Rewards/ Needs Satisfaction Theory

Rewards/ Needs Satisfaction Theory

1. AO1

   • Behavioural approach
   • Attracted to people who can satisfy out unmet needs
   • Operant conditioning
     • Rewards produce positive feelings. Learn to find the person attractive through reinforcement of the reward.
     • Repeat any behaviour that leads to a desirable outcome. So we spend more time with that person
   • Classical conditioning
     • Associate individual with pleasant event. Person creates positive feelings. Seek their company more often
   • Balance between positive + negative feelings are important. Positive feelings must outweigh the negative for a relationship to form
   • Mutual attraction occurs when both individuals needs are met

2. AO2

   • Griffit + Guay
     • Support the reward part of RSN theory
     • Found that participants who were positively evaluated (rewarded) rated the experimenter high on how much they liked them.
     • Shows that rewards are important in determining relationship formation
     • However it is a laboratory study so lacks mundane realism + cannot be generalised or applied to real life
   • Sheldon et al.
     • Supports the need satisfaction part of RNS theory
     • Relationally 'connected' people used Facebook because their sociability motivated them
     • Relationally 'disconnected' people used Facebook as a coping strategy
     • Shows that humans are social beings + need companionship. Fulfilling our needs is important in forming a relationship
     • Contemporary study + links to dating websites (uniform dating). Findings can be applied to real life.
   • Aron et al.
     • Supporting physiological evidence for an evolutionary adaption in forming relationships
     • Found those measured high on a self-report questionnaire of romantic love showed strong activity in the ventral tegmental (rewards part of the brain)
     • Suggests that the brain reward system associated with romantic love evolved to drive our ancestors courtship energy on specific individuals as this speeds up the mating process.
     • Shows that rewards are necessary when forming relationships and is an evolutionary adaption to help pass on genes.
   • Lott
     • Criticises RNS theory as it cannot explain cultural + gender differences in relationship formation
     • Found that in many cultures women are more focused on the needs of others rather then receiving reinforcement
     • RNS theory does not take into account these differences
     • Suggests that RNS theory is gender + culturally biased + ethnocentric so it is not a universal explantation