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In order to engage psychology students in learning statistics and research methods, a survey was constructed which addressed the topic of interpersonal attraction and relationship satisfaction; a topic of particular interest to individuals of college age. This article briefly describes the survey, some of the analyses that were conducted on it, and the results of an evaluation from students on the usefulness of the survey in learning statistics. The survey is of particular use to teachers who can use it to demonstrate how statistics covered in class can be applied to the survey questions to examine a variety of theories regarding attraction and relationship satisfaction. Teachers of Introduction to Psychology and Social Psychology may also find it useful, as it helps students to see how these topics can be studied empirically by psychologists.

Teachers of statistics and research methods are often faced with apprehension, fear, and sometimes apathy from students who either do not feel that they will do well in these courses or who do not understand the importance of research and statistics to the growth and vitality of our field. To combat this, many teachers allow students to gather their own survey data on topics that they choose. Since students are involved in the idea generation and data collection, the approach is generally effective in creating interest in how the data will be analyzed. However, we find that students often have difficulty coming up with ideas for a survey, or they are not yet familiar with psychological theories to form the basis for a good survey. Thus, their choices for topics often end up holding little sustained interest for them (i.e., typical topics include students’ GPAs and how much sleep they get, their dietary habits, etc.).

Eriksonian theory (1963) suggests that the typical college student is at an age when forming romantic relationships is of utmost importance. Drawing from this, I directed a class in research methods and statistics toward the fields of interpersonal attraction and relationship satisfaction as the topic for a class survey. The class and I created the survey questions and collected the data. The data formed the basis upon which we applied our knowledge of the various statistical techniques, from the most basic to the most advanced. Student interest in this survey, from conception to analysis, was very high and it more than adequately served its purpose in this research and statistics course. Most statistics courses cover measures of central tendency and variability, as well as t-tests, correlations, chi-square tests, and one and two way anovas. This survey allows for an opportunity to perform each of these analyses. I will briefly discuss the topics examined in the survey, give some examples of analyses that were performed, and then show the results of an evaluation on the effectiveness of the survey in learning statistics.

The survey addresses five theories that are typically discussed either under the topic of Attraction in the Social Psychology chapter of an Introductory Psychology text, or in more depth in a chapter on Attraction in a Social Psychology text. A very brief overview of these five theories will be given here. Proximity theory, Matching theory and the topic of Physical Attractiveness all address issues regarding how relationships begin. The other two theories, Attitude Similarity and Equity theory, address issues affecting how satisfying a relationship is to those involved. Proximity theory relates to the observation that relationships tend to begin between people who live close to one another and therefore come into frequent contact with one another. Major studies in this area include Bossard (1932), Festinger, Schachter, and Back (1950) and Moreland and Zajonc (1982). The latter study attributed this observation to the repeated exposure effect, which states that the greater the exposure between two people, the more positive the response.

Schiller (1932) was the first to document that married couples with similar attitudes were more satisfied with their relationship than those who differed in their attitudes. Similar results were found in more recent studies by Capella and Palmer (1990) and Aube and Koestner (1995). Equity theory addresses the issue of fairness, a factor that is important in all kinds of relationships. First discussed by Homans’ (1974), who used terms such as “rewards,” “costs,” “profits,” and “investments,” the theory that a relationship is most satisfying when individuals contribute fairly to it has received a great deal of support. A recent study by Van Yperen and Buank (1990) shows that inequity between couples has a negative effect upon satisfaction. Interesting additional findings are that women tend to contribute more to a relationship than men, and Kollock, Blumstein, and Schwartz (1994) found that men tended to feel that they benefited more than their female partner in their relationship.

Students in my class worked in groups and became familiar with the literature on these attraction theories. Each group then submitted survey questions that they felt would allow us to test each of these five theories of attraction. Each group’s list of questions was critiqued by myself and other group members until a final version of the questions was agreed upon. After a fruitful discussion about the best order for the questions, a final version of the questionnaire was created and administered.

