To what extent do biological, cognitive and sociocultural factors influence human relationships?
same essay as
Examine biological, psychological (cognitive)
and social origins of attraction
Evaluate psychological research (theories and/or studies) relevant to the study of human relationships
literally any studies
Distinguish between altruism and prosocial behavior
Altruism
Prosocial Behavior
Egoistic Motivation
- performance of a prosocial action without any expectation of a benefit to self
- evolutionary biology: behavior that benefits other organisms but has some costs
- social biology: behavior that benefits another person rather than oneself
Prosocial Behavior
- Acts that are intended to benefit others
- It increases another person's physical or psychological wellbeing
- intentional pro-social behavior = helping behavior
Egoistic Motivation
- When the reason for engaging in prosocial behavior is a selfish one
- suggested egoism accounts for most prosocial behavior
Contrast two theories explaining altruism in humans
Altruism
Intro:
· Altruism: the selfless concern for the well-being of others
· Two theories: The Kin Selection hypothesis and the empathy-altruism model
· Both will be described and then their differences will be addressed, focusing on assumptions underlying them, the extent to which they have empirical support, and their overall validity
BP1: Description of both theories
· Kin-Selection
· Evolutionary psychology theory, based on assumption that behaviour can be inherited (link to BLOA).
· Suggests that altruism is an evolved response, exists in humans because this kind of behaviour in the past has provided a survival advantage: specifically that when we help those who are closely related to us (share genes), we increase the chance of family genes being passed to future generations
· Empathy-Altruism
· Also addresses biological factors in the sense that seeing a person in need sparks an emotional response in humans
· A key difference: EA then focuses on cognitive factors (how strong a victim’s need for help seems to be)
· One theory focuses only on biological basis of helping behaviour, other focuses on the way people process information in a particular situation
BP2: Empirical support – Kin-Selection
· As an evolutionary theory it is difficult to test
· Sime: when people fled a burning building, more likely to stay together if related
· Piliavin NYC subway bystander intervention: more likely to help people who are similar to us. Could be because physical similarity is a sign of genetic similarity
· Madsen et al: participants are more willing to suffer for the benefit of the closest relatives/themselves
· Provides cross-cultural support for Kin-Selection hypothesis
· Possible alternate explanations though – the variable of relatedness cannot be manipulated by researchers, limiting them to quasi-experiments, which prevents clear isolation of cause and effect
· Hamilton: individuals impose higher physical cost upon themselves when acting towards more closely related individuals
· A gene for altruism can evolve in a population
Madsen (2007a/cost kinship):
· participants were asked to impose a cost upon themselves, in the form of pain from exercise, in return for a proportionate reward given to an individual
· Exercise: squat. Participants asked to hold the position for as long as possible. Becomes increasingly painful over time – there is not a linear relationship. After approx. 100 seconds, pain increases massively
· Biological relatedness of the recipient was varied between 4 categories:
· 1) The participant themselves 2) sibling or parent 3) grandparent, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew 4) cousin
· Participants told the proceeds would be sent to nominated individuals chosen at random by the experimenter
· Participants: recruited from student population at Uni of Oxford. 40 pence for each 20 seconds that the posture was held
· Results: P’s imposed a higher cost when recipient was themselves rather than a sibling or parent
· Likewise, imposed a higher cost when recipient was a sibling or parents than a grandparent etc
· No diff between grandparent category and cousin
· Significant and reliable relationship between the effort invested in the task the relatedness of the beneficiary, although no signif diff between last two categories
+ Supported by two other experiments by Madsen – reliable
+ Found results that supported Kin-Selection
- Only used university students from the same university, probably same age, therefore cannot generalise. Perhaps older, more mature individuals will impose a higher cost for others than themselves
- Cost may vary according to their relationship with parents and grandparents. Eg. Someone who spent more time with their grandparents growing up than with parents may hold position longer for grandparents
- Could be unethical because physical stress/pain
Madsen: Kin selection in UK and South African students (2007b/culture kinship):
· Investigate kin selection hypothesis using participants from 2 different cultures
· Participants asked to perform physical exercise/painful
· Before exercise, participant supplied a list of biological relatives excluding relatives sharing a home with participants
· Told beforehand that one specific relative randomly selected from the list would receive payment according to the length of time they could stay in the position
· UK students: experiment offered 1.50pounds per 20 seconds. Participants spent more time on the exercise when money was going to close family members
· SA students were tested with food items rather than with money. For each 20 seconds they received an additional hamper of food. Participants made more effort to stay in position for relatives who were biologically closer to them. Zulu participants did not seem to distinguish between cousins and close relatives
· Kinship is trans-cultural. Results provide experimental evidence in support of the claim that humans are more willing to incur costs for the direct benefit of others, as a direct function of relatedness
· Humans behave in such a way to maximise inclusive fitness: more willing to benefit closer relatives
BP3: Empirical support - Empathy-altruism hypothesis
· Like cognitive theories, presents ideas that can more easily be tested in true experiments, there is stronger empirical support for the influence of the variables that researchers consider important
· Batson
· Kin-Selection might be an important contributing factor to a decision to help, but it does not have as clear a role on empathy.
· Conversely, it’s very difficult to be sure that results from lab experiments like this, which focus on CLOA, have ecological validity: task and location may affect what people say about how they would act
· Research on kin can involve more realistic situations and genuine behaviour rather than predictions of behaviour
Batson
· Assigned participants as an observer to a confederate
· Confederate, named Elaine, was to complete an unpleasant task similar to Milgram’s experiment where she would receive electric shocks
· IV = half of the participants were told that they had similar values to that of Elaine, half were told that they had different values
· During experiment, after she received a few shocks, she told the participant a story of a traumatic event of how she was thrown off a horse into an electric fence, but would still like to continue the experiment.
· Experimenter steps in and proposes that Elaine stops the experiment and switches with observer
· Another IV = experimenter tells half of participants that experiment is almost over (easy escape), and tells half that it was not almost over yet.
· If empathy was high (same values as Elaine) then helping was high even if escape was easy, but if empathy was low (diff values) and there was an easy rate of escape then participants would choose to not switch with Elaine.
- Empathy was not measured, even though experimenter tried to manipulate degree of empathy (similar or diff values), experimenter did not actually determine how much each of these participants felt that they were in the other person’s shoes
- There were social rewards because of presence of experimenter
- Unethical because participants were deceived and were put under stress
- Lacks ecological validity
+ Batson reformed the experiment due to these criticisms and found similar results
+ Reliable
+ Controlled as much as it could be
Batson b
· Students were asked to listen to recording of a student called Carol, talking about an accident where she broke both her legs, the struggles she was having and how she had difficulty keeping up with school work
· Students were divided into two groups: low empathy and high empathy
· Students then given a letter asking them to meet with Carol and share lecture notes with her
· Some participants were told that C would be finishing her studies from home
· Another group were told that she would be in their class when she returned to school
· High empathy in Carol’s class, low empathy in Carol’s class, high empathy and Carol’s at home, low empathy and Carol’s at home
· Participants from high empathy group were almost equally likely to help Carol regardless of whether she’d be in their class or not
· Low empathy – more likely to help if they thought Carol would be in their class
+ Supports model – high empathy just as likely to help regardless of whether it was in their best interest or not
+ Consistently replicated with the same results
+ Very controlled
- Only looked at short-term altruism
- Interpretation of results did not take personality factors/differences into account
- Difficult to measure a person’s level of empathy
- Does not explain why some people show more empathy than others
- Unethical – deceived participants
- Only students therefore cannot generalise
BP4: Full contrast in overall validity
· Kin selection is a hypothesis that has been tested across cultures, in real situations, and that has good face validity: it sounds logical that we would be genetically inclined to help biological relatives, even if it is difficult to test experimentally
· Even if definitions of kin may be broader or narrower in diff cultures, the core idea seems appealing
· Conversely, the empathy-altruism hypothesis is less easy to test cross-culturally and it is easy to see how empathy, a concept that is difficult to describe and measure, could be important in some cultures than others. Bystander intervention research has shown, for example, that situational variables have a powerful effect on people’s behaviour regardless of their levels of empathy.
Conclusion:
· Differ in several ways, perhaps most fundamentally in terms of the assumptions underpinning them: it is possible that they both have explanatory power but simply focus on different levels of analysis, which therefore gives them strengths and limitations that are typical of research at their respective levels.
- performance of a prosocial action without any expectation of a benefit to self
- evolutionary biology: behavior that benefits other organisms but has some costs
- social biology: behavior that benefits another person rather than oneself
Intro:
· Altruism: the selfless concern for the well-being of others
· Two theories: The Kin Selection hypothesis and the empathy-altruism model
· Both will be described and then their differences will be addressed, focusing on assumptions underlying them, the extent to which they have empirical support, and their overall validity
BP1: Description of both theories
· Kin-Selection
· Evolutionary psychology theory, based on assumption that behaviour can be inherited (link to BLOA).
· Suggests that altruism is an evolved response, exists in humans because this kind of behaviour in the past has provided a survival advantage: specifically that when we help those who are closely related to us (share genes), we increase the chance of family genes being passed to future generations
· Empathy-Altruism
· Also addresses biological factors in the sense that seeing a person in need sparks an emotional response in humans
· A key difference: EA then focuses on cognitive factors (how strong a victim’s need for help seems to be)
· One theory focuses only on biological basis of helping behaviour, other focuses on the way people process information in a particular situation
BP2: Empirical support – Kin-Selection
· As an evolutionary theory it is difficult to test
· Sime: when people fled a burning building, more likely to stay together if related
· Piliavin NYC subway bystander intervention: more likely to help people who are similar to us. Could be because physical similarity is a sign of genetic similarity
· Madsen et al: participants are more willing to suffer for the benefit of the closest relatives/themselves
· Provides cross-cultural support for Kin-Selection hypothesis
· Possible alternate explanations though – the variable of relatedness cannot be manipulated by researchers, limiting them to quasi-experiments, which prevents clear isolation of cause and effect
· Hamilton: individuals impose higher physical cost upon themselves when acting towards more closely related individuals
· A gene for altruism can evolve in a population
Madsen (2007a/cost kinship):
· participants were asked to impose a cost upon themselves, in the form of pain from exercise, in return for a proportionate reward given to an individual
· Exercise: squat. Participants asked to hold the position for as long as possible. Becomes increasingly painful over time – there is not a linear relationship. After approx. 100 seconds, pain increases massively
· Biological relatedness of the recipient was varied between 4 categories:
· 1) The participant themselves 2) sibling or parent 3) grandparent, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew 4) cousin
· Participants told the proceeds would be sent to nominated individuals chosen at random by the experimenter
· Participants: recruited from student population at Uni of Oxford. 40 pence for each 20 seconds that the posture was held
· Results: P’s imposed a higher cost when recipient was themselves rather than a sibling or parent
· Likewise, imposed a higher cost when recipient was a sibling or parents than a grandparent etc
· No diff between grandparent category and cousin
· Significant and reliable relationship between the effort invested in the task the relatedness of the beneficiary, although no signif diff between last two categories
+ Supported by two other experiments by Madsen – reliable
+ Found results that supported Kin-Selection
- Only used university students from the same university, probably same age, therefore cannot generalise. Perhaps older, more mature individuals will impose a higher cost for others than themselves
- Cost may vary according to their relationship with parents and grandparents. Eg. Someone who spent more time with their grandparents growing up than with parents may hold position longer for grandparents
- Could be unethical because physical stress/pain
Madsen: Kin selection in UK and South African students (2007b/culture kinship):
· Investigate kin selection hypothesis using participants from 2 different cultures
· Participants asked to perform physical exercise/painful
· Before exercise, participant supplied a list of biological relatives excluding relatives sharing a home with participants
· Told beforehand that one specific relative randomly selected from the list would receive payment according to the length of time they could stay in the position
· UK students: experiment offered 1.50pounds per 20 seconds. Participants spent more time on the exercise when money was going to close family members
· SA students were tested with food items rather than with money. For each 20 seconds they received an additional hamper of food. Participants made more effort to stay in position for relatives who were biologically closer to them. Zulu participants did not seem to distinguish between cousins and close relatives
· Kinship is trans-cultural. Results provide experimental evidence in support of the claim that humans are more willing to incur costs for the direct benefit of others, as a direct function of relatedness
· Humans behave in such a way to maximise inclusive fitness: more willing to benefit closer relatives
BP3: Empirical support - Empathy-altruism hypothesis
· Like cognitive theories, presents ideas that can more easily be tested in true experiments, there is stronger empirical support for the influence of the variables that researchers consider important
· Batson
· Kin-Selection might be an important contributing factor to a decision to help, but it does not have as clear a role on empathy.
