Risk factors affecting vulnerability to addiction

Another application-heavy section here - you'll often be presented with a scenario and asked to identify and explain risk factors that are present, and then evaluate the risk factors using supporting evidence. Remember to specifically signpost any research you take from this as supporting evidence - making sure it counts for AO2 rather than AO1

Black: AO1 - Description
Blue: AO2 - Evaluation - studies
Red: AO2 - Evaluation - evaluative points/IDAs
Purple: My notes/hints/tips

Stress: Increased stress levels are positively correlated with an increased vulnerability to developing dependencies, often initiating them as a maladaptive way of coping with stress. The self-medication cognitive model of addiction explains addictive behaviours as initiating in order to alleviate the effects of existing life stressors such as anxiety or a lack of self-confidence, suggesting that people initiate the specific addictive behaviour that they feel will help them best cope with a specific source of stress.

Childs + DeWitt (2010) investigated the effects of stress on cigarette smoking, looking specifically at its effects on cigarette craving, the subjective effects of smoking, and smoking behaviour in daily smokers. A sample of smokers was given a stressful task to complete, and then given a chance to smoke or earn money over a 2-hour period. Both before and after the task, stress was measured both objectively (through heart rate and cortisol levels) and subjectively (through self-reported anxiety and desire to smoke.) These measurements were also taken after they smoked a cigarette when given the chance to. Participants were more inclined to smoke for stress relief than to earn money. Stress did seem to increase cravings to smoke and pleasure obtained from smoking, but did not seem to increase the amount of cigarettes that were smoked.


Cleck + Blendy (2008) reported that people with stress-related psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety (that are often related to addictive drug usage and exposure to chronic stressful life conditions such as abuse) have an increased rate of nicotine, alcohol and cocaine usage, suggesting stress is an important factor in determining vulnerability levels to addiction.

These results can also be used to support self-medication cognitive model of addiction – the concept of nicotine taken to alleviate stress and anxiety supports the central concept of self-medication.


Peer group: Peer pressure is a very powerful factor that can influence the behaviour of an individual, especially during childhood and adolescence. Peer pressure can work as a form of operant conditioning – if peer groupings encourage and socially reward addictive behaviours, thrill seeking and experimentation, individuals within the peer group will have an increased vulnerability to both initiation and maintenance of addictive behaviours. Peers also act as a form of social learning, modelling addictive behaviours so others will observe and imitate them, and being rewarded by peer approval as a form of vicarious reinforcement.

Bricker et al (2006) investigated the extent to which childhood friends influenced smoking behaviour. A sample of 4744 children was studied and it was found that close friends influenced them:

• To try smoking 38% of the time
• To move on to monthly smoking 10% of the time
• To move on from monthly to daily smoking 11% of the time.

This study also found that close friends were 12% more influential in the initiation of smoking in the sample children than parents’ smoking was. However, close friends smoking were 16% less influential than parents smoking in the move to daily smoking. This suggests that peers play a role in initiation more than they do maintenance, when the family and parents become more important. This supports the role of social learning theory as an explanation of addictive behaviour initiation – 38% of children initiated an addictive behaviour due to observation and imitation.

Wagner and Anthony (2002) found that cannabis smokers were more likely to progress to cocaine usage due to being in peer groupings where there are opportunities for new drug experiences, suggesting that peers can act as a social context “gateway” to other addictive behaviours. This supports the role of peer groups in the initiation and maintenance of addictive behaviour.

However, cause and effect cannot be established with complete certainty when studying the role of peer groups in addiction – it is possible that instead of peer groups influencing dependency behaviours, individuals who are already dependent will seek out peer groups that accept and encourage their dependent behaviour – social selection rather than social influence.

Gender: it has been suggested that males and females take different factors into consideration when making the decision to initiate smoking. Men tend to be more likely than women to take part in most addictive behaviours and to have a larger repertoire of gambling activity than women.

