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Theories of Romantic relationships, Evaluation of Duck's Relationship…

- - - - Profit - Rewards are maximised and costs minimised.
      - Distribution - Trade offs and compensations are negotiated to achieve fairness in a relationship
      - Dissatisfaction - The greater the degree of perceived unfairness, the greater sense of dissatisfaction
      - Realignment - If restoring equity is possible, maintenance will continue with attempts made to realign equity.
      - Dainton studied 219 individuals in romantic relationships. Found people who perceived inequity had low satisfaction in their relationship. However, most individuals were actually
        motivated to return to an equitable state.
        Yum et al researched cultural differences in 6 different cultures. While they were differences between cultures, Yum found that equitable couples performed the most maintenance strategies suggesting it takes a lot of effort to keep a relationship equitable.
        There is a cause and effect issues with this theory. Although inequity and dissatisfaction are linked it's merely correlational. Clark (1984) argues most people in R/ships do not think in terms of rewards and equity = if they do the R/ships in trouble. This suggests dissatisfaction may cause feelings of inequity.
        Neglects to consider individual differences in r/ships for example, not all partners in r/ships are concerned about achieving equity. Huseman (1987) suggested that some people are less sensitive to equity than others. They are seperated into two types of people:
        Benevolents - those who are prepared to contribute more to the relationship than they get out of it.
        Entitleds - those who believe they deserve to over benefit and accept it without feeling distressed or guilty.
        Practical application of using this theory can help develop couples therapy to focus on the FAIRNESS in R/ships. That would involve working out what each person feels is fair and unfair and how can we restore equity to maintain the relationship
- - - - Sudden Death - This is where the relationship suddenly ends. Discovering a partner has cheated or the couple has a huge argument, which swiftly ends the relationships.
      - Predisposing personal factors - Bad habits or poor personal hygiene
      - Duck believed that the reasons given to others as to why the relationship ended are typically much more interesting than the actual reason.
      - Lack of motivation - Previous theories cover this – e.g. inequity. Or perhaps an individual does not put the effort into the relationship
      - Lack of maintenance - Spending much time apart, not setting time aside for the relationship, independence too much of a feature.
      - Lack of skills -If your partner is sexually inexperienced or doesn’t fulfil your sexual needs. Poor cooking skills could also contribute.
      - Precipitating factors - Things like love rivals, long work hours, boredom
    - - Intrapsychic - Focus on partner’s behaviour. Assess the adequacy of partners performance. Focus on the negative aspects of the relationship. Consider the costs of withdrawing from the relationship. Look at what the individual gets from the relationships in terms of benefits. Private dilemma of whether to raise the issues with the relationship or not.
        
        Dyadic - Confront partner over inadequacies. Negotiation of future behaviour. Possible attempt to repair problems (although not always). Both assess the costs of withdrawing from the relationship.
        
        Social - Negotiate post-relationship dynamic with partner. Gossip in friendship/family circles. Face
        -saving stories are created in case of breakup, blame is also attributed. Consideration of the social backlash of relationship breakdown.
        
        Grave Dressing - Perform ‘getting over it’ activities. Going out - drinking/drugs. Retrospective, reformative post-mortem attribution. Publicly distribute own version of breakup.
        
        Resurrection Phase - modified theory (added in 2006.) Reconfiguring oneself for future relationships, showing personal growth. Tashiro & Frazier (2003) survey 92 students. Found number of personal growth factors that led from breakdowns to help in the future e.g. gained wisdom from past relationships.
- - - - The social exchange theory has been adapted further by Thibualt and Kelley et al who proposed a 4 stage model. As couples become familiar with each other they understand how the other partner exchange costs and benefits.
        Sampling stage: rewards and costs are assessed in a number of relationships
        Bargaining stage: A relationship is costed out and benefits and costs start to be identified within the relationship e.g sex life, emotional care.
        Commitment stage: rewards/costs slowly become predictable as the relationship enters new stages
        Institutionalisation stage: Interactions become predictable and the couple 'settles down’.
        
        Sprecher (2001) found that Comparison Levels for alternatives were a strong predictor of commitment in a relationship and that rewards were important as a predictor of satisfaction, especially for women.
        Social Exchange Theory is used in Integrated behavioral to help develop couples therapy focusing on the perceived or actual costs and rewards, where couples are taught how to increase the proportion of positive exchanges and decrease negative exchanges.
        Rusbult suggests that costs are not really considered during the stage where a relationship is forming, only much later when the relationship becomes more important & when begins to break down.
        The theory could be more suited to Western individualistic cultures. It could be that in other cultures, costs and benefits may be perceived in a very different manner.
        some people stay in relationships when the costs outweigh the benefits such as in cases of domestic violence & abuse.
- - - - Some psychologists suggest there is problems measuring the key variables involved due to the reliance on self-report techniques, such as questionnaires and interviews.
        The majority of research into the Investment Model is correlational, so psychologists are unable to conclude that investment causes commitment in relationships.
        Le & Agnew (2003) Meta analysis of 52 studies including 11,000 participants from 5 countries. They found that satisfaction, comparison with alternatives and investment size all predicted relationship commitment. Relationship where commitment was greatest where most stable and long lasting. Goodfriend and Agnew (2008) argue that it is not just things we bring to the relationships that could count as investment, but also a couple's plans for their future. In the early stages, partners will have made very few actual investments.
        According to the investment model, if a partner feels that the investment they made into relationships will be lost if they leave, they are more likely to stay in a relationship even when the costs are high (such as physical or emotional abuse) and rewards are few. Research like Rusbult and Martz supports this.
        Rusbult’s investment model of commitment has got wide application in society e.g. across countries and sexual orientations
        Le and Agnew’s (2003) meta-analysis reviewed the results of 52 different studies that used participants from five different countries (US, UK, Netherlands, Israel and Taiwan). They also included both hetrosexual and homosexual couples; couples that were married and unmarried; romantic relationships, abusive relationships and friendships.