· Conversely, it’s very difficult to be sure that results from lab experiments like this, which focus on CLOA, have ecological validity: task and location may affect what people say about how they would act
· Research on kin can involve more realistic situations and genuine behaviour rather than predictions of behaviour
Batson
· Assigned participants as an observer to a confederate
· Confederate, named Elaine, was to complete an unpleasant task similar to Milgram’s experiment where she would receive electric shocks
· IV = half of the participants were told that they had similar values to that of Elaine, half were told that they had different values
· During experiment, after she received a few shocks, she told the participant a story of a traumatic event of how she was thrown off a horse into an electric fence, but would still like to continue the experiment.
· Experimenter steps in and proposes that Elaine stops the experiment and switches with observer
· Another IV = experimenter tells half of participants that experiment is almost over (easy escape), and tells half that it was not almost over yet.
· If empathy was high (same values as Elaine) then helping was high even if escape was easy, but if empathy was low (diff values) and there was an easy rate of escape then participants would choose to not switch with Elaine.
- Empathy was not measured, even though experimenter tried to manipulate degree of empathy (similar or diff values), experimenter did not actually determine how much each of these participants felt that they were in the other person’s shoes
- There were social rewards because of presence of experimenter
- Unethical because participants were deceived and were put under stress
- Lacks ecological validity
+ Batson reformed the experiment due to these criticisms and found similar results
+ Reliable
+ Controlled as much as it could be
Batson b
· Students were asked to listen to recording of a student called Carol, talking about an accident where she broke both her legs, the struggles she was having and how she had difficulty keeping up with school work
· Students were divided into two groups: low empathy and high empathy
· Students then given a letter asking them to meet with Carol and share lecture notes with her
· Some participants were told that C would be finishing her studies from home
· Another group were told that she would be in their class when she returned to school
· High empathy in Carol’s class, low empathy in Carol’s class, high empathy and Carol’s at home, low empathy and Carol’s at home
· Participants from high empathy group were almost equally likely to help Carol regardless of whether she’d be in their class or not
· Low empathy – more likely to help if they thought Carol would be in their class
+ Supports model – high empathy just as likely to help regardless of whether it was in their best interest or not
+ Consistently replicated with the same results
+ Very controlled
- Only looked at short-term altruism
- Interpretation of results did not take personality factors/differences into account
- Difficult to measure a person’s level of empathy
- Does not explain why some people show more empathy than others
- Unethical – deceived participants
- Only students therefore cannot generalise
BP4: Full contrast in overall validity
· Kin selection is a hypothesis that has been tested across cultures, in real situations, and that has good face validity: it sounds logical that we would be genetically inclined to help biological relatives, even if it is difficult to test experimentally
· Even if definitions of kin may be broader or narrower in diff cultures, the core idea seems appealing
· Conversely, the empathy-altruism hypothesis is less easy to test cross-culturally and it is easy to see how empathy, a concept that is difficult to describe and measure, could be important in some cultures than others. Bystander intervention research has shown, for example, that situational variables have a powerful effect on people’s behaviour regardless of their levels of empathy.
Conclusion:
· Differ in several ways, perhaps most fundamentally in terms of the assumptions underpinning them: it is possible that they both have explanatory power but simply focus on different levels of analysis, which therefore gives them strengths and limitations that are typical of research at their respective levels.
Using one ore more research studies, explain cross cultural differences in prosocial behavior
Intro:
· Prosocial behaviour: positive actions that benefit others, prompted by empathy, moral values, and a sense of personal responsibility rather than a desire for personal gain. Involves helping behaviour.
· Cross cultural differences can occur because different cultures have different levels of helping behaviour – population density, religion/spiritual beliefs, urban-rural, Western and SEA cultures.
BP1: Levine et al (1990)
· Investigate helping differences in 36 American cities and 23 large cities around the world.
· Field experiments, used simple staged non-emergency situations like dropping a pen, helping a blind person cross the street, providing someone with change, stamping an addressed letter that has been dropped
· Population density played a role in helping behaviour. People tended to be more helpful in small and medium-sized cities in the southern US compared to large North-eastern and west coast cities
· Explanation of antisocial behaviour in high population density areas could be an over-load of stimuli that makes it more difficult to recognise that a person is in need of help, or factors such as pluralistic ignorance/diffusion of responsibility.
· Also maybe the population in larger cities are more atomised/individualistic. In those cities, people tend to stick to small in-groups (family/friends) and do not care much for others, whereas in small cities there is a strong sense of community
· There was a negative correlation between wealth of country and likelihood to help. Cities with low purchasing power per capita tended to be more helpful than cities with high purchasing power.
· Helping rates were also higher in cities where people were less stressed (as measured by the average walking speeds)
· Findings suggested that people tended to conform to the cultural norms of the area they live in. Meaning that South Americans were less helpful in NYC and New Yorkers more helpful in Rio de Janeiro.
· Did not find a clear relationship between the individualistic and collectivistic cultures
· Slight overall tendency for big cities in individualistic countries to be less helpful, but several exceptions
· Levine thinks it’s because of the vagueness of individualism/collectivism. The construct does not make clear predictions about behaviour towards out-group members, or whether pedestrians will be categorised as such.
· Some studies argue that collectivist societies focus less on outsiders, which may actually make them less helpful than individualist societies. Perhaps then there are many subtypes of collectivist/individualist societies
· Individualist and collectivist countries that emphasise social responsibility (Sweden, Denmark, Austria) may be more helpful.
· Overall, helping behaviour may differ cross-culturally based on city size and thus the city’s characteristics
+ Ecologically valid
+ Easy to replicate
+ Low cost
- Cannot be generalised
- Time consuming
- Uncontrolled (did not occur in controlled environment like lab)
- Helping might vary due to time period
- Many possible confounding variables
- Unethical (no consent)
BP2: Yablo and Field
· Aim: to examine altruism and helping behaviour
· 62 Thai and 56 US college students
· Semi-structured interviews, self-report altruism scale
· Findings: Thai students scored significantly higher than US and reported that they would personally help in situations, because Thais were from a Buddhist background that taught them the importance of pro-social behaviour
· Thais appealed to religion as a reason for helping, while Americans specifically mentioned religion was not a reason
· Suggesting a relationship between sociocultural religious values and prosocial behaviour in that the Thai-Buddhist-collectivist society appears more altruistically-oriented than the American society
· Possible influence of spirituality and individualism/collectivism constructs
- No established correlation
- Only college students and cannot be generalised
- Social desirability bias may have occurred
- Cannot generalise to all Asian and Western cultures
+ Shows how religion plays a role in prosocial behaviour (culture)
BP3: Korte and Kerr
· Urban-rural comparison of helpfulness
· Aim: to study the prosocial behaviour of inhabitants of Boston and that of people living in smaller communities in Massachusetts.
· Prosocial behaviour assessed by three procedures: 1) willingness to help a caller who had seemingly dialled the wrong number 2) willingness to give back overpaid money 3) willingness to mail apparently lost postcards
· On all three measures, the inhabitants of rural areas of Massachusetts were more helpful than Bostonians.
· Refusal rates reflect nonhelpfulness – the lower the refusal rate, the higher helpfulness of the people
· Higher level of prosocial behaviour in rural areas was explained by assuming that inhabitants of big cities are more suspicious than the population living in the country. It is assumed that perceived vulnerability of the potential helper influences his/her willingness to act prosocially
· In correspondence with this assumption, refusal rates correlated positively with crime rates. The higher the crime rate was in an area, the higher the refusal rate
· The urban-rural difference may be explained by the information-overload hypothesis, stating that people in urban settings are exposed to excessive environmental stimulation. External demands force victims of information overload (participants) to screen out personally irrelevant information. Urban dwellers acquire an indifferent attitude, allowing them to ignore the abundance of information that they do not need
· Overpowering information input in big cities is responsible for indifference, leading to low levels of prosocial behaviour
· Another reason could be diffusion of responsibility – city life is characterised by the presence of many other people around, thus leads to the assignment to others of responsibility to offer help.
· Cross-cultural difference in helping behaviour/prosocial behaviour may be due to rural and urban settings
BP4: Mayer
· Examined emotional responding (sympathy and distress) and prosocial behaviour and their relations across four cultures
· 212 preschool children from 2 Western cultures (Germany and Israel) and two SEA cultures (Indonesia and Malaysia)
· Children’s emotional reactions and prosocial behaviour were observed when interacting with an adult in a quasi-experimental situation
· Results: children from the two SEA cultures, compared with the children from the two Western cultures, displayed more self-focused distress and less prosocial behaviour.
· Across cultures, a positive relation between sympathy and prosocial behaviour and a negative relation between self-focused distress and prosocial behaviour were found
· Could be because in Asian cultures, staying out of situations that do not involve you is practiced. Particularly with familial situations, one should not get involved
· However, SEA is more collectivist, so this goes against any individualist/collectivist hypothesis
· Indonesia and Malaysia are just two countries in Asia and cannot be generalised to represent all Asian cultures/SEA cultures as a whole
· For example, with Yablo’s study, Thais were seen as being more prosocial than Americans (Western)
· Involves children which makes it more generalizable, but also not, because cannot generalise to adults
Conclusion:
· Prosocial behaviour varies cross-culturally
· Depend on a multitude of factors: cultural norms, population density, economic factors, stress levels, urbanisation/rural, religion etc
· Cannot generalise to say that Eastern cultures are more or less prosocial than Western
· Prosocial behaviour: positive actions that benefit others, prompted by empathy, moral values, and a sense of personal responsibility rather than a desire for personal gain. Involves helping behaviour.
· Cross cultural differences can occur because different cultures have different levels of helping behaviour – population density, religion/spiritual beliefs, urban-rural, Western and SEA cultures.
BP1: Levine et al (1990)
· Investigate helping differences in 36 American cities and 23 large cities around the world.
· Field experiments, used simple staged non-emergency situations like dropping a pen, helping a blind person cross the street, providing someone with change, stamping an addressed letter that has been dropped
· Population density played a role in helping behaviour. People tended to be more helpful in small and medium-sized cities in the southern US compared to large North-eastern and west coast cities
· Explanation of antisocial behaviour in high population density areas could be an over-load of stimuli that makes it more difficult to recognise that a person is in need of help, or factors such as pluralistic ignorance/diffusion of responsibility.
· Also maybe the population in larger cities are more atomised/individualistic. In those cities, people tend to stick to small in-groups (family/friends) and do not care much for others, whereas in small cities there is a strong sense of community
· There was a negative correlation between wealth of country and likelihood to help. Cities with low purchasing power per capita tended to be more helpful than cities with high purchasing power.
· Helping rates were also higher in cities where people were less stressed (as measured by the average walking speeds)
· Findings suggested that people tended to conform to the cultural norms of the area they live in. Meaning that South Americans were less helpful in NYC and New Yorkers more helpful in Rio de Janeiro.
· Did not find a clear relationship between the individualistic and collectivistic cultures
· Slight overall tendency for big cities in individualistic countries to be less helpful, but several exceptions
· Levine thinks it’s because of the vagueness of individualism/collectivism. The construct does not make clear predictions about behaviour towards out-group members, or whether pedestrians will be categorised as such.
· Some studies argue that collectivist societies focus less on outsiders, which may actually make them less helpful than individualist societies. Perhaps then there are many subtypes of collectivist/individualist societies
· Individualist and collectivist countries that emphasise social responsibility (Sweden, Denmark, Austria) may be more helpful.
· Overall, helping behaviour may differ cross-culturally based on city size and thus the city’s characteristics
+ Ecologically valid
+ Easy to replicate
+ Low cost
- Cannot be generalised
- Time consuming
- Uncontrolled (did not occur in controlled environment like lab)
- Helping might vary due to time period
- Many possible confounding variables
- Unethical (no consent)
BP2: Yablo and Field
· Aim: to examine altruism and helping behaviour
· 62 Thai and 56 US college students
· Semi-structured interviews, self-report altruism scale
· Findings: Thai students scored significantly higher than US and reported that they would personally help in situations, because Thais were from a Buddhist background that taught them the importance of pro-social behaviour
· Thais appealed to religion as a reason for helping, while Americans specifically mentioned religion was not a reason
· Suggesting a relationship between sociocultural religious values and prosocial behaviour in that the Thai-Buddhist-collectivist society appears more altruistically-oriented than the American society
· Possible influence of spirituality and individualism/collectivism constructs
- No established correlation
- Only college students and cannot be generalised
- Social desirability bias may have occurred
- Cannot generalise to all Asian and Western cultures
+ Shows how religion plays a role in prosocial behaviour (culture)
BP3: Korte and Kerr
· Urban-rural comparison of helpfulness
· Aim: to study the prosocial behaviour of inhabitants of Boston and that of people living in smaller communities in Massachusetts.
