The increase of divorce rate and infidelity with rapid economic development leads people to think about the influence of money on romantic relationships. Previous studies focused on the exploration of the relation between income and romantic relationships. They revealed that money facilitates the development of romantic relationships, but is also associated with relationship conflicts and crisis. However, little is known about how money is related to the occurrences of relationship problems. The current study centered on the negative effects of money on romantic relationships, and explored the possible psychological processes underlying these effects. I predicted that some money-related attitudes and feelings would exert a negative effect on individuals’ relationship satisfaction and investment, and increase the possibility of getting a better alternative by motivating them to approach the attractive opposite-sex, thus decreasing relationship commitment. I recruited Mainland Chinese college students and community samples involved in romantic relationships and conducted three studies under the framework of the investment model. A paper-and-pencil questionnaire was used in Study 1 to investigate the relationship between attitudes towards money and relationship investment. Results showed that people who assigned a high value to money underestimated their partners’ investment, and performed fewer pro-relationship behaviors. In Study 2 and Study 3, I used the priming method to trigger a relatively rich or poor feeling. Study 2 focused on respondents’ satisfaction with their partners and revealed that men feeling relatively rich were less satisfied with their partners’physical appearance than those feeling relatively poor. This difference was not significant for women. In Study 3, I examined how individuals thought and behaved in a situation with an opposite-sex attractive alternative. Results showed that men feeling relatively rich sat closer to the attractive alternative than men feeling relatively poor. Compared with men, women feeling rich reported less interest in dating the attractive alternative but sat closer to him than women feeling poor. Put simply, the importance that an individual places in money is negatively related to relationship investment, and the awareness of being rich may cause low satisfaction and increase an individual’s propensity to approach the alternative. According to the investment model, results from my studies demonstrate that these money-related attitudes and feelings could potentially exert a negative impact on romantic commitment, and this could be an important reason for the instability of romantic relationships. Findings from my studies also revealed some gender differences in the influences of money, indicating that the magnitude and direction of these influences could partially depend on which relationship partner owns the money. These findings have both conceptual and practical implications for the psychology of money and romantic relationships. / 近年來，中國經濟在飛速發展，與此同時，離婚率不斷上升，出軌事件日益增加，這讓人們開始思考金錢對愛情關係的影響。已有研究者探討了收入與愛情之間的關係，發現金錢可以促進愛情關係的發展，但是也與關係中的衝突和危機相關。金錢如何導致了關係問題的出現，有關這一問題的研究成果有限。因此，本研究以金錢對愛情關係的消極影響為焦點，探索這些影響背後可能的心理機制。我假設某些與金錢有關的態度和感受對關係滿意度和關係投資會有消極影響，並且，會增加個體獲得一個更好的新關係的可能性，根據投資模型(Rusbult, 1983)，關係承諾由此會被削弱。我以正處於愛情關係中的大學生和成人為被試，在投資模型的理論框架下實施了三個研究。研究一使用紙筆測驗考察了個體對於金錢的態度和關係投資之間的關係，結果表明，重視金錢的人往往會低估伴侶對關係的投入，並且做出較少的親關係行為。在研究二和研究三的實驗中，我使用了啟動方法引發相對富有或貧窮的感覺。研究二以對伴侶的滿意度為焦點，發現感覺相對富裕的男性對伴侶外貌的滿意度低於感覺貧窮的男性，對女性來說，這種差異不顯著。研究三的目的是檢驗在有吸引力異性在場的情境中個體的想法和行為。結果表明，與感覺相對貧窮的男性相比，感覺富有的男性選擇了距離有吸引力的異性比較近的座位。與感覺相對貧窮的女性相比，感覺富有的女性與有吸引力異性約會的興趣較小，但是選擇了距離其比較近的座位。簡言之，個體對金錢的重視程度與關係投資負相關，並且感覺富有可能會導致較低的滿意度和較高的接近其他異性的傾向。根據投資模型，可以認為這些與金錢有關的態度和感受可能會對關係承諾有消極影響，這可能是導致愛情關係不穩定的一個重要原因。本研究的結果揭示了一些有關金錢影響的性別差異，表明金錢影響力的大小和方向可能在某種程度上取決於在關係中哪一方擁有金錢。這些研究結果對於金錢心理學和愛情關係心理學都有重要的理論和實踐意義。 / Li, Yiming. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-101). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on 20, December, 2016). / Detailed summary in vernacular field only.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:cuhk.edu.hk/oai:cuhk-dr:cuhk_1290656 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Contributors | Li, Yiming (author.), Chan, Darius K. S. (thesis advisor.), Chinese University of Hong Kong Graduate School. Division of Psychology. (degree granting institution.) |
| Source Sets | The Chinese University of Hong Kong |
| Language | English, Chinese |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, bibliography, text |
| Format | electronic resource, electronic resource, remote, 1 online resource (ix, 101 leaves) : illustrations, computer, online resource |
| Rights | Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International" License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
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