Commitment, Relational Uncertainty, and the Investment Model

Based on Rusbult’s investment model and Knobloch and Solomon’s conceptualization of relational uncertainty, this study investigated how uncertainty in romantic relationships affected satisfaction, quality of alternatives, investments, and commitment. 343 adults in romantic relationships completed measures of relational uncertainty, satisfaction, investment size, quality of alternatives, and commitment. Results indicated that relational uncertainty was negatively related to satisfaction, investment, and commitment, and positively related to quality of alternatives. Relational uncertainty moderated the relationship between satisfaction and commitment. The satisfaction-commitment relationship was quite strong at low levels of relational uncertainty, but as relational uncertainty increased the satisfaction-commitment relationship weakened and eventually become nonsignificant.

本研究基于拉斯布特（Rusbult）的投资模型（investment model）与诺布洛克、所罗门（Knobloch & Solomon）提出的关系不确定性（relational uncertainty）概念框架，探讨了亲密关系（romantic relationships）中的关系不确定性对关系满意度、替代伴侣质量（quality of alternatives）、关系投入（investments）以及关系承诺（commitment）的影响。研究共招募343名处于亲密关系中的成年参与者，令其完成关系不确定性、关系满意度、关系投入规模、替代伴侣质量以及关系承诺相关的测量量表。结果显示，关系不确定性与关系满意度、关系投入及关系承诺呈显著负相关，与替代伴侣质量呈显著正相关。关系不确定性对满意度与承诺之间的关联具有调节作用：当关系不确定性处于低水平时，满意度与承诺间的关联强度较高；随着关系不确定性的升高，二者间的关联逐渐减弱，最终不再具有统计学显著性。