Relationships: Duck's Phase Model

Question 1

Outline Duck’s Phase Model for the breakdown of relationships.

Answer 1

Duck (1998) - the ending of a relationship is not a one-off event but a process that takes time and goes through four stages.

Each phase is marked by one or both people reaching a threshold where their relationship changes (usually for the worse).

Break-up begins when a partner realises they are dissatisfied with the relationship.

Question 2

State and describe the four phases of the model.

Answer 2

Intra-psychic phase: Focus is on cognitive processes - Thinking about their feelings of dissatisfaction with their partner privately and may share these thoughts with a trusted friend. The dissatisfied partner might spend a lot of time mulling things over. Weigh up pros and cons against alternatives.

Dyadic phase: Focus is on interpersonal processes – the person confronts their partner and voices their dissatisfaction. This involves lots of complaints e.g., lack of commitment. This leads to feelings of anxiety, resentment, hostility, lack of equity but can also lead to greater self disclosure.
Two possible outcomes;
1. determination to separate
2. decide to repair it

Social phase: Focus is on wider processes involving the couple’s social networks which drives the momentum of the breakup. This is seen as the point of no return as it more difficult to repair the relationship and usually leads to the dissolution (end) of the relationship. Break-up is made public and mutual friends/family feel they have to take sides – gossip is traded and encouraged.
Friends/family may:
provide support, reinforcement and reassurance
be judgemental
help try to repair the relationship
provide information they have not shared before

Grave-dressing phase: Focus is on the aftermath – when the relationship has ended, each partner will seek to create a favourable narrative of the events ‘break-up story’, justifying to themselves and others why the relationship breakdown was not their fault. This helps retain their social value for future relationships. You adapt memories to help you cope and traits you once found endearing are now reinterpreted negatively.

Question 3

What are the strengths of Duck’s model?

Answer 3

+ Real world application: Duck’s model has useful applications, especially in relation to couples’ counselling. Duck suggested that couples may be advised to use different strategies depending on the phase they are currently in. For example, for a person in the intra-psychic phase it may be more useful to shift their attention to the positive aspects of their partner’s personality, while for a couple in the dyadic phase communication about dissatisfaction and ways to balance relationships is crucial. This shows that Duck’s model of relationship breakdown can be used successfully to help couples contemplating break-up to improve their relationships and stay together.

+Research support: The existence and role of the break-up phases described in Duck’s model are supported by scientific research. For example, Tashiro and Frasier (2003) showed that viewing the situation, rather than own faults, as being responsible for ending the relationships, helps people to see the break-up in a more positive light and move on, just as Duck’s model predicts. This strengthens the claims made by the model and highlights the application of the theory to everyday relationships.

Question 4

What are the weaknesses of Duck’s model?

Answer 4

• Lack of validity due to SDB and retrospective data: Most of the research examining relationship breakdown is based on retrospective data, using questionnaires or interviews to ask participants about the break-up some time after it happened. People’s memories of the event may not be accurate, and may also be coloured by their current situation, which means that their answers are not reliable. This means Duck’s phase model, even though it seems to be supported by research, does not necessarily describe how break-up happens in real life, weakening the model’s ability to present an accurate picture of relationship breakdown.
• Research that suggests the social phase is greatly affected by individual differences, especially in relation to age: Dickson (1995) found that while friends and relatives tend to see teenagers’ break-ups as less serious and wouldn’t put much effort into reconciling partners, the ending of relationships by older couples is seen as more distressing and those close to the couple put more effort into bringing them back together. This shows that Duck’s model won’t necessarily apply to all couples, and therefore suggests that the model is unable to accurately predict breakdown in different types of relationship.
• Culture bias and ethnocentrism: The model is based on relationships from individualist cultures, where ending the relationships is a voluntary choice, and separation and divorce are easily obtainable and do not carry stigma. However, this may not be the case in collectivist cultures, where relationships are sometimes arranged by wider family members, and characterised by greater family involvement. This makes the relationship difficult to end, which means that the break-up process will not follow the phases proposed by Duck. As a result, Duck’s model is culturally biased as it assumes that break-up process is universal, which is clearly not the case.