Amos and Bostock (2007) carried out a qualitative study of 15-16 year old Scottish smokers, and found that smoking played a different role for the two genders, differences revolving around diverse social relationships, interests and activities. For example, boys were more likely to consider the impact that smoking would have on fitness and the ability to play sport, while girls focused more on the aesthetic effects of smoking, such as their clothes and bodies smelling of smoke. This supports the idea that different genders consider different factors when initiating addictive behaviour.

They suggested a real world application from the result of this study: stop-smoking campaigns aimed at girls and boys should be designed differently and with a different message to target the ill effects of smoking that each gender specifically focuses on in order to better target their message to their audience demographic.

Personality: Originally, it was suggested that addiction leads to personality defects, but research has indicated that certain personality traits can predispose an individual to the development of addiction. Traits associated with extroversion, introversion, neuroticism and psychoticism can increase vulnerability to addiction. . Extroversion involves sociability, liveliness, and thrill-seeking, and according to Eysenck’s theories, the thrill-seeking tendencies of extroverts make them more likely to develop an addiction. On the other hand, some introvert traits such as shyness and lack of confidence can make addiction more likely.  

Eysenck and Grosson (1991) used the EPQ (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire) to compare 221 addicts to 310 non-addicts, finding that addicts had many more personality items on the neuroticism scale linked to anxiety and depression. However, cause and effect is an issue here – being addicted to a substance could cause anxiety and depression, rather than anxiety and depression leading to self-medication through addictive substances.

Eysenck linked excess dopamine levels in people with a psychotic personality to addiction, but the rise in dopamine levels caused by many addictive drugs could lead to a rise in personality traits associated with psychoticism such as aggression and impulsivity – can’t determine cause and effect.

Francis (1996) found a link between alcohol, heroin and benzodiazepine and nicotine addictions, and higher than normal neuroticism and psychoticism levels – suggesting that personality factors can affect the likelihood of addictive behaviour developing. 

There is very little empirical evidence to suggest a causal link between the thrill-seeking dimension of extroversion and the initiation of addictive behaviours.

The concept of an addictive personality is supported by the fact that certain individuals can become dependent on many things, either simultaneously or over time. For example, a heroin addict overcoming their heroin dependency and becoming an alcoholic. This idea is also supported by the fact that many recovered addicts develop equally strong compulsions towards other activities not typically seen as addictive behaviours, such as long-distance running, or religious fervour.  

Age: Younger age groups are more likely to engage in online gambling 

The British Gambling Prevalence Survey found high prevalence of online gambling in younger age groups – 15% for those aged 25-34, 1% for those aged 75 or over, across both genders. Across both genders, problem gambling rates did not vary by age, but in men, problem gambling prevalence higher in younger age groups than older – 2.1% in 16-24 age group, 0.4% for 75+ age group. This suggests that belonging to a younger age group can put one at a higher risk for the development of addictive behaviour.

Media: Social Learning Theory suggests that addiction is learnt through observation and imitation, and that figures in the media such as celebrities or fictional characters can act as models for addictive behaviours. If the addictive behaviour is presented in a positive light or the model is rewarded for their behaviour, the viewers are more likely to imitate them and initiate the addictive behaviour themselves, an example of vicarious reinforcement.

Gunsekera et al (2005) carried out a content analysis of 87 popular films released over a period of 20 years. They found that: 8% featured cannabis, 68% featured tobacco, and 32% featured drunken behaviour, and  most that featured them tended to portray these drug-taking behaviours positively.

Dalton et al (2003) surveyed 3547 children aged 10-14, all of whom were non-smokers. 1-2 years later, a follow-up study found that those who had been exposed to the most smoking in films were significantly more likely to have started smoking. Dalton concluded that greater exposure to addictive behaviour in the media leads to an increase risk of developing that addictive behaviour themselves. However, determining cause and effect may be an issue here: it may have been that the type of children likely to start smoking were also more likely to seek out that kind of film. 

Distefan et al (2004) surveyed adolescent smokers and asked them to nominate a favourite film star. One third of participants named a star who smoked on screen – this was seen to play a large part in predicting these adolescents’ own smoking behaviour – particularly among girls. However, this was a correlational study, so we cannot rule out a third variable such as a thrill-seeking personality that could lead children both to start smoking, and to be more drawn to film stars that both smoke and star in more action-based films.

