Interpersonal Attraction

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Interpersonal Attraction
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Interpersonal attraction The positive attitude
that we form about another person.
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Relationships proceed through stages from zero
contact, through awareness and liking
(friendship), and possibly to love.
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In interpersonal attraction, as in prejudice, the
affective component of the attitude is very
important. But, as with other attitudes, those we
hold about others also have a cognitive and a
behavioral component. We also have stereotypes
associated with attraction.
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• What Determines Initial Attraction?
• Proximity and repeated exposure

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In an early study by Festinger (yes, that
Festinger), friendships in an apartment complex
were charted. People in close physical and
functional proximity were most likely to form
friendships.
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Many friendships in grade school are determined
in part by seating charts . . .
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What accounts for the proximity effect?
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Mere exposure can produce liking via
familiarity,
even outside of awareness. The liking can
generalize to other similar and dissimilar
stimuli.
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• What Determines Initial Attraction?
• Proximity and repeated exposure
• Affective state (direct and associated)

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The Affect-Centered Model of Attractiveness
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• What Determines Friendship Formation?
• Need for affiliation--the desire to be around
  other people. This desire can be both chronic (a
  trait) and acute (a state) and seems to serve
  several functions
• Positive stimulation
• Social support
• Attention
• Social comparison

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Physical Attractiveness Physical attractiveness
is one of the most powerful determinants of
initial liking for another person. Female
attractiveness is more important for men than
male attractiveness is for women. Why?
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What Do We Mean By Attractive? The most common
approach is to determine the characteristics of
faces that are agreed upon by large numbers of
people to be very attractive and very
unattractive.
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Numerous kinds of facial measures are taken in an
attempt to quantify facial attractiveness.
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From these facial measurement studies we know
that people generally find certain kinds of faces
to be more attractive.
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Which Lyle Lovett do you like the most?
This one?
Or this one?
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Which Kate Strube would Kate Strube prefer?
This one?
Or this one?
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Which of these two faces do you prefer?
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Which of these three faces do you prefer?
1 2 3
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Which of these three faces do you prefer?
1 2 3
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Which of these three faces do you prefer?
1 2 3
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Which Mickey Mouse do you find most attractive?
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Attractiveness clearly varies by culture . . .
It varies within culture as well . . .
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Beauty Across the decades . . .
Beauty in the 1950s. Recognize her?
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Beauty Across the decades . . .
Beauty in the 1950s. Recognize her?
Beauty in the 1980s. Recognize her?
Burson et al. (1986)
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Attractiveness is Situationally Determined Do the
girls get prettier at closing time? Pennebaker et
al. (1979) interviewed the patrons of bars at
different times during the evening and asked them
to rate the attractiveness of same sex and
opposite sex people in the bar at the time.
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Alcohol?
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Changing Needs?
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Psychological Reactance? As the night wears on
and options diminish, the threat to freedom may
create reactance. This is turn may lead to
greater ratings of attractiveness in an attempt
to restore feelings of control and freedom
There may be fewer choices available, but the
best choices are still here.
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And, of course, individuals have idiosyncratic
standards of attractivenesstoo . . .
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How do we feel about the attractiveness of
others? Kenrick et al. (1993) found that
participants who viewed attractive same-sex
photos felt
bad (a self-esteem threat). Viewing attractive
opposite-sex photos made participants feel good.
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How Do Attractive People Interpret Evaluations of
Their Performance? Major et al. (1984)
manipulated whether attractive and unattractive
people believed they had been seen by an
evaluator who provided positive feedback.
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People who believed they were physically
unattractive were more likely to attribute the
evaluation to the quality of the work when they
were seen.
The opposite occurred for people who believed
they were physically attractive. Why?
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Attraction By Association
Have you ever liked or disliked a stranger
because they simply resembled someone you liked
or disliked? Lewicki (1985) had participants
encounter either a friendly or
unfriendly experimenter. Later they were asked to
rate two other people.
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After interacting with a friendly experimenter,
participants preferred a person who looked like
her (Person A) rather than one who did not
(Person B ).
After interacting with an unfriendly
experimenter, participants preferred the person
who did not resemble her.
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We hold a powerful stereotype about attractive
