Factors affecting attraction

11 Key excerpts on "Factors affecting attraction"

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  Social Psychology

  • Saba Safdar, Catherine A. Sanderson(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  This section examines this and other factors that influence interpersonal attraction, including physical attractiveness, similarity (a relationship factor), and proximity (a situational factor). PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS We are drawn to physically attractive people. Aesthetic appeal is desirable and leads to positive affect. We like to look at things that we find visually appealing, and hence people show a general preference for objects that they find attractive. This preference influences not only the people we PREVIEW 403 What Factors Lead to Attraction? choose to date but also the cars we buy, the paintings we like to look at, the clothes we wear, and even social networking sites we use. Jiang, Wang, Wang, Tan, and Yu (2016) found that the more a website is perceived to be aesthetic, the more functional it is also perceived. It was observed that perceived aesthetics influences users’ attitudes more so than the actual utility, or usefulness of the website. Overall, the perceived aesthetics of a website is associated with attracting more visitors, helping to increase the number of people who use the website, and boosting people’s beliefs in the usefulness of the website ( Jiang et al., 2016). As you will read later in the chapter, people from diverse backgrounds and cultures generally agree on what is physically attractive—and that physical attractiveness is associated with many benefits. THE BENEFITS OF PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS. Not surprisingly, the attractiveness of the other person plays a large part in determining attraction in interpersonal relationships. Physically attractive people experience many benefits, including a greater likelihood of being hired for a job, higher starting salaries, and bigger raises (Das, Vermueulen, Iaagland, & Postma, 2010; Fruhen, Watkins, & Jones, 2015; Ling, Luo, & She, 2019; Riniolo, Johnson, Sherman, & Misso, 2006).

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  Interpersonal Relationships

  • Diana Jackson-Dwyer(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3 Determinants of interpersonal attraction What this chapter will teach you •  The main factors that determine with whom we make friends and form romantic relationships. •  Why each of these factors is important. •  Whether opposites attract or birds of a feather flock together. •  Whether the internet has changed the way in which relationships are formed. In our everyday lives we meet a multitude of people but only form lasting relationships with a few. On what basis do we choose our friends and romantic partners? In this chapter, we consider research findings into the factors that help determine the onset of friendship or romance and the reasons why these factors may be influential. Proximity Proximity is a powerful force in interpersonal attraction; indeed probably the best predictor of whether two people will become friends is how far apart they are. Because of where people live, sit in a classroom or earn a living they have close contact with particular people, and it is this physical arrangement that is hugely influential in determining friendship patterns. In a classic study, Festinger et al. (1950) observed the friendships that formed in a block of apartments for married students consisting of seventeen separate buildings, each comprising ten flats on two floors. More than ten times as many friendships formed between students who shared the same building than between students in different ones. Within the same building, friendships were far more likely between people who lived on the same floor than between those on different floors. It was not only physical distance that made a difference: the most popular people were those who had apartments nearest the staircases and postboxes. This indicates that the functional distance, that is, the likelihood of two people coming into contact, is also very influential. In fact, as this study demonstrates, architectural features can significantly affect the likelihood that people will make friends

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  New Directions in the Psychology of Close Relationships

  • Dominik Schoebi, Belinda Campos(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Annual Review of Psychology . In reviewing this literature, we were struck by how much these early works focused on attitudes. For example, Berscheid and Walster (1969) began their book with a long discussion of the concept and measurement of attitudes. Likewise, although Byrne and Griffitt (1973) did not refer specifically to attitudes, they devoted ample space to Clore and Byrne’s (1974; also see Byrne & Clore, 1970) model of attraction that conceptualizes the development of attraction as “an implicit affective response which is assumed to fall along a subjective continuum that is characterized as pleasant—unpleasant” (p. 328). Their model describes attraction in a manner that parallels the modern definition of an attitude—a summary association between an object and one’s evaluation of that object (see Fazio, 2007). Modern research has tended to move away from considering the role of attitudes in relationships, and we believe there is a lot of value in returning a bit to this way of thinking about attraction. Not only does the study of attitudes offer a large theoretical and empirical literature upon which to draw (see Cooper, Blackman, & Keller, 2015), considering these elements highlights the affective nature of attraction (see Zajonc, 1980). We return to this issue toward the end of this chapter.