The British Gambling Prevalence Survey of 2011 reported that 73% of the adult population had participated in some form of gambling over the past year, a prevalence increase of 5% from the rate observed in 2007. This correlates with a 600% increase in exposure to gambling adverts on television since the 2005 Gambling Act. Although this is only correlational, it could suggest that the increased media exposure and gambling adverts led to the increase of gambling behaviour in the general public. 

A quick note on the role of the media in addictive behaviour

Questions on the influence of the media on addictive behaviour will either ask about positive, negative, or both effects on addiction. If they ask for the negative effects, use the research studies I outlined in my post on risk factors for addiction (Gunsekera, Dalton and Distefan), and if they ask for the positive effects, use your knowledge of the Toxic Cycle and Gamble Aware campaigns outlined in my post on public health interventions.

Cognitive explanations of addiction

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Blue: AO2 - Evaluation - studies
Red: AO2 - Evaluation - evaluative points/IDAs
Purple: My notes/hints/tips

Cognitions are thoughts, perceptions, reasonings and beliefs. The cognitive approach suggests that addictive behaviours develop due to faulty and irrational thought processes, and suggests several mechanisms for how these thought processes lead to addiction.

Gelkopf developed the self-medication model of addiction, which states that individuals carefully select addictive substances or behaviours based on perceived problems in their life, believing that the substance or behaviour will provide an effective solution to these problems. For example, someone may start smoking to alleviate stress, start drinking alcohol in social situations due to a lack of confidence, or gamble due to financial difficulties.

This model can explain initiation - people start an addictive behaviour due to a pre-existing stressor, maintenance - the behaviour can appear to help in the short term due to associations formed between the addiction and alleviation of the stressor (e.g. nicotine with calmness, alcohol with confidence), and relapse - once someone stops carrying out the addictive behaviour, they will relapse as soon as the initial stressor reoccurs, believing that the stressor has reocurred due to stopping the addictive behaviour.

People often carry out addictive behaviours without any underlying social or psychological hardships to resolve - confident people drink alcohol, non-anxious people smoke, and rich people gamble, so the self-medication model fails to explain initation of addictive behaviours in the absence of a triggering stressor.

Cause and effect is an issue with this model - it is often unclear whether the addictive behaviour develops to medicate for a pre-existing issue, or whether the issue is caused by the addiction. Many pathological gamblers also suffer from depression, and though the model would suggest that people with depression turn to gambling as a form of self-medication escapism, other psychologists have suggested that the causation is the other way round - that depression can develop as a result of poverty brought on by a gambling addiction. Becona (1996) found evidence of major depressive disorders in the majority of problem gamblers, but it is not clear whether the gambling caused the depression or vice versa. A similar cause and effect issue exists with smoking - it could be a self-medication coping response to stress, or stress could be brought on by illnesses caused by smoking.

The self-medication model can explain the disparity between genders in rates of depression and alcoholism reported by the NHS. In the UK, 1 in 4 women will undergo treatment for depression at some time, compared to 1 in 10 men, while men are twice as likely to show signs of alcohol dependency as women. The self-medication model explains this as a result of increased social acceptability of alcoholic self-medication for men - men are more likely to turn to substance abuse to treat their mental health issues than women, who are more likely to seek professional help.

Kassel (2007) found that adolescent smokers most commonly reported smoking when they were experiencing negative moods, supporting the theory of addictive behaviours developing as a coping mechanism to deal with stressors and negativities in daily life.

Parrott (1988) explained maintenance and relapse in terms of self-medication to avoid withdrawal symptoms. Abstaining from nicotine, even for a brief period, causes increased stress and anxiety in the form of cravings - smoking immediately relieves this anxiety and stress. This supports the self-medication explanation of smoking - that of nicotine as a coping mechanism for anxiety.

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that allow us to quickly solve problems and come to judgements based on prior experience. Heuristics theory suggests that gamblers maintain their behaviour through the use of a number of irrational heuristics in their information processing, overestimating their ability, overplaying their winnings, and downplaying their losses to support the perceived rationality of their behaviour.