people . . .
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Does Beauty Goodness? Generally, the assumed
positive features of attractive people are
incorrect. The few valid assumptions are that
attractive people are more popular and have
better social skills. Why then does the
attractiveness stereotype persist?
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Behavioral Confirmation of the Attractiveness
Stereotype(Snyder, Tanke, Berscheid,
1977) College undergraduates participated in a
getting acquainted study. Men and women were
kept physically apart and told to get to know one
another via an intercom.
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The men were shown photographs, allegedly of
their interaction partners. The photographs,
however, were the major manipulation and were not
pictures of the
interaction partners. Instead, they were
photographs of other physically attractive or
physically unattractive women.
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Photograph
Attractive Unattractive
Attractive
Actual
Unattractive
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Before interacting with their partners, men rated
them based only on the photographs. Consistent
with the beauty is good stereotype, the
supposedly attractive partners were rated as
sociable, poised, humorous, and socially
skilled. The supposedly unattractive partners
were rated as awkward, serious, and socially
inept.
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The partners then interacted over the intercom.
Independent judges, blind to the photograph
conditions, rated the behavior of the men who
were given attractive photographs. The men with
attractive photographs were rated as more
sociable, interesting, independent, sexually
warm, outgoing, and humorous.
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Other independent judges, blind to the photograph
conditions, rated the behavior of the women.
Regardless of their actual attractiveness, women
in the attractive photograph condition were rated
as more sociable, poised, humorous, and socially
adept.
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Males Males
FemalesExpectations Behavior
Behavior
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Other Features of Attractiveness Physique (Height
and weight) Voice Clothing Gait Eyeglasses Names
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Other elements of attractiveness show similar
variation across culture and time . . .
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The Matching Principle Generally, although most
people may desire the most attractive friends and
mates, most people pair up with someone who is
roughly similar in physical attractiveness. Simila
rity in physical attractiveness predicts
long-term stability. Why?
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Equity theory argues that the rewards and costs
for partners in a relationship should be have the
same ratio. An unattractive person is a cost to
his or her partner that needs to be balanced with
some other reward. Inequity is especially
important to people with an exchange orientation.
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Long-term stability predicts similarity in
physical attractiveness. Why?
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The Looks for Status Trade-off When a mismatch
occurs, it almost always is a pairing of a less
attractive man with a more attractive women. Why?
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The classic example is the marriage of actress
Marilyn Monroe and Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur
Miller. That relationship did not last . . .
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but it lasted longer than her marriage to
baseball star, Joe DiMaggio, arguably a better
match.
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More recent times have seen other odd matches .
. .
This one didnt last either.
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There must be more than looks in the formation of
friendships and love. What else matters?
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Similarity The most powerful predictor of
friendship formation is similarity in attitudes.
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Similarity The greater the proportion of similar
attitudes, the greater the liking for another
person. Why? Self-verification
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The preference for similarity extends to negative
characteristics, consistent with
self-verification theory.
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Similarity The greater the proportion of similar
attitudes, the greater the liking for another
person. Why? Self-verification Balance Genetic
similarity
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Contrary to popular wisdom . . .
birds of a feather, flock together.
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According to Byrne, we first screen for
dissimilarity . . .
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Reciprocity We Like Those Who Like Us
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What do we want in a friend? Whats missing?
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Close Relationships The movement from casual to
close relationships involves the development of
interdependence. The first close relationships
develop in the family and set the stage for the
relationships that we will form throughout our
lives.

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Our earliest developmental experiences allow us
to form two working models--one about the self
and another about other people. The working model
about the self reflects our basic feelings of
self-worth or self-esteem. The working model
about others reflects our basic beliefs involving
interpersonal trust.

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The two working models define different
attachment styles that influence most of our
close relationships.

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The attachment styles developed within the family
influence how children interact with others
outside the family.

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Another determinant of the nature and quality of
our friendships is whether we have a communal
orientation or an exchange orientation.

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The Failure to FormClose Relationships
Loneliness Most people form satisfying close
relationships with others. When we have fewer
interpersonal relations than we desire, however,
we experience loneliness.

