The Formation of Relationships
The Formation of Romantic Relationships
Reward/ Need Satisfaction Theory (Byrne and Clore, 1970)
-Byrne and Clore proposed a theory which is based on a behavioural approach and consists of two elements “Reward” and “Need”.
-“Reward” is based on the idea of operant condition which means if someone creates a positive feeling in us then we are more likely to be attracted to them.
-“Need” is based on the idea of classical conditioning meaning we associate people with positive events therefore we are more likely to be attracted to a person who we associate happy feelings and experiences with.
-Byrne and Clore believed that the balance of positive and negative feelings is crucial in maintaining relationships: more positive feelings mean the relationship is more likely to succeed.
Similarity Theory
-Byrne, Clore and Smeaton proposed that similarity also has an impact on the formation of relationships; they suggested that the key focus we look for in similarity is personality and attitude.
-They outlined two stages which help people decide who to seek relations with; the first stage involves looking for people who are most dissimilar to us and the second stage involves looking for those who are most similar to us.
-There is a lot of research to support this theory; for instance, Caspi and Herbener found that in married couples, those who were the happiest were those who had the most similar personality traits.
-However this theory is reductionist as it only takes into account similarities in personality and attitude but does not look at other factors in forming relationships such as socio-economic status or appearance.
-It can be argued that the Similarity Theory explains why relationships are maintained as it describes why it is beneficial to continue in a relationship however, it doesn’t explain how they started.
Reward/ Need Satisfaction Theory (Byrne and Clore, 1970)
-Byrne and Clore proposed a theory which is based on a behavioural approach and consists of two elements “Reward” and “Need”.
-“Reward” is based on the idea of operant condition which means if someone creates a positive feeling in us then we are more likely to be attracted to them.
-“Need” is based on the idea of classical conditioning meaning we associate people with positive events therefore we are more likely to be attracted to a person who we associate happy feelings and experiences with.
-Byrne and Clore believed that the balance of positive and negative feelings is crucial in maintaining relationships: more positive feelings mean the relationship is more likely to succeed.
Similarity Theory
-Byrne, Clore and Smeaton proposed that similarity also has an impact on the formation of relationships; they suggested that the key focus we look for in similarity is personality and attitude.
-They outlined two stages which help people decide who to seek relations with; the first stage involves looking for people who are most dissimilar to us and the second stage involves looking for those who are most similar to us.
-There is a lot of research to support this theory; for instance, Caspi and Herbener found that in married couples, those who were the happiest were those who had the most similar personality traits.
-However this theory is reductionist as it only takes into account similarities in personality and attitude but does not look at other factors in forming relationships such as socio-economic status or appearance.
-It can be argued that the Similarity Theory explains why relationships are maintained as it describes why it is beneficial to continue in a relationship however, it doesn’t explain how they started.