· Prosocial behaviour assessed by three procedures: 1) willingness to help a caller who had seemingly dialled the wrong number 2) willingness to give back overpaid money 3) willingness to mail apparently lost postcards
· On all three measures, the inhabitants of rural areas of Massachusetts were more helpful than Bostonians.
· Refusal rates reflect nonhelpfulness – the lower the refusal rate, the higher helpfulness of the people
· Higher level of prosocial behaviour in rural areas was explained by assuming that inhabitants of big cities are more suspicious than the population living in the country. It is assumed that perceived vulnerability of the potential helper influences his/her willingness to act prosocially
· In correspondence with this assumption, refusal rates correlated positively with crime rates. The higher the crime rate was in an area, the higher the refusal rate
· The urban-rural difference may be explained by the information-overload hypothesis, stating that people in urban settings are exposed to excessive environmental stimulation. External demands force victims of information overload (participants) to screen out personally irrelevant information. Urban dwellers acquire an indifferent attitude, allowing them to ignore the abundance of information that they do not need
· Overpowering information input in big cities is responsible for indifference, leading to low levels of prosocial behaviour
· Another reason could be diffusion of responsibility – city life is characterised by the presence of many other people around, thus leads to the assignment to others of responsibility to offer help.
· Cross-cultural difference in helping behaviour/prosocial behaviour may be due to rural and urban settings
BP4: Mayer
· Examined emotional responding (sympathy and distress) and prosocial behaviour and their relations across four cultures
· 212 preschool children from 2 Western cultures (Germany and Israel) and two SEA cultures (Indonesia and Malaysia)
· Children’s emotional reactions and prosocial behaviour were observed when interacting with an adult in a quasi-experimental situation
· Results: children from the two SEA cultures, compared with the children from the two Western cultures, displayed more self-focused distress and less prosocial behaviour.
· Across cultures, a positive relation between sympathy and prosocial behaviour and a negative relation between self-focused distress and prosocial behaviour were found
· Could be because in Asian cultures, staying out of situations that do not involve you is practiced. Particularly with familial situations, one should not get involved
· However, SEA is more collectivist, so this goes against any individualist/collectivist hypothesis
· Indonesia and Malaysia are just two countries in Asia and cannot be generalised to represent all Asian cultures/SEA cultures as a whole
· For example, with Yablo’s study, Thais were seen as being more prosocial than Americans (Western)
· Involves children which makes it more generalizable, but also not, because cannot generalise to adults
Conclusion:
· Prosocial behaviour varies cross-culturally
· Depend on a multitude of factors: cultural norms, population density, economic factors, stress levels, urbanisation/rural, religion etc
· Cannot generalise to say that Eastern cultures are more or less prosocial than Western
Examine factors influencing bystanderism
Intro:
· Bystanderism: the phenomenon of a person not intervening despite awareness of another person’s need
· Not helping someone who is in need of help even though one is able to.
· Can be considered an anti-social behaviour, in contrast to helping behaviour which is prosocial
· Social effects influencing bystanderism began being studied after the famous case of Kitty Genovese’s murder in front of a number of witnesses who did not interfere or contact the police
· Many factors influencing bystanderism – pluralistic ignorance, diffusion of responsibility, arousal cost-benefit model, competence and experience
BP1: Diffusion of responsibility (Latane and Darley)
Aim:
To investigate if the number of witnesses of an emergency influences people’s helping in an emergency situation.
Procedure:
The number of bystanders had a major effect on the participant’s reaction. Of the participants in the alone condition, 85% went out and reported the seizure. Only 31% reported the seizure when they believed that there were four bystanders. The gender of the bystander did not make a difference.
Ambiguity about a situation and thinking that other people might intervene (i.e. diffusion of responsibility) were factors that influenced bystanderism in this experiment.
During debriefing students answered a questionnaire with various items to describe their reactions to the experiment, for example “I did not know what to do” (18 out of 65 students selected this) or “I did not know exactly what was happening” (26 out of 65) or “I thought it must be some sort of fake” (20 out of 65).
Evaluation:
There was participant bias (psychology students participating for course credits) Ecological validity is a concern due to the artificiality of the experimental situation (e.g. the laboratory situation and the fact that bystanders could only hear the victim and the other bystanders could add to the artificiality. There are ethical considerations: participants were deceived and exposed to an anxiety-provoking situation.
BP2: Arousal-Cost-Reward Model (Piliavin et al)
· When we observe people in need/danger, we experience physiological responses (increase in heart rate), followed by fight or flight. Greater arousal = more likely to help
· Field experiment using observation in NYC subway, participants were approximately 4450 men and women subway travellers at 11am-3pm on weekdays, 1968
· Aim: investigate factors affecting helping behaviour: type of victim (drunk or ill), race of victim (black or white), speed of helping, frequency of helping, race of the helper.
· 4 victims, middle-aged, 1 acted drunk, smelt of alcohol and carried a bottle of alcohol in a brown paper bag (drunk condition), 1 had a cane, and all of them dressed identically. All males, one black, three white
· Victim staggered forward and collapsed. Until receiving help, he remained motionless on the floor, looking at the ceiling. If he received no help by the time the train slowed to a stop, the model helped him to his feet
· Results: cane victim received spontaneous help on 62/65 trials, and drunk victim received spontaneous help on 19/38 trials
· The race of the victim made no difference to helping behaviour, but there was a slight tendency for same-race helping in the drunken condition
· 90% of helpers were male
· Diffusion of responsibility was not evident (helping behaviour would decrease as number of bystanders increase)
· People left the area when the victim was drunk
· Drunk is helped less because the perceived cost is greater (more likely to cause disgust, embarrassment or harm). Cost of not helping is less because nobody will blame another for not helping a drunk because he is perceived as partly responsible for his own victimisation
· Women help less because cost to them in terms of effort and danger is greater
· Proximity could be a factor – help was offered just as much in a crowded subway than a non-crowded one – people are more likely to help when the distance between them and the victim is small
- Unethical – no consent, deceived, not debriefed, feelings of stress/guilt/anxiety
- Not controlled (did travellers on the train see more than one trial?)
- Difficult to replicate, time consuming, expensive
- ACR takes a very negative view of people. Denies altruism
- Some participants were very close (literally) to the victim and in a situation where they couldn’t escape. Unlike many other emergency situations and possibly a reason why diffusion of responsibility did not occur
- Time of day – cannot generalise. Perhaps less help in the morning, perhaps more help because more people
+ Highly ecologically valid
+ Large sample size, fairly representative sample of NYCers, generalizability
BP3: Social Identity + Intervention (Levine)
· We tend to provide more help to those whom we perceive to be similar to ourselves, our in-groups (Tajfel)
· Levine (2005)
· 45 students in the UK who identified themselves as Man United fans did a questionnaire about MU and their feelings towards the team (to provoke emotions/a sense of identity with the team)
· They were then assigned to see another student fall and act as though they were in pain
· When the falling student was wearing a ManU shirt, 80% of participants helped
· When the falling student wore a Liverpool shirt, 40% helped
· We are more likely to help in-group members
· A factor influencing bystanderism could be that we don’t want to interfere in somebody else’s ingroup (family conflicts in public etc) because we are not part of that group. A factor influencing bystanderism is therefore social identity
Levine performed a second study
participants asked what it was like to be a football fan to ManU supporters
Critical Thinking:
- may be signs of demand characteristics
- the artificiality may have been assumed
+ implications of findings - make it safer
Conclusion: Important to educate society on these factors because sometimes it may be important to intervene despite these factors being present/not being present. Allows us to be aware of when we are bystanders and how it may be necessary to intervene.Results show that the in group can be manipulated - if one feels any connection to someone in need, they are more likely to assist.
· Bystanderism: the phenomenon of a person not intervening despite awareness of another person’s need
· Not helping someone who is in need of help even though one is able to.
· Can be considered an anti-social behaviour, in contrast to helping behaviour which is prosocial
· Social effects influencing bystanderism began being studied after the famous case of Kitty Genovese’s murder in front of a number of witnesses who did not interfere or contact the police
· Many factors influencing bystanderism – pluralistic ignorance, diffusion of responsibility, arousal cost-benefit model, competence and experience
BP1: Diffusion of responsibility (Latane and Darley)
Aim:
To investigate if the number of witnesses of an emergency influences people’s helping in an emergency situation.
Procedure:
- As part of a course credit, 72 students (59 female and 13 male) participated in the experiment.
- They were asked to discuss what kind of personal problems new college students could have in an urban area.
- Each participant sat in a booth alone with a pair of headphones and a microphone. They were told that the discussion took place via an intercom to protect the anonymity of participants.
- At one point in the experiment a participant (a confederate) staged a seizure.
- The independent variable (IV) of the study was the number of persons (bystanders) that the participant thought listened to the same discussion. The dependant variable (DV) was the time it took for the participant to react from the start of the victim’s fit until the participant contacted the experimenter.
The number of bystanders had a major effect on the participant’s reaction. Of the participants in the alone condition, 85% went out and reported the seizure. Only 31% reported the seizure when they believed that there were four bystanders. The gender of the bystander did not make a difference.
Ambiguity about a situation and thinking that other people might intervene (i.e. diffusion of responsibility) were factors that influenced bystanderism in this experiment.
During debriefing students answered a questionnaire with various items to describe their reactions to the experiment, for example “I did not know what to do” (18 out of 65 students selected this) or “I did not know exactly what was happening” (26 out of 65) or “I thought it must be some sort of fake” (20 out of 65).
Evaluation:
There was participant bias (psychology students participating for course credits) Ecological validity is a concern due to the artificiality of the experimental situation (e.g. the laboratory situation and the fact that bystanders could only hear the victim and the other bystanders could add to the artificiality. There are ethical considerations: participants were deceived and exposed to an anxiety-provoking situation.
BP2: Arousal-Cost-Reward Model (Piliavin et al)
· When we observe people in need/danger, we experience physiological responses (increase in heart rate), followed by fight or flight. Greater arousal = more likely to help
· Field experiment using observation in NYC subway, participants were approximately 4450 men and women subway travellers at 11am-3pm on weekdays, 1968
· Aim: investigate factors affecting helping behaviour: type of victim (drunk or ill), race of victim (black or white), speed of helping, frequency of helping, race of the helper.
· 4 victims, middle-aged, 1 acted drunk, smelt of alcohol and carried a bottle of alcohol in a brown paper bag (drunk condition), 1 had a cane, and all of them dressed identically. All males, one black, three white
· Victim staggered forward and collapsed. Until receiving help, he remained motionless on the floor, looking at the ceiling. If he received no help by the time the train slowed to a stop, the model helped him to his feet
· Results: cane victim received spontaneous help on 62/65 trials, and drunk victim received spontaneous help on 19/38 trials
· The race of the victim made no difference to helping behaviour, but there was a slight tendency for same-race helping in the drunken condition
· 90% of helpers were male
· Diffusion of responsibility was not evident (helping behaviour would decrease as number of bystanders increase)
· People left the area when the victim was drunk
· Drunk is helped less because the perceived cost is greater (more likely to cause disgust, embarrassment or harm). Cost of not helping is less because nobody will blame another for not helping a drunk because he is perceived as partly responsible for his own victimisation
· Women help less because cost to them in terms of effort and danger is greater
· Proximity could be a factor – help was offered just as much in a crowded subway than a non-crowded one – people are more likely to help when the distance between them and the victim is small
- Unethical – no consent, deceived, not debriefed, feelings of stress/guilt/anxiety
- Not controlled (did travellers on the train see more than one trial?)
