Relationships — AQA A-Level Psychology
Test yourself on Relationships with AQA A-Level practice questions.
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Relationships explained
Start with anisogamy. Sperm are cheap and plentiful, eggs are few and costly, so the sexes evolve different strategies.
Read the full explanation
Intersexual selection is choosiness: the higher investing sex, usually the female, screens partners for resources, status and willingness to provide, because a bad choice costs her years. Intrasexual selection is competition, males competing for access, which is why size dimorphism and male aggression persist. Buss (1989) surveyed over 10,000 people in 37 cultures: women rated good financial prospects higher, men rated youth and physical attractiveness, both cues to fertility. Clark and Hatfield (1989) found 75% of men but no women agreed to casual sex with a stranger. The marks are in the evaluation: these are stated preferences, not behaviour, and the resource preference is strongest where women are denied income, which is economics rather than genes.
Factors affecting attraction in romantic relationships: self-disclosure; physical attractiveness, including the matching hypothesis; filter theory, including social demography, similarity in attitudes and complementarity.
Three separate mechanisms, so learn them separately. Self disclosure builds intimacy through reciprocity: Altman and Taylor picture the person as an onion whose layers are peeled back in breadth and depth, and Reis and Shaver add that a disclosure must be returned and responded to or the relationship stalls. Physical attractiveness works through the halo effect, since Dion (1972) found attractive faces were rated kinder and more successful, so beauty buys traits it never earned. The matching hypothesis says we settle for someone of similar attractiveness to avoid rejection, although Walster's computer dance failed to support it because students simply liked the best looking partner. Filter theory (Kerckhoff and Davis, 1962) narrows a field of availables by social demography, then by similarity of attitudes early on, then by complementarity in couples together over eighteen months.
Theories of romantic relationships: social exchange theory, equity theory and Rusbult’s investment model of commitment, satisfaction, comparison with alternatives and investment. Duck’s phase model of relationship breakdown: intra-psychic, dyadic, social and grave dressing phases.
These theories treat love as accounting, and each fixes a flaw in the one before. Social exchange (Thibaut and Kelley) says we weigh rewards against costs and judge the profit against two standards, a comparison level set by past relationships and a comparison level for alternatives. Equity theory answers that fairness beats profit, since a partner who is over benefitted feels guilt and one who is under benefitted feels resentment. Rusbult then explains why people stay when profit is negative: commitment rests on satisfaction, poor alternatives and investment, the time, money and children already sunk in. Rusbult and Martz (1995) found abused women returned to partners when investment was high and alternatives were poor. Duck adds a timeline of breakdown, moving from private brooding to confrontation, then to going public and finally to the story each partner tells afterwards.
Virtual relationships in social media: self-disclosure in virtual relationships; effects of absence of gating on the nature of virtual relationships.
Two rival claims about what a screen does to intimacy. Reduced cues theory (Sproull and Kiesler) says computer mediated communication strips out tone, expression and gesture, which deindividuates people, makes them blunt and reduces self disclosure. Walther's hyperpersonal model claims the opposite: online disclosure comes earlier and deeper because the sender edits a selective, idealised self, has time to compose messages, and the receiver fills the gaps with flattering assumptions. Gates are the obstacles that stop relationships forming face to face, such as looks, a stammer, shyness or age, and online their absence lets the relationship start on shared interests instead. McKenna and Bargh found 70% of romantic relationships begun online were still going two years later, a higher survival rate than offline ones.
Parasocial relationships: levels of parasocial relationships, the absorption addiction model and the attachment theory explanation.
A parasocial relationship is one sided: the fan knows the celebrity intimately and the celebrity does not know the fan exists, so there is no risk of rejection. Maltby's work with the Celebrity Attitude Scale gives three levels, and they are levels of intensity rather than stages everyone passes through. Entertainment social is ordinary fandom and gossip, intense personal involves obsessive thoughts and feelings of a soulmate bond and correlates with anxiety and depression, and borderline pathological involves fantasies of control and willingness to spend money or break the law. McCutcheon's absorption addiction model says such relationships fill a deficient sense of self: absorption is preoccupation with the figure, addiction is needing stronger doses to sustain the feeling. The attachment explanation predicts insecure resistant adults form them most readily.
Your focus
- Explain how anisogamy produces intersexual and intrasexual selection, and state which sex each predicts will be choosy or competitive.
- Apply sexual selection to predict which partner traits men and women will prioritise, using Buss's 37-culture findings as the test.
- Evaluate the evolutionary account using the gap between stated preference and actual partners, and the economic alternative to genes.
Show all 18 objectives
- Describe self-disclosure, the halo effect and filter theory as three separate routes to attraction rather than one process.
- Explain why a disclosure only raises attraction when it is reciprocated and met with responsiveness.
- Apply filter theory to a given couple by naming which of the three filters is operating at their stage.
