attraction and the dating market

Question 1

social exchange theory

Answer 1

seek the most fulfilling partners that will have us - those that will maximize rewards while minimizing coasts

Question 2

proximity

Answer 2

closeness/nearness
- Basic, powerful factor that drives liking
More likely to meet, get to know, and form a relationship with someone you see regularly where you live, work, etc

Question 3

westgate housing study

Answer 3

• More likely to be friends with people next door to you than people 2 doors down, 3 doors down, 4 doors down, etc
  Researchers also found that people living next to stairwells made more friends with people upstairs - also - people living next to high traffic areas and or people who had windows facing the courtyard made more friends

Question 4

moreland and beach, 1992

Answer 4

• Confederate attended class 0,5,10, or 15 times
  The more often the confederate attended the class, the more positively she was rate (by students seeing her photo)

Question 5

what are the mechanisms behind the westgate housing study

Answer 5

· We have an increased opportunity to interact with people who live close to us
We tend to like things more after we have been repeatedly exposed to them and they become more familiar

Question 6

perceptual fluency explanation

Answer 6

easier to process info about familiar stimuli - pleasant feelings associated with more fluent processing

Question 7

classical conditioning explanation

Answer 7

Encounters with novel stimuli put us on our guard, but once we realize the stimuli is nonthreatening we feel safe around it, rendering it more pleasant

Question 8

predictors of attraction

Answer 8

· Proximity/familiarity
· Physical attractiveness/other personal characteristics
· Similarity
· Reciprocity
We are attracted to people whose presence is rewarding

Question 9

why is proximity such an important factor in attraction

Answer 9

more likely to meet, get to know and form a relationship with people we see more often
“friends aren’t necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who get there first”

Question 10

functional distance

Answer 10

likelihood of coming into contact with other people due to location or features of architectural design - more opportunity to interact with people close to us

Question 11

mere exposure

Answer 11

we tend to like things after we have been repeatedly exposed to them and they become familiar (doesn’t work for things you initially dislike)

Question 12

physical appearance preference differences

Answer 12

• People have idiosyncratic preferences
  Certain beauty standards differ across time

Question 13

physical appearance preference consensus

Answer 13

• Evident across cultural groups
  
  • Newborns agree
    = degree of innateness

Women: cross cultural pref for:
- Baby face
- Large eyes
- Small nose
- Small chin
- Full lips
- Some signs of maturity:
- High prominent cheekbones
- Thick hair

Less cultural for men:
- Wide smile
- Broad jaw and forehead
“softer” features nice too

Question 14

averageness effect

Answer 14

Faces that are “average” are seen as more attractive - don’t like features that are too extreme

Question 15

facial symmetry

Answer 15

bilateral (two sided) symmetry contributes to attractiveness - also true of other species

Question 16

perceptual fluency vs evolutionary explanation for facial symmetry

Answer 16

perceptual fluency explanation: average and more symmetrical faces are easier to process

Evolutionary explanation: indicators of reproductive fitness
- Produced asymmetry could be indicative of issues during prenatal development
Monkey studies shows that declines in health is associated with declines in facial symmetry

Question 17

minimal parent investment

Answer 17

least amount of time, and resources that a parents must expend to produce offspring

Question 18

asymmetry in parental investment

Answer 18

Males: minimal investment of time and resources
Females: greater investment of time and resources
(eggs are biologically more costly) pregnancy sucks

Male adaptive strategy: like females possessing indicators of fertility (cuz reproductive success is primarily limited by availability of fertile mates)

Female adaptive strategy: have to invest more, so more selective- choose mates based on ability to privde

Question 19

structureal powerlessness and gender role socialization

Answer 19

Critique of female/male adaptive strategies: based on social factors rather than innate factors
- Women find high status men attractive because they have less access to status and resources
In cultures where there is greater gender equality, women place less importance on a man’s status and resources

Question 20

necessity of luxury study (2002)