Respondents to the survey were all students from a small, private college located in the northeastern United States. Of the 264 students who responded to the survey, 42% were males and 58% were females. The greatest number of students majored in Social and Behavioral Sciences (29.7%), followed by 19.7% of the students majoring in Communications, 19.3% majored in Humanities, 15.8% majored in Management, 6.6% majored in Computer Science and Mathematics, 5.8% majored in Science and 3.1% of the students were undecided. The majority of the students were college level juniors (49.8%), followed by seniors (26.4%), sophomores (14.2%) and freshman (9.6%).

The survey consists of 22 questions. The questions require the subject to check off a line next to the answer that reflects their opinion, or to choose a number from a Likert scale. Demographic information such as sex, major and year in college was also requested. The survey takes about two minutes to complete.

Each student in the class was asked to hand out the questionnaire in person to at least 10 other students at the college. They were also instructed to get students from a variety of majors and to try to get 5 males and 5 females among their 10 respondents. Respondents were instructed not to put their names on the survey. Proper informed consent and debriefing was also given to each subject at the time of administration.

Results

The survey was designed, in part, to allow the student to apply most of the analyses covered in a typical statistics class: descriptive statistics and inferential tests such as correlation, regression, chi-square, t-test, and one and two-way anova. The survey reveals significant results for most of these tests depending upon which variables are examined. As such, it fulfills the goal of providing the student a data set which they can examine from a variety of angles using their statistical skills. Since a full reporting of the results of all of these analyses would be too lengthy to give here, I will give an example of how the most common statistical tests were applied to the survey results.

Frequency analysis and basic descriptive statistics reveal that most participants were satisfied with their romantic relationships (a negatively skewed distribution was found with M = 8.1, SD = 1.8). In regards to Proximity theory, a frequency analysis revealed that 70.2% of the subjects lived within a half hour of their significant other. The hypothesis that individuals tend to date those who are similar to them in physical attractiveness (the Matching Hypothesis) was tested by correlating subjects’ ratings of their own physical attractiveness on a 10 point scale to their ratings of their partner’s physical attractiveness on the same scale. A correlation of .31 (p.<.01) was found supporting Matching theory in that participants tended to rate their partners about as attractive as they rated themselves. A correlational analysis was also used to test whether Attitude Similarity correlated with relationship satisfaction. Subjects were asked to rate how similar they are to their partner on a number of topics (e.g., music, politics, religious beliefs, etc.). Significant correlations were found on all of these variables, indicating that subjects who were more similar to their partners also reported being more satisfied with the relationship. These results also provided for a fruitful discussion on the slippery nature of correlations: students realized that if subjects were satisfied in their relationships they could have assumed that they were similar to their partners.

Regarding the importance of physical attractiveness, subjects were asked to rate how important several characteristics are in their search for an ideal partner. A t-test revealed that men did rate looks as significantly more important than women (t (257) = 3.13, p<.01), while women rated height as a more important characteristic than men (t (260) = 2.74, p<.01). A one-way anova was utilized to examine the questions addressing Equity theory. The results of the F and Tukey tests supported this theory in that that those who reported that they contributed about the same as their partner to the relationship were significantly more satisfied than those who reported that they contributed either less or more than their partner (F (2, 258) = 16.4, p < .01).

Finally, in a finding that generated much conversation among the students, a crosstabs and chi-square analysis revealed that females were likely to say that they contributed more to the relationship, while men were more likely to report that they contributed less than their partner (χ2 = 11.9, p<.01). This led the class to re-examine the relationship between gender and satisfaction. Interestingly, despite the above finding, no significant difference was found between the sexes and their relationship satisfaction.