  Over the subsequent decades, social psychologists organized the literature on attraction into five key factors: physical attractiveness, similarity, proximity, familiarity, and reciprocity. That is, we are attracted to others who are (a) physically attractive, (b) hold similar attitudes, (c) are easily accessible, (d) are familiar, and (e) like us. Berscheid summarized this early work in the first chapter on attraction for the Handbook of Social Psychology (1985), then in its third edition, added the notion of rewards—that is, we like others who have rewarding characteristics (i.e., attractiveness and similarity), can grant us access to such characteristics (i.e., are easily accessible and familiar), and who are willing to give us such access (i.e., like us).

  It is notable that much of this research did not focus exclusively on mixed-sex attraction but instead focused on why people like one another generally. For example, the idea that familiarity breeds attraction drew from work on mere exposure (e.g., Pliner, 1982; Zajonc, 1968), some of which was based on inanimate objects such as juices and Chinese characters. Much of the work on similarity drew from work on same-sex friendships (e.g., Izard, 1960; Newcomb, 1956). Even much of the work on physical attractiveness was based on liking that occurred between same-sex others (e.g., Cash, Begley, McCown, & Weise, 1975; Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972) or evaluations of children (e.g., Clifford & Walster, 1973; Dion & Berscheid, 1974). One exception was a classic demonstration that physical attractiveness predicted wanting to see an opposite-sex date again (Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, & Rottman, 1966). The fact that early theories of attraction drew so heavily from research on non-romantic relationships likely stems from the fact that the study of interpersonal attraction was new and novel; there was much more research on non-romantic relationships from which to draw. Accordingly, this early work focused on general aspects of the social environment, including norms and pressures stemming from culture that shapes such preferences. The work seldom focused on sex differences in partner preferences (for an exception, see Stroebe, Insko, Thompson, & Layton, 1971), although early research did highlight one notable sex difference in the domain of similarity: women demonstrated a preference for older men whereas men demonstrated a preference for younger women (Bolig, Stein, & McKenry, 1984; Harrison & Saeed, 1977).

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  Interpersonal Relationships

  • Diana Dwyer(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  We may also assume that an attractive person is influential and this could, in turn, be advantageous to us. Progress exercise 1 Suggest three reasons why proximity may be important in the establishment of relationships. 2 Explain what is meant by the law of attraction. 3 Byrne conducted a series of studies based on a 'bogus stranger'. Explain why these studies may lack ecological validity. 4 Suggest two situations in which similarity may not lead to attraction. 5 Describe and evaluate one study that demonstrates the importance of physical attractiveness in the development of romantic relationships. 6 Describe some psychological evidence that disproves the saying 'Opposites attract'. Reciprocal liking Another factor that is an influence on our attraction to others is the extent to which they like us. In general, we like people who like us and dislike those who dislike us. In other words, we return or reciprocate people’s feelings for us. Backman and Secord (1959) found that if participants in a discussion group were led to believe that certain group members liked them, they were likely to choose these people to form a smaller group with them in a later session. The belief that someone likes you can operate as a self-fulfilling prophecy, transforming the belief into actual reality. Curtis and Miller (1986) gave some participants the false impression that the people with whom they were having a discussion liked them very much. These participants more frequently expressed agreement, disclosed more personal information about themselves and had a generally more positive attitude than did participants who were not led to believe they were liked. This works as a self-fulfilling prophecy in the following manner. The belief that a person likes you makes you behave positively towards them. This makes them like you and respond by being positive towards you, which leads you to like them even more

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  An Introduction to Social Psychology

  • Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • BPS Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  The effects of physical attractiveness on how we evaluate others and how we respond to them should not be underestimated; people automatically respond more positively towards physically attractive (as opposed to less attractive) people. Rather than being entirely in the eye of the beholder, it appears that several objective features of a face and body contribute to attractiveness (e.g., symmetry, averageness, smooth skin). This section also discussed the fact that beauty is certainly not the only factor that determines our attraction to others. Although other features of a person (e.g., similarity, familiarity) may enhance why you come to like others, interpersonal attraction can often be attributed to the circumstances and the place in which two people meet each other.

  ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

  What determines relationship stability?

  Given the mental and physical health benefits of romantic relationships that we have discussed, it is not surprising that researchers have tried to understand why some relationships fail, whereas others prevail. What are the specific ingredients of a satisfying and long‐lasting relationship? In the past several decades, relationship researchers have been trying to answer this basic question from a number of different theoretical perspectives, which we will briefly review below. Note that when doing so, we generally refer to studies on heterosexual relationships, mainly because the overwhelming majority of research in relationship science has focused on heterosexual relationships. However, this is not to say that the same processes may not take place within homosexual relationships – there are several studies suggesting that this is indeed the case (e.g., Duffy & Rusbult, 1986; Peplau, 1982; Wienke & Hill, 2009).