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Loneliness is not the same as being alone. Some
people may prefer to spend time alone and will
not experience loneliness. Loneliness occurs when
the actual level of interpersonal contact is
lower than is desired. For some people, this
loneliness can be a chronic problem . . .

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A common measure of loneliness . . .

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• Lonely people . . .
• depressed, anxious, dissatisfied, and unhappy
• self-conscious in public and socially anxious
• low in self-esteem
• spend more time alone

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• Lonely people . . .
• likely to have the same number of friends as
  people who are not lonely, but to have less
  intimacy
• less interpersonally skillful and have less
  interest in others
• perceived as maladjusted by others
• expect to fail when dealing with others
• disclose less or in inappropriate ways

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The Development of Loneliness
Poor social skills
Expectation that otherswill dislike you
Confirming Behaviors
Poor social relations
Expectation that youwill fail when dealingwith
others
Interpersonal cynicism
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Love The movement from close relationships to
romantic relationships involves greater
interdependence and intimacy. Love appears to
come in several varieties that arise in different
ways and have different consequences.

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• Passionate Love
• One major type of love that most people recognize
  is passionate love. It has several distinct
  characteristics
• intense arousal
• unrealistic evaluations
• desire to spend as much time as possible with
  the loved one

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• Passionate Love
• One major type of love that most people recognize
  is passionate love. It has several distinct
  characteristics
• cognitive preoccupation and intense absorption
  with the loved one
• relatively short-lived

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The presence of strong arousal suggests the
possibility that passionate love may be, in part,
a misattribution.

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Too much coffee

Salient CueCoffee Cup
Unexplained Arousal
Attribution Search
Salient CueAttractive Person
Im in love
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Dutton and Aron (1974) had attractive female
interviewers stop men in a park and ask them to
complete a brief survey.

Some were stopped while crossing a sturdy wooden
bridge that rose 10 feet over a creek bed. Others
were stopped while crossing a rope bridge
suspended 230 feet over the same creek.
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After completing the survey the interviewer gave
each respondent her phone number with
instructions to call if any questions arose.

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• Is it really a misattribution process?
• The results were not obtained with male
  interviewers

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• Is it really a misattribution process?
• The results are not obtained if the
  respondents

were asked to complete the survey 10 minutes
after they had crossed the bridge.
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This misattribution process may account for the
phenomenon of love at first sight.
It may also help explain why passionate love is
often short in duration.

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There are other kinds of love besides the
passionate variety . . .

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Although perhaps less exciting, other forms of
love are more likely to be enduring and
ultimately more satisfying.
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How many kinds of love are there?
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In fact, there are quite a few kinds of love . . .

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The components of Sternbergs model change in
level over time, accounting for the changing
nature of love in most long-term relationships.

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Whats Love Got to Do With It? Evolutionary
psychologists (e.g., Buss Schmitt, 1993) argue
that love is just an adaptation to insure
survival of the species. It keeps parents
together to provide protection of offspring who
require a lengthy period of development before
they can fend for themselves.

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According to this view, men and women have quite
different mate selection strategies that can be
detected today in their views about sexual
relations, desirable features in a mate, and
infidelity.

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• How do the different evolutionary concerns of men
  and women affect their attitudes about sex and
  love?
• How important is it that your mate not have
  had any previous sexual relations?

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• How do the different evolutionary concerns of men
  and women affect their attitudes about sex and
  love?
• How long do you need to know someone before
  consenting to sexual relations?

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• How do the different evolutionary concerns of men
  and women affect their attitudes about sex and
  love?
• How many sexual partners do you desire?

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• How do the different evolutionary concerns of men
  and women affect their attitudes about sex and
  love?
• How important is good financial prospects in a
  mate?

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• How do the different evolutionary concerns of men
  and women affect their attitudes about sex and
  love?
• How important is physical attractiveness in a
  mate?

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• How do the different evolutionary concerns of men
  and women affect their attitudes about sex and
  love?
• Do you prefer an age difference between you
  and your mate?

