Attraction, love and communication Flashcards
What attracts us to people
- affective influences
- similarity
- propinquity/proximity
- scarcity
- physiological arousal
- neurochemical factors
- physical attractiveness
Direct effect emotions on attraction
Positive affect usually leads us to evaluate others favorably; negative affect leads to disliking
Indirect effect of emotion on attraction
Person indirectly transfer existing emotional states onto people they meet
- Priming
Priming
Priming participants exposed to pleasant or unpleasant stimuli evaluate persons differently
Byrne’s law of attraction
- we like people who are frequently nice to use (rewards) and seldom nasty (punishments)
- we prefer similar people because interaction with them is rewarding
Assortive mating
Much evidence that humans ingange in matching with similar partners
- Matching phenomenon: attitudes, intelligence and attractiveness
Social comparison theory
Selecting similar partners may bolster self-esteem by validating our own worldviews
Similarity
Similarity is not sufficient condition for relationship success, and not everyone is attracted to similar others
- in fact, interracial and interreligious marriages are on the rise
- complementarity
Complementarity
The idea that opposites attract, that individuals are attracted to what’s different in others
Homophily
Tendency to have contact with people who are equal in social status
Propinquity
- proximity effect
The closer two people are physically, the greater the odds that they will meet and the more likely it is that an attraction will develop
- mere exposure effect
Mere exposure effect
Familiarity (repeated exposure) leads to liking
- the girl next door
Physiological arousal
Shaky bridge study: if one is already aroused when meeting someone new, the odds of attraction increase
- misattribution of physiological arousal
Two-component theory of love
Two conditions must exist simultaneously for passionate love to occur:
- physiological arousal
- attaching a cognitive label to the feeling of arousal (love)
Neurochemicals in attracyion
Pheromones may increase a partner’s desirability
- dopamine and serotonin may facilitate or inhibit arousal and attraction
–> antidepressant hightern arousal due higher dopamine
- oxytocin may enhance attraction by creating a feeling of bondedness
Physical attractiveness
The degree to which we perceive another person as beautiful plays an important role in initial attraction
- we tend to be more attracted to people we perceive as beautiful
Sexual/social strategies theory
Attractive persons –> healthy persons –> indicator of fertility –> offspring
- younger women are more likely to be fertile than older women
- men want to be certain about their paternity, sot they want a sexually faithful woman
Context-dependent beauty
A person’s beauty is rated in reference to other neaby people
Contrast effect
The idea that perceptions of average can be thrown off by the presence of a few outliers
Halo effect
A positive perception of someone based on physical attractiveness
Fluctuating asymmetry
Assymetrie in een gezicht is belangrijk in aantrekkelijkheid. Asymmetrie van bilaterale kenmerken die gemiddeld gezien symmetrisch zijn in de populatie, reflecteren ontwikkelingsinstabiliteit