- Difficult to replicate, time consuming, expensive
- ACR takes a very negative view of people. Denies altruism
- Some participants were very close (literally) to the victim and in a situation where they couldn’t escape. Unlike many other emergency situations and possibly a reason why diffusion of responsibility did not occur
- Time of day – cannot generalise. Perhaps less help in the morning, perhaps more help because more people
+ Highly ecologically valid
+ Large sample size, fairly representative sample of NYCers, generalizability
BP3: Social Identity + Intervention (Levine)
· We tend to provide more help to those whom we perceive to be similar to ourselves, our in-groups (Tajfel)
· Levine (2005)
· 45 students in the UK who identified themselves as Man United fans did a questionnaire about MU and their feelings towards the team (to provoke emotions/a sense of identity with the team)
· They were then assigned to see another student fall and act as though they were in pain
· When the falling student was wearing a ManU shirt, 80% of participants helped
· When the falling student wore a Liverpool shirt, 40% helped
· We are more likely to help in-group members
· A factor influencing bystanderism could be that we don’t want to interfere in somebody else’s ingroup (family conflicts in public etc) because we are not part of that group. A factor influencing bystanderism is therefore social identity
Levine performed a second study
participants asked what it was like to be a football fan to ManU supporters
- 80% helped man wearing ManU shirt
- nearly 80% helped man wearing Liverpool shirt
Critical Thinking:
- may be signs of demand characteristics
- the artificiality may have been assumed
+ implications of findings - make it safer
Conclusion: Important to educate society on these factors because sometimes it may be important to intervene despite these factors being present/not being present. Allows us to be aware of when we are bystanders and how it may be necessary to intervene.Results show that the in group can be manipulated - if one feels any connection to someone in need, they are more likely to assist.
Examine the biological, psychological and social origins of attraction (22 marks)
Define attraction:
Mention Elaine Hattfield - Interpersonal Attraction - pioneering research (1969)
Relate to topic of relationships
(Biological)
BP1: Wedekind (1995) Sweaty T-Shirt Study
HMC genes vary the widest of all genes - immune genes
Participants: 49 women, 44 men, wide range of MHC genes
women smelled the t-shirts at the midpoint of their menstrual cycle (most acute olfactory period)
women chose those with most dissimilar HMCs
Evolutionary theory - innate characteristic in order to prevent inbreeding
- in order for offspring to have the most diverse immune system to fight illnesses
· Choosing dissimilar MHC mates serve 3 purposes: increasing fertility, producing healthy offspring, reducing risk of genetic disease
Critical thinking
BP2: Libb Thims (2003) 15 degree rule (able to be replicated)
findings supported those of Wedekins
found that HMC was determined by ones ethnicity and ancestry and therefore their latitude
most desirable was 15 degrees north or south for mate selection
BP3: Fischer
· Aim: investigate blood flow in brains (using fMRI) of lovers who were madly in love
· 20 men and women in love
· Before the scan, they were asked to fill a questionnaire (passion love scale) with a statement relating to how they felt about their relationship
· Then asked to look at photographs of their loved one for 30 seconds whilst brains were scanned
· Distraction task, then asked to look at a neutral photo for 30 seconds whilst brains were scanned. Repeated 6 times
· Results: questionnaires were correlated with results of brain scan.
· There is a brain reward system of the participants that is activated by the pleasant stimulus while looking at the photo of their lover (and not with neutral photo)
· The more passionate they rate their relationship, the more active their brain reward system was
+ Shows biological reaction to attraction
+ Controlled in a lab and using fMRI
+ Mixed gender participants, generalizability increases
+ No demand characteristics
- Usage of fMRI decreases ecological validity because not commonly used everyday
- Ignores other factors for causing excitement (such as going through an fMRI)
- Does not investigate other types of attraction, e.g between friends and family
BP4: Mazaritti - Serotonin
· 60 people – 20 were men and women who had fallen in love in the last 6 months, 20 others had suffered from OCD, other 20 were healthy individuals who were not in love (control group)
· Analysed blood samples from lovers
· Discovered that low serotonin levels in new lovers were the same with those with OCD
· Establishes a possible connection between romantic love and low levels of serotonin in the blood
+ Perhaps people with low serotonin levels are more likely to fall in love/find somebody attractive
+ Ecologically valid
+ Controlled
- No causational relationship, just correlational
- Doesn’t tell us if perhaps falling in love provides low serotonin/same obsessiveness as OCD or if people with low serotonin are more likely to find someone attractive/fall in love
Dopamine - Love
Oxytocin - Love
Conclusion BLOA:
Studies reflect how biology can play a role in attraction/mate selection.
· Evolutionary theories also come into play – e.g Buss discussing how men like women with wider hips = more fertile
· Darwin’s Natural Selection theory – origin can be due to evolution and strive for survival (one selects their mate based on mate’s ability to survive and pass on best survival traits)
· Hormones and genes can play a part in attraction etc
· However, many of these studies do not show the sole origin of attraction – so many other factors come into play involving social and psychological ones
· Not causational, just correlational
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Psychological (cognitive)
BP1: Markey et al
· Similarity hypothesis – we are attracted to others who are similar to us in terms of interests, looks etc
· Investigated the extent to which similarity is a factor in the way people choose partners
· Using questionnaires, researchers asked a large sample of young people to describe their ideal romantic partner
· Then asked to describe themselves
· Results: the way people described themselves was similar to what their ideal partner was like
· People want partners who are similar to themselves
· Relates to the way you process similarities as positive traits
- Use of questionnaires, maybe not as reliable because of social desirability bias
- Only used young people – perhaps young people are more focused on similar interests etc but older people are more focused on the personality of the person/someone to settle down with
- Only Americans, cannot be generalised
+ Large sample, more reliable
+ Demonstrates similarity hypothesis
+ Carried out twice and both times the same results were achieved, increases validity
BP2: Kiesler et al
· Investigate the role self-esteem may play in relationship formation/attraction
· Administered a fake IQ test on a group of men. They were then given fake scores
· One group of men were told that they had scored off the charts, amazingly
· Another group were told there must’ve been a mistake with the test because their scores were abnormally low
· After, the men waited in a room for their pay for taking part in the study. During which, a very attractive woman walked into the room
· Experimenters wanted to see if participant’s self-esteem would affect their willingness to engage in discussion with the woman
· Men who had high IQ scores/self-esteem were more likely to engage in conversation with the woman much more quickly
· Shows that self-esteem could play a role in the origin of attraction – those with high self esteems are more willing to form a relationship and consequently admit/show/display attraction to someone than those with low self-esteems who do not initiate conversation.
· Links in with law of attraction – positivity has a huge effect on whether we view someone as attractive or not. Those with low self-esteems may be viewed as unattractive.
- Unethical with fake IQ, could make someone feel bad about themselves, deception
- Only done on men and therefore cannot be applied to women, perhaps women would be less likely to talk to an attractive man, perhaps more likely
- Attractiveness is subjective – some men may not have found her attractive enough to talk to her, men prefer different types of women
- Maybe their self-esteem wasn’t affected by their IQ score, perhaps they’d done a test before and scored really highly and believed something was wrong with this test
+ Links with social origins of attraction (law of attraction)
+ Controlled (who had what IQ, time it took to talk to woman)
BP3: The Halo Effect
· Zillmann and Bhaita
· Music preference and attraction
· Male and female undergrads evaluated desirability of a potential date
· Watched videotapes of dates, in the control condition no preference of music was added, but in other condition, tape was manipulated as the date disclosed his/her love of classical music, country music, soft rock or heavy metal rock music.
· Musical preference was found to influence attraction and the perception and evaluation of other traits
· Preference of country music reduced attraction for both genders
· Preference of heavy metal enhanced the appeal of men, reduced that of women
· Preference of classical music reversed that attraction – appeal of women, reduction in men
· A common preference of music was seen to be much more important for men
· Links with similarity hypothesis
· Classical music could have indicated intelligence
· Psychological origin of attraction could be associating music preference with other traits, halo effect
- Only 4 options of music, not wide enough
- Only undergraduates, perhaps music taste at the time strongly influenced social status/personality and that is why the halo effect occurred
- Time period (1989) was a time of grunge, and perhaps that influenced why men were seen to be more attractive if they liked metal. If replicated now, same results would probably not occur
- Only used heterosexual attraction, cannot generalise to homosexual attraction
- Lacks ecological validity – videotape
+ Used both males and females, more generalisable
+ Controlled
BP4: Halo Effect
· Nisbett and Wilson
· 118 undergrads
· Used 2 different videotaped interviews with the same instructor in it
· 1: instructor was warm and friendly. 2: instructor was cold and distant
· Participants rated appearance, mannerism and accent
· With the warm condition, all three traits were rated as appealing
· With the cold condition, all three traits were rated as irritating
· Evaluation of a person’s attributes can be influenced by an overall impression of them, even when there’s enough information for independent assessments of them
· Participants thought it was the other way around, that attributes influence the overall impression
· Something as tone can trigger the Halo Effect which influences if you find someone and their traits to be attractive or not
- Lacks ecological validity because videotaped
- Only used undergraduates, cannot apply to all ages, not generalisable. Perhaps older people who have experienced more have learnt to focus more on the person’s attributes/what they’re saying rather than their tone – parents and kids
- Only used three traits to rate
+ Controlled
+ Large sample size, more generalisable
Conc Cognitive:
Links to schema theory and attribution theories – from one thing we can form an overall opinion
· Perhaps it isn’t the origin of being attracted to someone that is important but also the ability to display that attraction that matters (self-esteem), because that is how relationships form/develop. If someone finds someone attractive it isn’t confirmed that a relationship will form, but if they are able to display that attraction/initiate a conversation, then the chance of a relationship is higher.
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Social (sociocultural)
BP1: Proximity
· People who live closer to each other are more likely to be similar and to have the same social and cultural norms of what is attractive in a partner.
· Sense of familiarity – the more they interact with each other, or often see each other, the more they would like each other
· Festinger
· To investigate the extent in which proximity can affect the likelihood of relationships in college students
· College students in MIT Westgate and Westgate West housing project for students
· Researchers asked participants and their family to do a survey asking about 3 people that they considered as close friends or individuals that they most frequently interact with, including how far they live from each other
· Findings: the closer the person’s room, the more they are considered to be close or best friends. 65% of close friends lived in the same building, 10% lived at the opposite end of the hall
· Most friendly with those living next door, less friendly with those living two doors away, least friendly with those living far away
· Therefore, a social origin of attraction/the formation of relationships could be proximity
· Close proximity increases the chance of repeated exposure, which may lead to familiarity and a sense of trust
· Might explain why long distance relationships rarely work
+ Ecologically valid: investigated relationships that were formed naturally before the experiment
+ Easily replicable: low cost, not time consuming
+ Significant results
- Low generalizability: only college students, only from MIT.
- Concept of having same social and cultural norms may not apply for university students who have come from abroad
- Some participants may give inaccurate/false data
- Conducted in 1950 before digital age, people today aren’t so reliant on geographic proximity
- Davis’ “Filter Model” argues that similarity of sociological variables determines the likelihood of individuals meeting in the first place. Our choice of friends/partners is, to some extent, made for us; social circumstances reduce the “field of availables” (the range of people that are realistically available for us to meet). We tend to meet people from our own ethnic/racial/religious/social class/educational groups, therefore these are the people we find most attractive initially, since similarity makes communication easier
BP2: Buss – mate preferences can be universal based on characteristics but also some demographic differences
· One of the largest cross-cultural studies on relationships ever
· Gave 2 questionnaires regarding mate selection to over 10,000 respondents from 37 cultures
· Many striking similarities
· Results: 36/37 cultures, women ranked financial prospects as more important than males
· In all 37, men preferred younger mates, whilst women preferred older mates
· In 23, males rated chastity as more important than women did
· Degree of agreement in sex differences across cultures led Buss to view mate selection preferences as universal, arising from different evolutionary pressures on males and females
· However, some interesting differences:
· USA: love ranked 1st
· Nigeria: love ranked 4th. Ranked high: good health, neatness, desire for home and children
· South Africa: love ranked 7th. Ranked high: emotional stability and maturity, dependability
· China: love ranked 6th. Ranked high: good health, chastity, domestic skills
· Shows that sociocultural factors play a role in the formation of relationships/attraction – whilst general mate selection preferences have shown to be universally similar, there are still some differences from various cultures in terms of mate selection, and therefore that leads to a cross-cultural variation in the formation of relationships
+ Huge study, over 10,000 participants
+ Cross-cultured with 37 cultures, can be more generalised
+ Can make sense of the preferences – e.g China and Nigeria are very traditionalist cultures, believe in women being domestic/taking care of the house and or kids which are therefore important qualities of their potential mates. USA – more modern, believes in love first and then other aspects. Goes along with arranged marriages -> love the person you’re married to. Love marriages -> marry the person you love
- Self-desirability bias from questionnaires – USA may have selected ‘love’ as first because it sounded the best/most genuine
- Even though there are 37 cultures, you still cannot generalise it to every culture or say that universally, mate preferences are the same
BP3: Levine
· Asked college students in 11 different nations if they’d be willing to marry someone they didn’t love even if the person had all the qualities they desired
· Students could answer ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘undecided’
· 4 affluent Western nations (US, Brazil, Australia and England), young people were most insistent on love as a prerequisite for marriage. Only a tiny percentage said ‘yes’ to a loveless marriage
· In Eastern affluent nations (HK, Japan and Mexico – high standard of living apart from M) they tended to vote for love as well
· Only in the four Eastern, collectivist, underdeveloped nations (Philippines, Thailand, India, Pakistan) were students willing to compromise. Fairly high percentage of students said they’d be willing to marry someone they did not love
· Extended family is very important in these four cultures
· Research suggests that today, young people worldwide generally consider love to be a prerequisite for courtship/marriage. It is only in a few cultures that passionate love remains a bit of a luxury
· Large differences that existed between Westernized, modern, urban, industrial societies Eastern, modern, urban, industrial societies are fast disappearing
· Those interested in cross-cultural differences may be forced to search for large differences in only the most collectivist of societies
· Collectivist societies may place more importance on keeping their family happy, marrying for the sake of the group rather than for themselves, seeing how they can maintain group harmony and marry in the most beneficial way to others
· Individualist societies may place more importance on self-interest, love and passion, and ensuring that the marriage will last based off of their feelings for their partner
+ Shows differences between individualist and collectivist cultures. Marriage is more than the union of two individuals in collectivist/traditional cultures, it is the union of two families
+ Also shows how Western values are slowly spreading (HK, Japan, Mexico) and differences are slowly disappearing
- Only used college students, cannot generalise, perhaps they have a more idealistic view on love but older people may differ based on practicality
- Only 11 different nations – cannot generalise to all Western and Eastern cultures
- Could depend on personal circumstances rather than cultural ones – e.g perhaps that person is poor and he/she needs the money, rather than being collectivistic they are therefore being individualistic.