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What would bother you more? You discover that
your partner is having a passionate, sexual
relationship with another person. You discover
that your partner is confiding deeply private and
important emotional issues with another person.

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What would bother you more? Your partner gains 75
pounds within a year after your marriage. Your
partner is unemployed within a year after your
marriage.

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Generally, men are bothered more by sexual
infidelity and women are bothered more by
emotional infidelity. Why? Sexual infidelity
threatens paternity certainty. Emotional
infidelity signals a lack of commitment and
potential loss of resources and protection.

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Evolutionary views paint a picture of mate
selection that is not very flattering . . .
It is important to keep in mind, however, that
any vestiges are overwhelmed by culture today.

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Why Do Relationships Last or Fail?
Nearly everyone will experience a failed
relationship. In some ways, this should not
surprise us and there are good psychological
reasons why relationships do fail despite our
best initial intentions.

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Most relationships experience difficulty . . .

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• Why Do Relationships Last or Fail?
• Too many areas of dissimilarity
• Boredom
• Changes in reciprocal evaluations and
  attributions

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• Why Do Relationships Last or Fail?
• Too many areas of dissimilarity
• Boredom
• Changes in reciprocal evaluations and
  attributions
• Jealousy
• Inequity

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Strategies for solving problems in the
relationship can be either productive or
destructive . . .

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Rusbults Investment Model The investment model
argues that commitment (C) to a relationship is
determined by satisfaction (S) with the current
relationship, investment (I) in the current
relationship, and the availability of attractive
alternatives (A) to the current relationship. C
S I - A

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C S I - A Satisfaction (S) is determined by
the comparison of the current rewards and costs
to those that are expected--the comparison level.

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C S I - A Investments (I) represent the time,
effort, money and emotion that is put into the
relationship. Investments are lost if the
relationship fails.

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C S I - A Alternatives (A) to the
relationship are judged by the anticipated
rewards and costs compared to the current
relationship.

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The decision to break up or not by college
students can be predicted by Rusbults model . . .

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The investment model explains why people will
sometimes remain (High C) in unhappy (Low S)
relationships. High investments create a
situation of psychological entrapment. The
trapped person stays to justify the past
investments. More may be invested in the
relationship to try to make it better, but that
escalates the need to remain to justify those
investments. What theory explains this?

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The investment model explains why people will
sometimes remain (High C) in unhappy (Low S)
relationships. Low alternatives may keep a
person in an unhappy relationship just because
there is nowhere else to go.

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The investment model also predicts different
responses to relationship problems. Depending on
the levels of satisfaction, investment, and
alternatives, troubled partners can choose
responses that are active or passive, and,
positive or negative.

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The choice of a strategy depends on levels of
satisfaction, investment, and alternatives.

Satisfaction
Investment Alternatives Exit Voice
Neglect Loyalty
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The choice of a strategy depends on levels of
satisfaction, investment, and alternatives.

Satisfaction
Investment Alternatives Exit Low
Low High Voice Neglect
Loyalty
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The choice of a strategy depends on levels of
satisfaction, investment, and alternatives.

Satisfaction
Investment Alternatives Exit Low
Low High Voice High
High Neglect Loyalty
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The choice of a strategy depends on levels of
satisfaction, investment, and alternatives.

Satisfaction
Investment Alternatives Exit Low
Low High Voice High
High Neglect Low Low
Low Loyalty
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The choice of a strategy depends on levels of
satisfaction, investment, and alternatives.

Satisfaction
Investment Alternatives Exit Low
Low High Voice High
High Neglect Low Low
Low Loyalty High Low Low
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Generally, people are happier and healthier when
in committed and satisfying relationships.

Nonetheless, half of all marriages fail.
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Do we learn from our mistakes? Seems not. A
little over half of remarriages fail too.

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When relationships fail, they often go through a
predictable series of stages . . .

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Can we still be friends?

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Most of what we know about close relationships
comes from research in Western cultures and
especially the United States. Recent work
verifies that there are important cultural
differences in the meaning of close relationships.

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In summary, although love, or at least
commitment, may have evolved to insure protection
of offspring that required a lengthy period of
development, today it is influenced by a large
number of situational and cultural factors.