Representative bias (Gambler’s fallacy) suggests that we apply a law of averages to a very small sequence of numbers, assuming that if something happens frequently during a short period of time, it will happen less frequently in the future.

Availability bias suggests that we put too much weighting on information from recent events, claiming that if something can be recalled, it must be important, or at least more important than information from events which are not recalled.

Illusory correlations are where the brain irrationally draws a correlation between two variables where there is none – often as the result of an associative accident. A perception of a relationship between two variables is formed where no relationship exists.


Henslin (1987) found that American players of the dice game Craps would roll the dice slowly when hoping to get a low number, and roll them quickly and hard when attempting to get a high number, even though there is no logical reason to believe that this would affect the outcome. This supports the concept of illusory correlations playing a role in gambling addictions, helping gamblers justify their behaviour to themselves by perceiving themselves to be more in control of outcomes than they actually are.

Griffiths (1994) found that regular gamblers over-estimated their skills, made more irrational verbalisations suggesting cognitive biases and were more likely to engage in machine personification, talking to the machine - supporting the concept of cognitive biases being used by gamblers to justify their own behaviours to themselves.


(Not much AO2 - supporting evidence to go with the final mechanism - cognitive dissonance - so seeing as we aren't asked more than 12 markers on a single aspect of addiction, learning the above in great detail is likely to be more useful than this final approach. It is easier to apply to smoking than Heuristics Theory is, though, so it could be very useful if an application question comes up in that area.)

Cognitive dissonance is another mechanism that cognitive psychology uses to explain addictive behaviour, and it results from a conflict between reasoning and behaviour. When an imbalance in our perception of the risks and benefits of an addictive behaviour occurs, this causes discomfort in the form of cognitive dissonance, so we alter our thought processes to minimise perceived costs and to maximise perceived benefits.

On a rational level, addicts understand smoking to be a negative behaviour, leading to social stigma, health problems and long-term illness. However, they are addicted to the behaviour of smoking, so adapt their belief systems to reconcile their behaviour with their rational understanding. They would make changes to their beliefs such as mentally minimising the risk or maximising the perceived benefits of smoking to help accommodate their addiction – “alleviating their cognitive dissonance” by changing from rational to irrational thinking.

Cognitive dissonance theory can explain maintenance of addiction – why people carry on an addictive behaviour despite being fully aware of the risks involved. They distort their own cognitive processes to to minimise perceived cost and maximise perceived benefit, leading themselves to believe their addictive behaviour is self harmful than it actually is.

It can explain initiation - people with negative views towards a substance or behaviour that feel pressured into starting it could mentally minimise risks and maximise rewards in order to justify their own initiation of the behaviour. 

It can explain relapse - maximising benefits and minimising risks of starting again and alleviating negative conseqences when withdrawal symptoms kick in, making reinitiation of the addictive behaviour seem more desirable than it otherwise would without cognitive dissonance. 

Evolutionary explanations of the development of gender roles

Think I'll write up a bit of Gender tonight, as it's the most recent and fresh in my mind (and I really enjoyed this topic) - addiction and R.M will follow over the next week!

Black: AO1 - Description
Blue: AO2 - Evaluation - studies
Red: AO2 - Evaluation - evaluative points/IDAs
Purple: My notes/hints/tips

While gender is defined as the social and psychological characteristics of males and females, gender roles are the differences in attitude, interests and behaviour that members of each gender adopt. For example, in most cultures, women usually look after babies, whereas men are usually the resource providers. Evolutionary theory suggests that gender roles appeared as an adaptive behaviour thousands of years ago, and then evolved to be ingrained in the DNA of modern humans due to the advantages they provided to survival and reproduction.