  Love

  Most romantic relationships begin with two individuals falling in love with each other. However, and perhaps luckily, people generally do not remain in the same intense state of being in love throughout their relationship. Berscheid and Walster (1974) called this initial, strong motivational sense of love in the early stages of a relationship passionate love. Consistent with the neurophysiological results described above, they defined passionate love as a state of intense longing for union with another. After some time, love generally takes a somewhat different form, referred to as companionate love. This kind of love is defined as ‘the affection and tenderness we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply intertwined’ (Hatfield & Rapson, 1993, p. 9). Note that companionate love can refer to the love you may feel for your partner, but also the love you feel for your friends and family. However, as you know, the love you feel for your partner is not exactly the same as the love you feel for a friend. What, then, distinguishes these forms of love? According to Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love, different forms of love consist of different combinations of three components of love, namely intimacy, passion and commitment. Intimacy encompasses feelings of closeness and connectedness; passion encompasses romance, physical attraction and sexual consummation; commitment entails the short‐term decision or realization that one loves one’s partner, as well as the long‐term commitment to maintain that love. Love can consist of each of these three components, combined or separately, and to varying degrees of intensity, resulting in different types of love. For example, love for a romantic partner is characterized by passion and intimacy (although passion tends to decline over the course of the relationship), while love for a friend encompasses intimacy, but not passion (see Figure 11.8

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  School Psychology

  A Social Psychological Perspective

  • Frederic J. Medway, Thomas P. Cafferty, Frederic Medway, Frederic J. Medway, Thomas P. Cafferty, Frederic Medway(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Because attraction and friendship formation among group members is an everyday social occurrence, it should not be surprising to find that social psychologists have a history of studying interpersonal attraction, friendship and group formation, and the socialization processes that occur in groups. This chapter reviews and overviews much of that research as we discuss how social psychologists have studied interpersonal attraction as well as the implications of social psychological research for education professionals.

  Social psychologists have brought several orientations to the study of attraction. First, they have tried to look at processes occurring within individuals (i.e., at the intraindividual level), particularly at how individuals react to cues from others such as dress, attractiveness, body posture, attentiveness, and so on (e.g., Berscheid & Walster, 1978; Maruyama & Miller, 1981). This literature has been called research on impression formation. Second, they have looked at interpersonal or interindividual behaviors, namely, how an individual’s reactions to another person affect the latter person’s reactions to the first person (e.g., Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977), as well as how long-term interactions among individuals affect earlier impressions (e.g. Snyder & Swann, 1978). Third, they have looked beyond individuals to groups, studying, for example, the pressure that groups put on individuals as well as the ways that groups exert pressure (Asch, 1952; French & Raven, 1959). This work in particular has been tied to schools, for it provided one model to guide school desegregation (e.g., Maruyama, Miller, & Holtz, 1986). Fourth, they have looked in detail at the development and consequences of peer relationships (e.g., Hartup, 1983). In effect, a number of complementary approaches have combined to provide a broad perspective for viewing interpersonal attraction and interpersonal relationships in group settings. This chapter tries to summarize those approaches, beginning with a discussion of the importance of interpersonal attraction.

  Importance of Interpersonal Attraction

  First, interpersonal attraction can aid in processes of socialization. Socialization occurs in families, in church and community groups, in neighborhoods, and in schools; because the present volume is oriented to issues of school psychology, we focus on socialization in schools. Educators have described a number of important functions that schools serve beyond teaching academic skills. Socialization, acculturation, and value transmission are prominent examples. These functions often have been addressed implicitly and given labels like the hidden curriculum