BP4: Markey et al (repeated in CLOA)
· Similarity hypothesis – we are attracted to others who are similar to us in terms of interests, looks etc
· Investigated the extent to which similarity is a factor in the way people choose partners
· Using questionnaires, researchers asked a large sample of young people to describe their ideal romantic partner
· Then asked to describe themselves
· Results: the way people described themselves was similar to what their ideal partner was like
· People want partners who are similar to themselves
· Increases a chance of companionship and similar morals/less conflicting beliefs
· Good explanation behind proximity – perhaps the reason proximity may be an origin of attraction is due to the social and cultural similarities of people
- Use of questionnaires, maybe not as reliable because of social desirability bias
- Only used young people – perhaps young people are more focused on similar interests etc but older people are more focused on the personality of the person/someone to settle down with
- Only Americans, cannot be generalised
+ Large sample, more reliable
+ Demonstrates similarity hypothesis
+ Carried out twice and both times the same results were achieved, increases validity
Conclusion SCLOA: The closer we physically are to someone the chances are that we will interact more with them (filter model). Therefore proximity plays a role in the origin of attraction. The closer we are to them, the more often we see them, leading to familiarity. The more often we see them, and due to proximity, the higher chances that we are similar to them. We want a partner with similar ideals etc. Lastly, the contrast effect shows perhaps that the origin of attraction is perception – we may have one thing but we see something ‘better’ in our eyes and are in turn more attracted to that
Mention Elaine Hattfield - Interpersonal Attraction - pioneering research (1969)
Relate to topic of relationships
- consider different types of relationships --> friendship, familial, homosexual, polygamous etc..
- consider ethical issues --> sensitivity of topic (cause anxiety), one may love the other more
- research methods --> interview and questionnaires (low ecological validity easy to lie, generalizability, participant expectations), scanning (Helen Fischer) low ecological validity, cannot lie, expensive
- consider cross cultural research --> variations, cultural dimensions, emics and etics
(Biological)
BP1: Wedekind (1995) Sweaty T-Shirt Study
HMC genes vary the widest of all genes - immune genes
Participants: 49 women, 44 men, wide range of MHC genes
women smelled the t-shirts at the midpoint of their menstrual cycle (most acute olfactory period)
women chose those with most dissimilar HMCs
Evolutionary theory - innate characteristic in order to prevent inbreeding
- in order for offspring to have the most diverse immune system to fight illnesses
· Choosing dissimilar MHC mates serve 3 purposes: increasing fertility, producing healthy offspring, reducing risk of genetic disease
Critical thinking
- (AE) many people now meet and date online (cannot smell)
- + Well controlled (lab experiment)
+ Male and female – more generalisable
+ Ecologically valid because scent is often ranked as important
+ Supported replication done on rats (pregnant mice prefer odour of mates with similar genes)
- Reverse/flip with genders wasn’t tested
- Lacks ecological validity because lab experiment
- Ignores other personal differences in mate selection (personal preference in odour is ignored too)
BP2: Libb Thims (2003) 15 degree rule (able to be replicated)
findings supported those of Wedekins
found that HMC was determined by ones ethnicity and ancestry and therefore their latitude
most desirable was 15 degrees north or south for mate selection
BP3: Fischer
· Aim: investigate blood flow in brains (using fMRI) of lovers who were madly in love
· 20 men and women in love
· Before the scan, they were asked to fill a questionnaire (passion love scale) with a statement relating to how they felt about their relationship
· Then asked to look at photographs of their loved one for 30 seconds whilst brains were scanned
· Distraction task, then asked to look at a neutral photo for 30 seconds whilst brains were scanned. Repeated 6 times
· Results: questionnaires were correlated with results of brain scan.
· There is a brain reward system of the participants that is activated by the pleasant stimulus while looking at the photo of their lover (and not with neutral photo)
· The more passionate they rate their relationship, the more active their brain reward system was
+ Shows biological reaction to attraction
+ Controlled in a lab and using fMRI
+ Mixed gender participants, generalizability increases
+ No demand characteristics
- Usage of fMRI decreases ecological validity because not commonly used everyday
- Ignores other factors for causing excitement (such as going through an fMRI)
- Does not investigate other types of attraction, e.g between friends and family
BP4: Mazaritti - Serotonin
· 60 people – 20 were men and women who had fallen in love in the last 6 months, 20 others had suffered from OCD, other 20 were healthy individuals who were not in love (control group)
· Analysed blood samples from lovers
· Discovered that low serotonin levels in new lovers were the same with those with OCD
· Establishes a possible connection between romantic love and low levels of serotonin in the blood
+ Perhaps people with low serotonin levels are more likely to fall in love/find somebody attractive
+ Ecologically valid
+ Controlled
- No causational relationship, just correlational
- Doesn’t tell us if perhaps falling in love provides low serotonin/same obsessiveness as OCD or if people with low serotonin are more likely to find someone attractive/fall in love
Dopamine - Love
Oxytocin - Love
Conclusion BLOA:
Studies reflect how biology can play a role in attraction/mate selection.
· Evolutionary theories also come into play – e.g Buss discussing how men like women with wider hips = more fertile
· Darwin’s Natural Selection theory – origin can be due to evolution and strive for survival (one selects their mate based on mate’s ability to survive and pass on best survival traits)
· Hormones and genes can play a part in attraction etc
· However, many of these studies do not show the sole origin of attraction – so many other factors come into play involving social and psychological ones
· Not causational, just correlational
------
Psychological (cognitive)
BP1: Markey et al
· Similarity hypothesis – we are attracted to others who are similar to us in terms of interests, looks etc
· Investigated the extent to which similarity is a factor in the way people choose partners
· Using questionnaires, researchers asked a large sample of young people to describe their ideal romantic partner
· Then asked to describe themselves
· Results: the way people described themselves was similar to what their ideal partner was like
· People want partners who are similar to themselves
· Relates to the way you process similarities as positive traits
- Use of questionnaires, maybe not as reliable because of social desirability bias
- Only used young people – perhaps young people are more focused on similar interests etc but older people are more focused on the personality of the person/someone to settle down with
- Only Americans, cannot be generalised
+ Large sample, more reliable
+ Demonstrates similarity hypothesis
+ Carried out twice and both times the same results were achieved, increases validity
BP2: Kiesler et al
· Investigate the role self-esteem may play in relationship formation/attraction
· Administered a fake IQ test on a group of men. They were then given fake scores
· One group of men were told that they had scored off the charts, amazingly
· Another group were told there must’ve been a mistake with the test because their scores were abnormally low
· After, the men waited in a room for their pay for taking part in the study. During which, a very attractive woman walked into the room
· Experimenters wanted to see if participant’s self-esteem would affect their willingness to engage in discussion with the woman
· Men who had high IQ scores/self-esteem were more likely to engage in conversation with the woman much more quickly
· Shows that self-esteem could play a role in the origin of attraction – those with high self esteems are more willing to form a relationship and consequently admit/show/display attraction to someone than those with low self-esteems who do not initiate conversation.
· Links in with law of attraction – positivity has a huge effect on whether we view someone as attractive or not. Those with low self-esteems may be viewed as unattractive.
- Unethical with fake IQ, could make someone feel bad about themselves, deception
- Only done on men and therefore cannot be applied to women, perhaps women would be less likely to talk to an attractive man, perhaps more likely
- Attractiveness is subjective – some men may not have found her attractive enough to talk to her, men prefer different types of women
- Maybe their self-esteem wasn’t affected by their IQ score, perhaps they’d done a test before and scored really highly and believed something was wrong with this test
+ Links with social origins of attraction (law of attraction)
+ Controlled (who had what IQ, time it took to talk to woman)
BP3: The Halo Effect
· Zillmann and Bhaita
· Music preference and attraction
· Male and female undergrads evaluated desirability of a potential date
· Watched videotapes of dates, in the control condition no preference of music was added, but in other condition, tape was manipulated as the date disclosed his/her love of classical music, country music, soft rock or heavy metal rock music.
· Musical preference was found to influence attraction and the perception and evaluation of other traits
· Preference of country music reduced attraction for both genders
· Preference of heavy metal enhanced the appeal of men, reduced that of women
· Preference of classical music reversed that attraction – appeal of women, reduction in men
· A common preference of music was seen to be much more important for men
· Links with similarity hypothesis
· Classical music could have indicated intelligence
· Psychological origin of attraction could be associating music preference with other traits, halo effect
- Only 4 options of music, not wide enough
- Only undergraduates, perhaps music taste at the time strongly influenced social status/personality and that is why the halo effect occurred
- Time period (1989) was a time of grunge, and perhaps that influenced why men were seen to be more attractive if they liked metal. If replicated now, same results would probably not occur
- Only used heterosexual attraction, cannot generalise to homosexual attraction
- Lacks ecological validity – videotape
+ Used both males and females, more generalisable
+ Controlled
BP4: Halo Effect
· Nisbett and Wilson
· 118 undergrads
· Used 2 different videotaped interviews with the same instructor in it
· 1: instructor was warm and friendly. 2: instructor was cold and distant
· Participants rated appearance, mannerism and accent
· With the warm condition, all three traits were rated as appealing
· With the cold condition, all three traits were rated as irritating
· Evaluation of a person’s attributes can be influenced by an overall impression of them, even when there’s enough information for independent assessments of them
· Participants thought it was the other way around, that attributes influence the overall impression
· Something as tone can trigger the Halo Effect which influences if you find someone and their traits to be attractive or not
- Lacks ecological validity because videotaped
- Only used undergraduates, cannot apply to all ages, not generalisable. Perhaps older people who have experienced more have learnt to focus more on the person’s attributes/what they’re saying rather than their tone – parents and kids
- Only used three traits to rate
+ Controlled
+ Large sample size, more generalisable
Conc Cognitive:
Links to schema theory and attribution theories – from one thing we can form an overall opinion
· Perhaps it isn’t the origin of being attracted to someone that is important but also the ability to display that attraction that matters (self-esteem), because that is how relationships form/develop. If someone finds someone attractive it isn’t confirmed that a relationship will form, but if they are able to display that attraction/initiate a conversation, then the chance of a relationship is higher.
-----
Social (sociocultural)
BP1: Proximity
· People who live closer to each other are more likely to be similar and to have the same social and cultural norms of what is attractive in a partner.
