Attraction and Close Relationships Flashcards
Determinants of initial attraction
Proximity/exposure
- Festinger housing study
- Moreland and Beach classroom study
Similarity
- Byrne’s two-stage attraction model
Reciprocal liking
- Curtis and miller liking study
- Two exceptions
Physical attractiveness
- Characteristics
- Composites
- Stereotypes and self-fulfilling prophecies
Proximity
How close a person lives
Similarity
People become romantically involved with others who are equivalent in their physical attractiveness
Friends, dates, and marriage partners resemble each other on- demographic variables (age, education, race, religion, socioeconomic status)
+ opinions, style
Physical Attractiveness
We end up with partners with similar levels of attractiveness
More attractive, more positively you are viewed
- Babies look longer at attractive faces
- Attractive experiments get more signatures
- Attractive suspects get lower bail and fines
- Attractive people get paid more
What do people find attractive?
- Smooth skin, pleasant expression, youthfulness
- Symmetry
- Body shape
Stereotypes about attractive people
Attractive people are judged to be
- More socially competent
- More sexual, happier, and more assertive
- This is dependent on independent and interdependent cultures
Truth?
- Physical attractiveness is not related to objective measures of intelligence, personality, adjustment, or self-esteem
- Good looking people have more friends, better social skills, and more active sex life.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Higher in attractiveness people will rate you higher due to stereotypes – therefore you will live up to that expectation.
Beauty standards and issues in attraction
Beauty has costs
- Cannot tell why you are receiving attention – attribute favourable report about quality of work to looks when seen by evaluator
Pressure to maintain beauty
- Steroids
- Standards
- Eating disorders
Evolutionary Perspective
Men and women look for different characteristics in a romantic partner
Both seek to maximise their chances of reproductive success
- Pass genes onto next generation
Men Constraints - No limits on # of kids - Not very selective What they look for - Signs of reproductive fitness - Physical appearance - Attractiveness, youth
Women Constraints - Can only bear and raise a certain # of kids - Can be highly selective What they look for - Resources - Economic and career achievements - Ambition, industriousness, good earning capacity
Conspicuous Consumption (Short term mating + evolutionary perspective)
Buying/displaying expensive items
Showing off your resources/status
Is this a short-term mating strategy used by men?
- Signal high genetic quality
- Opportunity to obtain economic resources
Not great for long term mating role
- Too wasteful
Intimate relationships
Feelings of attachment, affection, and love
Fulfilment of psychological needs generates interdependence between partners
- Each has a meaningful influence on the other
Types of love
Passionate vs. companionate love
- Passionate (intense longing for a person and physiological arousal)
- Companionate (feelings of intimacy and affection
Intimacy
Self-disclosure
- Revelations about the self, made to others
- Increases as relationship develops
Higher self-disclosure associated with
- More positive affect and attraction in lab study
- Greater satisfaction, commitment, and love in couples
Gender effects
- Women disclose more than men
- People disclose more when talking to women
Type of Equity relationships
Exchange relationships
- E.g., strangers and casual acquaintances
- Strict reciprocity
- Keep track of who contributes what
Communal relationships
- E.g., close friends, romantic partners, and family members
- Mutual responsiveness to each other’s needs
- Don’t keep track of contributions as closely
Need to Belong theory (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) – The backdrop of this class
People have a fundamental need to belong, need positive interactions with one or more people in the context of stable, supportive relationships.
- React strongly to successes and failures in belonging
- Engage in behaviours to fulfill our need to belong
- Relationships are substitutable
People should be motivated to sustain relationships due to this need. If we have positive reactions this will meet our need to belong.
Reasons for proximity effect
The mere exposure effect
- The more often we are exposed to a stimulus, the more we come to like that stimulus even if we have no conscious recognition of it
Why?
- Exposure increases perceptual fluency (easy to process), which feels good.
- Repeated exposure to object + nothing bad happens = safe
Two-stage model of the attraction process (Byrne, 1986) and reasons
You meet someone, go through the negative screen of dissimilarity, when dissimilar you avoid someone. If you are similar you go through the positive screen of similarity if you have low similarity you become indifferent to someone. If you have a high similarity you’re attracted then continue contact.
Reasons for similarity-attraction
Social validation function
- When others share our attitudes and beliefs, it makes us feel like we are right
Attribution for disagreement
- When others disagree with us on important issues, we may attribute it to an unpleasant, immoral, weak, or thoughtless character
Reciprocal liking
- We assume that similar others will like us
Why do we like attractive people?