Parental Investment Theory (PIT) explains different gender roles as a result of different levels of parental investment between the mother and the father - for males, each offspring requires relatively little parental investment, whereas, reproduction for females involves a considerable investment. PIT can explain different reproductive strategies between genders as an aspect of gender roles. With many limiting factors reducing the amount of offspring they can have - a narrower fertility window, 9 month pregnancies, a limited supply of eggs, and carrying out the majority of childcare, a reproductive strategy of choosiness is more adaptive for women - choosing the men who display genetic fitness and status, having few offspring, and investing heavily to ensure their survival. With their only limiting factor being access to willing females, a reproductive strategy of promiscuity is adaptive for men - having many offspring with many women, and investing little into each child.

Supporting evidence for a difference in reproductive strategies as an aspect of gender roles comes from Clark and Hatfield's 1989 study into gender attitudes towards casual sex in a sample of university students. When approached with an offer of sex, all the female participants declined, while 75% of male participants accepted. This supports the concept of different adaptive sexual strategies between genders - with a much more limited reproductive capacity than men, choosiness is more likely to be an adaptive sexual strategy for women, whereas men's reproductive capacities are less limited by biological constraints, so promiscuity is a much more adaptive strategy. This link between adaptive sexual strategies and different gender roles is evidenced by the gender differences in willingness to have casual sex.

Cultural bias is an issue here when trying to apply results globally - the reported disparity in sexual strategies could be more a product of cultural norms than evolutionary differences in gender roles, and therefore would not apply cross-culturally. Casual sex and promiscuity is much more acceptable in some cultures than others - it is imposing an etic to generalise Clark and Hatfield's results from an American study to less tolerant countries like Saudi Arabia, so conclusions cannot necessarily be generalised. Additionally, there is more of a social stigma to promiscuity in women than in men, so female participants in Clark and Hatfield's study could have been less likely to accept the offer of casual sex than men because of the social taboo, rather than because of evolutionary differences in gender roles.

PIT can also explain differences in aggression between the genders - higher levels of aggression are considered to be a trait of male gender roles much more than a trait of female gender roles. In our evolutionary history, female choosiness meant that males had to compete with each other - intraspecific competition - to be reproductively successful. Physical and behavioural characteristics which are helpful in a fight (such as size, strength, and aggression) are passed into the gene pool - these then constitute aspects of masculine gender roles in the modern world. (Probably the AO1 segment least crucial and the one to drop if you're really pressed for time in the exam - not much supporting evidence or criticism of this that I could find, so it can appear a bit tacked-on, it might be better to invest more time in the other two AO1 chunks.)

Finally, Wilson suggests that our ancestors started living in monogamous male/female pair bonds because it conveyed an evolutionary advantage - females gained protection and guaranteed resources, while males could guard their mates from other males, avoiding cuckoldry and increasing parental certainty. This formation of pair bonds led to the division of labour between the couple, which turned into gender roles - the stronger males hunted and foraged, while the more nurturing females performed tasks that could be done simultaneously to childcare, such as farming and preparing food. This led to an evolutionary advantage in societies that adopted these gender roles, leading to the creation of bigger social groups.

The almost ubiquitous nature of these gender roles across many different cultures in the modern world supports the evolutionary approach's explanation of gender role development. The status of division of labour as an almost global etic suggests that the tendency to develop specific gender roles is a fundamental part of human genetic code, rather than a product of social norms, meaning that humans have evolved this way due to the adaptive advantage provided by gender roles.

However, a study by Daly and Wilson (1988) challenges the evolutionary approach's explanation of gender roles. Between the years of 1933 and 1961, in Denmark, all cases of female-female murder were of infanticide - Hardy (1999) argued that this shows women are not always warm and nurturing, in contrast with the suggested gender roles of evolutionary theory. However, some proponents of evolutionary theory challenge Hardy's interpretation, saying that mothers must respond to environmental conditions in ways that increase the chances of their own survival, not just that of their offspring - so sometimes, due to poverty, female gender roles involve favouring one child over another, or their own wellbeing over the wellbeing of their children. (Happy Valentines' Day, everyone, here's a study on parental infanticide to lighten the mood)

It has been suggested that researcher bias is an issue with this study - the unusual and arbitrary choice of years and country could suggest that the researchers picked a specific sample with which to challenge evolutionary explanations, and this evidence is not a representation reflection of female behaviour, but was just specifically selected in order to criticise the evolutionary approach to gender roles.