· Sense of familiarity – the more they interact with each other, or often see each other, the more they would like each other
· Festinger
· To investigate the extent in which proximity can affect the likelihood of relationships in college students
· College students in MIT Westgate and Westgate West housing project for students
· Researchers asked participants and their family to do a survey asking about 3 people that they considered as close friends or individuals that they most frequently interact with, including how far they live from each other
· Findings: the closer the person’s room, the more they are considered to be close or best friends. 65% of close friends lived in the same building, 10% lived at the opposite end of the hall
· Most friendly with those living next door, less friendly with those living two doors away, least friendly with those living far away
· Therefore, a social origin of attraction/the formation of relationships could be proximity
· Close proximity increases the chance of repeated exposure, which may lead to familiarity and a sense of trust
· Might explain why long distance relationships rarely work
+ Ecologically valid: investigated relationships that were formed naturally before the experiment
+ Easily replicable: low cost, not time consuming
+ Significant results
- Low generalizability: only college students, only from MIT.
- Concept of having same social and cultural norms may not apply for university students who have come from abroad
- Some participants may give inaccurate/false data
- Conducted in 1950 before digital age, people today aren’t so reliant on geographic proximity
- Davis’ “Filter Model” argues that similarity of sociological variables determines the likelihood of individuals meeting in the first place. Our choice of friends/partners is, to some extent, made for us; social circumstances reduce the “field of availables” (the range of people that are realistically available for us to meet). We tend to meet people from our own ethnic/racial/religious/social class/educational groups, therefore these are the people we find most attractive initially, since similarity makes communication easier
BP2: Buss – mate preferences can be universal based on characteristics but also some demographic differences
· One of the largest cross-cultural studies on relationships ever
· Gave 2 questionnaires regarding mate selection to over 10,000 respondents from 37 cultures
· Many striking similarities
· Results: 36/37 cultures, women ranked financial prospects as more important than males
· In all 37, men preferred younger mates, whilst women preferred older mates
· In 23, males rated chastity as more important than women did
· Degree of agreement in sex differences across cultures led Buss to view mate selection preferences as universal, arising from different evolutionary pressures on males and females
· However, some interesting differences:
· USA: love ranked 1st
· Nigeria: love ranked 4th. Ranked high: good health, neatness, desire for home and children
· South Africa: love ranked 7th. Ranked high: emotional stability and maturity, dependability
· China: love ranked 6th. Ranked high: good health, chastity, domestic skills
· Shows that sociocultural factors play a role in the formation of relationships/attraction – whilst general mate selection preferences have shown to be universally similar, there are still some differences from various cultures in terms of mate selection, and therefore that leads to a cross-cultural variation in the formation of relationships
+ Huge study, over 10,000 participants
+ Cross-cultured with 37 cultures, can be more generalised
+ Can make sense of the preferences – e.g China and Nigeria are very traditionalist cultures, believe in women being domestic/taking care of the house and or kids which are therefore important qualities of their potential mates. USA – more modern, believes in love first and then other aspects. Goes along with arranged marriages -> love the person you’re married to. Love marriages -> marry the person you love
- Self-desirability bias from questionnaires – USA may have selected ‘love’ as first because it sounded the best/most genuine
- Even though there are 37 cultures, you still cannot generalise it to every culture or say that universally, mate preferences are the same
BP3: Levine
· Asked college students in 11 different nations if they’d be willing to marry someone they didn’t love even if the person had all the qualities they desired
· Students could answer ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘undecided’
· 4 affluent Western nations (US, Brazil, Australia and England), young people were most insistent on love as a prerequisite for marriage. Only a tiny percentage said ‘yes’ to a loveless marriage
· In Eastern affluent nations (HK, Japan and Mexico – high standard of living apart from M) they tended to vote for love as well
· Only in the four Eastern, collectivist, underdeveloped nations (Philippines, Thailand, India, Pakistan) were students willing to compromise. Fairly high percentage of students said they’d be willing to marry someone they did not love
· Extended family is very important in these four cultures
· Research suggests that today, young people worldwide generally consider love to be a prerequisite for courtship/marriage. It is only in a few cultures that passionate love remains a bit of a luxury
· Large differences that existed between Westernized, modern, urban, industrial societies Eastern, modern, urban, industrial societies are fast disappearing
· Those interested in cross-cultural differences may be forced to search for large differences in only the most collectivist of societies
· Collectivist societies may place more importance on keeping their family happy, marrying for the sake of the group rather than for themselves, seeing how they can maintain group harmony and marry in the most beneficial way to others
· Individualist societies may place more importance on self-interest, love and passion, and ensuring that the marriage will last based off of their feelings for their partner
+ Shows differences between individualist and collectivist cultures. Marriage is more than the union of two individuals in collectivist/traditional cultures, it is the union of two families
+ Also shows how Western values are slowly spreading (HK, Japan, Mexico) and differences are slowly disappearing
- Only used college students, cannot generalise, perhaps they have a more idealistic view on love but older people may differ based on practicality
- Only 11 different nations – cannot generalise to all Western and Eastern cultures
- Could depend on personal circumstances rather than cultural ones – e.g perhaps that person is poor and he/she needs the money, rather than being collectivistic they are therefore being individualistic.
BP4: Markey et al (repeated in CLOA)
· Similarity hypothesis – we are attracted to others who are similar to us in terms of interests, looks etc
· Investigated the extent to which similarity is a factor in the way people choose partners
· Using questionnaires, researchers asked a large sample of young people to describe their ideal romantic partner
· Then asked to describe themselves
· Results: the way people described themselves was similar to what their ideal partner was like
· People want partners who are similar to themselves
· Increases a chance of companionship and similar morals/less conflicting beliefs
· Good explanation behind proximity – perhaps the reason proximity may be an origin of attraction is due to the social and cultural similarities of people
- Use of questionnaires, maybe not as reliable because of social desirability bias
- Only used young people – perhaps young people are more focused on similar interests etc but older people are more focused on the personality of the person/someone to settle down with
- Only Americans, cannot be generalised
+ Large sample, more reliable
+ Demonstrates similarity hypothesis
+ Carried out twice and both times the same results were achieved, increases validity
Conclusion SCLOA: The closer we physically are to someone the chances are that we will interact more with them (filter model). Therefore proximity plays a role in the origin of attraction. The closer we are to them, the more often we see them, leading to familiarity. The more often we see them, and due to proximity, the higher chances that we are similar to them. We want a partner with similar ideals etc. Lastly, the contrast effect shows perhaps that the origin of attraction is perception – we may have one thing but we see something ‘better’ in our eyes and are in turn more attracted to that
Discuss the role of communication in maintaining relationships
Intro:
communication is the honest exchange of information, ideas or feelings which can be expressed verbally or non verbally
unit of study is in interpersonal relationships which is a strong, deep, or close association or acquaintance between two or more people that may range in duration from brief to enduring. This association may be based on inference, love, solidarity, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment.
BP1: Dindia and Canary (1993)
4 types of relationship maintenance
BP2: Canary and Strafford (1994)
5 maintenance strategies to prevent decay
derived though inductive analysis of paper written by students: not expert on the subject
difficult to always look on the bright side
could cause a build up of problems if all the negatives are avoided
might not apply to all types of relationship - more for romantic relationships
Weigel and Ballard (1999)
Used C+S research approach for basis of investigation
investigated 141 married couples and looked at the relationship between
newer relationships involved more explicit forms of maintenance
these faded as relationships continue, but picks up again years into the relationship
Critical thinking:
only looked at marital type - cannot generalize to non-married couples or other cultures
in the years where maintenance strategies dropped, couples still stayed together
BP3: Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
· Communication that predicts marital dissatisfaction
· Criticism: making dispositional attributions. An attack on your partner’s personality or character with the intent of making the partner appear as wrong
· Contempt: attacking the partner’s sense of self with the intention to insult or psychologically abuse him/her (hostility, sarcasm, mockery)
· Defensiveness: seeing yourself as a victim (e.g making excuses by referring to factors outside of your control, cross-complaining)
· Stonewalling: withdrawing from the relationship as a way to avoid, perhaps by silent treatment, monosyllabic response (yes/no), or changing the subject
· This four emotional reactions are the most destructive for relationships, with contempt being the best predictor for marital failure
+ Claims that this model has 90% accuracy in whether a newlywed couple will remain married or will divorce in 4-6 years
- The model does not explain how to overcome these problems/deal with them and doesn’t give any hope
- Generalisations/reductionist/not detailed enough or perhaps too detailed – there may be more communicational predictions for marital failure
- If somebody is actually in the wrong/a partner has done something wrong (unfaithful etc), then criticism may be suited if the partner is wrong/needs to understand his/her actions, or defensiveness if you are truly the victim. Suggests that you are supposed to accept everything/deal with it in a pleasant way which can be very unrealistic
- Cultural variations – some cultures are more private with their problems (stonewalling) and pushing somebody to talk about something may result in even more marital dissatisfaction if they’re not ready
BP4: Facial expressions/non-verbal communication
· Expressions of positive emotions (affect) are usually associated with high intimacy and relationship satisfaction
· Positive affect seems to be particularly powerful in non-verbal communication (e.g smiling)
· Videotaped standard content messages sent by married couples to one another with positive, neutral and negative affect.
· Findings: spouses who used more positive non-verbal communication (e.g smiles and touching) also reported higher levels of marital satisfaction
· Husbands who scored low on marital satisfaction used more eyebrow flashes on positive messages compared to happy husbands
· Partners with communication problems can learn new positive communication patterns (e.g validating the partner by verbal and non-verbal communication, avoiding being defensive, using empathy to understand your partner’s expressed emotions and acting on these)
- Facial expressions/body language is very subjective and hard to read. Can lead to wrong readings (would have improved with researcher triangulation)
- Hard to change your body language/facial expressions especially when you’re an adult and when you’re in a heated conversation
+ Shows interaction between biological factors and how it interacts with communication (e.g an aggressive stance evolved from defending yourself from predators, a person can use this body language at the wrong time and convey the wrong message)
+ Allows for an improvement in non-verbal communication, aiding overall maintenance of a relationship
Conclusion:
communication in a positive and understanding way is the key to maintaining interpersonal relationships. Whether this be a business relationship or a romanic relationship, they both require communication techniques and maintenance strategies. Although one may say one thing, non verbal tells such as facial expressions often cannot lie, and the parter can decipher the true feelings of the other.
communication is the honest exchange of information, ideas or feelings which can be expressed verbally or non verbally
unit of study is in interpersonal relationships which is a strong, deep, or close association or acquaintance between two or more people that may range in duration from brief to enduring. This association may be based on inference, love, solidarity, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment.
BP1: Dindia and Canary (1993)
4 types of relationship maintenance
- Continuing and keeping the relationship in existence
- Keeping the relationship in the specified state
- Keeping it in a satisfactory state
- Preventing or correcting relationship problems
- communication is a centripetal force that maintains relationships
- relationships are destined by nature to be pulled apart by centrifugal forces unless they are maintained
- the simplest form of communication for maintenance is routine conversation
BP2: Canary and Strafford (1994)
5 maintenance strategies to prevent decay
- positivity (look on the bright side)
- assurances (all will be okay, they are important to you)
- openness (expression rather than suppression)
- social networking (expand to friends and other people, mutual friends)
- sharing tasks (do things together)
derived though inductive analysis of paper written by students: not expert on the subject
difficult to always look on the bright side
could cause a build up of problems if all the negatives are avoided
might not apply to all types of relationship - more for romantic relationships
Weigel and Ballard (1999)
Used C+S research approach for basis of investigation
investigated 141 married couples and looked at the relationship between
- length of time a couple had been together
- amount of maintenance techniques
newer relationships involved more explicit forms of maintenance
these faded as relationships continue, but picks up again years into the relationship
Critical thinking:
only looked at marital type - cannot generalize to non-married couples or other cultures
in the years where maintenance strategies dropped, couples still stayed together
BP3: Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
· Communication that predicts marital dissatisfaction
· Criticism: making dispositional attributions. An attack on your partner’s personality or character with the intent of making the partner appear as wrong
· Contempt: attacking the partner’s sense of self with the intention to insult or psychologically abuse him/her (hostility, sarcasm, mockery)
· Defensiveness: seeing yourself as a victim (e.g making excuses by referring to factors outside of your control, cross-complaining)
· Stonewalling: withdrawing from the relationship as a way to avoid, perhaps by silent treatment, monosyllabic response (yes/no), or changing the subject
· This four emotional reactions are the most destructive for relationships, with contempt being the best predictor for marital failure
+ Claims that this model has 90% accuracy in whether a newlywed couple will remain married or will divorce in 4-6 years
- The model does not explain how to overcome these problems/deal with them and doesn’t give any hope
- Generalisations/reductionist/not detailed enough or perhaps too detailed – there may be more communicational predictions for marital failure
- If somebody is actually in the wrong/a partner has done something wrong (unfaithful etc), then criticism may be suited if the partner is wrong/needs to understand his/her actions, or defensiveness if you are truly the victim. Suggests that you are supposed to accept everything/deal with it in a pleasant way which can be very unrealistic
- Cultural variations – some cultures are more private with their problems (stonewalling) and pushing somebody to talk about something may result in even more marital dissatisfaction if they’re not ready
BP4: Facial expressions/non-verbal communication
· Expressions of positive emotions (affect) are usually associated with high intimacy and relationship satisfaction
· Positive affect seems to be particularly powerful in non-verbal communication (e.g smiling)
· Videotaped standard content messages sent by married couples to one another with positive, neutral and negative affect.
