Relationships-Investment Model

Question 1

Who created the Investment Model?

Answer 1

Rusbult

Question 2

What are the main 4 things to the investment model?

Answer 2

Commitment-According to Rusbult commitment is glue holding relationship together and held by three main factors:
-Satisfaction;Do positive aspects of relationship outweigh negatives .e.g profits greater than costs

• Alternatives;Is there alternative relationship better than current one? e.g. could find better rewards greater than you currently have
• Investment;How much of my investment in this relationship would I lose if it ended? e.g. family, friends, money, time etc.

Question 3

What does the model actually show about relationships and why they continue?

Answer 3

Relationships do not just continue because positives outweigh negatives, but also because they are bound to one another through their investment in the relationship

Question 4

Why was this theory developed as an extension of SET?

Answer 4

SET didn’t tell us about couples staying together even when costs outweighing rewards unlike SET saying there MUST be more profits than costs for a couple to stay together when that is untrue

Question 5

What is commitment strengthened by?

Answer 5

Strengthened by satisfaction and investment but commitment is also weakened if there are alternatives to relationship

Question 6

What study supported this theory?

Answer 6

Le and Agnew (2003)

Question 7

What did Le and Agnew show?

Answer 7

Showed importance of satisfaction, alternative and investment in commitment

Question 8

What was Le and Agnew’s study?

Answer 8

Meta-analysis of 52 studies found support for investment model across individualist and collectivist cultures e.g. in USA (individualist) and Taiwan (collectivist)- suggests universality of Investment model; making it applicable to wide range of relationships

Question 9

What are the positives of this theory?

Answer 9

• Good research support e.g. le and agnew has cultural validity, good meta analysis etc.
• Research shows that theory is valid

Question 10

What are the negatives of this theory?

Answer 10

• Problem is idea of investment as we don’t know when is it ‘high’ enough that leads to us being committed in relationship
• Does not establish cause and effect as evidence is correlational
• All self-report methods may be giving socially desirable answers and then so reduces validity of evidence