Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Formation of Romantic
Relationships - AO1
- Reward/Need Satisfaction Theory (Byrne and Clore)
- Rewards and punishments
- rewarding stimuli = positive feelings
- punishing stimuli = negative feelings
- operant conditioning
- Likely to repeat behaviour that leads to a
desirable outcome/avoid ones that lead to
undesirable outcome
- presence of some individuals is
is associated with reinforcement
which makes them more attractive
to us
- Attraction through association
- classical conditioning
- like people associated with pleasant
events
- positive mood
- we become attracted to someone
due to associating them with a
pleasant experience
- when positive feelings
outweigh negative ones =
formation of relationship
- theory suggests we are
attracted to people who we find
satisfying/gratifying
- suggests we are motivated to
seek rewarding stimuli and
avoid punishing stimuli
- rewards reflect unmet needs e.g.
company/financial security
- Similarity (Byrne, Clore &
Smeaton)
- Personality
- research suggested that we are
more attracted to others who have
similar personality traits, e.g. 2 hard
working people
- it has been suggested that similarity is often the
rule in long-term relationships
- Caspi + Herbener - found married couples with
similar personalities = more happier
- Attitudes
- may be the case that those who have similar attitudes
are more attracted to one another
- research has suggested that a
process of 'attitude alignment' may
occur - partners modify attitudes to
become more similar
- 2 distinct stages = sorting people for
dissimilarity and avoiding those who appear too
different and then choose from the remaining
someone who is similar to themself.