Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Describe and evaluate two theories of the formation of relationships
- Reward/ Need satisfaction theory
- AO1
- Byrne & Clore ’70
- We enter relationships as the presence of some individuals is directly associated with happiness, which makes them more attractive to us
- Operant conditioning
- We are attracted to people who provide us with direct reinforcement
- Rewarding stimuli lead to positive feelings and punishing stimuli lead to negative feelings
- Classical conditioning
- We are also attracted to people who are associated with pleasant events
- AO2
- Griffitt and Guay
- Participants were evaluated on a creative task. Those that were most complimented found the evaluator most attractive
- IDA cultural bias
- Theory doesn't account for cultural and gender differences in the formation of relationships, suggesting that it's not a universal explanation
- Lott
- Women focus on the needs of others in many societies
- Caspi and Herbener
- Conducted a study on real life couples and found supporting evidence
- Aron
- Reward pathways in brain probably evolved to speed up love in our ancestors to speed up the mating process
- Sheldon
- Relationally disconnected people may use Facebook to make up for a lack of face to face interaction
- Similarity
- AO1
- Byrne, Clore and Smeaton
- People first sort potential partners for dissimilarity, and avoid them. They then are most likely to choose someone similar to themselves
- Personality Bersheud & Reis
- People are attracted to someone with similar traits.
- Caspi and Herbener
- Married couples with more similarities were happier than those with less similarities
- Attitudes
- If partners' attitudes toward important issues differ, the process of attitude alignment may occur, as one or both partners modify their attitudes to produce similarity
- AO2
- Rosenbaum
- Dissimilarity rather than similarity was most important in whether a relationship will develop.
- Cultural variations
- Singh & Tan in Singapore AND Drigotas USA, found partners with most dissimilarities became less attracted to each other
- Shows good universal validity and consideration for other cultures within the theory
- Yoshida
- The theory ignores other factors such as physical condition and economic level
- Lehr and Geher
- Descriptions of an imaginary stranger had vary degrees of similarity with the participant's own attitudes
- The imaginary stranger was more liked if he or she was similar to the person doing the rating (the participant)