A03

• Strength: Research for the investment model?

  • Le and Agnew's (2003) review - satisfaction, comparison with alts and investment size all predicted relationship commitment - where commitment was greatest - relationships were most stable and lasted longest
  • Support is strong, given that the results were true for men and women in either heterosexual or homosexual relationships
  • Suggests - claim that these factors are universally important in relationships is valid
• Strength: can explain why people may stay in abusive rels?


  • Rusbult and Martz (95): found - women who reported making the greatest investment and who had the fewest attractive alternatives were most likely to return to the partners who had abused them
  • Concept of satisfaction as important to rel duration - can't explain this tendency - level of commitment can
  • Strength: explains the apparently inexplicable beh of staying in an abusive rel
• Strength: Supporting evidence is based on self-report techniques?


  • Self-report techniques - appropriate research methods since the model is based on subjective judgements about size of investment and alternatives
  • Good approach: what matters is the partners' subjective perceptions of their investments
  • Strength: more valid test of the model than for example experimental research
• Limitation: Oversimplifies investment?


  • Goodfriend and Agnew (2008): there's more to investment than just the resources you have already put into a rel
  • Early in a rel - partners make very few actual investments - do invest in future plans - motivates partners to commit so plans become a reality
  • OG model: limited explanation - fails to consider the true complexity of investment
• Limitation: Use of correlations?


  • Strong correlations: established between factors within the model
  • No matter how strong the correlation is - doesn't follow that one variable causes the other
  • Can't conclude from this which factors might cause commitment