Affiliation and Attraction Flashcards
What is affiliation?
The act of associating or interacting with one or more individuals
A need to feel a sense of involvement and belonging within a social group
Why do we affiliate with others?
- We are social creatures
- Helps us to strive and reproduce by providing us with a network of support that will help us in our time of need
Differences in our desire to affiliate
Intrapersonal differences - desire to be with others can fluctuate over time and in different contexts
Interpersonal differences - some people have stronger desires to affiliate than others
Models of intrapersonal differences in affiliation
- Privacy regulation theory
- Social affiliation model
Privacy regulation theory
- Altman, 1975
- Our ideal level of privacy fluctuates over time
What influences the privacy regulation theory?
- The dialectic principle, people can vary in their desire for privacy/social interactions in a matter of hours
- Optimisation principle, people try to match their desired level of social interaction with their actual level of social interaction
Social affiliation model
- O’Connor & Rosenblood, 1996
- We operate according to the principle of homeostasis
- We control our level of contact with others to keep it stable, and as close as possible to our desired level
Interpersonal differences in affiliation
- Biological explanations
- Cultural explanations
Biological explanations of interpersonal differences in affiliation
- Brain imaging studies have shown that social interactions produce greater arousal of the central nervous system in introverts than extroverts
- Introverts may avoid social interaction to stop arousal levels becoming uncomfortable
Cultural explanations of interpersonal differences in affiliation
The more individualistic a country is, the more its members desired affiliation (USA vs China, Korea and Japan)
Problems with affiliation
Social anxiety
Loneliness
Social anxiety
The experience of negative emotion due to the fear of negative interpersonal evaluation
Loneliness
The absence of social contact
Socially anxious individuals are more likely to to ____ and _____ negative feedback, and therefore may behave in nervous and uncomfortable ways, resulting in them receiving negative feedback.
- Notice
- Internalise
Loneliness is due to poor ____ interactions rather than _____
- Quality
- Low quantity
Interpersonal attraction
The evaluation one person makes of another along a dimension that ranges from strong liking to strong disliking
Factors that influence attraction
- Target-centred determinants - what is it about other people that makes them attractive?
- Perceiver-centred determinants - how do our own subjective experiences or feelings shape who we find attractive?
Target-centred determinants of attraction…
Four key factors…
- Physical characteristics
- Similarity to self
- Complementary characteristics
- Reciprocity
Physical characteristics
- Waist to hip ration of 0.7 (youthfulness, health, fertility)
- Facial symmetry (physical health and lack of genetic defects)
- Average faces (prefer faces which represent the average)
- Facial maturity (females somewhat immature, men mature = attractive)
Dion, Bershied & Walster (1972)
Attractive people were assumed to have more socially desirable personalities (successful, dominant, intelligent, good social skills)
Landy & Sigall (1974)
Male participants gave better grades to the attractive student than the unattractive student
Feingold (1992)
Meta-analysis of over 90 studies found no relationship between physical attractiveness and intelligence, dominance, self-esteem or mental health
- But attractive people were found to be less socially anxious and less lonely
Why are attractive people less lonely and less socially anxious?
- Self-fulfilling prophecy
- Someone’s beliefs about another person can cause that person to behave in a way that confirms that expectation
- As such attractive people are more confident and have better social skills as people they interact with treat them as such
Similarity
- We like people similar to us
- Matching hypothesis - we tend to prefer people who are similar in physical attractiveness
Mustein (1972)
Physically similar couples are more intimate and report greater love than dissimilar couples
Carli et al (1991)
People have a preference for similarly attractive roommates
Byrne & Nelson (1965)
- Participants were asked to complete an attitude questionnaire and then read a second one either similar or dissimilar to theirs
- Greater percentage of similarity, more the participant liked them
Balance theory
- Heider (1958)
- People try to maintain a sense of balance in their thoughts, feelings and social relationships
Social comparison
- We prefer those who agree with us as people who disagree with us may cause us to doubt our beliefs and therefore our sense of self
Why does similarity lead to attraction - evolutionary explanation
Unconsciously attracted to those similar because they share similar genes
Complementary characteristics
- Attracted to people with characteristics that complement our own e.g. if they have a trait which we would like to possess
Looks-for-status exchange
Women can trade looks for status, and men can trade status for looks but the reverse is not true
Reciprocity
We tend to like those who like us
Dittes and Kelley (1956)
When placed in discussion groups, participants were led to believe they were liked or disliked, participants who were liked got more attracted to the group
Dittes (1959)
If our self-esteem is high, we are not as influenced by group behaviour
Perceiver-centred determinants of attraction
Proximity
Anxiety
Proximity
- We tend to like people who are close by
- Not geographical distance, rather how often they cross paths
Mere exposure effect
- Zajonc 1968
- Repeatedly being exposed to someone increases attraction
Festinger, Schachter & Back (1950)
- 270 students in a housing unit at university
- Asked to name 3 closest friends, 65% mentioned were from the same building
Anxiety
Experiencing anxiety and stress has been shown to increase affiliation with others
Schachter (1959)
- College students told they’d receive electric shocks as part of a physiological experiment
- Told it would be painful (high-anxiety) or not painful (low-anxiety)
- Wait for 10 mins with someone else or alone
- 63% those in anxiety/33% in low anxiety condition waited with someone
- Anxiety may have caused people to seek out others to take their minds off it
Larson, Csikszentmihalyi and Greaf (1982)
Adolescents spend about 75% of their waking time with other people
Gunnar (2000)
Children raised in orphanages (and therefore had a lack of social and physical contact) had aversely affected brain and hormonal systems to cope with stress
Two-factor theory of emotion
- Schachter (1964)
- Emotional experience is based on two factors: physiological arousal and a search for cues in the environment which might explain the arousal
- If people are anxious they might attribute the anxiety to the behaviour of others
Predictors of loneliness
- How close people are to the closest person in their life
- How many close friends they have
- How satisfied people were with their relationships
- Whether they had daily contact with others
Matching hypothesis
We may be particularly attracted to people we perceive are of similar attractiveness to us
Parental investment theory
- Trivers (1972)
- Women have more serious and long-lasting consequences in reproduction
- Women are more careful about their advances towards potential mates
Self-presentation online themes
- Constructing an attractive profile
- Misrepresentation
- Evaluation of potential partners