· Findings: spouses who used more positive non-verbal communication (e.g smiles and touching) also reported higher levels of marital satisfaction
· Husbands who scored low on marital satisfaction used more eyebrow flashes on positive messages compared to happy husbands
· Partners with communication problems can learn new positive communication patterns (e.g validating the partner by verbal and non-verbal communication, avoiding being defensive, using empathy to understand your partner’s expressed emotions and acting on these)
- Facial expressions/body language is very subjective and hard to read. Can lead to wrong readings (would have improved with researcher triangulation)
- Hard to change your body language/facial expressions especially when you’re an adult and when you’re in a heated conversation
+ Shows interaction between biological factors and how it interacts with communication (e.g an aggressive stance evolved from defending yourself from predators, a person can use this body language at the wrong time and convey the wrong message)
+ Allows for an improvement in non-verbal communication, aiding overall maintenance of a relationship
Conclusion:
communication in a positive and understanding way is the key to maintaining interpersonal relationships. Whether this be a business relationship or a romanic relationship, they both require communication techniques and maintenance strategies. Although one may say one thing, non verbal tells such as facial expressions often cannot lie, and the parter can decipher the true feelings of the other.
Explain the role that culture plays in the formation and maintenance of relationships
Intro:
· Culture is a dynamic system of rules, implicit of explicit, established by a social group in order to ensure their survival, involving attitudes, values, beliefs, norms and behaviours (Matsumoto)
· Looking at Western and non-Western cultures.
· Moghaddam: people of Western cultures are more individualistic, whilst non-Westerners are more collectivist. Affects how relationships are formed, perceived and maintained
· Western: relationships are voluntary, temporary, focus on needs of the individual. Marriage for love is considered normal, divorce is very common. People’s greater social and geographical mobility creates more chances to meet new people and have the ability to select those they wish to be in a relationship with
· Non-Western: love is expected to grow, not necessary for marriage. Arranged marriage is common. Dowry system is common. Relationships are designed for the good of the whole, obligatory and considered permanent.
BP1: Aron
· Wanted to know if the ‘chaos’ of romantic love translates across cultures – most research is Western
· Does a Chinese brain look the same as an American brain when it’s in love?
· 18 Chinese men and women were placed in a brain scan machine and shown photos of their loved ones, as well as a photo of a familiar friend of whom they don’t have romantic feelings for (control)
· The photo of the loved one evoked a unique pattern of neural activation in the area of the brain associated with intense reward (similar to the patterns shown then people take addictive drugs/gamble) – similar to love studies in the US
· Researchers then tracked the relationship for 18 months. Asked couples to describe the relationship on a 7-point scale
· Although all participants were happy together, some scored their relationship at 6, others at 7.
· Going back to original scans, they found distinct differences in the brain patterns among those who had the highest relationship satisfaction compared to those with slightly lower scores
· Culture and country may influence love or how we express it.
· In surveys, people from China typically describe love in much less positive terms. Pick more negative traits (anxious, scary, depressing) than Americans
· Culture with a tradition of arranged marriages, questionnaire studies suggest differences
· However, the findings suggested that love is not merely a cultural construction but a powerful force in human life
· What happens at the deep level of the brain is the same everywhere, but how we talk and think about it/show it to others may well be shaped by culture
· Biologically, culture therefore may not play a significant role in attraction/love, but socioculturally, it plays a role in the formation and maintenance of relationships because of the different perceptions of love cross-culturally. E.g East picks more negative traits, they may have different methods of communication with their partners which in turn disrupts the maintenance, but they still love their partner the same way as anyone else
· Love is an etic, but the way in which it is expressed/shown/perceived is an emic
+ Work suggests (for the first time) that the intensity of brain patterns during the early phase of romantic love might be able to predict quality of the relationship 18 months into the future
+ No demand characteristics
+ Controlled
+ Methodological triangulation – brain scan and questionnaires
+ Found links with brain areas associated with drugs and gambling – shows that love can be as addictive/obsessive as these things
- Findings are exploratory and need to be replicated
- Used China as the only Eastern country, cannot be generalised to the East in general
- Used US as only Western
- Only 18, small sample size, cannot generalise to entire population
BP2: Buss
· One of the largest cross-cultural studies on relationships ever
· Gave 2 questionnaires regarding mate selection to over 10,000 respondents from 37 cultures
· Many striking similarities
· Results: 36/37 cultures, women ranked financial prospects as more important than males
· In all 37, men preferred younger mates, whilst women preferred older mates
· In 23, males rated chastity as more important than women did
· Degree of agreement in sex differences across cultures led Buss to view mate selection preferences as universal, arising from different evolutionary pressures on males and females
· However, some interesting differences:
· USA: love ranked 1st
· Nigeria: love ranked 4th. Ranked high: good health, neatness, desire for home and children
· South Africa: love ranked 7th. Ranked high: emotional stability and maturity, dependability
· China: love ranked 6th. Ranked high: good health, chastity, domestic skills
· Shows that culture plays a role on the formation of relationships – whilst general mate selection preferences have shown to be universally similar, there are still some differences from various cultures in terms of mate selection, and therefore that leads to a cross-cultural variation in the formation of relationships
+ Huge study, over 10,000 participants
+ Cross-cultured with 37 cultures, can be more generalised
+ Can make sense of the preferences – e.g China and Nigeria are very traditionalist cultures, believe in women being domestic/taking care of the house and or kids which are therefore important qualities of their potential mates. USA – more modern, believes in love first and then other aspects. Goes along with arranged marriages -> love the person you’re married to. Love marriages -> marry the person you love (Matsumoto)
- Self-desirability bias from questionnaires – USA may have selected ‘love’ as first because it sounded the best/most genuine
- Even though there are 37 cultures, you still cannot generalise it to every culture or say that universally, mate preferences are the same
BP3: Levine
· Asked college students in 11 different nations if they’d be willing to marry someone they didn’t love even if the person had all the qualities they desired
· Students could answer ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘undecided’
· 4 affluent Western nations (US, Brazil, Australia and England), young people were most insistent on love as a prerequisite for marriage. Only a tiny percentage said ‘yes’ to a loveless marriage
· In Eastern affluent nations (HK, Japan and Mexico – high standard of living apart from M) they tended to vote for love as well
· Only in the four Eastern, collectivist, underdeveloped nations (Philippines, Thailand, India, Pakistan) were students willing to compromise. Fairly high percentage of students said they’d be willing to marry someone they did not love
· Extended family is very important in these four cultures
· Research suggests that today, young people worldwide generally consider love to be a prerequisite for courtship/marriage. It is only in a few cultures that passionate love remains a bit of a luxury
· Large differences that existed between Westernized, modern, urban, industrial societies Eastern, modern, urban, industrial societies are fast disappearing
· Those interested in cross-cultural differences may be forced to search for large differences in only the most collectivist of societies
· Collectivist societies may place more importance on keeping their family happy, marrying for the sake of the group rather than for themselves, seeing how they can maintain group harmony and marry in the most beneficial way to others
· Individualist societies may place more importance on self-interest, love and passion, and ensuring that the marriage will last based off of their feelings for their partner
+ Shows differences between individualist and collectivist cultures. Marriage is more than the union of two individuals in collectivist/traditional cultures, it is the union of two families
+ Also shows how Western values are slowly spreading (HK, Japan, Mexico) and differences are slowly disappearing
- Only used college students, cannot generalise, perhaps they have a more idealistic view on love but older people may differ based on practicality
- Only 11 different nations – cannot generalise to all Western and Eastern cultures
- Could depend on personal circumstances rather than cultural ones – e.g perhaps that person is poor and he/she needs the money, rather than being collectivistic they are therefore being individualistic.
BP4: Gupta and Singh
· Maintenance/levels of love in arranged marriages and love marriages
· Studied 100 degree-educated couples living in India
· 50 had chosen their partners, 50 had arranged marriages
· Asked to indicate how much they liked/loved their partner.
· Love and liking that was high in love marriages decreased if they had been married for more than 5 years
· Those who had arranged marriages reported higher levels of love
· The maintenance of relationships could be affected by culture and thus type of marriage – those in collectivist cultures who had arranged marriages and followed culture’s traditions have maintained the love in their relationship, those in collectivist cultures who had love marriages but switched to Western traditions have diminished love in their relationship
+ Shows that arranged marriages can still provide love
+ Used an equal amount of relationship-types
- Cannot be generalised to cultures outside of India
- Cannot be applied to all love relationships – in individualist cultures, those in love can remain married for a lifetime
- Could therefore just be a correlational relationship, not causational
- Small sample sizes, lack population validity
- Intra-cultural differences make it impossible to generalise even within the culture itself
Conc:
· Relationships are difficult to study scientifically – huge limitation to all research. Lots of findings can just provide correlational links, not causational
· Huge insight into Western and non-Western, individualist and collectivist
· Culture can influence the formation of a relationship based on cultural-specific mate preferences, and the maintenance based on the type of marriage (linking back to the type of culture)
· Culture is a dynamic system of rules, implicit of explicit, established by a social group in order to ensure their survival, involving attitudes, values, beliefs, norms and behaviours (Matsumoto)
· Looking at Western and non-Western cultures.
· Moghaddam: people of Western cultures are more individualistic, whilst non-Westerners are more collectivist. Affects how relationships are formed, perceived and maintained
· Western: relationships are voluntary, temporary, focus on needs of the individual. Marriage for love is considered normal, divorce is very common. People’s greater social and geographical mobility creates more chances to meet new people and have the ability to select those they wish to be in a relationship with
· Non-Western: love is expected to grow, not necessary for marriage. Arranged marriage is common. Dowry system is common. Relationships are designed for the good of the whole, obligatory and considered permanent.
BP1: Aron
· Wanted to know if the ‘chaos’ of romantic love translates across cultures – most research is Western
· Does a Chinese brain look the same as an American brain when it’s in love?
· 18 Chinese men and women were placed in a brain scan machine and shown photos of their loved ones, as well as a photo of a familiar friend of whom they don’t have romantic feelings for (control)
· The photo of the loved one evoked a unique pattern of neural activation in the area of the brain associated with intense reward (similar to the patterns shown then people take addictive drugs/gamble) – similar to love studies in the US
· Researchers then tracked the relationship for 18 months. Asked couples to describe the relationship on a 7-point scale
· Although all participants were happy together, some scored their relationship at 6, others at 7.
· Going back to original scans, they found distinct differences in the brain patterns among those who had the highest relationship satisfaction compared to those with slightly lower scores
· Culture and country may influence love or how we express it.