Buss (1989) provides supporting evidence for the evolutionary explanation for the development of gender roles. Gathering information about mate preferences from 37 cultural groups, Buss found a strong tendency in females to seek males with resources and ambition - males who fulfilled the traditional gender role of resource provision. Males had a tendency to seek physical attractiveness and youthfulness in females - females who fulfilled the traditional evolutionary gender role of bearing and raising children. However, not all of the results supported evolutionary predictions - the idea that men would place more importance than women on chastity in a partner was only supported to a small extent. Otherwise, Buss' results support the concept of evolutionarily rooted gender roles in modern society that are reflected in the traits we find attractive.

It can be argued that despite its advantage of being representative of many different cultural groups, Buss' study did not treat psychology in a scientific manner, using an unscientific and highly subjective methodology. His use of questionnaires yielded unfalsifiable and potentially inaccurate data - questionnaires are prone to social desirability bias, as participants may have given untrue answers which presented them in a certain, socially acceptable way. This makes Buss' results potentially invalid.

Holloway et al (2002) provides supporting evidence for evolutionary explanations of gender roles in a study of male and female chimpanzees. Human males tend to be 1.1 times bigger than human females, but in chimpanzees, where selection pressures for male physical competition are more intense, males tend to be 1.3 times bigger than females. This supports the concept of gender roles being selected through evolution - male size and strength are selected for more in a more physically competitive species than in a less competitive species.

Biological determinism is a large problem with the evolutionary approach to gender role development - an abundance of obvious counterexamples to the predictions of evolutionary theory suggests that free will plays a significant role in modern gender roles, rather than just genetic predermination. The existence of successful, stable couples where traditional gender roles are inverted, e.g,  a highly paid, powerful woman in a position such as a doctor or CEO, and a house-husband who does the majority of the childraising, mean that it is overly deterministic to suggest that evolutionary psychology has caused the gender roles that exist in society today.

The evolutionary approach to gender roles is also overly reductionist, focusing entirely on the genetic "hard-wiring" of behaviour to explain the difference in contemporary gender roles. It ignores other potentially important factors such as the role of socialisation - an influence whose effect can be demonstrated by rapidly changing gender roles in modern society. The departure from traditional cultural expectations of men and women has led to changing gender roles - with a higher proportion of females in higher education and historically masculine professions. Accounting gender difference purely to evolution ignores these cultural expectations which play a powerful part in assigning gender roles.

Investigations into this area of psychology are potentially unethical, as much research here deals with socially sensitive issues of gender roles and expectations. Evolutionary theory sees men and women as being unable to escape from biologically determined roles - this creates social and political issues. The determinism of the approach means that results and conclusions should be treated sensitively in order to avoid reinforcing historically unfair and oppressive gender roles and expectations. Although gender equality is gradually progressing, it is only recently, for example, that the UK government changed the law regarding maternity and paternity leave to allow either gender leave from work to carry out the parenting role.

The theory seems to have overall face validity, providing a plausible explanation for physical differences and different mating behaviours between the genders. It can also provide an explanation for the extinction of the Neanderthals and the survival of Homo Sapiens - our psychological ability to form pair bonds and divide labour between the genders gave us greater food production efficiency, which helped our species survive and reproduce - an ability which the Neanderthals lacked.

Sorry I haven't been very active recently!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I've been very busy with my other subjects and haven't had as much time to dedicate to this as usual! Over half term (so, by the 22nd Feb) I will write all the posts for Addiction, and hopefully make a start on Research Methods, so don't think that I've stopped for any reason! Thanks for the encouraging comments you've been giving me, and I'm glad that lots of people are finding this helpful!

