Filter theory

• What did Kerkhoff and Davies (1962) say about the filter theory?

  • Compared attitudes of students in long-term and short-term relationships
  • Filter theory was created as a result to explain how relationships form and develop 
• What is filter theory?

  • We all have a field of available,not everyone who is available is desirable
  • There are a series of factors or filters which narrows down our potential partners to a field of desirables
  • People filter possible mates from a range of eligible candidates. The theory suggests that people use different methods at different levels of the process.
  • We start off with social variables like race or class.
  • We move to more individual and internal values such as personality.
  • Whereas for internal values it may be more important to seek complementary characteristics
• What filters did Kerchkoff and Davies suggest?

  Three main filters: similarity of attitudes, social demography and complementarity

  • Proximity
  • Physical attraction
  • Similarity
  • Complement of needs
  • Competence

  The first filter revolves around the fact we only meet a small fraction of people living in our area (social demography)

  The second filter revolvers around us mostly meeting those in a similar social class, education level and even ethnicity or race (2nd similarity of attitudes filter)

  The third filter is based on psychological (complimentary factors)
• What evidence did Festinger et al (1950) have for the proximity filter?

  • Observed friendships that formed in a block of apartments for married students
  • Students lived across 17 buildings
  • Students 10x more likely to form friendships with those in the same building
  • Interestingly, the most popular people lived the closest to staircases and post boxes because they were more likely to be ,bumped into’
  • This is called functional distance
• What evidence did Aronson et al (1966) have for the competency filter?

  • Asked to rate subjects on audio tape based on attractiveness
  • First one was nearly perfect, he answered 92% questions correctly, was an honours student etc
  • Second one was nearly perfect too but spilt coffee on himself during the interview
  • Third one was mediocre, answered 30% of the questions correctly, average grades in high school and was a proof reader for the yearbook
  • Fourth one was also mediocre, and also spilled coffee
  • The order of attractiveness was : 2, 1, 3, 4
  • We like people to be competent but not perfect
• What evidence did Walster et al (1996) have for the attractiveness filter?

  • Computer dance for students. Students arrived and asked to fill out questionnaire while hidden observer ranked them based on attractiveness
  • Students told they were paired based on similarity when in fact the pairing was random.
  • Participants were asked to complete questionnaire about the dance and their dates
  • More attractive students were more liked by their partners
  • Attractiveness proved to the the most important factor, above qualities such as intelligence and personality, best predictor of seeing eachother again
• What’s a strength of the filter theory?

  Lots of research support
• What are three weaknesses of the filter theory?

  • Based on western culture where we can interact with more people due to living in an urban setting 
  • Outdated theory, created 50 years ago, relationships have changed since then including gender roles
  • Temporal validity - rise of online dating, people may pursue relationship outside the usual demographic limits.