- Evaluate the matching hypothesis using Walster's computer dance result and the missing risk of rejection in its design.
- Describe social exchange theory using rewards minus costs, comparison level and comparison level for alternatives.
- Explain why Rusbult's model predicts a partner stays when profit is negative, using alternatives and investment.
- Apply Duck's four phases to a described break-up and name the phase a given behaviour belongs to.
- Evaluate the economic metaphor using Clark and Mills on communal partners who do not monitor rewards.
- Describe reduced cues theory and the hyperpersonal model, stating the opposite prediction each makes about online disclosure.
- Explain how absence of gating lets a relationship form on attitudes, naming gates such as looks, shyness or age.
- Apply the two models to a given online exchange and say which better explains what happened to intimacy.
- Evaluate the claim that cues are absent online, using timing, emoji and writing style as counter-evidence.
- Describe Maltby's three levels of parasocial relationship in order of intensity and the behaviour marking each.
- Apply the absorption addiction model to a described fan and state which level their behaviour places them at.
- Evaluate the attachment explanation using McCutcheon's failure to link attachment type to parasocial relationships.
Relationships exam tips
Marking Points
- Anisogamy identified: sperm plentiful and cheap, eggs rare and metabolically costly, so the sexes face different selection pressures.
- Intersexual selection explained as mate choice, with the higher investing sex screening for resources, status and protection (Trivers on parental investment).
- Intrasexual selection explained as same sex competition for access, with sexual dimorphism and male aggression as the consequence.
- Buss (1989) used accurately: over 10,000 respondents across 37 cultures, women valuing resources and ambition, men valuing youth and physical attractiveness.
- Clark and Hatfield (1989) offered as behavioural support for the predicted sex difference in willingness to have casual sex.
- AO3: questionnaire data measures stated preference, not who anyone actually partnered with.
- AO3: an economic alternative, since the preference for resources is largest where women lack access to education and income.
- AO3: the explanation is heteronormative and says nothing about same sex or deliberately childless relationships.
- Self disclosure defined as revealing private information, with reciprocity and appropriate depth as the conditions for it to increase attraction.
- Social penetration theory named, breadth and depth distinguished, Reis and Shaver's point about responsiveness added.
- Halo effect explained through Dion (1972), with the physical attractiveness stereotype that what is beautiful is good.
- Matching hypothesis stated as choosing a partner of comparable attractiveness after realistically judging one's own value.
- Filter theory's three filters in order: social demography (proximity, class, education), similarity of attitudes, complementarity of needs.
- AO3: Walster's own computer dance study did not support the matching hypothesis, because there was no risk of rejection in the design.
- AO3: Kerckhoff and Davis's eighteen month cut off is arbitrary, and Levinger failed to replicate the filters.
- AO3: social demography has weakened as a filter now that online dating removes proximity from the equation.
- Social exchange theory stated as rewards minus costs, with comparison level and comparison level for alternatives defined separately.
- Equity theory distinguished from social exchange: the perceived ratio of inputs to outputs matters more than the size of the profit.
- Both over benefitted and under benefitted partners identified as dissatisfied, with the under benefitted partner more so.
- Rusbult's three factors named precisely: satisfaction, quality of alternatives and investment, with intrinsic and extrinsic investment distinguished.
- Rusbult and Martz (1995) applied to explain why a partner stays in an abusive relationship.
- Duck's four phases named in order with their thresholds: intra-psychic, dyadic, social, grave dressing.
- AO3: Clark and Mills argue that partners in communal relationships do not monitor rewards, so the economic metaphor misdescribes real couples.
- AO3: Duck's model is descriptive rather than explanatory, and rests on retrospective accounts from people whose relationships already ended.
- Reduced cues theory explained through the absence of non-verbal cues, deindividuation and blunt or hostile exchanges.
- Hyperpersonal model explained through selective self presentation, editing and asynchronous composition of messages.
- Over attribution by the receiver identified, and the resulting rapid but sometimes false intimacy.
- Gating defined with concrete gates, and absence of gating explained as allowing relationships to form on attitudes rather than appearance.
- McKenna and Bargh used with a figure, and the benefit named for shy or socially anxious users.
- AO3: cues are not absent online but different, since timing, emoji and style of writing all carry social information.
- AO3: the theories lump very different platforms together, so a dating app, a gaming server and a work chat are not one phenomenon.
- AO3: absence of gating also allows deception, including invented age, gender or identity.
- Parasocial relationship defined as one sided, unreciprocated and with no risk of rejection.
- The three levels named and described in order of intensity, with the Celebrity Attitude Scale as the measure.
- Intense personal linked to poorer mental health, borderline pathological linked to fantasy and illegal behaviour.
- Absorption addiction explained as compensation for a deficient identity, with absorption and addiction defined separately.