Cultural influences on relationships

Black: AO1 - Description
Blue: AO2 - Evaluation - studies
Red: AO2 - Evaluation - evaluative points/IDAs
Purple: My notes/hints/tips

Several key differences exist between western and traditionalist cultures in their attitudes to love and marriage. In western, individualist cultures, partners are freely chosen during the dating process, based on attraction. Marriage is seen as an alliance and union between two people, yet a temporary one that can be terminated fairly easily. In traditional, collectivist cultures, arranged marriages are more common, based on the idea that parents know who is compatible in the long-term for their children better than the children do. Choosing a partner based on attraction is believed to lead to an unsuccessful marriage - marriage is seen as more permanent, being impossible or difficult to terminate, and is considered an alliance and a union between two social groups rather than two individuals.

Arranged marriages are sometimes suggested to be more successful than love marriages if measured by the metrics of divorce rate and long term satisfaction. 

Gupta and Singh provide supporting evidence for arranged marriages being more successful than love marriages. In a study of 100 professional and educated couples from Jaipur, India, they assessed relationship satisfaction over 1, 5 and 10 years using Rubin's "Like and Love" scale. Love marriages started high in both categories and decreased over time, whereas arranged marriages started lower and increased overtime, exceeding love marriages in both categories after 10 years. This supports the concept of different styles of marriage leading to different quality interpersonal relationships.

However, a study by Xioahe and Whyte challenges Gupta and Singh's suggestion that arranged marriages are more successful. A study during a period of rapid modernisation in China found that women in love marriages were much happier than those in arranged marriages.

Cultural bias was an issue with Gupta and Singh's study, due to their use of Rubin's measuring scale based around U.S culture being applied to India. The cross-cultural use of a survey designed to measure relationship satisfaction in America is imposing an etic, assuming that the metric will work the same way in both cultures, when in fact it could be a less reliable indicator in Gupta and Singh's study than in the cultural context Rubin devised it in.

Another issue is that these studies can be considered unscientific, using subjective self-report data. Responses could not accurately reflect real life relationship success due to people's inaccurate perceptions of their own relationships, difficulties in trying to quantify "like" and "love", and giving untrue responses due to social desirability bias. 

There are validity issues with the use of divorce rates as a measure of relationship success, the measure used to suggest that arranged marriages are more successful than love marriages. Divorce means a relationship is unsuccessful, but a lack of divorce does not mean that a relationship is successful. Cultures that practice arranged marriages often hold a stigma towards divorce - it is often illegal, socially unacceptable,  or only able to initiated by the husband.

Divorce often stigmatises an entire family, so there can be family pressure to stay together in an unsuccessful relationship. The dowries that are often given from the wife's family to the husband makes marriage like a transaction - as if the female is bought by the husband. Social pressures, a lack of financial independence, lack of legal rights, and being considered "tainted goods" after divorce could all make divorce from a bad relationship impractical for women.

The shift from a traditional and rural lifestyle to an urban one brings greater geographical and social mobility, leading to interaction with more people, widening the "field of availables." In comparison, people from rural populations have less mobility and a smaller field. Divorce rates seem to be linked to urbanisation.

Dummett (2011) linked India's sharp increase in divorce rates to the high social mobility of India's emerging urban middle class, suggesting a causal link - urbanisation caused the higher divorce rate.

However, it could be that city dwellers just have more relaxed attitudes towards divorce as the values of the middle class progress and become more westernised. City females also have more financial independence that those from rural communities, so divorce is more practical due to money being less of a setback. 

The rapid exposure to the views and values of other cultures after immigration is suggested to affect the thinking of second generation migrants, causing an internal conflict of values between those of the host culture and those of their older family members which more closely reflect their family's home culture. The process of acculturalisation occurs - internalising the views of their host culture, which can cause conflict and stress.

Research by Zaidi and Shuraydi (2002) supports this hypothesis. They studied 2nd generation Pakistani Muslim women in Canada, and found that most favoured westernised marriage practices, but perceived their fathers to be resistant to change, preferring the cultural practice of arranged marriages. This demonstrates that migration can cause cultural conflicts in the attitudes to relationships between 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants.

