Attraction Lecture

Question 1

Initial Attraction

Answer 1

Proximity, Familiarity, Physical Attractiveness, Arousal, Closing time effects and beer gogglees

Question 2

Proximity + Familiarity

Answer 2

• Ex. Being friends with someone who sits next to you or who is your neighbor
• Anticipatory Liking: if you expect to run into someone often
• Interaction: Finding out someone’s likes and dislikes
• Familiarity/Mere-exposure: more you se them the more likely you are to prefer; ex. Preference for people, common letters, etc.

Question 3

Physical Attractiveness

Answer 3

• Strongest predictor for seeing someone again was attractiveness – for both genders
• The halo effect: people think attractiveness goes along with other positive traits- this even shows for babies/children-paying more attention to attractive children.

Question 4

Universal Beauty

Answer 4

• Females: large eyes, small nose, small chin, cheekbones, high eyebrows- “baby features”
• Males: Large eyes, small nose, large chin, big smile
• Waist to hip ratio, finger length

Why do we like these features?

1. Evolutionary Theory
2. Easy processing
3. Sterotypes about attractive people

Question 5

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Answer 5

• Person A has expectation of Person B
• Influences how Person A acts to Person B
• Causes person B to act with Person A’s expectation
• Confirms original beliefs of Person A about Person B
• Ex. Study where man talks to women that they thought was attractive vs unattractive- affects how the women talks back to them.

Question 6

Arousal, closing time effect and beer goggles

Answer 6

Arousal BROUGHT UP AGAIN

• Misattribution of arousal
• Mislabeling fear as attractive

Closing time Effect:
-As it gets later, people rate the opposite sex as more attractive and same sex as constant
Beer Goggles:
-Levels of intoxication is linked to ratings of attractiveness
-However everyone is rated as more attractive

Question 7

Similarity (reciprocity, self-fulfilling prophecy, playing-hard-to-get, associations)

Answer 7

• Reciprocity: Liked the uncertain person even more than the reciprocal- the person who they thought liked them.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: if you know that someone likes you
• Playing hard-to-get: Might be the uncertainty. Overall participants liked the easy to get participant better. However if they were already commited then they were motivated to pursue the hard to get over easy to get.
• Associations: Liking those who reward us or remind us of others that we like- associated with positive things.