ERQ Summative Plan PDF

Studies with both protection from undue stress and harm as well as informed consent. Study 1: Gottman Study 2: Bradbury and Fincham INTRODUCTION: The study of personal relationships looks at the basic need to belong and be accepted. Relationships are the source of humans most significant happine...

Studies with both protection from undue stress and harm as well as informed consent. Study 1: Gottman Study 2: Bradbury and Fincham INTRODUCTION: The study of personal relationships looks at the basic need to belong and be accepted. Relationships are the source of humans most significant happiness as well as unhappiness. Romantic love is a relationship involving strong and frequent interdependence. Protection from undue stress and harm - if the study causes a participant to suffer either physically or mentally the study may be deemed unethical. With relation to personal relationships this could be through stirring up arguments or posing disagreements which leads to the suffering of the participants' relationship. This is considered mental harm. Informed consent - participants must consent voluntarily to be in the study without being persuaded or coerced. Not only this but participants must be provided with enough information to make this decision. With relation to studies on personal relationships, researchers may not always provide enough information as this could increase demand characteristics. PARAGRAPH 1 - GOTTMAN Study 1 - Gottman -​ argues that the way we communicate with our partners (verbally and non verbally) plays a key role in the success of our relationships -​ aim: to determine if psychologists could predict whether a couple would end up divorced after observing a few minutes of conversation -​ used Specific Affect coding system (SPAFF) to measure positive and negative effects during conversations -​ positive affect → interest, validation, affection -​ negative affect → contempt, disgust, anger -​ study consisted of 124 newlywed couples -​ each couple completed a written survey, then discussed the results with a researcher to identify a problem within the relationship in a 15 minute  conversation -​ discussions were coded using SPAFF -​ once a year for 6 years the researchers checked on the couple to find out if they were still married -​ SPAFF scores from the original were compared for the couples who were still married after 6 years and those who weren’t -​ Gottman found that communication plays a key role in the maintenance or dissolution of a relationship -​ of the 17 couples who later divorced, all started off their 15 min convo with significantly greater displays of negative emotion and fewer displays of positive emotion than the couples that remained married Evaluation: -​ cultural bias → only seattle couples (not generalizable) -​ longitudinal study → other factors could have influenced outcome of marriages in 6 years Link to ethics: undue stress and harm to relationships → confirmation bias from researchers looking for a problem that is not there. predicting if a marriage will survive or not is harmful to a relationship. Informed consent → couples were not given full information about the nature of predicting their future or what the interviews would be used for PARAGRAPH 2 - BRADBURY AND FINCHAM Study 2 - Bradbury and Fincham -​ focused on role of communication in relationships -​ couples in happy relationships engage in relationship enhancing patterns (do not blame partners or assume they did things “on purpose) -​ this means behaviour is attributed to situational factors (eg. bad day at work) -​ unhappy couples attribute blame through dispositional factors (eg. “you're just a  moody person”) -​ study was an observation of 47 couples (must be married, living together, not have been for marriage counselling) -​ participants were asked to complete a survey to determine their level of marital satisfaction -​ researchers chose a common problem from the questionnaires and asked the couples individually who was responsible for the problem -​ also asked about a problem which one of them mentioned that the other did not -​ Then the couples came together to discuss a solution to the problem they had identified. This was a recorded observation for 15 minutes. -​ three trained researchers independently identified relationship-enhancing and distress-maintaining communication patterns -​ lower levels of marital satisfaction had more frequent distress-maintaining communication patterns (more likely to attribute blame dispositionally) -​ interaction was more hostile and rejecting among these couples Evaluation: -​ bidirectional ambiguity → we don't know if marital dissatisfaction causes bad communication or vice versa -​ other variables could influence results (eg. the hostile interaction couples were discussing deeper issues) Link to ethics: -​ undue stress and harm caused to relationships possibly through leading questions causing blame -​ undue stress and harm to relationships as these problems which were provoked by experiment may cause the relationship to end -​ informed consent: participants were gathered through advertisements and not made aware of the fact they were being assessed on how they communicate -​ right to refuse to answer, right to withdraw, both members of the couple must give consent, must know what data will be used for and that info will stay anonymous.