Answer 20

When men and women’s choices are constrained they prioritize different characteristics in mates:
Women: income, intelligence, social status, kindness
Men: physical attractiveness, intelligence, kindness

Question 21

stated vs actual preference study (1989)

Answer 21

Sprecher
-despite what people said in a study the actual largest predictor for both men and women’s attraction ratings was physical attractiveness

Question 22

eastiwick et al, 2014

Answer 22

Meta analysis of 97 studies involving romantic evaluations of a partner - found that evaluations were generally more positive for more attractive people and people with a higher earning potential - didn’t change for men or women

Question 23

short term vs long term mating strategies

Answer 23

People change their mating strategies depending on the conditions
In short term relationships, both genders tend to prioritize attractiveness - sex differences in terms of prioritization become more evident in long term relationships

Question 24

hormones and mate pref

Answer 24

Hypothesis that women show a preference for more masculine traits during the high fertility ovulatory phase of their menstrual cycle and a preference for more feminine faces at other stages in the cycle
- This is most pronounced for women assessing men’s attractiveness for hypothetical, short term relationships
- However, these studies are highly critiqued - tend to be small, use self report for menstrual cycle data, mixed findings
However, there is evidence that ovulatory phase increases women’s sexual motivation more broadly

Question 25

what is beautiful is good bias

Answer 25

Tend to assume that physically attractive people possess other desirable qualities - comes from cultural stereotypes

Question 26

motivated cognition: what is beautiful is good

Answer 26

• Targets attractiveness
  
  • Desire to bond w target bc beauty is rewarding
    Perceived positive interpersonal attributes

Question 27

snyder tanke and berscheid, 1977

Answer 27

When ps beleived that the person they were talking on the phone w was attractive, they formed more positive impressions of them, behaved more positively towards them, and elicited more positive behaviour from them

Question 28

little et al, 2006

Answer 28

• Found that traits like warmness, easygoing, responsible, were more highly desired on average than others
  Also individuality variability in desired traits - but some traits varied more than others (ex. Warmth didn’t vary very much, but competitiveness did)

Question 29

similarity and attraction

Answer 29

• Predicts attraction for people we don’t know
  
  • Link between similarity and attraction seems to be stronger for attitudes/values and some demographic characteristics than for personality
    ○ Similarity between personalities only accounts for a small variation in satisfaction
    Desirable personality traits are more important than matching - bad to similar on unappealing traits

Question 30

perceptions of similarity

Answer 30

may be more important for liking than objective similarity
- Discovering dissimilarities takes time
- Pursue partners that represent our ideal selves
Dissimilarity may decrease over time

Question 31

complementarity

Answer 31

• Little support for the idea that people are attracted to people who possess the qualities they lack
  ○ Ex. Introverts aren’t more attracted to extroverts
  ○ Members of eagalitarian couples tend to be happier than traditional couples - higher satisfaction in gay and lesbian couples

Question 32

individual construals

Answer 32

We have different ideas of what a trait means
- Ex. No gender dif in pref for a partner with a sense of humour, but men don’t rate funny women more highly
Bressler, martin, balshine, 2006 - men like women who laugh at their jokes; women like men who make them laugh

Question 33

reciprocity

Answer 33

We like people more if we know they like us

Aronson and Linder, 1965
Ps who overheard a positive evaluation from a confederate reported more liking for the confederate

Question 34

rewards of belonging - hsu et al 2014

Answer 34

evolutionary perspective
Could explain reciprocity
Hsu et al, 2014:
Participants told that a desirable potential partner likes them showed increased activation of a system of receptors that mediate rewarding effects of opioid drugs like heroin - stronger the activation, the more desire to interact

Question 35

selectivity in hsu et al

Answer 35

In Hsu’s study ps had the highest liking when a confederates evaluation went from negative to positive - although confederates were rated more positive in consistent positive condition
We want to feel like we are liked specificallypredi