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IB DP Psychology — Cognitive Approach | SL & HL | Paper 1
🎯 Learning Intentions By the end of this note, you will be able to:
- Define Social Exchange Theory, Equity Theory, and cognitive schemas as they apply to interpersonal relationships.
- Explain how cost-benefit analysis shapes decisions to form, maintain, or leave a relationship.
- Describe the role of perceived equity and inequity in relationship satisfaction and stability.
- Evaluate research evidence for cognitive explanations of relationships using supporting and opposing studies in ACAS format.
- Apply Social Exchange Theory and Equity Theory to a real-world case study from the cognitive perspective.
- Discuss the extent to which cognitive explanations provide a complete account of why relationships form and dissolve.
- Analyse cognitive explanations using relevant concept areas: Bias, Causality, Perspective, and Responsibility.
Introduction & Context
Think about the last time you chose to spend time with one person rather than another. Perhaps you gravitated toward a friend who makes you laugh, who listens when you need to talk, or who simply makes you feel good about yourself. Now think about a relationship — a friendship, a romantic partnership, a working relationship — that gradually fell apart. What changed? In most cases, something shifted in the way the relationship felt: it started to cost more than it gave back. This intuition, that we weigh what we get against what we give, is at the heart of cognitive explanations for interpersonal relationships.
Cognitive psychologists argue that human beings are not passive participants in their relationships. Instead, we actively process information about our social world — we evaluate, compare, and make judgements about the people around us. These mental calculations happen constantly, often below the level of conscious awareness, and they shape who we choose to be close to, how satisfied we feel in our relationships, and ultimately whether we stay or leave. Two of the most influential cognitive theories in this area are Social Exchange Theory and Equity Theory, both of which treat the mind as a kind of social accountant.
🔄 Analogy — The Social Ledger Imagine your relationships as a financial ledger. On one side you record what you receive: affection, support, companionship, status. On the other side you record what you give: time, effort, emotional energy, compromise. When the ledger roughly balances — or when your account is in profit — you feel satisfied. When the costs consistently outweigh the rewards, or when you notice that your partner's ledger looks very different from yours, dissatisfaction sets in. Cognitive theories of relationships suggest that our minds are constantly, if unconsciously, running this kind of calculation.
Core Concepts
When psychologists began asking why people form and maintain close relationships, one of the earliest and most enduring answers came from an unexpected direction: economics. Rather than focusing on emotion or biology, theorists Thibaut and Kelley proposed in 1959 that human beings approach their relationships much like rational economic agents — constantly, if unconsciously, calculating whether a relationship is "worth it."