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  Social Beings

  Core Motives in Social Psychology

  • Susan T. Fiske(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  (As the next chapter shows, intimacy is a wonderfully complex topic in its own right.) Here, we address people’s initial feelings for each other in a wide variety of potential relationships. Western researchers tend to view affiliation as a matter of personal choice, discounting the seemingly arbitrary effects of the social situation. Yet, affiliation, whom we happen to seek for interaction, is not just sheer attraction. Social structure sometimes demands that we inter- act with coworkers, teammates, teachers, students, ex-spouses, and cousins we may or may not like. These interactions, the structural barriers around them, and other people also determine our relationships. Asian psychologists appreciate the role of social structure over personal choice in determining relationships, and the chapter will return to this point. But not all affiliation comes from attraction (Berscheid & Reis, 1998): Who interacts with whom is not equivalent to who is attracted to whom. While situation-based affiliation determines many of our relationships, attraction—liking or disliking another—is still an element in all social relationships, whether with one’s lover, friend, employer, coworker, garbage collector, or clerk. Operational Definitions Traditionally, the scientific approach to attraction has always built on attitudes research (Berscheid, 1985). Conceptually, therefore, attraction entails three correlates standard to attitudes: • Primarily affect, a simple evaluation of another person, the liking–disliking component • Cognition, one’s beliefs about the other person • Behavior, one’s tendencies to approach or avoid the other person Nevertheless, although an attitude, attraction merits special status because its consequences loom so large for people. We examine what this special importance means for our understanding of attraction, throughout.

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  An Introduction to Social Psychology

  • Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, Klaus Jonas, Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, Klaus Jonas(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • BPS Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Ample research shows that physical and psychological factors that people are unaware of play a powerful role in determining who people affiliate with, and ultimately even develop close relationships with. An important but underestimated factor that reliably affects people’s relationship choices and relationship development is proximity, that is, whether people are near to each other in place or time. The most important psychological factors are familiarity and similarity. These three factors – proximity, familiarity, and similarity – are closely related to one another, as we will show.

  Proximity

  When moving into a student house or building, many students may choose to live as far away from the elevator or stairs, kitchen or restrooms as possible. They hope that this will offer them a quieter location where they can work and sleep undisturbed. Although this consideration may have some merit, it may also reduce the likelihood of making many friends. Indeed, research shows that proximity, or being physically close to others (sometimes called ‘propinquity’), increases the chance of becoming friends with them.

  One of the most informative studies on the power of proximity is the pioneering study by Festinger, Schachter, and Back (1950). These authors examined relationship development among a sample of student couples that were assigned to apartments for graduate students in Westgate West, an apartment complex with different buildings and apartments on different floors. Over the course of 10 months, physical proximity predicted the development of friendships: people formed more friendships with others who lived physically close to them than with people who lived further away. For example, people were 10 times more likely to become friends with others in the same building than with people in a different building; within each building, people who lived on the same floor had more friends on the same floor than on a different floor; and people on the same floor were more likely to become friends with their next-door neighbours than with people who lived further down the corridor. It should be noted, however, that proximity did not always promote liking. In some cases, people also increasingly disliked their neighbours. After all, to like or to dislike someone, and even to love or to hate someone, one needs to know the other person. Proximity allows people to get to know others, for better and for worse.

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  Social Psychology in Christian Perspective

  Exploring the Human Condition

  • Angela M. Sabates(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • IVP Academic

    (Publisher)

  There are several early studies that demonstrated the power of physical attractiveness on liking. For example, Hatfield and her associates (1966) gave personality and aptitude tests to a sample of first-year students at the University of Minnesota. The researchers then randomly matched 376 couples for an arranged dance. After spending two and a half hours at the dance with their assigned partners, students were asked to evaluate their dates. Examining a long list of psychological traits, the only significant factor that seemed to predict liking was physical attractiveness. This was true for both men and women.

  In terms of defining the ideal romantic partner, one of the most reliable findings in social psychology research on interpersonal attraction is the overwhelming influence of physical attractiveness. Singh (2004) reviews many of these studies whose findings suggest that both men and women express a preference for an attractive partner in noncommitted short-term relationships such as one-night stands or other casual dating relationships (e.g., Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986; Jackson, 1992). What about for long-term relationships? Buss (1999) notes that for committed relationships, if the male has high social and financial status, females appear to relax their standards for the partner’s attractiveness. Males also tend to look for various personality qualities (e.g., kindness, good parenting skills) in potential long-term partners. However, unlike females, males still assign relatively greater importance to physical attractiveness compared to other personal qualities.

  Singh (2004) also cites another study that demonstrates the powerful effect of physical attractiveness on males’ choice of romantic partner. Li, Bailey, Kenrick and Linsenmeier (2002) gave male subjects a limited “mating budget” in which they were asked to allocate various characteristics of a female their respective weights in the equation. The findings showed that the males allocated the largest proportion of their budget to physical attractiveness rather than to other attributes such as an exciting personality, liveliness and sense of humor. Li et al. suggest that in this case, the males had assessed female attractiveness as a necessity in romantic relationships.

