ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY Page 1 of 4 ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS Assessment Controlled exam Assessment code: 011 Academic Year: 2019/2020 Trimester: Tri 3/ Resit Module Title: Significant Life Events and...

Significant Life Events and Coping
Case study
1. Lucio has taken decision to end the relationship with Sarah after dating for 3 years and living together for 1 year stating the reason that he has found another partner for himself. Although, impact of this emotional and devastating life event on Sarah cannot be explained in words as such an interpersonal romantic relationship is built on thesupport, loyalty and trust, at one place where Sarah was expecting Lucio to propose him,
eaking of such positive expectations along with receiving extremely negative announcement of
eakup must have impacted Sarah in negative way. Humans do experience life events throughout lifetime which tends to impact their course of life. As per Franz (2008), significant life events are the happenings causing change in life of a person. The changes induced by such incidents may affect the behavioral changes in person mostly.
One theory that applies to this situation is social exchange theory which proposes that the social behavior is resulted from process of exchange. These exchanges lead to minimization of cost and maximization of benefits. As per this theory developed by George Homans, a sociologist, people tends to weigh the risks as well as potential benefits of a social relationship. And in case risk outweighs the rewards from the relationship, they move to abandon or terminate the relationship. Most of the relationships are based on give and take concept wherein the amount of both is not necessarily the same or equal. It is suggested by the social exchange that there must be valuing of costs as well as benefits of each relationship which helps to determine and make decision regarding continuation of social association.
Social economic theory is known as economic theory of relationships. As per social psychologist Thibault and Kelly (1959), partners in a romantic relationship strive to maximize the rewards such as companionship, sex, emotional support and praise. Also, they strive to minimize the costs which are time commitments, arguments, stress, and compromises. These rewards and costs are subjective and cannot be quantified. For one person, one reward may be considered very costly whereas another person may consider the same cost
eward of low value. Also, as time passes, the cost and rewards value tends to change. Rewards value tends to decrease with time whereas cost value tends to increase with time span.
To assess the levels of comparison, two levels are used. These are as follows-
a. Comparison level
This is based on person’s self esteem of expecting how much he/she deserves in relationships. This is subjective understanding. Factors influencing this are previous romantic relationship, cultural norms, expectations, reinforcement by books, TV and films. In case the comparison level of people is equal, they tend to consider relationship. This happened well in case of Lucio and Sarah, they were dating each other for 3 long years and once they realized that comparison level for both matches, they planned to move in living together relationship.
. Comparison level for alternatives
This is the second level which concerns perception of an individual about whether other potential relationships would be more rewarding than the cu
ent relationship. As per social exchange theory, people stick to cu
ent relationships as long as it is more profitable to them compared to alternatives. As per some psychologists like Duck, people does not tend to notice alternatives if they are content in their cu
ent relationships.
In case of Sarah and Lucio, the later wants to move to another relationship as he must have lost the content of this relationship and noticed alternatives. He announced
eaking up of this relationship to move into another one based on his perception that the alternative relationship would outweigh rewards for him compared to costs which with time span must have reduced in the cu
ent relationship with Sarah.
There are
oadly three stages of each relationship which are-
· Sampling
· Bargaining
· Commitment
During the sampling stage people tends to explore potential rewards and costs associated with the relationship either by observing or direct experience, Lucio and sarah had this...