Chapter 10 - Interpersonal Attraction Flashcards
The propinquity effect is basically the same as…
.. The Mere Exposure Effect
What is the propinquity effect?
The finding that the more we see and interact with people, the more likely they are to become our friends.
And what is the Mere Exposure Effect?
The finding that the more exposure we have to a stimulus the more apt we are to like it.
What is the most famous study on the Propinquity effect?
Stanley Schachter and Kurt Back (1950) tracked friendship formation among the couples in the various apartment buildings in a complex for marries students. The couples were more likely to be friends, measured by the distance between the appartments and the “functional distance”.
So, Propinquity increases familiarity, which leads to liking. But what determines how much you like someone?
Similarity - a match between interests, attitudes, values, background, or personality.
How does being similar increase your likelihood of liking someone?
- Shared opinions and personality seems to increase liking.
- Shared interests and experiences also creates arenas to find the people who share the same interests.
- Appearance actually matters too! We are actually drawn to those who look like us!
A large body of research hints to a very powerful mechanism for liking someone. Finish the sentence: Whether the clues are nonverbal or verbal, perhaps the most crucial determinant of whether we like person A is the extent to..
.. which we believe person A likes us.
We have an attentional bias towards attractive faces. Nicolas Koranyi and Klaus Rothermund (2012) did a study where they managed to negate that effect. What was the design?
They presented a series of opposite-sex faces to german research participants. Each photo appeared for the same half-second duration, but it’s location was in one of the four corners for the screen. Immediately after, a circle or square appeared and they had to report which as quickly as possible. If followed by an attractive face, they were slower to respond. This effect was eliminated when first told to imagine that their crush also had a crush on them.
Dispell or confirm this myth:
“Men are more concerned about the physical appearance of their partners than women”
A meta-analysis found that while both sexes value attractiveness,men value it a bit more (Feingold, 1990); however, this gender difference was greater when men’s and women’s attitudes were being measure than when their actual behavior was being measured.
Is physical attractiveness “in the eye of the beholder”, or do we share the same notions of what is beautiful and handsome?
Bombarded with media depictions of attractiveness, it is not surprising to learn that we share criteria for defining beauty. But also: it seems like people share the criteria for beauty across cultures. This has led researchers to suggest that humans came to find certain dimensions of faces attractive during the course of our evolution.
What data do we have that proves that at least some of our definition of beauty is genetic?
Langlois et al. (1991) discovered that infants prefer photographs of attractive faces to unattractive ones, and infants prefer the same photographs that adults prefer.
Why is symmetry considered beautiful?
Evolutionary psychologists suggest that we’re attracted to symmetrical feautures because they serve as markers of good health and reproductive fitness - that is, facial symmetry is an indivator of “good genes” (Grammer & Thornhill).
This is a theory.
So our attraction to other people seems guided by: propinquity, similarity and reciprocal liking. All these attraction variables seem to indicate one fact:
We share a preference for the familiar and safe over the unfamiliar and potentially dangerous (Berscheid & Reis, 1998)
Beauty matters - even when it shouldn’t. What is meant by this?
We tend to atrribute to beautiful people positive qualities that have nothing to do with their looks. This is called the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype. (Ashmore & Longo, 1995; Calvert, 1998; Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972; Lemay, Clark & Greenberg, 2010)
Give examples of research into the “what is beautiful is good stereotype”.
Lina Badr and Bahia Abdallah (2001) rated the facial physical attractiveness of premature infants born in hospitals in Beirut, Lebanon. They found that the physical attractiveness significantly predicted the health outcomes of these infants above and beyond facotrs such as their medical condition. The reason? Neonatal nurses responded more to the “prettier” infants and gave them better care.
Also, Panu Poutvaara and his colleagues (2006) presented photographs of Finnish political candidates to research participants in many other countries (who had no prior knowledge of the candidates) and had them rate their attractiveness. They found that the ratings of attractiveness were the best predictors of the actual number of votes each candidate had gotten in the real election.
How does the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype survive?
Because beautiful people are given more attention, more resources, and are liked more because of the stereotype - they are also likely to become the people we thought they were. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What is the Evolutionary Approach to Mate Selection?
A theory derived from evolutionary biology that holds that men and women are attracted to different characteristics in each other (men are attracted by women’s appearance, woman are attracted by men’s resources) because this maximizes their chances of reproductive success.
Research by Buss, Gangestad and many others reached the conclusion that: Women, facing high reproductive costs, will look for a man who can supply the resources and support she needs to raise a child. Men will look for a woman who appears capable of reproducing successfully.
This looks to be evolutionary selected, and a result of our genes. Gangestad, however, found a result pointing toward a more nurture-related mechanism. Which and how?
Steven Gangestad (1993) correlated the extent to which women in several countries had access to financial resources and the extent to which women reported male phyical attractiveness as an important variable in a mate. His results revealed that the more economic power woman had in a given culture, the more highly women prioritized a man’s physical attractiveness.
Finkel and Eastwick (2009)s results suggested that sex differences in mate selection do not simply reflect evolution or biology, but are..
… also attribuatble to the established dating paradigms in most societies, in which men are the approachers and women the approachees. This shows that we need to adress both the “nature” and “nurture” aspects of this issue when trying to explain differences in mate selection.
