In one line: Why we are drawn to some people and not others can be explained through biology, thinking and social context.
In the human relationships context, a key area of study is how interpersonal relationships form, are maintained and end. All three approaches offer explanations, and the fullest picture combines them.
This links to the concept of perspective: attraction looks different through each lens. Learn one study for each explanation: exam answers need them.
Remember: Body, mind, world, even in love. Relationships have biological, cognitive and social explanations.
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Key idea: Each approach explains a different part of why relationships form.
Explaining relationships
Biological
Chemical messengers such as oxytocin, which support bonding and trust between partners.
Cognitive
How we think about a partner: perceived similarity, positive attributions, beliefs about the relationship.
Sociocultural
Proximity, familiarity, social norms and cultural expectations (arranged or individual-choice relationships).
Biology · Thinking · Society
Take two people who become close at work. Biological: bonding chemistry as they spend time together. Cognitive: they see each other as similar. Sociocultural: proximity and shared social circles.
Go further: higher-level insight: Proximity and similarity are surprisingly powerful. We tend to like people we see often and who seem similar to us, not just those with 'chemistry'.
Festinger, Schachter and Back (1950) asked students living in Westgate, a housing site at MIT in the United States, to name their closest friends there.
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Key idea: Cognitive explanations look inside people's heads: how they weigh a relationship, and how they explain each other's behaviour.
Cognitive explanations
Social exchange
Partners weigh rewards against costs, and against what they could have elsewhere.
Investment
Time, shared friends and plans make leaving costly, so commitment grows.
Attributions
How partners explain each other's behaviour keeps the relationship good or bad.
Weigh · Commit · Explain
Rusbult (1983) surveyed students in dating relationships again and again over several months. Satisfaction, the quality of alternatives and how much each had invested together predicted commitment, and commitment predicted who stayed together.
Go further: higher-level insight: This explains why some people stay in unhappy relationships: leaving would cost too much of what they have invested.
Key idea: Each explanation has support and limits, and relationships vary a lot across cultures.
Strengths
- Biological: explains universal patterns of bonding
- Cognitive: explains how perceptions maintain relationships
- Sociocultural: explains proximity effects and cultural differences
Limitations
- Biological: reductionist; downplays choice and culture
- Cognitive: thoughts can be a cause or an effect
- Sociocultural: hard to isolate social causes; varies widely
So each approach explains part of how relationships work, but none is complete. Relationships vary enormously across cultures, from individual choice to arranged, which warns against assuming Western norms are universal, an imposed-etic risk.
Watch out: Do not assume one culture's relationships are the norm. Applying one culture's model everywhere is ethnocentric.