A03

• Limitation: Incomplete model?


  • Rollie and Duck (2006): 5th resurrection phase - ex-partners begin to use what they have learned from the last rel to prepare for the new one
  • Clarifies the point that movement through the stages isn't linear nor inevitable - partners may return to an earlier phase
  • Suggests: The OG phase model - only a partial explanation of the process of rel breakdown
• Limitation: Supporting evidence is based on retrospective data?


  • Interviews about the process tend to take place after the breakdown not during - retrospective data may not be reliable
  • Almost impossible to study breakdown in the earlier stages without potentially interfering with the ongoing process
  • Model is based on limited information about the start of the breakdown process - incomplete as a description
• Strength: Trying to help people reverse the process?


  • Suggests: some repair strategies might be more effective at one stage rather than another e.g. intra-psychic stage: partners could brood more positively
  • Would be less helpful to encourage brooding if a person has already reached the social phase
  • Suggests: model can lead to supportive suggestions - may help people through this difficult time in their lives
• Limitation: Focuses on how rather than why breakdown occurs?


  • Flemlee (95): a 'fatal attraction' theory stating that the attributes that partners found attractive at the start of a rel can often become too much
  • E.g. someone who was attracted to a 'so funny' partner may then decide to end the rel as the other person 'fails to take life seriously'
  • Highlights: Duck's model only tells us what happens not why
• Limitations: based on individualistic cultures?


  • Moghaddam et al (93): rels in individualistic cultures are mostly voluntary and end quite often - in collectivistic cultures rels are more frequently obligatory and less easy to end
  • Whole concept of a rel differs between cultures so the process of rel breakdown is likely to differ
  • Limitation: model can only be applied to some cultures and types of rel