· In surveys, people from China typically describe love in much less positive terms. Pick more negative traits (anxious, scary, depressing) than Americans
· Culture with a tradition of arranged marriages, questionnaire studies suggest differences
· However, the findings suggested that love is not merely a cultural construction but a powerful force in human life
· What happens at the deep level of the brain is the same everywhere, but how we talk and think about it/show it to others may well be shaped by culture
· Biologically, culture therefore may not play a significant role in attraction/love, but socioculturally, it plays a role in the formation and maintenance of relationships because of the different perceptions of love cross-culturally. E.g East picks more negative traits, they may have different methods of communication with their partners which in turn disrupts the maintenance, but they still love their partner the same way as anyone else
· Love is an etic, but the way in which it is expressed/shown/perceived is an emic
+ Work suggests (for the first time) that the intensity of brain patterns during the early phase of romantic love might be able to predict quality of the relationship 18 months into the future
+ No demand characteristics
+ Controlled
+ Methodological triangulation – brain scan and questionnaires
+ Found links with brain areas associated with drugs and gambling – shows that love can be as addictive/obsessive as these things
- Findings are exploratory and need to be replicated
- Used China as the only Eastern country, cannot be generalised to the East in general
- Used US as only Western
- Only 18, small sample size, cannot generalise to entire population
BP2: Buss
· One of the largest cross-cultural studies on relationships ever
· Gave 2 questionnaires regarding mate selection to over 10,000 respondents from 37 cultures
· Many striking similarities
· Results: 36/37 cultures, women ranked financial prospects as more important than males
· In all 37, men preferred younger mates, whilst women preferred older mates
· In 23, males rated chastity as more important than women did
· Degree of agreement in sex differences across cultures led Buss to view mate selection preferences as universal, arising from different evolutionary pressures on males and females
· However, some interesting differences:
· USA: love ranked 1st
· Nigeria: love ranked 4th. Ranked high: good health, neatness, desire for home and children
· South Africa: love ranked 7th. Ranked high: emotional stability and maturity, dependability
· China: love ranked 6th. Ranked high: good health, chastity, domestic skills
· Shows that culture plays a role on the formation of relationships – whilst general mate selection preferences have shown to be universally similar, there are still some differences from various cultures in terms of mate selection, and therefore that leads to a cross-cultural variation in the formation of relationships
+ Huge study, over 10,000 participants
+ Cross-cultured with 37 cultures, can be more generalised
+ Can make sense of the preferences – e.g China and Nigeria are very traditionalist cultures, believe in women being domestic/taking care of the house and or kids which are therefore important qualities of their potential mates. USA – more modern, believes in love first and then other aspects. Goes along with arranged marriages -> love the person you’re married to. Love marriages -> marry the person you love (Matsumoto)
- Self-desirability bias from questionnaires – USA may have selected ‘love’ as first because it sounded the best/most genuine
- Even though there are 37 cultures, you still cannot generalise it to every culture or say that universally, mate preferences are the same
BP3: Levine
· Asked college students in 11 different nations if they’d be willing to marry someone they didn’t love even if the person had all the qualities they desired
· Students could answer ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘undecided’
· 4 affluent Western nations (US, Brazil, Australia and England), young people were most insistent on love as a prerequisite for marriage. Only a tiny percentage said ‘yes’ to a loveless marriage
· In Eastern affluent nations (HK, Japan and Mexico – high standard of living apart from M) they tended to vote for love as well
· Only in the four Eastern, collectivist, underdeveloped nations (Philippines, Thailand, India, Pakistan) were students willing to compromise. Fairly high percentage of students said they’d be willing to marry someone they did not love
· Extended family is very important in these four cultures
· Research suggests that today, young people worldwide generally consider love to be a prerequisite for courtship/marriage. It is only in a few cultures that passionate love remains a bit of a luxury
· Large differences that existed between Westernized, modern, urban, industrial societies Eastern, modern, urban, industrial societies are fast disappearing
· Those interested in cross-cultural differences may be forced to search for large differences in only the most collectivist of societies
· Collectivist societies may place more importance on keeping their family happy, marrying for the sake of the group rather than for themselves, seeing how they can maintain group harmony and marry in the most beneficial way to others
· Individualist societies may place more importance on self-interest, love and passion, and ensuring that the marriage will last based off of their feelings for their partner
+ Shows differences between individualist and collectivist cultures. Marriage is more than the union of two individuals in collectivist/traditional cultures, it is the union of two families
+ Also shows how Western values are slowly spreading (HK, Japan, Mexico) and differences are slowly disappearing
- Only used college students, cannot generalise, perhaps they have a more idealistic view on love but older people may differ based on practicality
- Only 11 different nations – cannot generalise to all Western and Eastern cultures
- Could depend on personal circumstances rather than cultural ones – e.g perhaps that person is poor and he/she needs the money, rather than being collectivistic they are therefore being individualistic.
BP4: Gupta and Singh
· Maintenance/levels of love in arranged marriages and love marriages
· Studied 100 degree-educated couples living in India
· 50 had chosen their partners, 50 had arranged marriages
· Asked to indicate how much they liked/loved their partner.
· Love and liking that was high in love marriages decreased if they had been married for more than 5 years
· Those who had arranged marriages reported higher levels of love
· The maintenance of relationships could be affected by culture and thus type of marriage – those in collectivist cultures who had arranged marriages and followed culture’s traditions have maintained the love in their relationship, those in collectivist cultures who had love marriages but switched to Western traditions have diminished love in their relationship
+ Shows that arranged marriages can still provide love
+ Used an equal amount of relationship-types
- Cannot be generalised to cultures outside of India
- Cannot be applied to all love relationships – in individualist cultures, those in love can remain married for a lifetime
- Could therefore just be a correlational relationship, not causational
- Small sample sizes, lack population validity
- Intra-cultural differences make it impossible to generalise even within the culture itself
Conc:
· Relationships are difficult to study scientifically – huge limitation to all research. Lots of findings can just provide correlational links, not causational
· Huge insight into Western and non-Western, individualist and collectivist
· Culture can influence the formation of a relationship based on cultural-specific mate preferences, and the maintenance based on the type of marriage (linking back to the type of culture)
Analyze why relationships may change or end?
Intro:
not all relationships lasts, maintenance and effort needs to be put in in order to maintain a relationship
there are many theories suggesting why a relationship may crumble
BP1:
Duck did a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies which tried to identify what factors could predict dissolution of a relationship. He found these:
Trends in Relationships:
1. Women terminate relationships more often that men
2. When partners are younger, they tend to be more unstable
3. Early parenthood, and therefore financial problems and time management, results in unstable relationships
4. If couple are from lower economic groups and lower education levels they tend to be unstable
5. If people have had divorced parents, they tend to be unstable
6. If they have had a large number of sexual partners before marriage, they tend to be unstable.
Critical Thinking:
(+) Supported by Duck's meta-analysis, which is high in reliability since he analyzed longitudinal studies
(+) Meta-anaylsis: research means that Duck compiled findings from a lot of different pieces of research to come to his findings, which suggests to the validity and generalizability of his results.
(-) A meta-analysis can have researcher bias, since the studies are chosen by the researcher. The studies may be selected because they follow the expectation of the researcher.
(-) Cannot be generalized to everyone. Finding are based off trends and therefore predictions based on this theory are difficult to make.
(-)Cultural variations may affect the results (collectivist and individualist values)
----
BP2:
Social Exchange Theory - The theory states that the costs of a relationship should not outweigh the benefits and that it should be profitable to both partners. For a relationship to survive, balance must be maintained.
Critical Thinking:
(+) Supports other theories/findings that relationship breakdown is caused by a lack of balance in a relationship - e.g. different socioeconomic class (Duck) and power (Gottman: sees contempt - feeling of superiority - as one of the factors leading to relationship breakdown)
(-) It may be difficult to quantify the extent/significance of a cost or benefit, as there are different levels that something may be good or bad, which may result in the inability to discern whether there is a "balance" present.
(-) There isn't really a reliable way of measuring the costs and benefits of a relationship, they are individually perceived.
(-) It is a mechanist approach. In reality it is difficult to define rewards or costs precisely.
(-) Clark and mills (1979) argued that romantic relationships are communal rather than exchange relationships.
----
BP3:
Felmlee (1995) established the Fatal Attraction Theory, which is essentially the idea that a relationship may change or end as a result of the same trait that had initially caused the attraction. For example, fun to foolish, strong to domineering, or spontaneous to unpredictable.
Critical Thinking:
(-) This doesn't always happen (Ecological Validity?) This theory could be seen as something that only applies to teenage or young relationships; relationships that start with a trait that is subject to change to a negative one.
----
BP4:
Patterns of Accommodation:
- Rusbult et al. (1991)
- It is how one responds to a partners behavior
- Two types: Constructive (discussing problems) & Destructive (silent treatment)
- Factors that determine whether the response with be constructive or destructive: idealization, person's feeling of commitment & attachment styles
Critical Thinking:
(+) Gottman has conducted numerous longitudinal and in depth research into relationships and has found similar trends. Therefore this supports the theory and thus increases the ability to apply this theory.
----
BP5:
Equity Theory
Used to explain infidelity.
Hatfield (1979)
Found that those who felt deprived or under-benefited had extramarital sex sooner after marriage and with more partners than those who felt either filly treated or over-benefited.
Those who felt that their relationship was perfectly equitable were more likely than others to think that they would still be together in one year and in five years.
Those who felt greatly under-benefited and those who felt greatly over-benefited were least likely to think that their relationship would be intact in the future
Critical Thinking:
(-) It is hard to quantify costs and rewards to test the theory. It also doesn't take into consideration emotions that could potentially override profit motive.
Conclusion:
Many of these explantations are only theories, it is difficult to have one main explanation for relationship decline as there are many types of relationships and every relationship is different. With no two people being the same, the difficulty of having one technique to describe dynamics of a couple is even more difficult. However, one thing is clear, if communication begins to decrease or become increasingly negative, it is likely the relationship will begin to struggle.
not all relationships lasts, maintenance and effort needs to be put in in order to maintain a relationship
there are many theories suggesting why a relationship may crumble
BP1:
Duck did a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies which tried to identify what factors could predict dissolution of a relationship. He found these:
Trends in Relationships:
1. Women terminate relationships more often that men
2. When partners are younger, they tend to be more unstable
3. Early parenthood, and therefore financial problems and time management, results in unstable relationships
4. If couple are from lower economic groups and lower education levels they tend to be unstable
5. If people have had divorced parents, they tend to be unstable
6. If they have had a large number of sexual partners before marriage, they tend to be unstable.
Critical Thinking:
(+) Supported by Duck's meta-analysis, which is high in reliability since he analyzed longitudinal studies
(+) Meta-anaylsis: research means that Duck compiled findings from a lot of different pieces of research to come to his findings, which suggests to the validity and generalizability of his results.
(-) A meta-analysis can have researcher bias, since the studies are chosen by the researcher. The studies may be selected because they follow the expectation of the researcher.
(-) Cannot be generalized to everyone. Finding are based off trends and therefore predictions based on this theory are difficult to make.
(-)Cultural variations may affect the results (collectivist and individualist values)
----
BP2:
Social Exchange Theory - The theory states that the costs of a relationship should not outweigh the benefits and that it should be profitable to both partners. For a relationship to survive, balance must be maintained.
Critical Thinking:
(+) Supports other theories/findings that relationship breakdown is caused by a lack of balance in a relationship - e.g. different socioeconomic class (Duck) and power (Gottman: sees contempt - feeling of superiority - as one of the factors leading to relationship breakdown)
(-) It may be difficult to quantify the extent/significance of a cost or benefit, as there are different levels that something may be good or bad, which may result in the inability to discern whether there is a "balance" present.
(-) There isn't really a reliable way of measuring the costs and benefits of a relationship, they are individually perceived.
(-) It is a mechanist approach. In reality it is difficult to define rewards or costs precisely.
(-) Clark and mills (1979) argued that romantic relationships are communal rather than exchange relationships.
----
BP3:
Felmlee (1995) established the Fatal Attraction Theory, which is essentially the idea that a relationship may change or end as a result of the same trait that had initially caused the attraction. For example, fun to foolish, strong to domineering, or spontaneous to unpredictable.
Critical Thinking:
(-) This doesn't always happen (Ecological Validity?) This theory could be seen as something that only applies to teenage or young relationships; relationships that start with a trait that is subject to change to a negative one.
----
BP4:
Patterns of Accommodation:
- Rusbult et al. (1991)
- It is how one responds to a partners behavior
- Two types: Constructive (discussing problems) & Destructive (silent treatment)
- Factors that determine whether the response with be constructive or destructive: idealization, person's feeling of commitment & attachment styles
Critical Thinking:
(+) Gottman has conducted numerous longitudinal and in depth research into relationships and has found similar trends. Therefore this supports the theory and thus increases the ability to apply this theory.
----
BP5:
Equity Theory
Used to explain infidelity.
Hatfield (1979)
Found that those who felt deprived or under-benefited had extramarital sex sooner after marriage and with more partners than those who felt either filly treated or over-benefited.
Those who felt that their relationship was perfectly equitable were more likely than others to think that they would still be together in one year and in five years.
Those who felt greatly under-benefited and those who felt greatly over-benefited were least likely to think that their relationship would be intact in the future
Critical Thinking:
(-) It is hard to quantify costs and rewards to test the theory. It also doesn't take into consideration emotions that could potentially override profit motive.
Conclusion:
Many of these explantations are only theories, it is difficult to have one main explanation for relationship decline as there are many types of relationships and every relationship is different. With no two people being the same, the difficulty of having one technique to describe dynamics of a couple is even more difficult. However, one thing is clear, if communication begins to decrease or become increasingly negative, it is likely the relationship will begin to struggle.