What-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype
Rewarding to be in the company of people who are aesthetically appealing
We associate physical attractiveness with other desirable qualities
Triangular theory of love
Passion
- Arousal you experience towards your partner including sexual attraction (motivational component)
Intimacy
- Feeling of being close to and bonded with a partner (emotional component)
Commitment
- To love your partner and maintain that love and stay with your partner (cognitive component)
Social exchange theory
In their relationships with others, people are motivated to maximse benefits and minimise costs
Rewards
- Positive, gratifying aspects of the relationship that make it worthwhile and reinforcing
Costs
- Things we don’t like about our partner, conflict, compromise
People are more satisfied when the reward/cost ratio exceeds their comparison level
- Average expectation about the level of rewards and punishments they are likely to receive in a particular relationship
People are more committed when the reward/cost ratio exceeds their comparison level for alternatives
- Expectations about the level of rewards and punishments they would receive in an alternative relationship
Investment model
Builds onto Social Exchange Theory
- Adds investments
- What people have put into a relationship that they can’t recover if the relationship ends (e.g., time and effort, memories, shared activities/friends)
- Helps to explain why people stay in relationships even when they are not satisfied
Equity Theory
People feel happiest when the balance of rewards and costs are the same for each person in the relationship.
- My benefits/contributions = partners benefits/contributions
- I feel bad it I think I’m over – or under benefited
Exchange theory says that more rewards are better, equity says this is not always the case
Festinger et al. (1950) proximity experiment.
University married housing residents started as strangers, randomly assigned to apartments.
Those that lived closer were more likely to be friends- those living by stairs and mailboxes had more upstairs friends. If you live close to people, you’re more likely to be friends with them. More opportunity.
Classroom study, (Moreland & Beach, 1992)
4 female confederates reviewed as equally attractive. Each attended class different times across the semester. Pictures of confederates placed on a projector and their attractiveness was rated. The one that attend the class the most was the most attractive.
Reciprocal liking experiment
Participants are paired up. Experimenter tells you the other participant likes you or doesn’t (IV). If you think either of these it sets a cycle in motion, you either return the favour positively or negatively.
Findings
- The reciprocity effect exists when confederates say they liked someone more. They self-disclosed more, more pleasant, and warm.
Reasons
- Rewarding – it feels good to be around someone who likes us
- Similarity – we like ourselves
Exceptions
- Playing hard to get – prefer people who are moderately selective compared to nonselective or too selective
- Self-esteem – low self-esteem Ps prefer to meet and talk to people who criticised vs. praised them.
Composite faces
Ps rate many faces merged by a computer as more attractive than the component faces – the more faces the more attractive
Why?
Composite faces are more familiar and prototypical
Not all the same
- Composites are rated as more attractive when made from attractive vs average faces and contain a picture of us
- Egotism and self-esteem come into this
Self-fulfilling prophecy experiment
Male Ps spoke with a woman over the phone – saw picture of an attractive or unattractive female who they thought they would talk to - Ps were more sociable and warmer to women they thought were attractive
Women’s responses to the men were more attractive, confident, animated, and warm
Same effect influenced both men and women.
Buss surveyed 9000 Ps in 37 countries, evidence for the evolutionary perspective, what did people value?
How important and desirable are various characteristics in choosing a marriage partner?
- Women valued ambition, industriousness, earning capacity more than men
- Men valued physical attractiveness more than women
- Both valued honesty, trustworthiness, and a pleasant personality the most
Gender differences are stronger on a limited mate-budget
Physical attractiveness is important for women, especially when looking at
- Behaviour vs. ratings
- Short-term relationships vs. potential marriage partner
- Areas with more economic power
- Areas with disease (attractiveness can signal health)
Who engages in conspicuous consumption? (evolution support)
Mating strategies scaled
- High or low investment
Story priming
- Short-term romantic fling
- Long-term committed relationship
- Searching for a lost item in one’s household
DV
- How much money would you want to spend on a nice dinner with friends, new car, new watch
Findings
- Low investment men primed with a short-term situation were higher in conspicuous consumption (compared to control)
- If your natural approach to mating is short-term (in men) then you are more likely to engage in conspicuous consumption for mating purposes
How do potential mates perceive conspicuous consumption- experiment?
Ps read about opposite sex target who had just purchased a luxury or non-luxury car
Rated desirability as potential date and marriage partner, and perceived mating strategy
Passion and Misattribution of Arousal (Dutton & Aron)
Misattribution) Female confederates give a questionnaire and telephone number (for debriefing) to male participants.
- During or after crossing a suspension bridge across a canyon
- Those approached on the scary bridge were more likely to call; presumably because they misattributed their arousal to attraction for confederate
White, Fishbein, and Rutstein examined initial attraction as a moderator
(Passion) IV 1: Physiological arousal
- Male Ps ran for 15 seconds (low arousal) or 2 minutes (high arousal)
IV 2: Attractiveness of future ‘date’
- Watched video of a female confederate made to look attractive or unattractive
DVs: trait ratings, romantic attraction, general attraction
Findings
- Running/arousal increased attraction to attractive target and decreased attraction to unattractive target
