Attraction

1
Attraction

• Involves the attitudes we form about other
  people, and affect plays a key role in forming
  such attitudes.

2
Interpersonal Attraction

• One persons evaluation of someone else along a
  dimension that ranges from strong liking to
  strong disliking.

3
Differences in Attraction

• Based on
• 1. The person making the evaluation
• 2. The similarities and differences between the
  evaluator and the person being evaluated
• 3. The situational context

4
Repeated Unplanned Contacts Leading to Attraction

• Proximity In attraction research, the closeness
  between two individuals residences, classroom
  seats, work areas, and so on.
• Repeated Exposure Frequent contact with a
  stimulus.
• Exceptions to the Repeated Exposure Effect.

5
Effects of Proximity

• Residential Proximity
• Other possibilities
• Research supports

6
Affective States as the Basis for Attraction

• Two most important characteristics of affect
• Affect not a continuum
• Research
• Two ways in which affect can influence attraction

7
Direct Effects of Affective State

• Less obvious direct effects
• Group presentation

8
Indirect Effects of Affective States

• Classical conditioning explanation
• Taking it a step further
• Stigma A personal characteristic that at least
  some other individuals perceive negatively.
• Affect and interpersonal behavior

9
How Vulnerable are we to Affective Manipulations

• Election time example
• Are we helpless in the face of affective
  manipulations?
• Informed vs uninformed

10
Affiliation Need

• Need for affiliation Tendency to establish
  interpersonal relationships.
• As a trait (individual difference)
• Situation
• High vs. Low

11
Individual Differences in the Need to Affiliate

• Two ways to measure
• explicit motivation
• implicit motivation
• high on explicit Vs implicit
• Reasons for affiliating Four basic motives Hill
  (1987)

12
Situational Determinants of the Need to Affiliate

• Stressful situations, why?
• Schachter (1959)
• Social comparison the tendency to seek out other
  people-even strangers-in order to communicate
  what is going on, to compare perceptions, and to
  make decisions about what to do.
• Cognitive clarity

13
Responding to Observable Characteristics

• Liking/disliking someone at first sight
• Physical attractiveness

14
Physical Attractiveness

• The combination of facial and bodily
  characteristics that are evaluated as beautiful
  or handsome at the most attractive extreme of the
  dimension and unattractive at the other extreme
  of the dimension.
• Basically the facial and bodily characteristics
  that people in a give culture regard as visually
  appealing (or unappealing).

15
Physical Attractiveness

• Physical attractiveness and interpersonal
  evaluations
• Gender differences
• Why does physical appearance lead to attraction?
• Evolutionary
• Gender differences

16
Physical Attractiveness

• Stereotypes
• Are they accurate?
• Different ages
• Personal estimations of attractiveness
• Appearance anxiety
• Negative attributes associated with good looks.

17
Appearance Anxiety

• Apprehension or worry about whether ones
  physical appearance is adequate and about the way
  ones appearance is evaluated by other people.

18
What do we mean by attractive?

• Two approaches

19
Weight and Attractiveness

• Sheldon, Stevens, Tucker (1940)
• Endomorphs
• Mesomorphs
• Ectomorphs
• Prejudices against obesity

20
Other Aspects of Appearance that Influence
Attraction

• Just plain, the way you look
• Clothing, grooming, age, eyeglasses, etc.
• Behavioral differences
• Inconsistent information
• What a person eats
• First names.

21
What happens next? As the odds of a Relationship
Increase

• 1. Both people in a positive emotional state
• 2. Both people motivated by affiliation needs
• 3. Both people evaluates the overall
  characteristics of the other in a positive way
• 4. Discovering areas of similarity
• 5. They feel an express positive evaluations of
  one another.

22
Is Attraction Influenced by Similarity,
Dissimilarity, or Both?

• Similarity-yes
• Proportion of similar attitudes
• Does the similarity-attraction relationship
  generalize?
• Rosenbaum (1986) repulsion hypothesis

23
Proportion of Similar Attitudes

• The number of topics on which two individuals
  hold the same views divided by the total number
  of topics on which they compare their views can
  be expressed as a percentage (or ratio).
• The higher the percentage of similar attitudes,
  the greater the liking.

24
Repulsion Hypothesis

• Rosenbaum (1986)
• Attraction is not enhanced by similar attitudes
  but only decreased by dissimilar attitudes.

25
Why do Similar and Dissimilar Attitudes Influence
Attraction?

• Balance theory Specifies the relationships
  among
• an individuals liking for another person
• his or her attitude about a given topic
• the other persons perceived attitude about the
  same topic.

26
Balance, Imbalance, Nonbalance

• Balance when two people like each other and
  agree about some topic.
• Imbalance Two people like each other but
  disagree about something
• Nonbalance Two people dislike each other.
• What Balance theory doesnt explain.
• Festingers social comparison theory

27
Festingers Social Comparison Theory

• Consensual Validation The perceived validation
  of ones views that is provided when someone else
  expresses identical views.

28
Matching Hypothesis

• The proposal that individuals are attracted to
  one another as a friend, romantic partners or
  spouses on the basis of similar
  attributes-physical attractiveness age race
  personality characteristics or social assets
  such as wealth, education, or power.

29
Reciprocal Positive Evaluations

• If you like me, I like you
• Flattery