Theory
     • Field of availability - Single people around you that could become a match
       • Field of desirability - Filter out who you would want a relationship with
     • Sociodemographic filter - Same social class, location etc.
       • Similar attitudes - Same views and morals
         • Emotional compatability - Similar emotions
     • Keircoff and Davis
       • Student couples who were together for at least 18 months had to fill out a questionnaire every 7 months about their relationship.
         • Results found the first two filters occured early on in a relationship and the third filter found later on.
   • MatchingHypothesis
     • People form relationships with a partner who is similarly attractive to them.
     • You may get someone more attractive than you but you would not be able to keep them.
     • Murstein
       • Looked at real couples and compared them to artificial couples.
         • Real couples were better matched and so more likely to laugh
     • Silverman
       • Couples in a bar - the closer their attractiveness the better they got on.
   • Reinforcement affect theory
     • Based on behavioural approach.
       • Classical and operant conditioning
         • We learn to form relationships based on assossiation and reinforcement
           • Happiness = find someone attractive
     • May and Hamilton
       • Lab experiment - Females rate photos of men under 3 conditions.
         • Rock music - avonguard music - silence
       • Rock - Positive Avonguard - negative Silence - Control
     • Veitch
       • Strangers spoke to participants in either comfortable or uncomfortable situations
       • Liked the strangers more if the situations was comfortable. Associate strangers with the comfortable situation.

2. Breakdown

   • Duck
     • Reasons for relationships to breakdown
       • Young couples
       • Low socioeconomic couples
       • Large number of sexual partners
       • Parents divorsing
     • 3 catagories of relationship breakdown
       • Pre-existing doom - Bound to break up
       • Mechanical failure - Cannot live together
       • Sudden death - Do something unforgivable
     • Stages of breakdown
       • Intrapsychic phase - Experience dissatisfaction
         • Dyadic Phase - Faults are brought out into the open
           • The social phase - Dissatisfaction and plans to break up are discussed with friends. (cant come back from this)
             • The grave-dressing stage - Credible socilly accepted version of what happens is made up by both halves of the relationship.
               • Harvey et al - Versions we tell people make us look good so we look good to other potential partners. Often no where near what really happened.
   • Lee
     • Survey of 122 romantic break ups suggested that relationships went through 5 stages.
     • Dissatisfaction - One or both partners become unhappy
       • Exposure - They reveal the dissatisfaction to their partner
         • Negotiation - They discuss their disstatisfaction.
           • Resolution - Attempt to solve the issue
             • Termination - Breakdown
     • Stage 2 and 3 were the most exhausting of the stages
     • Not all couples go through stages (some can be skipped)
     • The longer the stages take the more lonliness is felt after the break up.
   • Evalution of Duck and Lee
     • Lee is based on the early stages when the relationship could still be saved.
       • Duck is based on the end.
     • Cannot be applied universally. Relationships are individual and wont go through the stages at the same speed.
     • Culturally specific - Only applies to western individualist culture, unlikely to apply to eastern collectivist cultures.
       • Moghaddam - Western individualist culture are voluntary and temporary - non-western cultures are unvoluntary and perminant.
     • Relationships are studies retrospectively as studying it during the relationship can affect it.
     • Both are only descriptive - describe what and not why.
     • Femlee - Fatal attraction - What first attracts you to the individual becomes the reason you break up
     • Argyle and Henderson - Rule violation breaks down a relationship. Prescriptive is what is expected in a relationship (What you should do). Restrictive - Whats not permissible (What you can't do).

3. Parental investment

   • Batemans Principle
     • Investment is dependant on gamete production.
     • Women invest more in batemans principle as egg production is harder than sperm production.
       • Women are more choosy in their choice of mate because of this.
     • Sperm are cheap and plentiful to produce so men benefit from spreading them freely.
       • Clown shrimp will guard a female for weeks to mate with her.
     • Taylor et al
       • Female fruit fly that mate with many men have more children than virgin or monogomous.
     • Macows are monogomaus and spend their whole lifetimes together.
       • How generlisible is this too humans
   • Trivers theory
     • Development of Batemans theory.
       • Not just gamete production counts as investment but also the pregnancy, birth and care after.
     • Sex with the greater burden will be more choosy.
       • The cost of the egg continues throughout pregnancy, birth and the child growing up.
       • Predominantly female job
         • Hoffman
           • Male seals do nothing to look after their offspring
         • Only 1% stay at home dads
           • Althoough it's only a small amount some males do invest more.
         • Doesn't explain women who kill their children.
       • Male choosiness depends on competition.
         • Male spiders will guard young females from other males.
     • Choosing the wrong sex can be dangerous for women.
     • Can men be choosy?
       • Werner and Lotem
         • Male fish when given the choice of two female mates will always go for the larger female.
   • Cultural Differences
     • Love and marriage
       • Love isn't an important factor in non-western cultures. They do not need to love to get married.
         • Love grows over time being together.
         • Kephart
           • "If someone was perfect for you but you did not love them would you marry them?" - Twice as many american women said no than 20 years ago.
       • Romantic love is in western media.
       • Yeslma and Athappilly
         • Studied marriage satisfaction in 28 arrangedmarriages, 25 love marriages and 31 american marriages. They found the arranged marriage couple were the happiest of all three groups.
     • Divorse
       • American divorce rate - 55% indian 1%
         • Divorce happens in all cultures but is mostly common in western cultures.
       • Being a single women in some cultures is nearly impossible.
       • Is Marriage success the same in all cultures?
     • Physical attraction
       • Agreement on body shape and size. Health is attractive. (not too big or small)
       • Singh
         • Low waist to hip ratio in women is attractive as it represents fertility.
       • Wetsman
         • American men prefer low waist - to - hip ratio but tanzanian men did not.
       • Stone
         • Questionnaire data showed health importance.

4. Influence on adolescents experience on later adult relationships

   • Influence of parents
     • Relationship with parents is more equal and reciprical
       • Learn behavour for future
     • Renegotiation to allow them more freedom/ independence.
     • Ryan and Lynch
       • Adolescence is a result of good family relationship.
         • Time when they reshaped there internal working model.
   • Influence of peers
     • Become more independant
     • Process of splitting from parents and joining peers help adult relationship form.
     • Don't replace parents but they coexist
     • Over identification with peers can cause "out groups" who become divorced for mainstream society and can become involved in destructive behavour.