Relationships

Relationships

1. Evelutionary explanations for partner preferences

   • Sexual selection
     • Sexual selection explains why characteristics appear disadvantageous in terms of survival, but give advantage to human reproductive behaviour because characteristics are attractive to potential mates.
     • Sexual selection is the competition for mates between members of the same sex, which has a significant impact on the evolution of certain physical and psychological traits, such as greater height, certain facial and bodily features.
   • Inter-sexual selection
     • Preferred strategy of the female - quality over quantity. Females make greater investment of time, commitment and other resources before, during and after birth of offspring. Females wisely choose a partner who can offer resources eg. food, territory
   • Intra-sexual selection
     • Preferred strategy of the male - quantity over quality. Refers to the competition between males to be able to mate with a female. The winner of the competition reproduces and gets to pass on the characteristics that contributed to his victory to his offspring eg. strength.
     • Strategy of intra-sexual selection given rise to dimorphism in humans (obvious differences between females and males)
   • Female and male mating strategies
     • Male strategies
       • Courtship rituals - Allows showing off genetic potential and resources
       • Size - Bigger body sizes demonstrate physical strength and an ability to protect partner and offspring from threats.
       • Sperm competition - Men have evolved to have bigger testicles and faster sperm
       • Mate guarding - Keeping a close eye on partners to prevent unfaithfulness
     • Female strategies
       • Sexy sons hypothesis - Females select attractive males as they are more likely to pass the genes onto their children, increasing the chance of offspring reproducing.
       • Handicap hypothesis - Women may pick men with handicaps as it shows ability to thrive despite adversities eg. drink and drugs
       • Courtship - Dating is strategy for females to establish a mans worth to produce offspring.
   • Evaluation
     • Advantage - Supporting evidence for evolutionary explanations for partner preferences: Buss using self reports data collected from over 10,000 patients from over 37 cultures. Results showed males and females across the world showed preference for partners that are intelligent and kind. This implies that the theory may be valid in explaining this integral human behaviour.
     • Disadvantage - External validity of evolutionary explanations could be considered to be low: they do not take into account long distance relationships of partnerships where children are not desired, so can't be attributed to all individuals. Explanation for partner preferences can only be used to explain heterosexual relationships. As the ideas can't be applied to the whole population, the usefulness of the theories is not valid.
     • Advantage - Clark & Hatfield supports the theory of evolutionary explanations for partner preferences: Psych students asked other students at the uni the same question "I have been noticing you around campus. I find you attractive, would you like to have sex with me". 0 females agreed but 75% males agreed. This suggests that the idea that intra-sexual selection is the main strategy for men.
     • Disadvantage - Evolutionary explanations fail to take into account changes in society over time: They do not explain long distance, homosexual relationships or couples who do not want children. Therefore they are not accurate.

2. Factors affecting attraction in romantic relationships

   • Self disclosure
     • Self disclosure - Revealing personal information about yourself to your new partner. Self-fulfilling prophecy
     • Social penetration theory - Claims romantic relationships become more intimate as self-disclosures deepen & broaden. Appropriateness of self-disclosure - disclosing at inappropriate times. Attributions for disclosure - we believe they're the type to disclose to everyone.
     • Evaluation
       • Advantage - Evidence to support the role of self disclosure on romantic relationships: Klienke - individuals who were selective about who they disclose to were seen as more attractive.
       • Disadvantage - By suggesting self-disclosure is the key factor in attraction of romantic partners could be considered a reductionist explanation or r/ships. Other explanations of attractiveness may be more convincing eg. personality of recipient is also important as some individuals may not be comfortable with knowing private details and may not know how to react. This implies that although the account provides a reductionist explanation of relationships, from real world experience it must be incomplete and unrealistic.
   • Physical attractiveness and the matching hypothesis
     • Females - emotional security, wealth
     • Males - young, attractive females with fertility signs eg. slim hourglass
     • Halo effect
       • People deemed to be attractive benefit from favourable perceptions from society
     • Matching hypothesis
       • Theory that people will seek partners of similar physical attractiveness to them selves. We need to have a realistic judgement of how attractive we are in the first place. If one partner feels their partner is more attractive they will fear the partner will leave for someone more attractive.
     • Evaluation
       • Advantage - Matching hypothesis as a factor effects attraction has been supported by research. Murstein - asked ppts to judge attractiveness of real and fake couples in photos. Results were that couples attractiveness ratings were significantly closer than that of the fake couples, supporting the idea that individuals seek people of similar attractiveness.
       • Advantage - There is research to support matching hypothesis - walster et al had a theory that people seek partners of similar physical attractiveness. Attempting to punch above their weight carries increased risk of rejection. They told students they were paired with ideal partner for a dance, couples with similar attractiveness rated their partner higher, supporting the matching hypothesis.
       • Disadvantage - physical beauty is important in determining attraction but there can be other factors in play. Hatfield - argues complex matching that was multiple matching criteria, and physical attributes is only 1. In reality people compensate with other attractive traits eg. humour.
   • Filter theory
     • Kerchkoff and Davies - they theories that our choices of mates are limited by several factors.
     • 1st level - Social demography - Individuals with similar demographics to us: where we work or live, religious groups, gym members educational and economic backgrounds.
     • 2nd level - Similarity in attitudes - more likely to meet people with similar attitudes and beliefs eg. protest march - choice is limited to this person.
     • 3rd level - Complementarity - focus is on how much the individual meets the partners emotional needs. important for moving past the initial stages of the relationship.
     • Evaluation
       • Advantage - Ethnicity is an important factor in selecting a partner. Taylor et al - found 85% of Americans were married to someone of their ethnicity. This further supports the idea that our social demographic is important in relationships.
       • Advantage - Empirical support for the filter theory. Festinger - people who live near the stairs in an apartment block knew the most people. This shows that familiarity is an important element of relationships and supports filter theory, particularly the idea demographics play a role.

3. Theories of romantic relationships

   • Social exchange theory
     • Thiabault and kelly - relationships are based on rewards that someone will gain from the relationship vs the costs that are involved. In a relationship individual attempt to maximise their benefits and reduce the costs.
     • Comparison level - the amount of reward you believe you deserve to get. Develops out of experiences of previous relationships which feed into our expectations of current ones influenced by social norms.
     • Comparison level for alternatives - Do we believe we can gain greater rewards or fewer costs from another relationship.
     • Stages of relationship development.
       • 1. Sampling stage - explore rewards and costs of social exchange by experimenting with them in our relationships or observing others.
       • 2. Bargaining stage - marks the beginning of a relationship, when romantic partners exchange costs and rewards identifying what is profitable.
       • 3. Commitment stage - as time goes on, sources of costs and rewards become more predictable and the relationships become more stable.
       • 4. Institutionalisation stage - the partners are now settled down because the norms of the relationship in terms of costs and benefits are firmly established.
     • OUTCOME = REWARDS-COSTS
     • Evaluation
       • Disadvantage - costs in a relationship may not be as important at al stages of a relationship. Rusbult suggested costs are not considered during relationship formation, only when it becomes more important or starts to break down. eg. when we have little concern over paying for meals at start of relationship. This theory may be best suited to just explaining the maintenance and breakdown of relatoinships
       • Advantage - practical applications for society that result from this theory. eg. using theory can help develop couples therapy to focus on the perceived or actual costs and rewards. eg, both people in the couple discuss the costs with eachother.