Childhood and adolescent influences on relationships

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Blue: AO2 - Evaluation - studies
Red: AO2 - Evaluation - evaluative points/IDAs
Purple: My notes/hints/tips

Bowlby's theory of attachment suggests that certain behaviours such as laughing, crying and smiling, that promote attachment formation between a parent and their child, have evolved to be innate "social releasers", increasing the chance of the child's survival. Bowlby developed this to include the principle of "monotropy" - that children form a strongest relationship to their primary caregiver, and the concept of an "internal working model" - a collection of schemas that help the child define how future relationships should be. The internal working model then plays a role in the "continuity hypothesis" - Bowlby's suggestion that the quality of the first relationships in childhood are mirrored by adult relationships - loving, secure and affectionate childhood are often followed by the same in adulthood.

Black and Schutte provide supporting evidence for the continuity hypothesis through a survey of 205 young adults on their childhood and adult relationships. Those who recalled positive, loving and trusting maternal relationships were more likely to report trusting and loving relationships with their partner in adulthood, as well as being more open with them, supporting Bowlby's claims of continuity of attachment.

An issue is that Black and Schutte's study can be considered unscientific due to its subjective methodology, asking people retrospectively about their early life. This form of data collection is unfalsifiable, unquantifiable, and possibly inaccurate due to social desirability bias - people might not be willing to admit a poor relationship quality. These methodological flaws weaken the strength of the supporting evidence for Bowlby's continuity hypothesis.

Ainsworth carried out the "Strange Situation" observation to categorise the strength and type of attachment in children, and suggested that attachment types remain constant throughout life - for example, a securely attached child will grow up to have securely attached romantic relationships later in life. She identified three types of attachment: Insecure Avoidant (Type A) who showed some distress at separation from their mother, but did not seek comfort upon reunion, Secure (Type B) who were upset at separation but showed joy and sought comfort upon reunion, and Insecure Ambivalent (Type C) who showed distress upon separation but weren't easily comforted upon reunion, expecting a difficult maternal relationship and alternating between seeking closeness and distance.

Levine and Heller (2011) provided supporting evidence for Ainsworth's suggested continuity of attachment types. People who had secure attachments in childhood were comfortable with intimacy, and usually warm and loving towards their partners. Those who had insecure-ambivalent relationships crave intimacy, are often preoccupied with their relationships, and worry about their partners' ability to love them back. Those who were insecure-avoidant equate intimacy with a loss of independence, and keep at an emotional distance - these findings support the hypothesis that Ainsworth's attachment styles predict later relationship behaviour.

Hazan and Shaver found a strong connection between childhood and adult attachment styles, supporting the importance of Ainsworth's early attachment styles in determining future relationships. Securely attached participants reported a belief in lasting love, found others trustworthy, and were confident that they were lovable. Insecure avoidant participants were doubtful about the existence of love, not requiring a relationship to be happy. Insecure ambivalent participants fell in love easily, were insecure and doubtful, and rarely found true love.

The idea that childhood attachment type is solely responsible for adult relationship style, with no other factors, is a very deterministic idea. Zimmerman et al (2000) assessed children until adulthood, and found that critical life events such as parental separation were a much stronger predictor of future attachment type and strength than the quality of early childhood attachments were, suggesting that Bowlby and Ainsworths' hypotheses are overly determinist in claiming that adult relationship quality is completely and irrevocably dependent on childhood attachment type.

An issue with these theories into the influence of childhood on relationships is that parenting styles differ between cultures, suggesting that childhood influences also vary cross-culturally. Therefore, to generalise results from one culture onto another and suggest a global model of attachment and relationships is imposing an etic construct. Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's 1988 meta-analysis of many cross-cultural studies into attachment found significant differences in how common each attachment style is - secure attachments may be most common in the UK and the USA, but others were more common in Germany and Israel. This suggests that there are different internal working models in different cultures, so these theories of attachment cannot necessarily be accurately applied globally.

Koluchova's study of a pair of Czech twins challenges Ainsworth and Bowlby's theories of attachment continuity. Having suffered extreme privation and abuse from age 18 months until 7 years, the twins did not form any parental attachments, and were starved and beaten. However, they went on to be adopted and grew up to have normal lives and secure relationships. This shows that difficulties with childhood attachments can be overcome, and that childhood attachment types will not always predict the nature of adult relationship types.