- Attachment explanation linked to Bowlby's internal working model, with insecure resistant most likely and insecure avoidant least likely.
- AO3: the evidence is correlational and self report, so a weak identity may follow the parasocial relationship rather than cause it.
- AO3: McCutcheon and colleagues found no relationship between attachment type and the likelihood of a parasocial relationship, which undermines the attachment account.
- AO3: Schmid and Klimmt found similar levels of parasocial attachment to Harry Potter in individualist and collectivist cultures, suggesting a universal process.
Examiner Tips
- 💡In an extended response, keep description focused and leave enough time to develop evidence-based evaluation that answers the command word.
- 💡On an application item, lift the detail from the stem. If the scenario says a woman prefers an older partner with a secure job, name intersexual selection and parental investment rather than talking about evolution in general.
- 💡Build each evaluation paragraph as point, evidence, explanation of why it weakens or supports the theory, rather than listing criticisms.
- 💡If the question names one factor, write about that factor only. A paragraph on filter theory in a question about self disclosure gathers no marks.
- 💡Use the correlation problem as ready made AO3: similar attitudes may be the result of being attracted and converging, not the cause of the attraction.
- 💡For scenario items, tie each named character to one filter, and say which filter is operating at their stage of the relationship.
- 💡Quote the stem in application questions. A couple arguing in front of friends is in the social phase, while a partner privately resenting the housework is intra-psychic.
- 💡Use direction of causality as AO3: dissatisfaction may cause a partner to start counting costs rather than counted costs causing the dissatisfaction.
- 💡Save a line on real world value, since Duck's model suggests intervention, with skills training in the intra-psychic phase and mediation in the dyadic phase.
- 💡Set the two models against each other in evaluation rather than describing them one after the other, as the contrast is where the AO3 marks sit.
- 💡For application items, pick out the detail that signals the mechanism: a shy student who talks freely online is absence of gating, an edited profile photo is selective self presentation.
- 💡Date the research explicitly. Studies from before mainstream smartphones may lack temporal validity, which is a criticism examiners reward when it is explained.
- 💡Use the level names as your structure in a description question, then use their measurement by questionnaire as the way into evaluation.
- 💡For an application item, match the described behaviour to a level and justify the match with the behaviour itself, such as travelling across the country to wait outside a hotel.
- 💡Keep a methodological criticism ready: the Celebrity Attitude Scale is self report, so social desirability suppresses the borderline pathological answers.
Common Mistakes
- Treating sexual selection as natural selection. Natural selection is about surviving, sexual selection is about reproducing, and a trait like a peacock's tail can lower survival while raising reproductive success.
- Swapping intersexual and intrasexual selection. Inter is between the sexes and means choosing, intra is within one sex and means competing.
- Citing Buss with no content. 'Buss studied mate preference' earns nothing, while the 37 cultures and the direction of the sex difference earn credit.
- Sliding into 'men are programmed to cheat'. The explanation describes population level tendencies, it does not excuse an individual's behaviour, and examiners penalise the determinist leap.
- Saying the matching hypothesis means partners are matched on personality or wealth. It is specifically about perceived physical attractiveness.
- Claiming Walster's study proved matching. It found the opposite, and the credit comes from explaining why the design let participants ignore rejection risk.
- Describing self disclosure as simply talking a lot. Too much too soon reduces attraction, and reciprocity is the part that is credited.
- Treating complementarity as the same as similarity. Complementarity is needs that fit together, such as one partner who likes to care and one who likes to be cared for.
- Confusing the two comparison levels. The comparison level is what you think you deserve based on past relationships, the comparison level for alternatives is whether someone better is available.
- Reducing equity theory to equality. Equity is a fair ratio of what each puts in to what each gets out, so unequal contributions can still be equitable.
- Leaving investment out of the investment model, or naming commitment as a fourth factor rather than as the outcome the three factors produce.
- Getting Duck's phases out of order, or omitting the thresholds that move a partner from one phase to the next.
- Writing that online relationships are simply shallower. The specification wants both models, and the hyperpersonal position is that they can be more intimate, not less.
- Describing a gate as a barrier to communication, such as slow broadband. A gate is a feature of the person that blocks a relationship starting.
- Saying absence of gating is always positive, and ignoring the catfishing side of the same mechanism.
- Using anecdotes about social media instead of naming Sproull and Kiesler, Walther or McKenna and Bargh.
- Treating the three levels as developmental stages. They are degrees of intensity, and most fans never move beyond entertainment social.
- Describing absorption and addiction as one idea. Absorption is preoccupation and identification, addiction is escalation to keep the same effect.
- Naming the wrong attachment type. It is insecure resistant, not insecure avoidant, who seek the unfulfilled closeness a celebrity can safely provide.
- Presenting parasocial relationships as automatically unhealthy, when entertainment social attachment is normal and sociable.