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  Foundations of Interpersonal Attraction

  • Ted L. Huston(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  Personal Characteristics and Attraction 87 A. Physical Characteristics 87 B. Competence 88 C. Similarity 88 D. Familiarity 89 VI. Ceremonies and Ritual in Commitment Building 90 VII. Long-Term Development of a Relationship 91 A. Adjustment Devices 91 B. Seven-Year Itch, Adultery, and Children 92 VIII. Conclusion 93 References 94 I. Introduction Cross-cultural research illuminates many different areas in the study of interper-sonal attraction. Ideally, cross-cultural research of relevance would be cited in each chapter of this volume, and there would be little need for a separate cross-cultural chapter. But cross-cultural research is not well integrated into the mainstream of attraction research. This weak integration is unfortunate, because for many of us the goal of the social sciences is to illuminate and explain panhuman phenomena. The curse of the cross-cultural chapter in a volume devoted to a multifocused topic such 79 80 Paul C. Rosenblatt as attraction is that it must either be multifocused and noncohesive or it must be monofocused and exclude much material of value. This chapter represents a choice of the former route—multiple foci and weak cohesion. The social psychology and sociology of interpersonal attraction commonly taught in the United States may be merely an ethnographic description of one nonrepre-sentative human culture, the United States white middle class, ages 17—23, who have never been married. Even the great interest of Americans in attraction may be deviant from most cultures. A cross-cultural perspective on attraction can give us a better sense of what has been happening to us in this culture, a better sense of what is basically human, and a feeling for the ethnographic element in many of the research findings and theories dealing with attraction in the United States. Knowl-edge of our own society alone might leave us blind to many aspects of interpersonal attraction.

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  Evolutionary Social Psychology

  • Jeffry A. Simpson, Douglas Kenrick(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  The shift in focus in recent evolutionary psychology is more than a change from distal to proximal. It is a blueprint for a new pattern of alliances between evolutionary theory and the cognitive sciences. According to Cosmides and Tooby (1987), proximate mediating mechanisms for behavior are “most closely allied with the cognitive level of explanation than with any other level of proximate causation. This is because the cognitive level seeks to specify a psychological mechanism’s function, and natural selection is a theory of function” (p. 284).

  If we accept the admittedly controversial distinction between the sociobiological approach and the evolutionary approach, then we can discuss the corresponding differences in conceptualizations of human interpersonal attraction. Sociobiological theory appears to bypass (or at least underplay) the role of psychological mediation, implicitly making proximal processes of attraction noncausal effect variables. Beyond the theoretical difficulties (Buss, 1995), the classical sociobiological approach appears to overlook proximal variables such as perceived physical attractiveness, perceived probability of rejection, and the availability of other options (e.g., Clalt ) all systematically affect interpersonal attraction. The bulk of research by psychologists on interpersonal attraction uses a quasi-Lewinian phenomenological framework in which cognition sits near the center of the stage (Berscheid & Walster, 1978; Kelley, 1980; Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik, & Lipkus, 1991). This is not to say that the attraction literature does not contain motivational accounts (Berscheid & Graziano, 1979; Cunningham et al., chapter 5 , this volume; Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, & Hair, 1996; Simpson, Gangestad, & Lerma, 1990), but that these accounts usually focus on motivational effects on cognitive aspects of attraction. Building links to sociobiology from interpersonal attraction would be a much more difficult task than building links to evolutionary psychology.

  It is theoretically possible, of course, that these proximal variables are noncausal by-products of the more basic, distal evolutionary mechanisms, just as it is possible that cognition is an epiphenomenon of other more basic biobehavioral processes. We could fight this metatheoretical “existence fight,” or we could concentrate on evaluating more testable propositions about links among different kinds of variables from evolutionary psychology. If propositions are not yet available, then we could amend applicable evolutionary theories to add the missing proximal psychological mechanisms, testing to see what functions (if any) the mechanism might play in mate choice. That is, we can check directly to see how well the more distal predictor acts with a proximal attraction mediator in place (Baron & Kenny, 1986). Incidentally, with some conspicuous exceptions (Kenrick, Groth, Trost, & Sadalla, 1993) evolution-oriented writing about human mate selection is often poorly informed about relevant empirical findings from the psychology-based, human interpersonal attraction literature. Evolutionary accounts of human mate selection will be less comprehensive than they aspire to be if they do not accommodate themselves to the attraction literature and coordinate themselves with evolutionary variables and mechanisms.

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