Forty-seven students completed a questionnaire at the end of the semester regarding the effectiveness of the attraction survey in helping them to learn statistics. Six statements were rated on a 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree) Likert scale. Students found analyzing the survey to be an engaging way to learn statistics (M = 5.9, SD = 1.1) and responded that it helped them to learn about how statistics work (M = 5.8, SD = .9). In addition, using the survey as homework exercises was rated as a helpful way to learn statistics (M = 5.9, SD = 1.5) and they would recommend the survey’s use again in next semester’s research and statistics class (M = 5.9, SD = 1.2). To check for a response set, two questions were asked in which low ratings were expected. Low ratings (Strongly Disagree) were received in response to the statement that the survey was of little help in learning statistics (M = 2.5, SD = 1.6) and since some students did have difficulties in getting access to the data (the data set was accidentally erased on some computers) the responses to the statement “I found it easy to get access to the attraction data” were somewhat lower as well (M = 4.9, SD = 1.3).

Discussion

College students are naturally interested in how romantic relationships form and what factors are important in making them satisfying. The attraction survey utilizes this interest to help them learn more about statistics, while giving the teacher a vehicle by which to teach statistical concepts. Over the course of the semester, my students became extremely familiar with the data as we analyzed it from many different perspectives. We asked many questions of the data. Some of these had not even been considered when the survey was first constructed. Some of the findings, such as those showing that females were not less satisfied despite saying that they contribute more to their relationship, led to spirited class discussions. These questions occurred to the students as they became more familiar with the data, the theories and with their statistical skills. While other data sets exist for the purpose of exploring statistical procedures (the General Social Survey, for example), this survey gives focus to student exploration and learning of statistics by allowing the teacher to examine one topic of interest from many perspectives throughout the entire semester.

While teachers of statistics may find the survey of particular utility, teachers of Introduction to Psychology and Social Psychology may also find this survey of interest. It can show students how a topic such as interpersonal attraction and relationship satisfaction can be studied empirically by psychologists, and it allows students to become more familiar with some of the theories in this area of psychology.

References

Aube, J. & Koestner, R. (1995). Gender characteristics and relationship adjustment: Another look at similarity-complementarity hypothesis. Journal of Personality, 63(4), 879-903.

Berscheid, E., Dion, K., Hatfield, E. & Walster, G.W. (1971). Physical attractiveness and dating choice: A test of the matching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7, 173-189.

Bossard, J.H.S. (1932). Residential propinquity as a factor in marriage selection. American Journal of Sociology, 38, 219-224.

Capella, J.N. & Palmer, M.T. (1990). Attitude similarity, relational history, and attraction: The mediating effects of kinesic and vocal behaviors. Communication Monographs, 57, 161-183.

Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.

Festinger, L., Schachter, S., & Back, K. (1950). Social pressures in informal groups: A study of a housing community. New York: Harper.

Forgas, J.P. (1993). On making sense of odd couples: Mood effects on the perception of mismatched relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19, 59-70.

Hensley, W.E. (1992). Why does the best-looking person in the room always seem to be surrounded by admirers? Psychological Reports, 70, 457-458.

Homans, G.C. (1974). Social behavior: Its elementary forms. Rev. Ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Kollock, P., Blumstein, P., & Schwartz, P. (1994). The judgment of equity in intimate relationships. Social Psychology Quarterly, 57(4), 340-351.

Moreland, R.L. & Zajonc, R.B. (1982). Exposure effects in person perception: Familiarity, similarity, and attraction. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 18, 395-415.

Schafer, R.B. & Keith, P.M. (1990). Matching by weight in married couples: A life cycle perspective. The Journal of Social Psychology, 130(5), 657-664.

Schiller, B. (1932). A quantitative analysis of marriage selection in a small group. Journal of Social Psychology, 3, 297-319.

Shepperd, J.A. & Strathman, A.J. (1989). Attractiveness and height: The role of stature in dating preferences, frequency of dating, and perceptions of attractiveness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15 (4), 617-627.

Sprecher, S. (1989). The importance to males and females of physical attractiveness, earning potential, and expressiveness in initial attraction. Sex Roles, 21(9/10), 591-607.

VanYperen, N.W. & Buank, B.P. (1990). A longitudinal study of equity and satisfaction in intimate relationships. European Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 287-309.

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